(typing on keyboard) (fax machine beeps) (eerie music) - [Presenter] This was the first case that really took on a life of its own on the internet. - [Presenter 2] It's a unique case because of the short window when she disappears. She's literally, she's seen by people, and she's gone - [Reporter] Police finish another day in the search for more Maura Murray with more questions than answers.
- 2 days. - [Reporter] 10 days. - 1 year.
- 8 years. - 10 years - 15 years - [Presenter] Almost 20 years later, where is she? (soft dramatic music) (ambient music) - [Maura's Brother] I hear your voice for once.
It's full and clear, not just a memory left to disappear. And your smile, so full and bright, no longer hazy and distorted, an image lost to memory's fading light. So I ask, is this real?
Could this be real? I know that time is short. It's just a dream.
But in this moment, you're so much more to me than just a distant, fading memory. - Maura was my little sister. Our family grew up in the South Shore of Massachusetts.
And growing up, she was always cracking jokes, making fun of my parents, which was hilarious, making fun of me. And, but she was really caring. So when I was stationed in Korea in the military, my first year right outta West Point, she would always send me care packages and write me little letters.
- Maura Murray was just someone who was real smart and athletic. Gifted as a student and also gifted as an athlete. And she ran cross country and track and had set records at her school and in the state - Maura followed in my footsteps and she went to West Point.
I would tell her and write letters saying, you know, how much I thought she would enjoy it mostly because of the physicality and as well as the academics, I knew she would excel. Once she got to West Point, she did not enjoy that part as much as I did. So she decided after two years that she was going to move on and pursue a nursing career or nursing program at the University of Massachusetts, which was quite a big pivot from being a army officer.
The day that Maura went missing was Monday February 9th, 2004. - That morning, Maura Murray sends an email to her Professor, says there's been a death in the family, when in fact, that's not true. She packs up her room.
She gets into her car. She has a number of belongings with her. She heads to an ATM.
She withdraws most of her money that was in the account out. She goes to a liquor store. She buys a number of bottles of alcohol, gets in her car and then heads north.
But it's really not clear where she's going. The reason she left campus is a mystery. Now what's interesting is investigators end up finding on her computer that she had mapped out a route to Burlington, Vermont, even though she never ended up in Burlington.
She does have connections to New Hampshire. - That's an area that my family has vacationed our entire life, so Maura has been up there. - It's a road to Bartlett, where I'm sure she was going 'cause she knows that like her backyard because we were in New Hampshire so much, at least four times a year.
- About 4:30 is the last known phone call that Maura made and it was a call to check her voicemail. From 4:30 to 7:30 there was no activity on her phone and we're not really sure what happens during that time. - [Mike Beaudet] She ends up in New Hampshire in a small town called Haverhill.
And it's a really windy road. She ends up going off the road and crashing her car. (tires screech) (eerie music) - We know at 7:30, there was a call in from a resident and they said there's a car off the side of the road and there appears to be somebody in an accident.
And then another resident came home. - I just asked her how she was. She said she was shaken up.
I couldn't see any blood on her face. And she was shaken, I guess. I says, okay, I'm gonna go call the police.
- [Mike Beaudet] This is the one encounter that we know of that Maura Murray actually has with someone up there in New Hampshire. She says she's already called AAA. Well, this is a remarkably remote area of New Hampshire with limited cell service, even back then.
So there's no way that she had called AAA. - So that was a red flag for him. (sirens blare) Within about 7 to 10 minutes of the first 911 call, the first police officer arrived on scene, and he arrived to a locked vehicle with nobody around and that's where the nightmares started.
(somber music) - When the police come back, Maura Murray has disappeared. - What happened after that remains unknown. - The first responding officer did notice some peculiar things at the scene where the Saturn was found, such as a rag in the tail pipe.
There was some red liquid, which may have indicated that she was drinking, and there was a cracked windshield and both airbags were deployed. I don't understand why they didn't do more that first night because if she had been drinking, if she did hit her head, she was in great danger, you know, cause it was cold, it's February, it's New Hampshire, there's two feet of snow on the ground, and she didn't know that particular area. - She doesn't take everything when she leaves, but she does take some items.
Inside the car were other belongings that she had, including some of her books and some of equipment that she had, and also some alcohol that she had purchased. So not all of the alcohol, but at least some of the alcohol - Everything that was found in a car was indicative of her just trying to get away and clear her head. Although I can't be for sure, because I don't know why she went up there.
There was no sign Maura the next day or even that night. There was no sign of her at all. There was no footprints in the snow, nothing.
She just disappeared off the face of the planet in a 7 to 10 minute window with people watching her. - It just doesn't make sense. How does Maura Murray just disappear?
- Nobody in my family was notified that Monday. It wasn't until the next day, Tuesday, that the law enforcement got ahold of my older sister Kathleen. Kathleen called my dad, my mom, everyone, me, asking "Why is dad's car up there?
Where's Maura? " "Why isn't she at school? " And no one had any answers.
So it was panic and then just chaos, and then back to panic. Those crucial hours, from Monday night when the car was found until Tuesday, we consider those a missed opportunity because it was crucial. If she was around that area, that 24 hours was when, you know, her trail was hot.
- I think the family was frustrated with the investigation right away. They just felt that the police were not taking it seriously, that they just assumed that Maura disappeared because she wanted to disappear and that they weren't preserving this as a possible crime scene. (somber music) - Maura was 21 at the time and it's not a crime to go missing.
And so they didn't treat it as such. My dad arrived about dawn on Wednesday. He wanted to join the search.
So we went to the police station and said, you know, "Where's the search? " You know, "Where's my daughter? What's going on?
" "What do we know? " And my dad essentially was the search because they hadn't done much of anything. - [Kathleen Murray] We've been going through the woods and we're just looking for something, somebody just took him out and say something.
- We're also asking the public who may have driven by the scene of the accident that night to please give us a call if someone saw her and gave her a ride because it would give us a better last known area where she was. - If anybody actually saw her on the road that night, did not see here, drove the whole road, did not see her, call us, because now we know that she did not go down there and she most likely accepted a ride, and, you know, we're considering other locations - I say all the time that we have to keep everything on the table until we find Maura. So I'm not one to completely rule out any particular theory.
Scent dogs followed Maura's scent about a hundred meters down the road and then her scent disappeared in the middle of the road. - There are so many theories out there, but none of them have been proven. We don't know what happened to Maura Murray.
Where is she? Did she disappear because she wanted to? Did someone commit foul play?
Did she die in the woods? We just don't know. - Everybody's here looking for you.
Just go call any one of us will come right down and get you. Don't be afraid please. (Julie Murray typing) - Maura's disappearance happened five days after Facebook launched.
Initially, the internet was great for raising awareness. I don't know that we'd ever have the amount of coverage as early on as we did, so we are definitely thankful for that. That was a start of true crime when we had all the people talking in forums and you had this ability to actually make a difference in these cases and there are armchair detectives that were able to piece things together and be a positive influence on cases and help investigators.
- When you have so many people like that, sharing information, it also breeds a lot of different theories, a lot of different narratives, and a lot of misinformation for whatever reason it is, because it's such a mystery, because there are so many unknowns, it has attracted so much attention and so much interest from around the world. And it's created this atmosphere online where people have put out their own theories, where they've speculated, where they've wondered what really happened to her. - People are able to hide behind fake accounts and anonymous trolling.
It's been very difficult for my family to try to slow that down and correct all of this misinformation that's out online. We've got all this coverage and my family is thankful for that because the way that these cases are solved is through awareness and through engagement. However, that comes with a cost, and the cost is exploiting the tragedy, and exploiting Maura herself, and exploiting my family and anyone that tries to help.
- I think the frustration hit the boiling point for the family and they decided, you know what, we're gonna try to grab hold of this narrative, and we're going to create this website where we can put information out there that we vet and that we believe is factual. And so it was a way for the family to sort of regain ownership of Maura's story. - You won't find much clickbait or any click bait on the website.
(gentle music) - This is just part of overturning the next stone to see what's under it. And, but it's incredibly hard and it's terribly frustrating. - [Mike Beaudet] Fred Murray has been frustrated since the day his daughter disappeared with the response from police.
And ultimately he wanted access to the records and so he went to court to try and obtain all the records in this case. And this is a battle that went all the way to the state's highest court in New Hampshire - In his mind, if they're not gonna use the files, we were. And we were doing it, we were actively investigating it.
We wanted to see the files. We wanted to see her computer. We wanted to see, you know, who they've interviewed.
Things in areas, not that would hurt the investigation, but would help, you know, supplement it. - [Murrays' Attorney] Shouldn't the state, at the very least, concede that it's a criminal investigation? I gather the state hasn't even done that.
- We cannot, with a hundred percent certainty, say that a crime has been committed. - I think she was picked up by someone who did her harm. I tend to think she's no longer with us because she hasn't reached out to any of us.
- You keep it a missing person case forever, you never have to say anything at all about what you did. - We want to be sure that when we find out what happened to Maura Murray, that if it involved a crime, that we can bring that person to justice. - The court stood by the fact that the investigators were saying that this was an active investigation, that this was an open investigation, and therefore they did not want to turn over all these records.
- They released some records, but they're mostly redacted. They didn't help us much in any way. My dad, he led the boots on the ground effort and he would go up there every weekend, a lot of times by himself.
And during that time, when he was up there, he'd get a lot of local rumors. - [Maura's Father] There's your positive right there. - [Interviewer] The dog lays down?
- [Maura's Father] Yes. (dog barks) - [Julie Murray] And one of the local rumors was Mara was buried in a basement. (somber music) (suspenseful music) - I remember talking to Fred Murray at his house here in Massachusetts and just the agony he was going through, that he felt, this is something, this is legitimate evidence that a cadaver sniffing dog is picking up on, yet the authorities are ignoring it.
This was a house that the family said they had never had access to in the past, but now there were new owners and they were finally able to access this particular house that was in the area. The cadaver sniffing dogs go in there, two different dogs went in there, and seem to hit on this area, indicating that something might be buried in the basement. - It tells me that my daughter is buried there most likely and that I'm powerless to dig her up and bring her home and give her a proper burial.
- That was excruciating, waiting. I remember get getting into screaming battles with my dad about him wanting to, you know, pursue it one way and me wanting to pursue it another way, and what can we do? And how can we force them to, you know, see if this is Maura buried in this basement?
- We did a number of stories on this and ultimately the authorities agreed that they would go in and excavate that area. - There's always a level of uncertainty with something like this. I am optimistic that we may have finally found her.
That's the only thing I could pray for. - The next thing we know, there's a press conference being called - Here I am driving as fast as I can up to New Hampshire, heart beating, and they said, "We're gonna have a press conference at 2:00 PM. " And so I thought, "This is it.
" Like, they found her, this is it. You know, 'cause the dig couldn't have taken four hours. You know, they must have found her - A team of over a dozen agents and detectives went into that basement, they cut that area, removed the concrete, and then searched several feet down and covered the entire area and beyond where that disturbed ground had been, and they located absolutely nothing, other than a small piece of what looks to be potentially pottery, maybe a piece of old piping.
- And I was sitting next to my dad at the time and you could just see his whole body just deflate. It was hard to watch 'cause he thought that was it. - I remember watching Fred Murray at that press conference and he was so frustrated.
- This one hurts 'cause I thought we finally had it. This one is worse than the other false alarms or dead ends. - I was kind of relieved because I really didn't want to have to face the reality of Maura being buried in a cement basement so close to the accident scene.
But at the same time, it's like another false hope. Like no answers still. (somber music) - The family has gone through one waiting game after another.
We're going on 20 years now of waiting for them to figure out where Maura Murray is. So on 2021 human remains are found in New Hampshire in an area around Loon Mountain. And so once again, there's hope on the family's part that maybe these remains will bring some answers.
- I almost fell over because Loon Mountain is about 25 miles from where Maura's car was found. It was just a whirlwind of emotions and thoughts and thinking, "Oh this could be it. " You know?
So that waiting period was, again, excruciating. Just sitting there waiting, "Could this be? " And then your, your mind starts to go and think of all the reasons why it could be and how you missed it.
(wind whistling) (somber music) And then I got an email from the Assistant Attorney General saying the results were in and that the bones were, in fact, outside of the date range that could have been Maura. So again, you know, another gut punch for my family. We've become accustomed to not getting too hopeful when we hear news like this and losing too much hope.
So it's also a fine balance. - Am I realistic? I don't know, but I'm certainly gonna, I'm not gonna stop hoping that.
- We saw Fred Murray desperate for answers back in 2004 and wondering where his daughter is, and then we see him five years later, 10 years later, 15 years later, and we see that pain, that anguish that he and his family have gone through and still the not knowing what happened. - It keeps slogging away, same as always, not no quick. You know?
There's the only way Maura is coming home to be buried is a right ground. - There are times when I'm just with him alone, just random times when he'll just say something that's, you know, "Man, Maura would've loved this. " Or.
. . And it's those moments that really get me emotionally.
(somber music) The number one thing that I want people to know is she's still missing. You know, after all these documentaries, after all this talk online, after all these years, we're still no closer. Maura is still missing.
It's been 18 years. (somber music continues) - The Murray family is so committed to figuring out what happened to Maura Murray. - You know, I've got two awesome brothers and, you know, my sister Kathleen just passed away, so you know, and my mother passed away and my dad's getting older and there's people that are, you know, they're passing away without ever knowing and that's sad.
We know Maura, we know each other, and we know the we're not ever giving up no matter what. - It's been a year! - Please.
- I think people in both states, Massachusetts and New Hampshire, have rallied around the family from the beginning. And when you look at some of that footage from back in 2004, where you see people from the community coming up and searching in the woods, and continuing to go up there year after year, really just trying to offer support to the family and also to help try to figure out this mystery. What always strikes me is their willingness to talk about the case, but then, as you listen to Julie Murray talk about her sister, you realize that she believes the only way that this case is going to be solved is to continue talking about Maura Murray.
Any bit of information can potentially solve this case. - I don't have the choice to walk away. I can't close my computer and not deal with it, like, I deal with it every day and I don't have a choice.
