High crime, junkies, Ashley flowers Here- and I have some news- it's just going to be me for awhile brick is taking a sabbatical from the podcast. Those of you who have been loyal listeners know that she adopted a baby a few months ago, which, for anyone who is a newborn knows. It is really freaking hard, but Britt is a superhero, and on top of this she has started the foster to adoption process for a ten year old boy as well. Brit is literally a true saint and her life, just went from zero to sixty you guys. We have not been lying when we say this podcast takes so much work and right now, Britt needs to focus her time and energy into her family I'm not sure when she'll be back, but you guys will still see her modding, our facebook group and in our newsletter, so she's not going away completely. So knowing she's going to be out for a while, you guys it's just me, and this podcast didn't

I'm easier, it's actually become a lot more work now. So I appreciate all of you who are helping to support my show by telling friends to listen by sharing our episodes on your social media pages, leaving the show five star reviews and joining our patrion for extra content. All of that contributes so greatly to keeping the show going and I am counting on my amazing listeners now more than ever to have my back. So thank you to all of you who do with that. I want to tell you a story. I saw

or I never would I'm doing it today that I said I wouldn't do because a lot of you guys have told me. I was wrong and something that I said and I'm going to admit when I am wrong, I've made a couple of mentions in past episodes about my upset shin with the Maura Murray case, but I said I wouldn't cover it because it's been

like so overdone the internet is filled with this case. It's been covered a zillion times, but I can't tell you how many messages I got that said. Listen. I can't find a really good, comprehensive episode on this. Do you have a place where I can start. I don't know if it's there's so much stuff, I don't know, what's real and what's not and when I You guys are right. There are a couple of one offs, but I have consumed all the six part tv series, all the forty part, podcast series books and hundreds of pages Blog So there is a lot of information out there, but for people new to the case, none of It is in one big overview, so I'm to listen to your demands and give you what you've been asking for, but I want to tell it to you in the way that the case unfolded for me when I first found out about it, and I think it's because of the in which I learned the information that may he's so enthralled with finding answers. In February of two thousand,

For more Murray was twenty one years old and attending the University of Massachusetts. She had recently from Umass two w point, which was an incredibly prestigious military school, but she to Umass in order to pursue nursing. The reason I think more keys got so much attention beyond the intrigue. That's about to come was that she truly as all american as they come, she was one of four kids. She had two sisters and a brother. She was a star athlete on the track team and in cross country always competing for school and state records with her older sister Julie. More continue athletics in college, where she ran track and cross country at both West point in you Mass in Warsaw, more year at West Point, she started dating a man named bill. He was a little bit older, but still at school. He was good looking and the two were the perfect couple from the outside. Even after.

Or transferred. They stayed together and would often spend their summers and holidays together, and it said by friends and family that the two are basically engaged to be engaged. They were planning on getting engaged after Morris graduation, along with her social life, her academics and athletics, when she was at Umass. She was also working two part time jobs at the university as part of more studies. She had to do clinicals, which required some travel, but Moore's car was in rough She so on a weekend in early February, her dad came down to amorous and went car shopping with her. They weren't able to actually get the car that weekend they were kind of just it out in the plan was for her dad Fred to come back down next weekend and actually make the purchas zero. They do a little car shop. Being find the one that they want? Then they grab a bite to eat at a local pub with one of Morris friends named Kate Fred said

It was a pretty normal dinner. Nothing unusual happens, nothing out of the ordinary and after they eat more drops off Fred at his hotel and then lets her borrow his car to go to a party Maura attends this party with two of her friends, Kate, who was at dinner and her? Sarah, after the party's over more drives back to her dad's motel, presumably to return the car, even though she lived on campus and could have just returned in the morning wall, think back to Fred's motel. She gets in a one car accident by running into a guardrail, and this did about ten one thousand dollars of damage to her dad's brand new car. All is said and done, though, more ends up back at her dad's motel, and we know that she calls her boyfriend at about four. Nine in the morning. Billy is stationed in Fort Oklahoma at this point, and despite the hour he does answer and they talk and he tries to calm her down. He promises to call her back during the day and

As we note she goes to bed the next morning. Fred drives her back to the dorm room and he says more was very upset, and you know he says he told her going to be okay, but he also said he was mad to like any dad would be. She just crashed your brand new car and it feels really irresponsible so more. Car that day and Fred didn't know it then but it would be the last time he would ever see his daughter now, even though that was the last time he saw her, he does talk to her one more time a few hours. Later, more and Fred talk on the phone about the insurance coverage on Fred's car. He tells her that she'll need to pick up some accident forms and get those filled out after this call, we have very little insight into what more did for the rest of the day. We do know, though, that she spent some time looking at rental prop in the New Hampshire area, but it doesn't appear as if she had actually booked anything there's this activity on her computer of her looking up,

stuff. Until about four in the morning that day now, the next morning, she gets back online- and this is February, ninth and she starts researching more properties and she gets directions from Amherst Massachusetts to the Burlington Vermont area. I've also I heard rumors that she had directions to another place in New Hampshire as well. Now this is a little strange because classes had just started. Why would be planning to take off on a trip now from her cell records, which her boyfriend had access to because he was on her plan, We learn that she made a couple of calls on the afternoon of Monday February. Ninth at one thousand two hundred and fifty five. She calls Bartlett Nh Condo Rental Bartlett was a place that they had visited. Frequently remember she got in the tions from there and it's a place that Maura would have been very familiar with. She used to go there hiking with her dad. They went camping now her dad's convinced she was going to go

because she knew it so well. She hiked many of those mountains with him and they used to go every single summer. So maybe she wanted to just get away The weekend, even though the timing was weird that same afternoon after she makes these calls, she sends an email to her boyfriend bill. Apparently he had tried to call her earlier, so she says. Listen, I love you. I just don't feel like talking to anyone at the moment, but I promise I'll call you later in the day at two hundred and five, she calls one eight hundred go. Which is a reservation line for hotels in the Stowe Vermont area, the line out of order. So all she could do was listen to some listings, but she couldn't actually talk to anyone or make a reservation. Now whatever this means. I think it shows that she had plans to go to the Vermont New Hampshire area and at least stay for one night or maybe more a few minutes later. She calls bill and she gets his voice mail. This time and according

to his mom, who was the only person from bill side of the family to be interviewed in this first documentary I originally saw she said the message was really short. She basically just said that she loved him after this call more. It does something that, to this day, no one can explain she emailed her professors and tells them that there's been a death in the family and she's likely going to be out for the next week. But her friends and family know that there has been no death in her family. No one can explain this action. Family and friends say it wasn't like her to lie like this, and no one has any idea what was going through her head at this point that same day, she returned some close to one of the girls in her nursing classes and the next

movement we know about for sure, is around three hundred and thirty pm. She leaves the Amherst campus in her car. Now remember, this is the same car that is a hot mess and the one that her dad came down to help her replace she first stops at an atm and take. About two hundred and eighty dollars, and this is pretty much all the money she had in the account she next stop nearby liquor store where, according to one account, she buys a bottle of Kalua a bottle of Baileys, a bottle of vodka and a box of It is said that they know she bought this because of a receipt that is later found in her car now. This is a lot of alcohol for one person, so this is our first indication that maybe she was going to meet somebody else wall in the mountains that day or heck. Maybe somebody was actually traveling with her

even though they say on the surveillance, video and in the store she wasn't seen with anyone else. Our best guess at this point is that more out got back on the road and started driving north according to her phone records. She checks her voicemail around four hundred and thirty seven, and this is the last known call from her cell phone. We don't know a lot about what happened to Maura after that, but what we do know, is that by seven hundred and thirty it was dark and it was very cold on early February, ninth and likely even slip we on the winding north roads. Now. What I'm not sure about is how Maura got exactly to the spot. She did she likely traveled on route. One hundred and sixty two. Ninety one and then ninety one goes to route one hundred and twelve east at some point, though she had, button off of the main road that route one hundred and twelve and was in a small town called Haverhill New Hampshire and she driving on wild ammonoosuc road around.

Seven hundred and twenty five Morris car goes off of the road weather she slipped or was hit by something. It's not one hundred percent clear. At this point we just know there seems to be some kind of accident and her car ends up in the opposite lane facing oncoming I thank more crashed right in front of the home of a woman named faith, westman faith, medical call to nine hundred and eleven at seven hundred and twenty seven to report the accident in her call logs, which have been released, but redacted faith tells police that there's been an accident, she is at if anyone is hurt- and she says she doesn't know- because she hasn't actually gone out to investigate the next couple of sentences from the call are redacted just when, after a local man named Butch, Atwood comes driving by in a bus he It's down the road within eyesight of where morals car has stopped, and he asked her if she's, ok and if she needs help in an account from an inner,

He did with the local news station. He says that she seemed shook up and he offered to call the police for her. But insisted that he didn't need to. She said. Listen I already called AAA. You don't need to call the police now Butch didn't push her butt He knew that she was lying. He bid on that same road. He knows, there's no. Full service in the area. Therefore, there's. No way more could have called anyone for help. So knowing that this girl is clearly in trouble but won't take help. Butch goes to his home just up the road and places a call to nine hundred and eleven. This is the second and final call that would be made to nine one one to report more accident, and the second call happened at seven hundred and forty when Bush initially called the line was busy, so the dispatcher actually calls him back at seven hundred and forty three, he reported that there was an accident involving a single, female us. She shaken up no blood

could see, but the airbags were deployed, heavy damage at seven hundred and forty six, the first response officers. Cecil Smith arrives on the scene. This is just about seven minutes after Bush talk to her at the crash site. So it's surprising to the officer when there is no young woman to be seen in any direction of the crash site all it remained at the site was the car itself in somewhat of a precarious state. Like I mentioned it's, sing the wrong way in the opposite. Lane moral would have been traveling in when Cecil looks in by the window, he can tell the airbags, have been deployed and there was a crack on windshield over the driver. Seat of the car had been locked in the backseat. We can see a box of wine and there appeared to be something pink dumped in the snow. There's also some splatter marks ceiling and on the side of the car later

when they're able to get into the vehicle it said that there was a coke bottle in there that smelled like alcohol. Now, it's not just Cecil Smith on the scene. At this point, someone with the state police has dropped by to help emts have arrived. And I cmt's are walking around the car. They find something that will forever loom over this case as either a red herring or evidence of something sinister. When one of the Emts is circling the car, something in the back of the car catches his eye, something at the bottom of Mora's Saturn, it's a rag and it appears to have been stuffed into her tail pipe and half hanging out and nothing about this makes sense to the first responders. Did Mora. Put the rag in there is that what caused her car to break down or did someone else place it in there and wait for her to stall out, so they could approach her when she was vulnerable

officers didn't know the answer to this, but despite this red flag, they don't treat this as a crime scene. Now it's important to note here that when Butch talk to the reporters, he said that more up to be shook up, but she didn't seem at all in toxic but because of the wine or maybe because abandon crashes. Aren't all that unusual for police in that area. Police make the assumption that moral walked away from the crash site willingly and the attempt made to find her that evening was minimal. They drive a few miles back in the direction she had come from, because that was back closer to the center of town and they didn't see her walking. There didn't appear to be tracks in the snow leading into the woods off of the street, so there had to have been some kind of assumption that she had had it in the direction she was first travel

but for some reason again, maybe because they assume she didn't want to be found that night. No one goes looking in that direction: police have more car towed and the next day they call Fred to tell him about the accident. Fred tells the police something that he would. Long come to regret. He mentioned the idea that maybe more went into the woods to hurt herself, because maybe she was depressed and he even alludes to this in a later interview with reporters, and he speaks to more through the camera telling her it's ok to come home, no matter what's going on, we can work everything out. We can figure it out together and you don't have to be afraid- and I think this lens even more credit to the police's theory

that she's chosen to just walk away friends and family immediately start traveling to New Hampshire, to help search for Maura and while her boyfriend Billy is traveling from Oklahoma to New Hampshire. He gets a very strange message while he's going through security at the airport, he hasn't missed, call and when he listens to the voicemail, he hears a strange, whimpering noise for a long time. This be explained, and people had theorized that maybe it was more a Billy had even said. I really feel like it was her trying to contact me trying to help, but again, for a long time that just kind of loomed- and we had no answers after Fred- arrives in New Hampshire. On Wednesday there was basically a command post made for Maura. They had worked from the crash site and work their way out. They got a state police helicopter bloodhounds. Now, there's some

I find really interesting and key to this case. The dogs were brought out about eleven days after more of vanish, but they were able to track her scent the track it from the crash site to about a hundred feet up the road and then her sent just disappears. Now Fred has questions about the accuracy of the sent docks be. Is the glove that they use as a baseline for the dogs was pretty new. But if the dogs are right, I think you can only mean one thing: there were no tracks going into the woods from her car no one saw her walking when they look for her that night driving back into town and the cop who came travel from the direction more was actually heading in and he didn't see her walking that way. So, where could she have gone? It makes sense to me that would There happened to Maura, intentional or otherwise likely had to do with Maura getting into another. Car now please kind of, say, look she can go away if she wants to

There doesn't seem to be any sign of foul play here, but the more time that passes the for the family believes that something sinister has happened to her. They didn't that. Maura would stay away this long and put them through all of this, without letting them know that she was ok and so begins a rift between the family and the police. Fred has been very vocal about how he thinks the police have not helped. In fact he says they just been getting in the way of the investigation and the more Fred points the finger at the pool. For not doing a better job of searching. The more police seemed to double down on the theory that Maura was during. And driving and she doesn't want to be found. They even refer back to Fred's own comments when she initially went missing that maybe she went up there to run away or to hurt herself. But Fred insists that that's not the case and he wishes he never gave police that idea. So this rest between police, Fred, saying something sinister happened. The police are saying: no. She

probably just ran away and they're getting a lot of pushback say No. She had no reason to leave her life, but that's not one hundred percent accurate. It's not just the accident that make police think she wanted to run away? There is a strange I need to tell you about that happened. A couple of days before more went missing on February. Fifth, this is forty before she would leave her dorm room for the last time more. That one of her campus jobs at this job she's responsible for checking ids of people coming into the building she was in the late shift and in the early morning hours Morris boss comes by and finds her in what she calls a catatonic state she's, not stopping. Anyone coming into the building, not looking at ids she's just staring straight ahead, and when her boss approaches her, she breaks down crying

and her boss is trying to find out what's wrong, but all more can say is my sister. So her boss decides she is in no condition to finish her shift, so she walks her back to her dorm trying to help trying to figure out. What's going on, she asked more of she needs to go to the school counselor or if she had somebody to talk too and more says. Yes, she has her roommate, but what we on the outside looking in know is that Maura doesn't have a and she's lying again. It's confirmed later that Maura did take a call from her sister earlier that night. After that call, she talked to Billy now Morris insisted that her talk was very normal and she can't think of anything that was said. That would have upset more so profoundly. So did something

happen or was more a lying again and setting up this whole scenario of family trouble to get out of class and work, and if so, why? If we jump back to the time of Moore's accident, Moore's belongings were released to Billy and everything in her car made. It seem like she was packing for a short trip. That was closed, toiletries even her school books, which I don't know about you, but if I was going to harm myself or even run away, the last thing in the world I would be worrying about would be bringing my books with me. So I could do school work on the road, but, along with her schoolbooks, was also a book called, not without peril, which is a book that talks about people who went into the white mountains in New Hampshire and died or were injured. So some people look at this as a sign that she was thinking. Ending her life in the mountains, but her dad keeps saying It was just one of her favorite books, she loved being up there. She loved the stories from being up there and she just happened to have this

It's not a sign of something she was going to do after weeks of searching nothing substantial is recovered nothing that has a link to Mora and nothing that would indicate she was still alive or still in the area after mom with no movement. In the case, the family decides to start doing their own investigation. They start by. Going through more as call records and contacting those people that more called in the last days before she went missing. One of the first numbers called was of a rental place. More was looking into before her disappearance when they spoke with the woman who worked there, she said she wanted to help, but by now she

no recollection of talking to Maura. It was a three minute call, so we know they had some kind of conversation, but there was nothing she could tell the family about the call, but the most shocking thing about this was that no one had contacted her before. Maybe if someone had tried to contact her, she would have remembered speaking to her or remembered how she was acting. Did she sound normal? Did she sound set. How long was she looking to book this place for and the fact that no one else had contact her and it took the family to do it. This, I think, was the straw that broke the camels back for Fred because he felt like police were not doing their job and they were just getting in the way Fred tried to file suit to get more as records released to him, but he was

shut down by the legal system, stating that basically it was an ongoing investigation and releasing records, could interfere with the case down the line. While the family is trying to do their own investigation, they do get the help of a local reporter who finds a witness that thinks they saw Maura after her abduction. According to this witness, she saw a woman who looked more at a gas station with an older man and this woman, who she thinks was more looked very upset when the woman made eye contact with her, the girl looks at her and mouths. The words help me once the woman realize what was going on this girl, she thought was Maura had already left and she didn't get any information on the car or the man like no license plates, and that was it that lead just kind of died. Now there another sightings all over New England, and none of them have panned out now something I

should point out that kind of goes back to this idea that maybe she ran away intentionally is that it wasn't totally out of character for Maura to be spontaneous like this and take a trip, apparently one day in high school. She decided she didn't want to be there, so she hopped a train to Boston spent the day alone there and she came back at the end of the day. After all, her friends had been looking for her, so first, some of her friends even thought like. Maybe she was just trying to get away and I think maybe that's why Fred said what he said. Maybe they thought she just needed a break from her life and she was just getting away for a weekend. But weeks passed and then months, passed and then years past and Morris family insists that she had thing going for her dad said: listen she's getting out of nursing school. She was going to have a great job. She was

I'm ready to get married, she had her entire future ahead of her because of this her case was extremely publicized on the news and through social media, and no one could figure out what this young, beautiful, smart girl was doing on this New Hampshire RD and what could have happened to her until we learn more over the years. Anyone who has followed this case knows that, everything we thought we knew and everything we learned early on everything I told you today was a lie and this young beautiful, smart girl had demons that she was hiding. I believe answers to what happened to Maura lie in the intricacies of her life in the days and weeks before she went missing and I'll reveal to you the even more bizarre circumstances around more as life and disappearance next week on crime,

If you guys want to see a picture of Maura and the people in this case, you can go to the website crime, junkie, podcast, dot com. You can also follow us on Instagram at crime, junkie, podcast and you guys, if you want to keep tabs on bread and follow her journey through adoption, you can follow her at Rit pray while on both Twitter and Instagram, and if you want to follow me, living the life of a dog mom, I'm at Indy Ash flowers on Instagram as well and I'll be back next week with another episode. This week's episode of crime junkie.

Editing and sound production was done by David flowers and all of our music, including our theme, comes from Justin Daniel Crime, he is an audio chuck production. So what do you think Chuck? Do you