here is another article concerning the partial human skull found recently in Littleton which isn't too far from where Maura went missing.
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Police searching in Littleton horse cemetery after skull found
By LORNA COLQUHOUN
Union Leader Correspondent
Published Jul 8, 2011 at 5:20 pm (Updated Jul 8, 2011) ShareThis
LITTLETON - The little patch of land under Interstate 93 has been the final resting place of three horses since 1919, visited occasionally by people who leave pennies and wildflowers on their graves.
On Friday afternoon, investigators from the state's Major Crime Unit were investigating the discovery of what appears to be a human skull.
They could be seen digging inside the small, fenced-in plot at the Wallace Horse Cemetery and at least one family planning to visit was turned away from the gate by police.
"A small quantity of bones have been found there," said senior Assistant Attorney General Jeff Strelzin. "They will be removed and examined to determine whether they are human or animal."
Later Friday afternoon, he said it appears to be a "partial human skull."
Strelzin said the bones were discovered Thursday night and investigators responded Friday. Outside the fence, a tent was pitched and a stepladder could be seen set up among the graves.
A cadaver dog was dispatched to further check the area for other remains, but none were found, he said.
Since it is a cemetery, he said, "it's not uncommon for this type of thing to happen," and typically, the remains are found to not be human. If they are determined to be human, they are usually "historic," he said.
"When they are, it is checked out every time and that's what we are doing here," he said. "We really don't know a lot right now."
The remains recovered will now be sent to the state medical examiner's office for further examination by a forensic anthropologist, Strelzin said.
The horses buried at the cemetery are Maude, Mollie and Maggie. According to Littleton history, Maude and Mollie were a matched pair of bay Morgan horses who were a familiar site around town when owners Eli and Myra Wallace hitched them up for buggy rides, beginning in the 1890s.
The couple, who ran a stationary shop, never had children, and town history terms the horses as "the only family they ever had."
Years later, in 1919, when Myra Wallace was 57 and the horses were around 30, she was diagnosed with cancer and one day, the couple made the decision to put down the horses. They were laid to rest in the pasture where they had spent their lives, with granite stones marking their graves.
After Myra Wallace died, the local butcher, whose horse, Maggie, pulled the wagon for the Central Market, gave her to Eli Wallace, which made the loss of his wife and the mares easier to bare. He cared for Maggie until his death in 1929, and she died shortly after and buried in the horse cemetery.
As Interstate 93 was being laid out through Littleton in the 1970s, its course was altered slightly so as not to disturb the horse cemetery, according to the town history.
