NH NH - Maura Murray, 21, Haverhill, 9 Feb 2004 - #10

[BillNH]

I agree. IMO, the suicide thing is a possibility, BUT so are several other scenarios. It is a matter of opinion at this point. I think we all agree she was an emotional wreck.

JMO

I may be the only one but I am not willing to concede that she was an emotional wreck. It makes the suicide theory much neater but it's not a requirement for suicide. A person in emotional distress would be less likely, IMO, to put the level of planning into this trip north that Maura did. The breakdown at work after the phone call is the only evidence of emotion from Maura that I have ever heard of. She then partied with friends and went car shopping with Fred and went to dinner with Fred and Kate. The SBD did not describe the driver of the Saturn as frantic or emotional. I think she had a lot on her mind, whether she was started over or planning to end it all, but not an emotional wreck. Her conduct and actions seemied more that of a person with a plan who was carrying it out in a fairly rational manner.

 

[takeitfromme412]

I agree.... I think maybe she needed a lil break from life a mini vaca if you would..... but once her car spun out, something went terribly wrong..... i really think she was abducted or at a minimum lured..... to have been missing this long without contacting her friends, family and bf..... somthing is very wrong with that.... i do not believe she is missing because she wants to be

 

[Captain_Khan]

However, people on her floor knew about the credit card number theft. So, it is possible they shunned her. I don't know if this was their reaction, but if it happened, Maura could have felt uncomfortable living there.

Just a thought . .

I wonder if this is related to the reason why she left the dorm party and attempted to drive somewhere (presumed to be her father's hotel)?

I could imagine the subject of the party turning to her background, or someone making a snide remark, and Maura deciding that she had to get away to someone who was sympathetic, then accidentally crashing FM's car on the way to see him.

I myself as a youngster went to events that turned sour and made bad decisions regarding how to get away (that thankfully didn't result in grief). I wonder if possible drunkenness/emotional reaction led to the first crash?

This would also tie into my belief that Maura planned to quit UMass and restart her course elsewhere. If she realized she couldn't escape other people's judgement at UMass, maybe she planned to leave and try again where her past would be unknown.

 

[BillNH]

I agree.... I think maybe she needed a lil break from life a mini vaca if you would..... but once her car spun out, something went terribly wrong..... i really think she was abducted or at a minimum lured..... to have been missing this long without contacting her friends, family and bf..... somthing is very wrong with that.... i do not believe she is missing because she wants to be

I think the people in her life were the reason she wanted to disappear or end her life. I will admit it takes some serious determination not to contact anyone if that's what she has done, but that's my prevailing theory. She wanted to get away from her life and the people in it, for good. I look at suicide and starting a new life neck and neck as what happened but I see abduction as the least likely. The window of opportunity was just too small in such a quiet and peaceful area to give it too much weight.

 

[takeitfromme412]

i have to disagree lol, i feel she was abducted after the accident.... but her reasons for heading north IMO was to just get away for a few... not forever

 

[JeannaT]

I don't think I've heard this mentioned much on this board, but I read it in the People feature story a few years ago.

As I recall, her car was found with a rag stuffed into the exhaust. The way it was positioned, the car wouldn't have been able to go very far like that before the engine would quit.

It seems it must have been placed there by someone when she got gas a few miles back.

It seems likely to me that she was heading away for some time alone, when someone victimized her by disabling her car and then following her.

 

[takeitfromme412]

I don't think I've heard this mentioned much on this board, but I read it in the People feature story a few years ago.

As I recall, her car was found with a rag stuffed into the exhaust. The way it was positioned, the car wouldn't have been able to go very far like that before the engine would quit.

It seems it must have been placed there by someone when she got gas a few miles back.

It seems likely to me that she was heading away for some time alone, when someone victimized her by disabling her car and then following her.

i agree.... back when this happened there were reports of a red truk that some thought may have been following her or traveling with her.... i'm from NH and frequent the north country...... there is somethig very very wrong up there with so many unsolved cases dating back to the 60's.... i think the red truck may possibly hold the key as to what happened to her....... and you could be right.... someone stuffing the rag in her exhaust perhaps when she went into the gas station.... however I believe Fred Murray said the rag belonged to Maura.... BUT it's possible it was in plain view, say resting near her back window and someone grabbed it and stuffed it into her tailpipe, causing it to backfire, startle her and hence she spun out on rt 112

 

[scoops]

i agree.... back when this happened there were reports of a red truk that some thought may have been following her or traveling with her.... i'm from NH and frequent the north country...... there is somethig very very wrong up there with so many unsolved cases dating back to the 60's.... i think the red truck may possibly hold the key as to what happened to her....... and you could be right.... someone stuffing the rag in her exhaust perhaps when she went into the gas station.... however I believe Fred Murray said the rag belonged to Maura.... BUT it's possible it was in plain view, say resting near her back window and someone grabbed it and stuffed it into her tailpipe, causing it to backfire, startle her and hence she spun out on rt 112

I have never bought that theory that someone sabotoged mauras car by stuffing a rag in her tailpipe.

That someone would've swooped right in the second Maura crashed and grabbed her. That person would not wait it out and take chances that the school bus driver and potential other witnesses wouldn't help Maura and ruin their abduction plans.

And most notably, if there was an inkling of a percent of a chance that someone stuffed a rag in Maura's tailpipe for plans of something sinister, Maura's father would not have dismissed it so abruptly. He would want that rag tested for dna evidence and he would want it tested the second he learned a rag was in her tailpipe. Maura's father had zero interest in that rag and wanted to move on to something else almost as quickly as law enforcement brought it up to his attention.

 

[goldiegirl]

I have never bought that theory that someone sabotoged mauras car by stuffing a rag in her tailpipe.

That someone would've swooped right in the second Maura crashed and grabbed her. That person would not wait it out and take chances that the school bus driver and potential other witnesses wouldn't help Maura and ruin their abduction plans.

And most notably, if there was an inkling of a percent of a chance that someone stuffed a rag in Maura's tailpipe for plans of something sinister, Maura's father would not have dismissed it so abruptly. He would want that rag tested for dna evidence and he would want it tested the second he learned a rag was in her tailpipe. Maura's father had zero interest in that rag and wanted to move on to something else almost as quickly as law enforcement brought it up to his attention.

Okay, I'm trying to understand your POV regarding the rag and Fred. So, Fred provided a dismissive explanation. I know that you do believe she took her own life, I'm just trying to figure out your position on how the rag/Fred's comments about it could relate. Do you think that it's a mystery how it got up there, but Fred's dismissing it suggests that he wanted to deflect attention from anything that hinted at suicide, or do you believe that it actually did have something to do with a suicide attempt?

 

[scoops]

Okay, I'm trying to understand your POV regarding the rag and Fred. So, Fred provided a dismissive explanation. I know that you do believe she took her own life, I'm just trying to figure out your position on how the rag/Fred's comments about it could relate. Do you think that it's a mystery how it got up there, but Fred's dismissing it suggests that he wanted to deflect attention from anything that hinted at suicide, or do you believe that it actually did have something to do with a suicide attempt?

The chain events actually begin (IMO) with fred desperately trying to get a hold of law enforcement the same day he was notified that his car was found wrecked in new Hampshire and the driver has not came back to claim the car.

Fred wanted to get a hold of police, because he had something urgent he had to tell them regarding his daughter. (this is stated precisely in the 911 transcripts)

According to the lead investigator of Maura's accident and subsequent missing investigation, the first thing out of fred's mouth when he finally got to talk to a live officer (fred had tried several times to reach a specific officer, but could not get a hold of him) was that he feared his daughter had come up to the white mountains to harm herself.

At that point, police had no working theory about Maura Murray, in fact, they knew nothing about the young lady other than she had left the scene of a minor accident the night before.

So with the father introducing the notion that Maura may have wanted to harm herself, then they begin working from that point of view. Because it is all they have to work with at that point.

They have found the rag in Maura's tailpipe and to them, they think it's very odd but they also believe it likely fits with what Maura's father was saying about her.

Fast forward to a couple of days later and Fred is all of a sudden doing a 180 when it comes to why his daughter had come to the white mountains.

IMO, fred is frustrated that they weren't able to locate Maura very early on.

If someone is truly out to harm themselves, you can't give them a 48 hour lead before you even really begin setting out to find them.


But fred does really want his daughter (regardless if its technically already to late-meaning she already took her own life) found and he knows that in order to keep pressure on police pulling all stops in finding his daughter that "a depressed adult fleeing into the mountains" isn't a good enough reason to get the entire community stirred up and working non-stop to find them, once days and weeks begin to pass.

He knows that introducing a boogey man or a bad guy theory that is possibly on the loose looking to snatch up the area's young women, is a great way to keep public pressure on police to put every single resource into solving the case.


Police from very early on to the current present day have always maintained to the public that in the Maura Murray missing case, there is no evidence of foul play.


The rag in the tailpipe (which fred wouldn't have known about until he got to the area and was shown it) actually backed up fred's initial concerns about his daughter coming to the area to harm herself. And Fred wanted to get away from that theory.

While this is my opinion, I am not basing it on hypotheticals. I have read the 911 transcripts for both the night of the accident and the next day and I have put in a ton of research into this case.

I will grant that it still remains an opinion, because Maura has never been found.

But I have studied closely (not just stories) but what key people have said over the years and how consistent they have remained and what kind of patterns have developed.


On the rag itself:

I personally am not convinced that it was put into the tailpipe as an attempt to commit suicide.

If Maura did put it in there for that reason, I think she quickly realized that she would not have enough time to get the job done before police would've arrived on scene and stopped her and likely arrested her for drinking and driving.

So it may have been a futile and snap-decision made by Maura to just end it all right there, but I think she would've gave up on that idea pretty quickly.


Could a rag in a tailpipe lead to someone's death in a car?

there are several stories out there where people have died accidentally from poisoning because exhaust leaked into their passenger side of their car without them realizing it and they perished.

I read the other day about a father who was attempting to clear his car after a major snow storm. His young daughter was waiting in the car while he was outside shoveling snow away and off the car. The tailpipe was clogged with snow and the young girl passed away in the time it took the father to shovel away the snow.

the Buckwild guy and his uncle that died in the truck that got stuck in the mud hole, they had been drinking and got their truck struck somewhere around 3 a.m. in the morning. Instead of just leaving the truck (it happened basically in their back yard), they decided to just sleep in the truck until daylight and then they would attend to the truck. It was cold outside, so they decided to leave the truck running and because the tailpipe was completely stuffed with mud, exhaust had no way of getting out so it fed into their truck and they never woke up.

 

[BillNH]

Just to clear up a little misunderstanding on the rag. In the snow case and buckwild guy above, the tailpipe was not completely blocked. If it was and no exhaust was allowed out the engine would quit. But he tailpipe is designed to push exhaust safely away from the vehicle. If it's partially obstructed or the exit path immediately past the end of the tailpipe is blocked on a way to prevent exhaust from being pushed a safe distance away from the vehicle, then the CO gasses will enter the vehicle. In the buckwild example, the exhaust was underwater/in wet mud. The effect was the same as if you put a straw in your soda and blow into the cup. The exhaust bubbles up right near where it exits the pipe. In buckwilds case, right under the truck, not pushing the gasses away but right up under the vehicle. Vehicles are not airtight so the gasses got inside and killed them. The snow example would be much the same. Any leaks in the exhaust system would make it even worse. Apply as you will to Maura's case, but sitting in the open with ability for the gasses to safely dissapate would not likely result in death. It is also very hard to plug up completely to stall a vehicle. You could not do it by quickly stuffing a rag in the end of the pipe. The exhaust would push it out unless it was jammed in so tightly to not allow the gasses to escape. It would likely never be seen if it was jammed in hat tight.

 

[MysteryMaven]

In regard to Fred Murray, I personally don't think anything he has said or done since his daughter went missing after this one car accident really needs to be criticized. Any parent on earth would ask police for help in finding their child. A person who goes missing after a car accident warrants searches.
I feel like people are really hard on him for what he said and did after the accident, and I think it's just a bunch of white noise.
Fred brought up that she could be suicidal. In fact, the early missing posters referred to Maura Murray as endangered. Does that mean no one should look for her?
We don't know what information he has told police. There is always stuff in a missing person's case that is not open for public knowledge. For all we know, he has told police that he thinks she hit Vasi, was freaked out about that and CC fraud, and was probably suicidal.
I just feel really bad for the guy and I don't think he has anything whatsoever to do with her disappearance, and I'm tired of everything he says being over analyzed. If your child was missing, you would want all kinds of people searching, no matter what the circumstances were and no matter how old they are.
He seems like a tough guy, but one who really loved his daughter and is very worried about her and wants to know where she is. Any parent would fight for their child.

 

[OldSteve]

In regard to Fred Murray, I personally don't think anything he has said or done since his daughter went missing after this one car accident really needs to be criticized. Any parent on earth would ask police for help in finding their child. A person who goes missing after a car accident warrants searches.
I feel like people are really hard on him for what he said and did after the accident, and I think it's just a bunch of white noise.
Fred brought up that she could be suicidal. In fact, the early missing posters referred to Maura Murray as endangered. Does that mean no one should look for her?
We don't know what information he has told police. There is always stuff in a missing person's case that is not open for public knowledge. For all we know, he has told police that he thinks she hit Vasi, was freaked out about that and CC fraud, and was probably suicidal.
I just feel really bad for the guy and I don't think he has anything whatsoever to do with her disappearance, and I'm tired of everything he says being over analyzed. If your child was missing, you would want all kinds of people searching, no matter what the circumstances were and no matter how old they are.
He seems like a tough guy, but one who really loved his daughter and is very worried about her and wants to know where she is. Any parent would fight for their child.

Well said! Totally agree!
Just to personalize a bit - when someone you love goes missing, you say things without really thinking, some are just thoughts that pop into your head.. emotions are running all over the place, and your mind is tangled up. Experienced LE should be aware of this, and not take everything said on face value.

 

[OldSteve]

According to his blog,
"Butch Atwood Given 2 Lie Detector Tests "


http://mauramurray.blogspot.com/2013/11/butch-atwood-given-2-lie-detector-tests.html#comment-form

I noticed James refers to Barbara as his wife - thought they were not really married?

 

[Captain_Khan]

It is also very hard to plug up completely to stall a vehicle. You could not do it by quickly stuffing a rag in the end of the pipe. The exhaust would push it out unless it was jammed in so tightly to not allow the gasses to escape. It would likely never be seen if it was jammed in hat tight.

Agreed. As far as my understanding goes, a rag pushed in lightly would simply blow out, and one jammed in tight would prevent the engine from starting in the first place. There's a sweet spot where it could allow just enough gas out but blow enough back to potentially make a suicide attempt (not imagining that would be very reliable, though).

By all accounts, Maura was driving, then she crashed, then she left. The rag must have entered the tailpipe after she stopped, else the car would be running pathetically and she would not have made it as far as she did. I really doubt that after crashing (which includes meeting Mr. Atwood) she decided to kill herself in such an unreliable way in view of several nearby houses, then give up and bolt.

I think it was there to either (a) prevent someone removing the car, or (b) hide whatever that rag was. Does anyone know exactly what the rag was, or any results of a forensic test on it?

 

[OldSteve]

Don't know how blocking tail pipe would get enough CO2 into car to cause harm, unless exhaust system had a serious hole in it and floor board as well ...
airflow inside car coming from a window, or outside air vent (top of car) would prevent build up, no?

 

[BillNH]

i agree.... back when this happened there were reports of a red truk that some thought may have been following her or traveling with her.... i'm from NH and frequent the north country...... there is somethig very very wrong up there with so many unsolved cases dating back to the 60's.... i think the red truck may possibly hold the key as to what happened to her....... and you could be right.... someone stuffing the rag in her exhaust perhaps when she went into the gas station.... however I believe Fred Murray said the rag belonged to Maura.... BUT it's possible it was in plain view, say resting near her back window and someone grabbed it and stuffed it into her tailpipe, causing it to backfire, startle her and hence she spun out on rt 112

BBM

I don't just frequent the area, I live here. I always take some exception to comments like this since this is one of the safest places on earth to live. The number of unsolved cases is a fraction of what it is elsewhere and many of the missing are likely hikers or other nature oriented people that lost their way or suffered a medical condition. When they disappear up here they are hard to find just because of the vastness of where they could go. Two examples being the 2 sets of remains found while the search for Abigail Hernandez was taking place in Conway a couple weeks ago. 1 body of a missing hiker from a year ago and the remains of a hiker they believe from several years ago. Foul play is not the first choice up here because it's not that frequent, but people from down south of here want to jump to foul play before anything else. That may be how it is where you live, but its not the way it is here. NH has been in the top 3 of safest places to live in the country since record keeping started. There is a reason for that. Yeah there is crime up here, and murder happens, but its rare.

 

[BillNH]

Don't know how blocking tail pipe would get enough CO2 into car to cause harm, unless exhaust system had a serious hole in it and floor board as well ...
airflow inside car coming from a window, or outside air vent (top of car) would prevent build up, no?

The gasses need to accumulate around the vehicle, that could happen in many ways. That's why many vehicle deaths by CO poisoning happen inside a garage or other enclosed space. The gas does not dissipate in that situation. The car does not need to have an exhaust leak or have a hole in the floorboards. Motor vehicles are not airtight, if they were you would blow your windows out if you slammed the door of your car. Heat vents, door seals, even the cutouts for your speakers are direct links to outside air and if that air is full of CO gas, then its coming into your vehicle.

 

[takeitfromme412]

this is a very safe place.... but serial killers and such .... NO ONE PLACE is immune to that.... we have had it hear in NH, in New England........ and i'm sure it will happen again.... or could be happening again
the mountain range areas out west are not a whole lot different than here... of course there are hikers that get lost or die on their trips unexpectedly.... but no matter where any of us live.... people... well girls and women in particular need to really play it safe.... that is sadly why these things happen

 

[scoops]

Just to clear up a little misunderstanding on the rag. In the snow case and buckwild guy above, the tailpipe was not completely blocked. If it was and no exhaust was allowed out the engine would quit. But he tailpipe is designed to push exhaust safely away from the vehicle. If it's partially obstructed or the exit path immediately past the end of the tailpipe is blocked on a way to prevent exhaust from being pushed a safe distance away from the vehicle, then the CO gasses will enter the vehicle. In the buckwild example, the exhaust was underwater/in wet mud. The effect was the same as if you put a straw in your soda and blow into the cup. The exhaust bubbles up right near where it exits the pipe. In buckwilds case, right under the truck, not pushing the gasses away but right up under the vehicle. Vehicles are not airtight so the gasses got inside and killed them. The snow example would be much the same. Any leaks in the exhaust system would make it even worse. Apply as you will to Maura's case, but sitting in the open with ability for the gasses to safely dissapate would not likely result in death. It is also very hard to plug up completely to stall a vehicle. You could not do it by quickly stuffing a rag in the end of the pipe. The exhaust would push it out unless it was jammed in so tightly to not allow the gasses to escape. It would likely never be seen if it was jammed in hat tight.

The lead investigator in her case also believes that Maura would've been unsuccessful if she was trying to end her life by stuffing a rag in the tailpipe, but - according to his quote - that is the only explanation they can come up with on why the rag was put in the tailpipe to begin with.

I guess the question that needs to be answered is would law enforcement think of the rag in the tailpipe as a failed suicide attempt if they had not previously been alerted that Maura may be in a state in which she wanted to do harm to herself?