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500. What's

2:55

your favourite word for this? The

2:59

word is... SUSPEND YOUR DISPELIEF

3:02

It is the same month. That is about as good as

3:04

we can get you guys this week. So... ...home

3:06

with me and your peers in a world of your imagination. Something

3:12

like that. Sing that to yourselves while

3:14

you listen to this episode. Because

3:16

following a snowstorm in a remote mountain

3:18

town in the US, a young woman crashed even

3:21

spoke with her face to face. By

3:24

the time police arrived on the scene less

3:26

than 15 minutes later, this young

3:28

woman was gone. The police,

3:30

the FBI and hundreds of volunteers searched

3:32

for her using everything from helicopters and

3:34

thermal imaging cameras to sniffer dogs. But

3:37

for 20 years, they

3:39

haven't felt so much as a

3:41

single clue of a breadcrumb. Somehow,

3:44

some way, in that

3:46

15-minute window, 21-year-old Maura Murray

3:48

simply vanished off the face of the

3:50

earth. On

3:52

that fateful day, the 9th of

3:55

February 2004, Maura crashed her car on

3:57

a snowy hairpin bend in the remote mountain town

3:59

of Woodsville. New Hampshire in the US. Can

4:02

we just talk about the fact that there are a

4:04

lot of names which

4:06

again scream of your anger towards

4:09

names like Fireplace? Yes! Woodsville.

4:13

Yeah. Please. Maybe

4:15

I'm being unfair, maybe the US is so big that

4:17

we just have to allow them to call places Woodsville.

4:19

Possibly. You can have five points if you can tell

4:22

me the state motto of New Hampshire. It's

4:24

the best one. No, it's the second best one. Uhhhh.

4:30

We'll name our towns what we want. No,

4:33

it's live free or die. Um, it's

4:36

beyond the nose though isn't it? I feel like you want to

4:38

go a bit weird, a bit quirky with your state

4:40

mottos. But fair enough, fair enough.

4:42

Anyways. No unbridled spirit. No, it

4:44

is no unbridled spirit. The t-shirt that

4:46

I have that says unbridled spirit on

4:48

it is my prized possession. It's beautiful.

4:51

Anyway, someone who sounds like they

4:53

would really enjoy the state motto live

4:56

free or die Butch Atwood, a

4:58

local school bus driver, was

5:00

driving past when he noticed that a young

5:02

woman had crashed her car. The black

5:04

1996 seton had seemingly

5:06

hit a tree, spun 180

5:08

degrees and lodged into a

5:10

snowbank. She didn't seem to

5:12

be injured or bleeding, just shivering from the

5:14

cold and the shock of the crash as she struggled

5:16

to open the car door. And

5:19

when Butch asked her if he should call 911, the

5:22

woman actually pleaded for him not to, insisting

5:24

that she'd already phoned AAA. Butch

5:27

immediately knew she was lying because there

5:29

was no cell reception up there. But

5:31

he simply assumed that this young woman was a

5:33

bit frightened of him. He was

5:35

six foot, 300 pounds, unshaven, especially

5:38

since they were essentially in the middle of nowhere.

5:42

So Butch went on his way and

5:44

decided to call the emergency services from his

5:46

house, which was just 100 yards away. And

5:49

he made this call at 743pm. Yes,

6:00

or they've got something illegal in the

6:02

car also that but in America fucking

6:05

expensive. Mmm I've heard

6:07

multiple stories of people a friend of mine

6:09

actually. Oh if you call an ambulance. Yes.

6:12

Yeah Well, surely that's what you would be

6:14

calling 911 for true. I'm thinking police. But

6:16

yes, mmm Yeah, I know multiple people who've

6:18

been in rough accidents like broken

6:20

ribs broken legs and they've been like no ambulance

6:23

So what makes it suspicious for me is the

6:25

fact that she claims to have called triple-a and

6:27

there's no way she could have done that Anyway,

6:31

as it turned out another nearby resident

6:33

had already reported the car crash 16

6:35

minutes before According to

6:38

the official police log offices arrived on the

6:40

scene three minutes after butch made his call

6:42

But when they arrived more Murray

6:45

was nowhere to be seen in fact She's

6:49

never been seen again Now

6:51

we made sure to mention that the time

6:53

that the police arrived at the scene was

6:55

according to the official police log because

6:58

another witness there told a very different

7:00

story a Parthibi claims to

7:02

have seen a police SUV parked by

7:04

Morris car at 737 p.m nine

7:08

minutes before the official police

7:11

log stated that authorities were at the scene

7:13

and we know that this is entirely possible

7:15

even though they arrived three minutes after Butch

7:17

has called because somebody already reported it 16

7:19

minutes before Now this witness

7:22

also insisted that she didn't see any

7:24

sign of Mora or a police officer

7:26

anywhere Just both of their cars

7:29

So as you can see what happened during that

7:31

15 minute window when Mora was last seen is

7:34

Incredibly muddled by various statements and

7:37

claims making it really really difficult to

7:39

unpick the truth of what actually happened

7:42

And this case has left the police the FBI

7:44

Morris family and internet slews

7:46

everywhere Scratching their heads for

7:49

almost two decades To

7:51

this day there hasn't been a single

7:53

solid clue as to what actually happened

7:55

to Mora Murray or any answer As

7:57

to why she was out in the middle of nowhere in the

7:59

phone First please. In

8:01

this episode, all we can do is

8:03

take you through the facts, many of

8:06

which have been confused by misinformation, baseless

8:08

finger-pointing, trolls and overzealous armchair

8:10

detectives. And then we'll

8:12

talk about the theories out there, from the

8:15

plausible to the most missing. And

8:17

no, the irony of us being armchair detectives at

8:19

times is not lost on us.

8:22

That's what you're struggling with so let's get on with it. Born

8:25

on May the 4th, be with you, 1982. Maura

8:29

Murray was the fourth child of Fred, a

8:32

medical tech, and Laurie Murray, a nurse. She

8:34

had an older brother, Fred II, two older sisters,

8:37

Kathleen and Julie, and a younger half-brother

8:39

called Kurt. They were raised Irish

8:41

Catholic in Hanson, Massachusetts. Someone

8:43

sent me a tweet this morning that

8:45

was like, oh I'm culturally Catholic which means I'm guilty all

8:48

the time and I really like staying whilst windows and little

8:50

searches. And we had a look

8:52

at what Hanson, Massachusetts is like, and to be

8:54

honest it doesn't really look like there's much going

8:56

on in Hanson, Massachusetts. But

8:58

it is where ocean spray cranberry juice

9:01

was founded, so that's good enough for

9:03

me. Well there you go. Delicious. Especially

9:06

if you've got a UTI. And it

9:08

was clear from a young age that

9:10

Maura was incredibly bright and a superstar

9:12

athlete. Even when she was little, Maura

9:14

would beat her older siblings at chess

9:16

and outwit them constantly which must have

9:18

been incredibly annoying. And

9:20

as for athletic talent, when Maura was in

9:22

elementary school, she set a new school record

9:24

for the mile and a half run, but

9:27

not just for the girls, for the

9:29

boys too. Maura was a

9:31

happy and talented kid, but

9:33

once she was just six, her parents divorced.

9:36

Maura and her four other siblings lived with their

9:38

mum Laurie, but Fred remained very much in their

9:41

lives. He spent a lot of time

9:43

with his children helping with schoolwork and driving them to

9:45

and from sports practices. In fact,

9:48

he never missed a single one of their races. In

9:51

high school, Maura had an incredibly tight group

9:53

of friends, who were super competitive

9:55

with one another when it came to schoolwork

9:58

and sports. But the academics side

10:00

of things came easy to me. She

10:02

even tutored other kids, including

10:04

her older sister, which is

10:06

the worst. If my sister

10:08

even pretended to tutor me,

10:10

I would put her through

10:12

a fucking wall. No, absolutely

10:14

not. But I have to

10:16

pull rank, very much so,

10:18

in the Murray household. And

10:21

more of it also in Latin Club

10:23

and the National Honor Society and even

10:25

scored a 1420 on

10:28

her SATs, which we don't have those

10:30

in this country. Yes, obviously we get

10:32

bombarded with this information when we watch it

10:34

on TV shows, but apparently it's a

10:36

near perfect song, which I didn't, you know,

10:39

believe. Mora also made

10:41

the varsity basketball team, where she was

10:43

still a freshman and competed in

10:45

the state free throw championships at the

10:48

Boston Garden. And on the

10:50

track, she was also phenomenal. Mora qualified

10:52

for the US Nationals when she was just

10:54

a sophomore and finished third in

10:56

the country in the two mile race. She

10:59

was also a Boston Globe All Scholastic, which

11:01

is a huge honor in Massachusetts for any

11:04

sport. By the time

11:06

Mora graduated from Whitman-Hampson High School, she

11:08

held almost every sporting record there at

11:10

the time and finished fourth in her

11:13

class academically. So, as you

11:15

can imagine, Mora had her pick of the

11:17

Ivy League colleges from Harvard to Yale. But

11:20

Mora decided to follow her older sister

11:22

Julie and head to West Point, where

11:24

she majored in chemical engineering. West

11:26

Point, probably a lot of our American fans

11:29

will know this, but it is of course

11:31

a US military academy and a precursor

11:33

to joining the army. However,

11:36

Mora's college life did not go quite as smoothly

11:38

as her school life had gone, to

11:40

say the least. Just quickly

11:42

on that, recognizing a place name in

11:44

America and then making connections, I

11:47

was looking at places to go in February. I'm

11:49

not going. I was looking at these retreats and

11:51

blah, blah, blah. And there was this one that was like, oh,

11:53

this looks quite good. It's in Florida. And it's like, oh, and

11:55

you have this personal guidance person and you do

11:58

all of these things. And I was like, oh, okay. into

12:00

that like self-development power. And

12:02

then I realised, not only is

12:05

it in Florida, it's in Clearwater,

12:07

Florida. And you know what

12:09

else is there? Scientology! Exactly,

12:11

I think not. So

12:13

actually what I've decided is to stay put and

12:15

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14:57

this point weakens its new

14:59

students slash recruits with a

15:02

summer of something called Beast

15:04

Barracks before these bright young

15:06

things have even entered their

15:08

first class. That sounds horrific.

15:10

Absolutely. It sounds like Deep Cup that...

15:12

Yeah. Deep Cup Barracks. Yeah.

15:15

And from what we have read about Beast

15:17

Barracks online, it is essentially what it sounds

15:19

like, which is a hellish six week army

15:22

boot camp. The purpose of

15:24

Beast Barracks is to plunge each new student into

15:26

the military system right away by

15:28

placing them under enormous amounts of

15:31

mental and physical pressure. Every

15:33

day for six weeks, new students have to

15:35

wake up at 5.50 AM

15:37

and be screamed at by upperclassmen

15:40

as they endure relentless,

15:42

grueling physical tasks until

15:44

9.30 PM. PM.

15:48

Look, I understand why certain people go into this.

15:50

I totally get it. And I understand for some

15:52

people, it might actually be a good thing to

15:54

have some discipline, some structure, some order, etc, etc.

15:57

Why Maura Murray makes this choice? is

16:01

something I don't understand because she

16:03

had a lot of options. But

16:06

there she is getting screamed at till 9.30pm. But

16:09

what's the army slogan? Be the best.

16:11

Is that what it is? Well there you go.

16:14

That's a nice motto for everybody to have. Be

16:16

the best. Be your best. No,

16:18

the. I was trying to be

16:20

too nice. So

16:24

it is only once the six weeks

16:26

of absolute hell are finished that the

16:28

students who remain are allowed to join

16:30

the Cadet Corps and begin their academic

16:33

year. You might expect this

16:35

to have been a breeze for a star athlete

16:37

and student like Mora, but it

16:39

was not the case. When her sister

16:41

Julie, who was in her third year at West Point at

16:43

the time, went to smuggle Mora some cookies in

16:46

the barracks, she found her in tears.

16:48

It wasn't unusual for this to happen to new

16:51

students, but Julie definitely felt that it was

16:53

unusual for Mora. But in

16:55

the end, Mora did finish Beast Barracks and she

16:57

started to smash it in her first year, both

16:59

in class and on the track team. And

17:02

she even hit it off with a boy, William

17:05

Roush, who she called Billy. And

17:07

they started dating. It was

17:10

in Mora's second year that the real problems

17:12

began. And they went

17:14

from bad to worse very

17:16

quickly. In

17:18

August 2001, while on a training exercise

17:21

in Fort Knox, Kentucky, Mora,

17:23

for whatever reason, decided to steal a

17:25

$5 box of makeup from the commissary.

17:28

She got called Red Handed, which

17:31

resulted in an honor investigative hearing,

17:34

which is basically where a board of nine

17:36

cadets decide whether another cadet violated the honor

17:38

code of West Point. So it's like a

17:40

little trial, basically. But

17:43

again, it's, you know, if the military is all

17:45

about discipline and blah, blah, blah and code of conduct,

17:48

and it's like, yes, what do you do if somebody

17:51

does something? I guess what they're trying to do

17:53

here is say that you are responsible for

17:55

your platoon. We're not going to interfere

17:57

and say you did something. You as a group need

17:59

to decide. if this person did something wrong, which

18:02

again, I understand the premise for this. Now

18:04

this was also apparently the

18:06

seventh disciplinary action against Mora

18:08

that year alone. Wow. But

18:11

we couldn't find any details of what the other things

18:13

actually were, so we're just sort of having to tell

18:15

you that this is the seventh, but we don't

18:17

know what exactly happened before. But

18:20

this hearing concluded that there was enough

18:22

evidence to take Mora to the Cadet

18:24

Advisory Board, and ended

18:26

with Mora actually pleading guilty, and

18:28

the advisory board recommended Mora be

18:30

expelled from West Point. The

18:32

superintendent was to have the phone off. He

18:35

was expected to notify Mora of his decision by

18:37

the end of January 2002, and

18:40

as if that wasn't stressful enough, at

18:42

the end of the second year at

18:45

West Point, students have to take an

18:47

oath which obligates them to serve for

18:49

five years in the military. So

18:52

what we're trying to tell you is that with both

18:54

her possible expulsion and this huge

18:56

oath looming over her, which would

18:58

tie her into the military for

19:00

five years, Mora decided that

19:02

she couldn't take it anymore, and voluntarily withdrew

19:05

from the Academy. She

19:07

then transferred to the University of Massachusetts

19:09

in Amherst, and joined a nursing program.

19:12

Mora's daily life at UMass, compared to West Point,

19:15

was night and day. She

19:17

no longer had to wear a pristine uniform, march, get

19:19

barked at, or have her every waking

19:21

hour programmed for her. Mora

19:24

was now living a very typical college existence,

19:26

partying and studying, and she even carried on

19:28

seeing Billy in an on-again-off-again situation, although

19:30

it was long distance. Mora

19:33

joined the cross-country and track teams, and held

19:35

down two part-time jobs for some extra cash,

19:37

one at an art gallery, and another as

19:39

a dorm security guard. And

19:41

during this time, Mora maintained regular contact

19:43

with her family. She sent

19:46

letters to her older sister Julie, who was

19:48

now stationed in South Korea. And

19:50

because she was so close to home, Mora would

19:52

see her mum and her other siblings regularly, and

19:54

she'd go hiking with her dad in the White

19:56

Mountains. On the surface, it looked as

19:58

though Mora had been in the same place. was back to

20:00

her old feet, the star student, the athlete,

20:03

and the family girl. But

20:06

all was not as it seemed, because,

20:09

during this time, Moira's friends

20:11

later revealed that she'd been suffering

20:13

from bulimia. Julie Murray

20:15

spoke on this in a video on

20:18

her TikTok account, which is at Moira Murray

20:20

missing, and Julie said that she was

20:22

aware of Moira's bulimia at the time, and

20:24

she regrets not having helped her with it

20:26

more. Julie believes that the disorder was a

20:29

catalyst for the series of troubling and uncharacteristic

20:31

decisions that Moira made leading up to her

20:33

strange disappearance. In

20:36

November 2003, one of Moira's dorm

20:38

mates checked her bank statements and

20:40

noticed some strange transactions. Somebody,

20:43

with an affinity for Italian food, had

20:45

been buying takeaway on her credit card.

20:48

Over the course of just a few days, this person had

20:50

spent almost $80 on six

20:53

orders from Italian restaurants and food

20:55

restaurants. The odd thing, though, was

20:57

that her credit card wasn't actually missing. The

21:00

card was still in her purse, which

21:02

meant that somebody knew her credit card

21:04

number. So, this girl phoned

21:06

the police to report the issue, and

21:09

they in turn contacted all of the

21:11

businesses where the transactions had been made.

21:13

Now look, I'm all here for

21:15

the police doing this, but I cannot believe

21:17

that the police were actually calling Italian

21:19

restaurants about $80

21:22

worth of food. Yeah, my god. It's

21:24

shocking, like, if you, I don't know, maybe, you know, this

21:26

is a different time. I don't know,

21:28

it's hilarious that they are actually doing

21:30

something about this. And they

21:32

go further than just calling these pizzerias. Because

21:35

late at night, on the 3rd of November,

21:37

at La Cuchenia de Pinocchio,

21:40

a customer was flagged for using this

21:42

stolen credit card to order a pizza.

21:46

The owners phoned the police, who then

21:48

in turn advised them to put the

21:50

order through and deliver the pizza, as

21:53

they would have officers waiting by the caller's

21:55

address. Again, I can't believe they're

21:57

actually doing this, but that's what's happening. So

22:00

once the delivery boy handed over the pizza to the

22:02

customer and had them signed for it, the

22:04

officers made their move and arrested the woman. It

22:07

was, of course, Maura Murray. Now at first,

22:09

Maura tried to play it off by showing

22:11

them her own credit card, saying that that

22:13

was the one she had used to order

22:15

the pizza. But eventually, she

22:17

did relent. Maura admitted that she

22:19

had been using the stolen credit card number to buy

22:21

food. I couldn't explain why she had

22:23

done it. According to her,

22:25

she found a receipt on campus and had written

22:28

down the credit card number from the bottom of it.

22:31

And this might sound mental

22:33

to younger listeners, but up

22:35

until the year of our Lord 2005, four credit

22:39

card numbers would be printed at the bottom

22:41

of receipts. That is insane.

22:45

Holy. I mean, what

22:47

the fuck? And look, yes,

22:50

that is a massive, massive hole

22:53

in the system if you're printing full credit card

22:55

numbers on the bottom of receipts. Though I do

22:57

find it very coincidental that Maura says she found

22:59

a receipt on campus and it just happened to

23:01

be a housemate. No, no, she stole it.

23:03

I'm not buying that for a second. And

23:05

the card is obviously still in her friends purse. Maybe she

23:07

just found a receipt in the house. But

23:09

it used to be, I'm really aging myself

23:12

here. Before the dawn

23:14

of the PDQ, we only had it

23:16

for when the PDQ machines went down. But I have

23:18

used one of the old machines where you take a

23:21

copy, but it's like an imprint

23:24

of the credit card on like wax paper. Oh

23:26

my God. And that's the receipt. Wow. I'm

23:29

old. So

23:31

I suppose if you're graduating from that system,

23:33

which is literally an impression of the card, you're

23:36

going to have the number and then you're moving

23:38

on to a receipt based printing system. I can

23:40

see why you would transfer the whole number of

23:42

it's dumb as shit. But like that is what

23:45

people used to do. But it's like,

23:47

and we're going very far down the

23:49

tangent of like a card security, but

23:51

banks, it's literally their job to be

23:53

like, how can we close as many

23:55

loopholes with money getting stolen as possible?

23:58

They employ literally. groups

24:00

and groups and groups of people to just do

24:02

this and nobody saw the potential risks of just

24:05

printing whole credit card numbers at the bottom of

24:07

receipts. And it did

24:09

take a while but eventually banks did realise

24:11

that this was leading to quite a large

24:13

amount of fraud and

24:15

in 2005 the Fair and Accurate Credit Card

24:18

Transactions Act factor was introduced which prohibited

24:20

printing more than five digits of the

24:22

credit card number on receipts. Anyway,

24:26

let's get back to Maura. She wasn't

24:28

handcuffed but she was taken to the station

24:30

to have a mugshot taken which is quite

24:32

sinister. It's not difficult to find. It

24:34

is very sinister. Why is the quality

24:37

of this image so poor? She looks

24:39

like she's in fucking late mungo. In

24:42

terrifying. Office has told

24:44

Maura that she would need to come in on the ninth

24:46

for an interview. Which she

24:48

did. Maura refused to give a written statement

24:50

but she did apologise and she promised to pay the money

24:52

back. But that just wasn't going

24:54

to be enough. Office has told Maura

24:57

that although it was a low-level

24:59

charge because she had stolen less than $250 she

25:01

would have to go to court. And

25:04

to be honest she did get off pretty easily

25:06

for what was actual identity theft

25:08

of someone she knew and credit card fraud. I

25:11

don't really think the $80 is here or there.

25:14

And I don't mean to sound like I'm saying why

25:16

the police bothering to investigate. I'm just shocked

25:18

that they did. Because obviously after doing

25:20

filthy ritual which you should definitely go listen

25:22

to anyway. Listen to your podcast. You know

25:24

the resounding message from the police time and

25:26

time again with fraud cases. Unless you're talking

25:29

about money that is of a substantial amount.

25:31

We don't have the resources or the time or

25:33

the inclination to investigate. So absolutely whether you steal

25:35

$80 or you steal $800,000 you should of course

25:38

face the consequences of it. I'm

25:43

just shocked that she did. And

25:45

then on the 18th of December a judge told

25:47

Maura Murray that he would drop all of the

25:50

charges against her. If she just managed

25:52

to stay out of trouble for three months and pay

25:54

the money back. Maura did

25:56

not tell her family or her friends about

25:58

the incident but presumably her fucking- roommate

26:00

knew about it. It's spiraling

26:02

and just so much stress upon stress

26:04

upon stress upon stress. That's what it feels like. So

26:07

as it turns out, Maura wasn't the only

26:10

Murray sibling struggling in their personal life at

26:12

this point. At about 10.30pm on the 5th of

26:15

February 2004, while working

26:17

as shift at her campus security job,

26:19

Maura's supervisor found her in tears. Should

26:23

somebody who has just been taken to

26:25

court for identity theft and credit card

26:27

fraud against another student, no less? I've

26:30

been working at campus security. That's

26:32

a good point. Anyway, just a point.

26:34

Worth raising. But... Now

26:37

Maura was crying because apparently she'd been speaking

26:39

on the phone with her sister Kathleen. According

26:41

to the supervisor, Maura was completely

26:44

zoned out and barely responsive. All

26:46

she could say was, My sister with

26:48

tears in her eyes. Now this

26:51

supervisor escorted Maura back to her dorm room

26:53

at 1.30am and asked whether she wanted her

26:55

to stay. But Maura said her roommate was

26:57

in and that she'd be fine. This was

26:59

a lie. By this point, Maura didn't have a roommate.

27:03

In 2017, Kathleen Murray finally revealed what

27:06

she had been speaking to Maura about that night on

27:08

the phone. Kathleen was a recovering

27:10

alcoholic and on that evening she had

27:13

just been released from rehab. But her

27:15

piece of shit fiancé who picked her up

27:18

from rehab decided that on the way home

27:20

from rehab, he would take his recovering alcoholic

27:22

girlfriend to a liquor store and that caused

27:24

her to relapse. Do you know what I

27:27

saw the other day that was absolutely

27:29

horrifying? The recovery rate of

27:32

people with addiction issues is 1

27:34

in 12. Wow. Yeah.

27:38

Anyway, we say was a recovering

27:40

alcoholic because Kathleen has since

27:42

died following a long battle with

27:44

cancer. It is also worth noting

27:47

that as well as having spoken to Kathleen that

27:49

night, Maura's phone records showed that she

27:51

had made several calls to her boyfriend as well.

27:54

And apparently earlier that night there had been a hit

27:56

and run on campus which left a male student in

27:59

a coma. A number of

28:01

armchair detectives online have insinuated that Maura

28:03

was responsible for this, which is why she

28:05

was upset, but we don't have any evidence

28:07

to support that. Maura was working

28:09

when the accident happened. There wasn't any

28:11

damage to her car that would be

28:13

consistent with having run somebody over. The

28:16

following Saturday, Maura's dad

28:18

Fred drove up to visit her and take

28:20

her car shopping. Maura's 1996 satin

28:23

was in bad shape, and she needed a

28:25

car to drive to her clinical work at

28:27

nursing school. Fred had withdrawn $4,000

28:29

from various ATMs that day. But

28:33

it wasn't enough to get Maura the car she

28:35

wanted, so they decided to buy the car the

28:37

next weekend instead. That night,

28:39

Fred took Maura and her friend Kate to

28:41

a pub for dinner, and for

28:43

a couple of drinks. Interestingly, we have

28:45

read that Kate claimed that neither Maura or

28:48

her dad ever mentioned having spent the day

28:50

car shopping, but not really sure

28:52

what to make of that, like why that would be a secret,

28:54

but it is interesting that Kate said we just didn't talk about

28:56

it. What we do know is

28:58

that after dinner, Maura and Kate asked

29:00

Fred if they could borrow his brand

29:02

new Toyota Corolla to drive to a

29:05

party. And Fred,

29:07

seemingly being the coolest fucking

29:09

divorced dad ever, agreed,

29:12

and even stopped to buy them alcohol from a

29:14

liquor store on their way to drop him

29:16

off at his hotel. I

29:18

don't know. Is drunk driving

29:20

more cash in the

29:22

US? I

29:25

don't think I know that part of their

29:27

culture, actually. The way I think about it is

29:29

like this. So many more people drive, and

29:32

there are so many more situations in the US than in

29:34

the UK, for example, where driving is the only way you're

29:36

going to get there. So

29:38

by that logic, the

29:41

type of people who are likely to drink and

29:43

drive are doing more driving in the States

29:45

than they are here because less people drive. Sure.

29:48

Kind of like being in the country here. That's

29:50

what I was going to say. But when we went

29:52

to that Airbnb in the middle of nowhere, how

29:55

do I work? I can't remember. We were in the

29:57

absolute middle of fucking nowhere, and we were like, oh, as

30:00

a pub, it's like a mile away and we were

30:02

like obviously we're not going to drive there because I

30:04

can't drive and Hannah would like to have a drink.

30:07

So we walked there, absolutely pitch

30:10

black country roads and no

30:12

pavement, just pitch black muddy

30:14

roads and somehow we managed to get ourselves

30:16

there and then obviously we had the horrible realisation there

30:18

that we were going to have to walk back and

30:20

get there, car park full, full of

30:22

Range Rovers, everyone inside, everyone was drinking and

30:24

I was like no one else. We didn't

30:26

see a single other human being walking to

30:28

that pub. So everyone was just getting on

30:31

it and was going to drive home. So I do

30:33

think that is a thing in the

30:35

country. People do it less in cities because there

30:37

are more police but like people push it more

30:39

in the country in my humble opinion. But

30:42

I do think more people do drink and drive in the US

30:44

but I suppose it's the same thing as like people

30:46

drink and drive in the country because there's no other way to

30:49

get to the pub, you know. Exactly, that's what I was going to

30:51

say. Apart from drag your sorry ass

30:53

down in the pitch black road. We

30:56

look like fools. Anyway, after

30:58

Fred lets the girls take the car, he just

31:00

promised Maura to return the car later that night

31:02

and the girls went on to their party. I

31:05

will also say something that Americans do which

31:07

British people don't do is car swap with

31:09

no insurance. Like it's so casual. Oh

31:12

just take my car. Oh here it is such a big

31:14

deal. Such a big deal. Anyway, at

31:16

this party Maura got

31:18

absolutely bazonca shit faced

31:21

and against Kate's wishes left

31:23

at 2.30am to take the

31:26

car back to her dad.

31:28

Oh my god, that is

31:31

fucking horrific. There

31:33

are a few things that

31:35

terrify me more than

31:38

being caught drunk driving. Like

31:40

not that it's something I do but like even if like I

31:42

see a police car on the motorway and I'm like oh my

31:44

god when was the last time I had a drink even if

31:46

it was like 48 hours ago I'm like but

31:48

what if? No, you're very careful. Yeah,

31:51

yeah, yeah. It would just be my

31:53

worst nightmare. No, it's just, oh my

31:55

god, just that sentence. I read ahead

31:58

and I remembered what we had written in the script. I

32:00

was like, oh my god. That filled me

32:02

with horror. That's also fair. On the driving

32:04

police thing. If I could obliterate one

32:06

thing from the world, it would be true crime podcasts

32:08

using sirens on their back tracks because if you're

32:11

driving, you think you're gonna get pulled over.

32:14

Anyway, Maura's hammered, she's

32:16

driving. And on the way

32:18

to her dad, Maura crashed into a

32:21

guardrail on Route 9, causing around $15,000 worth

32:23

of damage to the car. Maura!

32:25

Oh my god. That's gotta be a write-off. Like, come

32:27

on. Like, what car? That's a brand new car. Oh,

32:30

okay. Not a write-off then, but still. Fuck.

32:33

Luckily, for Maura, the responding officer

32:35

either failed to notice that she

32:37

was blackout drunk or chose to ignore it

32:40

because he did not do a sobriety test

32:42

on her. She must have stunk of

32:44

alcohol. Oh yeah. Even if you couldn't

32:46

tell somehow that she was drunk. And like,

32:48

you know, how old is she? Like, fucking 20?

32:51

Yeah, she's like in her 20s.

32:53

Early 20s. No one in

32:55

her early 20s is that good at pretending not

32:57

to be drunk. They've only just realised what drunk

32:59

is. I mean, yeah. Like, very early 20s, because

33:02

she's 21 when she finishes. The

33:04

officer not only didn't sobriety test Maura, he

33:07

didn't give her a ticket or call for

33:09

medical attention. And this was very early in

33:11

February. Maura was still on

33:13

her three month continuance for the

33:15

fraud charges. Wow. Yeah. So

33:18

remember, the judges obviously told her, don't get into

33:20

trouble for three months and I will make this

33:22

go away. Yeah.

33:24

The officer only took down Maura's details and gave

33:26

her a lift to her dad's hotel where she

33:28

spent the night. There is

33:30

even less possibility therefore that he

33:32

didn't know she was drunk. She sat in the car with

33:34

him. Don't tell me you don't know she's drunk. At

33:38

5.38am, Maura phoned her on again, off

33:40

again boyfriend Billy on her dad's phone

33:42

to talk about the crash. When

33:44

Fred woke up and found out

33:46

that his daughter had totaled his car,

33:49

he continued to be cool dad and was

33:51

super chill about the whole thing. I genuinely have

33:53

nightmares about denting my mum's car and having to

33:55

tell her. And the thing is, look

33:57

Fred, okay fine, you're trying to be like.

34:00

supportive, you know that Maura's gone through some difficult

34:02

stuff, blah blah blah, and yeah maybe you don't

34:04

want to like come down so hard on her

34:06

about wrecking your car, but don't

34:08

tell me you didn't know the reason she crashed her car

34:10

is because she was coming back from a party drunk. Are

34:12

you not going to have a conversation with your daughter about

34:14

how grossly irresponsible that is?"

34:17

Fred did not have the you need to

34:19

pull your socks up chat. He just rented

34:21

a car and drove Maura back to her

34:23

dorm and then he went back to

34:25

Connecticut. Maura worked a shift

34:27

at the art gallery that night and spoke with her dad

34:29

again. He just phoned to remind

34:31

her to collect accident forms from the

34:34

RMV, which is the US version

34:36

of the DVLA, and the two

34:38

agreed to have a phone call the next night to

34:40

fill out the forms together, and that was pretty much the

34:42

end of it. Except the pair of

34:44

them, father and daughter, would

34:47

never have that call because the

34:49

very next day Maura had

34:51

seemingly vanished off the face of

34:53

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37:31

Now this is what we know that Mora did before

37:33

disappearing on Monday the 9th of February 2004.

37:37

Just after midnight, Mora used

37:39

MapQuest to download directions to the

37:41

Berkshires in Burlington, which is in

37:43

Vermont, and also other locations in

37:45

the White Mountains. Fuck me, remember that,

37:48

printing out directions. I don't want to think about

37:50

it. I've

37:52

read this mind, he's only a couple of years

37:54

older than me. It took an A to Z

37:56

with him to look at university accommodation. Oh

37:59

my God. honestly I

38:01

would just never leave my house if we were

38:03

still in Los Angeles. Now yeah just

38:05

in case you're wondering what MapQuest is it was

38:07

basically something people use before the days of waves

38:10

or Google Maps. Samora

38:12

also Googled some pregnancy related terms

38:15

like Braxton Hicks. This

38:18

was assumed to be related to

38:20

her nursing course rather than to the idea that

38:22

she was actually pregnant. Yeah I mean you're not

38:24

looking at Braxton Hicks in your first trimester really

38:26

are you? Mora

38:28

then emailed her professors some nursing homework after

38:31

which she packed up most of the belongings in

38:33

her room into boxes. This even included

38:35

the posters on her walls. It

38:38

really looked as though Mora was preparing to

38:40

fully move out. At

38:42

12.55 p.m. Mora made a call to

38:44

inquire about renting a condo in Bartlett

38:47

New Hampshire. Still don't know what condo is don't care move

38:49

on. A

38:51

place where she'd previously been on holiday with

38:53

her family but the owner didn't

38:56

At 1 p.m. Mora then emails her boyfriend

38:59

Billy and I'm sorry that I have to

39:01

read this to you but this is what she wrote. At

39:12

1.24 p.m. Mora then emails her professors

39:15

and the managers at the art gallery

39:17

she worked at as well as her

39:19

bosses at the security job saying that

39:21

she would be gone for a week. Mora

39:23

claimed that there had been a death in the family but

39:26

this was a lie. Half

39:28

an hour later Mora made a five-minute call

39:30

to a ski resort in Stovermont but

39:32

again didn't actually book anything. Yeah

39:34

so like by that logic I'm

39:37

a Scientologist because I looked at that one retreat

39:39

in Gliawater you know what I mean. And

39:42

then Mora packs a bunch of her stuff into her

39:44

car like shampoo, lotion, makeup, gym clothes,

39:46

tampons, toothbrush, birth control, phone chargers, textbooks

39:48

and a map. She

39:50

also packed loads of snacks like crisps and

39:53

dill pickles and some sentimental things like a

39:55

stuffed teddy in a diamond necklace that Billy

39:57

had given her. But the thing

39:59

that raised eyebrows... was a book that

40:01

she packed, called Not

40:04

Without Peril. 150

40:06

years of misadventure on the presidential

40:09

range of New Hampshire. It's

40:11

a book chronicling numerous incidents

40:14

of people getting lost and

40:16

dying in the mountains. And

40:18

this has, of course, led many, including the police,

40:21

to speculate whether Mora was planning on killing herself.

40:25

But her family rejected this from the very start. For

40:28

one, apparently Mora had just always really loved that

40:30

book, and loved hiking in that area. And

40:32

secondly, people who were going to kill themselves

40:35

probably wouldn't pack a toothbrush, birth

40:38

control, lotion and snacks. At

40:40

around 3.30pm, Mora jumped in her car and drove off campus.

40:44

And the weather was bad. So

40:47

bad that all of the classes at UMass had

40:49

been cancelled due to a violent snowstorm. Ten

40:52

minutes later, CCTV footage caught

40:54

Mora emptying her bank account by withdrawing

40:57

$280. She

40:59

then spent $40 at a nearby

41:01

liquor store, buying ingredients for the

41:03

worst cocktail ever, which essentially is

41:06

a baby Guinness with vodka on

41:08

top. Haha, a bad wine chaser.

41:10

Yeah, she bought Baileys, Kahlua, vodka,

41:13

and a box of wine. And

41:15

at some point before leaving town at 4pm, Mora

41:18

stopped at the RMB and picked up the accident report

41:20

papers for her dad, not the actions of someone who

41:22

was thinking of ending it all, I would argue. Yeah,

41:25

why would you bother with the admin if you

41:28

were going to? And also, why would she hand

41:30

in all of her coursework? She

41:32

emails her nursing work to

41:34

her professors before she leaves. Why would you fucking

41:37

bother? Now at 4.37pm,

41:39

Mora chucked her voicemail. This

41:41

would be the last record of her ever having used

41:43

her phone. There's no evidence that

41:45

at any point during the day, Mora told

41:48

anybody where she was going. Nor

41:50

was there much evidence that she really knew exactly

41:53

where she was going herself, to be honest. All

41:55

we know is that she clearly wanted to get away for

41:57

a while. Then, just after 7pm,

42:00

and three hours after Mora

42:02

had left Amherst, Faith Wussman,

42:05

a resident in Woodsville, New Hampshire, heard

42:07

a crash outside. When Faith

42:09

looked out the window, she saw the black 1996 waded

42:13

into a snowbank on Route She

42:16

then phoned the police at 7.27pm and

42:18

according to the log, she said that

42:20

she had seen a man smoking a

42:22

cigarette inside. Faith

42:24

later recanted this statement and said that

42:27

it just looked like a red

42:29

glowing light inside that she had thought

42:31

was a cigarette. Now as we

42:33

know, Butch the school bus driver then passed

42:36

by the crash car and spoke with Mora.

42:38

Faith even witnessed this interaction from her

42:40

window. According to Butch, remember,

42:42

we said Mora pleaded with him not to phone

42:44

911 and she lied

42:47

saying that she'd already called AAA. Butch

42:49

then went home and like we told you at the top of the

42:51

show called 911 anyway, knowing

42:53

that Mora was lying. And when

42:55

officers arrived at the scene reportedly three minutes later,

42:57

at 7.46pm, Mora was gone.

43:01

Imagine if Butch hadn't made that call. He'd be in

43:03

prison. Yeah. Oh god yeah cos Faith's like, I saw

43:05

him. As

43:07

we said, another passerby reported having seen a

43:09

police SUV there at the scene of the

43:11

crash as early as 7.37pm, nose to nose

43:13

with the satin. But

43:17

for now, let's assume that the

43:20

police log is correct. Police

43:22

found Mora's car locked with a

43:24

cracked windscreen, a dented hood, both

43:27

airbags detonated and strangely

43:29

a rag stuffed in the exhaust pipe.

43:32

What is the rag about? I

43:34

have no clue. I know zero

43:36

car. That's not going to do

43:39

anything good. No, I know that much. That's all

43:41

there is to know really. No good. This

43:43

is no good. There

43:45

was also red liquid on both

43:47

the interior and exterior of the

43:49

vehicle, which was later determined to

43:51

be wine. Alabox. There

43:56

was also an empty beer bottle in the back seat. Mora's

43:59

AAA card. Us report

44:01

forms, gloves, CDs, makeup, diamond

44:03

jewellery, directions to Vermont, the

44:06

book about hikers dying and more as stuffed

44:08

animal. What they didn't

44:10

find however were more as bank cards,

44:12

her phone and the bunch of alcohol that

44:15

we know she'd just bought and had with

44:17

her. However, neither

44:19

the bank cards nor the phone have

44:21

been used since that day. Now

44:24

look, I am but a

44:27

mere podcaster. I am not

44:29

a hotshot slick city detective, but

44:31

it does kind of seem like Moira

44:33

might have been from driving

44:35

again, and it looks like she may

44:37

as a result have crashed again.

44:40

And possibly she did a runner so

44:43

that she wouldn't have to have her blood alcohol

44:45

tested. I think if that is the case, Moira

44:48

probably realises that she got very lucky that the

44:50

other police officer didn't sobriety check her, but she

44:52

probably knew she wasn't going to get that lucky

44:54

again. Because if Moira had been tested, and

44:56

she had been found to have been drink-drinking, this

44:59

would of course have gotten her both

45:01

a DUI and she would have been

45:03

charged for the identity theft and credit card fraud.

45:06

So yeah, she's doing a runner. And

45:08

that's what the police thought too. There wasn't

45:10

anything at the scene that indicated in any

45:12

way that there had been foul play. So

45:15

Moira wasn't considered a missing person just

45:18

yet. It just seemed that she

45:20

had wanted to go missing. In

45:22

which the bus driver and officers then started

45:24

driving around the local area looking for Moira.

45:27

A bowler was put out for Moira at the same

45:29

time. Oddly, police stated Moira's exact

45:31

height at 5 foot 7 in the

45:34

report, despite never having seen

45:36

her. And also her court guards and

45:38

her ID are almost 6. So how did they know how tall she was?

45:40

It could have just been a lucky guess, but

45:42

it is still just a bit odd. I feel like most people are 5'7".

45:45

Yeah. I feel like it's a very average height to be. I feel

45:47

like the people who say that are like, the police have something to

45:49

do with it, because the police SUV was there

45:51

before and did a police officer something to do with it. How

45:53

did they know how tall she is? But yeah. Yeah. I feel like

45:56

if a bowler is put out for a man, he's 6 foot and

45:58

if it's a woman, she's 5'7". Haha,

46:01

I mean I don't know why I'm saying that because

46:03

I'll be greatly underestimated. So yeah,

46:06

based on Butch's description, the

46:08

bolo included what Mora was wearing, it was

46:11

a dark coat, jeans and a black backpack.

46:13

Now despite all of their looking, investigators didn't

46:16

find any sign of Mora that night. With

46:18

a single footprint in the snow, none

46:21

of her belongings, absolutely nothing. Then,

46:23

just before 9pm, emergency services and a

46:25

fire truck cleared up the scene of

46:28

the crash, and Mora's car was towed

46:30

by a man named Dick Lavoie, and

46:32

he towed Mora's car to his personal garage.

46:35

Which was a little bit weird, why

46:37

is he taking it to the personal garage and he'd be taking it

46:39

to the police compound? Impound, whatever.

46:42

Mora's family weren't notified about what had happened

46:44

until the afternoon the following day just less

46:47

than 24 hours after the

46:49

crash. The police left a voicemail on

46:51

Fred Murray's home phone, but he was out

46:53

of town with work, and it was

46:55

only at 5pm that his sister phoned Fred

46:57

to tell him that Mora's car had been

47:00

found crashed and that she was missing somewhere

47:02

in New Hampshire. And it

47:04

was only after Fred phoned the New

47:06

Hampshire Police Department at quarter past five

47:09

that they officially referred to Mora as

47:12

missing. The Murray family and

47:14

Mora's boyfriend hopped on planes and made their way

47:16

to New Hampshire to help with the search efforts

47:18

the following day. During the flight,

47:20

as we needed to back in the olden times, before

47:23

the reign of flight mode, Billy turned

47:25

off his phone until he

47:28

had landed, and when he turned it

47:30

back on, he received quite

47:32

a troubling, short voicemail.

47:35

To him, it sounded like a whimpering

47:37

woman and laboured breathing, and

47:39

of course he immediately assumed that

47:42

it was Mora. But the

47:45

call was traced to a Red Cross Calling

47:47

Card, an organisation that helps

47:49

the military coordinate emergency leave, but

47:51

they never tended to contact soldiers

47:53

directly. They usually only phoned

47:56

the soldiers' commanding officers or close family,

47:58

and Mora was known using these

48:00

calling cards for long-distance calls. In fact,

48:02

three of them were found in her

48:04

car. And what's more, the Red

48:06

Cross volunteer who was coordinating Billy's emergency leave

48:09

was a friend of his mother's, and

48:11

she had no recollection of contacting Billy's phone.

48:14

So the origin of that voicemail remains

48:16

a mystery, but it could have been

48:18

more. That's so weird.

48:20

It's like, is it just something completely

48:23

coincidental that is

48:25

also incredibly bizarre the day that your girlfriend goes

48:27

missing? I don't know. So when

48:29

Fred Murray arrived in New Hampshire, he and

48:31

the rest of the family, along with the

48:33

New Hampshire Fish and Game Department, began their

48:36

search with the police. At

48:38

first it seemed promising, as a police sniffer

48:40

dog managed to trap Maura's scent from one

48:42

of her gloves, a hundred yards east of

48:44

where she'd crashed. But the trail ended abruptly

48:46

at the road, which led many

48:48

to speculate that Maura entered another vehicle, and

48:50

there was no evidence that Maura had entered

48:52

the nearby woods on the other side. The

48:55

next day on the 12th of February, 2004, police

48:58

held their first press conference about

49:00

Maura, and much to the annoyance

49:02

of her family, to put it

49:04

mildly, the police stated that Maura

49:07

was, quote, endangered and possibly suicidal.

49:09

A week later, the Murrays were enraged

49:12

to learn that authorities in Vermont

49:14

hadn't even been notified about Maura's

49:16

disappearance. Remember, that's where she was

49:18

heading. So they've not told

49:20

anybody there to be on the lookout for Maura

49:22

in the place that she was actually going to. A

49:25

few days after this, the FBI got involved,

49:27

which is unusual for a single case, for

49:30

a single case of a missing person. But

49:32

Billy's family did have a connection with somebody

49:34

who worked there, so maybe, I don't know,

49:36

they managed to pull some strings. And

49:41

even after the FBI got involved, even after

49:43

a number of Maura searches using helicopters

49:45

with thermal imaging cameras, tracking dogs and

49:47

cadaver dogs, there was no sign

49:50

of Maura. Fred Murray

49:52

returned to New Hampshire every single weekend

49:54

for months to continue searching for his daughter.

49:57

Then, three months after her disappearance.

50:00

Another possible witness came forward. A

50:03

contractor told police that he'd seen a young

50:05

person running about five miles away from the

50:07

cross site at about 8.30pm on

50:09

the night of Morris's disappearance. And

50:12

this person had been wearing a dark jacket and

50:14

light jeans, just like Butch had said. And

50:17

when this person was asked why they were only coming

50:19

forward after three months, they said that

50:21

they only put two and two together after seeing the

50:23

news coverage. But regardless, there's

50:25

no way of knowing for certain if this person

50:27

was moral or not. In

50:30

July, a hundred state troopers, rescue

50:32

personnel and volunteers carried out a

50:34

one-mile radius search of the crash

50:36

area. This was the fourth search

50:38

attempt, but also the first

50:40

one without snow covering the ground. And what

50:43

the police were most interested in finding, besides Maura

50:45

herself, was her black jacket. But

50:48

once again, the search was fruitless.

50:51

And every single one since has been too. And

50:54

that's all we have. So

50:56

let's move on to theory

50:58

town. Theoriesville. Now,

51:02

all right. Straight away, I

51:04

have to say that I don't really buy the

51:07

theory that Maura was running away to start a new life. No.

51:09

I don't think what? Yeah. I don't

51:11

think Maura Murray looks past the end of her nose. No.

51:14

And I think that, yes, she

51:16

packed up her belongings, things like that. I don't

51:18

know. In some ways, it looked like she was like, notting

51:21

some eyes and crossing some teeth or whatever.

51:24

I think from her relationship with her family,

51:26

you can see that she is heavily dependent

51:28

on other people. I don't think she was

51:30

ready to just run away and start a

51:32

fresh. She also said 21 years old, bought

51:34

box wine and Kahlua and had less than $240 in

51:36

her bank account. And

51:40

she also submitted her homework. That is a big thing for like,

51:42

why would she bother doing that if she was going to run

51:44

away? And she hadn't been seen for 20 years

51:46

and she had her bank cards with

51:48

her when she went missing, but they've

51:51

never been used. Secondly, both Maura's mother

51:53

and her sister Kathleen have passed away

51:55

in the time that Maura has been

51:57

missing. Both of whom Maura was incredibly proud

51:59

of. It's hard

52:01

to believe that she wouldn't have reached out onto

52:04

their funerals or at least watched it from a

52:06

far in dark sunglasses and hoodie or something. And

52:09

also, you cannot start a new life and

52:11

stay hidden for twenty years with $240. $240

52:14

is all she had in cash, presumably, because

52:17

she had her bank cards and they were never used.

52:19

However, James Renner, the author

52:21

of True Crime Addicts, How I Lost Myself

52:24

in the Mysterious Disappearance of Maura Murray,

52:26

very much believes that Maura is still

52:28

alive. His theory is that Maura

52:30

planned her escape as she was

52:32

pregnant due to her numerous saches regarding pregnancy.

52:35

As he said, this is probably more likely to

52:37

have to do with her nursing course. Also, if

52:39

she was on past control, it's not foolproof, but

52:41

there's no evidence that she was pregnant. Not

52:43

to mention that Renner has said and

52:46

written a lot of shit about this

52:48

case and Maura's family. I

52:50

don't know, we found to be in bad

52:52

taste and not very helpful

52:55

in leading to her being found. And

52:58

what we're talking about here includes baselessly

53:00

accusing Fred Murray of being abusive and

53:02

having known where Maura was the

53:04

entire time she was missing. Now

53:07

he's busying himself worrying about his sister. I

53:10

know. What a fucking journalistic hero.

53:14

I also don't understand the theory of why Maura would

53:16

run away if she was pregnant. And also,

53:18

she fucking totaled her dad's car and he

53:20

was like, don't worry darling, I'll come with you. Like,

53:22

they're not going to be like, I cast you out.

53:24

We'll pass the form together. Yeah. Yeah,

53:26

exactly. And she's always going to turn their back

53:28

on Maura Murray because she got pregnant.

53:32

Okay, another theory is, of course, that

53:34

Maura went into the mountains that night

53:37

to kill herself. There are

53:39

obvious problems with this. One

53:41

being why would she have packed her textbooks,

53:43

her toiletries, her toothbrush, her birth control, her

53:45

lotion and floss and stuff like that if she

53:47

was planning on doing herself in. And

53:50

again, why would she hand in her

53:52

homework that morning or bother to obtain

53:54

the accident forms from the R.M.V. that

53:56

she promised that she would get for her dad. Also,

53:59

according to her... high school friends, taking off

54:01

suddenly on a random trip wasn't completely out

54:03

of character for Moira. She once skipped a day

54:05

of high school to get on a train to

54:07

Boston in the morning for the hell of it

54:09

without telling anybody. And now

54:12

we come to what we think

54:14

is probably the most likely explanation.

54:17

Okay. And we think this for several

54:20

reasons. Firstly, Sniffer

54:22

Dog's lost Moira's scent on the road, and

54:25

there hasn't been a single credible sighting of

54:27

her in 20 years. Moira's cell

54:29

phone and bank cards haven't been used in

54:31

that time, and her remains have never been

54:33

found. There was a very

54:35

narrow window of time in which

54:38

Moira could have disappeared between

54:40

her conversation with Butch and the police

54:43

arriving. And we've already said that it's

54:45

likely that Moira fled the scene of the crash

54:47

because she probably had been drinking, and she

54:50

would have been afraid of getting a DUI on its own

54:52

is a bad thing. And secondly, she had that

54:54

fraud charge hanging over her head as well. So

54:57

maybe she was picked up by a stranger

54:59

100 yards away where

55:02

the Sniffer Dog's lost her scent. People

55:05

have also speculated that Butch the bus driver

55:07

may have kidnapped Moira in his school bus,

55:10

parked at home on his driveway with

55:12

his wife in the house, then

55:14

contacted the police and helped them search for

55:16

Moira that night. I mean,

55:19

I guess it's possible, but also slightly

55:21

ludicrous. I mean, we've heard of more

55:23

crazy things happening, but also remember when

55:25

Butch is speaking to Moira, Faith Westerman

55:28

is watching. She is watching from her

55:30

house. If Butch had kidnapped Moira, surely

55:32

Faith would have seen. Now

55:34

we should say that there is absolutely no

55:36

evidence for Butch having

55:39

kidnapped Moira and Butch

55:41

had since passed away, so he

55:43

also cannot defend himself. So

56:02

if you cast your mind back somewhat, you'll

56:04

remember that there was another witness

56:07

who driven past after Butch left

56:09

and reported having seen a police

56:11

SUV. This witness claimed that

56:13

they saw the SUV parked nose to

56:15

nose with Maura's car well before police

56:17

claimed to have arrived on the scene.

56:20

And this witness also stated that they

56:22

didn't see Maura or any police officers

56:24

there at the time, just their vehicles.

56:27

Now this led to a lot of

56:29

online conspiracy theories that this SUV was

56:31

in front of the first responding officer

56:33

there that night. The chief

56:35

of police, Cecil Smith, and

56:38

that the police logs were doctored to aid

56:40

in a police cover-up. Cecil

56:43

Smith has been accused of being responsible

56:45

for Maura's murder and harassed endlessly

56:47

about it, but once again there is

56:49

no proof of anything. Cecil

56:51

Smith actually killed himself on the 20th of February

56:53

2018, for a reason nobody knows,

56:56

but it was around the 15th anniversary of

56:58

Maura's disappearance. Was it down to

57:00

guilt, as some say, or was it because he

57:02

was being hounded about this, or

57:05

was it down to some completely other

57:07

reason? We don't know. There

57:10

are endless theories about what may

57:12

have happened to Maura, and

57:14

if you don't believe us, you can go to Reddit

57:16

at your own risk. And perhaps

57:18

one of the reasons that this case has been

57:20

so difficult to solve is that

57:23

two things are true. Things

57:25

can be two things. That is something I have learned. It's

57:28

possible that Maura both ran from

57:30

the crash of her own accord

57:33

and then had the misfortune of

57:35

bumping into an opportunistic killer. Which

57:38

brings us onto our next theory. A

57:40

month after Maura disappeared, a

57:42

17-year-old girl called Brianna

57:45

Maitland vanished 66

57:47

miles away from where Maura crashed.

57:50

Brianna had also been driving alone, and

57:53

her car was discovered crashed into the side of

57:55

an abandoned house, and she's not

57:57

been seen since. When people be

58:00

a link between Mora and Brianna's disappearances, police were

58:02

quick to stamp out the rumours of a serial

58:04

killer in the area. But in

58:07

2012, they did investigate whether

58:09

Israel Keys, a serial

58:11

killer who was known to have operated in Vermont as

58:13

well as other places in the US, was

58:16

responsible. In the end, the FBI did rule

58:18

him out, and police have

58:20

maintained since that Brianna and Mora's

58:22

cases are unrelated. And I will

58:24

say the chances of

58:27

the same guy running into both of them

58:29

after they've had accidents is astonishingly

58:32

small. Now

58:34

another theory involves something very strange

58:37

that happened near the end of 2004. A

58:40

man named Larry Moulton gave Fred

58:42

Murray a rusty stained

58:44

knife that he alleged

58:47

belonged to his brother Claude. Larry

58:49

said that he believed his brother, who had

58:51

a criminal history, was connected to Mora's disappearance

58:54

and that the knife could have been the

58:56

murder weapon. Claude, who

58:59

was 38, lived in an A-frame house

59:01

just three quarters of a mile away

59:03

from the crash site with his 18-year-old

59:05

girlfriend at the time, who he'd

59:07

been with for four years. So I will let you

59:10

do the maths on

59:12

that one. Anyway,

59:14

Larry told Fred that his brother and

59:16

his girlfriend had been acting suspiciously after

59:19

Mora disappeared. Just a few days

59:21

after Fred received the knife, Claude

59:23

scrapped his car. It didn't

59:26

look good, but family members of the brothers claimed

59:28

that Larry had just made the entire thing

59:30

up in order to get the reward money that was

59:32

up for crap. They added that Larry

59:34

had a history of drug abuse, and besides, Claude

59:36

refused to allow the police to search his place.

59:39

And they couldn't get a warrant to do

59:41

it either. And it was only in 2006 that the property

59:44

was searched after Claude and his

59:46

girlfriend sold the place to new

59:48

owners, who were more obliging. The

59:51

search wasn't conducted by police, though. It

59:53

was done by a private investigator hired

59:55

by the Murries, known only

59:57

as John Smith. Currently,

1:00:00

John Smith's cadaver dogs went

1:00:02

nuts when sniffing a closet in

1:00:05

the property, indicating that there had

1:00:07

been human remains there. A

1:00:09

sample of the carpet was taken and given to the

1:00:11

police, as was a knife.

1:00:14

But the results of this forensic analysis

1:00:16

have never been made public, not even

1:00:18

to the Murray family. However,

1:00:20

in 2016, Friends of the Show

1:00:22

and hosts of the incredible and

1:00:24

much more in-depth Missing Mora Murray

1:00:26

podcast did their own analysis with

1:00:29

John Smith. They're of course crawlspace

1:00:31

media. So at the time of

1:00:33

this interview, although the carpet and the floors had been

1:00:35

replaced, the closet was still

1:00:37

there in the house that was now

1:00:39

abandoned, and Smith discovered

1:00:41

what appeared to be blood stains on the

1:00:43

wood of the closet. The wood

1:00:45

chips were then given to a

1:00:48

molecular geneticist who actually confirmed that

1:00:51

the stains were human blood. Unfortunately

1:00:53

though, the samples were too deteriorated to

1:00:55

be able to say, with 100% certainty,

1:00:59

if that was Mora's blood or not. And

1:01:02

there, end this betrayal. Now

1:01:05

other theories allege that the man who

1:01:07

told police three months after Mora's disappearance

1:01:09

that he'd seen somebody running along Route

1:01:11

112 that night was hiding something. But

1:01:13

the only reason for this was that

1:01:15

he'd waited three months to tell the police, and

1:01:18

his excuse was quite plausible. He just hadn't put

1:01:20

two and two together until he saw the news

1:01:22

coverage and went back through his work calendar. Also,

1:01:24

there is a reason that police continue to make

1:01:27

appeals once and months after something has happened. If

1:01:29

you're going to then say anybody who comes up

1:01:31

with any information later down the line is somehow

1:01:33

suspicious, no one's ever going to come forward with

1:01:35

anything. So to wrap up, from

1:01:38

what we've read about the case, we're definitely

1:01:40

of the opinion that Mora was an incredibly bright

1:01:42

and talented young woman. They definitely had

1:01:44

some issues. But what 21-year-old doesn't?

1:01:47

Saying that though, most don't still commit

1:01:49

credit card fraud and drink drive at

1:01:52

least twice. Because yes, I think it

1:01:54

is probably fair to say that Mora

1:01:56

was likely inebriated, probably on

1:01:58

that box line. when she crashed the

1:02:00

car, the second crash, and then she

1:02:03

probably fled the scene after speaking with Butch.

1:02:05

If she hadn't, she would have got that DUI and

1:02:07

she would have been charged with the fraud case, which

1:02:09

would have been very bad. And again, if she hadn't been

1:02:12

drunk, why would she flee? Because like

1:02:14

we said, like Hannah said, she crashed her

1:02:16

dad's new Toyota Corolla and didn't get in

1:02:18

any trouble with him. This is just her

1:02:20

banged up old satin. So

1:02:22

with Mora having fled, I think I

1:02:24

lean towards the theory that Mora

1:02:27

either willingly got into a car

1:02:29

with a wrong person or she

1:02:32

was straight up snatched off the side of the road. And

1:02:34

that wouldn't have been difficult because she

1:02:36

would have been freezing cold and drunk. I

1:02:39

think like really the two theories are that

1:02:41

she fled, she ran into the woods somewhere

1:02:43

and got completely disorientated because she's

1:02:45

really drunk and it's confusing. She's

1:02:48

freezing cold and she dies of exposure. Then you can

1:02:50

say how did they never find her body? Though

1:02:52

it is a fucking wilderness.

1:02:55

But the theory that I can get on board with either

1:02:58

that one or the theory that she does get

1:03:00

a lift off somebody she shouldn't have. Yeah, I

1:03:02

agree. I will say though, yes, it is

1:03:05

the wilderness. However, if she had died

1:03:07

of exposure, she would have been stuck in

1:03:09

the snow and she might, you know, you can

1:03:11

argue that she would be less likely to have

1:03:15

been eaten by animals or whatever if she was covered with

1:03:17

snow. So that's the only reason, not

1:03:19

the only reason I can hear people be

1:03:21

like, she just fell over. But I don't

1:03:23

think I buy that for that reason. However,

1:03:27

the investigation into the disappearance of Morimari

1:03:29

is still ongoing 20 years on.

1:03:31

And just a couple of years ago, in January

1:03:34

2022, the FBI

1:03:36

issued a national alert on Morimari's case.

1:03:39

They created what is known as

1:03:41

a violent criminal apprehension profile, which

1:03:44

will allow multiple law enforcement agencies

1:03:46

to share information regarding her case.

1:03:49

So clearly, they are also of the

1:03:51

opinion that foul play was at hand.

1:03:53

But why it's taken them so long

1:03:55

to figure that out is another question

1:03:57

entirely. Six months later in July 2020.

1:04:00

Police conducted a huge search of the

1:04:03

towns of Landaff and Easton in New

1:04:05

Hampshire. They had previously searched

1:04:07

those areas but not particularly extensively. So

1:04:10

for now, that's all we know. Trying

1:04:13

to use Opens Razor in Maura's

1:04:15

case isn't quite so straightforward. But

1:04:18

it does seem like foul play fits the

1:04:20

bill. If you want to

1:04:22

know more about Maura's case, we recommend checking

1:04:24

out Julie Murray's TikTok, which is at Maura

1:04:26

Murray Missing, where she posts very regularly with

1:04:29

updates on the case and background

1:04:31

information. And of course, we recommend

1:04:33

going to check out the Missing

1:04:35

Maura Murray podcast created by the

1:04:37

fantastic Crawl Space. They have covered

1:04:39

this case extensively with almost 150

1:04:41

episodes. There is

1:04:43

nobody who knows more about this case than

1:04:46

Crawl Space. So go and find them and then

1:04:48

let us know what you think. Yeah,

1:04:51

it's a strange one, but there you go. Yeah, it's one of

1:04:53

those ones that sort of stays in the back of your head

1:04:55

forever, I think. But I think,

1:04:57

to be honest about the Maura Murray case, I

1:04:59

think if you just look at it, like, a

1:05:01

girl crashes car, disappears within a very short space

1:05:03

of time, it seems bizarre. But once you know

1:05:05

the context of everything else that was leading up

1:05:08

to that point in what was going on in Maura's life,

1:05:10

I don't think it is as

1:05:12

affluent as some other Missing person's cases we've

1:05:14

come across. Yes, I agree. I

1:05:17

think she had a lot going on. She

1:05:20

made a series of odd decisions and

1:05:23

it killed her. I don't think

1:05:25

she was fleeing to see her new life. No, I don't. I

1:05:28

think she was fleeing from the scene of the crash because

1:05:30

she didn't want to get into more trouble and she wasn't

1:05:32

thinking logically. And some opportunistic

1:05:35

person just so happened

1:05:37

to be in there. And also, you don't even know that it was

1:05:39

a person who picked her up. That person could have been a perfectly

1:05:41

nice person who dropped her off at a petrol

1:05:43

station 100 miles away and someone there did

1:05:45

something to her. You lose

1:05:48

track of what happened to her once she

1:05:50

flees from the scene. But

1:05:52

that much, I believe. So that's it, guys.

1:05:54

There you go, Maura Murray. That is it. We will be

1:05:56

back next week for something else. Goodbye.

1:05:58

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1:06:06

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1:06:14

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1:06:17

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1:07:01

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