N

estled in the Connecticut River Valley, a stone's throw from the Vermont border, Woodsville is a rural village within the town of Haverhill, New Hampshire. Woodsville has a year-round population of 1,080 and was best known as the home of America's oldest covered bridge -- until the night of Mon. Feb. 9, 2004.

Sometime after 7 that evening, 21-year-old Maura Murray found herself in a snow bank off Wild Ammonoosuc Road in Woodsville. How and why she arrived at that point, and what happened next is the source of great mystery, conjecture and heartache.

The Wells River Motel is a modest, cozy refuge that sits on the Vermont side of the Connecticut River just across from New Hampshire. The motel offers 11 rooms, each with its own theme, including a teddy bear room outfitted with teddy bears on the beds.

As of Wednesday, Feb. 11, 2004, the Wells River Motel became the unofficial headquarters in the search for Maura Murray. Just 36 hours earlier Maura's car had been found abandoned along Route 112, eight miles away in neighboring Woodsville, N.H. 

A

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.

"Do a story about the disappearance of Maura Murray," my editor told me, "and make it the most in-depth piece ever done on the case." At first it was a daunting task, but later a privilege.

I poured over old news articles, checked websites and jotted down questions. Then I called Fred Murray, Maura's father. My editor thought this would be a good start. He was wrong. Fred didn't return my call, or the next one, or the next one.

Did Maura make the mysterious phone call?While a search was beginning in Woodsville N.H., Billy Rausch was walking through security in a Dallas airport. He had just shut off his phone when he received a voice message.

While Maura was crying at her workplace in the Melville dormitory another puzzling event was taking place elsewhere at UMass. Around 12:20 a.m., a UMass junior, Petrit Vasi of Dorchester, was found unconscious in the road at the intersection of Triangle and Mattoon Streets in Amherst, about a mile and a half away from where Maura was working.

Let's Bring Them Home, a missing person's advocacy group out of Arkansas, announces a $75,000 reward for missing woman Maura Murray. The reward issued for the Hanson native, and UMASS Amherst nursing student and former USMA West Point Cadet, has been issued through the end of the year.The reward issued for the Hanson native, and UMASS Amherst nursing student and former USMA West Point Cadet, has been issued through the end of the year.

In a continuing effort to shed light on even the smallest pieces of information, the New Hampshire Attorney General has released a number of documents pertaining to the Maura Murray case that, until now, had never been seen by the public.The list of accident reports, police logs, and court documents paint a picture of a desperate father trying to find his daughter, but butting heads with bureaucracy every step of the way.

A book found in missing Whitman-Hanson student Maura Murray’s car doesn’t mean what police and media reports are saying it means, said Fred Murray this week.

Maura Murray’s father is calling a recent newspaper report about his daughter’s disappearance a “whitewash” and “pure fiction.” The report, published Feb. 13 in the Journal Opinion of New Hampshire and entitled “Police Defend Procedure in Murray case,” does appear to contradict some established facts of the case.

It’s been four years of frustration for Fred Murray, as he is no closer to finding out what happened to his daughter that cold February night in 2004.