She Vanished In 1996, And A Year Later, Her Jawbone Was Mailed To A Reporter Along With An Anonymous Letter
In 1996, Laura Cecere, an Army Sergeant at Fort Campbell in Kentucky, vanished without a trace.
She was the only female instructor at the Sabalauski Air Assault School and had served overseas during the Gulf War.
She was known to be a strong, athletic, and hardworking young woman when she disappeared at only 25-years-old.
Laura was last seen alive on surveillance footage at an ATM inside a Walmart Supercenter on Fort Campbell Boulevard. She’d left work early to go home and feed her dogs before she disappeared.
She was reported missing by her family members on December 6, 1996. Then, on Christmas Eve, December 24, 1996, her truck was found abandoned in the Concord Village Apartments parking lot located on West Concord Drive. The parking lot was less than one mile away from the Walmart.
As the investigation into her disappearance was underway, police conducted multiple searches in Sumner County. They never found her body.
After almost a year had passed and little clues to Laura’s case had been uncovered, her mother was on a Hopkinsville cable television station and pleaded for any viewers with information to come forward.
Then, during the summer of 1997, a reporter at the television station reportedly received an anonymous letter that claimed Laura was dead and buried in Gallatin County, Tennessee. The letter was given to the police, and Laura’s mother continued to beg for information from viewers on air.
Later that same summer, a news reporter for the television station then received a jarring package in the mail. It contained a jawbone with a tag that read “Cecere,” as well as a letter claiming that Laura was dead and the jawbone was meant to give her family closure.
zyabich – stock.adobe.com – illustrative purposes only, not the actual people
A Bowling Green, Kentucky, postmark was on the package, but it lacked a return address. The jawbone was positively identified as being the remains of Laura after it was sent to a State Police lab.
Once investigators confirmed that Laura was deceased on August 1, 1997, they conducted extensive searches in Tennessee’s Gallatin and Sumner Counties. Tragically, Laura was never found.
What police reportedly did discover, however, was blood and writing samples from Laura’s estranged husband, Max P. Robal.
The pair were friends and had supposedly gotten married out of convenience. They met during the summer of 1994 while she was assigned to the 9th Battalion 101st Aviation Regiment. And despite Laura reportedly being gay, she tied the knot with Max on September 1, 1994.
That way, Laura could move off the post and collect approximately $700 in additional military benefits; meanwhile, Max could become a military dependent.
Authorities reportedly removed an entire wall from Max’s home and determined Laura had a life insurance policy, in which Max was the beneficiary.
He was ultimately arrested in July 2001 and charged with Laura’s death, as well as the death of his fiancée Karen Anderson, who died in 1994. The trials were separate, and Max was acquitted in Laura’s case in March 2004.
During the trial, prosecutors attempted to prove that he was responsible for Laura’s disappearance by showing insurance records, ATM surveillance pictures, and dental records. Art Bieber, the Assistant District Attorney, tried to show that Max had killed Laura to claim over $375,000 in life insurance proceeds.
Nonetheless, Montgomery County Circuit Judge John Gasaway wound up agreeing to the defense’s request for summary judgment and cited a lack of evidence.
“There has been nothing. There is no connection; there’s no proof in this case,” Michael Terry, Max’s defense attorney, had told Gasaway.
Gasaway ended up ruling against the introduction of certain records since they couldn’t be authenticated as originals. As for the rest of the circumstantial evidence, Gasaway concluded it wasn’t enough to prove Laura’s murder was premeditated or where Laura was killed.
“No rational trier of fact could find the essential elements of the crime of first-degree murder beyond a reasonable doubt. The defendant, having been acquitted, is hereby discharged and ordered to be released,” Gasaway stated.
Bieber realized that Laura’s case would be tough since the state was unable to prove how or where Laura died.
“I conceded it was a close question. So the dismissal is certainly not a total surprise,” Bieber admitted.
On the other hand, Laura’s mother, Sandra Cecere, believes the trial’s outcome should’ve been determined by the jury.
“All I can say is, I think there is something wrong with the system here. There’s no reason for this. I’m a little bit in shock,” she said.
“There’s justice someplace; someplace it will come through. We took this before a jury. Gasaway didn’t ever give the jury the chance to decide. I would have preferred if a jury had decided.”
In 2002, Max was also acquitted in the case of Karen C. Anderson, who died on November 11, 1994.
Prosecutors in that trial alleged Max had murdered Karen to collect her insurance policy valued at $86,000, for which he was listed as a beneficiary.
Following Max’s acquittal in Laura’s case in 2004, her mother, Sandra, expressed her continuing grief.
“It’s been over seven years now of just constant pain, not knowing. I still don’t know where my daughter is,” she said.
“There’s not a day that goes by where I don’t think of my daughter, what she would be doing now, and what accomplishments she would have made.”
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