Where is MAURA MURRAY

Appraiser wrote:

Mason, when you were looking for the corpses that were the victims of serial killers, were you representing any of the serial killers who killed the victims you were looking for?

Yes, I was but I'm not at liberty to discuss specifics other than to say these searches occurred during plea bargain negotiations and I did not find any bodies.

So why not find an informant who could testify as to the identity of the caller? I'll bet one or two could be found. One such informant might possibly be found in about ten minutes. But you know what? The caller's identity is of absolutely no interest to any detective anywhere. Why is that?

Appraiser wrote:

<quoted text>Fired? Not at UMass, I don't think.

I don't know about UMass, but affairs with students are prohibited and grounds for termination in some teaching contracts, particularly if the student is in one of the professor's classes. Even if it's not a basis to terminate, it's a bad idea that colleagues and students would resent and gossip about. A faculty member who is a subject of interest discussed around the water cooler may find himself rather more ostracized than he would like.

At any rate the theory's viability only requires someone with a strong motive to keep the affair secret. Maura's engagement to be engaged to Billy certainly would have motivated her to keep an affair secret from her family. If she was having an affair with a professor at UMass, she would have wanted to keep it secret from students as well.

I would first look at the Chemical Engineering faculty for a likely candidate and then the Nursing faculty. Nursing used to be an almost exclusively female occupation, but that has changed dramatically so there may be some males on the nursing faculty. A male doctor also is a possibility, perhaps someone she met during a clinical.

I recall you mentioning that you were well acquainted with an ICU nurse who worked at Bayside. Do you know where the UMass nursing students did their clinicals? Is Bayside a teaching hospital affiliated with UMass? If not, do you know what hospital serves as the UMass teaching hospital?

One of the nagging questions I have is where was Maura doing her clinicals? I'm not even certain that she was far enough along in the program to take clinicals, which is another question I have.

hello 678

Appraiser wrote:

So why not find an informant who could testify as to the identity of the caller? I'll bet one or two could be found. One such informant might possibly be found in about ten minutes. But you know what? The caller's identity is of absolutely no interest to any detective anywhere. Why is that?

Beats the hell out of me. What did the campus cops say? Something to the effect that that person had "moved on," or some such thing. I think that person should have been identified and interviewed and I can't think of a reason why that would not have been a high priority.

Wouldn't it be interesting if an accurate and truthful completion of the remark was that the person dropped out of school instead of moved on?

That would suggest to me that the caller and Maura moved on together as in they started a new life together somewhere far away from their families and UMass. Find one and you find the other.

Mason wrote:

<quoted text>One of the nagging questions I have is where was Maura doing her clinicals? I'm not even certain that she was far enough along in the program to take clinicals, which is another question I have.

It's a good nagging question to have. Much of what was assumed to be true, especially on the MMM site, has turned out to not be true or known for sure to be true. Whether or not she was doing clinicals is open to question. I have no idea where UMass nursing students do their hospital clinicals, or whether their choice is limited, but many of their clinicals may be done at unconventional places such as homeless shelters, battered women's shelters, pregnancy counseling centers (such as Birthright or Summerhill House), and so on.

Baystate Medical Center is affiliated with Tufts.

Looking4aMoose (I think) had some thoughts on this subject a while back.

Mason wrote:

<quoted text>
Beats the hell out of me. What did the campus cops say? Something to the effect that that person had "moved on," or some such thing. I think that person should have been identified and interviewed and I can't think of a reason why that would not have been a high priority.
Wouldn't it be interesting if an accurate and truthful completion of the remark was that the person dropped out of school instead of moved on?
That would suggest to me that the caller and Maura moved on together as in they started a new life together somewhere far away from their families and UMass. Find one and you find the other.

That would be, at least to me, really, really wonderful, but I don't think there's a chance in hell that's what happened.

Suicide? Maybe, but doubtful. Outright murder or some kind of fatal negligence that was covered up? Most likely. Or possibly a drug overdose, but not the kind you would normally think of like heroin or crack or those kinds of drugs.

Mason wrote:

<quoted text>
I recall you mentioning that you were well acquainted with an ICU nurse who worked at Bayside. Do you know where the UMass nursing students did their clinicals? Is Bayside a teaching hospital affiliated with UMass? If not, do you know what hospital serves as the UMass teaching hospital?
One of the nagging questions I have is where was Maura doing her clinicals? I'm not even certain that she was far enough along in the program to take clinicals, which is another question I have.

Having transferred initially into chemical engineering and then applying into nursing she definitely would have been far enough along. If she had completed the semester during which she disappeared, she would've expected to graduate in June or December 2005 (depending on which tract she chose--not 2004. It's interesting that she wasn't a member of Sigma Theta Tau--the national honor society for nursing.

According to the Umass website they do clinicals at the following places: "Formal partnerships exist with Baystate Medical Center, Cooley Dickinson Hospital, St. Elizabeth's Caritas Medical Center, Jewish Geriatric Services, and Heritage Hall."

I've been seeking information on the Saturn's condition before it left Amherst in part because I suspect the engine was fine.

Why?

Because I can't figure out why Fred Murray would have driven it to within 100 miles of Amherst and then called AAA to take advantage of their free tow and had them tow it the rest of the way and drop it off in the dorm parking lot. If there was a serious problem with the engine, why not take it to a repair shop in Bridgeport and have them fix it. If it would have been cheaper to junk it for parts and buy a used car for Maura, why didn't he do that in Bridgeport? Towing it to Amherst when you know you're going to have to drive up there and buy a car for Maura the following weekend makes no sense. And, she needed a car to drive to her clinicals so it was important to provide her with a safe car.

This conundrum caused me to suspect that the Saturn was fine, so then I began to wonder why Maura supposedly refused to drive it and hitched rides with other students to her clinicals. These thoughts have occurred to me.

1. Maybe she didn't have any clinicals to attend. I believe she was starting her third semester in nursing and I'm thinking that she would not have progressed far enough in school to attend clinicals.
2. If she did, it seems to me that they would have been at local area hospitals. A large university like UMass should have a teaching hospital nearby for its medical and nursing schools. At least that's the usual arrangement. Driving 200 miles each way to your clinical assignment doesn't make sense to me. There also might be some potential civil liability issues for UMass if it did not provide transportation for a student taking a required clinical course that far from school. For example, falling asleep at the wheel while driving back to campus due to lack of sleep and exhaustion from working a hospital shift could expose UMass to a significant percentage of a costly liability for a wrongful death claim.
3. Maybe Maura lied to her family about needing a car to commute to her clinicals.
4. Maybe she wanted a car for another reason such as visiting a special friend. We have reason to believe she wasn't staying overnight in her dorm room at Kennedy. If not, with whom and where was she spending her nights? Did she need a car to get there and back so that she could maintain the appearance of living in the dorm?
5. If the Saturn was okay, why did she object to her father about driving it? Perhaps there was something about it that attracted attention, which she wanted to avoid? Excessive exhaust fumes? A loud muffler? Maybe Fred Murray's statement regarding placing a rag in the exhaust was prompted by a complaint from Maura about wanting another car because the Saturn attracted attention. He may have assumed incorrectly that she was only concerned about police attention when, in fact, her concern may have been broader as in the people who lived in the vicinity of her special friend.
6. I've also wondered if Maura had some irrational dislike for the Saturn due to some delusion, although I've been moving away from the delusional theory lately and settling on the theory that she was having a torrid affair with an older man, possibly a professor who would have suffered a serious career consequence, if the affair was discovered.
7. If her real reason for disliking the Saturn was a smoky exhaust, I can easily understand why she would not have been concerned about driving it north on Monday, February 9th, after dark.

Make sense?

Appraiser wrote:

<quoted text>That would be, at least to me, really, really wonderful, but I don't think there's a chance in hell that's what happened.
Suicide? Maybe, but doubtful. Outright murder or some kind of fatal negligence that was covered up? Most likely. Or possibly a drug overdose, but not the kind you would normally think of like heroin or crack or those kinds of drugs.

Nurses work in close proximity to just about every drug anyone can imagine and despite the best efforts of hospitals nurses still can a little of this and a little of that even if they short the patient in the process, which is the least preferred way to do it because it compromises the patient's care. Let me put it this way: where there is a will there is a way.

I am not aware of any evidence that Maura was a drug user. I'm just pointing out a well known fact in the medical community.

Mason wrote:

her clinicals.
4. Maybe she wanted a car for another reason such as visiting a special friend. We have reason to believe she wasn't staying overnight in her dorm room at Kennedy. If not, with whom and where was she spending her nights? Did she need a car to get there and back so that she could maintain the appearance of living in the dorm?
5. If the Saturn was okay, why did she object to her father about driving it? Perhaps there was something about it that attracted attention, which she wanted to avoid? Excessive exhaust fumes? A loud muffler? Maybe Fred Murray's statement regarding placing a rag in the exhaust was prompted by a complaint from Maura about wanting another car because the Saturn attracted attention. He may have assumed incorrectly that she was only concerned about police attention when, in fact, her concern may have been broader as in the people who lived in the vicinity of her special friend.
6. I've also wondered if Maura had some irrational dislike for the Saturn due to some delusion, although I've been moving away from the delusional theory lately and settling on the theory that she was having a torrid affair with an older man, possibly a professor who would have suffered a serious career consequence, if the affair was discovered.
7. If her real reason for disliking the Saturn was a smoky exhaust, I can easily understand why she would not have been concerned about driving it north on Monday, February 9th, after dark.
Make sense?

Sort of. Some of it makes sense, but most seems unlikely or impossible.
UMass Medical Center is in Worcester. The UMass Amherst campus is the flagship campus. The nursing program at UMass Amherst and the medical (as in MD) program in Worcester are very distinct geographically. I would guess that UMass Amherst is about an hour from UMass Medical Center.
If she was more or less living off campus, she didn't necessarily need a boyfriend (or girlfriend, for that matter) to do that with. She may just have had friends off campus and they stayed up late a lot and she went back to her dorm the next day.
The role of the Corolla should not be overlooked.

looking4amoose wrote:

<quoted text> Having transferred initially into chemical engineering and then applying into nursing she definitely would have been far enough along. If she had completed the semester during which she disappeared, she would've expected to graduate in June or December 2005 (depending on which tract she chose--not 2004. It's interesting that she wasn't a member of Sigma Theta Tau--the national honor society for nursing.
According to the Umass website they do clinicals at the following places: "Formal partnerships exist with Baystate Medical Center, Cooley Dickinson Hospital, St. Elizabeth's Caritas Medical Center, Jewish Geriatric Services, and Heritage Hall."

Where are these hospitals located? I assume they are pretty close, if not within the Amherst city limits.

I'll be surprised to discover that UMass doesn't provide transportation for its students to work at these hospitals.

Anyone know whether it does?

Mason wrote:

<quoted text>
Nurses work in close proximity to just about every drug anyone can imagine and despite the best efforts of hospitals nurses still can a little of this and a little of that even if they short the patient in the process, which is the least preferred way to do it because it compromises the patient's care. Let me put it this way: where there is a will there is a way.
I am not aware of any evidence that Maura was a drug user. I'm just pointing out a well known fact in the medical community.

I'm not talking about the kinds of drugs often found in hospitals. I'm talking about performance enhancing drugs, body building drugs, quack anti-cancer drugs, health store type drugs, steroids, stuff like that.

Mason wrote:

<quoted text>
Where are these hospitals located? I assume they are pretty close, if not within the Amherst city limits.
I'll be surprised to discover that UMass doesn't provide transportation for its students to work at these hospitals.
Anyone know whether it does?

The website states that each nursing student in their junior year must have their own vehicle for transportation.(The nursing schools I went to didn't provide transportation either---you typically have to go in prior to your clinical shift to do the research on your patients, formulate care plans, research meds etc. so it would be impossible to accomodate each students schedules.) Locations of the clinical affiliations listed are/were: Baystate; Springfield, Cooley Dickinson Hospital, Northampton; St. Elizabeth's Caritas Medical Center; Boston, Jewish Geriatric; Longmeadow, Heritage Hall; Agawam.

Appraiser wrote:

<quoted text>Sort of. Some of it makes sense, but most seems unlikely or impossible.
UMass Medical Center is in Worcester. The UMass Amherst campus is the flagship campus. The nursing program at UMass Amherst and the medical (as in MD) program in Worcester are very distinct geographically. I would guess that UMass Amherst is about an hour from UMass Medical Center.
If she was more or less living off campus, she didn't necessarily need a boyfriend (or girlfriend, for that matter) to do that with. She may just have had friends off campus and they stayed up late a lot and she went back to her dorm the next day.
The role of the Corolla should not be overlooked.

I've wondered about the Corolla. She wrecked it about an hour after she left the dorm party at Kennedy Hall and the scene of the accident is only a mile from Kellogg. Another one of the big unanswered questions in this case for me is where was she during that hour? I think it's unlikely that she went to her room and twiddled her thumbs for an hour hoping that a later departure would result in a more hospitable welcome by her sleeping father. The trip to the Quality Inn where he was staying is only 10 to 15 minutes, max. Arriving at 3:45 am instead of 2:45 am probably would not have made much of an appreciable difference to her dad who would have been sound asleep in either case. No, I think she visited someone during that hour.

I've ignored raising the subject of drugs until now because I'm in enough trouble with many of the people who post here as it is, but I now will hurl discretion into a fierce wind, blame Appraiser for raising the subject, and venture forth embracing my everlasting doom and ignominy.

Was Maura planning to mule a large quantity of controlled substances up north and the whole story about a death in the family and the family's unwitting speculation about her needing to get away from the stress of school a cover for a drug deal that went bad?

Could this be the basis for Weeper's theory regarding a previous crash and someone else behind the wheel of the Saturn when it crashed near the Weathered Barn?

In addition to the above, undergraduate students affiliate with Amherst, Belchertown, Hadley, S. Deerfield, Sunderland, Mohawk Trail, Northfield-Mt. Hermon, W. Springfield school systems, and with various nursing homes.

I'm going to stay out of the discussion about a drug connection to this case for the time being because I'm still thinking about an affair. Of course, I realize those two angles are not mutually exclusive.

I will note for the record that no matter which of the several theories one chooses as the most likely explanation for what happened, the theory must account for the apparent discrepancy between the damage caused by the crash just past the Weathered Barn and the damage that is apparent in the photographs of the Saturn taken sometime after the crash at Lavoie's.

For a long time I assumed that the crash site was where Fred Murray placed the blue wreath, which is not far from the sharp curve at the Weathered Barn. Therefore, I thought Maura had failed to successfully negotiate the curve, over-corrected, and crashed. There are two reasons that, in my mind, conclusively disprove this theory.

First, Maura crashed her father's new Corolla less than 48 hours earlier by failing to successfully negotiate a 90 degree left turn from Mass Ave onto North Maple Road in Amherst. No matter how inexperienced a driver she may have been, I sincerely doubt that she would have failed to slow down enough to successfully negotiate the curve to the left at the Weathered Barn.

Second, the crash site is almost 100 yards farther up the 112 from where the wreath was placed. She had already successfully negotiated the curve and was on a straight section of the dry roadway. I don't see any reason why she would have crashed at that location unless she swerved to the right to avoid a person or animal in the road or possibly an oncoming vehicle that did not dim its lights and she moved a little too far to the right such that the wheels on the right side went off the dry roadway onto the icy shoulder and she lost control of the Saturn.

No matter how the accident happened, however, the damage the Saturn sustained does not appear to have been caused by the crash.

Theories to account for the additional damage range from Weeper's theory about a previous accident on the 112 within a mile of the Rte 302/Rte 112 intersection, an accident in the vicinity of wherever she filled the gas tank that was still full at the crash site, or an accident in Amherst before she started the trip north.

Sure would be nice to know the actual condition of the Saturn the last time someone saw it in Amherst before the trip. I've been asking this question for over a month and all I hear are crickets.

Let's put it this way. If she was staying, more or less, off campus, I'll bet the property's real owner knows Vinny DeRosa. Derosa arranged Rowland's trips on the private jets. The jet company has a wide variety of connections to a number of other cases.

Connersville. Where have I seen that name before?