Dicking Around With Richie
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Lauren Smith-Fields Deserved Better
A Casefile on Silence, Power, and the Cost of Being Overlooked
There are deaths that demand answers.
And then there are deaths that expose who gets answers at all.
The death of Lauren Smith-Fields is the latter.
On December 12, 2021, Lauren was found dead in her Bridgeport, Connecticut apartment after a date. She was 23 years old. What followed was not a thorough, relentless pursuit of truth, but a slow unraveling of trust in systems meant to protect, investigate, and inform. This case did not become national news because institutions worked well. It became national news because they didn’t.
And because people refused to let it disappear.
Who Lauren Was Before the System Reduced Her
Before Lauren became a headline, she was a life in motion.
Born January 23, 1998, Lauren Smith-Fields was raised in Bridgeport in a close-knit family that noticed when something was wrong. She wasn’t isolated. She wasn’t drifting. She checked in. She showed up. That detail matters more than it sounds, because her family knew immediately when silence didn’t fit her pattern.
Lauren was an athlete. A track runner. Discipline lives in that kind of body. Awareness too. She graduated from Stamford High School and continued her education at Norwalk Community College. She trained in cosmetology and worked as an eyebrow specialist, while pursuing a future in physical therapy. Two paths. One focused on creativity, the other on healing.
Online, Lauren was alive in the fullest sense. Her social media showed travel, laughter, sunlight. London. Rome. Jamaica. Puerto Rico. Hawaii. A young woman documenting joy in a world that too often denies Black women the assumption of innocence or care.
The images matter because they show this Lauren. Not a cautionary tale. Not a toxicology report. A whole person.
The Night Everything Went Quiet
Lauren met Matthew LaFountain on Bumble. They exchanged messages for a few days before meeting in person on December 11, 2021. This was their first date.
He was 37. White. From Milford.
She was 23. Black. From Bridgeport.
He came to her apartment with a bottle of tequila. They drank, ate, watched movies. According to his account, Lauren vomited and continued drinking. Later, she stepped outside briefly.
Here is where the story fractures.
Lauren’s brother, Lakeem Jetter, confirmed he saw her that night. He has been clear: she looked normal. Not sick. Not drunk. Not fading. That contradiction should have been pursued immediately. It wasn’t.
After returning upstairs, Lauren reportedly went to the bathroom, then later fell asleep. Around 3:00 a.m., LaFountain said he heard her snoring. In overdose medicine, snoring can signal respiratory distress, not rest.
At approximately 6:30 a.m., he said he found her unresponsive, blood coming from her nose, not breathing. He called 911. Lauren was pronounced dead at 6:49 a.m.
That is where urgency should have begun.
Instead, it ended.
The Investigation That Barely Began
The Bridgeport Police Department interviewed LaFountain and cleared him almost immediately. According to the family, a detective later explained the reasoning simply: he seemed like a “nice guy.”
No prolonged questioning.
No detention.
No rigorous timeline stress-testing.
What was left behind at the apartment is staggering.
- A used condom containing semen, despite claims no sex occurred.
- Bloody sheets.
- A pill on the counter.
- Cups, fluids, a bathroom scene that begged for forensic attention.
Police collected Lauren’s phone, passport, and cash, then left. They did not secure the scene. They did not swab or seize critical evidence. When Lauren’s family entered the apartment the next day, they found what investigators didn’t bother to collect.
Grief became unpaid labor.
The Call That Never Came
No officer notified Lauren’s family that she had died.
Not that morning.
Not that evening.
Not the next day.
More than 24 hours later, her mother drove to the apartment worried. On the door was a note from the landlord telling anyone looking for Lauren to call a number.
That is how Shantell Fields learned her daughter was dead.
Not from a detective.
Not from a chaplain.
From a piece of paper taped to a door.
The Autopsy and the Limits of “Accidental”
In January 2022, the medical examiner ruled Lauren’s death accidental, caused by acute intoxication from fentanyl, promethazine, hydroxyzine, and alcohol.
That combination is lethal. Medically, the finding explains how her body shut down.
It does not explain how those substances entered her system.
“Accidental” does not mean harmless. It does not rule out deception, counterfeit pills, or spiked drinks. Those possibilities require investigation. That investigation never truly happened.
Media Silence and the Internet That Refused It
Lauren’s death occurred in the shadow of the Gabby Petito case. The contrast was unavoidable.
One young woman received wall-to-wall coverage, a national manhunt, daily briefings.
The other received silence until social media forced attention.
Black TikTok, Black Twitter, and youth-driven outlets carried Lauren’s story first. They shared her images. Her smile. Her life. They asked why no one was asking questions.
Eventually, mainstream media followed. But only after the internet dragged them there.
A Law Written in Her Name
Connecticut passed the Lauren Smith-Fields Act, requiring police to notify next of kin within 24 hours of identifying a deceased person. Delays must be documented. Failures investigated.
It will not bring Lauren back.
But it closes one door where families were previously left standing in the cold.
Why These Images Matter
These photos refuse to let Lauren be flattened into a statistic. They insist on her humanity. They tell the reader: this was a life that mattered before it was lost.
The Case That Still Breathes
Lauren Smith-Fields did not die because the system hated her. She died in a system that did not look hard enough, fast enough, or care enough to do its job properly.
Her story remains unresolved not because answers don’t exist, but because evidence was left behind, questions went unasked, and urgency was rationed.
Her legacy is a law.
Her legacy is a warning.
Her legacy is proof that silence is not neutral.
And the question this case leaves us with is as sharp now as it was then:
Who do we search for like they matter?
Editorial note: All images of Lauren Smith-Fields are used to honor her life and humanity. They are presented with respect and without sensationalism.
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