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[Denise]

http://www.unionlead...a5-9fa423208884

Family: No way Maura Murray killed herself

By NANCY WEST
New Hampshire Sunday News
Monday, Oct. 29, 2007

Whether Maura Murray came to northern New Hampshire Feb. 9, 2004, to end her life is an emotional question her family insists is impossible.

Her loved ones say it is far more likely she was abducted and killed that night after crashing her 1996 black Saturn into trees about 7:30 p.m., that they were simply all too close for Maura to have been secretly despondent to the point of considering taking her own life.

Authorities are calling Maura's disappearance a potential homicide, keeping most of the records closed in a criminal investigation file.

"A lot of things about the case are unique and troubling," said Senior Assistant Attorney General Jeffery Strelzin.

But, he cautioned, the puzzle simply hasn't been solved yet, so there is no way of knowing the truth about the fate of the 21-year-old nursing student from Hanson, Mass.

Maura's case has seemingly headed in several directions " from police leaning toward the theory that yet another drunk tourist abandoned a crashed car to avoid drunken driving charges that night to potential homicide.

Nothing has been ruled out for certain, including the theory that Maura has gone away to start a new life, although that seems the least likely.

Almost four years later, it is still a mystery, but the suicide theory has been hard for the people who love her to even think about.

Early on, her father, Fred Murray, briefly considered Maura may have committed suicide.

When police assembled the Murray and Rausch families to brief them on the investigation, Maura's father "moaned and rubbed his head and said, 'Oh, no,' " according to Sharon Rausch, the mother of Billy Rausch, Maura's then-boyfriend.

"I remember Fred said, 'I always have told the kids when I got old and worthless I was going to climb my favorite mountain with a bottle of Jack Daniels and drink myself to death.' That was emotional. He thought what if there was something he didn't know about," Rausch said.

She said authorities thought the alcohol and Tylenol PM Maura brought may have been indications she was going to kill herself. "That's what people do, they drink, take a bunch of pills and die peacefully," she said.

But Rausch doesn't believe that was Maura's plan. The Kahlua, vodka and Bailey's Irish Creme Maura reportedly brought with her would likely have been about a week's worth of the drinks Maura liked, Mudslides, Rausch said.

When visiting the Rausch family in Marengo, Ohio, Maura would add Bailey's to her coffee in the morning and drink Mike's Hard Lemonade with lunch, she said. Maura and Billy always had their stash of alcohol because Rausch doesn't drink, but she said Maura didn't drink excessively.

Could she have decided to disappear?

Could Maura Murray have simply decided to run away and begin a new life?

It is probably the least likely scenario police are considering, but something similar has happened recently in New Hampshire, although for a much briefer time.

Laura Mackenzie of Goffstown was an 18-year-old high school honor student when she sparked a nationwide search after disappearing March 8, 2006.

Mackenzie never spoke a word about her disappearance to friends of family members. In five months' time, she did not use her ATM card, her e-mail account or a cell phone.

Investigators followed leads that suggested Mackenzie might have traveled all the way to California.

She had run away to Florida to avoid facing a shoplifting charge.

She worked as a waitress until being discovered in St. Augustine Beach in August 2006. Mackenzie later reached a plea bargain and agreed to pay for her extradition to New Hampshire.

"I am very sorry for the pain, time and expense associated with the search to find me during the time I was gone," she said after pleading guilty to a shoplifting charge in Hillsborough County Superior Court.

Private get-away
She believes Maura left the University of Massachusetts without telling anyone why or where she was going to have a private getaway to think things over.

Rausch believes Maura had all her school books in the car to keep up with her school work while she decided whether to leave school and go to work to pay for the damage she had done to her father's car after crashing his new Toyota the previous weekend.

She said Billy was upset after arriving from Fort Sill, Okla., where he was stationed.

"Fred arrived in Haverhill early Wednesday. We arrived Wednesday around 7 p.m. They interviewed Billy. He was a prime suspect. He was totally distraught. I'll never forget the look on his face. He said 'I feel as dirty as Scott Peterson. They think I've got something to do with it.'" Rausch said.

Fred Murray recalls that meeting with police, but remembers talking about a movie he had seen in which an old Indian woman walks off to die when she felt she was too old to go on.

"I hadn't talked about suicide," Murray said. "No, I gave them the analogy of the old Indian woman off the bat," he said. "I remember discussing the old Indian ... It was a freaking nightmare. They just dropped the ball."

For the next two weeks, both families believed Maura was alive, that she had broken into a cabin because she was a survivor, was in excellent health and ran five miles a day, Rausch said.

Book lead
The book "Not Without Peril" subtitled "150 Years of Misadventure on the Presidential Range of New Hampshire" by Nicholas Howe was found in Maura's locked car. A gift from her father, the book chronicles tragedies and rescues in New Hampshire mountains.

Rausch said police told the family the book had a photo of Maura's younger brother as a "bookmark" at a chapter entitled "A Question of Life or Death."

But even that is a red herring, Rausch believes, because it was Maura's favorite and she often re-read it, having brought it once on a visit to the Rausch home.

"While it's all true stories about people hiking and either dying or surviving a snow storm, it's also a survivor's manual more than about suicide," Rausch said.

Rausch said Maura was planning to become a physician's assistant after nursing school. She recalled how her son loved Maura, coming home one day to say he found someone with beauty, brains and wit - and someone who could even outrun him.

Maura's father believes his daughter had too much going for her to commit suicide: a great boyfriend, future career and supportive family.

"Maura was such a personality. Everybody would seek her out. She was extremely popular, lively and fun," Murray said.

[Denise]

http://www.unionleader.com/article.aspx?headline=Dad+won't+give+up+on+the+search&articleId=ab655d19-5bd3-4430-b6d1-1627adea1e53

Dad won't give up on the search

By NANCY WEST
New Hampshire Union Leader
Tuesday, Oct. 30, 2007

Fred Murray of Weymouth, Mass., is a man on a sad mission.

Since his daughter, Maura Murray, 21, disappeared after crashing the 1996 black Saturn she was driving Feb. 9, 2004, in Haverhill, he has spent many weekends scouring northern New Hampshire for any hint of her fate.

"I think a dirt bag grabbed her. I said that right off the bat," Murray said.

A few weeks ago, he tracked down tips that Maura had been murdered and her body parts buried in a sand pit.

"It makes me pretty mad. This involves the same people who are my chief suspects and the cops say, 'We looked into that,' but I don't know what that means," Murray said.

Murray talks with people on the street, private investigators and psychics and goes to local bars to find any tidbit of information to lead him to a new search. Many have led nowhere -- like a stained knife someone turned over to Murray, and a search volunteer private investigators conducted of a vacant A-frame.

"That's been debunked," he said.

Murray has been to most surrounding towns on the prowl for "dirt bags" and "renowned dirt bags" in Littleton, Lisbon, Landaff, Bethlehem and Whitefield. He cruises rural roads, looking for turnoffs and secluded areas a killer might seek out.

Critical of police
Murray is critical of New Hampshire police, ridiculing state police Troop F as "F Troop bunglers." Murray is also blunt in his disdain for New Hampshire authorities and angry because he believes Maura would be alive if police had done their job properly.

A more thorough search on the dark, winter night she disappeared, leaving her car locked behind her and no solid clues to her whereabouts, may have meant the difference between life and death, he said.

Murray also heaped criticism on several newspapers, including the New Hampshire Union Leader, and accused them of conspiring to cover up mistakes he says were made by law enforcement.

But despite all of his suspects and tips, Murray is no closer to solving the case. That's why he wants access to police files.

"I don't know who grabbed her. All possibilities exist," he said.

He doesn't know why Maura left the University of Massachusetts in Amherst, Mass., without a word to anyone. He said the family spoke on the phone often and got together regularly on weekends; he and Maura especially liked to hike in the White Mountains.

"There must have been a series of nearly simultaneous things built up that bothered her, no one thing, maybe a handful of things taken together produced an effect of temporary desperation. I don't think there was one major thing, but a combination of events. It was so unlike her to do something like this," Murray said.

The fateful weekend
One thing that bothered Maura a lot was that she crashed Murray's new Toyota in Hadley, Mass., when her father was visiting her at school just 40 hours before she crashed the Saturn in Haverhill.

"On Sunday, she was hurting. She let dad down. I was over that by Sunday night in my phone call to her," Murray said.

Over the weekend, he had been helping Maura find a used car, because the 1996 Saturn was running so poorly. He was staying at a motel in Hadley, Mass., near the campus.

After dinner with her father and a friend at a local brewpub in Amherst, Mass., Maura dropped her father at the motel, took his new Toyota Corolla and partied in a dorm room.

Maura crashed his new Toyota into some guardrails Sunday, Feb. 8, 2004, at 3:30 a.m. on Route 9 in Hadley, causing about $10,000 damage. The accident report cited driver inattention.

After the crash, she got a ride from police to her father's motel.

"We handled the disposition of car repair. She was upset because she let her father down, in her view. My reaction is in 21 years, if this is the only trouble my kid caused me was a car accident, how lucky am I," Murray said.

Maura picked up the accident report forms from the Hadley crash and was going to go over them with her father the night she disappeared. Two copies were left behind in the Saturn.

"She was supposed to call me at 8 that night so I could help her go over them on the phone. She did pick up the accident reports. She had every intention of calling me," Murray said.

Murray doesn't believe his daughter could have been pregnant. "No, she was on birth control pills," he said.

And he doesn't think there were any big problems in her life.

Murray has re-filed his right-to-know appeal to the New Hampshire Supreme Court, after losing his first fight to get access to police files on his daughter's disappearance. No briefs have been filed yet, and that will likely take months.

Murray has also appealed to Gov. John Lynch and his predecessor, Craig Benson, for help.

When Maura disappeared, Murray reportedly worked in radiology in Bridgeport, Conn., but he refuses to say what he does now, although he did say he has held his current job for 2 1/2 years. He said he splits his time between Weymouth and Cape Cod, and doesn't tell coworkers Maura is missing.

"People feel it's an awkward situation. They feel they have to say something like good luck. It's easier on people and myself," Murray said.

Still, every morning when he wakes up, it takes about five seconds before Maura comes to mind.

"I wake up. I know I've got to go to work, but wham," Murray said.

Sharon Rausch, the mother of Billy Rausch, Maura's boyfriend at the time she disappeared, praised Murray's dedication in searching for Maura.

She said she hasn't been as active in the search this year because of family commitments at home in Marengo, Ohio.

"Fred, he is still up there searching. God love him, he's just hurting.

"We've always been here for him," Mrs. Rausch said.

FBI help
Murray wants the FBI to take over the investigation. The FBI conducted some interviews with Maura's friends early on, but nothing substantial, he said, adding authorities should invite them to participate now in the full investigation.

"We need an organization to take a fresh look with an unjaundiced eye," Murray said.

Murray enjoyed spending time with Billy Rausch, who was dating Maura in a long-distance relationship when she disappeared. Rausch, now a U.S. Army captain, has been serving in Iraq for a year and a half and just recently returned to the states. He was stationed in Oklahoma when Maura disappeared.

Rausch and Maura met at West Point before she transferred to UMass.

"I want the kid to be able to get on with the rest of his life without carrying this as an obligation," Murray said.

If by some chance Maura is alive, Murray would want to say to her: "Miss you, kid. Get back home. You're not in trouble. We'll pick up from where you are ... I want my buddy back.

"She was my buddy; we hung around together," Murray said. After his divorce, when Maura was six, he was determined to see his children every day when they were growing up.

Murray has many fine memories of runs and hikes with Maura, but one of the best was the autumn before she disappeared.

"We were concluding our collection of 4,000-footers. I was doing the last three I hadn't done." One day, they hiked to Owl's Head; the next day 23 miles on three 4,000-foot peaks.

"Then she whipped out of her knapsack for finishing my 48th, a Long Trail Ale, and handed it to me on the summit of West Bond.

" It was typical Maura," Murray said.

[Denise]

http://www.unionlead...ee-f78b264e9903

State police make appeal for information

By NANCY WEST
New Hampshire Union Leader
Tuesday, Oct. 30, 2007

State Police Lt. John Scarinza, commander at Troop F, said there have been extensive ground and air searches and thousands of hours dedicated to finding Maura Murray since her car crashed Feb. 9, 2004, on Route 112 in Haverhill.

"And yet we have not been able to determine what happened. What else can be done?

"Again, with deer season approaching, if anyone sees anything out of place -- a piece of clothing, anything they feel is important -- please let us know," Scarinza said.

Contact state police at 846-3333 with any information, he said.

Scarinza wants people to search their memories yet again for clues they may have missed, anything at all unusual on or near Route 112 that night.

"The other component we have encouraged over and over again is, if anybody thinks they saw Maura Murray or anybody on Route 112 -- or, more importantly, gave somebody a ride -- it would be extraordinarily helpful to us," he said. "Also, if anyone remembers picking up a hitchhiker. Maura doesn't have to be on 112."

Scarinza believes Maura had a destination in mind when she left the University of Massachusetts-Amherst about 4:30 p.m. the day she disappeared. She knew Route 112 because her family had often camped and hiked along there since she was a child.

"Clearly, she had a destination point, and we have not been able to determine what that is. It's fair to say if anyone has anything on that, we'd like to know," Scarinza said.

[Kelly]

Special series on Maura, which has been nominated for a journalism award:

http://www.southshor...=1&SectionID=32

[Denise]

http://www.boston.co...3/return_to_me/

Return to Me

Last year's dramatic rescue of Shawn Hornbeck and Ben Ownby proved that missing children - even those gone for years - can be found. But it also serves as a grim reminder that many parents wait years, decades, lifetimes without ever learning the fate of daughters and sons who vanish.

These are the families' websites for some of the missing children featured in this story:

Brianna Maitland: bringbrihome.org
Kimberly Moreau: findkim.com
Maura Murray: mauramurraymissing.com
Angelo "Andy" Puglisi: haveyouseenandy.com

On May 10, 1986, Kimberly Moreau and a neighbor girl were hanging out in the hardscrabble towns of Jay and Livermore Falls when they met two 25-year-old men cruising Main Street in a white Pontiac Trans Am. The four paired off and partied. Eventually, Kimberly and one of the men ended up in the car alone. At about 11 p.m., they swung by her house on Jewell Street in Jay. The teen ran in, told her 19-year-old sister, Karen, she'd be back in an hour, and then got into the car idling outside. She has not been seen or heard from since.

"This is Marilyn Monroe, this is D.B. Cooper, this is Jimmy Hoffa - I mean, for this area," says State Police Detective Mark Lopez, the lead case investigator.

Dick Moreau, 65, has spent two decades hounding the man in the Trans Am, who Lopez says is a "person of interest" in Kimberly's disappearance. "Any time I get the chance to rattle his cage," Moreau says, "I do it." The enraged father has plastered Kimberly fliers on telephone poles leading to the man's house, convinced him to have a three-hour chat at Moreau's kitchen table, talked him into taking a lie-detector test, and showed up at his brother's funeral last spring with Lopez. "I told him I was sorry for his loss of his brother," Moreau recounts. "Then I leaned into him, squeezed his hand, and said, 'I know exactly, exactly how you feel.'"

Families of children who have gone missing suffer through an unthinkable saga of fear, uncertainty, guilt, and grief. Often, they cope with their heartbreak by an almost obsessive need to know what happened, turning to private investigators, psychics, or prayer. Many investigate on their own, meeting with law-enforcement officials and other sources and scouring the Internet for clues. Starting next year, they and the rest of the public will be able to fully search the US Department of Justice's still-in-development National Missing and Unidentified Persons System, the first nationwide, online repository of databases of missing-persons reports and records of those who died without being identified. Some families of the missing reach out and console parents who have more recently lost children. Still others retreat into their pain.

It's been a year since the public was reminded of these families' torment when Shawn Hornbeck, then 15, and Ben Ownby, then 13, were rescued from the Missouri pizza-parlor manager who had kidnapped and sodomized them. Shawn had been held captive for four years; Ben, for four days. The older boy's recovery reignited the possibility that other coldcase missing children might be found alive. "It's proof positive that missing children can come home," says Colleen Nick of Alma, Arkansas, a national advocate for missing children whose 6-year-old daughter, Morgan Chauntel Nick, was abducted in 1995 from a Little League baseball game.

But until a child, or a child's remains, are found, searching families are left suspended "between hell and hope," says Magdalen Bish of West Warren, mother of 16-year-old murder victim Molly Bish, whose 2000 abduction from nearby Comins Pond galvanized one of the largest kidnapped-child manhunts in Massachusetts history. Molly's remains were found three years later, 5 miles from her home. (No arrests have been made.) "If you find out your child is dead," says Bish, 56, a first-grade teacher, "your hope is lost, but your hell has ended, because you don't have to worry that anyone is harming them."

The worst child predators are rare. Of the 797,500 children younger than 18 reported missing to authorities in 1999, the last year for which data are available, the vast majority were classified as runaways or "thrown-aways"; were victims of family abductions, typically carried out by parents who didn't have custody; or were only temporarily missing, with a benign explanation. Only an estimated 115 were the victims of what experts call "stereotypical" kidnappings, defined as crimes perpetrated by a stranger or slight acquaintance in which a child is transported 50 miles or more, detained overnight, held for ransom, taken with the intent of being kept permanently, or killed. Of those returned to their families, nearly half have been sexually abused and about a third injured by their captors. Four in 10 stereotypical kidnapping victims - predominantly white teenage girls - end up dead; 4 percent are never found. Last September, the FBI signaled how seriously it takes the risk posed by those who prey on children when it added New Hampshire pedophile Jon Savarino Schillaci to its Ten Most Wanted list, alongside Osama bin Laden and James "Whitey" Bulger.

WHEN THE NATIONAL MISSING AND UNIDENTIFIED PERSONS SYSTEM becomes fully available next year, families of missing children will have more clues at their fingertips. But already they troll websites like The Doe Network and others, picking through grisly case files of unidentified human remains found across the country, looking for a match. Kellie Maitland of DeKalb Junction, New York, has stared at the morgue photographs and forensic artists' renderings of Jane Does - grotesque, wax-museumlike figures with dead eyes - searching for the face of her missing daughter, Brianna Maitland. The bestcase but least likely scenario, she says, is that Brianna "ran off or fell in love with someone and made a split decision, took off to somewhere warm and exotic and is having a good time."

Brianna, then 17, was last seen at about 11:20 p.m. on March 19, 2004, leaving the Black Lantern Inn in Montgomery, Vermont, where she was a dishwasher. The next day, her Oldsmobile Delta 88 was found a mile away backed into the side of an abandoned house, the rear bumper hung up on the concrete foundation. There were no signs of a struggle and no sign of Brianna. "The police tell me that most likely this was a homicide," says Maitland, 47, who helps her husband, Bruce, run their small Highland-Angus cattle farm. "If Brianna's alive, she won't be a teenager anymore. She'll be, like, 21. What if she's been abused? What if she needs rehab? What if? What if?"

In the early days of the search, the mother - who speaks of Brianna in both the present tense and past tense - heard that a body in a garbage bag had been discovered near where her daughter had disappeared. "We tried to go bed that night," she recalls, "and we laid down and we held hands and we just hoped that it wasn't her. `Please, just don't let it be. Don't let it be.' " When morning came, the couple's prayers were answered: The remains were those of a pig.

The anguish of not knowing, and the search for answers, often takes parents of missing children on "horrendous emotional roller-coaster rides," says Nancy McBride, national safety director at the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children. "A lead will come in; it will look really, really promising and then turn out not to be. . . . You're up and you're down, there's really no steadiness. You're also in this limbo where you can't really move forward."

Brianna Maitland's father, Bruce, and Fred Murray of Weymouth, whose daughter is also missing, became friends as they searched for a possible connection between their cases, though police agencies have ruled that out. Maura Murray, a 21-year-old University of Massachusetts at Amherst nursing student, vanished after crashing her car into a snowbank in Woodsville, New Hampshire, near the Vermont border, the night of February 9, 2004 -the month before Brianna's disappearance. The fathers' newly forged bond is based not only on a mutual effort to find their daughters, but also an unspoken understanding: "We don't say, you know, 'Poor you. Poor you,' " Murray says. "Everybody's grief is personal. He knows how I feel; I know how he feels."

The National Center for Missing & Exploited Children has a support group for searching families, called Team HOPE, but many families, like those of Brianna Maitland and Maura Murray, create their own informal networks to console and assist one another through the overwhelming trauma. Bereft parents, siblings, even aunts and cousins call and e-mail one another with encouragement, link to other families' websites to publicize their cases, print and distribute missing-child fliers and buttons, participate in searches for one another's children, and send sympathy cards and flowers when a child's body is found.

LYMAN AND CLAIRE MOULTON OF Portland, Maine, have been keeping a private vigil for 37 years for the 16-year-old daughter they knew - and her alter ego, a 52-year-old woman they can't imagine - hoping against hope she's still alive. Their ordeal began the afternoon of September 24, 1971, when Cathy Marie Moulton got a ride into town from her father to buy pantyhose for the YWCA dance she planned to attend that night. She was supposed to walk the 2 miles back along busy Forest Avenue but never made it home for dinner. "One of my greatest - greatest, greatest - sadnesses is that I may die ... and never know what happened to Cathy," says her 83-year-old father, a retired auto dealer, his blue eyes turning moist. "And yet I'm helpless to change it."

Former Portland detective William Deetjen, who worked the case in the late 1980s, theorizes that, after shopping in Portland, Cathy accepted a ride in a Cadillac from a boy she liked. Weeks later, there were unconfirmed sightings of the pair and another male in remote, sparsely populated Aroostook County - about 300 miles north of Maine's largest city - but no solid evidence she had been there or had been abducted.

For years, her parents have been tormented by something one of the purported witnesses said: that Cathy, working in the potato fields, kept begging to go home. "I've always held out the hope that, maybe, somehow, she has amnesia as a result of a beating or something," says Claire Moulton, a 78-year-old former nurse, "and she is alive and has a life and doesn't know who she is."

Experts say families looking for lost children experience a unique kind of despair. "Parents are fearful about their child's uncertain fate and feel guilty for not adequately protecting the child," says Dr. Sharon Cooper, a Fayetteville, North Carolina, forensic pediatrician and authority on crimes against children. The ongoing absence is like a death, without a body to grieve over.

"It's like your worst, most horrible nightmare that you never wake up from," explains John Walsh, the host of the Fox television series America's Most Wanted and the father of 6-year-old Adam Walsh, snatched from a Florida shopping mall in 1981, killed, and decapitated. (The prime suspect was never charged and died in prison serving life for other crimes.) "And it's not just grief. It's disbelief.

"We celebrate Adam's life, not the horrible day that he was found missing," the 62-year-old Walsh says, "but we're only able to do that because we know where he is and what happened to him. . . . I can name thousands of cases where parents have no idea what happened to their child. Dead, alive? Is the child involved in the sex trade? Child pornography? Where is the child? How were they murdered? Where is the body, so we can go and pay our respects to it?"

MANY PARENTS OF MISSING CHILDREN devise "one view of the future that includes the missing child and another future that does not," says Cooper. They can vacillate back and forth, or they can hold dual perceptions forever. Often, though, when the missing child reaches theoretical adulthood, that coping mechanism collapses. "If the missing child has now become an adult in the parent's mind, if they are still alive . . . the parent is expecting the child to now be able to make the decision that they'll come back home." If the child does not return, she says, the parents must confront four possible reasons: The child is dead; has forgotten the parents (credible for children kidnapped at age 6 or younger); is angry at the parents for not protecting or finding him or her; or is physically restricted or confined.

It took Faith Puglisi of Fountain, Colorado, 30 years to come to the conclusion that her missing son most likely was murdered. Ten-year-old Angelo "Andy" Puglisi disappeared August 21, 1976, from Higgins Memorial Pool in Lawrence, about 100 yards from his front door. Several investigators and family members interviewed for last year's Cinemax documentary Have You Seen Andy? by Medford filmmaker Melanie Perkins are convinced he was stalked and abducted by a sexual predator or predators working in concert. (The case remains unsolved.) "Every now and then, I go into that room that is Andy's room in my heart, where I keep all the information and all the emotions about him," says Puglisi, a 58-year-old pediatric nurse who says she copes by compartmentalizing. "When that door pops open - and I'm starting to connect with all this emotion - there's always that risk I'm going to lose it. A lot of times, I have to slam that door shut."

Some parents never accept the possibility that their longtime missing child is dead. Experts says that's because, psychologically, they have spent years keeping the child alive in their minds, and in everyone else's memory, and by suddenly choosing to believe that the child is deceased - without irrefutable proof - parents feel as though they have killed the child in their thought processes.

"We have a nine-room house here that the children grew up in," Lyman Moulton says, mentioning he and Claire have talked about abandoning their Dutch Colonial for smaller quarters, "but the truth of the matter is, Cathy lived in this house. The truth of the matter is, she knows, or hopefully would know, where this house is." Wringing his hands, he adds: "We've kept the same phone number. I would fight to the end of time to keep this phone number. . . . You could say, 'Oh, my Lord!' but what else have we got?"

Families of cold-case missing children go on missing them - long after the press and public have lost interest - and, in the end, only finding the child or the child's remains can put to rest their searching and waiting.

"You never get to say goodbye, you know," says Magdalen Bish, mother of the Massachusetts girl whose remains were found. "When Molly came home, we just had her 26 bones. We held her skull. We touched her bones, because we needed to say goodbye, but it wasn't the Molly that we knew."

For Dick Moreau, even a fragment of one of the 206 bones in the human body would be enough. Slowly, agonizingly, Moreau had come to the conclusion that his daughter was dead, and he had a death certificate issued in 1993. Now he'd like to bury Kimberly next to her paternal grandparents and her mother. (Kimberly's mother, Patricia Moreau, died at age 48 in 1988.) "All they're looking for now is the major bones of the body, like the elbow, the knee, the hip joint, these kinds of things," Moreau says clinically, having learned over the years about decomposition rates. "We're probably looking for a piece of bone that's 3 by 3 inches - if we're lucky. But that's all we need. It's still her."

[Denise]

http://ledger.southo...news/news11.txt

‘Sense of loss always there’; Weymouth father of missing woman will again comb New Hampshire woods where his daughter disappeared four years ago

HANSON - Fred Murray will be up in New Hampshire this Saturday, making a trip that any parent would dread.

Murray, of Weymouth, is looking for his daughter, Maura, who was 21 on Feb. 9, 2004, the night her car skidded off Route 112 in Haverhill, N.H. It was the last reported sighting of the young woman.

‘‘I want to think she is still alive. I have to think that,’’ Murray said of his daughter. ‘‘Until I know otherwise, I have to think that.’’

Maura Murray, a Hanson native and University of Massachusetts student, apparently struck a snowbank and some trees with her car that night four years ago.

Police have long treated her disappearance as a missing person case, while family members have been steadfast in their belief that Maura was the victim of foul play.

Fred Murray and Maura’s mother, Laurie Murray of Hanson, both said that there are no new leads in the case.

‘‘Four years, and not a trace of her. No clue,’’ Laurie Murray said.

Maura Murray left her dormitory at the UMass-Amherst campus on Feb. 9 and drove to New Hampshire for reasons that are still unclear.

By the time police arrived at the accident scene, there was no trace of her. One witness said that he had seen her, but only for a moment.

Fred Murray is still trying to get the New Hampshire State Police to release their records in the case.

‘‘One, in particular, is the report of the State Police officer who was at the crash scene that evening,’’ Murray said. ‘‘He was riding around that area, and there is no accounting for what he saw, what he didn’t see, or where he went.’’

Murray said it is important for him to see that report ‘‘because we are trying to recreate the timeline,’’ of what may have happened to Maura that night.

Murray added that he would still like the FBI to get involved in the case, ‘‘because I want someone to get a fresh look at it.’’ But that agency won’t join the investigation, he said, unless the New Hampshire authorities ask them to.

‘‘The FBI offered to come in, but they were rebuffed,’’ Murray said.

Attempts to reach New Hampshire State Police Lt. John Scarinza, the investigator in charge of the case, were unsuccessful.

Laurie Murray said that her daughter’s disappearance ‘‘is still painful. It is mental torture, every day.’’

She is convinced Maura was abducted. ‘‘That is my personal feeling. And I do believe she is alive - and I do believe that she will come home.’’

Fred Murray said the pain of wondering about a missing child is constant.

‘‘The sense of loss is always there, always with you,’’ he said. ‘‘When you wake up in the morning, within 10 seconds you are aware of it.’’

So he will drive around Haverhill, N.H., today and once again head into the woods to look for any signs of Maura.

‘‘When I come out of the woods and I have not found anything, there is a sense of relief,’’ Murray said. ‘‘It keeps alive that slim flicker. I don’t want to find her dead.’’

[Denise]

Maura's 26th birthday was on May 4, 2008.  Happy Birthday, Maura!

[Kelly]

From the Family:

http://abcnews.go.co...ndex?id=5567146

ABC 20/20 promo for programming on Maura to air Friday, August 15, 2008.  Brooke Wilberger will also be featured. 


If you have information, please contact:
Trooper Russell Hubbard - Troop F
(603) 846-3333

[Lori Davis]

http://abcnews.go.co...=5578937&page=1

Vanished: Two Coeds, Two Horrifying Mysteries
What Happened to Brooke Wilberger and Maura Murray?
By DONNA HUNTER
Aug. 14, 2008 

Four years after the disappearance of two young coeds, their families are still searching for answers. Where are their daughters? Who took them?

The family of a missing Oregon teen face the reality that she may not come home.The families of Brooke Wilberger and Maura Murray have forged an unlikely bond since the college students vanished within three months of each other in 2004.

Now police are targeting a convicted sex offender in Wilberger's disappearance, but there is not yet a suspect in Murray's case.

For more information on the latest developments in the cases, watch the story tonight on "20/20" at 10 p.m. ET

The two women were just starting their adult lives in early 2004. But too often for young people, particularly young women, that newfound independence is coupled with dangerous vulnerability.

Figures gathered by the FBI say there are more than 21,500 active missing person cases involving people between the ages of 18 and 29. Wilberger and Murray are now included in that tragic statistic. Their stories powerfully illustrate how communities can rally, and how families' faith and hope get tested when a loved one has vanished.

Their stories are similar in many ways. Both were smart, beautiful young women with loving friends and family. They were active in their communities. They had boyfriends who adored them. They were on the verge of very bright futures. Then they disappeared.

The story of Wilberger's disappearance begins on the afternoon of May 24, 2004. The 19-year-old Brigham Young University student was home in Oregon visiting her family, and helping out her sister and brother-in-law at an apartment complex they manage in the town of Corvallis.

Corvallis is a picturesque Oregon city of about 54,000 people. It's a place most people would consider ideal for raising a family. But even idyllic places can be visited by crime.

"The city of Corvallis is really safe, but we're also in the real world," said Lt. Ron Noble of the Corvallis Police Department.

Wilberger was in the parking lot of the complex cleaning lampposts. When she didn't show up for lunch, her sister, Stephani Hansen, began to worry.

Wilberger's car keys and purse were in their apartment. Her car was in the lot. Her flip-flops were found, but she was gone.

"I got very nervous ... we had exhausted every possibility, we had searched all the apartments that she could possibly be working in. We looked everywhere. Then we called the police," her sister recalled.

Noble remembers receiving the call about the case. "Normally, we would wait. Because adults can come and go as they please and we would normally wait to see if she showed up maybe the next day," he said. But police officials agreed with Wilberger's sister, they sensed Brooke was not the sort of young woman to disappear on her own.

"It was amazing to us that they acted that fast, and I think one of the reasons was when they immediately did a quick check, [they saw] Brooke was a great kid," said her mom, Cammy Wilberger.

As their search began, police eliminated one usual suspect in similar cases -- the boyfriend.

The man in Brooke's life, Justin Blake, who had dated Wilberger since high school, was doing Mormon missionary work in Venezuela. Marriage was on the horizon for the couple, he said.

Story continued at http://abcnews.go.co...=5578937&page=1

[Jenn]

New Project Jason printable poster for Maura:

http://www.projectja...MauraMurray.pdf

[Kelly]

AAN Notification sent. Code 22

[Jenn]

http://www.cnn.com/2...oldcase.murray/

updated 12:08 p.m. EST, Wed November 26, 2008

Student wrecks car on snowy road, disappears

NEW YORK (CNN) -- Every weekend for more than four years, Fred Murray has walked the road where his daughter, Maura, vanished. Family, friends and volunteers help him look in the woods and mountains near Haverhill, New Hampshire, for clues to what happened to her.
Maura Murray, 21, disappeared while driving in the New Hampshire woods on a snowy night in 2004.

Maura Murray, a 21-year-old nursing student at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, disappeared on a cold and snowy night in February 2004. She was last known to be driving from Massachusetts through New Hampshire. It is still unclear where she was heading in her black 1996 Saturn.

The car was found abandoned, its front end crashed against a tree. It apparently had skidded off a road at a sharp curve.

Shortly after the accident, a passing bus driver stopped and asked Murray if she needed help. She said no.

Ten minutes later, police arrived. Inside the crumpled Saturn, they found some of Murray's belongings -- school books, running gear, snack foods and alcohol -- police won't say what kind. But Murray was gone, along with her car keys and a backpack she always carried.

There was nothing to hint she'd be motivated to run away, according to her fiancé, William Rausch, and her father, Fred Murray.

Maura Murray had just gotten engaged to Rausch, her college sweetheart and an Army lieutenant stationed in Oklahoma. They planned to marry after she graduated from nursing school in June 2005. She'd found a summer nursing job in Oklahoma. She had everything to look forward to.

"She was in good spirits and had no worries or reason to run away from her life," Fred Murray said.

Investigators initially operated under the theory that the dean's list student was troubled and had decided to escape from the demands of her life for a while. As a result, they did not immediately begin to look for her.

The search did not begin until 39 hours after her crashed car was found. When it finally got under way, helicopters, search dogs and ground teams covered the area near where Murray's car was found.

The dogs picked up her scent for about 100 yards, leading investigators along the road to an area between two homes. There, the dogs lost the trail.

Murray's credit cards and cell phone have not registered any activity since the night she disappeared, February 9, 2004.

Tom Shamshak, a private investigator hired by the Murray family to continue the search, said police and volunteers looked for her for two days.

"No footprints were even found in the snow," he said. "Luckily there hadn't been any fresh snowfall in those two days."

Shamshak has concluded that only two scenarios could explain what happened to Murray. Either she was picked up by someone driving on the road, or she walked to a nearby house to ask for help.

Police say they did not treat Murray's case as an abduction because they saw no signs of a struggle at the scene.

Before she left campus, police learned, Murray had e-mailed her professors and informed them she'd be absent for a few days because of a death in the family. Murray's family and friends said no one in the family had died.

Police also noted that Murray had enough food and other items in her car to suggest she might be taking a short getaway vacation.

Murray is described as 5 feet 7 inches tall, 120 pounds, with brown hair and blue-green eyes. She was last seen wearing a dark coat and jeans and carrying a black backpack and Samsung cell phone.

A $40,000 reward is being offered for any information leading to her whereabouts or the arrest of the person responsible for her disappearance. The tip line is 603-271-2663, New Hampshire State Police.

[Kelly]

AAN Annual Poster Notify Sent to AAN Subscribers  Code 34

Help us find the missing: Become an AAN Member
http://www.projectja.../awareness.html

[Kelly]

http://news.bostonhe...home&position=5

After 5 years, few leads on missing Mass student

By Associated Press
Sunday, February 8, 2009 - Updated 1d 10h ago

CONCORD, N.H. — It’s been five years since 21-year-old nursing student Maura Murray vanished from the scene of a car crash in Haverhill, and investigators say they still don’t know what happened to her that night.

Murray packed up her school books and drove to northern New Hampshire on Feb. 9, 2004, eventually heading east on Route 112, a rural road that cuts through the White Mountain National Forest. She had told her friends and professors at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst that she would miss a week of class because of a death in the family, but her family has said that wasn’t true. Around 7 p.m., police received reports of a crash along the desolate road. When they arrived three to four minutes later, they found her car with minor damage, but Murray was nowhere to be found.

"I’m totally befuddled," said John Healy, president of the New Hampshire League of Investigators, a group of private investigators who’s been volunteering on the case for four years.

"The thing that is really, really tough for us, and it’s got to be tough for the state police, is the time frame. Literally, this was in a blink of an eye," said Healy. "Did a car stop? Did she walk away? We just don’t know that."

The mystery has been especially hard on Murray’s family. Her father, Fred Murray, has been pushing the New Hampshire State Police and the attorney general’s office for answers, but because the case is still under investigation, they have revealed little about what they’ve found.

"She was just 200 yards down the road when (police) got there, two minutes worth," he said. "All they had to do is go grab her and they didn’t. If they did, she’d be here with me now."

Murray has been critical of state investigators because he believes they didn’t look for Maura quickly enough and were slow to follow up on leads. They aren’t telling him what they’re doing, he said, or if any progress has been made.

Senior Assistant Attorney General Jeffery Strelzin says the case is still open and active.

"There’s been a lot of activity behind the scenes and the state police have put in hundreds of hundreds, if not thousands, of hours on the case, but unfortunately we don’t have the answers yet," said Strelzin.

Healy, a former state police lieutenant, said investigators have not shelved the case.

"Trust me, these people are working their tails off," he said.

But Murray is frustrated after years of battling with investigators. He believes if he knew what they knew, he could put together a timeline of the night and, he hopes, a clearer picture of what happened.

"I want to put it together again from the beginning, but I don’t want one arm tied behind my back," said Murray. "I want the public to know that the police have been asked, ’What did your guys do?’ and they won’t say."

Strelzin said police believe Maura Murray could have essentially run away and is living elsewhere, a scenario her family does not buy. Murray could have also been injured in the accident, wandered off into the woods and died of exposure or ran into someone who harmed her.

"I’m 100 percent certain that it’s foul play. She was supposed to call me that night. She would have if she could have, but she couldn’t," said Murray. "It’s a question of who."

Healy said his crew of volunteer investigators has found some possible evidence over the years, such as a human scent picked up by search dogs, but he’s uncertain if it ever led to anything.

Although he continues to occasionally examine the area where Maura Murray disappeared, Healy thinks the best bet police have in solving the case is if someone new comes forward.

"One thing that I’ve learned is that very few people commit a crime ... without telling somebody about it somewhere," said Healy. "Human beings need to talk."

[Kelly]

http://www.fox44.net...9&nav=menu660_1

Brandon Hudson

NH Residents Move On From Murray Case

Posted: Feb 9, 2009 08:50 PM CST

It's been five years since Maura Murray's disappearance and people still don't know what happened.

In 2004, investigators say Murray was driving east on Route 112 when she crashed into a tree in Haverill, New Hampshire. When police when to check out the wreck, she was gone.

Now the site, where she was last seen, is marked with a dark blue ribbon and her picture to keep her memory strong.

People living in the area say the case isn't talked about much anymore, but they have a solution as to what they think happened.

"There's so many stories about it," Lyme resident Mike Whitcomb said. "My personal opinion is her and her father didn't get along and she wanted to be out of town."

Whitcomb said folks are trying to put the case behind them.

"I think people are looking to move on right now," Whitcomb said.

Authorities say the case is still open. They aren't saying what happened but hope someone new will provide information.

[Denise]

http://www.boston.co...strates_family/

Five years later, case frustrates family

Associated Press / February 8, 2009

CONCORD, N.H. - It's been five years since 21-year-old nursing student Maura Murray vanished from the scene of a car crash in Haverhill, N.H., and investigators say they still don't know what happened to the Massachusetts woman that night.

Murray packed up her school books and drove to northern New Hampshire on Feb. 9, 2004, eventually heading east on Route 112, a rural road that cuts through the White Mountain National Forest. She had told her friends and professors at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst that she would miss a week of class because of a death in the family, but relatives have said that wasn't true.

About 7 p.m., police received reports of a crash along the desolate road. When they arrived three to four minutes later, they found the Hanson woman's car with minor damage, but Murray was nowhere to be found.

"I'm totally befuddled," said John Healy, president of the New Hampshire League of Investigators, a group of private investigators volunteering on the case for four years.

"The thing that is really, really tough for us, and it's got to be tough for the State Police, is the time frame. Literally, this was in a blink of an eye," said Healy. "Did a car stop? Did she walk away? We just don't know that."

The mystery has been especially hard on Murray's family. Her father, Fred, has been pushing the New Hampshire State Police and the attorney general's office for answers, but because the case is still under investigation, they have revealed little about what they've found.

"She was just 200 yards down the road when [police] got there, two minutes worth," he said. "All they had to do is go grab her and they didn't. If they did, she'd be here with me now."

Fred Murray has been critical of state investigators because he believes they didn't look for his daughter quickly enough and were slow to follow up on leads. They aren't telling him what they're doing, he said, or if any progress has been made.

Senior Assistant Attorney General Jeffery Strelzin says the case is still open and active.

Healy, a former State Police lieutenant, said investigators have not shelved the case.

"Trust me, these people are working their tails off," he said.

But Murray is frustrated after years of battling with investigators. He believes if he knew what they knew, he could put together a timeline of the night and, he hopes, a clearer picture of what happened.

"I want to put it together again from the beginning, but I don't want one arm tied behind my back," said Murray. "I want the public to know that the police have been asked, 'What did your guys do?' and they won't say."

[Lori Davis]

https://findthemissing.org/cases/54
NamUs profile for Maura Murray

[Kelly]

Some case documentation and files:
http://www.whitmanha...=blog&Itemid=83

[Kelly]

http://investigation...aura-murry.html

Disappeared Sneak Peeks: Maura Murray

Maura Murray goes missing after her car swerves off a dark and windy road over 140 miles away from her dorm. Years later, her family refuses to give up their seach. Don't miss this episode premiere on February 8 at 10 PM e/p!

[Lori Davis]

http://www.amherstbu...tory/id/164937/

Network highlights mysterious case of Maura Murray

By Kristin Palpini
Staff Writer
Published on February 05, 2010

University of Massachusetts student Maura Murray's disappearance along Route 112 six years ago will be the subject of an Investigation Discovery television program set to air Monday night.

Murray, then a 21-year-old UMass honors student and athlete studying for her nursing degree, went missing Feb. 9, 2004, after her car swerved off a windy road in Haverhill, N.H., 140 miles from her Amherst dorm.

She was never found, and an investigation by the New Hampshire State Police remains open. Her family has hired private investigators to find Murray and, in an attempt to aid the private search, fought with state officials to release more information surrounding the police investigation.

Murray's story will be featured in an episode of "Disappeared," a program that features missing person cases, on the Investigation Discovery channel Feb. 8 at 10 p.m. The show focuses on Murray's last known whereabouts and actions just prior to her vanishing. Filming was done on the UMass campus and the surrounding area for the episode.

Series executive producer Elizabeth Fischer, of NBC's Peacock Productions, said "Disappeared" was drawn to Murray's story by the compelling mystery it presents and the conviction of her family, which is still searching for her.

"How could a young woman be at the site of a car crash one moment and simply vanish the next?" Fischer said. "We were also moved by the devotion her family and friends showed right after she disappeared and still to this day. Her father, in particular, has been through so much. The way he expresses his despair is so relatable for any parent watching."

Murray, a Hanson native, disappeared after crashing into a snowbank at around 7 p.m. near the Vermont border. A witness offered help, but Murray refused it and told the witness not to call 911, according to investigators cited in Gazette articles. The witness called anyway, but by the time police arrived, Murray was gone along with her cell phone and credit cards. Many other personal items were still in the locked vehicle, according to "Disappeared" producers.

Earlier that day, she had emailed professors saying she wouldn't be in class all week because of a family problem, Gazette articles said. She withdrew $280 from an ATM and headed north to the White Mountains where her family had regularly vacationed.

In the days following Murray's disappearanc,e a police dog tracked her scent for 100 yards before losing it. A police helicopter search also turned up no evidence. Her boyfriend received strange telephone messages he thought were from Murray.

According to "Disappeared" producers there were several potential sightings of Murray shortly after her vanishing. Moments after and nearby the crash site, a local resident said he saw a young person run onto a dirt road and another person claimed to have seen Murray at a store in Hillsboro, N.H., with an older man. She was silently mouthing the words, "Help me," the person said.

[Kelly]

AAN Poster Notify Sent to AAN Subscribers  Code 64

Help us find the missing: Become an AAN Member and receive notifications about missing persons via email.

Click here to become a part of the solution: http://www.projectja...awareness.shtml

[Jenn]

NamUs Profile for Maura: https://www.findthem...ng.org/cases/54

[Lori Davis]

http://www.wcax.com/....asp?S=13193816

Missing man's sister on kidnapped woman: 'You feel so bad'
September 21, 2010
Jack Thurston - WCAX News

It's been 10 days since a Northeast Kingdom woman was reported missing, and still no sign of her. Police say they believe Pat O'Hagan, 78, was abducted from her home.

Tuesday, Vermont State Police refused to answer whether they are terming the case of the popular Sheffield grandmother a "search" or a "recovery effort" at this point. But the O'Hagan mystery has the family of another missing person wondering if they will ever find closure themselves. "I just can't close that door," Amy Currier said.

Currier is optimistic her brother may still walk back into her life. "It's like a piece of you is missing. You'll never be whole again until you find out what happened," she said.

Donnie Messier was last seen in October 2006 leaving a party in Waitsfield. Police said he may have been suicidal; he had just been through a breakup. But Currier remembers he was laughing again and getting back to his old self. "It's just so out of character for him to be out of touch with his family," Currier said.

Now the search for kidnapped Sheffield grandmother Pat O'Hagan is opening old wounds for Amy Currier. "It brings back a lot of the memories, and you feel so bad for that family," Currier said.

Currier has found comfort online; setting up Facebook and MySpace pages for Donnie Messier, hoping they may inspire new tips in the case. "When we're having a sad day we can go and look through the pictures," she said.

The web has also created a club no one wants to be a member of: connecting Currier to loved ones of other people who disappeared in our region, including Brianna Maitland, the 17-year-old whose abandoned car in Montgomery led police to believe she's a crime victim, and Massachusetts nursing student Maura Murray, who vanished after a minor car crash in Woodsville, N.H.

"A number of people tell you they're sorry and they feel your loss, but I don't think you can truly understand it until you've lived it," Currier said.

Pat O'Hagan's large family has said they're leaning on each other for support and turning to their faith. "I'm sure she knows the people who love her and her parish family are praying for her; that she's not alone in this," said Father Pat Forman of St. Elizabeth Catholic Church.

"Father Pat was over last night. He had a good relationship with my mom, so we said a few prayers, and had a few chuckles. We needed it," said Matt O'Hagan, the missing woman's son.

Amy Currier hopes the O'Hagans don't go as long without their mom as she has without her brother. "You know what they're going through: the not knowing, the what-ifs, the kicking yourself in the rear for not calling sooner, or 'Why didn't I notice this?' 'Maybe If I'd have gone and done this differently.' It's just all the what-ifs and questions that are up in the air. It's hard to get past," she said.

Currier wants Vermonters to check out the state's missing persons page and call police with tips, no matter how small they seem, for her case, the O'Hagan investigation, or any mystery on the site.

As for Pat O'Hagan, state police say they are not entertaining any more questions from reporters at this point and will reach out to news organizations when they have something substantial to pass along. Vermont State Police are offering a $5,000 cash reward for significant information in the case. They're asking the public to call them with tips at the barracks in St. Johnsbury at 802-748-3111 or the State Police Crime Information Tip Line at 802-241-5355.