In one of his theories, Scoops said that he doubts an abductor would wait for Maura to empty her backpack of books and replace them with the alcohol. IMO, she was possibly taken after she had left the car. She could have been 300 yards up the road or 2 miles up the road, but I don't think she was abducted at the accident scene. I also don't think she was abducted off the road. IMO, she accepted a ride by the wrong person. I could be wrong, but it rings true to me. I've taken those kinds of chances when I was her age.
NH NH - Maura Murray, 21, Haverhill, 9 Feb 2004 - # 8
- Thread starter SheWhoMustNotBeNamed
- Start date
- Status
In one of his theories, Scoops said that he doubts an abductor would wait for Maura to empty her backpack of books and replace them with the alcohol. IMO, she was possibly taken after she had left the car. She could have been 300 yards up the road or 2 miles up the road, but I don't think she was abducted at the accident scene. I also don't think she was abducted off the road. IMO, she accepted a ride by the wrong person. I could be wrong, but it rings true to me. I've taken those kinds of chances when I was her age.
It is around 15 miles to the next town, if she continued down Rt. 112. Imagine running down that road in the pitch black darkness. There is no ambient light as you go futher into the forest on Rt. 112. I know that one's eyes can adjust somewhat, but there is a limit. No details can be distinguished. I can see getting scared and disoriented by the blackness and the quiet. If Maura was avoiding vehicles, she could have hopped over a snowbank. The other side of the snowbank could have been an embankment or a ravine. A stump or a hole could have been hidden in the soft snow. She could have broke or twisted an ankle or worse. She could have had a hard time getting back up onto the roadway or she tried to continue her walk in terrible pain. Since she was young, a track star, and had hiked the mountains in her leisure, I think she could have made it far down the road. If she was not abducted, the darkness could have played tricks on her headway.
The only reason I brought up my new theory about the rag, is because it had occurred to me and I thought I'd share my thoughts. The sad thing is if my theory is true in anyway, then that rag had changed her fate. Her dad would have not been in town to help her find a car. She would not have got into the first car wreck and she would not have gone up to NH.
Don't fret. There are more than one pair of butterfly wings fluttering around the world. :angel:
OldSteve
Well-Known Member
- Joined
- Jan 4, 2011
- Messages
- 4,946
- Reaction score
- 167
That's a something I've don't ever remember hearing - the theory being if someone placed the rag in the tailpipe while her car was in Amherst, causing her and her father to believe she needed a new car... and that set in motion those fateful events.
How do you figure they would have gotten into her trunk to get that particular rag out of the kit FM gave her? (I assumed the kit was in the trunk of the car, and locked - I could be wrong...
possible her car doors were unlocked and could the trunk be opened from inside the car? I believe you once had this model car and might know the answer? )
I'm thinking that LE may not have shown Fred the rag. They may have just asked him why she would have a rag in her car's tailpipe. Fred could have assumed it was from his emergency kit. To be honest, I can't picture LE saving the rag and showing it to Fred to identify. I wish I knew what actually happened.
goldiegirl
Active Member
- Joined
- Feb 8, 2011
- Messages
- 377
- Reaction score
- 127
Good points, but like McSpy said, it might not have been the same rag. Even if LE did show Fred the rag (and I agree with McSpy that that was probably not at the top of their priority list), would he really be able to tell for sure that it was the same rag from her kit? Unless he also looked in her kit and saw that her rag was missing, I don't know how he could have positively known that it was THE rag unless it has some pattern or other identifying mark that was familiar to him. If it was just plain, it could easily have been a different rag. How familiar are most of us with what everything looks like in our emergency kits, anyway? You really only look at it when you need it. Fred might not have known it as well as he thought he did.
Dionysia
Former Member
- Joined
- Sep 1, 2011
- Messages
- 621
- Reaction score
- 35
I think this is a case of Occam's Razor.
Maura wanted to spend some time alone to think, she crashed her car while drinking, freaked out about getting into trouble for driving while drinking, and ran into the woods. She was overcome by the elements and died there.
I just hope that some day her remains will be found and she can be properly laid to rest.
Maura wanted to spend some time alone to think, she crashed her car while drinking, freaked out about getting into trouble for driving while drinking, and ran into the woods. She was overcome by the elements and died there.
I just hope that some day her remains will be found and she can be properly laid to rest.
Jane Birch
New Member
- Joined
- Jul 19, 2011
- Messages
- 123
- Reaction score
- 0
All useful discussion I've heard about the rag seemed to indicate--IIRC--that the rag was fairly clean, and so that would mean it wasn't necessarily in there for a long time while the car was running.
Can anyone back my memory up on this? Or link to something fruitful about it?
This might be especially helpful if, like Mr. Renner said, the rag was "really jammed up in there good" (or however he phrased it.
Am I the only one who remembers people discussing the rag's condition at some point?
ETA: that isn't to say that current discussion of the rag isn't fruitful--I just couldn't figure out how else to say what I meant. Which goes more like this: "can anyone post a link to a newspaper article or sometihng that discusses it?"
Can anyone back my memory up on this? Or link to something fruitful about it?
This might be especially helpful if, like Mr. Renner said, the rag was "really jammed up in there good" (or however he phrased it.
Am I the only one who remembers people discussing the rag's condition at some point?
ETA: that isn't to say that current discussion of the rag isn't fruitful--I just couldn't figure out how else to say what I meant. Which goes more like this: "can anyone post a link to a newspaper article or sometihng that discusses it?"
As unlikely as it may sound I think that Maura just happened to be near the wrong person at the wrong time. I'm sure the odds are very slim, but what else can explain her just falling off the face of the Earth? I'm sure other things are possible too like her being alive and living an assumed life. I'd bet that if any one of us saw her tomorrow we would not recognise her. I'd like to know the odds of either one of those things having happened. I'm sure no one could tell us.
OldSteve
Well-Known Member
- Joined
- Jan 4, 2011
- Messages
- 4,946
- Reaction score
- 167
Allot of interesting comments posted to JR's Blog "Sunday, November 20, 2011
Request for info: Maura's Last Weekend at UMass"
http://mauramurray.blogspot.com/2011/11/request-for-info-mauras-last-weekend-at.html#comment-form
I thought the comment made by "teapot" on Nov. 20 2011 was interesting....
Request for info: Maura's Last Weekend at UMass"
http://mauramurray.blogspot.com/2011/11/request-for-info-mauras-last-weekend-at.html#comment-form
I thought the comment made by "teapot" on Nov. 20 2011 was interesting....
I can think of one thing that would negate the comment made by "teapot" from the first sentence:
They had dinner at a brew pub. Fred allegedly has a propensity to enjoy imbibing alcohol. Fred could have been too impaired to drive and Maura dropped him off at the hotel. Why call a cab or a friend to pick her up when she already had transportation (the Corrola) back to the dorm?
ETA: Why would she be so determined to return the car to the hotel? A) To prevent Fred from driving impaired while she was at the dorm party or B) Fred was not aware or might not remember after awakening the next morning that she borrowed it and then report it stolen or C) Both.
The commentary above is only conjecture.
OldSteve
Well-Known Member
- Joined
- Jan 4, 2011
- Messages
- 4,946
- Reaction score
- 167
I like your analysis of this! Makes allot of sense!
dogperson
Well-Known Member
- Joined
- Jul 7, 2009
- Messages
- 852
- Reaction score
- 778
"Teapot's" comments on Mr. Renner's blog are very interesting. It had never occurred to me that Maura might have made up the stories about her car not running well and being unreliable. Many of us have wondered why she would have driven the car so far on the night she disappeared. But IF there really was nothing wrong with the car she would have known it was perfectly safe to drive. Lying about the car's performance opens up a whole new can of worms concerning WHY she felt she needed to lie about it.
As to why she spent the night with her dad at the hotel, I think I had always assumed she had been drinking at the party earlier and maybe that's why she had the accident. Plus I assumed she and her dad had a drink or two together earlier in the night at the Pub. I thought maybe her dad made her stay the rest of the night at the hotel because she was unsafe to drive. Or, if she truly did not enjoy driving then she may have been too nervous that night to drive herself back. Of course, there are many more sinister scenarios we can come up with about this father and daughter, but I am not going to suggest anything like that was going on. Yes, they do seem to have a far closer relationship than most dads and daughters that I personally know, and they are certainly much closer than I ever was with my own father, but every family is different and in some families the dads have done more caregiving of the children than the moms.
I don't know how much Fred had drunk that night or why she felt she had to get the car back to him in the middle of the night. ICARE suggested Fred may have woken up the next morning and not remembered loaning her the car, then reporting it stolen. We had a client here where I work who was seriously ill and highly medicated. He came in to do his regular business at our office, walked out, then came back in and claimed his car was missing. He then called the police and reported it stolen. A few days later one of my co-workers spotted his "stolen" car parked across the street from THE POLICE STATION! I am not kidding! She called the police and told them to look out the window, at which point they realized the car had probably been sitting at that spot ever since the stolen report was made, rather than being parked at the location our client thought he left it. They contacted our client, who had sobered up from his medications and realized that he had just parked his car on a different block than he thought, then forgot where he parked it. It had never been stolen at all. My point being, if Fred had a tendency to drink heavily, or a tendency to have blackouts while drinking, then it's possible he would have forgotten where his car was.
As to why she spent the night with her dad at the hotel, I think I had always assumed she had been drinking at the party earlier and maybe that's why she had the accident. Plus I assumed she and her dad had a drink or two together earlier in the night at the Pub. I thought maybe her dad made her stay the rest of the night at the hotel because she was unsafe to drive. Or, if she truly did not enjoy driving then she may have been too nervous that night to drive herself back. Of course, there are many more sinister scenarios we can come up with about this father and daughter, but I am not going to suggest anything like that was going on. Yes, they do seem to have a far closer relationship than most dads and daughters that I personally know, and they are certainly much closer than I ever was with my own father, but every family is different and in some families the dads have done more caregiving of the children than the moms.
I don't know how much Fred had drunk that night or why she felt she had to get the car back to him in the middle of the night. ICARE suggested Fred may have woken up the next morning and not remembered loaning her the car, then reporting it stolen. We had a client here where I work who was seriously ill and highly medicated. He came in to do his regular business at our office, walked out, then came back in and claimed his car was missing. He then called the police and reported it stolen. A few days later one of my co-workers spotted his "stolen" car parked across the street from THE POLICE STATION! I am not kidding! She called the police and told them to look out the window, at which point they realized the car had probably been sitting at that spot ever since the stolen report was made, rather than being parked at the location our client thought he left it. They contacted our client, who had sobered up from his medications and realized that he had just parked his car on a different block than he thought, then forgot where he parked it. It had never been stolen at all. My point being, if Fred had a tendency to drink heavily, or a tendency to have blackouts while drinking, then it's possible he would have forgotten where his car was.
I don't have an account on the topix website, so I thought I'd address the question of snowfall totals and snowbank heights here. I'm sure those inquiring will find it here eventually.
Below are links to some screencaps from the Nancy Grace show aired on January 27, 2006 The caps are of file footage from WMUR News taken during February of 2004. It's unknown to me which day in February the footage was recorded.
Total snowfall accumulation for North Haverhill can be found through the NOAA website and is listed by month. In December 2003 there were 31.6 inches of snow that fell; January 2004 there were 7.2 inches and February 2004, 7.8 inches. This doesn't really help in nailing down the particular day in February which the images were recorded. It could've snowed accumulatively or after Feb 9. Pay sites can provide the data broken down by the days, which would be more useful. You also need to account for shrinkage from solar melting.
From corner of Bradley Hill Rd looking SE towards Weathered Barn.
In this image perspective deceives the eye with what looks like an enormous snowbank on the left side of the image. A better sense of the true heights of the bankings can be gauged by looking at the yellow traffic sign which is a fixed height and the snow stakes poking out of the top of the banking.
From corner of Bradley Hill across from SBD's house looking SE towards Weathered Barn.
This image shows the height of the banking the corner of Bradley Hill Rd. It's still difficult to gauge without a nearby object of fixed height. I would guess maybe 2 or 3 feet.
South looking at road shoulder towards "blue ribbon" tree and Old Peters Road.
This image shows the shoulder of the road looking at the location of the "blue ribbon tree." This is allegedly not the site where the Saturn came to rest which is a little further NW up the road. It looks slippery and sloppy but there is not alot of accumulation of snow here. As you can see in the tire tracks, which could've been made by another vehicle other than the Saturn, the height looks like it may come up 1/3 or 1/2 the height of a tire. If the Saturn did indeed make these tracks, and if it had not snowed since, it is plain to see that they lead nowhere near any of these trees, indicating that she had not collided into them.
Near "blue ribbon tree" looking SE toward Weathered Barn.
In this image you can see the road and immediate shoulder is almost clean, by plow or solar melt.
Below are links to some screencaps from the Nancy Grace show aired on January 27, 2006 The caps are of file footage from WMUR News taken during February of 2004. It's unknown to me which day in February the footage was recorded.
Total snowfall accumulation for North Haverhill can be found through the NOAA website and is listed by month. In December 2003 there were 31.6 inches of snow that fell; January 2004 there were 7.2 inches and February 2004, 7.8 inches. This doesn't really help in nailing down the particular day in February which the images were recorded. It could've snowed accumulatively or after Feb 9. Pay sites can provide the data broken down by the days, which would be more useful. You also need to account for shrinkage from solar melting.
From corner of Bradley Hill Rd looking SE towards Weathered Barn.
In this image perspective deceives the eye with what looks like an enormous snowbank on the left side of the image. A better sense of the true heights of the bankings can be gauged by looking at the yellow traffic sign which is a fixed height and the snow stakes poking out of the top of the banking.
From corner of Bradley Hill across from SBD's house looking SE towards Weathered Barn.
This image shows the height of the banking the corner of Bradley Hill Rd. It's still difficult to gauge without a nearby object of fixed height. I would guess maybe 2 or 3 feet.
South looking at road shoulder towards "blue ribbon" tree and Old Peters Road.
This image shows the shoulder of the road looking at the location of the "blue ribbon tree." This is allegedly not the site where the Saturn came to rest which is a little further NW up the road. It looks slippery and sloppy but there is not alot of accumulation of snow here. As you can see in the tire tracks, which could've been made by another vehicle other than the Saturn, the height looks like it may come up 1/3 or 1/2 the height of a tire. If the Saturn did indeed make these tracks, and if it had not snowed since, it is plain to see that they lead nowhere near any of these trees, indicating that she had not collided into them.
Near "blue ribbon tree" looking SE toward Weathered Barn.
In this image you can see the road and immediate shoulder is almost clean, by plow or solar melt.
rosierider
New Member
- Joined
- Jul 2, 2009
- Messages
- 42
- Reaction score
- 7
I can't decide if I think that James Renner is so busy with new leads that he doesn't have time to post, or he has no new info, thus nothing new to say.
- Status