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

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To those who believe Maura was contemplating suicide, how do you think she was going to do it? Tylenol PM and booze? Can a person really OD on Tylenol PM?

My sister is an emergency room nurse and was a intensive care nurse for many years prior. She said that the danger of overdosing on Tylenol is liver failure. In fact, it is not recommended to drink any alcohol while taking Tylenol. You could end up needing a liver transplant after a night of drinking and Tylenol use. Scary! I don't think it happens right away. Usually a day or a few days after overdosing. They keep the overdose cases in the hospital to monitor for liver failure.
 
I don't think she commited suicide, but like you, I don't know for sure. After 7 years of hikers on the trails in NH, I doubt she is on a trail somewhere. She has to be off trail, even if it is only a few yards. I do think it is a good idea to check it out though. However, it would be a daunting task.

I would definitely agree with you that now it would be a daunting task to try and find her in hiking/mountain areas. You not only have weather issues but wildlife issues as well as far as things that could've helped in hiding or scattering a body.

As far as Fred goes, I think it was more of a stategical move on his part early on when his daughter went missing to divert the attention away from the happenings that were going on in Maura's life prior to her disappearance. He wanted the invesitgators to treat the disappearance as a crime as opposed to a voluntary run away case. He knew that if they viewed it as a crime, that they would be more involved in acutally trying to solve the case and would provide a healthy amount of resources and attention to it.
If they thought she left on her own accord, then they wouldn't volunteer nearly as many resources or the time to solve the case.

If Fred kept pushing the boogey man theory, he knew the pressure would stay on the police and investigators that they were dropping the ball.
 
Since Maura was a nursing student, I'm sure she knew about the danger of Tylenol and alcohol and the liver. I do not buy that she was planning a suicide with just booze. It's too iffy. Most people would puke and/or pass out before they could consume a deadly amount. IMO, if she committed suicide, she had pills too. If she had pills, someone knows. Renner posted that all the alcohol was accounted for. I never understood what he meant. Did he mean she left it all behind?
 
Since Maura was a nursing student, I'm sure she knew about the danger of Tylenol and alcohol and the liver. I do not buy that she was planning a suicide with just booze. It's too iffy. Most people would puke and/or pass out before they could consume a deadly amount. IMO, if she committed suicide, she had pills too. If she had pills, someone knows. Renner posted that all the alcohol was accounted for. I never understood what he meant. Did he mean she left it all behind?

BBM

Yes, I believe that is what he meant.
 
Since Maura was a nursing student, I'm sure she knew about the danger of Tylenol and alcohol and the liver. I do not buy that she was planning a suicide with just booze. It's too iffy. Most people would puke and/or pass out before they could consume a deadly amount. IMO, if she committed suicide, she had pills too. If she had pills, someone knows. Renner posted that all the alcohol was accounted for. I never understood what he meant. Did he mean she left it all behind?

Specifically on what James meant.

James related in his blog that he was told (by authorities)- the "alcohol was all accounted for"

After that, James interpretated in his blog what he thought that meant.

Accounting for all the alcohol could mean that police scooped up every drop of alcohol known to be in posession of maura and have it all in a big file cabinet somewhere in a evidence storage facility. (that is one interpretation)

OR it could mean that the police have been able to determine precisely how much alcohol (through store receipts, what was left in her car) that Maura should've accmulated and brought with her on her mystery trip (a different interpretation)

I believe the latter, not that the police physically gathered up the alcohol, but that the police know about the two bottles of alcohol maura is believed to have taken with her from the accident scene and put in her back pack.
 
I would definitely agree with you that now it would be a daunting task to try and find her in hiking/mountain areas. You not only have weather issues but wildlife issues as well as far as things that could've helped in hiding or scattering a body.

As far as Fred goes, I think it was more of a stategical move on his part early on when his daughter went missing to divert the attention away from the happenings that were going on in Maura's life prior to her disappearance. He wanted the invesitgators to treat the disappearance as a crime as opposed to a voluntary run away case. He knew that if they viewed it as a crime, that they would be more involved in acutally trying to solve the case and would provide a healthy amount of resources and attention to it.
If they thought she left on her own accord, then they wouldn't volunteer nearly as many resources or the time to solve the case.

If Fred kept pushing the boogey man theory, he knew the pressure would stay on the police and investigators that they were dropping the ball.

It's been interesting to read Mr. Renner's blog and read between the lines a little bit about the family keeping quiet for one reason or another, but up until recently I've never questioned it and have always thought it was a case of just what you said: trying to get the police to take it seriously.

My husband went missing in a dangerous area of our city. When I filed the missing persons report, they, of course, asked me if we'd been in an argument. We'd had a little argument, yes, but I knew it had nothing to do with whatever happened to him. I was reluctant to bring it up when they asked, because I knew what they were getting at. From the beginning, whether I would admit to an argument or not, they wanted to believe it was a case of the husband wanting some time away from his wife with whom he was probably irritated.

Had I explained every detail of our argument and had he been missing for any longer than he was, people would begin looking into all kinds of irrelevant things that really had nothing to do with what happened to him.

Another thing going through my mind at the time was that even if they had been right about someone initially going missing due to an argument, I knew that in our area in the middle of the night, without a working phone, it was unsafe for anyone to be out, regardless of the reason. This is similar to Maura's case in that LE very well could be right that some things were upsetting her (well, clearly they've got that right since she left school), but her family may believe, like lots of us do, that whatever happened to her happened after the wreck and the reason why she was where she was is irrelevant.

The family might have feared/might still fear that if all details of what was upsetting Maura were revealed, LE would automatically dismiss the case as a suicide, even though something else could have happened to her that was unrelated to her being upset.

It wasn't a case of me holding anything back, because yes, you want to do everything you can to find your family member. In fact, that's exactly why some people don't want to go into details that they don't believe are important, whether they're right or not - they don't want to waste any time.

It can be frustrating, because you know why LE does what they do, because a lot of the time they are right, but when it's you and it's your loved one and you have a gut instinct and are pretty sure you're right, it's hard to know how to handle it.

Having said all this, it's been 7 years in Maura's case. If anyone is holding anything back that they felt was irrelevant at the time, it's past time to bring it up. At this point in this case nobody knows what's important and what's not, so no one should hold anything back (not saying they are). Having said all I did about my story, as much as we think we know people, no one can ever know everything about someone and what's in his or her head. This is especially true, as many others have said, of a father and a daughter in her early 20s.
 
I would definitely agree with you that now it would be a daunting task to try and find her in hiking/mountain areas. You not only have weather issues but wildlife issues as well as far as things that could've helped in hiding or scattering a body.

As far as Fred goes, I think it was more of a stategical move on his part early on when his daughter went missing to divert the attention away from the happenings that were going on in Maura's life prior to her disappearance. He wanted the invesitgators to treat the disappearance as a crime as opposed to a voluntary run away case. He knew that if they viewed it as a crime, that they would be more involved in acutally trying to solve the case and would provide a healthy amount of resources and attention to it.
If they thought she left on her own accord, then they wouldn't volunteer nearly as many resources or the time to solve the case.

If Fred kept pushing the boogey man theory, he knew the pressure would stay on the police and investigators that they were dropping the ball.

I agree wholeheartily on this. It makes sense that a father wouldn't want LE to waste precious time. In his heart he feels she wouldn't disappear this way and wants action to find her.
 
BBM

It is not very telling to me. She wanted to get out of the strict nursing program for a week and had to figure out a good excuse without getting any penalties (kicked out of the program) to tell them that she would be absent. What other excuse could she have used? Sickness or death in the family works. They wouldn't question that.

Just my opinion.

You got me thinking.... :waitasec: .... wonder was she planning on telling people once she got back? Seems like she was panting herself into a corner with this lie. At times I think it was like her subconscious was placing her on a very self-destructive course - crashing her dad's car, lying about death in family, driving and drinking, driving a rundown car on a god-knows-where trip, and finally crashing her car and knowing she is a DUI.... So perhaps she didn't say to herself "I going to end it all", maybe she just felt like she needed not to think about anything more, while drinking and going to sleep in the woods...
 
It's been interesting to read Mr. Renner's blog and read between the lines a little bit about the family keeping quiet for one reason or another, but up until recently I've never questioned it and have always thought it was a case of just what you said: trying to get the police to take it seriously.

My husband went missing in a dangerous area of our city. When I filed the missing persons report, they, of course, asked me if we'd been in an argument. We'd had a little argument, yes, but I knew it had nothing to do with whatever happened to him. I was reluctant to bring it up when they asked, because I knew what they were getting at. From the beginning, whether I would admit to an argument or not, they wanted to believe it was a case of the husband wanting some time away from his wife with whom he was probably irritated.

Had I explained every detail of our argument and had he been missing for any longer than he was, people would begin looking into all kinds of irrelevant things that really had nothing to do with what happened to him.

Another thing going through my mind at the time was that even if they had been right about someone initially going missing due to an argument, I knew that in our area in the middle of the night, without a working phone, it was unsafe for anyone to be out, regardless of the reason. This is similar to Maura's case in that LE very well could be right that some things were upsetting her (well, clearly they've got that right since she left school), but her family may believe, like lots of us do, that whatever happened to her happened after the wreck and the reason why she was where she was is irrelevant.

The family might have feared/might still fear that if all details of what was upsetting Maura were revealed, LE would automatically dismiss the case as a suicide, even though something else could have happened to her that was unrelated to her being upset.

It wasn't a case of me holding anything back, because yes, you want to do everything you can to find your family member. In fact, that's exactly why some people don't want to go into details that they don't believe are important, whether they're right or not - they don't want to waste any time.

It can be frustrating, because you know why LE does what they do, because a lot of the time they are right, but when it's you and it's your loved one and you have a gut instinct and are pretty sure you're right, it's hard to know how to handle it.

Having said all this, it's been 7 years in Maura's case. If anyone is holding anything back that they felt was irrelevant at the time, it's past time to bring it up. At this point in this case nobody knows what's important and what's not, so no one should hold anything back (not saying they are). Having said all I did about my story, as much as we think we know people, no one can ever know everything about someone and what's in his or her head. This is especially true, as many others have said, of a father and a daughter in her early 20s.

I do understand what you are saying, but what stands out to me differing from what you described with your husband is that in the very early days of when maura went missing, Fred is known to be one of the ones pushing a possible suicide theory.

Fred quickly changed his tune and shifted to a boogey man theory, and IMO, he was doing that because he wasn't liking the almost nonchalant effort the authorities were giving to his daughter's case. Since authorities were leaning towards a voluntary run away scenario, instead of a crime of abduction taking place, the resources weren't readily available like they would be if a 11 year old goes missing after being snatched from a home. (They likely deal with tons of run away (unhappy young adult) cases all the time that turn out to be nothing major.
 
You got me thinking.... :waitasec: .... wonder was she planning on telling people once she got back? Seems like she was panting herself into a corner with this lie. At times I think it was like her subconscious was placing her on a very self-destructive course - crashing her dad's car, lying about death in family, driving and drinking, driving a rundown car on a god-knows-where trip, and finally crashing her car and knowing she is a DUI.... So perhaps she didn't say to herself "I going to end it all", maybe she just felt like she needed not to think about anything more, while drinking and going to sleep in the woods...

She was impulsive in my opinion, and I would venture to say that it was because she was emotional. Although, I don't think she planned for the accident in NH. I think it changed history for her. As far as the excuse to leave classes, I don't think she was close to her instructors. She could have probably kept the lie going, if they asked her about her well being, or they gave condolences on the death in the family. I don't think friends or classmates would give her away. In fact, I doubt they even had a clue on what was going on. Maura may not have told any of her classmates about the email about a death in the family. If she made it back to classes, it would be only a week or so of fibbing to the instructors, then all would have been forgotten in my opinion. People tend to move on. I doubt they would prod her for specifics, because they would probably want to be sensitive. Most people don't feel comfortable interrogating someone who claimed to have had a death in the family.

JMO
 
I do understand what you are saying, but what stands out to me differing from what you described with your husband is that in the very early days of when maura went missing, Fred is known to be one of the ones pushing a possible suicide theory.

Fred quickly changed his tune and shifted to a boogey man theory, and IMO, he was doing that because he wasn't liking the almost nonchalant effort the authorities were giving to his daughter's case. Since authorities were leaning towards a voluntary run away scenario, instead of a crime of abduction taking place, the resources weren't readily available like they would be if a 11 year old goes missing after being snatched from a home. (They likely deal with tons of run away (unhappy young adult) cases all the time that turn out to be nothing major.

Scoops, I don't think Fred was pushing the suicide theory. IIRC, he did mention the "squaw walk," which I think means walking off into the wilderness to die. IIRC, he had talked about the "squaw walk" for himself to his kids for certain bad circumstances. The idea is to drink himself to death on a mountain top. Does anyone one else remember this?
 
Scoops, I don't think Fred was pushing the suicide theory. IIRC, he did mention the "squaw walk," which I think means walking off into the wilderness to die. IIRC, he had talked about the "squaw walk" for himself to his kids for certain bad circumstances. The idea is to drink himself to death on a mountain top. Does anyone one else remember this?

You are exactly right.

Billy's mom in a story was quoted as saying Fred told all of his kids that whenever he began to feel worthless he was going to gather up a bunch of alcohol and head for the mountains and drink himself to death. (and fred wasn't cracking a joke with them either)

Maura goes missing with bottles of alcohol in a backpack near mountains .... And we really can't entertain the suicide theory. Is it really that crazy or far-fetched of a theory?

If she was simply "Getting away for a week" how long could she have made it on 280 dollars? A night, two nights tops.
 
Scoops, I don't think Fred was pushing the suicide theory. IIRC, he did mention the "squaw walk," which I think means walking off into the wilderness to die. IIRC, he had talked about the "squaw walk" for himself to his kids for certain bad circumstances. The idea is to drink himself to death on a mountain top. Does anyone one else remember this?

here is what you are referring to. This is an excerpt from an article done by the Union Leader in Nov of 2007 by author Nancy West

"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.

She said authorities thought the alcohol and Tylenol PM Maura brought may have been indications she was going to kill herself. "That's what people do, they drink, take a bunch of pills and die peacefully," she said.

But Rausch doesn't believe that was Maura's plan. The Kahlua, vodka and Bailey's Irish Creme Maura reportedly brought with her would likely have been about a week's worth of the drinks Maura liked, Mudslides, Rausch said."
 
She was impulsive in my opinion, and I would venture to say that it was because she was emotional. Although, I don't think she planned for the accident in NH. I think it changed history for her.

This kind of made me think about the suicide theory. What if she had originally intended the trip to clear her head and get away to NH for a few days, find a hotel, do some drinking and some thinking, but then she got in the accident, her second within days, and that kind of drove her over the edge and made her decid then to end it? Perhaps she first put the rag in the tailpipe but decided that wouldn't work when she realized someone would get to her before it killed her (not to mention that it wouldn't back up into the car itself anyway), so, perhaps remembering her father's words, she took her booze and her sleeping pills with her, left the immediate scene so that she would not be found right away, and found someplace in the woods to curl up and swallow the lot?

After reading and contemplating on the last few posts, this seems like a possibility to me.
 
You are exactly right.

Billy's mom in a story was quoted as saying Fred told all of his kids that whenever he began to feel worthless he was going to gather up a bunch of alcohol and head for the mountains and drink himself to death. (and fred wasn't cracking a joke with them either)

Maura goes missing with bottles of alcohol in a backpack near mountains .... And we really can't entertain the suicide theory. Is it really that crazy or far-fetched of a theory?

If she was simply "Getting away for a week" how long could she have made it on 280 dollars? A night, two nights tops.

BBM

I thought that at one time too, but a poster here suggested that she may have had a credit card. According to the Wikipedia write up on her case, she did have a credit card.
 
This kind of made me think about the suicide theory. What if she had originally intended the trip to clear her head and get away to NH for a few days, find a hotel, do some drinking and some thinking, but then she got in the accident, her second within days, and that kind of drove her over the edge and made her decid then to end it? Perhaps she first put the rag in the tailpipe but decided that wouldn't work when she realized someone would get to her before it killed her (not to mention that it wouldn't back up into the car itself anyway), so, perhaps remembering her father's words, she took her booze and her sleeping pills with her, left the immediate scene so that she would not be found right away, and found someplace in the woods to curl up and swallow the lot?

After reading and contemplating on the last few posts, this seems like a possibility to me.

Anything is possible. I do think she was at least feeling lousy about the whole thing and may have been situationally/momentarily suicidal after the NH accident. She may have felt things were spiraling out of control, but I don't believe her original intentions of traveling up to NH was to commit suicide. That is just my opinion. Also, supposedly, it was found that she didn't take the alcohol with her when she left the car. This is according to James Renner's blog. I'm still not 100% convinced about this, because his blog entry seemed a little vague, because of the wording. LE said they have accounted for the alcohol, but they didn't say they had the actual bottles. They could have got that info from a receipt.
 
Speaking of alcohol, in JR's Blog of Thursday, November 10, 2011
Why Maura Left West Point - there's speculation about drinking.

When I said earlier "it was like her subconscious was placing her on a very self-destructive course" I concur with McSpy's post directly above.

Would be important to know if she took the booze with her after the crash, or left it in her car.

Also, when FM mentioned something to the effect of going off in mountains and drinking as way to suicide oneself, did he say doing that in the winter?
In other words, is it suicide by drinking such that one falls asleep in the dead of winter outside?
 
FWIW my dad has always said when he gets old and useless we should stick a hambone up his *advertiser censored* and let the dogs chase him around the streets til they loose him.

I've never seen any indication that when Fred talked about the old squaw walk he meant it entirely literally or seriously--simply that he was worried Maura had taken it as such.

I have no intention of purchasing a ham if my father ever becomes terminally ill.
 
It seems to me that if Maura was hiking into the mountains to drink herself to death,she wouldn't take the ingredients for mixed drinks. maybe just some straight whiskey with a high alcohol content. Kind of hard to mix a cocktail on a mountain in the snow while waiting to die I think. ( and a lot less to carry) JMO
 
It seems to me that if Maura was hiking into the mountains to drink herself to death,she wouldn't take the ingredients for mixed drinks. maybe just some straight whiskey with a high alcohol content. Kind of hard to mix a cocktail on a mountain in the snow while waiting to die I think. ( and a lot less to carry) JMO

Some good points here and things to think about.

I in no way think Maura planned her second wreck (but in sticking with the suicide theory) it is awfully tough to comprehend why Maura is believed to depart from the accident scene with her backpack and bottles of alcohol as opposed to leaving her jewelry and clothes, school books, father's accident forms and other items behind.

Surely, she wasn't going to be coming back to an accident scene later that night (the car wasn't going to be there because it was towed). Even if the car hadn't been towed, she wouldn't been able to drive away in it.

(meeting someone theory) I would think if she was meeting someone that they would've came and got her and allowed her to grab at least some clothing and her valuables, posibly even her father's accident forms to take with her or she would've walked to a certain destination to meet up, and out of all the things she would've brought with her would be something to wear not just bottles of alcohol in a back pack.

(Boogey man theory) If she were abducted from the scene, I doubt the abductor would have much patience for her to clean out her back pack of her school books and load it up with the bottles of alcohol. I would think the abductor would want to grab her and go.

I think her original plans before the second wreck might've been to think things out a bit (but I have a feeling for someone that lived her life to conquer mountains) that if she was suicidal, that would be kind of a way I would want to go out, on top of a mountain top, kind of making a grand exit sort of speak).

Not every person that commits suicide just troughs off into a closet and hangs themself. For Instance. Some that end up doing it have a very systematic apporach to it (like tying up loose ends making thnings easier on family and then even planning the fatal event).

But this all just my theory and no more correct than any other.
 
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