NH NH - Maura Murray, 21, Haverhill, 9 Feb 2004 - # 9

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Just to go off in a different direction -
each case I follow has something that stands out as unique, and bugs me because it's something I can't understand.
All the events that happened before she left on her fateful trip, I see as the momentum building up to get her to take off.

The thing I cannot figure out is why would MM go on such a trip alone on the road in car that was in such poor shape?! Now if it was going to be a one-way trip, then it makes sense to me (but if so why take her school work, and why no note).
Another way (driving a car in bad shape) is if she knew someone was going to follow her route a bit later, and if she broke down would pick her up...
 
OldSteve said:
Just to go off in a different direction -
each case I follow has something that stands out as unique, and bugs me because it's something I can't understand.
All the events that happened before she left on her fateful trip, I see as the momentum building up to get her to take off.

The thing I cannot figure out is why would MM go on such a trip alone on the road in car that was in such poor shape?! Now if it was going to be a one-way trip, then it makes sense to me (but if so why take her school work, and why no note).
Another way (driving a car in bad shape) is if she knew someone was going to follow her route a bit later, and if she broke down would pick her up...
Click to expand...

Old Steve,
You know where I stand by now (haha).

I would say to answer your questions.

the school books thing is a little misleading. she had a nurses reference book and a notebook.

I would argue that the notebook (which may have been used for class) would've been the item she used to make a final note from hence her having it with her. The reference book was so clunky looking that I doubt she carried it with her everywhere and having it in the car all the time (when not needed) makes sense.

I would also argue that her note would've come after being lit up late at night in a hotel room. But as we all know, the second wreck caused her to have to re-adjust her plans. I think she did legitimately set out to stay the night somewhere and the alcohol volume indicates she was going to do some heavy drinking. I believe she wanted time to ponder things and that is why she brought specific sentimental items with her.

THIS IS ALL OPINION BY THE WAY.
 
I'm glad to see some renewed interest in this thread. Many of us have been here for years either lurking or posting....but its always good to see some fresh blood posting....

Sent from my ADR6350 using Tapatalk 2
 
scoops said:
Old Steve,
You know where I stand by now (haha).

I would say to answer your questions.

the school books thing is a little misleading. she had a nurses reference book and a notebook.

I would argue that the notebook (which may have been used for class) would've been the item she used to make a final note from hence her having it with her. The reference book was so clunky looking that I doubt she carried it with her everywhere and having it in the car all the time (when not needed) makes sense.

I would also argue that her note would've come after being lit up late at night in a hotel room. But as we all know, the second wreck caused her to have to re-adjust her plans. I think she did legitimately set out to stay the night somewhere and the alcohol volume indicates she was going to do some heavy drinking. I believe she wanted time to ponder things and that is why she brought specific sentimental items with her.

THIS IS ALL OPINION BY THE WAY.
Click to expand...

I agree on all points. Further I would imagine that the decisions we make while young are, at times, bordering on reckless. When I was young I had no concept of my own mortality. Isn't it likely that she did, in fact, drive the car....however unwise that was...not really giving much thought to the safety of the car? After all, she wanted to get away. I would argue that she was desperate about getting away...hence the lying about a death in family etc....and threw caution to the wind re the car.

Sent from my ADR6350 using Tapatalk 2
 
Simply Caustic said:
I agree on all points. Further I would imagine that the decisions we make while young are, at times, bordering on reckless. When I was young I had no concept of my own mortality. Isn't it likely that she did, in fact, drive the car....however unwise that was...not really giving much thought to the safety of the car? After all, she wanted to get away. I would argue that she was desperate about getting away...hence the lying about a death in family etc....and threw caution to the wind re the car.

Sent from my ADR6350 using Tapatalk 2
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very good point about throwing caution to the wind.

There is no good reason in the world (that I can come up with) that any person would take a car in the middle of winter that is either on its last leg or about to die and drive hours away into the mountains ... that cared anymore (about their own safety or well-being) especially a young female traveling alone.

Just something to ponder. One of the gazillion red flags that helped me lean towards the suicide theory concerning maura

Once again JUST MY OPINION
 
I enjoy the discussion! Lots of good points!

I still can't believe she was on a suicide mission. In that she did not want the school bus driver's help, and her fibbing to him about calling the AAA shows she was protective of her life.

For some reason, I wouldn't be surprised to know that her father might have known she going on this trip and might have been planning to ride up later to meet her. Either way, with him or someone as a backup, that IMO accounts for her using her shaky car. Stretching my imagination, there might have even been a plan to ditch her car far away from UMASS because had been involved in something.

But none of this matters, the way I see it, what really matters is what happened right after her crash, and the simplest thing is a random abduction. IMO
 
I felt like doing some web searches this morning and have found reason to believe that there likely was a security camera installed in the Melville dorm lobby at the time of Maura's employment. The following articles state that a security camera initiative was started in 2000 and reached ~325 installed cameras by the Fall of 2006. Again, while not conclusive, I feel that it is likely that a security camera was there and could have shown MM leaving the dorm at the time of the Vasi accident. If UMass or Amherst police had any reason to suspect MM, they could have reviewed the tapes. Now it's possible that they have done this and haven't said anything because MM is not present to defend herself, but I'm willing to put this information in my "MM not involved" pile.

http://www.securitydirectornews.com/general-news/umass-graduates-upgraded-camera-system
http://dailycollegian.com/2006/09/06/smile-youre-on-campus-camera/
 
Riot said:
I felt like doing some web searches this morning and have found reason to believe that there likely was a security camera installed in the Melville dorm lobby at the time of Maura's employment. The following articles state that a security camera initiative was started in 2000 and reached ~325 installed cameras by the Fall of 2006. Again, while not conclusive, I feel that it is likely that a security camera was there and could have shown MM leaving the dorm at the time of the Vasi accident. If UMass or Amherst police had any reason to suspect MM, they could have reviewed the tapes. Now it's possible that they have done this and haven't said anything because MM is not present to defend herself, but I'm willing to put this information in my "MM not involved" pile.

http://www.securitydirectornews.com/general-news/umass-graduates-upgraded-camera-system
http://dailycollegian.com/2006/09/06/smile-youre-on-campus-camera/
Click to expand...


Riot, and i completely mean this. I love the way you get down to brass tax and go after info.


the one counter-argument I would have to these points is that (and I don't mean you, I am speaking in general terms) Go ask Petrit Vasi's mom what kind of investigation was done by police into her son's hit and run and she would probably laugh or cry one or the other.

It was only after the fact, when a couple of media outlets began trying to put two and two together that mauras name was even mentioned in the same sentences as Petrit Vasi. (with no serious accident scene investigation done, do you think police are going to want to go and look over campus security tapes? Even if they found something to maura, they had no evidence at the actual hit and run location to tie her or anyone else to the responsible party by their own admission.

Police don't even know for sure if Vasi was hit by a car or attacked by a bunch of UMASS hooligans. How bizzare is that. If a hit and run happens, I have never heard of there being no evidence left behind at the scene from the car that smashed into the person ... yet police don't have a clue if he was hit by a car?? very suspicious in my opinion. or very telling of how police handled a young drunk/hammered college student found laying in road.
 
scoops said:
Riot, and i completely mean this. I love the way you get down to brass tax and go after info.


the one counter-argument I would have to these points is that (and I don't mean you, I am speaking in general terms) Go ask Petrit Vasi's mom what kind of investigation was done by police into her son's hit and run and she would probably laugh or cry one or the other.

It was only after the fact, when a couple of media outlets began trying to put two and two together that mauras name was even mentioned in the same sentences as Petrit Vasi. (with no serious accident scene investigation done, do you think police are going to want to go and look over campus security tapes? Even if they found something to maura, they had no evidence at the actual hit and run location to tie her or anyone else to the responsible party by their own admission.

Police don't even know for sure if Vasi was hit by a car or attacked by a bunch of UMASS hooligans. How bizzare is that. If a hit and run happens, I have never heard of there being no evidence left behind at the scene from the car that smashed into the person ... yet police don't have a clue if he was hit by a car?? very suspicious in my opinion. or very telling of how police handled a young drunk/hammered college student found laying in road.
Click to expand...

There is absolutely still question as to what happened to him. And I can definitely see how the neither that Amherst nor UMass Police would even think to look at Maura right away. Too bad we don't know how long they retain the security footage.

I'm mainly trying to play off you, scoops. As you seem to be pushing hard for the possibility of a connection, I'm going the other way to see if we can tease apart the truth. It would be so nice if we could knock off a single contentious event in the narrative. It's very frustrating that, after NINE years, we don't even have a full narrative of events occurring in public prior to MM's departure.
 
Riot said:
There is absolutely still question as to what happened to him. And I can definitely see how the neither that Amherst nor UMass Police would even think to look at Maura right away. Too bad we don't know how long they retain the security footage.

I'm mainly trying to play off you, scoops. As you seem to be pushing hard for the possibility of a connection, I'm going the other way to see if we can tease apart the truth. It would be so nice if we could knock off a single contentious event in the narrative. It's very frustrating that, after NINE years, we don't even have a full narrative of events occurring in public prior to MM's departure.
Click to expand...


haha,

I will be your tag team partner anytime.

However, I am not very optimistic when it comes to getting absolute results.

I just think most stones have been overturned by now in this case. I don't believe for one second any kind of active investigation is on-going (into Maura).


Back to Vasi.


just a pair observations to throw out ---- going off of his public interviews and statements.


Vasi absolutely gives the impression that he doesn't want to know if maura was involved. He just wants to move on with his life.

His injuries as described by him were all to one side of his body up and down (consistent with being struck by a vehicle and not from being thrown from a moving car (car surfing) and not from having his face smashed in my a bunch of holligans.


Also by the way, the reason I brought up Rao's coffee the other night, because that was one of the places maura called (while on shift) from her cell phone. Obviously, if she was placing a order (call was 3 minutes long so very likely), then she would either have to leave her post to go pick it up or they delivered to her.

Some have said UMASS has a special delivery service of college workers which deliver for all the local businesses downtown, so maybe that is how she got her order.

Her order to Rao's coffee came within the first hour of her shift.
 
I'm technically a UMass employee and I haven't heard of this service, but maybe it's because I don't work in one of the generic student positions like dorm monitor, RA, etc. I'll absolutely check out Rao's when I can and look into this delivery service.

Even if UMass/Amherst PDs aren't interested in the case, do you think NHSP would have looked into it? Because there are two possibilities there: 1) They haven't. 2) They have and have deemed the information to be damaging to potential future investigation and/or indictments if it is released.

It's really bizarre that there is zero public information that can confirm MM's whereabouts at the time of the "off the radar" 12:07am phone call to BR, making it either very unimportant or absolutely essential to her disappearance. (Although if she hadn't had to leave her shift early, we wouldn't be talking about it at all.)

If we're going to read into the other calls that night though, do you think she'd try to order Domino's (3:40am call - although it currently closes at 2am) just after hitting someone with her car? (Unless you have info I don't, I doubt that call was to the other possibility [Lawyer]. She's smart enough to know that a lawyer wouldn't pick up at that time. Also, she didn't receive any calls during business hours on Friday, possibly showing that this call wasn't to leave a message for the lawyer to call back? I know - Lots of "ifs." I'm just trying to think through it logically though.)
 
Also, to other readers:

Please don't halt any other discussion about this case while I'm picking at minor details about the weekend before Maura went missing. I still think finding out what happened to Maura in NH is more important, but because I'm local to UMass, this is what I can do at the moment that may be of some help to someone interested in this case.
 
Riot said:
I'm technically a UMass employee and I haven't heard of this service, but maybe it's because I don't work in one of the generic student positions like dorm monitor, RA, etc. I'll absolutely check out Rao's when I can and look into this delivery service.

Even if UMass/Amherst PDs aren't interested in the case, do you think NHSP would have looked into it? Because there are two possibilities there: 1) They haven't. 2) They have and have deemed the information to be damaging to potential future investigation and/or indictments if it is released.

It's really bizarre that there is zero public information that can confirm MM's whereabouts at the time of the "off the radar" 12:07am phone call to BR, making it either very unimportant or absolutely essential to her disappearance. (Although if she hadn't had to leave her shift early, we wouldn't be talking about it at all.)

If we're going to read into the other calls that night though, do you think she'd try to order Domino's (3:40am call - although it currently closes at 2am) just after hitting someone with her car? (Unless you have info I don't, I doubt that call was to the other possibility [Lawyer]. She's smart enough to know that a lawyer wouldn't pick up at that time. Also, she didn't receive any calls during business hours on Friday, possibly showing that this call wasn't to leave a message for the lawyer to call back? I know - Lots of "ifs." I'm just trying to think through it logically though.)
Click to expand...

I never have confirmed that phone call you are talking about on whether or not it was dominos, a lawyer or something else.

I projected that it was to dominos. And I honestly can't recall if I confirmed it or not. I know currently that dominios hours don't stay open that late, but I am thinking I came across an old amherst restaurant guide online (back from maura's day) that had dominios staying open super late back in the day)

Either way, that would be something to follow up on. She did call a number super late in the evening where the last four digits (back in 2004) were the same as a dominos pizza in amherst.

Keep in mind dominos was taken over by Bain Capital (and no I have no joke here) and it is possible that part of the changes included closing earlier at night.

On the vasi thing.

I seriously doubt NH has done too much with it.

the linkage done with maura and vasi hasn't stirred up enough interest I don't believe.


Always has bothered my why Fred whisked into town (Amherst) coming from two plus hours away the morning after a major snow storm had hit the area and closed UMASS down on Friday.


It seems like just normal car-shopping plans could've been postponed until the following week.


That is a red flag for me, But i fully admit that could also mean absolutely nothing.
 
I'm sorry that I thought it was you that projected the Lawyer for that call... So much reading completed, so little time to digest!
 
I don't know if these locations were open or had the same hours in 2004, but it appears that the Southwest Residential Area has food available past midnight, giving Maura less of a reason to be found in Amherst center, driving an unreliable car, for a late-night coffee run:

The Southwest Café

Fall 2012 Hours of Operation

5:00PM – 1:00 AM, Sunday – Wednesday
5:00PM – 2:00AM, Thursday – Saturday

Located in the heart of the Southwest campus area in the lower level of the Hampden building. It is the perfect place to pick up a late night snack or meal. The Southwest Café features Famous Famigilia Pizza, Pita Pit and Tamales: “Great Mexican food, that’s good for you”.

Southwest Delivery Express

Fall 2012 Hours of Operation

9:00PM – 2:00 AM, Sunday – Wednesday
9:00PM – 3:00AM, Thursday
9:00PM – 4:00AM, Friday – Saturday

Looking for a late night snack or meal? We offer free delivery of hand tossed pizza, freshly breaded boneless and traditional chicken wings, and chicken wraps to all of the residential areas on campus. Customers can also pick up orders at the Southwest Café until 1am every night. Find us on Facebook: www.facebook.com/UMassSWDelivery

Ordering information and a menu is available at: www.umassdeliveryexpress.com
Click to expand...

If these specific eateries weren't open in 2004, maybe there were similar services?

http://www.umassdining.com/locations/around-campus/

Edit: Wayback Machine: http://web.archive.org/web/20080919235215/http://www.umassdining.com/locations/campus-center/
"The Southwest Cafe
Located in the heart of the Southwest campus area in the lower level of the Hampden building. With hours of operation from (Fall 2008) 5:00 pm to 1:00 am seven days a week, it is the perfect place to pick up a late night snack or meal. The Southwest Café features Famous Famigilia Pizza, The Pita Pit and Tamales: “Great Mexican food, that’s good for you”. The grill serves a variety of items including “The Anchor Bar” hot and spicy chicken wings. Tamales: “Great Mexican food, that’s good for you” is now open at the Southwest Café."

http://web.archive.org/web/20041216183914/http://www.umass.edu/diningservices/retail.php
"The Southwest Cafe
Located in the heart of the Southwest campus area in the lower level of the Hampden building. With hours of operation from 5:00 pm to 1:00 am seven days a week, it is the perfect place to pick up the late night snack or meal. The Southwest Cafe features our own homemade pizza, as well as some of the best tasting calzones you will ever have. The grill serves a wide variety of fresh made to order grinders as well as "The Anchor Bar" hot and spicy chicken wings. Tamales: "Great Mexican food, that's good for you" now opens at Southwest Café"
 
sort of off topic a bit

While I was quickly trying to find a link about school being cancelled that Friday (I know I have read that, but hmmm!)

I was able to stumble upon an article i had not seen before in which maura's nursing director was interviewed.

And in that article Eileen breslin noted that maura was currently enrolled in maternity classes.

That could explain the pregnancy stuff found on her computer that James pointed out.
 
scoops said:
Yeah, I am pretty sure its been established that classes at UMASS were cancelled on Friday Feb 6, 2004 because of snow.

I will try and find a link for that.
Click to expand...



I am almost 100 percent certain that this was reported regularly that classes were cancelled, because I recall posters on other boards speculating what maura was up to that friday since no one ever hears much about that day.


Well, for now, this is the best I could do (pull out of my behind)



Feb. 6, 2004

AMHERST, Mass. - The University of Massachusetts women's tennis team will not play their match tonight against Binghamton, due to inclement weather. The match, scheduled to be played at 7:30 at the Bay Road Tennis Center, may be made up at a later date.


So that Friday night sports were being cancelled because of the weather and fred was there the next morning coming from a few hours away.
 
scoops said:
sort of off topic a bit

While I was quickly trying to find a link about school being cancelled that Friday (I know I have read that, but hmmm!)

I was able to stumble upon an article i had not seen before in which maura's nursing director was interviewed.

And in that article Eileen breslin noted that maura was currently enrolled in maternity classes.

That could explain the pregnancy stuff found on her computer that James pointed out.
Click to expand...

I was able to locate that article with the info you gave. It definitely could provide an explanation!

Current Course Description:
325 – Maternal-Newborn Nursing 2 cr
This course introduces the student to the theory and practice of maternal-newborn nursing care for families in the
childbearing year. Both uncomplicated and high-risk pregnancy, birth, postpartum, lactation, and newborn care are
discussed.

I would say that fetal alcohol syndrome is "high-risk." (I remember reading that this is what she was looking up.)

I notice you don't post links often. (Not trying to call you out, promise!) Is there a forum protocol I'm breaking by doing so myself?
 
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