Thinking Sideways: Maura Murray

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey, guys, We've had a lot of requests for the
show that um we did this week, and I know
a lot of people are really interested in this case.
But before we start, I wanted to quickly address why
we haven't done this particular mystery yet. It's my fault, Seriously.
I have this kind of short list of quote unsolved
unquote mysteries that I don't really want to do um

(00:22):
for whatever reason. We get requests for them and we
add them to the list, UM, but we kind of
know we won't get to them. Mar Murray was on
that list almost since the inception of this show. She's
been on the list, but we keep getting requests for it,
and often they're from listeners who suggested many other really
compelling mysteries. Mar Murray has always kind of been a

(00:45):
clear cut case in my mind. Mar Murray twenty one
ran away from home for reasons I have always admitted
to be unknown. She no longer wanted to participate in
her life and just walked away from it. I lived
and worked in Stockford's, Massachusetts for a while, and I
have holidayed Amhurst a number of times, and I thought
I understood Mara, but I'm pretty sure I'm wrong, thinking sideways.

(01:11):
I don't understand. You never know stories of things. We
simply don't know the answer too. Hey, it's thinking sunyways
the podcast. Thanks for joining us. I'm Devin, I'm Joe,

(01:34):
I'm Steve, and we're gonna definitely not even close to
solve a mystery tonight. Yeah, we'll shed a little light
on things. That's the best we'll do. That's the best
we're getting right there. I think without without a bunch
of dogs, you know, like like you know, snipping dogs
and stuff like that in a time machine and a
time machine. But yeah, well, basically what we need to

(01:57):
do is go out to that where the disappearance took
place and dig everything up for miles around. I feel
like that's already been done somehow, No, I think. Okay,
so tonight we're finally getting around to doing the disappearance
of mar Murray. So where would you like to start?
I guess we'll start where most people start, and that

(02:20):
is the credit card fraud, MA credit card. Well, yeah,
although this, let me be up front about this, I
don't think the credit card fraud had much to do
with her disappearance at all. Sure, you know, let's let's
just jump into it. So, yeah, let's just go for it.
So in November of two thousand three, three months prior
to her disappearance, Mara Murray used a discontinued credit card

(02:45):
number to order eighty dollars worth of pizza. Discontinued. That
means it's hers, but it was a closed account. Discontinued
means it wasn't hers, And it was also a closed account.
It's a really nice way of saying she committed credit
card fraud. Okay, how did she manage to run the card? Yeah,
as far as I understand it, Uh, you know, in

(03:07):
two thousand three, it's not true. Maybe that was when
they just had a little machine, remember, Yeah, and then
you know amherst It's totally possible that that was the case,
and I did it, wasn't she stole credit card numbers
or credit cards from fellow students at U. Mass charges

(03:29):
we're going to be dropped against her following three months
of good behavior after her trial, which was in December.
It's pretty unclear to me if this had anything to
do with her disappearance, because there was no time served
and it's not really going to impact her life too terribly. Much.

(03:50):
You know, this is the sort of thing. It's eighty
dollars on a credit card for pizza. Small thing. Jump
forward four days prior to her February ninth disappearance. That
means it was February five that this happened. Mara spoke

(04:12):
with her sister on the phone while she was on
break from her job on campus. She was she worked
at the security desk. Is my understanding. She apparently spoke
with her sister about her sister's relationship problems she and
her they were having problems with her fiance, apparently, and

(04:33):
a few hours after returning to work, Mara broke down,
crying so much so that her work supervisor had to
escort her back to her dorm room. No, correct me
if I'm wrong. I seemed to remember in some of
the reading that after she had got off the phone
with her sister, I swear I saw something that she
had gotten another phone call which caused her to break down.

(04:55):
That's my understanding of fairly mysterious. I think that stance
this is all, you know. The problem is that, like
most of this is kind of hearsay or you know,
it's that the cell phone records showed that she had
just spoken to her sister, or she just said she
spoke to her sister, and the cell phone records showed
that she had actually received another call. It's a little well,

(05:20):
not everything's released. It's not because it's an ongoing investigation. Yeah.
I think the police files are still still still still
not all of them, but some of them certainly are.
Maura never discussed why. She refused to talk about why
she was so upset, you know. Of course, her supervisor
said she was just emotional. It's possible, you know, that
happens sometimes, but it seems it seemed like it struck

(05:42):
people out of character. For her. Well, yeah, I'm at
work and suddenly I break down into a full blown
crying jag. That's not normal behavior. I agree, if you're
a particularly emotional person, maybe, but there's that, like, you know,
the death in the family. I don't make you cry.
Two days before she disappeared, so that would be the seventh,

(06:05):
her father arrived in town. Her father is kind of
a character in these stories for a lot of different
reasons that will discuss most of later, but he says
that he and Marrow were shopping for used car for
her because it turns out that perhaps her Saturn was
a bet of a lemon. Yeah, she was having some

(06:26):
car problems. I don't know. I'm not sure exactly what.
I saw one that had a blown cylinder. I don't
know if that means like a blown head gasket or
what it no idea. But the trouble with this little
bit of information is that friends and Mara's boyfriend say
they don't remember her mentioning going car shopping at all.

(06:47):
And that's the sort of thing that you kind of
excitedly talk about with your friends. Usually, if you're going
to get a car, you're usually like, oh, my dad
and I are car shopping. You know, if she's having
a huge problem with her car in a place like Amhurst,
where you you kind of drive most places, you're going
to probably off handedly mention it to at least one person.
Unless she just wanted to get the car fixed. It

(07:09):
could be that she, let's say, she really liked that
car and Dad, I just need you to fix it.
And Dad says, know that the thing is a lemon,
and I keep dumping money into it. We're just getting
you a different car. Well, then you would complain to
your friends about how that's true. It is making you
get true. You know, I think that's that's one of

(07:29):
those like little tidbits of most people seem to not
actually believe that they were car shopping. Yeah, but I don't.
You know, again, this is a one of the big
problems with this whole story is that it's just he said,
she said. I'm inclined to believe her to be. But

(07:51):
you know, she might have like not told people just
because she wanted to surprise and surprise people by showing
up in the new car one day. Or maybe she
was embarrassed about the fact that her she needed a
new car but her dad had to buy it for yeah,
Or she was going to get a used car. Yeah.
I mean, you know, it's kind of one of those
one or another things. Either way, he later dropped her off,

(08:12):
they went out to dinner, you know, did father daughter stuff.
Then he loaned her his car, a new Toyota, Yeah,
and she was going to take it. She drove him
back to his hotel room and then took it and
went to a party that night and apparently got a

(08:34):
little tipsy. Maybe it's unclear, but she attempted to drive
the car back to her father's hotel room, which people
think is is weird, but I think there's fair explanations
for it, I guess. But actually she ended up just
crashing it into a card rail instead, worth the damage

(08:56):
to the car something like that. Yeah. The police arrived
on the scene of the crash and questioned her, but
didn't administer any sobriety tests or arrest her, which is
weird in a college town. Yes, in a college town cops,
that's one of the first things they do when it's
nighttime and you've had an accident, they check you for

(09:17):
booze because you're a student and you were probably drinking.
So we'll talk about this in a little bit too,
because the guy who responded maybe was had some stuff
going on in his own I I kind of think
that sounds to me like it's February in Massachusetts. She
probably hit a patch of ice and just crashed into

(09:38):
the guardrail, and then you know, he saw the ice
and said, oh, you hit that patch of ice. Great, fine,
you know. On the other hand, I don't. I don't know.
There's a lot of things that could have been going
on there. Either way, They called the tow truck and
the cop gave Maura a ride back to her father's
hotel room at about four forty five in the morning.

(10:01):
That morning, she called her boyfriend from the hotel room
to talk with him about the accident in alcohol. Yeah,
he lived about me and he was like two times,
so it was like two forty five in the morning
where he was at. I bet he appreciated that. Well,
it was four forty five for her. You know, it's
kind of that's a weird time to call somebody either way.

(10:22):
Although I guess if you just had a car accident,
you don't think about that. You just grabbed the phone
and call. Yeah, although god, you're not gonna believe it
just happened. Okay, But the car crash was at like two,
so there were two hours in the remaining Yeah, so
who knows. The next morning, her father, Fred determined that
the damage um that she had done to the car
would be covered under his insurance plans, so he rented

(10:44):
a car, dropped more often her dorm room, and drove home.
He called Maura later that evening. It's always says later
that evening, but it was like eleven thirty at night. Again,
there's a lot of weird time stuff happening here. Ut
called her to discuss how to file the insurance report
because she had been driving and she needed to do

(11:06):
some of the reporting, And they decided that they would
talk more later, like on Monday. And of course this
information all comes from him. Around midnight on February nine,
shortly after speaking to her father, so it was right
after she'd gotten off the phone with him about the
insurance claim, Mara used her personal computer to search map quest. Yes,

(11:30):
it was the early two thousand's and that was the
best direction website, That's what it was. She was looking
for directions to both the Berk Shares and Burlington Vermont,
both awesome places. So later that afternoon, at like one pm,
she emailed her boyfriend quote, I got your messages, but
honestly I don't feel like talking too much of anyone.

(11:51):
I promised to call today though unquote. Also around one
she made a phone call to enquire about renting a
condo in UH in Bartlett, New Hampshire. Apparently she had
vacation there before with her family. The telephone records seemed
to indicate that the call lasted three minutes UH and

(12:13):
she did not successfully rent a condo. Mara then called
a fellow nursing student for reasons unknown, which is my
favorite unsolved mystery term out. It's unclear if that means
that Maura connected with the student and the student is
like refusing to say what they talked about, or if
the student just never answered. I'm assuming that she just

(12:35):
never answered. The interviewed the student. The student just said
that we just talked about crape, nothing important and stuff. Yeah,
exactly at all, twenty one year old college student girls did.
Mara emailed the work supervisor of hers at the nursing
school and also her nursing school faculty advisors and professors,

(12:59):
saying that she had to leave town for a week
due to a death in her family, and that she
would contact them when she returned. However, nobody and her
family had died, well except her. That's suspicious. It was
a little suspicious. I don't think I mean earlier, seriously,
have any you know, lots and lots of people tell
tell lies to get out of work for whatever reason.

(13:21):
They call in sick when they're not for like a
day though. Yeah, yeah, that's a long span of time.
It is big exaggeration. She just really needed to get away. Yeah,
so then at too she called a number that provides
a prerecorded information about booking hotels in Vermont, Stowe, Vermont.

(13:43):
I think it's the East coast. They say, all the
things they use all vals. Might be let's call it
somewhere in Vermont. She listened to the information for about
five minutes, which is a really long time to listen
to that kind of information. And you know, I've been
stuck in those telephone trees before. Press one to do this,

(14:06):
Press two to do that. I press three, crowd it's
the wrong one. Press nine to go back, nine to
go back, start over. I mean, we've all been on
those prerecorded systems where you feel like you're in there forever.
I just thought it was like the weather service one
that you can call that says for your area code
the weather is, and you know, it's just like on

(14:27):
a minute loop or something. But if it's for booking hotels,
it might have been listing hotel in an area, so
she got to navigate through it to find the area
and then get the list of hotels. Anyway, I don't
know how relevant this is so, but it may or
may not be. A few minutes later, at to eighteen,

(14:47):
she telephoned her boyfriend and left a voicemail that essentially
said they would talk later, and it was just under
a minute long. That message, like most voicemails are. Yes.
In her car, she packed the things that you would
typically pack on a trip, um, you know, clothes, toiletries,

(15:08):
college textbooks, all that stuff. I don't take college textbush
when I travel, well, because you're not a college student. Weird, Okay,
it's so weird. Yeah, well, well that apparently when her
room was searched after her disappearance her dorm room, they
found that all of her belongings were packed in boxes. Um,

(15:31):
you know, things like the art that was on the
walls had been removed. It's apparently disputed whether she had
packed them that day or if they were still packed
from her recent She had just gotten back from winter break,
and we talked about this a little bit and debated
back and forth. It's my feeling that you don't pack

(15:53):
things up over winter break generally, so changing rooms. Yeah,
that's that's what I was saying when we talked before
we started, is that I remember kids when I was
in college who, let's say, sprang for the private dorm
room and then oh, I can't afford the private dorm
room anymore. So I've got to go to another room.
So you've got to you gotta pack it all up

(16:14):
because you know you're gonna move. I've also known friends,
whether in college or in their thirties, who move into
a place and all seemed to take six months to
unpass live out of boxes forever. So I mean, I
can see, knowing that she's a twenty one year old
college you know, I can see any of those being

(16:36):
very you know, easy answers or plausible. Yeah, I don't
know that it means it's not it's not clear or
you know. And Joe keeps saying, I don't know if
that means a whole lot. I don't know if that's pertinent.
And that's kind of the big mystery around this unsolved mystery, right,
is that there are a lot of details that we
have and it's so unclear about what happened or what

(16:59):
may have maybe pertinently, what may not be pertinent, that
at this point it just behooves us to everything might
be we can we can do that. Yeah, And of course,
of course I've already drawn conclusions about what happened, so
I know why. And that's why I think that that's
why he's poopoo every detail you bring up exactly, I'm

(17:21):
just saying, you're just saying it's I think I know
what happened. So alright, well well let's let's put your
your obvious conclusions. Let's we'll talk about So. Then at
three forty pm, morow withdrew two and eighty dollars from
an A t M. The footage shows that she was alone,

(17:42):
at least as far as the footage was concerned. This
apparently almost emptied out her entire bank account. Of course,
poor college students, as you've got. Apparently, though there was
a paycheck that was due shortly. Yeah. She then went

(18:02):
and purchased about forty dollars worth of alcohol at a
nearby liquor store. And I love that. That's like a
like a huge field, right, like nearly forty It's like
a trip to the liquor store. I could spend a
lot more dollars or more in liquor store unless you
buy the little itty bitty onesies that they give you,

(18:22):
which are stupidly expensive. But at forty bucks, and this
is interesting, this is suspicious. Actually, she got Bailey's Irish
Cream Colue vodka and a box of Frenzy one and
she got all that for forty bucks. I want to
go shopping at that store. Yeah, I think there's the
inflation thing. Well there's that too. It was ten years ago.
As ten years ago, that's a lot of booze for
forty bucks, that's true. Yeah, maybe that's why she bought

(18:46):
so much. Maybe it was all at sale and that's
why she got it. Also, she maybe apparently also closed
circuit footage shows that she was alone while making these
purchases as well, important little tiny tidbits. Apparently also at
some point at that on that day, she obtained a
Registry of Motor Vehicle accident report form, which they found

(19:06):
in her car. It was blank. It wasn't like filled
out or anything like that. Procrastinator and we figured that out. Well,
I don't know, that's not really procrastinating. That's just like
the day after her father asked her, hey, fill out
this accident report so I can file an insurance claim.
You know, I think that's fairly timely. Although I think
that people tend to think that this is significant because
that's not the kind of behavior that somebody has if

(19:28):
they're planning to run away. Yeah, you know you're not
going to file the report if you're just gonna go missing. Absolutely.
Mara then left Amherst, most likely via ninety Interstate ninety
one north. So I think it's kind of yeah. Then

(19:48):
she called to check her voicemail at about four thirty,
which is apparently the last recorded use of her cell phone.
There's no indication that she had formed informed anybody of
where she was going at this point. All right, so
I know as she's headed off to the two to
the sticks too, with a lot of booze to have
a party. Maybe sounds like sometime after seven pm. Sometime

(20:13):
after seven pm in Woodsville, New Hampshire, a resident there
heard a loud thump outside of her house. Looking outside
her window, she saw a black Saturn sedan much like
the one that Maro owned. Was the one owned? Yeah,
it was up against a snowbank along Route one twelve.

(20:35):
The car was pointing west on the eastbound side of
the road. Okay, evidence of bad driving, evidence of really
two days in a row? Yes, so she called us.
Well it was more like, yeah, yeah, three days in
a row or something within a week. Yeah, she had
a real talent for wrecking card. Yeah, she hated that car. Yes,

(20:58):
she did see further proof that she wanted anyone. You
know what I think. I think she disappeared and want
to live in a little island somewhere where they don't
have cars. Yeah, she just hated cars. She wanted to
kill them. Yeah. The neighbor who's always unnamed, phoned the
Gafton County Sheriff's Department, graft Grafton. I don't know why

(21:19):
I keep leaving out letters trying to pronounce you just
don't like the letter R today it's true or the
word letter she did like earlier. Okay, so at is
when they have the record of this accident report. About
the same time, another neighbor saw the Saturn and uh

(21:43):
reported that there was somebody walking around the vehicle and
saw a third neighbor slash witness pull up alongside the Saturn.
The third witness was the school bus driver. Yeah, he
was the school bus driver who was returning home and
he said that he noticed a young woman who was
bleeding but was cold and shivering. He offered to telephone
for help. Um she asked some some reports. They pleaded,

(22:08):
but she asked him to not call the police and
said that she had already called Triple A, although Triple
A has no record of any calls. This is compounded
by the fact that there is no cell phone reception
in the area, which the resident, of course knew, so
he went home and phoned the police. His call was
received by the Sheriff's department at seven forty three pm,

(22:30):
and he said he was unable to see Mara's car
while he made the phone call, but did notice several
cars passing on the road before police arrived. So before
you go, I wanted to say one thing that I
do find funny about his description is that she was
not bleeding, but cold and shivering. Okay, well, yeah, it's

(22:52):
it's February in Massachusetts. Massachusetts has But the other thing
is I've been in a car accident before, have either
of you. But depends what what what automatically happens. You
get an adrenal rush and you you you automatically You've
always got that little bit of a jittery. Yeah, I

(23:15):
mean it's I've you know, I've done I've had close
calls and you get that rush and you're you're gonna shake.
So I don't know that the shivering we denote cold. Yeah,
I think that it's mostly that you shook up more
than anything. Now does that mean anything? No, But again,
this is one of those things that everybody says cold
and shivering. I'm like, uh no, she just totally spun

(23:38):
her car around at least a hundred eighty degrees or
that's just it's just a witness, you know, sort of projecting. Yeah,
but you rolled down the window. Who it's cold, therefore
your cold. Yeah, but anyway, it doesn't it doesn't mean anything.
But I want to call it out because it's one
of the Again, it's one of those things everybody says
she was shivering because she was cold. I'm standing out

(24:01):
on the side of the road. Know that that's always
the correct interpretation. Yeah, And this story is so much interpretation. Yeah,
and it's it's hard to tell also because you know,
he doesn't say, oh, and she was wearing a tank
top or oh she was you know, like there's no
description of like he doesn't ever say and none of
the reports I've read did he say what she was wearing.

(24:22):
So that's an interesting little Did he say the thing
about whether she had the emergency blinkers on or she
put any flares out or anything like that. Nothing doesn't
mean if you look at I was able to actually
get get onto this guy's blog who's done quite a
bit of investigation into this and that particular little curve,
that little road there, there's no shoulders, so she was
in the road. Yeah, you know, and it would have

(24:42):
if I were me, I would the first thing I
do is put some flares out. You would, you would
have flares. I mean, you know, I don't know. I'm
a middle aged man and I don't have flares in Mike,
but I would put my emergency but I would put
the blinkers on certainly. Yeah. Okay, Well, I guess it's
not that relevant anyway, because we know what happened. So

(25:03):
at seven six, just three minutes after the bus driver phoned,
and it's it's not actually uh but actually nineteen minutes
after the first call at But so I guess it's
significant in that it's it's not said how long it
took the school bus driver to get from the crash
to his house. But it doesn't sound like he lives
very far. It doesn't, but I think he actually lived

(25:25):
within eyesight of the of the crash. He said he
couldn't see it from his house. Yeah, so I read
a different account where he said he'd actually went home
to his home and parked his school bus in such
a way that he was able to actually look back
down the road and see the colle You couldn't see
it from the house, but maybe couldn't see it from that. Yeah,
It's just I think it would be interesting to know
the time in between. Well, it was about twenty minutes apparently,

(25:47):
I guess, because a lot of people have said, like,
how could she possibly disappear? Because because she was there
and then just a few minutes later that the police arrived,
how could she had disappeared at that time? But now
it was more like twenty minutes. I guess. There's also
a further question here, right of like, he's a school
bus driver. This is a poor, like twenty one year
old girl shivering having a car crash. Why in the

(26:11):
world did he not say, Hey, come with me, we'll
call the cops and then we'll come back and wait together.
You're obviously cold, I can, you know, like you can
because she's a one year old college student and it's
a creepy old dude in a school bus. I got,
you know, It's just kind of one of those like

(26:31):
I've I've had what would seemed like perfectly nice people
pull over when I've broken down, and you know, I
was with somebody else at the time, and they're like, hey,
do you want some help. I don't have a phone,
but I could take you somewhere to call. Hey, that'd
be great. Well, I can only take one of you
because I only have room for one. No, yeah, thanks, fair,

(26:55):
that's fair. But you know, I guess for me, like
he doesn't even mention like I offered. You should have
offered at least it would have been fine if she
said no, but well maybe offered to help maybe, And
maybe he did and she turned it down and just
didn't get written down and copied and tasted the internet.

(27:18):
But it is it's a it's a little interesting that
she was out in the road and there was there
was a house very close by. There were lots of
houses and she could have walked up to any of
them and just you know, asked to ask them to
call a tow truck or whatever, and she didn't do that.
So that's that's a bit of a puzzler. Yes, anyway,

(27:39):
have her Hill police officer arrives on the scene. No
one was inside or around the car. The car's windshield
had been cracked on the driver's side and both air
bags had deployed. The car was locked. That's in significant.
That's definitely significant to me. Definitely inside and outside the car.
He discovered red stains that looked like they were made

(28:00):
be red wine. Uh. And he did find the damaged
box of wine Franzia on the right on the rear seat.
In addition, he found a triple A card that was
issued to her blank crash report form. Oh, I'm sorry,
there were more than one. There were a few blank

(28:20):
crash rooms. She expected to have multiple um gloves. Compact
discs makeup just two sets of map Quest directions, one
to Burlington and the other to Stowe, both Vermont uh
Mara's favorite stuffed animal, and significantly not without Peril, a
book about mountain climbing in the White Mountains in New Hampshire,

(28:41):
which were like twenty miles away from where she crashed. Yeah,
apparently she and her she and her dad likes to
like to hike in and they did a lot of
that in her childhood teenage years. Yeah. So Maura's debit
and credit cards were missing along with her cell phone,
and nobody's ever seen or had use of them since
her disappearance. That's significant, I agree. Somewhere between eight and

(29:05):
eight thirty, it's unclear. A contractor who was returning home
from work in Franconia, Franconia, Franconia, fr Franconia, saw said
he saw a young person moving quickly on foot eastbound
on Route one, about four or five miles east of

(29:28):
where mars vehicle was discovered. He said that the young person,
and I don't know how he knew it was a
young person, but he did, was wearing jeans, a dark
coat and a light colored hood. He didn't report it
to the police because he was confused about the dates
and didn't think it was significant. So he reported about
three months later that he'd spotted the young person the

(29:49):
night that Mar disiparted. Yeah, so I don't think that
means okay, so I remember seeing that this guy. Everybody
says he was confused about the dates because he evidently
didn't know that the search for her was going on
right away, and he was thinking, oh, it was a
couple of days later. But I got on I got
on Google and started looking at this area and then

(30:12):
looked at the roads and went, okay, well this is
about where she crashed. And then we track four or
five miles east on that road, which was the wrong
way to go if you're trying to get to any
major roads, because uh and I and for the life
of me, now I can't remember which interstates it is
that kind of run in parallel north, But she was

(30:36):
taking the long way to get to one, when if
she had continued to travel west for or five miles,
it would have got her to the major interstates. So
it's really strange to me that she would have backtracked
that direction, I guess. On the one hand, I do
want to remind you about math quest in the early

(30:57):
two thousands and how really effective their their directions were
got some people killed. I mean, it was pretty awful.
But I think it's a valid point. Yes, I think
it's a valid point. I also do want to point
out that this is insignificant in my mind, because she
interacted with somebody at like seven thirty, right, and then

(31:21):
at eight was sited four or five miles away, which
is a significant amount of Yeah, there's somebody to cover
in that amount of time. He had eight minute mile. Yeah,
she would have been hauling, but half an hour gotten
four or five miles. That's a good point. And the
fact of the matter is that there were probably plenty
of young people out on foot on that road that night.

(31:43):
I mean not lots, not, but I mean it's possible
that there was some kid from one house to the next.
So so I don't think we debunked that theory. Yeah,
just before eight pm of E M S and a
firetruck arrived to clear the scene, and by eight pm

(32:05):
the car had been towed to a local garage and
at about nine pm the responding officer left the scene.
A rag that had been part of Mara's emergency roadside
kit was discovered stuffed in the Saturn's muffler pipe, which
is often a throwaway. But I stands that just stands

(32:26):
out to me so much, and I just don't know
the cause for something like that. I don't know why
somebody would do something like that. Well, yeah, her dad
actually sheds a little light on this. He's yeah, he does. Um.
He said that I read on one side that there
was a blown cylinder in the car, which I don't
think it possible because if you actually blast a whole

(32:47):
cylinder out of your engineer engine. You've got a bad
ring or blown head gass or something like that. But anyway,
so it could have been the ring, but it was
smoking apparently really badly, and her dad was like saying, well,
you know, it's going to make a kind of a
target for the for the pope. Pope. So he advised
her because she wasn't doing other things that we're making
exactly calling them, because she was crashing all over. So

(33:10):
he advised her to stuff a rag up the tailpipe
to conceal all the smoke. Which that seems to be
like kind of a bad idea. That sounds like the
worst idea I ever heard. Well, you know, I mean
the world is full of bad ideas. Come on, I mean, yeah,
this this reminds this makes me think of Beverly Hills
cop with the banana and the tailpipe. Yeah okay, well, yeah,
nobody's gonna see the smoke coming out of your tailpipe
because your car's not going to run, yeah, exactly, So

(33:33):
it's you know, I I don't know how good of
advice that it is. Doesn't sound that great to me,
but anyway, that's why he said that he was insisting
on buy her a new car because he felt like
her existing car was not going to continue running a
whole lot longer. Yeah, I bet so. The following day, UM,
a bolo was issued for Mara in all of the
counties surrounding the crash site that she could have on

(33:54):
Lookout Beyond Lookout. Yeah. On February to days after her
father Fred found out about the search, he arrived to
help with the search. I guess or something. He came
to the area where the Sheriff's department was searching for Mara.

(34:15):
Search dogs were sent to the crash site and followed
her sense that they got off of a glove for
about a hundred feet but lost it. After that, police
stated that they believed that Mara had come to the
area to run away or commit suicide. UM and her
family and friends have of course denied this. From the
first suggestion. A lot of other people suggest that perhaps

(34:36):
her credit card fraud in conjunction with the two car
crashes in life less than a week UM and all
three being in less than three months, point to maybe
a serious problem with alcohol, and her family of course
denies that as well. Her family has been a very
admin about painting Mara as this perfect innocent angel figure,

(34:57):
which seems to have actually maybe been quite dead intrimental
to the actual search. Again, we'll get into that a
little bit later. Towards the end of two thousand four,
apparently a man gave Mara's father a rusty, stained knife
that had belonged to his brother. Uh the man's brother,
not Fred's brother, who apparently was a criminal and had

(35:18):
lived less than a mile from where Mara's car was discovered.
His brother and his brother's girlfriend were said to have
acted strangely after mars disappearance. Creepy, creepy, but didn't did
Mara's father not follow up on this? I think that
he was My understanding that he handed the knife over
to authorities and they tested it and there was no

(35:41):
blood on there. Yeah. In late two thousand five, Mara's
father filed a lawsuit against many of the law enforcement
agencies that had been involved with the investigation, with the
aim to find find out what was going on in
the files with the case. Since it's an ongoing investigation,
many of them have not been made public. Of course,
you wanted to know what they knew, which is I

(36:02):
guess kind of fair yeah, I would. In also in
two thousand and six, the New Hampshire League of Investigators,
which is a thing, which is an awesome group, an
awesome group name. Yeah, I know, I would call myself
like the League of Justice. Yeah. I don't know why
we haven't called cops or something like that. That was
one of the names that we we threw, you know,

(36:22):
on the cutting room floor when we came with the
name of this show. Yeah. Yeah, Actually I was still
voting for Danger Probe, I remember. Yeah, yeah, We're glad
we didn't go with anything. The New Hampshire League of
Investigators is made up of ten retired police officers and detectives. They,
in conjunction with the molly Bish Foundation, started working on
Mara's case in in two thousand and six. Tom Shamshack

(36:47):
Sam ham Shack, a former police chief and member of
the Licensed Private Detectives Association of Massachusetts, says, I quote,
it appears that this is something beyond a mere missing
person's case. Something ominous could have happened here. In October
of two thousand and six, volunteers led two day search

(37:10):
within a few mile radius of where Mara's vehicle was found.
Creepy alert in a closet of an a frame house
quite close to where the crash was. Cadaver dogs are
these dead dogs, the dogs that look for cadavers. You know,
there's a drug dog which is trained to catch the

(37:30):
smell of drugs. Yeah, there's a dog that is trained
to react to d comp human demo. So they had
a bunch of cadaver dogs with them on this search,
and in the closet of an a frame house, the
cadaver dogs allegedly went quote bonkers unquote identifying possible presence

(37:52):
of human remains. Did they bother opening because I read
this one too, Did they bother to open the closet door? Yeah,
it was in the closet and there was carpet there,
and they cut some of the carpet and sent it
off for analysis. But I never could find out if
there were any results from that, which is creepy in
and of itself. You know what really actually, what really

(38:14):
makes me angry is that every source that I found
that talked about that said and waiting for results in
two thousand six. You guys, it's been like more than
six years, and there's never any anything that says what
they found. I mean, I would like to Okay, you
know what, it turned out a raccoon got shut in

(38:35):
the closet and died, I would be so much happier.
That's totally in the well found. Yeah, because now I'm
just freaked out about mar Murray being in the carpeted
closet of an a frame that's terrifying. Every so significant

(38:55):
rewards somewhere to the tune of seventy five thousand dollars
have been offered really for just information on this case.
So far, nothing but the only person that knows it's
a person that well anyway, and I'll get into that later.
You really are just railroading this whole thing. There. There

(39:16):
are some hinky things going on here though. Okay, here's
the cast list of this story. Character cast well, yeah,
I guess I hesitate to call it cast of characters
because they're not characters are more fun than these people.
There is a big cast, you know, not to be
smirch or anything, but there's a cast of people. The

(39:37):
first of which is of course, of Fred Murray. Yeah.
The story that we just told um involves this character Fred,
who's the caring father who was involved in his daughter's
life at every turn, and it seems like it turns
out that may not actually be the case. And now, granted,

(40:00):
all of this is Internet information. I don't know the
guy personally, and I don't want to besmirch the name
of somebody. I generally feel that people are good. But
here's what the Internet has to say about it. Well,
and be careful about this, because the Internet is known
for circulating like live. Yeah. Absolutely, And that's what I

(40:21):
want to do is I want to put a little
disclaimer on this right that says, this is what the
Internet says, but you know, whether it's true or not.
I have I don't have a good idea aside from
my earlier mention of the high probability of him lying
about what he and Marrow were doing two days previous
to her disappearance, the car shopping. Why do you say

(40:42):
that's high probability. Oh, we talked about this a little
bit because nobody else could confirm that that's why he
was there. Well yeah, but still that that doesn't make
it a high probability is lying. It's just okay, Well,
it's it's odd. Let's let's call it that. It's actually
didn't mention it to anybody but but again, you know,
I mean I personally when I when I go get
a new car, I don't usually tell people just show

(41:04):
up with a new car. Are also not a year
old girl. I mean, from my experience, my friends who
purchased cars recently, you're in college or whatever, that's all
they wanted to talk about was how they were so
excited that they were getting a new car, or how
they were so annoyed that they had to buy a
new car. That's like a thing that people, young people

(41:25):
talk about often. That notwithstanding, uh, he apparently refused to
be interviewed by the police for nearly two years, and
when he finally did come in for questioning, he brought
two lawyers with him, which, you know, bringing two lawyers
with you to be interviewed in and of itself not

(41:46):
so that's fine, whatever, do what you feel like you
have to do to protect yourself. But waiting two years
to be interviewed about the disappearance of your daughter by
police during an investigation, and then bringing two lawyers, you know,
it's all these like little tidbits of like if that
had been the only thing, then it would have been
like a tiny little like drink red flag, right, you know,

(42:08):
the kind of flags you put in your drinks. Whereas
like added to some of the other stuff that may
or may not be true about him, just kind of
paints this overall picture of questioning ability, questionability, questioning his character.
So the Internet also tells me, and again please take

(42:28):
this with the disclaimer that I don't know if this
is true or not, but it tells me that he
may have lied about what else happened on that weekend,
and there's no details about what that means. But it
also tells me that upon a search of his things
by the police, photos of young women from his family

(42:50):
were found in porno magazines. What's what's all about that? Kidding? Now? Now,
when you say photos of young women in his family
were found in magazines, does that mean that they were
polaroids or snapshots that were stuck in magazines? Yeah? Okay,
not like he had made his own home gross magazine. Okay, No,

(43:15):
I just wanted to make sure that's creepy pressed neatly
in the folds of porno magazine was a snapshot of
a niece. Uh, you know, that's an odd bookmark. But
this particular little factor it happen well, and that's exactly
it is that this guy, James Renner, who is kind

(43:39):
of he's he's doing a blog. Many of you probably
know about him. He's a writing a blog and writing
a book about the mar Murray disappearance. He's an investigative
reporter who does a lot of this kind of investigation stuff.
And he and Fred apparently have a bit of a beef. Yeah,
it sounds like they don't get along. They don't get
along super well. And well, frankly, if if our Fred

(43:59):
and when we were putting this kind of stuff out
on the internet about me, I would be a little
pissy about the whole. Yeah. Rendered While he seems to
have good intentions, some of his methods of going about things,
and this is my my attempt to say this the
best way possible are not necessarily the best He does

(44:23):
some things that and the way he writes, the tone,
that's the word I'm looking for. The tone and the
perspective that he takes on things are very accusatory. Well,
he's an author, that's you know. That's really the big
part of it, right, is that he's an author and
he's writing a book to sell. And that's fine. I

(44:44):
don't think there's anything reprehensible about that, Um, And I
think that he's kind of become this go to source
for the mar Murita's parents because he's actively investigating it
and also putting out the information that he's finding versus
like the police. You are, it's a cold case, but
there it is an open investigation. It's hard to tell, Um. Well,

(45:06):
but what the thing is is that when I read
his stuff and I read the stance he takes out it.
Let's let's let's compare him to Ethan Brown, who we
talked about, talked to you for the Jefferson Date, David's
eighth story. He was he was very removed. He was
at intimate interactions with people, but he kept removed. He

(45:29):
kept his personal feelings out of it. He would say
this seemed weird to me, But he didn't seem to
get so involved and wrapped up and take a personal
stance on it. Yeah, whereas Renter kind of doesn't see
to be able to hold that that separation. It's kind
of like I remember when I was investigating the Door

(45:51):
of the Arnold story, and I go out on the
internet and I'd go to some of these boards where
people were talking about it, you know, and I'd watched
these posts go by, you know, and and and watch
these people convince themselves. For example, the Dorothy's cases, she
was being horribly abused by her family. There's never been
a shred of evidence of support that, but I watched
these these people's comments get more and more intense about

(46:12):
poor Dorothy and the horror, the horror that her family
was inflicting at her. It starts out as the family
is kind of poking a little fun at her, and
pretty soon they're just totally treating her like dirt. It's like, dude,
there's not a shred of evidence ready this, yeah, and
this is what kind of what this reminds me. So
when I just so that's you know, that's one of
the good points to make is that it is the
internet and it's hard to tell. And another another point

(46:34):
to they searched his things and found photos of family
women in Porto max. To the best of my knowledge,
there's no there was never any reason for the police
to search the father's stuff. They went out and he
didn't even live in town. He lived a distance away,
and he was never a person of interests as far
as I know, in this whole story. Yeah, it's hard
to tell. Again, you know, it's hard to tell because

(46:55):
since none of the police reports have really been released,
it's hard to tell what they have and have not
done all of that sort of stuff. Apparently, Also, there's
a rumor floating around that Fred told his friends and
Mara's friends not to talk to people who are writing
a book about the disappearance, Jeremy Renner, James mr. Runner.

(47:18):
But also they he apparently told Mar's friends what to
say to the police as well. Now, the one thing
that I do want to say, and this is kind
of in defensive Fred, is I've read accounts from families
that have had children disappear, uh and and there are

(47:40):
cases where people have realized what a political game they
have to play with the news media and with people
in general. And so they very methodically stage things and
present things and say, we need to put this out here,
and we need to hold this back, we need to

(48:00):
work through this process. And it's very calculated. And the
problem is is while that works in the beginning, this
very calculated approach to keep the story alive, to keep
it in people's minds, and to help spur the investigation,
it also in hindsight, after it all kind of washes

(48:22):
out and people take another look at it, that behavior
then really reflects poorly on you, because it there's a
lot of inconsistencies between what you would expect a father's
behavior of his daughter who has disappeared, conflicting with the
behavior of somebody who is taking it and just segmenting

(48:45):
and compartmentalizing and putting it all in order for presentations.
And so I can see both sides of the coin
where he's trying to keep things going, but at the
same time, he's knowing that if I just put it
all out there, then the whole thing is done and

(49:05):
there's nothing to keep people looking into this story and
keep public awareness of it. Sure. Yeah, I think that's
a fair point. Um. Let's move on to Billy Rush,
the next cast member. Yeah, he was Mara's boyfriend. Many
accounts say that they were engaged, they were not. Apparently,
in fact, the relationship was on the rocks and Billy

(49:27):
was cheating on Mara, and in fact she was cheating
on him with the assistant track coach of hers and
at least and apparently maybe even taking part in quote
track Team Orgies unquote, which I think is just dumb.
So what's the source of all this stuff anyway, Well,
there's actually a couple of sources of this. Yeah, it's

(49:50):
it's kind of substantiated around and in fact, the assistant
track coach thing is in fact true, but it's not
clear that it was actually her cheating on Billy. Well. Well,
and this is actually the next person I'm going to
talk about. Yeah, but according to apparently they broke up

(50:11):
over a summer and had recently gotten back together, and
also apparently Billy was maybe not such a nice guy. Again,
these are you know, it's just like, so it's such
a mishmash of like he said, she said, and these
are these these this this so sounds like college girl

(50:31):
caddie rumors. Oh my god, you will believe that slot
she was sleeping with the track coach and then she
was passed around with all the guys on the team.
That is just so weird. And I've read that in accounts.
It's really come on. So the interesting thing is actually
all of that information comes from her ex boyfriend slash

(50:53):
assistant track coach. Really yeah, okay, he's actually the one. Yeah, okay,
So well, let's just like let's let's let's have it.
Let's let's jump right in. His name is hoss Bag Daddy,
and he was the he was the assistant track coach
at U Mass apparently, and apparently they were seeing each

(51:14):
other while she and Billy were broken up. Uh. He
says that she was fairly promiscuous, that she was sleeping
with him, but also many other members of the track team,
but that didn't keep him from liking her, liking her,
loving her, he says, loving her, I think, he says,
I mean, that's like at the very end, it's almost
an afterthought, you know, he talks about how much he

(51:35):
loves her, and you know, how great they were together
and how happy and strong she was, and then also like, yeah,
it's true that she was sleeping with other people, but
like that's fine, which you know, I think is a
fair thing to say. In college, it's it's okay to say.
How old was he? Do? You know? Is early twenties
early so he's kind of in the same democratic Yeah, obviously,

(51:57):
he you know, I mean, it just it depends on
the relationship up if you're really serious about somebody, and
obviously that's not going to play. Perhaps they weren't. I don't.
I don't think he was serious about her. So, you know,
So Hoss was interviewed by a few different people and
claimed that he didn't actually even know that Mara had
a father. Her father and mother were divorced, so I'll

(52:19):
throw that out there. He he actually thought that perhaps
the father was dead, that he had never heard Mara
talk about her father before, which is again another little
like earworm. There's so many tiny little earworms. Well, you know.
But the thing about it is, it sounds to me
like he and he and Mara got together for one
thing and one thing only. I doubt that they spent
a lot of time. I actually it sounds like some

(52:40):
reports that they actually did spend some time together. There
were many moments where they were just kind of hanging out,
and she in fact confessed a couple of things to him.
She they had been spending the summer together, and she
went to visit him over the summer, and then once
school started again, she became kind of distant, you know,
of course, as all his account, but she became kind
of stint and finally said, oh, actually Billy and I

(53:02):
got back together. It sounded like Billy was perhaps being
a little demanding the whole, like I need you here
at this time, and you need to be only doing
the things but I want you to do. And at
one moment, she confessed to Hoss that, um, she hated
her life at U Mass and wished that she could
quote just disappear, and Hoss recalls reacting to finding out

(53:26):
about her disappearance with a holy crap, maybe she did it. Okay, Well,
I immediately and I had I had only seen some
of the kind of overview accounts of him. But I
can't help but immediately get that Bra sent feel from this.

(53:47):
And and by Bra, I mean, hey, Bra, what's going
on the bro? Yeah? That bro, That that college bro
who couldn't leave after he got out. You know, he
didn't want to lead the fraternity line if it Hey bro,
let's like go do this and it's totally awesome. We're
gonna hang out with these chicks. Like there's that weird
college guy mentality that there are men that are in

(54:10):
their thirties that still can't get over there. Yeah I
can just I really just from the way this is
put together and the things that he says, I get that, well,
I was a good dude. And we had a thing
and so we just like hung out and you can
fight it in me And I don't know why I'm
getting a surfer dude, the lilt in my voice, but

(54:32):
it just I really get a just I don't buy it.
Yeah really, I mean that's that's just all the pois
down to. I don't really buy this guy's stuff. It's interesting.
I kind of had that same like, um fame crashing vibe.
So he like knew somebody who was famous for a
kind of tragic reason, and he was just like, you know,

(54:53):
it's the same girls who like, you know, some girl
dies horribly in a car crash and then like all
of the girls at her school, like we were best friends,
are so much. We hug out in home room twice
and then you find out on Facebook they ripped on
her constantly. Her. Yeah, so you're taking old hoss here.
It is just basically full of it, and he's lying

(55:14):
about their their passion sexual relationship. I believe that they
there was probably something there, yeah, but I don't know
if it was as much. And you know, I also
don't know if he if she ever really said I
just wish I could disappear. She um she really should
have kept a diary and left it in the car.
So much easier next time, keep a diary. The next

(55:36):
character is Kate Marcos Mark Hoppolis. Thank you. That's how
I would have said it. That was a good way
to say it. Yeah, So Kate was apparently friends with Mara.
She and Fred and Mara had dinner a few days.
She was at the dinner that they had on the seventh.
It must have they had a group and which after

(55:56):
what she took forr dad's car and then crashed it.
And Kate was actually really also at the party that
Marrow was at right before she crashed her dad's car.
Kate said that she had no knowledge about Mars plans,
which I think is fair. Apparently of note, however, and
I say apparently because I just think this is so
sad that this keeps getting brought up. But Kate's father

(56:19):
spent five years in jail for attempting to blow up
his neighbor with a homemade bomb. Stable behavior, five years
in jail. Yeah, he admitted to the crime and served
five years. She claims that he was wrongfully imprisoned, and
did she he was innocent and didn't do it. I
think I think Daddy took the rap, So I mean

(56:42):
and I think that I think it's fair to say that, like,
those are two pretty extreme things for one person to have,
and for one person to have both of those things
is like, you know, the odds of that are so
million to one. Right to like have a close friend
who disappears under highly mysterious circumstances. Oh and also to

(57:04):
have a father who tried to blow up his neighbor
with a homemade bomb, you know, I think, but I don't.
I just can't see a connection. You know, I just
don't see a connection there. But with everything else with
this story, it's something to grab onto and try and
flesh it out and try and draw some Freudian conclusion

(57:27):
to the whole thing. Exactly. Yeah, So did Ma ever
like asked to meet the daddy and so she could
quiz him about bomb making techniques as far as I know.
Next is Jeff Williams, a k a. Police Chief Williams
or former police chief Williams. This was actually the guy
who responded to that first crash where Mara ran into

(57:47):
the guide rail with Daddy's I don't know if it
was new, but with and he apparently has a bit
of a record of messing up. According to the Internet,
again because that's the only place you can get information
these days, he crashed his motorcycle into a truck. Then later,
after a bit of a high speed chase, he was

(58:10):
pulled over and charged with a driving while intoxicated and
was of course released from his duty as police chief.
Also apparently, of note, the car he was driving belongs
to a woman who is not his wife. And Fred
was actually the first person to call Mr Williams's character
into question, and he he said that he wondered aloud

(58:34):
to the media if perhaps Mr Williams had not been
lying about how intoxicated Marrow was on the night of
that initial crash. So r is Fred saying that Mr
Williams this whole thing. Mr Williams, well he's he's the
guy that responded after the guardrail crash. So so did

(58:55):
Williams say, Oh, she was smashed, but I just let
her go. I know he Williams didn't remember if you
he actually drove her to her father's hotel room. And
you know, in my mind I see a like kind
of like a good guy cops situation here where I
like if she was drunk. He was like, listen, like,
you're dumb, but I'm not going to charge you here.

(59:17):
Let's get you to your father, you know, Like he's trying. Yeah,
he was trying to be helpful. So I think it's
silly that Fred was that. Fred Murray is like, yeah,
calling his character in a question. I don't get that. Yeah,
I agree with that. The next cast or the next
character cast member is the mysterious caller, which I've actually

(59:40):
named the Mysterious Caller, and there's no actual name attached
to this person. Apparently, during the course of the investigation,
a police officer discovered that somebody had called Mara's phone
in the late afternoon of the ninth, which is the
day that Mara disappeared, and the call came from within
a twenty two mile radius of the London Dairy, New

(01:00:01):
Hampshire cell phone tower. There's apparently only one there. How
big is London's quite small, and this has caused a
lot of people to speculate that she was planning to
meet somebody in New Hampshire. Do you know how far
away that is from where her accident was. It's like
a hundred miles, a hundred and sixteen miles south and

(01:00:24):
that's that's south. Yeah, okay, that's right on the border
with New Hampshire and not Massachusetts but Vermont. And she
went to school in Amherst, right Massachusetts, which is it's
almost west where London west of London area southwest. Yeah,

(01:00:46):
so from Amherst to Woodsville is like like pretty north.
It's just like a solid north path with a slight.
It's no. But yeah, Also, I guess I've note um
the Google Maps, if you're going to drive from Woodsville

(01:01:07):
to London Dairy, you have to take one twelve east,
except she was going the opposite direction. She was driving
away from it. Okay, well this is just where she
was going west right one twelve, that's the assumption. But yeah,
car was her car was faced east on the west

(01:01:28):
right yet, but that's a giant detour Londonderry. That almost
sounds like I got a new cell phone and I
called my friend and they didn't answer, and that's why
nobody knows what this phone number is. Yeah, I think,
okay that I just counted that right off. Okay, never mind. Yeah,

(01:01:50):
I don't even worry about it because Londonderry is not
that far from Amherst or where she where her parents lived.
And it's quite conceivable she knew somebody who lived in
Londonderry who randomly called. So the next character is Um
maybe one of the creepiest. Yeah, this guy. I gotta
be honest with you. I couldn't watch the YouTube videos.

(01:02:13):
I did not watch. I knew that it was going
to be a bad idea. So in two thousand and twelve,
the eight year anniversary of Mara's disappearance, a what I
can only describe as mentally unstabled man Um posted some
videos to YouTube taunting the family of the Murray family

(01:02:35):
and also claiming to have information related to the case.
In one of the videos, he's just laughing, which is terrifying. Uh.
And one of the other videos he shows a ski
lift pass um that was dated two days prior to
Marrow's disappearance from a ski resort that was very close
to where her car was found. And that is I
guess of note, because who keeps he passes for eight years? Well?

(01:02:59):
And and is the thing is I watched them and
I I it's a The laughing video is just over
a minute long, and I I skimmed the thing like
you know, I paused, he started giggling or whatever it
is he's laughing, and I skimmed across it and it
is just him in a darkened room and you can

(01:03:19):
barely make out his features and there's, you know, the
computer monitor reflection his glasses. You can't tell who this
dude is. And that's the one that's just titled Happy Anniversary. Yeah.
At the very ends is Happy Anniversary fighting. The one
that's the ski passes like fifteen seconds long. And then
he also posted another weird one, which I swear is

(01:03:39):
taken out of a movie, and all it is is
rain coming down on a windshield with the wind shear
wipers with orchestral music in the background. And at first
it's actually kind of beautiful because you're listening to it,
you're seeing the whippers. This is really well made. And
then I'm realizing it's for an actual movie, and it

(01:04:00):
seems because it's pretty well put together, somebody knew what
they were doing. Wasn't obviously this dude did it. Because
what I laugh at is everything that this guy puts
up on YouTube. It's always whatever the name of it is,
dot m o V, which is a file type that
nothing hardly any system uses anymore. So he's using some

(01:04:22):
antiquated software and doesn't know what he's doing, but it's
just freaking weird. His user name of notes, Oh yeah,
Mr one twelve dirt Bag one twelve being the road
she was found on, her car was found on. Yeah,
let's just say, you know the significance of that is
like her father, Marrow's father, Fred had said at one

(01:04:45):
point that he believed that she had just been abducted
by some dirt bag and that was literally his word
was the word he used was dirt bag. Yeah, and
so apparently I don't know that this guy is just
some internet psycho that wants to torment the family. Well,
there's some of the videos that he released were just
like line drawings. There was one just like a girl

(01:05:06):
with a black eye. Yeah, it's you can find information
on this online here. What I'm going to say about
this is there's been there's been some forensic is the
wrong word, but psychological uh interpretation. You know, people who
understand this mental standpoint have looked into it and they've

(01:05:27):
realized that all this dude is doing is he knows
that he can get a rise out of these people. Sure,
you're gonna a little pain, and that he's got power
over them and he's getting off on that power. All
it is. I'm kind of surprised that is that the
authorities haven't done anything in terms of trying to like
track this guy down and what doesn't seem like it

(01:05:49):
to be that hard because I think that he's a
troll and they just don't care. It's obvious that this
guy is just a troll, he's just a weirdo, because
I mean he cropped up years later. That just is
some guy who found something that he knew he could
fixate on and get his his power jolly's off of Yeah,
I think that's what what it is too. But you know,

(01:06:10):
if you're going to do your due diligence as a
law enforcement off and you should find him this house
with one of them there could ever dogs, you know,
and see what you can find in the backyard. Yeah,
but I'm sure he's just some random sick Oh yeah.
So there's one more thing that I'd like to just
like note here, and this cropped up in it is

(01:06:31):
kind of like flew onto my radar. I guess when
I was doing my research there, you know, as many
of you know, I do some of my research on radit.
So there was a threat about this, and somebody posted
this quote and said, oh, here's my source, and it
was Wikipedia. But the Wikipedia article doesn't have this quote

(01:06:52):
anymore on it removed. So I thought that was extra interesting.
While we're going down the yellow Brick road. So I'm
just going to read the little excerpt that was on
Wikipedia that, as far as I can tell, is no
longer on Wikipedia. It says at some point the New
Hampshire State Police trooper had been at the scene. The

(01:07:13):
nature and extent of his involvement has not been disclosed.
The Murray family had reported that they have discovered that
there was no radio communication between the state police officer
and his station for approximately two hours after he arrived
on the scene. I feel that significant and I feel
it's interesting that it's not on Wikipedia anymore. Well, what
is it saying though, it's saying that after her crash

(01:07:34):
at when her when she disappeared, a New Hampshire State
trooper arrived on the scene, right, I understand that, but
what what is what is the implication or significance of
the fact that he didn't went on the radio for
two hours he went dark for two hours because he
was busy murdering mar Murray. Is the implication. I mean,
it's one implication. I think that again, it's that whole

(01:07:56):
like grasping at straws on this case. That like, if
we're going to say that Kate is a person of
interest because her father made a homemade bomb and tried
to like blow up his neighbor, maybe the guy didn't
report in. He went to the dinery, he had a cigarette, coffee,
eighteen slices of pie, and then finally waddled back to
his car and radio after That's possible. But you know,

(01:08:21):
I don't forget this too, is that the fact that
there was no radio communication for two hours is probably
b s also, So I mean, you can account for
a two hour gap, but bear in mind the two
hour gap probably never exists at the beginning. Yeah, And
you know, and that's my big question mark, right, is that,
like I can't say I can't substantiate this at all,
but I can say that, like, Okay, it's weird that

(01:08:43):
maybe he wouldn't have been in contact for two hours
after discovering that a young year old woman had wandered
away from the scene of her car crash with her
debit card and not much else. And it's significant also
that perhaps that is no longer part of the like
Wikipedia Common Commons information, you know. And again I'm not

(01:09:04):
I'm not saying that it actually is the Netland. I
can see this being removed if there's no source, because
you've got to back these things out of People just
go into Wiki and do stuff all the time, and
the moderators realize that there's no basis for it, and
the kinds of cases of that, and you maybe get

(01:09:24):
contacted by some of these lawyers you say, hey, this
is liable. Yeah, yeah, And so you know, I guess
I just feel that it's worth mentioning just for the
sake of prosperity. Prosterity. She's making up for the missing

(01:09:45):
letters man. All right, well where are we at now?
So I guess we're kind of in the theories are
I think obviously theory number one UFO abduction abduction, although
there's a lack of you know, lights and stuff like that. Well, actually,
you know what is actually again kind of worth note

(01:10:06):
There are no actual alien UFO abduction theories in this,
which is odd because there always are, and they never
saw nobody saw any blue lights nearby. No, and right,
like a little bit last week showed the black hole
of all UFO things, and so we we we had
sucked them all up. So there's none left for this story,
all right, that's fair. So not Well, so there's the

(01:10:34):
theory that she ran away. Yeah, she ran away, And
then I guess there's like the sub theories of and
it went horribly right or it went horribly wrong? Right, Okay,
so flushed this out? Well, I mean, she could have
run away and meant to kind of fake her own
death to like truly escape her life, right, that's the
thing we know about. Yeah, but there's good evidence that

(01:10:57):
she didn't do that. There is, Yeah, I mean, for
of things, she left without much money in her pocket.
And if you to believe her dad, and I have
no reason to doubt her, to doubt her dad did
they were looking for a new car for her, right, So,
and and again, I mean, people are casting expersions of
this guy, but I don't have any reason to believe
that he was lying about that. So therefore, if you're

(01:11:19):
going to run away, and also let's not forget that
she cleaned out her bank account, but she had checks
on the way, checks were in the mail, right, So
if you're gonna disappear, aren't you gonna wait for those
checks to come so you have a little more cash
to carry with you? Yeah? But yeah, I mean, but
you're basically gonna wait for You're gonna wait for that
stuff to happen, and you're probably gonna go ahead and

(01:11:41):
wait an extra week for the new car to materialize.
Because if you're gonna go on the run and disappear,
it's obviously better to do it with a newer, nicer,
more reliable car. So that's why I completely discount the
thought that she ran away. Well here, my, my, my
problem with this theory is that, and again I am
not saying anything bad about Mara, but she has proven

(01:12:06):
to not have exercised the best decision making in a
lot of scenario and so I don't know that she
would have necessarily said, well, I've got two eighty bucks
in the bank right now, but if I wait five days,
I'll have another four hundred bucks and I can take off.

(01:12:27):
She may have just said I had two bucks, but
I'm out. I'm bucks and booze and that's gonna hold me.
I just gotta go, yeah, okay, that's that's fine too,
very shortsighted, thinking, well, you know, it is it is,
But was incredibly determined and decided, even after she crashed
her car, that she was gonna go ahead and continue
with her disappearance anyway. You know, I still think I

(01:12:51):
don't believe it. I think that at that point she
would say, well, my my disappearing act is kind of
like kind of like just augured in and as a
complete failure. So I'm gonna go back home, I'm gonna regroup,
and I'm gonna like disappear a little bit like another
month down the line when I've got a new car.
But the other thing about it is is, okay, her
judgment was bad. She was thinking erratically, I thought, thinking

(01:13:11):
I will disappear. Well, ten years have gone by, She's
had plenty of time to rethink her decision. She's probably
been out there, if she's still alive, which I doubt,
she's been out there eating a lot of you know
what and not doing that well. So at some point
she's going to call home and say I'm sorry. I
thought i'd run away from home and it hasn't worked
out that well. Well, But this was not a month ago. Um,

(01:13:35):
I was reading the story of there was a guy
in that region who I cannot remember what they called him,
but he was the guy who would break into summer
homes in the winter and steal all their food and
their batteries and just he was a phantom and he

(01:13:56):
would come in and he would just you know, jimmy,
open a window and he's see all the food stuff,
some batteries, and some clothes and disappeared. Never did any damage,
but he just steal it all. The guy lived in
the woods for twenty freaking years and he flat out
he did the same thing. He one day drove away,

(01:14:18):
backed his car up and parked it on a service
road and started hiking, and he just disappeared. And how
he survived the cold in attent is you know, it's
a stroke of luck. But he did it, and people
do that. So yeah. But he didn't say, well, I
better wait till all my paychecks come through and I

(01:14:38):
got money because I'm gonna go. No, he was like,
I'm not gonna use money. I'm just gonna get out.
There's no there's no reason to believe that Marl Mury
was that kind of a hardcore person though. I mean,
she hasn't obviously had experience with hiking in the outdoors
and stuff. But that guy was no hardcore survivalist either.
It's just an example, Yeah, it's it's a great example.

(01:14:59):
But when he look at the probabilities here, um, the
probability that she's just disappeared to start a new last
sumwhere versus what else could have happened, like being abducted
and murdered, Well, I've got to say abduction and murders
a much much stronger possibility. Yeah, I mean I think
that the interesting bit. You know, there's so many of those,

(01:15:21):
and we're just totally omitting all of the like sightings
of Marrow Murray that have called in in the last
ten years, mostly because like, please go online and look
at pictures of her. She's like one of the most
innocuous white women ever. I mean, she's got brown hair,
she looks like a totally normal, like attractive, but not

(01:15:45):
like so attractive that you would notice her blending in
white woman. And I have so many friends who kind
of do that whole like a woman to go to
Alaska and like work in a fish processing plant for
a couple of years and like do you think that
they're relatigious about like actually, you know, having a work
visa and like proving who you are, like running a

(01:16:06):
background check and all that. So no, I mean they
may pay you in cash and like that's fine because
it's cheaper for them in the long run. You know.
It's not to say that that's what she did, but
it would be possible for her to have escaped someplace.
You know, I had taken a job under the table
for a little while until she could earn the money
to make it out of the country and just go. Well,

(01:16:27):
and and here's one of the things. I don't know
if we've talked about this. When you pull up Woodsville
where she crashed her car, it is less than a
hundred miles away from the Canadian board. So you think
the Canadians did it. I don't think the Canadians. But
they stopped her full of Tim Horton's and you know,

(01:16:49):
and maple syrup and said, okay a, no, I think
that it's it's one of those things where if she's
if she's running from, I don't know what she thought
was so terrible that she had to run from. And
you look at where Amurs is and you look where
she crashed. She drove two and a half hours north
and she was about an hour or so away from

(01:17:12):
crossing the border and go into a new life. And
what do people do and you you mentioned this, what
do people do when they want to make me like
they go to another country and they just start over
with a and just have basics. And I have no idea.
This is two thousand four, of course, this is after leven,
so there would be a record of a border crossing.
I don't know if anybody you know on the US

(01:17:34):
of the Canadian side of the border actually you know,
kept track of who crossed the border. But you would
think the police would probably have checked on something like that.
Maybe they didn't. I mean, it's it's the authorities. I
have an amazing ability to be like super authoritarian and
everything like that and massively incompetence. I think, well, I
think that the thing is right is that, like we
keep an incredible record of everybody who comes into our country.

(01:17:56):
I don't know that to keep a great record of
who leaves our country now that the Canadians would have
the Canadians would have a record if you came in.
I gotta be honest, you know. I mean I've I've
driven through the Canadian border and waived my passport and
kept going yea, and they didn't scan me every stinking
time I came through the border. Yeah again. Well, I

(01:18:18):
think what happened after Not eleven, though, is that there's
basically the US because somebody of the not eleven um
terrorists infiltrated our country to the Canadian border. The US
we started clapping down on that, and retaliation, the Canadians
started clamping down on us and started putting much stricter
rules about who could come in and everything like that.
So I I would imagine it by that point in

(01:18:39):
time that they were probably actually scanning all the passports
that people coming out. Okay, okay, but but here's the
problem with that is that you're presuming that she was checked. Okay, Well,
let's just say for giggles, let's just say that Mara ran.

(01:19:01):
She ran north on the road, or she got a
ride and one of those cars that went by, and
she gets in a car and she gets out to
I think it's Interstate ninety one, is that right, Devon?
She gets one one and she hooked. She thumbs a
ride and she gets some family and a camper, or
she gets some dude that's driving a truck and she

(01:19:21):
gives some sob story about running away from whatever she's
running away from and just says, listen, I can't be tracked.
Can I hide in the back and can you tell
them that no, there's nobody else with you? And she
goes through and she's unchecked. I mean, there's a brazilion
ways that you know, you guys are piling improbability on

(01:19:41):
top of improbability. I'm saying that it's possible that she
could have done it. I think that's the case. It's
entirely possible. I personally agree with Joe with what Joe
has been railroading this, But I'm saying, here's what's possible. Well,
and I think that like the probability of like you
hooked a ride, right, are you going to end up

(01:20:03):
like actually catching her ride with like a really kindly
person who like smuggles you across the border of Canada.
Or are you gonna hook her ride with like Psycho
who murders you in the closet of an a frame.
I don't know. I know that's that's one of the
huge problems with this story and why I don't want
to go like too far down the rabbit hole of theories. Right, So,

(01:20:25):
like there are some like broad stroke theories that like
we could mention, but once you start getting into that whole, like, well,
she tried to run away but things went wrong, Like
oh my gosh, are you kidding me? That's like a
million different threads of like oh, and then this could
have happened, and this could have happened, and that could
have happened, and maybe it was this. Maybe it's there's
so many different places to go, and then you know,

(01:20:47):
on top of that, you've got the well she ran
away and successfully faked her death and it's like living
high and mighty and like Tahiti right now, right, or
there was some foul play aspect in it. It's just
so I think I think we as as a trio
here had this conversation before we hit the record button today,

(01:21:08):
is that there's so many threads of this story that
could run nowhere that it is near impossible to just
pull on one and try and get to the root
of what actually happened, because the whole thing, it doesn't unravel,
it not, it turns into a giant ball of information

(01:21:29):
and you can't find your way out of it. And
there's so much, so much again pollution from the Internet,
and extraneous information that doesn't maybe actually have say, for example,
the credit card thing, you know, that's that's extraneous. But
but but anyway, you get back to again the running
away thing. I'm not saying it's completely beyond the realm

(01:21:52):
of possibility, but in order to believe that, seriously, have
to believe that she was one to take off with
a car that barely ran with only buck and that
she immediately boo blew a big chunk of that on booze.
Bad judgment all the way around, And when she could
have actually hung around for a few days and gotten
a bunch more money to take with her owner John's,
she was willing to afflict all this pain upon her family.

(01:22:14):
And you know, again, maybe she's maybe she was a sociopath.
I don't know, but we're extreme, yeah, And and all
these years have gone by and she hasn't rethought the
fact that maybe I should get in touched, to get
in touch with the folks and my brother and sister whatever,
you know. I mean, um, it just none of that
makes sense at the scene, the car was locked. She left. Yeah, yeah, right,

(01:22:36):
So she left the scene and locked the car, which
is obviously if you're going to hang around by your car,
you're not gonna lock it. So what happened was you
want to keep it safe that actually decided, Yeah, she
decided to hoof it, or somebody drove up and offered
her a ride, one or the other, and at that
point she said, okay, let me lock up my car.
She locked her car, she got in a car with

(01:22:56):
somebody or else planning to come back. Yeah, yeah, exactly.
So the logical thing for her to have done would
have been to walk to one of the nearby houses
if she did that, or climb in a car with somebody. So,
you know, I think that's what happened. I think that's
so much more likely. I think probably what I would
do it as I would look at anybody in that

(01:23:17):
town who drives a tow truck. The guy pulled up
and said, hey, I have a tow truck company wants
hop in. We'll go to my place, you can warm up,
we'll come back in my truck. We'll tell your car
to the nearest garage. The tow truck driver in town
is a murderer. Well you're okay, it could be anybody truck.
But you know, here's the other thing that's so awkward

(01:23:37):
about this story is we're gonna go back to Renter. Okay,
that guy has thrown out a lot of stuff, and
I don't put any credence in what I'm about to
talk about, but he cast a net of doubt at Fred,
and it's a net of incest because he he talks

(01:24:01):
about things of why did she go back to her
dad's room and all of this stuff. She was so drunk,
Why was she heading back to her dad? Because she
had her dad's car and he was going to leave
in the morning. She didn't want to wake up hungover.
She took it so he could drive her back to
the dorm and drive his car back to his hotel
room and go to sleep that night. Yeah. But but

(01:24:21):
the stuff, I mean, he's putting out and so this
is again, as you said, it's polluting. What's out there
is that he is He's yeah again, he's saying, well, well,
maybe there was this weird thing of incest and that's
why there was this and that. And I think I
find it really hard to get even in the realm
of acceptable ideas. I think that that's incredibly irresponsible to

(01:24:45):
put that kind of stuff out there. I mean, I
don't I don't know her dad or anything like that,
but I'm giving it the presumption of the town. Um.
You know, I'm going to assume he's not Again. This
is this is where I know you have another I
just thought there was one little like the other thing
that was worth mentioning that has kind of an an

(01:25:07):
interesting spin on this whole thing. Apparently, on the night
of February five, two four, so that was the night, yeah,
that she broke down crying, and that was February seven, Yeah,
it was. It was the night that she broke down
crying and had to be escorted from after she got

(01:25:29):
back from her break on work and she spent a
long time talking to her sister on the phone. Yes,
Apparently that night, around the time that she was on
her break, a U mask student named Vassi pet Treat.
The Treat was the victim of a hit and run accident.
He was a pedestrian, She was a pedestrian. The student
was a pedestrian, uh and got hit by a car

(01:25:52):
that drove off and probably was never found. A guy
or a girl. It's a good question, I think we'll
get Let's go with girl. I would say it probably
serves your right. Pedestrians usually deserved to get run over.
But here's the thing. If she's on her break from work,
I'm guessing she had a fifteen minute break. She was

(01:26:15):
on the phone. She was on the phone with her
sister for like an hour, so it would have been
a fairly substantial break. So the theory goes that perhaps
while on her break, even maybe while on her break
on the phone with her sister, she accidentally struck a
fellow student slash pedestrian and panicked and ran away from it.

(01:26:39):
And then this theory is like, very odd, but just
stick with me for a second. Here borrowed her father's
car and practiced running it into a guardrail. What what
practiced running it into a guardrail because she wanted to
run her own car into a guardrail to cover up
for the fact that she had hit somebody and then
abandoned the car. But it went terribly wrong. Of course

(01:27:01):
in the end, right, it always goes terribly wrong. But
the theory absolutely so. There are a lot of theories. Yeah,
so when when this person patri was hit by a car.
Did they report it? Yes, that's how they did. They
report like a car description and the license number. As
far as I know, No, yeah, I mean it probably

(01:27:21):
a description of like, oh, it was a dark sedan,
But I think it's far further than that. I don't
know it was dark. It was it was night um
when this person was hit. So I think that's like
an interesting slight aside that like a maths student was
the victim of a hidden run shortly before, you know,

(01:27:41):
And it would account for some of the stuff, right,
It would account for the fact that, like, you know,
a couple hours later, she just lost control, like just
realized the implications of what had happened. It would also explain,
you know, her getting drunk, like really really drunk the
next couple of nights looking for an a car. You know,

(01:28:03):
it would a little bit right, you know, if you said, hey, dad,
I hit somebody with my car and I don't know
what to do, and maybe the dad Fred was like
not the most responsible person, and he was like, well, crap,
like we got to cover this thing up. But you're
already on the path of covering things up. Let's buy
you a new car, and we'll just here's the weird
thing though, is her supervisor walked her home from her job,

(01:28:26):
meaning she didn't drive to works. Well, she may have driven,
I mean, you know, it's possible that she or that
her car was close, her dorm was close, and she
walked back to her car and left to go get
food and then came back. These are all total possibility. Yeah,
I'm not gonna I don't want to belabor this anymore
because there's just so many directions that potentially absolutely but

(01:28:49):
I do think that that's slightly worth the note that
there is absolutely no evidence that vos Pat was hit
by her. Also, you know, again, as I mentioned Dockbridge,
I've I've been there, I've been Amherst, and Amhurst is
pretty large, as is the campus. So like it's totally
possible that there there's no connection. But we've been talking
about grasping at straws, and it's a straw that really

(01:29:12):
is this, This entire thing is a giant straw mata
that we are just balancing on. Yeah, so I guess
um that's the end of the theories. And I don't
really want to ask you guys what your favorite theories
are because you already told me what your favorite theories are.
I don't really have she was abducted, murdered, and she's
in a shallow graves. Personally, I hope that she is
married to a logger in some Canadian flogging farm happily

(01:29:37):
pumped out seven children too, but I don't think that's Yeah.
I hope that she's like living in Tahiti. Yeah, Tahiti
is much better married to like some island dude who
just like treats her like a queen and lords every
day and calls it awesome. Yeah. I hope that she's
living in Salem. No, that's horrible, just kidding. That's so.

(01:30:00):
With that, I think we're done talking about Marrow Murray
about like three hours later, right something that something like that.
What's its edited down? It won't be quite that long,
but yeah, it'll be close. So to check out the
link some of the links that we've been talking about,
go to the internet. Go to the internet. Find out
more liable. Uh no, we don't print liable on our

(01:30:24):
our website. That website is thinking Sideways podcast dot com.
You can stream our show there. You may be doing
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(01:30:44):
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us on Stitcher. It's pretty cool. We have the Facebook,
both facebooks. We are on the Facebook. We are the
We are the Facebook. We've got a group and a page,
so like us or join us. We post pretty awesome

(01:31:07):
stuff there sometimes. And as always, if you are mar Murray,
please God, if you are mar Murray, Murray's murderer, please yeah,
I'd rather hear from Marrow. Would you send us an email?
That email address is has always Thinking Sideways podcast at
gmail dot com. And with that, we are going to

(01:31:30):
stop invading your ear holes. Okay, another mess solved. Let's
go have a beer. No, I think I actually think
I might need a drink after that. I definitely need
like five. All right, can we get on out of here?
Thank you everybody. I need to go. Yeah, bye bye

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