NH NH - Maura Murray, 21, Haverhill, 9 Feb 2004 - # 8

[belimom]

It's tuff to hear, but Maura was just your average college girl. Your average college girl who was having a long distance relationship with a guy (Billy) who supposedly cheated on her. How hard is it to believe that she found comfort in another mans arms. Apparently her friends encouraged her to see this man. Just because "we" didn't know doesn't make it hard to believe and I doubt her friends would want her to be thought of in a bad way by the public so that is probabley why this never came out. The fact that it stayed off the boards so long just goes to show you how little anyone has really dug for info on Maura.

I agree, but at the same time, saying she was promiscuous, slept with several track team members, was sad, wanted to run away, couldn't get away form Billy b/c he was physical, etc, all seem like someone who is trying to make investigators stop looking any further. Like blaming the victim. It makes my hinky meter go waaaaaaaay up. MOO

 

[gnomony]

...saying she was promiscuous, slept with several track team members, was sad, wanted to run away, couldn't get away form Billy b/c he was physical, etc, all seem like someone who is trying to make investigators stop looking any further.

How so? Please help me connect the dots here.

 

[goodgirl65]

I agree, but at the same time, saying she was promiscuous, slept with several track team members, was sad, wanted to run away, couldn't get away form Billy b/c he was physical, etc, all seem like someone who is trying to make investigators stop looking any further. Like blaming the victim. It makes my hinky meter go waaaaaaaay up. MOO

It just sounded to me like he was relating his story of what he knew of Maura. It didnt sound to me like his agenda was to stop investigators from searching.

 

[telemag]

And we are back to square one.
Maura didn't run off with Billy
Maura didn't run off with this assistant track coach
Maura just simply ran off (by herself and towards the mountains)

Scoops, unfortunately you hit the nail on the head. I think the only thing that may be a little more clear is Maura's frame of mind although this doesn't really help us as far as knowing what happened to her. One thing that I def wonder about since hearing all this new info is what other men or man did she have in her life at that point. I would find it very hard to believe that Maura was not in touch with another man when she disappeared. If this was the case then how was she contacting him? I know that you can go to Walmart and get a disposable phone, but I am not sure if this was the case back in 04?? Does anyone else have any info on disposable cell phones back then?

 

[telemag]

I agree, but at the same time, saying she was promiscuous, slept with several track team members, was sad, wanted to run away, couldn't get away form Billy b/c he was physical, etc, all seem like someone who is trying to make investigators stop looking any further. Like blaming the victim. It makes my hinky meter go waaaaaaaay up. MOO

Well I personally DO NOT think any less of Maura no matter how many guys she may have or may not have dated or slept with. Now, I'm not sure about the investigators being affected by this news, but I would bet this is not new news to them.

 

[pittsburghgirl]

Well I personally DO NOT think any less of Maura no matter how many guys she may have or may not have dated or slept with. Now, I'm not sure about the investigators being affected by this news, but I would bet this is not new news to them.

Yes, I fully agree. I see absolutely no reason for anyone to "publish" this allegation about Maura's private life when she is of course unable to defend herself. I won't even go into how no one would say the "p" word about a man who slept with more than one woman. What does such a claim do to illuminate her disappearance? The point seems to be to suggest she is a runaway or a suicide, but who she was dating or sleeping with may not have anything to do with what happened after the wreck in NH. And it really bugs me that the family's natural inclination to speak of Maura as they thought of her (successful, happy, or whatever) is presented as sinister or somehow impeding the investigation. Family members and friends who know a victim will only be able to present the person they know; and whether people like a victim or not, their point of view may reflect their own complex motives or an agenda. Investigators know these things and factor them in when they interview.

 

[McSpy]

You just described Santa Claus. I've always had a problem with the theory that Maura would not accept a ride from BA because he was scary or fat or whatever. One thing Maura knew for sure was that he was a school bus driver, unless she just happened to run into someone who steals school buses. Everyone tries so hard to describe him in the worst possible way, stinky, fat, ugly mean. So many have theorized that she would wait for a more suitable ride and then they usually describe him as "a nice looking young man" Yeah I'm sure there were plenty of those types out there that night riding around looking for girls to kill. The only way I see her getting into a car was if it was a woman or a man with a woman.

If it was Maura that was spotted 5 miles away then we can at least theorize that until she was seen by the man coming home from work that A. she hadn't seen any cars until this man B. She had seen a car or cars and hid just like she did when she saw this man C. Someone did ask her if she needed a ride and refused. I don't find C too likely since she seemed to not want to take any rides. Why? well she refused a ride from BA and ran off the road when she saw another car headed her way. It was dark by the time she saw the second man so she had no way of knowing who was driving any car that past her on the road so how could Maura be waiting to take a ride from a nice young man when she would have had to literally wait for the car to stop and turn the inside light on for her to see who was in the car!!

I disagree. Looks matter with first impressions.
I can see someone pulling up to her and asking if she needed help.
After running down a pitch dark road in the cold for an hour, 2 hours or 3, I can see her considering a ride.

 

[McSpy]

It appears Maura and her father were gung ho on hiking 4,000 footers in the prior months before Maura went missing.

A few other mountains to mention are Camel's Hump and Mt. Mansfield.

Why are these significant? They are both mountains hiked by the Murray's in the months before she went missing as well and they are both in the Green Mountains directly eight miles away from STOWE VERMONT.

To better get a picture of what I am talking about (to include the berkshires another place of interest in the Maura case) here is a valuable link

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:NortheastAppalachiansMap.jpg
The known spots Maura mapquested or tried to get info about before she left her dorm are (Stowe Vermont, the Berkshires, and Burlington Vt while she ended up in the white mountains at which time she went missing.

Can anyone find the common trend in Maura's mapquest searches and the location she ended up at (white mountains)?

One other note: Where Maura wrecked was technically in the white mountain national forest (In
fact there is a welcoming sign to the forest once you first turn into it off of the 302 in wells river) but Maura hadn't driven far enough to
actually reach any mountains or big hiking spots. She would've had to continue in the direction she was heading (east on rt. 112) at least 15 more miles to start to get into some of the mountain areas and hiking spots) While she didn't make it that far because of the wreck, that is precisely where she was headed (towards the same area she had hiked before with her dad just recently before going missing).

Her father seems to think she was heading to the Bartlett area. I also heard that people in the area don't generally travel down Rt.112 in the winter to get to the towns on the other side of the National forest, because it is more hazardous. They go around on Rt. 302. Her father also said that she didn't know the Woodsville/Haverhill area. I think she wasn't acustomed to traveling to NH from UMass Amherst.

 

[McSpy]

I agree, but at the same time, saying she was promiscuous, slept with several track team members, was sad, wanted to run away, couldn't get away form Billy b/c he was physical, etc, all seem like someone who is trying to make investigators stop looking any further. Like blaming the victim. It makes my hinky meter go waaaaaaaay up. MOO

It is interesting that he said she just stopped seeing him after they had a hot and heavy relationship, then moves on to say she slept with other track members, that she was promiscuous, and that Billy was physical and controlling. To me, it sounded like he was sour grapes and hurt that she broke up with him.

 

[telemag]

I disagree. Looks matter with first impressions.
I can see someone pulling up to her and asking if she needed help.
After running down a pitch dark road in the cold for an hour, 2 hours or 3, I can see her considering a ride.

You could be right, but the fact he was driving a school bus should have made her feel a little more comfortable about him. You know I have always thought it a little strange as to how she responded to him. I mean not the fact that she maybe was scared, but how she was just a little too quick it seemed to want him gone. Maura seemed to immediately leave the scene almost like she knew where she wanted to go. Maura could have knocked on anybodies door for help. Up until today no one had any idea as far as Maura seeing another man although people had speculated and I was one of them. So now can we assume that it was possible that she was going to meet yet another man? I don't think that is too much of an assumption to make. Makes me wonder what else there is too know. Didn't at one time LE state they has someone in mind as far as who could have been responsible for Maura's disappearance?

 

[telemag]

http://mauramurray.blogspot.com/2011/09/to-maura-if-youre-out-there.html#comments

Honestly this is just starting to get a little too weird for me.

 

[scoops]

More on Maura's possible destinations and an article excerpt in which Billy's mom addresses something Fred had chillingly mentioned to all of his children.


This is an excerpt from an article done by the New Hampshire Union Leader in 2007, quoting Fred Murray

Murray has many fine memories of runs and hikes with Maura, but one of the best was the autumn before she disappeared.

"We were concluding our collection of 4,000-footers. I was doing the last three I hadn't done." One day, they hiked to Owl's Head; the next day 23 miles on three 4,000-foot peaks.
"Then she whipped out of her knapsack for finishing my 48th, a Long Trail Ale, and handed it to me on the summit of West Bond.
" It was typical Maura," Murray said.

This was just months before Maura went missing that her and her father hit up these mountains in the White Mountains (the place Maura went missing from)

Here is another excerpt that I had already posted on here before but will do again
This is from an article done by a boston globe correspondent.

"Murray's father said he also discovered a note card that mentioned Burlington among many personal belongings she had packed in her car. The two last visited the northern Vermont city on Columbus Day weekend, when they hiked nearby Camel's Hump Mountain and Mount Mansfield."

This article was written just 12 days after Maura went missing. These mountains specifically Mount mansfield and camel's hump are in the stowe vermont area.

Does nobody seriously not see a link about the places Maura was searching the day she went missing (stowe vermont, Burlington, Berkshires) to the fact that she was interested in heading for the mountains.

Notice she didn't have one specific place in mind which would kind of rule out the "meeting someone" theory. Stowe vermont is quite far from the White mountains (Just under three hours apart from one another). If Maura "had plans for a new life or plans to go somewhere specific" she wouldn't have been scrambling to find a place to go with such a variety in distance on the very same day she went missing.

Onto Fred and Sharon,
Just something to ponder and both Fred and Sharon have said publically that neither one of them believe Maura has taken her own life, but it is hard to get around this quote .

this excerpt from an article also came from the new hampshire leader union in 2007

Early on, her father, Fred Murray, briefly considered Maura may have committed suicide.

When police assembled the Murray and Rausch families to brief them on the investigation, Maura's father "moaned and rubbed his head and said, 'Oh, no,' " according to Sharon Rausch, the mother of Billy Rausch, Maura's then-boyfriend.

"I remember Fred said, 'I always have told the kids when I got old and worthless I was going to climb my favorite mountain with a bottle of Jack Daniels and drink myself to death.' That was emotional. He thought what if there was something he didn't know about," Rausch said.

 

[scoops]

Her father seems to think she was heading to the Bartlett area. I also heard that people in the area don't generally travel down Rt.112 in the winter to get to the towns on the other side of the National forest, because it is more hazardous. They go around on Rt. 302. Her father also said that she didn't know the Woodsville/Haverhill area. I think she wasn't acustomed to traveling to NH from UMass Amherst.

I agree that she was likely heading towards the Bartlett area because that is the hub city for many of the mountains she had hiked with her dad and with her not being familiar with wells river and haverhill etc... I think she thought she was taking a short-cut when it would've been better like you point out to stay on the 302.

I also found this out when I visited the area and was staying in the town of littleton. I stayed on I-91 to get to littleton when i could've cut through wells river and taken the 302 right into littleton. In the summer time, cutting through towns is actually faster than driving all interstate for instance, but in the winter time like when Maura went missing, cutting through towns to get to bartlett would've likely been much slower (But looking at a map, you would think the 112 would be a direct shortcut right into bartlett but you are not accounting for snow and curvy roads and dangerous driving conditions that will slow you down tremendously).

 

[gnomony]

Yes, I fully agree. I see absolutely no reason for anyone to "publish" this allegation about Maura's private life when she is of course unable to defend herself. I won't even go into how no one would say the "p" word about a man who slept with more than one woman. What does such a claim do to illuminate her disappearance? The point seems to be to suggest she is a runaway or a suicide, but who she was dating or sleeping with may not have anything to do with what happened after the wreck in NH. And it really bugs me that the family's natural inclination to speak of Maura as they thought of her (successful, happy, or whatever) is presented as sinister or somehow impeding the investigation. Family members and friends who know a victim will only be able to present the person they know; and whether people like a victim or not, their point of view may reflect their own complex motives or an agenda. Investigators know these things and factor them in when they interview.

I judge that Renner isn't selecting evidence for publication with an eye toward proving a hypothesis. I imagine he's discovering whatever he can and publishing whatever he finds, pausing only long enough to do some preliminary verification. That's what an investigative reporter does. There won't be any way to determine which facts are relevant except in retrospect. Right now, every detail is potentially relevant. I'm glad he's doing this work...

 

[Jane Birch]

Honestly, y'all, I can't understand why everyone makes so much of the fact that she didn't take teh bus driver up on his offer (which, if I recall correctly, was not for a ride--he was 100 yards from his house. There was no ride to be offered. If my memory serves, what he offered was help, his warm house, and a chance to use the phone).

From the day we are born, women have it drilled into us never to get into cars with people we don't know, right? I mean, what's the rule for rape/abduction/carjacking scenarios? Anyone?

The number one rule is DON'T GET IN THE CAR WITH HIM. If you get in the car with him, you're dead.

I'm not exaggerating, or being a jackass. This is what they teach you.

And here we all are criticizing Maura for not accepting a ride from a stranger. Yet in how many other scenarios do we criticize women for doing exactly what Maura DIDN'T do? The only reason we know this man turned out to be harmless is a little thing called "hindsight." Here was some guy in the mountains saying "Come to my house and get warm, use the phone while we wait for the towtruck." My reaction, as a woman, is thank you but are you NUTS? She had no way of knowing. She had to make a judgment call--and it's quite likely her judgment was a little rattled, given events of the last few moments, to say nothing of whatever had happened in the last few days to make her so upset on Thursday, so introspective over the weekend, upset about her dad's car, taking off from school on Sunday, heading to the mountains near dark on a Monday, etc. She guessed, based on everything she'd been taught from the moment she was born. Would you like to take a ride from a stranger, a man, which would put you potentially alone with him in a place where you may not have access to help? Without all the other info we have now about her disappearance, just basing it on those parameters, NO THANK YOU I WILL STAY WITH MY CAR AND FAKE IT. Period.

Regarding the possible scenario of her being five miles down the road and later accepting a ride from someone else entirely, that does make a certain amount of sense, despite all I just said. She says to Atwood no thanks, I don't need help, I got this. She goes four or five miles down the road. It's dark. It's cold. The road is crappy. Her nose is running, she can't see, if she's been drinking the alcohol may be wearing off, worse yet she may have to pee like a racehorse, she still hasn't gotten somewhere with cell reception or a bathroom or anyplace like whatever it is she's looking for, and she's freezing her *advertiser censored* off. She's not wearing good shoes, so her feet are probably soaking wet and freezing. Somebody stops and rolls down their window and offers a ride.

This is a completely different decision than the one she made 45 minutes ago in the relative warmth and safety of her car. And she may well be thinking by this point, "This is stupid. I should have just gone with that guy when he offered back there."

It could happen.

I have no idea whether or not it did, but to those people who are saying she wouldn't accept a ride later if she didn't accept one from Atwood--go out and stand in a snowbank for a half-hour and then rethink that answer.

 

[pittsburghgirl]

Jane Birch, you are absolutely right. She would have been a thousand kinds of stupid to accept the bus driver's offer. And as a highly conditioned distance runner, she likely had a lot of confidence in her ability to walk out of there. Don't get in the car, don't go in a strange man's house, don't go anywhere with someone you don't know. It's drilled into women from the time we are old enough to walk. No woman can KNOW what stranger is safe. Gavin de Becker, the security expert, says kids should be taught to approach adult women in public spaces if they are lost; these concerns are also behind posted neighborhood "safe houses" along routes where kids walk to school.

I have always thought it was possible Maura thought she was accepting a "safe" ride, possibly from law enforcement or someone else that lowered her concerns. An older man, a house? No way. But if she tried to walk out and the cold, the dark, and her unfamiliarity with the area
wore her down, she also may have been more vulnerable to the sort of assault that has allowed women in full daylight, sometimes in great conditions or public areas, to be abducted--e.g., Dru Sjodin (parking lot, on phone with boyfried); Kristi Cornwell (walking in daylight, on phone with boyfriend); Rachel Louise Cooke (jogging in daylight, seen at end of jog, almost home). We know these women were abducted, not runaways or suicides, so it is not a stretch to think that, after even an hour onnthe road in the dark, Maura could have been vulnerable to a predator who saw an opportunity and took it.

Nothing could make me happier than to learn that Maura is alive. I am sure that her family and friends feel the same. But I sadly think that it is unlikely. As to Mr. Renner, I hope he is able to definitively solve this case. I have no objection to good investigative reporting. I am skeptical because the blog site, driven by astonishing claims of new evidence, seems geared to market a book. Two reporters on the Columbine shootings each did terrific books; each took ten years of hard reporting, even with the head-start of their own published work, and neither needed to leak sensational claims via the internet. So investigative reporters, even those doing books, don't need to do what he is doing, and in fact, he may actually impede his own progress by alienating people and leaking what he gets. I just don't like what he is doing, e.g., the slant he gives to what he learns about her personal life without balancing a jilted boyfriend with other information or "publishing" the bank loan tip instead of investigating it and verifying its accuracy or lack of it beforehand. (Sadly) I care enough about the case to read to read that stuff, which
makes me feel bad about myself.

 

[gnomony]

http://mauramurray.blogspot.com/2011/09/her-best-friend.html

Chat with MM's "Best Friend"

 

[telemag]

So we are all trying to figure out what happened to Maura from the time she refused a ride, phone call for help, warm house, one or all the above. Either way she said no to all of them obviously and when BA offered to make a call she again said no. So the question that I have was what was Maura thinking. Probabley easier to guess the lottery numbers. I still can't help but wonder. From what I know about the area which is very little there was a house just across the street. For whatever reason she did not want to go there. Then there's BA's house right down the road. She obviously saw him pull in there or at least she most likely did. So within minutes or even seconds? she starts to walk. This is where things get fuzzy for all of us. Did she start to walk with the intentions of waiting for another ride offer? Was her only intention to just get the heck out of there because she didn't want to get in trouble? Was she thinking of going to a different house further away so LE could not find her? If she did have access to a phone who would she have called? When she said she called AAA did she realize she had no cell reception? This could be important in my mind because if she didn't even try to make a call this in my mind means she had no one to call and was not meeting with anyone. She did take her phone, but we have no way of knowing if she ever tried to call anyone. We also have the eye witness who says he saw someone who looked like Maura 5 miles down the road. If this is a real sighting then she was wandering for a long time. No one else has ever said they saw anyone. Is this because that road was so sparcely traveled? We all have so many questions and no one seems to have one answer to any of them!!.

 

[telemag]

Does anyone remember the place that Maura called to rent a condo?

 

[OldSteve]

Said really well Jane!
Even Butch said he considered himself a scary figure, IIRC he was 350lbs!! She had no way to tell if he lived alone, was married or a killer in either case. Your point about he was not offering a ride, but a just going to his house is very good - hadn't thought about it like that.