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

[OldSteve]

(Although, I have no experitse or even knowledge on this matter)

but keep in mind that Maura (I don't believe) was just taking lecture-style classes at the time she went missing. She was in clinicals which I would assume would warrant more notice if a student just didn't show up as opposed to a student not showing up for a lecture that has 100's of students present.

I thought she was about to begin clinical's - they had not begun yet.
CMIIW

 

[scoops]

There is a small white sign with green lettering that says "you are entering the white mountains region" and when you actually enter the white mountain national forest there is a big brown state park sign saying so. I am a local also so I'm not sure why a local would deny this. The dunkin donuts is in woodsville, nh. Wells river is in Vermont just across the big green bridge over the Connecticut river from woodsville. Everything else is as you say.

Ah, thanks for the clarification.

I stopped and ate at the Dunkin's Donut and I had forgotten that you don't just go through wells river to get to Rt. 112 when you depart the interstate.

 

[scoops]

I thought she was about to begin clinical's - they had not begun yet.
CMIIW

Just going off of memory (from past research), I think she had begun clinicals and had returned her borrowed lab coat to a fellow nursing student prior to going missing.

As I understood it, Maura would've had a blended schedule of both lecture style classes and clinicals in a program where earning your spot was very competitive. They had a waiting list just to get to where Maura was and that included securing your spot at one of the various clinical locations. (Norwood, Holyoke etc.)

But I am definitely not a nursing student expert, so I may have misunderstood something.

Maura was a junior and was past all of her general study classes and was an official member of the nursing program. So again, that to me sounds like if you skip or miss out on it, you would be noticed a lot more than if you just hadn't showed up for your philosophy 101 lecture.

 

[scoops]

come to think about it, I think Maura was a senior when she went missing. She had been in the nursing progam for over a year by the time she went missing.

Her college career as I understand it

Aug 2000 ----- December 2001 --- At West Point
Jan/Feb 2002 ------- December 2002 --- Chemical engineering major at UMASS
Jan/Feb 2003 ------- Feb 9, 2004 ----- Nursing program at UMASS

 

[Tssiemer]

Nursing takes 4 years at least for a bsn. I did one calendar year of nursing school after getting my bachelors and choked under the pressure. I failed organic chemistry twice. I gave up. It's very trying so I can see her stress.

 

[scoops]

Nursing takes 4 years at least for a bsn. I did one calendar year of nursing school after getting my bachelors and choked under the pressure. I failed organic chemistry twice. I gave up. It's very trying so I can see her stress.

It's a four year program (but as I understand it) first two years are general studies with some nursing prerequisites thrown in as well. In Maura's case, she tested her way into the nursing program at UMASS. She already had her general studies out of the way and scored very well on a test that bypassed her over other students that had been taking nursing prerequisite classes and had thought they were in line to get into the program.

 

[I Must Break You]

I agree that a 21 year old might take more risks regarding a crappy car than an older person might, but here is where I have a problem with Maura's case:

According to Fred Murray, Maura's car needed to be completely replaced with an entirely different car. To me, a person would only do this if their current car was either not running at all, was in such bad shape that the headache of the repairs was not worth it anymore, or the owner was now living in better circumstances and decided to upgrade.

So here's what we do know: Maura was just a college student and not a rich one. She was not poor, but she was not rich. She went to school full time and still worked two part time jobs. Another point: her father said he had $4,000 to buy her a new (used) car. That sounds like a totally expected amount for a solidly middle class father with four children to come up with for one of his daughters. So far, this sounds reasonable. Fred Murray did not have $20,000 to blow on a new car for his college-aged daughter and Maura did not have that kind of money either. Keep this in mind because this is important to my overall point.

Now according to Fred, Maura needed a new car because her old car was not running well enough to get her to her clinicals. This is where his story gets odd to me. Again, keep in mind that Fred is not rich, and neither is Maura. Fred comes to Amherst 2 weeks after classes start (after a very long break) to buy Maura a completely different car in the tune of $4,000. This is what I find strange. I could see a person with a lot of money spending a lot of money on a new car and not thinking twice about it, but given the fact that Maura worked two jobs while in college, I am assuming that Fred did not have a lot of money to spread around to his kids. So why then would he buy a car for $4,000 instead of just paying to repair the one that Maura already had? It only had to last another 2 years. Why not shop for a car during her break? Unless of course it had just started acting up, in which case I ask, why not just repair it? Is there any evidence that the car had been in the shop at all?

Another thing that we do know: Maura's car made it on a three hour journey without breaking down. So it could not have been the case that the car was in such bad shape that it was not running at all. It clearly was.

Which brings me to: either Maura was lying or Fred is lying. Either Maura told Fred she needed a new car or Fred is telling us she needed a new car. But I find it hard to believe that anyone would completely replace a car that could make it more than 100 miles without breaking down. I makes absolutely no sense to me. In fact, it makes so little sense to me that I am inclined to believe that Fred's stated reason for going up there that weekend simply is not true.

That all seems a bit of a reach to me. As far as I know, and I'm not really to hip to this particular case, it hasn't be said what exactly was wrong with the car. Maybe it was just unreliable, and having a daughter far away I'd imagine you would want her to have a reliable car. My last vehicle was a Jeep Wrangler that I had for over 10 years, but in the last year I had it it really started acting up. Sometimes it would run great, sometimes it would barely run or not even turnover, one time even completely shut off while I was driving. I have a limited but working knowledge of cars and after replacing the battery and cables myself, replacing the starter myself and having the shop replace the ignition, all to the tune of well over a grand, the problems would still persist at intermittent times. I had my Dad, who used to be a mechanic take a look at it, and he had a few theories but wasn't sure and fixing everything he thought it may be would have cost more than it was worth for what was at the time a 12 year old Jeep (I bought it used). So I just crossed my fingers everytime I got behind the wheel for a few months while I looked for a new vehicle, traded it in eventually.

My point, nothing I have seen in regards to the car is fishy. My Jeep could have surely made a three or even twenty hour trip, but that doesn't mean I would have wanted to drive it that far or long (especially after it shut off on the highway one day).

 

[Fireweed]

The reason many of us think the car thing is fishy, is that we only have Fred's word for it, and he has told many lies and held back on giving up information that might help to locate his daughter. Were this not the case, I would likely have not even questioned the whole car thing.

 

[Curiosum]

I don't have any experience with nursing clinicals beyond seeing nursing students at the hospitals I have worked at. Usually it seems like they have a patient assigned to them along with another nurse (who is truly responsible for caring for that patient) and they care for the patient under that nurse's supervision. Or at least it seems like their preceptor nurses are always pushing them forward to "tell the doctor X" (and really I'm not a scary doctor---I don't yell, I'm probably younger than many of them, etc) and they always look so scared. So if this is how Maura's clinical rotation was set up then I'm sure it would be noticed if she wasn't there.

 

[scoops]

I don't have any experience with nursing clinicals beyond seeing nursing students at the hospitals I have worked at. Usually it seems like they have a patient assigned to them along with another nurse (who is truly responsible for caring for that patient) and they care for the patient under that nurse's supervision. Or at least it seems like their preceptor nurses are always pushing them forward to "tell the doctor X" (and really I'm not a scary doctor---I don't yell, I'm probably younger than many of them, etc) and they always look so scared. So if this is how Maura's clinical rotation was set up then I'm sure it would be noticed if she wasn't there.

Very good point.

If you tell your nursing faculty and employers you are sick, then they may want a day-to-day status from you on when you can get back in the swing of things.

If you use the death in the family excuse and say you will be gone for a week, they (IMO) are going to not bother or try and get in contact with you until the week has passed.

As I understand it, clinicals at UMASS could've taken place at hospitals or at nursing homes, but the important thing to note is that there were select spots available per semester. And once those spots were filled, everyone else that didn't secure a spot was screwed and had to wait until the next semester to try and re-sign up for a clinicals spot. and there was a long waiting list.

So, with all that into account, I would say Maura's absence would have been missed and she would've lost out on valuable time (that would've been very hard to make-up) if she in fact was planning on returning to school.

Maura was in fact in Clinicals.

On the day she went missing, she left a phone message to a fellow student (who would drive Maura to clinicals) and told this student that she was going to be away for a week and that she had swung by (earlier in the morning) and dropped off her lab coat and laid it on the person's bed "In case the friend needed the coat that week".

 

[Gene S.]

My point, nothing I have seen in regards to the car is fishy.

In addition to what Fireweed said, I find it fishy that if he was truly in Amherst to buy a car for Maura that he didn't actually buy a car for Maura or at least put down a deposit on one. I believe he has claimed that they found a car to buy and he intended to return to Amherst at a later date to purchase it. Maybe there are used car dealers that will hold a particular car for a potential buyer for a week without at least a deposit, but I doubt there are many.

I also find it a bit odd that he volunteers early in the UMass police interview that he had $4,000 in cash with him with which to buy a car--that seems a strange detail to include when you're providing information to the police about your missing daughter. Wouldn't most people simply say "I came up to look for a used car with her, we looked at several places and then returned to my hotel"? Why add specifically how much cash you had with you? With the UMass interview being so soon after her disappearance, I wonder if Fred didn't know the scope or direction of the police investigation at that time and was concerned they would check his bank records and see that he had withdrawn $4,000 in cash in multiple ATM transactions. By telling them that the $4,000 was for the car purchase, they might not be as curious as to why he withdrew so much cash right before Maura disappeared.

I think there's much more to Saturday than is known.

 

[KenShabby]

The reason many of us think the car thing is fishy, is that we only have Fred's word for it, and he has told many lies and held back on giving up information that might help to locate his daughter. Were this not the case, I would likely have not even questioned the whole car thing.

This, in addition to the fact that cars played a prominent role in Maura's story during the strange four days prior to her going missing. In that time, she apparently had two car accidents (with two different vehicles) that we know of, and some speculate that Maura and/or her car might have been involved in yet another accident (a hit and run), which occurred within an hour or two of her having an emotional breakdown at her night job. This latter thing might be entirely a coincidence, but this case is full of strange tangents and angles like this. So, cars.

 

[southernyankee]

(Been away for a bit but wandering back here + mostly caught up on this thread...)

Paying for anything in cash - but especially in the thousands of dollars, for a middle-class family - makes me raise an eyebrow for sure. I bought a used car in 2008 when I lived in Massachusetts, and I put $4k down on it but I brought my checkbook, and went to the dealership having done my homework + prepared (like, transferred savings into checking prepared so I could just write a check)...instead of carrying $4k on my person.

So...why cash? (Even if they were indeed going to buy a car)

And no car was purchased, right? So, did Fred hold on to that $4k? Hmm.

I too would be quite curious as to the history/timing of the withdrawals from the ATMs. (Before or after Thursday's phone call?)

And when was the first anyone besides Fred or Maura made mention to anyone else of looking for a vehicle on Saturday? *After* Monday?

There could be a perfectly understandable explanation for all of these things, I'm sure. I just don't think it's exactly the one we've been given.

 

[scoops]

Fred has mentioned (In the past) that he and Maura had settled on a 2000 or 2001 Geo Prizm and that if she hadn't gone missing, she was going to have the newer car the next week.

I don't know what to make of the 4,000. the witness statement that fred made to police (in the early days) did read oddly I thought.

But these are the type of things, (to go with the notion that police didn't believe Billy or Kathleen during initial interviews) that will cause law enforcement to shut down information flow when it comes to people.

Why would you feed family info, when you don't feel like they are telling you everything they know?

Maybe, there is a good reason to not let them in on everything that you (law enforcement) are doing.


But the most important note to remember is that if police are hiding a ton of secret information, it can't be that big of a bombshell.

Police have always (through every single interview, every year) maintained that there has never been evidence of any crime or foul play.

 

[southernyankee]

Fred has mentioned (In the past) that he and Maura had settled on a 2000 or 2001 Geo Prizm and that if she hadn't gone missing, she was going to have the newer car the next week.

That sounded rather familiar to me...but I just revisited the statement Fred Murray made as taken by UMass Police and a few more things are appearing particularly odd.

(You can check it out here, too: http://🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬.blogspot.com/2014/01/maura-murray_6.html)

He makes no mention of a particular car make or model that they settled on or that point, or that they had actually picked out a car. He says they started looking in Hadley (town adjacent to Amherst) and then headed to Northampton to "a place...that her boyfriend had good luck with." Oh, okay, then they must have had a specific name or an address or memorable directions for that dealership since they sought it out, right? Weird. No mention. But real specific names/locales in talking about going to Amherst Brewing Company later that night and going to North Amherst Motors the following day.

THEN, post-Amherst-accident: He poses questions to himself/Maura/whoever in saying, "Where is a Toyota place? Where can I get a car?" For heaven's sake. Even if he needed a rental Sunday, if they were out shopping for new/used/actual cars on Saturday, wouldn't the general notion of CARS be on their brains + thus they might have a bit of a starting point in figuring that out?

Stay with me for a second here - earlier in the statement, after saying that they went to a place that Maura's boyfriend had good luck with, he says "Then went to Rt 10 west of Northampton." Funny, maybe they would've remembered that there's a Toyota dealership right on Route 10 (King Street) in Northampton if they were indeed around there for that purpose the previous afternoon.

...oh, and the idea of paying $4,000 for what was then a three or four year-old car, even a Geo Prizm, would have likely been quite a deal unless that $4k was simply a down payment. (Think about it for a minute, and then run a search or two if you like.) But Fred never says that was necessarily his budget or anything, so even if one gives him the benefit of the doubt on this, the other lack of details on this subject + the events of Saturday afternoon when compared with some of the particulars given for other points during that weekend stand out to me.

Why would you feed family info, when you don't feel like they are telling you everything they know? Maybe, there is a good reason to not let them in on everything that you (law enforcement) are doing.

I don't disagree in the slightest on this. But I think your next point - that if police are hiding information, etc. - is necessarily important or big or anything, etc. - may not help anyway. Whatever happened Saturday in the Amherst area among Fred, Maura, and others can't + shouldn't be discounted in light of her disappearance. And even moreso if her fate was suicide, as you've attested.

 

[scoops]

That sounded rather familiar to me...but I just revisited the statement Fred Murray made as taken by UMass Police and a few more things are appearing particularly odd.

(You can check it out here, too: http://🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬.blogspot.com/2014/01/maura-murray_6.html)

He makes no mention of a particular car make or model that they settled on or that point, or that they had actually picked out a car. He says they started looking in Hadley (town adjacent to Amherst) and then headed to Northampton to "a place...that her boyfriend had good luck with." Oh, okay, then they must have had a specific name or an address or memorable directions for that dealership since they sought it out, right? Weird. No mention. But real specific names/locales in talking about going to Amherst Brewing Company later that night and going to North Amherst Motors the following day.

THEN, post-Amherst-accident: He poses questions to himself/Maura/whoever in saying, "Where is a Toyota place? Where can I get a car?" For heaven's sake. Even if he needed a rental Sunday, if they were out shopping for new/used/actual cars on Saturday, wouldn't the general notion of CARS be on their brains + thus they might have a bit of a starting point in figuring that out?

Stay with me for a second here - earlier in the statement, after saying that they went to a place that Maura's boyfriend had good luck with, he says "Then went to Rt 10 west of Northampton." Funny, maybe they would've remembered that there's a Toyota dealership right on Route 10 (King Street) in Northampton if they were indeed around there for that purpose the previous afternoon.

...oh, and the idea of paying $4,000 for what was then a three or four year-old car, even a Geo Prizm, would have likely been quite a deal unless that $4k was simply a down payment. (Think about it for a minute, and then run a search or two if you like.) But Fred never says that was necessarily his budget or anything, so even if one gives him the benefit of the doubt on this, the other lack of details on this subject + the events of Saturday afternoon when compared with some of the particulars given for other points during that weekend stand out to me.



I don't disagree in the slightest on this. But I think your next point - that if police are hiding information, etc. - is necessarily important or big or anything, etc. - may not help anyway. Whatever happened Saturday in the Amherst area among Fred, Maura, and others can't + shouldn't be discounted in light of her disappearance. And even moreso if her fate was suicide, as you've attested.

you make some very good points.

I just really don't believe that police have anything that would help resolve this case. You see on TV police holding back some real important information because they have a suspect (for instance) right in sights and they just need that suspect to make one wrong move and they can swoop in and put the final nail in that suspects coffin.

Its been 10 years and the sense that I have is that police suspect that Maura's family hasn't come clean about everything, but also that they don't have any smoking gun to work with either and they are left guessing like everyone else on what happened to Maura that night.

If Maura was involved in that hit and run on campus, it sure would tie up so many loose ends about this case such as her meltdown just an hour (or less) from the hit and run, her father swooping into town that weekend (which was kind of odd to begin with since Maura had just gotten back to school and if she needed a new car, why not deal with it before she began classes) and especially off-campus clinicals.

But, like many things in this case, so many possible directions with very little actual facts to work off of.

 

[pokypuppy67]

I've got to disagree with some of the theories here about the car. I know I'm jumping in in the middle of a case I haven't been focused on so tell me if I'm overlooking something. I just don't see anything strange about Fred wanting to buy Maura a different car. Maybe because my dad was the same way. We were considered upper middle class so perhaps this all comes down to what can be afforded. But when I was in college I had an old car that sometimes acted up and sometimes worked just fine. We could have had it repaired, however, I was a long way from home and I think my dad just wanted to KNOW that I had a more reliable car. For his own peace of mind. While I was on a class trip overseas my parents bought me a new used car and drove it to my college. They picked up my old car and sold it, and they did all this without me even knowing it. I don't see ANYTHING at all wrong with Fred buying Maura a more reliable car. It may just make him feel better knowing that his little girl is safer.

I didn't work through college but I had a friend who had two jobs. Not because he had to, just because he wanted to make his own spending money. I wasn't organized enough to juggle a full schedule AND work, although I was doing a special thesis at the time, which was like having one job.

As far as the 4 grand, yeah...that sounds like a reasonable price. Perhaps they agreed on a set limit as to how much they would spend on the car. Fred brings cash, and only the amount he's planning to spend, so that they don't let their emotions take over and fall for a more expensive car. But then, when they get there they don't find anything they like for $4,000 and they do end up deciding on a more expensive car. Well, since Fred was being prudent by not bringing extra cash they then had to wait another week. That would be a guarantee if my dad and I were in this situation. He and I are suckers; we get upsold all the time.

And despite whatever differences Maura and her father might have at times (as my dad and I did), sometimes girls just have their daddies wrapped around their little fingers. It happens.

SOOOO...from my point of view, based on my own experiences, I think my dad would have done exactly that same thing. He would feel better about the safety of my transportation, and bonus, we would get to spend some time together, just poppa and his girl.

Also just wanted to say that in everything I've seen Fred do, it always seemed like he loved his daughter and was desperately trying to find her.

 

[Lolacat]

Very good point.

If you tell your nursing faculty and employers you are sick, then they may want a day-to-day status from you on when you can get back in the swing of things.

If you use the death in the family excuse and say you will be gone for a week, they (IMO) are going to not bother or try and get in contact with you until the week has passed.

As I understand it, clinicals at UMASS could've taken place at hospitals or at nursing homes, but the important thing to note is that there were select spots available per semester. And once those spots were filled, everyone else that didn't secure a spot was screwed and had to wait until the next semester to try and re-sign up for a clinicals spot. and there was a long waiting list.

So, with all that into account, I would say Maura's absence would have been missed and she would've lost out on valuable time (that would've been very hard to make-up) if she in fact was planning on returning to school.

Maura was in fact in Clinicals.

On the day she went missing, she left a phone message to a fellow student (who would drive Maura to clinicals) and told this student that she was going to be away for a week and that she had swung by (earlier in the morning) and dropped off her lab coat and laid it on the person's bed "In case the friend needed the coat that week".

I agree. This is exactly why I think she used the death excuse rather than saying she was sick. I think its very odd that she chose to take time off right at the beginning of term, knowing she would miss important clinicals that she knew she would have to make up (on top of everything else- her two jobs etc) just to take a week off. Why pile even more stress/pressure upon yourself? If she was truly feeling overwhelmed and in desperate need of a break why not take a couple of days off sick and spend it in bed? why drive all that way to the mountains with special keepsakes?

Re: the car, correct me if I am wrong but wasnt another reason why people have questioned it due to the fact that Maura and Fred went out for dinner with her friend Kate that weekend and never even once mentioned the car? That was the entire point of his visit and it never came up. I'm sure I remember reading somewhere that Kate doesnt recall them ever mentioning a car but I could be wrong. I can't recall where I read that.

 

[Gene S.]

The "We went to a place in Northampton that her boyfriend had good luck with" line in Fred's statement to UMass police also strikes me as strange. Assuming the boyfriend Fred is referring to is Billy, he had no connection to Western Massachusetts that I'm aware of (other than Maura attending UMass, of course). I suppose it's possible that Billy once purchased a used car in Western Massachusetts but it doesn't seem very likely that Billy popped in to Hadley/Amherst to visit Maura and decided to buy a used car during his visit.

It would be an interesting reveal if the boyfriend he's referring to is not Billy, but a UMass area one, who would be more likely to have bought a car in the area.

 

[scoops]

The "We went to a place in Northampton that her boyfriend had good luck with" line in Fred's statement to UMass police also strikes me as strange. Assuming the boyfriend Fred is referring to is Billy, he had no connection to Western Massachusetts that I'm aware of (other than Maura attending UMass, of course). I suppose it's possible that Billy once purchased a used car in Western Massachusetts but it doesn't seem very likely that Billy popped in to Hadley/Amherst to visit Maura and decided to buy a used car during his visit.

It would be an interesting reveal if the boyfriend he's referring to is not Billy, but a UMass area one, who would be more likely to have bought a car in the area.

As I understand it, going off of memory and by going over my old billy quotes. He was a frequent visitor to Maura's campus (on weekends) and they would go on hikes together or to local bookstores. So the comment Fred made in his witness statement about Maura's boyfriend getting a car in North Hampton, has never stuck out as odd to me.