NH NH - Maura Murray, 21, Haverhill, 9 Feb 2004 - #12

[Lamima]

I am a few years older than MM. When I was in college I had some depression too. I kept nothing much in my car (first aid kit and whatever else my dad stowed in the trunk for car breakdown situations). Thinking of myself, if I wanted to run off to kill myself, definitively, I would have likely just grabbed my purse and drove off. No change of clothes, no shampoo and certainly NOT my BC pills (which I kept in my dorm medicine cabinet and not in my purse). If I were going off for a weekend of thinking or a rendezvous with a fella or to hang with a friend, then I'd take that stuff. If I already knew I was pregnant, I also wouldn't grab the BC pills. JMO of course.

 

[goldiegirl]

i think what most people are questioning is not only "was she pregnant" but also, why didn't she take the pills with her when she left the accident? she took her purse, keys, wallet, and possibly a back pack.

Now THAT is a good question that I had overlooked.

I guess if she left in a quick, emergency way, she may not have wanted to spend the time thinking of everything else in the car she may possibly need and just assumed the essentials were in her bag. If I had an emergency and could only grab a couple things, that's what I would do.

 

[Captain_Khan]

Now THAT is a good question that I had overlooked.

I guess if she left in a quick, emergency way, she may not have wanted to spend the time thinking of everything else in the car she may possibly need and just assumed the essentials were in her bag. If I had an emergency and could only grab a couple things, that's what I would do.

She also could have had a few packets of them. In the UK, you often get three month's supply per packet, split into three sheets (one month each). If they are the 21-day sets, were you take a pill for 21 days then have 7 days off, she could have had another sheet with her. There's no harm running two sheets one after the other now and then if you can't deal with having a period at that time. So she could, for example, have had a packet in her purse and one in her rucksack, and she just took whichever one she had with her at the time.

 

[Caffeine]

I think Triphasal is a 91 pill pack but I might be wrong. Its stated 4 pills were missing so its likely it was recently refilled prior to the crash. Looking at the refill date on the pharmacy label would be interesting but who knows if she was complaint with it.

As far as her leaving it behind, either it wasn't a priority at the time or she planned to return to the car. She did lock the doors so that has to indicate some desire of privacy or plan to retrieve the car.

 

[goldiegirl]

At this point I can't make much out of the items left behind. I really just don't think she was behaving rationally after the accident, although I'm not sure what exactly that means. I've watched enough people go through tough issues and events to realize that people often do really odd and unexplainable things that make sense only to them, and sometimes not even to themselves. Not every behavior is necessarily an indicator of anything.

 

[xjd]

At this point I can't make much out of the items left behind. I really just don't think she was behaving rationally after the accident, although I'm not sure what exactly that means. I've watched enough people go through tough issues and events to realize that people often do really odd and unexplainable things that make sense only to them, and sometimes not even to themselves. Not every behavior is necessarily an indicator of anything.

your comment made me think of a question, but perhaps it's been discussed before and i've forgotten; what if Maura was not thinking rationally due to some physical head trauma? i'm thinking no so much the Haverhill spinout but the accident with Fred's car, could she have hit her head enough to impair or injure her thinking? do we know if Fred's car showed any damage indicating that she hit her head or had the airbags deployed? i had a friend to had 2 accidents close together, rolled over head first off of a bike and then got rolled in a dune buggy. he was not diagnosed with concussion or anything but his closest family all felt he acted very impulsively and irrationally for several weeks afterwards (or let's say more so than usual.) just a random thought.

 

[Vox_Veritas_JT]

The list of things in the car provided by Renner is inconclusive in my opinion. It does add weight to the argument that Maura was heading away for a break but we might have assumed that anyway considering the email she sent to her teachers about being away for a family bereavement. To see two bottles of shampoo and a toothbrush along with a travel toothbrush as evidence that she was travelling with someone else is something of a stretch though - it is possible but we are not talking smoking gun type evidence.

Suppose we take as fact that Maura was travelling in tandem with someone or going to meet an unsubstantiated person. What then happened to make Maura leave all those belonging behind but take the bottles of alcohol with her? If Maura caught a ride out of there why take the alcohol? It can't be too avoid L.E finding it as she leaves the box of wine in the back and the car is stained with the red wine. Only two possible answers for me in this scenario either Maura is already intoxicated and wants to carry on drinking in the short term (but why not only take one bottle in that case?) before she returns to the car or the person involved in her disappearance takes the alcohol and if he has done this then maybe he also stuffs the rag up the exhaust as well. I find the second scenario more likely even if it is hard to believe that someone might have been able overpower and control Maura so quickly and within view of houses across the way. Would this have been impossible considering how dark it was that night, did the perp just get lucky and no one was watching or driving by at the crucial moment?

More generally I have to believe that Maura believed she was coming back to her car in a very short time period - if she was away from the car even overnight then surely she would have taken clothes and the toiletries with her?

Thoughts?

 

[Lamima]

I think, MOO, that she went away to think on things. I think she was down and out. I think she wrecked the car and that was just another thing to bring her down. I think she was drinking and wanted to avoid a DUI so she grabbed her backpack and ran. I think the bottles of booze were in the backpack in case she got pulled over. I don't think she was thinking clearly. I think she went into the woods, with intentions of going back to her car later, and maybe had more to drink and passed out and succumbed to the elements. I have heard before of incidents of not finding remains of missing folks that are right there (ie: the Jamisons). Just MOO.

 

[Caffeine]

As far as Maura taking a ride from a stranger, you have to look at within the context of what was happening. I doubt a person saw her and immediately thought to victimize her and force her into a car, however offering a ride may have been the initial step in doing so.

This was a girl who was likely drinking and driving, spilled alcohol all over the car, had an open container of booze, and just crashed.

She was probably frantic and desperate not to be caught. I doubt at that point she'd have to be forced in a strangers car, she likely would have threw herself in any car that pulled up just to flee the scene.

We don't know how intoxicated she was, but its generally easy to gauge that sort of thing when speaking to someone.

So for a stranger to pull up and find herself giving a ride to a desperate, drunk young girl - that's quite an opportunity to someone with even slightly bad intentions. The motive may not have been to kill her but it could have easily ended that way.

For a sexual predator, a situation like that would be a dream come true. However, when the reality of getting caught sets in, people will go to great lengths to make sure that doesn't happen. So someone who had no intention to harm or kill may feel compelled to do so as their only choice to avoid being identified by their victim.

Fred Murray and a few other LE have commented that a chance encounter like that has always been a possibility; she got in the wrong car, went to the wrong house. At this point I surely wouldn't dismiss it because it seems unlikely. When a person vanishes without a trace for over a decade its not much of a stretch to think it may be a result of someone else's actions.

 

[Pettibon Junction]

At this point I can't make much out of the items left behind. I really just don't think she was behaving rationally after the accident, although I'm not sure what exactly that means. I've watched enough people go through tough issues and events to realize that people often do really odd and unexplainable things that make sense only to them, and sometimes not even to themselves. Not every behavior is necessarily an indicator of anything.

Maybe it's just personal experience clouding my judgment here but I don't think people give enough thought to the role that Maura's bulimia might have played in all of the decisions she made leading up to her disappearance, or the diminishing impact it would have on her capacity to pull of the heist of a clean, permanent getaway into a stable new life, even if (and it's a HUGE if IMO) that's what she drove north to do. Eating disorders have a logic to them, a sense of ritual and routine, but it's wholly internal and thus, not immediately obvious to anyone outside of it. But if you've suffered from it yourself, you would recognize that the weird mix of compulsive, controlling tendencies and intense level of secrecy as well as the seemingly impulsive, fanciful thinking/risk-taking that marked Maura's pre-accident behavior as not being contradictory in the least. (To say nothing of the heavy drinking and crying jags.)

However disciplined Maura would look on the outside, internally, she was seething, and this would have made her more vulnerable than most people seem to realize. Oh, and it's been said over and over again in mental health literature but it's worth noting, again, that a mentally ill/emotionally disturbed person is exponentially more likely to become a victim of harm, whether from themselves or someone else.

EDIT:
Just want to make clear that I'm agreeing with goldiegirl here.

 

[TessDeco]

Respectfully, I think we need to remember that the list of items in Maura's car that Renner posted on his blog came from an anonymous email. There's absolutely nothing to prove that it's a legitimate "document" or a complete list of the contents found in Maura's car.

IDK I'm interested in any new developments in Maura's case too. It's great to have something new to discuss but I also think Maura deserves better than a lot of speculation about her life based on anonymous emails sent to a blog and a lot of other unverified information being repeated on the Internet like it's fact.

All just MHO

 

[Lolacat]

the weird mix of compulsive, controlling tendencies and intense level of secrecy as well as the seemingly impulsive, fanciful thinking/risk-taking that marked Maura's pre-accident behavior as not being contradictory in the least. (To say nothing of the heavy drinking and crying jags.)

I couldn't agree more. Nothing about Maura's disappearance suggests anything *organised and planned* at all. Every behaviour she exhibited prior to her disappearance screams impulsivity and self destructiveness to me. Bulimia, drinking, stealing, car crashes, deciding to go to her father's hotel room in the early hours, making desperate phone calls at 5am?- all very indicative of impulsive behaviour that would imply a life that was spiralling out of control. Even IF she planned to run away, I do not believe this was some big, thought out plan. It was most likely conceived a mere few days before her disappearance AT MOST. We are all missing something here. There was a trigger, and it was something very significant.

 

[lawstudent]

Someone spiraling doesn't need a significant trigger - it is possible for little things and a bad mental condition to build over time, with another little thing setting off a spiral. So while it wouldn't surprise me to learn these things were all part of an overall deterioration that finally became obvious, i don't think we are necessarily missing a significant trigger. Those car crashes alone could make someone think the world is ending if they are in a bad state. Outsiders can never be sure as to what she considered significant.

 

[Pettibon Junction]

We are all missing something here. There was a trigger, and it was something very significant.

I'm convinced that whatever transpired between Maura and her father in his hotel room after that first accident was the impetus for her trip north. Just a gut feeling and to clarify, I am in no way blaming Fred for his daughter's disappearance.

 

[Captain_Khan]

No alcohol, which to me is the most interesting of all.

Minus the box of wine there presumably should have been some alcohol left, despite a "small" trip to the liquor store. Even so, one would think a bottle or two would remain, if she left in a haste.

What to make of that, I don't know. I've always thought she left quickly by car to avoid a DUI. Removing evidence of liquor in the car would be a prudent move, so ultimately I think 1) she simply forgot about the wine or 2) the backpack already had the remaining liquor bottles as well as other essentials and she just instinctively grabbed that and quickly left.

When trying to visulise what I would do in that situation (after the crash had already happened, presuming Maura had been drinking), I would have grabbed the alcohol so I could get away from the car, find some people to spend the night with, and then drink. That way, if the police caught up with her, she could say "I wasn't drunk when the accident happened, but I've been drinking since," and therefore she can't get done for DUI.

 

[Vox_Veritas_JT]

Doesn't the whole case boil down to two separate possibilities? Either Maura went on foot out of that area, perhaps toward the white mountains or hitched a ride with a stranger or somebody she knew (the tandem driver theory sits here).

I have come full circle and I am back caught between the possibility of Maura being suicidal and the possibility of foul play. Without being sure of two things, 1. why the rag was stuffed in the exhaust and 2. why only the bottles of alcohol were taken and little else then I'm stuck. The phone calls Billy made and received up to and during the disappearance do look very suspicious to me if proven but they just don't prove anything conclusively.

 

[Pettibon Junction]

Doesn't the whole case boil down to two separate possibilities? Either Maura went on foot out of that area, perhaps toward the white mountains or hitched a ride with a stranger or somebody she knew (the tandem driver theory sits here).

I have been saying for years that the tandem driver theory can be ruled out with a single piece of evidence: Rick Forcier.

There's been a lot of backtracking done by certain parties to discredit Mr. Forcier, to downplay and dismiss his testimony entirely. However, the police felt strongly enough about this witness to interview him multiple times as well as search his house trailer and vehicle. Now, the latter search makes him sound like a suspect, but why would law enforcement lean so heavily on Forcier unless they believed strongly that his report of a youth on foot that night was the last known sighting of Maura?

While a lot of the online community doesn't take Forcier seriously, the original investigators did, and so do I. His sighting, while brief, happened five miles east of the crash site, thus giving the lie to the idea that Maura's disappearance occurred within some time-frame so narrow as to make foul play or death by misadventure impossible. Further, his description of her behavior (furtive, ducking down side streets to avoid being caught in his headlights) does NOT tally with someone looking to catch a ride at all, let alone with someone who followed her up there as part of a carefully scripted escape plot.

So like you, I'm left with those two possibilities. However, there is a third: that she was driving up to NH to meet somebody. That would seem to remain within the realm of possibility but for one reason: it has been nearly 12 years and this person never came forward to assist with any investigation, let alone file a report that their guest didn't arrive. Ergo, Occam's razor: this individual does not exist, Maura's reasons for going north that night were entirely personal, and Fred was correct all along.

 

[allmybecsloveme]

I have been saying for years that the tandem driver theory can be ruled out with a single piece of evidence: Rick Forcier.

There's been a lot of backtracking done by certain parties to discredit Mr. Forcier, to downplay and dismiss his testimony entirely. However, the police felt strongly enough about this witness to interview him multiple times as well as search his house trailer and vehicle. Now, the latter search makes him sound like a suspect, but why would law enforcement lean so heavily on Forcier unless they believed strongly that his report of a youth on foot that night was the last known sighting of Maura?

While a lot of the online community doesn't take Forcier seriously, the original investigators did, and so do I. His sighting, while brief, happened five miles east of the crash site, thus giving the lie to the idea that Maura's disappearance occurred within some time-frame so narrow as to make foul play or death by misadventure impossible. Further, his description of her behavior (furtive, ducking down side streets to avoid being caught in his headlights) does NOT tally with someone looking to catch a ride at all, let alone with someone who followed her up there as part of a carefully scripted escape plot.

So like you, I'm left with those two possibilities. However, there is a third: that she was driving up to NH to meet somebody. That would seem to remain within the realm of possibility but for one reason: it has been nearly 12 years and this person never came forward to assist with any investigation, let alone file a report that their guest didn't arrive. Ergo, Occam's razor: this individual does not exist, Maura's reasons for going north that night were entirely personal, and Fred was correct all along.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't he come forward about seeing a girl running at a later date, saying he had just remembered it? That leads me to think there is a possibility that it could have been an entirely different night. I can't rule it out, but I can't take what he said as a fact for that reason.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I747 using Tapatalk

 

[Pettibon Junction]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't he come forward about seeing a girl running at a later date, saying he had just remembered it? That leads me to think there is a possibility that it could have been an entirely different night. I can't rule it out, but I can't take what he said as a fact for that reason.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I747 using Tapatalk

It's my understanding that while he wasn't immediately aware of the disappearance, he did find the jogger's behavior odd enough to remember. It was only after Maura's case became a sensation that he double-checked his work records and realized that his sighting did indeed occur on the night of February 9, 2004.

 

[Ricochet]

1. I think the majority of people would agree that Maura, was being impulsive and not thinking logically. If that's the case there's no real way to determine what Maura's logical actions were vs. her illogical actions.

To the best of my knowledge no one has ever come forward and confirmed the days before her disappearance she had pictures hanging on her walls and boxes unpacked. What we know is there were no pictures hanging on the walls, she had a box packed on her bed and she left her computer behind. Maybe she was going to be moving off campus, maybe she hadn't unpacked, we don't know. Let's assume the days before her disappearance she did have pictures hanging on the wall and her box or boxes were unpacked. There's no way to apply logic to her actions if she was illogical and impulsive. Maybe she was being logical in this instance, but maybe not. A logical inference would be she packed everything up because she intended on leaving school. An illogical inference might be she was being impulsive, packed everything up, was going to leave school, go away for a few days, and when she returned she would've unpacked. We don't know what the final result would be because she didn't return.

If she was being logical then it seems that emailing her professors advising she'd be gone for a week due to a death in the family would be illogical. There'd be no need for that email. If she really intended on leaving UMass she could've just left or she could've formally withdrawn from her classes. She's an adult and her professors aren't going to waste their time calling her parents to advise she has withdrawn from the program. Also, to the best of my knowledge, no one has ever said that Maura was going to withdraw from the nursing program.

2. Maura's window of disappearance was greater than 10 minutes and there was no intensive search that night. The first call to 911 was made at 7:27 PM, Cecil Smith was notified at 7:35 and arrived at 7:45, with Fire and EMS arriving just before 8:00 PM. The first thing Cecil Smith did was look at the crash site and interview a witness (Butch Atwood). He then noticed the cracked windshield, air bags deployed, doors locked, and the franzia wine box. He then notes he made a search of the roadway in the area of the accident assisted by Fire and EMS. So it would've been sometime after 8:00 PM but before 9:00 PM, because both Fire and EMS were gone before 9:00 PM. I assume Lavoie's towing arrived sometime around 9:00 PM and Cecil Smith was with them because he notes he recovered a "coke bottle that contained a red liquid with a strong alcoholic odor." He cleared the scene at 9:26 PM. He notes it was dark with no street lights, and the surface of the road condition was dry (not wet, not snowy, not icy). She probably could've made decent time on foot since the road conditions were dry, and probably not too difficult to go unnoticed if she really wanted to evade police. She wasn't declared a missing person until sometime Tuesday afternoon and search wasn't done until sometime on Wednesday.

3. The Podcast guys get simple facts of the case wrong. If they don't clearly understand the case or the timeline how can intelligent questions be asked! They spent at least 2 hours interviewing John Smith, and the ONLY relevant information he provided was about the crash itself because what he believed could be compared to the accident report and pictures of the car. All the phone records are irrelevant until there produced or someone reliable can verify they exist.

4. I don't know what to think of James Renner anymore. He thinks she ran off to start a new life, then he thinks she's likely dead, and I guess were back to starting a new life. I don't know because he adds information and then deletes it, he's supposed to be gone until spring but now he's back and I'm not sure the information he's posting is really relevant to anything. In his blog titled "Reality Check" he states something to the affect of a concerted campaign of spin to distract from any legitimate investigation. He forgets that he created the whole debacle by all the BIG NEWS he was going to post, the likelihood that she was dead, and then the moratorium all of which has now been deleted from his blog. It's somewhat ridiculous to criticize people for posting topics on blogs he created and then removed which creates the appearance of spin because it doesn't support his theories or beliefs. If none of those blogs were posted no one would be talking about James Renner. Then he goes on about how he assumed a logical person could look at the list of items that Maura had with her and not realize she wasn't going away for a short period of time. If we look at that list we could logically infer Maura was leaving for good, BUT she also took her textbooks so we could also logically infer Maura intended on returning to UMass. It appears Maura may have been illogical and/or impulsive and because of that we don't know what her true intentions were.