Introduction:
On February 9, 2004, Maura Murray, a 21-year-old nursing student at the university of University of Massachusetts Amherst, emailed several of her professors to let them know she would be gone for around a week due to a death in the family. Maura then packed a small bag, withdrew $280 from an ATM and stopped at a liquor store. Around 4:30 pm she left Amherst, MA and three hours later that night, around 7:30 pm, Maura crashed her car into ditch. A nearby resident saw the crash, but when the police arrived no one was at the scene. In the ensuing days and weeks, this case, widely regarded as the first true crime case popularized by social media, would get even more perplexing. In this post, we will examine the strange disappearance of Maura Murray as well as theories as to what happened to the young woman.
The Night Maura Disappeared
On the night of her disappearance, Maura was driving on route 112 near Woodsville, NH. In a rural section, Maura began approaching a sharp turn when her vehicle slid, spun, then came to a stop facing the wrong way on the opposite side of the road.
As she slid in the snowbank, resident Faith Westman was at home and heard a large crash outside the window. Ms. Westman peered out the window and saw a car in the banked ditch and phoned the police at 7:27 pm. Westman reported seeing a small red light in the car which appeared to be a cell phone.
Westman wouldn’t be the only person to witness Maura that night and the wrecked Black Saturn S-Series car though.
A local school bus driver was driving by, he stopped at the scene and exchanged words with Maura. He saw her walking around the car inspecting the damage. The driver would ask Maura if she wanted him to call the police. Maura refused the assistance though saying she had already called AAA. Interestingly, the driver knew she was lying as the area had no cell phone service. The driver returned home and phoned the police about the wreck at 7:43 pm, just 16 minutes after Faith Westman’s call.
Perhaps the most interesting and important witness statement comes from a local resident. The resident claims she was driving home from work when she saw the wreck at 7:37 pm. A police SUV was parked across from the vehicle. She pulled over but didn’t see anyone inside or outside Maura’s vehicle or the Police SUV.
While this should help establish the timeline of events, it adds more confusion to the case as the Police recorded their arrival 9mimutes later.
According to the police, an officer arrived on the scene at 7:46 pm. There was no one inside or around the car. The car was damaged from falling into the snowbank. The windshield was cracked and both airbags had deployed. Inside the vehicle there were red stains, which later turned out to be wine. There were also empty beer bottles. Notably Murray’s cell phone, debit and credit cards were missing.
Initially, NH State Police investigators believed Murray had hit a nearby tree. But accident reconstruction teams, determined later that Maura’s car never hit a tree and that the damage to her Saturn was probably caused by her hitting the snowbank.
As the police began investigating, they marked the case as a missing person case since there were no signs of foul play. This decision was heavily criticized by Murray’s family.
Ober the days, weeks, months and years, there has been an abundance of information coming in regarding what happened to Maura. However, nothing has proved to be definitive, and it seems like the more we learn, the more questions arise.
Before diving into the theories surrounding what happened, it’s important to explore who Maura was and what was happening in her life at the time.
Who Was Maura Murray?
Maura had achieved great success up until that point in her life. A star track Athlete, Maura was accepted to the United States Military Academy at West Point after high school. She attended West Point for three semesters, and believing it wasn’t a good fit, transferred to University of Massachusetts at Amherst.
Maura was well liked and came from an Irish Catholic family. She had a strong support network having three siblings and a boyfriend around the time of the disappearance.
Still, many question her state of mental health just prior to her disappearance.
Several months prior to her disappearance, Maura was arrested for using stolen credit cards for purchasing food.
While this in of itself, didn’t seem to indicate much, there is some evidence that something was going on with Maura.
Her relationship with her boyfriend is one thing that has been questioned, in particular were the two having trouble?
Perhaps the biggest question is why Maura, a successful young woman was running off in the first place.
This case has drawn incredible amounts of attention over the last two decades from the media, true crime fans and others.
Perhaps what makes this case so baffling though is the amount of information and strange facts surrounding it. Most importantly, it is our belief this case suffers from an incredible number of contradictory statements and unverified facts.
Theories on What Happened to Maura
Still, there are several general theories as to what happened that night though.
The first and most popular theory, is that Maura was abducted that night sometime between when she spoke with School bus driver and when police arrived.
It is our opinion, this was the most likely scenario. The situation could have played out like this. Maura, who was intoxicated, was terrified of the police coming and decided to start walking down the road. As she began walking, a car pulled up and someone, appearing friendly, offered to drive her somewhere. As Maura got in or as they drove away, at some time the person assaulted Maura, killing her and dumping the body.
While this scenario seems like the most likely, it should be noted there was an incredibly small window between when she crashed and when the police came.
To explain the tiny time window available, we believe this probably happened a different way. An intoxicated Maura was walking around her car after the wreck. She saw a police car coming and scared of getting a DUI, hid in the surrounding brush. After the police towed her car away, Maura came out from the woods and began walking down the road. At some point, the kidnapper drove by Maura and an unsuspecting Maura got in the Car.
Many might point out to the fact no footprints were found around the scene, but the police took days to seriously begin searching for Maura. It could also be the case that Maura went up a driveway or nearby trail after fleeing the wreck.
One other critique could be that she didn’t seem to clean up any of the alcohol bottles in the car. This is a good question, but perhaps Maura was caught off guard when the police came and didn’t think they would come so soon.
One other the question that has been asked is was someone following her? It’s definitely plausible, but we know Faith Westman who saw the wreck only spotted one car. Could the other car have been hovering back?
One theory is called the tandem theory, which states another car, someone Maura knew was following her car. This would help explain the small window of time that Maura disappeared. Still, there weren’t two cars at the scene, and Faith Westman nor the truck driver saw a second car.
Maura’s father Fred believes that a local was the kidnapper. This certainly makes sense and its very reasonable someone with intimate knowledge of the area might have been able to escape the scene using backroads.
Woman Buried Alive for Three days- and lived
There are other theories concerning Maura as well.
One is that she was pregnant and ran off willingly. Her internet history showed she was looking for condos in Vermont. Still, this theory doesn’t seem very likely as Maura has never contacted her family.
Some believe that Maura, a skilled runner, took off running in the woods and eventually succumbed to the elements. This theory seems thin though as multiple searches were conducted in the forest, albeit probably too late, and the body was never found. Cadaver dogs were brought in as well and if she had collapsed, they would have most likely found the corpse.
What happened to pilot Frederick Valentich?
One final theory is that Maura had met someone from Vermont and was going to visit them. In particular, she had met a new man and she decided to run off for a few days to spend time with him. There’s no testimony of anyone ever being told this, but it’s possible that she could have been cheating on her boyfriend. This is one of the less popular theories though and while it answers why she would have gone; it doesn’t answer what happened to her. Unless her mystery lover had come to pick her up and he assaulted her, there appear to still be foul play involved.
What happened to Brian Shaffer?
In the twenty years since Maura vanished it seems we have more questions than answers. However, it seems given the circumstances, Maura was most likely abducted. Intoxicated and fearing a DUI from the police, the intelligent woman probably made a terrible decision trusting an evil person.
