2004 disappearance of American woman
Maura Murray (born May 4, 1982) is an American woman who disappeared on the evening of February 9, 2004, after a car crash on Route 112 near Woodsville, New Hampshire, a village in the town of Haverhill. Her whereabouts remain unknown. Murray was a 21-year-old nursing student completing her junior year at the University of Massachusetts Amherst at the time of her disappearance.
On the afternoon of Monday, February 9, before she left the university campus, she emailed her professors and work supervisor, writing that she was taking a week off due to a death in the family; according to her family, there had not been a death. At 7:27pm, a local woman reported a car accident on a sharp corner of Route 112 adjacent to her home. A passing motorist who also lived nearby stopped at the scene, and asked the woman driving the car if she needed assistance; she declined, claiming to have called roadside assistance. Upon arriving home several minutes later, the motorist reported the accident to emergency services. At 7:46pm, law enforcement arrived at the scene, but the woman had disappeared.
Police traced the vehicle to Murray, and initially treated her as a missing person on the belief that she may have wanted to disappear voluntarily. This speculation was based on her travel preparations (about which she had confided nothing to friends or family) and no obvious evidence of foul play. In 2009, Murray's case was given to the New Hampshire cold case division, and authorities are handling it as a "suspicious" missing persons case.
In the years after Murray's disappearance, her case would receive media attention on "20/20" and "Disappeared", and also garner significant speculation on Internet message boards and forums, with theories ranging from abduction to voluntary disappearance. In 2017, the case was the subject of a documentary series on the Oxygen network, which described Murray's disappearance as the "first crime mystery of the social media age", having occurred days after the launch of Facebook.
Background.
Early life.
Maura Murray was born May 4, 1982 in Brockton, Massachusetts, the fourth child of Frederick "Fred" and Laurie Murray. She has an older brother, Fred; two older sisters, Kathleen and Julie; and a younger half-brother, Kurt. Maura was raised in an Irish Catholic household. When she was six, Murray's 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. She was accepted into the United States Military Academy in West Point, New York, where she studied chemical engineering for three semesters. Believing that West Point was not a good fit for her, she transferred to the University of Massachusetts Amherst after her freshman year to study nursing.
Prior to disappearance.
In November 2003, three months before her disappearance, Murray admitted to using a stolen credit card to order food from several restaurants, including one in Hadley, Massachusetts. The charge was continued in December, to be dismissed after three months' good behavior.
On the evening of February 5, 2004, while she was on duty at her campus security job, Murray spoke on the phone with her older sister, Kathleen. They discussed Kathleen's relationship problems with her fiancé. Around 10:30 p.m., while still on her shift, Murray reportedly broke down in tears. When her supervisor arrived at her desk, Murray was "just completely zoned out. No reaction at all. She was unresponsive." The supervisor escorted Murray back to her dorm room around 1:20 am. When asked what was wrong, Murray said two words: "My sister." The contents of this call remained unknown until October 2017, when Kathleen publicly explained the conversation: Kathleen, an alcoholic, had been discharged from a rehabilitation clinic that evening, and on the way home, her fiancé took her to a liquor store, which caused a relapse.
On Saturday, February 7, Murray's father Fred arrived in Amherst. He told investigators he and Murray went car-shopping that afternoon, and later went to dinner with a friend of his daughter. Murray dropped her father off at his motel room and, borrowing his Toyota Corolla, returned to campus to attend a dorm party. She arrived at 10:30 pm. At 2:30 am on Sunday, February 8, she left the party. At 3:30 am, en route to her father's motel, she struck a guardrail on Route 9 in Hadley, causing nearly $10,000 () worth of damage to her father's car. The responding officer wrote an accident report, but there is no documentation of field sobriety tests being conducted. Murray was driven to her father's motel and stayed in his room the rest of the morning. At 4:49 am, there was a cell phone call placed to her boyfriend from Fred's phone. The participants and content of the phone call remain unknown.
Later Sunday morning, Fred learned the damage to his vehicle would be covered by his auto insurance. He rented a car, dropped Murray off at the university and departed for Connecticut. At 11:30 that night, Fred called his daughter to remind her to obtain accident forms from the Massachusetts Registry of Motor Vehicles. They agreed to talk again Monday night to discuss the forms and fill out the insurance claim via phone.
Monday, February 9, 2004.
Preparations and departure.
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"We don't know why Maura left school... Clearly it was her intention to leave school. Clearly she hadn't a destination in mind when she came up north. What clearly did not make sense was that she didn't confide in anyone."
—New Hampshire State Police Lt. John Scarinza
After midnight on Monday, February 9, Murray used her personal computer to search MapQuest for directions to the Berkshires and Burlington, Vermont. The first reported contact Murray had with anyone on February 9 was at 1:00 pm, when she emailed her boyfriend: "I love you more stud. I got your messages, but honestly, I didn't feel like talking too much of anyone, I promise to call today though. Love you, Maura". She also made a phone call inquiring about renting a condominium at the same Bartlett, New Hampshire, condo association with which her family had vacationed in the past. Telephone records indicate the call lasted three minutes. The owner did not rent the condo to Murray. At 1:13 pm, Murray called a fellow nursing student for reasons unknown.
On the afternoon of Monday, February 9, at 1:24 pm, Murray emailed a work supervisor of the nursing school faculty that she would be out of town for a week due to a death in her family. According to her family, the family had not experienced a death. She also said she would contact them when she returned. At 2:05 pm, Murray called a number which provides recorded information about booking hotels in Stowe, Vermont. The call lasted approximately five minutes. At 2:18 pm, she telephoned her boyfriend and left a voice message promising him they would talk later. This call ended after one minute.
Murray packed clothing, toiletries, college textbooks, and birth control pills in her car. When her room was searched later, campus police discovered most of her belongings packed in boxes and the art removed from the walls. It is not clear whether Murray packed them that day, but police at the time said she had packed between Sunday night and Monday morning. On top of the boxes was a printed email to Murray's boyfriend indicating possible trouble in their relationship. Around 3:30 pm, Murray drove off the campus in her black 1996 Saturn sedan; classes at the university had been canceled that day due to a snowstorm.
At 3:40 pm, Murray withdrew $280 from an ATM. Closed-circuit footage showed she was alone. At a nearby liquor store, Murray purchased about $40 worth of alcoholic beverages, including Baileys Irish Cream, Kahlúa, vodka and a box of Franzia wine. Security footage again shows she was alone when she made that purchase. At some point in the day, she also picked up accident-report forms from the Registry of Motor Vehicles.
Murray then left Amherst between 4pm and 5pm, presumably via Interstate 91 north. She called to check her voicemail at 4:37 pm, the last recorded use of her cell phone. To date there is no indication she had informed anyone of her destination, or any evidence that she had chosen one.
Disappearance.
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Accident site, N.H. Route 112
Right angle turn on Route 112 facing southwest, showing the Weathered Barn property.
Right angle turn facing northeast, the direction Murray was believed to have been traveling. A blue ribbon tied to a tree marks the crash site.
7:27 pm: Report of car accident.
Some time after 7:00pm, a Woodsville, New Hampshire, resident heard a loud thump outside her house. Through her window, she could see a car up against the snowbank along Route 112, also known as Wild Ammonoosuc Road. The car pointed west on the eastbound side of the road. The local woman reported the car accident on the sharp corner adjacent to her home, telephoning the Grafton County Sheriff's Department at 7:27pm to report the accident. According to the 9-1-1 log, the woman claimed to have seen a man smoking a cigarette inside the car. However, she later stated that she had not seen a man nor a person smoking a cigarette, but rather had seen what appeared to be a red light glowing from inside the car, potentially from a cell phone. A passing motorist, a school bus driver who lived nearby, stopped at the scene. He saw the car, as well as a young woman walking around the vehicle.
The school bus driver noticed the young woman was not bleeding or visibly injured, but cold and shivering. He offered to call for help. She asked him not to call the police (one police report says "pleaded") and assured him she had already called AAA (AAA has no record of any such call). Knowing there was no cellular reception in the area, the bus driver continued home and called the police. His call was received by the Sheriff's Department at 7:43 pm. The bus driver was unable to see Murray's car while he made the call but did notice several cars pass on the road before the police arrived. Another local resident driving home from work claims she passed by the scene around 7:37 pm, and saw a police SUV parked face-to-face with Murray's car. She pulled over briefly and did not see anyone inside or outside either vehicle, and decided to continue home. This witness's statement contradicts the official police log, which has Haverhill police arriving nine minutes later.
7:46 pm: Police arrival at scene.
According to the official police log, at 7:46 pm, a Haverhill police officer arrived at the scene, but the woman driver had disappeared. No one was inside or around the car. The car had impacted the tree on the driver's side of the vehicle, severely damaging the left headlight and pushing the car's radiator into the fan, rendering it inoperable. The car's windshield was cracked on the driver's side, and both airbags had deployed. The car was locked.
Inside and outside the car, the officer discovered red stains that looked to be red wine. Inside the car, he found an empty beer bottle and a damaged box of Franzia wine on the rear seat. In addition, he found a AAA card issued to Murray; blank accident report forms; gloves, compact discs, makeup, diamond jewelry; driving directions to Burlington, Vermont; Murray's favorite stuffed animal; and "Not Without Peril", a book about mountain climbing in the White Mountains. Missing were Murray's debit card, credit cards and cell phone, none of which have been located or used since her disappearance. The police later reported some of the bottles of purchased liquor were also missing.
Journalist Joe McGee, writing for the Quincy, Massachusetts, "Patriot Ledger", summarized the incident: "At a hairpin turn, she went off the road. Her car hit a tree. At that point, a person came along who was driving a bus. It was a neighbor. He asked her if she needed help. She refused. About 10 minutes later, police showed up to the scene and Maura Murray was gone."
Police traced the vehicle to Murray, and initially treated her as a missing person on the belief that she may have wanted to disappear voluntarily. This speculation was based on her travel preparations (about which she had confided