Where is MAURA MURRAY

Hi Quija,

Thanks for your response (Posting #3162) regarding my previous posting about the Bethlehem cabin of the UMass Outing Club (please, check out their web site).

Isn´t it fairly likely that Maura may have been a member of the UMOC or at least likely knew about this particular cabin.

After all, being such an avid hiker and athlete with a great love for the outdoors and the White Mountains in particular, what would have been more natural?

Sure, it would have been a primitive place to stay in the midst of winter, but by all accounts Maura is a very tough young lady and would probably have taken it all in her stride with great gusto.

As for sleeping-bags, perhaps there were already some sleeping-bags available in the cabin?

As for actually asking the UMOC these and similar questions would probably result in a stonewalling exercise.
The UMOC may not be West Point, but it seems to me that the shutters go up just about everywhere as soon as you mention Maura´s name.

It´s still early days, but apparently there are still no signs of a response to Advocator´s query from the Barton, VT, church where "Raykel", the Maura look-alike, was seen in June 2005.

I certainly don´t want to seem overtly conspiratorial here, but it is apparent to me that questions relating to Maura seem to have a strange tendency to go unanswered.
Why, you may indeed ask.

And......Now there's a steal by Bird! Underneath to DJ who lays it in!!...Right at one second left!! What a play by Bird! Bird stole the inbounding pass, laid it up to DJ, and DJ laid it up and in, and Boston has a one-point lead with one second left! OH, MY, THIS PLACE IS GOING CRAZY!!!

Johnny Most, voice of the Celtics.

Eurobserver wrote:

I certainly don´t want to seem overtly conspiratorial here, but it is apparent to me that questions relating to Maura seem to have a strange tendency to go unanswered.

To put it mildly.

But not to worry. Woodward and Bernstein had the same problem for a while. And what a couple of conspiracy theorists they were!

Advocator wrote:

<quoted text>
Yes, isn't it? And your contribution tonight is to ... what, further this line of distraction? Tell me it ain't so!
Have seen much much better from you on here, would appreciate any thoughts you may have on recent ideas.:)

My contribution tonight and furthermore for the rest of my time posting on this forum is to not get involved in the bickering. And for the record, a distraction in itself is only that if one allows it to be.

Chickadee, I did not take advocators response as an insult or threatning at all. I can see were my comment sounded somewhat smart a??ish. And I suppose in a way it may have been. But it was simply meant to be a subtle insenuation that by bickering people are spinning their wheels so to say.

As far as the ideas people post. They are simply that. This is a public forum. And I have slowed my posting down because I truly believe that some people know alot more than they are saying. Whether it be family, friends, or locals. I know that I posted on how I would feel if this girl was my daughter, fiancee', or friend and went missing. And I was somewhat told that not all people are as heartfelt and emotional as me.

And I looked at the blog site posted earlier. Threee or four of the six or seven posters are posters on here. One of their comments were, "Its certainly nice to have a site where anonymous posting isn't allowed-we can discuss in relative peace.". But yet these posters are police-ing this forum as if it were theirs and theirs alone. It was posted by several that there are no clics. I read one time if you lie long enough, eventually you will have the ability to convince yourself.

So to conclude, some either know more than they are saying or they trying to guide this in accordance to their own agenda. While at the same time accusing others of leading down the wrong road for thinking freely.

The question, that I would have liked answered would have went like this. Why are some so hell bent that it went this way or that? Do they know something that they want kept secret or they so emotionally connected by this case that maybe they don't relize they may be the ones stuck on the wrong road?

Hello again,

Please, have a look at this excerpt from the excellent series on Maura´s disappearance published by the Whitman, Hanson & East Bridgewater Express newspaper and available on the web, most easily accessed from Maura´s Wikipedia page (where her picture is now back - very good! Many thanks to whoever arranged this.):
__________
Was there a second accident that night?

A local Woodsville resident has come forward claiming to have heard about another accident on a police scanner the same evening that Maura's accident was reported. The woman, who goes by the name "Anne," first recounted the incident on a posting to the Maura Murray website. She spoke to a reporter for this story but did not want her name used.
Around 7 that evening, Anne recalled, she heard reports on the police scanner in her home that a young female driver was off the road and emergency vehicles were to respond. Anne said she heard a second call come in telling the emergency vehicles to turn back, because there was no need for their service; the young female driver was said to have left the area of Swiftwater Road in a private vehicle. Swiftwater Road is about two miles from Maura's accident scene. There is also Swiftwater Circle a half-mile from the accident scene. To further confuse the matter there is a small area near Woodsville that locals often call Swiftwater.

"The only reason we paid attention to the call was that we had a friend who was from Florida and was spending her first winter up here and living alone...and that was the route she drove home on," Anne explained.

There was no mention of a second accident in the Grafton County Sheriff's log that day. In fact, no activity was reported between 6:08 p.m. and 7:27 p.m.

Speculation has focused on a possible link between the two accidents, though there is no other evidence available to prove that a second accident occurred or that Maura was in any way involved.
__________

In this article it is clearly being stated that the first "mystery" accident which may have involved Maura´s Saturn actually occurred in the Swiftwater Road area of Woodsville.
According to the Google maps, Swiftwater Road runs from the southern outskirts of Woodsville off NH Route 10 and further east towards the NH Route 112 for some miles.
At the western end of the road is the Cottage Hospital of Woodsville. An aerial view of the Swiftwater Road area indicates that the remainder of that road further east is a fairly rural one with only a few houses here and there.
Now, if Maura´s Saturn were in fact involved in an accident on the Swiftwater Road, then this could surely explain why there are no known witnesses to such an accident, this being such a relatively minor road in the area that the Rte 112 must be considered a major highway by comparison.
If Maura did indeed suffer her first accident on the Swiftwater Road this certainly begs the question:
Why and how did she end up on that road in the first place?
Could it somehow have anything whatsoever to do with the Cottage Hospital?
Just a wild idea.

Eurobserver wrote:

Hello again,
Please, have a look at this excerpt from the excellent series on Maura´s disappearance published by the Whitman, Hanson & East Bridgewater Express newspaper and available on the web, most easily accessed from Maura´s Wikipedia page (where her picture is now back - very good! Many thanks to whoever arranged this.):
__________
Was there a second accident that night?
A local Woodsville resident has come forward claiming to have heard about another accident on a police scanner the same evening that Maura's accident was reported. The woman, who goes by the name "Anne," first recounted the incident on a posting to the Maura Murray website. She spoke to a reporter for this story but did not want her name used.
Around 7 that evening, Anne recalled, she heard reports on the police scanner in her home that a young female driver was off the road and emergency vehicles were to respond. Anne said she heard a second call come in telling the emergency vehicles to turn back, because there was no need for their service; the young female driver was said to have left the area of Swiftwater Road in a private vehicle. Swiftwater Road is about two miles from Maura's accident scene. There is also Swiftwater Circle a half-mile from the accident scene. To further confuse the matter there is a small area near Woodsville that locals often call Swiftwater.
"The only reason we paid attention to the call was that we had a friend who was from Florida and was spending her first winter up here and living alone...and that was the route she drove home on," Anne explained.
There was no mention of a second accident in the Grafton County Sheriff's log that day. In fact, no activity was reported between 6:08 p.m. and 7:27 p.m.
Speculation has focused on a possible link between the two accidents, though there is no other evidence available to prove that a second accident occurred or that Maura was in any way involved.
__________
In this article it is clearly being stated that the first "mystery" accident which may have involved Maura´s Saturn actually occurred in the Swiftwater Road area of Woodsville.
According to the Google maps, Swiftwater Road runs from the southern outskirts of Woodsville off NH Route 10 and further east towards the NH Route 112 for some miles.
At the western end of the road is the Cottage Hospital of Woodsville. An aerial view of the Swiftwater Road area indicates that the remainder of that road further east is a fairly rural one with only a few houses here and there.
Now, if Maura´s Saturn were in fact involved in an accident on the Swiftwater Road, then this could surely explain why there are no known witnesses to such an accident, this being such a relatively minor road in the area that the Rte 112 must be considered a major highway by comparison.
If Maura did indeed suffer her first accident on the Swiftwater Road this certainly begs the question:
Why and how did she end up on that road in the first place?
Could it somehow have anything whatsoever to do with the Cottage Hospital?
Just a wild idea.

Or possibly someone driving a truck knew the roads well enough to take that road off Rt. 10 as a shortcut and was headed, with the Saturn behind, to a building or location farther on? In other words, the Saturn was following the truck, the Saturn skidded off the road, and the truck towed it out of the snow, putting the dent in the front; maybe even towed it the rest of the way? Just a very speculative thought.

Beagle,

Quite a likely scenario indeed and would also explain how Maura may have ended up on such a relatively minor road as the Swiftwater Road in the first place.

If we accept this as a possible theory, then either:

1. The Saturn was towed all the way from Amherst to the Swiftwater Rd,Woodsville - must surely have been a "proper" towing-truck for that kind of distance and not just a towing by chain.
For some reason the towing-truck "loses" the Saturn on the Swiftwater Rd and the car ends up off the road.
2. The Saturn was following some kind of pick-up truck (the red, mystery one with MA (?) plates observed by witness RO?) on the Swiftwater Rd, ended up in a ditch, was helped back on to the road by the truck and then EITHER towed from there to the Weathered barn curve (where the truck accidentally drops the Saturn) OR driven there from the Swiftwater Rd, presumably by Maura, who spins around at the curve in a "real" accident, which does not, however, cause the major damage to the front of the Saturn.

There have also been circulating some unsubstantiated rumours on the web that Maura might possibly have had a friend or acquaintance with some kind of connection to the Lime Kiln Road area of Haverhill.
This, of course, could be a rumour completely without foundation, I hasten to add.

Euro and Beagle: Interesting thoughts! How about this ... maybe Maura was traveling the Swiftwater Road as a shortcut, slid off road into ditch. Truck with a tow-chain comes along (red truck maybe, maybe not), offers to pull Saturn out of ditch. Saturn comes up out of ditch with a lurch and slides and hits the back end of truck so that tow-hitch puts dent in front and other damage. But the Saturn is driveable, so Maura gets back in and heads on her way. Rounding the Weathered Barn curve, Saturn skids again, possibly hitting the snowbank with a good thud and this blow is enough to then knock the headlights out of alignment.

Meanwhile, if this was in fact the red truck, the driver has concern about the girl driving the Saturn in it's condition and decides to come back and offer to follow her (to Lincoln, to a gas station, etc.) in case she has more trouble. This accounts for truck driver slowing/stopping to look more closely at RobinsonOrdway walking on the Bunga Road, because truck driver knows the Saturn might not get far.

Oops,

I forget to add yesterday that Godwins findings have evolved since 2004. He stated in 2007 that there were two victims before Maura.

carry on..........

I promise this is my last post.

Advocator wrote:

Euro and Beagle: Interesting thoughts! How about this ... maybe Maura was traveling the Swiftwater Road as a shortcut, slid off road into ditch. Truck with a tow-chain comes along (red truck maybe, maybe not), offers to pull Saturn out of ditch. Saturn comes up out of ditch with a lurch and slides and hits the back end of truck so that tow-hitch puts dent in front and other damage. But the Saturn is driveable, so Maura gets back in and heads on her way. Rounding the Weathered Barn curve, Saturn skids again, possibly hitting the snowbank with a good thud and this blow is enough to then knock the headlights out of alignment.
Meanwhile, if this was in fact the red truck, the driver has concern about the girl driving the Saturn in it's condition and decides to come back and offer to follow her (to Lincoln, to a gas station, etc.) in case she has more trouble. This accounts for truck driver slowing/stopping to look more closely at RobinsonOrdway walking on the Bunga Road, because truck driver knows the Saturn might not get far.

Sounds good, but what happens to Maura in this scenario? Where did she go? Possibly there is a connection between Brattleboro and Haverhill?

Hello elsewherebriefly,

Please, consider hanging on here for awhile, as I certainly find your contributions to be of great value.
Every lost voice on this forum is to be regretted.

Also, kindly let me know the web address for your blog.
I´m afraid I don´t know where to find Helena´s blog either, which you previously referred me to.

Many thanks!
Euro

Is it possible that a car is sometimes left at or near the place it orginally was intended to go to?

FireCat wrote:

<quoted text>
I'm glad you're able to laugh at the possibility that Maura may not have been found in another four years. Personally, the same thought makes me ill.
(will disregard the rest of your post, as it's the weekend and I do that crap for a living....)

obviously your mind is closed to constructive criticism. a shame, indeed.

i highly doubt your capacity to facilitate and/or effectuate maura's recovery for the very reasons stated in post 3161.

still laughing...at you :)

Beagle, Advocator and all,

I seem to recall (from the former MMM forum) that there is supposed to have been a change of working shifts at the Cottage Hospital in Woodsville at 7 pm on weekday evenings back in 2004.
If this was really so, then surely there might have been a few cars travelling eastwards on the Swiftwater Road towards rte 112 at around 7 pm, though most vehicle movements are bound to have been via rte 10 rather than the Swiftwater Road.

Where could Maura have been heading?
As I see it, either for a fairly inexpensive motel or cabin near Lincoln/North Woodstock or possibly as far as Conway/Bartlett?
But would she have been willing to risk driving the Saturn on 3 cylinders across the wild Kancamagus Pass at that time of the year and in the dark? That could have been treacherous.
Seems doubtful to me, at least.

Then, of course, there is that UMOC-owned cabin in the woods off rte 142 between Franconia and Bethlehem.
Pure speculation on my account, but not entirely unthinkable, would you say???

Beagle,

Please, elaborate on that theory of yours (# 3179).
Thanks!

If the UMass police felt I represented a danger to the UMass campus or the people on it, they would have asked me some questions when they served the NO TRESPASS ORDER, probably a lot of questions. They did not.

That tells me they either learned, after the fact, that I was there to contradict the 20 minute window taken as gospel truth for so long by so many, or they feared I would somehow find other information regarding Maura that they want kept secret.

If they thought I was casing the joint, they would have been all over me with detectives. Never happened. If they thought I represented a terrorist threat, the state police and possibly the FBI would have been at my door - not 3 uniformed patrolmen with a piece of paper and no questions.

The order was served very confidently, with no curiosity whatsoever. Why ban someone from campus because he asks where a parking lot is located, yet ask him no questions to determine what, exactly, he might have been doing on campus in the first place? No questions about what my intentions were??? Meaning they figured out I was there to discover information they want undiscovered and could not tip their hand by saying anything about it, not even asking me any questions.

I would guess that revealing the identity of the gallery would reveal the reason the car was left where it was and maybe how it got there in the first place. Regardless of what exact gallery is THE art gallery, the fact that AN art gallery (presumably art, not furniture) appears to be such a key to Maura's disappearance implies that either the contents of the art gallery, mainly art work and art books, and/or the people closely associated with it have some relevance to Maura's disappearance. What else is there?

If we're talking more about physical stuff in the gallery than we are about the people associated with the gallery, then we're almost certainly talking about a black and/or gray market in art and art books. Which necessarily implies either forgeries or some kind of trade or theft ring. It's way, way more common than most people think. There are no other choices I'm aware of.(When I say art books, I'm not talking about the kind found at Barnes and Noble.)

If Maura's disappearance is more related to the people associated with the gallery than the items in the gallery, then we're talking at least a somewhat different scenario, and maybe a very different scenario. Possibly a scenario involving visitors, customers, neighbors, patrons, art buyers, art sellers, artists, or something like that.

All other theories should be kept on the table, but Amherst deserves equal time until it's ruled out. If Amherst can be ruled out, then that's a big step forward. If ruling out Amherst is resisted, then that should tell us something.

Eurobserver wrote:

Where could Maura have been heading?
As I see it, either for a fairly inexpensive motel or cabin near Lincoln/North Woodstock or possibly as far as Conway/Bartlett?
But would she have been willing to risk driving the Saturn on 3 cylinders across the wild Kancamagus Pass at that time of the year and in the dark? That could have been treacherous.
Seems doubtful to me, at least.
Then, of course, there is that UMOC-owned cabin in the woods off rte 142 between Franconia and Bethlehem.
Pure speculation on my account, but not entirely unthinkable, would you say???

I don't feel the UMOC-owned cabin is entirely unthinkable, but I think it is quantitatively less likely than her seeking an inexpensive motel. I don't think she had brought anything much in the way of warm clothing, unless some warm things were in the missing backpack. As per my notes, she and her family were very familiar with the Conway/Bartlett area, and seems like a good bet she was headed that way.

Just a further thought. She and her father had agreed she would call him at 8 PM that night to go over the insurance forms for the accident she had previously in her father's Toyota. With her location at about 7 PM/7:30 PM being the Weathered Barn curve on Rt. 112, I wonder if she had the (two suspected) accidents due to being in a hurry to get to her destination in time to call her father as planned at 8 PM?

I understand why most people think the Saturn had not finished its driver's intended trip, but maybe not? Maybe where it was left was about as far as it was intended to go? Or about as far as Maura was intended to go?

The Saturn is, understandably, often considered "found." In other words, it is viewed from our perspective as having come across it after what occurred and about which we are so curious. Maybe it would be more helpful to think, sometimes, of the Saturn as having been "left" at that spot - for whatever reason. It may sound like a differnce without a distinction, but it may just offer a slightly better perspective.

I do keep circling back to Dr Godwin's opinion that Maura was attacked by a serial rapist who lives "locally" and who has done this - abduction - at least twice before. The first reason that this gets my attention is that Maura has vanished SO completely. If she was a victim of a crime - and I'm sorry to say that I believe that she was - it seems to me that the perpetrator was someone who had planned this carefully and had done it before. As far as it being someone local, I guess that's possible. There are a lot of sexual offenders that are registered in the immediate area - and those are the ones that we know about. This sounds like a very particular sort of criminal, though. Someone who's pretty sociopathic, I'd guess (I'm no expert, but it seems likely)- so that eliminates some people as persons of interest. BUT I wonder about the "local" piece, and if it could be someone who worked locally and lived elsewhere, or someone who travelled (or travels, present tense) through the area often. Both of these possibilities lean toward the idea of a crime of opportunity to me - not someone who was stalking Maura, but someone who was looking for a specific kind of person, and Maura was that person.

How "interesting" to see a number of posters show up whose idea of a "contribution" is to criticize people here who are actually talking about Maura's case.

Anyway, back to MAURA.
I don't know if it was a previous accident, but after Maura went missing, I was travelling in NH and VT and distinctly remember hearing a report on the radio that said that she went missing from Rt. 10. It could be simply an error, but it also could line up with Anne's report of what she heard on the scanner.

It is very possible that a shift change at Cottage Hospital would mean more traffic on Rt 112, and that should be fairly easy to confirm if someone in the area would like to try.

Looking at every possible reason that Maura could be on Rt 112 - none of which makes sense to me - I have to say that I do not think that Maura was driving the Saturn on Rt 112. I can't make sense out of it. I've really come to believe that the Saturn was "staged" at the Weathered Barn corner.

I agree with all that there seems to be a great deal of obstruction about this cases, from many quarters. Sure, there are thikngs that people simply don't know, I get that. But where there is a high degree of reactivity when questions are asked - short of OhMy-style accusations - that feels like obstruction, like people who have something to hide. It's pretty clear that there are quite a few people who know a great deal more about Maura's disappearance than they're saying to anyone.