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Maura Murray

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Maura Murray

Real Name: Maura Murray
Nicknames: No Known Nicknames
Location: Woodsville, New Hampshire
Date: February 9, 2003

Bio[]

Occupation: Nursing Student
Date of Birth:  May 4, 1982
Height: 5'7"
Weight: 120 pounds
Marital Status: Single
Characteristics: Caucasian female with Light brown hair and brown eyes.

Case[]

Details: Maura Murray was a 21-year-old nursing student in her junior year at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. Originally from Brockton, Massachusetts, she was the fourth child of Fred and Laurie Murray with an older brother, Fred, two older sisters, Kathleen and Julie, and a younger half-brother, Kurt. She was six-years-old when her parents divorced, after which she lived primarily with her mother.
Murray graduated from Whitman-Hanson Regional High School in Hanson, Massachusetts, where she was a star athlete on the school's track team and later attended the United States Military Academy in West Point, New York with her sister, where she studied chemical engineering for three semesters. However, the she struggled with the strict perimeters of the school and transferred to the University of Massachusetts Amherst to study nursing.
By all accounts, Maura was a good student but developed a reputation as a partier and drinker. Three months before she vanished, she was caught using numbers from a stolen credit card to order pizza. Her friends commented that she seemed to be going through emotional stress, even after Maura making a cryptic comment about her sister. She was dating Billy Rausch, a miliary cadet at Fort Sill at the time.
Maura's behavior seems to have became disconcerting bizarre afterward. While her father was trying to replace her failing 1996 Saturn, she wrecked her his car while driving it, and despite the possibility of being intoxicated, no sobriety test or incident report was made. She was obviously overwrought over the incident, but her father treated the incident with his usual calm.
The night before she vanished, Maura spent the night looking up resorts in the Burlington and Berkshire areas, even going as far as trying to rent a location in the area which her family had once stayed. She also called Billy telling him that she loved him anf called the supervisor where she worked about a "death in the family" in order to get a few days off.
The following day, Maura packed several items, took almost all the money out of her checking account, about $280, and purchased several alcoholic drinks before driving north in her failing Ford Saturn. It's also reported she packed up the contents of her dorm, but that cannot be confirmed. By 7:27 PM, Maura suffered a car accident on a sharp corner on Route 112 near the Woodside Community of Haverhill, New Hampshire. Noticed by several locals, it appeared she had been clipped by a car that had spun her car off the road. A bus driver named Bruce Atwater stopped to help after finding Maura standing distressed by the road, but she turned down his assistance by stating she had called for roadside assistance, which was odd since there was a lack of cell phone service in the area.
At 7:46 PM, when Chief of Police Cecil Smith arrived at the scene, Maura was no where near the scene. During a brief cursory glance of the scene, he found personal items and a box of Franzia wine in the vehicle, a splattered red drink across the door and a rag had been stuffed up the exhaust pipe. Believing the car had been abandoned, he took a report and only a brief cursory search for the driver was made. The ownership was traced back to Fred Murray the day after, and when Fred asked about a search for Maura, Smith said a search using the New Hampshire Fish and Game committee could be started in another day, despite the fact thay Maura would have been in the icy weather already for over twenty hours. When Fred arrived in Haverhill to find his daughter, he was disconcerted that no search or investigation had been started and that neither the State Police nor FBI had not yet been notified.
From this point, the investigation ranges from nonexistent to completely mishandled. A number of inconsistencies also arose concerning at what time Smith had arrived at the scene and the identity of a man smoking a cigarette seen by a neighbor in Maura's car. It was claimed that Maura was intoxicated, Bruce Atwater was adamant the girl he had seen was nor under the influence. Maura's description also varied among witnesses.
By time a search was started by Fish and Game, Maura had been missing several hours. A bloodhound was used to try and track her, but despite following the road several feet, no one really though it had captured the scent. Billy arrived with an interest to further the search and even allowed himself to be interrogated during which it was discovered a cold shivering caller had left a message on his phone using a Pre-Paid AT&T which many thought was Maura. The call was reportedly made from a Red Cross Station.
The general theory in the case was that Maura had been picked up by someone who wanted to harm her, but many wanted to know why Maura was driving through the area to begin. The thought from Smith was that Maura was trying to disappear, but that theory was debunked when several signs that Maura hoped to return were discovered. She was very close to her family, Billy and his family. The personal items in her car also did not set the stage of someone about to take their life. Witnesses at a rest stop several miles away later testified to seeing a lone intoxicated female at the site, but this was never followed up since Atwater said she was not intoxicated at the time. Another driver claimed to have seen her walking along the highway several miles east.
Host Aidan Mattis, a Penn State educated historian, folklorist and the host of "Lore Lodge," has exhaustively researched Maura's disappearance and has speculated that Maura had traveled to New Hampshire to secretly have an abortion. However, this is still just a theory.
Since 2003, the Haverhill Police has been accused of stalling and bungling the case, even to the point of possibly creating a cover-up. Fred Murray learned that Smith had never interviewed the locals who had witnessed Maura's crash site as well as several other curious incidents. By 2009, Murray's case was given to New Hampshire's cold case division, and authorities are handling it as a "suspicious" missing persons case.
Suspects: Most theories involve Maura being the victim of a serial killer who picked her up. Researchers and other true crime enthusiasts have connected her to the disappearances of Amy Riley and Brianna Maitland, who both had disappeared in Vermont around the same time, often linked due to similarities. Inconsistencies in Smith's schedule, the car he was driving and his complete incompetence and mishandling of the case suggested he was in the car that clipped Maura and his hesitancy in looking for her was part of the cover-up. Many of the New Hampshire investigation agencies were dragging their heels on the case or just alienated Maura's father at every turn. However, Smith's family have attacked this line of questioning because of Cecil Smith's otherwise sterling character. It remains noted that Maura's disappearance was never moved into a realm of a criminal investigation.
Another theory involves a local who lived in a distinctive A-shaped house on Valley Road. The story is that the house owner immediately sold his car and moved away after Maura vanished. Fred Murray pressed very hard to have the residence investigated, and when searches were finally made, all the discoveries were sent to the State Police, who refused the evidence. It was also noticed that a closet covered in blood was found with types coming from both male and female persons. Cadaver dogs also locked upon an area in the basement, but no body was found. Fred believed they were digging in the correct spot and they were no where near the correct spot.
Extra Notes :

  • This case has never been featured on "Unsolved Mysteries", but it has been featured on "20/20" and "Disappeared" as well as a series on the Oxygen Channel.
  • Murray's disappearance is described as the "first crime mystery of the social media age," having occurred days after the launch of Facebook.
  • This case was previously profiled on Disappeared.

Results: Unsolved
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