NH NH - Maura Murray, 21, Haverhill, 9 Feb 2004 - #13

[Skigirl]

Oh, and he also allegedly wrote about Maura in his diary. Showed a bit too much interest in the case for a guy without an alibi. That info comes from John Smith though, so who knows how reliable it is.


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I hope that "too much interest" isn't a reason for arrest, because we are all screwed if so.

 

[Pettibon Junction]

I hope that "too much interest" isn't a reason for arrest, because we are all screwed if so.

Ha, true. Where were you on the night of February 9, 2004???


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[bluesneakers]

I hope that "too much interest" isn't a reason for arrest, because we are all screwed if so.

Uh, brb I gotta go burn an old journal.

 

[Pettibon Junction]

Uh, brb I gotta go burn an old journal.

I was in Rhode Island that day, same as Kate Markopoulos. Clearly, I’m hiding something.


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[snowleopard]

Hello you guys.. I'm new here and am still figuring out how the site works. I've really been meaning to ask this though on some type of forum regarding Maura's case...
How extensively did they look into that Butch guy? I've never heard that they searched around his property or questioned him much further. I know he's passed away and can't be questioned further now. But did he check out 100%? Thanks!

Hi ama, welcome to the thread. I'm not the last word on Butch, or anything in this case, but generally familiar. Butch was interviewed at least twice by police, and given two lie detector tests (per his wife, see James Renner's blog and elsewhere). He apparently failed the first l/d test and passed the second. He was very overweight and had heart and other health issues that likely skewed the results (I also think those factors would have made him a poor predator). Officer Cecil Smith said he asked Butch to look around the area in the aftermath of the crash. He later to moved to Florida and died sometime later. I don't think the police considered him a suspect after the l/d tests.

 

[singularity]

Most folks that live in the mountains are good, decent people. But trust me, there are a lot of weird, strange people that live in the mountains. They don't want to be in society, they are off the grid. They are not June and Ward Cleaver. I have encountered some of these people personally and was very scared by them. I used to visit a mountain town regularly because it was so beautiful, but after encountering some of the locals I refuse to return, it was clannish and scary..

You're not kidding.

Not technically "mountain men" but when I was a kid, my dad and I went up to the Snelling area(CA) to supposedly go fishing/camping. I found out years later it was more about drugs and salmon poaching than it was Mayberry picnics. Anyways, the people we were there with(friend of a friend's family) were creepy. One of them had two daughters I hung out with and that distracted me from a lot of what the adults were doing.

Years later my dad told me he had a bad feeling about that situation but stayed anyways, which pissed me off. Don't place your child's life at risk for the sake of getting high and poaching salmon. I was 5-6 years old standing there watching them shoot salmon from that bridge and my dad go out in the water to get them. So much could've went wrong.

 

[Kittycat01]

I have a couple of questions.

1. What do y'all make of the mystery call Bill got the next morning?

2. Is there an accurate list of the inventory of her car? One site just says "pks" of sleeping pills, but the show mentioned several packs.

I think (correct me if I'm wrong) but it was someone from the Red Cross calling Bill. I do idmit it's weird, why would someone from the Red Cross call that soon and be "whimpering and slightly sobbing". I wonder if Maura was held captive, and some how got to her phone, chilling....

 

[Kittycat01]

No not kidding, weird, weird stuff. They protect their own. Scary, trust me, very scary mentality.

 

[singularity]

So, just as Murray crashes her car, there just happens to be a killer driving by? Really? It was a freezing cold night, lot's of snow, she was probably drunk, and just had a pretty bad accident. I think she just walked into the woods and died there.

Yep...this is my exact thoughts on this case.

She's intoxicated and doesn't want to go to jail, has an accident and she had recently had one and isn't going to want to deal with the crap that goes along with that, and as she decides to walk away, a killer drives by in the nick of time to grab this perfect, intoxicated, vulnerable victim?

Not buying it.

It would basically be like a lottery win for this supposed killer. Every little thing, no matter the odds, has to go in his favor.

I had thought so as well, she wandered into the woods, until I learned how extensively the surrounding area was searched. Search dogs lost her scent in the middle of the road. She was picked up by someone on the road.

Just because they searched doesn't mean she isn't there. There are many cases where they didn't find a body in the initial search.

 

[bluesneakers]

Yep...this is my exact thoughts on this case.

She's intoxicated and doesn't want to go to jail, has an accident and she had recently had one and isn't going to want to deal with the crap that goes along with that, and as she decides to walk away, a killer drives by in the nick of time to grab this perfect, intoxicated, vulnerable victim?

Not buying it.

It would basically be like a lottery win for this supposed killer. Every little thing, no matter the odds, has to go in his favor.

Just because they searched doesn't mean she isn't there. There are many cases where they didn't find a body in the initial search.

What do you make of all the times it has been just luck and the killer had all the odds in his favor? Why would it be so impossible this time?

 

[SpanishMossAntiques]

I suspect that one day someone mushroom hunting in those woods will probably stumble across Maura's bones in the woods not far from where she got into the accident. I used to be a Park Ranger, and most of the time I was assigned to foot patrol - my supervisor would drop me off in the woods, and I'd spend the next 12-16 hours there (in summer, winter, rain, whatever). I had heated socks, a heated vest, and my uniform jacket was designed to keep me warm to -30, and I was still cold after an hour or two. Maura was intoxicated, which undoubtedly made her feel warmer than she really was, and was not dressed to be outside for any length of time. Add to that it being night-time (as a Ranger, I was able to confidently patrol the woods all night long, but I learned them over time, and so could navigate through them even without any light), which for someone who's not familiar with that environment can be very disorienting. So from my personal experience, I don't think she made it far from the accident site at all... Also, yes, some of those people living off-grid are strange, but that does not make them a killer.

 

[minazoe]

still no news about Maura. Checking in here. such a strange story. unfortunately there is a lot of secrecy around Maura and her life, which I feel there are some skeletons that the family are withholding for big or small reasons. MOO

 

[teeandcee]

I think (correct me if I'm wrong) but it was someone from the Red Cross calling Bill. I do idmit it's weird, why would someone from the Red Cross call that soon and be "whimpering and slightly sobbing". I wonder if Maura was held captive, and some how got to her phone, chilling....

Oh, you know, I think you're right. I have a vague recollection of that being solved, although the whimpering is bizarre.

 

[Pettibon Junction]

still no news about Maura. Checking in here. such a strange story. unfortunately there is a lot of secrecy around Maura and her life, which I feel there are some skeletons that the family are withholding for big or small reasons. MOO

I don't think the secrets are all THAT profound. John Healy found them out very, very early and they only became public knowledge after James Renner interviewed him. Healy, for his part, concluded that Maura's troubles were only significant to her disappearance inasmuch as they set her on her path north that day. After the crash, he's adamant that she met with foul play by an opportunistic predator.

As for Maura's family, consider recent interviews from Fred, from Kathleen. Is it any surprise that, in their grief, they elect to remember Maura for the potential she once held and through the lens of their love for her rather than the mistakes she made or the demons she harbored? Personally, I don't find it all that strange at all and actually, it is quite common for people who've lost loved ones to apply a sort of halo effect to their memory. Go to the funeral of the biggest jerk you've ever met and you'll find someone in tears eulogizing him as a good-time charlie who loved to laugh and had fun. (Not that Maura was a bad person - far from it, IMHO - just troubled and ill-equipped to deal with the weight of what she was dealing with or to even speak of it.)

Grief does strange things to people, both the survivors as well as the memory of the lost. Sure, Fred may be grieving a ghost in a way, as Maura was a complex, three-dimensional adult woman who, though young, was experiencing the pain of growing into the person she might have one day been rather than the open-faced, smiling tomboy he coached in track. But that doesn't mean that there was anything incredibly out of the ordinary or sinister going on behind the scenes. Rather, Maura's problems were pretty mundane. You could walk onto any college campus in America and it wouldn't take you too long to find someone with a similar background to hers. I know my interest in this case came from my own identification with Maura and I'd wager that the ongoing appeal this story holds is because so many others feel the same way.

The biggest tragedy, apart from her disappearance and whatever horrors that might have entailed, is how alone Maura must have felt toward the end. That all of us are here now is a testament to the very contrary.

 

[avamonroe]

Indeed I do. He became a POI because he drove a red truck and was in the area that night. (The company he worked for was right down the road from the intersection.) Also, he apparently had a reputation locally for being weird and aggressive toward women (ie stalking an ex). He wound up serving overseas with the National Guard.

He’s also “connected” politically, as his father is married to the Grafton County Attorney. I’m convinced that all the rumors of coverups, conspiracies, and contractors burying bodies under their houses comes directly from inflated stories about this guy.


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Do you think he is a viable suspect? Or just rumours out of control? Could that have been who Butch was afraid of if those rumours of him being scared of someone powerful are true?

 

[Pettibon Junction]

Do you think he is a viable suspect? Or just rumours out of control? Could that have been who Butch was afraid of if those rumours of him being scared of someone powerful are true?

I honestly don't know. I just know that his name is never, ever mentioned whereas Forcier, Moulton, Greg Floyd, the Glynns (aka the Loon Mountain brothers), and every single police officer under the rainbow are everywhere. It's curious. My gut says that on the surface, he's exactly the kind of person Maura might trust enough to accept a ride from.

Again, the police have been very tight-lipped with regard to possible suspects so it'd be easy for the rumor mill to gin up a bunch of nonsense. But unlike some of the aforementioned names, this fellow hasn't been scrutinized to nearly the same extent so if the tests on the wood chips recovered from Claude Moulton rule him out, then this guy should be looked at next.

 

[~Boudicca~]

I don't understand why everyone thinks it is just so highly improbable that she wasn't picked up be someone with bad intent. She was practically a billboard advertisement for it. Alone, it's dark out, no cell service, young female, vulnerable position, impaired judgement (from the booze), pending DUI so she wants to avoid the cops.
It doesn't necessarily have to be a "serial killer" that picked her up. And she doesn't necessarily have to have been picked up right at the scene. It could have happened further down the road. She could have started sprinting toward wherever she thinks there would be cell service, underestimates just how far out she is from things, and getting into someone's car starts to look really, really appealing.
There's what, a 7 minute window for this to happen? That's plenty of time for someone to scoop her up, unseen. People have disappeared in less time than that. She was a prime target for a person looking score...whatever.


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[jslk]

I don't know much about the science of dogs and scent, does the disappearance of Maura's scent abruptly in the road definitely mean she got into a vehicle as opposed to any other explanation?

 

[leilarose68]

So many conspiracy theorists and loony birds get attracted to this kind of case, it's so unfortunate. The arrogance of some people to pretend that they know more about the case than anyone is truly astounding.

 

[LucyOso]

So many conspiracy theorists and loony birds get attracted to this kind of case, it's so unfortunate. The arrogance of some people to pretend that they know more about the case than anyone is truly astounding.

In what context are you saying this? Thanks