Maura Murray

hannah_b wrote:

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I remember when White Wash first got the documents at the court house. The affidavit wasn´t in the file with the other papers, according to her it was like it wasn´t supposed to be there, and she as well as others believed it was accidentally included. Then talk started about it being first planted and then fake.
You really caused us to take a second look at that affidavit, and it´s not concerning Maura´s phone at all, but sombody elses. I´m sure LE now know the identity of the caller, and either the person wasn´t relevant to thew investigation or it was the person meeting up with Maura, and they haven´t released the name just like there are lots of other stuff they haven´t released. The affidavit is no mystery anymore, and it´s thanks to you.

Well thanks.

Hopefully in the future we can get more specifics narrowed down in a less circular way and more straightforward, because everytime I hear the word londonderry now a days, I get a headache.

Being a victim of incest/molestation, I can see some of my actions in those of Maura. I did not suffer from eating disorders, but I did steal credit cards in college and drank heavily. I also did drugs but I don't see that in Maura. It's hard to say for any certainty if Maura was abused because human behavior is widely mutable and full of variety. But I'm guessing the LE and PI's have info if it exists. Renner did report on his blog that people close to the case found their relationship odd, especially sharing the hotel room. Who knows? All I can tell is this case has been analyzed to death. It could be an elibarate getaway case or it could be simply she meet up with a creep, wrong place at the wrong time.

Not to beat a dead horse, but my earlier comment about the message she left on her boyfriends is still perplexing and I think indicates she survived the initial night.

Does anyone know when she left the message?
From what I can tell it was left through the use of a calling card which means she had to have access to a landline to use the card. I have to believe this was her and she was using calling cards she had and probably used when making calls form her dorm.

Why call your boyfriend and leave a message that consisted of breathing, shivering, and whimpering and hang up?

A goodbye message? Distress call after being abducted?

Fred Garvin wrote:

Not to beat a dead horse, but my earlier comment about the message she left on her boyfriends is still perplexing and I think indicates she survived the initial night.
Does anyone know when she left the message?
From what I can tell it was left through the use of a calling card which means she had to have access to a landline to use the card. I have to believe this was her and she was using calling cards she had and probably used when making calls form her dorm.
Why call your boyfriend and leave a message that consisted of breathing, shivering, and whimpering and hang up?
A goodbye message? Distress call after being abducted?

It just depends on who you believe on this one.

Police got a hold of the phone message and have said they heard no voice or no wimpering (just phone static)

Family in interviews believe it could have been maura.

This matter as far as I know has never been resolved. It's an issue that really serves no purpose to debate about since it will never be known what the message really was IMO.

Orko Kringer wrote:

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It just depends on who you believe on this one.
Police got a hold of the phone message and have said they heard no voice or no wimpering (just phone static)
Family in interviews believe it could have been maura.
This matter as far as I know has never been resolved. It's an issue that really serves no purpose to debate about since it will never be known what the message really was IMO.

A couple of additional points: Maura had been given some pre-paid calling cards for Christmas by Billy's family. One or more of them may have been a Red Cross card, maybe someone else will remember more exactly on that. Also, it was reported that Billy had been having cellphone problems such that, when someone called, they could not tell when his voicemail started and wouldn't have known that they were actually being recorded by his voicemail; therefore, if the caller in fact was Maura, then the reason she didn't speak may have been because she didn't realize she had in fact reached his voice mail.

Subsequently, LE claimed to have learned that the call made to Billy's cellphone was in fact from the Red Cross. However, if I am remembering right, a pre-paid card was in fact used to make that call. Helena or someone made the number available on the first or second MM forum that Helena was running, and several posters tried calling it and the number only led to some type of calling card dispatch center or something ... in other words, no person answered when the number was called and the call was kind of "dead-ended". It had initially been hoped that the number that was recorded on Billy's phone in relation to the call and message he received, was a phone number that Maura was calling from and that it could be traced to a location, but apparently the number that was recorded was only a number for the calling card dispatch service and gave no clue as to where the phone was that the card had been used to make the call.

If in fact I'm remembering the above properly, then LE's conclusion that the Red Cross had been trying to reach Billy seems a little curious, because why would the Red Cross need to use a calling card to call him?

Not trying to open a can of worms here, and I'm not sure any nailed down facts can be discerned or any conclusions reached, but it's an interesting thing to have happened.

Wow, talk about over-use of a phrase ... sorry for all the "in facts" in previous post. It's nearly 2:30 AM, clearly I should be asleep in bed and not asleep on the computer.

Advocator wrote:

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A couple of additional points: Maura had been given some pre-paid calling cards for Christmas by Billy's family. One or more of them may have been a Red Cross card, maybe someone else will remember more exactly on that. Also, it was reported that Billy had been having cellphone problems such that, when someone called, they could not tell when his voicemail started and wouldn't have known that they were actually being recorded by his voicemail; therefore, if the caller in fact was Maura, then the reason she didn't speak may have been because she didn't realize she had in fact reached his voice mail.
Subsequently, LE claimed to have learned that the call made to Billy's cellphone was in fact from the Red Cross. However, if I am remembering right, a pre-paid card was in fact used to make that call. Helena or someone made the number available on the first or second MM forum that Helena was running, and several posters tried calling it and the number only led to some type of calling card dispatch center or something ... in other words, no person answered when the number was called and the call was kind of "dead-ended". It had initially been hoped that the number that was recorded on Billy's phone in relation to the call and message he received, was a phone number that Maura was calling from and that it could be traced to a location, but apparently the number that was recorded was only a number for the calling card dispatch service and gave no clue as to where the phone was that the card had been used to make the call.
If in fact I'm remembering the above properly, then LE's conclusion that the Red Cross had been trying to reach Billy seems a little curious, because why would the Red Cross need to use a calling card to call him?
Not trying to open a can of worms here, and I'm not sure any nailed down facts can be discerned or any conclusions reached, but it's an interesting thing to have happened.

indeed, this is the conglameration of phrasing that has been repeated over time. much of it doesn't make sense to me.
i've never experienced, in all these years, a glitch in voicemail such that the start of a recording was not evident.
the inability to trace the number from which she was presumed to be calling from? technology, even then, would be better than that.
a gift of pre-paid calling cards? when she was already on the Rausch family plan for service?
you see, i believe very little of what was put out there as "fact" from the early days.
like the old game of telephone, so-called "facts" may not have been initially accurate...and then became subject to embellishment.

hi all,my understnding is Maura was given the calling card at thanksgiving in 2003 and a cellphone at Chistmas 2003.AAA called Ohio around 6.30 pm on Sunday Feb 08 2004,i assume to check on there customer service.I assume they spoke with a Rausch family member and they were concerned.We are told that Maura did not get her phone back from SA until Sunday p.m. on Feb 8.I assume SA did not bring the phone to the mystery gallery so maybe someone else had it or one of them was not at work .Also we were told that SA knew nothing about Maura bending the Toyota earlier that day.I think the gallery closed at 2.p.m. Sunday and Maura got the phone back at 8.30,take care philip

i've read previously that maura's car had a full tank of gas when it was found, which naturally leads to the assumption that she had gassed up shortly before disappearing. that got me thinking.

on my own driving trips, even in certain parts of the country that i'm familiar with, it would be possible that, when stopping for gas, i would be far enough off a main highway that i could easily get turned around when leaving the station and head the wrong way, away from the main highway instead of back to it. it's even happened to me in normal daylight in areas of my own town. eventually, i would figure out i was going the wrong way and get myself turned back around.

on the web sleuths forum, a poster close to maura and the family, who goes by the name peabody, said that in the car was found not only printed directions, but also hand-written directions on an index card to burlington, vermont. the printed directions also included other potential destinations, but let's stick with burlington and the index card for a moment.

so, maura is driving north on I-93, getting low on gas –*maybe* she has been drinking – and she sees a sign for gas next exit, which is 302. maybe she even feels comfortable with the area because she is familiar with part of the 302 from her previous adventures. so she takes the exit and the sign along the exit ramp indicates that the nearest gas station is a couple miles to the right on 302, in nearby woodsville.(i'm not sure if this is the case in 2004, but humor me.) she follows the winding stretch of the 302 until she hits woodsville, finds a station and gasses up.

now, whether due to possible alcohol consumption or just a natural disorientation in an unfamiliar area, she hops back in her car and takes off down 302, but instead of driving back toward I-93, she's driving in the direction of bradley hill road. as she winds her way along the road, she starts to get a nagging suspicion that she went the wrong way, but because of the dark and the unfamiliarity with the area, it's not until she gets to the curve at the weathered barn that she thinks , "ok, i definitely did not pass this driving to the station from the I-93 interchange."

so, she's in the process of actually turning her car around somewhere in the vicinity of that area and manages to somehow get stuck or spin out, and then, maybe in a fit of frustration, she guns the accelerator and hits something with the car to do the damage and trigger the airbags. now she's upset, angry, frustrated, etc. she pulls the car over and tries to call aaa, but there's no signal where she is. maybe now she's frightened and shortly thereafter the school bus driver comes along. she tells him she's called aaa, they have a brief exchange when he mentions calling law enforcement and once he leaves, maura gets out of the car to grab whatever she thinks she immediately needs (backpack, liquor,?, etc.), secures the car and her other belongings, but instead of continuing EAST on 302, she's actually running back WEST on 302 in the direction of the gas station, planning on eventually getting back to the station or getting a better cell signal.

and maybe the witnesses that night that reported seeing maura walk away from her vehicle actually reported seeing her walk back WEST, which could be why the school bus driver never saw her again if she didn't walk in the direction of his house, and why an initial search of the area by law enforcement ignored 302 to the east. in fact, in this scenario, i don't think it would be odd for officer smith to ask the school bus driver to help search since he had seen her last and would have the best chance at identifying her.

as far as the scent dogs tracking maura to the junction of 302 and bradley hill road, perhaps maura momentarily thought it would be good to go to the sbd's house, headed there and then changed her mind, turned around and made a run for the gas station back in woodsville.

maybe maura was headed to burlington after all.

ugh. i should have checked my highway numbers before posting. substitute I-91 for I-93 in my post above.

Do the facts that Mauras mother was dying of cancer and Mauras school load could have driven Her over the edge. That combo has never really been thought about too much. Everyone immediately goes for the incest.

whatif wrote:

ugh. i should have checked my highway numbers before posting. substitute I-91 for I-93 in my post above.

We have talked about that not all that long ago and sort of came to the conclusion that she was not likely going the wrong way. The gas stations are not far from the highway in fact the truck stop just off rt 91 and others are close by in wells river.. Jenkins brought up some other good points saying that there are just to many lefts and rights to get to where she ended up and to far from the highway.

302 west could take you to Burlington Vt but mapquest would take you rt 91 to rt 89. Maura would have gotten off Rt 91 a long distance prior to Woodsville. lets say maura was taking Rt 302 to Burlington and went East and not West. Maura would have continued on rt 302/rt10 and not taken the right on rt 112. That right is a sharp right.

It is a possibility that she was really lost especially if drinking but I think unlikely.JMO only

Tang Zoi wrote:

Do the facts that Mauras mother was dying of cancer and Mauras school load could have driven Her over the edge. That combo has never really been thought about too much. Everyone immediately goes for the incest.

She wasn't diagnosed with cancer until way after Maura left

JWB wrote:

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She wasn't diagnosed with cancer until way after Maura left

Laurie was sick when Maura was in college but Yes the cancer was brought into the pix later.

Tang Zoi wrote:

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Laurie was sick when Maura was in college but Yes the cancer was brought into the pix later.

sick from the cancer or something else?

Tang Zoi wrote:

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Laurie was sick when Maura was in college but Yes the cancer was brought into the pix later.

Tang,what do you think is the probability that Maura took rt 5 because of her car troubles rather than rt 91? Is that easy from Amherst?

Granny M wrote:

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sick from the cancer or something else?

She was sick then but not yet diagnosed with cancer.

JWB wrote:

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Tang,what do you think is the probability that Maura took rt 5 because of her car troubles rather than rt 91? Is that easy from Amherst?

I would say She could have taken Rte. 10, Rte 5 or 91. All are pretty easy to do.

This is in reply to whatif's post above. If Maura got off of that 302 Exit in Wells River there was a very lit up truckstop in view of the exit. She would have taken a left off the exit to go to Burlington,VT and could have gassed up right there.
If she took a right off the exit she would have gone to Wells River where there is another gas station well lit. She would have had to take a left at this gas station and go over the bridge into NH where there is a CF gas station in order to gas up in NH.
In order for her to get to Bradley Hill road she would have to go to the end of 302 and take a left onto RT 10 and go a few miles to 112 and turn toward Lincoln. A few miles more and she would have passed another gas station on 112 and not far beyond that is where her accident happened.
It doesn't seem that someone can get that lost but who knows.
302 is miles away from BHR. Rt 112 is the road BHR is off of.
IMHO if she ran back toward Woodsville she would have been seen by the Fire dept, police and ambulance since they were coming from that direction. She was also within sight of 5 homes that she could have gone to for help or use of their phone.
So to put it simply all she had t do was take a left off of the exit and head to straight to Burlington.

Tang Zoi wrote:

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She was sick then but not yet diagnosed with cancer.

ok- then the idea that her mom dieing from cancer helped put her over the edge is a non starter.