Maura Murray Vanished Without a Trace After a Car Crash in 2004. Revisiting Her Disappearance 21 Years Later — and What Her Family Thinks Really Happened

Maura Murray's sister Julie believes anyone could hold the clues to solving Maura’s case

On Feb. 9, 2004, Maura Murray disappeared from the site where her car crashed in Woodsville, N.H., seemingly into thin air.

On the 21st anniversary of her disappearance, Maura's family is still searching for answers. Her sister Julie even launched a podcast featuring previously unknown details about her sister’s case in February 2024. “The goal for this season is to cut out the noise and reveal who Maura really was,” Julie wrote on Instagram.

In addition to featuring interviews with Maura’s friends and family members, who shed light on Maura’s background and mental state ahead of her disappearance, The Untold Story of Maura Murray revealed the family’s theories about what happened to the 21-year-old University of Massachusetts student.

“Until we find Maura, it's hard to say what happened. However, I will say the overwhelming consensus within my family is she was met with foul play at the hands of someone,” Julie said in episode 8.

She also expressed hope that the podcast would help uncover new clues in the case, which is considered “an active, suspicious missing person’s case” by law enforcement. “One listener could hold the key to unlocking this mystery,” Julie said.

In 2016, James Renner published his book True Crime Addict: How I Lost Myself in the Mysterious Disappearance of Maura Murray, which came along with the release of many police documents.

Here is everything to know about the disappearance of Maura Murray 21 years later and why her family believes there’s still a chance to solve the case.

Who is Maura Murray?

At the time of her disappearance on Feb. 9, 2004, Maura Murray was a 21-year-old University of Massachusets student. She worked on campus and was studying nursing. At the time, she was also dating Bill Rausch, who helped in the search for his girlfriend after she went missing and has denied any involvement, per The Washington CityPaper.

Prior to coming to the Northern college, Maura had attended the West Point Military Academy for three semesters, per her family's website. She originally attended the military school due to a congressional nomination from Senator Edward Kennedy and the fact that her sister Julie was also studying there.

When she transferred schools, Maura moved closer to where she grew up in Hanson, Mass., with her parents, Fred and Laurie, who divorced when she was 6. Maura was their fourth-born child after Fred Jr., Kathleen and Julie. She also has a younger brother named Kurtis.

During her teenage years, at Whitman-Hanson Regional High School, Maura excelled at many sports, including basketball and cross country.

Although she became widely known after her disappearance, Julie and the rest of Maura's family have made efforts to educate the public about who their beloved sister and daughter was before she made headlines.

What happened in the days leading up to Maura Murray's disappearance?

On her podcast, Julie has shed light on the situations Maura was dealing with in the days before her disappearance.

Maura's supervisor at her campus job reported that she had an upsetting phone call a few days before her disappearance and had to leave work early, per The Patriot Ledger. She then learned that her sister Kathleen, who struggled with alcohol abuse, had relapsed. Later on, Maura crashed her dad's car into a guardrail, resulting in thousands of dollars worth of damage.

Julie said on her podcast that Maura was using her dad's car because of her own vehicle troubles which were exacerbated by the fact that her nursing program allegedly had a “reliable transportation” prerequisite.

After the first crash, her father Fred said, “She was distraught, quite distraught."

“[My dad] was disappointed but there was nothing he could do or say that would be harsher than what Maura told herself," Julie explained in episode 4 of her podcast. "She hated to disappoint my dad and she was her own worst critic. She never wanted to burden anybody, and I know she beat herself up over crashing my dad's car."

According to Julie, one sign that Maura was experiencing distress was the late-night calls she made for food, as Julie claimed her sister had previously struggled with an eating disorder. “That's more of an indication to me that she felt a loss of control,” she said in episode 5 of the podcast. “One thing she could feel a sense of control over was her eating disorder. And that night, I'm convinced she binged.”

Julie also cited her sister's eating disorder as the potential reason behind her November 2003 arrest for using someone else's credit card number to order food from several restaurants. Although she was charged that month, it was dismissed in December, per WMUR.

According to the police report and Julie's podcast, Maura also purchased around $40 worth of alcohol on the day of her disappearance, and her car was found with red stains that police attributed to a box of red wine.

Julie said all of these issues compounded in a way that affected her sister’s decision-making abilities. “She was ... making poor decisions leading up to her disappearance,” Julie acknowledged in episode 9. “Her behavior was ... not characteristic of her. I'll be the first to say that.”

Maura's elder sister added: “For her to get in that car [in its broken state] and drive all that way to New Hampshire was a bad decision ... I just don't know what her mindset was and why she would do something like that.”

Did Maura Murray pack before leaving her dorm?

Early police reports led Julie to believe that Maura's dorm room was quite packed up before she headed out on the road on Feb. 9, 2004, per the Massachusets Daily Collegian. In 2022 and again on her podcast in 2024, though, Julie theorized that her sister had never actually unpacked after moving into a new room 12 days before her disappearance.

“She was still unpacking,” Maura and Julie’s brother Kurtis said on the podcast, noting that he had visited Maura’s dorm room with their mother shortly after she moved in.

According to Kurtis, Maura had actually made some progress on unpacking her things between the time she showed them her room and the time she went missing.

What happened the day Maura Murray went missing?

Maura was involved in a car accident on the evening of Feb. 9, 2004. Directly after the crash, at around 7:30 p.m. a local resident called the police to report the incident and stated she saw Maura standing next to the car. Soon after, a bus driver drove past and offered to assist Maura, but he later said she declined, per Boston magazine. In Julie's podcast, she noted that the bus driver was quoted in the local news sharing varying accounts of how their interaction proceeded.

When the police arrived 15 minutes after the original 911 call, according to their log, Maura was nowhere to be found.

Despite early theories from police that Maura may have died by suicide, Julie believes several things her sister did on the day of her disappearance point to her wanting to return home after her drive.

On the podcast, Julie noted that Maura turned in her homework assignment at 3:32 a.m. on Feb. 9. “Who puts in that kind of effort if they plan to disappear?” she asked. In the afternoon, Maura called a condo owner in Bartlett, N.H., inquiring about renting a space she and her family had vacationed in earlier, and she phoned an information line about booking hotels in Vermont, according to The Patriot Ledger.

One of the last correspondences from her devices came around 2 p.m. when she emailed a supervisor that she would be out for a week due to a death in the family, although no such thing had actually occurred, per the Whitman-Hanson Express.

According to Julie and the police report, Maura also picked up several important forms that needed to be filled out, including accident papers for her father’s car, potentially indicating that she planned to see him and give them to him, and forms to reinstate her suspended license after being pulled over for excessive speeding. Both forms of paperwork were found inside her car.

Though the police report stated that Maura’s vehicle had struck a tree, Julie revealed that a private analysis of the car by a vehicle reconstructionist told another story. “The damage wasn't consistent with hitting a tree, as stated in the police report. And the car was drivable,” she claimed in episode 5.

Julie elaborated in episode 7, saying, “Based on [the specialist’s] analysis, the front driver's side damage did not match that of a tree.”

She continued: “The hood was pushed back and buckled in the middle, causing the radiator support to bend. The two recorded events must have happened when the vehicle was moving forward under its own propulsion ... So the car was moving, meaning the damage did not occur while she was parked or stopped.”

In addition, Julie claimed that a random Chrysler part had been found in Maura’s car.

As she mentioned in episode 5, this was noteworthy, as a “suspicious person” driving a white Jeep Grand Cherokee seven miles from Maura’s accident site fled the scene when police arrived. “Chrysler manufactures Jeep, and there was also a white scuff mark on the Saturn's rear bumper,” Julie shared.

What has Maura Murray's family said about the investigation into her disappearance?

Julie alleged several “breaks and protocols and instances of incompetence by police” throughout her podcast series. “I believe [that’s] why 19 years later, we're still left without answers,” she said in episode 8.

Julie claimed that the police did not do enough to connect with potential key figures in Maura’s case, including the owner of the condo in Bartlett whom Maura called on the day she disappeared and a classmate of Maura’s who spoke to her on Instant Messenger several days before her disappearance.

Julie also alleged that the police never followed up on a handwritten phone number and address that was left in Maura’s car.

“When I contacted the owner of the number, they claimed this was the first time in 19 plus years anyone had ever mentioned that their number was found inside a high profile missing woman's car,” she said, noting that the person owned a condo 25 miles from where her sister’s car had been found.

According to Julie, police may have also missed evidence near the accident site. While neighbor Arthur Butch Atwood (the bus driver who saw Maura) and Sergeant Cecil Smith allegedly both searched west of the area where Maura’s car was found, she said a search was not made in the direction her sister had been headed.

“For my family, it's incredibly frustrating that no one, the night of February 9th, searched east,” she claimed in episode 5.

What theories do Maura Murray's family have about her disappearance and has she been seen since?

In episode 7, Julie claimed that a man renting a house roughly one mile from where Maura’s car was found could be implicated in her disappearance.

According to Julie, the man’s brother gave her father a knife that he claimed to have found in his brother’s glove box because he believed the knife was linked to Maura’s disappearance. Julie later told The Sun that the knife was tested for her sister’s DNA but did not share whether those results were conclusive.

Julie also said on the podcast that the renter in question refused to take a polygraph. In episode 8 of the series, she postulated about what might have happened to her sister with input from her loved ones.

Maura's brother Kurtis said he thinks she fell victim to a stranger, stating, “I think Maura was taken. I think she most likely got in the car with the wrong person and nothing good came from that ... She is most likely dead now.”

Their brother Fred agrees that it may have been foul play. “That is not even a question in my mind,” he said. “I tend to think she got picked up by someone. Maura was very trusting, naive in a way in certain situations ... Because of those aspects of her personality ... [she was] probably looking for help out of the situation she was in and she got in with the wrong person.”

Maura’s father concurred, stating, “I strongly, myself and many many others, suspect foul play,”

As for Julie, she told The Sun in June 2024, “The fact her body has never been found leads me to believe she took a ride with someone from the scene of the crash and was met with foul play.”