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brand [Music] [Music] [Applause] never [Applause] welcome to True Crime garage wherever
00:01:42
you are whatever you are doing thanks for listening I'm your host Nick and with me as always is the man running for
00:01:48
mayor of Parts Unknown reminding you to get out and Rock the vote he is the captain I will be kissing wives and
00:01:55
smacking babies it's good to be seen and it's good to see you thanks for listening thanks for telling a
00:02:02
[Music] friend tonight we are drinking Tuckerman Brewing company's pale ale out of Conway
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New Hampshire garage grade 3 and 1 12 bottle caps out of five this is their Flagship pale ale brewed with four types
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of hops this Brew is cold conditioned and dry hopped in lering tanks for maximum taste and quality and this great
00:02:25
pale L was brought to us by these great guys and girls first up we have Ken from
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Texas who says she is glad she found the garage because she was tired of running
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around with lesser True Crime podcast well she's throwing some shade and a big shout out to Kelsey and Buffalo Grove
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Illinois and a big thank you to Connie in beautiful Huntington Beach California and last but not least a big shout out
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and thank you to Bobby and his his better half Aubrey in Tracy California so thank you all for filling up the
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fridge for this week if you want to buy us around for next week's show go to True Crim garage.com and click on the
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Donate button and like Nick said I'm running for mayor and governor and Senator and president El Presidente El
00:03:19
Capen of Parts Unknown and if you'd like to be a resident of Parts Unknown go to
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our website go to the store and check out the new parts Unknown t-shirt and that's a two we pre-order you got two
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weeks starting right now so go to the website and get that done today all right let's get in the garage we're back
00:03:39
talking with true crime author James rener and Maggie the beautiful Maggie and the Beautiful art uh the host of
00:03:47
Oxygen's The Disappearance of Mara Murray all right Captain that's enough of your propaganda and enough of the
00:03:53
business everybody gather around grab a chair grab a beer let's talk some true crime vote for the captain
00:04:04
[Music] one of the things I love about this documentary The Disappearance of maram
00:04:14
Murray is the host Maggie and are asking the tough questions they're asking tough
00:04:19
questions to law enforcement to the family asking tough questions to podcasters to author James rener and one
00:04:27
of the things is James from the beginning you've always been kind of suspicious of the family but we don't
00:04:34
really know how we would act if this happened to us or one of our loved ones no we see that but like I've got two
00:04:41
kids and if if my daughter went missing um I W hell of a book oh God morbid joke yeah right I mean not a
00:04:51
book I'd ever want to write but like I would 100% I would open the door come in here you know look through our family
00:04:58
look through our internet search history you know everything you know that you need to in order to find this this
00:05:05
person this kid right yeah I I mean we say we don't know how we would act but there would be nothing I wouldn't
00:05:12
do right well the other question too is um do you know if her bank was open that
00:05:19
night or that day on that Monday oh well I all I know is she went up to the ATM and she was able to she had like 200
00:05:26
close to $300 in her account and she took out2 80 and people get all like up and a tizzy about that detail they're
00:05:33
like oh she didn't withdraw all of her money right and you shouldn't say she withdraw Drew all of her money because
00:05:39
that's untrue well yeah she kept uh $16 in there you're right it wasn't well I still question whether or not Fred gave
00:05:46
her the $4,000 I mean he claims he didn't but that's the big question you know what happened to that $4,000
00:05:52
because you know she disappears and how much money does it take to disappear and
00:05:57
set up a new life well if she only had 28 8 that's one thing but maybe she had 280 plus the 4,000 plus her student loan
00:06:07
money um that Monday or the the week before that it might have even been that day that Monday she disappeared might
00:06:16
have been the day that they released the hold on student loan funds um so she could have taken an extra
00:06:23
$45,000 on top so now instead of 280 we're dealing with maybe she disappeared with more like $10,000 now but where's
00:06:30
she getting this money from the student loan money um well you get once you get student loans you can apply for a
00:06:39
certain amount of money um that's over and above your uh you know room and board and I did that in school I lived
00:06:46
off of student loans for I think you know two years typical author I'm still paying
00:06:53
back um so you know I think it's possible that that's what she did uh is wait until she could withdraw those
00:07:02
funds and they they keep a hold on it until like a couple weeks into the semester but do we have a record of her
00:07:07
withdrawing those funds not I mean maybe the police do I I've never seen any sort
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of record it's just speculation um we do know that she had student loans so um just thinking out loud why would the why
00:07:20
would the father give his daughter for Grand cuz may like we all believe that holding back something right maybe it is
00:07:32
oh by the way I did give her this money and it wasn't for her to run away and she's in trouble for credit card fraud
00:07:39
is it to pay back somebody that she was somebody else somebody else yeah that she had she stolen another credit card
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um and had she run up more than just $70 worth of pizza you know was she paying that person off um but that's just
00:07:56
speculation you know was it was it money to see uh uh her to get away from college and set up someplace else I
00:08:03
don't know I don't know it's just weird so I the other question I have is this is not an Andy Kaufman story you know
00:08:12
there's no I think Andy Kaufman's still alive too but that's another story that's a whole another episode
00:08:18
yeah that's your next book right um but there's no evidence of her I mean she didn't try to fake her
00:08:28
death right unless unless oh right right it wasn't like a yeah I see what you're saying um
00:08:35
well think about this if she hadn't have gotten into the accident on Route 112 and I I do think that that was an
00:08:42
accident like I don't think it was some people well did she stage it for dis no I don't think so um so let's say she
00:08:48
hadn't got into that accident and she just left her car in a parking lot somewhere up there maybe even with a a
00:08:55
note or something um nobody out side of the Murray family would have ever heard about this story um and you know they
00:09:05
she maybe you know could have left a note and said you know I took off I'm sorry you know goodbye but I think the
00:09:12
accident changed everything you know let's say she's going up there to start a new life or to disappear or do
00:09:17
something she gets in that accident she doesn't want the police to show up right
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you know cuz that's now she's in a lot of trouble what is she doing they're catching her halfway through whatever
00:09:27
her plan was so you know let me get in this car that's being driven by this acquaintance and um we're going to take
00:09:35
off and maybe the police will leave the car there and we can come back for it nope oh the police took it oh crap now
00:09:40
we got to leave the car now it looks like now it looks like a possible crime um so we got to be Hush Hush about
00:09:47
everything from from now on you know no no letters to you know friends or family
00:09:52
explaining what I was doing up here yeah it's just her and one maybe two other people that have to be quiet right and
00:09:59
that's kind of your theory on her friends maybe that they're I don't know for sure I just I just the only thing I
00:10:05
feel 100% on is that there was a tandem driver and that tandem driver was somebody that she knew you know friend
00:10:11
or family U I tend to you know maybe lean 60 40 60% towards it being friend or friends well I like that you actually
00:10:19
said that though because one of my I'm constantly defending you uh but what I and I was telling you
00:10:27
this earlier the the one of my favorite things about uh being able to you know call you a true crime
00:10:34
friend is that you put out this amazing book that I bet once a week somebody tells me oh this is the best book that
00:10:41
I've maybe have ever read uh which I think is a great compliment that's awesome um because I hate when somebody
00:10:48
would say it's the best True Crime book I'm like oh come on um but but I like that you said that the only only thing
00:10:57
that you're super solid on or 100% on is that there was a tandem driver yeah and
00:11:02
I think what where a lot of people uh kind of the funny thing is a lot of people
00:11:09
say that you're tunnel vision mhm but then I think that they become Tunnel Vision on you they they do they do and I
00:11:16
think to some extent there's this um need on the internet and social media to to choose sides and in society in
00:11:23
general just to choose a side and I and you get you delve into the mor Murray case you end up on you know specific
00:11:31
Facebook pages and Reddit Pages where for whatever reason they've decided to turn me into you know kind of the bad
00:11:38
guy the bad journalist and and then that's one of the first things they read and they want to be a part of that
00:11:43
community so they have to like not like James either but if you if you spend some time with me you know I know there
00:11:50
were some people from Reddit that came up to Crime con last year and they hung out and got a book and you know uh had a
00:11:58
drink or you know some snacks at the bar or whatever you know within five minutes
00:12:03
of you know hanging out right you know and it almost makes me cringe but you know they'll lean forward and they'll
00:12:09
say you know what you're not you're not an you're not as much of an [ __ ] as I thought you were a little bit of an
00:12:16
[ __ ] still a littleit yeah we all are but um not as much as Nick but see that's the weird thing that I've never
00:12:23
understood with and it's not with everybody in the True Crime Community but with the case well there's other
00:12:31
cases out there that are similar to this where there where there are people that
00:12:34
they they take a side like you said they believe in a theory and if they dis if they disagree with your theory for some
00:12:42
reason they've decided they don't like you as a person I don't know how that leap is made um you know we've had it
00:12:49
happen on our show where people comment and they're like Nick you said that it probably went down like this are you
00:12:54
some kind of idiot you know and it's like well well I normally get that directed towards me and yes I am some
00:13:00
kind of an idiot um but I like that you said that you know that's the only thing
00:13:05
that you feel 100% because I think a lot a lot of times when you bring up the pregnancy or the the belief that you
00:13:12
think that she's alive I've never heard you say I 100% believe that she's alive no and no of course not and um you know
00:13:21
with the tandem driver thing I you know look it what happened after that is is a
00:13:26
mystery did she go on to another life a lot of people think I'm sold on this idea that she's in
00:13:32
Canada and you know hanging out and chilling and eating Crepes and right and you know having babies and that would be
00:13:39
nice I want to believe that uh but there's also the possibility that whoever this tandem driver was killed
00:13:45
her right you know I'm very open to that possibility but if your theory that she left on purpose to
00:13:53
start a new life if that theory is wrong let's just say in this hypothetical World sure I'm telling you 100% that
00:14:00
that theory is wrong what's the next theory that you lean towards is it just that the tandem driver yeah it's that
00:14:08
the T driver was responsible for her death you know did she hit her head harder than we than we know and did she
00:14:16
did she pass out and they freaked out and she became comos or something silly like that or did you know was she
00:14:23
traveling up there with a boyfriend right not the boyfriend but a boyfriend a boyfriend
00:14:29
and that person was the one that after that accident you know killed her or you know uh you so so yes I'm I'm very much
00:14:38
open to that you know when I started looking into the case the first thing I after you know Wikipedia and a couple
00:14:45
other things I'm going to your blog and so then to get so much of my information
00:14:51
about the case from your blog sure and then to call you an idiot or a [ __ ] just makes zero sense oh I know you know
00:15:00
and and these people that set up websites or uh or other podcasts not Tim and lances but other podcasts on this
00:15:08
mystery because there are a couple more right and uh um you know they that's what they do they're like I hate this
00:15:15
James runer he's such an a-hole he's such a jerk here here are 10 documents that James runer posted on his uh his
00:15:21
website that might help us figure out what happened to Mora Murray um yeah you're welcome thank you yeah I think
00:15:26
yeah I think people should just give you a little more credit for that I'm a you
00:15:30
know I don't know I'm obsessed I was obsessed with this case there are other cases that that I get very personally
00:15:36
involved in um but I've got a life I think you know I've got I've got you're here with us on a Sunday there's no way
00:15:45
you have a life uh this isn't my life is and and people seem to think this is you
00:15:50
know and I I don't know it's frustrating you know social media and you know I don't know how you guys are but you at
00:15:56
to at a point you just have to watch walk away and not like cuz 80% of the comments will be positive but you fixate
00:16:04
on those 20% one thing I liked when you set up your blog was you it wasn't just you forming an opinion and telling your
00:16:12
version of what you think went down with Mara but you set up a place for people to check out new information and for
00:16:20
people to come back to you with information and say hey James I found this you should consider putting it on
00:16:26
your blog yeah it was this Grand idea I had to open the internet and turn it into essentially The Writer's room of a
00:16:33
newspaper you know when I worked at a Scene Magazine up in Cleveland we'd had this writer room and I'd write these
00:16:41
true crime stories and we'd Gather in the writer room and I'd pitch out ideas I'm like what about this guy as a
00:16:46
suspect and you know the other writers would come back well have you looked at this and this and it was a new way to
00:16:50
gather information but also um to find new avenues of investigation and to use crowdsource ing to try to solve these
00:16:59
cases now the way I picture it going down was you know if you've ever seen Mickey Mouse and the The Sorcerer's
00:17:07
Apprentice you know where he's learning from this Grand Wizard and you know he you know he goes up and tries to use
00:17:12
some of the magic well I had this Grand idea to turn it into a a crowd sourcing platform and everybody would be sociable
00:17:19
and and fight for the greater good and and help each other out but it got out of control and people were not nice to
00:17:27
each other and people were not nice to me and people when names were considered as
00:17:34
suspects people would go out and try to shame them instead of realizing that just because their name is mentioned as
00:17:41
a possible suspect and they are a possible suspect doesn't mean they're guilty and they shouldn't be held um as
00:17:47
we still have a court of law for that reason you know let's not consider somebody guilty until they've had their
00:17:52
day in court but that went out the window and I realized that this Grand experiment that I had
00:17:58
um it just won't work in the way our culture and Society set up and that was very upsetting and very sad and now the
00:18:07
the blog you know I've turned off the comments because people are just people are just mean to each other right now um
00:18:16
and I I think that doesn't get us any closer to the truth it doesn't and and and I want to hope that it's a phase and
00:18:22
that we'll look back at this in 20 years and we're like oh my God that was the deep dark days of the you know people
00:18:28
being mean to each other in Twitter and Facebook but I don't see an end to it no
00:18:32
and you know I I was involved in a community online community years ago regarding a specific case and people
00:18:39
would log on there and give their opinions on different pieces of evidence or theories that they had and it it got
00:18:47
very messy very quickly it it it it spun out of control into this thing where posters are now accusing one of one
00:18:56
another of being the actual murderer oh yeah uh and it just it got so weird and strange in there yeah uh yeah the I
00:19:04
think the only way to fix it is to get rid of anonymity right and but nobody's going to be for that because they they
00:19:12
you know they want to be anonymous be because they you know they they have their daily routine of being an
00:19:17
accountant somewhere and they have to follow everybody's rules but then they can log on as Poop Shoot 69 you know at
00:19:25
that's a good friend of mine best buds and tell you everything you're doing wrong and and you know that you're that
00:19:33
maybe the police should look into you and you know stupid stuff like that like well and I think people also forget on
00:19:39
these a lot of these shows that you're they edit you so it's just like that you you were saying before like you talked
00:19:47
to Maggie for a really long time and then what they put on the show is an edited version of that and they might
00:19:53
eventually go back to that interview yes but one of the things that you talked about in the show was the eyewitness
00:19:59
accounts and I wondered that when you when you guys have gone to these places and looked for how many people don't
00:20:07
recognize the picture that you're showing them is it a bunch of Mor Murray yeah oh
00:20:14
99.9% okay so it's it's always just a a very small how many people would you say
00:20:20
have said oh I know her two or three okay so very small and people that that believe they saw her are adamant like
00:20:30
this uh and I think I hope eventually in the doc series we'll get to see her but
00:20:34
there's this employee that worked at the record store up in um Montreal I think and she was 100% she's like no doubt
00:20:42
about it that was her so you know people say they are these unsubstantiated sightings um but they're very good
00:20:50
unsubstantiated sightings it might not be her now there's a lesser known story Within the
00:20:58
mara Murray case and I want you to tell it for us because I pulled this straight
00:21:02
from your book and it was one of the more you know there was a lot of interesting points in there but this one
00:21:09
stood out for me a little bit it's the and forgive me if I'm setting this up wrong but when
00:21:15
you were looking into the case there was a hit on her social security number or or a hit on something involving like a a
00:21:25
shopping uh card yeah there are two I mean you're hitting on two different stories okay so real quick um and then
00:21:32
I'll get because I think I know the one you're going for is a little more dramatic but there was a the um when I
00:21:39
ran her social security number I got a hit that led me to sacko Maine and that turned out to be one of the Searchers
00:21:46
that was working with Mo with Fred Murray after Moore disappeared and and he said hey can I put a flag on Mo's
00:21:54
Social Security number so that linked his address in sacko main to moris so so when I ran it it popped up so that was
00:22:02
kind of easily explained although it's still a little weird right um the shopping cart is interesting and I think
00:22:10
I get the feeling the documentary series might go there because they they showed
00:22:13
it last night okay um inside the the car they're like oh hey look a little shopping cart now um one of the people
00:22:22
that go to the the website these these you know when I was crowdsourcing it somebody read it and they they were able
00:22:28
to get the exact number off the back of that shopping card find the grocery store and run it through their loyalty
00:22:36
program system and it popped up uh More's information and also an email address MH but that email address wasn't
00:22:45
linked to Mora it was linked to a guy named Richard thousand who lives in Cleveland Ohio and works as a nurse so I
00:22:54
reach out to Richard and I say hey man your hey dude yeah your email pops up on Mor Murray's shopping card and mor
00:23:06
Murray's this woman who disappeared in in in UMass ammer and he tells me the story about how he visited the the
00:23:13
university and met this young woman who he thinks was Mora and they had lunch together and then she she must have
00:23:21
stolen his card his loyalty card to get like cheap gas or something and I'm like
00:23:26
well Mo no is known for stealing cards you know that makes a little sense so I put that information up online and
00:23:33
people right away poked holes in it and he got back to me and he said hey look I
00:23:39
made that story up um the the the real truth is that yes I was at UMass ammer just for a couple days for a
00:23:48
conference and I when I heard about the Mora Murray case I became a little obsessed with it and found her shopping
00:23:55
cart information and put my email in it so I would get some more information from about that card um so man talk
00:24:04
about red flags right you know here's this wait wait so so he just repeat that yeah it's weird so
00:24:12
so he puts in his information well this is the last story he told me you know he
00:24:17
lied about the first story he says so I don't know what the truth is and what's not but the story he settled on was that
00:24:23
he was studying to be a nurse at the same time as Mora but not going to school at UMass but visited UMass for a
00:24:30
couple days for what was the reason a conference or something was happening down there and uh he said they might
00:24:37
have crossed paths but he's not sure so he came back to Cleveland and then when morg goes missing he's like oh
00:24:44
I remember you Mass I was there at the same time and he starts getting obsessed with the case finds her shopping cart
00:24:50
info puts in his email address in order to open up the other information because
00:24:55
it says in order to access you have to put an email address right so he gets his to link with her shopping
00:25:02
cart and so it's weird right like everything about it and this guy's and the fact that he lied before exactly
00:25:09
makes it even weirder and he's living up in um Cleveland uh for and I've visited the
00:25:15
house I haven't caught him there but we've talked on the phone um lives by himself and I I talk to the neighbors
00:25:23
nobody has seen a young woman up there but um he it's really hard these days to to have social media right and not not
00:25:35
be able to find a picture of somebody there are no pictures of this guy anywhere um on social media on the
00:25:42
internet uh that was some information that the Cold Case unit was really interested in and I I have a feeling
00:25:50
they probably have talk to him or tried to talk to him but they certainly wanted
00:25:54
all the information I had about that guy oh yeah well Nick's not on social media much it's kind of hard to find you
00:26:02
I I find I can find pictures of yeah it's cuz I've posted cuz I post them well our listeners love to uh
00:26:11
Photoshop us now so that's a lot of fun oh right right the coordinates sent to Tim and Lance Let's just throw that out
00:26:19
there talk about it what's the deal hold on the coordinates were sent to me originally they were sent to you okay
00:26:25
that's why that's why we're here to talk about they they they love to take credit
00:26:28
for it I don't know that they did I I was drinking after watching several football games and watching the
00:26:35
documentary at the same time oh man to me those guys are we had so much fun at crime con and those those conventions
00:26:42
get crazy though I did so much blow with Tim and Lance it's it's I'm just joking I'm joking so what
00:26:49
about these coordinates oh yeah yeah we we sent in uh and it was just this email
00:26:56
that said stop looking and the subject or or Mor Murray was in there somehow and it was just these
00:27:02
coordinates and it LS leads you to part of the White Mountains uh this desolation Trail you have to go to to
00:27:10
get up there and it's like a 5H hour hike both ways uh I was never able to make it work
00:27:17
um but it does look if you look at the trailer for the mor Murray yeah series they're hiking and so I'm I'm guessing
00:27:26
they do track down this but I have no idea what they found up there cuz they got a little scared and
00:27:32
um we've definitely had our share of odd emails as you have with this this case as
00:27:39
well but um I air more on the side that whatever is going to happen is going to happen
00:27:46
anyway so whether I go on that trail or not right I don't really have a lot of like with the fact that they're like
00:27:53
well we're just too scared to go I'm like ah come on guys you got to do it you went yeah you you got to follow
00:27:58
through with that and I think they finally do um my my hunch is that it's nothing but an internet troll that that
00:28:03
wanted to like for shits and giggles just wanted them to waste their time yeah waste the time waste waste 10 hours
00:28:11
and and possibly you know endanger that's why they sent it to you they like I'm going to get this [ __ ] to waste
00:28:17
this time no thanks what was the was the did the person use a handle that that sent that to you uh it was the email was
00:28:26
redirected through the Netherlands through some sort of remailing email thing they which is weird though cuz
00:28:31
that email is connected to Mara Murray's fuel perks car yeah right no that's not
00:28:38
true Tim Horton's loyalty card yeah okay James so the book has been out for a while now and you've had a chance to
00:28:44
participate in this docu series where are you at currently with your theory um I I right as of this moment as of today
00:28:55
uh in 2017 October second right uh or is it the first yeah today's the first anyways um I would put my probability at
00:29:06
60% she's out there alive somewhere trying to stay off the grid maybe Canada M um and 40% that she was murdered by
00:29:15
whoever this tandem driver was do you have a list of suspects you like more of the tandem driver yeah it's one of four
00:29:24
or five people yeah and I'm not going to go to it specifically how many are men how many are
00:29:31
women two of them are men okay three of them are [Music] women this show is sponsored by better
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us at 1888 [Music] freedom all right we are back cheers mates we are back with art and Maggie
00:32:02
from the oxygen docu series The Disappearance of Mara Murray now do you guys have a hunch on where you think uh
00:32:11
Mara was heading to that night we you know she was taking a break for some reason but where do you think she was
00:32:17
heading to I think that rener is accurate in that there was somebody else involved
00:32:26
probably um whether she was going to meet a friend or somebody I personally don't
00:32:34
think that she was going alone um there could have been a tandem driver like a friend or somebody
00:32:43
I don't think it was a tandem driver and somebody helping her Escape I think they
00:32:46
were just going to clear her head she B enough booze for two people um I I think
00:32:54
that there was possibly somebody going with her to just spend the weekend hang out take a break she had all
00:33:01
intentions on coming back yeah I I agree I think you know you've got five or six
00:33:07
theories and you you see us map them out in one of the episodes yeah episode five
00:33:12
yeah none of those none of those are completely off the table until we can actually find her or her remains so but
00:33:20
we looked at the probability of what is what is more than likely that happened to her and more than likely you know
00:33:27
know something there was Foul Play involved in what happened to her now whether it was somebody she knows or
00:33:33
somebody that picked her up on the highway that's the big that's the big question you know what happened in that
00:33:40
7 to 10 minute time period which we've probably even narrowed down to like shorter than that but you know what
00:33:47
happened in that time frame why do you think in certain cases especially in this case that we have evidence that you
00:33:54
uncover and then people look at it it objectively and they say well no that's that's not true even though you've
00:34:01
backed up that evidence I have no idea why people choose not to believe that absolutely
00:34:07
Insanity it is insanity but but even with this though we did know yeah even with this we did know that um if someone
00:34:16
told us and didn't have evidence we wouldn't believe them you know I understand why people say Okay Cil smin
00:34:23
is saying that but how do we believe him um I get that I get that people want the
00:34:31
evidence but it's hard we we did know this would happen we didn't know to the extent of how
00:34:38
um really intense people are about believing this this police conspiracy theory yeah people love conspiracies but
00:34:48
as you talk to anybody in law enforcement and it's almost impossible to keep a conspiracy together sooner or
00:34:56
later somebody's going to talk and in this particular case I mean when we did the timing when we looked at witness a
00:35:04
when we drove the same route she did when we interviewed Cecil Smith it's pretty clear that even
00:35:11
without you know other type absolutely it was him just the timing of it it had to be him and you know he said he was in
00:35:20
the car you know it for us that whole conspiracy theory right now you know people are wasting their time spinning
00:35:29
their wheels on that that it was some other Cruiser there that's just not the case I mean it's it's really going to be
00:35:36
embarrassing when it does come out and the information is able to be out there that this these people have really
00:35:44
exhausted themselves on this bunk Theory we are trying to tell you that this is this is not the case like if you don't
00:35:54
want to believe us fine but you're going to look silly and and you know even people even if we had a video of the
00:36:01
whole thing they probably still wouldn't believe it no no So you you're going to
00:36:05
have that you know that portion of people that aren't going to believe it regardless of what we say but I'll tell
00:36:10
you this is why in a way I think rener is even more respectable than some of these people that think they're more
00:36:15
respectable than rener because rener is is looking at the evidence and the facts
00:36:21
and saying okay maybe maybe maybe I don't think my theory is Right anymore right he has enough you know dignity to
00:36:31
say Okay I I might have been wrong like I wrote a book about this and it could be wrong and that's like way more
00:36:38
respectable than man it is nut and and I'll tell you what obviously I'm coming from the law
00:36:45
enforcement side the frustration that law enforcement has I mean and and it goes to a lot of stuff I mean you talked
00:36:52
to law enforcement is a tough job right now uh especially uniform law enforcement um and unfortunately we kind
00:37:00
of go through these Cycles every 20 25 years we're in one of those Cycles right now and people for some reason want to
00:37:08
believe that law enforcement is is bad uh for whatever reason I mean it it feeds something in their their ego or in
00:37:16
their minds and I mean when you sit and spend an hour and a half with each one of these police officers as we did um
00:37:24
listen I've done internal investigations internal actually reported to me when I
00:37:29
was a US Marshal and I can tell you that you can tell when somebody's not telling
00:37:33
you the truth and or or something doesn't pass the smell test and I can tell you that every thing that we
00:37:41
uncovered here from the law enforcement side there wasn't anything where you know the hair on the back of my neck
00:37:46
stood up it was just like the simplest explanation is generally the explanation and that's what we found one
00:37:53
of my favorite parts of the documentary was that you guys did the drive that Mara had made that night before the
00:37:59
accident is there any observations or things that occurred to you that didn't make it on camera I think I think the
00:38:08
the condition of Mora's car right Maggie I mean we did that whole experiment with
00:38:13
the rag in the tailpipe and I we actually drove the car around you know we bought a a Saturn that was the same
00:38:21
year and and knocked out one of the cylinders on it and and did the experiment in the garage with the rag in
00:38:28
the tailpipe and then they actually drove that vehicle around um and more than likely even though we did what we
00:38:35
did to it this car was probably in a lot better shape than Morris was and Maggie
00:38:40
you drove one of those same Vehicles when you were UMass right I did I had an 04 she had a
00:38:46
96 yeah it you know we I think the hour time discrepancy always kind of puzzled us um you know did she leave right away
00:38:57
after she went to the liquor store did she stop somewhere did somebody see her you
00:39:03
know yeah when you when you go to the liquor store and the ATM they're pretty much right next to each other when you
00:39:11
go to the liquor store there's a diner directly across the street and we always used to go there at UMAS and go to
00:39:18
liquor store go to the diner that ATM I went to the ATM so many times um but I always thought that she had left the
00:39:24
liquor store and then met somebody at the diner and got lunch and that person knows where she was going in the opening
00:39:30
to one of the shows Maggie you state that the locals seem to think that Mara was
00:39:34
abducted how do you feel about that after meeting with the local people and does that tell us anything about the
00:39:40
area well that actually came from John Smith um I don't I don't think it made it in in his interview but um art you
00:39:49
were there for that interview John Smith said you know I've been up here all this
00:39:53
time and there were some really bad people up here and he you know uh that that came from John Smith that that the
00:40:02
people up there are often not that savory um and do I think that it was a local yeah probably I do um I think like
00:40:12
artart said at the beginning people go up there to be away from everybody and whether that's just you know the
00:40:18
lifestyle you like to lead or you have had a really bad past and you can't be in a place where you know you're in the
00:40:25
city into people all the time people know who you are you you're going up there to hide out and live a really
00:40:32
private life now on episode 5 you literally put all five uh theories on the table and you end up Crossing them
00:40:40
all out except for one well I mean I think we we both believe that Foul Play that there's Foul
00:40:48
Play involved that she was she was killed either by accident or by on purpose or you know somebody had an
00:40:54
intention to kill her or some some something occurred by accident either by an unknown person and and you know when
00:41:04
you look at these cases and and you do a lot of Investigations generally that if it's
00:41:11
somebody uh that the victim knows you're going to come to a conclusion fairly quickly in other words the case is
00:41:18
easier to solve than if it's somebody that has no connection at all to the victim and you know obviously this case
00:41:26
has been going on for 13 years it's a cold case and I always kind of look at it that geez I mean the the state police
00:41:35
the local police have spent thousands of hours investigating this case they've conducted grand juries investigative
00:41:42
grand juries they've put a lot of time effort and energy I mean even when we came up
00:41:47
with a couple of leads the next day they were on it so it just seems to me that they've investigated this to the best of
00:41:55
their ability you know even they'll admit you know wish we wish we had done this different or that different but the
00:42:02
but but you know none of it was done intentionally there was no malice in anything they did they did the best job
00:42:08
they tried to do and and that leads me to believe that it's very possibly somebody that she doesn't know um
00:42:16
because those are the hardest crimes to solve so if she were abducted or if she got into a vehicle willingly this is
00:42:24
just minutes after she turn down the ride from Butch Atwood why why would it go down like
00:42:30
that I think that it's possible she said no to Butch art thinks it's this that Butch because he was a school dist
00:42:39
driver he worked for the government um the county believe and she saw him as like an employee and didn't want to be
00:42:48
involved with the police that kind of thing I honestly think it could be as simple
00:42:54
as but didn't look like you know if you're just judging based on appearances he even said you mean he's this old
00:43:01
overweight man with a mustache she he could have scared her I mean he's just some guy up there like I don't know if I
00:43:08
would get in the bus with him um but I think it could have just been some young guy in the area there's a lot of them
00:43:16
that we have found that have been in jail for rape sexual assault like horrible horrible things that just said
00:43:23
hey uh I'm going to this party do you okay you want to get in she might have trusted him more and we
00:43:29
had heard from family members that Mora had hitchhiked in the past who did we hear that from AR yeah we heard it from
00:43:34
her high school friends right yeah that she had hitchhiked um that didn't make it in the show but that to us says okay
00:43:41
maybe this young guy pulls up hey I'm going to a party you want to come sure yeah one of one of the things I looked
00:43:47
at too was that she was under probation at the time for the for the pizza incident at
00:43:54
UMass and I think that that um you know if she got arrested for for operating Under the Influence if she was drinking
00:44:04
in the car I know this is all speculation but to me it kind of makes sense that that she would want you know
00:44:10
Butch pulls up and says I'll call 9911 she says no you know I've called triaa he knows that's a lie he goes to his
00:44:19
house and calls 911 and of course the westm across the street are calling 911 at the time so you know did she want to
00:44:26
avoid avoid law enforcement I would say yes cuz she probably probably would have
00:44:34
um either been in trouble uh you know obviously for operating under but it could have put in
00:44:41
Jeopardy her nursing school too that she was going through at UMass yeah yeah somebody that I believe that should be a
00:44:48
person of interest was the track coach hos supposedly or allegedly uh she was having an affair with but this doesn't
00:44:55
come up in the show that was one of the things that art and I um you know were where I was saying how rener had a lot
00:45:02
of good information that he came up with and we would say where' this information
00:45:05
come and it was rener the other day we were talking um someone had sent me an email talking
00:45:11
about hos and we had tried calling him he he wouldn't talk to us um you know so we we couldn't really talk about it in
00:45:20
the show but um you know afterwards someone sent me an email and I called Art and said hey what was up with hos
00:45:26
did did this really get looked at like did the police interview him where did all this come from and AOS wasn't even
00:45:32
known about until rener uncovered that whole thing so once again that was rener um doing that but I don't know I don't
00:45:41
know we don't really know what his Alibi was do we no we don't know what his Alibi was
00:45:47
but you know it and these are these are questions that law enforcement when you ask them are going to are going to hold
00:45:54
back on yeah CU I think we might have asked and and they can't they can't answer yeah
00:46:01
yeah we did and um uh you know we didn't get a we didn't get an answer from them
00:46:07
so this is obviously something they're looking at um we can say they're relooking at everything one thing that
00:46:15
I've got to know can you tell us if Butch Atwood had a CB radio in the school bus we asked that we asked that question
00:46:26
um and I don't know um we we tried to actually find out more about that particular bus we actually
00:46:37
tried to get a photograph of it yeah and we couldn't come up we tried I think we
00:46:40
tried to track it down at some point someone tried to track it down but my understanding is when he called 911 he
00:46:49
did it from his house he left went to his house called 911 it somehow got kind of screwed up uh it went to a different
00:46:58
dispatch it didn't go to Grafton County I think it went to Handover dispatch and then Handover dispatch kind
00:47:05
of relay it to Grafton County and Grafton County actually ended up calling back the residents and you know you
00:47:12
bring up a very good point because you gota you you sort of have to put all this together now you've got Westman on
00:47:20
911 you got Butch Atwood stopping his bus talking to her and calling 911 you have the morat around the corner who
00:47:28
also have some visual contact with this accident and then you've got witness a all this is occurring sort of in a 10
00:47:37
and 15 minute time frame uh and then you've got obviously Cecil Smith showing up so when you put all that together and
00:47:46
look at that timeline which we did um it kind of all makes sense the big enduring question here is
00:47:56
how How could somebody turn their head and she's gone in like 7 to 10 minutes that that's that's always been the big
00:48:05
question you have all these things going on and I mean a lot of them are like real real important data points because
00:48:12
we have logs you know we've got Grafton County logs and we found out some information about that that that that
00:48:19
came out I don't know if it made it in the interview or not um but we also have that whole jurist dictional fight that
00:48:26
some some that somebody reported that thought it was law enforcement it wasn't law enforcement it was the two tow truck
00:48:32
drivers arguing about who had the the money for the toe you know so we really have put a lot of this stuff to rest and
00:48:43
when you sit down and look at it it's like it makes sense holy [ __ ] it it just
00:48:49
makes sense it's the simplest explanation and I keep going back even yeah and we've even like sat around
00:48:56
again over a bottle of Cheetos being like okay what if which is lying what if she got in the bus with him and then
00:49:04
when he went and did that search for Cil he you know dropped her body somewhere or something happened like we have sat
00:49:11
there and said is that possible but then we look back at the logs the Westman saw her after the bus
00:49:17
left um am I correct in saying that art the I think it was because that was the flurry of the activity at the rear and
00:49:25
the morat saw her so so even the thought of her getting in his bus just didn't happen she would have had to walk back
00:49:34
over to the house and you and you mentioned the two people and the man with a cigarette and and that's that kind of
00:49:41
like has been sort of an argument between the two westm as to what each one of them saw um Mr Westman thinks he
00:49:50
saw the light from a cell phone trying to be activated um um and Mrs Westman I think wasn't really sure exactly what
00:49:58
the heck she saw so I mean that's been questioned too um one of the crazy things about this case is that cell
00:50:06
phone service there was no cell phone service up in these White Mountains and I think it's hard for some of us to
00:50:12
believe um is that factual like when you were up there investigating there is no
00:50:18
cell phone service at all to this day it's it's it's crazy because I think you lose cell phon service the minute you
00:50:26
kind of get out of Woodsville right Maggie yeah yeah and then you pick it back up at Beaver Pond which is at the
00:50:33
it kind of another 10 11 miles from the crash site heading towards Lincoln now there's one particular item that the
00:50:40
police have received a lot of criticism about and this is regarding the ATM footage where Mara had stopped to make a
00:50:49
withdrawal now one thought that I've had on this why they've not released this footage and that's a criticism that
00:50:55
they've got that they've not released it is it either that this footage does not
00:51:00
exist or that they had it in their possession at one time but but it may have been lost well what we can say and
00:51:08
know this T to hold tight till episode six is that the reason they haven't um released it is because if there was this
00:51:20
is me why I think they haven't released it um if there was anybody in that video
00:51:25
with her that was not at all related to her a license plate number of somebody's
00:51:30
car um they didn't want all of these people who latched on to insane theories to you know think this person was the
00:51:38
killer or track down this license plate number and you know these people that are just happened to be in this video um
00:51:45
to go after them so yeah that's exactly I think that yeah I think that had it needs to be protected and I think that's
00:51:54
really a good move um to protect the innocent people who would be in that video um and
00:52:01
other than that you'll have to wait till episode I mean that one of the problems
00:52:06
with this case is um anybody that has any information or any connection is being I mean we had a lot of problems
00:52:15
talking to people people had to get familiar with us because a lot of people wrong information has been put out with
00:52:23
you know put out about them um so law enforcement I know and they reiterated with that to me today that they're just
00:52:31
they don't want people innocent people harassed that have already been talked to by by law enforcement and really
00:52:37
that's not the way to handle a criminal investigation put innocent people out there that don't have any association at
00:52:45
all and might have just been standing in the background but you both feel confident in saying that a yes the ATM
00:52:51
footage exists and B the police are in possession of it yes yes you have to wait till episode 6 one last question uh
00:53:00
do you believe that this case is solvable I do yeah I do too when when when I mean I
00:53:09
I I will tell you this that when we first Maggie and I first talked to the state police and the AG's office they
00:53:17
believe this case is solvable and they have all the information so if they believe it's solvable I believe it's
00:53:23
solvable Maggie believes it's solvable so and and yeah and I think that lot of it again I know I sound like I'm coming
00:53:31
hard at the police conspiracy people and it's not that I don't think people should be talking I just think they
00:53:35
should focus their energy you know somewhere else but it it I don't even think it would have been this far if it
00:53:41
weren't for people who really really care and are contacting the police with tangible real information and people who
00:53:49
have come to me with real information um some of these leads that people have come forward with lately are really good
00:53:57
really good they're really good and I even said to Tim and Lance today I said hey guys you know you've been working on
00:54:03
this a lot longer than me and art have you guys been this excited for you know this case to be solved and they said
00:54:10
nothing like this not at all so you know I think we're all really really excited
00:54:15
and we do think it will be [Music] solved [Music] a big thank you to James rener if you
00:54:31
haven't already go and check out his book True Crime addict and a big thank you to Art and Maggie they were so kind
00:54:37
to sit down and talk with us also you keep hearing about Tim and Lance they are two great guys that did a wonderful
00:54:43
podcast that was all about the mara Murray disappearance so a big thank you to those guys as well yeah so check out
00:54:50
their podcast missing Mara Murray and the question from a lot of listeners is hey you guys covered this case yes we've
00:54:56
covered this case before we talked to Brer uh when True Crime addict came out and we actually cover this case and you
00:55:03
can find those on our website store or the iTunes Store all right thanks for listening thanks for telling a friend
00:55:11
thank you so much for sharing on social media it means the world to us we got to
00:55:15
get out of here cuz we got a a big case for next week all right until next time everybody out there be good please be
00:55:21
kind and please don't litter [Music] Angie's List is now Angie and we've heard a lot of theories about why I
00:55:58
thought it was an Eco move few your worse less paper no it was so you could say it faster no it's to be more iconic
00:56:05
must be a tech thing but those aren't quite right it's because now you can compare up front prices book a service
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instantly and even get your project handled from start to finish sounds easy it is and it makes us so much more than
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just a list get started at angie.com that's ngi or download the app today