Maura Murray

oops got Dodge City, KS?

WTF-the-original wrote:

<quoted text>
So where is the report of seeing a red light or glow? That was never reported. We don't know what it was that made her think that she saw a man smoking a cigarette. No where did the witness report that it was a red glow or light. It might have been just "smoke" that made her believe that. The belief that it was a red glow or light was injected by forum people, not the witness.
Bill

You're so impatient, lol! I told you in an earlier post I had to go find it. Here ya go:

"At 7:27 p.m. Westman called the Grafton County Sheriff's Department to report the vehicle, which she described as being in a "ditch."

Westman told dispatcher Ronda Marsha she was not sure if there were any injuries. Notably, the log reports that Westman said she could "see a man in the vehicle smoking a cigarette."

Maura never smoked and was vehemently anti-smoking, according to her mother and father.

In a later interview with Maura's father, Fred Murray, the Westmans could not agree on an exact description of the person in the black Saturn. Faith Westman believed she had seen a man with a cigarette, while Tim Westman believed it was a woman at the scene on her cell phone and that the red light from the phone looked like the tip of a cigarette.

An investigator who later interviewed the Westmans confirmed that the couple did not fully agree on a description.

When asked to clarify for this story the Westmans declined comment. "We've been down that path too many times. It's worn thin," Tim Westman said."

http://www.whitmanhansonexpress.com/index.php...

I honestly think the red glow came from the upper rear brake light( In Maura's car it is at the top of the rear windshield) that glows, and reflects on the inside of the car when the brakes are applied. It is especially noticeable in the dark.

This would mean the car was turned on,(not necessarily running), and that someone was in the drivers seat applying the brakes. The angle the Westmans were viewing from might also mean that there was nothing obstructing this light (glow), which in turn might indicate no one was in the passenger seat.

The distance from the Westmans window to see a cell phone glow or a cigarette in my opinion was too far to discern something that small.

Lady Gray wrote:

<quoted text>
You're so impatient, lol! I told you in an earlier post I had to go find it. Here ya go:
"At 7:27 p.m. Westman called the Grafton County Sheriff's Department to report the vehicle, which she described as being in a "ditch."
Westman told dispatcher Ronda Marsha she was not sure if there were any injuries. Notably, the log reports that Westman said she could "see a man in the vehicle smoking a cigarette."
Maura never smoked and was vehemently anti-smoking, according to her mother and father.
In a later interview with Maura's father, Fred Murray, the Westmans could not agree on an exact description of the person in the black Saturn. Faith Westman believed she had seen a man with a cigarette, while Tim Westman believed it was a woman at the scene on her cell phone and that the red light from the phone looked like the tip of a cigarette.
An investigator who later interviewed the Westmans confirmed that the couple did not fully agree on a description.
When asked to clarify for this story the Westmans declined comment. "We've been down that path too many times. It's worn thin," Tim Westman said."
http://www.whitmanhansonexpress.com/index.php...

Thanks for pulling that one up LG. I now remember reading that but honestly had forgotten. It has been over six years. The only thing a little strange about that statement was that it sounds like it was made by Tim not Faith who was the "witness" that says she saw a red light. I assume that she was sitting there during the interview and would have said something if that wasn't what led her to that conclusion.

Just to be clear, I still don't think that there ever was a man in the car, especially a smoking man, at the crash that night while Maura was still there.

Thanks,
Bill

Another point, the faintly written date of 9/12/04 written on the upper right hand corner of the first dispatch log, the one in which indicates changes and redacted info, might suggest at this point it was possible to obtain the dispatch log.

Why go to the trouble to redact info if it's not going to be released?

Something must have changed pretty quickly in LE thinking on the 12th, as the log became part of the investigation and was not released to anyone at that point that we know of. Surely media covering a missing person story would have made the routine attempt.

Then the AMW debaucle.

NH Jane and I searched the web for the radio log, which Feb 2004 was not available. March 2004 was.

WTF-the-original wrote:

<quoted text>
Just to be clear, I still don't think that there ever was a man in the car, especially a smoking man, at the crash that night while Maura was still there.

why not? it's within the realm of possibilities. if only speculation.

just me wrote:

<quoted text>This was in ref to Maura, but.....on the day Brianna went missing, she parted ways from her mother for a bit and came back visibly shaken. I suppose she could be held against her will, even now, if at all.
<quoted text>I wanted to respond mainly to this. A short while before Bri went missing, she had been to a party where the girls got physical with her. Knowing martial arts, and not wanting to hurt anyone, she chose to go to a vehicle outside and sleep, wait for her friends to finish partying, saying goodbye. Some say it had to do with this party, that Bri went missing. Wrong circle of friends they say. Some came forward to say Bri was held for awhile in a basement and then put down. If so, I'd imagine these people didn't keep her in one piece.
One month and 10 days after Maura went missing, so did Brianna. Odd to me is that they both had something shake them up beforehand.

thanks for this, just me. i never believed their disappearances were related, but after isolating the obvious possibilities of homicide and suicide, and broadly ruling out by virtue of no evidence of either reported to the public, i began to think again about Brianna. her circumstances still seem entirely unrelated and very relationship specific.
the bottom line / key to both disappearances may seem to lie with their emotional upsets prior to their disappearances, as you suggest, and, of course, their individual circumstances have been deemed to be totally unrelated, according to authorities.

on another note, why have some posters been silenced or self-silenced....those whom reported to have suffered maura-related vandalism? what's truly going on here?

If we entertain the thought that LE changed their thinking around the 12th, what happened that day?

The dog search for one.

Why would the dog search suddenly influence LE to make the dispatch logs unavailable?

The only thing I can think of is that the scent did not end in the middle of the road, but somewhere specific.

WTF-the-original wrote:

<quoted text>
Thanks for pulling that one up LG. I now remember reading that but honestly had forgotten. It has been over six years. The only thing a little strange about that statement was that it sounds like it was made by Tim not Faith who was the "witness" that says she saw a red light. I assume that she was sitting there during the interview and would have said something if that wasn't what led her to that conclusion.
Just to be clear, I still don't think that there ever was a man in the car, especially a smoking man, at the crash that night while Maura was still there.
Thanks,
Bill

You're welcome! And yes, I also thought it was made by Mr. W. And, I came across this while looking for what you asked for. This info is from a family friend who was there among Maura Murray's loved ones in the immediate days after her disappearance and who canvassed the area talking to people:

"As far as the "man smoking a cigarette" goes, in the beginning, the night of the accident, they (W's) claimed that is what they saw. Afterwards, they claimed the police explained it was the charger light from her plug in cell phone charger. However, that plugs into the dash and her car was facing the W's house so there is no way they could have seen the dashboard. When I asked about the man smoking the cig. when I spoke to them (W's), they said they thought the police figured that out and there was no man. Mr. W said that he saw a red glow and assumed it was a cigarette. I was one of the people who supposed it could have been a red glow from a cell phone, but I don't know that at all, it's just a guess."

Also came across this...a posting describing what witnesses observed (I deleted the portions not relating to the man/cigarette).....it's by one of the private investigators....:

".......A "man" sitting in the front passenger seat with the door open smoking a cigarette (the Westmans, Mr. Westman saw the smoking cigarette portion.)......."

Sooo, it's a mystery along with everything else.

Lady Gray wrote:

<quoted text>
You're welcome! And yes, I also thought it was made by Mr. W. And, I came across this while looking for what you asked for. This info is from a family friend who was there among Maura Murray's loved ones in the immediate days after her disappearance and who canvassed the area talking to people:
"As far as the "man smoking a cigarette" goes, in the beginning, the night of the accident, they (W's) claimed that is what they saw. Afterwards, they claimed the police explained it was the charger light from her plug in cell phone charger. However, that plugs into the dash and her car was facing the W's house so there is no way they could have seen the dashboard. When I asked about the man smoking the cig. when I spoke to them (W's), they said they thought the police figured that out and there was no man. Mr. W said that he saw a red glow and assumed it was a cigarette. I was one of the people who supposed it could have been a red glow from a cell phone, but I don't know that at all, it's just a guess."
Also came across this...a posting describing what witnesses observed (I deleted the portions not relating to the man/cigarette).....it's by one of the private investigators....:
".......A "man" sitting in the front passenger seat with the door open smoking a cigarette (the Westmans, Mr. Westman saw the smoking cigarette portion.)......."
Sooo, it's a mystery along with everything else.

Yep, its curious. I think in anything like this there are always people (witnesses) who see things that don't fit and often see things that they interpret incorrectly. They aren't lying, it is just human nature. People interpret what they see in ways that make sense to them. Everyone does.

Thanks again,
Bill

mcsmom wrote:

I honestly think the red glow came from the upper rear brake light( In Maura's car it is at the top of the rear windshield) that glows, and reflects on the inside of the car when the brakes are applied. It is especially noticeable in the dark.
This would mean the car was turned on,(not necessarily running), and that someone was in the drivers seat applying the brakes. The angle the Westmans were viewing from might also mean that there was nothing obstructing this light (glow), which in turn might indicate no one was in the passenger seat.
The distance from the Westmans window to see a cell phone glow or a cigarette in my opinion was too far to discern something that small.

the glow of brake lights on snow would not seem to be mistaken for the smaller, focused light of a cell phone or cigarette.

Sounds like as Faith is speaking to dispatch, her husband may be rattling off details and so she says "can see a man in the car smoking......"
The other witness at her kitchen window was peeling an orange. She said once she saw SBD outside with "the girl" she stopped looking. Weren't there some odd tracks in their backyard? I recall reading this at one point.
I imagine that if there were two people there and one wanted to smoke, it might be said they should open the door or forget it....knowing people might be looking, that person might have rushed over into the backyard to lay low.
Faith said she saw "the girl" by the car right before police, but the other neighbors saw something from the back of the vehicle. Sometimes it seems there were two people there.
After talking to the other neighbors who did not call police,(they just watched from window to window), the police on the 12th may have given more credit to what was first reported about the door open, man smoking.

If the flashers weren't on yet and the door was open so someone could smoke, the dome lights would be on. In the dark to see this from a distance would be easier than some imagine.

Snowy wrote:

<quoted text>
the glow of brake lights on snow would not seem to be mistaken for the smaller, focused light of a cell phone or cigarette.

No, not the brake lights on the rear of the car, the brake light that is in the rear windshield. There is a slight red glow on the inside of the car when the brakes are applied. Maura's "third" brake light was at the top of the rear windshield.

Sorry if I wasn't clear, I also stated the dog search was on the 12th, which was not the date of the dog search. My bad.

I suggest you listen to mcsmom, I can tell she is very smart. If she was naturaly more wordy, we would have had much more progress. Sometimes it makes sense to her being short worded, but everybody else still needs more words. Keep that in mind.

Part of the search on the 12th was to block off the road and look for things on the ground. Debris, personal items maybe cigarette butts.......and then there was the air search too if I'm not mistaken.

High Bandwidth Radio wrote:

<quoted text>
The facts are inconsistent that is the problem. Gravity is different in degree, it is not different in kind. It may be useful to use Occam's razor, but in this case certain presuppositions will need to be made to even use it. The fact that different presuppositions will be made in order to use it, leads to the fact that we will all have different opinions about the results or theories we construct when we use it. Given that, I think for someone to come on this forum and say it must be such and such a way because that is what occam's razor tell us, is about as valuable as saying, it must be such and such a way because i said so.
If we are going to discredit the idea that someone was in the car with Maura and smoking a cigarette because there was only one person who saw it, as well as the claim that there was a report of two accidents because there was only one person who saw it, are we also going to discredit the claim that Maura was in NH because only one person saw her?

OK, you got me. My analogy sucked. I knew it when I wrote it and suspected you would spot it. Not enough time for me to think up a good one.

As far as the smoking man I disregard it for several reasons. First the distance for those two witnesses. Second the other witness at the same distance disputes it. And third someone standing there talking to Maura didn’t see any evidence to that effect. And fourth the officer searched and reported nothing to indicate anyone else in the car or any reported evidence of smoking at the scene. So, is it easier to believe that Faith was mistaken or that there was a smoking man in the car? Everything fits simplest if Faith was just mistaken and there was no smoking man in the car. Now, find me an ash in the ashtray. A witness at the liquor store who saw a man with nicotine stained fingers chuckling with Maura, or a man’s body 20 feet from the car in the woods with a pack of cigarettes in his pocket and we need to talk again.

I stand by the references though that I made about Occam and everything else as it pertains to the known information. It is a remarkably useful tool especially as relates to some of the more wild theories that have been floated i.e. friends helping her escape, kidnapped from school, two car insurance scam theory, father killer theory, etc. Most of them disappear in a puff of smoke when you rub a little Occam on them by looking for the simplest explanation to explain the evidence.

When you ask things like “are we also going to discredit the claim that Maura was in NH because only one person saw her?” this is a perfect example of why Occam is so powerful. I’ll mention again that the path of least resistance for this is to believe that Maura was driving Maura’s car. Add that to the fact that the best description we have of who was in the car is not inconsistent with a description of Maura. I think Maura was in the car.

If someone wants Jim-Joe-Bob to be driving Maura’s car Occam suggests, strongly, that you must tailor your theory to the evidence at hand and then prove why it is a simpler fit for the known facts. If you cannot, it should be rejected.

Again, Occam doesn’t point to a specific theory, it just helps sort through theories allowing some to rise to the top faster than others. I don’t believe that there are that many presuppositions in this case regarding many pieces of the basic theory. There are some who want to make it appear that way.

Bill

Just wondering whether SBD, as part of his driving routine, had to call anyone at First Student or in the local school system, etc. when he completed his route for the day/evening.

Did he have a two-way radio of some kind in the bus?

Did he have to check in with or call anyone after his trip that day? Did he have to notify someone that the trip was completed?

Thank you.

Anne wrote:

<quoted text>wowzer, I did not say I heard a second accident on the scanner. Someone else theorized that and it certainly could be a possibility. I heard female slid of the road earlier than official times. I have no idea who the people were looking for this female. I had a friend living nearby but noone I knew was looking for the young female. I hope this helps clear it up for you.

Anne,
You are correct about the two incidents/accidents. I had read a blog in which someone mentioned reports of TWO vehicles sliding off the road the evening of Feb. 9. It seemed there was uncertainty as to whether this was the same vehicle. A bronco (police-type...or something to do with a Haverhill PD #1 marking???) was also mentioned as being in that area that evening. The bronco type vehicle had passed another driver ....(bronco on its way to first scene of first veh. sliding off the highway). Also mentioned Bronco type veh front-end to front end w/Black Saturn (believe this was mentioned in re to Saturn). The writer indicated Bronco type veh responding to both incidents of vehicle off highway (one evidentally WAS the one involving the Saturn). No determination if the other incident also involved Saturn or another vehicle.

RozShoem wrote:

<quoted text>
Anne,
You are correct about the two incidents/accidents. I had read a blog in which someone mentioned reports of TWO vehicles sliding off the road the evening of Feb. 9. It seemed there was uncertainty as to whether this was the same vehicle. A bronco (police-type...or something to do with a Haverhill PD #1 marking???) was also mentioned as being in that area that evening. The bronco type vehicle had passed another driver ....(bronco on its way to first scene of first veh. sliding off the highway). Also mentioned Bronco type veh front-end to front end w/Black Saturn (believe this was mentioned in re to Saturn). The writer indicated Bronco type veh responding to both incidents of vehicle off highway (one evidentally WAS the one involving the Saturn). No determination if the other incident also involved Saturn or another vehicle.

you read in a BLOG? and cite this hearsay which "someone mentioned" to confirm Anne's being "correct"?
and now carelessly hint at "A bronco (police-type...or something to do with a Haverhill PD #! marking???)"
oh, please. where is the logic? where are the facts?
nice story, but not buyin' it.