It was February 9, 2004, and as far as Maura Murray’s relatives knew, everything was perfect in the 21-year-old woman’s life.
But on this day, Maura, a nursing student, cleaned up the dorm, withdrew some money from the bank, and emailed her professors to tell them she would not be able to attend class next week because of a death in the family. Then she hopped in her black 1996 Saturn and disappeared.
The strangest thing is that no one in the family died. According to police in Haverhill, New Hampshire, Maura’s car crashed into a tree on Wild Ammonoosuc Road in Woodsville, New Hampshire, at 7:27 p.m. that evening.
The responder wrote:
The evidence at the scene showed that the vehicle had driven eastward and left the lane, hit several trees, rotated and stopped in the wrong direction on the eastbound lane.
Damage is visible on the driver’s side, front, passenger side, rear driver’s side, and rear passenger side. The windshield is also broken, the car was locked and Maura was out of sight. The witness to the accident was a local bus driver.
He said that a young woman was driving the car and she told him not to report the accident to the police. However, he ended up doing so.
Law enforcement authorities suspect alcohol was a factor in the accident. A Franzia wine box can be seen on the passenger seat.
There was a red liquid on the driver’s door and the roof of the car. The car was eventually towed away, but it was gone before emergency personnel could find the Coke bottle with the red liquid, which smelled strongly of alcohol.
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A Beloved Hometown Gal
Fred and Laurie Murray welcomed their daughter Maura into the world on May 4, 1982. In high school, Maura was a star athlete, but she also studied hard and was very inquisitive, so she continued her studies in chemical engineering at West Point College.
She transferred to the College of Massachusetts (UMass), where she changed her major to nursing.
Maura Murray’s life was no bed of roses. In 2003, she was arrested in Amherst for misusing a credit card worth less than $250. She had used stolen credit cards at many restaurants and stores in town.
When Maura was confronted with a crime, she admitted that she had obtained the number from the bottom of the receipt and copied it onto a notecard. Due to Maura’s good behavior, the charge was quickly dropped.
Fred met with Maura on February 7, 2004, to help her find a new car. He then returned to the Quality Inn, where he stayed overnight, and then went to the Amherst Brewing Company for dinner.
Maura and Fred picked up Maura’s friend Kate, and then returned to the Amherst Brewing Company for drinks around 9:00 p.m.
Maura and Kate stayed at Fred’s inn for one night before Maura and her friends left for a party. Maura had an accident with her father’s car, so Fred rented another car and picked her up. Maura left campus around 1:30 a.m.
On Feb. 8, Maura told her father that she went to the corner, hit the sand, and slipped. She said she had not had a drink in a while and she never got a breathalyzer test or traffic ticket.
The Real Mystery (9th February)
Due to an impending snowstorm in the region, college classes were canceled on February 9. Maura sent emails to all professors and work supervisors to let them know that someone in the family had died and she would be going there for a week.
There was no death in the family, so Maura went to ATM and withdrew $280. Then she went to the liquor store and bought Bailey, Kalua, vodka and a Francia wine case for $40.
She also stopped at the Amherst DMV to get insurance papers for her father’s car, which had been damaged in the accident the day before.
At 4:37 p.m., she called her voice mailbox. At 7:27 p.m., she had wrecked the car. The only clue she left was a printout of MapQuest’s route to an apartment complex in Burlington, Vermont.
A Review Of Maura Murray’s Mobile Phone Records
A check of Maura Murray’s cell phone records revealed that she had called the owner of a rental property. Although no one knew her plan, police could only assume she was headed to Lington. Nevertheless, Maura was reported missing.
When authorities found out the next day, she had cleaned up the dorm room. On top of a box was a typed letter to her boyfriend describing their relationship.
When Maura Murray’s car was searched after the alcohol spill, most of her belongings were found, but her debit card, credit card and cell phone were gone.
Six days after Maura’s disappearance, a large-scale search began involving sniffer dogs, helicopters and well-trained people. Searchers, local and state police, and state fish and game officials.
The search covered an area of 20 miles along Route 112. No footprints were found in the snow. It was almost as if she had disappeared.
In the middle of the road, about 100 feet from the accident site, the tracking dog lost Maura’s scent, indicating that Maura was either riding a horse or had been kidnapped.
Main Theories
In the Maura Murray case, there are four main theories.
- She went to the mountains to commit suicide.
- Maura Murray left to start a new life.
- Maura died of exposure.
- She was Kidnapped.
Shortly after the February 9 crash, witnesses claimed to have seen Maura several miles from the crash site. Most people believed she was abducted by an opportunistic killer, but that theory is based only on the fact that the search dog lost her scent in the middle of the road.
Some people thought that Maura might have been shocked by the accident, so she dodged the woods and escaped law enforcement- but she got lost, got lost, and was killed by the elements. After all, this is her second car accident in two days.
Others said she had thought of suicide, and the car accident only strengthened her resolve.
No matter what happened to Maura, it seemed that she wanted to stay away from the crash site as soon as possible. On the 15th anniversary of Maura’s disappearance, Fred Murray announced possible leads on the case in February 2019.
The homeowner had not even opened the door to Fred’s room by then, where two dead dogs hit an area in the basement. He was allowed to enter a house near the scene of the accident.
In the end, after 15 years of hard work, the owners relaxed and let the dogs sniff around. Both dogs smelled the same area.
Investigators searched the home in April 2019, but to the disappointment of Maura’s family and friends, there was no sign of Maura or a crime.
Law enforcement even cut out large chunks of concrete in an attempt to find Maura, but their efforts produced no criminal evidence. Ground-penetrating radar showed the ground was churned up, but no one was buried there.
Rumors About Her
Over the past 16 years, there have been repeated rumors about the whereabouts of Maura Murray. For example, someone allegedly took a nurse to a party, poisoned her, and then buried her in the basement.
There is also a theory that someone will meet with Maura to pick her up in Canada and start a new life. This theory comes from investigative reporter James Renner. He does not believe that she has run into foul play. If his theory is correct, it would explain how Maura disappeared so quickly after the bus driver caused the accident.
Renner said:
The only way this could have happened was if Maura knew the driver and there was no time wasted for conversation… Enter the tandem driver, who would have been driving ahead of Maura. If they were ahead and saw the accident in their rearview and were past Bradley Hill Road, the next place they could turn around was Route 116. It takes approximately seven minutes to drive to Route 116 and back to the scene of the [collision].
Renner believes she might succeed in protecting herself and her unborn baby, but what does she need to protect her unborn baby from harm?
[She] ran away to survive. To protect herself and, if the police are correct, her baby. And talk about a motive to remain quiet for 11 years — can you get anything better than protecting a kid? What wouldn’t you do? That’s certainly one way to avoid any custody troubles.
Also, Renner claimed to have received an email claiming to be “someone from Maura’s inner circle.”
In the email, the author claims to have spoken to someone in a bar who heard something quite different from Maura Murray. According to the e-mail, Maura did not commit suicide nor did she get pregnant; she did not commit suicide. She wants to get rid of her boyfriend who abused her.
Renner explained:
He then started talking to me about the missing girl who had gone to West Point and then to U Mass. I hadn’t heard about it at the time, and he explained what I now know is the [Maura Murray] case. He told me that it was an open secret among people who knew her personally at U-Mass that she ran off on her own to get away from an abusive relationship. He said that he knew people that knew her and that had been in on the whole thing.
Some people say that Maura is living well and residing in Quebec, Canada, and that her family knows about it. The statement reportedly came from a friend of Maura’s. Skeptics, however, pointed out that it was unlikely that Maura father would insist on kidnapping his daughter if he knew where she was. If he knew his daughter was not there, why would he stand by and watch someone’s basement torn to shreds?
Moments after returning to James, the reporter also claimed to have received a letter titled “Stop Looking” from Ray Rummau. Carrigain, specifically the Desolation Trail area. Renner suspected the coordinates led to Maura’s body. Volunteers set out to find the location, but had to turn back because of heavy snow.
Then the love triangle theory came up. Allegedly, Maura was engaged to U.S. Army Lieutenant Bill Rausch while dating UMass assistant coach Hussein Baghdadi.
Renner said investigators spoke with Baghdadi after Maura’s disappearance and he told them that Murray had indicated in a private conversation that she was planning her disappearance. If his story is to be believed, Maura goes to the UMass Outing Club cabin in the White Mountains, and Baghdadi often participates in similar trips.
The “112dirtbag” Video
If you have time to watch a scary video on YouTube, you may have seen someone post one under the name “112dirtbag”.
On February 8, 2012, “112 Dirt Bags” uploaded a short hair video of an anonymous man laughing wildly in a dark room.
Maura’s father has said in the past that he believes his daughter was kidnapped by “some dirt bags” 112. The person who posted the video obviously followed the recent situation in the case and modeled the username based on those details. The creep in the video (sorry, LOSER) was never discovered, but Fred did not give upward.
He said that:
The case has to stay alive… That’s the only hope I have. I can’t help Maura now. The only thing I can do for Maura is to grab the dirtbag who grabbed her. That’s all I can do. I must find her and bring her home.
Even if Maura Murray is alive and well and the 112dirtbag videos are just a hoax, these videos are still disturbing because some toothless, moronic boys think it’s funny to torture Maura’s family friends. It’s been 16 years since I last saw Maura. Alive. Unlike many other missing persons, she probably left on purpose and made a new life for herself somewhere.
If she was abducted, there is still hope. We have all heard the story of the abducted victims years later – look at the women rescued from the home of Airy Castro and Jaycee Dugard, like any missing person, someone knows. The question is, are they keeping quiet to protect the new life Maura Murray has built for herself, or are they protecting themselves because they did something wrong?
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