The Disappearance of Maura Murray /// Part 1 /// 152 | Forensic Files

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[Music] foreign [Music] on the afternoon of Monday February 9th Mara Murray left the University of
Massachusetts campus before leaving she emailed her professors saying she was taking a few
days off due to a death in the family around 4 pm Mar withdrew nearly all of her money from her bank account at a
campus ATM It is believed that she left the University campus shortly after this
at 7 27 PM over a hundred miles away from the UMass campus a woman living in Haverhill New Hampshire reported a car
accident on a sharp corner of Route 112 near her home Mara Murray had wrecked her car
at 7 29 an officers dispatched to the scene of the accident at 7 30 Butch Atwood is driving a school
bus returning to his home when he spots Mara and her wrecked vehicle on the side
of the road [Music] he stops and he offers her a ride to his home so they can call in the accident
Mara is not interested in going with Butch Butch asked her if she would like for
him to call the police Mara says no that won't be necessary I've already called AAA for roadside assistance
however Butch knew she was lying because there's no cell phone service upon arriving home several minutes later
Butch reported the accident to Emergency Services at 7 46 PM Cecil Smith a local police
officer was the first to arrive at the scene Mars vehicle is still at the scene of
the accident but Mara is nowhere in sight at 7 54 a be on the lookout call goes out
officers should be looking for a five foot seven female who left the accident scene on foot two minutes later EMS and
firefighters arrive on the scene Butch Atwood the driver of the bus reported that Mara was to his knowledge
alone she appeared to be cold possibly frightened possibly intoxicated [Music] at some point during this very small
window of time Mara Murray went missing to this day Mara's family especially her
Father Fred are still looking for her Murray simply vanished that night [Music] today on True Crime garage we get the
opportunity to talk to three people closest to the mara Murray case true crime author James Renner and host
Maggie and art of the oxygen six-part documentary series The Disappearance of Mara Murray
[Music] James Renner True Crime addict came out in May of 2016. wow it's been that long yeah
last night I see you on my TV today I See You In the Flesh so thank you for joining us but and yes
ladies he looks better in person oh thank you it's like a if that's even possible strikingly handsome on last
night's episode of The Disappearance of Mara Murray well they kept on calling him an author I'm like do they mean
model I I should come down here more often this is great no I always I always tell
people what's James Ryan like I'm like well he looks like Nick Nick's cousin yeah I can see that yeah we could pass
how long after the book do you find out that this documentary series is going to
happen and now we need you to be involved in in what type of involvement you're going to have you know so it's
being produced by this group called Texas crew Productions and I think I started hearing from them around the
time that the book was being released in 2016 and uh started talking to this guy
David carabinis and um he just you know I I got a lot of calls from production companies around
that time that wanted to do something with the Maura Murray case and it got to the point you know as you guys know and
we talked a little bit about this behind the scenes you have producers that are coming to you looking for you know
Possible shows that you might do and it always leads nowhere you know and it just gets so frustrating after a while
um but it's always you you can't pass up that opportunity because who knows and but David there was something else about
him that he was very invested he knew all the minutiae of the case and he really you could tell he just wanted to
do something with it and Export it so you know I kind of developed a friendship and uh you know he said this
is going to happen and I said oh I I want to believe you and then about six months later he's like yep we got uh a
series order you know it's not just one special it's six part series and we're gonna do this and come out to Texas so
we can meet you so I flew out to Austin you know I think about a year ago and met the crew I
didn't meet Maggie until she came to the house for the interview they wanted to keep us separate but we went over all
the materials I had and I you know I said here's the questions that I remained with after publication of this
book here are the things I don't quite understand about the Maura Murray case that you guys you know have the
capability to dig deeper into and uh they were able to get access to the family the Murray family and Fred and
some other people that I was never able to talk to so it's it's really interesting I'm watching this both as a
you know a quote-unquote expert on the case but also as a as as a viewer you know not knowing what we're gonna get
towards the end of this series or how many answers we're going to get to these questions and you know some of the I I
know that some of the big questions in the morning Murray case will be answered by the end of this series
so what are those questions that you'd like to have answered well I want to know like you know that
ATM footage there's ATM footage out there of more uh right before she left UMass Amherst I want to see that you
know we does that show anything some people have speculated that the ATM footage shows that she had a black eye
was that the re you know uh was something going on before she disappeared I really want to know more
about Kate markopoulos and Sarah Alfieri these are friends of mauras that were at
this party uh that occurred the Saturday night before she disappeared on that Monday
afternoon um I think there's more that happened in that party and and they would be key to that so if
we can get any answers about that party um I think that would be key and last night's episode
um that they were putting some tough questions to Kathleen Murray Moore's older sister and if you remember more I
had this breakdown at work on Thursday night and uh you know it was Kathleen that supposedly was on the phone with
her so you know maybe we'll get a little more about that but um you know I have questions about the friends Kate and
Sarah I have questions about the boyfriend Bill Roush you know he has a pretty good Alibi it looks like he was
at Fort Sill halfway across the country during The Disappearance but I want to know more about the days after The
Disappearance where where was Bill what was he doing um you know because some you know
allegations have come out since then that cast bill in a very negative light so yeah there's I mean there's a ton
tons of questions the big question that I really hope we get some sense of an answer to by the end of the series is
what more was doing up in the White Mountains because this has always been a double mystery it's like what happened
to Maury Murray but what was she doing the White Mountains to begin with I think if we got the answer to that
question we'd be a lot closer to figuring out the other well there was that information that came out about the
University of Massachusetts having a cabin up in that area I think it points to the it's probably the most likely
place that she was heading didn't you along with Tim and Lance from the missing Mara Murray podcast go up there
and check out the cabin no I went up a couple weeks before they were up there I think it just didn't work in our
schedules um so I ended up going up there alone you know I think I really think that that cabin that the Outing
club at UMass was using I I think that's I'm 90 sure that was her destination that night I mean she was headed
straight that way it doesn't it and then when you know I contacted the manager of
the the cabin and I asked I said do any of these names sound from familiar to you and I just gave him a list of
everybody that Moore kind of knew right and he got right back he said yeah Hussein baghdadi which is the track
coach that Maura was having an affair with and that gave me chills you know so we have that connection to the to the
cabin she might have gone up there with Haas at the very least Haas probably knew the combination
um to get into the cabin because it's one of those push button things where where like a realtor would use exactly
and the combination hasn't changed in 15 years and even if she didn't you there was ways to get into that cabin anyways
um now you know Tim Lance went up there and they filmed some stuff and they came
away thinking no way she could have got up there in in the winter but what they didn't because they hiked it's like a
half mile hike through the woods to get up there what they didn't realize was that there's also an access road
um a little to the I think a little north of where they entered and at that access road at that time you could drive
your car all the way up almost to the cabin right uh so and people would stay there in the weekends and people stayed
there the weekend before she disappeared and the weekend after and anybody with the Outing club knew that that cabin was
empty during the week and she disappears on a Monday so it makes all this stuff makes sense that that was probably her
uh destination and I think a search of the grounds around that cabin um would be something that we should
have been done a long time ago with your interview on the show was you you seemed
very adamant that she was pregnant and that's one of the things that I differ with you on I see where you're getting
to that point I I tend to as a journalist who's written about crime for a while now I tend to put a lot of
weight on the hunches of the detectives who investigate the case for many years and the lead detective skorenza who was
the lead detective for many years on the more Murray case told me he's like I think she was pregnant you know based on
the searches she was doing on her computer and some people say well when they found her car there were there was
birth control in there right uh with with some pills missing it's like yeah she didn't take it with her right
because she didn't need him anymore because she was pregnant everything that she you know she had a bunch of junk in
her car right uh that she was just carrying around and and the fact that it was left in the car speaks
to the fact that you know she was probably pregnant in my mind anyways yeah or she started taking a cycle and
then she stopped that cycle and then she started a new one yeah and then found it
later but you know because they were kind of talking about that last night on the show was you know she was in a class
for nursing yeah and I think that's a stretch though yeah but what I what I don't think is a stretch is that I'd say
most females from the age of 20 to 35 that if they have ever like maybe their their their period is late uh they might
not have missed it but they're late that they start Google searching this stuff and especially nursing students they're
more likely to right uh maybe you never ask your wife like how many times have you right and again
that you know we've got three dudes here talking about the nature of of periods and you know 21 years old females yeah I
I mean that's a whole can of worms I I don't really know much about nor cared too right but but what I my question is
more other than that search yeah other than the search what do I have to because it
provides in my mind a clear motive for her to not only run away but to remain hidden right when you consider what was
going on with Bill Roush and if she realized that she was pregnant uh with Bill roush's kid I think
um it gives her motivation to leave at that time and uh motivation to remain off the grid
and hidden because she would never want custody to be an issue right um it's no doubt in my mind that the bill
uh has some issues with violence against women um and for that matter I you know I I do
believe that Moore would also want to um you know get away from her father uh and some you know family members there
too which is a hard thing to say yeah um because the father's still out there and
he's looking for his missing daughter and I don't think Fred Murray knows where she is I don't know that if more
is alive that she would want him to know um because you you have kind of speculated in the past that maybe he
knew or possible members of the family knew I just you know it's weird because is
I I'm sure Fred knows more about what's going on and you can read in his you know just his behavior since The
Disappearance um you know that he clearly knows more than he's been comfortable sharing uh
and yeah there were times where I wondered well does that mean he knows where she is or what happened and I
don't think he knows where she is I don't think he necessarily knows what happened up on that road I think he
knows a lot more about why she was there in the first place right and that would
be because of the conversation on that Saturday night is she wrecked his car he was visiting that weekend which is weird
too he's got four thousand dollars in cash um he wrecks her car and you know so was
there an argument about that did he say some some mean nasty things was that the
you know the the straw that broke the camel's back and she's like fine I'll put you in my rear view too see you
later um but no I you know it's clear that that Fred has uh not shared everything he he knows about
the case well it's good to hear you actually say that you don't think he knows where she's at though just because
uh because I think when I started following the case I I lean to sometimes like well maybe
the family knows but then once you come and find out that he searched every weekend and then after a year of
searching every week and then they search every other weekend but that's a lot of time and a lot of money oh yeah
and if you knew that she went missing and you knew she was safe then why would you do any of that and he goes above the
heads of the investigators and presents to their superiors that this is not a good investigation
that they're not doing everything that they can right to the governor of of New Hampshire right and a lot of people
would argue with you saying well that means he doesn't know anything but I like the way that you you answered that
because it doesn't it doesn't dismiss your conclusion because if he knows that she took off for some
reason or knew that she she had motives to take off for some reason but then she
goes up there and now he's left going well where is she yeah she's not contacted me what happened to her once
she got up there or why did she why did she disappear not want to contact me um so that that to me washes all that
away as far as his actions and how much he's looked for him yeah yeah I mean it's clear to me that he wanted to find
her before the police found her you know that that's always been clear you know and uh it's weird that he is
but that's a protect that's a protective maybe maybe he wants to you know he wants to make sure she's not in trouble
before she comes out um but he's a he's a he's a weird weird dude tough nut uh I don't quite
understand do you think they're going to peel back his layers a little bit as the show for
sure yeah I think so I think they'll put some tough questions to him um I think they've they've gone easy so
far uh so it'll be interesting to see how he responds yeah you know when they start
asking the the tough questions about what he knows and what he doesn't know I think what I mean we're only two
episodes in but it seems so it seems like Maggie is on this search for that there's a couple of these what-ifs
and we're going to get to these what-ifs like it just you know from episode one to episode two I don't know what these
you know what-ifs are sure but well I think it's you know is it is it suicide is it murder is it a walk away is it an
abduction I think those are the those are the big answers you know it's one of those well let's get into that a
little bit because uh one thing that they point out in the docu-series uh early on is that the locals where she
disappeared from seem to all think that she was abducted or have kind of share that opinion yeah does what does that
say what should that say to us about that area or about that Community it's certainly a strange place and I don't
think it's any you know I you guys watch Breaking Bad right yeah I was a big fan
of that show and it's it's funny to me that when Walter White needed to hide out you know they stuck them in the the
you know the White Mountains of New Hampshire and told them not to leave yeah you know I mean there are people
that go up there to go off the grid you know to remain hidden and it's just a different place so it it brings out the
the weirdos the conspiracy theorists the people that just want to be alone so you
have a lot of those those types up there but I'll never get behind the idea that
she was abducted by a stranger there's just no way in my mind that that will ever make sense it's the the odds are
astronomical because you know we're dealing with a window where she's on the side of the road that
that's you know maybe seven minutes where she's she's there in which this person would have had to have come by
and put her into the car and take her off and then nobody sees it you've got three neighbors that are watching the
scene at the same time so there are only many windows in there where nobody's actually watching the scene
so it's just uh you know improbable that a person that has that capability of murder and abduction would happen upon
her in that window and then not be seen it makes much more sense to me that she would have been traveling in tandem with
somebody that she knew and that person was the one that came back around and picked her up and took her off because
that interaction would only have taken a couple seconds um and and I know they people will argue
with that and say well stuff like that happens all the time people are abducted because they're in
the wrong place at the wrong time right not really not like this not when you're
already involved in something where you're you're getting away and running away and
you have a plan while you're up there um I mean if you wrote it as a as a movie script it would get kicked out
because it's too unbelievable I agree with you the the window of her getting in a stranger's car it's not going to be
a 30 second interaction of oh well you seem nice let me jump in your car yeah right uh So that obviously points to
more of the tandem driver Theory and that's one of your theories anytime you know you know the the renter haters that
will say I don't agree with them on anything one of the things I agree with you a lot on is the tandem driver Theory
but the only thing that I question is that also she already had one interaction and now this fight or flight
mentality is going to take you know is going to keep building stronger especially now you have a guy that is
going to go call the cops right so would she have been more inclined to take off
right hey I can help you boom I'm in your car yeah so I think that might be you know because there wasn't one
interaction I don't want to rule that out completely because of the the search dogs yeah the search dogs stopping in
the middle of the road I always thought that that was a key piece of evidence that she obviously got and to a car for
sure if she were if she were a child or a teenager walking down the street in our neighborhood during broad daylight
and then she goes this and she disappears and they know what route she was traveling if you put search dogs on
that and the dog stop in the middle of the street the investigators always say they got in a car
[Music] [Music] foreign first off Maggie and Art thank you for joining us in the garage the captain and
I have both been really enjoying The Disappearance of Mara Murray six-part docu-series on oxygen the first thing
that we both took note of was that you both came into this case to investigate and you didn't seem to be showing up
with a a theory that you wanted to prove you seem to be letting the investigation
go where it led you yeah I think that's exactly correct I mean Maggie and I have talked about this
several times that that um you know obviously I come at it looking at it from the law enforcement perspective
this is my 40th year in law enforcement at several different levels not only Federal but also I was an Army MP and a
local police officer in Massachusetts and uh 25 years of the marshals in six years with almost six years with
Homeland Security um and Maggie brings brings out investigative report of that investigative journalist side to it and
comes from a whole different angle than I do and and we talked about this early on that I think the main point of what
we're trying to do here is get to the basic facts of the case and wherever the facts takes us it takes us I mean that's
it's as simple as that and and I think you know from just looking at this case that there's so many
misconceptions missed rumors Urban myths uh out there on this particular case that it really you you have to go back
to the beginning to get to the base facts well I think the thing is too is that our you know a lot of people would look
at him and think oh he's just a cop and he's on the cop side but I was surprised when I met him that he
was even willing to talk about a police conspiracy and talk about dirty cops I mean
it just goes to his credibility he didn't care where the evidence took him if it took him to dirty cops that's
where we were going he wasn't afraid to you know break that coat of blue and go over that line and um I think that is
really crucial to look at in this case that he didn't come into this bias and I didn't come in biased I had no idea
about anything um so we really did just go with the evidence Maggie please take us through
the filming process of the documentary because as a viewer it looks like you and R are in control it's just you two
and a couple cameramen and you're calling the shots how does this work yeah and art knows lately because he
gets like three phone calls from me a day yelling about this um you know it's like we have an entire
team it is not just me and art calling shots like we can you know certainly put our
foot down and say I am not comfortable with that which I had done many times um but there is an entire team starting
from the top down there's the network and then the producers report to the network and then we report to the
producers and then the camera guys and it's just like there are so many people working on this
and people just see me in art and think that we're like hmm let's get a person in the other room to see if Kathleen is
lying or not that did not come from me in art I mean there are so many people calling the shots and that was actually
something that we said we don't really want this we don't know how comfortable we are with this and that was something
that the network really wanted for that drama Factor um you know people are really mad at me
about it now uh we did the best we could with it um we thought that in the end a
scene like that came out as best that it could for what we were doing um but people need to remember that this
is an entire production and we kind of just have to do what we're told I mean of course we are doing the
investigating but when the network says hey we need you to interview this person
I mean there's not much we can really say I mean we're signed on contracts yeah it was I mean I think in the very
beginning usually on on all the criminal cases that have worked on fugitive cases
and conducting Internal Affairs investigating investigations post-shooting investigations involving
law enforcement officers all those investigations generally started where you go to the outside and work your way
in okay so in other words you're talking to people in the periphery that have some knowledge and then you work your
way in to what you consider to be the individual you really want to talk to in this particular case we did it
completely opposite we started with a family and worked our way out and and I think that gave us the
opportunity to at least have a lot more say as to who's going to be interviewed and and which path we would take down
which Avenue we would go down and and there were some you know obviously some tense moments between us and and
and you know sometimes they wanted us to do something that we didn't want to do but generally I think the the overall
scheduling and the people that we interviewed kind of fell in line but we did have a few a few conflicts with them
but we were able to work through it we did I think this so ultimately turned out to be a pretty good representation
of how art and I would would um you know if we were in control have it done you know we really wanted to
talk about um uh Jane and John does and that whole system that never made it into the shell
and that was something we felt really passionately about getting in um and it just didn't work out
so it is difficult and people need to understand that yeah and when you and dealing with a I mean we had three at
least three cameras on every shoot um we had GoPros we had all these different angles that were taken of
everything that we were doing and it was probably 300 hours taken of uh of a video that's not counting b-roll so you
triple that for b-roll so we had close to a thousand hours worth of film that had to be edited down to six hours now
each one of our interviews averaged you know about an hour to 90 minutes so what you're catching is like five
minutes of the highlights and I think that's important no because when you spend an hour and a half
with somebody and you're interviewing them and in fact I think um Kathleen's interview
uh Maggie took what three and a half hours three and a half hours yeah yeah and it's cut down to like maybe five
minutes of highlights but the point being when you spend that much time with somebody you can figure out what's going
on you know are they are they not are they holding something back are they not telling me something that they don't
want to be known and that's that's where you know you spending the time on these
interviews doesn't get translated into the actual show what was your initial thought on James Renner and maybe what
were your thoughts on him after the whole production hey Art you want to answer that yeah
yeah I mean I think listen he uncovered a lot he did he he uncovered a lot of information
um you know obviously he wrote he wrote his book about it I think he made a lot of assumptions based on information that
wasn't really corroborated and that's one thing we tried to do Maggie and I had many conversations about eyewitness
um you know eyewitness statements and how you have to corroborate everything you get and that's what we actually
tried to do was was really corroborate this information and not just take one person's word for something without
getting you know one or two or even three uh methods of corroborating that type of
information and I I I think James's book was more about his kind of walk through
this case and process as opposed to the actual investigative portion of the case that we did I think that's the big
difference in these in what he did compared to what we did yeah sure I mean he didn't even know art and I are going
back after every episode we watch and just trying to remember like okay where do we get that piece of information from
and and where did we get that and we always make sure we have sources and the documents
um and some things we realized like that came from Renner and and he uncovered a
lot a lot of stuff like I I really credit him we would not be here without him without his book I mean he had his
blog since 2012 that really brought this case back to light and then you know came and Lance hopping on and making the
podcast kind of you know as they met Renner I mean full credit surrender we would not be
here without him the documents that he got really to me was the key he was able to get a hold of a lot of documents and
talked to talk the people that he was able to talk to had some pretty credible information and I think that was the key
part for us that really started us moving in the correct direction it did I mean runner shared all of his documents
I mean he was so helpful he's still helpful I mean he'll still it's really crazy I mean he
will like see me going at it with people on the internet and he'll just send me an email like hey look the internet's
nasty Maggie like you just gotta just take take one take a breath take it a step at a time and it's just like what
the [ __ ] James Renner like just sending me these emails like he's just such a nice guy to I think to me at least um
he's been really helpful he's been really supportive and you know that's that's what I think about him but
personally coming from different backgrounds how did the two of you kind of game plan and strategize what you
wanted to do with this investigation well it probably started over a bottle of Tito's and then we asked me because
as most as most great plans do exactly I don't know we just kind of were on the same page from the beginning it was a
little weird you know we had never met before and then here I am this 28 year old woman journalist
suddenly paired with a 62 year old man on this project and it was just like it was kind of really weird at first we
didn't know how to handle each other and then I guess over that bottle of Tito's we just realized like look we're
really on the same page we actually agree with a lot of what the other is saying or it would say I think we need
to talk to this person talk to this person I obviously trust what he's saying and I would say you know look
maybe there is a police conspiracy we really should look at this and art would say yeah you know what we gotta look at
it at all of it we need to look at every single piece of information in detail yeah you know when we first started this
thing I remember talking to the producers and and Maggie and we were like really
worried about filling up six hours of TV time that's a lot of time to fill up I mean uh that that's a really Hefty
amount of time to to put content on TV and uh as we started moving through it um we became concerned about what we
were going to have to cut out um and and you know when it comes to the editing portion again
um you know a lot of this stuff was was unfortunately never made it onto the screen and we couldn't get to some of
the stuff that we wanted to get to hopefully maybe we can do it in another on another case but yeah it became it
became pretty much when when we looked at the whole model of working from the from the inside out
it was easy to determine well we got to talk to the family first um and and we kind of went from there and
we had several pockets of people yeah I remember this Maggie we had like groups of people and nobody was talking
to each other yeah and each one had like pieces of info and what we what we really became Maggie and I became kind
of the the Hub in the in the wheel and we were collecting all this different info
um uh from the different groups of people and I'm talking like you know high school friends College friends law
enforcement uh private investigators um family and and kind of putting it all together well uh our I'm gonna say uh
you don't look a day over 30. foreign just like Nick carries the beauty on our show I think you I think art you carried
the beauty very well on the documentary I don't know I don't know no art really okay we would
interview people women whenever we had a female interviewee they loved art like it was
it was really wild like I didn't exist it was just all about art well they couldn't see you because you weren't
tall enough [Laughter] so I've been following this case for a very long time and I've seen most of the
characters in person or on TV at least and one of the characters that I'm not very familiar with is a guy that's been
investigating the case from the beginning and I thought came off very well I thought he came off with great
ideas very intelligent and that is John Smith but I heard that there are some rumors that he's not really happy with
how the production came out did we have heard that too um but I think John like a lot of other
people has has have come up with some uh conclusions not based on real facts and which which is I mean I I can see
that from the point of view when you don't have all the information in front of you I mean we didn't have 100 of the
information but we had a lot a lot of information was shared with us that was never shared with anybody else which
which we can come to more uh intelligent conclusions based on those facts and and
corroborating the stuff than probably anybody else can that's just like looking up the stuff online and talking
to other people um I'm not sure what John's issue is with the show um because all we've done is Strive to
get the truth and we've tried to corroborate any information that's either out there on the internet that's
online that's in James books that's been published in in magazine articles and that's all we've really tried to do
um but there's so much bogus information out there that people have relied on that really was that it took us a lot of
time to Wade through a lot of that stuff and actually come up with facts as opposed to just conjecture and then
basing uh you know conclusions on wrong premises and I think a lot of people have done that and we see we see it
online all the time what was the hardest question that you had to ask during the
interview process and to whom um I mean definitely asking yeah I mean definitely asking Fred
um if he sexually assaulted more I was probably the hardest and we also thought he knew about that rumor we were both
even surprised that his reaction I mean before that we had said and everyone producers had said to him you know we
have to ask you a tough questions we're gonna have to ask you tough questions and we would look him in the eye and be
like there's going to be some really tough questions today and you know he was like hey man I'm ready like we got
to get it all out there so we can move on and I thought that he was ready for that
question um turns out he had never actually heard that before and it was it was pretty difficult
because I was very caught off guard um you know I just thought he was going to go absolutely not that never happened
you know that scumbag James Runner and I was caught off guard by his reaction yeah but his but but his reaction was
completely genuine I mean there is no doubt I mean he had he had never heard that before I think
on occasion you know people and I've heard this before that that a lot of times you know when Fred's
talking to family and friends they don't tell him everything they they kind of keep the you know Fred's naughty young
guy anymore um and you know we've we've looked at him in the eye and you know he said to
us on on a couple of occasions I just want to do everything I can before I before I die to try to find out what
happened to my daughter and he was completely taken aback that was probably by far the toughest
question and his reaction was I thought completely genuine and he was really upset about it and I got a lot a lot
of um people saying that I'm like the worst journalist ever and I'm like you know so
insensitive and I softball questions to the police but I give Fred the hardest question
um that's just totally bogus um this is a question that needed to be addressed because people would not stop
talking about it and it was out there and he had never been asked that so to be told that I'm a horrible journalist
for asking questions that somebody has never actually been asked is really contradictory to itself
um you know art would agree it's just something that had to be asked when he said he even said he looked at me he
said you know how do I make this go away and I just said answer the question all
you have to do is just confront it and say no you know that didn't happen and of course it's terrible and horrible
that this is even out there you know where it even came from was we don't even you know it was in render it was
implied in render's books somebody told it to renter and this person who told it
to Renner is not a particularly favorite character so of course all this information is
you know it's unfortunate it's out there but it needs to be addressed we wouldn't
be doing our job as we just brushed over it well and you're exactly right because as we have learned you're
kind of damned if you do and damned if you don't you know if you hadn't asked that question you would have been there
would have been the same number of people coming out saying well you didn't ask Fred the hard questions and I don't
think we softball either I mean they're saying we softball the police we asked them every single question anyone else
would ask them I would like to know what questions they have for the police that
we did not ask right while we're on the subject of talking to Fred Murray Art one thing that I noticed throughout the
documentary was that when you are asking questions you're very busy with pen and
paper jotting down notes taking notes and when you spoke with Fred there was a much different approach you put the pen
and paper aside and you were really focusing in on his face and his eyes we all know that Fred's a animated
character and he talks with his hands what was your strategy there I I know Fred I've met with him several times off
camera I mean he works at a hospital on Cape Cod that I that I actually uh visit
the town quite a bit and I've actually bumped them on bumped into them on the Street downtown a couple times unrelated
to this and um you know I I this was going to be probably the toughest interview we had
we've interviewed we've probably sat down with them want Maggie three or four times yeah I think for different
interviews and this this was going to be the toughest one and I just wanted to to
to to look at his reaction to all this and I kind of knew what he was going to say anyway when you see me taking those
notes generally it's because this is the first time I've heard this stuff and in
this particular case um we kind of knew the answers he was going to give us to these questions
and you know if something different came out then of course I would have written
some down but you know I kind of knew what he was going to come across and I just wanted to
to look him in the eye and and you know get his get his true reaction and I think that's exactly what we got because
that interview was tough let me tell you so with all the chatter going on with you know the possible theories out there
you know the five main theories but one of them being that it's a police conspiracy that maybe the police had
something to do with it now it's 13 years later they're finally given interviews that they never gave before
and a lot of people watching this I I think they kind of assume that the police aren't being uh upfront or
truthful or honest yeah I mean I will tell you this that that it's hard for them to talk about this particular case
and share you know all the information because this in this is an open criminal case in
their mind um and which means it's difficult for them to share the information and all
the information which creates this Gap and I call it the big gap you see it almost every single
time where you you see a gap like this in law enforcement information and then they
then the public fills the Gap in with all these conspiracy theories and I will tell you that that you know
we had several meetings with law enforcement and it took them a while to feel comfortable with us and realize
that we were that we were the real deal that we were just trying to get to the base facts
and I what did it take maybe Maggie six weeks before they started sharing um information with us hadn't been out
there in the public before I understand their point that you know they have to keep some
information back uh you know for the day that they do arrest somebody on this particular case they have to have
information that they're keeping in their back pocket to corroborate whatever anybody's saying so it's it's
that they're they're walking a fine line here and and I think because they felt comfortable with this they did share a
lot of a lot of information with us that have has never been made public before do you feel like the police ultimately
felt like this was a dead-end case at this point all these years later yeah 13 years later yeah until you guys came
along yes I mean I I I think they you know task forces and Cold Case task forces you have to have something to
work on you can't keep a large group of people together in just sitting around in the office kind of rehashing stuff
that you've already done and eliminated leads so cases that are like 13 years old cold cases it's kind of like you're
on a roller coaster sometimes you're going really fast and there's a lot of stuff to do and other times you're just
moving real slow and that was exactly what happened here is that you know investigations go up and down as you
proceed with them and I think what the state police and the AG's office recognize is this could breathe some new
life into this case and you know with the with the first four or five shows already out it already has and not only
that but even when we were around uh filming this show people would come up and talk to us about the case so even
then it was generating new interest in the case us bringing them new information and angles that they hadn't
looked at I mean the more eyes the better and and really the online community it is it is great to have them
there are a lot of things I mean Renner got a lot of his information from his blog from people on that we know that
the police do book at all this stuff and it's just unfortunate that the online community is focusing so much of their
actually really good resources on a on a dead end lead um but yeah I think I think the police
are are pretty hopeful with with the show and what we have have found now that the production is over on this case
um was there ever any time because I know with uh Tim and Lance when they went up and did some uh boots on the
ground investigation that they had some threats that were made to them did you have any threats did you feel scared at
all never got threats and I was really surprised about that yeah I don't think that we were ever scared I mean we have
gone into a few interviews that didn't make it into the show um into some pretty CD situations where
it was the first time that I looked at Art and said do you have your gun on you and he did
um but that was probably the one time yeah there wasn't much I mean I've been in a lot worse situations I can tell you
that than this and was I I thought the whole thing regarding Tim and Lance those were that was all very
strange stuff interesting and strange um but that I think we had any issues I don't think so
um you know over my career I've been threatened many times and God there was a portion of my life where I had my
children under protection so did I think any of this stuff was going to come back
I wasn't worried about it um so it's uh I don't think it's one of these you know
we get that part of New Hampshire is kind of like people move up there to be alone
you know like leave me alone type scenario I don't need the government poking around in my business
and I only talked to law enforcement when I have to which is fine I mean that's what makes
this a great country you can do what you want to do but um I think maybe with with Tim and Lance
people took exception to that and and um uh you know maybe tried to pull some stuff online with them of course we all
want to know what happened to Mara Murray but if you could ask one of if you could have one of the smaller
questions in this case answered for you what would that question be to me it's always
a lot of stuff out there about a police conspiracy that you know for all intents and purposes
there is no police conspiracy we've almost ran that to a hundred percent to the ground
and you know I can say that that Cecil Smith was at that scene in his SUV 001 um and
you know as he said in his interview um uh you know ending in episode four beginning of five
um that's exactly what he was I mean everybody thinks there's this big conspiracy but what they forget was
you know we're looking at it 13 years later and we've got hindsight um but what you forget is the police were
responding to a simple motor vehicle accident property damage and it didn't look like
anybody was hurt and that's that held that way for probably a day day and a half
I think for me I think all of that will come out in the end I think that when um there's an arrest made or her body is
found all these people that have been gung-ho on a police conspiracy are going to feel pretty silly about it you know I
think it was it was a great lead in the beginning like we we thought about it and
we went with it and we found the information um unfortunately there's information
that cannot be released but I mean you know there is no police conspiracy um all of these questions that people
shoot out online we have answers to those people questioning Monahan's timeline they aren't even looking at Monahan's
timeline you're actually looking at another officer's timeline Monahan's dispatch log is not in the Grafton
County logs he was not a Grafton County officer he was a state officer so these people have their facts completely wrong
but anyway so besides answering that which will be answered um I I would want to know where her her
body is where her remains are because that's where the evidence is and that is key where where is Laura I've never
found enough evidence to lead me to believe that she was going up there to commit suicide or take a break from her
whole life but there's definitely evidence that she's going up there and she's heading towards somewhere to take
at least a break do you have any thoughts on where she was heading or who she's heading with I think that Renner
is accurate in that there was somebody else involved probably um whether she's going to meet a friend or
somebody I personally don't think that she was going alone there could have been a tandem
driver like a friend or somebody I don't think it was a tandem driver and somebody helping her Escape I think they
were just going to clear her head spot enough booze for two people um I I think that there was possibly
somebody going with her to just spend the weekend hang out take a break she had all intentions on coming back
yeah I I agree I think you know you've got five or six theories and you see us map them out in one of the episodes yeah
none of those none of those are completely off the table until we can actually find her or her remains so but
we looked at the probability of which is what is more than likely that happened to her and more than likely you know
something there was Foul Play involved in what happened to her now whether it was somebody she knows or somebody that
picked her up on the highway that's the big that's the big question you know what happened in that seven to ten
minute time period which we've probably even narrowed down to like shorter than that but you know what happened in that
time frame [Music] oh foreign we will see everybody back here tomorrow night in the garage and until then be
good be kind and don't litter [Music] [Applause] thank you

The Disappearance of Maura Murray /// Part 1 /// 152

Part 1 of 2

TrueCrimeGarage.com

On a cold dark winter night 21 year old University of Massachusetts student Maura Murray crashed her car in Haverhill, New Hampshire. A local woman reported the crash to the police. Maura was spotted at the scene of the crash by a local bus driver who stopped and spoke with her. The bus driver offered helped but Maura refused. Just a few minutes after the bus driver left police arrived on the scene and Maura was missing. 13 years later the Oxygen network released the much anticipated documentary "The Disappearance of Maura Murray" and have breathed new life into this cold case. Tonight we speak with some of the people closest to this case and documentary - investigative journalist Maggie Freleng, former US Marshal Art Roderick and true crime author James Renner.Beer of the Week - Tuckerman Pale Ale by Tuckerman Brewing CompanyGarage Grade - 3 and a half bottle caps out of 5

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Brief Summary

The episode discusses Maura Murray's disappearance with insights from James Renner and documentary hosts Maggie and Art.

Key points

The Disappearance of Mara Murray. Mara Murray vanished after leaving the University of Massachusetts, sparking a mystery that endures.
James Renner's Involvement. True crime author James Renner discusses his connection to the Mara Murray case and the documentary.
The Tandem Driver Theory. The speaker argues that it’s more likely the victim was with someone she knew.
Investigative Approach. The investigators emphasize their commitment to following the evidence without bias.
Difficult Questions. Asking tough questions during interviews can lead to unexpected reactions.
The Toughest Interview. The interview with Fred was the most challenging yet, revealing deep emotions.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

Mara simply vanished that night.

The mysterious disappearance of Mara Murray is introduced.

5:48WatchNov 30, 2022

Tension

60/ 100Some tension

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