Where is MAURA MURRAY

Nice picture of a truck and trailer for enclosed car transport.

http://www.cobracountry.com/evt/evt-truck-new...

Is there a quarry near the end of Pioneer Rd?

Mountain Springs Water Treatment

https://www.sos.nh.gov/corporate/soskb/Corp.a...

gvmeabrk wrote:

<quoted text>
My thought on that is he neded to to get his point across.

THANK YOU!

Until someone comes up with a new idea.. it seems we've tossed almost everything AVAILABLE around! Right now my purpose for being here is to keep Maura's name alive and to read what others are thinking about in case something "clicks".

In the meantime, I found a journalist's report on a missing man, Ray Gricar. He was a DA and far older than Maura. He also had enemies. But there were similarities to Maura:

The author (again, James Renner) quoted a detective as saying, "There are enough clues to take you in any direction.... and enough left over to rein you back in." The missing man had a girlfriend, a good job, some tragedy in the family, and all he said to his girlfriend was that he was going to "play hooky" from work that day and go antiquing. His car was seen. He was seen. HE HATED BEING IN A SMOKY PLACE, BUT WHEN THEY FOUND HIS CAR IT SMELLED LIKE CIGARETTES AND THERE WAS A TINY BIT OF ASH ON THE FLOOR ON THE PASSENGER SIDE. HE NEVER ALLOWED ANYONE TO SMOKE IN HIS CAR.

Same 3 possibilities for what happened to him as for Maura. There are some obvious differences in the cases (I know that Maura is not just a "case"). But one reason no-one can believe Gricar ran away to start a new life is how very, very close he was with his daughter, Lara. It's possible that more has come out since this article was written.

Finally, here's the link:

http
://www.freetimes
.com/stories
/13/30/
the-rivers-edge-homicide-suici de-hoax-a-prosecutor-vanishes- and-the-clues-point-everywhere -and-nowhere-at-oncethe-rivers -edge

If this doesn't work, it's The Cleveland Free Times Archives: The Rivers Edge or you can google the author or missing man's name. If you want.

Find Mason's post at p. 6 at the other location in referencing The Mysterious 1AM Call with discussion. This pivotal post is the marker for taking any next step or in choosing a direction to follow:

"I agree with your comment and I believe the cops investigating this case need to identify and interview the person who called Maura at 0040 hrs on Friday morning while she was at work. If that person is willing to tell the truth, he or she can reduce a universe of possible stressors down to the proverbial hair that broke the camel's back.

We've been told that the caller placed the call to the the land line (desk phone) at Maura's desk. The telephone number to reach this phone is unpublished and only campus police and the security office know the number. Apparently, the intent was to restrict use of the phone to receiving incoming calls of an official nature (i.e., related to legitimate security concerns) from a person in one of those two offices.

We've also been told that campus police traced the call to another campus phone, but the person who made the call had "moved on" and they had not interviewed him or her. Evidently, the call did not originate with campus police or the security office, yet the caller (1) knew the unpublished number,(2) intended to contact Maura by dialing that number instead of her cell phone number, and (3) knew she was on duty and could be reached at that number.

There are several possible explanations that may account for the call. The most likely explanation to me is (1) Maura obtained the unpublished number,(2) she gave it to the caller so that he or she could call her at work without creating a record of the call on her cellphone that Sharon would see when Sharon received the monthly bill,(3) the caller was not Billy or a member of their respective families,(4) the call concerned a vitally important personal matter to Maura and the caller, and (5) Maura was expecting to receive the call that night.

These five considerations lead me to believe that Maura knew the caller, they had something important to discuss that could not wait until the next day, and they scheduled the call in advance.

Thus, the key question to identify the straw that broke the camel's back is: What subject matter could have been so vitally important and necessary to discuss on the security phone, instead of her cell phone, while Maura was at work at 0040 hours on Friday morning?

When we know the correct answer to this question, we will know why Maura was overwhelmed and decided to leave school without telling Billy, her family, or her friends.

There aren't very many theoretical possibilities that provide satisfactory answers to this question and, since Maura excluded Billy and her family from the loop, her family probably won't like the answer and will not want to share it with us.

Fred Murray's theory of the case is Maura was in the wrong place at the wrong time and she was murdered by a stranger who had no connection to the subject matter of the phone call.

Maybe he's right.

Maybe he's wrong.

The person who called Maura knows the answer and the cops need to shake the tree of possible callers until they identify the person and the subject matter of their conversation.

The "person moved on" is not an acceptable answer. "

Snowy,
I agree with you about Mason's post --- where that 12:40am call came from could be the key to what happened with Maura. I agree with what Mason said, except the part that that call was planned. It didn't necessarily need to be planned --- it just could be that Maura gave that UMass extension number to a person she was close to. OR, sure, it could've been planned. At that hour (just typing while "thinking"), who would be on campus? Well, of course, students living in the dorms. Professors and administrators would most all be gone by then... Many/most off-campus students would probably be back at their apartments? It WAS a Thursday night. It could have been a special friend who was on campus to pick her up and take her home (to wherever she was staying, if her dorm room wasn't where she was staying). If this was the case, maybe she DID fake the emotional episode to meet her friend an hour or so before she'd normally be done with work? Thanks, Snowy, for reposing Mason's post. This supplied a new angle (to me, anyway)!

also extracted from a lively discussion at p. 6 of the "new" forum with everyone rolling along is this quote from Mason (and a similar thought expressed by WTF/Bill):

***
"I do not understand the female crying response. Never have and never will. I do not consider it a sign of weakness because, if there is any difference between male and female behavior in the areas of stress management and propensity to commit selfless and courageous acts, I think females are more likely to outperform the males. So, when a female starts crying, I will offer her a hug via body gesture, assuming I know her, and then keep my mouth shut as I hold her until the crying stops. If I don't know her, I'll just stand around and stare at the ceiling or whatever until its over.

I'm not saying that I haven't cried rivers of tears on occasion, but I can only think of a few times in my life when I cried. I understand what will cause me to cry, but I do not understand what will cause a female to cry. Therefore, I have little or no idea how to interpret the female crying response.

Maura seems to have completely lost her composure and she wasn't able to regain it for a prolonged period of time. I assume that only an extreme, deeply personal, devastating, and life-altering event could produce such an intense response. I don't see how her class and work schedule, no matter how stressful they may have been, could produce such a response. I also can't comprehend how an obscene phone call or news about a stranger possibly killed in a hit and run accident could provoke a crying episode.

I felt a complete disconnect when I read your message. I'm not saying you're wrong. I'm saying the female crying response is alien and incomprehensible to me.
***

Fred"
***

if i may offer an additional 2 cents from the perspective of one who has been consistently, shamelessly and passionately emotional while appropriately tearful...

while i don't know the slightest about Maura, except from these discussions and my perceptions, her reaction and tears were meaningful, and likely spoke to her unbounded distress. apparently, her demeanor was, otherwise, calm and composed.

i can easily comprehend if her reaction to a Vasi hit and run was a surge of emotion and tears. the response to fear is often tears.

as time has gone on, and to the surprise of my family who is used to the sudden surge...i've come to react to a few important crises with silence, few words, and a determined moving forward while reassuring others.

my husband, like you and Bill, will unfailingly seek to problem-solve, using logic and pulling from experiences.

the embrace is essential, Fred, to those close...but to women who collapse in a pool of tears and are unrelated, it might help to make some eye contact before staring at the ceiling or floor. in acknowleging "the pain", it might help to shorten the duration.

tears are, after all, an expression of pain...or joy.
i couldn't understand why my grandmother cried when she held my first child, a daughter. i do now.

quija wrote:

Snowy,
I agree with you about Mason's post --- where that 12:40am call came from could be the key to what happened with Maura. I agree with what Mason said, except the part that that call was planned. It didn't necessarily need to be planned --- it just could be that Maura gave that UMass extension number to a person she was close to. OR, sure, it could've been planned. At that hour (just typing while "thinking"), who would be on campus? Well, of course, students living in the dorms. Professors and administrators would most all be gone by then... Many/most off-campus students would probably be back at their apartments? It WAS a Thursday night. It could have been a special friend who was on campus to pick her up and take her home (to wherever she was staying, if her dorm room wasn't where she was staying). If this was the case, maybe she DID fake the emotional episode to meet her friend an hour or so before she'd normally be done with work? Thanks, Snowy, for reposing Mason's post. This supplied a new angle (to me, anyway)!

interesting to know if a log was kept at the security desk, if this hasn't already been explored. the log would, of course, be inaccessible to the public view.

if security was "lax" or "informal", there could have been some wiggle room to receive incoming calls, whether planned or unplanned, especially if all calls were not logged.

not being familiar with or having paid attention to various campus security operations at larger universities, i do know that hospitals still employ walkie talkies, and the staff strolls around and chats while making their rounds. the business of checking the desk every 20 minutes may or may not have been strictly adhered to.

good point, Quija, about professors being away from campus phones...although they'd still have access to campus phones at will.

not tending toward displaying her emotion, i don't see Maura being a "faker". i really don't.

I agree it's possible that a deranged and disturbed man might have arrived at the Rte 112 intersection with Bradley Hill Road at precisely the right moment in time to see Maura, offer her a ride, and abduct her. Because traffic was sparse to non-existent, however, I believe that scenario is very improbable, unless the bad guy spotted Maura when she stopped for gas and followed her at a discreet distance, perhaps a quarter to a half mile behind her with the intent to close the gap and stop her after she reached a lonely, dark, and remote area on Rte 112. I believe it's possible that the SBD might have been between the two vehicles. Then Maura has the accident and the SBD stops to check it out. The bad guy may have passed them and parked somewhere up ahead where he could monitor the scene without being seen. After the SBD parked the SB, the bad guy spots Maura walking up the road and seized the opportunity. It's also possible that he may have decided to wait and watch next to the Weathered Barn rather than passing the accident scene.

I reviewed the "Valley Killer" cases and the circumstantial evidence indicates Nicholau killed the victims. He committed suicide in Florida a few years ago and the murders remain officially unsolved, but I don't believe LE believes anyone else committed those crimes.

I checked to see if he might have been living in New England in early 2004, but I did not find any evidence that he was in New England, or had any reason to be in New England, after he moved south more than 10 years ago.

I mention Nicholau because he trolled I-91 and areas alongside it looking for potential victims. Two or three were last seen hitchhiking. One was birdwatching and I believe two were attempting to make phone calls using pay phones. One of those two women survived. Do we have a copy-cat?

Pay phones are on the endangered species list, so to speak, and I can't recall how common they were in 2004, but I do believe that highway rest areas and gas/convenience stores situated within short distances of I-91 exits probably had pay phones. I've been wondering why Maura didn't use her cell phone to check on places to stay as she approached the exit she took to Woodsville because she had to decide whether to drive east or west after exiting I-91. If her cell phone was out of juice and she couldn't recharge it with her travel charger, she may have hunted down a payphone to reserve a place to stay or to inquire whether there were any vacancies. She might have decided to use a payphone anyway, if she was concerned about Sharon reviewing her bill and asking about them. Most payphones are located outside and Maura might have been standing next to one for 10-20 minutes calling various motels in Vermont and New Hampshire. If so, she would have been an irresistable target to someone like Nicholau cruising I-91 exit gas stations and convenience stores for a potential victim.

The bad guy would not have approached her with people around and when she returned to her car, he would have noticed the MA plates and probably the UMass parking sticker. He would have realized that she probably was passing through the area rather than a resident. If he was familiar with the area, he probably decided to follow her knowing that eventually she would reach a desolate area where he could make his move.

When Detective Columbo revealed that one of the front tires on the Saturn was flat, I didn't give it much thought. Now I'm wondering if my hypothetical bad guy might not have sabotaged the tire in some way that would cause it to slowly lose air pressure assuring that she would have to stop when the tire went flat.

The flat tire also may have caused Maura to lose control of the Saturn resulting in the accident.

I think the PIs need to take a careful look at that tire and determine if this theory is supported by what they find.

Fred

quija wrote:

Until someone comes up with a new idea.. it seems we've tossed almost everything AVAILABLE around! Right now my purpose for being here is to keep Maura's name alive and to read what others are thinking about in case something "clicks".
In the meantime, I found a journalist's report on a missing man, Ray Gricar. He was a DA and far older than Maura. He also had enemies. But there were similarities to Maura:
The author (again, James Renner) quoted a detective as saying, "There are enough clues to take you in any direction.... and enough left over to rein you back in." The missing man had a girlfriend, a good job, some tragedy in the family, and all he said to his girlfriend was that he was going to "play hooky" from work that day and go antiquing. His car was seen. He was seen. HE HATED BEING IN A SMOKY PLACE, BUT WHEN THEY FOUND HIS CAR IT SMELLED LIKE CIGARETTES AND THERE WAS A TINY BIT OF ASH ON THE FLOOR ON THE PASSENGER SIDE. HE NEVER ALLOWED ANYONE TO SMOKE IN HIS CAR.
Same 3 possibilities for what happened to him as for Maura. There are some obvious differences in the cases (I know that Maura is not just a "case"). But one reason no-one can believe Gricar ran away to start a new life is how very, very close he was with his daughter, Lara. It's possible that more has come out since this article was written.
Finally, here's the link:
http
://www.freetimes
.com/stories
/13/30/
the-rivers-edge-homicide-suici de-hoax-a-prosecutor-vanishes- and-the-clues-point-everywhere -and-nowhere-at-oncethe-rivers -edge
If this doesn't work, it's The Cleveland Free Times Archives: The Rivers Edge or you can google the author or missing man's name. If you want.

I recently posted here on Maura's forum about Ray Gricar. I was using Ray Gricar's forum as an example of how a family member came onto a chaotic forum and I. straightened out a lot of misinformation and 2. provided new information that was helpful to forum members. We cannot go much further without some new information.

Very interesting poll on the other forum...with a surprising "concensus" of opinion. Should be a very helpful endeavor.

I believe Elsewherebriefly or Wowser or both have mentioned the murder of a woman from Maine who had a problem with her car, possibly a flat tire, and the person who killed her, abducted her as she was attempting to change the tire. Her body was discovered somewhere near Franconia, if I'm not mistaken.

Anyone recall this case? I'm going to look for it to see if it has anything in common with Maura's case.

Suzanne wrote:

<quoted text>
I recently posted here on Maura's forum about Ray Gricar. I was using Ray Gricar's forum as an example of how a family member came onto a chaotic forum and I. straightened out a lot of misinformation and 2. provided new information that was helpful to forum members. We cannot go much further without some new information.

I guess I missed your post! Sorry! I just read a chapter about him this week in a book (James Renner, again) of cold cases. I attribute my getting interested in this case to you and me being on the same wavelength!

There are some ideas I came up with that have been repeated as if they were something new! PLUS --- I've worked with the ideas of OTHERS until I forgot where they originated and treated them like my own!

Beagle wrote:

<quoted text>This is a very good point. The FBI was in Amherst and along with UMass PD, they did, according to the Murray family, an excellent job. There seems to be little sense in looking at Amherst more closely. What else could anyone find, anyway. It's already been examined by federal and local LE.

OK--so apparently they know who called at the security desk, why she was so upset and why she left there then. Right?

The victim's name in the case I mentioned a couple of posts back is Pamela Webb. On July 1, 1989, she stopped to change a flat tire near the Biddleford exit on the Maine Turnpike. Her remains were discovered 17 days later near Franconia in the White Mountain National Forest close to Route 3 and approximately two miles from I-93.

Cause of death was strangulation. She was 32-years-old.

Fred

The official Maine website states the following:

Pamela Webb's 1981 Chevrolet pickup truck was found abandoned on the Turnpike at mile 30.4 southbound in Biddeford on July 2, 1989. The passenger side rear tire was flat and a spare tire was leaning against the tailgate. There were blood stains on the pavement on the passenger side of the truck and earrings near one of the blood stains. Webb's dog was in the front of the truck. A turnpike ticket was found inside the truck indicating Webb entered the turnpike in Augusta at 2152 hours on 07/01/89. Webb was headed to Mason, NH, to visit her boyfriend. The boyfriend reported Webb missing on 07/02/89 at 1009 hours. 75 to 100 people called the State Police to report seeing Webb's truck broken down, but no one was able to provide descriptions of vehicles or persons near the truck.

On July 18, 1989, human remains were found in Franconia, NH, which were subsequently identified at Webb's. The body was severely decomposed with only a small patch of soft tissue left on the skull. Webb was identified through dental records. No bones below the pelvis were found with the remains. A skirt, blouse and bra were recovered with the remains.

Cause of death for Pamela Webb could NOT be determined, as there was (as you note above) not enough soft tissue or other evidencde remaining to determine. Where did you get the information that cause of death was strangulation?

Mason, you found a credible source on the cause of death re Pamela Webb? I was not aware of this...can you direct me to it…..other than Websleuths.

http://mainecoldcases.com/maine-unsolved-murd...

FRANCONIA, N.H.- Police say a woman whose body was discovered 2 1/2 weeks after she disappeared from a Maine roadside may have been murdered.
The body of Pamela Webb of Winthrop, Maine, was found Tuesday in Franconia. An autopsy performed Wednesday on Webb, 32, did not pinpoint the cause of death.
Cpl. David Eastman of the New Hampshire State Police said Wednesday that dental records provided by Maine Medical Examiner Henry Ryan were used to make the identification.
Kenneth Webb, Pamela's father, said the family was doing "as well as can be expected" and was to meet with State Police to get more details on the investigation
http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1P2-8130186.html

Oops, sorry Sophie......didn't see your's....until after the fact.......