NH NH - Maura Murray, 21, Haverhill, 9 Feb 2004 - #12

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Maybe Fred has been right along in that what happened before the accident in Haverhill doesn't matter.

Its all very interesting to speculate about but, the story starts right as Butch Atwood pulls away in the school bus and the Westmans curtains close and Maura just absolutely vanishes.

RF the contractor maybe saw her, maybe not jogging miles away............ I don't know anymore, but she has to be somewhere.........This story still doesn't have an ending.........
 
I disagree that her actions leading up to her disappearance don't matter. There really was no reason for her to have crashed in NH in the first place, when she was supposed to be attending classes in MA. I agree that really any number of things could have happened to her after BA last saw her, but no one has adequately explained why she was in NH w.o telling anyone where she was going or why she was there...so until that can be explained, i definitely think that there should be at least some consideration of her actions prior to her disappearance.

This is just my opinion, but I believe a lot of the reason FM says that none of the actions leading up to her disappearance matter is because he either doesn't want to tarnish her memory by having less than desirable things about her life made public, or he wishes to keep the attention of LE on the case and in the area (hence his "local dirtbag" theory)
 
Earth said:
Do you think this could be Maura?

https://identifyus.org/en/cases/12167

View attachment 73222 View attachment 73223

White Female, aged 18-30, died between 2003 and 2005. Found in Illinois in January 2006. Estimated 63 inches, when Maura was 67, but it does look like her.
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I tend to think not, from the height difference of 4 inches (significant, esp. for a woman), and also from facial structural differences. I'd say the unidentified woman's face is longer, also more heavily boned at cheek and chin, than Maura's face. JMO
 
http://www.thv11.com/story/news/local/2015/03/17/more-skeletal-remains-clothing-id-found-belonging-to-john-glasgow/24928023/

Okay, so this is obviously not Maura's case, but this man, John Glasgow, was just found seven years after he disappeared. There were "sightings" of him. His body was found one mile from where he was last seen and where his car was parked. Of course that area was searched extensively. I like Renner and I am looking forward to reading the book (in 2035 apparently), but this is something I can never agree with him about. He is not correct that a "thorough search" is good evidence that Maura is not there. There are simply too many examples of people's bodies being found either in or very near the search area.

I would not be at all surprised if Maura's body is found in the search area. Oh, and in John Glasgow's case, the canines also could not track his scent. BTW, I have been doing some reading on this, and it is surprisingly common for canines to not be able to pick up a scent when tracking people in the wilderness.
 
Fireweed said:
http://www.thv11.com/story/news/local/2015/03/17/more-skeletal-remains-clothing-id-found-belonging-to-john-glasgow/24928023/

Okay, so this is obviously not Maura's case, but this man, John Glasgow, was just found seven years after he disappeared. There were "sightings" of him. His body was found one mile from where he was last seen and where his car was parked. Of course that area was searched extensively. I like Renner and I am looking forward to reading the book (in 2035 apparently), but this is something I can never agree with him about. He is not correct that a "thorough search" is good evidence that Maura is not there. There are simply too many examples of people's bodies being found either in or very near the search area.

I would not be at all surprised if Maura's body is found in the search area. Oh, and in John Glasgow's case, the canines also could not track his scent. BTW, I have been doing some reading on this, and it is surprisingly common for canines to not be able to pick up a scent when tracking people in the wilderness.
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True, but the thing about the John Glasgow case is that a lot of people think his body was dumped and that is why the canines didn't trace it from the vehicle. Where his body was found was closer to another road. It is much harder to get to from where he parked his vehicle than people realize.

With that being said, I do agree that they need to search for her again. However, I think Maura's case involves someone else, and by someone else, I mean a local. I think there is a good chance that her body isn't far from where her car was found, but I think it is buried. I think she took off running and someone grabbed her. But that is just my opinion.
 
allmybecsloveme said:
True, but the thing about the John Glasgow case is that a lot of people think his body was dumped and that is why the canines didn't trace it from the vehicle. Where his body was found was closer to another road. It is much harder to get to from where he parked his vehicle than people realize.

With that being said, I do agree that they need to search for her again. However, I think Maura's case involves someone else, and by someone else, I mean a local. I think there is a good chance that her body isn't far from where her car was found, but I think it is buried. I think she took off running and someone grabbed her. But that is just my opinion.
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I guess my thinking on this is that to a certain extent, it does not really matter how the bodies got there. The key here is that in a lot of these cases, whether it was death by murder, suicide or accident, the bodies are found very close to where the person was last seen and either inside the search area or not too far outside of it. Molly Bish was abducted and murdered and her body was found by a hunter three years later and two miles from where she was last seen. John Glasgow was one mile from where his car was parked. The Jamison family was found less than three miles from where their truck was parked. Heck, even women who were abducted - NH teenager, Jaycee Duggard, the women Ariel Castro abducted, Elizabeth Smart - were all relatively close to the abduction site.

My own thinking is that if Maura Murray was murdered, died in an accident, or was abducted, then she is not very far from where she was last seen. If she died accidentally that night, then she is probably about two miles away. If she was murdered, then about five miles, and if abducted then within 50 miles.

I am merely going by the outcome of other missing person's cases that were solved. Absent parent custody disputes, I cannot find one where someone was later found living in Europe or South America (billionaires with legal problems aside).

When young women go missing, whether dead or alive, they are found close by.
 
Fireweed said:
I guess my thinking on this is that to a certain extent, it does not really matter how the bodies got there. The key here is that in a lot of these cases, whether it was death by murder, suicide or accident, the bodies are found very close to where the person was last seen and either inside the search area or not too far outside of it. Molly Bish was abducted and murdered and her body was found by a hunter three years later and two miles from where she was last seen. John Glasgow was one mile from where his car was parked. The Jamison family was found less than three miles from where their truck was parked. Heck, even women who were abducted - NH teenager, Jaycee Duggard, the women Ariel Castro abducted, Elizabeth Smart - were all relatively close to the abduction site.

My own thinking is that if Maura Murray was murdered, died in an accident, or was abducted, then she is not very far from where she was last seen. If she died accidentally that night, then she is probably about two miles away. If she was murdered, then about five miles, and if abducted then within 50 miles.

I am merely going by the outcome of other missing person's cases that were solved. Absent parent custody disputes, I cannot find one where someone was later found living in Europe or South America (billionaires with legal problems aside).

When young women go missing, whether dead or alive, they are found close by.
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I definitely agree. I wish I lived up there, I'd definitely try to search with a few people but unfortunately I don't. I actually live smack dab between where the Jamison's and John Glasgow were found.

Maura crosses my mind daily. I have several cases that I follow like crazy, but there is just something about hers...I have followed it the longest. I hope they find her soon.
 
this case crosses my mind quite often there are just so many things that dont make sense... i wish some of this info would come out in away where we could know what is relaavant and what isnt there is SOOOOOO much you would thnk that we would know more at this point
 
The woods here in NH are thick and yet at certain times of the year you can get through if you are determined. The person that lives directly behind my home has a really old bright red Volkswagen parked in his backyard rusting away,yet I cannot see it through the woods and it is less than 100 yards from my home.
I always imagine that Maura ran from the accident sight and then hid in the woods after seeing police cars, if she got a mile or so away and a few hundred yards in (not impossible for a track and field star) no one would ever find her unless they happened upon the body. They have found a few bodies in NH right off I-93 that had been there for years and police and search teams did look for these people too.
 
carolann0308 said:
The woods here in NH are thick and yet at certain times of the year you can get through if you are determined. The person that lives directly behind my home has a really old bright red Volkswagen parked in his backyard rusting away,yet I cannot see it through the woods and it is less than 100 yards from my home.
I always imagine that Maura ran from the accident sight and then hid in the woods after seeing police cars, if she got a mile or so away and a few hundred yards in (not impossible for a track and field star) no one would ever find her unless they happened upon the body. They have found a few bodies in NH right off I-93 that had been there for years and police and search teams did look for these people too.
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That does not surprise me. There have been cases where bodies were found close by. I think that a body can just be difficult to see sometimes. If you really think about it, a human being is a very small object. If a person does something like "take shelter" right before they die then finding them is close to impossible.

To me, the Steve Fossett case will always be the perfect example of this. They knew about where he was going and they were looking for an entire airplane. The man had lots of resources and plenty of rich friends out looking for him, but still they could not find him. A hiker who went off the trail found him (same with John Glasgow).

I simply cannot put as much faith in a "thorough search" as Renner does.
 
It may seem strange after all this time but I still wonder why someone from the "Red Cross" was weeping into the boyfriend's voicemail on that Wednesday morning.
 
Fireweed said:
That does not surprise me. There have been cases where bodies were found close by. I think that a body can just be difficult to see sometimes. If you really think about it, a human being is a very small object. If a person does something like "take shelter" right before they die then finding them is close to impossible.
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Plus, and I hate saying this, after a very short period of time, it wouldn't even be a body anymore, just a skeleton. I'm not an expert on decomposition, but I'm just guessing if a body were laying there totally exposed to the elements, it would turn to bones rather quickly, thus making it even more difficult to see by searchers some time later. Covered in dirt/leaves, parts scattered by animals, etc.

I know Maura's case is very controversial whether she ran off on her own and is living somewhere else or dead. I unfortunately think she is no longer with us. I'm just not sure if it was due to murder, suicide, or a stupid, tragic accident where she thought she could hide out in the woods for a bit and succumbed to hypothermia. Truly a mystery.
 
On a hike my husband and I walked right past a large deer skeleton that was beside the trail. Only because our dog started pulling on her lead did we even see it a few feet away. That's how close you can walk by something in the woods and not spot it. Because it was skeletonized it had no smell and the color of it blended it with the dead leaves. Could someone refresh my memory whether cadaver dogs were ever used? I've been following this thread so long I can't recall.
 
dogperson said:
Could someone refresh my memory whether cadaver dogs were ever used? I've been following this thread so long I can't recall.
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I don't know whether they were used during the initial search but cadaver dogs were used in a search in late 2006, at which point they detected the scent of possible decomposition in the closet of a house near the scene of the accident. Carpet samples were sent to the NH State Police for analysis but it's uncertain whether any lab work was actually performed.
 
Heck even alive people are hard to spot. Well, I don't know what happened to Maura. All I can say is that if she died that night, whether by suicide, accident or murder, her body is very close by. If she died by accident, then it is within two miles or so. If by suicide, the same. If by murder, then she is probably within ten miles at the most, and probably much closer. There are outliers of course, but the only way she is far away is if she took off on her own.
 
Fireweed said:
Heck even alive people are hard to spot. Well, I don't know what happened to Maura. All I can say is that if she died that night, whether by suicide, accident or murder, her body is very close by. If she died by accident, then it is within two miles or so. If by suicide, the same. If by murder, then she is probably within ten miles at the most, and probably much closer. There are outliers of course, but the only way she is far away is if she took off on her own.
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Reading this just made me think of Frieda Langer, who went missing while camping with family near Glastenbury Mountain in October of 1950. Despite an exhaustive search featuring literally hundreds of volunteers, her body wasn't found until the following May and not only that, it was found just a few miles from the camp site.

The papers were a bit more euphemistic regarding details back then, but reading between the lines, it's obvious that she was raped and murdered. One can only imagine how the narrative would have unfolded had Frieda's remains not been found: we'd be discussing the possibility of suicide, or exposure, or (as in the case of Paula Welden who disappeared under nearly identical circumstances four years earlier), entertaining tall tales of her following the Long Trail up to Canada to elope with some secret lover and start a new life, with more fringe elements eager still to relegate Frieda's disappearance to local folklore and paranormal attribution. (The truth is out there.)

I'm reminded of Maura because this happens ALL THE TIME when young women go missing, even if it happens in places where scores of OTHER women have disappeared and/or fallen prey to some kind of male violence and their cases gone similarly cold. In such instances, I'd argue against the "logic" that decrees foul play farfetched; the sheer gravity of numbers alone would argue that it is sadly, drearily prosaic.
 
Yes, this is something that has long bothered me about Maura's case. The likelihood that a predator was on the prowl that night was incredibly low. We are talking about a remote region of NH on a Monday night in February. Heck, the chances that any young woman will be picked up by a predator in her lifetime is incredibly low. Most of us go through life relatively unmolested. However, when we look at this from the opposite angle, namely that we know that Maura is a young woman who is missing, then the chances that she encountered a predator that night are now incredibly high.

I do not discount any possibility in this case, but one thing I am sure of is that an "exhaustive search" does not mean that she is not out there. And if she is out there, then she is very close to where her car was last seen.

The main thing that separates this case from cases of other missing women is that Maura seemingly engaged in activities in the day or two preceding her disappearance which point towards a person who was leaving her old life behind and possibly running away for good. In most of these cases where women disappear mysteriously, their lives were completely normal up until they vanished, but Maura's wasn't. She had a packed up dorm room, an upsetting phone call, a car accident, a drinking problem, and perhaps $4,000 in cash. She was not engaged in her "normal" life the day she vanished. She was abnormally on a drive by herself in New Hampshire that she had told no one about on a day when she was supposed to be at school and work. Could it all just be one huge coincidence? Yes, I suppose. The other issue is that girls and women who are "running away" are more vulnerable to being crime victims than other women. Women who are alone and running away have severed ties with their friends and family and in doing so have left themselves less safe and secure. Even if nothing happened that night, Maura could have met a man the next night somewhere who offered to take her in or help her in some way.
 
I found this from an article on Maura I had never seen before. If everyone else has seen it but me, then I apologize, but I have spent some time reading up on Maura and I had never come across this particular article.

Fred Murray became particularly upset when, for unexplained reasons, the Haverhill and New Hampshire State Police would not provide John Walsh of America’s Most Wanted television show a copy of their report on his daughter’s case so that Walsh could feature her disappearance on his show. Since this incident, Fred Murray has become increasingly frustrated with the lack of information shared with him.

Adding to Fred Murray’s frustration and desire for hard facts have been the flood of contradictory press reports and televised media features about the case. Especially confusing are reports concerning the moments immediately following the accident on Route 112 and exactly who saw exactly what.

Fred Murray said police have refused to tell him the identities of all the witnesses at the scene of the accident. Initial press reports had bus driver Atwood stopping his bus beside Maura’s car, then subsequent reports had him spotting her car from his home 100 yards away and rushing down on foot “to see if he could help.”

Indeed, Atwood told one reporter, “She spun on the curve. She had no lights on, and it was a dark car. … I put my flashlight in the window. She was behind the airbag.”

Other reports have Atwood as the only witness on the scene while others state quite clearly there were multiple witnesses, yet none are identified by name. Other reports had Atwood telling reporters he invited Murray to wait at his house, but she declined.

A Caledonian Record article dated Feb. 27, 2004, reads: “Atwood said Murray didn’t appear intoxicated, despite police having said a witness indicated she had appeared to be impaired due to alcohol.”

Another article speaks of a witness who happened onto the scene in a vehicle and spoke with Maura Murray, but does not identify the witness. Fred Murray also was upset by a string of police statements that painted Maura as “suicidal” and “endangered and possibly suicidal.” Fred said that is simply not true and that such reports originated in police reports to the media released two days after his daughter’s disappearance.
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http://www.wnd.com/2006/03/35310/
 
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