The New Hampshire Union Leader / North Adams Transcript / Portsmouth Herald / St. Albans Daily Messenger

May 5/6, 2004

Note: The Portsmouth Herald has an alternative headline and additional paragraphs in Italics.

Parents of missing young women will meet

Parents of missing women to meet in N.H.

BURLINGTON, Vt. (AP) — The parents of a missing Sheldon teen will meet this weekend in New Hampshire with the father of a young Massachusetts woman who recently vanished to discuss whether their daughters’ disappearances are related.

“We’d really like it if someone would come in and look at both situations and see if a single suspect might have been involved,” said Bruce Maitland of East Franklin, father of 17-year-old Brianna Maitland.

Bruce Maitland, his wife, Kelly, and Fred Murray of Hanson, Mass., will meet in Woodsville a few miles north of where Murray’s 21-year-old daughter, Maura, disappeared in early February.

Maura Murray, a nursing student at the University of Massachusetts, vanished shortly after her car went off Route 112 in Woodsville the night of Feb. 9. Woodsville is across the Connecticut River from Wells River.

Brianna Maitland disappeared after finishing work at the Black Lantern Inn restaurant in Montgomery the night of March 19. Her car was found a mile west of town the next day, its rear end rammed into the side of an abandoned house on Vermont 118.

Police in both states have discounted the possibility that the two disappearances are related.

“We have looked at that and talked with the New Hampshire State Police about both cases,” said Lt. Tom Nelson of the Vermont State Police. “We have not found anything that connects the cases in anyway."

Maitland said police should continue to explore possible links, and said Saturday’s event will help keep the spotlight on the two cases.