WARNING: This blog contains Disney references, cartoon imitations and sarcasm. We try to document things, but we are definitely NOT journalists of any kind. We are basically winging everything. You’ve been warned!

OH, but no blood, guts or anything else trigger-y.

Maura Murray

Missing Poster

Julie Murray, Maura’s older sister

CHAPTER TWO: A Deeper Dive

Welcome! We’re so happy you’ve come back! (I mean, not that we doubted you or anything…) If you haven’t already done so, we 100% recommend that you read Chapter 1: The Basics [insert link], as we will not be reviewing that information here, but forging ahead.

Ready for a deeper dive into this weird story? We are too! Here we go…

So, we basically outlined everything that was originally released when Maura first went missing. The story is a bit chaotic, there are rather large chunks of time missing and an even narrower bit of time that Maura disappeared in than originally thought. There are suppositions to separate from fact, and some new information. 

The Oxygen documentary is thorough, 6 episodes long!

“At West Point, cadets learn about and prepare for the ethical demands of officership by living under the dictates of an Honor Code, which states: ‘A Cadet will not lie, cheat or steal, nor tolerate those who do.’ Its purpose is to foster a commitment to moral-ethical excellence and an insight into the broader, more comprehensive professional military ethic.” [not an affliate link to West Point]

Lara: Leaving because of an Honor Code violation seems like something that was pulled out of someone’s butt, in my humble opinion and coming from the perspective of an ex-Army wife, whose ex-husband spent several summers at West Point as an active duty soldier to participate in training cadets. I am familiar with the lives of enlisted people. If Maura had been booted for something like hazing, whether the victim or the hazer, or for stealing, there would be police reports. I can’t see anyone being able to keep that a total secret all these years. Honor Code violations can be almost anything from cheating on an exam to being found in another student’s room in a sexually compromising position to stealing. Not knowing Maura personally, I have no idea if she would have been one to break the Honor Code. Although, seeing as how she was caught stealing in the future, that tells us two things: One, she was not averse to stealing, she may have done it before. Two, she’s not a savvy criminal, seeing as how she got caught, so she may well have stolen something at W.P., gotten caught and subsequently kicked out. In all honesty, does it make a difference as to whether she chose to leave or not? She was no longer a student there.

Kate: The first thing I thought of was Maura and the stealing the credit cards incident…but you’d think if she got caught for that once and kicked out of WP that she wouldn’t then do it again? This is a big jump but considering her sister is a (recovering) alcoholic, addiction may run in their family and it takes on many forms. Maura could be developing an impulsion to steal…just a little psychology from an unqualified person! 

Maura running in track meet for HS. Credit: MauraMurrayMissing.org

Generic New Hampshire pic. Credit: Photo by Balazs Busznyak on Unsplash

So, Maura has transferred from West Point to Amherst, *true* reasons unknown. She’s engaged to and dating Billy Rausch. Yeah, that guy. Now in Chapter 1, we talked about how he was cheating on her and how that really impacted her, according to some reports. Turns out, it was just a general “trouble in paradise” sort of situation because they were cheating on each other. 

Lara: Really, Billy is not any kind of a peach, so it seems like she dodged a bullet. Maybe Maura wasn’t even that upset about “needing space” after all! 

Billy is later on accused of sexually assaulting several different young women. 

Kate: Wow, Billy. Just wow. Also, I am interested in the whole Maura cheating thing….with who? One person? Whoever she fancied? I need deets. 

Lara: I know I saw this detail somewhere, but I’ve read so many different articles, I now cannot locate it (of course) but I am pretty sure it was a coach or assistant coach of the cross-country team she was on there at the college. 

Investigation Discovery states: 

“The first reported contact Murray had with anyone on February 9 was at 1 P.M., when she emailed her boyfriend, Billy. She wrote: ‘I got your messages, but honestly, I didn’t feel like talking to much of anyone, I promise to call today though.’”  [absolutely no affiliations here.]

This contact happened on February 9th, around 1:00pm the day she disappeared. We don’t want to launch into the timeline of her last day yet, but thought it was important to clarify where she was with Billy and not interject that later. So it sounds like Billy is really trying to get in touch with her, and she’s been ignoring him for awhile. Also important to note that she herself says she does not want to talk to anyone. There is no history of Maura being depressed that we found, or having other mental health issues. This leaves us thinking her not wanting to talk to anyone is a situational depression or low of some type. Whether that was just from Billy or from a combination of factors, there’s no way to know. 

Lara: Now, I email my boyfriend, but we are long distance, so we communicate pretty much any way we can! But it seems weird to me here. Although, if all the cheating is out in the open, emailing is a response with some distance, so maybe it does make sense here? 

Kate: Boy was probably blowing up her phone! Email is an easy way to respond and get him off her back for a while. She put a pin in it and I hope her plan was just to ghost him all together, honestly! Mail that ring back, girl. 

Besides Billy, there was some family drama and entanglements. 

You’ll remember that Maura borrowed her father’s car and then had an accident. There was some question about his reaction, but according to Fred himself, Maura was more upset than he was! He told her insurance would cover it, he rented a car for himself and sounded pretty practical-minded about the whole thing. After watching the Oxygen docu-series [<–heads up! affiliate link!], The Disappearance of Maura Murray, he does seem to be a down to earth guy, so that statement sounds like it would align with his personality. But that’s all just conjecture, of course. 

Julie, Fred & Maura Murray

Wait, let us check…YES. This is an affiliate link!

Kate: We do what we want around here, so good luck keeping your points in this case. 

Yeah for real, I personally wouldn’t read any book written by Joe-Schmoe about a family member that disappeared. Especially one I did not consent to and supply any information. HELLO. Not suspish at all. Like you said, Maura’s disappearance is Fred’s LIFE. He’s living it. I also believe if there was any abuse, one of her sisters would have come forward by now. There would be some other sign that Maura and/or her sisters were abused as children. That’s not something you casually throw in a book because she Googled “child abuse”. Get out of here.   

On to older sister Kathleen. Oh Kathleen! <shaking our heads at each other>  She was interviewed on the docu-series and, I’m sorry, but she seemed like a space cadet. Not just awkward in front of a screen, but like, weird. At one point, the interviewer asks a question and Kathleen tilts her head and looks up and off to the right *just like she is listening to someone else we can’t see*!!  She pauses for a long moment and then turns back to the interviewer to answer. There was a profiler that was hidden in another room watching via camera to make notes on Kathleen’s body language. 

Lara: I was braced for the same reaction I had just had, but no.

The profiler noted that Kathleen was very stiff at first but she relaxed as the interview went on and she felt that Kathleen was truthful. I.e. Kathleen was not hiding anything about her sister’s disappearance. 

Lara: I have been dying to talk about this part!! I was like: is she talking to spirits right now?! What is happening?? Did the interviewer not notice that?? And the guy helping the interviewer (guess I should know names, huh?) was sitting with the profiler in another room. I think the profiler says something along the lines of: did you see her look up to think? That usually indicates someone searching for an explanation rather than telling the truth. But that was it! Neither of them thought Kathleen was acting strangely! 

Kate: This just solidifies that Kathleen is a POS. She’s probably feeling major guilt over her role in making Maura so stressed and upset! Just own up to it, woman. 

Lara: I don’t know if I would describe her as a POS, but she’s certainly got her problems. And I don’t think she was helpful at all. She also, in other video clips from news at that time, kept repeating that they were going to keep looking, etc etc, but it seemed really…Stepford-wife-like? Just the same exact thing, not a whole lot of emotion or energy when saying it. Of course, she could have been tipsy or high at the time, who knows? 

Is THIS an affiliate link? Gotcha!! It’s not.

Kathleen admitted that she had talked to Maura while Maura was at work. Kathleen had been in rehab and apparently, her partner had picked her up from the facility and immediately stopped at a liquor store to get himself something to drink. With his newly sober partner. Whom he encouraged to come inside with him and despite being angry with him (according to Kathleen) she did just that, relapsing within hours of being released from rehab. She said she told Maura about it on the phone the night Maura was working. According to Maura’s boss, Karen, Maura was absolutely stunned by her phone call with her sister. This may well have made Maura feel that she just had to get away from everything. 

Maura’s car, the 1996 Saturn, at crash site.

Lara: uh duh. 

Kate: For real, this isn’t 2020 instant transfers on your bank app. Maybe it took 24-48 hours. 

Lara: Another excellent point that I hadn’t thought of!! lol 

On to Maura’s last known movements. 

Maura definitely did a lot of prep before she left. Remember, she didn’t tell anyone about her plans. But she packed a bag, called a condominium where she had stayed before in NH (although, according to Wiki, she did NOT book a room), finished her homework, lied to her professors to cover some time off, took out cash, grabbed some alcohol and off she went. It was noted that she took not only everything she needed to spend several days away, including clothes and toiletries, she also took school books with her. Putting ourselves in her shoes, it sounds like some quiet time in a place that’s familiar and potentially calming, with some alcohol but with plans to, at some point, have some down time to do school work. This doesn’t sound like someone who is heading out to party, with her homework in tow, traveling alone, with no one knowing where she’s going. 

We also want to quickly address the fact that State Police say that Maura’s room was packed in boxes, even art was off the walls and set on top of the boxes. This was February 9th. College had just resumed the week before. Maura may not have wanted to leave her stuff on campus for 6 weeks of winter break. Conversely, the college may not want to be responsible for people’s items and students are ordered to pack up their shit and take it with them during Christmas break!  Campuses sometimes close completely for Christmas/winter break and they want campus empty so all staff can be off.  

Maura may have ended up in a new room when she returned, for whatever reason, and that’s why all her stuff was in boxes. But again, saying that she was packed and it shows that she was intent on leaving does NOT match with then taking only her personal items and some school books. Why not pack up all her stuff, or as much as she could, into her car if she were leaving permanently? Personal items and some books is not permanent. People don’t take their school books if they are running away! They take childhood things that mean a lot, their favorite sheets, their comforting books, framed photos, anything that would help make the new place feel a little more like home. If she was running for her life, she wouldn’t take school books and she may have taken more clothing, not knowing how long she’d be gone. 

We are going to do some timestamps here, because they become important in a few places later on but we don’t want to get all bogged down with the timeline details either.

4:30pm:

I am not sure where this came from, but several places note that she left Amherst around 4:30pm. I don’t know if this was verified via traffic cameras or what, but that is a time in the timeline. 

4:37pm:

Maura checks her voicemail. It’s the last recorded use of her cell phone. 

7:27pm:

This is the recorded time of the first 911 call places in Haverhill, NH.

Faith calls 911. It’s pretty straightforward. She tells the 911 operator that they have a car that has gone off the road, she did NOT go out to investigate, she tells them she is past the weathered barn. Which apparently everybody knows what you mean when you say, the weathered barn. #smalltowns 

Lara: Maura’s last phone use being 3:15pm seems questionable to me. Sure, she lied about calling roadside service to Butch the bus driver, but if she didn’t call anyone for help, what was her plan?? Just start walking? Was she close enough to her undisclosed location to think she could make it walking? (I mean, she is a cross-country runner.) There were no sidewalks, no streetlights. If I were alone and had just had a fender bender, I don’t know that I would start walking on a dangerous road in the dark. However, remember she had been drinking, and maybe she didn’t want the police called because she was afraid she’d be arrested for drinking and driving?

Kate: Also…could she have gotten lost for a hot second? Did she have her Mapquest directions printed? Getting something to eat is totally believable but also, if it’s been a while since she’s been up to the area, it’s also possible she took a wrong turn or two accidentally. Just saying. 

Lara: Good point. I keep forgetting what year this happened, so she wouldn’t have had a smart phone or GPS. What if the last time she had been was with family and her Dad drove? Making it the first time she had driven the route herself. 

Map for driving from Amherst, MA to Haverhill, NH, courtesy of Google.

At this point, the idea that Maura was traveling with another woman, whom she could have picked up on this stop, enters the list of theories. There is a second stop for alcohol (why??) and the woman who helped Maura swears there was someone else with her, another woman. However, Butch the bus driver guy specifically says there is only one female and nobody else has been listed as missing, so this seems to be just a dumb theory with no basis. In our inexperienced opinion. 

Okay, so Maura has apparently, theoretically, stopped to eat, get more alcohol, potentially pick up a ghost passenger and has finally arrived at the infamous curve in the road where she basically wrecks.

Credit: Not without Peril. This site has a *ton* of different maps and things, loads of information.

Screenshot of Butch’s 911 Call Transcript.

Credit: 107 Degree Blog has all sorts of official documents!

There is, as you might have noticed, a *whole line blacked out*! That is a long line! That is not an address! AND it was clearly not in response to a question from the 911 operator! Now, the operator, according to the transcripts, does seem to cut her off, so maybe Faith was completing her thought about not going out to check on the car? Maybe she explains why she did not go out and check? There is something important there, or it would not have been redacted. Furthermore, this is the family that refuses to speak to anyone, not reporters, podcasters or even police, it appears. There is no follow up information that can be found where the police talked to the people who called 911. 

Lara: How long had she been sitting by the road? Just because Faith calls at 7:27pm it doesn’t mean that that is when Maura crashed. Was the crash super loud? Squealing wheels? Maura has this 45 minute window that is unexplained just getting to the area. What if she spent that time by the road, checking on her car, getting her bearings? Did she call someone to come pick her up and she was just waiting? Or did she stop for a meal, get into an accident and Faith heard it? There’s a lot of wiggle room here.

Kate: This is a very good point, with all the snow in the area, the sound of the car going off the road could have actually been pretty muffled. Being picked up does seem plausible, however, according to police, the last phone call Maura made was around 4:30PM that day, presumably right before she started her drive. This goes back to the second person theory. Was there? Wasn’t there? That person could have called. This is the part that hurts my brain. I go back and forth!

7:42pm:

Now the second call to 911 was made by our friendly neighborhood bus driver, Mr. Butch Atwood. He is interviewed by the news and everything! He passed away in 2009, but it seems his widow has also spoken to a number of people as well. 

Mr. Atwood–let’s call him Butch–Butch was coming home from his bus route. 

Wait. 

He was just coming home from dropping off kids after school at… 7:30pm or so? That seems awfully late to me! Maybe he was driving the activities bus and didn’t even pick kids up until 5pm or something, but it just seems late. It’s dark. Okay. Moving on. 

He stops and asks Maura if she’s alright and does she need help. She apparently tells him No, and that she’s just called AAA. Maura’s second lie in her journey, that we know of. The death of a family member being the first one. Granted, she is a young woman, alone, her car is busted up and not working and she doesn’t want to get in a freaking bus with a strange old man. WE GET IT, MAURA!! Lying is 1000% acceptable in a situation like this. Listen to your gut! 

Butch apparently finds this odd as it is his personal experience that there is no cell service up that way and by his house. He doubts she could have called AAA. Cell phone records show she did not. But any woman would understand why she lied to him and spurned his offer of help. 

Lara: Here’s my thing. He literally lives down the road. Like, a three second drive further up the road. Why is his call just coming in at 7:42pm? We don’t know if Faith heard the accident or how long Maura was sitting there before Faith called 911. Was Butch talking to Maura at the same time that Faith was on the phone with 911? What time did Butch actually stop and talk to her? Was it longer than the snippet he said it was? 

Kate: Okay, one of our sources does say that once you get to Butch’s house, you can’t actually see where Maura’s car was sitting, it was just around… the riverbend! (Pocohontas moment). So Butch backs his bus in, goes inside to call 911 – has issues getting his call to even go through (in the 911 transcript he’s like WTF is up with the phone lines tonight??) THEN he goes back out to the bus to do paperwork. He does say he saw a few cars go by but doesn’t hear anything suspish…meaning car doors opening/closing? People talking? 

This YouTube video is amazing. We were looking for video of Butch talking to the news, so you could get a feel for him as a witness when we came across this. Good stuff and theories we haven’t found anywhere else! It’s only seven minutes or so, take a look! 

This video introduces a whole *other* world of inquiry! She’s totally right! If Butch backed up into his drive and the scent stops across the street, why didn’t he or his wife see anything else? Weren’t they curious about what happened to this young woman? Wouldn’t they have been looking out of one of those many windows that face the road, watching for the police? This is out in the middle of nowhere. This must be the most exciting thing that’s happened to them in awhile! 

Lara: I, personally, would have been watching from a window while talking to the 911 operator! I mean, they need immediate feedback and blow-by-blow reports on what’s happening, right? I just can’t imagine everyone in the area not craning their necks and looking around! There just *has* to be more that was seen!! <said in my best Daphne from Scooby Doo voice>

Okay. We’re exhausted. This is like 12 pages long on Google docs, so we’re going to stop here. We didn’t even *get to* the police investigation! Shew! This is one involved story! 

Thanks for reading! 

Xoxo, 

Lara & Kate