Maura Murray

sls wrote:

Didn't Beagle post vids of Renners son?

This, more than anything else including his other videos, is my biggest problem with Beagle. In my opinion, there is no way to justify it. period. James chooses to put himself out there, in person, for public scrutiny. I may have become disillusioned with James, but, I will say this; He is much smarter than his minions Sammy and Green and he does have the balls to meet anyone head on. If he chooses to take risks and chances with his own person, he is also willing to back it up. I don't condone what he has been doing lately with his Witch hunts at all. I'm very disappointed and I do believe he is placing innocent people in potentially dangerous situations. I believe it is irresponsible and careless. That by no means makes it okay to expose his innocent children or family to danger. He's kind of nuts when it comes to his family. Look what happened in doggy court. The crazy bastard had to do some time for contempt because of some freak stalking his sister. In all honesty, I don't blame him and I'd strongly suggest people leave his family out of it as well as anyone else's !

Very well put.
I'm a longtime lurker that holds a somewhat unbiased view. I have to say that out of all the major investigators/researchers ( Green, Beagle, Sam, Renner, etc), Renner is, by far, the most sane and stable. I don't see him as a creep at all.
As for posting info about "innocent" people, sorry James, but anyone with half a brain cell and a credit card could've made the same discovery. In fact, I believe certain people have way before James made the connection and knew it to be a false lead.
But to video of someone's small child?
I, too, adhere to the strike first strategy and would've hunted Beagle down myself. Most parents share this sentiment.
So before we start assigning people the creep title, lets keep in mind who the real creeps are. Renner is not one of them.

Sam Ledyard wrote:

<quoted text>
Alden:
Your philosophy has always been "it doesn't hurt to ask." I hope that you might respond to my question in the same way that you hoped that others would respond to yours.
If you feel that discussing this information might place you in peril -- might you say so?
You have always been candid. I hope that your recent experiences haven't changed you in that respect.

Why feed the monster with attention? Ignore it and it will go away.

i'm stuck in Ireland and looking for donations to come back home

John Green is not a creep either. He reinvigorated interest in Maura's case while Renner was concentrating in his book. John Green suffered a witchhunt of his own on this thread. No wonder he decided to take his talents elsewhere. Sadly the people who live night and day on this thread were not able to cope with his honesty and threw their toys out the pram; attempting to stain John Green's impeccable character in the process.

View From The Cheap Seats wrote:

John Green is not a creep either. He reinvigorated interest in Maura's case while Renner was concentrating in his book. John Green suffered a witchhunt of his own on this thread. No wonder he decided to take his talents elsewhere. Sadly the people who live night and day on this thread were not able to cope with his honesty and threw their toys out the pram; attempting to stain John Green's impeccable character in the process.

?

Sam Ledyard and his friend Tyler the procrastinator have sadly very little of interest or originality to say. JWB and Beagle seem to have serious issues. Maruchan appears to have made up their mind as to what happened in this case and not be able to look at things objectively. That is the characters who we would rely on without Green and Renner.

You have to admit that Green's tirades and temper tantrums were a little creepy and reminiscent of the lengthy manifestoS serial killers like to pen.
There seems to be a major dislike of Renner, with one of the reasons being that Renner shows disregard to peoples privacy and safety. Then there's Beagle, who stalks and films children. No one seems to remember that.

View From The Cheap Seats wrote:

John Green is not a creep either. He reinvigorated interest in Maura's case while Renner was concentrating in his book. John Green suffered a witchhunt of his own on this thread. No wonder he decided to take his talents elsewhere. Sadly the people who live night and day on this thread were not able to cope with his honesty and threw their toys out the pram; attempting to stain John Green's impeccable character in the process.

You're either JG or you've just told the funniest joke of the week.

sls wrote:

You have to admit that Green's tirades and temper tantrums were a little creepy and reminiscent of the lengthy manifestoS serial killers like to pen.
There seems to be a major dislike of Renner, with one of the reasons being that Renner shows disregard to peoples privacy and safety. Then there's Beagle, who stalks and films children. No one seems to remember that.

As far as I know, Beagle did not stalk nor film anybody's children. Here is Renner's post:

"Monday, May 7, 2012
Beagle Threat
In case you missed it, Beagle briefly put up a new video, in which he manipulated video footage of my four year old son in a very creepy way."

Renner didn't elaborate on how Beagle obtained the footage, but I've watched all of Renner's videos on YouTube, and a few of them are of his children. My guess is Beagle copied them and "manipulated them." I can guarantee you that, had Beagle stalked and filmed Renner's children, he would be in jail right now.

I think manipulating existing video footage is a very far cry from physically stalking and filming somebody's child. While I don't condone what Beagle did, and I would be very upset by it, he didn't and hasn't taken anything from online to real life like Green and others are doing.

View From The Cheap Seats wrote:

Tyler the procrastinator have sadly very little of interest or originality to say.

Procrastinator? In what sense?

OK, so, after watching Renner frantically deleting post after post on his blog today and repeatedly asking people to not post names (somebody threatening litigation methinks), I come over here to suggest that he go over to MyDeathSpace's MM thread and ask the moderator there to delete LWG's name and the two posts that contain the photographs of the mystery-woman-who-is-not-Maura .

But on the way here, I make a quick stop at Ledyard's place and find that he has uploaded a picture of what he says is the mystery-woman-who-is-not-Maura . A very nice picture, professional and all, black and white, there she is in all her glory.

I don't think I can smack my head any more this week ...

Maruchan wrote:

<quoted text>
As far as I know, Beagle did not stalk nor film anybody's children. Here is Renner's post:
"Monday, May 7, 2012
Beagle Threat
In case you missed it, Beagle briefly put up a new video, in which he manipulated video footage of my four year old son in a very creepy way."
Renner didn't elaborate on how Beagle obtained the footage, but I've watched all of Renner's videos on YouTube, and a few of them are of his children. My guess is Beagle copied them and "manipulated them." I can guarantee you that, had Beagle stalked and filmed Renner's children, he would be in jail right now.
I think manipulating existing video footage is a very far cry from physically stalking and filming somebody's child. While I don't condone what Beagle did, and I would be very upset by it, he didn't and hasn't taken anything from online to real life like Green and others are doing.

You're right. I had to go back and reread. I remember being so horrified at the thought of using someone's child to scare or threaten another person.
I'm going to assume Beagle is childless. Another parent wouldn't film, manipulate a video, or even mention someone's child unless they were seriously insane or suicidal.
I'd say that's about "real life" as someone could go.
But for real: why the intense dislike and contempt for Renner and not Beagle?
I can easily see why Green is discounted. I can even see how Sam might come across as a little unglued.
I don't know. I just felt like an outsider looking in that could offer an unbiased opinion, as I'm not a regular poster and have no history with any other posters.

sls wrote:

<quoted text>
But for real: why the intense dislike and contempt for Renner and not Beagle?

I don't understand why people try to make this comparison, they are such separate issues, to me anyway, but I will try to answer your question.

I didn't start off disliking Renner. I came here like probably most people, from seeing the "Disappeared" episode on YouTube, and started reading everything I could find about the case. I read Renner's entire blog, including comments, plus reading here, Websleuths and pretty much everywhere. Renner isn't just a writer on some blog, he puts himself out there as a professional journalist, has written for some newspapers and has written some books. Therefore, he is held to a higher standard and I expect professionalism from him. The more I read, the less professional I found him. I stopped respecting him with his post about the magazines in Fred's back yard - I was just stunned that a supposedly professional investigative journalist could leap to such bizarre conclusions. It was really sealed for me, though, when he posted the Melissa Jenkins thread in which he tried to tie Beagle to her murder. That post is still up, even though, of course, the real murderers were found almost immediately. In my opinion, Renner has some serious problems with ethics which are unbecoming of him as a journalist and a human being.

Just as an example, I posted his Twitter conversation with one of his followers a couple days ago. The same follower then posted this a day or two later:

"Said he was going to prove she's alive. Didn't. Shocking."

Renner's immediate response to that criticism was to hunt her down on Google and post her real first and last name and her employer in his Twitter feed. I didn't save it, so I don't have exactly what he said, as he deleted his post, but she replied:

"I didn't say anything nasty to you and I'm sorry if my comments to my friend weren't terribly flattering to you ... but I'm confused as to why pointing out my real name and job is appropriate."

Renner replied: "Truce." Truce? She criticized him and he outed her. He didn't apologize. This is his SOP.

A professional who puts themselves out there in a public arena has to expect criticism and needs to learn to handle it maturely and professionally. Outing somebody's personal information in a hissy fit is neither mature nor professional.

Then there's his friendship with Green ...

Beagle, on the other hand, is just a regular Joe posting on web forums. I hold him to the same standard that I hold all the other regular Joes like you and me that post all over the Internet. The Melissa Jenkins post I mentioned above is the point when I began to feel real empathy for Beagle. I had read so many of his posts and (forgive me again Beagle) I felt Beagle was quite intelligent, but possibly had some true mental issues. There are others here on Topix that have conversed with Beagle for years and feel similarly. There he was being demonized just on a whim by Renner, and his followers were leaping into the fray - it was disgusting. I simply don't see that Beagle has actually done any real harm to anybody - that's my opinion, I don't care if anybody agrees with me. I believe that people who suffer from mental illness deserve empathy, that's it, bottom line.

Now I'm off to drink some more coffee so I can stay awake for the Geminids and freeze my rear off.

I just want to add that Topix is certainly not the only place where people are critical of Renner. Go check out MyDeathSpace and Websleuths - lots of criticism there and some foul language as well, which is rare here except for a certain few. There is a thread on Reddit right now called "Is author James Renner about to prove that Maura Murray is still alive and living in Canada?" Same thing, lots of criticism, with the words "integrity" and "reliability" bandied about and not in a good way. Lots of criticism on his blog comments as well, it's certainly not exclusive to Topix.

What if Maura never existed and that's why they can't find her??

Maruchan wrote:

OK, so, after watching Renner frantically deleting post after post on his blog today and repeatedly asking people to not post names (somebody threatening litigation methinks), I come over here to suggest that he go over to MyDeathSpace's MM thread and ask the moderator there to delete LWG's name and the two posts that contain the photographs of the mystery-woman-who-is-not-Maura .
But on the way here, I make a quick stop at Ledyard's place and find that he has uploaded a picture of what he says is the mystery-woman-who-is-not-Maura . A very nice picture, professional and all, black and white, there she is in all her glory.
I don't think I can smack my head any more this week ...

Wow. My thoughts exactly. I lost interest in Renner's blog completely after that latest. Guy deleted my post in 15mins. It went something like this;

Hi all, I’ve been following this case for a long time and I have to be honest I’m a little disappointed in how everyone handled this last revelation. I posted on Renner’s blog but he promptly removed it. Like literally in 15 mins.I think that it was a witch hunt. Another wild goose chase but with extreme arrogance. Basically here is the premise. If we feel like you look like Maura or even think that you are somehow remotely connected to this case we will harass you and your family, invade your privacy, threaten you with police action, plaster pictures of you, your family and friends, and your children (cropped by Renner cuz he knew he was crossing the line) unless you answer our questions immediately and honestly. I’m not sure why he/we think that these people owe us anything. The rally call was “All it takes is an email or phone call and then we’ll know.” that you are not Maura and are innocent of the charges levied against you. Since when is it the responsibility of people to proclaim their innocence to some irrelevant 10 year old case. This is exactly what people did to Butch Atwood. Hounding until they got what they wanted. If we don’t receive this email or phone call in 20 minutes then we will know that you are hiding something and are a born liar. When this happens we will produce animated gifs of Murray’s face on your own, visit your beauty salon’s website and increase their page rank, dissect your likes and friends on facebook and scare the hell out of innocent people..Renner stated that he called the cops because he was scared that things were escalating. Whose fault is that? His! The idea that a 10 year old cold case is the most important thing in the world and if people don’t start fessing up we will unbearably harass you to bizarre. Renner has no problem mentioning people’s names, addresses, locations, friends, family members for an entire week but once the cops are involved (the cops he called to force some women to fess up to being someone she’s not or else) he then starts begging his bloggers to stop mentioning names, addresses, locations etc. Also, why did Renner delete 3 of his blogs. He broke the cardinal sin of actually writing something that he regretted and thinking that it would magically disappear. Renner, never known an author who erased his written work. What did the police really ask you to stop doing?

Wow Maruchan,

It's posts like this that make me scratch my head and wonder how anyone but a looney could think I'm you.You're knowledge and pinpoint accuracy about this case is stunning and commendable. What you wrote concerning Beagle and Renner so balanced and well stated. You really made me see this better. I am in complete agreement.I do believe Beagle is not only highly intelligent, but, I believe he could tie John Green up in knots intellectually.I do believe he has some mental issues. Anyone who hasn't figured out that Green is mentally unbalanced has no real experience with people. There is no doubt whatsoever that this dude is a whack job. His entire persona is based on impressing people with his vocabulary and supposed intelligence. Is he intelligent? sure, but there is absolutely no real depth and a complete inability to actually relate to humans on any real level. He is a classic sociopath. Humans are objects, in his case, bodies that he can use for his lectures. Every single action the man puts out there is an attempt to prove to himself that he is not only superior, but that he is valid. Deep down, he knows he's as hollow as an old log on the forrest floor. Sociopaths can't be fixed and sociopathy is the major ingredient when making psychopath soup. No real empathy from me. Granny is a whole different level of cuckoo.She is nuts and frankly, pretty dumb. Add in her issues with alcohol and whatever else she's on and you have a complete slimeball. She has proven that she is potentially dangerous, No empathy. Sammy is quickly on his way to becoming John Green. Many of the same traits. Both he and Green show there absolute inability to actually relate to humans by there constant attempts at manipulation. They are baffled when people see through this and call them on it. Convinced of their superiority, they just can't see how the lower life forms can read them. They talk at you. They subjectify you. Lacking empathy, there entire lifes work has been the study of these odd human beings, and having to exist with them they have learned to mimic their emotions incredibly well...!

For starters, please forgive me as I am pecking away on a new iPad and I haven't the slightest idea how to use this thing. Also, I don't know why my location is saying Tampa. I am not in Tampa.
I was hoping either Maruchan or Ridiculous would respond to my questions because being the lurker I am, I have always enjoyed their posts whether I agree with them or not.
They're right. In fact, we are all a little crazy here or we wouldn't be here. But there are different levels of crazy. I'm from the dirty south where we know all about crazy.
Yeah, Renner is a hothead. His hissy fits are weird. Exposing someone's personal info against their wishes is wrong and a little smarmy. But I honestly believe James is getting desperate for a solid lead. He's under enormous pressure and add in the whole Rick Baker fiasco and it's easy to see how someone might grasp at any lead they can.
But a hotheaded pissing match and outright threatening someone's CHILD are two totally different things. Every time I start to feel sorry for Beagle, I remember those videos. And, like y'all, I just can't get past them or excuse them in anyway. It sucks too because Beagle is obviously hyper intelligent and probably has a lot to offer but his craziness prevented anyone from even considering anything he said. Had it been my child in those doctored videos, jail would be the least of Beagles concerns.
I will take the hothead crazy over the creepy crazy any day.
Green. Here is a crazy intelligent guy who garners no sympathy from me. I agree. He demonstrates key characteristics of a sociopath. He's almost teh poster child for sociopathy. It gravely harmed Renners rep by associating with green but I think once he realized just how insane green was, he backed off. Like stepping away from a rattlesnake. Slowly, softly and quietly so as not to agitate the snake that can strike at you and kill you while being feet away from you.
We have all made bad judgement calls. A scumbag boyfriend, an ugly dress or buying a year supply of amway products.
I don't think Renner is the real villain here. He's a man that's writing a book and has put his name and professional reputation on the line. He's been stalked and harassed by some of the craziest people on the internet and still, I find it hard to dislike the guy. Just like Maura, I can relate to him.
All that being said, hey y'all. I'm Sarah from the mountains of VA. I've been a longtime reader and my brain was so full of ideas, thoughts and opinions, I had to post.
Out me all y'all want. I live and work deep in hillbilly territory where stalkers, creeps and sketchy psychopaths that traipse around private property are dealt with accordingly. This is probably why I don't see outing someone's personal info, info that could be obtained by anyone with Google and a brain, as the cardinal sin of stealing and then doctoring videos of someone's child.

I was looking at JR blog when I briefly saw a picture of a heavy set woman where the background was snow and a snow covered mountain. I was taken aback by how much this woman looked like Maura. But the picture was gone the next second. Did anyone else see it
?? I was sure it was Maura...How disappointing that none of this turned any solid leads...