Maura Murray was born in 1982 and raised in Hanson, Massachusetts, alongside her four siblings. After her parents divorced when she was six, she lived with her mother, Laurie, but stayed close to her father, Fred, who coached their sports teams and often took the kids hiking and camping in New Hampshire’s White Mountains.

Maura was a top student and standout athlete, scoring in the 95th percentile on the SAT with a near-perfect score in math. She excelled in cross country and track, broke school records, earned Boston Globe All-Scholastic honors, and competed at nationals as a sophomore.

After high school, she joined her sister Julie at West Point and joined the cross country and track teams. But the social environment wasn’t the right fit, so by sophomore year, she transferred to UMass Amherst on a full scholarship to study Nursing. There, she excelled—making the Dean’s List every semester and continuing to compete in track—while maintaining a long-distance relationship with her boyfriend Bill, who stayed at West Point.

In February 2004, Maura was a junior starting her first semester of nursing clinicals—one in the maternity ward at Caritas Hospital in Norwood, and another in the psychiatric unit at a hospital in Holyoke. She also held two campus jobs: as a security desk attendant at Hampden Gallery and a Residence Hall Desk Monitor.

Reliable transportation was required for Maura’s clinical program, but her 1996 Saturn wasn’t running properly. She got rides the first week, but she’d need her own car going forward. So, the weekend of February 7, 2004, her father Fred came up from Connecticut to help her shop for one. They found a promising option, but it cost more than expected—so Fred planned to return later that week with more money.

After car shopping, Fred, Maura, and one of her friends grabbed dinner in town. Maura then dropped Fred at his hotel and returned to UMass, where she joined a small dorm party. She left around 2:30 AM, and about an hour later, she crashed her father’s Toyota Corolla into a guardrail after failing to negotiate a left-hand turn in time. Though shaken and upset about the damage to the new car, Maura wasn’t injured nor ticketed for any driving infraction.

In the early hours of February 9, 2004, Maura emailed a maternity-related nursing assignment to her classmates. Later that day, she searched directions to Burlington, VT, called a hotline associated with travel to Stowe, VT, and contacted the owner of a condo she had stayed at in Bartlett, NH—though none of these efforts resulted in Maura making firm plans. Before leaving Amherst, she told professors she’d be away due to a family death (which was not true), withdrew nearly all her cash, returned 79 cans for change, bought about $40 worth of alcohol, and drove north in her struggling 1996 Saturn.

Just before 7:27 PM, Maura missed a sharp left turn on Route 112 in Woodsville, NH, and drove into a ditch, hitting a tree. A nearby resident called police, and a local bus driver stopped to check on her. Maura declined help, saying she had called AAA—though there was no cell service in the area. The bus driver continued home and called 911 at 7:42 PM. While speaking with dispatch, he said he could see the car but not Maura.  When police arrived at 7:46 PM, Maura was gone. Her car was locked, and a rag had been stuffed in the tailpipe—something her father once suggested to avoid a ticketed by police for excessive exhaust smoke.

It’s unclear whether Maura was abducted, left on foot, or got into a passing car—but extensive searches found no trace of her. Multiple first responders arrived that night, yet no one reported seeing anyone walking along the road. Maura’s phone and ATM card haven’t been used since, and there have been no credible sightings. Her disappearance is classified by New Hampshire State Police as a suspicious missing persons case, and despite a 2007 statement from prosecutors suggesting a 75% chance of criminal prosecution, it remains a cold case.

It’s still unclear why Maura went to New Hampshire, but public records appear to show she needed to pay a license reinstatement fee tied to a speeding ticket from the previous summer. This is notable because in order to register and insure a new car that week, she would need to pay the fee at a DMV in New Hampshire. Moreover, license reinstatement forms were later found in her Saturn.

If you have any information about the disappearance of Maura Murray, contact the New Hampshire State Police Cold Case Unit at (603) 271-2663 or coldcaseunit@dos.nh.gov. To contact the Murray family directly, visit the Contact page of their website at www.mauramurraymissing.org/contact.