Twenty Years Later and UMASS runner, Maura Murray, is Still Missing...

Wow, my two favorite topics converge. This is the thread to end all threads!

And with your great comment...we are #4 on the World Famous Message Board. True Crime meets Distance Running! Did you know about her before? Any insight on times?

Would that be mysterious disappearances and trolling? I am not sure running or true crime is involved here, although it certainly seems plausible. It is a good thread. Thanks for starting it OP, and I would like to learn more about this case. It seems like answers are hard to come by.

About 10 years ago I found out about this story and read all of The posts on James Renner's site. I think he's taken down a lot- I never read his book but I would assume a lot of the information ended up there.

I was always hopeful that she just ran away. He Ex-boyfriend was a real bad person (I believe he has been convicted of sexual assault or domestic violence, but I could be misremebering), her dad had some weird stuff going on and there were some other bad things, if I recall. She had dropped off the Umass Track team by the time she had disappeared.

It's possible it was a random crime, but that seems like a low chance occurrence in a snowstorm. Still, it's a sad story and I've always wondered what actually happened.

Yeah…the book definitely weaved in Renner’s obsession with the case and his own addiction issues. It was entertaining to say the least (I read it after listening to a few other podcasts on Maura) but it seemed he took some hard shots at Fred and other family members, possibly due to the fact they told him NOT to write the book. Fred had his sayings “the skunk is on the front porch” and “they couldn’t catch a cold”. He’s an old-timer South Shore father, who pushed his daughters very hard to become D1 runners. He also ran marathons when he was younger and indeed took his kids camping in the White Mountains. As he has stated, the family didn’t have a ton of money and camping was a cheap vacation. Renner really rode him most the book and as a father with daughters, I think he did overstep, unless there’s something I’m missing. I’d point to her relationships (with Bill and a confirmed one with an asst. X-C coach at UMASS), eating disorder, type-A academic / athletic personality, kleptomania (credit card numbers and the incident at Fort Knox), multiple car accidents etc. as the issues that led her to drive up north in the first place.

That said, you can’t deny that Renner brought some massive attention to the case and even dug into the police missteps. He did a documentary (3 episodes) where they pursued the Quebec theory but they obviously did not find her. The Afterword was all about what you mention with Bill. Dark behavior for sure. Criminal sexual assault. There was another piece that came up with Bill’s sister committing suicide and Renner suggests that she had wanted to tell the Sheriff about a crime in a note she left or something like that. True Crime Addict is on Spotify and Renner reads it. She had problems before this with depression and addiction.

The fact that there has been no resolution - or even a strong lead - in twenty years makes me sad. I feel like if there was some conspiracy, someone would talk. My buddy, a journalist and limo driver, who passed away this year, drove a couple from Hanson, MA to Logan one time; he said they were very matter-of-fact the she was still alive and working for the government, living in another country. This guy was a straight-shooter, never made up stories. He was completely shocked to hear this after researching the case for years. Who knows?

Update! I have not found evidence of her dad doing strange things, so that appears to be a bad memory.

However, A later girlfriend of the boyfriend said he put her hands on around her neck and said he was going to kill her like he killed maura- yikes!

Over the years there has been several unsolved murders/disappearances of women in northern NH and into VT.

She's dead, she's been dead the entire team. Whoever did it kept it to themselves and buried her somewhere she won't be found. I've read rumors that she was buried in the foundation of a house nearby.

Her family wasn't involved, her boyfriend wasn't involved. She got picked up by the wrong guy that night. Will probably never be found.

So she is either dead or an even better hider than Anne Frank

https://open.spotify.com/episode/3m0W26EldsLjQOjauyZude?si=l5fba8BGRxKBgWwPBT2oAg

This is a good interview with her sister, Julie. She may agree with you, and even speaks in past tense about Maura. Part of me thinks: What are the chances a psychotic killer was driving past her on that random road? It was 6-10 minute window. Maybe less. At least four people had eyes on her and that car has been reported in two different places - on the curve and the 200 meters down the road in front of Butch Atwood’s house. One account had a police SUV nose-to-nose. Another has the car locked, the another unlocked, then a report of a “flurry of activity around the trunk area”. Sure, a bad dude or “dirtbag” as Fred called him could have grabbed her but I believe there was more to the story. She took the keys with her and her wallet, and the alcohol. Her cards and phone were never used again. Strange all around.

https://open.spotify.com/show/6a3M8qySLfnjDThmsNsw2q?si=pin76jkkSCioGS3e0kxAyA

If you have Spotify Premium, Renner’s book is an interesting listen. However, he has some extreme and perhaps unfounded theories. He also takes shots at Fred Murray, who told him NOT to write the book. It’s a good place to start but not a definitive account. Listen to Julie’s Media Pressure podcast.

oxygen.com

The Disappearance of Maura Murray | Oxygen Official Site

When bright, young nursing student Maura Murray vanished on February 9, 2004, witnesses heard what they thought was a car crash and then saw Maura outside her vehicle on the side of the road, but moments later, when police ar...

Open link

This series is very interesting as well. The dig into all that has been discussed on this thread.

Hello,

It sounds like a very mysterious and tragic case. Murray was a star athlete on the track team at Whitman-Hanson Regional high school, where she graduated in 2000. She was accepted into the United states Military Academy in West point, New York, where she studied chemical engineering for three semesters. She left West Point and transferred to the University of Massachusetts Amherst to study nursing.

I could not find any official records of her running times in high school or college, but I did find some posts on Reddit and All That’s Interesting that mentioned some of her achievements.

Thanks. I am kicking myself because I had a late friend, who brought this case to my attention years ago, and he covered Maura in HS. I had read she was 33rd in the US for HS 2-milers at one point. West Point and other D1 schools recruited her - Fred mentions Yale in an interview. Not sure of her final achievements in MIAA runnings but she ran for West Point for two years and may have run X-C at UMASS that first semester but had an injury and may have left the team.

Renner wrote about her affair with a coach, Hossein Baghdadi or “Hoss” as they called him. Renner posted about on Reddit about seven years ago. I think authorities, maybe the FBI met with him and had nothing to do with her disappearance and is now an exec with Nike. He was a grad student with a PH. D in Chemical Engineering. Renner talks about some strange college sexual stuff going on with the team but provides little evidence about that.

Again, even the Oxygen series credits Renner with keeping attention on the case, although the trolls and others kept coming up with bizarre scenarios. He had a theory she was pregnant with Bill’s kid (or someone else’s?). She left because she wanted to escape to Canada to keep the kid away from him. They argue that was untrue because she had birth control pills with four missing. Here’s the Reddit link:

https://www.reddit.com/r/MauraMurrayCase/comments/6l75hh/hossein_baghdadi_she_talked_about_running_away/

Did you have a link to the Reddit page you mention below?

What are some of the other cases? I guess when they looked into some of the residents in the surrounding area, a few of them had very dark past and criminal records. Briana Maitland was the other one I read about…