UPDATE (March 31, 2021)
You can listen to episode 28 of the podcast, “Q&A with D&A [Part 2]: Unraveling the Rumors, Myths, and Truths” here or on any podcast app (iTunes, Stitcher, Spotify, etc.). This episode the second part of my interview with Jeni, who is an author and the host of the Down and Away podcast. She recently began looking more closely at Maura’s case, and this part focuses on clearing up some of the common rumors and misconceptions that continue to proliferate.
In the episode, we reference two open letters that Fred Murray had posted on the internet. The first was dated March 15, 2016 and can be read here. The second is dated June 30, 2016 and can be read here.
One common rumor we discuss in the episode is that prior to leaving Amherst, Maura had googled terms related to pregnancy. That has led some people to theorize that perhaps she was pregnant and that’s why she was getting away. Of course any sexually active woman of child bearing age might be pregnant at any given time. However, one of the items recovered from her car was birth control with 4 pills missing.
Moreover, as Jeni and I mention in the episode, one of Maura’s nursing clinicals that semester was at Norwood Maternity in Norwood, MA, and her homework was to google maternity terms and send them to her nursing cohort so that they could collectively put together a dictionary to use as a study guide. One of the last things she did before leaving Amherst was complete and submit that assignment via email. The subject of the email is “maternity clinical definitions” and she sent it at 3:32 AM on the morning of February 9th. Thus it seems far more likely that Maura was googling terms related to pregnancy for her school assignment as opposed to because she was pregnant herself. A copy of that homework assignment is posted below.
Another persistent rumor is that Fred Murray refused to meet with police for two years and then brought a lawyer when he eventually did meet with them. However, in a December 29, 2005 article in the Boston Globe, the Attorney General at the time, Kelly Ayotte, is quoted as saying “Mr. Murray had frequent contact with both my office and members of the State Police. In fact, I personally met with him along with lead investigators of the State Police last spring...” The attorney who met with Ayotte was Tim Ervin, who was helping Mr. Murray sue the state of NH for Maura’s case records. In short, according to the highest-ranking law enforcement officer in the state, not only did Fred have “frequent contact” with police, but had sat down with Attorney General Ayotte herself within the first year.
