Where is MAURA MURRAY

Mason and Euro: Keep going... you're getting closer to the truth.

In fairness, all of us should keep in mind that Maura's family and friends have one perspective, the police have another, and the good citizens of the area have another. This is a recipe for bitter disagreement and there are no remedies in the medicine cabinet to sweeten the brew.

Nevertheless, each person can choose whether to rise to the bait offered by another and snap, or let it pass. There is but one or possibly two individuals who are gripped by malice and fear. Our anger would be better channeled into identifying, exposing, and hastening them to their just desserts.

which is dispiriting

I couldn't agree more!

For me the time frame isn't do able for 2 accidents. No I don't know if there is a record of an accident with Hanover Disp. but there isn't w/Grafton so that doesn't work for me either.

If you measure where the damage is and
trailer hitches bummers you can form
a pretty good theory on that information

So where do you think we start?

Mason wrote:

<quoted text>
Good point, but I actually was referring to a theory advanced in an earlier discussion on this board that Maura's Saturn was the subject of an earlier call regarding a vehicle off the road alongside the 112 not far from the 302. Sgt Smith responded to that call. Apparently it was a wild goose chase, which is an appropriate description since he drove a long way on Goose Lane to get there.
Then he's dispatched to the magic place on 112 where people have been known to disappear into thin air. According to the theory, someone may have towed the Saturn from the first site to the second using a tow rope and deposited it there to draw attention away from the first site at which various and sundry unpleasantries occurred.
This theory posits someone towing and someone in the Saturn playing that long popular winter game, "Let's Keep it on the Road."
The journey proceeded according to plan until the sharp curve at the Weathered Barn. There the game changed to an ice rink personal favorite of mine called, "Crack the Whip," a game best played without cars.
Voila! the Saturn makes a valiant effort to dance with the stars, but fails to escape gravity and returns to Earth several hundred feet down the road nestled butt first in a snow bank.
The dazed and confused driver, who is not Maura, slowly gathers her wits together and, after chatting with the SBD, is picked up by her confederate and whisked away before Sgt Smith arrives to investigate.
Yesterday, I proposed a theory regarding the circumstances of the first event back near the 302-112 intersection.
What's the point in speculating about a first crash? Well, there's some splainin to do involving some facts that willfully refuse shut-up and be quiet.
1. What's up with the rag in the exhaust pipe of the Saturn?
2. SBD took a look at a photograph of Maura and said, "Nope, that ain't her," referring to the near cosmonaut piloting the Saturn with whom he conferred.
3. The second accident appears to be staged because the damage to the front left corner of the Saturn appears to have been caused by an object higher than the Saturn's bumper and shaped like the corner of a bumper affixed to a 4x4 pickup.
As tempting as it may be to characterize these facts as nothing more than curious anomalies that require no explanation, I worry about them.
Our goal should be to develop at least one theory that accounts for all of the known facts and almost 5 years after Maura disappeared we're still trying to separate the known from the unknown, which is dispiriting.

Eurobserver wrote:

Hello all,
I believe it was Mason who in a previous post recently advanced the theory that Maura may have been filling up her car when passing through Woodsville, and that someone might have put the rag in the exhaust of the Saturn while she went to pay for the gas.
There are be at least four gas stations along the US302 in Woodsville according to the web-based telephone directory for the area.
If a rag was put into the exhaust of the Saturn in Woodsville, it would seem likely that Maura´s car most probably may have stalled somewhere on the US302/NH10 on the stretch between Woodsville and the NH112 intersection in the direction of Bath/Littleton.
It would seem rather unlikely that she could have made it onto the 112 before the car stalled.
As far as I have been able to ascertain the stretch of the US302/NH 10 between Woodsville and the NH112 intersection is a fairly heavily trevalled stretch of highway.
Could this be where the disputed first accident overheard by several people in the area might have taken place?
Could Maura´s Saturn have stalled and caused the "mysterious" first accident on the US302/NH 10 somewhere between Woodsville and the NH112 turnoff?
Even on an early evening in February there should have been several witnesses to have observed such a presumed accident/incident on this rather heavily travelled road. The publicly known lack of any such witness(es) is therefore surprising.
Also:
I believe there was some talk on this board some time ago about a local towing-truck operator in the Woodsville area who apparently had the habit of "scanning" the roads in the area for potential clients, and with a certain shady reputation to his name.
Just an idea, but could this individual have been encountering Maura on the US302/NH 10 on the above-mentioned stretch in connection with the disputed first accident overheard by several people in the area?

What about the possibility of Sawyer Hill Road that branches to the right off the 112?

Regarding a possible first crash, my sourcec fot that is entr 8 on the Maura Murray case chart that states,

Heard call go out at 7PM for Woodsville fire dept. and EMS re accident on Swiftwater Road; heard fire and EMS called back shortly because "operator had left in private vehicle"; rescue was called out second time and she heard scanner discussion referencing "cracked windshield" … Woodsville fire dept/EMS called out to accident at 7 PM – then called back – then called out again.

In the column entitled People/Items this entry appears: Scanner

Anne (on webboard) and her husband

Apparently, the dispatcher was RM.

That's all I know about it. I think Weeper hinted that it might be connected to the case. I'm not sure what to make of it.

I know asking this question may get me blasted by one or all of you, but I was just wondering if any of you guys knew Maura or her family before this happened?
In the past two years one of my friends from college was murdered by her husband that was a friend, and it was devastating even though we hadn't spoken in a few years.
The tone of this thread is so aggressive. It is shocking. I just recently began reading about this case and I too already feel disappointed that it cannot be solved.
Another thing that saddens me is that although ALL of you want to solve this case... some of you are at odds with each other. To solve a problem you should all try working together.
Thank you all for keeping this case "alive" so to speak. What I mean is keeping the questions going, brainstorming, and hopefully we will all learn the truth together.
May God Bless you all and seriously... can't we all just get along... stop the slamming of each other.... it isn't healing any wounds or easing greif.
Besides read the fine print before posting....."Be Polite"

Hello, College Friend.

Are you a college friend of Maura's? You may be able to shed some light for us, and that would be welcome.

Did you know Maura well? Did you speak to LE or her family? Sometimes what we might think is an insignificant detail might be the link needed to solve a case. Obviously, if there is stuff you know about Maura that you are not comfortable sharing in a public forum, it would be more appropriate to contact her family and/or LE.

Mason wrote:

<quoted text>
What about the possibility of Sawyer Hill Road that branches to the right off the 112?
Regarding a possible first crash, my sourcec fot that is entr 8 on the Maura Murray case chart that states,
Heard call go out at 7PM for Woodsville fire dept. and EMS re accident on Swiftwater Road; heard fire and EMS called back shortly because "operator had left in private vehicle"; rescue was called out second time and she heard scanner discussion referencing "cracked windshield" … Woodsville fire dept/EMS called out to accident at 7 PM – then called back – then called out again.
In the column entitled People/Items this entry appears: Scanner
Anne (on webboard) and her husband
Apparently, the dispatcher was RM.
That's all I know about it. I think Weeper hinted that it might be connected to the case. I'm not sure what to make of it.

Glad you found the other filling stations. The one I chose is the last one available before the 302/112 intersection on my Google satellite view.
A combination gas and convenience store less than a mile from the 302/112 intersection fits the theory.

There are two possible explanations to account for the choice to take the 112 instead of the 302. She chose the 112 or she didn't. If the former, we can skip why and go on to the next question, which is what happened after the car stalled out?

If the latter, then we need a theory to explain why she turned onto the 112. I think we have to put someone in the car with her. A female associate of Mr. Nasty who perhaps approached Maura in the convenience store and asked her for a ride a little way down the 112. This encounter also helps provide cover for Mr. Nasty.

Maura agrees to help a sister in need and off they go with Mr. Nasty trailing behind. After turning right onto the 112, girlfriend says take the next right, which is the less traveled Sawyer Hill Road. The engine stalls after the turn. Mr. Nasty pulls up and parks his vehicle. Maura winds up gagged, restrained, and concealed in Mr. Nasty's vehicle and girlfriend is sitting behind the wheel of the Saturn.
What happens next?

White Wash wrote:

Yelling and Name calling is what FireCat?
Grow up!
Either you are wrong the Hanson Express is
it is not confusion it's called one is fact
and is WRONG!
Go back do some research and decide who is what!
Suck it up and step to plate like you make the rest of us!
<quoted text>

Um, excuse me, but who's doing all the yelling and the name calling?

I can't agree to scroll on by, as you and Shack both call it, because a lot of what you say is useful. I harbor no particular agenda against you White Wash, and I never have.

College Friend wrote:

The tone of this thread is so aggressive. It is shocking. I just recently began reading about this case and I too already feel disappointed that it cannot be solved.

Another thing that saddens me is that although ALL of you want to solve this case... some of you are at odds with each other. To solve a problem you should all try working together.

and seriously... can't we all just get along... stop the slamming of each other.... it isn't healing any wounds or easing greif.
Besides read the fine print before posting....."Be Polite"

I know. It's horrible, isn't it. I confess to sometimes in the past several months being one of the ones who often expresses frustration. I have NEVER meant it to be personal in nature, and often I feel my attempts to straighten out a fact that I see being misrepresented, or something being represented as a fact that HAS NOT been determined to be a fact gets taken as a personal attack, and that wears on a girl after a while. And for my part, I apologize. Again. The only reason I haven't thrown up my hands is for Maura.

All too often I see people's ideas attacked because of the person posting them. THAT, in my opinion, is stupid and childish, as is a lot of what goes on here.

EXAMPLE:

Philip/Whiston and I have often butted heads, and occasionally outright yelled at each other, but we know it's not personal (don't you, Philip?) and it's also only on certain issues. On the other hand, I agree with A LOT of what Philip has to say, and he's provided valuable insight and lots of fascinating ideas and theories. As such, I can't just "scroll on by" when I see a post for Philip, nor do I see a post by him and immediately jump on his ass. Philip and I (I hope) respect each other, though we occasionally disagree, and loudly.(ahem. I did get rather vehement with him in recent months, and I'm grateful he didn't hold that against me.)

Why some other posters cannot manage to do this with each other--and I'm not just speaking of me, or of White Wash, or of ANYONE specifically--totally escapes me. It detracts from the issue at hand, which is of course MAURA.

Oh, and another thing? The judging thing is totally random and laughable and IN NO WAY should be taken seriously as an appraisal of the validity of anyone's posts or ideas.

Hello again,

Just two disparate, but possibly connected threads:

1. I believe I have read somewhere on this board that there was talk of an unsubstantiated accident having taken place somewhere along NH10 in the Haverhill area shortly before the presumed timing of the Saturn ending up by the Weathered Barn in Swiftwater.
As far as I recall, it has never been made clear whether such an accident (on NH10) actually did take place and, if so, where.
Considering that the NH 10 goes all the way from Littleton via Lisbon, Bath, Woodsville, Haverhill and further south to Hanover, etc, we´re talking about a substantial stretch of road in the Haverhill area.

2. Remember that the Westmans at the Weathered Barn curve spoke of hearing an accelerating car followed by the sound of a thud.
Could the accelerating car have been a kind of towing-truck towing the Saturn, which was accidentally dropped by the towin-truck at the Weathered Barn curve, making the Saturn end up facing the wrong way in the snow bank?

Continuation to #8508

"We've got to get rid of the car," they conclude.

But the car won't start because there's this damn thing dangling out of the exhaust pipe.

Boyfriend tries to remove it, but it won't come out. Finding themselves stranded in the middle of a Cohen Brothers movie, they stare at each other and ask, "Now what do we do?

This is where the tow rope scenario plugs in and we fast forward to the crash site after the SBD leaves.

Boyfriend picks up girlfriend and off they go.

What's wrong with this scenario?

We have no explanation for his inability to remove the rag, unless he decided not to remove it for some reason. I cannot imagine why he would choose to tow the Saturn with a rope instead of having girlfriend drive it. Could the heat from the exhaust have melted, in effect welding the rag into the interior surface of the exhaust pipe? I don't know. If so, the rope tow is the only option other than abandoning the Saturn. Speaking of abandoning the Saturn, isn't that the obvious choice? The only reason I can think of to keep it is to take it somewhere far away and conceal it. If anyone finds it, they won't have any way of associating it with Mr. Nasty and his associate. Towing it with a rope to such a place is absurd because ropes wear out and if it breaks en route, then what happens?

OK, so substitute a chain. Now what? Well, rope or chain the happy caravan invites police attention, doesn't it? Imagine the cop standing next to Mr. Nasty's window asking for his license, registration, and proof of insurance. Well, I'll be damned the officer thinks as he spies the prostrate form on the floor of Mr. Nasty's vehicle. Nope, this scenario isn't working.

Okay, maybe he just wanted to move it to the place where it was discovered and stage an accident there. What's the point in staging an accident? If it's that important, why not stage the accident where the car is?

But some cop with siren blaring is coming this way and maybe somebody reported seeing us. Time to split, man. We can't be hanging around here with her in the car.

Nope, escaping from the cops has to be a higher priority, particularly with Maura in Mr. Nasty's car, than fixing up a rope tow and towing the car the cops are probably looking for.

Another problem is the apparent lack of intent to steal stuff of value like the diamonds, for example.

What about the girlfriend? Is she going to be cool with the idea of kidnapping Maura? Probably not. While there have been cases in which wives or girlfriends have assisted the male to kidnap, rape, and kill females, they are not common. Especially if that was Mr. Nasty's intent, it seems more likely that the two would abandon the Saturn once Maura was subdued to eliminate the possibility that someone would drive by and see them.

But what if the motive was to kidnap Maura for ransom? Besides the lack of a ransom demand, Maura wasn't driving a Rolls Royce. She was driving a beater. Nope, that doesn't make sense either.

CONCLUSION: Unlikely theory. So unlikely that we need to find out for certain if there was a rag crammed into the exhaust pipe after the accident. If a rag was in the pipe when the car was released from impound, maybe the Fire Department put it in the pipe when the were emptying the fluids.

Note to self: check with the fire department about the rag.

Systematically thinking through theories is a good way to evaluate their probability. The process does not prove or disprove the theory, but it provides a systematic way to analyze and thoroughly evaluate a case.

This may not be rocket science but it is an application of the scientific method to solving cases methodically and analytically. When the process has been completed, we will know that we have been as thorough as possible.

I invite every reader to review what I've written. Begin by assuming that I'm wrong because that is the best way to arrive at the truth. The key is to avoid falling in love with your own theory. The facts are whatever they are regardless of what we hope or want them to be.

Okay, anyone up for presenting a theory? I love the sound of knives sharpening in the evening.

Hello Mason & all,

Some very interesting reasoning of yours there....
I have to give it all some further thought and hope to return later with, hopefully, some constructive ideas...

I've been reading these posts. The rag in the tailpipe is especially strange. I have a mechanic friend that I recently spoke with reagrding this. He says that in the 70's guys used to put things in other guy's tailpipes to make their cars backfire, as a way to scare the crap out of them. Today's cars, he said, may have other problems with this because of sensors. However, he said that any backpressure from the engine would likely to cause the rag to fly out. One way this could be avoided, however, would be to puncture a small hole in the tailpipe closer to the front of the car to lessen the backfire. He said in a very rare case, this may lead to a situation where fumes would enter the cabin of the car and render the person unconscious.

Another reason why someone may put a rag in a tailpipe would be to remove the rag as evidence of a different kind. If the rag were covered in a chemical agent such as chloroform, then used to render Maura unconscious, perhaps then someone would put it in the tailpipe to throw off investigators. Also, after the smell had evaporated, it would be covered with exhaust residue so no one would think to test it for an agent such as chloroform. Do we know for a fact that the rag was from Maura's roadside kit?

Is it possible the the SBD is just plain mistaken when it comes to identifying the girl in the car. First, she was either drunk, appeared drunk, or was faking drunk, which I think makes people look a little different than in a photograph taken in the light of day. 2.) Wasn't she wearing a hood, which would make it difficult to see her hair? 3.) Although it's stated everywhere that Maura's hair isn't long, it wasn't that short either, meaning, that if was "down" that someone could conceivable think of it as long. 4.) It was dark out and the SBD was looking down at the driver of the Saturn. It just seems that it would be easy to misidentify someone given these scenarios. Being drunk, wearing a hood, and looking at a top-down angle at someone will make them look different for sure. It may also make them appear shorter.

Would there be anyway to pinpoint any and all places where Maura's Saturn had an accident of some kind? She hit some kind of vehicle, right. Couldn't a paint sample, a chemical sample be retrieved from her car to determine what she hit? It's probably too late now for any of this evidence to still be fresh enough to work properly. However, weren't their police reports about her hitting something prior to her car coming to rest at the weathered barn? Do they know exactly where this occurred? Could any evidence at this site still exist in any form? Could they still retrieve the rag from the tailpipe and test it for chemicals? Do any of the gas stations in the immediate area have cameras? Were they checked out? Couldn't someone do a search on all red trucks with temp NH license plates, located in Stillwater, NH on Feb 9, 2004, narrowing down the vehicles by proximity to the scene? I apologize if these are redundant questions, but based on the conversations that I've read on here in the past 48 hours, these questions come up for me.

@Mason, re: The Rag

While this certainly isn't a confirmation that the rag in the tailpipe was there prior to CS (first responder, police) and the FD folks arriving, there have been a number of accounts that said CS grew alarmed when he saw the rag and asked one of the neighbors "Where's the girl with the rag in the tailpipe?"

It's been brought up before that this is a little confusing, especially since - at some point - he ran the plates for the car and brought up Fred Murray's name for the registration (not Maura's). Some of the accounts have him doing this before anything else (ie., before growing alarmed and asking "Where's the girl with the rag in the tailpipe?").

Obviously, this doesn't present anything conclusive (for us), but it's worth mentioning. I haven't seen any testimony that refers to the FD using a rag or anything like that (rather, there's several accounts that say CS asked FD / EMS to stay *away* from the car once they arrived, presumably to prevent contaminating the scene with footprints, etc.).

White Wash wrote:

which is dispiriting
I couldn't agree more!
For me the time frame isn't do able for 2 accidents. No I don't know if there is a record of an accident with Hanover Disp. but there isn't w/Grafton so that doesn't work for me either.

White Wash, which two accidents aren't feasible timewise? The one Anne heard on the scanner if it was the Route 10 one? Or the one Anne heard, ANYWHERE?

I'm just confused because we've been talking about that recently. I've no real sense of the driving conditions in that particular area, though I'm familiar with mountain driving in general.

Thanks.

Mason wrote:

Okay, anyone up for presenting a theory? I love the sound of knives sharpening in the evening.

LOL, is that any relation to loving the smell of napalm in the morning?

The rag, Mason, was described as "clean". Which would seem to eliminate both it having been stuffed into the tail pipe of a running vehicle (ESPECIALLY one with a dropped cylinder. I used to drive an old VW bus, so I'm painfully familiar with the gunk that comes out of exhause systems) and it having been "melted."

Also, whether or not it would even melt would depend on if it had synthetic fiber content, of course. Cotton doesn't melt. Which you, of course, knew.

So what was the darned thing doing there? Also, if the car was "butt first" into the snowbank, how is that useful as a signal, especially given that a white rag looks awfully like a white snowbank at night.