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

[JamesRenner]

Nice work!

 

[JaimeSommers]

Thank you Carpanthers. I do recall there was a time when sometimes all digits were printed on a receipt from time to time. I know first-hand that this definitely used to happen. I would bet that a local, smaller place might still have had the old system of printing the whole number but that Domino's would have been more careful.

RS&BBM ... If it helps, I also remember that full card numbers were at one time printed on receipts -- not Domino's receipts specifically, but receipts in general. I worked in retail from 1993 to 1997 and the full numbers were printed from the machine in the store.

 

[Fireweed]

It is hard to be sure when things started to change in that area. I am the same age as Maura and all I can say is that if I recall a time that this happened, then it must have been a time that I was aware of credit and debit cards, so it must have still been happening after 2000. That is the best I can do.

Anyway, I think however it happened that Maura was on a mission to find something to steal very soon after she got to Umass. It worked to get her kicked out of West Point, so I think she figured it would work to get her kicked out of Umass. What she was not counting on is that regular universities are not as hardcore as a place like West Point about something like this. I do not think that Maura was even close to being stupid, and that is why she stole the number of someone who lived in the dorm. I think she thought it would get her kicked out of school for sure, and was stressed and disappointed when it did not work.

Again, as always, JMO, but if Maura found it impossible to directly express what she did and did not want to her family, then she would have found a passive-aggressive way to do so. With Maura I see a pattern of doing this; taking off and starting a new life without contacting anyone would simply be the ultimate expression of this.

 

[leilarose68]

I agree with a lot of what you are saying. The truth is that 99.9999% of people in the world, no matter what they are going through, do not just take off and start a new life. Indeed it is a very unusual thing to do. However, we actually have a few case studies of people who were located after many years away. They did not contact their family, even though the entire time they were missing their families insisted that they would never do that. I can think of two cases off the top of my head where women with minor children disappeared. Again, everyone was absolutely convinced that they would never voluntarily leave their children. But they did.

What were their problems? What was so horrible that they simply had to leave all their friends in family living the nightmare of not knowing what happened to them? Well, Brandi Stahr had racked up quite a lot of credit card debt and was doing poorly in school Additionally, her mother did not like the guy she was dating (I think she was going through something else in that area that I will not discuss on the board but which you can PM me about). Essentially she had issues that many a college student has been through. The reasonable solution to her problem was to get a job and pay off her debts, and maybe get some therapy on how to deal with an overbearing and unreasonable mother. But she just left one day and started a new life somewhere. Even though her case was widely publicized, she worked at the same place for seven years before she was discovered. Imagine if she had moved every two years or so? Would she still be a missing person?

Another good example is Brenda Heist. She was going through a divorce and she had just been declined for housing assistance. I am sure she was going through a very hard time, but I bet there is at least one person on this board here tonight who went through a divorce and found themselves in difficult financial times.

It just so happens that people who pull this off for a long period of time were not geniuses, they did not plan it out, they did not have "major" problems, and their families all insisted that if they were alive, they would have contacted them. They also were sort of in a limbo state between being "on" the grid and being "off" the grid. It also turns out that people really do not recognize people they have never met before. Human recognition of another human does not work that way. You can see a photo, but to really recognize someone, you had to have met them before. Also, go to work tomorrow and ask three random colleagues about Maura Murray. They probably have either never heard of her or only barely know what you are talking about. There is a selection bias on this board; we find her case interesting, but most people in the world have no idea who she is.

right, but how long did these women manage to stay off the grid for? young, formerly college-aged maura has been gone for TEN YEARS. the majority of people who stay off the grid for a long time are generally wanderer personalities... people like handymen, those who aren't drawn to the middle-class lifestyle in any way. maura was your typical middle-class girl going to nursing school. going off the grid would mean an entirely different way of life. she wouldn't have any 'normal' friends, she wouldn't have a normal amount of money to spend. and i'm sorry, but even if she disliked her sisters, i don't see any indication that she HATED them to the extent that she would be in hiding from them for a decade. of course there are always a few examples of everything, but it's still VERY unlikely when you consider who maura was and what she was accustomed to. coming up with a few examples still doesn't make this a LIKELY scenario, all things considered. consider suicide rates and then consider what would be estimated rates of going off to start a new life as a regular co-ed+ managing to stay under the radar for TEN YEARS.

 

[Coffeelover]

What would make someone want to live the difficult way Off the Grid when she can just tell her family she's having nothing more to do with them and take off and this would make it so much easier? My mother has a crazy cousin who nobody has talked to for 20 years because he wants nothing to do with his family but it's not like he's missing. If she's off the grid I think it's due to something much bigger than her relationship with family.

 

[leilarose68]

yet millions of illegal immigrants live like this every.single day.

Maura didn't grow up with this life and that particular pressure though... a middle-class girl going to live the life of an illegal immigrant is a bit more of a stretch than someone who doesn't have a choice in the matter.

 

[Fireweed]

I am making the point that it is certainly not impossible, by using the example that millions of people do it. And Maura was close to being college-educated. I bet a person with that level of education than say, an immigrant from Mexico with a 6th grade education and little English, would actually be able to pull it off easier.

But again I simply do not think it is necessary to live entirely off the grid and disappear. Maura could be working the United States using her own social security number and we would never know.

 

[leilarose68]

I am making the point that it is certainly not impossible, by using the example that millions of people do it. And Maura was close to being college-educated. I bet a person with that level of education than say, an immigrant from Mexico with a 6th grade education and little English, would actually be able to pull it off easier.

But again I simply do not think it is necessary to live entirely off the grid and disappear. Maura could be working the United States using her own social security number and we would never know.

My point is that it would take quite a bit of adjustment/quite a struggle for a middle-class regular girl used to a certain level of comfort and certain friendships and a way of life to suddenly be a drifter of some sort. And manage this for 10 years. And I don't think college teaches you how to not get caught by the authorities + whether or not you're okay to use your SS number. She would probably have had to do some research into how to disappear on her computer; wouldn't those searches have been logged? Doubt she would have known all this intuitively.

Illegal immigrants generally have communities and networks of support. Maura would have been on her own. I think people are underestimating how hard that would be and how unlikely it is given the other possibilities. Of course nothing is impossible and I never said it was; i said it was more implausible. it's an unlikely scenario and yet people treat it as the top theory

 

[Fireweed]

right, but how long did these women manage to stay off the grid for? young, formerly college-aged maura has been gone for TEN YEARS. the majority of people who stay off the grid for a long time are generally wanderer personalities... people like handymen, those who aren't drawn to the middle-class lifestyle in any way. maura was your typical middle-class girl going to nursing school. going off the grid would mean an entirely different way of life. she wouldn't have any 'normal' friends, she wouldn't have a normal amount of money to spend. and i'm sorry, but even if she disliked her sisters, i don't see any indication that she HATED them to the extent that she would be in hiding from them for a decade. of course there are always a few examples of everything, but it's still VERY unlikely when you consider who maura was and what she was accustomed to. coming up with a few examples still doesn't make this a LIKELY scenario, all things considered. consider suicide rates and then consider what would be estimated rates of going off to start a new life as a regular co-ed+ managing to stay under the radar for TEN YEARS.

Well Brandi Stahr was a middle-class college student from a middle-class family and Brenda Heist was a middle-class mother of two who worked as a bookkeeper. Stahr was gone for seven years and Heist for eleven. So to me Maura would fit right in with that. Let me put it another way: essentially every single person living on earth would never take off and leave their friends and family in limbo. I wouldn't and you wouldn't, and even if we decided we were through with them, we would let them know. Nearly 100% of the people on this planet would not voluntarily disappear without a trace.

But of those who do, most were middle-class, educated people whose families all insisted they would never do that. That is the point I am attempting to make here. If we took any random sampling of 50 people in the US, then most would be middle-class with a family and decent education and no real major problems. Well, guess what? If we looked at the people who took off to start a new life, they would be similar. People who disappear under their own volition are average and ordinary just like Maura Murray.

 

[carpanthers]

right, but how long did these women manage to stay off the grid for? young, formerly college-aged maura has been gone for TEN YEARS. the majority of people who stay off the grid for a long time are generally wanderer personalities... people like handymen, those who aren't drawn to the middle-class lifestyle in any way. maura was your typical middle-class girl going to nursing school. going off the grid would mean an entirely different way of life. she wouldn't have any 'normal' friends, she wouldn't have a normal amount of money to spend. and i'm sorry, but even if she disliked her sisters, i don't see any indication that she HATED them to the extent that she would be in hiding from them for a decade. of course there are always a few examples of everything, but it's still VERY unlikely when you consider who maura was and what she was accustomed to. coming up with a few examples still doesn't make this a LIKELY scenario, all things considered. consider suicide rates and then consider what would be estimated rates of going off to start a new life as a regular co-ed+ managing to stay under the radar for TEN YEARS.

Maura wasn't your typical middle-class girl going to nursing school, and she wasn't a regular co-ed. She was kicked out of West Point for stealing. She was caught using a credit card that did not belong to her, and lied to the police about where she got the number, twice. Why assume that the only times she ever stole anything were the only two times she was caught? Why assume Maura wasn't lying about the other numbers on the index card being friend's phone numbers? The other two statements she made to Patrolman Pinkham about the number were both lies.

We shouldn't just consider suicide rates in general, we should consider them in the context of the situation. How many women kill themselves by jumping from a high place? How many women kill themselves by willingly submitting to exposure in the wilderness? How many women kill themselves with alcohol? And we can't even be sure that Maura had the means to kill herself with alcohol.

 

[Fireweed]

What would make someone want to live the difficult way Off the Grid when she can just tell her family she's having nothing more to do with them and take off and this would make it so much easier? My mother has a crazy cousin who nobody has talked to for 20 years because he wants nothing to do with his family but it's not like he's missing. If she's off the grid I think it's due to something much bigger than her relationship with family.

Well that is a good question. I guess what I am getting at is that using real-life examples of people who did this, we would find that their problems were not that severe. Their familial relationships were a bit strained, and they were having some financial and romantic difficulties, but when you look closely at it you would see that their problems were not out of the range of normal modern human problems.

I think it is natural and normal for us to think that some huge would have to be bothering a person before they would do something so hardcore, but in reality that is not what we see. We see people who have problems and issues, but nothing that cannot be resolved or at least worked out a bit over time.

My own theory is that we need to look more at the kind of person Maura was and not really what her problems were. Brenda Heist was going through a divorce and experiencing financial difficulties. She had been turned down for housing assistance. Now that all sucks, but she left her minor children over this. It seems clear to me that the problem in Brenda Heist's life was Brenda Heist.

 

[leilarose68]

Well Brandi Stahr was a middle-class college student from a middle-class family and Brenda Heist was a middle-class mother of two who worked as a bookkeeper. Stahr was gone for seven years and Heist for eleven. So to me Maura would fit right in with that. Let me put it another way: essentially every single person living on earth would never take off and leave their friends and family in limbo. I wouldn't and you wouldn't, and even if we decided we were through with them, we would let them know. Nearly 100% of the people on this planet would not voluntarily disappear without a trace.

But of those who do, most were middle-class, educated people whose families all insisted they would never do that. That is the point I am attempting to make here. If we took any random sampling of 50 people in the US, then most would be middle-class with a family and decent education and no real major problems. Well, guess what? If we looked at the people who took off to start a new life, they would be similar. People who disappear under their own volition are average and ordinary just like Maura Murray.

"People who disappear' aka two examples of 'regular women.' And one of them was CAUGHT after 7 years and Brenda Heist herself returned to her family. Not very statistically significant data either.

Two examples still doesn't make this a likely scenario and it shouldn't be the top theory. I'm not saying it's IMPOSSIBLE but it's a lot less likely than people make it out to be.

 

[leilarose68]

Maura wasn't your typical middle-class girl going to nursing school, and she wasn't a regular co-ed. She was kicked out of West Point for stealing. She was caught using a credit card that did not belong to her, and lied to the police about where she got the number, twice. Why assume that the only times she ever stole anything were the only two times she was caught? Why assume Maura wasn't lying about the other numbers on the index card being friend's phone numbers? The other two statements she made to Patrolman Pinkham about the number were both lies.

We shouldn't just consider suicide rates in general, we should consider them in the context of the situation. How many women kill themselves by jumping from a high place? How many women kill themselves by willingly submitting to exposure in the wilderness? How many women kill themselves with alcohol? And we can't even be sure that Maura had the means to kill herself with alcohol.

You've failed to consider that Maura had a special connection to the wilderness, had a book focused on dying in the wilderness (if not outright suicide in the wilderness, i can't remember exactly) and thus might be more likely to end her life there. People often commit suicide in places they idealize, like the Golden Gate Bridge. Maura's special place was the wilderness. So combine these significant stats with rates of suicide and you have something a little more plausible than the new life theory.

 

[carpanthers]

You've failed to consider that Maura had a special connection to the wilderness, had a book focused on suicide in the wilderness and thus might be more likely to end her life there. People often commit suicide in places they idealize, like the Golden Gate Bridge. Maura's special place was the wilderness.

The book is focused on suicide in the wilderness? This is news to me. From the Editorial Reviews on Amazon:

"First published 14 years ago, Not Without Peril has quickly risen amongst the ranks of outdoor books and is clearly deserving the title of an outdoor classic. Combining painstaking historical research with his own intimate knowledge of New Hampshire’s White Mountains, Nicholas Howe recounts the struggles, deaths, and near escapes of hikers on Mount Washington. Howe gives us more than just facts of each accident, but he goes deeper, placing the accidents in the historical context of the times, including the period’s clothing and equipment, and providing a more complete understanding of the background and personalities of the people involved. (2014 National Outdoor Book Award Judges)"

Do you have any reason to believe the book focuses on suicide?

 

[Fireweed]

The book does not focus on suicide of course, that is just something that someone decide to make up for whatever reason.

I do not think that two examples makes something significant. I used those two examples to counter the argument that people who disappear must have a really major reason for doing so, when I can show that that may not be the case at all. And I do not necessarily think that Maura starting a new life is a "top" theory; it is just one of the theories like any other. My biggest issue is that people claim that it is not a good theory because Maura's life was not really that bad, when in fact people who disappear often do not have it all that bad. They did what they did because of their personality type, not because of their life circumstances.

 

[carpanthers]

The wilderness is too broad to be considered in that context. The Golden Gate Bridge is a very specific place.

We can't just consider general suicide rates. Suicide is far more common in men than in women. It is also common among the elderly.

2004 United States suicide data indicates that 37.8% of women chose poison, 32.4% chose firearms, 19.7% chose hanging, strangulation or suffocation and 10% chose other methods. So how do we think Maura might have chosen to kill herself?

ETA http://www.suicide.org/suicide-statistics.html

 

[leilarose68]

The book does not focus on suicide of course, that is just something that someone decide to make up for whatever reason.

I do not think that two examples makes something significant. I used those two examples to counter the argument that people who disappear must have a really major reason for doing so, when I can show that that may not be the case at all. And I do not necessarily think that Maura starting a new life is a "top" theory; it is just one of the theories like any other. My biggest issue is that people claim that it is not a good theory because Maura's life was not really that bad, when in fact people who disappear often do not have it all that bad. They did what they did because of their personality type, not because of their life circumstances.

The book still focuses on a death happening in the mountains though, and that isn't insignificant... at least, you can't compare Maura's situation to general suicide rates of women in the mountains because obviously she had a specific interest.

On James Renner's blog he did a poll + the majority said they believe she has a new life somewhere.

i don't think it's a bad theory because her life wasn't that bad, i just think it's generally an unlikely theory because it rarely ever happens, and maura has been gone so long.

 

[Fireweed]

The wilderness is too broad to be considered in that context. The Golden Gate Bridge is a very specific place.

We can't just consider general suicide rates. Suicide is far more common in men than in women. It is also common among the elderly.

2004 United States suicide data indicates that 37.8% of women chose poison, 32.4% chose firearms, 19.7% chose hanging, strangulation or suffocation and 10% chose other methods. So how do we think Maura might have chosen to kill herself?

ETA http://www.suicide.org/suicide-statistics.html

The question I have been asking for years. I do not discount the suicide theory at all; I simply wonder how Maura could have done it.

 

[leilarose68]

The book is focused on suicide in the wilderness? This is news to me. From the Editorial Reviews on Amazon:

"First published 14 years ago, Not Without Peril has quickly risen amongst the ranks of outdoor books and is clearly deserving the title of an outdoor classic. Combining painstaking historical research with his own intimate knowledge of New Hampshire’s White Mountains, Nicholas Howe recounts the struggles, deaths, and near escapes of hikers on Mount Washington. Howe gives us more than just facts of each accident, but he goes deeper, placing the accidents in the historical context of the times, including the period’s clothing and equipment, and providing a more complete understanding of the background and personalities of the people involved. (2014 National Outdoor Book Award Judges)"

Do you have any reason to believe the book focuses on suicide?

You're right, it's not specifically about suicide, but here's an excerpt from the official Amazon.com review of the book. Guess we looked at different reviews. It would be disingenuous to say that the book is your average book on mountains... clearly it does regale the deaths of hikers. I don't think you can read this summary and not consider it more deeply in the context of Maura's troubles and how she was heading to the mountains + in what light she herself considered them. JUst from reading this excerpt I can completely see how a person might romanticize death in the mountains.

Underlying Not Without Peril is the not-so-subtle message that the Presidential Range, topping out at just over 6,000 feet, is as uncompromising as any other mountain range. After all, these mountains--named for Washington, Lincoln, Madison--are home to some of the most vicious weather recorded on the planet. Howe makes no judgment about those whose misfortunes he chronicles; there are tender moments that manage to stay faithful to a crusty Yankee sensibility, as in the tale of Lizzie Bourne, who died in a snowstorm while huddled in a makeshift lean-to. Howe quotes her uncle George: "She was dead--had uttered no complaint, expressed no regret or fear, but passed silently away." Such sober tales, scrupulously researched, tell the history of a mountain range and its climbers, some of whom are immortalized for their ill-fated treks. It's a gritty read, a touch morbid, but more than compensated for by sharp writing and compelling drama.

 

[Fireweed]

The book still focuses on a death happening in the mountains though, and that isn't insignificant... at least, you can't compare Maura's situation to general suicide rates of women in the mountains because obviously she had a specific interest.

On James Renner's blog he did a poll + the majority said they believe she has a new life somewhere.

i don't think it's a bad theory because her life wasn't that bad, i just think it's generally an unlikely theory because it rarely ever happens, and maura has been gone so long.

I definitely agree that it is a rare thing to happen, and that suicide is much more common. Personally, I try and keep an open mind on all kinds of theories. One thing that bothers me about suicide is that we have no clear method and no body. But again, that does not prove anything one way or another.