Maura Murray

On May 4th, 1982, Maura Murray was born, quickly growing to be an athlete, excelling at a variety of sports as well as in school. Though she made many strides as an athlete, sadly that is not what she would be most known for, instead she would be known for the fact that in February of 2009, she would vanish to never be seen again.

After high school she spent some time at West Point. West point is a prestigious military academy that is pretty strict and intense. She decided to transfer to the University of Massachusetts to go into nursing. There are rumors that she left west point to avoid being expelled after stealing a small amount of makeup that broke the schools honor code.

Once she had transferred schools, she continued in sports and maintaining good grades, though she was still far from perfect, she got into a bit of trouble again, this time for using stolen credit card numbers… though the amount she stole was under 250 she did have some interactions with law enforcement, she certainly didn’t have a perfect record despite being called by some an “All American Girl”.

Sometime before she went missing, she had been seen super upset, and her boss asked her what was going on. She had been talking to her sister, and all she would say to her boss was “Sister” though no one exactly understands why she would be that upset over her sister.

Her dorm room was packed up in boxes, with an unsure reason. Was she dropping out of school? Moving? Why exactly her dorm was mostly packed is a very strange question.

The weekend before going missing, Maura’s Dad came to visit her. Her car wasn’t working well, so the two supposedly went car shopping together. He then allowed her to take his car to a party. After the party, around 2:30 am she ran his car into a guardrail. Once again, far from a spotless record, as she had most likely been drinking at the party and honestly I’m not even sure why she had her Dad’s car, why hadn’t he dropped her off?

So, now we come to Monday February 9, 2004. This Monday morning, Maura wasn’t really talking to anyone, her family or boyfriend she was mostly quite with… however she did sent emails to her teachers and boss informing them that there had been a death in the family and she would be out of school that week… though there hadn’t really been a death in the family. At some point in the day she also did email her boyfriend, saying ” I got your messages, but honestly, I didn’t feel like talking to much of anyone. I promise to call today though.”

Despite not having a death in the family she packed up a few things that seemed normal for a college student who was going away for a few days. It seems like she may have called a few places looking at rentals, though as far as we know she didn’t have any luck. She also searched the internet for a few different directions.

Around 3:15 that afternoon, she went to an ATM and withdrew 280 dollars, which was pretty much all of her money. Then she proceeded to a liquor store where she spent forty dollars on baileys, kahlua, vodka, and a box of red wine. After that she left the area, heading towards New Hampshire.

She checks her messages at 4:37 and this is the last time her phone is used.

Fast forward to 7:27 pm when a woman calls police, informing them that a car is stuck in a ditch near her home.

A school bus driver, Butch Attwood sees the seen of the accident and he stops to try and help her. He offers her a ride, and informs her that he lives about two houses down, he says he will take her to his house where she can call for help. She claims that she has already called AAA and doesn’t need any assistance. Butch, knowing that the area has no cell phone service know she is lying and gets home to call the police at 7:42pm, stating that he had seen her and the air bags of the car had gone off but he hadn’t seen any blood.

Four minutes later, at 7:46 pm an officer arrives at the scene and Maura is no where to be found. Her car was locked, the box of wine in the back seat, some red stains are also in the back seat that possibly could have been the wine. The other bottles of alcohol she bought are not there as far as I know… Also go are her phone and all of her debit/credit cards and her cash.

The entire area was searched, on foot, with dogs, and even an air search was done and no trace or even footprints in the snow were ever found of Maura. Her cards and her phone have had no activity ever since.

Her family holds a vigil every year on the anniversary.

Recently, a basement of a nearby house was dug up… the previous owners wouldn’t ever let them search, and new owners had dogs hitting on a location, but it led to nothing. It was a huge disappointment for family who really believed that might have been where she was. Her father says that he knows what she wants, and what it is to come home and be buried in her hometown.

There are a lot of theories!

Someone picked her up, and took advantage of her…. though why would she go with anyone else when she had said no to Butch? Butch seems like he would be safer in a school bus that getting a ride as a random hitchhiker.

She set up a ride and went with someone, possibly a partner no one knew about and ran away.

The cop hit her when he went to the scene, killed her and then covered it up.

She was drunk and afraid of getting a DUI so she ran off into the woods and then most likely died in the woods.

She accepted Butch Attwoods help and he, as the last person to have seen her is the one who knows what happened to her… could he have possibly caused the accident?

I found a reddit poll done of some of the theories that 1.4 thousand people voted on and the results of that poll were:

416 Maura was abducted

83 Maura ran off to start a new life

763 She fled from police and died in the woods

138 She was murdered by someone involved in the case

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