INDIANAPOLIS, Ind. — A decomposed body recently pulled from an Indianapolis creek is not that of missing Indiana University student Lauren Spierer, officials said Tuesday.
Marion County Chief Deputy Coroner Alfarena Ballew said the body has been preliminarily identified as that of an African-American female, though officials will still need to determine who she is using DNA and dental records.
The corpse was pulled from Fall Creek on the northeast side of Indianapolis Sunday evening after witnesses reported seeing it floating and lodged between some debris.
Many speculated that it could be Spierer, the petite 20-year-old of Greenburgh, N.Y., who disappeared June 3 after a night spent partying with friends in Bloomington, Ind. Weeks of intense media attention and wide-scale searches failed to turn up any solid leads and the Bloomington Police Department — which has led the Spierer investigation — has scaled back its canvassing efforts.
The autopsy results also eliminated the possibility that the body could be that of Dorothy Heard, a 74-year-old great-grandmother who went missing three weeks ago from her Noblesville, Ind., home, about 25 miles northeast of Indianapolis.