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

[Fireweed]

Maura brought a book about dying in the white mountains, bookmarked to a chapter chronically the death of a fellow Massachusetts native Macdonald Barr.

Again, the book is not really about dying in the white mountains; it is more about the mistakes people make because they did not respect the uniqueness of the white mountains. Scoops, it is really starting to seriously irritate me that you continue to talk about this book when you yourself cannot be bothered to read the darn thing. I know you can read and you use this book as evidence that Maura was suicidal, so why the heck cannot you not put forth a small amount of effort and money and actually read it? It makes me question all of your research into this case. I know you are somewhat of a self-proclaimed expert here, and you claim to have done lots of your own research, but then you don't even read the book that you are so found of citing as proof that Maura was suicidal. What else have you half-arsed here?

 

[scoops]

I am swayed by your post. Do you think this is a matter of her body not being found yet?

most definitely.

All of the real searches for Maura have been around where she had her car accident, which is logical based on statistics of people going missing after smashing their cars.

To my knowledge, fred is the only one who has attempted to search hiking trails and those aren't the searches that fred was doing when cameras were following him.

There have been aerial searches done (maybe just one) but to me, IMO, that is not very effective means for finding someone in a forest.

 

[Caffeine]

John Scarinza didn't seem to conclude she went in the woods during the aerial search. There was no new snow, visibility was good...by his account, there seemed to be no sign of her going into the woods.

I would imagine they took into account the idea of her walking the road and then entering the woods, it just never seems like they had indication of it, at least based on his words.

 

[scoops]

I don't doubt that you and others have more knowledge of the case as I've only recently stumbled upon it, but it doesn't seem like there is enough information here to lead one to be so certain about what happened one way or the other. Based on the information available, and what you've presented, I still don't see how you come to the conclusion that this was most likely a suicide.


First of all, regarding the temperature, I see where I made my error there. You're right, it appears the overnight low the morning after she went missing was in the 30's. I'm not sure if that difference in temperature means much, although 30 does seem comparatively warm.


Regarding the Westman account of a man smoking a cigarette in the passenger seat while there was a flurry of activity by the trunk. I don't see how anyone can backtrack and rationalize what they saw was a cell phone light inside the vehicle while there was a flurry of activity by the trunk. Does this mean there was no flurry of activity by the trunk? How does her husband seeing something different outweigh her original belief that there were two separate people in and around her car? It seems like you are assuming a lot of things that we can't prove/don't know as fact, such as claiming that she was coached into hallucinating what she saw by the 911 dispatcher, that doesn't make any sense to me. It seems like a stretch for you to assume who had a better vantage point, or assume that she was coached into believing she saw two separate figures, one inside the car, and one behind the car. Also, none of the witnesses seemed all that confident that she was even the one driving the car that night. The bus driver originally said he didn't think she was the girl he saw, he later changed his mind and said it must have been her. Considering that, can we really put that much stock in anything the witnesses said?


Regarding Maura's researching different locations, instead of using the words "places to live", I should have said, "places to stay". However, I'd like you to explain something to me. If the plan was to commit suicide in the White Mountains, why research places in Stowe Vermont and Burlington Vermont? Both of those locations are at least an hour and a half away by car. Why not find lodging closer to your intended suicide destination? That doesn't make much sense to me.


Regarding the book, I've read the synopsis, and I've read various summaries of the book. I think it's also a bit of a stretch to assume this book is related to her disappearance. If the book was truly the inspiration for her disappearance, why leave it in the car instead of taking it with her to read in her final moments?


I don't blame you for coming to the conclusion that this was a suicide, however I think the facts that we know for certain could point to a number of different scenarios. It seems to me that you're trying to massage the evidence to fit your suicide hypothesis. There is no hard evidence as to what actually happened one way or another. I don't think we'll really know unless someone finds a body, or in the unlikely event that she turns up alive somewhere. I'm not trying to be disrespectful or start an argument, but I feel the notion that this was a clear cut suicide must be challenged. If it was a suicide, no harm done. But if there actually was a crime here, and we write it off as a suicide, we'd be doing a grave injustice.

First off, I don't work like that.

My original theory was that Maura likely succumbed to the elements, it was through research, that the theory switched to suicide. I don't form a theory first and then work to fit the factual evidence into that theory. I do the exact opposite, (the theory is not that important to me, it's just the end result of the evidence).

Faith Westman's account has been debunked by herself.

People are coached by 911 operators all the time. The dispatcher knows the crucial information they need, a person calling 911 is attempting to give a blow-by-blow account of what they are seeing. The 911 operator has to turn that information into usable information for responders. "I see a car in a ditch and there appears to be some sort of red dot coming from the inside of the car --- 911 operator -- "like someone smoking a cigarette" -- "yes like someone smoking a cigarette. (just an example not verbatim as to what was said in this instance)

Faith westman never claimed to see two people. a flurry of activity at the back of the car was descbribed by faith as having taken place by "someone" once the school bus driver had left the scene and the other witnesses basically saidt he same thing that one person was seen moving around the vehicle.

Maura had been hiking to all three areas three and a half months before she went missing. She was attempting to decide which of the three areas she wanted to go to the day she went missing and she chose the white mountains.

Maura knew that book from cover to cover. She wouldn't need it to assist her, but more to the point, she was fleeing the scene of an accident before law enforcement would arrive. she had to make snap decisions on what exactly to grab and to me IMO, it's telling that she didn't take any valuables with her, but is believed to have taken alcohol.

 

[scoops]

Thanks for clarifying.

The thing that I don't get is if a person calls Maura while in the area of Londonderry...that persons cell pings that tower. So if that person called, didn't get through.... wouldn't it register as a missed call and in turn be on Mauras cell phone bill?

Or is it an issue where Maura had no service and simply had no idea she missed the call. If That's the case I wonder how police became aware of it?

The only reason I ever weighed in on this issue to begin with, was because the finding of this affidavit request has been reported (unintentionally IMO) as some big bombshell piece of evidence to this case (and imo, it is not).

I wanted to make very clear that if were going to use some random police standard procedure form to try and read into it some big clue, we better understand the context of it first, which IMO, the context of that affidavit request has never been established by any sleuther or investigator.

We are trying to say that police are trying to locate a person that may have called Maura that afternoon, and that doesn't jibe to me at all as being common sense.

Every case I have ever heard about in which law enforcement is using someone's cell phone to gather information involving pings and cell towers, it is strictly to trace movements by using the phone's built it tracking ability because the phone communicates through pings with cell phone towers.

Whether police are looking for a missing person or looking for the movements of a particular suspect, they are interested in that subject's cell phone to follow that person's movements.

Back in 2004, as along as Maura had her cell phone turned on, it would've left a trace to whatever tower she was driving by.

This idea that police are interested in calls coming into a missing person's phone, doesn't make a lot of sense, unless they were specifically anticipating someone to call Maura at a certain time and maybe then, they would seek help in trying to secure whether or not that phone call was ever made.

But if police were to assume someone called Maura and it just didn't register on her phone bill because she never answered and voice mail didn't pick it up ... that seems like very backwards and guestimating type investigating. How can you be interested in calls (as an investigator) you don't even know someone received.

I still contend that Maura checked her phone for messages in the late afternoon she went missing (on her drive up to New Hampshire). that is what has been reported as being her last known activity.

If she took I-91 North to get to the White Mountains, she would've been in the vincinity of Londonderry Vermont at the time she dialed in to check her phone for messages.

 

[scoops]

Again, the book is not really about dying in the white mountains; it is more about the mistakes people make because they did not respect the uniqueness of the white mountains. Scoops, it is really starting to seriously irritate me that you continue to talk about this book when you yourself cannot be bothered to read the darn thing. I know you can read and you use this book as evidence that Maura was suicidal, so why the heck cannot you not put forth a small amount of effort and money and actually read it? It makes me question all of your research into this case. I know you are somewhat of a self-proclaimed expert here, and you claim to have done lots of your own research, but then you don't even read the book that you are so found of citing as proof that Maura was suicidal. What else have you half-arsed here?

I have read the full chapter of the book that Maura had book-marked.

I don't need to read the whole book to report on it.

As a reporter for most of my adult life, I wrote thousand of articles on subjects I was in by no means an expert at. If I had attempted to become an expert on everything I ever wrote about, there wouldn't have been enough time in the day to make that happen.

I made the decision that me reading this entire book would not help me out that much, because I am not a hiker myself and I am not an adventure-seeker and don't have that mentality.

But hearing from those that are hikers and adventure seekers and most importantly lovers of the White Mountains, I feel like that is the closest I could ever come to getting into the head of Maura.

So, I chose to spend my time (when it comes to this book) focusing on how avid hikers think and how this particular book resonated with them.

 

[KenShabby]

I just want to say I drive a mid 90's Saturn sedan, and while it has some design flaws that can render it useless... it also has a very robust engine that has been touted for it's longevity. My Saturn has over 200,000 miles on it and still runs great, they're more well known for having random electrical faults, etc. So while it's said that her Saturn was falling apart and she wouldn't have trusted it... I'm not so sure. If her Saturn was anything like mine, it's actually is a very dependable and roadworthy vehicle.

FWIW — I too had a Saturn that was essentially the same model and vintage as Maura's. Mine was a 1995. It stayed on the road, with minimal maintenance, until 2011, with well over 200K miles on it when the motor finally burned out.

 

[coolaid213]

I can't be convinced one way or another based on speculation and theories. I'll wait until some real evidence is uncovered. It seems like we have no actual evidence suggesting what happened that night.


@Amightyduck, I saw someone mention that they should have used her mugshot on the flyers instead of pictures where she is smiling. Her cheekbones are exaggerated by the way she smiles so brightly in most of her pictures. Chances are if someone saw her in the immediate aftermath of the accident, she wouldn't be smiling. If you google her mugshot, she looks very different.


If you make one wrong assumption it can throw your whole perspective off. When I read about cases like these I often wonder, how much of the information we have is actually accurate? Just because the police say something, or her family says something, people take that and run with it as if it's the gospel. So many times when a case is finally solved, you can look back and find that much of the initial information was either inaccurate or misrepresented. In this case a lot of the information is vague. I would love to know if we can prove Maura was driving her Dad's car when it wrecked. Did anyone witness her crash the car that night? Is it possible that she wasn't responsible for all the car accidents leading up to the final incident? Are we just taking a family member's word on that? These are the things that pop into my mind.


Also, LE says this Mr112dirtbag guy is just some random crazy person, and that they've cleared him. I would love to know more about that guy anyway. What is the significance of the picture of the ticket to the Bretton Woods Resort that he posted, the date on the ticket is two days after she went missing. Even if he didn't do anything, does he know something? It just seems like there are plenty of angles to explore that aren't being considered. She probably is deceased, but we really don't know, do we? Did she wander off into the woods and succumb to the elements? Maybe, but where were the tracks in the snow? This is a true mystery, no matter what explanation you choose, there is still room for doubt at this point.

 

[scoops]

I can't be convinced one way or another based on speculation and theories. I'll wait until some real evidence is uncovered. It seems like we have no actual evidence suggesting what happened that night.


@Amightyduck, I saw someone mention that they should have used her mugshot on the flyers instead of pictures where she is smiling. Her cheekbones are exaggerated by the way she smiles so brightly in most of her pictures. Chances are if someone saw her in the immediate aftermath of the accident, she wouldn't be smiling. If you google her mugshot, she looks very different.


If you make one wrong assumption it can throw your whole perspective off. When I read about cases like these I often wonder, how much of the information we have is actually accurate? Just because the police say something, or her family says something, people take that and run with it as if it's the gospel. So many times when a case is finally solved, you can look back and find that much of the initial information was either inaccurate or misrepresented. In this case a lot of the information is vague. I would love to know if we can prove Maura was driving her Dad's car when it wrecked. Did anyone witness her crash the car that night? Is it possible that she wasn't responsible for all the car accidents leading up to the final incident? Are we just taking a family member's word on that? These are the things that pop into my mind.


Also, LE says this Mr112dirtbag guy is just some random crazy person, and that they've cleared him. I would love to know more about that guy anyway. What is the significance of the picture of the ticket to the Bretton Woods Resort that he posted, the date on the ticket is two days after she went missing. Even if he didn't do anything, does he know something? It just seems like there are plenty of angles to explore that aren't being considered. She probably is deceased, but we really don't know, do we? Did she wander off into the woods and succumb to the elements? Maybe, but where were the tracks in the snow? This is a true mystery, no matter what explanation you choose, there is still room for doubt at this point.

What you describe is precisely how 95 percent (IMO) of the people sleuthing about this case have gone about this case. they hear one thing from someone and they run with it.

I can only speak for myself, but I know that with this case, you have to understand what people are saying, what context they are saying it in and look for collaborating evidence to support that, which I believe I have done so, almost ad nauseam

there have been so many quick judgement conclusions about this case, that those have made this case way more complicated then what the case is really (IMO).

I have understood from my own frustrations, that if you follow one wrong assumption, you can be led way off-track, so personally I have been very careful with how I accept information concerning this case.

Its very easy to prove Maura drove her dad's car the night she wrecked it into a guard rail.

She was escorted from the wreck by the tow-truck operator back to the hotel. (very easily verifiable information).

 

[coolaid213]

Its very easy to prove Maura drove her dad's car the night she wrecked it into a guard rail.

She was escorted from the wreck by the tow-truck operator back to the hotel. (very easily verifiable information).

Thank you for that info.

 

[nycpizzaparty]

most definitely.

All of the real searches for Maura have been around where she had her car accident, which is logical based on statistics of people going missing after smashing their cars.

To my knowledge, fred is the only one who has attempted to search hiking trails and those aren't the searches that fred was doing when cameras were following him.

There have been aerial searches done (maybe just one) but to me, IMO, that is not very effective means for finding someone in a forest.

Thanks for responding to my question. I have thought about this scenario where the body is somewhere in the White Mountains - obviously it could be very, very hard to find. It's just so hard to say where she could have gotten herself to from the time that she bolted from the scene of the accident. If she didn't get a ride from anyone, and it was all on foot, she could have still covered a lot of ground. She could have found trails or she could have been working her way through lesser-travelled areas. If she killed herself, she might have tried to do it in a hard-to-find spot. Now it has been over 10 years in addition to those other factors. The answer to this case - a body - could be nearly undiscoverable and without it, there is no final answer.

 

[coolaid213]

Part of the reason I'm skeptical about the running into the woods theory is that the police didn't find any tracks. They easily could have overlooked them, but maybe they didn't. Hear me out... if this was all on foot, and she did enter the woods, that means she entered the woods in the 10 minutes between when the witness left and the police arrived. So she either entered the woods immediately, or went as far as she could travel on foot in 10 minutes before entering the woods. Even a seasoned runner isn't going to travel that far in 10 minutes. So if the police really did scour the side of the road in either direction and didn't find anything, it makes me wonder if she got into a car. I still don't understand the science behind a dog losing a scent solely based on the distance walked. Why is 150 yards the magic cut off point? If she did have an accomplice you'd think there would have been some calls on her record around the time of the accident, but there aren't any. I think that means that if she was picked up it was by someone random. This is giving me a headache lol, time to take a break.

 

[Steleheart]

FWIW — I too had a Saturn that was essentially the same model and vintage as Maura's. Mine was a 1995. It stayed on the road, with minimal maintenance, until 2011, with well over 200K miles on it when the motor finally burned out.

My daughter just recently got rid of her 1989 Saturn we bought used for her 10 years ago. It was still running great and we did little maintenance on it. The only glitch was her alarm system that would randomly go off for no reason until we had it disconnected.

I don't buy that her car was crappy. The $4,000 taken from several different ATM's was for something else. There is no need to pay cash for anything unless you MUST avoid a paper trail IMO. Especially for a car. Or if it were a private sale go to the bank and withdraw the whole amount!
My feeling is that the money was intended to send Maura to get a quiet abortion out of state to save Fred the embarrassment. Abortion was legal but how she got pregnant is something I will keep to myself for now. I think Maura had a better idea and that was to not have that done and instead go away and raise her child away from him.

Perhaps the upsetting phone call was a VM confirming her actual pregnancy test, the dinner with Kate, Maura and Fred was to break it to Fred, and the "party" was not a party at all but a confrontation between Maura and her friends to convince her to get away fro him which she could not do. Hence her effort, against their advice, to go spend the night with him "to return his car".

There is no evidence for this - or anything- so MOO

 

[Steleheart]

Part of the reason I'm skeptical about the running into the woods theory is that the police didn't find any tracks. They easily could have overlooked them, but maybe they didn't. Hear me out... if this was all on foot, and she did enter the woods, that means she entered the woods in the 10 minutes between when the witness left and the police arrived. So she either entered the woods immediately, or went as far as she could travel on foot in 10 minutes before entering the woods. Even a seasoned runner isn't going to travel that far in 10 minutes. So if the police really did scour the side of the road in either direction and didn't find anything, it makes me wonder if she got into a car. I still don't understand the science behind a dog losing a scent solely based on the distance walked. Why is 150 yards the magic cut off point? If she did have an accomplice you'd think there would have been some calls on her record around the time of the accident, but there aren't any. I think that means that if she was picked up it was by someone random. This is giving me a headache lol, time to take a break.

One does not got running into the woods into 2 - 3 feet of snow for more than a 100 yards in my experience.
She was experienced and she knew that, IMO.

 

[coolaid213]

One does not got running into the woods into 2 - 3 feet of snow for more than a 100 yards in my experience.
She was experienced and she knew that, IMO.

Thank you! And if she did go into the woods, there would be tracks leading away from the road somewhere within 10 minutes (walking distance) from the accident scene. I'm not saying she didn't go into the woods, but if she did the police must have missed the tracks. Someone mentioned earlier that even if she was planning on killing herself, that doesn't take away from the fact the NH forest is scary as F at night. It's pitch black, the ground is uneven and treacherous, there are creepy, unnerving sounds... it would give you the jibblies even if you were suicidal. Again, I'm not saying she didn't go into the woods, but we just don't have any evidence of that, such as tracks or a body.

 

[anya]

One does not got running into the woods into 2 - 3 feet of snow for more than a 100 yards in my experience.
She was experienced and she knew that, IMO.

Not to mention that if the snow happened to be that hard-packed, slippery and a bit icy on the surface kind, that'd make it damn near difficult to run with just sneakers on, nevermind fast., experienced runner or not. And even if the snow pack wasn't hardened or icy on the surface layer, but regular old February heavy powder, sinking into 2-3 feet of snow would have made it even more of a feat to get away that quickly, never mind running through it long enough to get very far from the road.
Unless she had snowshoes on.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

 

[coolaid213]

BTW, has anyone noticed that if you google "rag in tailpipe", all of the results are related to this case. I can't find a single website that doesn't mention putting a rag in a tailpipe outside of the context of the Maura Murray case. Why did her father ask the police to check for a rag in the tailpipe? Some have speculated that the car wouldn't have made it from her dorm to the accident scene if the rag was already stuffed inside the tailpipe. Other people have speculated that she stuffed the rag in the tailpipe to hide the fact that she used it to sop up alcohol in the interior of the car. I can't imagine why she'd care about sopping up alcohol if the plan was immediate suicide. So why was the rag in there? Suicide? That wouldn't have been effective without a bad exhaust leak that was venting into the car. If she put the rag in after the accident, I can only imagine it was some sort of signal... if the rag was in there all along and didn't effect the car's performance, then why did he make a big deal out of asking the police to search for it. No matter what happened, you just can't deny that the circumstances surrounding her disappearance are very unusual.

 

[takeitfromme412]

I can't be convinced one way or another based on speculation and theories. I'll wait until some real evidence is uncovered. It seems like we have no actual evidence suggesting what happened that night.


@Amightyduck, I saw someone mention that they should have used her mugshot on the flyers instead of pictures where she is smiling. Her cheekbones are exaggerated by the way she smiles so brightly in most of her pictures. Chances are if someone saw her in the immediate aftermath of the accident, she wouldn't be smiling. If you google her mugshot, she looks very different.


If you make one wrong assumption it can throw your whole perspective off. When I read about cases like these I often wonder, how much of the information we have is actually accurate? Just because the police say something, or her family says something, people take that and run with it as if it's the gospel. So many times when a case is finally solved, you can look back and find that much of the initial information was either inaccurate or misrepresented. In this case a lot of the information is vague. I would love to know if we can prove Maura was driving her Dad's car when it wrecked. Did anyone witness her crash the car that night? Is it possible that she wasn't responsible for all the car accidents leading up to the final incident? Are we just taking a family member's word on that? These are the things that pop into my mind.


Also, LE says this Mr112dirtbag guy is just some random crazy person, and that they've cleared him. I would love to know more about that guy anyway. What is the significance of the picture of the ticket to the Bretton Woods Resort that he posted, the date on the ticket is two days after she went missing. Even if he didn't do anything, does he know something? It just seems like there are plenty of angles to explore that aren't being considered. She probably is deceased, but we really don't know, do we? Did she wander off into the woods and succumb to the elements? Maybe, but where were the tracks in the snow? This is a true mystery, no matter what explanation you choose, there is still room for doubt at this point.

Mr112Dirtbag is Alden Howes Olson. He is basically a loony out of Massachusetts. I reported him several times and all reports regarding Maura and another NH case were taken very seriously by NH State Police. If you google him you will see it.

 

[coolaid213]

Mr112Dirtbag is Alden Howes Olson. He is basically a loony out of Massachusetts. I reported him several times and all reports regarding Maura and another NH case were taken very seriously by NH State Police. If you google him you will see it.

Yeah I found that name earlier. I see that the police have allegedly cleared him of any involvement. What I'm wondering is how can he be cleared? It can't be an alibis can it? It would be one thing to just claim responsibility, or taunt the family, but he actually posted a stub that appears to suggest that he was nearby at the time of the disappearance. I would love to find the woman who claimed she saw Maura with an older man and see if she recognizes this creep. I wonder if anyone has considered searching Bretton Woods with a cadaver dog.

Perhaps the police really do have another suspect that they're sitting on? Or perhaps they believe she is in hiding? Very bizarre.

 

[Captain_Khan]

I have read the full chapter of the book that Maura had book-marked.

I don't need to read the whole book to report on it.

Maura could have just been re-reading the book, and that's the chapter she had happened to reach, hense the book mark.

It's so incredibly easy to understand the book as just paraphernalia surrounding her favourite hobby. Insisting it's a clue about what happened to her is dismissing the much simpler explaination of 'she liked hiking therefore she liked book about hiking', rather than the outlandish 'she read book about someone dying, therefore she decided to commit suicide'.