Criminology - Maura Murray Part2

Episode Date: February 9, 2019

In our part 2 episode on the disappearance of Maura Murray, we talk with Tim and Lance from The Missing Maura Murray podcast. They give us additional insight into the case using the information they have learned over their years of covering this case. There is also breaking news in the case that just came out this week that we'll talk about as well. You can help support the show at patreon.com/criminology An Emash Digital production Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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 47 of criminology. So Morf, last week we put out part one of Moora Murray. And then our plan for this week was to do an interview with Tim Polari and Lance Reinstirna from the missing Moora Murray podcast. Tim and Lance know just about everything there is to know about this case, and we wanted to pick their brain, ask them questions, get their take on certain things. So we recorded an interview with Tim and Lance, but then this happened. Tomorrow will mark 15 years since a UMass Amher student crashed her car in New Hampshire and was never seen or heard from again.

So on the eve of the anniversary of Maura's disappearance, her dad tells our Catherine Underwood, he thinks there could be a major. break in the case. It's been 15 agonizing years since Fred Murray hugged his daughter. Everybody that ever had a kid know, history of the planet knows how I feel. And it can't go away. On the night of February 9th, 2004, Mora Murray crashed her car into a snowbank along this desolate road in Woodsville, New Hampshire, and was never seen again. When you're with somebody every day and all of a sudden they're gone. It's unimaginable. Mora's family has been searching for answers ever since and now her dad has some news to share. I finally got so close. I'm standing on my daughter's grave, I believe.

In early December, Murray paid for two cadaver dogs to search a private property near the crash. They both made positive findings for a cadaver buried under where they sat. down. That's their signal in the same spot. He believes his daughter is buried in that cellar. You can reach out and it was, if cement was there, I could start scratching my hands and dig. And I would. Mora was a star athlete from Hanson, Massachusetts. It was around seven o'clock that February night when, according to her family, a passerby saw Mora's crashed car and stopped to help. But Mora waved them along. He said, do you need help? She said, no, I already called AAA. That called police, but by the time officers arrived, she was gone.

The Attorney General's office says it's aware of Murray's recent discovery in that nearby basement, but investigators say a previous search at that location turned up nothing. I would have heard about it. I don't believe them. So Murray is calling on the Attorney General to go back into that house. I want them to win and dig my daughter up. But in his desperate quest for closure, he says if necessary, he'll be. find a way to do it himself. I'll fund it. I'll do it anything.

That's my daughter. I want to bring a home and bury you. The Murray family tells me they're asking everyone everywhere to join them in lighting a candle at 7.30 on Saturday night to show Mora, the search continues. So that was kind of shocking news right in the middle of us putting together this episode. So we're still going to air the Tim and Lance interview. It's great. But Morf was able to get with Tim and Lance again after this news broke and do another short interview about this breaking news.

So we'll play that at the end. So before we get to the interview, let's do our Patreon shoutouts. We had Samantha Scherzberg, Venn Dirt Stratt, Kimberly Howlett, Jennifer Rasmussen, and Kay Kroniski. So appreciate that new support. And like we always say, we appreciate the new support, the continued support. It really goes a long way towards helping Morph and I continue to put out this podcast. If you would like to support the show, you can do so at patreon.com slash criminology. So let's dive right in.

Let's hear the interview that Morph and I did with Tim and Lance. I'm Tim Pallery and I host a few different true. crime podcast with my good buddy, Lance Reinstirna. Thank you, Tim, for that wonderful pronunciation of my name. Yes, we do Missing Moore Murray, crawl space, empty frames, got a lot of irons in the fire, in the crime fire. We are not, we don't have a law enforcement background or anything like that. We began missing more of Murray in July of 2015 as a weekly podcast trying to promote a

documentary that we were working on that at the time was called the disappearance of Maura Murray. We ended up sort of having the podcast, missing Moira Murray, become more popular than we had ever expected. And so there was a chance for a television show investigation to happen with that case. And so we really wanted that to happen because we thought the publicity that that would add to the case would only help it. And so that ended up happening on the Oxygen Network called The Disappearance.

of Maura Murray began airing in September of 2017, and we launched Crawl Space in February of 2017, and on that show, we do more than just one case. It's also true crime. We'll talk about all sorts of different crime elements. We'll talk to other podcasters, like we've had Morph on several times, and we'll get into deep dives on other cases, like the Brianna Maitland disappearance, or the Dean,

murder out of Jaffrey, New Hampshire in 1918? 1918, yep, August of 1918. The documentary that we had started with missing with Maura Murray, called The Disappearance of Moor Murray, wasn't so much about her disappearance as it was the people who were

obsessed with the case, because when we first started looking at Moore's case, it is a really fascinating case on the surface. Single car accident, young woman, 21 years old, from sort of our neighborhood, UMass, Amherst. She disappears. There's never been a trace of her.

It's going on 15 years now coming up on February 9th. And while that alone is very fascinating and intriguing and kind of scary at times, the people who looked into the case were so intense and so passionate. And the chatter and their theories and it just never stopped emerging as a better story. that they kept topping each other with. If one person had one story, one theory, someone else would come in and they'd add to it or they'd have something better. So we really wanted to do a documentary about the mindset of the people who

started becoming citizen detectives for this case and for other cases and other people who are more on the fringe and sort of not really grasping onto the reality that Morrow was a person. So it was sort of a psychological experiment for us. Yeah. And then we kind of quickly realized that. We have an audience here that wants to hear more than just that. They want to hear about the case. And so Missing Mora Murray became more about the case, covering the case.

And our documentary, well, I suppose our documentary, the one that we aimed to produce about people who are obsessed with the case, was really put on the back burner until October of 2018, when we finally released it on Amazon Prime, called Finding Mora Murray. It's in four parts currently. We do have a lot more footage. Yeah, we got a ton more footage. So I will say this. You know, I started true crime all the time in 2016. There wasn't the plethora of true crime podcasts, obviously, that there are today.

But one of them that was out there was missing Maura Murray. And it was one that I listened to. And I became engrossed into it like a lot of people did. And you just couldn't wait till that next week to find out. okay, what are Tim and Lance going to reveal to us this week? You know, for me, that kind of got me into, I kind of want to do, I mean, I don't do a ongoing case like missing more Murray. Ours are more one-off or, you know, some multi-parters, but it kind of got me into wanting to do podcast. I'll give you a little, uh, little credit there because I, the job that you guys did in

starting that kind of kickstarted me into thinking, I'd like to do something. So we were, we sounded, inspirational. We sounded so amateur that you were like, I could do it as good as these assholes. Not amateur. Unvarnished. I'm just kidding. Yeah. It's so unvarnished.

No, we appreciate it. We can spin any compliment into a backhanded. Some sort of self-effacing. Yeah, jab. Yeah. I don't know if you found this because I have. There are a lot of podcasts out there that are extremely polished. but I've heard from a lot of people that they like the, I don't want to say amateurish,

because that's not the right word, but the back and forth of the host, the chemistry, you know, maybe not so much of the music and production. And there are a lot of people that like that. Yeah. That's, that's kind of how we started ours. I think a lot of that goes to what our business partner, Mr. Kay, said when he first approached us. He wanted us to do empty frames, which is about

the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum heist. And what he liked about it was our rapport was a lot like sports talk radio. And so many people listen to sports talk radio because of that back and forth. It just happens. We're talking about true crime. So there's another really popular genre. And

sorry, and when you have like those highly produced ones, it takes away from the story sometimes to listen to like the Foley work and to, I don't know, it just pulls me out a bit of bit. I don't think you get the personal connection when you listen to an NPR produced

true crime podcast, right? I mean, I really think there's something there's something more personal with a back and forth like we don't cut our breaths, you know, like you, like we're breathing right in people's ears. You know, I don't think journalists who record for NPR true crime

shows like, you know, that stuff's all written. It's kind of, you know, they're just reading it off of a piece of paper or a screen. So, there's a huge difference there in the personal connection that the podcaster has with the audience. And another thing is when you know that it's pre-produced when you start it, you don't feel like you're being taken along the narrative as the hosts are. You don't feel like you're experiencing it in real time as the host. You know that there'll be an end and it's just a matter of what's going to happen to tie up this story.

Right. And I think that's what I hear the most is from audience members. they feel like they're sitting around with us listening to the story as they would a friend or a group of friends. I hear that a lot. Yeah. I really wanted to give you guys props because you were on the forefront and you were at the forefront of this true crime kind of podcast movement. And there's been, gosh, I don't know hundreds, maybe a thousand. I don't know how many are out there now.

But all right. So let's get into tomorrow. Lance, you mentioned it 15th anniversary. This episode, part two, is going to air February 9th. So it will literally be the 15 year anniversary of Moore's disappearance. When you guys sit back and you realize that it's been 15 years, does that number one surprise you? And then number two, do you feel like there should have been by this point some sort of resolution in this case? Oh, man, good questions.

Yeah, there's layers there. Yeah, I think being surprised that we're still here and it's 15 years and we've been on board for like four of those years. Like initially looking at this. Yeah, I guess from like, yeah, that whatever the birds eye view, it is really mind blowing to me that it's been 15 years in there. hasn't been a single shred of evidence. Well, especially with the amount of publicity that's been raised in the case, you do hear that helps these cases. And so far, as far as we know, it hasn't helped to the point where there's evidence unearthed.

It has shined quite a light on the case. But yeah, I mean, it just seems like the further we go, and we're at 15 years now, it just seems like this might have been a random crime, and it didn't really seem like that before. It felt more solvable before in some ways, and I'm not saying it's not solvable now, but there's been an incredible light shown on it in the past few years, and for no, seemingly nothing to have shaken out at this point is a little depressing. Yeah, it's a little disheartening, but another thing that is surprising after 15 years is is finally seeing organizations come together to work on.

You reminded me when you said unearthing maybe some evidence. We've had people reaching out and volunteering with GPR, with a guy down the street will say come by and grab a shovel in crowbars if you ever need some tools. Like all of a sudden people are coming together to make something happen. Yeah. So when we got involved, it was around the 10-year mark or something like that. and a lot of the questions that we had then have been answered.

It just hasn't led to an answer in the case, unfortunately. That we know of, yeah. Yeah, yeah. I mean, the whole run of this podcast and the whole TV show has really kind of axed out a couple of theories that people have. A lot of questions people had. Maybe this person did it. And we're left with it, to me, kind of seems like Mora got into a random person's car. And you know, it's a really funny question that, or funny.

timing with the question that you just asked because Tim and I, this is not a plug, but it's kind of a plug. Tim and I are working on the creator commentary for the early episodes, and they're available on Stitcher Premium. And we did that so that we could give somebody something more exclusive as far as listening to episodes of Missing Moore Murray. From three years ago. From three years ago. And it also gives us the opportunity to listen back at anything that was put out there as far as information, details, facts, were they accurate? How did it change? And we get to comment on that in today's world. So you get to hear what it was back then and you get to hear it now.

So it's funny you ask that question because we're currently experiencing that as we're listening to these old episodes and thinking back and just commenting like, okay, well, that is now like this or we know that this is no longer a fact. And I was it. So obviously you know information today that you didn't know three, four years ago. So you can clarify or clear up some of the things that maybe you said on early episodes that you thought to be true. But now with information that came out later, you know either it's not true or it happened differently or whatever the case may be. Absolutely.

100%. Yep. And you can confirm and clarify and clear up the three Cs now. It's a great opportunity to be able to do that because as you guys know, once you say something, it's out there. and you can't take those words back, really. But, you know, if people are following along this journey with us, then this is the best way to hear what we feel about everything we said, you know, hear it now. Are there some big misconceptions in this case that perhaps you guys have stumbled across

that are still out there that people should be aware of? No. I think he's being sarcastic. Yes. Yes. My new favorite one, sorry to interrupt. Oh, go for it. new favorite one is that the cadaver dogs went bonkers at the A-frame house. And everyone thought

that when cadaver dogs get a hit on a scent of a dead human being, then they go bonkers. And people have been saying that for maybe seven years, seven or eight years. And it turns out that due to the people who came forward and working with cadaver dogs, they don't go bonkers. They do the opposite. They sit down and they stop. Right. So this is a great example of how the case has changed a little bit because we now know that Mora Murray is not on the A-frame property. We did not know that in 2011. And we also are pretty sure that Moore wasn't on Rick, neighbor Rick, who was right there on his property.

We had dogs there. We had GPR there. We thought we had something really interesting for a minute, but we didn't. So we were actually able to cross off a lot of the questions. that rose from doing the initial run of the podcast, like the A-frame, the Moulton brothers, the SUV-001 versus 002, that misconception, witness A. Yeah. So, and unfortunately, what we're left with, it could be random, which, as you guys know,

is the most difficult thing to solve. And we did touch on the SUV, 01, 02. We talked about witness A. We did not get in, obviously, we. we couldn't do the deep dive that you guys did over. How many episodes have you actually done on Mora Murray? Do you know before switching in, I know you switched into some other cases.

Well, we've, we've covered a few other cases on the, on that fee, but I would say north of 85 episodes on Mora, just like a handful on, uh, other people like Brianna Maitland. We,

we did. We talked to a few other people that we didn't really, touch on Mora so much in a couple of cases, but all still within the Mora world, though. Yeah. Right, right. So we obviously couldn't go in depth, and we're going to tell everybody. You couldn't do 85 episodes on that? Come on.

No, we, yeah, we chose not to, but we're going to tell everybody, hey, you listen to ours, you heard the, I'll call it the, the details, but the, there's so much more. If you want to dive into this head first, you've got to go out. and listen to missing Moore Murray with Tim and Lance, but we didn't touch on the A-frame. We didn't touch on the Moulton brothers. We didn't touch on some of those things. You know,

you mentioned the publicity that this case has generated. And I think what's resulted from that is you've got your Reddit investigators. You've got your people out there that are looking into the case. They have their own theories, witnesses come forward. So we did touch on some of the more popular theories. And we wanted to go through some of those with you and kind of get your opinion on why you think some of these either hold water, don't hold water. So let's start off with talking about, you know, Morris simply wandered off from the car and died from exposure. Okay. Well, I would say that there were

A healthy amount of searches done and done by New Hampshire Fish and Game. Your favorite guy. Todd Bogartis. He was on the disappearance of Mora Murray's show that was on oxygen. And really, that was the first time that we heard the scope of the search that was done around the vicinity of where Mora went missing. And these guys are really thorough. And I know that there's a lot of stories of searches being done and bodies being found

after that search and no one's seeing the body during the search, but these searches were very extensive and they'd done with dogs. I'm not saying that there couldn't be value in doing another search like that, but right now as we sit here, I don't think more as in that immediate vicinity having wandered off. There was a fresh coat of fine snow that had fallen. They did helicopter searches with heat detecting sensors. heat detecting InVision, infrared,

and they saw foxes running through the woods, but they never saw any sign of a body. Right across the street is the wild Aminusic River. It does get... I mean, there are sections of that river

that do get a little... They do flow pretty rapidly, but that section right there in order to get to that section of the river, and if she slipped and fell and hit her head, she wouldn't have been washed all the way down and out to the Connecticut

it river by any means. It's very rocky. There's a lot of snow there, a lot of frozen, like, snow drifts around it. Her getting eaten by some animal in the woods, a bear or something. I think they're still hibernating in February. I'm not sure about that, but I, and I also don't know a bear that would clean up after itself so neatly that nothing was ever found. There was extensive searches into that area, no footprints.

And the dogs. The dogs. The dogs are really where it comes down. down to the scent dogs lost the scent on the road about 100 yards up. One thing that, too, we touched on a little bit, is if she's got the clothes on her back, it's snowing, it's cold out there, how far could she really get, especially if she had any kind of alcohol in her system, that could have caused her to get hypothermia faster than somebody that wasn't drinking.

So you wonder how far she would have gotten before she would have fallen and collapsed and you think that she would have been found easier if she simply walked off. Well, there's a kind of a misconception that it is so remote there, and she's at the base of the White Mountains, and she's surrounded by a lot of, like, isolation. But that stretch of road right there has,

I mean, where she crashed has four houses or five houses within shouting distance. If she had walked along the road, it's such a narrow road, and it is a very busy road. No sidewalks. sidewalk, yeah. She would have been seen if she had walked and gotten to the point where she suffered some sort of hypothermia and collapsed. She definitely would have been seen by someone.

Unless she was like running along and ducking into driveways or wooded areas for every car that drove past for like an hour, you know, she would have been seen by someone, I think. And again, back to the dog. They lost the scent at a certain point. They lost the scent at a point where, you know, if it would have been the same way, more it was going. If she got into a car, it would have been the same way and more it was going, same direction.

And they lost the scent right where she would have gotten into a passenger seat, you know, like right on that side of the road, on that side of the road going the direction that her car was traveling before the accident. So it does seem like she got into a vehicle to me. So I had this question because, you know, you talk about the fresh snow. In my mind, I'm thinking pretty easy to track someone. You guys know the weather conditions much better. But is that a true statement? If she gets off the road going into the snow, someone would have seen her footprints or her snow prints. Yeah. She definitely would have been tracked if she went into the woods right in that immediately. vicinity, they would have seen footprints, no doubt about it. You know, I think one of the other theories, and you guys have talked about it quite a bit, is the possibility that she somehow hatched a plan to disappear willingly and start a new

life someplace. What do you guys think of that theory? Well, from what we've learned, it would take a lot more effort than, say, the few days that we know, Mora took to prepare herself for. this trip in going to New Hampshire? I mean, it was actually probably a lot less than a few days of preparation. We know that she did prepare to go away for a couple of days due to her calls to Ghosto and Bretton Woods.

So we know that she was planning some destination somewhere and she had MapQuest directions printed out. Printed out to Bretton Woods. And Burlington, Vermont. Burlington, Vermont. That was one of the options. So with all of these searches that they were easily able to locate, the theory that she was able to do enough preparation to 100% disappear without a trace,

without a cell phone paying, without any use of a card, like a credit card, and her car wasn't even with her. So she had to include somebody else, some other form of transportation. All the preparation to do that successfully, there was nothing found on her car. computer that we know of that would suggest that she made these what would seem to be very systematic pragmatic plans to successfully disappear for 15 years. I think the longer we go, the less likely that one seems because it just would get more and more

difficult every year, and especially with the publicity of this case, if she had escaped her life and started some new ones somewhere else, chances of her being recognized. just keep going up and up. And there have been incidents where people have seen other people, have seen young women who look like Mora, and then they post their picture online, and they say, could this be it?

You know, we're praying that this is Mora, and they're not realizing that this is not Mora, and it's somebody else's image that's now online, and then that person's like, please take down my image, and then they go, well, why is this person demanding their image?

It must be Mora because they don't want their image out there, and it's actually just somebody who's in privacy, you just invaded. So even with these really what seems to be solid leads, it's not a lead because it's been a bit polluted by some people who really want it to be the case.

They want it to be their solvable theory. Yeah. And we've heard from no one. We've seen no evidence that she was around after that moment. We've heard from none of her friends family who, you know, believe she ran away or anything like that. The one thing that, I guess the biggest thing issue that I have with that one is,

it's 2004 to now 2019. We're not talking about 1930, right? It's true. How is a 21-year-old woman going to, with you said, what appears to be very little initial planning or planning up front going to disappear and leave no digital footprint, use no cards. It just seems very unlikely. Well, she went into Canada and just started working under the table at some bar.

He's being sarcastic again, guys. Sorry. Yeah. Not lands. It seems unlikely. It really does. Her social security number was never, had never been touched, you know, by her at least. We believe there was some fraud activity at one point.

But, yeah, there was money. You know, I think a lot of people talk about the $4,000 that Fred had and that he brought with him the weekend before she went missing to look at a car from his story. Apparently, a lot of that money was put into an account that more could access and were told can even still access using her social security number, but never has. In order for her to pull that off, she would have to not be a part of any social media. She probably couldn't have a cell phone in her name, in her actual name, and she would have to stay away from any photo that was taken of her. Now, that would be easy to do if she was in a big city, but there are more people in a big city who would be more likely to listen to podcasts or read blogs about her.

So then she would have to think about going to a small town. But then she's more recognizable as a stranger who goes into a small town. So to get away with it for 15 years is a really, she would have to be. She would have to be funded. And living in a cabin in the woods in like northern Maine. And there is a theory that kind of has come up over the years that maybe she was some kind of government spy, CIA operative or something like that. And to be perfectly honest, I find that more reasonable now than I ever have.

Because it's happened. Yeah, there is actually a little bit of precedent of that, even someone from West Point having joined that lifestyle, having disappeared, and then joining the CIA. Of course, that was a very long time ago. But I am more prone to believe that than she went missing on her own and, you know, is working under the table somewhere. Seems really unlikely. And you think if she came out right now and said, here I am, I'll sell my story. think she could make a fortune to sell her story and come out now that she might do that. So that seems like another reason to think that she's not out there someplace.

That would be a great point. That would be a worldwide story, no doubt about it. But yeah, she's listening to this and then she knows that she can come out and say this is what I was doing. This is why I ran away. That's a, that's a great point. Yeah, she could make a killing. Yeah, you're right. So I think, and you guys have already touched on it a little bit of foreshadowing,

But when you get into the theory of more was the victim of foul play, sounds like that's probably where the two of you are leaning at this point with all your years of research and all that. So if that was the case, who in your minds are, if you're willing to talk about them, some of the suspects, persons of interests that should be considered? Well, good question. Yeah, I would say that is the direction I lean in at this point because of all the factors and we haven't heard anything else. There hasn't been any other leads.

I would say that the best piece of advice we can follow is what Jim Clemente said on our episode where we interviewed him. He came in... He's an FBI profiler, former FBI profiler. Oh, I'm sorry. Yeah, former FBI profiler, Jim Clemente. He came into this with just... just a very broad-stroked knowledge of Moro Murray's disappearance,

and that was sort of by design so that he didn't have this preconceived notion. And because of the area she went missing, or where she had her accident, her single car accident, it's not so much right off the highways. It's like nine or ten miles on either side off the highway. And he brought up the fact that that's not, that's, that is quite a distance

for somebody to just happen upon. It is sort of a main route, 112, and the Kangamangus Highway. But that time of the year in February, it's not really a main route. So it's either somebody who is familiar with that area, knows that that's a cut-through highway or somebody who lives in that area. And if it's somebody who's familiar with that area, that's probably somebody who vacations there or skis there or hikes there. Considering it was February, it's probably somebody who skis there.

they're there for seasonal activity. Yeah, and so I think Jim Clemente's point, and I think it's pretty well taken, just to reiterate, is that this probably wasn't, it wasn't like Moira was hitchhiking on the highway and could have gotten picked up by some truck driver driving many states, and he could have dropped her, you know, five states away or something like that. This road that she was on is in between two highways, and whoever it was traveling on it is, either knows the area or is local to the area. We've only been on that road because of this mystery.

I've never been there. Some other reason, like going somewhere else. You know what I mean? There's almost no reason to travel somewhere else and hit that road. She was going somewhere. There was someone who was familiar with that road who went by, and I believe she got into that person's car. They must have offered help.

It wasn't the bus driver. And a follow-up question. oftentimes will come, well, if she got into a random person's car, why didn't she take the bus driver's help? Well, I think at the time that the bus driver, Butch, came upon her accident, she said to him that she was trying AAA. He knew that wasn't exactly true, but what I think she was trying to do was get the car out of there, whether it be with the help of AAA

or whether it be with the help of her own power, her own ignition, that she tried, she tried to start the car nine times. We don't know if that was before or after Butch showed up. But I would be willing to bet that some of those clicks were after Butch left. She put the rag in her tailpipe herself, we believe, trying to perhaps get a little more oomph for the car to perhaps start or to get out of the little ditch she was in. So we believe at that, at the point she told Butch she didn't need help.

She really thought she was going to be able to get help herself. And then when Butch took off, she realized she could not get the health. help she needed herself by either calling AAA or by starting the car herself. So then she got out and started walking down the road like I believe most people would do. Right. Some people, and I think it's a really interesting theory, is that where she had her accident, if she walked to the east, where in the direction that she was traveling in the direction that the dogs lost her scent, she has her cell phone. It is a little bit of an incline there. And back then, like if you lost your cell phone signal, people would hold their cell phone

up and try to get a signal. And maybe she did see that this was sort of uphill a bit and she was walking in that direction to try to get a cell phone signal. It's just a really interesting sort of human theory that that I like. And one thing that's interesting is there's such a small time frame to work with here because there are other people driving on that road and whatever happened happened in such a small amount of time that it almost makes you wonder how it happened just in that, just in that window. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's, It's something that we always talk about is this window of time. And it could have been after Faith Westman hung up the phone with 911 and in between that and when Butch went inside to call and then came out of his house before going back into his van to do his paperwork and look at the scene.

So it could have happened there or she could have she could have ducked behind the old weathered barn hoping to like wait it out. But that is not indicative to the dogs. Once again, we get back to where the dogs lost her scent. maybe she did go back and waited it out behind the old weathered barn, but she would have had to have stayed there throughout the entire process and then left and then started walking. Right. We know she got to the road in front of Butch Atwood's house and in front of Rick Forsier, the neighbor. So she was basically right in between those two houses on the street.

A lot of people will point at those guys, last person to see her. And then this other guy across the street has his own story because he apparently said he, saw her running that night, but that story didn't come out until a few months later. So then you say, well, that guy implicates himself. And you would be right. So I think he was looked at and has been looked at very strongly as a person of interest. But if he is the guy, then that means she got into his car and they probably kept driving. Like, he probably didn't go to his house or trailer right then because you wouldn't really need to drive there.

It was right there. So, really, the more evidence that comes out, it does seem like she hopped into a car. 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. Now, unlike most true crime podcasters, you all have been to this location. How many times? I don't even know. 10? Yeah.

Yeah, a bunch. So from the crash site to, where the dogs lost more assent. Is that the Bradley Hill Road? Yes. Yeah, right before Bradley Hill Road is where the dogs lost the scent. So in your mind, that's the area where she most likely got into a vehicle. It's correct.

A stranger's vehicle. That's my opinion. From your thinking, correct? Yep, that's my opinion. And how far is that? From the crash scene to that area. To avoid confusion, the tree that has the blue ribbon on it, that's not exactly where the car crashed, according to the police report.

The police report has her further east a little bit closer to Butch Atwood's house and to Rick Forcier's house. And it's about 75 to 100 yards from where the dogs lost the scent right before Bradley Hill. So very close. Yeah, I think... Within sight. Yeah, I mean, there's some... There's some conjecture, I think. I think if you Google it, you'll find some people saying 100 feet.

You'll find some people saying 300 feet. Yards. Well, Lance says 100 yards. That would be 300 feet. You hear anywhere between those marks. We've never measured it. It's somewhere in that range. So you just touched on something that I think is very important, right?

If you Google it, you will see about anything, right? anything pertaining to this case, 10 different versions of X. And I think that's what makes this case somewhat hard to tell. It's really the main reason we wanted to have you on, people that have extensively reviewed the case, research the case. It really helps to clear up some of these things.

I know. It kind of feels like unnecessary minutia sometimes, but if you put a stop to something as soon as you can, then it doesn't become something so elaborate and sinister, like the rag and the tailpipe or something to that effect. It's good to hear from you guys boots on the ground, somebody that's actually been on that spot, been on that location to sort of lay out how it looked there

and the distances and stuff. Yeah, and we actually had an interview with Tim Westman. It was an impromptu interview when we were filming up there. Who's Tim Westman? Tim Westman, Faith Westman's husband. Yeah, who is that? The neighbor. Okay.

The neighbor whose wife called 911. Yeah. Okay. I just, I don't know that they knew that. I was about to get into it. Okay. Let me start this again. Okay.

We had an impromptu interview with Tim Westman up there when we were shooting for the documentary. We were at the location of the accident, and he lives in the house right across the street. and he fired up his lawnmower, and it was October, which was kind of funny. But he ended up being outside, and we walked over and spoke to him. And one of his main points was that he claims that she did not hit where everybody thinks she hit right around the blue ribbon. He said she hit those three trees up there. She was up there. She was like closer to Rick Forcer's house, further away than most people think.

And there's that account. There's a police record that shows. that that's accurate. That's where the police found the vehicle. And every, but that's just one of those things that keeps, keeps unraveling like, was she there here? They're here. And, you know, did she, that the damage could have been, couldn't have been caused by the snowbank or a tree, but everything's already there. You know, the, the eyewitness right across the street says that she was there. The police report says she was there. According to Witness A, she says she was in that vicinity. And it's just funny how it sort of unwraps as, well, that can't be accurate because the accident report says

that the damage wasn't caused like that. Most people just get caught up in that believing people are lying. If you believe no one's lying first and take a look at it that way, then I think it's a lot more clear to people. Because a lot of the truths that people said, they don't have to conflict. It's their interpretation of what they saw and experienced. Right. So Lance, you touched on the rag and the tailpipe. We talked about it in our episode, but we didn't get too in depth into it. You guys spent some time on that, I think, over some episodes in and out, right, touching on it.

I didn't know if you could just kind of talk about, you know, maybe what people thought that meant in the beginning and maybe what you know now about that. Yeah, this one runs the gambit. A lot of people will hear about the rag and the tailpipe and they think, well, Mora had to have gotten gas at some point on this trip, which we believe as well based on her fuel nozzle in the car. That's about three quarters full. She had to have stopped somewhere.

A lot of people will say that some bad guy saw her fill in her tank and they snuck up and put the rag in her tailpipe and then followed her and waited for her to skid out. And then they abducted her. A couple of problems with that. They would have had to have been like 10 minutes behind her. And the rag would have kicked out. The rag most likely would have kicked out. And it also doesn't seem like there was any kind of struggle in getting Mora into a vehicle.

And once again, we just come back to the facts that Faith Westman across the street calls 911 and says that there is activity by the trunk. And we know that Mora, based on conversations with Curtis Murray and. Julie and they've seen and they knew that their father, Fred, had told more to put the rag in her tailpipe because her car was running on three cylinders and it was going to start smoking and popping and, you know, if you wanted to just kind of get through campus, driving through campus, like put the rag in the tailpipe, that might get you past like some campus cop or something so it doesn't raise attention. So we have that account. We have Curtis saying that He's seen this happen.

We have talked to people, Faith's account that's documented on the 911 call. We got the nine clicks. The nine clicks of the ignition that she tried to turn over. So it is fairly safe to say that she put the rag in the tailpipe in order to try to get some more power to get her car started to get out of there. The fact that Fred even identified it as a rag that he owned and told her to put it in the tailpipe. Yeah. Keep this on you. The alternative is a little too far for us to be.

believe that some random serial killer who kind of premeditated this, I guess, if he abducted her, happened to do the exact thing. Her dad gave her the advice to do. And it's such a roundabout way to abduct somebody. Yeah. Just bump her off the road. That road is like super windy. Right.

If you see her at a gas station and her car is, you know, clearly not a car that is, like, built for those roads. That Saturn isn't built for those roads. bump it off the road and do what you're going to do. I mean, you're not going to go through this elaborate rag plan. Alternate theory is people will say, oh, well, she left the rag as a message to Fred to tell them that she got away safely. I used to like that one. Or something, right? Or maybe the $4,000 got hidden in the tailpipe and then the rag pushed it up.

All those, you know, to me doesn't really ring true. And also what we learned when we went to visit the car in December of 2013 was that the entire exhaust system, the back exhaust, including the tailpipe, had been taken off the car. So we can only presume that that was in evidence. So the police did their due diligence on it to find out if there was anything weird going on with that. And we can only presume that they didn't. And you mentioned the police. You know, there's been some people that have sustained. expected the police are covering something up or some way involved.

What's your take on the police investigation and their openness and what they talked about publicly? Well, we're sitting here 15 years later. So the investigation was flawed to begin with, I will say. And I think they would agree with that today. Obviously, if what we're talking about is true and someone random got her, this is the toughest case to solve. So starting with that preface, they definitely didn't do everything they probably should have done right off the bat. There is information that they know that they could give out now that would help stir up the community could potentially lead to more leads. And they have done that to some extent last year at CrimeCon 2018.

They gave us Morris dorm room photos that had never been out there. For the disappearance of Moore-Murie Oxygen Show, they gave the ATM photos of Mooramari that had never been out there. So the police is changing. They're changing their approach to social media and releasing information to some extent very little by little. Do we think there's a conspiracy? Like it's the question of the investigation. Are they withholding too much? Did they do something?

I think you can get to the answer. They didn't do anything nefarious to Moira Murray by really just taking a step back and thinking of it from the opposite angle, right? So if they had, if someone, if the first responding officer, or if the chief of police who was, you know, the conjecture

that he was really driving the SUV, you know, if one of them got her, the other one and the rest of the station at this point would know, they would have known about it. This couldn't have been done in complete secrecy from other officers. So now you're talking about a

conspiracy. So you're talking about more than just one person, you're talking two, you're talking it's a station of four. Station of four, how is that going to go unnoticed? And you're talking about the assistant, the senior assistant attorney general who is really the authority on the case now, which includes the entire cold case unit, all these guys would have to be in on it. The entire state, like this conspiracy would have to have started one 21-year-old woman from Massachusetts on the corner of this road that people don't drive on much,

and now it goes all the way up to the State House. A lot of people like using the tourism thing, and they'll say that they're covering it up because they know that it'll keep tourists away from that area. And that's just a silly thought to have because this is the White Mountains. It's been there for centuries. People have been hiking and skiing, and it's not going to stop. I mean, that's not going to stop. Bad things happen to people all over the country, all over the world,

and people don't not go to a very, very popular tourist destination if that's their choice. Also, Cecil Smith arrested his superior Jeff Williams for drunk driving. That'll support people's theory of a conspiracy land. So he's trying to get him out of the force or something. They do adhere to the law the best they can. Yeah, it's a hard. leap to make, I think, at this point. They haven't done everything right.

We know that. They're holding back some information. We know that. They haven't checked out this new lead that is apparently happening now. We know that. It's just really hard to believe anything nefarious took place. The official timeline, that really doesn't work either. But again, the alternative is what?

Is that a lot of people are in on this? It's really hard to believe. If you were to say one officer did something and kept it hidden, I could believe that. But it doesn't seem like the case here. So there's been a lot of conjecture that, because there's a lot of players in this case, from family to her boyfriend, you know, all these people. there's been conjecture that not everyone's been fully cooperative. What's your take on that?

I think the people who are not being fully cooperative are products of what happened over the course of a few years, a couple of years after her disappearance. A few years after her disappearance. So maybe from, say, 2008 to 2015 or 16, a lot of people looked at it, for example, Bill Rousher boyfriend, they look at it like, man, everybody who opens their mouth with this case either becomes a suspect or their lives are just put on public display for everybody to judge. So if anybody asks me, do you want to comment on this? I'm just going to say no because they know what happened as far as their time during the

search and the family's time during the search. And what does it have to do with anything that someone online wants to find out? someone on Reddit wants to find out. They're just going to keep their mouth shut. Right, right. And actually, here's a really good example of that. We did an episode, I think it was called Mora's Supervisor, Episode 84, where we had this woman, this lovely woman named Karen, into the office.

She sort of witnessed Mora's breakdown a couple of nights before she went missing. A lot of people thought that that could have led to her wanting to get away and what was she really breaking down about. There were a lot of answers that. Aaron could have had that took the story one way or another. She came in here and sat with us for over an hour, but if you look at the YouTube video of this episode and read some of the comments, you will see people saying she talks way too fast.

She's not even taking a breath. Are you sure she's not hiding something? I'm not kidding. There are about five comments on the YouTube video of this episode that suggests that she might have been involved in Morris Disappearance. Because of her speech pattern. Because of her speech patterns. Because she was very articulate and very,

short. Yeah, I won't say she was articulate with her speech. She'd talk like, and then be like, oh, but then I was, and so this is what really happened. So it made it like impossible to cut the little, but a lot of times we will cut like the ums and the aas from an interview. This one, we kind of didn't have a chance for it. It's impossible. Yeah, she was sort of a verbal train. We were like, it would sound like a, like she was a robot if we were to just cut all those things. So we just let it go. And the result of that was people thinking that, that she was actually involved. She wasn't involved.

It's just, you know what I mean? It's just people, I think to some extent, people who listen to the show think that, you know, that it's a little bit of like a hunter killer kind of game. Like, can I find the clue that leads to the right answer? And that's all valid. I will tell you, there's no, there's no clue that Karen is giving in episode 84 that tells you that she's guilty of anything. And other people who don't cooperate, that might be a bit of a misconception. Some of the people up in that area, some of the neighbors, they don't cooperate because they don't want to be bothered because that is why they move to that area. And it's a big inconvenience for them to answer questions to strangers who come into their neighborhood and knock on their door.

However, there are people in that area who have welcomed us in there and said, whatever you need to do, feel free to do it, because they know that we'll treat them with. the respect. But to say someone's not being cooperative in an investigation because they don't want a stranger knocking on their door in their neighborhood, I wouldn't use the word cooperative. I would say that they want their privacy. And there's nothing wrong with wanting your privacy. For police officers who people say aren't cooperating, they simply don't need to give you all of the information and it's irresponsible for them to give you all of the, any evidence, any findings, any information. If a rusty knife that might have had bloodstains on it is passed off to law enforcement, they don't owe the public an explanation as to the results of that knife because people on Reddit are

screaming about it. And you mentioned Mora's breakdown. No matter what happened or whatever the reason she went missing, it's safe to say that she was at a bad point in her life at that moment. Yeah, nothing has led us anywhere other than Mora was having some stressors, some stress in her life, some emotional difficulties at that point. We have learned nothing in the run of this podcast that would suggest anything other than that for her wanting to take a few days off or maybe up to a week off of school. Yeah, she was going through a difficult time, and we've heard from so many people who were her age at that. time who were, who are her age at the, like, who are 21 now who have told us, yeah, that that is how I think. Yes, it is not uncommon for me to receive a bunch of bad news right in a row and consider maybe just getting away. Maybe, maybe just getting away and go into my favorite place and

Moore's favorite place, one of our favorite places was the White Mountains. To do a deep dive like you guys have done in the Morris case. I assume you had to have had access to a lot of materials, police reports. How easy was it to get that stuff? And did you have cooperation with people to help you facilitate that? Yeah, it was right in the beginning. It was not as difficult as we imagined it to be because James Renner had all of the documents accessible on his, on his blog, on his website. and it was pretty easy to get the dispatch logs and things like the old newspaper articles, any sort of coverage that was done for Mora at the time. What was a little bit more difficult was establishing a relationship with law enforcement

and getting the item list that was in her car transcripts from the oxygen network that was fun to get. But it seemed like give credit to where credit. credits do, James did a lot of the legwork. James Renner did a lot of the legwork when it came to obtaining documents. And he made it available. Yeah, we got some from other private investigators who had been handed things from the Mari family or the Rausch family. That's John Smith.

Aaron Larkin has gotten some documents as well. So we definitely have a lot of help in the community. I mean, in the community, they are able to pull together things. And Helena Dwyer, Mari, who was the family. spokesperson for a long time before she passed had some documents on on their site and then they're on their Facebook page as well. So there was about as much as the police were able to let out. I mean, that was out. Just putting you guys on the spot. I think you touched on a little bit earlier, but what are your personal theories about what you think happened to more?

I think we, I think we kind of are more comfortable talking about that now because of the guests that we've had on the show, like the profile or FBI profile, Jim Clemente. I mean, we don't know what happened to or no one knows, but we do know that it had to have been somebody familiar with the area. It had to be somebody who was capable of capitalizing on an opportunity like this, perhaps somebody who has a history of violence or violence has escalated since Moore's disappearance. So if you're looking for somebody, it's somebody familiar with the area

or lives in the vicinity, probably has some sort of history of violence and will maybe have some violence after the fact as well. Would probably have some knowledge of the woods, you would think, or at least some way to dispose of a body that hasn't, you know,

alerted anybody to it yet. So that probably means not too many people are involved, involved in that too, or no one but this one potential person. Yeah. So you're talking, like, why would you be knowledgeable about the woods in that area? You could hike, you could hunt, you could be some sort of fish and game expert, like a fisherman or something like that. How would you dispose of a body?

If you're not a professional serial killer, what do you do? Do you think about your time in the logging industry or concrete industry? or something. Do you just have a big backyard where you could have gotten away with something? Built a, built a gazebo or something. Or just built a grave and put dirt back on it. But again, I think this would be a one person job, I think.

If there's more than one person involved in this disappearance, I'm surprised they haven't cracked by now. And I think it's the same argument against the police conspiracy. Right. Right. Because we know from researching a lot of cases, it's really hard for people to keep their mouth shut long term. Yep. There's always something in it for somebody else if they have some knowledge of a crime. If you know what happened and you're not saying anything, that's more detrimental than you putting the right person in the place of, you know, justice. Right. And so as far as a name goes, I don't have one to give you. I have a faceless person.

in mind, essentially, who was comfortable looking enough to Mora that where she thought this person was going to help her. But I think that's the key, right? This is, in your mind, somebody somewhat local to the area, but not connected at all, really, with Mora Murray before that. That's right. Okay. I don't want to put words in your mouth, but I definitely want to make sure I understand.

That's it. Yep, 100% accurate. That is our beliefs. So what do you guys have coming up to mark the anniversary? I'm sure you guys have something you're going to be working on with the case. Well, we're going to release an episode where it sort of takes you through the case over the years and shows you how things have changed from the early days. Because, again, just to reiterate, the case in the public sector is completely different now

than what it was in the early days and even what it was five. years ago. There's so much more information out there now. And we came up with this idea when we were doing those creator commentaries because we found ourselves looking back at some of the old documents and especially some of the old newspaper articles. And there's some information in there and just a certain feel about the area and the case itself that has changed. So first, we wanted to not put ourselves in really, I don't want to say the spotlight, but we will be doing something for the anniversary. It'll be a retrospective of the last 15 years, but the anniversary is really about what the family wants

to do for themselves. And a 15-year milestone is very important to the family, and they should have that for themselves. The anniversary of someone disappearing shouldn't be something that people like Tim and I, you know, start to broadcast. Like, light the candle, post- on social media, pay your respects, but I think at some point over the past year, Tim and I just realize this is, this is, that's the family's moment. If we want to do something for Mara, we'll do something around her birthday and celebrate her that way. But this year, we just really want to do like a retrospective of where, where we have been and where we're at now. And we're trying to put some resources towards sort of celebrating more as birthday in the way that her

disappearance had been celebrated a little bit in the past and celebrates. the wrong word, but I mean, memorialize her, the anniversary of her disappearance. So we are planning something potentially for May, some kind of fundraiser. May 4th is Morris's birthday. So there's a chance that something in the community

comes together for that. Just based on the trajectory of everything you've learned along the way and all the evidence that you've seen and where things are now, do you think Moore's case is going to be solved one day? Yeah, I think so. Got to have hope. Yeah.

I think every day we see something that comes up with technology, whether it's DNA or, I mean, it's basically DNA. I think there's something that that has to come up that'll lead to some answer. My biggest fear, though, is that it leads to something that just creates more questions. Like if her cell phone is ever found buried somewhere, that's just going to take this whole thing and just escalate it to another level. but yeah I think eventually this case will definitely be resolved somehow. I don't know how or when, but it's got to happen. So Tim, Lance,

I definitely want to thank you for taking the time to come on, share some of your experience. You guys have put a lot of work into this case in particular. We touched on it, right, in our first part episode, but I want to encourage everyone. If you want to learn more about the disappearance of Moor-Murie, and if you want to go into the deepest dive possible, go out. Start from the beginning of the Moora-Murie podcast and let Lance and Tim take you through it.

And then check out crawl space, check out empty frames. I mean, these are great guys. You will like all of that. Thanks. Thanks. It's very nice of you. All right. So that was the original.

interview that we did and then the breaking news. So Morp was able to reconnect with Tim and Lance and we want you to hear that interview. All right. So today is, what is today's date? Today is the 8th. February 8th. It's one day before our episode with you guys as guest is going to air about Moran Murray on the 15th anniversary of her disappearance. And I didn't even know this morning. morning, but you guys told me there's some major news possibly in the case. Tell us what that is. The major news in Moore's case is that the Murray family through Fred, they're working with a GPR company, a ground penetrating radar company and cadaver dogs, and they have a location

which has been looked at since the beginning of Morris' disappearance where police have cleared it, but Fred was operating off of a tip. The new owners of this location allowed them to come in. They did cadaver dog searches, and they did GPR, and the cadaver dogs had a positive hit, and the GPR is identified an anomaly. And that's pretty big, because if that's a body, then you have to wonder who else might that be. It's very likely that it could be more. Yeah, I mean, the presumption is that it seems like it could be a body, but we don't know.

Dogs have been wrong before, but it does seem, and there's video footage of this. That was on CBS Boston, so you can check that out. There's video footage of these two dogs laying down. So it does seem like there was certainly, at one point at least, if not currently, some human remains under that spot. And whereabouts is this in a location to where her car was found? They say that it is close to where her car was found, but it's pretty obvious that the family is working with their current owners to maintain the privacy,

because especially around this time, there's always an element of dark tourism that happens in that area. And there's no way that there should be any compromise in the investigation by announcing a specific location. Now, when you say property owner, are we talking about somebody's front yard possibly? Or are we talking about a stretch of land? Well, it seems like it's in the basement of a house. It seems like it's in the concrete basements beneath the basement. beneath the house. Wow, that's, that seems like a place she wouldn't wind up accidentally.

Well, no, no, definitely wouldn't have wound up there accidentally. Wow, that is interesting. Yeah. And has, has Fred ever gotten this excited or come out and had this kind of emotional reaction, gotten this excited before about a possible development in the case? It doesn't seem like it, not to our recollection. I don't think we've ever witnessed Fred being. so convinced that this was his daughter.

A specific location with specific intents to dig. Yeah, I don't remember a time when he was that passionate about something like that. But it is important to note Morph, and I just want to put it out there that whatever the answer to this anomaly is probably is not going to be resolved today or even in the next month, likely. You know, it's definitely something that the community, while we understand their excitement, excited and everyone wants to know more. It's important to know that everyone needs patience right now.

And have they given any kind of time frame about how long this might take? No, the police have said they were planning to potentially check it out in the spring. And now with these interviews that Fred has done, it seems to, he seems to be trying to light a fire under them to get them there before the spring. or just to at least get them to commit to do this at all. At least accelerate the process. Well, and the news coming out right now, you know, a day before the anniversary is the timing is bizarre. You almost wonder if it's done to help create some awareness of the case that it doesn't already have. What do you think?

What's your take on that? Well, Fred is typically kind of unfiltered. I would say, and there has been media coverage because this is the 15-year anniversary, and we're right on the brink of that. So I think the combination there of news coverage and just, you know, Fred and the way he is. And, you know, he doesn't give enough. You know, he's not going to, he is not going to kowtow to law enforcement or anybody. I mean, he is very determined and he is angry that law enforcement

and hasn't checked this out already. It'll be interesting to see what happens. And as far as you guys know, this isn't related to the guy a couple weeks ago that claim that he had some information about more of being buried someplace, was it? It's likely the same lead, yeah. It very well could be,

but I don't feel safe putting out like a definite yes or no that we think it is. All we can go on right now is what we're being told by the family through the news broadcast, because they are trying to remain as private as possible with it. Well, it's going to be big news if there's anything there, and I hope 15 years is too long, so let's hope that they do find something there

that answers some questions finally. We're hoping. And I know you guys are going to be on top of it and busy, and I hope you'll have some updates soon on missing more Murray. We'll definitely be sending people over to listen to that. Thanks a lot. Awesome. We appreciate it.

All right. Let us know what happens. Okay, we'll do. All right. So amazing stuff from Tim and Lance. We really appreciate them taking out time, carving it out of their schedule to talk with Morph and I about this case. It is a case that they're very passionate about.

And I think like we said on the last episode, if you have not listened to missing Moore, Murray, it is an extremely deep dive into this case. But that's it for another episode of criminology. You know, if you like the show, go out, give us a five-star rating. That goes a long way towards helping other people find the show. You can find us on social media, on Twitter, Facebook, just search criminology. You'll find all of that. And Morph and I will be back with another episode next week.

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