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

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As I said in an earlier post, early on in the case, a NH state trooper misrepresented a note found in Maura's room in a way that supported suicide. The trooper(s) may well have believed she did take her life, but that misrepresentation and the failure to contact the rental condo owner that Maura had called prior to the trip (and no doubt other issues) raises questions, for me at least, about the objectivity and effort that went into the official search for Maura. I've seen copies of the FOIA document filed by Fred, as well as letters he has written in an attempt to learn about the investigation. Some people on the internet have painted his search as indicative of his involvement in her disappearance, which is, in my opinion, utter nonsense. It always irks me when the understandable acts of desperate and grieving family members are interpreted with suspicion. As none of us have probably ever seen an FOIA document filed by a parent of a missing young adult, of course the document will be interesting, different, unique--pick your term. The case has been going nowhere. Some fathers may write books, do TV, get a divorce, keep a child's room as a shrine, etc. Fred is trying to bring the government's resources to bear on the disappearance of a beloved child. Good for him.
 
Again, I would say that it is an either or type situation with this case and I haven't been fully convinced one way or the other.

But either Barney Fife has been in charge of this investigation, locking himself into the jail cell accidently and stumbling all around because he hasn't seen one of them there big time crimes before


OR police have reasons to believe no crime ever occured, which explains why you would leave the largest piece of physical evidence (Maura's car) unattended for a year and a half

It might also explain why they haven't gone and done a roundup of the usual suspects of dirt bags either



Back to the note the police found in Maura's room.

Yes it is possible they confused an old note as a possible suicide note Maura had just written prior to her departure.

But considering the note was from her boyfriend to her and more than likely had a date stamped on it (Because it was printed from a computer) They would have to be the dumbest cops in the world to mess that one up.
 
OldSteve said:
I see a new entry on James' blog:
"Is it a clue?"
http://mauramurray.blogspot.com/

Wow! Most interesting to say the least...
Click to expand...


Very Interesting! I would think their supervisor and coworkers may have some insight on this. They may know if it was unusual for them to not show up for work. I also wonder the time they were suppose to show up to work and how it fits in the timeline. I have always thought it was strange that nobody but the contractor had seen her running down the road that night. I know the area is sparsely populated, but the road leads to several towns, so one would suspect a car or two would use that road. Also, it wasn't that late. Activity was probably winding down, but not dead yet.
 
scoops said:
McSpy,

I really think it is an either/or type situation.

Either how you describe it is exactly how it went down. the police sloppily fumbled the case from the beginning by not taking Maura going missing very seriously and did not tactfully deal with the family in a proper way with information release. (A very possible conclusion)

Or, Police discovered credible and solid information early on that (they have never disclosed to family or the public) that to them eliminated the possibility of some of the theories that have developed about this case such as a mass murderer on the loose who just happened to have perfect timing the night Maura went missing. (Maybe thinking more on the lines of a suicide)

If it is the Or situation, then that would explain the police'es almost nonchalant appearance when it came to looking for a "Bad guy."
It would also explain why, even after all these years, they have not released all the information and evidence they have, because they do not have a body and forensic testing on the body to back up their conclusions.

If you are going to go public and say We believe Maura took her life, you better have the physical proof, because the family and public for that matter
will demand it. Early on, I think the police PR slipped up and threw out the potential theory of suicide and quickly changed their tune once the public heat began to turn up on them. Then they almost went into lockdown mode on the release of pertinent information related to the case after that and even made a very shallow attempt to suggest that maybe a crime took place to try and show that they were taking a balanced apporach to the case (Pure move IMO, to avoid a future lawsuit more than actually believing what they were saying to the public).
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You make some valid points here. Although, it doesn't have to be a mass murderer coincidentially driving down Rt. 112. It could have been just an opportunist, who took things too far. It could have been his first offense of that magnitude. I really think young women can be targets. Take the case of Brittany Driscoll, who was snatched off a street, the case of Chandra Levy, who was running in a park, etc., etc.
 
OldSteve said:
I think FM was most upset that LE did go after MM more aggressively since no matter what reason for her leaving her car, she was endangered..
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I was told by someone close to the investigation that it is common for drivers under the influence who are involved in accidents to leave the scene in order to sober up. Maura would not necessarily be considered endangered if police saw the open alcohol containers in her car. At least not the first 24-hours.
 
Katrinka said:
I was told by someone close to the investigation that it is common for drivers under the influence who are involved in accidents to leave the scene in order to sober up. Maura would not necessarily be considered endangered if police saw the open alcohol containers in her car. At least not the first 24-hours.
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Not only alcohol, but a crashed car with a cracked windshield... not to mention night approaching in a freezing, rural, remote area... if that were my child and I was told this didn't amount to being endangered, I'd have gone bonkers! - got to feel for what Fred when thru!
 
Hi everyone,

I read in a couple of places that before Maura left for NH, she packed up her dorm room, even going so far as taking things down off her wall. I was wondering if someone could verify is this is true. IF it was, I would think this would be a very important piece of info. After all, why would she take things off her wall if she was planning on coming back from a short trip to get away and clear her head? Those are actions that I would expect from someone not planning on coming back. Perhaps she was planning on droppping out of school, and was going away to think about how she would break the news to her family? It also might indicate she was going to either commit suicide or run away somewhere. What do you guys think? If this is verified info, I feel that is one of the most telling of Maura's actions.
 
ilovekitties said:
Hi everyone,

I read in a couple of places that before Maura left for NH, she packed up her dorm room, even going so far as taking things down off her wall. I was wondering if someone could verify is this is true. IF it was, I would think this would be a very important piece of info. After all, why would she take things off her wall if she was planning on coming back from a short trip to get away and clear her head? Those are actions that I would expect from someone not planning on coming back. Perhaps she was planning on droppping out of school, and was going away to think about how she would break the news to her family? It also might indicate she was going to either commit suicide or run away somewhere. What do you guys think? If this is verified info, I feel that is one of the most telling of Maura's actions.
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All IIRC - things taken off the walls were things taken down before she went on the semester break, she had not yet put them back up ... same for boxes - it wasn't that she had packed, but that she hadn't unpacked...
As far as I can tell, there was nothing to indicate she did not plan on coming back. Nothing to indicate she wanted to run away forever from her family...

ETA: reason she took pictures and packed up things before break was that she was afraid someone might take or mess up her things while she was away during the semester break.... again, all IIRC...
 
Something I posted on the Lauren Spierer thread may be of interest here...


After watching "Nightmare Next Store" about Katie Sepich I couldn't help but think of Lauren's case AND it makes think about Maura in that it shows how fast a person can be grabbed by a radon stranger, and how it seems impossible that a perp just happens to be a place....

Essentially, Katie had left a party to walk home, after a spat with her BF.... he notices she had left, and so he goes to follow her in his truck to see that she gets home okay...
He sees she is at her home, and leaves... but she doesn't have her keys with her, so she goes to remove a screen to get thru a window - she is taken at that point!

Well, if you get a chance to see the show, check it out...
http://investigation.discovery.com/t...129699.39406.x

But what struck me about Katie's case was the very small window of opportunity the perp had...
 
OldSteve said:
All IIRC - things taken off the walls were things taken down before she went on the semester break, she had not yet put them back up ... same for boxes - it wasn't that she had packed, but that she hadn't unpacked...
As far as I can tell, there was nothing to indicate she did not plan on coming back. Nothing to indicate she wanted to run away forever from her family...

ETA: reason she took pictures and packed up things before break was that she was afraid someone might take or mess up her things while she was away during the semester break.... again, all IIRC...
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With all due respect, this is one of those things that has only ever been a theory. We do not know that she packed everything up before the break and merely hadn't unpacked yet. And frankly, this makes NO sense to me at all (as someone who went to college and lived in a dorm not that long ago), and it especially does not make sense in light of the fact that apparently these things were found on her bed...unless she had not been sleeping in her dorm room since getting back from break.

Quite frankly, this is one of those details that has been repeated over time in a certain way in order to not cast any doubts on Maura's frame of mind. I think we do NOT know one way or the other whether she was packed up or not-yet-unpacked, and the former makes more sense to me...UNLESS she was not sleeping in her dorm room on a regular basis. I point this out because I knew a handful of girls in college whose parents thought were living in a dorm (and were paying for a dorm plan!), but were actually living with boyfriends or friends in off-campus apartments. Could she have been sleeping elsewhere because she was scared/being stalked/harassed on campus? OR...what exactly WAS packed up? Anything valuable...ie. things to try to sell or pawn?

There are way too many unknowns to simply conclude that she hadn't unpacked yet. This is a VERY important detail and I only wish we could see some pictures of her dorm room in order to better see exactly what was and was not unpacked.

Just MHO...and I know many will NOT like it!!
 
Oddtree said:
With all due respect, this is one of those things that has only ever been a theory. We do not know that she packed everything up before the break and merely hadn't unpacked yet. And frankly, this makes NO sense to me at all (as someone who went to college and lived in a dorm not that long ago), and it especially does not make sense in light of the fact that apparently these things were found on her bed...unless she had not been sleeping in her dorm room since getting back from break.

Quite frankly, this is one of those details that has been repeated over time in a certain way in order to not cast any doubts on Maura's frame of mind. I think we do NOT know one way or the other whether she was packed up or not-yet-unpacked, and the former makes more sense to me...UNLESS she was not sleeping in her dorm room on a regular basis. I point this out because I knew a handful of girls in college whose parents thought were
living in a dorm (and were paying for a dorm plan!), but were actually living with boyfriends or friends in off-campus apartments. Could she have been sleeping elsewhere because she was scared/being stalked/harassed on campus? OR...what exactly WAS packed up? Anything valuable...ie. things to try to sell or pawn?

There are way too many unknowns to simply conclude that she hadn't unpacked yet. This is a VERY important detail and I only wish we could see some pictures of her dorm room in order to better see exactly what was and
was not unpacked.

Just MHO...and I know many will NOT like it!!
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Maura's mother had said that Maura brought practically everything home on winter break and may not have unpacked everything when she moved back to the dorm. IIRC, she was only back to school for a couple of weeks.
 
Oddtree;

You are correct, I do not have as fact that MM didn't unpack.... only second hand sources such as what's been posted on old forums:

"""Although police believe the belongings packed in Maura's dorm room were another indication she had no intention to return, the mother of Maura's then-boyfriend has another explanation. Sharon Rausch thinks Maura hadn't yet unpacked her things after a long Christmas break. During one of Maura's visits to the Rausch home, Mrs. Rausch tried to loan her an extra suitcase, only to discover it hadn't been unpacked. That made Maura laugh, Sharon Rausch said. "Maura said, You're just like me. I unpack as I use my things.' That's out of her own mouth. Maybe she just never unpacked."
 
Oddtree said:
With all due respect, this is one of those things that has only ever been a theory. We do not know that she packed everything up before the break and merely hadn't unpacked yet. And frankly, this makes NO sense to me at all (as someone who went to college and lived in a dorm not that long ago), and it especially does not make sense in light of the fact that apparently these things were found on her bed...unless she had not been sleeping in her dorm room since getting back from break.

Quite frankly, this is one of those details that has been repeated over time in a certain way in order to not cast any doubts on Maura's frame of mind. I think we do NOT know one way or the other whether she was packed up or not-yet-unpacked, and the former makes more sense to me...UNLESS she was not sleeping in her dorm room on a regular basis. I point this out because I knew a handful of girls in college whose parents thought were living in a dorm (and were paying for a dorm plan!), but were actually living with boyfriends or friends in off-campus apartments. Could she have been sleeping elsewhere because she was scared/being stalked/harassed on campus? OR...what exactly WAS packed up? Anything valuable...ie. things to try to sell or pawn?

There are way too many unknowns to simply conclude that she hadn't unpacked yet. This is a VERY important detail and I only wish we could see some pictures of her dorm room in order to better see exactly what was and was not unpacked.

Just MHO...and I know many will NOT like it!!
Click to expand...

This entire thread is reminding me quite a bit now, of Rumsfeld, aka "Rummy" when he said the following :

The Unknown
As we know,
There are known knowns.
There are things we know we know.
We also know
There are known unknowns.

That is to say
We know there are some things
We do not know.
But there are also unknown unknowns,
The ones we don't know
We don't know.

—Feb. 12, 2002, Department of Defense news briefing


note: no disrespect intended to the posters here.....:waitasec:
 
As it has been explained, her dorm was completely packed up (art from the walls was down, things in her drawers taken out and boxes of her stuff were stacked up on her bed with an old email written by her boyfriend to her (with the subject having to do with him cheating on her) placed on top of the boxes.

I know of plenty of people that take their time unpacking when they move in or return to a place, there is no way that this is one such occassion.

I've always struggled with the fact that the boyfriend and boyfriend's mother have not been shy about saying there is no NEW note that was found even though, they know precisely what note the police were referring to when they made their statement about Maura being potentially suicidal or wanting to get away

(The boyfriend was there when police searched her dorm room).
 
scoops said:
As it has been explained, her dorm was completely packed up (art from the walls was down, things in her drawers taken out and boxes of her stuff were stacked up on her bed with an old email written by her boyfriend to her (with the subject having to do with him cheating on her) placed on top of the boxes.

I know of plenty of people that take their time unpacking when they move in or return to a place, there is no way that this is one such occassion.

I've always struggled with the fact that the boyfriend and boyfriend's mother have not been shy about saying there is no NEW note that was found even though, they know precisely what note the police were referring to when they made their statement about Maura being potentially suicidal or wanting to get away

(The boyfriend was there when police searched her dorm room).
Click to expand...

You seem convinced....
Yet, I don't know if we can ever really figure out what she was planning... maybe leaving school when she returned...and yet if she was planning on leaving school, or ending it all, why did she take her books to study with her..
 
OldSteve said:
You seem convinced....
Yet, I don't know if we can ever really figure out what she was planning... maybe leaving school when she returned...and yet if she was planning on leaving school, or ending it all, why did she take her books to study with her..
Click to expand...

I'm not at all convinced that her immediate actions were to go kill herself. I don't think she would've loaded up on that much alcohol if that were the case. I do think she was heading for the mountains to contemplate her next move (with suicide as one of the options) and I do think that her second wreck (unplanned) caused her to have contemplate things much quicker.


By all accounts, she didn't have enough money to be gone a full week. And by all accounts, she did not have a final destination in mind and ended up making a last minute decision on a destination (with each place she was looking at just happening to be near mountains and hiking trails and places she had visited before with her father and family).

After the second wreck, all bets were off. I can't imagine her mind-set at that particular time being very positive.
 
OldSteve said:
You seem convinced....
Yet, I don't know if we can ever really figure out what she was planning... maybe leaving school when she returned...and yet if she was planning on leaving school, or ending it all, why did she take her books to study with her..
Click to expand...

It could've been something simple like the desire to change rooms, perhaps to another dorm building. Maybe she just didn't like the environment in Kennedy Hall. This would have to be done via administrative request and would be a traceble paper trail for LE to follow. Hopefully, they did.
 
I Care said:
It could've been something simple like the desire to change rooms, perhaps to another dorm building. Maybe she just didn't like the environment in Kennedy Hall. This would have to be done via administrative request and would be a traceble paper trail for LE to follow. Hopefully, they did.
Click to expand...

The packed boxes stacked on her bed are one thing. The note found on top of the boxes (that was an old e-mail she had printed out from her boyfriend about him cheating on her) is a whole different animal.

Both police and her boyfriend discovered this note. Police link it to why she took off saying they found a note.

Boyfriend and boyfriend's mother say NO, there was no NEW note found and don't elaborate on the finding any further.
 
Does anyone have any idea when that old email was originally written? Which year or was it months old?
 
McSpy said:
Does anyone have any idea when that old email was originally written? Which year or was it months old?
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From everything I understand and comprehend, it wasn't a recent note, but rather a recently printed out note by Maura.

It was an excerpt from an email sent to her from billy that magically ended up on top of her packed boxes in her dorm room. Verry odd if this printed out email accidentally ended up where it did.

Police made a sloppy statement concerning this finding saying that they found a note (implying that Maura had left a note behind before she left)

Maura's boyfriend who was right beside the police that searched the dorm room stated that no new note was found.

Technically neither one of them are wrong. But both are answering the question of -what was found in her room?- quite differently which is odd.
 
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