You’re right—it definitely wouldn’t have to be deliberate.
NH NH - Maura Murray, 21, Haverhill, 9 Feb 2004 #15
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You’re right—it definitely wouldn’t have to be deliberate.
Chad_York
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If Maura had been drinking, do you know what time in the day she started?
minazoe
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no body knows anything about it, it was said she smelled of alcohol at the crash site.. none of this necessarily means she was intoxicated there was never a breathalyzer..so it's not a fact...she had purchased some booze...and there may have been an open container...But I think alcohol was involved in the accident. mO
Chad_York
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Do you think it's possible she was capable of acquiring a ride after the accident?
minazoe
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there are several ways to acquire a ride...right? could she call a ride? could she have been followed by someone she knew in another vehicle? could someone have stopped and offered..
or could someone or a pair of someones or even a group of someones ..have seen an inebriated girl stumbling around in the road trying to get a signal to call someone and just grabbed her.?
we have had a couple of accidents around here lately where both victims, crashed their cars, wandered off and were found possibly drowned, one in a river , one in a shallow roadside area where water had collected. Likely disoriented from head trauma.
mOO
Chad_York
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She couldn't call for a ride since cellular service isn't available in that area. It would have to have been pre-arranged. A tandem driver? Who? Why the prolonged silence? What's their alibi?
It's likely someone driving through the area similar to Karen McNamara? Would Maura have had placed trust with a driver that was female instead of male? Is it likely that the concern for her current situation give a driver cause to inquire? How does Maura rationalize her way out of a car accident involving open containers of alcohol?
A moment of opportunity for someone or a group to take advantage? If Maura was under the influence of alcohol, how much would she have had to drink? When did she start during the day? Also, why would she have taken the bottle of kahula, vodka, and the four sky blue coolers but leave behind the Franzia wine, Bailey's Irish cream and a few sky blue coolers? Did she suffer head trauma or any significant injury as a result of the airbag deployment? Could that cause a lapse of judgement?
This is not to say that after an accident, the victim would inexplicably walk away and succumb to the elements as a result of an injury. It still bothers me that New Hampshire Fish & Game were unable to find traces of Maura or evidence to suggest she had walked into the woods. Obviously no all areas were searched since certain areas were private property but still begs to wonder why?
If Maura was to acquire a ride, which I believe she was perfectly capable of doing, it would have been quickly. The factors of escape include; the cold, darkness, and anxiety. She needs to escape the accident and hope her chances of recovering her car don't include police involvement. If the driver that picks her up is was trustworthy, she asks for a ride into town to spend the night, sleep it off and inquire about her car the next morning. Most likely impounded.
If Maura does acquire a ride from a stranger and it turns out to end in a fatal tragedy, is the driver transient or not? If transient, it's critical to distance yourself from the crime as oppose to the latter, it's a matter of time and place.
@Chad_York we know very little about Maura's personal life. If she did get a ride with someone it is very possible it was with someone she knew. Infact it is probably more likely it would be a situation like that than Maura jumping into a car with a stranger in only a matter of moments.
We need to remember that it is very possible that wherever Maura was going she wasn't going there alone.
We need to remember that it is very possible that wherever Maura was going she wasn't going there alone.
When I was Maura's age friends and I would drive to places in groups all the time (especially if we were going somewhere to have a little fun). It isn't far fetched at all for Maura to wreck her car and then a couple minutes later someone in her group caught up to where she was and picked her up.
And them what?
Chad_York
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Who exactly would have been the tandem driver? Why remain silent for 18 years? If it was someone she knew, what platforms of communication would they have used to organize this? Excluding Bill Rausch, was it a close friend or an acquaintance? Would the person have had reservations and perhaps tried convincing Maura not do to this? It seems far-fetched. The excuse of a death in the family is extreme. How do you stop the inquiry - friends ask questions, people get curious. Why concoct a lie of that magnitude if it's just to get away? Leave it at that. Keep it simple. Taking time for a personal matter.
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thebigcookie
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Same here
minazoe
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I feel like a head injury from the airbag could cause her to become disoriented and wander off ..she could have been then eaten and dispersed by animals and never found. she could have just literally have gone face down into the snow and bramble somewhere. She could have been hammered too and slowly bleeding out inside her brain
and may have walked a distance feeling no pain but maybe an urgency or confusion.
to me it feels possible after the two cases we saw recently in Chicago where this appears to be the case..and in both cases it took some time to locate the victims. mOO
minazoe
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you would think so but if it's super cold and windy it's anyones guess, snow and ice can be tricky I think MOO
carbuff
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If she walked along the road for even a few feet before turning toward the woods, it would have been easy to miss tracks.
Chad_York
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If Maura did walk into the woods, why would she have spent time acquiring her belongings? Why bring the alcohol? Why add all that extra weight? If she had a guilty conscious about drinking and driving, then flee the scene and don't look back - the longer she stays, the worse it gets. Even with open alcoholic containers, it wouldn't have amounted to a DWI - more or less a possible citation on alcoholic transfer across state lines.
She had just had the accident with her father's car a few days before. More than likely she was having a lot of stress between that and school. She probably bought that booze to drink it and have time away by herself. She very likely had been drinking that wine when she was driving and wrecked again. She wanted to get away from there ASAP. I think as soon as Butch was out of her sight, she grabbed some booze and headed somewhere to get out of the area. She maybe thought she was closer to an area she could stay. When she saw more cars or even police, she may have shot into the woods. She was a runner, so she could have gotten quite a distance away, so there would not be tracks in a close area. She might have sat down and had a few drinks to warm up, passed out and froze to death.
Another theory I had was that she may have stopped off at a bar somewhere and had a few drinks, maybe got to chatting with someone. That person leaves and stuffs a rag in her muffler, knowing that that will mess up the carbon dioxide. She gets dizzy and has the wreck. She knew she had to get away from the scene, especially after just wrecking her dad's car, and along comes the person she was chatting with at the bar. She jumps in and that person kills her.
As awful a person as her ex was, he was accounted for in OK. I don't think her friends are involved, they were probably all just doing things that college kids do, and don't necessarily want their parents to know about.
I don't believe she could still be alive, unfortunately. There are too many cameras all over for someone whose case has reached all over the world, for her to be able to stay under the radar. Her case has been on many different tv shows, there are podcasts, forums, webpages devoted to her, and other social media, she would have been found by now, I am sure.
I hope that one day her family will get their answers. I thought the Drexel family never would, and now they have her body and the suspect is in jail.
Chad_York
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Taking into account that she was a runner, why add the extra weight? The alcohol serves no benefit. Could her judgement have been compromised due to the crash? Probably but we don't know.
Another factor is the snow. Was she dressed for the conditions? According to the ATM footage, it didn't appear as if she was wearing boots or heavy clothing to protect herself from the cold. Realistically, how far could she have trekked through the snow, underdressed, in freezing conditions, while being slightly disoriented, and POSSIBLY inebriated? In my personal opinion, not too far. Hypothermia would have settled in at some point and she would have succumbed to the elements. In those circumstances, evidence would have been found that she had gone into the woods. Given the cold conditions, a body wouldn't have decomposed that quickly. I think New Hampshire Fish and Game would have been able to find something indicating she had gone into the woods but they found nothing.
As far as the rag in the tailpipe, we know that her father instructed her to do that if she had worries about being pulled over. Her car was drivable but had a numerous mechanical issues. It was tested on the O2 documentary that upon pressing the accelerator that the rag would have just flown out. So the idea of her meeting up with someone and that someone stuffed a rag into the exhaust pipe to compromise her car is not possible. If she did rendezvous with anyone, it would have been to the destination she was supposedly heading to but the accident changed her plans. We don't know.
Maura was capable of leaving the accident and vanishing into the night. So to some degree, she was cognizant of her surroundings / situation. What happened? We can only theorize at this point.