Jacksonville, N.C. ? The nationwide manhunt for a Marine wanted in the brutal slaying of a 20-year-old pregnant colleague who had accused him of rape focused Sunday on Louisiana and Texas, after he was apparently seen at a bus station.

Witnesses said they saw Marine Cpl. Cesar Armando Laurean at a Shreveport, La., station Saturday night, Onslow County Sheriff Ed Brown said. The bus Laurean was riding was headed to Texas, but police don’t know if he continued on that route, he said.

Brown cautioned late Sunday that his detectives were still working to confirm the sightings, backing away from earlier assurances that the witness accounts were genuine.

On Saturday, authorities said they recovered what they believe to be the burned remains of Marine Lance Cpl. Maria Lauterbach and her unborn child from a fire pit in Laurean’s backyard, where they suspect he burned and buried her body. Those remains have been sent to the state medical examiner’s office in Chapel Hill for a formal identification.

That same day, state authorities issued an arrest warrant on murder charges for Laurean, 21, of the Las Vegas area. They believe he fled Jacksonville before dawn Friday after leaving behind a note in which he admitted burying her body but claimed Lauterbach cut her own throat in a suicide.

Brown has challenged Laurean’s assertion that Lauterbach killed herself, citing what he described as evidence of a violent confrontation inside Laurean’s home – blood spatters on the ceiling and a massive amount of blood on the wall.

Lauterbach disappeared sometime after Dec. 14, not long after she met with military prosecutors to talk about her April allegation that Laurean raped her. Naval investigators said Saturday the rape case was progressing and Laurean had been under a protective order to stay away from Lauterbach.