Concord Monitor

About January 2007

(INCOMPLETE?)

When 21-year-old Maura Murray disappeared from a mountain road in New Hampshire on a February night in 2004, her father believed from the start she was kidnapped.

Nearly three years later, just finding her body is the last hope Maura's father, Fred Murray, and his family still cling to, even if it means confirming she is dead.

"I want to make sure I do everything I can possibly do," Fred Murray said yesterday alongside Route 112, while dogs trained to find human remains searched for her nearby. "I don't want to leave any avenue unexplored. I owe it to my daughter."

Fred Murray and a half dozen family members gathered in Haverhill yesterday for yet another search of the area where the girl's empty car was found after the accident. Maura Murray was driving on Rt. 112 near the western edge of the White Mountains on Feb. 9, 2004, when she apparently lost control of her car and plowed into a snow bank. The junior nursing student from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst was never seen again.

Family members do not know where she was going or what happened, only that they don't believe she would ever run away without contacting anyone. They believe she was abducted and most likely killed. The police have searched the area repeatedly since then, but say they have no evidence of foul play. The case's status has never been upgraded from a missing persons search.