MovieChat Forums > Disappeared (2009) Discussion > Maura Murray

Maura Murray

posted 10 years ago by BrandiStarBright
11 replies | jump to latest

I do believe she was depressed.I don't think she would have committed suicide. She had issues with credit card fraud plus drinking and driving.probably felt like she let her dad down. Problems with her boyfriend. College and sports and pressure.she needed to just be alone.I get that.

Anyway I would have looked into this bus driver more. Did he make a phone call before calling police? I ask because maybe he was apart of human trafficking or who knows! He could have easily said there's a young girl by herself, no cell phone range, yadda yadda....go pick her up.

I think someone picked her up. I don't believe she just hiked and went away.

[–] BrandiStarBright 9 years ago

Any news on this bus driver?

[–] josephcampbell-90760 8 years ago

The bus driver, Butch, died not long ago. His wife called in the wreck when he got home. Not sure if this episode mentioned it but she was sleeping around with the track coach and a lot of the other runners. She did a Google search for the affects of alcohol on a fetus before she left and bought 40 dollars worth of booze that was found empty in the car.

[–] thephoenixxx 8 years ago

This was one of those cases that really stuck with me. From what I saw in the episode, she seemed like someone under a lot of pressure (parental expectations, school, etc.). I could easily understand just wanting to get out of town and be alone for a bit. But the way she suddenly vanished, and the fact that she still hasn't been found, is so unsettling to me. It's like she just vanished into thin air on that road.

[–] libby2130 8 years ago

http://mauramurray.blogspot.com/ that site is really interesting, lots of info on the case...many documents etc.....it's a strange story for sure

[–] libby2130 8 years ago

the person who runs the maura murray blog in my post above has written a book coming out later this month (may 2016^

also http://www.nighttimepodcast.com/episodes/2016/5/4/18-maura-murray-case-follow-up-with-james-renner-and-john-smith

clickable link to a podcast that they did

[–] Mr_Ectoplasma 8 years ago

Her disappearance has been stuck in my mind for years now. I caught an episode of 20/20 that featured her case a couple of years ago—it was late at night, and I was completely terrified and riveted. The reason I think it's gotten so much attention is because it literally reads like something out of a novel.

There are so many theories floating around about what happened, many of which are convincing for different reasons. She didn't hike away—it wasn't snowing that night, and the police found no footprints leading from her car into the woods or any other surrounding area. As far as anyone knows, she never stepped off the road.

There's a whole train of thought that she orchestrated the entire thing and got picked up by a friend/family member at the scene who then drove her off and that she then went into hiding. That theory is based on the fact that she'd been in legal trouble over credit fraud on a pizza delviery order she'd made, as well as the car accident she'd been into prior. My problem with that train of thought is that it makes zero sense for her to have driven into the middle-of-nowhere New Hampshire and crashed her car all so she could stage a disappearance. Why even crash the car (which is obviously going to signal the police)? Why not just abandon the car somewhere?

I honestly don't think she staged it or has been in hiding for the past 12 years--that seems extreme to me to do over the criminal charges she was facing. I do think it's fairly certain at this point that she's probably dead. There were theories that a local in the area may have kidnapped her, which seems plausible. There was purportedly an A-frame house in the area that a suspect had moved out of, and they brought cadaver dogs in there that apparently detected that a body had been inside one of the closets in the house, but who knows? I've read other posts online that suggest she was buried in the foundation of a house that was being constructed in the area.

It's all just totally baffling. There are so many different pieces to the story, and so many of them make so little sense.

[–] libby2130 8 years ago

she hit a snow bank, I don't think that was intentional.....why were there all these atm withdrawls by her dad just before she went missing...he claimed she was going to help her by a car...neither never mentioned it to any friends

why did her dad fred go and make many withdrawls from atms totalling $4000.00 for this supposed car..

- There is no evidence that I (author of the book and the bogger of the site) have seen that Fred Murray was helping Maura buy a car, the weekend before she disappeared, other than Fred's own statements. Friends who were with her that weekend said neither Fred nor Maura mentioned car hunting.

- Fred refused to be interviewed by state-police homicide detectives for 2 years and when he did, he brought 2 lawyers with him.

- Fred lied to the police and media about the events of the weekend leading to Maura's disappearance.

- Strange items were found at the home of Fred Murray, including photographs of young women in his family tucked inside an adult magazine.

- Fred has told Maura's friends to not talk to the author of the book on her disappearance.

[–] BetteDavis79 8 years ago

I've regularly read on James Renner's blog and just listened to the newer podcast - my gut still agrees with what James believes that she ran away to start a new life. John Smith says he believes she is dead but the circumstances before and surrounding the disappearance do not signal death to me.

What I am confused about if anyone can shed light on it is that during the podcast it was mentioned during James interview that Maura was running from the men in her life (her fiancé and father), and the track coach she was sleeping with said she told him she was planning on running away six months prior. And because Fred's behavior has seemed suspicious from the start was he helping her run away with the money he took out of the several atms that was supposedly for a buying a car or was she running away with someone else that maybe helped her escape that night?

They also said she was maybe pregnant, and I'm wondering if maybe Fred was the father? The family seemed to have a lot of dark secrets they obviously don't want to get out if you read James blog over the years. But if you are running from your father it just doesn't seem like he would be in on the plan of staging a disappearance although maybe he was to cover up things he didn't want to get out.

[–] libby2130 8 years ago

good questions....so did maura know about this place..been around since 1978
http://www.masslive.com/news/index.ssf/2016/05/new_hampshire_police_still_inv.html#incart_river_home

...not far from the accident she had,,is this where she was going that night?

Turns out UMass students could reserve stays at a cabin located in the White Mountains, not far from where Maura disappeared. We've never known Maura's destination that night. Could this have been where she was heading?

The question is whether or not Maura knew about this. I think there's a very strong possibility she - and the friends she hung out with - did. After all, Maura enjoyed the outdoors, and particularly enjoyed hiking the White Mountains.

The cabin was in the news today, because police were called out to it on May 10 when a girl overdosed on LSD. Police found several intoxicated, under-aged students when they arrived. Was this area ever searched? I doubt it.

[–] hilaryjrp 8 years ago

Her disappearance has been stuck in my mind for years now. I caught an episode of 20/20 that featured her case a couple of years ago—it was late at night, and I was completely terrified and riveted. The reason I think it's gotten so much attention is because it literally reads like something out of a novel.

This story is terrifying. It's unique among "Disappeared" episodes because of 1) the winter setting and snow; 2) the very precise geographical location of the disappearance (almost no other "Disappeared" pinpoints the *exact* place someone vanished); and 3) the lack of her mother's presence--while at the same time the patronizing and chill boyfriend's mother is given more air-time than even her own father.

No one who watches that episode can possibly come away from it feeling that the boyfriend's mother thought well of her. I've read that Maura Murray's mother has passed away and have read stories that claim she was simply unable to participate in the episode. I might be alone in this, but when I saw the episode the first time in 2013, I just assumed that someone else followed her out of town in a second car, someone who picked her up and helped her leave the area and possibly the country. Whoever it was clearly did not think well at all of her father, whose agony is just awful to witness on Youtube videos so many years after the disappearance.

If Miss Murray did leave the country, she left with the help of someone who might have represented themselves to her as a friend, only to turn on her once she was "safely" away from a father she clearly adored. It seems pretty clear, so many years later, that she is dead.

My biggest question about the "Disappeared" episode is: Why interview the boyfriend's mother at such length, and not the boyfriend? Why was the boyfriend's mother included at all? All the preliminary information about cars, accidents, insurance, drunk-driving: *ALL* of this seems red herrings to me. The portrait of her the episode gave was of someone very tightly wound and very nervous--but not unhinged. I had never read stories of pregnancy until I came to this board, but if she was indeed pregnant, that alone would explain EVERY skittish "accident" and attempt to get out of town.

I'm just amazed that no one has ever considered that neither her poor father, nor the poor residents of the forest town where the accident happened, have a blessed thing to do with her disappearance, but rather some third party who knew exactly where she was going, followed at a distance because he/she knew, and then came upon her in that mysterious interval after she asked the bus driver not to call for help.

"Disappeared" almost NEVER omits a possible suspect or avenue of investigation, yet the disturbing thing about the Maura Murray episode is that it did exactly that.

Why?

[–] libby2130 7 years ago

the blog is closed..all the info is there and you can look at all the reports and info, but cannot post