The disappearance of Maura Murray remains one of the most enduring and baffling missing person cases in modern U.S. history.
The young Massachusetts nursing student went missing after crashing her car on a snowy rural road in New Hampshire and hasn't been seen since.
To further baffle investigators, the circumstances leading up to her disappearance are confusing and unsettling:
On the afternoon of Monday, February 9, at 1:24 pm, Murray emailed a work supervisor of the nursing school faculty that she would be out of town for a week due to a death in her family. According to her family, the family had not experienced a death. At 2:05 pm, Murray called a number which provides recorded information about booking hotels in Stowe, Vermont. The call lasted approximately five minutes. ...
In her car, Murray packed clothing, toiletries, college textbooks, and birth control pills. When her room was searched later, campus police discovered most of her belongings packed in boxes and the art removed from the walls. It is not clear whether Murray packed them that day, but police at the time said she had packed between Sunday night and Monday morning. ...
At 3:40 pm, Murray withdrew $280 from an ATM. Closed-circuit footage showed she was alone. At a nearby liquor store, Murray purchased about $40 worth of alcoholic beverages, including Baileys Irish Cream, Kahlúa, vodka, and a box of Franzia wine. Security footage again shows she was alone when she made that purchase. At some point in the day, she also picked up accident-report forms from the Massachusetts Registry of Motor Vehicles
None of it makes any sense. Murray, meanwhile, has not been seen since February of 2004. Yet the investigation into her disappearance remains both open and, as of this month, quite active:
A ground search Wednesday in connection with the 2004 disappearance of a Massachusetts college student has concluded, officials with the New Hampshire attorney general's office told WMUR.
The search in connection with the Maura Murray investigation was conducted Wednesday off Route 112 in Landaff and Easton, about four miles from where her car was found abandoned in 2004.
Officials did not release any information about what, if anything, was found.
Just to underscore the point here:
While the search is over, officials in the attorney general's office said, "Our active, ongoing investigation continues."
What could they be looking for? What did they find? What could have led them to suddenly search this area after nearly 20 years?
The resolution of this case would solve one of the Internet's longstanding mysteries, what commentators have called the "first crime mystery of the social media age."
Above all, we should hope and pray that Murray's family receives answers and closure to this strange, upsetting tragedy.
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