The Disappearance of Maura Murray /// Part 2 /// 153 | Forensic Files

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right now so go to the website and get that done today all right let's get in the garage we're back talking with true
crime author James Renner and Maggie the beautiful Maggie and the Beautiful art uh the host of Oxygen's The
Disappearance of Mara Murray all right Captain that's enough of your propaganda and enough of the business everybody
gather around grab a chair grab a beer let's talk some true crime vote for the captain
[Music] [Music] one of the things I love about this documentary The Disappearance of Mara
Murray is the host Maggie and are asking the tough questions they're asking tough
questions to law enforcement to the family asking tough questions to podcasters to author James Renner and
one of the things is James from the beginning you've always been kind of suspicious of the family but we don't
really know how we would act if this happened to us or one of our loved ones now we see that but like I've got two
kids and if if my daughter went missing um I won a hell of a book oh God no she's a morbid joke yeah right I mean
not a book I would ever want to write but like I would I 100 I would open the door come in here
you know look through our family look through our internet search history you know everything you know that you need
to in order to find this this person this kid right no yeah I I mean we say we don't know how we would act but there
would be nothing I wouldn't do right well the other question too is um do you know if her bank was open that
night or that day on that Monday uh well I all I know is she went up to the ATM and she was able to she had like 200
close to 300 in her account and she took out 280 and people get all like up in a
tizzy about that detail they're like oh she didn't withdraw all of her money right and you shouldn't say she withdraw
Drew all of her money because that's untrue well yeah she kept uh 16 in there you're right one I still question
whether or not Fred gave her the four thousand dollars I mean he claims he didn't but that's a big question you
know what happened to that four thousand dollars because you know she disappears
and how much money does it take to disappear and set up a new life well if she only had 280 dollars that's one
thing but maybe she had 280 plus the four thousand plus her student loan money that
um that Monday or the the week before that it might have even been that day that Monday she disappeared might have
been the day that they released the hold on student loan funds um so she could have taken an extra four
to five thousand dollars on top so now instead of 280 we're dealing with maybe she disappeared with more like ten
thousand dollars no but where's she getting this money from the student loan money
um well you get once you get student loans you can apply for a certain amount of money
um that's over and above your uh you know room and board and I did that in school I lived off of student loans for
I think you know two years typical author I'm still paying back um so you know I think it's possible
that that's what she did uh is wait until she could withdraw those funds and they they keep a hold on it until like a
couple weeks into the semester but do we have a record of her withdrawing those nothings not I mean maybe the police do
I I've never seen any sort of record it's just speculation um we do know that she had student loans
so um just thinking out loud why would the why would the father give his daughter four grand
because maybe like we all believe that he's holding back something right maybe it is oh by the way I did give her this
money and it wasn't for her to run away and then she's in trouble for credit card fraud is it to pay back somebody
that she was somebody else somebody else yeah that she had she stolen another credit
card um and and she run up more than just seventy dollars worth of pizza and I was
she paying that person off um so that's just speculation you know it was it was it money to seed uh uh her
to get away from college and set up someplace else I don't know I don't know it's just weird so I the other question
I have is this is not an Andy Kaufman story you know there's no I think Andy Kaufman's still alive too but that's
another story [Laughter] that's a whole nother episode yeah that's your next book right
um but there's no evidence of her I mean she didn't try to fake her death right right it wasn't like uh yeah I see
what you're saying um well think about this if she hadn't have gotten into the accident on Route
112 and I I do think that that was an accident like I don't think it was some people well did she stage it for this no
I don't think so um so let's say she hadn't gone into that accident and she just left her car
in a parking lot somewhere up there maybe even with a a note or something um nobody outside of the Murray family
would have ever heard about this story um and you know they she maybe you know could have left a note and said
you know I took off I'm sorry you know goodbye but I think the accident changed everything you know let's say she's
going up there to start a new life or to disappear or do something she gets in that accident
she doesn't want the police to show up right you know because that's now she's in a lot of trouble what is she doing
they're catching her halfway through whatever her plan was so you know let me get in this car that's being driven by
this acquaintance and um we're gonna take off and maybe the police will leave the car there and we
can come back for it nope the police took it oh crap now we got to leave the car now it looks like now it looks like
a possible crime um so we got to be hush-hush about everything from from now on you know no
no letters to you know friends or family explaining what I was doing up here yeah it's just
her and one maybe two other people that have to be quiet right and that's kind of your theory out on our friends maybe
that they're I don't know for sure I just I just the only thing I feel 100 on is that there was a tandem driver and
that tandem driver was somebody that she knew you know friend or family uh I tend
to you know maybe lean 60 40 60 towards it being friend or friends well I like that you actually said that though
because one of my I'm not constantly defending you uh but what I and I was telling you this
earlier the the one of my favorite things about uh being able to you know call you a true crime
friend is that you put out this amazing book that I bet once a week somebody tells me oh thanks this is the best book
that I maybe have ever read uh which I think is a great compliment that's awesome um because I hate when somebody
would say it's the best True Crime book oh come on um but but I like that you said that the
only only thing that you're super solid on or 100 on is that there was a tandem driver yeah and I think
what where a lot of people uh kind of the funny thing is a lot of people say that your tunnel vision
but then I think that they become Tunnel Vision on you they do they do and I think to some extent there's this
um need on the internet and social media to to choose sides and in society in general just to choose a side right and
I and you get you delve into the more Murray case and you end up on you know specific Facebook pages and Reddit Pages
where for whatever reason they've decided to turn me into you know kind of the bad guy the bad journalist thing and
and then that's one of the first things they read and they want to be a part of that community so they have to like not
like James either but if you if you spend some time with me you know I know there were some people from Reddit that
came up to Crime con last year and they hung out and got a book and you know uh had a drink or you know some snacks at
the bar or whatever you know within five minutes of you know hanging out right you know and
it almost makes me cringe but you know they'll lean forward and they'll say you know what you're not
you're not an you're not as much of an [ __ ] as I thought you were a little bit of an [ __ ] yeah yeah we all are
but um not as much as Nick but see that's the weird thing that I've never understood with and it's not with
everybody in the True Crime Community but with the mara case well there's other cases out there that are similar
to this where there where there are people that they they take aside like you said they believe in a theory and if
they dis if they disagree with your theory for some reason they've decided they don't like you as a person I don't
know how that leap is made right um you know we've had it happen on our show where people comment and they're like
Nick you said that it probably went down like this are you some kind of idiot you
know it's like well well I normally get that direction towards me and yes I am some kind of an idiot
um but I like that you said that you know that's the only thing that you feel 100 because I think a lot a lot of times
when you bring up the pregnancy or the the belief that you think that she's alive I've never heard you say uh I 100
believe that she's alive no and no of course not and um you know with the tandem driver thing
I you know look it what happened after that is is a mystery did she go on to another life a lot of people think I'm
sold on this idea that she's in Canada and and you know hanging out and chilling and eating Crepes and right and
you know having babies and that would be nice I want to believe that uh but there's also the possibility that
whoever this tandem driver was killed her right yeah I'm very open to that possibility but if you're
theory that she left on purpose to start a new life if that theory is wrong let's
just say in this hypothetical World sure I'm telling you 100 that that theory is
wrong what's the next theory that you lean towards is it just that the tandem driver yeah it's that the tan driver was
responsible for her death you know did she hit her head harder than we than we know and did she did she pass out and
they freaked out and she became comatose or something silly like that or did you
know was she traveling up there with a boyfriend right not the boyfriend but ah boyfriend a boyfriend and that person
was the one that after that accident you know killed her or you know uh you know
so so yes I'm I'm very much open to that you know when I started looking into the
case the first thing I after you know Wikipedia and a couple other things I'm going to your blog and so then to get so
much of my information about the case from your blog sure and then to call you an idiot or a [ __ ] just makes zero
sense oh I know and you know and these people that set up websites or uh or other podcasts not Tim and Lance's but
other podcasts on this Mister because there are a couple more right and uh um you know they they that's what they
do they're like I hate this James earner you're such an a-hole he's such a jerk I
hear here are 10 documents that James Renner posted on this uh his website that might help us figure out what
happened to Maura Murray um yeah you're welcome thank you yeah I think yeah I think people should just
give you a little more credit for that I mean you know I don't know I'm obsessed
I was obsessed with this case there are other cases that that I get very personally involved in
um but I've got a life I think no I've got I've got you're here with us on a Sunday there's no way you have a life uh
so this isn't my life as and people seem to think this is you know and uh I don't
know it's frustrating you know social media and you know I don't know how you guys are but yeah to at a point you just
have to walk away and not like because eighty percent of the comments will be positive but you fixate on those 20 so
one thing I liked when you set up your blog was you it wasn't just you forming an opinion and telling your
version of what you think went down with Mara but you set up a place for people to check out new information and for
people to come back to you with information yeah and say hey James I found this you should consider putting
it on your blog yeah it was this Grand idea I had to open the internet and turn it into
essentially The Writer's room of a newspaper you know when I worked at a Scene Magazine up in Cleveland we'd had
this writer's room and I'd write these true crime stories when we'd Gather in the writer's room and I'd pitch out
ideas I'm like what about this guy as a suspect and you know the other writers would come back well have you looked at
this and this and it was a new way to gather information but also um to find new avenues of investigation and
to use crowdsourcing to try to solve these cases now the way I picture it going down was you
know if you've ever seen Mickey Mouse and the The Sorcerer's Apprentice you know where he's learning from this Grand
Wizard and you know he's you know he goes up and tries to use some of the magic well
I had this Grand idea to turn it into a crowdsourcing platform and everybody would be sociable and and fight for the
greater good and and help each other out but it got out of control and people were not nice to each other and people
were not nice to me and people when names were considered as Suspects people would go out and try to shame
them instead of realizing that just because their name is mentioned as a possible suspect and
they are a possible suspect doesn't mean they're guilty and they shouldn't be held
um as get we still have a court of law for that reason you know let's not consider somebody guilty until they've
had their day in court but that went out the window and I realized that this Grand experiment that I had
um it just won't work in the way our culture and Society set up and that was very upsetting and very sad and now the
the blog you know I've turned off the comments because people are just people are just
mean to each other right now um and I I think that doesn't get us any closer to the truth it doesn't and and I
want to hope that it's a phase and that uh we'll look back at this in 20 years and we're like oh my God that was the
deep dark days of the you know people being mean to each other and Twitter and Facebook but I don't see an end to it no
and you know I I was involved in a community online community years ago regarding a specific case and people
would log on there and give their opinions on different pieces of evidence or theories that they had
and it it got very messy very quickly it it it spun out of control into this thing where
posters are now accusing one of one another of being the actual murder oh yeah yeah and it just it got so weird
and strange in there yeah uh yeah I think the only way to fix it is to get rid of anonymity right and but nobody's
gonna be for that because they they you know they want to be anonymous because they you know they they have their daily
routine of being an accountant somewhere and yeah they have to follow everybody's
rules but then they can log on as Poop Shoot 69 you know and she's a good friend of mine Best Buds and tell you
everything you're doing wrong and and you know that you're that maybe the police should look into you and you know
stupid stuff like that or I think people also forget on these a lot of these shows that you're they edit you
yeah so it's just like that you you were saying before like you talked to Maggie
for a really long time and then what they put on the show is the edited version of that and they might
eventually go back to that interview yes but one of the things that you talked about in the show was the eyewitness
accounts and I wondered that when you when you guys have gone to these places and
looked for how many people don't recognize it the picture that you're showing them is it a bunch of
Maury Murray yeah oh 99.9 okay so it's uh it's always just a very small how many people would you say have said oh I
know her two or three okay so a very small and the people that that believe they saw
her are adamant like this uh and I think I hope eventually in the doc series we'll get to see her but there's this
employee that worked at the record store up in um Montreal I think and she was a
hundred percent she's like no doubt about it that was her so you know people say there are these
unsubstantiated sightings um but they're very good unsubstantiated sightings it might not be her now
there's a lesser-known story within the mara Murray case and I want you to tell it for us because I pulled this straight
from your book and it was one of the more you know there was a lot of interesting points in there but this one
stood out for me a little bit it's the and forgive me if I'm setting this up wrong but when you
were looking into the case there was a hit on her social security number or or a hit on
something involving like a shopping uh card yeah there are two I mean you're hitting on two different stories okay so
real quick um and then I'll get because I think I know the one you're going for is a little more dramatic but
there was uh the um when I ran her social security number I got a hit that led me to Saco Maine and that turned out
to be one of the Searchers that was working with with Fred Murray after Moore disappeared and and he said hey
can I put a flag on more Social Security number so that linked his address in Saco Maine to Maurice soch so when I ran
it it popped up so that was kind of easy to explain although it's still a little
weird right um the shopping cart is interesting and I think I get the feeling the
documentary series might go there because they they showed it last night okay um inside the the car they're like
oh hey look a little shopping card now um one of the people that go to the the website these these you know when I was
crowdsourcing it somebody read it and they they were able to get the exact number off the back of that shopping
card find the grocery store and run it through their loyalty program system and it popped up Moore's information and
also an email address but that email address wasn't linked to Mora it was linked to a guy named
Richard thousand who lives in Cleveland Ohio and works as a nurse so I reach out to Richard and I say hey
man you're hey dude yeah your email pops up on more Murray's shopping card and more Maurice's woman who disappeared in
in UMass Amherst and he tells me the story about how he visited the the University
and met this young woman who he thinks was Maura and they had a lunch together and then she she must have stolen his
card his loyalty card to get like cheap gas or something and I'm like well more is known for stealing cards yeah that
makes a little sense so I put that information up online and people right away poked holes in it and he got back
to me and he said hey look I made that story up um the the real truth is that yes I was
at UMass Amherst just for a couple days for a conference and I when I heard about the Maura
Murray case I became a little obsessed with it and found her shopping cart information and put my email in it so I
would get some more information from about that card um so man talk about red flags right you
know here's wait so so he just repeat that yeah it's weird so he puts in his information well this is the
last story he told me you know he lied about the first story he says so I don't know what the truth is and what's not
but the story he settled on was that he was studying to be a nurse at the same time as Maura but not going to school at
UMass but visited UMass for a couple days for what was the reason a conference or something was happening
down there and uh he said they might have crossed paths but he's not sure so he came back to Cleveland and then
when Morgan's missing he's like oh I remember UMass I was there at the same time and he starts getting obsessed with
the case finds her shopping cart info puts in his email address in order to open up the other information because it
says in order to access you have to put in an email address right so he gets his
to link with her shopping cart and so it's weird right like everything about it and this guy's and the fact
that he lied before exactly makes it even weirder and he's living up in um Cleveland
uh for and I've visited the house I haven't caught him there but we've talked on the phone
um lives by himself and I I talk to the neighbors nobody has seen a young woman up there
but um he it's really hard these days to to have social media right and not not be able
to find a picture of somebody there are no pictures of this guy anywhere um on social media on the internet uh
that was some information that the Cold Case unit was really interested in and I
I have a feeling they probably have talked to him or tried to talk to him but they certainly wanted all the
information I had about that guy uh yeah well next on social media much it's kind of hard to find you
I can find pictures though yeah it's because I have posts because I post them umbrella that is yours her well our
listeners love to uh Photoshop us now so that's a lot of fun oh right right the coordinates sent to Tim and Lance Let's
just throw that out there talk about it what's the deal hold on the coordinates were sent to me
originally they were sent to you okay that's why that's why we're here to talk they they love to take credit for it I
don't know that they did I I was drinking after watching several football games and watching the documentary at
the same time to me those guys are we had so much fun at crime con and this this conventions get crazy though I did
so much blow with Tim and Lance it's I'm just joking I'm joking so what about these coordinates oh yeah yes
we're sending uh and it was just this email that said stop looking and the subject or or more Murray was in
there somehow and it was just these coordinates and it leads you to part of the White Mountains uh this desolation
Trail you have to go to to get up there and it's like a five hour hike both ways
uh I was never able to make it work um but it does look if you look at the trailer for The more Murray yeah series
they're hiking and so I'm I'm guessing they do track down those coordinates but I have no idea what they found up there
because they got a little scared and um we've definitely had our share of odd emails as you have with this this case
as well but um I air more on the side that whatever is going to happen is going to happen
anyway so whether I go on that trail or not right I don't really have a lot of like with the fact that they're like
well we're just too scared to go I'm like ah come on you got to do it you wouldn't yeah you got to follow through
with that and I think they finally do my hunch is that it's nothing but an internet troll that that wanted to like
for shits and giggles just wanted them to waste their time yeah waste their time wasted waste 10 hours and and
possibly you know indeed well that's why they send it to you oh yeah yeah I know
how to get this [ __ ] to waste this time no thanks what was the was the did the person use a handle that that sent
that to you it was the email was redirected through the Netherlands through some sort of remailing email
thing which is weird though because that email is connected to Mara Murray's [Laughter]
okay James so the book has been out for a while now and you've had a chance to participate in this docu-series where
are you at currently with your theory um I I right as of this moment as of today uh in 2017 October 2nd right uh or
is it the first yeah today's the first anyways um I would put my probability at 60 percent she's out
there alive somewhere trying to stay off the grid maybe Canada um and 40 percent that she was murdered by
whoever the tandem driver was do you have a list of suspects you like more of the tandem driver yeah it's one of
four or five people yeah and I'm not going to go into it specifically but how many are men how many are women
two of them are men okay three of them are women [Music] foreign [Music] [Music]
we are back cheers mates we are back with art and Maggie from the oxygen docu-series The Disappearance of Mara
Murray now do you guys have a hunch on where you think Mara was heading to that night we you know she was taking a break
for some reason but where do you think she was heading to 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 bought 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
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
episode five 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 why do you think in certain cases especially in
this case that we have evidence that you uncover and then people look at it objectively and they say well no that's
that's not true even though you've backed up that evidence I have no idea why people choose not to
believe that absolutely insanity it is but but even with this though we did know yeah even with this we did know
that um if someone told us and didn't have evidence we wouldn't believe them you
know I understand why people say Okay Cecil Smith is saying that but how do we believe him
um I get that I get that people want the evidence but I it's hard we did know this would happen
we didn't know that the extent of how um really intense people are about believing this this yeah conspiracy
theory yeah people love conspiracies but you talk to anybody in law enforcement and it's almost impossible to keep a
conspiracy together sooner or later somebody's going to talk and in this particular case I mean when we did the
timing when we looked at witness a when we drove the same route she did when we interviewed Cecil Smith it's
pretty clear that even without you know other type absolutely it was him just the timing of it it had to be
him and you know he said he was in the car you know it for us that whole conspiracy
theory right now you know people are wasting their time spinning their wheels on that that it was some other Cruiser
there that's just not the case I mean it's really going to be embarrassing when it does come out and the
information is able to be out there that this these people have really exhausted
themselves on this bunk Theory we are trying to tell you that this is this is not the case like
if you don't want to believe that's fine but you're going to look silly and you know even people even if we had a video
of the whole thing they probably still wouldn't believe it no no so you're going to have that you know that portion
of people that aren't going to believe it regardless of what we say but I'll tell you why in a way I think Renner is
even more respectable than some of these people that think they're more respectable than Renner because Renner
is is looking at the evidence and the facts and saying okay maybe maybe I don't think my theory is Right anymore
he has enough you know dignity to say okay I might have been wrong like I've wrote a book about this and it could be
wrong and that's like way more respectable than uh man it is nothing and I'll tell you
what obviously I'm coming from the law enforcement side the frustration that law enforcement has I mean and and it
goes through a lot of stuff I mean you talk to law enforcement is a tough job right now uh especially uniform law
enforcement um and unfortunately we kind of go through these Cycles every 20 25 years
we're in one of those Cycles right now and people for some reason want to believe that law enforcement is is bad
for whatever reason I mean it feeds something in their their ego or in their minds and I mean when you sit and spend
an hour and a half with each one of these police officers as we did um listen I've done internal
investigations internal actually reported to me when I was a U.S Marshal and I can tell you that you can tell
when somebody's not telling you the truth and or or something doesn't pass the smell test and I can tell you that
every thing that we uncovered here from the law enforcement side there wasn't anything where you know the hair on the
back of my neck stood up it was just like the simplest explanation is generally the explanation and that's
what we found one of my favorite parts of the documentary was that you guys did the drive that Mara had made that night
before the accident is there any observations or things that occurred to you that didn't make it on camera I
think I think the the condition of Maura's car right Maggie I mean we did that whole experiment with a rag in the
tailpipe and I we actually drove the car around you know we bought a a Saturn that was the same year and and knocked
out one of the cylinders on it and and did the experiment in the garage with the rag and the tailpipe and then they
actually drove that vehicle around um and more than likely even though we did what we did to it this car was
probably in a lot better shape than Morris was and Maggie you drove one of those same Vehicles when you were at
UMass right I did I had an o4 she had a 96. yeah it you know we I think the hour
time discrepancy always kind of puzzled us um you know did she leave right away after she went to the liquor store did
she stop somewhere did somebody see her you know I have always thought that um yeah when you when you go to the liquor
store and the ATM they're pretty much right next to each other when you go to the liquor store there's
Diner directly across the street and we always used to go there at UMass and the liquor store go to the diner that
ATM I went to the ATM so many times but I always thought that she had left the liquor store and then met somebody at
the diner and got lunch and that person knows where she was going and the opening to one of the shows Maggie you
state that the locals seem to think that Mara was abducted how do you feel about that after meeting
with the local people and does that tell us anything about the area well net um review but um are you were there for
that interview John Smith said you know I've been up here all this time and there was some really bad people up here
and he you know uh that that came from John Smith that the people up there are often not that savory
um and do I think that it was a local yeah probably I do um I think like art said
at the beginning people go up there to be away from everybody and whether that's
just you know the lifestyle you like the lead or you have had a really bad past and
you can't be in a place where you know you're in the city bumping into people all the time people know who you are you
you're going up there to hide out and live a really private life now in episode five you literally put all five
uh theories on the table and you end up Crossing them all out except for one well I mean I mean I think we we both
believe that Foul Play that there's Foul Play involved that she was she was killed
either by accident or by on purpose or you know somebody had an intention to kill her or some some something occurred
by accident either by an unknown person and and you know when you look at these cases
and and you do a lot of Investigations generally that if it's somebody uh that the victim knows you're going to come to
a conclusion fairly quickly in other words the case is easier to solve than if it's somebody that has no connection
at all to the victim and you know obviously this case has been going on for 13 years it's a cold
case and I always kind of look at it that cheese I mean this the state police the local police have spent thousands of
hours investigating this case they've conducted grand juries investigative grand juries
it put a lot of time effort and energy I mean even when we came up with a couple
of leads the next day they were on it so it just seems to me that they've investigated this to the best of their
ability you know even they'll admit you know we should we wish we had done this different or that different but the re
but but you know none of it was done intentionally there was no malice in anything they did they did the best job
they tried to do and and that leads me to believe that it's very possibly somebody that she doesn't know
um because those are the hardest crimes to solve so if she were abducted or if she got into a vehicle willingly this is
just minutes after she turned down the ride from Butch Atwood why why would it go down like that
I think that it's it's possible she said no to art thinks that fix it for the government
um the county I believe and she saw him as like an employee and didn't want to be involved with the police
that kind of thing I honestly think it could be as simple as Butch didn't look like you know if
you're just judging based on appearances he even said I mean he's this old overweight man with a mustache he could
have scared her I mean he's just some guy up there like I don't know if I would get in the bus with him
um but I think it could have just been some young guy in the area there's a lot of them that we have found that have
been in jail for rape sexual assault like horrible horrible things that just said hey I'm going to this party are you
okay you want to get in and she might have trusted him more and we have heard from family members that
Maura had hitchhiked in the past who did we hear that from art yeah we heard it from her high school friends right yeah
that she had hitchhiked um that didn't make it in the show but that to us says okay maybe this young
guy pulls up hambono a party you want to come sure yeah one of the things I looked at too was that she was under
probation at the time for the for the pizza incident at UMass and I think that that
um you know if she got arrested for for operating Under the Influence if she was drinking in the car I know this is
all speculation but to me it kind of makes sense that that she would want you know Butch pulls
up and says I'll call 9-1-1 she says no you know I've called AAA he knows that's
a lie he goes to his house and calls 9-1-1 and of course the westmins across the street are calling 9-1-1 at the time
so you know did she want to avoid avoid law enforcement I would say yes because she
probably probably would have um either been in trouble uh you know obviously for operating
under but it could have put in Jeopardy her nursing school too that she was going through at UMass yeah yeah
somebody that I believe that should be a person of interest was the track coach Haas supposedly or allegedly uh she was
having an affair with but this doesn't come up in the show that was one of the things that our
um you know where I was saying how Reiner had a lot of good information that he came up with and we would say
where'd this information come and it was rendered the other day we were talking um someone had sent me an email talking
about Haas and we have tried calling him he he wouldn't talk to us um you know so we we couldn't really
talk about it in the show but um you know afterwards someone sent me an email and I called Art and said hey what was
up with Haas like did this really get looked at like did the police interview him where did all this come from and
ahas wasn't even known about until Renner uncovered that whole thing so once again that was Runner um doing that
but I don't know I don't know we don't really know what his Alibi was do we no we don't know what his Alibi was but
you know it and these are these are questions that law enforcement when you ask them are going to hold back on yeah
[Music] because I think we might have asked and it can't we can't answer yeah yeah we
did and um uh you know we didn't get it we didn't get an answer from them so this is
obviously something they're looking at um we can say they're re-looking at everything one thing that I've got to
know can you tell us if Butch Atwood had a CB radio in the school bus we asked that we asked that question
um and I don't know um we we tried to actually find out more about that particular bus we actually
tried to get a photograph of it yeah and we couldn't come up I think we tried to
track it down at some point someone tried to track it down but my understanding is when he called 9-1-1 he
did it from his house he left went to his house called 9-1-1 it somehow got kind of screwed up
uh it went to a different dispatch it didn't go to Grafton County I think it went to Hanover dispatch
and then Hanover dispatch kind of relayed it to Grafton County in Grafton County actually ended up calling back
the residents and you know you bring up a very good point because you gotta you you sort of have to put
all this together now you've got Westman on 9-1-1 you've got Butch Atwood stopping his boss talking to her and
calling 9-1-1 you have the murats around the corner who also have some visual contact with this accident
and then you've got witness a all this is occurring sort of in a 10 and 15 minute time frame uh and then you've got
obviously Cecil Smith showing up so when you put all that together and look at that timeline which we did
um it kind of all makes sense the big enduring question here is how How could somebody turn their head
and she's gone in like seven to ten minutes that's that's always been the big question you have all these things going
on and I mean a lot of them are like real real important data points because we have logs
you know we've got Grafton County logs and we found out some information about that that that came out I don't know if
it made it in the interview or not um but we also have that whole jurisdictional fight that so some that
somebody reported that thought it was law enforcement it wasn't law enforcement it was the two tow truck
drivers arguing about who had the money for the tow you know so we really have put a lot of this stuff to rest and when
you sit down and look at it it's like it makes sense holy [ __ ] it just makes sense it's the simplest explanation
yeah and we've even like sat around again over a bottle of ketos being like okay what which is lying what if she's
got in the bus with him and then when he went and did that search for Cecil he you know dropped her body somewhere or
something happens like we have sat there and said is that possible but then we look back at the logs
the weapons saw her after the bus left um right am I correct in saying that word I think it was it because that was
the flurry of the activity at the rear right and the marath saw her so so even the thought of her getting in his bus
just didn't happen she would have had to have walked back over to the house and you and you
mentioned the two people and the man with a cigarette and and that's that kind of like has
been sort of an argument between the two westmins as to what each one of them saw
um Mr Westman thinks he saw the light from a cell phone trying to be activated um and Mrs Westman I think wasn't really
sure exactly what they actually saw so I mean that's been question two um one of the crazy things about this
case is that cell phone service there was no cell phone service up in these White Mountains and I think it's hard
for some of us to believe um is that factual like when you were up there investigating there is no so cell
phone service at all to this day it's it's crazy because I think you lose cell phone service the minute you kind of get
out of Woodsville right Maggie yeah yeah and then you pick it back up at Beaver Pond which is at the it's kind of
another 10 11 miles from the crash site heading towards Lincoln now there's one particular item that the police have
received a lot of criticism about and this is regarding the ATM footage where Mara had stopped to make a withdrawal
now one thought that I've had on this why they've not released this footage and that's a criticism that they've got
they've not released it is it either that this footage does not exist or that they had it in their possession at one
time but but it may have been lost well the reason they haven't released it is because
if there was this is me why I think they haven't really fit um if there was anybody in that video with her that was
not at all related to her a license plate number of somebody's car they didn't want all of these people who
latched onto insane theories to you know think this person was the killer or tracked down this license plate number
and you know these people that are just happened to be in this video um to go after them
so yeah that's exactly I think that yeah I think that had it needs to be protected and I think that's
really a good move um to protect the innocent people who would be in that video um and other than that you'll have to
wait till episode six I mean one of the problems with this case is um anybody that has any information or
any connection is being I mean we had a lot of problems talking to people people had to get
familiar with us because a lot of people's wrong information has been put out with a you know put out about them
so law enforcement I know and they reiterated with that to me today that they're just they don't want people
innocent people harassed that have already been talked to by by law enforcement and really that's not the
way to handle a criminal investigation put innocent people out there that don't have any association at all it might
have just been standing in the background but you both feel confident in saying that a yes the ATM footage
exists and B the police are in possession of it yes yes you have to wait till episode six one
last question uh do you believe that this case is solvable I do when when I mean I I will tell you this that when
we were first Maggie and I first talked to the state police and the AG's office they believe this case is solvable
and they have all the information so if they believe it's solvable I believe it's solvable Maggie believes it's
solvable so and and yeah and I think that a lot of it again I know I sound like I'm coming hard at
the police concerns these people and it's not that I don't think people should be talking I just think they
should focus their energy you know somewhere else but it I don't even think it would have been this far if it
weren't for people who really really care and are contacting the police with tangible
real information and people who have come to me with real information um some of these leads that people have
come forward with lately are really good really good they're really good and I even said to Tim and Lance today I
said hey guys you know you've been working on this a lot longer than me in art have you guys been this excited for
you know this case to be solved and they said nothing like this not at all so you know I think we're all really
really excited and we do think it will be solved [Music] a big thank you to James Renner if you
haven't already go and check out his book True Crime addict and a big thank you to Art and Maggie they were so kind
to sit down and talk with us also you keep hearing about Tim and Lance they are two great guys that did a wonderful
podcast that was all about the mara Murray disappearance so a big thank you to those guys as well yeah so check out
their podcast missing Mara Murray and the question from a lot of listeners is hey you guys covered this case yes we've
covered this case before we talked to Brenner uh when True Crime addict came out and we actually covered this case
and you can find those on our website store or the iTunes Store all right thanks for listening thanks for telling
a friend thank you so much for sharing on social media it means the world to us we gotta get out of here because we got
a a big case for next week all right until next time everybody out there be good please be kind and please don't
litter [Music] thank you [Music]

The Disappearance of Maura Murray /// Part 2 /// 153

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

James Renner and hosts discuss theories and investigations surrounding Maura Murray's disappearance, emphasizing the case's complexity and solvability.

Key points

Welcome to True Crime Garage. Hosts Nick and Captain introduce the episode and thank listeners for their support.
Mara Murray's Disappearance. Discussion on the complexities surrounding Mara Murray's case and the tough questions being asked.
The Tandem Driver Theory. Exploring the possibility of a tandem driver involved in Mara's disappearance.
Online True Crime Communities. A reflection on the challenges and negativity in online true crime discussions.
The Mystery of the Shopping Cart. A shopping cart leads to unexpected connections and a web of intrigue.
The Coordinates Email. An email with coordinates raises questions about Maura's disappearance.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

There would be nothing I wouldn't do.

Expressing the lengths one would go to find a missing loved one.

4:11WatchNov 30, 2022

Tension

60/ 100Some tension

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