Fred Murray Letter to Governor Lynch

February 9, 2005

Mr. Frederick Murray

Governor John Lynch

Office of the Governor

State House

25 Capitol Street

Concord NH 03301

Governor Lynch:

Today, February 9, 2005 marks the one year point of my daughter, Maura Murray’s unlikely and highly suspicious disappearance following a minor car accident on Route 112 in North Haverhill, New Hampshire.

The investigative body, New Hampshire State Police Troop F of Grafton County, has followed up its astonishingly careless go-through-the-motions response with an unnaturally steadfast refusal to communicate on the matter since. Their investigation includes not questioning neighbors who live one hundred yards from and in sight of the accident scene until 10 days had passed, and this only after my family and friends had spoken to these people and expressed our shock about it to the police. My daughter could have walked right by or have been picked up in a vehicle by the wrong person(s) in full view of these houses. Not even the fact that their tracking dog lost Maura’s scent squarely before these properties, one of which was owned by the last person who talked to Maura, and another by the last person to actually see her, was enough to provoke the most elementary of basic investigatory technique.

Phone records reveal that Maura called a couple who rent their condominium in Bartlett, New Hampshire, where our family has vacationed for decades, just before she left the University of Massachusetts and headed directly that way last February 9. When I recently discovered that these folks had never even been contacted by Troop F it felt as if I had just been struck across the face with a two-by-four.

I remain convinced also that police have not fully developed a lead given to them concerning a local man who claimed he knew what had happened to “that girl” and disclosed the location where she had been held and by whom.

Law Enforcement’s decision on this case from its inception has been to insist that you can take your pick of three possible happenstances: suicide, runaway, or hyperthermia victim but not consider the fourth which is the probability, rather than the possibility, that is, that a bad guy grabbed her and they can’t catch him. To support their diversion the commander of Troop F twice stated during The Chronicle Program on Channel 5 in Boston that Maura wrote a final letter to her boyfriend and left it in a prominent place in her dormitory room. This clearly suggests the traditional “suicide letter”, but the deception is that she never wrote or left such a letter at all and the police were fully cognizant of this fact at that time.

The pattern certainly doesn’t indicate adherence to accepted and recommended police procedure. To date the high law enforcement officials in Concord have reacted like ostriches to this pseudo-investigation by your Troop F. I am left with a hollow, gut-wrenching sensation resulting from finally knowing for sure that the people responsible for finding my daughter are not even submitting a mail-it-in effort on her behalf. Worse still is that they remain determined to not accept the offer of meaningful participation extended by the Federal Bureau of Investigation which is strangely odd indeed.

I am appealing to you, sir, to ask Attorney General Kelly Ayotte to authorize the release of the records in this case to me through my petition under the Freedom of Information Act and the New Hampshire Right to Know Law RSA CH 91-A. I am basing this plea on the present classification of my daughter’s case as a missing person situation and not as a criminal investigation. What could be the nature of this which must be so zealously veiled from view and the motivation prompting such secrecy?

With no informational resources available I am left to desperately search for Maura all by myself. How can I do this if the police sit idly on the applicable evidence? Take, for example, her computer. If I could get it back, I might be able to discern who she contacted on that last afternoon and perhaps discover a new direction to follow. It’s one thing if Troop F isn’t willing to be part of the solution, but please don’t allow them to continue to be part of the problem.

Governor Lynch, you represent my final hope to help my little girl. I pray that you will regard reacting favorably to my entreaty, not so much as your legal obligation, but as a parent, your moral responsibility.

Hopefully,

Frederick J. Murray