October 13, 2025 • 109 mins
In February 2004, 21-year-old nursing student Maura Murray vanished after a car crash on a rural New Hampshire road—and nearly two decades later, her case remains one of the most haunting and debated mysteries in true crime. In Part One, we dive into Maura’s background, the days leading up to her disappearance, and the puzzling events of February 9th.
Intro music by Joe Buck Yourself
Hosts Heather and Dylan
www.mountainmurderspodcast.com
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/mountain-murders--3281847/support.
Intro music by Joe Buck Yourself
Hosts Heather and Dylan
www.mountainmurderspodcast.com
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/mountain-murders--3281847/support.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
Dark Cast Network. Welcome to the Dark Side of podcasting.
Speaker 2 (00:16):
I'm Ted, I'm JJ, and we're here to tell you
about our show conspiring to argue I like it, that
is not relevant. What do we do on the show.
Speaker 3 (00:26):
Well, on our podcast, what we do is take conspiracy
theories and either Ted or myself will argue about if
the conspiracy is real or not.
Speaker 2 (00:35):
Yeah, and sometimes sometimes the conspiracies are silly. Sometimes they're
you know, in the pantheon of the greatest conspiracies of
all time. It's a mixed bag.
Speaker 3 (00:47):
Sometimes they're about aliens.
Speaker 2 (00:49):
So check us out wherever you listen to podcasts.
Speaker 3 (00:51):
Sometimes they're about.
Speaker 2 (01:08):
His way.
Speaker 4 (01:09):
Devil is on his way.
Speaker 2 (01:11):
Devil is on his way. Mother for God. The Devil
gonna make you pay foul to your knees. Devil is
on his way.
Speaker 4 (01:19):
Foul to your knees.
Speaker 2 (01:21):
Devil gonna make you pay five to your knee Devil.
Speaker 3 (01:28):
Hey, y'all, welcome back to Mountain Murderers. I'm Heather and
I'm Dylan. Hey Dylan, you're dancing in your chair. You
look very excited to be here.
Speaker 4 (01:38):
I am chair dancing. I can't contain myself. I've been
waiting for this case this week. I'm totally excited for
the story that you are going to bring forth from
the vault. Man, You've been in the vault so much,
so deep down rabbit holes lately.
Speaker 3 (01:53):
I told you this case has me down in a
rabbit hole, and I like have to stop.
Speaker 4 (01:58):
And Heather's like, I just had no idea.
Speaker 3 (02:00):
I must stop that.
Speaker 4 (02:01):
There was this much information that it goes all these
different directions. And She's like, with all her work on
the Patreon episode of West Memphis three series and the
cases she's been bringing forth and the spooky cases for October,
Oh my gosh, just like I get lost. I'm like,
where's Heather at She's down a rabbit hole.
Speaker 3 (02:22):
I need to study.
Speaker 4 (02:24):
Yeah, you do need a study.
Speaker 3 (02:26):
I need to study. I want to study. That mimics
the narrator from the Rocky Horror Picture Show.
Speaker 4 (02:32):
Okay, and I want his outfit, okay.
Speaker 3 (02:34):
Right, so I can just sit around in like my velvet,
smoking jackets and.
Speaker 4 (02:38):
Like a pipe, yes, okay.
Speaker 3 (02:40):
Yeah, prefer with like a Dunhill, right, Gotta have some
chocolatey tobacco, some like dark tobacco. Oh yeah, I know
what I know about pipes.
Speaker 4 (02:51):
Yeah, bro.
Speaker 3 (02:53):
Kind of a little like interesting gadgets in my office,
like a globe, but I want a globe from like
thirty years ago. That's incorrect. It has like countries that
no longer exist, and shit.
Speaker 4 (03:05):
Oh wow, like an eighties globe.
Speaker 3 (03:07):
Nice, like a human skull. Just a bunch of unnecessary
things that have nothing to do with researching a podcast.
Speaker 4 (03:14):
Yes, but they there you are in your study with
your weird leather bound books that may be on like
you know, various subjects that have nothing to do with podcasting.
But yeah, that's lots of wood.
Speaker 3 (03:26):
Lots of dark rich mahogany, Dylan.
Speaker 4 (03:29):
Dark wood, and uh yeah.
Speaker 3 (03:31):
All right, exactly. You know they say, uh, you won't
tell people you on the lottery or that you're rich,
but there will be signs. You'll know when I have
like a fancy study.
Speaker 4 (03:42):
And we were slowly reaching that goal with the help
of incredible people like our newest patrons.
Speaker 3 (03:47):
Exactly. So let's give a big shout out to Heather
and Jody. You guys made our week.
Speaker 4 (03:53):
They are sponsoring for Patreon, They are going to sponsor
today's episode and are we can not wait to deliver
for them and everyone else, right, like.
Speaker 3 (04:04):
Like you mentioned we have the West Memphis three series.
We've so far dropped two episodes in that series. Many
more to go to bangers. We are I'm telling you, bro,
we are breaking this case down like piece by piece.
We're gonna bring you information you didn't know you needed.
Speaker 4 (04:22):
Yeah. Yeah, you don't know what you don't know? You know, right?
Speaker 3 (04:27):
We know?
Speaker 4 (04:27):
Oh yeah, yeah, okay.
Speaker 3 (04:29):
Also, let's give a big shout out to the head
bitch and charge Courtney.
Speaker 4 (04:33):
Yes, Courtney, a friend of the pod sent as an
incredible present.
Speaker 3 (04:37):
Oh man, she made us the coolest Mountain Murders framed
art work. We love it, Dylan. Every time he sees it,
he's like, I just love that.
Speaker 4 (04:46):
Yes, cool, And it reminds me of one of our
og patrons and listeners, Sunday made us some logo art previously,
and now we have like this collection from over the years.
Speaker 3 (04:58):
So cool.
Speaker 4 (05:00):
Thank you, Sunday.
Speaker 3 (05:00):
And I was thinking about this the other day, Dylan.
When we're like old and frail and like one hundred
years old and we're no longer podcasting, I'm still gonna
have that art hanging in our home.
Speaker 4 (05:12):
Yeah, I know.
Speaker 3 (05:13):
And it's been such a big part of our lives.
Speaker 4 (05:15):
No, it's true. Our marriage and our relationship, it's true.
And yeah, and we'll always have the memories, right.
Speaker 3 (05:23):
Always the memories. Thanks for the memories, Dylan, I apologize
ahead of time. I am battling some type of seasonal
allergy thing, so my voice is a little scratchy today, right,
And I just spoke up from like a three hour
long nap as well, So I'm gonna apologize ahead of
(05:43):
time if I sound really stuffy and or like I just.
Speaker 4 (05:48):
Woke up, that's okay. Heather will sprinkle a little spumpkin pumpkin,
some spumpkin spice on you, and we'll get you livened up.
Speaker 3 (05:56):
Some spumpkin. You're gonna put some spumpkin.
Speaker 4 (05:58):
On yeahat sounds I don't know, little season, little spice,
get you, uh get you woke up? Right?
Speaker 3 (06:06):
So woke? My eyes are open?
Speaker 4 (06:10):
All right?
Speaker 3 (06:11):
Yeah? Well you know, Dylan, every season is allergy season
when you're like allergic to everything.
Speaker 4 (06:16):
Right, Well, yeah, see, and now I'm mark.
Speaker 3 (06:19):
Because I'm just like like it doesn't matter. I'm just
constantly like allergic to something that's blooming or dying or
decaying or changing.
Speaker 4 (06:28):
It's so now you're you're you're days of your notable
days or days that you aren't snotty, exactly right, and
so the rest of the time you're snotty. So that's
just your that's just your life.
Speaker 3 (06:40):
Now, Okay, Dylan, are you ready to get into today's episode?
There is so much information. Like I said, I've been
don rabbit holes things I didn't need to know. I
know it's going to be a two parter.
Speaker 4 (06:53):
Okay, and that's trimming it down.
Speaker 3 (06:55):
Bro, we could probably have like eight parter if we
want it.
Speaker 4 (07:00):
Now, hold on a second, Heather, are you telling me
you've found out this much information about a case like
this that has been fairly openly discussed for many years.
Speaker 3 (07:12):
Well, there's a lot out there, a lot of misinformation,
and then there's also a lot of how do I
put this information that has been given to authors, journalists, okay,
shared by people who have intimate knowledge of the family,
have shared maybe things that are a little less than savory.
Speaker 4 (07:38):
Oh.
Speaker 3 (07:38):
Really, the family heavily disputes that information. But we'll see
throughout the case. The family doesn't want to bring up
anything but that has a negative connotation or or makes
them look bad.
Speaker 4 (07:54):
Okay, So it's so some of the.
Speaker 3 (07:56):
Stuff people are saying, likeeople who would know are saying
a certain thing, but then the family is like denying it,
you know. So it's like it's just one of those
messy cases, and you kind of hate to, like you
don't want to victim blame, and you don't want to
like like blame the family or point out negative things
about the family. They've been through a lot. But at
(08:18):
the same time, it is kind of pertinent to the
story and to the case, I think. So it's tricky, right,
So we're going to try to be as respectful as
possible with it. Okay, So this is still telling the
truth as we have discovered it.
Speaker 4 (08:36):
So am I to gather that the family don't mind
participating in this narrative as long as as long as.
Speaker 3 (08:46):
It's a certain narrative. It seems like as long as
they have control of the.
Speaker 4 (08:50):
Narrative, Okay, And they have that right, I.
Speaker 3 (08:53):
Reckon, right, So let's get into the story. Dylan, on
the morning of Tuesday, February tenth of two thousand and
four of a University of Massachusetts dorm room, hear the
continuous ringing of an alarm clock. It seemed the resident
was not available to turn it off. And I don't
know other folks who've lived in a dorm type setting,
(09:15):
but I've experienced this before, where one of your neighbors
has an alarm going off like half the day, no
one can turn it off because of course their dorm
room is locked. You just have to endure that sound,
oh my goshhing or buzzing sound.
Speaker 4 (09:30):
And I take it it's something you can hear pretty
pretty well.
Speaker 3 (09:33):
From the other room sometimes sometimes yeah. And I don't
know what it is about that piece of information, but
I guess it just kind of haunted me a little
bit when I heard it, you know. Later that morning,
Loriie Murray receives a phone call from a Sergeant Cecil
Smith of the Haverhill, New Hampshire Police Department. The words
(09:55):
flowing from Smith's mouth do not make sense, according to
the law enforcement officer. Lourie's daughter, Maura, a nursing student
at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, was involved in a
single car accident on Route one twelve in Haverhill. The
abandoned nineteen ninety six black Saturn had crashed into a
(10:15):
tree the evening before, left on the roadside kind of
near like a wooded area. The driver, Mara Murray, had
vanished before law enforcement arrived on the scene Monday evening.
Smith relayed that the car was locked. He had to
wait for search warrant before opening the vehicle. Tuesday morning,
(10:36):
he had gotten the green light to search the car.
He learned the Saturn was registered to Fred Murray of Weymouth, Massachusetts.
Two locals had phoned in the accident on Monday evening.
One neighbor had spoken to the young woman who was
driving the Saturn, and by the time the officer arrived,
the young woman was gone. There was no sign of her. Okay, Now, Dylan,
(10:59):
this has been an enduring mystery for over twenty years.
What happened to Maura Murray?
Speaker 4 (11:07):
Yes, I've always thought this was an interesting, uh, kind
of a weird case, you know, a strange missing person case.
I guess you would classify it. And yeah, I've always
it's always for some reason, you know, you hear the
just the general details, and there's just something that seems
weird about it. It's like you can't put your finger
on it. You know, there's no obvious signs of like,
(11:30):
you know, a struggle or someone being taken from the
scene or anything like that. But yet there's something just
very odd about the whole situation.
Speaker 3 (11:38):
Well again, none of this is regoris like registering with
her mother, Laurie. Twenty one year old Maura was on campus,
she had classes, Maura had no ties to New Hampshire,
and like, why would she be traveling in that area
on a Monday evening, and also why was she driving
the nineteen ninety six center. There are a lot of questions.
(11:59):
Here's the thing to the Saturn was having issues before
the events of our story unfolded. Fred Murray had given
his daughter Maura the older car, a black nineteen ninety
six Saturn.
Speaker 4 (12:14):
So this is like her college car.
Speaker 3 (12:16):
Little sedan. Yeah, yeah, she's she needs to be able
to get around Amherst. Right. Fred was working a good
job making great money at the time and decided to
buy himself a new car give More the old car.
Speaker 4 (12:29):
And I think that's a common practice in a lot
of families.
Speaker 3 (12:31):
Right right, More was transferred. I'm sorry, Mora has transferred
to the University of Massachusetts and needed this reliable car.
But unfortunately, Morri's car had a serious issue. While she
was driving the car smoke was pouring out of it,
and it seems she had some kind of like head
gasket issue, like a valve, bad valve, and Fred told
(12:54):
her that made the car unsafe in his opinion.
Speaker 4 (12:58):
Right, So it's just belching smoke. You don't know where
it's coming from. So until you get that figured out,
you probably should what's.
Speaker 3 (13:06):
Coming from the head gasket. Okay, broken valve, I just
said that.
Speaker 4 (13:10):
Okay, But anyway, Yeah, you don't need to drive a
car that's porn smoke like that.
Speaker 3 (13:16):
No, And I've had a head gasket go out doing
and they're not cheap to fix, right, It's it's quite expensive.
And if you think about a car that's at this
point eight years old, do you really want to put
thousand and fifteen fifteen hundred two thousand dollars into the
(13:36):
car to fix it?
Speaker 4 (13:37):
Yeah, and that's one of those repairs.
Speaker 3 (13:39):
They're probably not even worth half that or you know
what I'm saying, like because it's an old car.
Speaker 4 (13:43):
Right, because you never know what something else might go out,
you know, as soon as you get that fixed. And honestly,
a head gasket repair, that's the type of thing I've
heard more than once. I've heard someone try to fix it,
and it's like the car's never ride again, or they
can continue to have issues from it, you know what
I mean.
Speaker 3 (14:00):
I don't know, Bud, I had a head gasket replaced
in that white Honda and you drove that thing. It's
probably still going somewhere.
Speaker 4 (14:08):
Oh No, I certainly wish I still had that car.
But I'm just saying it's one of those types of repairs,
you know, that seemed to kind of keep having issue.
Sometimes it's a big deal.
Speaker 3 (14:18):
From what I understand as well, maybe some of the
early Saturns were maybe not the best built car. You know,
it takes a few years sometimes to get the car
right right, So you know, according to Fred, I mean,
he said like, eh, you know, at this point, it's
not worth putting the money in. It's, you know, an
(14:39):
old car, and there's probably going to be other things
like let's just buy you a new car. So as
a matter of fact, Fred had spent the weekend the
previous weekend in Amherst. He'd planned to help buy his
daughter a car. He had rented a motel for the
weekend and took his daughter mora car shopping. He had
taken out four thousand dollars. They had found a few cars,
(15:02):
but Fred claimed they cost more than the cash he
had brought with him, Like they were in the six
to seven thousand dollars range, okay, and he knew he
was gonna have to like go back to his bank
get more money out whatever. So he figured by the
time he returned to buy one of these cars, like
maybe the next weekend, they would probably still be there
(15:24):
and or have a comparable vehicle on a lot.
Speaker 4 (15:28):
Wow, that's the good old days when you could buy
a solid, a good running car for four to six
thousand dollars.
Speaker 3 (15:35):
Right, Gosh, those days are long gone. Now for four
to six thousand dollars they're going to sell you something
that's like thirty years old and like missing a hood
that was.
Speaker 4 (15:42):
Literally a five hundred dollars car back in the day.
Speaker 3 (15:45):
I don't know. These car prices are out of control.
Never in my life did I think I would know
someone who has like an eight year car. Note right,
it's insanity paying eighty thousand dollars for a pickup truck.
Give me a break, bro.
Speaker 4 (16:01):
Well, no, it's like you saw you saw someone say
I don't qualify for a home loan, but I can
I did qualify for this eighty five thousand dollars car loan.
You know, it's just.
Speaker 3 (16:10):
Weird, makes no sense to me. I mean, and who
do these car companies think they are, Because let's be honest,
the cars today are shittier. They don't last, not made
out of quality materials. They're plastic, they're cheap.
Speaker 4 (16:25):
They ding up, they get scraped, you know, I mean,
it's pretty ridiculous. They get more and more expensive and
everything on the inside is just like kind of cheap filling.
Speaker 3 (16:35):
Yeah, and they get more and more expensive, and they
honestly have no character the cars. They all look alike
today's cars in my opinion, Okay, and I'm like, I
love a good old car. Right, there's no style of
these cars. They all look the same. I can't tell
the difference half the time between these little crossover SUVs,
right that once upon a time were kind of had
(16:57):
a distinctive look about them. You knew immediately, Hey that's
a V four, right, that's a Pathfinder, that's a pilot,
that's a land Rover, right, And today they just all
look the same, all of them. Yeah, so what we're
boring colors?
Speaker 4 (17:13):
Wow? And that's why the car market's in free fall.
So here we are. She they've went car shopping, which
I enjoy, and I don't enjoy shopping for cars. I
know that you don't seem to enjoy it at all. No,
you like to go and just do it and get
it done. You don't want to go to a bunch
of different places than luck.
Speaker 3 (17:32):
I just don't like dealing with the salespeople. That's the
thing I hate about it.
Speaker 4 (17:36):
I do hate the feeling.
Speaker 3 (17:37):
I just want people to leave me the fuck alone, Like,
let me look and if I see something I like,
I'll ask you a question. But I don't need you
breathing over my shoulder, like get out of my personal
space and quit trying to upsell me and like talk
my ear off, like I don't you're not gonna sell
me something I don't want.
Speaker 4 (17:54):
No, it's almost like they're a stripper at the bar,
a stripper bar, or i'm sorry, a dancer and it's
a dancer and they're acting like they're interested in like
what you want, and they don't. They don't care. They
just want to get across the finish line money. They
just want to get across to get a sale, which
I understand. And it's like I go to these places
like where there's vendors and stuff, and I can't even
(18:16):
make contact with the people at the booths because like
they want to make a sell and like I don't
want to buy anything. I'm just you know, windows shopping,
if you will, and uh, yeah, I don't like any
kind of hybrid sales pressure of any sort. It just
makes me feel weird.
Speaker 3 (18:33):
No, I don't need you to hold my items at
the debt at the counter, right, I don't need Yeah,
I don't need you. Just show me the robe that
matches the bra I mean, leave me alone, bro, leave
me alone. Now, Louri begins making calls to Mora's siblings.
She is still having a hard time figuring out what
(18:54):
is going on, because again, none of this makes sense. Dylan.
If you think your child is at college and it's
middle the week, it's the weekday she's got class, and
you find out she's in a completely different state and
has had an accident, I think most parents would be like,
what is happening, Well.
Speaker 4 (19:10):
She's confused the cars already, they've I'm sure they The
whole families discussed the car situation as far as they're concerned.
The cars basically dead and they're looking for a new one,
actively looking for a new one. So they're just totally
confused as to what's going on.
Speaker 3 (19:26):
Right, Fred Murray does not receive information that his daughter
is missing until four thirty pm. He had been working
and unavailable to take personal calls. It seems. Fred also
learns details of the accident. The Saturn had front end
damage to the bumper, the air bags had deployed, and
the windshield was cracked. Now, when Sergeant Cecil Smith found
(19:47):
the vehicle, it was locked. He obtained a search warrant
for the car. Inside the vehicle held a lot of
personal items and it's kind of obvious signs that the
car was being used by female. Okay, mat close, I mean,
there's just a bunch of stuff in there. In total,
there will be one hundred and nine items found in
the car. There are snacks like twizzlers and pickles, toilet trees, clothes,
(20:11):
running clothes, textbooks, and Eastern Massachusetts roadmap, a three by
five index card with directions to Burlington, Vermont, along with
a brochure for Vermont attractions. There was a receipt showing
forty dollars of alcohol had been purchased earlier, before the
accident had happened on Monday. The receipt included vodka, khalua
(20:33):
irish cream, and a six pack of a malt beverage,
one of which was empty in the car. The vodka
and kalua were not in the car, indicating that Mora
had taken those items with her. Another oddity was that
there was a rag stuffed into the tailpipe. And this
will come up as a point of debate. Now we
will learn from Fred that you know, he told his daughter,
(20:56):
don't drive this car. But if something happens and there's
an emergent and see and like you absolutely need to
drive the car for some reason to stuff a rag
in the tailpipe so smoke wouldn't come out. But other
folks are like, that doesn't make any sense because that's
actually gonna like mess the car up.
Speaker 4 (21:15):
No, I know very little about cars.
Speaker 3 (21:17):
It's gonna back up and it's going to cause the
car to like shut down, quit whatever.
Speaker 4 (21:21):
Yeah, because that's basically how the car breeds. So and
I think we all were of a certain age. We
remember the Beverly Hills cop banana.
Speaker 3 (21:31):
The banana and the tailpipe.
Speaker 4 (21:32):
Right when he wanted to you know, fully.
Speaker 3 (21:34):
Man, he was always up to some shenan.
Speaker 4 (21:37):
Again, when Folly wanted to slip off and ditch his
Beverly Hills counterparts, he stuffed a banana and their tailpipe
and they couldn't go. So, I mean, that's just that's that's.
Speaker 3 (21:46):
Real facts, right, So it didn't really make sense. We
don't understand why there's a rag in the tailpipe.
Speaker 4 (21:53):
So if indeed he truly told his daughter that he
was misinformed, and I think it would s I don't
think the car would operate very well. Even you take
a regular cars operating completely fine and you block off
the tailpipe, it's going to cause issues.
Speaker 3 (22:12):
Right, So that's a very odd kind of thing happening. Right.
There was also a red stump, a red substance on
the side door and ceiling, as if there had been
some kind of spill. Smith believed it was wine. There
was a box of wine found inside the car. It
(22:33):
looked like it had either been broken or had been
opened already. Okay, so it seems like maybe this wine
it like you know, if you have an accident, shit
in your car kind of flies around. So maybe it
had just sort of burst out, and that it explains
how it got on the ceiling. Right outside, he found
(22:53):
a coke bottle filled with a red liquid. He said
that the red liquid was an alcohol substance, and so
he believed it was wine in this like empty coke bottle.
Speaker 4 (23:04):
And he found that nearby the car outside. Yes, okay.
Speaker 3 (23:07):
Initially, investigators theorized that the young woman had been drinking
and driving, wrecked the car and left in a panic.
She was likely trying to avoid police. Smith suspects that
Maura is going to show up at any time. But wait,
there's more, Dylan, I'll be jumping around a little bit here.
I'm going to give you some background. We'll get back
(23:29):
into the case. I might give you some more backgrounds.
So bear with me. It's all gonna come together. So,
like I said, wait there's more. So the previous Saturday night,
Moura had borrowed her father's new car. She and a
friend named Kate attended what has been described as a
dorm party. Kate told Julie Murray that's More's sister, that
(23:54):
there were only maybe seven to eight people at this
dorm party, and it was more like a chilled get
together not some kind of wild party. She said. The
dorm rooms were very small. Again, you can only fit
about seven to eight people in.
Speaker 4 (24:07):
There, So that's more of a gathering anymore, like.
Speaker 3 (24:11):
Just hanging out, right, right, Everyone was just as you mentioned, doing,
hanging out. They had been invited by a friend named
Sarah Alfiri, who has also not been very forthcoming with
details of that night. Like she has refused to speak
to any media, She doesn't talk to the family. She
just doesn't discuss that evening at all.
Speaker 4 (24:33):
Okay, Well, I guess that could be for multiple reasons, right,
she could be just a shy private person. They could
have been doing maybe some recreational drugs. That kind of
weirds her out that she certainly doesn't want to discuss
that with parents or anyone else or school officials.
Speaker 3 (24:52):
That's done a lot of speculation about this party. Okay, Now,
Sarah will claim to law enforcement that she had been
asleep like during the whole thing.
Speaker 4 (25:02):
So she invited people over, Yeah, but then she slept
the end the whole time. Yes, Well, I guess that
could happen, but it seems it just doesn't seem.
Speaker 3 (25:12):
She obviously doesn't have insomnia, right, because there's no way
I sleep if there's people around now, Kate said, nothing
unusual happened at the party. There were some people hanging
out that they didn't know, like they were friends of Sarah's,
but Kate and Maura didn't know them. But she didn't
really indicate that it was like weird or uncomfortable. She said.
(25:35):
Maura seemed tired, and at some point Maura wants to
leave the party. She told Kate she needed to return
to the car. I'm sorry, she needs to get this
car back to her dad. This is around two point
thirty that Maura departs, and uh so, Marea and Kate
kind of go their separate ways, and according to Kate,
like Maura is escorted back to her dorm by these
(25:57):
three guys who were at the party that don't attend
this school. Okay, okay, but it seems like she maybe
went to her dorm room. These boys were interviewed. I mean,
it didn't seem like anything happened. They just kind of
walked her to her dorm room. But there's kind of
like this missing hour in the timeline because from two
(26:20):
thirty to three thirty, we don't really know what Maura
was doing during this hour, like if she was back
at the dorm. She'd obviously gone to the dorm, but
was she there for a full hour. There's kind of
like missing time we can't account for it, is what
I'm gonna say. So at three thirty am, Maura crashes
her dad's brand new car by hitting a guardrail. This
(26:43):
accident is only one mile from campus.
Speaker 4 (26:46):
Damn Maura.
Speaker 3 (26:47):
Well, there are questions about like why Maura felt like
she needed to get this car back to her dad
this late. She's got a room on campus. Wouldn't have
been easier to just go to sleep and then the
next morning, like take the car back to your dad
instead of driving after you've been to a party. It's
through thirty in the morning, Like, why would you be
(27:07):
going back to this motel? You know your dad's asleep.
It's kind of strange.
Speaker 4 (27:14):
Yeah, it's it's kind of strange, but you know, maybe,
I mean they're young people for one, right, I mean.
Speaker 3 (27:22):
I don't know. Maybe she didn't want to park it
on campus. I don't know.
Speaker 4 (27:25):
Maybe they were going to start early the next morning
and she thought she'd just crash at the whole you know,
doing whatever they her and her dad were going to do,
and she thought she would just crash there with him
it would be easier for her, or maybe you know,
he needed the car earlier and she didn't. She felt
like once she went to sleep, she wouldn't want to
you know, maybe get it back to him on time.
(27:46):
I mean, I guess there could be a bunch of reasons.
Speaker 3 (27:49):
So, like I said, this accident is only about a
mile from campus. More claims she had not been drinking
for hours before the accident, and there was no sobriety
test administered to buy law enforcement who arrived at the scene,
Maura was very upset about the crash. Now, they're conflicting
stories because in one set of reports, the hotel clerk,
(28:16):
the motel clerk said that Maura came in and they
had to call Fred in his room, and that he
came out to the lobby to find Moura crying and
like confronted her about like what's going on. She explains
what's happened, right, right, But then other stories say that
like she just went in the room, went to bed
(28:36):
and didn't tell Fred until the next morning that the
car had been crashed.
Speaker 4 (28:40):
See, those are completely, yeah, polar opposite situations. I mean,
those are quite different situations.
Speaker 3 (28:47):
Well yeah, and I mean again, it's like you get
certain statements from the family, but then there's other statements
given from people who have a different story. So it's
again kind of can confusing. So I'm going to just
go with Okay. So the next morning, when he learns
what happened, he scolded Morris, saying she was lucky she
(29:09):
wasn't issued at du Why and Maura told her dad
she had not been intoxicated at the time of the accident,
But again, we don't really have any way of knowing.
She had been at a party. She had a box
of wine that her dad had taken her to purchase
along with her girlfriend before the party, so she had
been drinking at the party, but we don't know like
(29:29):
how much she had been drinking.
Speaker 4 (29:31):
So yet again, a box of wine in a car,
just the same box of wine. It's the same box
of wine. Are you supposed to refrigerate the wine after
you start opening and drinking it?
Speaker 3 (29:44):
I don't think so. Well, I mean, I guess it
depends on the wine. Oh, okay, cause I don't refrigerate
red wine.
Speaker 4 (29:51):
Well, that's true. I don't know anything about wine.
Speaker 3 (29:53):
I'm just look, it's a box wine dying. I don't
think it counts. I don't think it matters.
Speaker 4 (29:58):
It's like those pizza you could eat it three days
after it's been sitting out on your stove pretty much,
and you're you're gonna be okay, yeah, okay, yeah, Fred.
Speaker 3 (30:08):
Laine the insurance would cover most of the car's damage,
but this did not sway Maura's mood. She felt incredibly
guilty about this car accident. On Sunday, Mara cried on
the ride back to campus when she got out of
Fred's rental car. You know, she was still kind of sobbing,
just felt really terrible about what had happened. Fred and
(30:29):
Moore agreed they would speak on Monday. Fred told her
she needed to go get some like insurance forms to
file on Monday so they would reconnect then. And then
he described her as sort of just like you know,
kind of slumping, you know, and like going into her
dorm like she was upset.
Speaker 4 (30:49):
My kind of her tail between her legs kind of thing. Yeah,
kind of yeah, defeated, tired, been through a lot, right,
I'm sure.
Speaker 3 (30:58):
Right now, even as Fred here's about his missing daughter,
he feels an urgency to do something. Early morning, February eleventh,
Fred travels to New Hampshire. While driving in the dark,
he has the sinking feeling. Winter in New Hampshire is
quite cold. There had been a snowstorm recently. Temperatures on
(31:19):
Monday night had been very low. Fred worried that Mora
could be out in the weather, lost in the woods.
Speaker 4 (31:26):
Yeah, these types of ecnthermia could set in. Yeah, these
types of conditions are deadly.
Speaker 3 (31:32):
Well yeah, I mean it's hard to survive outdoors in
those temperatures, especially if you don't have any gear.
Speaker 4 (31:37):
Yeah, and this is the type of area where they,
I'm sure they people that have grown up there are
used to kind of keeping a kit in the car,
you know, if you're prepared to have any kind of preparedness,
you know, blankets, maybe, you know, a little bit of
food and water, because you know, these storms, these bad
storms can come out of nowhere.
Speaker 3 (31:54):
Maybe a pair of snow boots, wide.
Speaker 4 (31:56):
Out conditions, Yeah, and just all of a sudden you're stranded.
Speaker 3 (31:59):
You know. The area was not well marked where Moura
had wrecked. The directions told Fred to find a red barn.
Just after a horseshoe bend in the road. Morris's car
had been towed away on February ninth, but Fred found
the tire tracks still visible. Fred walks around looking for
(32:20):
footprints that might indicate which direction Maura had taken off,
but there are none. At the time Maura disappeared, she
would have been walking in two feet of snow from
the recent storm.
Speaker 4 (32:31):
Wow.
Speaker 3 (32:31):
Fred feels certain if she had walked away, there would
be some evidence of tracks.
Speaker 4 (32:36):
Yeah, two feet of snow. I mean you're kind of
slogging through that, you know what I mean, pushing a path.
It's not it's not something that would be unnoticeable.
Speaker 3 (32:46):
When Fred shows up at the Haverhill Police department, he
inquires about search efforts. You know, what is being done
to find my daughter. Fred is frustrated when he learns
that no one has searched for Maura. There was no
excuse why the police had not performed a search. Fred
is feeling like the police don't care that his daughter
is missing. While their officers, along with some canines, are
(33:09):
sent out to the accident scene using a pair of
gloves that had been removed from the car. Moore had
gotten these gloves for Christmas. By the way, the dogs
were given the scent and let loose didn't seem to
find anything. Now, her family argues that she'd gotten these
gloves for Christmas and that was not the best item
to use because they don't even know if she had
(33:30):
worn these gloves yet.
Speaker 4 (33:32):
Well, yeah, there were.
Speaker 3 (33:33):
Other things in the car that definitely would have had
her scent. Oh okay, you know, running clothes, that kind
of thing.
Speaker 4 (33:40):
Oh, I bet running clothes would be a good thing
to get someone sent off of, you know. And these
are bad conditions for trying to I would think, well,
that's the other thing for trying to do this kind
of tracking.
Speaker 3 (33:51):
It's been like more than a day, you know, like
we're going on more like day and a half or something,
and the conditions aren't great. Now the canines, like I said,
have no luck tracing Mora's scent. Fred is growing increasingly
agitated with police. He feels nothing is being done. Now
he's told that the Fish and Game will begin a
(34:13):
search of the area. Now, this search spans several miles
on foot, and an air search is conducted using some
heat sensing technology. The search goes on for hours.
Speaker 4 (34:23):
But there is no sign of Mora, Now do you
agree with Fred that you would if you were in
his position, would you be surprised that they did not
do even a general search of the surrounding area.
Speaker 3 (34:37):
I knew you were going to ask this, and I
am going to touch on this later. Okay, okay, okay. Yeah,
Now this mystery deepens. Experienced searchers using this reliable technology
are having no luck. They find no tracks, The heat
sensing technology is showing nothing.
Speaker 4 (34:57):
So was that done from the air? Why?
Speaker 3 (35:00):
I just said some of it?
Speaker 4 (35:01):
No, it was for Yeah, I'm sure they were using
the flur device.
Speaker 3 (35:04):
Yeah, yeah, Dylan, I mentioned some of it was conducted
in an air search.
Speaker 4 (35:09):
Right, and that's very very widespread, very sensitive technology.
Speaker 3 (35:15):
Well, we also have fishing game you know, officers or whatever.
These game wardens are out in this area, know the
area and know how to navigate the woods.
Speaker 4 (35:25):
Right, They know the back trail, the low roads, all that.
Speaker 3 (35:28):
So they're just not having any luck. By now, morris
siblings have heard the news that she's missing and they've
arrived in town to help with the search. Laurie was
at home with a broken ankle, so she was unable
to search for her daughter and over the years, a
lot of people have given her ship, Like I can't
believe her mother wasn't there, But it's like, well, it's
hard for her to be there when she's got a
(35:49):
broken ankle.
Speaker 4 (35:50):
How she gonna what's she going to do to help
in two foot of freaking snow, dude.
Speaker 3 (35:55):
Well, also, somebody has to stay behind and man the phones. Yes,
in case Mora calls, in case there's an update, in
case Mora shows up at home.
Speaker 4 (36:04):
I mean, I didn't grow up where there's big snows,
but I remember in a handful of big snows in
my life and it was a pain in the ass
to get around. And I'm sure people in an area
like this, or you you know, know very well how
tough these conditions are, especially if you get off the
road into the open, you know, the the raw would.
Speaker 3 (36:24):
Well, Dylany, you know how the world works today and
everybody has an opinion on everything. Everybody's an expert from
you know, missing persons to tariffs to peace in Israel,
Like everybody knows everything. Yeah, I know, everybody's smarter than
you and they know all the things.
Speaker 4 (36:43):
It's true, there's so many experts in so many fields.
Speaker 3 (36:47):
Yeah nowadays, Yeah, Yeah, all these students who can't even
finish school like on you know, on the grade level,
but they know more about it than you do.
Speaker 4 (36:58):
Yeah, they can't tell you how many countries are on
North America, the North American continent.
Speaker 3 (37:03):
Yeah, now the mystery deepens. As I said, Lorie's left behind.
They're just trying to figure out like what they can
start doing. And I mean most people are not experienced
with this. You don't really know where to begin. Now,
where do you start looking for your missing loved one?
Speaker 4 (37:23):
Right, It's not like you've been through this before, so
I'm sure almost every single time now you now and
again you have a family who's had, you know, multiple
tragedies in their life. But for the most part, everyone's
going to be navigating this for the first time. So
you know, forgive them if they don't make every move
exactly like a Monday morning quarterback would think that they should. Right.
Speaker 3 (37:46):
Morris's boyfriend, Bill Rosch, who is stationed at Fort Sill
in Oklahoma, is working to get leave approved so he
can travel to New Hampshire. So you got a lot
of folks who want to be there, who want to
be on the ground.
Speaker 4 (38:03):
Do you think I don't know you would look for me,
but I think that would be it. I don't think
i'd have anybody else that would look for me.
Speaker 3 (38:11):
There might be two or three more people you and Rufus.
Speaker 4 (38:15):
Well, yeah, maybe maybe.
Speaker 3 (38:16):
I would come the ends of the earth looking for you.
Speaker 4 (38:19):
You would, Yeah, I'd look all over the yard for you,
all around, not even go out.
Speaker 3 (38:23):
Back, that's it. Yeah, just you look around the house cool,
like you put for that much effort.
Speaker 4 (38:32):
Well, no, I'm telling you I would do it, dude, if.
Speaker 3 (38:34):
You would need help if I went missing. You do
not know how to navigate like social media create flyers.
You don't even know how to like attach a document
to an email. You would be so helpless.
Speaker 4 (38:45):
All I know is that there's like a paper clip.
Speaker 3 (38:47):
You don't have to go next door and get like
Brian and Santa to help you, or get Renee to
help you. Like you'd have to rely on friends and
neighbors because you are like technologically uh troubled. You're lacking.
Speaker 4 (39:04):
But I can walk in woods though, I can do that, carry,
I can carry stuff.
Speaker 3 (39:09):
Well, as long as you can stop every couple of
feet in smoke, you'd be open.
Speaker 4 (39:12):
Well, I'm not even smoking now so at the moment.
But I'm saying I can carry stuff, I can walk
through woods. I have been in deep woods before. If
you go missing in deep.
Speaker 3 (39:22):
Woods, yeah, it's very likely I would go missing in
deep woods. Yeah.
Speaker 4 (39:26):
It would be one of the places that I my
skill set would really is built for it. And now
you did make me realize I would have a team.
You a team to help me.
Speaker 3 (39:35):
You would have to have a team doing thanks.
Speaker 4 (39:37):
Guys.
Speaker 3 (39:38):
See, I could mental one woman operation up in this house.
Speaker 4 (39:40):
Yeah, but not you.
Speaker 3 (39:42):
And I don't mean that. I don't mean that badly.
Speaker 4 (39:45):
That's okay, honey. You can tell them to look for
my head.
Speaker 3 (39:47):
It's okay.
Speaker 4 (39:48):
Be on the lookout for a big ass head.
Speaker 3 (39:50):
Everybody has their own special talents.
Speaker 4 (39:54):
That might have a thinning spot in the backers.
Speaker 3 (39:57):
Are not your talent. And that's okay. Now more Murray,
let's discuss her a little bit more. Murray was born
May fourth of nineteen eighty two. She was the fourth
of five kids, growing up in what has been described
as a close knit, hard working family in Hanson, Massachusetts.
Mori's parents divorced when she was six years old, but
remained devoted and active in their children's lives. Through my research,
(40:20):
I learned that the youngest child, child number five, Curtis,
does not actually belong to Fred Murray. He belonged to
another man named Kevin Noble, who was arrested for murdering
his brother. Oh wow, guess incarcerated. Yeah, so Curtis's name
was like Curtis Noble Murray. So though this child did
(40:41):
not belong to Fred, it seems that, you know, he
was still active in the boy's life, didn't really treat
him differently than the other kids.
Speaker 4 (40:50):
Oh yeah, And I honestly believe that's, uh, that doesn't
matter at all. Yeah, you can certainly raise a child
as your own and be genuine about it. If you're
not genuine about it, don't bother, you know, don't act
or put it on the front. But yeah, that doesn't
matter whether or not a child you're biological offspring, because
(41:12):
I think how you raising that child is a whole
nother ball of wax.
Speaker 3 (41:18):
Right. So, despite this divorce, both remain you know, devoted
of you know, devoted active in their children's lives. Some
people have described Maura as having the like ideal American childhood,
growing up in the suburbs. Family meals, school activities, you know,
weekend plans, weekend fund. Maura had an older brother, Freddie Junior,
(41:40):
two sisters, Kathleen and Julie, and then the little brother Kurt.
Curtis Maura like camping over the state line in the
White Mountains of New Hampshire. She would often go camping
with her father, like just the two of them. Now.
Later James Renner, a true a true crime author, we'll
(42:00):
interview Lorie's sister, Janice. So this would be Mora's aunt,
and she would bring up the point about more going
camping with her dad and that you know, Morea is fourteen,
fifteen years old, and that she's sharing a tent with
her dad, and the aunt found that to be very strange.
(42:21):
And I was discussing this with you, and I said,
you know, at that age, if I'd gone camping with
my dad and we shared a tent, I wouldn't have
thought anything in the world about it. Because my dad's
a lot of things. I mean, he's a total jackass,
but he's not Moleste right and has never made me
feel uncomfortable like that. So at fourteen or fifteen, like
I wouldn't have thought anything about sharing a hotel room
(42:43):
with him, sharing a camp a tent with him, you
know what I mean. And I guess if you have
like an innocent kind of like a relationship with your
parent like that wouldn't seem to be a big deal.
And it's interesting to me that some people find that
to be abs slowly shocking, while other people are like,
what's the big deal?
Speaker 4 (43:03):
Well, it's like me and you said, there could be
many reasons for that, you know, if they if they
camped a lot as she was growing up, it could
they just could she may be afraid to be in
her own tent, you know she. I mean, we've had young,
you know kids with us camping. It's kind of, let's
be honest, it's kind of creepy, especially when you're first
doing it, to be sleeping in his little thin tent
(43:24):
out in the you know, out in the wild like that.
Even if you're at a Kwa campground, it still feels
like you're in the middle of nowhere. And it could
just be something they've gotten used to, you know, doing.
I mean, it might not be weird at all, is.
Speaker 3 (43:38):
What I'm saying, right, But I did want to mention
that Maura had an especially close relationship with her father Fred.
The aunt Janice has almost indicated that it was a
like it was a strangely close relationship that they shared. Okay,
I guess to the family defends the relationship and doesn't
(44:06):
want to talk about it or doesn't find it weird.
Speaker 4 (44:09):
Yeah, And that's one of those things that she could
have genuine gut feelings about this that matter. You know,
we're not interacting with these people, or it could just
be things like, oh, they still share a tent when
they can. I mean, it could be her perspective that
makes you know, she thinks that some of these things
(44:30):
are weird when they're really not. I mean, that's just
one of those subjective things that's really hard to kind
of make a good read on.
Speaker 3 (44:38):
Just keep that in mind as we go on in
our story. Okay, okay. Fred was a nuclear medicine tech
and her mother worked as a nurse. One Fred's friend
said quote Fred was proud, especially of Maura. She was
the golden girl. Maura was bright and talented. She blossomed
(45:00):
into a standout athlete and student from an early age.
Mora developed an interest in hockey. On the ice, she
was confident coaches considered her to be highly motivated. She
pushed herself beyond what was expected. She wasn't the strongest
or the biggest at the rink, but more played with
strategic thinking and determination. She was a star on her
(45:22):
high school's track and cross country teams. Moore was also
an excellent student academically. She did well in what we
would today call STEM classes, math sciences. She had an
active social life, which provided her with some strong connection.
She had a lot of friends she kept busy. One
of the odd things that stood out to me though, Dylan,
(45:44):
is when her long term friends, like from high school,
had been interviewed. They described never being invited into Moura's home. Oh,
they stopped by, and that Maura never drove anywhere. If
they stopped by to pick her up, she came outside
to meet them. They were not allowed to come in
the house. She wasn't allowed to have them over at
(46:05):
the house.
Speaker 4 (46:07):
Now do they know.
Speaker 3 (46:07):
We're't allowed to have sleepovers at her house?
Speaker 4 (46:10):
She's literally not allowed or is that just the way
it worked out? That she was always kind of on
the go.
Speaker 3 (46:17):
Well, again, there's some back and forth on that. Well,
I guess she was fuzzy.
Speaker 4 (46:23):
Well, I guess from their viewpoint, all their other friends
like they at least step in for a minute, you
know what I mean? Oh, hold on, I'm not quite
ready to come on in or whatever. And I guess
just over all the interactions, it would strike me as odd.
Maybe think about it and.
Speaker 3 (46:40):
If you have a best friend and you guys do
everything together, and you've never, ever once been invited your
friends home, you have no idea what color their couches,
You don't know what your friend's bedroom looks like. Does
she have a poster of John Stamos on the wall? Like?
You just don't know these things, right, That's odd to me.
Speaker 4 (47:00):
Yeah, that's a bit odd.
Speaker 3 (47:01):
So it makes me wonder like, why did Maura not
want friends in the house or did her parents not
want other people in the house? Was she embarrassed about something?
Speaker 4 (47:11):
Dude? Have you ever been at a friend's house when
you were younger and like their parents didn't know you
were there, and then their parents like come home and
then it's like all weird and shit. No, yeah, no,
I've had that happen before.
Speaker 3 (47:25):
Okay, oh so you're just like the weird kid that
pops up.
Speaker 4 (47:28):
No, I'm not the weird kid.
Speaker 3 (47:30):
You look like a weird like you would have been
a weird kid.
Speaker 4 (47:32):
No, I was a normal kid, traps.
Speaker 3 (47:34):
In the woods, coming over, your big head, being weird
coming out of the deep woods, probably eating snacks.
Speaker 4 (47:40):
Well, I was eating snacks because they had the good snacks.
Speaker 3 (47:43):
See exactly. Those parents were like, quit eating the good snacks,
you little fat headed kid.
Speaker 4 (47:48):
But you know you should have got this. You said
it was okay, right, they said it was okay, It's
gotta be fine, and then their parents come in and
make it all weird man parents.
Speaker 3 (47:59):
Now, her sister Julie said that quote. She was a
kind of jokes like, kind of jokester of the family,
and of course having three older siblings, she got picked
on a lot, especially in such a competitive family as mine,
so she developed this quick wit really early on to
try and combat us. She was a lot of fun
and really clever, thoughtful and humble. So she gets a
(48:22):
lot of ribbing, Dylan, She's got to get that thick
skin going. Gotta be able to fight back. I never
had older siblings to push me around, but I had
parents that belied me, so.
Speaker 4 (48:33):
Yeah, yeah, I had to They handled that didn't.
Speaker 3 (48:36):
They had had to get I had to get a
quick wit ab.
Speaker 4 (48:40):
My Mama Head's hard ninety sound batch.
Speaker 3 (48:42):
She graduated from Whitman Hanson Regional High School. She was
accepted into the prestigious United States Military Academy at West
Point in New York.
Speaker 4 (48:54):
Wow, that's a pretty big deal.
Speaker 3 (48:56):
Maura's SAT scores were fourteen twenty.
Speaker 4 (49:01):
That's pretty much what mine were.
Speaker 3 (49:03):
She studied chemical engineering for three semesters. Over the years,
there have been rumors floated that Mora was kicked out
of West Point, and this is untrue. Her sister Julie
dispelled some of the conversations surrounding this on TikTok. Her
sister Julie is active on TikTok. She also has a podcast,
and we'll talk about that, but you know, on TikTok,
(49:26):
Julie discusses a lot of these rumors, debunks them, makes
a lot of more related content. Now. According to Julie,
Mora had gotten into trouble in August of two thousand
and one for taking some makeup from the commissary without paying.
Speaker 4 (49:44):
That's called stealing, Yeah.
Speaker 3 (49:46):
Dylan, That's exactly what it's called. She was sent to
the honor board who would determine her punishment. Now, Julie
attended West Point as well, and she explained this was
a minor offense that Maura would have most like not
being kicked out of the school. Mara decided the military
wasn't a good fit and dropped out before a decision
(50:07):
was made in January of two thousand and two, So
before learning what the punishment was, she just dropped out
of school.
Speaker 4 (50:16):
Now do you think she was worried that maybe even
if this wasn't, according to her sister, not that big
of a deal. You think she was worried that they
were going to throw her out. So it's constably, it's
kind of like you quit a job before they can fire. Well.
Speaker 3 (50:31):
I mean, her sister's like, this isn't a very big deal.
But let's be honest, the school has a strict honor code.
Speaker 4 (50:37):
So in a setting like this, even a minor you know,
getting something in let's say, forgetting to pay for however
you want to phrase it, it could be maybe a pretty
big deal.
Speaker 3 (50:47):
I would say it's a big deal. I mean to
play it off like, oh, it's just this minor thing.
I mean, come on, that's shoplifting. It's a crime, and
it's going to be a big deal at a military
school like WESP.
Speaker 4 (51:00):
Honor and trust are very important values at a place
like that, yes.
Speaker 3 (51:05):
Very now. According to documents obtained from West Point, Mora
was pulled out of class seven times in two thousand
and one to appear before the honor board. So it
does seem she had some issues at West Point. I
don't know if these seven visits to the honor board
or going before the honor board related to the shoplifting,
(51:27):
or if there were like other issues happening, But that
seems like a lot to be pulled out of class
seven times, right for a shoplifting offense. I just feel
like there's got to be more to the story than that, Like.
Speaker 4 (51:40):
There were other issues besides this one issue.
Speaker 3 (51:43):
Possibly, and I'm speculating, I don't know.
Speaker 2 (51:47):
Now.
Speaker 3 (51:47):
A West Point classmate said quote she didn't want to
be there. There was a sense that Maura was trying
to live up to expectations that weren't hers.
Speaker 2 (51:55):
Now.
Speaker 3 (51:56):
Like I said, before Dylan Julie had attended West Point,
knew what she was getting into, Like her sister had
given her a pretty honest breakdown of it's going to
be hard. These are the things you need to do
under Julie's advisement. More a study she prepared for West Point.
Her sister gave her, like whatever the study materials were,
(52:17):
so that she would be ready when she got there,
be ahead of the game.
Speaker 4 (52:23):
Yeah. And so at West Point, a place like that,
it's not just the academics, right right, I'm assuming they're
have a physical element.
Speaker 3 (52:32):
Oh yeah, the challenging physical it's very rigorous. More could
meet those challenges Dylan physically and academically, like those demands,
no problem. She's described as, you know, a brilliant young woman,
a good student, and physically, I mean she's a track star,
she's super fast.
Speaker 4 (52:50):
Hockey, I mean it's a very physical sport.
Speaker 3 (52:52):
Right now. The first year at West Point is always
the hardest. Freshmen are called pleabs. I had a friend
that went to the city and I remember him being
called a pleab and describing to me some of the
things that went on when you were a freshman at
a military school. Back then. I guess they were still
hazing a bit.
Speaker 4 (53:13):
Oh, just a bit, just a bit.
Speaker 3 (53:15):
This was in the you know, late nineties. More quickly
got attention as the fastest in the beast Barracks. That's
what they were called. I guess the freshman barracks when
you go for that summer semester. But it didn't take
long for Julie to realize that her sister was just
not really fitting in at West Point. One thing Julie
points out is that she loved it. Like Julie was
(53:37):
built for this. She wanted to be a military officer.
She loves physical activity, she loves challenges, She's really super competitive.
So she absolutely loved it, like throw me the hardest
thing you got, right. But Maura did not love it well.
Speaker 4 (53:53):
And I think that would be a very important distinction
in an environment like this. Right, even if you can
do it physically and you have the smarts to handle
the heavy load of the academics and still performed that
level and do well, I think if your heart's not
in it, it's really gonna affect you in a pretty
(54:15):
bad way in a setting like that.
Speaker 3 (54:18):
Right, Well, when you don't love something, Dylan, that means
your heart really isn't in it, and you're.
Speaker 4 (54:25):
Still having to put this tremendous amount of physical and
emotional effort into this thing.
Speaker 3 (54:30):
Right. So, after three semesters, Moore made the decision to
drop out of West Point. As I mentioned before, now
More enrolled at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, where she
majored in nursing. However, pressure was never far behind More
a balanced nursing classes, a long distance relationship with Bill,
and two part time jobs. She worked as a security
(54:54):
at a security desk and a dorm like checking IDs,
I guess making round that kind of thing, and also
part time at an art gallery on campus. It started
to take its toll before she went missing. Maura had
only recently moved into a single dorm room. Residents of
the dorm described her as being quiet and keeping to herself.
(55:19):
Maura had dated her boyfriend Bill on and off for
several years. It was described as one of those relationships
that had like a make up breakup loop. Yeah, probably
I'll know this young couple. It happens.
Speaker 4 (55:33):
I hate you, but I love you so much.
Speaker 3 (55:36):
Well, I don't know. That seems a little trashy, but
that's like the trashy version of it.
Speaker 4 (55:41):
Well, Well do I hate you. I don't care for
you at all, but you have my heart and your
grasp upon your palm.
Speaker 3 (55:49):
Earlier, in their relationship, Bill reportedly cheated on Moro, which
caused some friction. Some of her friends didn't exactly like him,
trying to get her to break up with him.
Speaker 4 (56:00):
Well, yeah, I mean when you have a friend or
a relative in one of these situations, no matter what
side they are in the relationship, it just gets old, right,
I mean, you keep because they're going through this loop
and they're kind of having repetitive behaviors. You can see
it coming. They're going to you know, first it's just
(56:21):
a small argument, and then whatever about their personalities that
don't jib it just turns into this thing. It kind
of snowballs, and you know, then they're telling you, just
with all their heart, how much they can't stand a person,
How this is it? This is it for once and
for all. It's over, And knowing damn well that you
know less than a weekend they're going to be back
(56:43):
together and kind of just resett and started all over again.
It gets old. It gets old to people around you.
Speaker 3 (56:49):
I think during a period of breakup, Mora had dated
another young man. His I will just call him pass.
That's how he has referred to in Dreams Turner's book.
Oh he's a graduate student. He was also involved with
a track team. He gives James Renner some blowdown kind
(57:13):
of I guess, some dirt on Maura, And like I said,
I don't want to like speak ill of her, but
I do think it's important that we have a full
picture of Maura. I mean, he says, like I wasn't
the only one she was sleeping with. He described her
as being promiscuous, that she had slept with other members
of their track team, which were these salacious parties. Someone
(57:38):
had a key to a campus pool. I guess where
the swim team practice that kind of thing, and they
would break in there late at night party there was sex,
has described orgies.
Speaker 4 (57:54):
Oh wow.
Speaker 3 (57:55):
Yeah. So again, I mean, I don't know, this is
just hearsay. This is what this guy's saying about her,
But you know he I mean, it wasn't like they
had a bad breakup or anything. They stayed friends. He
wanted to be friends after they quit seen each other.
Speaker 4 (58:10):
Well, and honestly, like you said, not to speak ill
of anyone.
Speaker 3 (58:14):
You described it as like typical college behavior.
Speaker 4 (58:18):
And she has They have every right to take part
in these right consenting adults, young adults get to do
whatever they want right and it doesn't matter. But I
also think you shouldn't, which happens a lot more frequently
than anyone speaking ill of anyone. You have this glott
(58:39):
this whitewashing,
Dark Cast Network. Welcome to the Dark Side of podcasting.
Speaker 2 (00:16):
I'm Ted, I'm JJ, and we're here to tell you
about our show conspiring to argue I like it, that
is not relevant. What do we do on the show.
Speaker 3 (00:26):
Well, on our podcast, what we do is take conspiracy
theories and either Ted or myself will argue about if
the conspiracy is real or not.
Speaker 2 (00:35):
Yeah, and sometimes sometimes the conspiracies are silly. Sometimes they're
you know, in the pantheon of the greatest conspiracies of
all time. It's a mixed bag.
Speaker 3 (00:47):
Sometimes they're about aliens.
Speaker 2 (00:49):
So check us out wherever you listen to podcasts.
Speaker 3 (00:51):
Sometimes they're about.
Speaker 2 (01:08):
His way.
Speaker 4 (01:09):
Devil is on his way.
Speaker 2 (01:11):
Devil is on his way. Mother for God. The Devil
gonna make you pay foul to your knees. Devil is
on his way.
Speaker 4 (01:19):
Foul to your knees.
Speaker 2 (01:21):
Devil gonna make you pay five to your knee Devil.
Speaker 3 (01:28):
Hey, y'all, welcome back to Mountain Murderers. I'm Heather and
I'm Dylan. Hey Dylan, you're dancing in your chair. You
look very excited to be here.
Speaker 4 (01:38):
I am chair dancing. I can't contain myself. I've been
waiting for this case this week. I'm totally excited for
the story that you are going to bring forth from
the vault. Man, You've been in the vault so much,
so deep down rabbit holes lately.
Speaker 3 (01:53):
I told you this case has me down in a
rabbit hole, and I like have to stop.
Speaker 4 (01:58):
And Heather's like, I just had no idea.
Speaker 3 (02:00):
I must stop that.
Speaker 4 (02:01):
There was this much information that it goes all these
different directions. And She's like, with all her work on
the Patreon episode of West Memphis three series and the
cases she's been bringing forth and the spooky cases for October,
Oh my gosh, just like I get lost. I'm like,
where's Heather at She's down a rabbit hole.
Speaker 3 (02:22):
I need to study.
Speaker 4 (02:24):
Yeah, you do need a study.
Speaker 3 (02:26):
I need to study. I want to study. That mimics
the narrator from the Rocky Horror Picture Show.
Speaker 4 (02:32):
Okay, and I want his outfit, okay.
Speaker 3 (02:34):
Right, so I can just sit around in like my velvet,
smoking jackets and.
Speaker 4 (02:38):
Like a pipe, yes, okay.
Speaker 3 (02:40):
Yeah, prefer with like a Dunhill, right, Gotta have some
chocolatey tobacco, some like dark tobacco. Oh yeah, I know
what I know about pipes.
Speaker 4 (02:51):
Yeah, bro.
Speaker 3 (02:53):
Kind of a little like interesting gadgets in my office,
like a globe, but I want a globe from like
thirty years ago. That's incorrect. It has like countries that
no longer exist, and shit.
Speaker 4 (03:05):
Oh wow, like an eighties globe.
Speaker 3 (03:07):
Nice, like a human skull. Just a bunch of unnecessary
things that have nothing to do with researching a podcast.
Speaker 4 (03:14):
Yes, but they there you are in your study with
your weird leather bound books that may be on like
you know, various subjects that have nothing to do with podcasting.
But yeah, that's lots of wood.
Speaker 3 (03:26):
Lots of dark rich mahogany, Dylan.
Speaker 4 (03:29):
Dark wood, and uh yeah.
Speaker 3 (03:31):
All right, exactly. You know they say, uh, you won't
tell people you on the lottery or that you're rich,
but there will be signs. You'll know when I have
like a fancy study.
Speaker 4 (03:42):
And we were slowly reaching that goal with the help
of incredible people like our newest patrons.
Speaker 3 (03:47):
Exactly. So let's give a big shout out to Heather
and Jody. You guys made our week.
Speaker 4 (03:53):
They are sponsoring for Patreon, They are going to sponsor
today's episode and are we can not wait to deliver
for them and everyone else, right, like.
Speaker 3 (04:04):
Like you mentioned we have the West Memphis three series.
We've so far dropped two episodes in that series. Many
more to go to bangers. We are I'm telling you, bro,
we are breaking this case down like piece by piece.
We're gonna bring you information you didn't know you needed.
Speaker 4 (04:22):
Yeah. Yeah, you don't know what you don't know? You know, right?
Speaker 3 (04:27):
We know?
Speaker 4 (04:27):
Oh yeah, yeah, okay.
Speaker 3 (04:29):
Also, let's give a big shout out to the head
bitch and charge Courtney.
Speaker 4 (04:33):
Yes, Courtney, a friend of the pod sent as an
incredible present.
Speaker 3 (04:37):
Oh man, she made us the coolest Mountain Murders framed
art work. We love it, Dylan. Every time he sees it,
he's like, I just love that.
Speaker 4 (04:46):
Yes, cool, And it reminds me of one of our
og patrons and listeners, Sunday made us some logo art previously,
and now we have like this collection from over the years.
Speaker 3 (04:58):
So cool.
Speaker 4 (05:00):
Thank you, Sunday.
Speaker 3 (05:00):
And I was thinking about this the other day, Dylan.
When we're like old and frail and like one hundred
years old and we're no longer podcasting, I'm still gonna
have that art hanging in our home.
Speaker 4 (05:12):
Yeah, I know.
Speaker 3 (05:13):
And it's been such a big part of our lives.
Speaker 4 (05:15):
No, it's true. Our marriage and our relationship, it's true.
And yeah, and we'll always have the memories, right.
Speaker 3 (05:23):
Always the memories. Thanks for the memories, Dylan, I apologize
ahead of time. I am battling some type of seasonal
allergy thing, so my voice is a little scratchy today, right,
And I just spoke up from like a three hour
long nap as well, So I'm gonna apologize ahead of
(05:43):
time if I sound really stuffy and or like I just.
Speaker 4 (05:48):
Woke up, that's okay. Heather will sprinkle a little spumpkin pumpkin,
some spumpkin spice on you, and we'll get you livened up.
Speaker 3 (05:56):
Some spumpkin. You're gonna put some spumpkin.
Speaker 4 (05:58):
On yeahat sounds I don't know, little season, little spice,
get you, uh get you woke up? Right?
Speaker 3 (06:06):
So woke? My eyes are open?
Speaker 4 (06:10):
All right?
Speaker 3 (06:11):
Yeah? Well you know, Dylan, every season is allergy season
when you're like allergic to everything.
Speaker 4 (06:16):
Right, Well, yeah, see, and now I'm mark.
Speaker 3 (06:19):
Because I'm just like like it doesn't matter. I'm just
constantly like allergic to something that's blooming or dying or
decaying or changing.
Speaker 4 (06:28):
It's so now you're you're you're days of your notable
days or days that you aren't snotty, exactly right, and
so the rest of the time you're snotty. So that's
just your that's just your life.
Speaker 3 (06:40):
Now, Okay, Dylan, are you ready to get into today's episode?
There is so much information. Like I said, I've been
don rabbit holes things I didn't need to know. I
know it's going to be a two parter.
Speaker 4 (06:53):
Okay, and that's trimming it down.
Speaker 3 (06:55):
Bro, we could probably have like eight parter if we
want it.
Speaker 4 (07:00):
Now, hold on a second, Heather, are you telling me
you've found out this much information about a case like
this that has been fairly openly discussed for many years.
Speaker 3 (07:12):
Well, there's a lot out there, a lot of misinformation,
and then there's also a lot of how do I
put this information that has been given to authors, journalists, okay,
shared by people who have intimate knowledge of the family,
have shared maybe things that are a little less than savory.
Speaker 4 (07:38):
Oh.
Speaker 3 (07:38):
Really, the family heavily disputes that information. But we'll see
throughout the case. The family doesn't want to bring up
anything but that has a negative connotation or or makes
them look bad.
Speaker 4 (07:54):
Okay, So it's so some of the.
Speaker 3 (07:56):
Stuff people are saying, likeeople who would know are saying
a certain thing, but then the family is like denying it,
you know. So it's like it's just one of those
messy cases, and you kind of hate to, like you
don't want to victim blame, and you don't want to
like like blame the family or point out negative things
about the family. They've been through a lot. But at
(08:18):
the same time, it is kind of pertinent to the
story and to the case, I think. So it's tricky, right,
So we're going to try to be as respectful as
possible with it. Okay, So this is still telling the
truth as we have discovered it.
Speaker 4 (08:36):
So am I to gather that the family don't mind
participating in this narrative as long as as long as.
Speaker 3 (08:46):
It's a certain narrative. It seems like as long as
they have control of the.
Speaker 4 (08:50):
Narrative, Okay, And they have that right, I.
Speaker 3 (08:53):
Reckon, right, So let's get into the story. Dylan, on
the morning of Tuesday, February tenth of two thousand and
four of a University of Massachusetts dorm room, hear the
continuous ringing of an alarm clock. It seemed the resident
was not available to turn it off. And I don't
know other folks who've lived in a dorm type setting,
(09:15):
but I've experienced this before, where one of your neighbors
has an alarm going off like half the day, no
one can turn it off because of course their dorm
room is locked. You just have to endure that sound,
oh my goshhing or buzzing sound.
Speaker 4 (09:30):
And I take it it's something you can hear pretty
pretty well.
Speaker 3 (09:33):
From the other room sometimes sometimes yeah. And I don't
know what it is about that piece of information, but
I guess it just kind of haunted me a little
bit when I heard it, you know. Later that morning,
Loriie Murray receives a phone call from a Sergeant Cecil
Smith of the Haverhill, New Hampshire Police Department. The words
(09:55):
flowing from Smith's mouth do not make sense, according to
the law enforcement officer. Lourie's daughter, Maura, a nursing student
at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, was involved in a
single car accident on Route one twelve in Haverhill. The
abandoned nineteen ninety six black Saturn had crashed into a
(10:15):
tree the evening before, left on the roadside kind of
near like a wooded area. The driver, Mara Murray, had
vanished before law enforcement arrived on the scene Monday evening.
Smith relayed that the car was locked. He had to
wait for search warrant before opening the vehicle. Tuesday morning,
(10:36):
he had gotten the green light to search the car.
He learned the Saturn was registered to Fred Murray of Weymouth, Massachusetts.
Two locals had phoned in the accident on Monday evening.
One neighbor had spoken to the young woman who was
driving the Saturn, and by the time the officer arrived,
the young woman was gone. There was no sign of her. Okay, Now, Dylan,
(10:59):
this has been an enduring mystery for over twenty years.
What happened to Maura Murray?
Speaker 4 (11:07):
Yes, I've always thought this was an interesting, uh, kind
of a weird case, you know, a strange missing person case.
I guess you would classify it. And yeah, I've always
it's always for some reason, you know, you hear the
just the general details, and there's just something that seems
weird about it. It's like you can't put your finger
on it. You know, there's no obvious signs of like,
(11:30):
you know, a struggle or someone being taken from the
scene or anything like that. But yet there's something just
very odd about the whole situation.
Speaker 3 (11:38):
Well again, none of this is regoris like registering with
her mother, Laurie. Twenty one year old Maura was on campus,
she had classes, Maura had no ties to New Hampshire,
and like, why would she be traveling in that area
on a Monday evening, and also why was she driving
the nineteen ninety six center. There are a lot of questions.
(11:59):
Here's the thing to the Saturn was having issues before
the events of our story unfolded. Fred Murray had given
his daughter Maura the older car, a black nineteen ninety
six Saturn.
Speaker 4 (12:14):
So this is like her college car.
Speaker 3 (12:16):
Little sedan. Yeah, yeah, she's she needs to be able
to get around Amherst. Right. Fred was working a good
job making great money at the time and decided to
buy himself a new car give More the old car.
Speaker 4 (12:29):
And I think that's a common practice in a lot
of families.
Speaker 3 (12:31):
Right right, More was transferred. I'm sorry, Mora has transferred
to the University of Massachusetts and needed this reliable car.
But unfortunately, Morri's car had a serious issue. While she
was driving the car smoke was pouring out of it,
and it seems she had some kind of like head
gasket issue, like a valve, bad valve, and Fred told
(12:54):
her that made the car unsafe in his opinion.
Speaker 4 (12:58):
Right, So it's just belching smoke. You don't know where
it's coming from. So until you get that figured out,
you probably should what's.
Speaker 3 (13:06):
Coming from the head gasket. Okay, broken valve, I just
said that.
Speaker 4 (13:10):
Okay, But anyway, Yeah, you don't need to drive a
car that's porn smoke like that.
Speaker 3 (13:16):
No, And I've had a head gasket go out doing
and they're not cheap to fix, right, It's it's quite expensive.
And if you think about a car that's at this
point eight years old, do you really want to put
thousand and fifteen fifteen hundred two thousand dollars into the
(13:36):
car to fix it?
Speaker 4 (13:37):
Yeah, and that's one of those repairs.
Speaker 3 (13:39):
They're probably not even worth half that or you know
what I'm saying, like because it's an old car.
Speaker 4 (13:43):
Right, because you never know what something else might go out,
you know, as soon as you get that fixed. And honestly,
a head gasket repair, that's the type of thing I've
heard more than once. I've heard someone try to fix it,
and it's like the car's never ride again, or they
can continue to have issues from it, you know what
I mean.
Speaker 3 (14:00):
I don't know, Bud, I had a head gasket replaced
in that white Honda and you drove that thing. It's
probably still going somewhere.
Speaker 4 (14:08):
Oh No, I certainly wish I still had that car.
But I'm just saying it's one of those types of repairs,
you know, that seemed to kind of keep having issue.
Sometimes it's a big deal.
Speaker 3 (14:18):
From what I understand as well, maybe some of the
early Saturns were maybe not the best built car. You know,
it takes a few years sometimes to get the car
right right, So you know, according to Fred, I mean,
he said like, eh, you know, at this point, it's
not worth putting the money in. It's, you know, an
(14:39):
old car, and there's probably going to be other things
like let's just buy you a new car. So as
a matter of fact, Fred had spent the weekend the
previous weekend in Amherst. He'd planned to help buy his
daughter a car. He had rented a motel for the
weekend and took his daughter mora car shopping. He had
taken out four thousand dollars. They had found a few cars,
(15:02):
but Fred claimed they cost more than the cash he
had brought with him, Like they were in the six
to seven thousand dollars range, okay, and he knew he
was gonna have to like go back to his bank
get more money out whatever. So he figured by the
time he returned to buy one of these cars, like
maybe the next weekend, they would probably still be there
(15:24):
and or have a comparable vehicle on a lot.
Speaker 4 (15:28):
Wow, that's the good old days when you could buy
a solid, a good running car for four to six
thousand dollars.
Speaker 3 (15:35):
Right, Gosh, those days are long gone. Now for four
to six thousand dollars they're going to sell you something
that's like thirty years old and like missing a hood
that was.
Speaker 4 (15:42):
Literally a five hundred dollars car back in the day.
Speaker 3 (15:45):
I don't know. These car prices are out of control.
Never in my life did I think I would know
someone who has like an eight year car. Note right,
it's insanity paying eighty thousand dollars for a pickup truck.
Give me a break, bro.
Speaker 4 (16:01):
Well, no, it's like you saw you saw someone say
I don't qualify for a home loan, but I can
I did qualify for this eighty five thousand dollars car loan.
You know, it's just.
Speaker 3 (16:10):
Weird, makes no sense to me. I mean, and who
do these car companies think they are, Because let's be honest,
the cars today are shittier. They don't last, not made
out of quality materials. They're plastic, they're cheap.
Speaker 4 (16:25):
They ding up, they get scraped, you know, I mean,
it's pretty ridiculous. They get more and more expensive and
everything on the inside is just like kind of cheap filling.
Speaker 3 (16:35):
Yeah, and they get more and more expensive, and they
honestly have no character the cars. They all look alike
today's cars in my opinion, Okay, and I'm like, I
love a good old car. Right, there's no style of
these cars. They all look the same. I can't tell
the difference half the time between these little crossover SUVs,
right that once upon a time were kind of had
(16:57):
a distinctive look about them. You knew immediately, Hey that's
a V four, right, that's a Pathfinder, that's a pilot,
that's a land Rover, right, And today they just all
look the same, all of them. Yeah, so what we're
boring colors?
Speaker 4 (17:13):
Wow? And that's why the car market's in free fall.
So here we are. She they've went car shopping, which
I enjoy, and I don't enjoy shopping for cars. I
know that you don't seem to enjoy it at all. No,
you like to go and just do it and get
it done. You don't want to go to a bunch
of different places than luck.
Speaker 3 (17:32):
I just don't like dealing with the salespeople. That's the
thing I hate about it.
Speaker 4 (17:36):
I do hate the feeling.
Speaker 3 (17:37):
I just want people to leave me the fuck alone, Like,
let me look and if I see something I like,
I'll ask you a question. But I don't need you
breathing over my shoulder, like get out of my personal
space and quit trying to upsell me and like talk
my ear off, like I don't you're not gonna sell
me something I don't want.
Speaker 4 (17:54):
No, it's almost like they're a stripper at the bar,
a stripper bar, or i'm sorry, a dancer and it's
a dancer and they're acting like they're interested in like
what you want, and they don't. They don't care. They
just want to get across the finish line money. They
just want to get across to get a sale, which
I understand. And it's like I go to these places
like where there's vendors and stuff, and I can't even
(18:16):
make contact with the people at the booths because like
they want to make a sell and like I don't
want to buy anything. I'm just you know, windows shopping,
if you will, and uh, yeah, I don't like any
kind of hybrid sales pressure of any sort. It just
makes me feel weird.
Speaker 3 (18:33):
No, I don't need you to hold my items at
the debt at the counter, right, I don't need Yeah,
I don't need you. Just show me the robe that
matches the bra I mean, leave me alone, bro, leave
me alone. Now, Louri begins making calls to Mora's siblings.
She is still having a hard time figuring out what
(18:54):
is going on, because again, none of this makes sense. Dylan.
If you think your child is at college and it's
middle the week, it's the weekday she's got class, and
you find out she's in a completely different state and
has had an accident, I think most parents would be like,
what is happening, Well.
Speaker 4 (19:10):
She's confused the cars already, they've I'm sure they The
whole families discussed the car situation as far as they're concerned.
The cars basically dead and they're looking for a new one,
actively looking for a new one. So they're just totally
confused as to what's going on.
Speaker 3 (19:26):
Right, Fred Murray does not receive information that his daughter
is missing until four thirty pm. He had been working
and unavailable to take personal calls. It seems. Fred also
learns details of the accident. The Saturn had front end
damage to the bumper, the air bags had deployed, and
the windshield was cracked. Now, when Sergeant Cecil Smith found
(19:47):
the vehicle, it was locked. He obtained a search warrant
for the car. Inside the vehicle held a lot of
personal items and it's kind of obvious signs that the
car was being used by female. Okay, mat close, I mean,
there's just a bunch of stuff in there. In total,
there will be one hundred and nine items found in
the car. There are snacks like twizzlers and pickles, toilet trees, clothes,
(20:11):
running clothes, textbooks, and Eastern Massachusetts roadmap, a three by
five index card with directions to Burlington, Vermont, along with
a brochure for Vermont attractions. There was a receipt showing
forty dollars of alcohol had been purchased earlier, before the
accident had happened on Monday. The receipt included vodka, khalua
(20:33):
irish cream, and a six pack of a malt beverage,
one of which was empty in the car. The vodka
and kalua were not in the car, indicating that Mora
had taken those items with her. Another oddity was that
there was a rag stuffed into the tailpipe. And this
will come up as a point of debate. Now we
will learn from Fred that you know, he told his daughter,
(20:56):
don't drive this car. But if something happens and there's
an emergent and see and like you absolutely need to
drive the car for some reason to stuff a rag
in the tailpipe so smoke wouldn't come out. But other
folks are like, that doesn't make any sense because that's
actually gonna like mess the car up.
Speaker 4 (21:15):
No, I know very little about cars.
Speaker 3 (21:17):
It's gonna back up and it's going to cause the
car to like shut down, quit whatever.
Speaker 4 (21:21):
Yeah, because that's basically how the car breeds. So and
I think we all were of a certain age. We
remember the Beverly Hills cop banana.
Speaker 3 (21:31):
The banana and the tailpipe.
Speaker 4 (21:32):
Right when he wanted to you know, fully.
Speaker 3 (21:34):
Man, he was always up to some shenan.
Speaker 4 (21:37):
Again, when Folly wanted to slip off and ditch his
Beverly Hills counterparts, he stuffed a banana and their tailpipe
and they couldn't go. So, I mean, that's just that's that's.
Speaker 3 (21:46):
Real facts, right, So it didn't really make sense. We
don't understand why there's a rag in the tailpipe.
Speaker 4 (21:53):
So if indeed he truly told his daughter that he
was misinformed, and I think it would s I don't
think the car would operate very well. Even you take
a regular cars operating completely fine and you block off
the tailpipe, it's going to cause issues.
Speaker 3 (22:12):
Right, So that's a very odd kind of thing happening. Right.
There was also a red stump, a red substance on
the side door and ceiling, as if there had been
some kind of spill. Smith believed it was wine. There
was a box of wine found inside the car. It
(22:33):
looked like it had either been broken or had been
opened already. Okay, so it seems like maybe this wine
it like you know, if you have an accident, shit
in your car kind of flies around. So maybe it
had just sort of burst out, and that it explains
how it got on the ceiling. Right outside, he found
(22:53):
a coke bottle filled with a red liquid. He said
that the red liquid was an alcohol substance, and so
he believed it was wine in this like empty coke bottle.
Speaker 4 (23:04):
And he found that nearby the car outside. Yes, okay.
Speaker 3 (23:07):
Initially, investigators theorized that the young woman had been drinking
and driving, wrecked the car and left in a panic.
She was likely trying to avoid police. Smith suspects that
Maura is going to show up at any time. But wait,
there's more, Dylan, I'll be jumping around a little bit here.
I'm going to give you some background. We'll get back
(23:29):
into the case. I might give you some more backgrounds.
So bear with me. It's all gonna come together. So,
like I said, wait there's more. So the previous Saturday night,
Moura had borrowed her father's new car. She and a
friend named Kate attended what has been described as a
dorm party. Kate told Julie Murray that's More's sister, that
(23:54):
there were only maybe seven to eight people at this
dorm party, and it was more like a chilled get
together not some kind of wild party. She said. The
dorm rooms were very small. Again, you can only fit
about seven to eight people in.
Speaker 4 (24:07):
There, So that's more of a gathering anymore, like.
Speaker 3 (24:11):
Just hanging out, right, right, Everyone was just as you mentioned, doing,
hanging out. They had been invited by a friend named
Sarah Alfiri, who has also not been very forthcoming with
details of that night. Like she has refused to speak
to any media, She doesn't talk to the family. She
just doesn't discuss that evening at all.
Speaker 4 (24:33):
Okay, Well, I guess that could be for multiple reasons, right,
she could be just a shy private person. They could
have been doing maybe some recreational drugs. That kind of
weirds her out that she certainly doesn't want to discuss
that with parents or anyone else or school officials.
Speaker 3 (24:52):
That's done a lot of speculation about this party. Okay, Now,
Sarah will claim to law enforcement that she had been
asleep like during the whole thing.
Speaker 4 (25:02):
So she invited people over, Yeah, but then she slept
the end the whole time. Yes, Well, I guess that
could happen, but it seems it just doesn't seem.
Speaker 3 (25:12):
She obviously doesn't have insomnia, right, because there's no way
I sleep if there's people around now, Kate said, nothing
unusual happened at the party. There were some people hanging
out that they didn't know, like they were friends of Sarah's,
but Kate and Maura didn't know them. But she didn't
really indicate that it was like weird or uncomfortable. She said.
(25:35):
Maura seemed tired, and at some point Maura wants to
leave the party. She told Kate she needed to return
to the car. I'm sorry, she needs to get this
car back to her dad. This is around two point
thirty that Maura departs, and uh so, Marea and Kate
kind of go their separate ways, and according to Kate,
like Maura is escorted back to her dorm by these
(25:57):
three guys who were at the party that don't attend
this school. Okay, okay, but it seems like she maybe
went to her dorm room. These boys were interviewed. I mean,
it didn't seem like anything happened. They just kind of
walked her to her dorm room. But there's kind of
like this missing hour in the timeline because from two
(26:20):
thirty to three thirty, we don't really know what Maura
was doing during this hour, like if she was back
at the dorm. She'd obviously gone to the dorm, but
was she there for a full hour. There's kind of
like missing time we can't account for it, is what
I'm gonna say. So at three thirty am, Maura crashes
her dad's brand new car by hitting a guardrail. This
(26:43):
accident is only one mile from campus.
Speaker 4 (26:46):
Damn Maura.
Speaker 3 (26:47):
Well, there are questions about like why Maura felt like
she needed to get this car back to her dad
this late. She's got a room on campus. Wouldn't have
been easier to just go to sleep and then the
next morning, like take the car back to your dad
instead of driving after you've been to a party. It's
through thirty in the morning, Like, why would you be
(27:07):
going back to this motel? You know your dad's asleep.
It's kind of strange.
Speaker 4 (27:14):
Yeah, it's it's kind of strange, but you know, maybe,
I mean they're young people for one, right, I mean.
Speaker 3 (27:22):
I don't know. Maybe she didn't want to park it
on campus. I don't know.
Speaker 4 (27:25):
Maybe they were going to start early the next morning
and she thought she'd just crash at the whole you know,
doing whatever they her and her dad were going to do,
and she thought she would just crash there with him
it would be easier for her, or maybe you know,
he needed the car earlier and she didn't. She felt
like once she went to sleep, she wouldn't want to
you know, maybe get it back to him on time.
(27:46):
I mean, I guess there could be a bunch of reasons.
Speaker 3 (27:49):
So, like I said, this accident is only about a
mile from campus. More claims she had not been drinking
for hours before the accident, and there was no sobriety
test administered to buy law enforcement who arrived at the scene,
Maura was very upset about the crash. Now, they're conflicting
stories because in one set of reports, the hotel clerk,
(28:16):
the motel clerk said that Maura came in and they
had to call Fred in his room, and that he
came out to the lobby to find Moura crying and
like confronted her about like what's going on. She explains
what's happened, right, right, But then other stories say that
like she just went in the room, went to bed
(28:36):
and didn't tell Fred until the next morning that the
car had been crashed.
Speaker 4 (28:40):
See, those are completely, yeah, polar opposite situations. I mean,
those are quite different situations.
Speaker 3 (28:47):
Well yeah, and I mean again, it's like you get
certain statements from the family, but then there's other statements
given from people who have a different story. So it's
again kind of can confusing. So I'm going to just
go with Okay. So the next morning, when he learns
what happened, he scolded Morris, saying she was lucky she
(29:09):
wasn't issued at du Why and Maura told her dad
she had not been intoxicated at the time of the accident,
But again, we don't really have any way of knowing.
She had been at a party. She had a box
of wine that her dad had taken her to purchase
along with her girlfriend before the party, so she had
been drinking at the party, but we don't know like
(29:29):
how much she had been drinking.
Speaker 4 (29:31):
So yet again, a box of wine in a car,
just the same box of wine. It's the same box
of wine. Are you supposed to refrigerate the wine after
you start opening and drinking it?
Speaker 3 (29:44):
I don't think so. Well, I mean, I guess it
depends on the wine. Oh, okay, cause I don't refrigerate
red wine.
Speaker 4 (29:51):
Well, that's true. I don't know anything about wine.
Speaker 3 (29:53):
I'm just look, it's a box wine dying. I don't
think it counts. I don't think it matters.
Speaker 4 (29:58):
It's like those pizza you could eat it three days
after it's been sitting out on your stove pretty much,
and you're you're gonna be okay, yeah, okay, yeah, Fred.
Speaker 3 (30:08):
Laine the insurance would cover most of the car's damage,
but this did not sway Maura's mood. She felt incredibly
guilty about this car accident. On Sunday, Mara cried on
the ride back to campus when she got out of
Fred's rental car. You know, she was still kind of sobbing,
just felt really terrible about what had happened. Fred and
(30:29):
Moore agreed they would speak on Monday. Fred told her
she needed to go get some like insurance forms to
file on Monday so they would reconnect then. And then
he described her as sort of just like you know,
kind of slumping, you know, and like going into her
dorm like she was upset.
Speaker 4 (30:49):
My kind of her tail between her legs kind of thing. Yeah,
kind of yeah, defeated, tired, been through a lot, right,
I'm sure.
Speaker 3 (30:58):
Right now, even as Fred here's about his missing daughter,
he feels an urgency to do something. Early morning, February eleventh,
Fred travels to New Hampshire. While driving in the dark,
he has the sinking feeling. Winter in New Hampshire is
quite cold. There had been a snowstorm recently. Temperatures on
(31:19):
Monday night had been very low. Fred worried that Mora
could be out in the weather, lost in the woods.
Speaker 4 (31:26):
Yeah, these types of ecnthermia could set in. Yeah, these
types of conditions are deadly.
Speaker 3 (31:32):
Well yeah, I mean it's hard to survive outdoors in
those temperatures, especially if you don't have any gear.
Speaker 4 (31:37):
Yeah, and this is the type of area where they,
I'm sure they people that have grown up there are
used to kind of keeping a kit in the car,
you know, if you're prepared to have any kind of preparedness,
you know, blankets, maybe, you know, a little bit of
food and water, because you know, these storms, these bad
storms can come out of nowhere.
Speaker 3 (31:54):
Maybe a pair of snow boots, wide.
Speaker 4 (31:56):
Out conditions, Yeah, and just all of a sudden you're stranded.
Speaker 3 (31:59):
You know. The area was not well marked where Moura
had wrecked. The directions told Fred to find a red barn.
Just after a horseshoe bend in the road. Morris's car
had been towed away on February ninth, but Fred found
the tire tracks still visible. Fred walks around looking for
(32:20):
footprints that might indicate which direction Maura had taken off,
but there are none. At the time Maura disappeared, she
would have been walking in two feet of snow from
the recent storm.
Speaker 4 (32:31):
Wow.
Speaker 3 (32:31):
Fred feels certain if she had walked away, there would
be some evidence of tracks.
Speaker 4 (32:36):
Yeah, two feet of snow. I mean you're kind of
slogging through that, you know what I mean, pushing a path.
It's not it's not something that would be unnoticeable.
Speaker 3 (32:46):
When Fred shows up at the Haverhill Police department, he
inquires about search efforts. You know, what is being done
to find my daughter. Fred is frustrated when he learns
that no one has searched for Maura. There was no
excuse why the police had not performed a search. Fred
is feeling like the police don't care that his daughter
is missing. While their officers, along with some canines, are
(33:09):
sent out to the accident scene using a pair of
gloves that had been removed from the car. Moore had
gotten these gloves for Christmas. By the way, the dogs
were given the scent and let loose didn't seem to
find anything. Now, her family argues that she'd gotten these
gloves for Christmas and that was not the best item
to use because they don't even know if she had
(33:30):
worn these gloves yet.
Speaker 4 (33:32):
Well, yeah, there were.
Speaker 3 (33:33):
Other things in the car that definitely would have had
her scent. Oh okay, you know, running clothes, that kind
of thing.
Speaker 4 (33:40):
Oh, I bet running clothes would be a good thing
to get someone sent off of, you know. And these
are bad conditions for trying to I would think, well,
that's the other thing for trying to do this kind
of tracking.
Speaker 3 (33:51):
It's been like more than a day, you know, like
we're going on more like day and a half or something,
and the conditions aren't great. Now the canines, like I said,
have no luck tracing Mora's scent. Fred is growing increasingly
agitated with police. He feels nothing is being done. Now
he's told that the Fish and Game will begin a
(34:13):
search of the area. Now, this search spans several miles
on foot, and an air search is conducted using some
heat sensing technology. The search goes on for hours.
Speaker 4 (34:23):
But there is no sign of Mora, Now do you
agree with Fred that you would if you were in
his position, would you be surprised that they did not
do even a general search of the surrounding area.
Speaker 3 (34:37):
I knew you were going to ask this, and I
am going to touch on this later. Okay, okay, okay. Yeah,
Now this mystery deepens. Experienced searchers using this reliable technology
are having no luck. They find no tracks, The heat
sensing technology is showing nothing.
Speaker 4 (34:57):
So was that done from the air? Why?
Speaker 3 (35:00):
I just said some of it?
Speaker 4 (35:01):
No, it was for Yeah, I'm sure they were using
the flur device.
Speaker 3 (35:04):
Yeah, yeah, Dylan, I mentioned some of it was conducted
in an air search.
Speaker 4 (35:09):
Right, and that's very very widespread, very sensitive technology.
Speaker 3 (35:15):
Well, we also have fishing game you know, officers or whatever.
These game wardens are out in this area, know the
area and know how to navigate the woods.
Speaker 4 (35:25):
Right, They know the back trail, the low roads, all that.
Speaker 3 (35:28):
So they're just not having any luck. By now, morris
siblings have heard the news that she's missing and they've
arrived in town to help with the search. Laurie was
at home with a broken ankle, so she was unable
to search for her daughter and over the years, a
lot of people have given her ship, Like I can't
believe her mother wasn't there, But it's like, well, it's
hard for her to be there when she's got a
(35:49):
broken ankle.
Speaker 4 (35:50):
How she gonna what's she going to do to help
in two foot of freaking snow, dude.
Speaker 3 (35:55):
Well, also, somebody has to stay behind and man the phones. Yes,
in case Mora calls, in case there's an update, in
case Mora shows up at home.
Speaker 4 (36:04):
I mean, I didn't grow up where there's big snows,
but I remember in a handful of big snows in
my life and it was a pain in the ass
to get around. And I'm sure people in an area
like this, or you you know, know very well how
tough these conditions are, especially if you get off the
road into the open, you know, the the raw would.
Speaker 3 (36:24):
Well, Dylany, you know how the world works today and
everybody has an opinion on everything. Everybody's an expert from
you know, missing persons to tariffs to peace in Israel,
Like everybody knows everything. Yeah, I know, everybody's smarter than
you and they know all the things.
Speaker 4 (36:43):
It's true, there's so many experts in so many fields.
Speaker 3 (36:47):
Yeah nowadays, Yeah, Yeah, all these students who can't even
finish school like on you know, on the grade level,
but they know more about it than you do.
Speaker 4 (36:58):
Yeah, they can't tell you how many countries are on
North America, the North American continent.
Speaker 3 (37:03):
Yeah, now the mystery deepens. As I said, Lorie's left behind.
They're just trying to figure out like what they can
start doing. And I mean most people are not experienced
with this. You don't really know where to begin. Now,
where do you start looking for your missing loved one?
Speaker 4 (37:23):
Right, It's not like you've been through this before, so
I'm sure almost every single time now you now and
again you have a family who's had, you know, multiple
tragedies in their life. But for the most part, everyone's
going to be navigating this for the first time. So
you know, forgive them if they don't make every move
exactly like a Monday morning quarterback would think that they should. Right.
Speaker 3 (37:46):
Morris's boyfriend, Bill Rosch, who is stationed at Fort Sill
in Oklahoma, is working to get leave approved so he
can travel to New Hampshire. So you got a lot
of folks who want to be there, who want to
be on the ground.
Speaker 4 (38:03):
Do you think I don't know you would look for me,
but I think that would be it. I don't think
i'd have anybody else that would look for me.
Speaker 3 (38:11):
There might be two or three more people you and Rufus.
Speaker 4 (38:15):
Well, yeah, maybe maybe.
Speaker 3 (38:16):
I would come the ends of the earth looking for you.
Speaker 4 (38:19):
You would, Yeah, I'd look all over the yard for you,
all around, not even go out.
Speaker 3 (38:23):
Back, that's it. Yeah, just you look around the house cool,
like you put for that much effort.
Speaker 4 (38:32):
Well, no, I'm telling you I would do it, dude, if.
Speaker 3 (38:34):
You would need help if I went missing. You do
not know how to navigate like social media create flyers.
You don't even know how to like attach a document
to an email. You would be so helpless.
Speaker 4 (38:45):
All I know is that there's like a paper clip.
Speaker 3 (38:47):
You don't have to go next door and get like
Brian and Santa to help you, or get Renee to
help you. Like you'd have to rely on friends and
neighbors because you are like technologically uh troubled. You're lacking.
Speaker 4 (39:04):
But I can walk in woods though, I can do that, carry,
I can carry stuff.
Speaker 3 (39:09):
Well, as long as you can stop every couple of
feet in smoke, you'd be open.
Speaker 4 (39:12):
Well, I'm not even smoking now so at the moment.
But I'm saying I can carry stuff, I can walk
through woods. I have been in deep woods before. If
you go missing in deep.
Speaker 3 (39:22):
Woods, yeah, it's very likely I would go missing in
deep woods. Yeah.
Speaker 4 (39:26):
It would be one of the places that I my
skill set would really is built for it. And now
you did make me realize I would have a team.
You a team to help me.
Speaker 3 (39:35):
You would have to have a team doing thanks.
Speaker 4 (39:37):
Guys.
Speaker 3 (39:38):
See, I could mental one woman operation up in this house.
Speaker 4 (39:40):
Yeah, but not you.
Speaker 3 (39:42):
And I don't mean that. I don't mean that badly.
Speaker 4 (39:45):
That's okay, honey. You can tell them to look for
my head.
Speaker 3 (39:47):
It's okay.
Speaker 4 (39:48):
Be on the lookout for a big ass head.
Speaker 3 (39:50):
Everybody has their own special talents.
Speaker 4 (39:54):
That might have a thinning spot in the backers.
Speaker 3 (39:57):
Are not your talent. And that's okay. Now more Murray,
let's discuss her a little bit more. Murray was born
May fourth of nineteen eighty two. She was the fourth
of five kids, growing up in what has been described
as a close knit, hard working family in Hanson, Massachusetts.
Mori's parents divorced when she was six years old, but
remained devoted and active in their children's lives. Through my research,
(40:20):
I learned that the youngest child, child number five, Curtis,
does not actually belong to Fred Murray. He belonged to
another man named Kevin Noble, who was arrested for murdering
his brother. Oh wow, guess incarcerated. Yeah, so Curtis's name
was like Curtis Noble Murray. So though this child did
(40:41):
not belong to Fred, it seems that, you know, he
was still active in the boy's life, didn't really treat
him differently than the other kids.
Speaker 4 (40:50):
Oh yeah, And I honestly believe that's, uh, that doesn't
matter at all. Yeah, you can certainly raise a child
as your own and be genuine about it. If you're
not genuine about it, don't bother, you know, don't act
or put it on the front. But yeah, that doesn't
matter whether or not a child you're biological offspring, because
(41:12):
I think how you raising that child is a whole
nother ball of wax.
Speaker 3 (41:18):
Right. So, despite this divorce, both remain you know, devoted
of you know, devoted active in their children's lives. Some
people have described Maura as having the like ideal American childhood,
growing up in the suburbs. Family meals, school activities, you know,
weekend plans, weekend fund. Maura had an older brother, Freddie Junior,
(41:40):
two sisters, Kathleen and Julie, and then the little brother Kurt.
Curtis Maura like camping over the state line in the
White Mountains of New Hampshire. She would often go camping
with her father, like just the two of them. Now.
Later James Renner, a true a true crime author, we'll
(42:00):
interview Lorie's sister, Janice. So this would be Mora's aunt,
and she would bring up the point about more going
camping with her dad and that you know, Morea is fourteen,
fifteen years old, and that she's sharing a tent with
her dad, and the aunt found that to be very strange.
(42:21):
And I was discussing this with you, and I said,
you know, at that age, if I'd gone camping with
my dad and we shared a tent, I wouldn't have
thought anything in the world about it. Because my dad's
a lot of things. I mean, he's a total jackass,
but he's not Moleste right and has never made me
feel uncomfortable like that. So at fourteen or fifteen, like
I wouldn't have thought anything about sharing a hotel room
(42:43):
with him, sharing a camp a tent with him, you
know what I mean. And I guess if you have
like an innocent kind of like a relationship with your
parent like that wouldn't seem to be a big deal.
And it's interesting to me that some people find that
to be abs slowly shocking, while other people are like,
what's the big deal?
Speaker 4 (43:03):
Well, it's like me and you said, there could be
many reasons for that, you know, if they if they
camped a lot as she was growing up, it could
they just could she may be afraid to be in
her own tent, you know she. I mean, we've had young,
you know kids with us camping. It's kind of, let's
be honest, it's kind of creepy, especially when you're first
doing it, to be sleeping in his little thin tent
(43:24):
out in the you know, out in the wild like that.
Even if you're at a Kwa campground, it still feels
like you're in the middle of nowhere. And it could
just be something they've gotten used to, you know, doing.
I mean, it might not be weird at all, is.
Speaker 3 (43:38):
What I'm saying, right, But I did want to mention
that Maura had an especially close relationship with her father Fred.
The aunt Janice has almost indicated that it was a
like it was a strangely close relationship that they shared. Okay,
I guess to the family defends the relationship and doesn't
(44:06):
want to talk about it or doesn't find it weird.
Speaker 4 (44:09):
Yeah, And that's one of those things that she could
have genuine gut feelings about this that matter. You know,
we're not interacting with these people, or it could just
be things like, oh, they still share a tent when
they can. I mean, it could be her perspective that
makes you know, she thinks that some of these things
(44:30):
are weird when they're really not. I mean, that's just
one of those subjective things that's really hard to kind
of make a good read on.
Speaker 3 (44:38):
Just keep that in mind as we go on in
our story. Okay, okay. Fred was a nuclear medicine tech
and her mother worked as a nurse. One Fred's friend
said quote Fred was proud, especially of Maura. She was
the golden girl. Maura was bright and talented. She blossomed
(45:00):
into a standout athlete and student from an early age.
Mora developed an interest in hockey. On the ice, she
was confident coaches considered her to be highly motivated. She
pushed herself beyond what was expected. She wasn't the strongest
or the biggest at the rink, but more played with
strategic thinking and determination. She was a star on her
(45:22):
high school's track and cross country teams. Moore was also
an excellent student academically. She did well in what we
would today call STEM classes, math sciences. She had an
active social life, which provided her with some strong connection.
She had a lot of friends she kept busy. One
of the odd things that stood out to me though, Dylan,
(45:44):
is when her long term friends, like from high school,
had been interviewed. They described never being invited into Moura's home. Oh,
they stopped by, and that Maura never drove anywhere. If
they stopped by to pick her up, she came outside
to meet them. They were not allowed to come in
the house. She wasn't allowed to have them over at
(46:05):
the house.
Speaker 4 (46:07):
Now do they know.
Speaker 3 (46:07):
We're't allowed to have sleepovers at her house?
Speaker 4 (46:10):
She's literally not allowed or is that just the way
it worked out? That she was always kind of on
the go.
Speaker 3 (46:17):
Well, again, there's some back and forth on that. Well,
I guess she was fuzzy.
Speaker 4 (46:23):
Well, I guess from their viewpoint, all their other friends
like they at least step in for a minute, you
know what I mean? Oh, hold on, I'm not quite
ready to come on in or whatever. And I guess
just over all the interactions, it would strike me as odd.
Maybe think about it and.
Speaker 3 (46:40):
If you have a best friend and you guys do
everything together, and you've never, ever once been invited your
friends home, you have no idea what color their couches,
You don't know what your friend's bedroom looks like. Does
she have a poster of John Stamos on the wall? Like?
You just don't know these things, right, That's odd to me.
Speaker 4 (47:00):
Yeah, that's a bit odd.
Speaker 3 (47:01):
So it makes me wonder like, why did Maura not
want friends in the house or did her parents not
want other people in the house? Was she embarrassed about something?
Speaker 4 (47:11):
Dude? Have you ever been at a friend's house when
you were younger and like their parents didn't know you
were there, and then their parents like come home and
then it's like all weird and shit. No, yeah, no,
I've had that happen before.
Speaker 3 (47:25):
Okay, oh so you're just like the weird kid that
pops up.
Speaker 4 (47:28):
No, I'm not the weird kid.
Speaker 3 (47:30):
You look like a weird like you would have been
a weird kid.
Speaker 4 (47:32):
No, I was a normal kid, traps.
Speaker 3 (47:34):
In the woods, coming over, your big head, being weird
coming out of the deep woods, probably eating snacks.
Speaker 4 (47:40):
Well, I was eating snacks because they had the good snacks.
Speaker 3 (47:43):
See exactly. Those parents were like, quit eating the good snacks,
you little fat headed kid.
Speaker 4 (47:48):
But you know you should have got this. You said
it was okay, right, they said it was okay, It's
gotta be fine, and then their parents come in and
make it all weird man parents.
Speaker 3 (47:59):
Now, her sister Julie said that quote. She was a
kind of jokes like, kind of jokester of the family,
and of course having three older siblings, she got picked
on a lot, especially in such a competitive family as mine,
so she developed this quick wit really early on to
try and combat us. She was a lot of fun
and really clever, thoughtful and humble. So she gets a
(48:22):
lot of ribbing, Dylan, She's got to get that thick
skin going. Gotta be able to fight back. I never
had older siblings to push me around, but I had
parents that belied me, so.
Speaker 4 (48:33):
Yeah, yeah, I had to They handled that didn't.
Speaker 3 (48:36):
They had had to get I had to get a
quick wit ab.
Speaker 4 (48:40):
My Mama Head's hard ninety sound batch.
Speaker 3 (48:42):
She graduated from Whitman Hanson Regional High School. She was
accepted into the prestigious United States Military Academy at West
Point in New York.
Speaker 4 (48:54):
Wow, that's a pretty big deal.
Speaker 3 (48:56):
Maura's SAT scores were fourteen twenty.
Speaker 4 (49:01):
That's pretty much what mine were.
Speaker 3 (49:03):
She studied chemical engineering for three semesters. Over the years,
there have been rumors floated that Mora was kicked out
of West Point, and this is untrue. Her sister Julie
dispelled some of the conversations surrounding this on TikTok. Her
sister Julie is active on TikTok. She also has a podcast,
and we'll talk about that, but you know, on TikTok,
(49:26):
Julie discusses a lot of these rumors, debunks them, makes
a lot of more related content. Now. According to Julie,
Mora had gotten into trouble in August of two thousand
and one for taking some makeup from the commissary without paying.
Speaker 4 (49:44):
That's called stealing, Yeah.
Speaker 3 (49:46):
Dylan, That's exactly what it's called. She was sent to
the honor board who would determine her punishment. Now, Julie
attended West Point as well, and she explained this was
a minor offense that Maura would have most like not
being kicked out of the school. Mara decided the military
wasn't a good fit and dropped out before a decision
(50:07):
was made in January of two thousand and two, So
before learning what the punishment was, she just dropped out
of school.
Speaker 4 (50:16):
Now do you think she was worried that maybe even
if this wasn't, according to her sister, not that big
of a deal. You think she was worried that they
were going to throw her out. So it's constably, it's
kind of like you quit a job before they can fire. Well.
Speaker 3 (50:31):
I mean, her sister's like, this isn't a very big deal.
But let's be honest, the school has a strict honor code.
Speaker 4 (50:37):
So in a setting like this, even a minor you know,
getting something in let's say, forgetting to pay for however
you want to phrase it, it could be maybe a pretty
big deal.
Speaker 3 (50:47):
I would say it's a big deal. I mean to
play it off like, oh, it's just this minor thing.
I mean, come on, that's shoplifting. It's a crime, and
it's going to be a big deal at a military
school like WESP.
Speaker 4 (51:00):
Honor and trust are very important values at a place
like that, yes.
Speaker 3 (51:05):
Very now. According to documents obtained from West Point, Mora
was pulled out of class seven times in two thousand
and one to appear before the honor board. So it
does seem she had some issues at West Point. I
don't know if these seven visits to the honor board
or going before the honor board related to the shoplifting,
(51:27):
or if there were like other issues happening, But that
seems like a lot to be pulled out of class
seven times, right for a shoplifting offense. I just feel
like there's got to be more to the story than that, Like.
Speaker 4 (51:40):
There were other issues besides this one issue.
Speaker 3 (51:43):
Possibly, and I'm speculating, I don't know.
Speaker 2 (51:47):
Now.
Speaker 3 (51:47):
A West Point classmate said quote she didn't want to
be there. There was a sense that Maura was trying
to live up to expectations that weren't hers.
Speaker 2 (51:55):
Now.
Speaker 3 (51:56):
Like I said, before Dylan Julie had attended West Point,
knew what she was getting into, Like her sister had
given her a pretty honest breakdown of it's going to
be hard. These are the things you need to do
under Julie's advisement. More a study she prepared for West Point.
Her sister gave her, like whatever the study materials were,
(52:17):
so that she would be ready when she got there,
be ahead of the game.
Speaker 4 (52:23):
Yeah. And so at West Point, a place like that,
it's not just the academics, right right, I'm assuming they're
have a physical element.
Speaker 3 (52:32):
Oh yeah, the challenging physical it's very rigorous. More could
meet those challenges Dylan physically and academically, like those demands,
no problem. She's described as, you know, a brilliant young woman,
a good student, and physically, I mean she's a track star,
she's super fast.
Speaker 4 (52:50):
Hockey, I mean it's a very physical sport.
Speaker 3 (52:52):
Right now. The first year at West Point is always
the hardest. Freshmen are called pleabs. I had a friend
that went to the city and I remember him being
called a pleab and describing to me some of the
things that went on when you were a freshman at
a military school. Back then. I guess they were still
hazing a bit.
Speaker 4 (53:13):
Oh, just a bit, just a bit.
Speaker 3 (53:15):
This was in the you know, late nineties. More quickly
got attention as the fastest in the beast Barracks. That's
what they were called. I guess the freshman barracks when
you go for that summer semester. But it didn't take
long for Julie to realize that her sister was just
not really fitting in at West Point. One thing Julie
points out is that she loved it. Like Julie was
(53:37):
built for this. She wanted to be a military officer.
She loves physical activity, she loves challenges, She's really super competitive.
So she absolutely loved it, like throw me the hardest
thing you got, right. But Maura did not love it well.
Speaker 4 (53:53):
And I think that would be a very important distinction
in an environment like this. Right, even if you can
do it physically and you have the smarts to handle
the heavy load of the academics and still performed that
level and do well, I think if your heart's not
in it, it's really gonna affect you in a pretty
(54:15):
bad way in a setting like that.
Speaker 3 (54:18):
Right, Well, when you don't love something, Dylan, that means
your heart really isn't in it, and you're.
Speaker 4 (54:25):
Still having to put this tremendous amount of physical and
emotional effort into this thing.
Speaker 3 (54:30):
Right. So, after three semesters, Moore made the decision to
drop out of West Point. As I mentioned before, now
More enrolled at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, where she
majored in nursing. However, pressure was never far behind More
a balanced nursing classes, a long distance relationship with Bill,
and two part time jobs. She worked as a security
(54:54):
at a security desk and a dorm like checking IDs,
I guess making round that kind of thing, and also
part time at an art gallery on campus. It started
to take its toll before she went missing. Maura had
only recently moved into a single dorm room. Residents of
the dorm described her as being quiet and keeping to herself.
(55:19):
Maura had dated her boyfriend Bill on and off for
several years. It was described as one of those relationships
that had like a make up breakup loop. Yeah, probably
I'll know this young couple. It happens.
Speaker 4 (55:33):
I hate you, but I love you so much.
Speaker 3 (55:36):
Well, I don't know. That seems a little trashy, but
that's like the trashy version of it.
Speaker 4 (55:41):
Well, Well do I hate you. I don't care for
you at all, but you have my heart and your
grasp upon your palm.
Speaker 3 (55:49):
Earlier, in their relationship, Bill reportedly cheated on Moro, which
caused some friction. Some of her friends didn't exactly like him,
trying to get her to break up with him.
Speaker 4 (56:00):
Well, yeah, I mean when you have a friend or
a relative in one of these situations, no matter what
side they are in the relationship, it just gets old, right,
I mean, you keep because they're going through this loop
and they're kind of having repetitive behaviors. You can see
it coming. They're going to you know, first it's just
(56:21):
a small argument, and then whatever about their personalities that
don't jib it just turns into this thing. It kind
of snowballs, and you know, then they're telling you, just
with all their heart, how much they can't stand a person,
How this is it? This is it for once and
for all. It's over, And knowing damn well that you
know less than a weekend they're going to be back
(56:43):
together and kind of just resett and started all over again.
It gets old. It gets old to people around you.
Speaker 3 (56:49):
I think during a period of breakup, Mora had dated
another young man. His I will just call him pass.
That's how he has referred to in Dreams Turner's book.
Oh he's a graduate student. He was also involved with
a track team. He gives James Renner some blowdown kind
(57:13):
of I guess, some dirt on Maura, And like I said,
I don't want to like speak ill of her, but
I do think it's important that we have a full
picture of Maura. I mean, he says, like I wasn't
the only one she was sleeping with. He described her
as being promiscuous, that she had slept with other members
of their track team, which were these salacious parties. Someone
(57:38):
had a key to a campus pool. I guess where
the swim team practice that kind of thing, and they
would break in there late at night party there was sex,
has described orgies.
Speaker 4 (57:54):
Oh wow.
Speaker 3 (57:55):
Yeah. So again, I mean, I don't know, this is
just hearsay. This is what this guy's saying about her,
But you know he I mean, it wasn't like they
had a bad breakup or anything. They stayed friends. He
wanted to be friends after they quit seen each other.
Speaker 4 (58:10):
Well, and honestly, like you said, not to speak ill
of anyone.
Speaker 3 (58:14):
You described it as like typical college behavior.
Speaker 4 (58:18):
And she has They have every right to take part
in these right consenting adults, young adults get to do
whatever they want right and it doesn't matter. But I
also think you shouldn't, which happens a lot more frequently
than anyone speaking ill of anyone. You have this glott
(58:39):
this whitewashing,
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