Criminology - Maura Murray Part1

Episode Date: February 2, 2019

Maura Murray was a 21-year-old nursing student at the University of Massachusetts. On February 9th, 2004, she crashed her car on a secluded road in New Hampshire and has not been seen or heard from since. The events surrounding the night of her disappearance and the things that transpired in the days leading up to it have caused much speculation and a lot of rumors over the years. Was Maura Murray's life troubled to the point that she decided to end it? Did she run away to start her life over or did she meet with foul play that night on route 112 in New Hampshire? You can help support the show at patreon.com/criminology An Emash Digital production Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

If you love chilling mysteries, unsolved cases, and a touch of mom-style humor, moms and mysteries is the podcast you've been searching for. Hey guys, I'm Mandy. And I'm Melissa. Join us every Tuesday for moms and mysteries, your gateway to gripping, well-researched true crime stories. Each week, we deep dive into a variety of mind-boggling cases as we shed light on everything from heist to whodunit.

We're your go-to podcast for Mysteries with a Motherly Touch. Subscribe now to moms and mysteries wherever you get your podcast. Criminology is a true crime podcast that may contain discussion about violent or disturbing topics. Listener discretion is advised. I'd like to welcome everyone to episode 46 of criminology. I'm Mike Ferguson. And this is Mike Morford. Morph, how are you this week?

I am living the dream and like always, I'm excited to get into this episode. Yeah, yeah, I am too. It is negative four here today where I'm at. I think every school in the area has closed down just because of the cold. We didn't get a ton of snow. It was just strictly because it was so cold. It's definitely a good day to stay inside and do a podcast instead of going outside. Exactly.

So we have an exciting episode. But before we get into that, let's give a shout out to our Patreon supporters. We had Brooke Dohar, Terese Mori, Deanna Foster, Carolyn YK, Jennifer Shea, and, And Kim. So really appreciate that new Patreon support. We say it all the time, Morp, but, you know, that support goes a long way in helping you and I defray the costs of putting out this podcast. Absolutely. And we continue to be amazed at the support we get from listeners. If you'd like to help the show through a Patreon donation and get access to add free episodes of the show, you can do so by visiting patreon.com slash criminology.

We mentioned last week that we will be officially on podcast row at CrimeCon. And we've had a lot of listeners reach out and tell us that they're going, which is amazing. We can't wait to see you there. If you're on the fence, if you're out there thinking, you know, do I want to go to New Orleans, go to CrimeCon? I say yes. I think if you talk to anybody on social media that's been, they had a. blast. So if you're going to go, be sure to visit crimecon.com to purchase your badges and use our

promo code at checkout. And that's Criminology 19. That'll save you 10% off your standard badge purchase. All right. Mor, if we have to dive right in to this case, this is one that has fascinated me for a long time. It's a puzzling case. There's a lot of mystery surrounding it. There are a lot of moving pieces. Yeah, it really is, Mike. It's a case that's caused a true crime obsession across the internet. It's easily considered one of the most well-known missing persons cases in the U.S. It's been covered on TV, on blogs, podcasts, and documentaries. With so much media coverage and multiple theories and the rumor mill generating both accurate and inaccurate information about this case since 2004, it can be hard to separate fact-fetched.

fiction. And we're still asking the question, what happened to Mora Murray on that February night 15 years ago this month when she slid off the roadway and into the unknown. And this is the first part of a two-parter on Moran Murray. Next week's episode, which comes out February 9th, marks the 15 year anniversary of her disappearance. Moran Murray was born on May 4th, 1982 in Hanson, Massachusetts to Fred and Lori Murray. She was the second youngest of five children and raised in an Irish Catholic household. When Moore was six, her parents divorced and she went to live with her mother. She was considered an overachiever by those that knew her.

In high school, she was the star in the basketball and track teams, winning the district in the mile during her senior year. She was a straight-A student and scored 1420 on her college SATs. Morra could have gone to any college she wanted, and she chose to attend the U.S. Military Academy, commonly known as West Point in West Point, New York. During her sophomore year, or third class as is called at West Point, she met fellow cadet Bill Rauch, who was two years older than Moira

and a first class cadet at West Point. The two began a serious relationship, but not long after they started dating, Mora's shoplifted some makeup from a gift shop at Fort Knox while on a school field trip. West Point officials forced her to resign, and she transferred to the University of Massachusetts in Amherst to study nursing. While at UMass, Bill and Mora continued a long-distance relationship. By this time, he had graduated West Point and moved to Oklahoma. Soon after, Morris started classes at UMass. Amherst, Massachusetts lies about 93 miles west of Boston.

There are roughly 35,000 residents who live there, and it's home to three colleges, Amherst College, Hampshire College, and UMass. About 30,000 students flock there each year with the majority of them attending UMass where Moore went. In the UMass nursing program that Maura Murray was enrolled in, was one of the top nursing programs in the country. And it still is. In 2018, it ranked 46 out of 513 programs nationwide.

Moore's life at UMass was pretty normal, for the most part, pretty much exactly what you would see from any other college student. But then things began to unravel for her in November 2003. She was arrested for credit card fraud after stealing credit card numbers in order to purchase food. But because she had no prior convictions, Mora was let go under the condition that she maintained good behavior, which she did for the next few months. On Thursday, February 5, 2004, Morrow was working her security job at Melville Dormitory. Around 10.20 p.m., she had a phone conversation with her. oldest sister Kathleen. During the call, the two talked about the men in their lives. Kathleen had just

gotten out of alcohol rehab and was upset because her boyfriend at the time, Tim Carpenter, had purchased liquor right after she got out. Kathleen couldn't resist drinking again. She later said that Mora was very upset with her over it. Around 1 a.m. on February 6th, Moore's supervisor Karen Moyette saw Maure in tears. She said Moore was so upset she was nearly nearly catatonic. When Karen asked her why she was so upset, Mora just said, my sister, Karen comforted Mora and then walked her back to Mora's dorm room. The phone call with Kathleen started a chain of events that would change the lives of Mora and her family indefinitely. The next day, February 7th,

Moore's father, Fred Murray, arrived in Amherst to visit Morra. The two went car shopping because Moore's car was becoming unreliable. A cylinder had blown in her 1996 Saturn sedan and the car started smoking. Fred brought $4,000 in cash with him, but he quickly realized that would not be enough to buy a car. So that was pretty much the end of their car shopping experience once Fred realized, hey, I don't have enough money on me right now to get a decent car. Later that evening, the two went out for dinner and Moore asked her father if she could drive his Toyota Corolla to a dorm party being held by her friend Sarah Alfieri and her dad said yes. So Moore dropped her dad off at his motel, returned to campus in his car and attended the party with her good friend Kate

Markopoulos. Moran Kate arrived at the dorm party around 10.30 p.m. Kate later said it was a standing room only party, which, more if let's be honest, if you're having a party in a dorm room, at least most of the dorm rooms that I was familiar with back in the day, they're pretty much all going to be standing room only. I remember my dorm room, freshman and sophomore year at least, we had three people crammed into a space that is much smaller than my master bedroom now. So with a couple of bunk beds and some furniture, you're going to have people over. There's not much room at all. At 2.30 a.m., Mora left the party, telling friends she was going back to her own dorm room.

But about an hour later, 3.30 a.m. time frame, Mora crashed her father's car into a guardrail on Route 9 and Hadley. And this was a little more than a fender bender. This crash caused almost $10,000 worth of damage to the Corolla. The responding officer wrote a report but did not give Mora a sobriety test. He noted that she was pretty shaken up over the accident. Morr was then taken to her father's motel where she stayed the rest of the morning. Around 5 a.m. she called her boyfriend Bill Rouse in Oklahoma.

She was upset and Bill consoled Moore. Laura over the phone and said it seemed like there was more on her mind than just the accident. Fred later said that while he was upset with Mora over the accident, he was not angry about it. Accidents happen. So you deal with it and move on. And I definitely get that. Morf as a father of a 17 year old daughter who not that long ago, back to the last.

out of our driveway, smacked into a car that was parked across the street, obviously I was upset. I was upset because my daughter, you know, hadn't really paid attention. She wasn't looking over her shoulder, but I wasn't angry about it. So in that sense, I can understand the emotions that Fred was probably going through. Yeah, you're upset, but you're not mad, angry, ranting and raving. I think at the end of the day, you're just happy that your child is not hurt, and then you can worry about the frustration of getting the car fixed after that. That is the main thing, no doubt. Later that Sunday morning, Fred Murray learned that the accident would be covered under his auto insurance.

He rented a car and drove Mora back to UMass before heading back to his home in Hanson, Massachusetts. At around 11.30 p.m., Fred called Mora and reminded her to pick up accident forms from the Registry of Motor Vend. vehicles. The two agreed to talk again the next day about those forms and to fill out an insurance claim over the phone. At around midnight on Monday, February 9, 2004, Moore logged onto a computer and searched MapQuest for directions to Burlington and the Berkshire's in Vermont. At around 1 p.m. that afternoon, she emailed Billy saying, I got your messages, but honestly, I didn't feel like talking to much of anyone. I promised to call today, though. Mora then made a phone call about renting a condo in Bartlett, New Hampshire, that her family

had previously stayed in. However, she never did rent that condo. Later that afternoon, Mora called Bill like she promised, and she left a voicemail message saying she needed to talk to him. A while later, she emailed a professor saying she was going to be out of town for a few days due to a death in the family. But that turned out to be a lie. there was no death in Morris family.

She packed up all her belongings into boxes and then she left school. More even removed the art from her dorm room walls. She packed up her room as if she had no plans to return. She also packed a bag of personal belongings that she would take with her, some clothes, toiletries, her birth control, college textbooks, a cell phone charger, her favorite stuffed animal that she received from her father, and a diamond necklace from Bill Rouse. One of Maura's friends, Aaron O'Neill, had been watching TV in her dorm room and fell asleep.

Around 3 p.m., she heard a knock at the door. Thinking nothing of it, because she wasn't expecting company, Aaron didn't answer the door. When she later opened the door, a bag of her clothes were in a baggie outside of her dorm room. Mora had previously borrowed the clothes and returned them that day. Mora left campus and stopped at a Bank of America ATM on University Drive at 3.40 p.m. and withdrew $280. Then she went to a local liquor store and purchased almost $40 worth of alcohol. Surveillance videos at both places show that Mora was alone.

After Mora stopped at the liquor store, she drove north out of Amherst. at 4.37 p.m. She called to check her voicemail. This was the last time she used her cell phone. Mora drove through Vermont and into New Hampshire, exiting Highway 91 at exit 17 towards Woodsville, New Hampshire. She then traveled east on U.S. Highway 302 before turning east onto County Highway 112. and County Highway 112 is a long, curvy, secluded road. Moore drove for several miles until she reached a sharp curve in the road. At the curb, she lost control of her car and crashed into a snowbank. Her car ended up facing west on the east side of 112.

Not long after the crash happened, a school bus driver named Butch Atwood, pulled up and asked Moore if she wanted him to call police. Moore said no. She declined Butch's offer and told him that she had already called AAA. But Atwood knew this was a lie because there was no cell phone service in that area. Atwood then drove about 100 yards up the road to his home. At 7.27 p.m., Faith Westman, who lived directly across the street from the crash site, heard the crash and called 911.

She told dispatch that she couldn't tell if anyone was injured, but she could see a man in the vehicle smoking a cigarette. Two other neighbors, John and Virginia Marat, later told the media, there was a flurry of activity near the trunk of Morris Carr. Butch called 911 from his home at 7.40 p.m. But the call didn't go through. Instead, he received the message that all circuits were busy. A police dispatcher called Butch back at 7.43 p.m.

and he told the dispatcher that Mora wasn't bleeding and she was just shook up. The first responding officer, Sergeant Cecil Smith, arrived on scene at 7.46 p.m. But when he got there, Mora had vanished. Sergeant Smith inspected the car. The impact of the crash pushed the car's radiator into the fan, making it undrivable. The windshield had a spider web like crack on the drive. driver's side and both airbags had deployed. Sergeant Smith tried the car, but it was locked. He could see several items inside, most of which were the items more had taken with her, as we

previously talked about. Other items in the car were a AAA card in the front seat, blank accident report forms, gloves, there were some CDs, makeup, jewelry, but there were also two sets of MapQuest driving directions. One to Burlington, Vermont and the other to Stowe, Vermont. And this takes me back a little bit more if, you know, today with smartphones, we're pretty much used to navigating by our phone. A lot of us are. But back in the day, I remember going on my computer, figuring out where I wanted to go, I would go on MapQuest and print out. directions. And I think if you were really old school, you carried around one of those giant atlases that was a big book with maps inside of it and did things the really old school way.

Yeah. So this was kind of in between, right? The printing out of the map quest was in between the kind of old school unfold the map and the newer way of, I'm just going to turn on my cell phone. Now, eventually, Sergeant Smith is going to get in the inside the satyr. Inside the car was an empty beer bottle and on the rear seat was a damaged box of franzia wine. Sergeant Smith found red stains that he presumed to be from the red wine on both the inside and the outside of the saturn. A Diet Coke bottle found inside the car had traces of alcohol in it. But what he didn't find was more cell phone or her credit card. They were both gone.

Police later said some of the bottles of alcohol Mora purchased were missing as well. Authorities believed that Mora may have been drinking when she lost control of her car. Sergeant Smith spoke to Butch Atwood, who said that after he talked to Mora, he drove home and parked his bus facing west the direction of the accident.

And I guess he sat in the bus for a couple of minutes, filling out some paperwork. Then he went inside his house to call 911. He said that he couldn't see more while he was making the 911 call, but he did notice several cars passing by. At 7.54 p.m. Officer Smith put out a Bolo or beyond the lookout request for a female about 5-7 walking on foot. Smith did a quick search. around the immediate area of the car. He aimed his flashlight towards the woods. He didn't see Mora,

but he also didn't see any footprints in the snow. At 7.56 p.m., a couple of EMTs arrived on the scene. One of them, Dick Guy, later said no one was at the scene of the accident when they arrived. He noticed there was minimal damage on the car, and a rag, similar to a dish tail, was stuffed inside the tailpipe. The rag was hanging about 10 inches out of the pipe. Both EMTs thought that was really strange and couldn't understand why it was there. The rag came from the trunk of Moore's car and was part of an emergency roadside kit.

Fred Murray later said that he was the one who told Mora to put the rag in the tailpipe if the car was to break down. He thought the rag would conceal the smoke. On February 10, 2004, Mora Murray officially became a missing person and an official search began. That same morning, Bill Rouse received a voicemail message on his cell phone. Bill later told CNN, I received Tuesday morning last week, right after the accident, another voicemail, a chilling voicemail that was what I believe to be, Moira, whimpering and crying in the background.

I could only hear breathing, and then towards the end of the voicemail. I heard what was apparent to be crying and then a whimper, which I'm certain was Mora. Police later told Bill that it wasn't crying he heard. It was phone line static. The relationship between Bill and Mora was serious. And they talked about getting married one day. However, right before Mora disappeared, she discovered that Bill Roush had cheated on her.

And as anyone who's been in that situation knows, it's highly upsetting. And it was to Mora as well. Some people have suggested that Bill was abusive and controlling and that he is part of the reason she may have voluntarily disappeared. And more if this is a theory that we'll discuss later in the show, after Bill received word that Moore was gone, he and his parents flew to New Hampshire and helped search for her for about 10 days. But ultimately, Bill was ruled out as a suspect. Bill was in Oklahoma at the time of Moore's disappearance. And that's not a short drive, right?

We're talking 1,500 plus miles between Oklahoma and New Hampshire. This is not a get in your car at the spur of the moment and go do something and then make it back before anybody notices you're missing type of thing. Over the next several months, massive searches of the area around the crash site took place. Cadaver dogs were brought in to go through the woods, sniffing for a dead body, but they never found anything. A tracking dog did pick up more assent at the crash site and followed it to Bradley Hill Road. This is the first road east of the crash site. The tracking dog did this twice, But it seemed as if the scent stopped right there.

And searchers believe Moore got into a vehicle at Bradley Hill Road and left the area. The people that were involved in the tracking and the search for Mora, they're convinced. She is not anywhere in the area that they searched. Just where Mora went and with who and what happened to her after that is one big mystery that continues to this day. There's several theories about what happened to her that night. The first theory is that Mora took her own life. The suicide theory comes from a conversation Sergeant Smith had with Fred Murray when Fred arrived at the crash site the next day. In the 2017 documentary for the Oxygen Channel, the disappearance of Mora Murray, Officer Smith told investigative journalist

Maggie Freeling, who also attended UMass, along with retired U.S. Marshal R. Roderick, that Fred said Moran might have, quote, done the old squaw walk. A long time ago, elderly Native Americans chose to walk away from their people and die alone in the wilderness when they could no longer take care of themselves or contribute to tribal life. Because Mora's life was rapidly falling apart, she may have taken her own life. However, searchers never found Mora's body, and Fred Murray does not believe his daughter took her own life. The next theory is that there was a tandem driver helping Mora.

This theory originated with James Rinner, an author and investigative journalist, who completely immersed himself into the Mora Murray case. Rinner wrote a book on it called True Crime Addict, How I Lost Myself in the Mysterious Disappearance of Mora Murray. And we'll talk more about Rinner later, but for years, after Moore vanished, He believed Rennar did that Mora was pregnant with Bill Rouse's child and ran away to start a new life elsewhere. Rinner has hypothesized that another driver known to Mora was either following behind her or was in front of her that night. And when she crashed her car, the driver picked her up and they drove off.

Butch Atwood did say that he saw several cars pass by when he made the 911 call. Another theory is that Mora simply wandered off after her accident and died of exposure. Some people believe that Mora fled into the nearby woods to hide from police. The problem with this theory seems to be that the surrounding areas were searched extensively. And there's a good possibility that Mora's body would have been found. So Morph, I see where this theory comes from, right? We talked about the fact that it had been snowing. It was cold out.

There are indications that Moore Murray had possibly some alcohol in her system. But then you talk about that snow and the fact that Sergeant Smith didn't really find any footprints leading out into the snow. The searchers didn't find any. And they never found her body. And it was a pretty extensive search. search. Yeah, you would think that under those conditions that she probably wouldn't have made it too far away from the crash site. And I think when you're drinking, if she had alcohol in her system, that makes you become more susceptible to hypothermia faster. So there's a good chance that if she

wandered away, she wouldn't have got too far and they would have found her body. I don't know how you feel, Mike, but to me, this makes this theory more unlikely. No, I agree, Morph. And, you know, we're going to talk about a lot of different things. I don't know how you rule anything out conclusively, but I think there are some that you can say are more unlikely than others. I'll put it that way. The next theory to talk about is that more was the victim of foul play. Could it be that she was abducted and murdered? And I do believe this is probably one of the most accepted theories in this case. The tracking dog, we mentioned, followed Mora sent to Bradley Hill Road.

So it's possible that Moran may have been picked up by someone there, possibly someone that she didn't know. Then that person took her somewhere and murdered her, disposing of her body afterwards. And to me, Morph, it's the tracking dogs that really kind of stick with me. They're tracking her sent to Bradley Hill Road. and then they lose it. So what does that mean? Right?

Most people think that she got into a car right then and there. If not, why did they lose her scent? Right? That's a way that the dogs would have lost her scent because she got in a car left. So then the question becomes, did she walk to Bradley Hill Road? Did she flagged down a stranger? And the stranger turned out to be not such a good Samaritan. I'll put it that way.

For that possibility, we have to acknowledge that in that small amount of time in that little area there, she just happened to cross paths with somebody dangerous. And I think to me personally, I think the odds seem against that. I don't know what you think. Yeah, I don't think the odds are high that you crash your car, you walk a ways to the next road, you flag someone down and it just so happens that that person that you flagged down is a murderer or decides at that point in time to become a murderer. Not to say that it couldn't happen.

We've researched some very strange cases. But to your point, Morf, I don't think the odds of that are good. In the suburbs of D.C. A woman fails to show up for work and is found brutally murdered. I wonder what's emergency. We just walked in the door and there's blood in the foyer. For the next two decades, the case remained unsolved until new technology allowed investigators to do what had once been impossible. A new series from ABC Audio in 2020, Blood and Water. Listen now, wherever you get your podcasts.

Possible witnesses to the events of that night have come forward with information that led to other possible scenarios. One of these witnesses was someone known online as Witness A. Witness A has since come forward and identified herself as Karen McNamara. She spoke with Maggie and Art on camera in the Oxygen documentary. Karen said that on the night of Moore's crash, she left work at around 710 to 715. Her normal route home to Lincoln, New Hampshire, was a 40-minute drive on Highway 112. Along this route, there's no cell phone service until you reach Beaver Pover. Honda. So she called her family from work to let her know she was on her way in case anything

happened to her on the drive home. As Karen approached a weathered barn on Highway 112, which sits on the curve right before the crash site, she saw flashing lights and a black and white police SUV with the numbers zero zero one on the back. It was nose to nose with a car that was facing west in the eastbound lane. Karen later said that this was Morris car. She also said that it didn't look like an accident to her. It appeared that the driver had driven the car on the wrong side of the road and it was up against the snowbank. Karen said she didn't see anyone around. There was no police officer. There was no driver of the other car. So she drove on ahead, then pulled over and turned to look back, wondering if she should do something. But with no cell phone service,

there really wasn't much she could do. So she continued her drive towards home. Beaver Pond was the closest location where cell phone service was available. It was roughly a 14-minute drive away. When Karen got to Beaver Pond, she made some cell phone calls. And her cell phone records would later show that she made the first one at 7.52 p.m. And the second at 7.54 p.m. If you take the times of these cell phone calls and you back out the 14 minutes that it would have taken Karen to get from the crash site to Beaver Pond, it puts her at the crash scene at approximately 737 p.m. And this contradicts the timeline given by police. According to Sergeant Smith, he didn't arrive at the crash site until 7.46 p.m.

Nine minutes after Karen drove by. So if it wasn't Officer Smith nose-to-nose with Moore's car, then who was it? According to Murray Family Investigator John Smith, the cop who drove the black and white SUV was none other than Havre Hill's chief of police, Jeff Williams. Williams was allegedly known to drink and drive, so the theory here is that he either caused Moore's accident or he took advantage of her alone after the crash and the police were covering the entire thing up. But in the Oxygen documentary, Maggie and Art interview Smith, the only interview he

has ever given regarding Moore's case. He claimed he was the one who was driving the SUV. Williams, who was also interviewed, said he wasn't even on duty that night and was definitely not driving the SUV. However, even if Smith actually did drive the SUV, why does the report say he arrived at the scene nine minutes after Karen McNamara saw him? Karen said that police called her twice after she reported what she saw. They kept asking her if she was sure that she saw the SUV, and each time she said yes. Karen's story hasn't changed one bit in 15 years, and she seemed very believable in the documentary.

Police have never spoken about Karen's account. A woman named Susan Champi later reached out to Tim Polari and Lance Reins-Sterna of the Missing Mora Murray podcast, claiming that she too was a witness to events that night around the accident scene. Champi claimed that she left her job at the Loon Mountain Club at around 7.20 p.m. that night and that her route would take her down Route 112, putting her home at about 7.50 p.m. Not far from her home, Champi claims that she arrived at the scene of Moore's accident and saw a police vehicle with the markings 002 and two unknown people standing next to Moore's car. But it's unclear who these people were. As is the case and puzzling and mysterious

disappearances like the one of Moore Murray, there's a lot of rumors that pop up. This case is no exception. In fact, it's sometimes hard to separate facts from rumors. One rumor that has been floating around is that on February 9th, three men were traveling on Highway 112 toward Loon Mountain Resort, where they were scheduled to work that night. However, they never showed up for work. These men would have driven by Mora, possibly around the time that she was still at the crash scene.

So the rumor is that these men offered her a ride and she accepted. Again, Moore, it's just a rumor and there's a whole bunch of others out there, but it's one that is possible because of how we talked about the fact that Moore may have been picked up along Highway 112. Throughout the investigation, some people have been suspicious of law enforcement's refusal to share any information on Moore's case. According to them, if there's an arrest, they want the charges to stick so the case can go to trial. That makes sense, but some believe they are purposely withholding important case information.

In 2006, Fred Murray sued the state of New Hampshire for files police kept from him. It went all the way to New Hampshire's Supreme Court, but the state won. Fred believes police covered up Moore's disappearance, so it wouldn't interfere with the local tourist economy. there are many ski resorts near Haverhill. In the Oxygen documentary that we've talked about, Maggie and Art could only interview Sergeant Smith and police chief Jeff Williams on one condition. Jeff Streslin had to sit in on the interviews. In 2004, Streslin was the Grafton County prosecutor, and he's been involved in Moore's case

from day one. He is currently New Hampshire's Associate Attorney General. to some people, the fact that Streslin insisted on being in the same room during the interviews didn't make Smith and Williams or the police as a whole look good. A lot of people have questioned, what are they hiding? Why won't they release information regarding the disappearance of Moore Murray? Because Moore, if you and I have seen in the massive amount of research that we've done, it's not unusual for police to release more information.

as time passes in a case like this in the hopes that the public might know something or that they can help in some way. Authorities in this case have never done that. And that's made them look suspicious to some people, including, I think, most importantly, Morris family. But I think the flip side argument of this, and it's important, I think to point it out, is that The police often like to hold certain pieces of information back, right? Morphing cases so that when a suspect finally does come forward, they have some information that only the person that was involved would know. But in the case of a missing person in a disappearance, I believe more often than not, additional information is released over time because what's the main goal here? The main goal is to figure out what happened to Moora Murray.

And to your point, I agree that holding something back so that they can use it to rule people in or out later on is important. But I think it's been sort of unclear just what it is the police think happened to Mora. Do they think there was fail play? Do they think she left on her own? I think that's part of the confusion in the whole case. When it comes to this case, there's one person who stands out the most. That's James Renner. He's considered one of the most controversial people in this case.

As mentioned earlier, Renner immersed himself into finding out what happened to Mora. He became obsessed with the case, and while his intentions seem to have always been good, members of Morra's family, especially Fred Murray, do not trust him, and they refused to speak to him about Morris case. They wanted absolutely nothing to do with his book. And in Runner's eyes, that made them look a little suspicious. Regardless, Renner is very knowledgeable about this case, and many people do trust and believe him. Years ago, Renner started a blog devoted to documenting and sharing information about Morris case.

It became very popular among true crime fans. It also gave them an outlet to all. their own theories and opinions based on Renner's research. Renner himself was never shy about his opinion on certain matters, such as the relationship between Mora and her father, even going as far as to say that it was possible Fred may have sexually abused his own daughter. Fred has vehemently denied this accusation. But with his growing blog following,

people started contacting Renner with information. In 2014, he posted on his blog that a woman had contacted and told him that she waited on three women on February 9th, 2004 at Batson Supermarket in Woodsville, New Hampshire. The woman wrote, I was a cashier. That day, I was running late on getting out on time. It was probably 545 to 6 p.m. when I was supposed to have gone off register. My last customers were three attractive ladies. They had picked up some alcoholic drinks. As I recall the blue wine coolers, because that's what I drank, they also picked up smokes. I deeded all three of them, and they were all 21 to 23 years old. My supervisor was helping me to bag up their order.

Nothing stands out now about the actions of the three, except for one that I say was Mora. she kept nervously looking behind her. The other two just seemed like normal shoppers that weren't upset. I ID'd them. At the time, I wasn't much older than them. So this witness told Renner that she reported the siting immediately to her supervisor who then notified police. This woman also told the Murray family about the sighting and told Fred Murray

specifically that he should get police to check the cameras. But when Fred went to the supermarket to get the footage, he was told there were no cameras. This woman later said she was talking about the cameras in the small bank branch that was inside the store. But authorities have said they checked the cameras and the three women that were described by this woman, they weren't on it. However, it's unclear if they check the bank cameras as suggest. by the witness. But we mentioned it before, Morph, right? This is a story that has spawned a lot of

rumors, a lot of people coming forward and saying that they saw something. And this is another one of those things. We don't know whether or not this witness is telling the truth. And we don't even know if one of these three women that she saw was even more Murray. In the oxygen documentary, Maggie and Art drove Mora's route that day. They did everything exactly as Mora appeared to, starting with the ATM withdrawal. Maggie withdrew money just like Mora did. Then they went to the liquor store and purchased alcohol as she did. After that, they made the drive to the crash site.

The drive from Amherst to the crash site on Highway 112 is about two and a half hours. When Maggie and Art arrived at the crash site, it was around 6.30 p.m. one hour faster than Mora. So there was one hour of time unaccounted for her. If Mora stopped at Batson's at 6 or 630 and then went to grab something to eat with the two unknown women that she was supposedly seen with, that could account for the time. The witness statement fits the timeline in this scenario. However, police do not believe this is a credible sighting of Mora Murray.

In 2017, James Rinner claimed that after the oxygen, documentary aired, he received numerous calls from women who knew Bill Rauch and wanted to discuss this with him. So Renner flew out to Washington, D.C. and interviewed each one of these women on tape. He discussed the interviews on his blog, but they are no longer available to read. Here's what Renner posted on his Facebook page about it, a personal note on the Moora Murray mystery. I made a decision about a year ago to step away from this case and spend time doing things that I find more rewarding, writing fiction, being with my family, etc. But after the oxygen documentary aired, I was contacted by a number of women who had run-ins with Mora's former boyfriend, Bill Rauch, and they wanted

someone to tell their story. So two weeks ago, I flew out to D.C. and got their interviews on tape, so there would be no debate over their intentions or work. their stories have affected me and caused me to take another look at this case. We always assumed Bill Rauch had an airtight alibi, and he does for the disappearance. But I have always believed that Mora was traveling with a tandem driver the night she vanished. It is the only explanation that makes sense to me. And if she did just that, perhaps she made it to her cabin in the woods after all. If she did, nobody's alibis matter anymore.

When I took another look at Morris phone records, I discovered a missing page. That missing page was taken from the portion of the bill that may have shown us Mora's roaming calls while she was in New Hampshire. These records were given to the Murray family by Bill's mother. And this is because Morris phone bill was being paid for by the Roush family. Additionally, I found that on the Sunday after Moore vanished, Bill made a roaming call to her phone that lasted between three and four minutes. After that call, Bill does not make another phone call for four days. I don't know what happened in New Hampshire, but here's what we do know.

The boyfriend of a missing woman has been accused of sexual assault in D.C. Of pushing a woman down the stairs in the metro of grabbing a woman by the neck and saying, I'll kill you like I killed Mora. During the search for his would be fiancee, he stops making calls and checking his voicemail on his cell phone for four days. Now, none of this has been verified with police as far as we can tell, but what is clear here is that James Rennor believes Bill Rouse knows more about Moore's disappearance than he has said.

So you have to ask the question. Was Bill Roush responsible in any way for Moore's disappearance? In December 2018, Riner said goodbye to his Moor Murray blog, leaving only the homepage up with a farewell post. He took down all the posts he had written on Moore and refers people to his book because all of his blog information is contained in the book. Renner now believes it's more likely that Moore will be. was murdered by someone she knew and she's not alive.

As John Smith, the Murray family investigator, began diving into Morris case, he started looking into the possibility that there could be other women who vanished around the time Mora did. And sure enough, there was one female. Five weeks after Mora vanished, 17-year-old Brianna Maitland also disappeared under similar circumstances as Mora. She was last seen on March 19, 2004, at her dishwashing, at the Black Lantern Inn in Montgomery, Vermont around midnight. After she left work,

she was headed home to bed because she had to get up early the next day to go to her second job as a waitress in St. Albans, Vermont. Brianna was never seen again. The next day, her light green four-door Osmobile was found abandoned off East Berkshire Road and Route 118. The car was partially parked inside an abandoned barn. It looked like someone had driven the car into the side of the barn in reverse. Montgomery, Vermont is only a little bit over 90 miles northwest of Moore's crash site. But authorities do not believe the two cases are related. In July of 2018, a crew from GB Geotechnics of New York scanned a property on the Bath-Woodsville line where a trailer once stood. They were looking for disturbances in soil where human remains might be buried.

It's unclear what, if anything, a value was found during the search. Moore's family doesn't believe she ran away or started a new life. In 2009, her mother died from cancer without ever known what happened to her daughter. The Marys are convinced that Mora would have come back for the funeral, or at the very least contacted them again if she was still alive. In 2009, Butch Atwood passed away. There are some people that believe he had something to do with Moore's disappearance, but if he did, he took the secret with him to his grave. Bill Raus is now married and has two children,

and we're coming up on the 15-year anniversary, and Moore Murray is still missing. Every year on the anniversary of her disappearance, John Smith organizes a gathering to discuss the case with the community. The Murray family attends each year, Then they go to the crash site and they wrap a big blue bow around a tree in her memory. Despite the unprecedented deep dive into Murray's case by so many people, it doesn't appear as if it's any closer to being solved. There's so many rabbit holes, theories, and possibilities with this case.

And we've only scratched the surface in this episode. But in the second part of our two-part series on Maura Murray, we're going to explore lots of these blind alleys and potential clues in the case. with two guys that know the case as well as anyone. Tim Pallery and Lance Riensternah of the Missing Morer Morrow podcast and documentary. And we're going to see if we can sort out what's what in Moore's case. Just a quick thanks, as always to writer and researcher Debbie Buck of True Crime Diva for writing and research for this episode.

And more, if I'm really looking forward to part two. You know, Tim and Lance probably as much as anyone, like you said, know a lot about the case of Moore Murray. And they know a lot of the things that haven't been published, right? They've done a lot of their own research. It's going to be a very interesting conversation that we're going to have with Tim and Lance because they're able to bring a whole other level of insight into this case. they've immersed themselves into it, spent years researching it. It's going to be great.

Yeah, that conversation is a really interesting one and they really help to shed light on this case. So make sure you check that out. That episode will come out next Saturday. And as always, if you haven't done so yet, go out. If you love the show, give us a five star rating. You can leave a review if you want to. It goes a long way. towards helping other people find the podcast. And if you want to find us on social media, we're on Twitter with the handle at Criminology Pod. You can also find us on Facebook by searching Criminology Podcast. And if you have theories about Mora's case that you'd like to share,

we'd love to hear them. You can leave us a voicemail by calling 66177 crime, and we may play your voicemail on the air. So that's it more for part one of the Mora Murray disappearance. And like we said, part two is going to be great. So we will be back next week with part two. So this is Mike and more. And we'll see you then.