Real Crime Stories/Paranormal Hauntings

The Disappearance of Maura Murray

Maura Murray (born May 4, 1982) is an American woman who disappeared on the evening of February 9, 2004, after a car crash on Route 112 near Woodsville, New Hampshire, a village in Haverhill. Her whereabouts remain unknown. She was a 21-year-old nursing student completing her junior year at the University of Massachusetts Amherst at the time of her disappearance.

On the afternoon of Monday, February 9, before she left the university campus, she emailed her professors and work supervisor, writing that she was taking a week off due to a death in the family; according to her family, there had not been a death. At 7:27 pm, a local woman reported a car accident on a sharp corner of Route 112 adjacent to her home. A passing motorist who also lived nearby stopped at the scene, and asked the woman driving the car if she needed assistance; she declined, claiming to have called roadside assistance. Upon arriving home several minutes later, the motorist reported the accident to emergency services. At 7:46 pm, law enforcement arrived at the scene, but the woman had disappeared.

Police traced the vehicle to Murray, and initially treated her as a missing person on the belief that she may have wanted to disappear voluntarily. This speculation was based on her travel preparations (about which she had confided nothing to friends or family) and no obvious evidence of foul play. In 2009, Murray's case was given to the New Hampshire cold case division, and authorities are handling it as a "suspicious" missing person's case.

In the years after Murray's disappearance, her case would receive media attention on 20/20 and Disappeared, and also garner significant speculation on Internet message boards and forums, with theories ranging from abduction to voluntary disappearance. In 2017, the case was the subject of a documentary series on the Oxygen network, which described Murray's disappearance as the "first crime mystery of the social media age", having occurred days after the launch of Facebook.

Background

Early life

Maura Murray was born May 4, 1982, in Hanson, Massachusetts, the fourth child of Frederick "Fred" and Laurie Murray. She had an older brother, Fred, two older sisters, Kathleen and Julie, and a younger brother, Kurt. Maura was raised in an Irish Catholic household. When she was six, her parents divorced, after which Maura lived primarily with her mother. Murray graduated from Whitman-Hanson Regional High School, where she was a star athlete on the school's track team. She was accepted into the United States Military Academy in West Point, New York, where she studied chemical engineering for three semesters. After her freshman year, she transferred to the University of Massachusetts Amherst to study nursing. Murray had stolen makeup (less than $5 worth) from a commissary at Fort Knox during her time at West Point while on a training expedition. This resulted in an honor code violation. Murray was allowed to leave West Point without getting officially expelled, which thereby allowed her to transfer to the UMass Amherst nursing program.

Prior to disappearance

In November 2003, three months before her disappearance, Murray admitted to using a stolen credit card to order food from several restaurants, including one in Hadley, Massachusetts. The charge was continued in December to be dismissed after three months' good behavior.

On the evening of February 5, 2004, Murray spoke on the phone with her older sister, Kathleen, while she was on duty at her campus-security job. They discussed Kathleen's relationship problems with her fiancé. Around 10:30 p.m., while still on her shift, it was reported that Murray broke down in tears. When her supervisor arrived at her desk, Murray was "just completely zoned out. No reaction at all. She was unresponsive." The supervisor escorted Murray back to her dorm room around 1:20 am. When asked what was wrong, Murray said two words: "My sister." The contents of this call remained unknown until 2017, when Kathleen publicly explained the conversation: Kathleen, a recovering alcoholic, had been discharged from a rehabilitation clinic that evening, and on the way home, her fiancé took her to a liquor store, which caused an emotional breakdown.