Where is MAURA MURRAY

I just read about Muara's disapearance on cnn last week, my heart goes out to her family and friends. I can't imagine the pain of not knowing..

I have read a lot about this case in recent days and had some questions, I'm hopeful that maybe this forum can provide some answers.

1)Is the area (3 mile radius) around the accident scene isolated enough that Maura could have been involved in an accident with another vehicle that nobody saw or reported?

2) Was the damage to the Saturn something that could have occurred from striking another vehicle?

3) Why hadn't Maura been driving the Saturn in the weeks prior to her disapearance?

Thanks in advance to anyone who might know the answers to the above questions.

Mastermind wrote:

JMO, another question, you said that Maura was a victim. Is there any proof of this beyond her being a victim of her own actions?

According to the Free Dictionary:

vic·tim (vktm)
n.
1. One who is harmed or killed by another: a victim of a mugging.
2. A living creature slain and offered as a sacrifice during a religious rite.
3. One who is harmed by or made to suffer from an act, circumstance, agency, or condition: victims of war.
4. A person who suffers injury, loss, or death as a result of a voluntary undertaking: You are a victim of your own scheming.
5. A person who is tricked, swindled, or taken advantage of: the victim of a cruel hoax.

By my interpretation, and considering INVOLUNTARY circumstances, Maura's disappearance as defined above would render her a victim...as she is no longer present in her previously established life and most probably has been injured and harmed.

#4 is interesting...as it addresses the VOLUNTARY undertaking; nonetheless, the person is still a victim.

Mastermind wrote:

JMO, it seems your "basic rule of decency" has granted you a case of tunnel vision. Especially when you want to excuse Maura for having any involvement in her own disappearence, which is likely what happened....and as far as fantasy theories go, aren't those theories that make the most assumptions more categorically "fantasy" than those that don't? Also, I don't think suggesting that she has a drinking problem, or a want to get away, or being unfaithful to her fiance are meant as gossip. People, including very intelligent people with drive and ambition, are often caught up in these kind of things. I would suggest that people like Maura, who are smart and beautiful, with a great life ahead of them are often very likely to have these type of existential crises because of the amount of pressure put on them to succeed. People with a lot of potential often come to despise the expectations they feel have been put upon them. Why is this so far-fetched? Just because Maura may have made a few mistakes does not mean that she wasn't a great person, albeit, a tortured soul. It also doesn't mean that we are engaging in gossip. Again, I'll call it constructive dialogue, and I apologize if the theory I suggest, which has the fewest possible assumptions (as I see it) violates your rule of decency. However, cases such as this are rarely, if ever, decent. Furthermore, to place the blame on someone else is also degrading to those individuals involved, and would also, I assume, violate your own code of decency. In that case, based on your "rules" we should each cease and desist from having any type of constructive dialogue, since it violates your rules. Or perhaps, you should cease and desist and the rest of us should continue, since you are the one who is so overwhelmingly offended by the discussion here. I would urge you not to let your personal feelings get in the way of a dialogue that may very well be constructive - try to be objective and polite to the other posters here, or perhaps enroll in some anger management courses.

Unless you happen to be a close friend or relative with actual knowlege about Maura's life prior her disappearance, I don't understand why you justify making assumptions and speculative statements about Maura on the internet if they are not based on fact.

My position, and offense taken, is on behalf of a grieving father, Fred Murray.

If he is not offended, then your intrusion into his lost daughter's life is acceptable to me, as well. It is by that standard that I guage "decency".

JMO wrote:

<quoted text>
Unless you happen to be a close friend or relative with actual knowlege about Maura's life prior her disappearance, I don't understand why you justify making assumptions and speculative statements about Maura on the internet if they are not based on fact.
My position, and offense taken, is on behalf of a grieving father, Fred Murray.
If he is not offended, then your intrusion into his lost daughter's life is acceptable to me, as well. It is by that standard that I guage "decency".

Are you speaking "officially" with his permission on his behalf? If not, than it's really none of your business.

The whole thing is "public", the "public" has been asked for help,(unsubstantiated accusations have been made against innocent people) and yet everything about her is supposed to be subject to privacy?

I just discovered this case while browsing and now I'm hooked on trying to figure it out. I reviewed the info posted on wikipedia, including the accident report and it seems like she was headed toward Bartlet, NH where she hoped to rent a condo. Couple thoughts occurred to me.

Why did she turn off onto Route 112 just past Woodsville, NH, instead of continuing on Route 302 to Bartlett? If she had reached Lincoln, she would have to have taken Route 3 north to pick-up the 302 again adding some extra miles and about 30 minutes to her drive? Couldn't have been for the view since it was dark.

I also don't understand how her car could have spun around after hitting the tree and ended up facing W/B in the E/B lane of traffic on the 112. Seems like she went off the road on the right side just past the sharp curve and likely would have over-corrected by turning the wheel sharply to the left causing the rear end to fishtail to the right. The impact should have been on the right passenger side, not the front left driver's side as shown in the photos.

The bus driver's story doesn't quite make sense to me either. If she was still in her car, when he pulled beside her, she would have been on the far side of her car from him and, since his seat in the bus would have been higher, he would not have been able to see her because the top of her car would have obstructed his view, and a conversation would have been difficult, if not impossible, with both of them on the far side of their respective vehicles and unable to see or hear each other, which would have been case if his engine was running and her passenger window was up, which it probably was given the temperature.

If I had been driving the bus, I would have parked in the gravel area off the side of the road and approached her car to see if she was okay. If she had assured me that she was, I would not have left the scene without attempting to move her car out of the road and onto the shoulder so that it wouldn't be a hazard to other traffic. I also would have invited her to wait at my house for the AAA tow truck which, according to him, she said she called. I would not have left her alone in the cold waiting God knows how long for the tow truck to arrive, given the possibility of a head or neck injury

The scent trail, assuming the dogs were tracking her scent, ended on the road in front of his house. Seems more likely to me that he first saw her walking in the road and not in her car as he claimed. Since I don't believe that a serial killer just happened to drive by the scene during the few minutes between his call to the cops and their arrival AND she just hopped into the killer's car (a stranger to her) after supposedly rejecting the bus driver's offer for help, I suspect that, when he saw her walking down the road, he pulled up beside her in the bus, opened the door, initiated a conversation, and invited her to wait for help at his place while his wife fixed her something to eat. She must have been somewhat dazed by the accident and probably was headed toward his house anyway to call for help. I doubt that she would have been afraid of a kindly school bus driver and his wife so I think she accepted his invitation and got in the bus for the short the duration of the short drive up the driveway to his house, a warm hearth, and some hot soup. The dogs lost her scent because that is where she got in the bus.

Assuming that I'm right, I don't know what happened after that. His wife may have seen her, or she may not.

I'm not buying the bus driver's story. I believe she would not have been afraid of a friendly school bus driver's invitation to join him and his wife in their nearby home to wait for a tow truck driver. I do believe she would have been reluctant to get into a stranger's car who happened to be passing by and stopped to offer her a ride.

Looking4AMoose wrote:

<quoted text>Actually, we were not told where they were----the cities of the clinical sites were divulged, but not the actual clinical site names; one of the cities was much too far for it to be a clinical for UMass Amherst...

That city is apparently a fairly regular rotation for clinicals, though, isn't it, according to the discussion?

So help me out here, and my senility. What cities were they?

ohio wrote:

I just read about Muara's disapearance on cnn last week, my heart goes out to her family and friends. I can't imagine the pain of not knowing..
I have read a lot about this case in recent days and had some questions, I'm hopeful that maybe this forum can provide some answers.
1)Is the area (3 mile radius) around the accident scene isolated enough that Maura could have been involved in an accident with another vehicle that nobody saw or reported?
2) Was the damage to the Saturn something that could have occurred from striking another vehicle?
3) Why hadn't Maura been driving the Saturn in the weeks prior to her disapearance?
Thanks in advance to anyone who might know the answers to the above questions.

1. Dunno the answer to that one, never been there. A local should be able to help you out on that.

2. Yes. That is, in fact, one of the things that the accident reconstructionist(s) determined--that the damage was consistent with possibly hitting the overhang of a larger vehicle's rear end.

3. Apparently the Saturn hadn't been running well (I think it had dropped a cylinder) and Maura was hesitant to use it. Which makes it even weirder that she'd up and off to New Hampshire in it.

mastermind,

I'm dumbfounded that, on a forum created to try and help Maura Murray and her family, you would come on here and share your atrocious "analysis" based on countless assumptions as this not only does a huge disservice to Maura and her family, but also to this forum. I'm being as civil as I possibly can by saying that you not only clearly lack logic and reasoning but you have absolutely no idea what you are talking about - you honestly are not capable of discerning how foolish your "analysis" is. The fact that you wrote "when you make the LEAST amount of assumptions, my analysis is the most obvious" exemplifies your laughable stupidity. EVERY single thing you wrote thereafter was an "ASSUMPTION". EVERYTHING. Every single thing you said was an "assumption", and on top of that, they are all "assumptions" based on you THINKING that you actually know this girl and how she thinks and what she was thinking at the time. You're honestly and sadly arrogant enough to believe that you honestly know her, you know exactly what she was doing, you know exactly why she did it, you know every little detail about her so far to the extent that you also know why she had the book "Not Without Peril" in her car. The mention of that book is one of your many examples that typifies your lack of reasoning and blatant lack of logic in your wretched analysis:(a) It was realized that you've never read the book,(b) You know nothing about the book other than what you've heard from media accounts and what not, and (c) it turns out that the book happened to be one of Maura's favorite, which is why she had it with her. If I disappeared on a cruise ship and I happened to have "Robinson Crusoe" by Daniel Defoe in my cabin, somebody with your thought process would then automatically assume that I jumped off the ship, swam to a nearby island, and lived life as a hermit on a deserted island. You would also then assume that this is what I wanted to do because you know me SO well, right? You know exactly what I did and did NOT want to do, you know exactly why I would and why I wouldn't make certain choices. Your entire summary is based on you sincerely presuming that you actually know Maura, when in reality, you know absolutely NOTHING about her other than that she MIGHT have been drinking that day when she was driving (which, as a result, leads you to believe she is an "alcoholic").

Read your "analysis". You wrote: "I don't think she.." and "I think she.." and "I feel she.." COUNTLESS times throughout your laughable "analysis", and EVERY SINGLE STATEMENT THAT FOLLOWED ONE OF THOSE PREFIXES IS AN ASSUMPTION. Are you capable of comprehending that? Your entire "analysis" is a collage of assumptions. How in the name of God can you even think of making a statement like "when you make the least amount of assumptions, my analysis is the most obvious" when EVERY SINGLE thing in your analysis IS AN ASSUMPTION?

If you think I'm being very uncivil it's because of what you are saying about this young woman in this forum and the affect it has on her family. This forum was created to try and help this family get clues as to what happened to Maura, to have local people perhaps leave tips, NOT so dumb-people-that-think-they're -smart can come here and make assumption after assumption, pretending that they know Maura and how she was thinking at the time, as to what exactly what happened that night. You're doing a huge disservice to Maura, her family, and this forum by logging on here and coming up with some fantasy conspiracy theory based on made-up knowledge that you think you have of Maura. It's not helping this investigation at all. It's a huge waste of time and space. It's morally not right. I don't think you're capable of realizing this though. This forum isn't for you to share your copious assumptions in hopes of someone saying "hey mastermind, you're so smart!!" so that you feel better about yourself. This is to help Maura and her family.

Firecat, thanks for the info.
I have a few more questions I that I have been unable to answer in my reading.
1) Is it possible Maura was corresponding with anyone online or on the phone that she might have been going to meet that weekend? Has it been ruled out?
2) Did the police ever check the beer bottle found in her car for fingerprints?

hi all Maura used the saturn over christmas break to see her father in Bridgeport C.T and i assume her family.Classes started around jan 28 th however some of the sports teams were already back at school.tha saturn was driven from bridgeport to Amherst .that is 105 miles.As for Mauras past most of it is still a mystery.Can someone tell me where she worked at her mystery gallery job where she took classes and what days were her free days. obviousley she had them because every 3 weeks or a month she would get together with mr Murray and go hiking or climbing or running.Mauras past life has lots to tell.The saturn in my opinion would not and could not have run any distance and any speed on 3 cylinders.It was either fixed or the problem was overstaed by the mystery mechanic.personally i can live with my questions about Mauras prior life.i have gotten lots of support over the phone and via email to look at it and question why it is such a big secret.And to have some posters say the prior life of a missing person should not be looked at without being deemed ok by her family is beyond indecent to me.take care philip

FireCat wrote:

<quoted text>
That city is apparently a fairly regular rotation for clinicals, though, isn't it, according to the discussion?
So help me out here, and my senility. What cities were they?

The old MMM forum were simply informed that the clinicals were in Holyoke, Ma and Norwood, MA on Feb 4th and 5th. There was no mention of actual sites but, Holyoke is only about 18 miles away so that is probably but Norwood is about 100 miles away from Amherst. Norwood falls into UMass Boston's clinical area. A nursing school wouldn't send any student that far away because the clinical professor also needs to travel out there on a regular basis to supervise the students onsite.

get real wrote:

<quoted text>
Are you speaking "officially" with his permission on his behalf? If not, than it's really none of your business.
The whole thing is "public", the "public" has been asked for help,(unsubstantiated accusations have been made against innocent people) and yet everything about her is supposed to be subject to privacy?

place yourself in Fred Murray's shoes for a moment?

it's as much my business as it is yours

be nasty. suit yourself.

Just a Thought at #8268 ~

Thank you. I completely agree.

We have been told where Maura's clinical was, it was approx. 30 miles north,I forgot the name of the town. The clinical would likely last a month.

Maura had stayed overnight the previous week with a school chum, the one she made the last known phone call to so she could assumedly return the scrubs she borrowed.

Pediatrics rotation is brutal, and depending on the patients assigned it can be a nightmare. Ped's rotation can be a make or break a nursing student.

Monday would be a day to go to the hospital to assess your patients you are assigned, this requires researching the diagnosis, treatments, medications, prognosis and then to introduce yourself to the patient and assess their emotinal status and once this being done then one is required to prepare a nursing care plan. Clinical would begin likely at 7 and finish at 2p.m. and then one hour to go over the day with the professor or clinical instructor, i.e. like a tutorial. Whether their work week ended on Thursday or Friday, this depends on the school and the rotation.

Maura attended West Point for three semesters, and she decided that the military was not her cup of tea, she transfered to the University of Mass and remained enrolled in Chemical Engineering. She changed her major to nursing....and was in her junior year.

It is possible that Maura considered transfering back to chemical engineering, the last date to transfer credits would have been on Monday the day she was due back at school. Maura could have graduated likely in the fall if she changed majors. This is speculation but a possibility.

Dartmouth college is not far from where Maura's car was found, it is possible Maura might have been headed there to check the place out.

There may have been nothing wrong with Maura other than she found nursing school stressful, nursing is a very stressful profession and the most stressful is nursing school.

Maura has not run off to a new life, we have been told this by the New Hampshire league of dectectives, she has met with foul play. It would be wonderful if Maura abandoned her life and fled here to Canada, but that is a pipe dream.

We can be fairly certain the respected dectectives are working on more than assumptions, we cannot be told everything, because we are looking at a criminal case here.

What is needed is for the Attorney General or District Attorney to call a grand jury to investigate the matter.

The reason where Maura was headed is so important is so it can be calculated where she was abducted.
It is highly unlikely she went off to meet with someone, she was in love with Billy and had a wonderful life to look forward to.

It is possible that Maura was abducted before the accident and that it was someone else in the car
at the accident scene, however, due to time constraints, it is likely that the abduction took place at White River Junction or at Wells River as there was a full tank of gas in the Saturn.

Please read Weeper's words on this site, and these begin around page 192.

peripeteia Nova Scotia wrote:

We have been told where Maura's clinical was, it was approx. 30 miles north,I forgot the name of the town. The clinical would likely last a month.
Maura had stayed overnight the previous week with a school chum, the one she made the last known phone call to so she could assumedly return the scrubs she borrowed.
Pediatrics rotation is brutal, and depending on the patients assigned it can be a nightmare. Ped's rotation can be a make or break a nursing student.
Monday would be a day to go to the hospital to assess your patients you are assigned, this requires researching the diagnosis, treatments, medications, prognosis and then to introduce yourself to the patient and assess their emotinal status and once this being done then one is required to prepare a nursing care plan. Clinical would begin likely at 7 and finish at 2p.m. and then one hour to go over the day with the professor or clinical instructor, i.e. like a tutorial. Whether their work week ended on Thursday or Friday, this depends on the school and the rotation.
Maura attended West Point for three semesters, and she decided that the military was not her cup of tea, she transfered to the University of Mass and remained enrolled in Chemical Engineering. She changed her major to nursing....and was in her junior year.
It is possible that Maura considered transfering back to chemical engineering, the last date to transfer credits would have been on Monday the day she was due back at school. Maura could have graduated likely in the fall if she changed majors. This is speculation but a possibility.
Dartmouth college is not far from where Maura's car was found, it is possible Maura might have been headed there to check the place out.

Well from what I can figure, she would've been doing maternal health that semester--which is OB and childbirth I believe at UMass. If she had finished the spring 2004 semester, she would still have 2 more semesters of clinical to do. You are correct, Dartmouth College is "right down the street" from Haverhill--one of the things I've thought was maybe she was changing to a PA program and considered going there, but she would've required an appointment for an interview.(I had a two week wait for my interview there)I still find it hard to believe that nursing school was stressing her that much in the first week of the semester......someone who had been at West Point would've developed the skills necessary to deal with that kind of stress already. Was maura in the Honors Nursing program or were her grades of Honors status?(its two different things)

JMO wrote:

<quoted text>
place yourself in Fred Murray's shoes for a moment?
it's as much my business as it is yours
be nasty. suit yourself.

The problem with this is that I am not trying to make it my business.

I'm not speaking for someone else.

I'm not telling others what they should and should not be saying.

I think that would be you.

Besides the need for a grand jury there needs to be an internal investigation of the local police in the matter of the accident at the weather barn and the disappreance of Maura.

The first officer on the scene, did not secure the vehicle for evidentiary purposes, he failed to question the Westman's regarding seeing a male at the scene of the accident. He failed to notify Fred Murray the owner of the car in a timely fashion that his vehicle had been involved in a car accident. He failed to issue a BOL for Maura even though the evidence pointed to the fact that she may have been injured and endangered. He failed to issue the police report in a timely fashion, and it is sorely wanting in information. He failed to notate what the witnesses said on the report and some of the witnesses were not interview until days later. He failed to state that he and the School Bus Driver went to look for Maura, they failed to head Eastward, even though the car was headed in an easterly direction as per reported by the Westman's. State Trooper Monahan was at the scene, he failed to notate that in the police report, and the S.T. has failed to issue his report. He failed to show the SBD a photo line up.

He stated to Maura's family almost 36 hours later that he did not know Maura was missing.

Procedures were not followed. Why? The police then reported that Maura likely came to the White Mountains to commit suicide. Absurd! Why has not an internal review of the police department taken place. Why have the police not apologized to the Murray's, why have they not kept the family informed.

In Canada we have a Public Enquiry, the public can request an enquiry into the actions of the police, there is no such animal in the U.S., why? The police are public employees.

If anyone feels that there is not such a need, well think again, what if it Maura was your daughter, your sister, you loved one, would you be satisfied with the justice system?

Maura deserves better. Brianna Maitland's mother owned her car, the police in Vermont also failed to notify her that her car had been involved in an accident, the Governor there made no attempt to hide this fact and policies and proceedures were changed. Why the difference in New Hampshire, what is it that the police are hiding?

I am not bashing the police but simply pointing out that anything but a stellar job was done investigating the accident and Maura's disappearance. Why? What policies and procedures have changed? Law enforcement needs to stand up and be accountable, that is not to say that they should tell the public everything they know but they need to be more transparent why polices and procedures were not followed?

For those of you new to the forum, it would be best to ignore the comments of those who have little to say other than being a peanut gallery.

Although I am new here, my shell is hardened by experience of looking for missing persons and lobbying for justice for the same on public forums. I simply don't respond to the negative comments or argue, and as you can see, many people here offer little other than their opinion on what other people say, and have little of value to say otherwise, the proof is in the pudding.

Ironially I went to other topics on the topix, and the same people are making negative comments there also.

Don't be discourage, just keep on going, Maura needs your help, we need to lobby for justice, don't let the A$$H01&$ get you down..this is about justice, not the sticks and stones people throw.

Keep on posting! Tell yourself, it is mind over matter, I don't mind and they don't matter.

looking4amoose wrote:

<quoted text> Well from what I can figure, she would've been doing maternal health that semester--which is OB and childbirth I believe at UMass. If she had finished the spring 2004 semester, she would still have 2 more semesters of clinical to do. You are correct, Dartmouth College is "right down the street" from Haverhill--one of the things I've thought was maybe she was changing to a PA program and considered going there, but she would've required an appointment for an interview.(I had a two week wait for my interview there)I still find it hard to believe that nursing school was stressing her that much in the first week of the semester......someone who had been at West Point would've developed the skills necessary to deal with that kind of stress already. Was maura in the Honors Nursing program or were her grades of Honors status?(its two different things)

Maura most definately was in a Pediatric rotation as confirmed by her family. To my knowledge there is no such thing as an honors nursing programme at least in Canada, it is four years regardless.

She was an honors student, on scholarship. Maura left the military because it was not for her, and perhaps that means too stressful. I was born into the miliatry, and all my family is in the military (four generations)and other than being on the battlefield, my opinion is that nursing is more stressful, because you are dealing with sick people in a system that is stressed, overworked, and understaff. I'd give anything to have the jobs my family has, and there is no way they could cope with looking after sick people. Just my opinion of course.