Maura Murray

Beagle wrote:

Yep, gotta keep Maura irrational, maybe suicidal, and definitely at the WB curve because of it.
After all, if she wasn't irrational and suicidal, as evidenced by her behavior at UMass, then why would she abandon her car and apparently disappear into the woods where she died?
It's kind of hard to claim her bahavior in Haverhill was irrational without having her previous behavior at UMass charaterized as irrational.
So far, these arguments in favor of her irrational behavior boil down to things like a 4-digit vs. 16-digit credit card format on a receipt, and Maura's access to them. These are dubious arguments at best.

This is incorrect. There are many people who run simply because they were drinking at the scene of an accident. That almost certainly occurred in this case. No ifs, ands or buts. The previous behavior comes into play with what actions were more likely to be taken by her based upon those previous behaviors.

Bill

Simply caustic wrote:

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You are totally right about how he worded it. I cannot fathom why they would photograph her at the dorm, when they CHARGED her per Renner....meaning, she at least was taken in, fingerprinted, mugshot taken, etc. even if she was let go on a personal recog bond. Is it feasible that, like Beagle said, the local college police were the jurisdictional LE and thus, only photographed her there, wrote her out a ticket or summons, etc. and she was NOT formally arrested? Just wondering, I'll defer to Beagle as I am not familiar with the legal process on e UMASS property...but I can't comprehend how this was kosher,

It depends on where, exactly, the crime was committed. Jurisdiction here in Amherst is technically a little confusing, but in practice, it's fairly clear.

UMass is in Amherst. Which does not mean that Amherst cops cannot arrest someone on campus. If necessary, they do. On the other hand, UMass cops are also able to arrest, etc. off campus, by virtue of their having been sworn in as specials, proably state police specials, but at least as specials in neighboring towns or counties. I know for a fact that even Amherst College, which is a small private college up the street from UMass, requires its campus police to be able to be sworn as special state police officers.

Basically, they divide up their territory. UMass cops do UMass, Amherst PD does the rest of Amherst.

If the crime is deemed to have occurred off-campus, at the pizza place, then Amherst PD would presumably make the arrest. They would first notify, per professional courtesy, UMass PD, who would almost certainly accompany Amherst PD to the student's room.

But if the crime occurred at the dorm from which the phone call was placed, or the order delivered, or the receipt signed, then it would almost certainly be UMass PD's case, even if Amherst PD assisted, which they probably did. If any of this is true.

I hope this clarifies more than confuses.

The photo of Maura, BTW, is less flattering than others seen online.

WTH-the-original wrote:

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This is incorrect. There are many people who run simply because they were drinking at the scene of an accident. That almost certainly occurred in this case. No ifs, ands or buts. The previous behavior comes into play with what actions were more likely to be taken by her based upon those previous behaviors.
Bill

She disappeared forever because she was irrational?

Or she disappeared forever because she was drunk and wanted to sober up before showing up again?

Or she first disappeared to evade police, but then her irrational side, as evidenced at UMass, caught up with her and she no longer behaved like virtally all other drunk drivers who abandon their cars and show up later?

WTH-the-original wrote:

I should say that it amounts to a release on their own recognizance. The penalty for not showing up is court is pretty severe. A bench warrant would likely be issued for your arrest......... I suspect.
Bill - not a lawyer but not dumb either.

Thank you for clarifying for me. That would seem to explain why she was photographed there at the dorm.

Beagle wrote:

<quoted text>If I have credit card receipts that show only the last four digits, and if they're dated January 2001, then it's a stretch to believe that Amherst pizza places were using technology outdated by at least three years.
Renner makes it sound like the police, after Maura signed the receipt, meekly poked their heads in her room for a minute and said, "Excuse me, sorry to bother you, but we'd just like to take a quick photo of you standing against the wall. We apologize for the intrusion, but it won't take any time at all. We'll send something to you in the mail about this. Thanks for your hospitality. Enjoy your pizza."

Wonder who got to eat the pizza?

If you get charged with a crime it doesn't get expunged unless you're a minor. If you apply for a pardon it will stay on you're criminal record but will be invisible from public search records in some cases. Perhaps the cardholder agreed not to press charges and if she was paid back within a certain time?

I wonder if Mr' Renner got criminal charges mixed up with University demerit points and those were the records that were going to evaporate in February?

WTH-the-original wrote:

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I am not LE but I have seen enough shows were for prostitution and other offenses they ticket and photograph people on the spot. Also mass arrests, like groups of disorderly I have witnessed them doing that. I don't think that it particularly unusual. Doesn't mean that they don't need to appear before a judge.
Bill

This is correct. For minor offences, police do often hand out a summons. And if you do not appear, you're in deep do-do. Then the cuffs come out.

So it's possible that's what happened. I, like you, am not a lawyer, but it seems that credit card fraud is not that trivial an offence.

Also, consider the source here, just as in other instances. I'm still giving Renner the benefit of the doubt, barely, but his credibility is not real solid. Sensational, yes. Exactly, precisely factual? Not so much.

Re: her room being packed up:

I don't about you guys but if I knew I was going to be booted out of school I'd have my stuff packed up and ready to go, too. Just a thought.

Frostman wrote:

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Wonder who got to eat the pizza?
If you get charged with a crime it doesn't get expunged unless you're a minor. If you apply for a pardon it will stay on you're criminal record but will be invisible from public search records in some cases. Perhaps the cardholder agreed not to press charges and if she was paid back within a certain time?
I wonder if Mr' Renner got criminal charges mixed up with University demerit points and those were the records that were going to evaporate in February?

Arrest records stick with you like glue, even if all charges are quickly dismissed because the accused never committed the crime. In the real world, outside the nice world of the middle-class, beyond the everything's-nice-I-have-a-hom e-and-good-job-and-family class, police charge people all the time they know may or may not have committed a crime. Police don't care about actual guilt. Police just let the courts figure it out, or maybe they have a grudge against someone and want to stick him with an arrest record. Remember Richard Jewell? Or Stephen Hatfill?

Check out "Labelling Theory." It's not the conviction that counts, it's the arrest that's the real problem. Prospective employers have a stack of apps in front of them. Are they going to hire someone who's been arrested when they can hire someone who's never been arrested? Look what happens when you move into a new neighborhood. Or even stay in an old neighborhood these days. Your neighbors do an online search if they don't know you from high school. They, like the prospective employer, don't bother paying the fee for the adjudication, for the result of the arrest; they are only intersted in the free part that says the guy down the street was arrested. Maybe he was a bank robber, a drug dealer, or a peace demonstrator. Doesn't matter in their minds. He was ARRESTED! Maybe the cops disliked him because he campaingned against their pay raise. Maybe a politically influential person leaned on the police to taint someone with an arrest record.

I once worked with a woman who never distinguished between an arrest and a conviction. To her, they amounted to the same thing. Only technical differences separated them.

WTH-the-original wrote:

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I think that if it was clearer that she was having these problems and that a DUI might have really sunk her career. The police and the SAR teams would have taken the suicide theory as opposed to just a DUI runaway much more seriously and planned more searches and different methodology. I still don't think that Maura went up there to commit suicide. I have said for years that the accident might have been the tipping point that made her commit suicide and now we even have a lot more information that seems to indicate that such an accident could have been a real tipping point for her to consider suicide as an option. Considering all the other things, what her father said, what we know about the lie to get away, the credit card problems both at Amherst and the identical same rumored actions at West Point. Suicide would have been considered a much stronger likelihood.
In my opinion.
Bill

Thank you for responding. I didn't realize that there were different searches. One for sucide and one for runnaway. I thought Fred had brought up the squaw walk to CS?

Thank you

Frostman wrote:

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Wonder who got to eat the pizza?

The pizza went missing that night. It is covered in another blog.

Simply caustic wrote:

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Via Lexis/Nexis legal research database... In 2006, H.B. 2693, it became required for MA Merchants to only print last 5 digits. If you don't have a subscription, you can't view it, but look up Massachusetts H.B. 2693.
So until then, it was not an issue to print the full number on the customer copy of the receipt. Which is how, IMO, Maura obtained it (per Renners blog and another site saying she got it through the trash room..I'll find link)

Which doesn't mean the financial industry waited around to be commanded by a state legislature to protect themselves. It just means that the state, L84AD8, decided to invite themselves to the party.

I'm also skeptical of this trash room notion. I think Kennedy is about 20 stories tall. About 5,000 students live in SW. That's a lot of trash. I would be surprised if UMass Physical Plant allowed students to rummage through the waste before it gets placed in the compactor. But maybe they do. Hell of a way to find cc receipts.

WTH-the-original wrote:

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I just gave a diner owner hell because their POS system was displaying the entire number set on the copies that it was providing. I gave them hell and told them I won't use my CC (meaning I won't return) until they fixed it. They did within a week. I worked on a POS system for gasoline monitoring and dispensing systems. When you swipe your card at the pump, the data is supposed to be encoded between the dispensers and the POS system. I know many (most) weren't but that was in 1999. It would not surprise me that when this was happening that it was fairly easy to get the credit card numbers from several ways.
Bill

Yes, but the diner was in rural NH, where they don't even sell Lysol, let alone clean themselves.

jwb wrote:

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Thank you for responding. I didn't realize that there were different searches. One for sucide and one for runnaway. I thought Fred had brought up the squaw walk to CS?
Thank you

I don't know about the squaw walk. It was supposedly said by Fred and then just as quickly he said she wouldn't have committed suicide.

There are different methods used to determine (statistically) where to search, what distances, directions, uphill, downhill, etc. based upon the category of the subject. See Ken Hill, William Syrotuck and Robert Koester for the definitive books on statistical search theory.

Bill

Pointless Endeavor wrote:

Re: her room being packed up:
I don't about you guys but if I knew I was going to be booted out of school I'd have my stuff packed up and ready to go, too. Just a thought.

If the credit card/bulimia story can be truly verified, then I'd lean more heavily in the direction of suicide, but that's still intuitive, not based on actual evidence.

The real problem with the suicide theory is that it goes nowhere. It just says Maura is dead, end of story, case closed. Don't look anywhere else or you're a nut case. But the suicide theory is based on less than solid evidence. Even if the suicide theory has 90 percent probability on its side, why not consider other possibilities, too? And respect them; not respond to them with statements like "Where were you on the night of Feb. 9, 2004?"

And where were all the lordly protectors against trash-talk then?

Tom wrote:

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The pizza went missing that night. It is covered in another blog.

Let me guess... it too committed suicide and was eaten by wild animals?

Frostman wrote:

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Let me guess... it too committed suicide and was eaten by wild animals?

I wish we knew more so we could get a more accurate understanding of Maura. Was it three cheese - pan - double crust - cheese crust - what kind of topings were on this pie. Everything the girl did was a mystery. I wonder if she just ordered a scicilian pizza just to confuse us.

I was hoping that renner would post the records he is obtaining for his request.
Unless he is saving that for his book.

Beagle wrote:

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She disappeared forever because she was irrational?
Or she disappeared forever because she was drunk and wanted to sober up before showing up again?
Or she first disappeared to evade police, but then her irrational side, as evidenced at UMass, caught up with her and she no longer behaved like virtally all other drunk drivers who abandon their cars and show up later?

She disappeared forever because she went from someone driving to get away for a while to someone who decided to commit suicide because she saw her entire life crumbling before her because of a drunk driving conviction that made all the other offenses kick in which she might have thought meant the end of her nursing career. All those plans, with Billy, the nursing profession which allowed her to be hired anywhere, the good job, everything, down the tubes. Because of a drunk driving charge.

Bill

WTH-the-original wrote:

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She disappeared forever because she went from someone driving to get away for a while to someone who decided to commit suicide because she saw her entire life crumbling before her because of a drunk driving conviction that made all the other offenses kick in which she might have thought meant the end of her nursing career. All those plans, with Billy, the nursing profession which allowed her to be hired anywhere, the good job, everything, down the tubes. Because of a drunk driving charge.
Bill

I believe that she could have died that night fleeing the scene, but to say it was suicide. Usually suicide becomes the solution when people think that there is no other solution left. Her solution was to flee the scene. Once she fled the scene I doubt she had the proper tools for an easy suicide. Even if she wanted to kill herself I doubt she would have smashed her head against a tree until she died.

WTH-the-original wrote:

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She disappeared forever because she went from someone driving to get away for a while to someone who decided to commit suicide because she saw her entire life crumbling before her because of a drunk driving conviction that made all the other offenses kick in which she might have thought meant the end of her nursing career. All those plans, with Billy, the nursing profession which allowed her to be hired anywhere, the good job, everything, down the tubes. Because of a drunk driving charge.
Bill

You totally don't know! She could just have easily been killed by the same perp who murdered Louise Chaput in November, 2001. Both women had out of state plates, vanished in a matter of minutes, missing backpack, possible suspect = a part-time New Hampshire resident. Louise's body was found... maybe he didn't want to make the same mistake twice regarding leaving DNA in the car or anywhere else.