Missing Person: Maura Murray
Age at the time of disappearance: age 21
Date Last Seen: February 9, 2004
Location Last Seen: At a 1 car crash with Maura’s vehicle on Rt 112 in Haverhill, New Hampshire
Date Located: STILL MISSING
Maura Murray was a full time student-athlete in the nursing program as a junior at the University of Massachusetts. She had also attended the United States Military Academy at West Point prior to transferring to the University. The events leading up to her disappearance is quite shocking and has brought people around the world to discuss and/or investigate Maura’s disappearance.
On the morning of her disappearance she submitted her homework online. Due to the weather all classes had been cancelled. She emailed her professors and said there was a death in the family and was leaving campus for the week. There was no death in the family.
She contacted the owner of a condo in Bartlett, New Hampshire which she had been to before, packed a bag for several days along with her books.
She then stopped at an ATM and withdrew most all of her money, $280. She stopped at a liquor store and bought about $40 worth of alcohol.
Maura left with her 1996 Saturn about 4:30 P.M. and headed toward New Hampshire. She didn’t tell anyone where she was really going or why.
About 7:30 P.M. a resident of Haverhill, New Hampshire contacted the police to report an accident near her residence stating that the car was stuck in a ditch. A second witness was a bus driver who spoke to Maura and offered her assistance. She declined help and she declined him in calling for police stating she already contacted AAA. At 7:42 P.M. he went in to his house a hundred yards from the crash site and contacted the police anyway. He told police that she seemed shaken up and that the airbags inside her vehicle had deployed but he didn’t see any blood. There were no footprints in the snow. There were no outright signs of foul play.
7:46 P.M. the police arrived and Maura had vanished. The vehicle was now locked. They saw a box of red wine behind the driver’s seat, stains on the ceiling and door and a coke bottle that had some kind of red liquid in it which distinctly had the smell of alcohol. Police also noticed a rag stuffed in the abandoned vehicle’s tailpipe. That rag is something her dad taught her to do to avoid being ticketed by police for the excessive smoke coming out of the tailpipe.
First responders searched the area for her with negative results. There has been no sightings, no further activity on her cell phone or bank accounts. Her cell phone, credit & debit cards were missing.
Investigating the crash site, the officer wrote that the evidence at scene indicated that her vehicle was driving eastbound and had gone off the roadway, struck some trees, spun around and came to rest facing the wrong way in the eastbound lane. There was visible damage to the driver’s side, front end, front passenger side, rear driver’s side and rear passenger side of the vehicle with the windshield cracked.
Going back a couple days, on February 7, 2004 her father met with Maura to look for a new car. He was staying at the Quality Inn which he went back to after being with Maura, and went to the Amherst Brewing Company for dinner about 9:00 P.M. They went and picked up Maura’s friend and the three of them went to the restaurant.
Searches of the area were massive. The tracking dogs scented Maura which stopped about one hundred feet from the accident in the middle of the road.
There have been sightings but none have been confirmed. There has been many theories and her family has never given up. The most recent has been a home nearby the accident. In 2019 Maura’s father was given access to these residence and brought cadaver dogs, which did hit on an area in the basement. Two different dogs hit in the same area. Large pieces of concrete were removed, but no evidence of a crime resulted.
If you have any information please contact the New Hampshire Cold Case Unit at (603) 223-3856