You should probably clarify that this is of your opinion.
Regularity drinks and drives? According to the
first accident report on
February 8th 2004, the responding officer wrote down that the cause of the crash was due to
operator inattention. She was never cited for a DUI. The party she attended involved alcohol and drinking. That would be fair to categorize it as social drinking. You even state:
Social drinkers are just those that drink while they are in a social situation and make sure it is a safe location to be drinking. The girl hosting the party, Sara, stated that they were doing some heavy drinking but she claimed to have been blacked out. Her memory of the party was a blur. Maura could have allowed for enough time to pass for her to drive home. Granted, it was late and snowing. She may have been tired and started to lose focus. We do not know except for what the information tells us. I'm just rather perplexed on how you define that as someone with drinking issues?
The drug issues seems possible but again, unless you can point me in a direction that claims she or her friends were involved in using drugs, it's simply your opinion. We all make statements based on what we believe and for full disclosure, you need to clarify that so you don't confuse readers that what you're stating is fact. It's not.
The second accident - She purchased $38.31 worth of alcohol before departing from UMass. So how do we come to the conclusion that she was actually drinking? In the
second police report, Cecil Smith stated that he saw a box of Franzia wine in the back seat. However it wasn't mentioned in the report that it was opened. The open container might have been the Cherry Coke bottle, which according to
Cecil Smith, it was found underneath the car with red liquid that smelled like alcohol. Sharon Rausch mentioned Maura enjoyed drinking with a piece of red licorice. Could he have smelled that instead? If it was wine, it was never disclosed to the public. For all we know, when the cops were searching the car, they could have accidentally spilled it. The crash couldn't have caused the wine to spill since it comes out of a spout and requires someone to physically push or twist the spigot to allow the wine to pour out. Here's a
video of people trying to break a wine bag with no success. (VOLUME WARNING: DO NOT WEAR HEADPHONES) Erinn Larkin mentioned on episode two of her podcast, that she attempted to spill a box of wine in a car but with no success. Also, she proposed that maybe the red liquid in the soda bottle could have been coolant? In the possessed property report, Maura had alumaseal and power steering fluid. Why would she have these? Her car was in bad shape. Aside from the rag in the tailpipe suggestion, Fred may have taught her routine maintenance. It would make sense given the car troubles she was having but only Fred would know that answer. Then the stains on the headliner might have been anti-freeze or some other liquid that came from the engine as a result of the crash. Butch Atwood stated that seemed like she had been drinking but was never intoxicated. Since he was speaking from a distance, he wouldn't have been able to make that determination. He woudln't have seen dilated pupils or smell the scent of alcohol from her breath. The cause of the accident may have been for a multitude of reasons. It was dark and the road is poorly lit. She overestimated the turn, became distracted, and spun out as a result of it. what if she was feeling fatigue? The reason vary. It's possible she could have been drinking, though, you can make a case for why she wasn't. In my opinion, I don't think she wad drunk. Granted, if she was drinking, when did she start? Was it as she was driving up to New Hampshire or was it an hour before the crash? Highly unlikely she was drinking and driving all the way up to the crash site from UMass and if she did start an hour before, then she stopped somewhere. Though, why travel all the way to New Hampshire to drink when you can stop at a pub in town? It doesn't add up.