Sherbrooke Record publishes missing persons ad of Maura Murray
On Friday, February 7th, a full-page ad seeking information about the whereabouts of Maura Murray appeared in the English language newspaper, The Sherbrooke Record. From this blog post, it appears that the investigative reporter, James Renner, who has been aggressively pursuing the case of Maura Murray for a number of years, is responsible for the ad. Murray went missing 10-years-ago when her abandoned car was discovered along a state road one winter evening in New Hampshire. Initially, the belief was that she was the victim of a predator, but recently, there has been a growing contingent – Renner among them – who believe that Maura is alive and in hiding, possibly n Canada.
Some thoughts:
1. Could Murray be hiding in plain sight? Easily. Recall the story of Julie Bureau. The 14-year-old went missing for three years when she disappeared from a Coaticook restaurant (suburb of Sherbrooke). Everyone thought it was abduction and murder, apparently on the basis that she shared the same first name as two other victims, Julie Boisvenu and Julie Surprenant. The local French newspaper published an article about the cases titled, Les Trois Julies (you can read more here).
It would be easier than you think to “get lost” in the Eastern Townships of Quebec, especially if you were English. No one would question an English person there; Americans have been coming to the region for years. Further, no one would bother you; the French culture and authorities are pretty much insular and self-absorbed; they would never stop to question who you were, or what you were doing there if you were English.
2. My question is, if Maura Murray is hiding somewhere, how did she get there? To disappear from an isolated New Hampshire road in the middle of winter with little more than the coat on your back is some trick. And I don’t buy this notion that because she had a half a year of cadet training under her belt from West Point that she was suddenly transformed into a survivalist.
3. Maybe the answer is a combination of ideas. Maybe Maura was running away, and she died trying; her body still not recovered from some dense forest area surrounding Route 112. The runaway theory is a powerful narcotic, and I have heard it before: She was stressed, she fought with her family, she was pregnant and ashamed, she was failing school, she had a substance abuse problem, she was in Florida, she was in Montreal, she was in Calgary. This is how they initially described my sister, Theresa Allore, but I could easily be describing what people have conjectured about Maura. In the end, Theresa was none of those things. She was dead, less than a mile from where she lived.