“Therefore, Cesar A. Laurean can be excluded as being the biological father of Baby Lauterbach,” the report reads.
The tests are based on bone samples from Lauterbach’s autopsy and samples taken from Laurean on April 27 after he returned to the United States.
Merle Wilberding, a Dayton-area attorney for the Lauterbach family, said the results back up what Maria Lauterbach told officials the November before she died.
“It answers one of many unanswered questions about the case, but it doesn’t answer many other questions surrounding her murder and burial in Laurean’s backyard,” he said. “We don’t think it will have any effect on the investigation or the trial itself.”
Wilberding said the results weren’t necessarily a surprise. “I just think it was always such a big unknown,” he said. “We could think of reasons why it might be true or might not have been true.”
Defense attorney Dick McNeil said he wasn’t surprised by the results.
“This might help to negate some of the false rumors,” he said.
Laurean is charged with first-degree murder in the death of Lauterbach, 20. Investigators believe he fled hours before Lauterbach’s charred remains were found in January 2008, buried behind the house Laurean shared with his wife and young daughter.
Lauterbach, who was about eight months pregnant, worked with Laurean at nearby Camp Lejeune. She told Navy investigators that she was raped by Laurean in 2007, though later recanted her claim that Laurean fathered of her unborn child. Investigators never corroborated her rape claims.
Mexican authorities captured Laurean just more than a year ago in the small town of Tacambaro, Mexico. He was extradited to North Carolina last month after prosecutors agreed not to seek the death penalty.
Staff writer Jessica Wehrman and the Associated Press contributed to this story