Maura Murray

THanks shack. I knew it was on 112 close to 302 but I thought it was more like a mile instead of 2-3, but I actually have only been there once like 20 years ago.

You would think that it was the same person walking that was seen by both witnesses. I find it hard to believe there was more than 2 people walking 112 in the area of 302 that night.

The question is: was it Maura??
I suppose it could have been but it seems unlikely in the respect that somebody who went searching west would have seen her. This person definetly wasn't trying to hide form cars or hide who they were so one of the people who searched west would've probably seen this person and determined it wasnt maura

SnowyB wrote:

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Jenkins, thank you for inquiring. I'll try to be brief.
Helping or hurting?
How can you assess and measure the "damage" caused to others when individuals are named online in connection with the disappearance of a missing person?
Consider that the SBD has been described as "a respect member of the community that trusted to drive people's kids to school" but not, as you state, "according to everyone who posts here". Anonymous posters imply his guilt by his presumed actions and inactions by suggesting he didn't stay long enough at the scene of the accident after offering help, and after it was refused; he is regarded with suspicion for parking his bus a certain way; he is suspect for "changing" his account to the media (to suggest he lied). Anonymous posters have nothing to lose by casting suspicion, but SBD had everything to lose for his charitable offer to assist a stranded motorist. I cannot quantify for you the probable fallout for his being targeted by online posters; perhaps his family can.
The CW. Why did he report his sighting and observations a number of weeks later? Again, anonymous posters sought information about his life, work and relationships in an attempt to informally "profile" him and measure any appearance of guilt.
A former police chief's addictive and unlawful behaviors were reported to the media; he, too, was examined by online anonymous posters relative to MM's disappearance. Recently, 4 DUIs were attributed to the wrong police chief on Topix before the statement was corrected by the author....not retracted, it is incorrect and remains online.
Beagle, clearly a scapegoat by his accounts of investigations about him secondary to the official investigation, appears to remain in a cycle of fear and reactivity to complex triggers reinforced by Topix posters. Can you measure the effects?
Property damage and trespassing has been documented; newcomers have been made aware of these offenses, and yet deny them and shift the blame back to property owners. This is unacceptable, IMO.
Attempts to discredit Fred Leatherman/Mason continue to circulate on and offline in the form of retaliation at a personal level. Why? Because his theoretical conclusions, drawn from information he gleaned and evaluated as an experienced criminal defense attorney, don't match up with her family's assessment of circumstances surrounding MM's disappearance.
What do we have here? Free speech, yes. Opinions, yes. Proof, rarely. And a spiteful exchange of finger pointing. Helpful or damaging? Any luck, so far, in finding Maura in this manner?
Floyd and McKay are local targets for having been in the news. In addition, an individual associated with a local prominent family has been targeted for blame. The details leave little to the imagination.
How is damage inflicted? Directly and indirectly. Remember, asking a question can imply guilt. Several posters are adept at that superficial skill.
But it's natural and common to dissect every tragic news story online, isn't it? Imagine it is your family...a wife or young child is missing....or there was a tragic car accident with a death involved...or a shooting. How can the public possibly know the details and facts known to law enforcement? While you are free to express your opinions, and make statements about situations where you are not fully informed, SHOULD YOU? Is there a moral obligation to avoid making declarations of guilt or innocence about strangers?
The conversation had already deteriorated elsewhere before coming toTopix; Maura's sympathizers and advocates had been eyeing, targeting and blaming certain individuals early on.

whoosh whoosh whoosh..Whats your agenda Snowy?

Jenkins, I agree with you completly that noones life has changed because of this Topix discussion..Many of the people discussed here HAVE been in the news or acted in unusual ways without question....IMHO There are people on this board intent on steering conversation.I also know of certain posters that have gotten threatening phone calls..Why?

BobJenkins-OG wrote:

THanks shack. I knew it was on 112 close to 302 but I thought it was more like a mile instead of 2-3, but I actually have only been there once like 20 years ago.
You would think that it was the same person walking that was seen by both witnesses. I find it hard to believe there was more than 2 people walking 112 in the area of 302 that night.
The question is: was it Maura??
I suppose it could have been but it seems unlikely in the respect that somebody who went searching west would have seen her. This person definetly wasn't trying to hide form cars or hide who they were so one of the people who searched west would've probably seen this person and determined it wasnt maura

And if it were Maura,I dont see why she would walk THAT far,unless she knew someone was coming along.Was there cell phone service out that way?

mcsmom wrote:

It seemed like the back seat of Maura's car held something that was interesting enough to one poster years ago on the old MMM forum to ask what we'd expect to find in the backseat if we could look into Maura's car.
Turns out this guy is a dispatch person with some ties to NH.
So, it kind of begs the question, what would be in Maura's backseat, that would prompt Smith to look deep into the tailpipe of Maura's car and why would he keep EMS/Fire away from the vehicle?
If you blow up the photo of Maura's car it looks like there may have been some sort of heat transfer around the area near the brake/gas pedal as the plastic floor mats appear to have slightly melted.

it sounds like if the tailpipe was plugged the muffler/Catalytic converter might heat up enough to meltsomething.
has anyone ever ascertained what was in the back seat?Thats odd...

Yea Snowy, even your comments about Floyd/McKay and the local from the prominent family.
Floyd and McKay's names were all over the news and more than that they've already been all over the internet in the Media and on forums such as Topix. Both of those guys were bad and clearly they made their own reputations, a few posters speculating on some message board here is hardly gonna make any sort of difference when you consider what their reputations already are. McKay was one of those nazi cops who harrassed people, he straight up was the kind of cop that would mace an old lady, and he actually did do that lol. You can watch a video of him mace a young woman on youtube, he loved hosing people with his Mace. He also had a bad reputation of being a sexist and violence against women. He actually lost his las job due to a domestic vilence incident against his wife, she later dropped the charges which allowed him to even get a job in Franconia. So he made his reputation, not internet posters.

AS for Floyd he clearly is mentally unstable. He's a sick bastard thats obsessed with violence and killing. I already spoke about him in the last pages so I don't need to go on but needless to say this buy made his own reputation. People on Topix discussing things like this are the result of his reputation, not the other way around.
What are you saying that FLoyd is merely an innocent citizen who's just getting the bad end of the stick?

Both FLoyd and McKay are just innocent bystanders that got caught up in the whole mess and if it wasn't for threads on MM everyone would think these guys are great? Come on

Even the local from a prominent family. First of all nobody has ever named this guy on any thread. You can figure out his name if you really try but it's not that easy. But once again, nobody just picked a random innocent name out of a phone book and decided to pick on this guy, there's clearly a reason for this. A lot of locals up there think that he is responsible, including his family members. This is another kid with serious violence against women issues with his ex wife moving out of state because she was so scared of him. That's pretty bad. If its true that he poured a new concret floor in the weeks after feb 9 I would say this guy needs a good lookin at. It appears that LE agrees with me on this as they apparently have tried to get search warrants and permission to search the property.
Even still nobody is saying this kids name, nobody is saying the name of his business. Even if they did it wouldn't really matter that much because his name is already shit around there, that's why everyone thinks that he's probably a murderer. How is that people that post online's fault? It's not. These rumors were rumors around town long before they were written about on topix.

Even still, with these guys people are still pretty cautious not to say that they definetly did anything. We are asking questions that are legitimate to ask. Is half the town right that this kid is responsible?
Also if you notice when I made that post about Floyd and McKay I never said that they did anyhting, I never said that I thought they did. I said that I thought that these men could be capable of something like this but I also asked for reasons these guys couldn't possibly have done it. Really I was looking for a good reason they shouldn't be considered as suspects.

Its funny because I'll get people talking about how insane, how ludicrous that is, well ok it very well may be crazy, but why? Just saying something is crazy doesn't make it so. If something is so crazy it should be easy to show it to be crazy.

I'm tired of people crying over these liars, women beaters and criminals. Do you realize who's reputation your defending? It's not like we are accusing the town's doctor here. These guys made their reputations, what we are discussing is the fall out from that, not the cause of that.

wow it sure looks like it could be some heat damage to that floor mat.
It looks like its melted to the floor under the brake pedal and around that black spot you can even see discoloration that looks to me like heat damage to the plastic. If you look closely at the floormat that up against the small wall under the shifter you can see more of this discoloration. It looks to me like it very well could be heat damage.

This could be very important to determine. If her car got hot enought to melt the floor mat that means that her muffler got super hot. That could be direct evidence that car was running with the rag in its tailpipe, because that would heat up the muffler and the motor really fast. If it could't expell the heat along with the fumes that car would be running hot and rich. The way she sheared off the snowbank makes it look like she actually lost power, causing her to lose power steering and control of the vehicle, this sent her all the way across the road and caused her to hit the snowbank on the inside of the curve, clipping her front driver's side and causing her car to spin out so she ended up ass end into the snowbank on the EB lane.
This is the only description of the accident that matches the damage and the wirness statements.

Think about it she's driving and suddenly the car stalls out causing her to lose power steering. He dashboard lights up like a xmas tree because when your car dies every light lights up, this most likely distracts her causing her to look down at the dash, by the time she looks up she's about to hit the snowbank and does.
THis also explains the revving engine the wmans heard. What are you going to do if your car dies? You pump the gas trying to get the motor going again, she probably wasn't going very fast at all at that point. When a motor is dying like that it will bog out and lose power but you can usually get it to rev again if you pump the gas, if you do get it to rev is usually will rev super high real quick because you had been pumping the gas. Thats exactly what it sounds like happened. She also just might not have pumped the gas hard enough until she saw the snowbank and being an inexperienced driver she hit the gas really hard instead of the brake, shich happens all the time.

Ay any rate it sounds like her car stalled on the straight away before the corner. She was trying to get power back and regain control when she clipped the snowbank on the left side of the road, headed kind of diagonal at the bank, because she was coming from the opposite side of the road she hit the bank; causing the damage to the front driver's side. This caused her ass end to spin aroun to the right, this is when I suspect she finally got her motor to rev up; she spun around ass end to the right sliding ass end in to the EB lane at an angle kind of facing back towards the corner. This would have her at an angle that would make it easy for her to park facing the wrong way on the EB side of the road, it would have been much harder for her to turn it so she was facing EB again.

IMO this is the way the accident had to have happened. It's the only thing that is consistent with the damage to maura's car, and the witness statements made by the westmans.
If someone can prove that theres heat damage to that floor mat theyh can also prove that something was most likely in her muffler that disabled her car.

Possible she was exhibiting the effects of CO rather than ETOH.

Bumping for Maura wrote:

<quoted text>
citigirl,
I imagine it would be a fairly unusual sight for someone to be out walking on Rte 112 on a fairly cold February night, certainly unusual enough for a witness to notice this.
Just a thought:
Could the person seen walking on 112 possibly have been Red Truck witness RO on her way between the store in Swiftwater village and her then home on Bunga Road?
If not RO, perhaps the person seen walking on 112 might conceivably have been Maura?
Without any time references or more precise geographical locations of the witness observation, it´s hard to say.

No it couldnt be RO. The Eddys (Swiftwater bridge) is not between these to places.If you head west from the store it will bring you to Bunga Rd. if you continue heading west the Eddys is past Bunga Rd.

I think its pretty unlikely she was feeling effects from CO poisoning.
Even if her muffler was clogged there is no way for the CO to enter the car at a high enough concentration to cause any problems like that.
There would have had to been a hole in her muffler directly below a hole in her floor or something like that.

Also if there was a hole than her exhaust would have been escaping through it and there wouldn't be the hear build up like we can see on the floormat in that pic

Maura had to have the MA RMV inspection for the sticker...which includes emmision check...can't remember if it was indeed that previous October..?November..?..it was discussed some time ago..
In NH, the inspection is your birth month..in MA, it is the month of purchase/registration.
I am just wondering why the Saturn would or could have had exhaust problems.

citigirl wrote:

<quoted text>No it couldnt be RO. The Eddys (Swiftwater bridge) is not between these to places.If you head west from the store it will bring you to Bunga Rd. if you continue heading west the Eddys is past Bunga Rd.

citi,
Now, there was witness RO being stopped by trooper JKM when she was walking back home from the Swiftwater store along Rte 112 in Swiftwater village.
JKM apparently said something like "oh, it´s you" when he found out that the person walking along 112 was RO.
So, this obviously means that trooper JKM was actively looking for a person (possibly Maura) walking in a westerly direction along Rte 112.
Apparently, he and others were unable to locate this person, unless something nefarious happened one way or other.

Good point shack, her car had just been inspected a couple months before so its highly unlikely she had any problems with her muffler.

Are your from mass shack? Do u know for a fact the inspection includes an emission check?
As far as I know it does. I know that the inspection date is definitely the month you registered the vehicle.

Something that's interesting about that is it kind of eliminates the probablility that her car was smoking bad enought she would Try to put a rag in to stop it smoking like Fred said.

In my experience with older cars the emissions test can be the hardest to pass.
Also they won't pass you if the tiniest bit of smoke comes out of your muffler when you start the car.
So that means that her motor could not possibly have been smoking that bad, certainly not like it's been described.
Motor problems that cause a car to smoke excessively generally don't come on fast, they take a while, usually smoking a little bit on start up for a Long time before it starts smoking whilst driving.

It seems pretty unlikely that between November and February the motor got that bad; particularly when you consider the fact that she barely ever even drove the car while at school. It certainly wasn't runnin on 3 cylinders during that inspection of it would have failed emissions.

Also strictly judging by how fast she got up to Nh her car must have been just fine, I'm sure it wasn't perfect but it jus can't be as bad as has been described by family. I wonder why they've pushed that so hard, trying to convince everyone her car was barely running when clearly it wasnt that bad.
Unless of course they had a good friend of theirs who was a mechanic that was willing to put a sticker on it even though they didn't really inspect it

ohhhhkay...I´ve been suggesting Maura went west after the accident for like a year or two, finally some people are catching on. Now, would it be possible to pin point the time for the sighting of someone walking along 112 west of the accident scene? The time the state trooper talked to RO? And just how long would Maura need to get from the accident location to the spot the witness saw someone walking? Does this timeline make sense? Furthermore, IF it was Maura, where was she headed?

I too believe the Saturn was ok to drive, at least no major problems. Wonder why Maura reportedly refused to drive it around Amherst? Maybe it had nothing to do with the car´s condition, maybe she just wanted to not be associated with the car for some reason?

I once had a buick with a bad catalytic converter,the thing would glow cherry red from heat.There must have been a heat shield because I never had melting...The Saturn must of had something similar.
Also,With Ma. inspections,It alternates yearly,I.E. one year Safety inspection ONLY,alternate year is emissions testing.

Did Mauras family know about the melting?It may have been there previous to leaving amherst.

Well I wonder did she really refuse to drive it around campus, or did she just rather not drive it?

I know that most people at umass prefer to walk than drive around campus and amherst because the parking situation sucks so bad.
Most of the time it's quicker to just walk the 10 mins somewhere than to walk to your car, drive it 2 mins and then try to find a parking spot that probably a 5 minute walk anyways.

Did she really refuse to drive the car or did she just prefer to walk when she was at school, like most students?
Is this another thing thats been exadderated by the family, like how crappy the car was?

The car couldn't have been that bad, and she definitely didn't just flat out refuse to drive it, as evidenced by the fact that she had just driven it back to campus form eastern mass at the start of the semester. So she clearly did drive the car sometimes and the car clearly drove fairly well, at least good enought to drive 2 hours to amherst and then 3.5 up to NH.

I wonder why the family has always pushed this so hard? It's pretty much been treated as fact taht her car only ran on 3 cylinders, probably smoked a lot and she refused to drive it, and it turns out none of those actually seem to be true

Hannah I think we can pinpoint some of those times to a good estimation. Seems like that would be helpful to do.

As best as I can tell RO soke to JKM between about 745-8. She was in the store for about 45 minutes and arrived there just after 7. It was on her walk home, which is probably about 15 min that trooper JKM stopped and said "oh its you"
That would fit in with the timeline of the cops showing up and then all of them going out and looking for her west.

It's interesting that the trooper stopped and said "oh its you"...sounds very similar to what the red truck was doing except the red truck didnt stop and say oh its you, seems like he was thinking "oh its not you"

I think those other times can be pinned down as well

BobJenkins-OG wrote:

Hannah I think we can pinpoint some of those times to a good estimation. Seems like that would be helpful to do.
As best as I can tell RO soke to JKM between about 745-8. She was in the store for about 45 minutes and arrived there just after 7. It was on her walk home, which is probably about 15 min that trooper JKM stopped and said "oh its you"
That would fit in with the timeline of the cops showing up and then all of them going out and looking for her west.
It's interesting that the trooper stopped and said "oh its you"...sounds very similar to what the red truck was doing except the red truck didnt stop and say oh its you, seems like he was thinking "oh its not you"
I think those other times can be pinned down as well

Thanks. The timing seems to make sense. Regarding Maura not wanting to drive the Saturn, I think it was said she refused to drive it at all. Would this refusal to drive it have started when she returned to Amherst or before? There was some odd story about the Saturn being towed back to Amherst and Maura making a scene about it. Why tow it to Amherst if it needed fixing? Would Fred not touch it either? Why?