Maura Murray

jwb wrote:

Hannah-
I hold back and wait- If you wish to call me something that is your right. I am here because I care and want to know what happened to a young girl.No agenda here for JWB at all just want to know what happened to this young girl.

JWB, when you first started posting here, you complained that some of us were trying to drown out your opinion. You complained that some of us were nasty, etc. Some of us stopped posting, or changed our attitudes to try to meet you half way (IMO).

I find it very disturbing that you are threatening people and doing exactly what you have previously complained about. You have blatently tried to look info up on posters, changed user names to insult people and pretty much have turned into an outright Jackass. I find it hard to believe that you are a caring person.

I hope you re-think your reasons for being here. If Columbo(your buddy) was truly in Law Enforcement, he would also advise you against this behavior.

citigirl wrote:

<quoted text>I did not make it sound like you could walk for miles on top of the snow. I was agreeing with WTHs posting about crusting snow. Citigirl-"But learned of this in specific areas that were covered with snow you would only slide and your footprints would not be seen in the snow" I stated specific areas. I have never stated these were the conditions at the time Maura disappeared. Only stating what I experienced while searching for her.Jenkins-"I've NEVER been able to do it nowhere how hard I try.There's been several tess wheee conditjoms where perfect and I really thought I'd b able to do it but I always end up breaking through. I'd say I made it like 20 steps max." I only weigh 130 lbs and there are specific areas that I walked on and my footprints were not visible. My first trip up north to search for Maura was March 16 2004.

March 16th is definitely late season & usually not as much snow. There wasn't that much snow as I recall, I think the snowpack peaked at like 2.5-3' towards the end of February. Once the snow starts melting and there's less than like 8-10" snow u can def walk on top of the surface of crusty snow without leaving tracks.
There was considerably larger depths of snow at the beginning of feb than 8". It was 2' in the low lying areas, as soon as she got out of the valley up into the notch there was more like 3-4' of snow. It snows way more up in the notches of Nh than down the valleys, anyone familiar w the weather of Nh wil tell u that. & it doesn't even have to b far up the notch either. I've driven that road where it's sunny in Haverhill & by the time I reach the bottom of the hill a few miles up the road its like a blizzard.


Do u think on march 16th she could've walked far into the woods without leaving any sort of prints?
Did u do any searching through the woods personally?

I know the conditions were a little different but do u think she could've made it very far into the woods through 2' snow that February night?

Jenkins wrote:

Cont:
She was obviously in good shape but she certainly wasn't in her top physical condition like your describing. She didn't run track that yr,@ that point it had been about a yr since she ran competitively. On top of that she had an injured hamstring and wasn't able to run for several miles. It's been theorized that this is one of the reasons she was acting weird, bc she hadn't been able to run like she always could.
Also your an older man who obviously likes doing winter activities. Maura went hiking in te summer, up known trails. That is nothing compared to trying to walk thru snow on a cold February night.
Several of my gf's in the past ran track & field. My current gf is a 24 yr old UMass student who ran track for years. Same body type as Maura. These girls have zero fat on their bodies, they can't stand cold weather at all compared to many people. From what I've seen none Think about it; Maura was already shivering and she'd only been out of the car for like a minute. I've never seen any 21 yr girl who could handle cold like your describing, honestly it's a ridiculous assumption to say she could handle the cold bc she's in good shape.
As for the snow, yea it may have been crusty, gets like that every winter up nh. But crusty snow is not a truly hard surface. Generally it's like a half inch layer of ice on top of snow, never more than like an inch. U can walk a few feet without breaking through but u certainly can't travel any legitimate distance. Then when u do break throug it's such a wicked pain in the ass; you fall through and then try to get yourself back up and your other foot breaks throug and it just becomes ridiculously difficult to actually get anywhere.

That tells me alot of why you don't know how the snow is if you spend most of your time in Tuckermans and on Mt Washington. That area is above treeline, constantly windswept and is nothing like the area Maura was in.

I often use snowshoes when needed and full crampons depending on conditions. We call it post-holing and yes it is a pain in the ass unless you don't have enough pressure (body weight/foot area) to break through. If the snow is crusty I prefer light crampons but, I have often walked bare boot in those areas and conditions.

Maura may have been shivering, it also may have been her reaction to the adrenalin. Regardless, she would warm up very rapidly by running and she would stay very warm while running. It was not that cold out. I have been dressed with much lighter clothing in much colder weather and have not been cold, WHILE ACTIVE. Sweat control is key. I am not saying that Maura knew how to do that, or did do that. I am saying that while she was active, she would have been warm and felt fine. I don't think she had an end plan, at all. You underestimate the drive that someone running from an accident loaded with alcohol and adrenaline has. That is likely what got her in trouble. Her plan worked, by the way. She ran from the car. Got away from the police. Evaded the initial search. Then she felt comfortable, was warm, got herself lost, quickly got hypothermic and died. This is a distinct possibility.

She could have also been picked up, brought to Woodsville, dropped off, took a bus to Oregon, been picked up there, and murdered. Don't know. But she definitely could be in those woods. Until some other evidence turns up, we aren't going to know.

Bill

hannah_b wrote:

<quoted text>
Ideal conditions for tracking!

That data is from a weather station 5.5 miles away in St. Johnsbury. Hardly useful information.

Means nothing with respect to the micro-climate of that specific area.

Bill

citigirl wrote:

<quoted text>Sorry but I will not put my email address on a public forum and hopefully you dont either. I have seen the AFrame house in question and that house and property was the only one searched at the October 2006 search with permission by the owner of this property.

July 2008 is the search that I am referring to, not 2006. Was that the same owners (there were 3 owners on the deed at that time) who listed the house for sale in June 2004?

what was SBD's wifes first name??

looking4amoose wrote:

<quoted text>July 2008 is the search that I am referring to, not 2006. Was that the same owners (there were 3 owners on the deed at that time) who listed the house for sale in June 2004?

wern" you the one who said there was no search that weekend?

findmaura wrote:

what was SBD's wifes first name??

why all the negative ratings?This was public information.everyone has a first name.Im just too lazy to go back&dig for it.

WTH-the-original wrote:

<quoted text>
That tells me alot of why you don't know how the snow is if you spend most of your time in Tuckermans and on Mt Washington. That area is above treeline, constantly windswept and is nothing like the area Maura was in.
I often use snowshoes when needed and full crampons depending on conditions. We call it post-holing and yes it is a pain in the ass unless you don't have enough pressure (body weight/foot area) to break through. If the snow is crusty I prefer light crampons but, I have often walked bare boot in those areas and conditions.
Maura may have been shivering, it also may have been her reaction to the adrenalin. Regardless, she would warm up very rapidly by running and she would stay very warm while running. It was not that cold out. I have been dressed with much lighter clothing in much colder weather and have not been cold, WHILE ACTIVE. Sweat control is key. I am not saying that Maura knew how to do that, or did do that. I am saying that while she was active, she would have been warm and felt fine. I don't think she had an end plan, at all. You underestimate the drive that someone running from an accident loaded with alcohol and adrenaline has. That is likely what got her in trouble. Her plan worked, by the way. She ran from the car. Got away from the police. Evaded the initial search. Then she felt comfortable, was warm, got herself lost, quickly got hypothermic and died. This is a distinct possibility.
She could have also been picked up, brought to Woodsville, dropped off, took a bus to Oregon, been picked up there, and murdered. Don't know. But she definitely could be in those woods. Until some other evidence turns up, we aren't going to know.
Bill

That's a funny assumption that i would b comparing conditions on mt Washington to woodsville. I was using that as an example of how I'm very experienced outdoors during the winter of Nh. But I only climb mt Washington once a yr when and if the conditions r perfect for skiing tucks. So this would not b the snow I'm familiar with. Besides for the fact that over 3/4 of the hike u r under the treelike in conditions that aren't that mich different. They're more like te conditions on top of 112 in the kinsman notch.
The snow I'm most familiar w and comparing it to is basically the exact same as woodsville. I lived outside Plymouth for years & spent most of the wknds in the winter outdoors.
I was there durin feb 04. There was 2'+ snowpack on the ground. I drove down 112 about a wk after her disappearance. I saw that she was missing on the news and I drove 112 slowly looking for possible entry points, & there weren't very many I'll tell u that much. Definitely no easy entry points. There were places she could've theoretically entered the woods but even those looked extremely difficult & just didn't look reasonable that anyone could make it anywhere far.
The snowbanks were 5' easy, they were all winged back which they only do when the banks r over several feet. The snowbanks up towards the top of 112 were huge. It wasn't the craziest winter but it did snow and it disnt melt in the middle so most of the snow was there.
It also hadn't rained recently which is the conditions that make the crusty snow.
It was the peak of winter, not late in the season.

Also scarinza was looking for tracks and said je could clearly see animal tracks large and small. So it was possible to make tracks in the snow. There is a quote from LE where they the conditions were good fort there to b tracks

Any way u slice it, it would not be easy for her to get anywhere deep into the woods, in fact it would b extremely difficult. If she is in the woods this should b a mich easier search than a usual back country sar.

cont'd from above:
Generally in a wilderness seaxh and rescue there r huge areas to be searched.
But this case is different bc while she theoretically could've made it into the woods there is no way she made it deep into the woods. The terrain and te conditions just don't allow for that. There's very few points she even could've gotten into the woods.

There would b large areas the searchers could eliminate strictly bc she couldn't have gotten there, such as the 5 miles of the side the river is on.
There's no way she crossed that river so there's no way she's in those woods.
There's no way she could've made it mich farther than a mile in, 2 absolute max.

When the search area is much smaller than a regular search, the regular rules don't apply

So, Jenkins, I guess what you're saying is that it would be impossible to get very far into the woods near the crash site without snowshoes or cross county skis? It's been reported that Maura's running shoes were left in the Saturn, and that she was wearing a pair of "bowling style" shoes which presumably were un-treaded so I doubt she would be able to make it very far down the road (112) on foot or be able to adequately run on a side road.

Truth wrote:

<quoted text> wern" you the one who said there was no search that weekend?

? not sure what you mean....there was no announced search

looking4amoose wrote:

<quoted text>July 2008 is the search that I am referring to, not 2006. Was that the same owners (there were 3 owners on the deed at that time) who listed the house for sale in June 2004?

Looking4amoose-"my husband talked to people later who were involved in the renting the Lodge to the group said it was Fred and his coherts." The search that was based at the Lodge took place in October 2006. Considering the house had been up for sale in the past it could be quite possible that there was an interested buyer checking out the property. Or a possible renter.

Frostman wrote:

So, Jenkins, I guess what you're saying is that it would be impossible to get very far into the woods near the crash site without snowshoes or cross county skis? It's been reported that Maura's running shoes were left in the Saturn, and that she was wearing a pair of "bowling style" shoes which presumably were un-treaded so I doubt she would be able to make it very far down the road (112) on foot or be able to adequately run on a side road.

Bowling style shoes? Yea, she wouldn't have made it anywhere.
If that is true then I think we can confidently say she couldn't make it very far into the woods.

Does anyone know for sure what kind of shoes she was wearing?

hannah_b wrote:

<quoted text>
Ok, I take your word for it. Then maybe we could get back to discussing Maura´s case.
Any thoughts on the recent murder of Melissa Jenkins? Could it be related to Maura´s disappearance? My personal thought is not related.

Patricia Prue's first husband, Jeffry Witkoff, 38, of Littleton, Colo., said the news was shocking.

"If somebody told me she's a murderer, that's nothing that would pop into her head. When I knew her she did a have history of mental issues, for anxiety and depression and social anxiety," he said. They were legally separated in 2007 and divorced in 2009, he said.
Therefor, Allen Prue did not have this woman as a wife back in 2004. Only if he was married before that, and to someone who would go along with his sick ideas would I be willing to wonder if he were involved back in 04.

Jenkins wrote:

<quoted text>
Bowling style shoes? Yea, she wouldn't have made it anywhere.
If that is true then I think we can confidently say she couldn't make it very far into the woods.
Does anyone know for sure what kind of shoes she was wearing?

Lets take a look at Maura for a minute. She had hiked those mountains and walked nearby roads since she was a child. She would know what to wear and bring along if she were thinking of driving to NH alone, and her car broke down. We don't know if she had pack boots, and I would think she'd pack them if she did intend to go deep into the woods and drink hereself into oblivian. She wouldn't want to freeze to death on her way to drinking herself away. The booze numbs you to some degree. But now they say all the other alcohol was accounted for and in the car. Why she would put herself through something so terrible (like freezing to death and without the pills everyone spoke about, Tylenol PM's), is beyond me.
I guess if I had to take sides on what happened, woods or that she caught a ride, I'd have to say she caught a ride.

WTH-the-original wrote:

<quoted text>
That data is from a weather station 5.5 miles away in St. Johnsbury. Hardly useful information.
Means nothing with respect to the micro-climate of that specific area.
Bill

Microclimate changes constantly and is never possible to predict. But still, the overall conditions seem very good for tracking, and those are more important.

Here's my best shot at the wind theory. If the wind was blowing NW at the time,(5 Mile per hour), and Maura was only STANDING near the intersection to briefly get reception, to briefly get in a car,!to briefly be forced into a car or dragged with her mouth and nose covered, heck, maybe knocked out with an ether rag that had been soaked in Chloroform.(Knock out drops.)(It used to be used years ago by dentists, vets and surgeons).
If you follow my drift, then you can see how Maura might have been scented right there. Can an abductor or anther person present throw off the dogs? Evidenetly, no.
But if Maura were there briefly, what I'd like to know is if two days going by, before trailing her scent with that briefly worn and new glove, could the scent have been blown away, more so, at the intersection than say the roads on either dide of that open clearing? 5 mph is not a fast wind by most accounts. But here's my question again. Could that open area where the dog lost scent have been a prime spot for the scent trail to dissipate
to the point of confusing the dog.
To try and be completely sure I'm explaing this right,~ the North Westerly wind, if it were stady and it took two days to try and follow it, is an open roadway with several turn options, a good place for the scent to become compromised by a slightly smaller scent than the one leading up to it.

Just me--paris wrote:

Here's my best shot at the wind theory. If the wind was blowing NW at the time,(5 Mile per hour), and Maura was only STANDING near the intersection to briefly get reception, to briefly get in a car,!to briefly be forced into a car or dragged with her mouth and nose covered, heck, maybe knocked out with an ether rag that had been soaked in Chloroform.(Knock out drops.)(It used to be used years ago by dentists, vets and surgeons).
If you follow my drift, then you can see how Maura might have been scented right there. Can an abductor or anther person present throw off the dogs? Evidenetly, no.
But if Maura were there briefly, what I'd like to know is if two days going by, before trailing her scent with that briefly worn and new glove, could the scent have been blown away, more so, at the intersection than say the roads on either dide of that open clearing? 5 mph is not a fast wind by most accounts. But here's my question again. Could that open area where the dog lost scent have been a prime spot for the scent trail to dissipate
to the point of confusing the dog.
To try and be completely sure I'm explaing this right,~ the North Westerly wind, if it were stady and it took two days to try and follow it, is an open roadway with several turn options, a good place for the scent to become compromised by a slightly smaller scent than the one leading up to it.

The presence of another persons scent will not throw a dog off trail. An open flat area will is not the typical place for those changes in microclimate that will make a difference to a tracking dog. More typically those are places with hight variations (even very small ones), surfaces that could turn the wind, and that will have a different temperature or moist condition than the surroundings etc., but there is really no way to be sure. The simplest explanation for the dog losing her scent is the scent really ended there. The simplest explanation for the scent ending in the middle of a road is she got into a vehicle right there.

hannah_b wrote:

<quoted text>
The presence of another persons scent will not throw a dog off trail. An open flat area will is not the typical place for those changes in microclimate that will make a difference to a tracking dog. More typically those are places with hight variations (even very small ones), surfaces that could turn the wind, and that will have a different temperature or moist condition than the surroundings etc., but there is really no way to be sure. The simplest explanation for the dog losing her scent is the scent really ended there. The simplest explanation for the scent ending in the middle of a road is she got into a vehicle right there.

pepper throws a dog off.