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It was February 9, 2005 just a few feet from where Maura's black Saturn was found pressed against a snow bank one year before. Joining him were family, friends, a local minister and a herd of media.

He stapled a bright bow and a fresh picture of Maura onto the tree. "I hope this is the last time I have to do this," Fred told reporters.

By now Fred Murray knew the area intimately. Ever since his daughter went missing, he had spent almost every weekend in the White Mountains, driving up from Bridgeport, Conn., to search for any clue to Maura's disappearance.

Earlier that same Wednesday morning, Fred tipped off the media that he was headed to the N.H. State House in Concord in hopes of meeting newly-elected Governor John Lynch. With media at his heels, Fred did meet with Lynch for about 10 minutes.

This was his latest plea for FBI help in the case. Since Maura was still considered a missing person, the FBI could only join the investigation if invited by New Hampshire State Police.

Fred also asked for the governor's help in releasing police records pertaining to the investigation. He had requested documents from police such as phone logs, and accident reports. The governor assured Fred he would look into the situation.

After the meeting, Fred told reporters he hoped Gov. Lynch would intervene on his behalf, but in an interview two years later he described the meeting as no more than "window dressing" -- an effort to show the public that the governor was a "good guy."

This was Fred's second appeal to a New Hampshire governor. In May of 2004, three months after Maura disappeared, Fred had petitioned then Gov. Craig Benson for help, based in part on a new lead that developed.

A local contractor named Rick Forcier had reported seeing Maura on the night of her accident around 8 about 4 to 5 miles from the scene of her abandoned car. Forcier lived on Wild Ammonoosuc Road about 100 yards from where Maura's car was found.

Forcier was returning home from a contract job in Franconia about 17 miles away when he observed a young woman who fit Maura's description running eastbound on Route 112.

When Forcier was first questioned by police, ten days after Maura disappeared, he did not mention seeing the girl running because he was confused about the dates and mistakenly thought it had been two nights after Maura's accident.

Nearly three months later, after hearing numerous news reports about the search for Maura, Forcier checked his work records and realized it was the same night as Maura's disappearance. Forcier told his story to Fred Murray, who relayed the information to police.

On April 29, Forcier was interviewed by State Police Lt. John Scarinza who checked out Forcier's time records at his job in Franconia and confirmed that his story was credible.

As a result of this new information, a search was conducted on May 8. Canine teams with six dogs and 15 Fish and Game officers searched the area where Forcier may have seen Maura running. No new leads were reported.

That same day Fred held a press conference at the Woodsville American Legion Hall with the parents of Brianna Maitland, a 17 year-old girl who was last seen after leaving her waitress job in Montgomery, Vermont, about six weeks after Maura went missing. Montgomery is located about 90 miles north of Woodsville. Maitland's car was found abandoned about a mile from where she worked. At the same press conference were the parents of Aime Riley who was last seen leaving a bar in Manchester, N.H. in August of 2003. Her body was found in April of 2004 in a pond in Manchester, N.H. about 120 miles south of Woodsville.

The press conference was another attempt by Fred to push for FBI help. He and the other families believed the three cases could be connected and since the Maitland and Murray cases crossed state lines, the FBI should be involved, they reasoned.

"Why wouldn't [state police] want the best help in the world?" Fred asked in a later interview. The FBI had been involved on a limited basis shortly after Maura disappeared, but its role was restricted to interviewing Maura's family and friends in Massachusetts. The Bureau would later take a more aggressive role in the Maitland disappearance but it has not been publicly involved in Maura's case. 

Exactly one month later, on June 8, 2005, Vermont and New Hampshire State Police issued a joint press release stating there was no connection between the Maura Murray and Brianna Maitland cases. "Investigators believe that Maura was headed for an unknown destination and may have accepted a ride in order to continue to that location," said Lt. Scarinza in the release, adding there were "no signs of any struggle, or any other evidence, which would indicate that a crime had been committed."

Two weeks later, a N.H. State Police Trooper turned up on the doorstep of Maura's sister Kathleen's home in Hanover, Mass. The trooper requested that all items found in Maura's car be returned. Maura's belongings had been given to the Murray family within two weeks of the accident.

Police also confiscated the hard drive of Maura's computer, which had been in her dorm room and took custody of Maura's car, which had been sitting unlocked at a North Haverhill, N.H. garage since the accident. Police explained that a major crimes unit of the State Police was stepping into the case and wanted to conduct forensic tests of Maura's car and personal belongings.

The fact that the major crimes unit was just now getting involved in the case rankled Fred Murray, who said he was repeatedly assured that Maura's disappearance was being handled in the same manner as a criminal case despite the missing person label.

To this day, the Murray family is still in the dark as to why Maura's belongings were seized by police that day.

Another ground search was initiated on July 13. More than 100 searchers, including state police troopers and conservation officers, spread out across a one-mile radius of where Maura's car was found. No reason was given for why this search was conducted except to say police were looking for anything Maura may have left behind, such as the black backpack she was believed to have been carrying when she left the scene.

Meanwhile Fred Murray was conducting his own search. Nearly every weekend he drove to Woodsville to investigate any tip that came his way. Whether following up on supposed sightings of his daughter or checking out eccentric local characters, Fred was first on the scene. "Any rumor, we'll look at," he said. "They are plenty of good suspects ... this is the worst place in the world to have an accident."

"Any rumor, we'll look at," he said. "They are plenty of good suspects ... this is the worst place in the world to have an accident." - Fred Murray

Fred was not the only one carefully watching the local crime scene for a possible link.

"Every time some strange crime happens here people start saying 'maybe it's related to the Maura Murray case,'" said Bryan Flagg, a publisher and editor of the local newspaper, North Country News.

To this day, Fred traipses through remote paths of the New Hampshire forest, peers into strangers' vehicles, rummages in dumpsters and basements and even knocks on the doors of convicted felons. He is fearless in his search.

Fred's persistence resulted in a formal letter of complaint from Haverhill, N.H. Chief of Police Jeff Williams in April of 2004. Williams warned Fred that complaints of trespassing and parking on private property had been filed by area property owners and that repeat offenders would be arrested. Police would not say how many complaints were filed or by whom, though one resident and witness to the accident, Faith Westman, later admitted to submitting an official complaint; many other Woodsville residents have said searches had not been a problem and were sympathetic to Fred's situation.

Fred chased down rumor after rumor. Most led nowhere, but every now and then something turned up that merited further pursuit.

In late 2004, a man came forward to Fred with a stained, rusty jackknife. The stains were a reddish-brown color, Fred said. The man told Fred he thought his brother may have been connected to Maura's disappearance. At the time of Maura's accident the brother was living less than a mile away, the man related. He described his brother as having a record of violence and said that his brother's live-in girlfriend began acting strange around the time of Maura's disappearance.

Fred tried to turn the knife over to police but did not get beyond the plate glass window at state police headquarters, "I have what could be evidence in a capital crime," he recalled saying to the dispatcher, but the dispatcher said no one was available at headquarters to accept such evidence. Fred was told to come back during regular work hours. Fred then mailed the knife to state police along with all the information he received on the suspect. A few days later Fred received a proof of receipt that his package had reached the police but was never contacted by police regarding the knife or the possible suspect.

The man who came forward with the rusted jackknife died earlier this year. Efforts to reach his brother were unsuccessful.

The brother's identity and the identity of the man who approached Fred are not being disclosed because there is no evidence he is considered a suspect in Maura's disappearance. Police refused comment when asked about the knife.

In March of 2005, Fred, always relentless, made another push for FBI intervention and the release of police records on his daughter's investigation. He met with Attorney General Kelly Ayotte, Senior Asst. Atty. Gen. Jeff Strelzin, State Police Sgt. Robert Bruno, who is now retired, and State Police Lt. John Scarinza. In this meeting Fred again passed along the information regarding the knife. When Fred still didn't hear back from police after that meeting, he later said, "I knew I was doomed."

Fred's frustration, coupled with failed attempts to access police records for the case, spurred him to file a lawsuit against various law enforcement agencies including the State Police in late 2005 (see sidebar).

Around this same time, about ten retired police officers and detectives volunteered to give fresh eyes to Maura's case. This team, called the New Hampshire League of Investigators, was not privy to confidential police records but analyzed the facts available to them, re-interviewed witnesses and family and generally attempted to provide a support network for the family, which was growing angrier and less trusting of police.

"It is our job to be sort of a buffer between police and the family, to help the family understand what the police are doing behind the scenes," explained John Healy, a former N.H. State Police officer who is one of the team's leaders.

Healy's team followed up with various other sources and after a year of reviewing available materials, the volunteer investigators organized a two-day search in the last week of October in 2006. Canine teams were dispersed to six different publicly owned areas within five miles of where Maura's car was found.

Healy would not provide specifics as to why certain areas were searched explaining only that 95 percent of homicide victims are found within a five-mile radius of where they were last seen. It was the goal of investigators to thoroughly cover this area, he said.

Gravel pits and sand pits were searched, as these areas are ideal spots to dump a body. The area around French Pond Road was also carefully examined because of its close proximity. French Pond Road was the route Butch Atwood had driven in his own search for Maura shortly after she disappeared from the scene.

Fred was also present for the search and aggressively pushed investigators to search an A-frame house on Valley Road near the scene of the accident. He suspected it might be somehow connected.

The property was on the real estate market, so Fred sought out real estate agent Stan Davis and asked permission to search the house. Davis confirmed that he gave Fred his consent and provided him with a key to the house.

The fight for the house search was worth the effort.

On the first day, a cadaver dog searched the house and had hits on the second level; the next day four more cadaver dogs were put to work in the house and went "bonkers," Fred said. The strongest hits by the dogs were in a downstairs closet. Cadaver dogs are skilled in sniffing for decomposing bodies but are not able to distinguish the identities of bodies.

Though a dead body could have been stored in this closet, the dogs were not capable of identifying if the body was Maura.

The investigators took a few trash bags filled with items from the house and a piece of carpet from the closet. According to Fred, the carpet was to be divided into two pieces: a portion of the carpet was to be given to state police, who were not present for the search, and the other portion was to be held by the group of volunteer investigators. A medical laboratory examination was to determine if stains on the carpet were blood, and if available DNA matched Maura's. Seven months later, laboratory test results have not been made available from either group.

There is confusion over who has custody of the carpet. Private Investigator Healy was ill the weekend of the search, but said that police were not at all interested in the evidence and would not take the carpet into their possession. Healy said the carpet is in the custody of an investigator who no longer "has business relations" with the group. 

Private Investigator Don Nason, who is the current president of the volunteer organization and was present at the search of the A-frame house, said all evidence was turned in to State Police. "We don't have the proper storage facility to hold evidence," he said.

Nason assured "everything possible was being done" to obtain a successful outcome in Maura's case and was enthusiastic about police efforts, "I have every faith in their work."

Healy believes the homicide unit has put more hours into Maura's case than any other in recent history. Jeff Strelzin, chief of the Homicide Unit and senior assistant attorney general, confirmed that State Police have put "hundreds of hours" into the investigation.

In a court hearing Strelzin argued that having records available to the public would hamper the prosecution if criminal charges were to be pressed in Maura's case. He predicted a 75 percent likelihood of prosecution.

"We do have information that we are pursuing that this may involve a crime," said Nancy Smith, senior assistant attorney general, while testifying in court.

As an investigator, Nason is also sensitive to the police investigation for fear of "compromising" the case. Nason said most information volunteer investigators gather is only released to State Police and the Attorney General's Office; "It doesn't even go to Fred."

Fred has given up hope on the effectiveness of the police, believing "shoddy work" is likely the reason they won't release records. "They didn't do what they were supposed to do, and they've been covering up ever since." He is also disillusioned with the league of private investigators.

Fred continues with his own search.

"Anything I want done, I do it myself," he said.

Maura Murray: The Series

1. Maura is Missing Part I: The Departure
2. Maura is Missing Part II: The Accident
3. Maura is Missing Part III: The Search
4. Maura is Missing Part IV: The Aftermath
5. Maura is Missing: The Epilogue

Sidebars

1. Could a hit & run accident be connected to Maura
2. Did Maura make the mysterious phone call?
3. Legal battle waged over files