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subject to credit approval C store or ashley.com for [Music] [Applause] details [Applause]
00:01:40
welcome to True Crime garage wherever you are whatever you are doing thanks for listening I'm your host Nick and
00:01:46
with me as always is a man who just rediscovered his first love bourbon he is the captain thank you thank you thank
00:01:53
you it's good to be seen and it's good to see you thanks for listening and thanks for telling a friend
00:02:02
[Music] Captain I have to apologize it's too early in the show for bourbon so today
00:02:07
we are drinking Tuckerman Brewing company's pale ale out of Conway New Hampshire garage grade how about three
00:02:14
and A2 bottle caps out of five this is tuckerman's Flagship pale ale and is brewed with specialty malts some grown
00:02:21
in Maine and four types of hops this Brew is cold conditioned and dry hopped and logging tanks for maximum taste and
00:02:29
quality and this great pale was brought to us by these hopheads first we have Dava and
00:02:34
Cordy Lane Idaho and a big shout out to aeu engine 275 we got Stevie Terry and Justin we like the cut of your jib and
00:02:45
next we have Jennifer from Hoover Alabama Jennifer says cheers fellas love the garbage I think I'm hoping Jennifer
00:02:53
made a typo there and meant to say love the garage I think she's talking about you and a big shout out to Olivia in
00:03:00
Charlotte North Carolina next we have Coastal Chic mom from Pont vad Beach Florida now I'm just going to guess but
00:03:06
I don't think you said that correctly I don't think I got any of that right next
00:03:10
up we have Justin and Aurora Colorado and we'll finish the shout outs with some big Texas love first we have David
00:03:16
and fluger and we also have Michael and Magnolia so thanks to everybody for filling up the fridge for this week's
00:03:22
show if you want to help us out for next week's show go to True Crim garage.com and click on the Donate button I think
00:03:29
I'm going to start my own uh bourbon fund and also they are here what is here Parts Unknown t-shirts
00:03:39
oh fantastic if you'd like to be a resident of Parts Unknown you can only do so if you have the t-shirt and that
00:03:46
will be a two-e pre-order the pre-order begins now and you can do that by going to True Crim garage.com go to the store
00:03:54
page that's enough of the business everybody gather around grab a chair grab a beer let let's talk some true
00:04:02
[Music] crime on the afternoon of Monday February 9th Mara Murray left the University of Massachusetts
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Campus before leaving she emailed her professors saying she was taking a few days off due to a death in the family
00:04:31
around 400 p.m. Mara withdrew nearly all of her money from her bank account at a
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campus ATM It is believed that she left the University campus shortly after this at 7:27 p.m. over 100 mes away from
00:04:48
the UMass campus a woman living in haal New Hampshire reported a car accident on
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a sharp corner of Route 112 near her home Mara Murray had wrecked her car at 7:29
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an officer is dispatched to the scene of the accident at 7:30 Butch Atwood is driving
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a school bus returning to his home when he spots Mara and her wrecked vehicle on
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the side of the road he stops and he offers her a ride to his home so they can call in the
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accident Mara is not interested in going with Butch Butch asked her if she would like
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for him to call the police Mar says no that won't be necessary I've already called triaa for roadside
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assistance however Butch knew she was lying because there's no cell phone service upon arriving home several
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minutes later Butch reported the accident to emergency services at 7:46 p.m. Cil Smith a local police officer
00:05:55
was the first to arrive at the scene Mar's vehicle is still at the scene of the accident but Mara is nowhere in
00:06:04
sight at 7:54 a beond the lookout call goes out officers should be looking for a 5'7
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female who left the accident scene on foot 2 minutes later EMS and firefighters arrive on the scene Butch
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Atwood the driver of the bus reported that Mara was to his knowledge alone she appeared to be cold possibly frightened
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possibly intoxicated at some point during this very small window of time Mara Murray
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went missing to this day Mara's family especially her Father Fred are still looking for her Mara Murray simply
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vanished that [Music] night today on True Crime garage we get the opportunity to talk to three people
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closest to the mara Murray case true crime author James rener and host Maggie and art of the oxygen six-part
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documentary series The Disappearance of Mara [Music] Murray James rener True Crime addict
00:07:23
came out in May of 201 16 wow it's been that long yeah last night I see you on my TV today I
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See You In the Flesh um so thank you for joining us but and yes ladies he looks better in person oh thank you it's like
00:07:39
a if that's even possible strikingly handsome on last night's episode of The Disappearance of Mara Murray well they
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kept on calling him author I'm like do they mean model I I should come down here more
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often this is great no I always I always tell people what's James rard like I'm like well he looks like Nick Nick's
00:07:58
cousin yeah I could see that yeah we could pass how long after the book do you find out that this documentary
00:08:04
series is going to happen and now we need you to be involved in in what type of involvement you're going to have you
00:08:10
know so it's being produced by this group called Texas crew Productions and I think I started hearing from them
00:08:15
around the time that the book was being released in 2016 and uh started talking to this guy David carabinas and um he
00:08:25
just you I I got a lot of calls from production companies around that time that wanted to do something with the mor
00:08:30
Murray case and it got to the point you know as you guys know and we talked a little bit about this behind the scenes
00:08:36
you have producers that are coming to you looking for you know Possible shows that you might do and it always leads
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nowhere you know and it it just gets so frustrating after a while um but it's always you you can't pass up that
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opportunity because who knows and but David there was something else about him that he was very invested he knew all
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the minutia of the case and he really you could tell he just wanted to do something with it and explore it so you
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know I kind of developed uh a friendship and uh you know he said this is going to
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happen and I said I I want to believe you and then about six months later he's like yep we got uh a series order you
00:09:12
know it's not just one special it's six-part series and we're going to do this and come out to Texas so we can
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meet you so I flew out to Austin you know I think about a year ago and met the crew I didn't meet Maggie until she
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came to the house for the interview they wanted to keep us separate but we went over all the materials I had and I you
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know I said here's the questions that I remained with after publication of this book here are the things I don't quite
00:09:39
understand about the M Murray case that you guys you know have the capability to
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dig deeper into and uh they were able to get access to the family the Murray family and Fred and some other people
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that uh I was never able to talk to so it's it's really interesting I'm watching this both as a you know a quote
00:09:56
unquote expert on the case but also as a as as a viewer you know not knowing what
00:10:02
we're going to get towards the end of the series or how many answers we're going to get to these questions and you
00:10:09
know some of the I I know that some of the big questions in the mor Murray case will be answered by the end of this
00:10:14
series so what are those questions that you'd like to have answered well I want to know like you know that ATM footage
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there's ATM footage out there of Mora right before she left UMass ammer I want to see that you know we does that
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show anything some people have speculated that the ATM footage shows that she had a black eye was that the re
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you know was something going on before she disappeared I really want to know more about Kate maropoulos and Sarah
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Alfieri these are friends of moras that were at this party uh that occurred the Saturday night before she disappeared on
00:10:53
that Monday afternoon um I think there's more that happen at that party and and they would be key to that
00:11:02
so if we can get any answers about that party um I think that would be key and last night's episode um that they were
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putting some tough questions to Kathleen Murray Mora's older sister and if you remember Mora had this breakdown at work
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on Thursday night and uh you know it was Kathleen that supposedly was on the phone with her so you know maybe we'll
00:11:24
get a little more about that but um you know I have questions about the friend Kate and Sarah I have questions about
00:11:31
the boyfriend Bill Rous you know he has a pretty good Alibi it looks like he was
00:11:35
at Fort S halfway across the country during The Disappearance but I want to know more about the days after The
00:11:41
Disappearance where where was Bill what was he doing um you know because some you know allegations have come out since
00:11:48
then that cast bill in a very negative light so yeah there's I mean there's a tons tons of questions the big question
00:11:55
that I really hope we get some sense of an answer to by the end of the series is
00:12:01
what MOA was doing up in the White Mountains because this has always been a double mystery it's like what happened
00:12:05
to MOA Murray but what was she doing in the White Mountains to begin with I think if we got the answer to that
00:12:10
question we'd be a lot closer to figuring out the other well there was that information that came out about the
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University of Massachusetts having a cabin up in that area and I think it points to that it's probably the most
00:12:22
likely place that she was heading didn't you along with Tim and Lance from the missing Mara Murray podcast go up there
00:12:28
and check out the cabin no I went up a couple weeks before they were up there uh I think it just didn't work in our
00:12:33
schedules um so I ended up going up there alone you know I think I really think that that cabin that the Outing
00:12:40
club at UMass was using I I think that's I'm 90% sure that was her destination that night I mean she was headed
00:12:47
straight that way it doesn't it and then when you know I contacted the manager of
00:12:53
the the cabin and I asked I said do any of these names sound familiar to you and
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I just gave him a list of everybody that Moira kind of knew right and he got right back he said yeah Hussein
00:13:03
baghdaddy which is the track coach that MOA was having an affair with and that gave me chills you know so we have that
00:13:09
connection to the to the cabin she might have gone up there with hos at the very
00:13:14
least hos probably knew the combination um to get into the cabin because it's one of those push button things where
00:13:22
where like a realator would use exactly and the combination hasn't changed in 15
00:13:26
years and even if she didn't you there was ways to get into that cabin anyways um now you know Tim and Lance went up
00:13:34
there and they filmed some stuff and they came away thinking no way she could have got up there in in in the winter
00:13:40
but what they didn't because they hiked it's like a half mile hike through the woods to get up there what they didn't
00:13:47
realize was that there's also an access road um a little to the I think a little
00:13:54
north of where they entered and at that access road at that time you could drive
00:13:58
your car all the way up almost to the cabin right uh so and people would stay there in the weekends and people stayed
00:14:05
there the weekend before she disappeared and the weekend after and anybody with the outing club knew that that cabin was
00:14:14
empty during the week and she disappears on a Monday so it makes all this stuff makes sense that that was probably her
00:14:21
uh destination and I think a search of the grounds around that cabin um would be something that we should have been
00:14:29
done a long time ago with your interview on the show was you you seem very adamant that she was pregnant and that's
00:14:37
one of the things that I differ with you on I see where you're getting to that point I I tend to as a journalist who's
00:14:45
written about crime for a while now I tend to put a lot of weight on the hunches of the detectives who
00:14:53
investigate the case for many years and the lead detective scenza who was the lead detective from for many years on
00:14:59
the mor Murray case told me he's like I think she was pregnant you know based on
00:15:03
the searches she was doing on her computer and some people will say Well when they found her car there were there
00:15:10
was birth control in there right uh with with some pills missing it's like yeah she didn't take it with her right
00:15:16
because she didn't need him anymore because she was pregnant everything that she you know she had a bunch of junk in
00:15:22
her car right uh that she was just carrying around and and the fact that it was left in the car speaks to the fact
00:15:28
that you know she was probably pregnant in my mind anyways yeah or she started taking a cycle and then she stopped that
00:15:34
cycle and then she started a new one know and then found it later but you know cuz they were kind of talking about
00:15:39
that last night on the show was you know she was in a class for nursing yeah I think that's a stretch though yeah but
00:15:46
what what I don't think is a stretch is that I'd say most females from the age of 20 to 35 that if they have ever like
00:15:55
maybe their their their period is late uh they might not have missed it but they're late that they start Google
00:16:01
searching this stuff and and especially nursing students they're more likely to right uh I mean did you ever ask your
00:16:10
wife like how many times have you right and again you know we've got three dudes
00:16:14
here talking about the nature of of periods in you know 21y old females you know I I mean that's a whole can of
00:16:23
worms I I don't really know much about nor nor care to right but but what I my question is
00:16:30
more other than that search yeah other than the search what what do I have to because it it provides in my mind a
00:16:38
clear motive for her to not only run away but to remain hidden when you consider what was going on with Bill
00:16:43
Rous and if she realized that she was pregnant uh with Bill rash's kid I think um it gives her motivation to leave at
00:16:53
that time mhm and uh motivation to remain off Off the Grid and hidden because she would never want custody to
00:17:01
be an issue right um it's no doubt in my mind that the bill uh has some issues with violence
00:17:08
against women um and for that matter I you know I I do believe that Moore would also want to um you know get away from
00:17:18
her father uh and some you know family members there too which is a hard thing to say um because the father's still out
00:17:25
there and he's looking for his missing daughter and I don't think Fred Murray knows where she is I don't know that if
00:17:30
more is alive that she would want him to know um cuz you you have kind of speculated in the past that maybe he
00:17:37
knew or possible members of the family knew I just you know it's weird because I I'm sure Fred knows more about
00:17:47
what's going on and you can read in his you know just his behavior since The Disappearance um you know that he
00:17:56
clearly knows more than he's been comfortable sharing uh and yeah there were times where I wondered well does
00:18:03
that mean he knows where she is or what happened and I don't think he knows where she is I don't think he
00:18:08
necessarily knows what happened up on that road I think he knows a lot more about why she was there in the first
00:18:13
place right and that would be because of the conversation on that Saturday night
00:18:18
yeah she wrecked his car he was visiting that weekend which is weird too he's got
00:18:22
$4,000 in cash um he wrecks her car and you know so where was there an argument about that did he say some some mean
00:18:32
nasty things was that the you know the the the straw that broke the camel's back and she's like fine I'll put you in
00:18:37
my rear view too see you later um but no I you know it's clear that that Fred has uh not shared everything
00:18:48
he he knows about the case well it's good to hear you actually say that you don't think he knows where she's at
00:18:54
though just because uh cuz I think when I started fall in the case I I lean to sometimes like well maybe that the
00:19:02
family knows but then once you come and find out that he searched every weekend and then after a year of searching every
00:19:09
weekend then they search every other weekend but that's a lot of time and a lot of money oh yeah and if you knew
00:19:15
that she went medicine and you knew she was safe then why would you do any of that and he goes above the heads of the
00:19:22
investigators and presents to their superiors that this is not good investigation that they're not doing
00:19:30
everything that they can right to the governor of of New Hampshire right and a lot of people would argue with you
00:19:36
saying well that means he doesn't know anything but I like the way that you you answered that because it it doesn't it
00:19:44
doesn't dismiss your conclusion because if he knows that she took off for some reason or knew that she she had
00:19:52
motives to take off for some reason but then she goes up there and now he's left
00:19:57
going well where is she she's noted happened to her she got up there or why did she why did she
00:20:04
disappear and not want to contact me um so that that to me washes all that away as far as his actions and how much he's
00:20:13
looked for yeah yeah I mean it it's clear to me that he wanted to find her before the police found her you know
00:20:21
that that's always been clear you know and uh it's weird that he is that's a that's a protective bad thing though
00:20:30
maybe he wants to you know he wants to make sure she's not in trouble before she comes out um but he's a he's a he's
00:20:37
a weird weird dude tough nut uh I don't quite understand do you think they're gonna you think they're going to peel
00:20:45
back his layers a little bit as the show goes on for sure yeah I think so I think
00:20:49
they'll put some tough questions to him um I think they've they've gone easy so far uh so it'll be interesting to see
00:20:58
how he responds you know when they start asking the the tough questions about what he knows and what he doesn't know I
00:21:03
think what I mean we're only two episodes in but it seems so it seems like Maggie is on this search for that
00:21:10
there's a couple of these wh ifs and we're going to get to these wh ifs like it just you know from episode one to
00:21:17
episode two I don't know what these you know wh ifs are sure but well I think it's you know is it is it suicide is it
00:21:25
murder is it a walk away is it an abduction I think those are the those are the big
00:21:31
answers you know it's one of those well let's get into that a little bit because
00:21:35
uh one thing that they point out in the docu series uh early on is that the locals where she disappeared from seem
00:21:43
to all think that she was abducted or have kind of share that opinion yeah does what does that say what should that
00:21:50
say to us about that area or about that Community it's certainly a strange place
00:21:56
and I don't think it's any you know I you guys watch Breaking Bad right yeah I was a big fan of that show and it's it's
00:22:04
funny to me that when Walter White needed to hide out you know they stuck him in the you know the White Mountains
00:22:11
of New Hampshire and told him not to leave you know I mean there are people that go up there to go off the grid you
00:22:17
know to remain hidden and it's just a different place so it it brings out the the weirdos the conspiracy theorists the
00:22:26
people that just want to alone uh so you have a lot of those those types up there but I'll never get
00:22:33
behind the idea that she was abducted by a stranger there's just no way in my mind that that will ever make sense it's
00:22:39
the the odds are astronomical because you know we're dealing with a window where she's on the side of the road that
00:22:45
that's you know maybe s minutes where she's she's there in which this person would have had to have come by and put
00:22:53
her into the car and take her off and then nobody sees it you've got three neighbors that are watching the scene at
00:22:59
the same time so there are only many windows in there where nobody's actually watching the scene so it's just uh you
00:23:08
know improbable that a person that has that capability of murder and abduction would happen upon her in that window and
00:23:16
then not be seen it makes much more sense to me that she would have been traveling in tandem with somebody that
00:23:22
she knew and that person was the one that came back around and picked her up and took her off because that
00:23:29
interaction would only have taken a couple seconds um and and I know they people will argue with that and say well
00:23:36
stuff like that happens all the time people are abducted because they're in the wrong place at the wrong time right
00:23:41
not really not like this not when you're already um involved in something where you're you're getting away and running
00:23:48
away and you have a plan while you're up there um I mean if you wrote it as a as
00:23:54
a movie script it would get kicked out because it's too unbelievable I I agree with you the the window of her getting
00:24:00
in a stranger's car it's it's not going to be a 30second interaction of oh well you seem nice let me jump in your car
00:24:06
yeah right uh So that obviously points to more of the tandem driver Theory and that's one of your theories anytime you
00:24:13
know you know the the rener haters that will say I don't agree with them on anything the one of the things I agree
00:24:18
with you a lot on is the tandem driver Theory but the only thing that I question is that also she already had
00:24:25
one interaction mhm and now this fight ORF flight mentality is going to take you know it's going to keep building
00:24:32
stronger especially now you have a guy that is going to go call the cops right so would she have been more inclined to
00:24:37
take the next offer right hey I can help you boom I'm in your car yeah so I think
00:24:42
that might be you know because there wasn't one interaction I don't want to rule that out completely because of the
00:24:49
the search dogs yeah the search dogs stopping in the M middle of the road I always thought that that was a key piece
00:24:54
of evidence that she obviously got into to a car if she were if she were a child or a
00:25:02
teenager walking down the street in our neighborhood mhm during broad daylight and then she goes dis and she disappears
00:25:10
and they know what route she was traveling if you put search dogs on that and the dogs stop in the middle of the
00:25:16
street the investigators always say that when when sent ends they got they got in
00:25:22
a [Music] car [Music] at Crystal Farms we're thankful for the farmers who work hard to put food on our
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hp.com explore today's must-have Trends and Innovative Styles at Mrs be's clearance and outlet shop oneof aind
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style and savings of Mrs be's clearance and [Music] [Music] Outlet first off Maggie and Art thank
00:27:55
you for joining us in the garage the captain and I have both been really enjoying The Disappearance of Mara
00:28:00
Murray six-part docu series on oxygen the first thing that we both took note of was that you both came into this case
00:28:09
to investigate and you didn't seem to be showing up with a a theory that you wanted to prove you seem to be letting
00:28:16
the investigation go where it led you yeah I think I that's exactly correct I mean Maggie and I have talked about this
00:28:23
several times that that um you know obviously I come at it looking at it from the law enforcement perspective
00:28:29
this is my 40th year in law enforcement at several different levels uh not only Federal but also I was an Army MP and a
00:28:37
local police officer in Massachusetts and uh 25 years of the marshals and 6 years with uh almost six years with
00:28:45
Homeland Security um and Maggie brings brings that investigative report of that investigative journalist side to it and
00:28:54
comes from a whole different angle than I do and and and we talked about this early on that I think the main point of
00:29:02
what we were trying to do here is get to the basic facts of the case and wherever
00:29:08
the facts takes us it takes us I mean that's it's as simple as that and and and I think you know from just looking
00:29:16
at this case that there's so many misconceptions Mis rumors Urban myths uh out there on this particular
00:29:23
case that it really you you have to go back to the beginning to get to the base facts well I think the thing is too is
00:29:32
that art you know a lot of people would look at him and think oh he's just a cop
00:29:36
and he's on the cop side but I was surprised when I met him that he was even willing to talk about a
00:29:44
police conspiracy and talk about dirty cops I mean it just goes to his credibility he didn't care where the
00:29:50
evidence took him if it took him to dirty cups that's where we were going he wasn't afraid to you know break that
00:29:57
tood of blue and go over that line and um I think that is really crucial to look at in this case that he didn't come
00:30:05
into this bias and I didn't come in biased I had no idea about anything um so we really did just go with the
00:30:12
evidence Maggie please take us through the filming process of the documentary because as a viewer it looks like you
00:30:18
and art are in control it's just you two and a couple cameramen and you're calling the shots how does this work
00:30:25
yeah and art knows lately because gets like three phone calls from me a day yelling about this um you know it's like
00:30:32
we have an entire team it is not just me and art calling shots like we can you know certainly put our foot down and say
00:30:39
I am not comfortable with that which I had done many times um but there is an entire team starting from the top down
00:30:47
there's the network and then the producers report to the network and then we report to the producers and the
00:30:52
camera guys and it's just like there are so many people working on this and people just see me in art and think that
00:30:58
we're like hm let's get a person in the other room to see if Kathleen is lying or not that did not come from me in art
00:31:05
I mean there are so many people calling the shots and that was actually something that we said we don't really
00:31:10
want this we don't know how comfortable we are with this and that was something that the network really wanted for that
00:31:16
drama Factor um you know people are really mad at me about it now uh we did the best we could with it um we thought
00:31:24
that in the end a scene like that came out as best that it could for what we were doing um but people need to
00:31:31
remember that this is an entire production and we kind of just have to do what we're told I mean of course we
00:31:39
are doing the investigating but when the network says hey we need you to interview this person I mean there's not
00:31:45
much we can really say I mean we're signed on contracts yeah it was I mean I think in
00:31:53
the very beginning usually on on all the criminal cas cases that I've worked on fugitive cases and conducting Internal
00:32:00
Affairs investigating investigations post shooting investigations involving law enforcement officers all those
00:32:07
investigations generally started where you go to the outside and work your way in okay so in other words you're talking
00:32:15
to people on the periphery that have some knowledge and then you work your way in to what you consider to be the
00:32:22
individual you really want to talk to in this particular case we did it completely opposite it we started with a
00:32:28
family and worked our way out and and I think that gave us the opportunity to at
00:32:34
least have a lot more say as to who's going to be interviewed and and which path we would take down which Avenue we
00:32:41
would go down and and there were some you know obviously some tense moments between us and and and you know
00:32:50
sometimes they wanted us to do something that we didn't want to do but generally
00:32:55
I think the the over overall scheduling and the people that we interviewed kind of fell in line but we did have a few a
00:33:03
few conflicts with them but we were able to work through it we did I think the show ultimately turned out to be a
00:33:09
pretty good representation of how art and I would would um you know if we were in control have it done you know we
00:33:15
really wanted to talk about um uh Jane and John do and that whole system that never made it into the showell and that
00:33:23
was something we felt really passionately about getting in um and it just didn't work out
00:33:28
so it is difficult and people need to understand that yeah and when you and dealing with a I mean we had three at
00:33:35
least three cameras on every shoot um we had GoPros we had all these different angles that were taken of everything
00:33:42
that we were doing and there was probably 300 hours taken of uh of of video um that's not counting b-roll so
00:33:51
you triple that for b-roll so we had close to a th000 hours worth of film that had to be be edited down to 6 hours
00:33:59
now each one of our interviews averaged you know about an hour to 90 minutes so what you're catching is like five
00:34:06
minutes of the highlights and I think that's important to know because when you spend an hour and a half with
00:34:13
somebody and you're interviewing them and in fact I think um Kathleen's interview uh Maggie took what three and
00:34:22
a half hours three and a half hours yeah yeah and it's cut down to like maybe five minutes of highlights but the point
00:34:29
being when you spend that much time with somebody you can figure out what's going
00:34:33
on you know are they are they not are they holding something back are they not telling me something that they don't
00:34:39
want to be known and that's that's where you know you you spending the time on these interviews doesn't get translated
00:34:47
into the actual show what was your initial thought on James rener and maybe what were your thoughts on him after the
00:34:54
whole production hey Art you want to answer that one yeah yeah I mean I think listen he uncovered a lot he did he he
00:35:04
uncovered a lot of information um you know obviously he wrote he wrote his book about it I think
00:35:10
he made a lot of assumptions based on information that wasn't really corroborated and that's one thing we
00:35:18
tried to do Maggie and I had many conversations about eyewitness um you know eyewitness statements and how you
00:35:25
have to corroborate everything you get and that's what we actually tried to do was was really corroborate this
00:35:31
information and not just take one person's word for something without getting you know one or two or even
00:35:38
three uh methods of corroborating that type of information and I I I I think James's book was more about his kind of
00:35:48
walk through this case and process as opposed to the actual investigative portion of the case that we did I think
00:35:56
that's the a big difference in these in what he did compared to what we did yeah
00:36:01
uh rener I mean he did a lot for the case when we were going back I mean even now art and there are going back after
00:36:06
every episode we watch and just trying to remember like okay where did we get that piece of information from and and
00:36:11
where did we get that and we always make sure we have sources and the documents um and some things we realized like that
00:36:18
came from rener and and he uncovered a lot a lot of stuff like I I really credit him we would not be here without
00:36:25
him without his book I mean he had his blog since 2012 that really brought this case back to light and then you know Tim
00:36:33
and Lance hopping on and making the podcast kind of you know as they met rener I mean full credit to rener we
00:36:40
would not be here without him the documents that he got really to me was the key he was able to get a hold of a
00:36:46
lot of documents and talk to talk the people that he was able to talk to had some pretty credible information and I
00:36:53
think that was the key part for us that really started us moving in the correct direction it did I mean rener shared all
00:36:59
of his documents I mean he was so helpful he's still helpful I mean he'll still it it's really crazy I mean
00:37:07
he will like see me going at it with people on the internet and he'll just send me an email like hey look the
00:37:13
internet's nasty Maggie like you just gotta just take take what take a breath take it a step at a time and it's just
00:37:19
like what the [ __ ] James rener like just sending me these emails like he's just
00:37:23
such a nice guy to I think to me at least um he's been really helpful he's been really supportive and you know that
00:37:32
that's what I think about him personally coming from different backgrounds how did the two of you kind of game plan and
00:37:38
strategize what you wanted to do with this investigation well it probably started over a bottle of
00:37:45
titos and then we had as as most as most great plans do exactly I I don't know we
00:37:53
just kind of were on the same page from the beginning it was a little weird you know we had never met before and then
00:37:59
here I am this 28-year-old woman journalist suddenly paired with a 62y old man on this project and it was just
00:38:07
like it was kind of really weird at first we didn't know how to handle each other and then I guess over that bottle
00:38:14
of titos we just realized like look we're really on the same page we actually agree with a lot of what the
00:38:18
other is saying art would say I think we need to talk to this person talk to this
00:38:22
person I obviously trust what he's saying and I would say you know look maybe there is a police conspiracy we
00:38:28
really should look at this and art would say yeah you know what we got to look at
00:38:32
it at all of it we need to look at every single piece of information in detail yeah you know when we first started this
00:38:39
thing I remember talking to the producers and and Maggie and we were like really worried about filling up six
00:38:47
hours of TV time that's a lot of time to fill up I mean uh that's that's a really
00:38:53
Hefty amount of time to to put content on TV and uh as we started moving through it
00:39:01
um we became concerned about what we were going to have to cut out um and and you know when it comes to the editing
00:39:09
portion again um you know a lot of this stuff was was unfortunately never made it onto the screen and we couldn't get
00:39:17
to some of the stuff that we wanted to get to hopefully maybe we can do it in another on another case but yeah it
00:39:26
became it became pretty much when when we looked at the whole model of working from the from the inside out it was easy
00:39:34
to determine well we got to talk to the family first um and and we kind of went from there and we had several pockets of
00:39:42
people I remember this Maggie we had like groups of people and nobody was talking to each other yeah and each one
00:39:49
had like pieces of info and what we what we really became Maggie and I became kind of the the Hub in the in the wheel
00:39:57
and we were collecting all this different info um uh from the different groups of people and I'm talking like
00:40:04
you know high school friends College friends law enforcement uh private investigators um family and and kind of
00:40:13
putting it all together well uh art I'm going to say uh you don't look a day over
00:40:19
30 and just like Nick carries the beauty on our show I think you I think art you
00:40:25
carried the beauty very well on the documentary I don't know about that thank you I don't know about that no art
00:40:32
really okay we would interview people women whenever we had a female interviewee they loved art like
00:40:42
it was it was really wild like I didn't exist it was just all about art well they couldn't see you because you
00:40:50
weren't tall enough so I've been falling this cas for a very long time and I've seen most of
00:40:59
the characters in person or on TV at least and one of the characters that I'm not very familiar with is a guy that's
00:41:07
been investigating the case from the beginning and I thought came off very well I thought he came off with great
00:41:13
ideas very intelligent and that is John Smith but I heard that there are some rumors that he's not really happy with
00:41:21
how the production came out and we have heard that too um but I think John like a lot of other people has has have come
00:41:31
up with some uh conclusions not based on real facts and which which is I mean I I can
00:41:41
see that from the point of view when you don't have all the information in front
00:41:44
of you I mean we didn't have 100% of the information but we had a lot a lot of information was shared with us that was
00:41:52
never shared with anybody else which which we can come to more more uh intelligent conclusions based on those
00:41:59
facts and and corroborating the stuff than probably anybody else can it's just like looking up the stuff online and
00:42:07
talking to other people um I'm not sure what John's issue is with the show um because all we've done is Strive to get
00:42:17
the truth and we've tried to corroborate any information that's either out there
00:42:22
on the internet that's online that's in James books that's been published in in magazine articles and that's all
00:42:29
we've really tried to do um but there's so much bogus information out there that
00:42:36
people have relied on that really was that it took us a lot of time to weighed through a lot of that stuff and and
00:42:44
actually come up with facts as opposed to just conjecture and then basing uh conclusions on wrong premises and I
00:42:55
think a lot of people have done that and we see we see it online all the time what was the hardest question that you
00:43:02
had to ask during the interview process and to whom um I mean definitely asking yeah I mean definitely asking Fred um if
00:43:12
he sexually assaulted Mora was probably the hardest and we also thought he knew about that rumor we were both even
00:43:21
surprised at his reaction I mean before that we had said and everyone producers had said to him you
00:43:28
know we have to ask you tough questions we're gonna have to ask you tough questions and we would look him in the
00:43:34
eye and be like there's going to be some really tough questions today and you know he was like ha me I'm ready like we
00:43:39
got to get it all out there so we can move on and I thought that he was ready for that question um Turned out he had
00:43:46
never actually heard that before and it was it was pretty difficult because I was very caught off guard um you know I
00:43:55
just thought he was going to go absolutely not that never happened you know that scumbag James Runner and I was
00:44:02
caught off guard by his reaction yeah but his but but his reaction was completely genuine I mean there was no
00:44:10
doubt I mean he had he had never heard that before I think on occasion you know people and I've heard this before that
00:44:18
that a lot of times you know when Fred's talking to family and friends they don't
00:44:22
tell him everything they they kind of keep the you know is not a young guy anymore um and you know we've we've
00:44:29
looked at him in the eye and you know he said to us on on a couple of occasions I
00:44:34
just want to do everything I can before I before I die to try to find how what happened to my daughter and he was
00:44:41
completely taken back that was probably by far the toughest question and his reaction was I thought completely
00:44:48
genuine and he was really upset about it and I and I got a lot a lot of um people
00:44:56
saying that I'm like the worst journalist ever and I'm like you know so insensitive and I softball questions to
00:45:05
the police but I give Fred the hardest question um that's just totally bogus um this is a question that needed to be
00:45:12
addressed because people would not stop talking about it and it was out there and he had never been asked that so to
00:45:18
be told that I'm a horrible journalist for asking questions that somebody has never actually been asked is really
00:45:25
contradictory to itself um you know art would agree it's just something that had
00:45:31
to be asked when he said he even said he looked at me he said you know how do I make this go away and I just said answer
00:45:39
the question all you have to do is just confronted and say no you know that didn't happen and of course it's
00:45:47
terrible and horrible that this is even out there you know where it even came from was we don't even you know it was
00:45:53
in rener it was implied in render's book book somebody told it to rener and this
00:45:58
person who told it to rener is not a particularly Savory character so of course all this information is you know
00:46:05
it's unfortunate it's out there but it needs to be addressed we wouldn't be doing our job if we just brushed brushed
00:46:12
over it well and you're exactly right because as we have learned you're kind of damned if you do and damned if you
00:46:18
don't you know if you hadn't ask that question you would have been there would have been the same number of people
00:46:23
coming out saying well you didn't ask Fred the hard questions and I don't think we softball the police either I
00:46:28
mean they're saying we softball the police we ask them every single question anyone else would ask them I would like
00:46:33
to know what questions they have for the police that we did not ask right while we're on the subject of talking to Fred
00:46:41
Murray Art one thing that I noticed throughout the documentary was that when you are asking questions you're very
00:46:47
busy with pen and paper jotting down notes taking notes and when you spoke with Fred there was a much different
00:46:54
approach you put put the pen and paper aside and you were really focusing in on his face and his eyes we all know that
00:47:01
Fred's a animated character and he talks with his hands what was your strategy there I I know Fred I've met with him
00:47:09
several times off camera I mean he works at a hospital on Cape Cod that I that I
00:47:15
actually uh visit the town quite a bit and I've actually bumped him bumped into him on the Street downtown a couple
00:47:22
times unrelated to this and um you know I I this was going to be probably the toughest interview we had uh We've
00:47:31
interviewed we probably sat down with a M Maggie three or four times yeah I think for different interviews and this
00:47:37
this was going to be the toughest one and I just wanted to to to to look at his reaction to all this and I kind of
00:47:45
knew what he was going to say anyway when you see me taking those notes genuinely it's because this is the first
00:47:51
time I've heard this stuff and in this particular case um we kind of knew the answers he was going to give us to these
00:47:58
questions and you know if something different came out then of course I would have written something down but
00:48:03
you know I kind of knew what he was going to come across and I just wanted to to to look him in the eye and and you
00:48:10
know get his get his true reaction and I think that's exactly what we got cuz that interview was tough let me tell you
00:48:17
so with all the chatter going on with you know the possible theories out there you know the five main theories but one
00:48:23
of them being that it's a police conspiracy that maybe the police had something to do with it now it's 13
00:48:30
years later they're finally giving interviews that they never gave before and a lot of people watching this I I I
00:48:37
think they kind of assume that the police aren't being uh upfront or truth for or honest yeah I mean I I will tell
00:48:45
you this that that it's hard for them to talk about this particular case and share you know all the information
00:48:54
because this in this is an open criminal case in their mind um and which means it's difficult for them to share the
00:49:03
information and all the information um which creates this Gap I call it the big gap you see it almost
00:49:12
every single time um where you you see a gap like this uh in law enforcement information and then they then the
00:49:20
public fills the Gap in with all these conspiracy theories and I will tell you that that you know we had several
00:49:27
meetings with law enforcement and it took them a while to feel comfortable with us and realize that we were that we
00:49:33
were the real deal that we were just trying to get to the base facts and I what did it take maybe Maggie six weeks
00:49:40
before they started sharing um information with us hadn't been out there in the public
00:49:47
before I understand their point that you know they have to keep some information
00:49:53
back uh you know for the day that they do arrest somebody on this particular case um they have to have information
00:50:00
that they're keeping in their back pocket to corroborate whatever anybody saying so it's it's that they're they're
00:50:07
walking a fine line here and and I think because they felt comfortable with us they did share a lot of a lot of
00:50:15
information with us that have has never been made public before do you feel like
00:50:19
the police ultimately felt like this was a dead end case at this point all these
00:50:23
years later yeah 13 years later yeah until you guys came along yes I mean I I I think they you know task forces and
00:50:32
Cold Case task forces you have to have something to work on you can't keep a large group of people together and just
00:50:37
sitting around in the office kind of rehashing stuff that you've already done and eliminated leads so cases that are
00:50:45
like 13 years old cold cases it's kind of like you're on a roller coaster sometimes you're going really fast and
00:50:51
there's a lot of stuff to do and other times you're just moving real slow and that was exactly what happened here is
00:50:59
that you know investigations go up and down as you proceed with them and I think what the state police and the AG's
00:51:06
office recognized is this could breathe some new life into this case and you know with the with the first four or
00:51:14
five shows already out it already has and not only that but even when we were around uh filming this show people would
00:51:22
come up and talk to us about the case so even then was generating new interest in
00:51:26
the case us bringing them new information and and angles that they hadn't looked at I mean the more eyes
00:51:32
the better and and really the online community it is it is great to have them there are a lot of things I mean rener
00:51:38
got a lot of his information from his blog from people on that and we know that the police do look at all this
00:51:44
stuff and it's just unfortunate that the online community is focusing so much of
00:51:49
their actually really good resources on a on a deadend lead um but yeah I think I think the police are
00:51:58
are pretty hopeful with with the show and what we have have found now that the production is over on this case um was
00:52:06
there ever any time because I know with uh Tim and Lance when they went up and did some uh boots on the ground
00:52:12
investigation that they had some threats that were made to them did you have any
00:52:18
threats did you feel scared at all we actually never got any threats and I was really surprised about that
00:52:25
yeah I I don't think that we were ever scared I mean we had gone into a few interviews that didn't make it into the
00:52:32
show um into some pretty SD situations where it was the first time that I was at Art and said do you have your gun on
00:52:42
you and he did um but that was probably the one time yeah there wasn't much I mean I've been in a lot worse situations
00:52:56
I can tell you that than this and was I I I thought the whole thing regarding Tim and Lance those were that was all
00:53:03
very strange stuff interesting and strange um but did I think we had any issues I don't think so
00:53:11
um uh you know over my career I've been threatened many times and God there was a portion of my life where I had my
00:53:19
children under protection so did I think any of this stuff was going to come back
00:53:23
I wasn't worried about it um so it's uh I don't think it's one of these you know get that part of New Hampshire is
00:53:34
kind of like people move up there to be alone you know like leave me alone type scenario I don't need the government
00:53:41
poking around in my business and I only talk to law enforcement when I have to which is fine I mean that's what makes
00:53:48
us a great country you can do what you want to do but um I think maybe with with Tim and and Lance people took
00:53:56
exception to that and and um uh you know maybe tried to pull some stuff online with them of course we all want to know
00:54:06
what happened to Mara Murray but if you could ask one of if you could have one of the smaller questions in this case
00:54:13
answered for you what would that question be good question to me it's always been about Mora um I think
00:54:21
there's a lot of stuff out there about a police consp iracy that you know for all intents and
00:54:29
purposes there is no police conspiracy we've almost ran that to 100% to the ground and um you know I can say that
00:54:40
that Cecil Smith was at that scene in his suv1 um and you know as he said in his
00:54:49
interview um uh you know ending in episode four beginning of five um that's exactly what he was I mean
00:54:57
everybody thinks there's this big conspiracy but what they forget was you know we're looking at it 13 years later
00:55:06
and we've got hindsight um but what you forget is the police were responding to a simple motor
00:55:13
vehicle accident property damage and it didn't look like anybody was hurt and that's that held that way for probably a
00:55:22
day day and a half I think for me I think all of that will come out in the end I think that when um there is an
00:55:31
arrest made or her body is found all these people that have been gung-ho on a police conspiracy are going to feel
00:55:36
pretty silly about it you know I think it was it was a great lead in the beginning like we we thought about it
00:55:43
and we went with it and we found the information um unfortunately there's information that cannot be released but
00:55:50
I mean you know there is no police conspiracy um all these questions that people shoot out online we have answers
00:55:57
to those people questioning Monahan's timeline they aren't even looking at Monahan's timeline you're actually
00:56:02
looking at another officer's timeline Monahan's dispatch log is not in the grafting County logs he was not a
00:56:09
grafting County officer he was a state officer so these people have their facts completely wrong but anyway so besides
00:56:17
answering that which will be answered um I I would want to know where her her body is where her remains are because
00:56:25
that's where the evidence is and that is key where where is Mora I've never found
00:56:31
enough evidence to lead me to believe that she was going up there to commit suicide or take a break from her whole
00:56:38
life but there's definitely evidence that she's going up there and she's heading towards somewhere to take at
00:56:44
least a break do you have any thoughts on where she was heading or who she's heading with I think that rener is
00:56:53
accurate in that there was somebody else involved probably um whether she was going to
00:57:01
meet a friend or somebody I personally don't think that she was going alone um there could have been a
00:57:11
tandem driver like a friend or somebody I don't think it was a tandem driver and
00:57:15
somebody helping her Escape I think they were just going to clear her head thought enough booze for two people um I
00:57:24
I think that there was possibly somebody going with her to just spend the weekend
00:57:28
hang out take a break she had all intentions on coming back yeah I I agree I think you know you've got five or six
00:57:38
theories and you you see us map them out in one of the episodes yeah none of those none of those are completely off
00:57:45
the table until we can actually find her or her remains so but we looked at the probability of what is what is more than
00:57:53
likely that happen to her and more than likely you know something there was Foul Play involved in what
00:58:00
happened to her now whether it was somebody she knows or somebody that picked her up on the highway that's the
00:58:06
big that's the big question you know what happened in that 7 to 10 minute time period which we've probably even
00:58:14
narrowed down to like shorter than that but you know what happened in that time per
00:58:24
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