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

OldSteve said:

Thanks scoops! Lots of good points - especially about the sound of sirens and knowing LE was on their way.
I like your, "it would've taken a houdini like abduction for someone to sneak in during that short window of time"
Got me thinking, with all the commotion of approach LE, Fire Trucks...what would MM do assuming she wanted to avoid all of this....
I always thought as a runner there was no way I would run East toward the forest and over roads I hadn't been previous on that night, but now I don't know. Would there be enough light to do it? Would I run East a bit and try to duck into the woods.... I would figure that LE might travel east and see where I made a break into the woods because there was new snow around... but just running East, they could spot me as well...

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scoops said:

There is a field that is in between the Westman's house and the school bus driver's and from the point of Maura's wreck, she would've likely been right in line with that field. A tree-line would possibly block the view of the Westman's if Maura were to head into this field. That would be a good place to at least head for initially(because it is complete darkness). Beyond the field is a stream and I don't know what that would be like to try and cross in February with snow on the ground.

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pittsburghgirl said:

OK, here is something that drives me insane as a reader, a WSer, and a teacher. The May 11, 2011 SOCO article says this:



First, this writer builds an entire hypothesis from material even though he or she "can't be sure exactly where it came from." The writer identifies that hypothesis as "speculation," but certainly gives inordinate weight to "information" picked up from the web (some board or blog, no doubt). Now that unidentified, unsourced information has a new luster to it, having been printed in a "traditional" magazine, pictures and all. And careless readers will pick up what that magazine says as "fact" and it will be on more boards and blogs, now with a new status.

We can recognize the basic outlines of the call log narrative, in which the 911
dispatcher is recording, presumably, what Westman said. How easy would it have been for the "reporter" to source and cite? Jiminy crickets, the mods here expect that of us. This is a print magazine. Then, note the shift: "what looked like another person in the car." This seems to imply that the source (whom we know to be Westman) said there was "another" person, not just one person. Our discussion above indicates that the call log refers to "a man," but it certainly never refers to more than one person. Now, if Westman did see a man, and Atwood a woman, we would indeed have two people; however, no one has ever said he or she saw two distinct people at the scene.

This sloppy research and leaping to a conclusion (what a witness describes as a man at the scene turns into "another person") is what causes so many problems in this case. In this case, this writer weaves that other person into a narrative in which Maura was traveling with someone, who put the rag in the tailpipe to stall the car and hid in the woods. That explains (so this story goes) why Maura didn't want LE at the scene and why she left (to join up with the phantom "other person"). As in many loopy conspiracy theories, the writer doesn't explain why a predator would need to stage a wreck in front of a bunch of houses and potential witnesses, in order to abduct and murder Maura, when he's already got her in a car and can just kill her somewhere in private and dump the car.


The article is worth a read, but it makes me more skeptical than I was of the first SOCO piece (which ran in April 2011.)

The new article can be accessed by googling issuu soco May 2011.

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scoops said:

Also to add to that, while this area is considered very remote, the specific site of the accident is not that remote. With the weathered Barn store (owned by the westman's) that has a big street light out in front of it and the school bus driver's house which had yet another big street light by the road, plus the westman's house and the Mayottes house with their lights on. I know If I were looking to abduct someone or even ruse someone into my car, that would not be the place I would want to do it (I would be way too afraid of having my car or license plate spotted). I would have been spooked off and then you have the police that (You would know already would be on their way). Way too risky and most criminals are opportunists, This particular area is not very opportune at that time of the night and in this circumstance.

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McSpy said:

If Maura ran, I wonder if her feet became uncomfortably cold eventually. There was never any mention on what she usually wore for shoes.

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McSpy said:

If Maura ran, I wonder if her feet became uncomfortably cold eventually. There was never any mention on what she usually wore for shoes.

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Jane Birch said:

She is believed to have been wearing a pair of those (for lack of a better term) bowling shoes that were popular at the time. Not very warm at all, with not a whole lot of traction and very little (if any) weather protection from snow etc.

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OldSteve said:

Googled women's bowling shoes... some have treads, remind me a bit of the classic leather Rebok running shoes wife and I used
http://www.reebok.com/US/product?mo...324&cm_mmc=Nextag-_-CSE-_-Shopping-_-Shopping
As you can see not for warmth, but you don't feel cold when you are running... when you stop, that's a different story.

ETA if any runners see this, before you say something about this shoe not having this-or-that support, we like them, they worked for our feet...

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Jane Birch said:

She is believed to have been wearing a pair of those (for lack of a better term) bowling shoes that were popular at the time. Not very warm at all, with not a whole lot of traction and very little (if any) weather protection from snow etc.

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McSpy said:

If Maura ran, I wonder if her feet became uncomfortably cold eventually. There was never any mention on what she usually wore for shoes.

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pittsburghgirl said:

As a long-time year-round runner, I never had problems with real running shoes and proper socks. If Maura was wearing bowling-type shoes, they would be very poor on bad roads, and even on dry pavement. Running shoes are made to absorb shock and support the midfoot, to allow for proper heal strike and alignment. Roads are bad to run on even in good weather because they are "crowned" for drainage, which means unless the runner is running dead in the center of the road, he or she is running lopsided, which causes chronomalacia patella, commonly known as runner's knee, and no doubt other structural problems of the foot, ankle, knee and hip.

Maura might well have had even bigger problems; if she had any alcohol, she would have been subject to its depressant qualities, lowered heart-rate, slower cognition, body temperature and blood pressure changes, all of which might have made her prone to hypothermia, especially if she did run for a while and found she had to stop and walk. It is very hard to run when under the influence (although old-time marathoners have done it...), but under the influence, at night, on unfamiliar roads in snow conditions, in the cold, and with a possible head injury (something did hit the windshield)--not a recipe for safe running.

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OldSteve said:

After thinking about it.... perhaps as sleuths we are looking for too much skullduggery - the simplest explanation is that MM took off running and at some point stopped because she was tired or tripped on a stone and decided to rest in the woods, and scummed to the elements that way. A wider search area was needed...

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OldSteve said:

After thinking about it.... perhaps as sleuths we are looking for too much skullduggery - the simplest explanation is that MM took off running and at some point stopped because she was tired or tripped on a stone and decided to rest in the woods, and scummed to the elements that way. A wider search area was needed...

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