The Disappearance of Mauray Murray (UPDATE: Oxygen series debuts 9/30, trailer on post 312)

I still don't really understand the mystery to this. Maura was drunk, in a lot of trouble, and scared. She wandered into the woods and died.

Entirely possible, but with no tracks found in the freshly fallen snow and no physical remains, it certainly isn't a foregone conclusion.

Also, LOL, how did you even find this thread to bump it? It seems like you'd have to be looking for Maura Murray threads specifically.
 
I never got too far into this case at the time the thread was started. I have a few observations:
If she intended to disappear, she and someone else might have been driving in separate cars to a location to leave her car where it would be found days later. It would allow time for her to get somewhere before she is discovered missing. If the other car was ahead of her they might have gotten separated and as she tried to go faster to catch up, she crashed. She told the bus driver that she had called triple A to buy time hoping the other person would come back and pick her up which happened before the police got there. She might have headed down the road toward which ever direction she thought her backup was coming from.

The car being locked made me think she was coming back but those plans might have changed to avoid contact with police. Her parents not seeming to be very desperate to find her could mean they know what happened.

I don't think a passport was required to cross into Canada until 2008 or 2009.

If you live with someone and don't need a job or a drivers license it would be easy to disappear in the US or Canada. It would leave any debts behind.

She could have headed down the road and left the road when a car came. She might have seen the police and headed into the woods or caught a ride with someone that she shouldn't have.

She might have headed down the road and got hit by someone who disposed of the body.

Her belongings being packed might have been that they weren't unpacked after semester break.

Good observations.

As I mentioned earlier in the thread, the "tandem driver" theory is the preferred theory of James Renner. He believes someone was driving with her, and after she crashed her car they doubled back, picked her up, and now she's in Canada.

I think anything is possible, though.
 
Entirely possible, but with no tracks found in the freshly fallen snow and no physical remains, it certainly isn't a foregone conclusion.

Also, LOL, how did you even find this thread to bump it? It seems like you'd have to be looking for Maura Murray threads specifically.
i just finished true crime addict and remembered there was a thread on this case here.
 
i just finished true crime addict and remembered there was a thread on this case here.

Interesting, So even after reading True Crime Addict you think her dying in the woods is the only reasonable conclusion?
 
Interesting, So even after reading True Crime Addict you think her dying in the woods is the only reasonable conclusion?
I would say 95 percent sure. I think Renner is kind of an asshole and a bit of a hack though, and that book did nothing to change my opinion. Internet sleuthing is fine but when it crosses over into harassing people and making wild accusations it's too much. He said Maura was a sociopath. That's reckless. He said she was involved in group orgies at UMass with no evidence to back it up. I find her background and situation to be largely innocuous. The fact that she knew a dui would mean big trouble coupled with her being drunk and probably quite shaken from the crash is enough for me.

Ultimately though I don't think there is any way foul play could be really be at hand here. At least not of the stranger danger kind. Think of the luck it would take for a serial killer or potential murderer to be in the area of an unplanned accident and to be able to capitalize on it in such a short time frame. If she were with a tandem driver and they took her from the scene to escape maybe but then it's like just let her be. But even that I find really implausible. Besides the fact that there is no evidence of another driver I find the idea that Maura would be undeterred by the accident w/r/t running away highly unlikely. As for as I know she had no history of running away. So her first try she gets into an accident and her reaction is to just shrug it off and keep going? People who run away do it compulsively and come back until one day they don't. I don't know.
 
I would say 95 percent sure. I think Renner is kind of an asshole and a bit of a hack though, and that book did nothing to change my opinion.

I agree that he does seem to be a bit of an asshole, but I also think he comes across as a skilled journalist and researcher. He definitely has pulled together far more information on the case than anyone else.

He said she was involved in group orgies at UMass with no evidence to back it up.

If I remember right, wasn't he just reporting what he was told? So he didn't say she WAS involved in group orgies, but reported that he was told she was.

I think it's okay to report rumors as long as you identify them as such.

Ultimately though I don't think there is any way foul play could be really be at hand here. At least not of the stranger danger kind. Think of the luck it would take for a serial killer or potential murderer to be in the area of an unplanned accident and to be able to capitalize on it in such a short time frame. If she were with a tandem driver and they took her from the scene to escape maybe but then it's like just let her be. But even that I find really implausible. Besides the fact that there is no evidence of another driver I find the idea that Maura would be undeterred by the accident w/r/t running away highly unlikely. As for as I know she had no history of running away. So her first try she gets into an accident and her reaction is to just shrug it off and keep going? People who run away do it compulsively and come back until one day they don't. I don't know.

Indeed. I don't know that we'll ever know for sure.

I don't personally care for the theory that she was murdered because, like you say, it would've been an enormous coincidence that someone capable of that just happened to be on that lonely stretch of road at the time. BUT I don't think it's an impossibility.

The tandem driver theory is at the least the most interesting. Did you put no stock at all in the reported sightings in Canada?
 
I agree that he does seem to be a bit of an asshole, but I also think he comes across as a skilled journalist and researcher. He definitely has pulled together far more information on the case than anyone else.



If I remember right, wasn't he just reporting what he was told? So he didn't say she WAS involved in group orgies, but reported that he was told she was.

I think it's okay to report rumors as long as you identify them as such.



Indeed. I don't know that we'll ever know for sure.

I don't personally care for the theory that she was murdered because, like you say, it would've been an enormous coincidence that someone capable of that just happened to be on that lonely stretch of road at the time. BUT I don't think it's an impossibility.

The tandem driver theory is at the least the most interesting. Did you put no stock at all in the reported sightings in Canada?
i guess i just find that rumor particularly useless. i think maura is a very generic looking white girl. maybe she was seen, but i doubt it.
 
demotivational-posters-impregnated-with-alien-squid.jpg
 
Just a heads up for anyone who's interested, Oxygen is debuting a six-part series on the case on Sept. 30:


 
The part about the orgies and whatever...i just ignored that crap. Typical college/university rumors, even if she was having gangbangs, who cares. college life right? Aha
 

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