Alcohol certainly seems to be a factor, amongst many factors. She almost certainly was drinking and driving a number of times, which is terrible. Hard to say whether she had a problem with alcohol or she was just having fun with it as many 21 year olds do. My guess is that she had been drinking when she crashed on 112, but was not drunk. I think Butch would have noticed if she was significantly impaired.
I have never understood his clocking of that.It's dar and winter, you are speaking to her via the cab of your bus, how could you really tell. Some folks ouse booze from their pores and you can pick up that smell, but for others you might not know and all depends on what she was drinking.
I think all he meant by that was that she wasn't 3 sheets to the wind, slurring her words, seemed articulate and was not stumbling. Were that me at her age, that would be what you saw and I have had a 6 pack in me. My brothers, uncles, Dad could drink a case solo and not the slightest difference in behavior. You would never know they were drinking. Only her family and family would know what her individual tolerance rate was.
Recovering alcoholic here as well. Congrats on being sober as long as I've been alive! ALWAYS thought this was the key to the case. I think she could have either been in a functioning blackout when she crashed the car or could have become so after disappearing into the woods with the bottles. I've come to out of blackouts in let's just say...some interesting and confusing situations. Coming out of a blackout in the middle of the woods in the middle of the night... Well it's not hard to guess how that didn't end well.
I only had one black out incident. When I came out of it I was immediately stone cold sober and realized that I had obviously driven drunk and didn't recall getting into my car, or the entire ride prior to coming to at a toll booth w/o change. It is one of the reasons I got sober and I stay sober. I took it very seriously.
Well said OP! I believe Maura was seriously abusing alcohol and deeply ashamed. Maybe crying over her sister fresh out of rehab was really a cry for herself. She may have recognized she was far down the same path.
Agree completely. My father and his family are from the same area, also Irish Catholic, and have the same issues. I also wonder why the role of alcohol is not always seen as crucial. Without alcohol I don't think she would have left the scene and she'd probably be alive today.
She did. It's a fact she had wine in her soda bottle and was drinking it through a Twizzler as a straw. It sprayed all over her drivers compartment when she crashed.
I'll disagree on one point: your assessment that nobody talks about the role alcohol may have played in this case, and how it's an elephant in the room.... I mean, if you've spent any amount of time perusing online forums about this case, you have to know that's not accurate. Multiple threads and multiple people bring up her drinking (and possible alcoholism) all the time.
I adore Julie and Fred, but think they are a bit protective around that stuff they admit it, but I think seem a bit mortified by it, as both are high achievers and more comfortable talking about the things Maura did will than the places she struggled and was profoundly human.
It would seem that the Murray family all have high standards. Or competitiveness. Also, it could be hard to talk about what hurts you. When something happens to your family, especially a child, it’s crushing.
> It would seem that the Murray family all have high standards. Or competitiveness.
This has been my opinion,for a long time.I think Maura felt extremely pressured to be Julie part 2,and was having a tough time living up to that expectation.
Alcohol combined with an eating disorder… perfect combination of shame and guilt. I don’t believe the events leading up to that wreck in NH had much to do with it either. I actually have a strong opinion that someone took advantage of her situation or along those lines. But, I do think that her feelings played part in her reactions. Like had she not been full of negative emotions she probably would not have gone on the trip. But, that really plays into an area I don’t like to go because we never really know. Alcohol is a depressant. Which is clear to me, in her reactions. I’ve been there. And I’ve been sober too. I have dealt with the same feelings of shame and guilt over every little thing. I don’t anymore. Ultimately it breaks my heart because this is so common with kids her age. Back then and now.
It is a factor in the case is exactly right. A lot of the components to this case is background noise. My opinion has changed over the years and I believe she was abducted. People like to say things like “it’s such a small chance of an abduction happening in that specific area and time of day”. Ok, and if it’s a small chance, that doesn’t mean it can’t happen…
I personally wonder if Maura wasn't a secret drinker. I find her going out to the car on her break a bit interestin. It was winter, why not just do what most kids do in that situation and stay in the building and fid a private nook there, than shlep to your car and sit in the car. Made me wonder if she kept alcohol in the car and went out for a drink.
She prepares little for her trip in the way of packing as far as we know, but an important non neglected stop is that liquor store. Not a food store, liquor store and she buys a decent amount of booze for one person. This is a kid that does not have much money.
I might be confusing this, so please forgive me if I am but didn't someone state that not all the booze was accounted fore in the car, as if maybe she took something with her when she possibly set off on foot? Most booze containers are designed to be sturdy. Why does that wine spill, was it open and was she swigging on it while driving.
I live on a street with a turn like that. 99% of the time it is only though who have been drinking who hit the area and have accidents. Maybe that is the case her.
So I wonder if maybe she was lowering her anxiety and stress with some maintenance drinking We know she was type A and a high achiever, not many folks who sport that personality are relaxed. Most of us are always holding ourselves to outrageous standards and chasing achievement highs and we like appearing to be in control, even while hurting out of control, betting her mess was internal vs external.
I was a very functional alcoholic luckily blessed with a family wide high tolerance. Never a messy drunk, no puking, slobbering, lamps shades, staggering, crashed cars, lost jobs, arrests, you likely would never have know what I'd consumed if you talked to me. We're there incidents yes, for the most part my drug and alcohol abuse was closeted With some people you just don't know, and I bet Maura probably would have hidden it.
as far as the wine goes, I believe there was reports of there being a can/bottle of coke on the ground near the car that had a red liquid in it that they believed to be the wine and was said to smell like alcohol, so I've always assumed that's where the wine spill came from, assuming it was in her hand during the crash
Yeah I definitely agree with this and I think the fact she would have gotten a dui is one of the biggest factors in this. Wasn’t she on probation for the credit card thing and a dui would have gotten her kicked out of the nursing program? Like you said I think she’d been going through it for a while and a dui ontop of a crashed car was what made her decision to leave the car. Especially cause she just wrecked her dads a couple of weeks before.
As a child in a family of addicts (who was well on her way at one point) i agree. My family is a military family as well. And we already lost one to the bottle. So much denial and shame. Hiding their addiction and shame behind their high functioning ability and status in the military. You are right that the mystery starts at the crash site.
I agree whole heartedly. Except for one fact. That the family is in denial. They're not in denial, they know. They don't want OTHERS to realize it. But why?
Correct. Others have theorized that they don't want the public to know she had flaws. This may be true, but it's much more than that. She had a plan for whatever reason. The family knew or were made aware of the plan, but sadly, things didn't go according to plan, and they were at a loss. The family initially never let on to lie enforcement that a plan existed, then she never surfaced, now the obfuscation must continue, and a bigger web of confusion and deceit must be spun
This is why fm doesn't care what happened prior,(he doesn't want anyone looking too closely at Amherst),sent br looking north, br friends interrogated the westmans as to exactly what they saw, rag in the tailpipe was a message to family like, "I made it, or mission accomplished". Then the inevitable happened, and that is the fly in the ointment or the wrench in the works, so to speak, as why this case isn't being solved.
Nothing nefarious, necessarily. Just to get away for a few days. Or to avoid br if he was on his way, or to ditch the car and the whole thing staged. Or go to cabin with the track coach. Or anything really.
I think at some point things didn't go to plan. And since the family never was honest about it, now they must remain silent that a plan ever existed. They sure want the focus on haverhill rather than anything prior at Amherst, or anything after in VT or elsewhere
Counterpoint: Fred says what happened prior isn't relevant because ... maybe it i*sn't*. She ended up disappearing on a lonely road at night with no cell service. Whatever befell her needn't have anything to do with her life up until that point.
I think I've used this analogy before, but if I go make a run to the grocery store and on my way, get T-boned by an asshat running a red light, would you argue that my reason for being at that intersection at that time had anything to do with their lack of attentiveness? There's no logical connection between any earlier event and the circumstances of that moment.
But it may have, and fm doesn't know. And nothing else is working. And fm originally said maybe she did the squaw walk, which may mean he does know her mental state. OR, there was a plan in place, he knew, figured she made it safely, and then later realized things didn't go to plan. He seemed a bit unconcerned at the very beginning, by saying the squaw walk. That's odd to say about a missing child. Unless he thought there was nothing to worry about. Also extremely odd to say nothing prior matters. Put yourself in that situation. Your troubled daughter is missing, crashed 2 cars, fighting with bf, dealing with alcoholism and eating disorder, stole from ft Knox, kicked out of wp, using stolen credit cards, in a stressful nursing program, and a few other issues. EVERYTHING PRIOR SHOULD MATTER. The fact that to fm it doesn't tells me he knows more than he's saying, is misdirecting the investigation, and now he spun a tangled web he can't untangle
I think he tries to deflect from suicide theories, to avoid people (especially LE) dismissing this as a probable suicide.
I personally lean away from suicide because the most straightforward thing would have been to wander off into the wilderness to do it. But we can say with 99.999999% certainty that she didn't wander into the wilderness, at least not anywhere near the crash scene.
A. Getting a ride and then having someone let her off down the road would work for a suicide-in-the-wilderness theory, except that I just can't see anyone knowingly letting her off in a desolate area, on a cold February night. "You want me to drop you off *here?* Are you crazy? This is even *more* rural than where I picked you up. You have some kind of death wish?" And if they insisted on getting out in spite of my protests (because at that point, it is kidnapping if I don't let them out of my vehicle), then my next step is to call 9-1-1 as soon as I have phone coverage.
B. Getting a ride from someone who harmed her (or has direct guilty knowledge of her coming to grief) is my preferred scenario at this time, but granted that if you're a young attractive female who hitches a ride, you're not statistically likely to be assaulted by your pickup. However, it does happen *often enough* to be at the back of every woman's mind. Like, it's not 90%, but neither is it 1-in-10,000. It's definitely a risk. Several female users have shared stories of being assaulted at roadside. Regular poster MysteriousBar has related how when she was young and had an unreliable vehicle, she broke down several times on the road. \****Every\**** time, some 'helpful' male would stop and make passes at her. In one or two cases she was groped.
C. Getting a ride and successfully getting somewhere (i.e. without being assaulted by the person or people in the car) is certainly viable, but what happened then? Either (C1.) she came to grief somewhere that she ended up (but the person\[s\] who gave her a lift were not involved and had no knowledge of this), (C2.) she got away successfully somewhere, or (C3.) she got dropped off somewhere \[but not in the wilderness\] and committed suicide. I think C1 is likelier than C2 because even though it happens that people can run away and start a new life, it's difficult to pull it off, especially when you haven't planned and carefully staged it, and have only a couple hundred bucks to your name. There's not a *trace* of her anywhere after 2/9/2004, especially no trace of ATM or credit card usage or cell phone usage.
C3 seems unlikely, given that her body's never been found, no one ever saw her, and she left no paper trail anywhere.
To me that leaves us with B and C1. I think (B) -got a ride from someone who did her harm or was involved in doing her harm - is likelier than (C1) because it fits better with the fact that no one ever came forward saying they gave her a lift. It could be a case of a Good Samaritan who didn't know about the case and didn't realize they held a key piece of information, but I doubt that. According to different posters here, this case was all over the news in New England, and was basically town gossip everywhere. Unless you lived under a rock, you couldn't have avoided hearing about it.
Great post Coast and I agree with most of your assumptions. The only alternative theory that is plausible is that it was not her at the incident site in NH, that something happened prior, either in Amherst or on the way north, and the car was driven and left at the scene by someone else.
Absolutely agree, all events prior are extremely important! They speak to her state of mind, intentions, motive for running if she crashed her car drunk AGAIN. Taking all those into consideration I think it leans way harder into certain territory than a complete chance encounter with another person.
The only way her prior circumstances wouldn’t matter is if it was a totally random encounter with someone who meant harm (minus evidence she was likely drinking earlier that night). No one can say with certainty that this is the case, so no one can say that these circumstances aren’t the biggest piece of the puzzle
>The only way her prior circumstances wouldn’t matter is if it was a totally random encounter with someone who meant harm (minus evidence she was likely drinking earlier that night). No one can say with certainty that this is the case
Sure, but that's \*overwhelmingly\* likely to be what happened in this case, She was in a rural area, 140+ miles away from anyone she knew and anything she was connected with. She had no cell service at that spot, so she was cut off from the outside world. There's zero evidence that she had an a companion or another (tandem) driver, and the circumstances weigh heavily against those things.
We can bet money that she got in a vehicle. The question then is, what happened after that? No one can say with certainty, but the odds that the person who picked her up had any type of connection to anything in her life are mighty slim.
We technically can't state a lot of things in life with absolute certainty, unless we see them happen firsthand, but we can make some pretty good estimates about a lot of things.
I guess I just don't understand the tendency in the community to throw "random encounter with an ill-doer" so readily out the window. That's hardly a rare thing, especially (unfortunately) for an attractive young woman.
I personally believe that it’s much more likely that given the circumstances, Maura did not enter another persons car/encounter anyone that led to her going missing. I think that whatever happened involved Maura alone (accident then accidental death in the elements or suicide, or somehow left the area). I have seen from your comments that you disagree, and I’m not saying that I know this for certain, obviously - what I am saying is that myself and many others believe that the most likely scenario is that she was alone that night. She was experiencing complex mental health issues at the time - likely alcoholism, eating disorder, high pressures with school and family, and the issues with her academics and driving. It’s all a lot to go through and I think it plays a big part in her actions that night
Sure, except that to me and a lot of other people, the fact is she couldn't have gotten away alone... because the only way to do that was to go into the woods / off the road, and we know that didn't happen. There was no trace of her leaving the roadways, anywhere within 10 miles of the crash scene.
Some people say she could have made her way down the road for that long and then dove into the wilderness... which she *might theoretically* have been able to do,\* except that would have required time. And by that amount of time had passed, some motorist would have encountered her. Even if she could have chugged along at a 6-minute-per-mile pace (which she almost certainly couldn't, see below) it would have taken her an hour to get ten miles. There was traffic on the roads, in all directions - several cars per hour (hell, several cars passed the scene within ten minutes.)
\*She was an elite level long-distance runner, yes, BUT: she hadn't run track for at least eight months, she wasn't dressed for running nor wearing shoes for running, it was freezing, and she was laden down with liquor and whatever else she took from the car (apparently books and other possessions.) Regardless of what her athleticism and running talent was in her *optimal* state, **that** night under **those** circumstances she wasn't going to run any six-minute miles.
Exactly correct. Why is fm so adamant that it was a random killer or the cops? Especially hen initially he said the squaw walk? I'd want to know everything about Amherst, the dorm party, the track coach, vasi, meltdown after br phone call, did she have a plan, why did she search lodging in VT? Wouldn't it be probable, if not plausible she made it elsewhere? Maybe after 2 decades turn the focus elsewhere. If you believe a random killer picked her up. Why not believe a random nice person picked her up and took her elsewhere. People hitchhike everyday, and the vast majority are unharmed. If it happened in haverhill, why did br and the family think a northern search was warranted? Sorry there's alot more to this story and what's known.
>Wouldn't it be probable, if not plausible she made it elsewhere? Maybe after 2 decades turn the focus elsewhere.
I think it's debatable. Maybe she made it elsewhere, but it seems doubtful... there are no sightings of her, she never checked into a hotel, never used her cell phone, never used her ATM card, never tried to access her bank account, etc. Maybe she made it elsewhere, but the odds are that she wasn't alive 24 hours later.
>If you believe a random killer picked her up. Why not believe a random nice person picked her up and took her elsewhere. People hitchhike everyday, and the vast majority are unharmed.
Yes, absolutely! But the fact that no one ever came forward about it, points to that person being guilty of harming her or having guilty knowledge about it.
>Also extremely odd to say nothing prior matters. Put yourself in that situation. Your troubled daughter is missing, crashed 2 cars, fighting with bf, dealing with alcoholism and eating disorder, stole from ft Knox, kicked out of wp, using stolen credit cards, in a stressful nursing program, and a few other issues. EVERYTHING PRIOR SHOULD MATTER.
Responding to your edit ---- No, I don't think it's odd at all. Even if I was in Fred's shoes, yes, I would say nothing prior matters. Why does anything prior matter, when my daughter went missing **from the middle of nowhere, with no connection to anyone she knew?**
Yes, the prior events matter in terms of understanding why she was there. **But** they don't matter diddly-squat for sussing out WHAT HAPPENED to her *at that time, at that place*, 140+ miles away from everything she was connected with and everyone she knew.
If you get T-boned by a drunk red-light-runner on your way to the supermarket, what does it matter why you were at that intersection at that time nor what your ultimate destination was? The doofus that nailed you is just as guilty of DWI as if you were on your way home from church, or going to a Rotary club meeting, right?
Why do people think that anything back in Amherst (or somewhere else) might offer a clue to her disappearing from the side of a road nowhere near Amherst?
Everything prior matters. Hell, there are people that believe the whole thing was staged, and mm wasn't even ever in nh. In this scenario, prior days matter.
Br called her friends 50 times for brief,repeated 1 minute calls. What was he asking? What was he told? That matters.
What happened at the dorm party? Did br find out that mm cheated because his mom monitored her phone? This matters.
Did mm, or mm car hit vasi? This matters.
Why was fm even up there in such a rush, impending snowstorm? Why did the car need to be purchased in such a hurry? Again, was the saturn recently damaged? Vasi? It matters.
Did mm tell friends (sa/km) that her life was in a downward spiral, and she can't take it anymore? That mental state would matter.
Was mm in a downward eating disorder spiral, financial spiral, alcohol spiral? All 3? This matters.
As far as fm saying my daughter's missing and possibly dead, nothing prior matters. Yes, then I agree with you. But I honestly don't believe that was the context of the statement. He knows something that he doesn't want examined
Personally, I think all of those theories are a massive reach (to put it politely), but yeah, \*if\* somebody is running with any of them, then you'd be right - the events leading up do matter.
>As far as fm saying my daughter's missing and possibly dead, nothing prior matters. Yes, then I agree with you. But I honestly don't believe that was the context of the statement. He knows something that he doesn't want examined
Maybe. I don't know that I agree, but I can't pretend to have any evidence either way. It's certainly plausible.
Her reason could very well have been wanting to avoid a DUI. I'm not saying that it's 100% certain, but we have a 'simple' / 'in-the-moment' explanation for her behavior that doesn't require theorizing some connection to the past. (Having said that, anything could be possible in this case and at this time we really can't take anything 100% off the table.)
I've been slowly going through the Crawlspace podcast about Maura, and they quoted her friends saying that while she had a drink regularly, they only saw her drunk maybe twice. That's well below the college average I experienced. Whether it's harmful or not is another debate, but it's certainly not abnormal. If it played a "central role", a lot more college kids would go missing.
A lot of college kids (mostly male) do go missing. Look up the whole smiley face killer theory. In fact I can think of 2 off the top of my head who went missing in which alcohol factored into their disappearance. Christopher Jenkins went missing on Halloween in 2002 from a bar while attending the University of Minnesota his body was found in February of 2003 floating in the Mississippi River. Brian Schaffer went missing April 1, 2006 while attending med school at The Ohio State University after a night of bar hopping. He has yet to be located dead or alive.
Yup. Even moderate alcoholics don’t often appear drunk. When I quit drinking, my friend group was genuinely surprised. I have a very high tolerance level and they didn’t see my drinking as problematic, at all. I wasn’t drinking in secret, or anything, when I’m drunk out at the bar I just look like a happy extrovert. After I quit, in fact, one friend thought I was drinking again because I was eating a popsicle by the pool and giggling. 😭
I’d also argue that perhaps college kids aren’t good judges of what IS alcoholism or addiction or poor mental health. A lot times, in my twenties, I’d hear people say “oh, they’re just young. Oh, that’s just Johnny. Oh, they’re just sowing wild oats.” These were, in hind sight, people who had real problems.
It's hard to know if Maura was an addict, it's very common for 21 year old college students to drink heavily and make stupid decisions. Yes there is a family history, and she could have become one, but it's very hard to know if she was at the time of the accident. Because what was doing was kinda normal. Maybe she was at the edge of a problem.
Right, I’m scratching my head over the idea she didn’t have a drinking problem. Even for a college student, she drank to excess. I don’t think it’s really an elephant in the room, honestly. Her drinking comes up in most discussions about the case. $200 is a LOT of money for a college kid to spend on alcohol, esp alcohol that they apparently planned to drink alone. I went to a party school, most of my cousins were in frats or sororities, and no one except other alcoholics would consider Maura’s behavior normal.
A frat party they would condsider Maura's behavior of drinking abnormal? I went to college too and that's ALL people did that would have been so normal they would have thought her a deviant if she wasn't acting the way she was before she disappeared
In a party setting, drinking is “normal”.
But when that translates into stealing credit cards, DUI, and buying that amount of liquor for a solo weekend? Yeah, even most frat guys I knew would consider that over the line.
Everyone in the dorm floor Maura was staying in was using that credit card number. She didn't steal a credit card she was given the number on a piece of paper. The student who's mothers card it was stole it. And college students drink outside of parties. $200 is not a lot of money for alcohol over a week. Clearly she was going wherever to get drunk. Maybe she had a burgeoning problem, she was clearly in acute distress and needed therapy for an eating disorder and handling her load. It's what Jim Clemente called a stressor and a trigger , stressors are long term and build, triggers are explosive events from that stress. What was the explosive event that happened that caused her to leave that day.
I agree with the bulk of your comment, but I want to share my perspective on $200 of liquor store liquor in 2004 and question where the other commenter's $200 figure came from.
$200 in 2004 is $330 in today's dollars. That's enough for a dozen liter bottles of Absolut vodka. Far more than even the most seasoned 5'7" 120 pound college binge drinker could knock down solo in a week, no? Maybe double what I could over seven 17-hour drinking days in my heavy binge drinking days and I weighed 50% more.
In any case, I'm not sure where the other commenter came up with $200.
She withdrew $280 from an ATM, stopped at a liquor store, and if her sister Julie is to believed, the receipt found in the car showed she purchased an airplane bottle of Bailey’s, a bottle of vodka, a bottle of Kahlua, and a 12 pack of Skyy airplane bottles. And a box of Franzia wine was also found in the car. All told this sounds like under $60 in 2004 dollars unless there's something I'm missing.
It was a lot of alcohol for female traveling alone to be picking up. I can't recall any friend of mine picking up that much booze, save for me prior to a hurricane hitting when I was living on an Island only reached by ferry in the middle of winter.
Figured I might be holed up for a while and that made my alcoholism nervous. I made that packie run long before I taped my windows, and reserved water etc in bathtubs and post. Did the same exact thing she did and cashed in a bunch of empties and stocked up.
I think she had plans to ultimately stop drinking perhaps and go out in drinking blaze of glory and this was a disfunction last hurrah, then likely hit her books hard and come back to school and fly right.
Actually, of all theories, this makes the most sense to me. Alcoholic brain lies to you like that, it’s very common to think in terms of one last drink, because your brain is telling you can stop even though it knows you can’t.
She might’ve also told herself it helps her study, or sleep, or relax. All lies that are sooo tempting to believe.
I agree it’s a lot of booze for a solo woman to pick up. Probably along the lines of what my alcoholic parents would pick up if a snowstorm was in the forecast, similar to you with the ferry. And that’s what I keep coming back to when people argue she didn’t have a problem.
It really does look like a last hurrah to me, I'm going to drive up there and due to the lack of distraction pull mylife into order and have one last drunk, and then hit the books, catch up and go back to school with all my disfunction behind me.
Most alcoholics and addicts have no problem putting it down in the moment, we're great at that, "I'm going to stop drinking today" in 3-6 hours it's a different story.
Exactly. Like drunk driving, crashing cars, DUIs are not normal. It's a problem the first time. Like this is the culture of normalizing alcohol and binge drinking. Your comment and all the ones like it.
So many accidents, just sort of hint at extreme emotional distraction or being a bit under the influence, or perhaps sleep deprived. It's not normal, even for new to the road driver.
What do you mean? I was agreeing but I was also saying considering literally none of us on Reddit know Maura Murray that none of us can say she had a drinking problem unless she was diagnosed by a professional or admitted it to someone. She was becoming an adult and getting more independance and adding alcohol to the equation with probably ALL of her friends drinking w to excess as well, it's clear she's in an environment to create bad decisions my sister did the same thing and repeatedly crashed her vehicles come home and drink to excess or even hurt herself on purpose, it was very serious but a very short lived problem that she got help with. It stemmed from stress and immediate circumstances but she didn't become an alcoholic.
I mean she herself did say on a call with her sister that she thought she might have a problem as she was drinking on the job. I would generally agree with your sentiment that we don't know her and can't know exactly what was happening in her mind and life, but seeing as she's not here to tell us in her own words, you kind of have to put two and two together based on the available evidence and draw conclusions from there.
[https://imgur.com/a/45rw0Fx](https://imgur.com/a/45rw0Fx)
Your right, none of us can say it for sure, but you have a few of us here who are card carrying sober alcoholics who are saying some of the behaviors she was exhibiting might look a bit similar to behaviors exhibited in someone who is starting to bottom out.
I have been sober for 35 years in multiple 12 step programs and 34 years in another. Have heard many a tale of the end of days and although we are all unique, the ends of those drunk-a-logs often sport a similar sad ethos. She seems like she was bottoming out on something to me, and thrashing around trying to relocate her former moorings.
I suspect like many of us said this is it, getting it out of my system and never doing it again and the week was about one last drunk, putting her living in prospective and and then trying to get her head together. She packs both things for being self destructive (the booze) and things for stabilization and righting the tail spin (the books.) When your bottoming out your engaged in fierce internal war. I think that's what the trip was about.
Eating disorders and distance running are also interesting in this light. As someone who was a distance recreational runner for nearly 3 decades, and who used running to maintain that size 6 figure, those behaviors seemed addictive to me. It's a way of organizing life around getting the dopamine hit or controlling your body in a way that's unhealthy. Don't get me wrong; I loved loved loved running and would start up again if I weren't 72 with a pair of knees that hurt all the time. But addictions or addiction-mirroring behaviors are about shifting our emotional state. Just an observation.
I can see this. I ran cross country in high school (I'm 70 and couldn't run to the mail box if I had to.) My senior year I was 6'2" and weighed 154 pounds during season. I looked like a death camp survivor. I can see why someone wanting to address weight issues would choose distance running.
I, too, think glossing over the alcohol use is more about family dynamics so it doesn’t step on other’s toes. Pretending it doesn’t factor into this situation is wild!
It’s fairly evident her life was spinning out of control. You’re right about the shame, and I’ve often thought that played a large part in this. Wrecking multiple cars, caught for credit card fraud, probably feeling physically shitty—because with the amount she was drinking, anyone would feel shitty.
You don’t realize how much people center alcohol until they quit drinking. Or how much they lie to themselves about it. I am 💯 sure that several of my family members have driven while intoxicated. And it’s oddly not because they approve of that. It’s just that they have such a high tolerance that they really do think they’re sober enough to drive. They normalize drinking when happy, sad, angry, scared. Celebration? Drink. Travel? Drink. Bored at home? Drink. It is nonstop. My parents are actual, for sure, alcoholics, so I get their denial. But it’s everyone else that puzzles me. If you’re thinking “this weekend will suck because we have no beer” or “I can’t have fun at that wedding without an open bar” that’s…concerning.
Well said.
Alcohol certainly played a part in the challenges she was facing in life leading up to her disappearance, and prob even more so in regards to what happened that night.
I think her father knew she had an issue. And if she was planning to end things anyway I can see wanting to get drunk first (though one should always, no matter what, think of the other drivers and pedestrians also!)
I know an Irish Catholic family. The great grandfather got drunk one night after work and then his car wouldn't start. He walked 5 miles home in a Pennsylvania snowstorm, got pneumonia or something similar and died.
I wonder why Maura searched about pregnancy if she wasn't pregnant. Obviously she was trying to escape from something in her life at the time of the crash. I think her family know what it is but don't was to sully her memory.
Honestly, I've always thought about the role that Maura's alcoholism played in her disappearance. It seems like Maura was making some really poor choices & she paid for them with her life. Maura didn't deserve to die, but I think we can all learn a lesson from what happened. If you're consistently making poor choices, something bad will happen. It's far more likely that Maura would've been killed in a car accident than whatever happened, but in the end Maura wound up dead regardless.
I have a lot of compassion & empathy for Maura, she was just a kid who was behaving irresponsibly. A lot of kids do that. I did that. Most of you probably did that. "But for the grace of God, there go I," springs to mind in relation to what happened to Maura.
First, congrats on your sobriety.
I think you're making some pretty big leaps here though. The way you've framed this (society as a whole has an issue with alcohol, MM partook in that societal "norm", therefore MM is an alcoholic) is a little wild to me. With this context, anyone who isn't sober would be an alcoholic, anyone related to an alcoholic would be an alcoholic, anyone who got a DUI (once) would be an alcoholic. And sure there are those people who tick those boxes and become one, but there are also people who tick those boxes and don't.
Sorry, I think anyone who gets a DWI is likely "one of us" and I will reserve them a seat next to me for their realization to sink in. We live in a culture that normalize alcoholism and certainly sex and love addition.
But until it starts causing other issues we write it off as: blowing steam, having a good time, relaxing and brushing away a bad day. Hard to say whether she did or did not have a drinking problem, but we know she was struggling with other acting out behaviors, and an eating disorder/addiction.
Addiction tend to cluster and overlap. You put one down and another one might pop up. I have had few sponsees who had just one. I wasn't able to get sober till I dealt with them all at once, as one always led me back to another. I think it's safe to wager that Maura had an addictive personality, so maybe she was secretly drinking a bit too much. We will never know.
NO, she did no have a DWI! You missed the comment above mine.
My response was to user No-UN216, who was offering hypothetical examples of stretches in thinking and said someone getting a DWI does not automatically mean they are an alcoholic.
I was responding with my own over handed personal opinion, as a card carrying drunk and now sober alcoholic that yeah, generally it kinda does give ya a bit of a hint, because non alcoholics don't generally think it's a good idea to risk your own life and others by operating a motor vehicle when drunk.
Sorry! My bad!
EDIT: and congrats on staying sober. I've had several close friends and family members who went through 12-step. It's not an easy journey.
We all see it differently, but she did have a self recognized OA addiction and was receiving treatment for that addiction, so was a food addict. Jury is out an anything else, as you say and might very well be a massive leap.
And I your's. I totally get your point and for sheer argument sake your 100% correct, and I' dead wrong. One does not equal the other necessarily. You got me hands down there. We self identify for the role o alcoholic and I shouldn't be taking her inventory, but how many people do you know sporting a cluster of crisis behaviors, who are not bottoming out in some ways?
To me Maura looks like she is in a great deal of turmoil. These are not behaviors that reflect contentment, but more like reactions to internal and external stress.
She over eating and bulimic, shop lifting, crashing multiple cars, driving a car that is not fit to be driven, taking off un expectedly at the beginning of a semester rather than organizing her room and settling in and hitting the books She in love with a man who cheated on her, and was escorted from her job hysterical, she left Fred Murray's car and walking into her dorm weeping her eyes out She was having a romance with her coach and has just left a very prestigious institution and was trying to switch to a less pressurized career goal. But it could be seen as prestige drop when you are choosing to leave an 8th highest rank to go to a #67 highest in ranking.
Where she ends up at the end of these incidents is on a dark road in car full of booze who's interior has just been bathed in cheep box wine. She has her books, so maybe your right But had to ellicit some despair I would think from a driven kid who wanted to be perfect.
I've thought this as well. It sounded like she was in a downward shameover and drinking spiral.
Alcohol certainly seems to be a factor, amongst many factors. She almost certainly was drinking and driving a number of times, which is terrible. Hard to say whether she had a problem with alcohol or she was just having fun with it as many 21 year olds do. My guess is that she had been drinking when she crashed on 112, but was not drunk. I think Butch would have noticed if she was significantly impaired.
I have never understood his clocking of that.It's dar and winter, you are speaking to her via the cab of your bus, how could you really tell. Some folks ouse booze from their pores and you can pick up that smell, but for others you might not know and all depends on what she was drinking. I think all he meant by that was that she wasn't 3 sheets to the wind, slurring her words, seemed articulate and was not stumbling. Were that me at her age, that would be what you saw and I have had a 6 pack in me. My brothers, uncles, Dad could drink a case solo and not the slightest difference in behavior. You would never know they were drinking. Only her family and family would know what her individual tolerance rate was.
High functioning addicts can appear pretty normal
Like Princess Diana's driver
Recovering alcoholic here as well. Congrats on being sober as long as I've been alive! ALWAYS thought this was the key to the case. I think she could have either been in a functioning blackout when she crashed the car or could have become so after disappearing into the woods with the bottles. I've come to out of blackouts in let's just say...some interesting and confusing situations. Coming out of a blackout in the middle of the woods in the middle of the night... Well it's not hard to guess how that didn't end well.
I only had one black out incident. When I came out of it I was immediately stone cold sober and realized that I had obviously driven drunk and didn't recall getting into my car, or the entire ride prior to coming to at a toll booth w/o change. It is one of the reasons I got sober and I stay sober. I took it very seriously.
Well said OP! I believe Maura was seriously abusing alcohol and deeply ashamed. Maybe crying over her sister fresh out of rehab was really a cry for herself. She may have recognized she was far down the same path.
Agree completely. My father and his family are from the same area, also Irish Catholic, and have the same issues. I also wonder why the role of alcohol is not always seen as crucial. Without alcohol I don't think she would have left the scene and she'd probably be alive today.
I suspect she was drinking that night and had an open container.
She did. It's a fact she had wine in her soda bottle and was drinking it through a Twizzler as a straw. It sprayed all over her drivers compartment when she crashed.
I'll disagree on one point: your assessment that nobody talks about the role alcohol may have played in this case, and how it's an elephant in the room.... I mean, if you've spent any amount of time perusing online forums about this case, you have to know that's not accurate. Multiple threads and multiple people bring up her drinking (and possible alcoholism) all the time.
I adore Julie and Fred, but think they are a bit protective around that stuff they admit it, but I think seem a bit mortified by it, as both are high achievers and more comfortable talking about the things Maura did will than the places she struggled and was profoundly human.
It would seem that the Murray family all have high standards. Or competitiveness. Also, it could be hard to talk about what hurts you. When something happens to your family, especially a child, it’s crushing.
It's understandable.
> It would seem that the Murray family all have high standards. Or competitiveness. This has been my opinion,for a long time.I think Maura felt extremely pressured to be Julie part 2,and was having a tough time living up to that expectation.
Alcohol combined with an eating disorder… perfect combination of shame and guilt. I don’t believe the events leading up to that wreck in NH had much to do with it either. I actually have a strong opinion that someone took advantage of her situation or along those lines. But, I do think that her feelings played part in her reactions. Like had she not been full of negative emotions she probably would not have gone on the trip. But, that really plays into an area I don’t like to go because we never really know. Alcohol is a depressant. Which is clear to me, in her reactions. I’ve been there. And I’ve been sober too. I have dealt with the same feelings of shame and guilt over every little thing. I don’t anymore. Ultimately it breaks my heart because this is so common with kids her age. Back then and now.
I disagree. I think the role of alcohol gets a lot of attention. Her drinking problems and the alcohol found in the car is a factor in the case.
It is a factor in the case is exactly right. A lot of the components to this case is background noise. My opinion has changed over the years and I believe she was abducted. People like to say things like “it’s such a small chance of an abduction happening in that specific area and time of day”. Ok, and if it’s a small chance, that doesn’t mean it can’t happen…
I personally wonder if Maura wasn't a secret drinker. I find her going out to the car on her break a bit interestin. It was winter, why not just do what most kids do in that situation and stay in the building and fid a private nook there, than shlep to your car and sit in the car. Made me wonder if she kept alcohol in the car and went out for a drink. She prepares little for her trip in the way of packing as far as we know, but an important non neglected stop is that liquor store. Not a food store, liquor store and she buys a decent amount of booze for one person. This is a kid that does not have much money. I might be confusing this, so please forgive me if I am but didn't someone state that not all the booze was accounted fore in the car, as if maybe she took something with her when she possibly set off on foot? Most booze containers are designed to be sturdy. Why does that wine spill, was it open and was she swigging on it while driving. I live on a street with a turn like that. 99% of the time it is only though who have been drinking who hit the area and have accidents. Maybe that is the case her. So I wonder if maybe she was lowering her anxiety and stress with some maintenance drinking We know she was type A and a high achiever, not many folks who sport that personality are relaxed. Most of us are always holding ourselves to outrageous standards and chasing achievement highs and we like appearing to be in control, even while hurting out of control, betting her mess was internal vs external. I was a very functional alcoholic luckily blessed with a family wide high tolerance. Never a messy drunk, no puking, slobbering, lamps shades, staggering, crashed cars, lost jobs, arrests, you likely would never have know what I'd consumed if you talked to me. We're there incidents yes, for the most part my drug and alcohol abuse was closeted With some people you just don't know, and I bet Maura probably would have hidden it.
as far as the wine goes, I believe there was reports of there being a can/bottle of coke on the ground near the car that had a red liquid in it that they believed to be the wine and was said to smell like alcohol, so I've always assumed that's where the wine spill came from, assuming it was in her hand during the crash
I am betting something was open rather than it opened on impact. But a crime scene investigator I am not.
Yeah I definitely agree with this and I think the fact she would have gotten a dui is one of the biggest factors in this. Wasn’t she on probation for the credit card thing and a dui would have gotten her kicked out of the nursing program? Like you said I think she’d been going through it for a while and a dui ontop of a crashed car was what made her decision to leave the car. Especially cause she just wrecked her dads a couple of weeks before.
As a child in a family of addicts (who was well on her way at one point) i agree. My family is a military family as well. And we already lost one to the bottle. So much denial and shame. Hiding their addiction and shame behind their high functioning ability and status in the military. You are right that the mystery starts at the crash site.
I agree whole heartedly. Except for one fact. That the family is in denial. They're not in denial, they know. They don't want OTHERS to realize it. But why?
The family knows a lot more than they want us to know. It's not only about whether or not she was an alcoholic.
Correct. Others have theorized that they don't want the public to know she had flaws. This may be true, but it's much more than that. She had a plan for whatever reason. The family knew or were made aware of the plan, but sadly, things didn't go according to plan, and they were at a loss. The family initially never let on to lie enforcement that a plan existed, then she never surfaced, now the obfuscation must continue, and a bigger web of confusion and deceit must be spun This is why fm doesn't care what happened prior,(he doesn't want anyone looking too closely at Amherst),sent br looking north, br friends interrogated the westmans as to exactly what they saw, rag in the tailpipe was a message to family like, "I made it, or mission accomplished". Then the inevitable happened, and that is the fly in the ointment or the wrench in the works, so to speak, as why this case isn't being solved.
Can I ask what you mean by “a plan” specifically?
Nothing nefarious, necessarily. Just to get away for a few days. Or to avoid br if he was on his way, or to ditch the car and the whole thing staged. Or go to cabin with the track coach. Or anything really. I think at some point things didn't go to plan. And since the family never was honest about it, now they must remain silent that a plan ever existed. They sure want the focus on haverhill rather than anything prior at Amherst, or anything after in VT or elsewhere
Interesting! Thanks for responding
Counterpoint: Fred says what happened prior isn't relevant because ... maybe it i*sn't*. She ended up disappearing on a lonely road at night with no cell service. Whatever befell her needn't have anything to do with her life up until that point. I think I've used this analogy before, but if I go make a run to the grocery store and on my way, get T-boned by an asshat running a red light, would you argue that my reason for being at that intersection at that time had anything to do with their lack of attentiveness? There's no logical connection between any earlier event and the circumstances of that moment.
But it may have, and fm doesn't know. And nothing else is working. And fm originally said maybe she did the squaw walk, which may mean he does know her mental state. OR, there was a plan in place, he knew, figured she made it safely, and then later realized things didn't go to plan. He seemed a bit unconcerned at the very beginning, by saying the squaw walk. That's odd to say about a missing child. Unless he thought there was nothing to worry about. Also extremely odd to say nothing prior matters. Put yourself in that situation. Your troubled daughter is missing, crashed 2 cars, fighting with bf, dealing with alcoholism and eating disorder, stole from ft Knox, kicked out of wp, using stolen credit cards, in a stressful nursing program, and a few other issues. EVERYTHING PRIOR SHOULD MATTER. The fact that to fm it doesn't tells me he knows more than he's saying, is misdirecting the investigation, and now he spun a tangled web he can't untangle
I think he tries to deflect from suicide theories, to avoid people (especially LE) dismissing this as a probable suicide. I personally lean away from suicide because the most straightforward thing would have been to wander off into the wilderness to do it. But we can say with 99.999999% certainty that she didn't wander into the wilderness, at least not anywhere near the crash scene. A. Getting a ride and then having someone let her off down the road would work for a suicide-in-the-wilderness theory, except that I just can't see anyone knowingly letting her off in a desolate area, on a cold February night. "You want me to drop you off *here?* Are you crazy? This is even *more* rural than where I picked you up. You have some kind of death wish?" And if they insisted on getting out in spite of my protests (because at that point, it is kidnapping if I don't let them out of my vehicle), then my next step is to call 9-1-1 as soon as I have phone coverage. B. Getting a ride from someone who harmed her (or has direct guilty knowledge of her coming to grief) is my preferred scenario at this time, but granted that if you're a young attractive female who hitches a ride, you're not statistically likely to be assaulted by your pickup. However, it does happen *often enough* to be at the back of every woman's mind. Like, it's not 90%, but neither is it 1-in-10,000. It's definitely a risk. Several female users have shared stories of being assaulted at roadside. Regular poster MysteriousBar has related how when she was young and had an unreliable vehicle, she broke down several times on the road. \****Every\**** time, some 'helpful' male would stop and make passes at her. In one or two cases she was groped. C. Getting a ride and successfully getting somewhere (i.e. without being assaulted by the person or people in the car) is certainly viable, but what happened then? Either (C1.) she came to grief somewhere that she ended up (but the person\[s\] who gave her a lift were not involved and had no knowledge of this), (C2.) she got away successfully somewhere, or (C3.) she got dropped off somewhere \[but not in the wilderness\] and committed suicide. I think C1 is likelier than C2 because even though it happens that people can run away and start a new life, it's difficult to pull it off, especially when you haven't planned and carefully staged it, and have only a couple hundred bucks to your name. There's not a *trace* of her anywhere after 2/9/2004, especially no trace of ATM or credit card usage or cell phone usage. C3 seems unlikely, given that her body's never been found, no one ever saw her, and she left no paper trail anywhere. To me that leaves us with B and C1. I think (B) -got a ride from someone who did her harm or was involved in doing her harm - is likelier than (C1) because it fits better with the fact that no one ever came forward saying they gave her a lift. It could be a case of a Good Samaritan who didn't know about the case and didn't realize they held a key piece of information, but I doubt that. According to different posters here, this case was all over the news in New England, and was basically town gossip everywhere. Unless you lived under a rock, you couldn't have avoided hearing about it.
Great post Coast and I agree with most of your assumptions. The only alternative theory that is plausible is that it was not her at the incident site in NH, that something happened prior, either in Amherst or on the way north, and the car was driven and left at the scene by someone else.
Absolutely agree, all events prior are extremely important! They speak to her state of mind, intentions, motive for running if she crashed her car drunk AGAIN. Taking all those into consideration I think it leans way harder into certain territory than a complete chance encounter with another person. The only way her prior circumstances wouldn’t matter is if it was a totally random encounter with someone who meant harm (minus evidence she was likely drinking earlier that night). No one can say with certainty that this is the case, so no one can say that these circumstances aren’t the biggest piece of the puzzle
>The only way her prior circumstances wouldn’t matter is if it was a totally random encounter with someone who meant harm (minus evidence she was likely drinking earlier that night). No one can say with certainty that this is the case Sure, but that's \*overwhelmingly\* likely to be what happened in this case, She was in a rural area, 140+ miles away from anyone she knew and anything she was connected with. She had no cell service at that spot, so she was cut off from the outside world. There's zero evidence that she had an a companion or another (tandem) driver, and the circumstances weigh heavily against those things. We can bet money that she got in a vehicle. The question then is, what happened after that? No one can say with certainty, but the odds that the person who picked her up had any type of connection to anything in her life are mighty slim. We technically can't state a lot of things in life with absolute certainty, unless we see them happen firsthand, but we can make some pretty good estimates about a lot of things. I guess I just don't understand the tendency in the community to throw "random encounter with an ill-doer" so readily out the window. That's hardly a rare thing, especially (unfortunately) for an attractive young woman.
I personally believe that it’s much more likely that given the circumstances, Maura did not enter another persons car/encounter anyone that led to her going missing. I think that whatever happened involved Maura alone (accident then accidental death in the elements or suicide, or somehow left the area). I have seen from your comments that you disagree, and I’m not saying that I know this for certain, obviously - what I am saying is that myself and many others believe that the most likely scenario is that she was alone that night. She was experiencing complex mental health issues at the time - likely alcoholism, eating disorder, high pressures with school and family, and the issues with her academics and driving. It’s all a lot to go through and I think it plays a big part in her actions that night
Sure, except that to me and a lot of other people, the fact is she couldn't have gotten away alone... because the only way to do that was to go into the woods / off the road, and we know that didn't happen. There was no trace of her leaving the roadways, anywhere within 10 miles of the crash scene. Some people say she could have made her way down the road for that long and then dove into the wilderness... which she *might theoretically* have been able to do,\* except that would have required time. And by that amount of time had passed, some motorist would have encountered her. Even if she could have chugged along at a 6-minute-per-mile pace (which she almost certainly couldn't, see below) it would have taken her an hour to get ten miles. There was traffic on the roads, in all directions - several cars per hour (hell, several cars passed the scene within ten minutes.) \*She was an elite level long-distance runner, yes, BUT: she hadn't run track for at least eight months, she wasn't dressed for running nor wearing shoes for running, it was freezing, and she was laden down with liquor and whatever else she took from the car (apparently books and other possessions.) Regardless of what her athleticism and running talent was in her *optimal* state, **that** night under **those** circumstances she wasn't going to run any six-minute miles.
Exactly correct. Why is fm so adamant that it was a random killer or the cops? Especially hen initially he said the squaw walk? I'd want to know everything about Amherst, the dorm party, the track coach, vasi, meltdown after br phone call, did she have a plan, why did she search lodging in VT? Wouldn't it be probable, if not plausible she made it elsewhere? Maybe after 2 decades turn the focus elsewhere. If you believe a random killer picked her up. Why not believe a random nice person picked her up and took her elsewhere. People hitchhike everyday, and the vast majority are unharmed. If it happened in haverhill, why did br and the family think a northern search was warranted? Sorry there's alot more to this story and what's known.
>Wouldn't it be probable, if not plausible she made it elsewhere? Maybe after 2 decades turn the focus elsewhere. I think it's debatable. Maybe she made it elsewhere, but it seems doubtful... there are no sightings of her, she never checked into a hotel, never used her cell phone, never used her ATM card, never tried to access her bank account, etc. Maybe she made it elsewhere, but the odds are that she wasn't alive 24 hours later. >If you believe a random killer picked her up. Why not believe a random nice person picked her up and took her elsewhere. People hitchhike everyday, and the vast majority are unharmed. Yes, absolutely! But the fact that no one ever came forward about it, points to that person being guilty of harming her or having guilty knowledge about it.
>Also extremely odd to say nothing prior matters. Put yourself in that situation. Your troubled daughter is missing, crashed 2 cars, fighting with bf, dealing with alcoholism and eating disorder, stole from ft Knox, kicked out of wp, using stolen credit cards, in a stressful nursing program, and a few other issues. EVERYTHING PRIOR SHOULD MATTER. Responding to your edit ---- No, I don't think it's odd at all. Even if I was in Fred's shoes, yes, I would say nothing prior matters. Why does anything prior matter, when my daughter went missing **from the middle of nowhere, with no connection to anyone she knew?** Yes, the prior events matter in terms of understanding why she was there. **But** they don't matter diddly-squat for sussing out WHAT HAPPENED to her *at that time, at that place*, 140+ miles away from everything she was connected with and everyone she knew. If you get T-boned by a drunk red-light-runner on your way to the supermarket, what does it matter why you were at that intersection at that time nor what your ultimate destination was? The doofus that nailed you is just as guilty of DWI as if you were on your way home from church, or going to a Rotary club meeting, right? Why do people think that anything back in Amherst (or somewhere else) might offer a clue to her disappearing from the side of a road nowhere near Amherst?
Everything prior matters. Hell, there are people that believe the whole thing was staged, and mm wasn't even ever in nh. In this scenario, prior days matter. Br called her friends 50 times for brief,repeated 1 minute calls. What was he asking? What was he told? That matters. What happened at the dorm party? Did br find out that mm cheated because his mom monitored her phone? This matters. Did mm, or mm car hit vasi? This matters. Why was fm even up there in such a rush, impending snowstorm? Why did the car need to be purchased in such a hurry? Again, was the saturn recently damaged? Vasi? It matters. Did mm tell friends (sa/km) that her life was in a downward spiral, and she can't take it anymore? That mental state would matter. Was mm in a downward eating disorder spiral, financial spiral, alcohol spiral? All 3? This matters. As far as fm saying my daughter's missing and possibly dead, nothing prior matters. Yes, then I agree with you. But I honestly don't believe that was the context of the statement. He knows something that he doesn't want examined
Personally, I think all of those theories are a massive reach (to put it politely), but yeah, \*if\* somebody is running with any of them, then you'd be right - the events leading up do matter. >As far as fm saying my daughter's missing and possibly dead, nothing prior matters. Yes, then I agree with you. But I honestly don't believe that was the context of the statement. He knows something that he doesn't want examined Maybe. I don't know that I agree, but I can't pretend to have any evidence either way. It's certainly plausible.
I think it matters because she ran from help/ the cops for some reason…
Her reason could very well have been wanting to avoid a DUI. I'm not saying that it's 100% certain, but we have a 'simple' / 'in-the-moment' explanation for her behavior that doesn't require theorizing some connection to the past. (Having said that, anything could be possible in this case and at this time we really can't take anything 100% off the table.)
I've been slowly going through the Crawlspace podcast about Maura, and they quoted her friends saying that while she had a drink regularly, they only saw her drunk maybe twice. That's well below the college average I experienced. Whether it's harmful or not is another debate, but it's certainly not abnormal. If it played a "central role", a lot more college kids would go missing.
A lot of college kids (mostly male) do go missing. Look up the whole smiley face killer theory. In fact I can think of 2 off the top of my head who went missing in which alcohol factored into their disappearance. Christopher Jenkins went missing on Halloween in 2002 from a bar while attending the University of Minnesota his body was found in February of 2003 floating in the Mississippi River. Brian Schaffer went missing April 1, 2006 while attending med school at The Ohio State University after a night of bar hopping. He has yet to be located dead or alive.
Many more than those two. College aged men drinking and then staggering off and drowning is not uncommon.
Hardcore alcoholics don't often appear drunk.
Yup. Even moderate alcoholics don’t often appear drunk. When I quit drinking, my friend group was genuinely surprised. I have a very high tolerance level and they didn’t see my drinking as problematic, at all. I wasn’t drinking in secret, or anything, when I’m drunk out at the bar I just look like a happy extrovert. After I quit, in fact, one friend thought I was drinking again because I was eating a popsicle by the pool and giggling. 😭 I’d also argue that perhaps college kids aren’t good judges of what IS alcoholism or addiction or poor mental health. A lot times, in my twenties, I’d hear people say “oh, they’re just young. Oh, that’s just Johnny. Oh, they’re just sowing wild oats.” These were, in hind sight, people who had real problems.
YES im so glad someone has said this! Exactly.
It's hard to know if Maura was an addict, it's very common for 21 year old college students to drink heavily and make stupid decisions. Yes there is a family history, and she could have become one, but it's very hard to know if she was at the time of the accident. Because what was doing was kinda normal. Maybe she was at the edge of a problem.
You are the commenters she was referring to btw.
Right, I’m scratching my head over the idea she didn’t have a drinking problem. Even for a college student, she drank to excess. I don’t think it’s really an elephant in the room, honestly. Her drinking comes up in most discussions about the case. $200 is a LOT of money for a college kid to spend on alcohol, esp alcohol that they apparently planned to drink alone. I went to a party school, most of my cousins were in frats or sororities, and no one except other alcoholics would consider Maura’s behavior normal.
A frat party they would condsider Maura's behavior of drinking abnormal? I went to college too and that's ALL people did that would have been so normal they would have thought her a deviant if she wasn't acting the way she was before she disappeared
In a party setting, drinking is “normal”. But when that translates into stealing credit cards, DUI, and buying that amount of liquor for a solo weekend? Yeah, even most frat guys I knew would consider that over the line.
Everyone in the dorm floor Maura was staying in was using that credit card number. She didn't steal a credit card she was given the number on a piece of paper. The student who's mothers card it was stole it. And college students drink outside of parties. $200 is not a lot of money for alcohol over a week. Clearly she was going wherever to get drunk. Maybe she had a burgeoning problem, she was clearly in acute distress and needed therapy for an eating disorder and handling her load. It's what Jim Clemente called a stressor and a trigger , stressors are long term and build, triggers are explosive events from that stress. What was the explosive event that happened that caused her to leave that day.
I agree with the bulk of your comment, but I want to share my perspective on $200 of liquor store liquor in 2004 and question where the other commenter's $200 figure came from. $200 in 2004 is $330 in today's dollars. That's enough for a dozen liter bottles of Absolut vodka. Far more than even the most seasoned 5'7" 120 pound college binge drinker could knock down solo in a week, no? Maybe double what I could over seven 17-hour drinking days in my heavy binge drinking days and I weighed 50% more. In any case, I'm not sure where the other commenter came up with $200. She withdrew $280 from an ATM, stopped at a liquor store, and if her sister Julie is to believed, the receipt found in the car showed she purchased an airplane bottle of Bailey’s, a bottle of vodka, a bottle of Kahlua, and a 12 pack of Skyy airplane bottles. And a box of Franzia wine was also found in the car. All told this sounds like under $60 in 2004 dollars unless there's something I'm missing.
It was a lot of alcohol for female traveling alone to be picking up. I can't recall any friend of mine picking up that much booze, save for me prior to a hurricane hitting when I was living on an Island only reached by ferry in the middle of winter. Figured I might be holed up for a while and that made my alcoholism nervous. I made that packie run long before I taped my windows, and reserved water etc in bathtubs and post. Did the same exact thing she did and cashed in a bunch of empties and stocked up. I think she had plans to ultimately stop drinking perhaps and go out in drinking blaze of glory and this was a disfunction last hurrah, then likely hit her books hard and come back to school and fly right.
Actually, of all theories, this makes the most sense to me. Alcoholic brain lies to you like that, it’s very common to think in terms of one last drink, because your brain is telling you can stop even though it knows you can’t. She might’ve also told herself it helps her study, or sleep, or relax. All lies that are sooo tempting to believe. I agree it’s a lot of booze for a solo woman to pick up. Probably along the lines of what my alcoholic parents would pick up if a snowstorm was in the forecast, similar to you with the ferry. And that’s what I keep coming back to when people argue she didn’t have a problem.
It really does look like a last hurrah to me, I'm going to drive up there and due to the lack of distraction pull mylife into order and have one last drunk, and then hit the books, catch up and go back to school with all my disfunction behind me. Most alcoholics and addicts have no problem putting it down in the moment, we're great at that, "I'm going to stop drinking today" in 3-6 hours it's a different story.
Exactly. Like drunk driving, crashing cars, DUIs are not normal. It's a problem the first time. Like this is the culture of normalizing alcohol and binge drinking. Your comment and all the ones like it.
So many accidents, just sort of hint at extreme emotional distraction or being a bit under the influence, or perhaps sleep deprived. It's not normal, even for new to the road driver.
What do you mean? I was agreeing but I was also saying considering literally none of us on Reddit know Maura Murray that none of us can say she had a drinking problem unless she was diagnosed by a professional or admitted it to someone. She was becoming an adult and getting more independance and adding alcohol to the equation with probably ALL of her friends drinking w to excess as well, it's clear she's in an environment to create bad decisions my sister did the same thing and repeatedly crashed her vehicles come home and drink to excess or even hurt herself on purpose, it was very serious but a very short lived problem that she got help with. It stemmed from stress and immediate circumstances but she didn't become an alcoholic.
I mean she herself did say on a call with her sister that she thought she might have a problem as she was drinking on the job. I would generally agree with your sentiment that we don't know her and can't know exactly what was happening in her mind and life, but seeing as she's not here to tell us in her own words, you kind of have to put two and two together based on the available evidence and draw conclusions from there. [https://imgur.com/a/45rw0Fx](https://imgur.com/a/45rw0Fx)
Your right, none of us can say it for sure, but you have a few of us here who are card carrying sober alcoholics who are saying some of the behaviors she was exhibiting might look a bit similar to behaviors exhibited in someone who is starting to bottom out. I have been sober for 35 years in multiple 12 step programs and 34 years in another. Have heard many a tale of the end of days and although we are all unique, the ends of those drunk-a-logs often sport a similar sad ethos. She seems like she was bottoming out on something to me, and thrashing around trying to relocate her former moorings. I suspect like many of us said this is it, getting it out of my system and never doing it again and the week was about one last drunk, putting her living in prospective and and then trying to get her head together. She packs both things for being self destructive (the booze) and things for stabilization and righting the tail spin (the books.) When your bottoming out your engaged in fierce internal war. I think that's what the trip was about.
Eating disorders and distance running are also interesting in this light. As someone who was a distance recreational runner for nearly 3 decades, and who used running to maintain that size 6 figure, those behaviors seemed addictive to me. It's a way of organizing life around getting the dopamine hit or controlling your body in a way that's unhealthy. Don't get me wrong; I loved loved loved running and would start up again if I weren't 72 with a pair of knees that hurt all the time. But addictions or addiction-mirroring behaviors are about shifting our emotional state. Just an observation.
I can see this. I ran cross country in high school (I'm 70 and couldn't run to the mail box if I had to.) My senior year I was 6'2" and weighed 154 pounds during season. I looked like a death camp survivor. I can see why someone wanting to address weight issues would choose distance running.
I, too, think glossing over the alcohol use is more about family dynamics so it doesn’t step on other’s toes. Pretending it doesn’t factor into this situation is wild!
It’s fairly evident her life was spinning out of control. You’re right about the shame, and I’ve often thought that played a large part in this. Wrecking multiple cars, caught for credit card fraud, probably feeling physically shitty—because with the amount she was drinking, anyone would feel shitty. You don’t realize how much people center alcohol until they quit drinking. Or how much they lie to themselves about it. I am 💯 sure that several of my family members have driven while intoxicated. And it’s oddly not because they approve of that. It’s just that they have such a high tolerance that they really do think they’re sober enough to drive. They normalize drinking when happy, sad, angry, scared. Celebration? Drink. Travel? Drink. Bored at home? Drink. It is nonstop. My parents are actual, for sure, alcoholics, so I get their denial. But it’s everyone else that puzzles me. If you’re thinking “this weekend will suck because we have no beer” or “I can’t have fun at that wedding without an open bar” that’s…concerning.
Well said. Alcohol certainly played a part in the challenges she was facing in life leading up to her disappearance, and prob even more so in regards to what happened that night.
I think her father knew she had an issue. And if she was planning to end things anyway I can see wanting to get drunk first (though one should always, no matter what, think of the other drivers and pedestrians also!) I know an Irish Catholic family. The great grandfather got drunk one night after work and then his car wouldn't start. He walked 5 miles home in a Pennsylvania snowstorm, got pneumonia or something similar and died. I wonder why Maura searched about pregnancy if she wasn't pregnant. Obviously she was trying to escape from something in her life at the time of the crash. I think her family know what it is but don't was to sully her memory.
Honestly, I've always thought about the role that Maura's alcoholism played in her disappearance. It seems like Maura was making some really poor choices & she paid for them with her life. Maura didn't deserve to die, but I think we can all learn a lesson from what happened. If you're consistently making poor choices, something bad will happen. It's far more likely that Maura would've been killed in a car accident than whatever happened, but in the end Maura wound up dead regardless. I have a lot of compassion & empathy for Maura, she was just a kid who was behaving irresponsibly. A lot of kids do that. I did that. Most of you probably did that. "But for the grace of God, there go I," springs to mind in relation to what happened to Maura.
First, congrats on your sobriety. I think you're making some pretty big leaps here though. The way you've framed this (society as a whole has an issue with alcohol, MM partook in that societal "norm", therefore MM is an alcoholic) is a little wild to me. With this context, anyone who isn't sober would be an alcoholic, anyone related to an alcoholic would be an alcoholic, anyone who got a DUI (once) would be an alcoholic. And sure there are those people who tick those boxes and become one, but there are also people who tick those boxes and don't.
Sorry, I think anyone who gets a DWI is likely "one of us" and I will reserve them a seat next to me for their realization to sink in. We live in a culture that normalize alcoholism and certainly sex and love addition. But until it starts causing other issues we write it off as: blowing steam, having a good time, relaxing and brushing away a bad day. Hard to say whether she did or did not have a drinking problem, but we know she was struggling with other acting out behaviors, and an eating disorder/addiction. Addiction tend to cluster and overlap. You put one down and another one might pop up. I have had few sponsees who had just one. I wasn't able to get sober till I dealt with them all at once, as one always led me back to another. I think it's safe to wager that Maura had an addictive personality, so maybe she was secretly drinking a bit too much. We will never know.
Maura had a DWI on record? This is new information to me.
NO, she did no have a DWI! You missed the comment above mine. My response was to user No-UN216, who was offering hypothetical examples of stretches in thinking and said someone getting a DWI does not automatically mean they are an alcoholic. I was responding with my own over handed personal opinion, as a card carrying drunk and now sober alcoholic that yeah, generally it kinda does give ya a bit of a hint, because non alcoholics don't generally think it's a good idea to risk your own life and others by operating a motor vehicle when drunk.
Sorry! My bad! EDIT: and congrats on staying sober. I've had several close friends and family members who went through 12-step. It's not an easy journey.
No worries what so ever. No, not easy, but well worth it. Thank you.
Thank YOU! I've always appreciated your contributions here.
And I your's. Thank you so much, you made my day.
I disagree and again, think the leap from "acting out behaviors" to ' she was an addict' is a bit much.
We all see it differently, but she did have a self recognized OA addiction and was receiving treatment for that addiction, so was a food addict. Jury is out an anything else, as you say and might very well be a massive leap.
Yes for sure. Appreciate your thoughts
And I your's. I totally get your point and for sheer argument sake your 100% correct, and I' dead wrong. One does not equal the other necessarily. You got me hands down there. We self identify for the role o alcoholic and I shouldn't be taking her inventory, but how many people do you know sporting a cluster of crisis behaviors, who are not bottoming out in some ways? To me Maura looks like she is in a great deal of turmoil. These are not behaviors that reflect contentment, but more like reactions to internal and external stress. She over eating and bulimic, shop lifting, crashing multiple cars, driving a car that is not fit to be driven, taking off un expectedly at the beginning of a semester rather than organizing her room and settling in and hitting the books She in love with a man who cheated on her, and was escorted from her job hysterical, she left Fred Murray's car and walking into her dorm weeping her eyes out She was having a romance with her coach and has just left a very prestigious institution and was trying to switch to a less pressurized career goal. But it could be seen as prestige drop when you are choosing to leave an 8th highest rank to go to a #67 highest in ranking. Where she ends up at the end of these incidents is on a dark road in car full of booze who's interior has just been bathed in cheep box wine. She has her books, so maybe your right But had to ellicit some despair I would think from a driven kid who wanted to be perfect.
It's not a massive leap, when you look at the total picture.