NH MAURA MURRAY: Missing from Haverhill, NH - 9 Feb 2004 - Age 21

3620DFNH - Maura Murray
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Name: Maura Murray
Case Classification: Endangered Missing
Missing Since: February 9, 2004
Location Last Seen: Haverhill, Hampshire County, New Hampshire

Physical Description
Date of Birth: May 4, 1982
Age: 21 years old
Race: White
Gender: Female
Height: 5'7"
Weight: 120 lbs
Hair Color: Brown, medium length, frequent ponytail, no bangs
Eye Color: Blue/green
Distinguishing Marks/Features: Dimples in both cheeks; scar on right calf

Identifiers
Dentals: Available
Fingerprints: Unavailable
DNA: Available

Clothing & Personal Items
Clothing: Possibly wearing a dark colored coat and jeans.
Jewelry: Unknown
Additional Personal Items: Black backpack, Samsung/Sprint Cell phone, wallet.

Circumstances of Disappearance
Some time after 7:00 pm, a Woodsville, New Hampshire, resident heard a loud thump outside of her house. Through her window she could see a car up against the snowbank along Route 112, also known as Wild Ammonoosuc Road. The car pointed west on the eastbound side of the road. She telephoned the Grafton County Sheriff's Department at 7:27 pm to report the accident. At about the same time another neighbor saw the car as well as someone walking around the vehicle. She witnessed a third neighbor pull up alongside the vehicle. That neighbor, a school bus driver returning home, noticed the young woman was not bleeding but cold and shivering. He offered to telephone for help. She asked him not to call the police (one police report says "pleaded") and assured him she'd already called AAA. (AAA has no record of any such call.)

Knowing there was no cell phone reception in the area, the bus driver continued home and phoned the police. His call was received by the Sheriff's Department at 7:43 pm. He was unable to see Maura's car while he made the phone call but did notice several cars pass on the road before the police arrived. At 7:46 pm, a Haverhill police officer arrived at the scene. No one was inside or around the car. The car's windshield was cracked on the driver's side and both airbags had deployed. The car was locked. Inside and outside the car he discovered red stains that looked to be red wine. The officer found a damaged box of Franzia wine on the rear seat.

In addition, he found a AAA card issued to Maura Murray, blank crash report forms, gloves, compact discs, makeup, two sets of MapQuest driving directions (one to Burlington, Vermont, another to Stowe, Vermont), Maura's favorite stuffed animal, and Not Without Peril, a book about mountain climbing in the White Mountains. Missing were Maura's debit card, credit cards, and cell phone, none of which have been located or used since her disappearance.

At 8:00 to 8:30 pm, a contractor returning home from Franconia saw a young person moving quickly on foot eastbound on Route 112 about 4 to 5 miles (6 to 8 km) east of where Maura's vehicle was discovered. He noted that the young person was wearing jeans, a dark coat, and a light-colored hood. He didn't report it to police immediately due to his own confusion of dates, only discovering three months later (when reviewing his work records) that he'd spotted the young person the same night Maura disappeared.

Just before 8:00 pm, EMS and a fire truck arrived to clear the scene. By 8:49 pm, the car had been towed to a local garage. At about 9:30 pm, the responding officer left. A rag believed to have been part of Maura's emergency roadside kit was discovered stuffed into the Saturn's muffler pipe. Authorities would only refer to Maura as missing the next day, almost twenty-four hours after she was last seen.

Investigating Agency(s)
Agency Name: New Hampshire Cold Case Unit
Agency Contact Person: coldcaseunit@dos.nh.gov
Agency Phone Number: 603-271-2663 or 603-271-1255
Agency E-Mail: coldcaseunit@dos.nh.gov
Agency Case Number: 04-41-OF

NCIC Case Number: M-883793945
NamUs Case Number: 54

Information Source(s)
NamUs
Wikipedia

 
Last edited by a moderator:

Updated: 11:16 PM EST Feb 9, 2023
Arielle Mitropoulos

HAVERHILL, N.H. —
Family and friends gathered for a vigil Thursday night to remember Maura Murray 19 years after she disappeared in New Hampshire.

Murray was a star athlete who was studying to become a nurse at UMass-Amherst when she crashed her car into a snowbank in Haverhill on Feb. 9, 2004.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Video at link. ~Summer
 

Jessica Trufant
The Patriot Ledger
June 1, 2023

  • Maura Murray, then 21, went missing after leaving her dorm at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst and crashing her car in New Hampshire in 2004.
  • Her family is continuing to keep her memory alive with a new scholarship for a graduating Whitman-Hanson Regional High School senior who competes in cross country.
 

Families organize rally to demand action from New Hampshire AG on old homicide, missing cases​

People brought together by killed or missing loved ones are joining forces to demand more communication, compassion and action from the New Hampshire justice system.

On Tuesday, families, survivors and supporters will rally outside the attorney general's office at 38 School Street from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m.

Maura Murray vanished in 2004 after crashing her car in a snowbank in Haverhill.

Nineteen years later, her family refuses to quit looking for answers.

"Independently, as a family, we are chasing down leads all the time," her sister, Julie Murray, said. "We're doing our own search efforts and feeding information to the investigators."


The New Hampshire Department of Justice website lists 130 unsolved missing and murdered cases dating back to the 1970s. Some families are now teaming up in the hope that their combined voices will be louder and their pleas more powerful to demand change from a system they call dismissive and even disrespectful.
 

Jessica Trufant
The Patriot Ledger
February 2, 2024

Maura Murray’s relatives know that on Feb. 9, 2004, she packed up, took money out of her bank account and left the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, heading north in her car.

They know the 21-year-old Hanson native made it at least as far as Haverhill, New Hampshire, a mountainside community near the Vermont border. Several local residents reported seeing her along a sharp turn on Route 112 after her car had gone off the road. At least one of those people called 911.

And they know that a police officer responded to the scene but said Murray was nowhere to be found.

For 20 years, the family has been left with more questions than answers of what happened to Maura Murray, a 2000 graduate of Whitman-Hanson High School.

Julie Murray, Maura's sister, said it feels "surreal" that 20 years have already passed.

"It's so fresh and it feels like it happened just yesterday, but when I take a step back, it has been two decades," she said. "The worst part is the ambiguity and having the heartache every single day for two decades. We don't have answers, and we don't have Maura."

Julie said the "general consensus" within her family is that her sister was met with foul play since there have been no credible sightings of her in 20 years, and none of her belongings or remains have ever been located.

"If she wandered into the woods, where are her belongings or her body?" Murray said. "She was met with foul play and is most likely no longer with us, and that's the worst possible outcome for Maura and my family, and we have to live in that reality and with ambiguity."
 
Years ago, I read a book written by someone who became obsessed with this case after following it at Jonestown. I don't remember the title or author, I had borrowed it from the library.

The author laid out a case, based on their own investigation, that MM was alive, well, and living in Quebec with a cute new boyfriend and that many people there had recognized her. The author apparently had even travelled to Quebec in hopes of randomly running into Maura at a grocery store, coffee shop, or wherever.

I am taking the book with very large grains of salt, if not the entire salt canister and salt shaker.
 
Years ago, I read a book written by someone who became obsessed with this case after following it at Jonestown. I don't remember the title or author, I had borrowed it from the library.

The author laid out a case, based on their own investigation, that MM was alive, well, and living in Quebec with a cute new boyfriend and that many people there had recognized her. The author apparently had even travelled to Quebec in hopes of randomly running into Maura at a grocery store, coffee shop, or wherever.

I am taking the book with very large grains of salt, if not the entire salt canister and salt shaker.
That would sure be nice to believe and I guess possible if she had a really laid out plan that would stymie LE and family and all.

I tend to believe someone there, that saw her, stopped to help, etc. I think I know who i wonder about but I'd have to look back to be sure. Of course it's anyone's guess so I feel for her family. There's basically absolutely nothing found or provided by LE to rule in, or rule out, anything.

But you know, she did take out money and head out and who knows. The author's thought may not be off base but it wouldn't say much for LE that they haven't after all of these years found her if that's the case.

TWENTY years. She'd be 41.
 
That would sure be nice to believe and I guess possible if she had a really laid out plan that would stymie LE and family and all.

I tend to believe someone there, that saw her, stopped to help, etc. I think I know who i wonder about but I'd have to look back to be sure. Of course it's anyone's guess so I feel for her family. There's basically absolutely nothing found or provided by LE to rule in, or rule out, anything.

But you know, she did take out money and head out and who knows. The author's thought may not be off base but it wouldn't say much for LE that they haven't after all of these years found her if that's the case.

TWENTY years. She'd be 41.
I go back and forth on what happened to her. Apparently those woods are thick and deep. Her father has spent thousands of hours walking in there, searching, with no answers. I cannot imagine his pain, it is heartbreaking.
 
I go back and forth on what happened to her. Apparently those woods are thick and deep. Her father has spent thousands of hours walking in there, searching, with no answers. I cannot imagine his pain, it is heartbreaking.
Same here. I don't tend to think she went into the woods but I can't say she didn't. Not a trace though, shred of clothing or an item ever found. It's an odd one that's for sure and heartbreaking. I find it difficult to believe she is alive and went off willingly just because she was so young and you'd reach out at some point I'd think once you had some distance and grew up a bit. She was an adult, she could leave willingly and face no trouble at all and have family never know where she is if she so chose and just let LE know she is safe and request that. She didn't.

I'd have to look back to be totally fresh but i know the basics pretty well. I guess it is hard to ignore she took money out and took off... I doubt she planned to end up stuck though.. She maybe did stage her own disappearance but again she couldn't have planned weather or being stuck could she? I"ve also thought she could have feared a ticket or trouble and did take off or go into the woods. But I lean towards foul play. I am the LAST person in most cases who think some stranger just happened by and took advantage of an opportunity generally in most cases, lucked out so to speak, but Iean that way in this one...Wasn't there a bus driver? That one kind of stuck with me... Not accusing, just wondering...

I don't think she's alive but if she is and didn't at least relay info to family that she's okay, then that's not right. They have and still are going through he77.
 
I would be so beyond upset if I were her family. There aren't even words. How any family deals with such a lack of answers I think even if we think we can imagine, we have absolutely no clue how devastating that is.
 

This is part of the same search for evidence in the Connecticut River Valley Killer:

 
Hmm here as well. So they don't think her death related to this new search, etc. but just that sister made real efforts in how cold cases are handled? or IS there a suspected connection?
 

NH families of the missing and murdered demand answers from AG’s office​

In New Hampshire, there are about 130 active missing persons and unsolved murder cases under investigation.

At the New Hampshire State House in Concord, families of some of those cases gathered to demand that their loved ones are not forgotten.


Maura Murray has been missing for more than twenty years.

“We want a response to an email. We want a return phone call so that we feel some small sense of hope that somebody cares,” Julie Murray said.

Members of the Attorney General’s staff attended the event and talked to families

In a statement, the AG said resolving cold cases is a top priority.
 
I've said it before and will again, it is a breathing need for families to have contact, routinely and regularly, with investigators and assurances even if nothing new that things are being worked on still, that even if they can't share a thing or anything, the reasons why, some insight into how they are still proceeding, doing, etc.

They shouldn't have to ask for a response to an email, a return phone call, etc.

I am thankful every day that we had that. And even then it was almost impossible to make it through, and we GOT answers. Can't even imagine what they deal with.

Not just in this case either. I see it constantly in case after case where such is not done and the family is left feeling like nothing is being done, no one cares, no answers come to even just what is being done, etc.

Jmo.
 

NH families of the missing and murdered demand answers from AG’s office​

In New Hampshire, there are about 130 active missing persons and unsolved murder cases under investigation.

At the New Hampshire State House in Concord, families of some of those cases gathered to demand that their loved ones are not forgotten.


Maura Murray has been missing for more than twenty years.

“We want a response to an email. We want a return phone call so that we feel some small sense of hope that somebody cares,” Julie Murray said.

Members of the Attorney General’s staff attended the event and talked to families

In a statement, the AG said resolving cold cases is a top priority.
Didn't they just post a few months ago that they were in close contact with the AG's office?

 

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