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

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[Music] crime 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 400 p.m. Mara 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 p.m. over 100 mes away from
the UMass campus a woman living in haal 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 officer is 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 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 Mar says no that won't be necessary I've already called triaa 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 p.m. Cil Smith a local police officer
was the first to arrive at the scene Mar's vehicle is still at the scene of the accident but Mara is nowhere in
sight at 7:54 a beond the lookout call goes out officers should be looking for a 5'7
female who left the accident scene on foot 2 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 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 Mara Murray simply
vanished that [Music] night today on True Crime garage we get the opportunity to talk to three people
closest to the mara Murray case true crime author James rener and host Maggie and art of the oxygen six-part
documentary series The Disappearance of Mara [Music] Murray James rener True Crime addict
came out in May of 201 16 wow it's been that long yeah last night I see you on my TV today I
See You In the Flesh um 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 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 rard like I'm like well he looks like Nick Nick's
cousin yeah I could 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 carabinas and um he
just you I I got a lot of calls from production companies around that time that wanted to do something with the mor
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 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 minutia of the case and he really you could tell he just wanted to do something with it and explore it so you
know I kind of developed uh a friendship and uh you know he said this is going to
happen and I said 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 going to 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 M 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 uh 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 going to get towards the end of the 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 mor 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 Mora right before she left UMass ammer 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 was something going on before she disappeared I really want to know more about Kate maropoulos and Sarah
Alfieri these are friends of moras 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 happen at 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 Mora's older sister and if you remember Mora 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 friend Kate and Sarah I have questions about
the boyfriend Bill Rous you know he has a pretty good Alibi it looks like he was
at Fort S 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 tons 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 MOA was doing up in the White Mountains because this has always been a double mystery it's like what happened
to MOA Murray but what was she doing in 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 and I think it points to that 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 uh 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 familiar to you and
I just gave him a list of everybody that Moira kind of knew right and he got right back he said yeah Hussein
baghdaddy which is the track coach that MOA 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 hos at the very
least hos probably knew the combination um to get into the cabin because it's one of those push button things where
where like a realator 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 and Lance went up
there and they filmed some stuff and they came away thinking no way she could have got up there in 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 seem 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 scenza who was the lead detective from for many years on
the mor 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 will 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 know and then found it later but you know cuz they were kind of talking about
that last night on the show was you know she was in a class for nursing yeah I think that's a stretch though yeah but
what 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 and especially nursing students they're more likely to right uh I mean did you ever ask your
wife like how many times have you right and again you know we've got three dudes
here talking about the nature of of periods in you know 21y old females you know I I mean that's a whole can of
worms I I don't really know much about nor nor care to right but but what I my question is
more other than that search yeah other than the search what what do I have to because it it provides in my mind a
clear motive for her to not only run away but to remain hidden when you consider what was going on with Bill
Rous and if she realized that she was pregnant uh with Bill rash's kid I think um it gives her motivation to leave at
that time mhm and uh motivation to remain off 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 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 cuz 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 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
yeah she wrecked his car he was visiting that weekend which is weird too he's got
$4,000 in cash um he wrecks her car and you know so where was there an argument about that did he say some some mean
nasty things was that the you know the 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 cuz I think when I started fall in the case I I lean to sometimes like well maybe that the
family knows but then once you come and find out that he searched every weekend and then after a year of searching every
weekend 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 medicine 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 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 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 she's noted happened to her she got up there or why did she why did she
disappear and 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 yeah yeah I mean it 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 that's a that's a protective bad thing though
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 gonna you think they're going to peel
back his layers a little bit as the show goes on 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 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 wh ifs and we're going to get to these wh ifs like it just you know from episode one to
episode two I don't know what these you know wh 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 him in the you know the White Mountains
of New Hampshire and told him not to leave 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 alone uh 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 s 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 um 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 I agree with you the the window of her getting
in a stranger's car it's it's not going to be a 30second 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 rener haters that will say I don't agree with them on anything the 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 mhm and now this fight ORF flight mentality is going to take you know it's 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 the next offer 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 M middle of the road I always thought that that was a key piece
of evidence that she obviously got into to a car if she were if she were a child or a
teenager walking down the street in our neighborhood mhm during broad daylight and then she goes dis and she disappears
and they know what route she was traveling if you put search dogs on that and the dogs stop in the middle of the
street the investigators always say that when when sent ends they got they got in
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style and savings of Mrs be's clearance and [Music] [Music] Outlet 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 I 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 uh not only Federal but also I was an Army MP and a
local police officer in Massachusetts and uh 25 years of the marshals and 6 years with uh almost six years with
Homeland Security um and Maggie brings brings that investigative report of that investigative journalist side to it and
comes from a whole different angle than I do and and and we talked about this early on that I think the main point of
what we were 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 and I think you know from just looking
at this case that there's so many misconceptions Mis 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 art 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 cups that's where we were going he wasn't afraid to you know break that
tood 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 art 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 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 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 hm 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 cas cases that I've 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 on 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 it 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 over 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 the show 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 do and that whole system that never made it into the showell 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 there was probably 300 hours taken of uh of of video um that's not counting b-roll so
you triple that for b-roll so we had close to a th000 hours worth of film that had to be be edited down to 6 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 to know 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 you spending the time on these interviews doesn't get translated
into the actual show what was your initial thought on James rener and maybe what were your thoughts on him after the
whole production hey Art you want to answer that one 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 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 a big difference in these in what he did compared to what we did yeah
uh rener I mean he did a lot for the case when we were going back I mean even now art and there are going back after
every episode we watch and just trying to remember like okay where did 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 rener 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 Tim
and Lance hopping on and making the podcast kind of you know as they met rener I mean full credit to rener 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 talk 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 rener shared all
of his documents I mean he was so helpful he's still helpful I mean he'll still it 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 what take a breath take it a step at a time and it's just
like what the [ __ ] James rener 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
that's what I think about him 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
titos and then we had as as most as most great plans do exactly I 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 62y 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 titos we just realized like look we're really on the same page we actually agree with a lot of what the
other is saying art 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 got to 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's 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 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 art I'm going to say uh you don't look a day over
30 and 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 about that thank you I don't know about that 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 so I've been falling this cas 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 and 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 more uh intelligent conclusions based on those
facts and and corroborating the stuff than probably anybody else can it'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 weighed through a lot of that stuff and and
actually come up with facts as opposed to just conjecture and then basing uh 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 Mora was probably the hardest and we also thought he knew about that rumor we were both even
surprised at his reaction I mean before that we had said and everyone producers had said to him you
know we have to ask you 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 ha me 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 Turned 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 was 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 is not a 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 how what happened to my daughter and he was
completely taken back 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 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 confronted 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 rener it was implied in render's book book somebody told it to rener and this
person who told it to rener is not a particularly Savory 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 if we just brushed 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 ask 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 the police either I
mean they're saying we softball the police we ask 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 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 him bumped into him 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 uh We've
interviewed we probably sat down with a M 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 genuinely 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 something down but
you know I kind of knew what he was going to come across and I just wanted to 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 cuz 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 giving interviews that they never gave before and a lot of people watching this I I I
think they kind of assume that the police aren't being uh upfront or truth for or honest yeah I mean I 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 um which creates this Gap I call it the big gap you see it almost
every single time um where you you see a gap like this uh 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 um they have to have information
that they're keeping in their back pocket to corroborate whatever anybody 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 us 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 and 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 recognized 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 was generating new interest in
the case us bringing them new information and 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 rener
got a lot of his information from his blog from people on that and we know that the police do look 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 deadend 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 we actually never got any threats and I was really surprised about that
yeah I I don't think that we were ever scared I mean we had gone into a few interviews that didn't make it into the
show um into some pretty SD situations where it was the first time that I was 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 I thought the whole thing regarding Tim and Lance those were that was all
very strange stuff interesting and strange um but did I think we had any issues I don't think so
um uh 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 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 talk to law enforcement when I have to which is fine I mean that's what makes
us a great country you can do what you want to do but um I think maybe with with Tim and 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 good question to me it's always been about Mora um I think
there's a lot of stuff out there about a police consp iracy that you know for all intents and
purposes there is no police conspiracy we've almost ran that to 100% to the ground and um you know I can say that
that Cecil Smith was at that scene in his suv1 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 is 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 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 grafting County logs he was not a
grafting 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 Mora 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 rener is
accurate in that there was somebody else involved probably um whether she was going to
meet a friend or somebody I personally don't think that she was going alone um 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 thought 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 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 what is what is more than
likely that happen 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 7 to 10 minute time period which we've probably even
narrowed down to like shorter than that but you know what happened in that time per
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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

True Crime Garage discusses Mara Murray's disappearance with insights from James Renner and documentary hosts Maggie and Art.

Key points

The Disappearance of Mara Murray. A deep dive into the mysterious case of Mara Murray, who vanished without a trace.
Questions Surrounding Mara's Case. Exploring the unanswered questions that linger about Mara's disappearance.
The Abduction Theory. The discussion centers on the improbability of a stranger abducting the victim, suggesting a known individual was involved.
Investigative Approach. The investigators emphasize their unbiased method, focusing on evidence rather than preconceived theories.
Collaborative Investigation. The duo describes how they gathered information from various sources to piece together the case.
Caught Off Guard. The interviewer's unexpected moment when Fred reacted to a tough question.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

Mara Murray simply vanished that night.

Describing the mysterious disappearance of Mara Murray.

6:49WatchNov 16, 2023

Tension

65/ 100Some tension

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