Maura Murray Crash Site

Author: Jewls Krueger

On the evening of February 9, 2004, 21 year old University of Massachusetts Amherst nursing student Maura Murray crashed her car on a desolate stretch of Route 112 in Haverhill, New Hampshire. By the time the first police officer arrived just a few minutes later, she was gone without a trace.

More than two decades later, Maura Murray has never been found, no trace of her has ever surfaced, and her case remains one of the most widely discussed unsolved missing persons cases in the US.

Maura Murray

Maura Murray - www.mauramurraymissing.org

Maura Theresa Murray was born May 4, 1982 in Brockton, Massachusetts and grew up in the nearby town of Hanson. She was the fourth of five children of Fred and Laurie Murray. From a young age, she was described as an academic and athletic standout. She was a high school honor student and track star, and she qualified for the U.S. National Scholastic Outdoor Championships in the two mile category as a high school sophomore.

After graduating, Maura initially attended the United States Military Academy at West Point, where she studied chemical engineering for three semesters before transferring to the University of Massachusetts Amherst in early 2002 to study nursing. At UMass she was a strong student with a part time campus security job. She was dating her high school boyfriend Bill Rausch, an Army cadet stationed at Fort Sill, Oklahoma.

The Days Before the Disappearance

In the days leading up to her disappearance, Maura's behavior raised concerns in retrospect. On February 5, 2004, Maura had an emotional breakdown at her campus security job after a phone call with her older sister Kathleen, who was struggling with a relapse into alcoholism. Coworkers escorted her home.

On February 7, 2004, her father Fred drove from his home in Bridgeport, Connecticut to UMass to help Maura shop for a new car. Later that night, after dropping her dad off at his motel, Maura borrowed his Toyota Corolla to attend a dorm party. Driving back to campus in the early morning hours of February 8, she crashed the car into a guardrail on the Massachusetts Turnpike.

On the afternoon of February 9, Maura emailed her professors and academic advisor claiming there had been a death in the family and that she would be away for a week, but this was a fabrication and no family member had died. She also sent a brief email to her boyfriend Bill, telling him she loved him and would call later. She withdrew $280 from an ATM at the Big Y Plaza in Hadley, Massachusetts, bought roughly $40 worth of alcohol at Liquors 44, and packed her belongings into her black 1996 Saturn. Earlier, she had searched MapQuest for directions to Burlington, Vermont and looked at vacation rental listings in the White Mountains of New Hampshire.

Maura Murray's Crash

At approximately 7:27 p.m., a woman named Faith Westman called the Grafton County Sheriff's Department from her home on Route 112 in Haverhill, also known as Wild Ammonoosuc Road, to report a single car accident outside her house. Maura's Saturn had missed a sharp turn and slammed into a tree on the opposite side of the road.

A few minutes later, local school bus driver Cecil "Butch" Atwood was on his way home when he came across the crashed car and pulled over to help. He found Maura standing outside the vehicle. According to Atwood, she appeared shaken but unharmed and declined his offer to call the police, telling him she had already called AAA. Atwood, who lived approximately 100 yards from the crash site, was skeptical, knowing the area had little to no cell phone reception. He continued home and called 911 at 7:42 p.m. anyway.

Haverhill Police Officer Cecil Smith arrived at the scene at 7:46 p.m., approximately 19 minutes after the first 911 call, but by then Maura was gone. Her car was locked, with her cell phone, wallet, credit cards, textbooks, and several bottles of alcohol still inside. A rag had been stuffed in the tailpipe, a trick her father had reportedly taught her to keep her aging car running in cold weather. A box of Franzia wine had spilled inside the vehicle.

The Search for Maura Murray

A search of the surrounding area began that night. By the next morning, the New Hampshire Fish and Game Department, Haverhill Police, and Maura's family were combing the woods. A tracking dog followed her scent roughly 100 yards east from the crash site before losing it, leading investigators to believe she may have left the area in another vehicle. Despite the snow on the ground that night, no footprints leading away from the car were ever found.

Over the next several weeks, ground and air searches were conducted using helicopters with thermal imaging, tracking dogs, and cadaver dogs. The FBI joined the search about 10 days in, but nothing of Maura was ever found.

In the years since, multiple volunteer and law enforcement searches have followed up on tips, including a search of an A frame house roughly a mile from the crash site in October 2006, after cadaver dogs reportedly responded to a closet, but no remains were ever recovered. In 2009, the case was added to the newly formed New Hampshire Cold Case Unit. Maura's father Fred and her older sister Julie have continued to publicly advocate for the case for more than two decades.

The Crash Site Today

The crash site is located along Route 112, also called the Wild Ammonoosuc Road, just east of the village of Woodsville in the town of Haverhill, New Hampshire. The road follows the Ammonoosuc River through the foothills of the White Mountains and passes through dense forest and farmland. The sharp curve where Maura crashed sits roughly 100 yards from the home of Faith Westman and not far from the home where the late Butch Atwood lived. Trees scarred from past crashes still line the curve.

The location remains a quiet and remote section of public highway in a rural New Hampshire town. There is no permanent memorial at the site. Please be respectful of the surrounding residents, several of whom have lived through more than 20 years of attention to the case. Do not stop along the shoulder of Route 112, do not approach private homes, and do not interact with the neighbors.

Anyone with information about Maura Murray's disappearance can submit a tip to the New Hampshire State Police Cold Case Unit at (603) 271-2663 or to the FBI at tip.fbi.gov.