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

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Stranger abduction and murder is relatively rare. Most of the women who "disappear" are murdered by husbands, boyfriends, exes, acquaintances, etc. Some are targets of opportunity--I mentioned Kristi Cornwell, Rachel Louise Cooke, Chandra Levy and others who were jogging. Other women have been abducted out of parking lots, etc. A woman on the road, alone in the dark and cold, in an unfamiliar place with no transportation is vulnerable. That does not mean every man is a potential threat. It means that there are predators and sex offenders in any community and a woman alone in a deserted area is a target. A decent man (school bus driver) would try to help her. A bad man would try to harm her. The problem is that she would have no way of telling the two apart. And think of how many women have a car break down or run out of gas and get help from someone, no problems, no story in the paper--we don't hear about them. The ones who disappear are the ones we know about.

Well said. Note that the women you listed as abducted were around Maura's age. I think it was possible that an opportunist is responsible for her disappearance.
 
Some quotes from "Hoss". Be nice to know a little more about this guy.

"I never knew her father was even alive," he says. They talked about taking a vacation to the White Mountains so she could hike and he could go fly fishing."


"She talked about running away. She said, 'I wish I could disappear.' When I heard she was missing, I though, 'holy crap! Maybe she did it.'"

Later, he learned she'd been sleeping with other members of the track team. "She was very promiscuous, it turns out."

"She was super energetic. Always seemed happy. But she was sad, too. Underneath"
 
Well said. Note that the women you listed as abducted were around Maura's age. I think it was possible that an opportunist is responsible for her disappearance.

My thinking too - she was in the wrong place at the wrong time, and as unlikely as the odds are that this would happen in a remote area - this is the one in a million time that it happens. (As was said, we don't hear about all the times is does not happen).
 
Some quotes from "Hoss". Be nice to know a little more about this guy.

"I never knew her father was even alive," he says. They talked about taking a vacation to the White Mountains so she could hike and he could go fly fishing."


"She talked about running away. She said, 'I wish I could disappear.' When I heard she was missing, I though, 'holy crap! Maybe she did it.'"

Later, he learned she'd been sleeping with other members of the track team. "She was very promiscuous, it turns out.

"She was super energetic. Always seemed happy. But she was sad, too.
Underneath
"

My impression is that he comes across as angry "underneath." He could have said that she was "seeing" or "dating" other members of the track team, but instead he said that she was sleeping with them and that she was very promiscuous. How would he know if she was sleeping with all these people? Even if he was told that, it is rumor. No one knows what goes on behind closed doors. If it was true, I find it weird, after all these years, he comes across as angry "underneath." There is no doubt in my mind he was hurt, but it has been 8 years since they were together and he talks as if it was yesterday. I can't imagine how he felt in 2004. Ten times worse? They were only together for a few months at the time. I find it odd he didn't temper his description of her dating scene with kinder words. For goodness sakes, she has been missing for over 7 years and feared dead.

He doesn't remember her talking about her father, but he remembers her saying she wanted to disappear. I don't know what to make of that.
 
My impression is that he comes across as angry "underneath." He could have said that she was "seeing" or "dating" other members of the track team, but instead he said that she was sleeping with them and that she was very promiscuous. How would he know if she was sleeping with all these people? Even if he was told that, it is rumor. No one knows what goes on behind closed doors. If it was true, I find it weird, after all these years, he comes across as angry "underneath." There is no doubt in my mind he was hurt, but it has been 8 years since they were together and he talks as if it was yesterday. I can't imagine how he felt in 2004. Ten times worse? They were only together for a few months at the time. I find it odd he didn't temper his description of her dating scene with kinder words. For goodness sakes, she has been missing for over 7 years and feared dead.

He doesn't remember her talking about her father, but he remembers her saying she wanted to disappear. I don't know what to make of that.

Very perceptive of you. lol Was thinking the same exact thing. You gotta read between the lines a little. Up until a couple days ago this guy had a facebook page with tons of pics of him mountain climbing among other things and now for some reason it's gone.

Oh and I find it very hard to believe that Maura never once mentioned her Dad.
 
I would imagine that LE checked Maura's phone after she crashed, but I have always felt that she may have had another phone that she was using in case she was calling someone who she didn't want anyone knowing about. She obviously was seeing someone else at one point so she had to have had a phone to do so.

When Maura wrecked she told BA that she had called AAA. He said he knew this not to be true because there was no cell reception out there. OK so a couple of things. I'm sure she tried to make a call. Sometimes depending on the carrier you can get reception on and off. Would anyone here disagree with me that Maura tried many times to get a call thru to someone? If not then who did she call? If it was Maura that was spotted 5 miles down the road then she would have had the opportunity to try many times. Does anyone know if you can get cell reception on that road in any spot?
 
Here is a brief list of the phone calls on her cell, from 2/9, as reported by the Hanson Express, linked above.

1:00 pm: call to Linda Salamone, re: condo.
1:13 pm: call to fellow nursing student, regarding scrubs (in neither case is definitive content or purpose of the call available)
2:05 pm: 5 minute call to 1-800-GOSTOWE (line for resort rentals, reservation function not working so she could not make reservation, if that was her purpose)
2:18 pm: called Billy, left a voicemail message

around 3:30, left the dorm
3:40 pm: took money from ATM, then went to liquor store

4:37 pm: checked phone for voicemail messages. (This suggests to me that she may have had the phone off while driving or was at least screening calls)

around 7 pm: she wrecks the car

At some time on Monday, she emails Billy, saying that she loves him and prmising to call later that day. The article does not give the time stamp on the email. If It came before the 2:18 call, maybe that was the promised call; if it came after, maybe she was figuring to get to her destination and full cell service and them call. Perhaps she checked voicemail in hopes that Billy had called back.

That article also notes that she packed dental floss and her birth control pills and that her school books were not likely to have been just left in the car as a matter of course, as Maura was sharing rides. Just another set of facts that make suicide look unlikely.
 
Does anyone know if you can get cell reception on that road in any spot?

Unlikely for the first 10-15 miles at least... if you travel east, you are getting farther and farther away from civilization.
 
He doesn't remember her talking about her father, but he remembers her saying she wanted to disappear. I don't know what to make of that.

I suppose that a mention of her father, if she made one, might be less memorable than a mention of wanting to disappear -- and the latter memory would certainly be reinforced by her subsequent disappearance. I don't see anything odd here.
 
For what it's worth, I don't think it means ANYTHING that someone of college age not living at home (and not yet in a committed relationship) would not mention a parent or sibling. Certainly, we know that Maura's close friends and the young man she was dating knew about and had met her family.

Once again, we see a detail that is absolutely meaningless, from a source that no one else has ever quoted about the case, and with no other documentation. It's why the blog is a bad idea--putting information out there that hasn't gone through a process of vetting and cross-checking. It may turn out that some of this stuff actually advances the case, but a lot of it is noise, and noise that paints the victim as having some kind of secret life. Her friend doesn't know her, a guy she supposedly dated suggests she is very promiscuous and maybe wanted to
disappear, some anonymous bank clerk claims she is paying on a car loan and therefore DID
disappear...let me guess. The narrative of this book to come is the unprovable thesis that Maura disapeared voluntarily and is out there, somewhere. Conveniently, the bank clerk didn't see all the information, most notably the address to which the account is linked or the vin# of
the car, so that a registration could be traced if she did not register the car to herself--although
in PA, whoever is on the loan has to be on the registration. And I'm still waiting for Mr. Renner to call the police with this sensational information about Maura being alive and living under her own name. He would probably get more cooperation in NH than Fred Murray would.

I hope Maura is alive, but if she ran, she ran on foot and so far no one has come forward with a story that she rented a motel room somewhere in the vicinity, that she took a bus or a train,
that they gave her a ride, that they served her a meal, that they worked beside her on a job.
She walked away with liquor but not jewelry she could sell or her birth control pills or her dental floss or other stuff that weighs nothing but that someone planning to disappear might need or want, even for sentimental reasons. She puts her favorite stuffed animal in the car and a book that is meaningful to her but doesn't toss them in her backpack, or her pills and floss. That tells me she either was not thinking clearly (drinking, concussion) or she figured to get the car back at some point.

With the exception of the car insurance issue, the actual wreck of the Saturn would not have seemed to be such a big deal once Maura had a chance to think about it. She and her dad
were planning to get rid of it anyway, it wasn't reliable, and its trade value would have been negligable. The school bus driver said she didn't appear to be intoxicated, so it may be that there wasn't even the fear of a DUI to motivate her to take off. And once she got to a motel or
some other safe spot, even if she was dead drunk, she could have sobered up and claimed the car in the morning. If there was the right insurance, she might have gotten a rental car the next morning. Or she could have called a friend to help her out. So if she didn't intend to
disappear when she left UMass, I have a hard time thinking that the wrecked Saturn would have triggered such a drastic response. She may have wanted to avoid LE and get to a spot
where she could call AAA (the school bus driver's account supports this idea as does the fact
that she took off). Even if she were sober, the spilled alcohol would have raised issues and of
course she may also have had a concussion (air bags deployed). So she takes off. And once she made the news and her frantic father showed up and wasn't nutso about the car, she could
have just reappeared and said she had no idea they were looking for her.

It's hard to see a scenario where she is still alive, this girl who checked her voicemail 2 1/2 hours before the wreck and was carrying birth control, dental floss, school books, and the
insurance paperwork for the Toyota crash.
 
I suppose that a mention of her father, if she made one, might be less memorable than a mention of wanting to disappear -- and the latter memory would certainly be reinforced by her subsequent disappearance. I don't see anything odd here.

I know what you mean and you are probably right, but usually in the beginning of a relationship there is a lot of conversations about where one was brought up, family, experiences, and hobbies. Usually, those experiences and hobbies include family members in the stories, especially when you are only 22 years old.
 
Once again, we see a detail that is absolutely meaningless, from a source that no one else has ever quoted about the case, and with no other documentation.

In my judgment, we won't be able to know what is meaningless until the case is solved (if it ever is).

It's why the blog is a bad idea--putting information out there that hasn't gone through a process of vetting and cross-checking.

I'm sure glad we never do anything like that on THIS blog!
:floorlaugh:
 
Not that this is any big clue, but I find it very hard to believe that Maura never mentioned her Dad. Maybe in another relationship with two different people, but these two had too much in common including hiking and mountain climbing. The two of them discussed going mountain climbing and fly fishing so how does it NOT come up in conversation that she loves and has climbed mountains, but doesn't tell him with who? Hoss said, "I never knew her father was even alive," but you can barely find anyone who won't tell you that Maura always talked about her Dad around them.
 
Hey Pittsburghgirl, for what it's worth I'm pretty sure all the liquor was accounted for. Now, I do wonder what she would take her backpack. What could possibly be in it that was important?
 
..

With the exception of the car insurance issue, the actual wreck of the Saturn would not have seemed to be such a big deal once Maura had a chance to think about it. She and her dad were planning to get rid of it anyway, it wasn't reliable, and its trade value would have been negligable. The school bus driver said she didn't appear to be intoxicated, so it may be that there wasn't even the fear of a DUI to motivate her to take off. And once she got to a motel or some other safe spot, even if she was dead drunk, she could have sobered up and claimed the car in the morning. If there was the right insurance, she might have gotten a rental car the next morning. Or she could have called a friend to help her out. So if she didn't intend to disappear when she left UMass, I have a hard time thinking that the wrecked Saturn would have triggered such a drastic response. She may have wanted to avoid LE and get to a spot where she could call AAA (the school bus driver's account supports this idea as does the fact that she took off). Even if she were sober, the spilled alcohol would have raised issues and of course she may also have had a concussion (air bags deployed). So she takes off. And once she made the news and her frantic father showed up and wasn't nutso about the car, she could have just reappeared and said she had no idea they were looking for her.

It's hard to see a scenario where she is still alive, this girl who checked her voicemail 2 1/2 hours before the wreck and was carrying birth control, dental
floss, school books, and the insurance paperwork for the Toyota crash.

IMO, the drastic response was because it was her 2nd crash in 2 days. She was still shaken by her first crash. I also think she knew she was drinking in both cases, even though she wasn't charged in the first crash (lucky), and was afraid of a possible arrest for the 2nd crash. Chances are she wasn't drunk with over .08 limit, but I'm sure she wasn't certain of that either. Two car crashes in 2 days would shake up anyone. I agree that the evidence seems to point that she was only going up there to clear her head. I also think it is possible she ran off to try to find a cell phone signal, but was unaware that it would be miles before she could receive one in that direction.
 
IMO, the drastic response was because it was her 2nd crash in 2 days. She was still shaken by her first crash. I also think she knew she was drinking in both cases, even though she wasn't charged in the first crash (lucky), and was afraid of a possible arrest for the 2nd crash. Chances are she wasn't drunk with over .08 limit, but I'm sure she wasn't certain of that either. Two car crashes in 2 days would shake up anyone. I agree that the evidence seems to point that she was only going up there to clear her head. I also think it is possible she ran off to try to find a cell phone signal, but was unaware that it would be miles before she could receive one in that direction.

Or she could've just walked to one of the nine houses within 500 yards of her and used one of their phones. Just saying.
 
Or she could've just walked to one of the nine houses within 500 yards of her and used one of their phones. Just saying.

Hey scoops you were just there correct? Did u notice if u were able to get cell reception on any part of that road?
 
Hey scoops you were just there correct? Did u notice if u were able to get cell reception on any part of that road?

I recently drove the route and had no Verizon signal once I got more than a couple of miles from the Connecticut River. Back at the time we're talking about, I'm guessing the entire route would have been a dead zone.
 
Or she could've just walked to one of the nine houses within 500 yards of her and used one of their phones. Just saying.

I don't think she wanted to involve anyone near the crash (afraid they'll call the police, because they knew it was a crash--not just a disabled vehicle), but we don't know that she didn't go up to someone's house up the road somewhere. She could have done that. To me, it was clear she didn't want the police involved when she told the bus driver not to call police, because she had just called AAA.
 
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