The New Hampshire Union Leader / North Adams Transcript / Boston Globe

September 22/23/24, 2006

Missing woman’s dad seeks information

By Associated Press

Concord, N.H. - It’s been over two years since Maura Murray disappeared after her car got stuck in a snow bank in Haverhill, and her father hasn’t given up his quest for information.

Fred Murray is asking the state Supreme Court to rule on his right to-know request for police records.

Since his daughter’s disappearance, Murray, of Weymouth, Mass., has repeatedly attempted to obtain reports, log files and all information collected from Feb. 9,2004, to the present.

His requests were made to the Grafton County attorney’s office; the attorney general’s office; Gov. John Lynch; the Hanover Police Department, state police; Major Crimes and the Historic Case Unit; the Fish and Game Department; and the University of Massachusetts Police at Amherst. Maura Murray was a student at UMass.

The defendants have denied the request, citing an exception in the law created by the New Hampshire Supreme Court for law enforcement investigative files. Police and the attorney general’s office maintain that the release of other records could result in the destruction of evidence and witness intimidation.

Murray claims that invoking the exception is misplaced, as police have characterized Maura’s case as a missing person matter and not a criminal investigation.