The Mysterious Death of Lauren Smith Fields
This is a story of a woman who has been in the media heavily this past winter. Her face was flashed across news sites, and she is an example of what its like when we band together as people to receive justice.
However with attention this story also brought misrepresentation and miscommunication that black women often face.
So let’s talk about the true story of Lauren Smith Fields.
Lauren Smith Fields is absolutely stunning. She’s breathtaking honestly, with brown skin and warm large grown eyes to match. She experimented with different classic hairstyles, braids, and silk presses, and wigs. Mostly though she would wear it black. Lauren was young a 23 year old with her whole life ahead of her. She also lived her life fully as well. She traveled all over the world to places like London, Rome, Jamaica, Hawaii, Puerto Rico, and Dominican Republic. In high school she ran track and was a star at it. She had an athletic build and used her ambition on and off the track.After graduating from Stamford High School, she enrolled as a student at Norwalk Community College with a goal was to become a physical therapist. Lauren was popular, what would have been her 24th birthday was recently celebrated and there were so many videos outpours of love from friends and families, red and pink balloons were released into the Connecticut sky to honor her. Different videos that were incredibly entertaining to watch, clips of Lauren smiling and laughing. She had friends, and a huge personality. Lauren had a TikTok, Instagram, and Youtube where she talked about her life.
Lauren’s life was going pretty well. Or atleast as well as anyone in their early 20’s can imagine. She was single, and dating. And on December 12th Lauren had a date set up for that evening.
She was using Bumble at the time. Bumble is a dating app that to be honest is used predominantly amongst the white community, however it's become more inclusive over the years. The app basically works where you match with a person and it is the woman who has the ability to reach out first and start a conversation. Apps like Bumble, and Hinge, and Tinder are used pretty frequently in the single community. Nowadays, with COVID, and just the terrifying heightened amount of technology use amongst our generation. Online dating which used to maybe seem like a faux pas during the Plenty of Fish and Match.com era, has manifested itself into being a way of life. On these dating apps you can figure out what do you specifically want. Certain apps will allow you to make preferences in age, and race, even interests and what some of your non negotiables are can be shared on this app to make it a little bit more specific in your selective choices. I'm not sure what Lauren’s preferences were. However the man that she matched with and had the date set up with on December 12th was white and in his late 30s. Lauren could have been open to many things. However there was something about him that she felt comfortable enough to match with, and strike up a conversation.
There is a major dark side to these dating apps. Because just like you can select your preference you can also select who you want to be. People can go on these sites and lie. They can lie about the money they make, they can alternate their pictures, they can come off a certain way via message and be a completely different way in person. You can have all the intentions of having good judgment in someone and all the while be being tricked through a phone. I identify with Lauren in many ways, not just being a young black woman myself, but the idea of wanting to date someone who seemed to have their **** together.
Matthew LaFountain is 37 years old. He is bald with thick glasses, in pictures of him he looks to be athletic, the type of person you would assume to be into hiking or biking. There isn't much about him online, I'm assuming due to the current nature. I haven't found much about him. Friends and family haven't spoken on his behalf, and Matthew obtained an attorney quickly after Lauren's untimely death. But it's reported that Matthew was a design engineer. He worked for a Connecticut based company he previously was a senior mechanical designer for a company that deals with heaters. He's from Milford CT and his Facebook and LinkedIn pages have recently been deleted. Matthew and Lauren met on Bumble and were talking for about 3 days, on December 12th instead of going out Lauren invited Matthew to come over. Matthew recounted on the day in question that Lauren had asked him for $40 for her nails and to meet her at her Bridgeport CT apartment where they took shots of tequila. Matthew said that Lauren became ill and went to the bathroom to vomit. When she came back and was able to collect herself the two played games, they ate food, and then they started to watch TV. Your typical regular relaxed night.
At one point during that night Lauren went outside to meet her brother. Her brother claimed that Lauren seemed fine, he had no idea that anyone was even in the apartment. It wasn't discussed what the two of them did or talked about, or the reason for her brother decided to swing by to visit. However when Lauren went back upstairs to her apartment, according to Matthew, she immediately went into the bathroom for about 10 to 15 minutes. Now this report was done based on the police investigation. However I want to note that a lot of times when these true crime cases are covered all we have are what is said by the last witness. If there is any camera evidence it is probably of Lauren walking from the parking lot to her apartment. It would be a quick snippet of her walking upstairs or down a hallway. We don't know exactly what happened that night, however there doesn't seem to be any reports of a fight. The apartment didn't seem to be trashed there was nothing necessarily out of the ordinary other than this stranger being in Lauren’s home. The family is understandably frustrated. Why would Lauren ask for $40 for her nails when her nails were already done? So what is the truth? It could be that Lauren did ask for $40 maybe her nails were done and she wanted to get something fixed, usually nails go for about $50 for a manicure these days. A pedicure is $35. Or maybe she didn't ask for $40 at all. Maybe she never asked for any money, it was something out of the ordinary to even note. The next thing is we don't know about the communication between Lauren and her brother. Outside of him noting that he did not go upstairs, and that the two of them talked and Lauren seemed normal that's the only exchange we know of. Each of these witness testimonies are just from one person, there didn't seem to be anyone else in Lauren’s apartment aside from she and Matthew. And there didn't seem to be anyone else with Lauren's brother aside from she and her brother. I'm not pointing fingers at her brother at all, I actually am not pointing fingers at anyone. But what I do want to note, is that the one person that could give us the exact answers on the exchanges that were had with both Matthew and Lauren's brother is Lauren, and she's not here to be able to do that for us.
Eventually Matthew and Lauren continued to watch TV. They watched movies and eventually Matthew carried Lauren to bed. He fell asleep aside her, allegedly, and then he woke up at around 3:00 AM to use the bathroom and she was asleep and snoring. When he woke up again at 6:30am he claimed that Lauren was lying on her right side and blood was coming out of her right nostril onto the bed and she was not breathing, he then called 911. Responding officer Carla Remele reported that Matthew was trembling and visibly shaken. He was nervous and didn't know what to do. When the officer came they found Lauren lying on her back on the bedroom floor. She wasn't breathing and she had dried blood around her right nostril. According to the police report a couple things were noticed in the apartment. Though it was clean and everything seemed to be in order there was about $1345.00 in cash found in the apartment.
The police have Lauren’s landlord contact her family however there was no immediate contact information that the landlord could find. So consequently it wasn't until days later when Lauren’s mother Shantelle Fields went to the apartment to see why Lauren had not been answering the numerous calls and texts from the family that she found a note from the landlord stuck on the door. It said “if you were looking for Lauren please contact this number.” This is when Shantelle was informed of her daughter’s death. I am not sure where the disconnect came and to me that is horrifying. Lauren's friends and family had been texting and calling and the police had not contacted them immediately even though Lauren’s wallet and phone were all at the apartment. I don't know how they were unable to find her mother's number to call her right away. Which means days went by where her family consequently thought that she was missing.
When the family was finally able to enter the apartment they found a few disturbing items. The family was put in touch with Detective Cronin when Shantelle’s son spoke to the detective he said that Lauren had met a white guy on Bumble but to not worry because he seemed like a really nice guy. The family waited for the detective to arrive at the apartment complex that day but eventually they went inside the apartment on their own to pack up Lauren’s belongings. That's when they found a used condom, a pill, and bloody sheets. The family asked the Police Department to collect the evidence and begin an investigation starting with who was Matthew LaFountain. Apparently the police were not proactive nor were they helpful at all. Maria Perreria, a City Council member in Connecticut who represents Lauren’s district wondered how the Police Department would treat a wealthy white mother and father who lost their 23 year old daughter. Particularly at the hands of a 37 year old black man being the last person to see her. Race fully began to change the trajectory of this case. #LaurenSmithfield was viewed more than 27 million times on TikTok. There are videos all around done by web sleuths who have tried to piece together the investigation as best they could while also picking up where it seems the police have lacked and dropped the ball. There have been celebrities to comment including rapper Cardi B who stated that Connecticut has failed this young lady.
All the while Shantelle just missed her daughter. She missed their mommy daughter days where the two would get their nails done she described Lauren as very bubbly and a hugger. She had notes sprinkled around her mirror spelling out what she wanted to do with her life manifestations and affirmations. Even the app bumble reached out to show their support to the family. For the past few years the Bridgeton Police Department has been under scrutiny for corruption within the department. They've had chief of police officers sent to prison they have had issues with fraud they have had issues with very negative allegations made against them. So this is honestly just adding icing to it already messed up cake. The family continues to raise money through a go fund me to be able to pay for Lauren's private investigator as well as an independent autopsy.
Because the autopsy done by the state claims that Lauren died of an accidental overdose. As of now there's no proof that Lauren was drugged by her Bumble date or anyone else, but there was a lethal mixture in her system the toxicology report done by the state that showed fentanyl promethazine hydroxyzine in histamines and alcohol. Again all we have is this report, and the witness report done by Matthew. Who claims they watched movies and went to sleep. However Lauren’s family found sheets that were bloody, and a condom. It isn't clear whether that condom belonged to Matthew or not and it doesn't seem like it had been tested. The police want to close the case, on the terms of an overdose happened. That alleges that Lauren decided to take drugs go to sleep and pass away. However that doesn't sit well with the family, or quite frankly the hundreds of thousands of people that have followed this case.
The police have been looked down as racially insensitive. Lauren's family denies Lauren of using drugs and at one point police were there investigating her death as foul play however there hasn't been any movement on the case. This outrage came to a head about a month ago, when I first decided to report about it. However since it seems to have calmed down. There haven't been many updates aside from the news reports r that were done and everyone knowing that if it were a white damsel in distress situation the police would have handled Lauren’s case with much more care. There's been media outlets that have put pictures up of Matthew and Lauren and in those photos Lauren is in a scantily clad bathing suit enjoying vacation, and David looks like a normal conservative white man. The media narrative being what was this young black woman doing with this older white man. And who was really to blame.
The facts that we do know is that Lauren Smith Field was declared dead at 6:49 AM on December 12th medical staff said that she'd been dead for at least an hour. Police believe that Lauren passed away and unexpectedly and that Matthew LaFountain is innocent.
The investigation has been botched the medical examiner's findings doesn't help any of the Bridgeport Police Department lack of process in fact it makes it worse. As a result there is more questions than answers. We know that the police did not take the flipped plates, or the condom, or the stained blood sheets into testing. The family is incredibly frustrated with Detective Cronin who I couldn't find much about but I think it's safe to say that he's come off like a complete *******.
Now as we continue to wait I urge you to take some time to look up Lauren, look at her Instagram or find a couple of her friends videos. She deserves so much justice and we need to know the answers, how did those substances get into her body? Did Matthew take any of those substances? What really happened that night. Is everyone that's involved being honest? If you have any information regarding Lauren's case please contact the Bridgeport Police Department or check out Lauren's GoFundMe to see if you can find communication with the private investigator.
Sources:
https://www.newsnationnow.com/morninginamerica/lauren-smith-fields/
https://www.instagram.com/soooolalaa/
https://heavy.com/news/matthew-lafountain/
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/27/nyregion/lauren-smith-fields-bumble-date-investigation.html
