NH NH - Maura Murray, 21, Haverhill, 9 Feb 2004 - # 4

[Tristan]

I just want to say that I REALLY hope someone who knows something about Maura comes forth...perhaps after seeing the 20/20 show.

SOMEONE somewhere knows what happened to this girl!!

 

[Peabody]

Yes I have thought of that. It is a reasonable question. My main problem with that theory is that she told none of her relatives and not even her boyfriend. Remember she planned this disappearance at least as soon as Thursday night (1am) when she used the alleged upsetting phone call which laid the groundwork to set up the death in the family excuse and which made certain to plant that thought firmly in theminds of someone sure to remember it and later repeat it,security personel. So from Thursday to the following monday is time enough to get help from family. Was she running from them in fear? I don't think she was running in fear of them although it seems she was running.

Really, I do have to get to bed , but before I do:"

It is ***my opinion*** that Maura did not decide to take her trip until the early hours of Monday morning 2/9/04......because:

The UMass Police checked Maura's computer. The *first* evidence of her seeking directions to any location was in the very early morning hours of 2/9/04. These were the directions to Burlington VT done on mapquest and also found in Maura's handwriting on an index card by the family after her belongings had been returned to the *boyfriend* by the Haverhill Police Dept.
This evidence was reported in the media; I believe the first to report it was The Caledonian Record - check archives from 2/9/04 - 2/16/04 www.caledonianrecord.com

She also called her friend late morning of 2/9/04 and left a message that she would not be needing a ride to nursing clinicals "for the rest of the week" and that the borrowed nursing jacket had been returned and laid on her (the friend's) bed in case she needed it "while I am gone". This information was also gathered by UMass Police and later confirmed by the family when they received her cell phone records. (This was a supporting bit of info by the NH SP for the suicide theory: suicidal people often return or give away things to people - yet they did not know this when they first mentioned suicide to the family on the evening of 2/11)

She talked to her boyfriend early Sun morning when she was upset about wrecking her Dad's car. She spent the weekend with her Dad and Sat evening with friends............then she attempts to call her boyfriend **several** times on Monday - leaving the same message that she missed him, loved him and would call that night, as well as an email. He has told family that it was unusal that she would call with that same message multiple tiimes in the same day.....that is why he believes she was calling him to tell him about her trip,, but was unable to reach him because of us army duties.

According to the surveillance (sp) camera, she withdrew her funds shortly before she left for NH (based on driving time).

These facts lead me to my **therory** that Maura decided on the very day that she went missing, and not before, to take a trip to the mountains that she loved so well in NH and VT.

......and finally G'night.

 

[docwho3]

Really, I do have to get to bed , but before I do:"

It is ***my opinion*** that Maura did not decide to take her trip until the early hours of Monday morning 2/9/04......because:

The UMass Police checked Maura's computer. The *first* evidence of her seeking directions to any location was in the very early morning hours of 2/9/04. . .

Yes and thursaday before that she had set up her "upsetting" phone call. And so the final little things to do was to search for the hotel room and withdraw her money (which nearly wiped out her account according to news reports) and buy the booze but the planning was already in place as you have indicated in saying that she tried to call her boyfriend and you have speculated that she was trying to tell him of the plan then and although I disagree with her intent to tell him I agree there was a plan in place at that time. And as you have admitted she was able to contact her boyfriend but failed to tell him anything so that indicates to me that she did not want to tellhim anything. (" . . .She talked to her boyfriend early Sun morning when she was upset about wrecking her Dad's car. . .")

And there are things about the case that could be taken to indicate this disappearing act was in mind when she was at West Point but could not legally leave without going through proper channels to remove herself from West Point, as the military might have frowned on her just leaving without doing it legally.

In fact UMass makes the second college that Maura left so I do not find this change to be out of character for her. I think she might well have done the disappearing act directly from West Point if not for the legal issues involved.

......and finally G'night.

 

[Tristan]

To: Peabody, Docwho3, Czechmate7 and anyone who follows this case:

Why do you think that no one has reported seeing Maura in the past
2 years? (assuming she is alive)

or Why hasn't anyone found her body?

I realize that bodies can be VERY well hidden, but it seems to me that
if Maura is alive and living in the United States, **someone** would
have seen her.

 

[docwho3]

To: Peabody, Docwho3, Czechmate7 and anyone who follows this case:

Why do you think that no one has reported seeing Maura in the past
2 years? (assuming she is alive)

or Why hasn't anyone found her body?

I realize that bodies can be VERY well hidden, but it seems to me that
if Maura is alive and living in the United States, **someone** would
have seen her.

If you reflect on the long list of cases that cyberlaw was kind enough to have posted of people that were missing for 10 to 15 years in many cases and yet no one had reported seeing them in all that time then you can get an idea that it is something that happens quite a bit, people are alive but aren't reported. And often in such cases the family says the same things that Maura's family and some posters here have said, "she would never do that." I would suggest people read up on the cases of adult runaways. I also posted a very few examples of adult runaways a while back in the maura thread (part three I think) and one of those had been gone for 16 years and had left kids behind when she left. She was going to a doctor visit and they found her van abandoned. My point being that it not only happens that adult runaways manage to hide in plain sight for years but that it happens fairly often.

According to law enforcement stats on missing persons most missing persons are not victems of foul play and most are found eventually. I posted the links to this info in past posts in the maura threads. To those of us who do not deal with adult runaways as a normal part of our day it seems odd that someone could manage to stay hidden in plain sight and work and build a life without being discovered for years but Law Enforcement people know it happens and that is one reason they don't get as excited as some think they should when someone adult first goes missing if there is no evidence of foul play.

I have posted before in the past that I don't really need to have the case turn out the way I expect. There are scenarios that could lead to a dead Maura but I just have no evidence yet to point to that, no body, no blood, no sign of struggle, no tracks and so on. If such evidence surfaces I will have no trouble accepting it.

If Maura is alive and a runaway and I were lucky enough to find out I would have no intent to violate her privacy.

 

[Tristan]

Thank you, docwho3.

I would love to read more on missing people who were found years later.

I'm sure if I went to a large city....or a remote area in, say Montana or Wyoming, for example, I would probably not be spotted.
People who disappear on purpose often change their appearance, and that would also make a difference in spotting them.

Do you feel that Maura had someone helping her run away?

 

[docwho3]

Thank you, docwho3.

I would love to read more on missing people who were found years later.

I'm sure if I went to a large city....or a remote area in, say Montana or Wyoming, for example, I would probably not be spotted.
People who disappear on purpose often change their appearance, and that would also make a difference in spotting them.

Do you feel that Maura had someone helping her run away?

Yes, I think she had help who followed along her route (although not immediately behind) and so she walked back the way she had come from to meet the oncoming car with her helper before he/she got too close to the accident scene where helper would surely be remembered if the pick up was made there. Helper probably met her back down the road a ways as the dog tracking the scent seems to indicate. The time window was too small to allow much chance of a stranger abduction and moreover Maura had made that remark of already having help on the way which also might indicate that she had a helper on the way and may not just mean she was uncomfortable with the busdriver's offer to call L.E.

Could she have hiked out without help?:
Since extensive searching was done looking for her tracks including many repeat visits by her dad who searched the area we can say she evidently did not leave her tracks behind or at least not any tracks that her father could recognize as hers and he had hiked and climbed with her many times before according to news reports and so should recognize her tracks.

Could she have caught a ride with a helpful stranger who then refused to turn it in when he/she learned the alarm had been raised? Maybe. But her car being so unreliable makes me think she would have asked a helper to follow her route rather than have tackled the trip alone if she usually refused to drive it across town. A 3 1/2 hour journey is a long way to ask a friend to follow you so you would not ask it lightly and perhaps the helper person had family in that direction anyway.

Maura's cell phone bill was able to be seen by her potential mother-in-law since it was a gift from her and in fact after she disappeared thats how they know which were her last cell calls made. Helper would have to either be someone she could normally call so that her cell records would not appear out of place when Maura contacted him/her for arrangements of the plan. Or Maura would have to have contact with this person face to face in order to be able to avoid phone use or Maura would need to use a phone other than her "gift" cell phone. Solving this part of the case would need some good old fashioned legwork and I suspect this part of things may have already been solved by L.E. I don't really want to go much farther down that road myself at this time as it seems the farther we go in that direction the more we are discussing a runaway with privacy rights and not a crime.

How much did helper know of the plans anyway, given Maura's private nature?
It may be that helper only helped follow & transport and so may not have further details to impart. We don't know.

 

[czechmate7]

Doc ~
Reading your post just made me think of something....last year my mom bought one of these cell phones from WalMart that had prepaid minutes on it and I think you can actually buy additional mintues to "load" on it.
Who says Maura only had that 1 cell phone? Knowing that the bill goes to MIL she must have felt "watched" at anytime when using her cell phone.

 

[docwho3]

Doc ~
Reading your post just made me think of something....last year my mom bought one of these cell phones from WalMart that had prepaid minutes on it and I think you can actually buy additional mintues to "load" on it.
Who says Maura only had that 1 cell phone? Knowing that the bill goes to MIL she must have felt "watched" at anytime when using her cell phone.

Very good point. It certainly seems both reasonable and possible. And she could have borrowed a phone from a friend or used a land line and a prepaid calling card so she may have had access to a phone other than the one we know of.

 

[Peabody]

Doc ~
Reading your post just made me think of something....last year my mom bought one of these cell phones from WalMart that had prepaid minutes on it and I think you can actually buy additional mintues to "load" on it.
Who says Maura only had that 1 cell phone? Knowing that the bill goes to MIL she must have felt "watched" at anytime when using her cell phone.

Maura's cell phone bill DID NOT go to the future mother-in-law.

Any suggestion that Maura was being "watched" is just hogwash.

Consider: the family (including Sharon Rausch) did have Maura's cell phone bill from early March when it was received. They trusted the police to investigate the calls. If they had the personality that they are so often accused - after all we know of their diligence and perseverance in this case - then they would have "investigated" those calls immediately.

As the facts are: it in Oct 2004 when Fred Murray and Sharon Rausch (as announced in one of the media stories about the discovery of the call for a condo) decided to "go back to the beginning" to try to learn of something they overlooked. That is when Sharon called the numbers on the bill and learned that Linda Salamone had been called and the ONLY reason Maura would have called her was to rent the condo unit in Bartlett NH.

 

[docwho3]

Maura's cell phone bill DID NOT go to the future mother-in-law.

Any suggestion that Maura was being "watched" is just hogwash.. . .

Being watched or not the phone was a gift and the news reports, I think, did mention that they got the bill for it. Now that does not say that Maura was "being watched" but it does make it obvious that if Maura wanted to call someone and not have it known who she called that cell phone would not be her first choice. Look, the news reports are available for anyone to look up and this stuff has been posted about before so I won't continue to go back and look it all up for you each time you fuss about it.

. . . Sharon Rausch, the mother of Murray's boyfriend, Army Lt. Bill Rausch, said she discovered the call to the Salamones last month when she looked over Murray's cell phone bill for February . . .

http://ledger.southofboston.com/articles/2004/11/19/news/news01.txt

That's not her dad looking over those records in that news story.

I have been awake too many hours in a row (. . .edited to delete part of a sentence that is not helpful to the thread.) They got her cell records and read them. (. . .edited to delete a sentence that is not helpful to the thread.) It happened. Did Maura know that would happen if she disappeared? I think she would have to be about 100 points less intelligent than she is to not have reasoned that out.
Maura did not have to have her phone records watched all the time to reason that they would look at those phone records. And they certainly did look as that news story shows. Did they always get the cell phone records before Maura left? After so many hours without sleep I don't remember for sure and it is not important as long as Maura knew the records would be looked at. You are too intelligent to not know that.

I don't remember if I was told about the cell records by PM or read it in the news or in a post in the threads here. But as I said, the main thing is that she knew the records could and would be read, and they were read.

 

[czechmate7]

I'm sorry, my choice of wording was off. I didn't mean she was always being watched over, just that if her phone bill could be questioned at any time she may have felt she couldn't call just anyone.

I thought I read that the phone was a gift also so I assumed that the service was in the name of the person purchasing. So the phone was in Maura's name? And the bill came straight to Maura? Did the phone company give LE the copy of Maura's phone bill? I didn't realize they did such a thing unless there was some criminal activity...I'm really not educated on those kind of laws.

 

[CyberLaw]

Maura's phone was "gift" from the BF Mom and the bill went to the BF Mom so the BF and his Mom would know of every call Maura made.

This is an adult, whos calls were "monitored" by a third party, no wonder Maura choose not to use it, talk about an invasive idea to invade a person privacy.

The bill could have been sent to Maura herself and the BF could have set up an acccount to have the bill paid directly by taking it out of her account for by Credit Card.

Therefore Maura's privacy would be respect, the phone would still be a gift and the BF Mom would still pay the bill. I wonder why her own family did not do this and why at 21 years of age her phone usage would be available to be monitored.

Also the call to the BF was not from Maura, as to this is a know fact(not withstanding what someone "thinks" facts trump beliefs".

But lets just assume that the call was from Maura, she used a landline and a calling card, that would indicate to me that if she used her cell it could be traced. That also indicates to me that she was in a city or town where payphone would be available. Or she was at a private residence where she would not want the call traced back to that particular line.

But that is all moot, as it is "documented" that the call was from the Red Cross, not Maura.

My husband does not even have the legal ability or authority to even open my mail, let alone see who I call and when. You see that is my own private information. I don't look at the bills for the kids phone either, I just pay them. I respect their privacy.

 

[MagicRose99]

Just my opinion:

I have read thru Maura's threads... and find something occuring every so often - one person who believes they are the "authority of facts" concerning Maura.

The truth of the matter is, NO ONE is the "authority of facts" concerning Maura. Her family may "think" or "feel" they know what Maura woulda, shoulda, coulda done, but the only FACT is that Maura is the only one who knows what Maura was thinking or feeling or was planning to do.

Just because the family "feels" or "thinks" these "facts" doesn't make them facts.

Everyone who has a theory or opinion should be able to bring them forth for discussion to bring new ideas and theories to light. To constantly claim that you "know for a fact" is wrong... YOU don't know for a fact, the family doesn't know for a fact... Only Maura knows what Maura was feeling, thinking, woulda/coulda/shoulda done.

To me, all theories should be welcomed... to open possiblities - open new avenues - that should be the objective here, not constantly "correcting" other posters or "berating" them for their theories/opinions. Unless something has been PROVEN AS FACT nothing else should be "assumed" as fact...

Just my opinion...

 

[WholeLottaRosie]

[But then again maybe not, remember that it was reported that when she was upset at work when the supervisor tryed to walk her to her room she said her "roommate" would help her although she didn't have a roommate. So maybe she was hiding the fact that she had packed up her room.[/QUOTE]
Then again, maybe someone was staying with her in the dorm room at that time? MTCW

 

[Tristan]

Good point, Medusa. This girl had secrets. That, fellow 'sleuthers, is a fact.

 

[docwho3]

I have had some sleep now and will go read and edit a bit.

 

[Masterj]

While Peabody has certainly been passionate about her theory, many others of you have been just as passionate and could also be accused of jumping on posters who don't agree with your theory. While I read this thread everyday, I am often hesitant to post anything because I find that several posters bully others and act as if their theory is the whole truth. Everyone is certainly entitled to theri opinion and I don't think anyone should be criticized for correcting the mistakes or common misconceptions about Maura's case. None of us knows all of the facts of Maura's disappearance or her state of mind. However it is absurd and illogical to not take EVERY possibility into consideration. I do not think she ran off to a new life, but that doesn't mean that I don't read doc's posts and admit his ideas are yet another possibility. We need to stop this ridiculous side-taking vs. those who believe she ran off and those who don't. That said, I think we all have a responsibility to post ACCURATE facts and correct each other if we are misinformed.

So here goes - doc, you posted a link to where Sharon was reading Maura's February cell phone bill. NO WHERE in that link does it say that the bill went to Sharon as Cyberlaw has consistently argued. Yes, it says she reviewed the Feb. bill, but it doesn't say where she got it. For all we know the bill went to Maura's mailing address and was then forwarded to her father upon her disappearance. There seems to be a lot of speculation that Maura wasn't in control of her life, that her every decision was being watched by her father/boyfriend/boyfriend's mother. I understand that we are all pretty much speculating, but to VEHEMENTLY argue that these circumstances led Maura to run away to a new life isn't really fair when we don't know that to be fact. The attacks on Maura's father are pretty cruel and unnecessary IMO.

 

[Tristan]

Masterj...what is YOUR theory on Maura's dissapearance??

I have not settled on any one yet, as the main 3 theories (suicide, abducted,
and ran away to a new life) ALL have plausibility.

 

[Masterj]

Masterj...what is YOUR theory on Maura's dissapearance??

I have not settled on any one yet, as the main 3 theories (suicide, abducted,
and ran away to a new life) ALL have plausibility.

Tristan, I am not really sure to be honest with you. While I absolutely do not think she committed suicide, it is still a possibility. I have a hard time thinking she ran away to a new life. While she certainly exhibited some questionable behavior (lie about the death, crying on the phone) prior to leaving for NH, I don't think she ran away and purposely devestated her family and friends like this. While her lie was not typical to her character, I find it more unlikely that she would intentionally hurt and deceive her loved ones like this, given what we know about her character. However, I do admit that it is a possibilty.

As I have mentioned on here before, I (and others I have asked) have used the death in the family lie before. I am not proud of that fact, but I did it. I think Maura was under a great deal of stress and needed sometime away and did not want to worry her friends and family. I think she intended to buy herself some time with her professors/job and return after a couple of days.

I lean towards thinking she was scared of Atwood and ran off into the night to find help and may have fallen victim to the elements and/or encountered someone who did her harm. I am really not sure. As for Fred Murray assuming harm came to her, what the hell else is he supposed to think? It's not like he wants her to be dead or harmed in anyway. To attack Fred's character and personality because he is doing everything in his power to find his daughter is cruel beyond belief. Of course he is consumed by finding Maura. How can he move on when he has no answers and the people who are supposed to help him aren't?

If the police truly believe she ran off to start a new life than let them prove it and tell Maura's family she doesn't want to be found. They haven't done that. I seriously doubt that the police department up there is so inundated with criminal matters that they can't make more of an effort to locate her whereabouts.

The fact that one of the detectives hired by Maura's family believes there is more to her story and that the police haven't given their all is very telling. This man is a VOLUNTEER who is not receiving payment for this.