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foreign [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] welcome to True Crime garage wherever
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you are whatever you are doing thanks for listening I'm your host Nick and with me as always is a man who just
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rediscovered his first love bourbon he is the captain thank you thank you thank you it's good to be seen
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and it's good to see you thanks for listening and thanks for telling a friend Captain I have to apologize it's too
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early in the show for bourbon so today we are drinking Tuckerman brewing companies pale ale out of Conway New
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Hampshire garage grade how about three and a half bottle caps out of five this is tuckerman's Flagship pale ale and is
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brewed with specialty malts some grown in Maine and four types of hops this Brew is cold conditioned and dry hopped
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and loggering tanks for maximum taste and quality and this great pale ale was brought to us by these Hop Heads first
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we have Deva and Cordy Lane Idaho and a big shout out to aeu engine 275 we got Stevie Terry and Justin we
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like the cut of your gym and next we have Jennifer from Hoover Alabama Jennifer says cheers fellas love the
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garbage I think I'm hoping Jennifer made a typo there and meant to say love the garage I think he's just talking about
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you a big shout out to Olivia in Charlotte North Carolina next we have Coastal Chic mom from Beach Florida I'm
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just gonna guess but I don't think you said that correct I don't think I got any of that right next up we have Justin
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in Aurora Colorado and we'll finish the shout outs with some big Texas love first we have David in flugerville and
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we also have Michael and Magnolia so thanks to everybody for filling up the fridge for this week's show if you want
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to help us out for next week's show go to True Crime garage.com and click on the Donate button I think I'm going to
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start my own bourbon fund and also they are here what is here Parts Unknown T-shirt oh fantastic if
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you'd like to be a resident of Parts Unknown you could only do so if you have the t-shirt and that will be a two-week
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pre-order the pre-order begins now and you could do that by going to True Crime garage.com go to the store page that's
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enough of the business everybody gather round grab a chair grab a beer let's talk some true crime
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[Music] foreign [Music] on the afternoon of Monday February 9th Mara Murray left the University of
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Massachusetts campus before leaving she emailed her professors saying she was taking a few
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days off due to a death in the family around 4 pm Mar 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
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at 7 27 PM over a hundred miles away from the UMass campus a woman living in Haverhill New Hampshire reported a car
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accident on a sharp corner of Route 112 near her home Mara Murray had wrecked her car
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at 7 29 an officers dispatched to the scene of the accident at 7 30 Butch Atwood is driving a school
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bus returning to his home when he spots Mara and her wrecked vehicle on the side
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of the road [Music] he stops and he offers her a ride to his home so they can call in the accident
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Mara is not interested in going with Butch Butch asked her if she would like for
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him to call the police Mara says no that won't be necessary I've already called AAA for roadside assistance
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however Butch knew she was lying because there's no cell phone service upon arriving home several minutes later
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Butch reported the accident to Emergency Services at 7 46 PM Cecil Smith a local police
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officer was the first to arrive at the scene Mars vehicle is still at the scene of
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the accident but Mara is nowhere in sight at 7 54 a be on the lookout call goes out
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officers should be looking for a five foot seven female who left the accident scene on foot two minutes later EMS and
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firefighters arrive on the scene Butch Atwood the driver of the bus reported that Mara was to his knowledge
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alone she appeared to be cold possibly frightened possibly intoxicated [Music] at some point during this very small
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window of time Mara Murray went missing to this day Mara's family especially her
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Father Fred are still looking for her Murray simply vanished that night [Music] today on True Crime garage we get the
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opportunity to talk to three people closest to the mara Murray case true crime author James Renner and host
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Maggie and art of the oxygen six-part documentary series The Disappearance of Mara Murray
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[Music] James Renner True Crime addict came out in May of 2016. wow it's been that long yeah
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last night I see you on my TV today I See You In the Flesh so thank you for joining us but and yes
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ladies he looks better in person oh thank you it's like a if that's even possible strikingly handsome on last
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night's episode of The Disappearance of Mara Murray well they kept on calling him an author I'm like do they mean
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model I I should come down here more often this is great no I always I always tell
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people what's James Ryan like I'm like well he looks like Nick Nick's cousin yeah I can see that yeah we could pass
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how long after the book do you find out that this documentary series is going to
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happen and now we need you to be involved in in what type of involvement you're going to have you know so it's
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being produced by this group called Texas crew Productions and I think I started hearing from them around the
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time that the book was being released in 2016 and uh started talking to this guy
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David carabinis and um he just you know I I got a lot of calls from production companies around
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that time that wanted to do something with the Maura Murray case and it got to the point you know as you guys know and
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we talked a little bit about this behind the scenes you have producers that are coming to you looking for you know
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Possible shows that you might do and it always leads nowhere you know and it just gets so frustrating after a while
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um but it's always you you can't pass up that opportunity because who knows and but David there was something else about
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him that he was very invested he knew all the minutiae of the case and he really you could tell he just wanted to
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do something with it and Export it so you know I kind of developed a friendship and uh you know he said this
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is going to happen and I said oh I I want to believe you and then about six months later he's like yep we got uh a
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series order you know it's not just one special it's six part series and we're gonna do this and come out to Texas so
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we can meet you so I flew out to Austin you know I think about a year ago and met the crew I
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didn't meet Maggie until she came to the house for the interview they wanted to keep us separate but we went over all
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the materials I had and I you know I said here's the questions that I remained with after publication of this
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book here are the things I don't quite understand about the Maura Murray case that you guys you know have the
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capability to dig deeper into and uh they were able to get access to the family the Murray family and Fred and
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some other people that I was never able to talk to so it's it's really interesting I'm watching this both as a
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you know a quote-unquote expert on the case but also as a as as a viewer you know not knowing what we're gonna get
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towards the end of this series or how many answers we're going to get to these questions and you know some of the I I
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know that some of the big questions in the morning Murray case will be answered by the end of this series
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so what are those questions that you'd like to have answered well I want to know like you know that
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ATM footage there's ATM footage out there of more uh right before she left UMass Amherst I want to see that you
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know we does that show anything some people have speculated that the ATM footage shows that she had a black eye
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was that the re you know uh was something going on before she disappeared I really want to know more
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about Kate markopoulos and Sarah Alfieri these are friends of mauras that were at
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this party uh that occurred the Saturday night before she disappeared on that Monday
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afternoon um I think there's more that happened in that party and and they would be key to that so if
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we can get any answers about that party um I think that would be key and last night's episode
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um that they were putting some tough questions to Kathleen Murray Moore's older sister and if you remember more I
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had this breakdown at work on Thursday night and uh you know it was Kathleen that supposedly was on the phone with
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her so you know maybe we'll get a little more about that but um you know I have questions about the friends Kate and
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Sarah I have questions about the boyfriend Bill Roush you know he has a pretty good Alibi it looks like he was
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at Fort Sill halfway across the country during The Disappearance but I want to know more about the days after The
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Disappearance where where was Bill what was he doing um you know because some you know
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allegations have come out since then that cast bill in a very negative light so yeah there's I mean there's a ton
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tons of questions the big question that I really hope we get some sense of an answer to by the end of the series is
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what more was doing up in the White Mountains because this has always been a double mystery it's like what happened
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to Maury Murray but what was she doing the White Mountains to begin with I think if we got the answer to that
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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 I think it points to the it's probably the most likely
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place that she was heading didn't you along with Tim and Lance from the missing Mara Murray podcast go up there
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and check out the cabin no I went up a couple weeks before they were up there I think it just didn't work in our
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schedules um so I ended up going up there alone you know I think I really think that that cabin that the Outing
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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
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straight that way it doesn't it and then when you know I contacted the manager of
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the the cabin and I asked I said do any of these names sound from familiar to you and I just gave him a list of
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everybody that Moore kind of knew right and he got right back he said yeah Hussein baghdadi which is the track
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coach that Maura was having an affair with and that gave me chills you know so we have that connection to the to the
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cabin she might have gone up there with Haas at the very least Haas probably knew the combination
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um to get into the cabin because it's one of those push button things where where like a realtor would use exactly
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and the combination hasn't changed in 15 years and even if she didn't you there was ways to get into that cabin anyways
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um now you know Tim Lance went up there and they filmed some stuff and they came
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away thinking no way she could have got up there in in the winter but what they didn't because they hiked it's like a
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half mile hike through the woods to get up there what they didn't realize was that there's also an access road
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um a little to the I think a little north of where they entered and at that access road at that time you could drive
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your car all the way up almost to the cabin right uh so and people would stay there in the weekends and people stayed
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there the weekend before she disappeared and the weekend after and anybody with the Outing club knew that that cabin was
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empty during the week and she disappears on a Monday so it makes all this stuff makes sense that that was probably her
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uh destination and I think a search of the grounds around that cabin um would be something that we should
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have been done a long time ago with your interview on the show was you you seemed
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very adamant that she was pregnant and that's one of the things that I differ with you on I see where you're getting
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to that point I I tend to as a journalist who's written about crime for a while now I tend to put a lot of
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weight on the hunches of the detectives who investigate the case for many years and the lead detective skorenza who was
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the lead detective for many years on the more Murray case told me he's like I think she was pregnant you know based on
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the searches she was doing on her computer and some people say well when they found her car there were there was
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birth control in there right uh with with some pills missing it's like yeah she didn't take it with her right
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because she didn't need him anymore because she was pregnant everything that she you know she had a bunch of junk in
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her car right uh that she was just carrying around and and the fact that it was left in the car speaks
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to the fact that you know she was probably pregnant in my mind anyways yeah or she started taking a cycle and
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then she stopped that cycle and then she started a new one yeah and then found it
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later but you know because they were kind of talking about that last night on the show was you know she was in a class
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for nursing yeah and I think that's a stretch though yeah but what I what I don't think is a stretch is that I'd say
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most females from the age of 20 to 35 that if they have ever like maybe their their their period is late uh they might
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not have missed it but they're late that they start Google searching this stuff and especially nursing students they're
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more likely to right uh maybe you never ask your wife like how many times have you right and again
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that you know we've got three dudes here talking about the nature of of periods and you know 21 years old females yeah I
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I mean that's a whole can of worms I I don't really know much about nor cared too right but but what I my question is
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more other than that search yeah other than the search what do I have to because it
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provides in my mind a clear motive for her to not only run away but to remain hidden right when you consider what was
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going on with Bill Roush and if she realized that she was pregnant uh with Bill roush's kid I think
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um it gives her motivation to leave at that time and uh motivation to remain off the grid
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and hidden because she would never want custody to be an issue right um it's no doubt in my mind that the bill
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uh has some issues with violence against women um and for that matter I you know I I do
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believe that Moore would also want to um you know get away from her father uh and some you know family members there
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too which is a hard thing to say yeah um because the father's still out there and
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he's looking for his missing daughter and I don't think Fred Murray knows where she is I don't know that if more
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is alive that she would want him to know um because you you have kind of speculated in the past that maybe he
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knew or possible members of the family knew I just you know it's weird because is
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I I'm sure Fred knows more about what's going on and you can read in his you know just his behavior since The
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Disappearance um you know that he clearly knows more than he's been comfortable sharing uh
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and yeah there were times where I wondered well does that mean he knows where she is or what happened and I
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don't think he knows where she is I don't think he necessarily knows what happened up on that road I think he
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knows a lot more about why she was there in the first place right and that would
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be because of the conversation on that Saturday night is she wrecked his car he was visiting that weekend which is weird
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too he's got four thousand dollars in cash um he wrecks her car and you know so was
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there an argument about that did he say some some mean nasty things was that the
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you know the the straw that broke the camel's back and she's like fine I'll put you in my rear view too see you
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later um but no I you know it's clear that that Fred has uh not shared everything he he knows about
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the case well it's good to hear you actually say that you don't think he knows where she's at though just because
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uh because I think when I started following the case I I lean to sometimes like well maybe
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the family knows but then once you come and find out that he searched every weekend and then after a year of
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searching every week and then they search every other weekend but that's a lot of time and a lot of money oh yeah
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and if you knew that she went missing and you knew she was safe then why would you do any of that and he goes above the
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heads of the investigators and presents to their superiors that this is not a good investigation
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that they're not doing everything that they can right to the governor of of New Hampshire right and a lot of people
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would argue with you saying well that means he doesn't know anything but I like the way that you you answered that
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because it doesn't it doesn't dismiss your conclusion because if he knows that she took off for some
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reason or knew that she she had motives to take off for some reason but then she
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goes up there and now he's left going well where is she yeah she's not contacted me what happened to her once
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she got up there or why did she why did she disappear not want to contact me um so that that to me washes all that
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away as far as his actions and how much he's looked for him yeah yeah I mean it's clear to me that he wanted to find
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her before the police found her you know that that's always been clear you know and uh it's weird that he is
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but that's a protect that's a protective maybe maybe he wants to you know he wants to make sure she's not in trouble
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before she comes out um but he's a he's a he's a weird weird dude tough nut uh I don't quite
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understand do you think they're going to peel back his layers a little bit as the show for
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sure yeah I think so I think they'll put some tough questions to him um I think they've they've gone easy so
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far uh so it'll be interesting to see how he responds yeah you know when they start
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asking the the tough questions about what he knows and what he doesn't know I think what I mean we're only two
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episodes in but it seems so it seems like Maggie is on this search for that there's a couple of these what-ifs
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and we're going to get to these what-ifs like it just you know from episode one to episode two I don't know what these
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you know what-ifs are sure but well I think it's you know is it is it suicide is it murder is it a walk away is it an
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abduction I think those are the those are the big answers you know it's one of those well let's get into that a
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little bit because uh one thing that they point out in the docu-series uh early on is that the locals where she
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disappeared from seem to all think that she was abducted or have kind of share that opinion yeah does what does that
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say what should that say to us about that area or about that Community it's certainly a strange place and I don't
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think it's any you know I you guys watch Breaking Bad right yeah I was a big fan
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of that show and it's it's funny to me that when Walter White needed to hide out you know they stuck them in the the
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you know the White Mountains of New Hampshire and told them not to leave yeah you know I mean there are people
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that go up there to go off the grid you know to remain hidden and it's just a different place so it it brings out the
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the weirdos the conspiracy theorists the people that just want to be alone so you
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have a lot of those those types up there but I'll never get behind the idea that
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she was abducted by a stranger there's just no way in my mind that that will ever make sense it's the the odds are
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astronomical because you know we're dealing with a window where she's on the side of the road that
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that's you know maybe seven minutes where she's she's there in which this person would have had to have come by
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and put her into the car and take her off and then nobody sees it you've got three neighbors that are watching the
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scene at the same time so there are only many windows in there where nobody's actually watching the scene
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so it's just uh you know improbable that a person that has that capability of murder and abduction would happen upon
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her in that window and then not be seen it makes much more sense to me that she would have been traveling in tandem with
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somebody that she knew and that person was the one that came back around and picked her up and took her off because
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that interaction would only have taken a couple seconds um and and I know they people will argue
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with that and say well stuff like that happens all the time people are abducted because they're in
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the wrong place at the wrong time right not really not like this not when you're
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already involved in something where you're you're getting away and running away and
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you have a plan while you're up there um I mean if you wrote it as a as a movie script it would get kicked out
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because it's too unbelievable I agree with you the the window of her getting in a stranger's car it's not going to be
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a 30 second interaction of oh well you seem nice let me jump in your car yeah right uh So that obviously points to
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more of the tandem driver Theory and that's one of your theories anytime you know you know the the renter haters that
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will say I don't agree with them on anything one of the things I agree with you a lot on is the tandem driver Theory
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but the only thing that I question is that also she already had one interaction and now this fight or flight
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mentality is going to take you know is going to keep building stronger especially now you have a guy that is
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going to go call the cops right so would she have been more inclined to take off
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right hey I can help you boom I'm in your car yeah so I think that might be you know because there wasn't one
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interaction I don't want to rule that out completely because of the the search dogs yeah the search dogs stopping in
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the middle of the road I always thought that that was a key piece of evidence that she obviously got and to a car for
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sure if she were if she were a child or a teenager walking down the street in our neighborhood during broad daylight
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and then she goes this and she disappears and they know what route she was traveling if you put search dogs on
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that and the dog stop in the middle of the street the investigators always say they got in a car
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[Music] [Music] foreign first off Maggie and Art thank you for joining us in the garage the captain and
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I have both been really enjoying The Disappearance of Mara Murray six-part docu-series on oxygen the first thing
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that we both took note of was that you both came into this case to investigate and you didn't seem to be showing up
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with a a theory that you wanted to prove you seem to be letting the investigation
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go where it led you yeah I think that's exactly correct I mean Maggie and I have talked about this
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several times that that um you know obviously I come at it looking at it from the law enforcement perspective
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this is my 40th year in law enforcement at several different levels not only Federal but also I was an Army MP and a
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local police officer in Massachusetts and uh 25 years of the marshals in six years with almost six years with
00:25:43
Homeland Security um and Maggie brings brings out investigative report of that investigative journalist side to it and
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comes from a whole different angle than I do and and we talked about this early on that I think the main point of what
00:26:00
we're trying to do here is get to the basic facts of the case and wherever the facts takes us it takes us I mean that's
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it's as simple as that and and I think you know from just looking at this case that there's so many
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misconceptions missed rumors Urban myths uh out there on this particular case that it really you you have to go back
00:26:25
to the beginning to get to the base facts well I think the thing is too is that our you know a lot of people would look
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at him and think oh he's just a cop and he's on the cop side but I was surprised when I met him that he
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was even willing to talk about a police conspiracy and talk about dirty cops I mean
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it just goes to his credibility he didn't care where the evidence took him if it took him to dirty cops that's
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where we were going he wasn't afraid to you know break that coat of blue and go over that line and um I think that is
00:26:59
really crucial to look at in this case that he didn't come into this bias and I didn't come in biased I had no idea
00:27:06
about anything um so we really did just go with the evidence Maggie please take us through
00:27:12
the filming process of the documentary because as a viewer it looks like you and R are in control it's just you two
00:27:19
and a couple cameramen and you're calling the shots how does this work yeah and art knows lately because he
00:27:26
gets like three phone calls from me a day yelling about this um you know it's like we have an entire
00:27:31
team it is not just me and art calling shots like we can you know certainly put our
00:27:37
foot down and say I am not comfortable with that which I had done many times um but there is an entire team starting
00:27:44
from the top down there's the network and then the producers report to the network and then we report to the
00:27:49
producers and then the camera guys and it's just like there are so many people working on this
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and people just see me in art and think that we're like hmm let's get a person in the other room to see if Kathleen is
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lying or not that did not come from me in art I mean there are so many people calling the shots and that was actually
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something that we said we don't really want this we don't know how comfortable we are with this and that was something
00:28:12
that the network really wanted for that drama Factor um you know people are really mad at me
00:28:18
about it now uh we did the best we could with it um we thought that in the end a
00:28:23
scene like that came out as best that it could for what we were doing um but people need to remember that this
00:28:30
is an entire production and we kind of just have to do what we're told I mean of course we are doing the
00:28:38
investigating but when the network says hey we need you to interview this person
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I mean there's not much we can really say I mean we're signed on contracts yeah it was I mean I think in the very
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beginning usually on on all the criminal cases that have worked on fugitive cases
00:28:57
and conducting Internal Affairs investigating investigations post-shooting investigations involving
00:29:04
law enforcement officers all those investigations generally started where you go to the outside and work your way
00:29:11
in okay so in other words you're talking to people in the periphery that have some knowledge and then you work your
00:29:18
way in to what you consider to be the individual you really want to talk to in this particular case we did it
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completely opposite we started with a family and worked our way out and and I think that gave us the
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opportunity to at least have a lot more say as to who's going to be interviewed and and which path we would take down
00:29:38
which Avenue we would go down and and there were some you know obviously some tense moments between us and and
00:29:47
and you know sometimes they wanted us to do something that we didn't want to do but generally I think the the overall
00:29:55
scheduling and the people that we interviewed kind of fell in line but we did have a few a few conflicts with them
00:30:03
but we were able to work through it we did I think this so ultimately turned out to be a pretty good representation
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of how art and I would would um you know if we were in control have it done you know we really wanted to
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talk about um uh Jane and John does and that whole system that never made it into the shell
00:30:21
and that was something we felt really passionately about getting in um and it just didn't work out
00:30:26
so it is difficult and people need to understand that yeah and when you and dealing with a I mean we had three at
00:30:34
least three cameras on every shoot um we had GoPros we had all these different angles that were taken of
00:30:41
everything that we were doing and it was probably 300 hours taken of uh of a video that's not counting b-roll so you
00:30:50
triple that for b-roll so we had close to a thousand hours worth of film that had to be edited down to six hours now
00:30:57
each one of our interviews averaged you know about an hour to 90 minutes so what you're catching is like five
00:31:05
minutes of the highlights and I think that's important no because when you spend an hour and a half
00:31:11
with somebody and you're interviewing them and in fact I think um Kathleen's interview
00:31:18
uh Maggie took what three and a half hours three and a half hours yeah yeah and it's cut down to like maybe five
00:31:25
minutes of highlights but the point being when you spend that much time with somebody you can figure out what's going
00:31:32
on you know are they are they not are they holding something back are they not telling me something that they don't
00:31:38
want to be known and that's that's where you know you spending the time on these
00:31:44
interviews doesn't get translated into the actual show what was your initial thought on James Renner and maybe what
00:31:51
were your thoughts on him after the whole production hey Art you want to answer that yeah
00:31:56
yeah I mean I think listen he uncovered a lot he did he he uncovered a lot of information
00:32:06
um you know obviously he wrote he wrote his book about it I think he made a lot of assumptions based on information that
00:32:13
wasn't really corroborated and that's one thing we tried to do Maggie and I had many conversations about eyewitness
00:32:21
um you know eyewitness statements and how you have to corroborate everything you get and that's what we actually
00:32:27
tried to do was was really corroborate this information and not just take one person's word for something without
00:32:33
getting you know one or two or even three uh methods of corroborating that type of
00:32:40
information and I I I think James's book was more about his kind of walk through
00:32:47
this case and process as opposed to the actual investigative portion of the case that we did I think that's the big
00:32:55
difference in these in what he did compared to what we did yeah sure I mean he didn't even know art and I are going
00:33:04
back after every episode we watch and just trying to remember like okay where do we get that piece of information from
00:33:09
and and where did we get that and we always make sure we have sources and the documents
00:33:14
um and some things we realized like that came from Renner and and he uncovered a
00:33:19
lot a lot of stuff like I I really credit him we would not be here without him without his book I mean he had his
00:33:26
blog since 2012 that really brought this case back to light and then you know came and Lance hopping on and making the
00:33:33
podcast kind of you know as they met Renner I mean full credit surrender we would not be
00:33:39
here without him the documents that he got really to me was the key he was able to get a hold of a lot of documents and
00:33:45
talked to talk the people that he was able to talk to had some pretty credible information and I think that was the key
00:33:52
part for us that really started us moving in the correct direction it did I mean runner shared all of his documents
00:33:58
I mean he was so helpful he's still helpful I mean he'll still it's really crazy I mean he
00:34:05
will like see me going at it with people on the internet and he'll just send me an email like hey look the internet's
00:34:12
nasty Maggie like you just gotta just take take one take a breath take it a step at a time and it's just like what
00:34:18
the [ __ ] James Renner like just sending me these emails like he's just such a nice guy to I think to me at least um
00:34:26
he's been really helpful he's been really supportive and you know that's that's what I think about him but
00:34:32
personally coming from different backgrounds how did the two of you kind of game plan and strategize what you
00:34:38
wanted to do with this investigation well it probably started over a bottle of Tito's and then we asked me because
00:34:47
as most as most great plans do exactly I don't know we just kind of were on the same page from the beginning it was a
00:34:54
little weird you know we had never met before and then here I am this 28 year old woman journalist
00:35:01
suddenly paired with a 62 year old man on this project and it was just like it was kind of really weird at first we
00:35:08
didn't know how to handle each other and then I guess over that bottle of Tito's we just realized like look we're
00:35:14
really on the same page we actually agree with a lot of what the other is saying or it would say I think we need
00:35:19
to talk to this person talk to this person I obviously trust what he's saying and I would say you know look
00:35:25
maybe there is a police conspiracy we really should look at this and art would say yeah you know what we gotta look at
00:35:30
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
00:35:37
thing I remember talking to the producers and and Maggie and we were like really
00:35:43
worried about filling up six hours of TV time that's a lot of time to fill up I mean uh that that's a really Hefty
00:35:51
amount of time to to put content on TV and uh as we started moving through it um we became concerned about what we
00:36:02
were going to have to cut out um and and you know when it comes to the editing portion again
00:36:10
um you know a lot of this stuff was was unfortunately never made it onto the screen and we couldn't get to some of
00:36:17
the stuff that we wanted to get to hopefully maybe we can do it in another on another case but yeah it became it
00:36:25
became pretty much when when we looked at the whole model of working from the from the inside out
00:36:32
it was easy to determine well we got to talk to the family first um and and we kind of went from there and
00:36:39
we had several pockets of people yeah I remember this Maggie we had like groups of people and nobody was talking
00:36:46
to each other yeah and each one had like pieces of info and what we what we really became Maggie and I became kind
00:36:53
of the the Hub in the in the wheel and we were collecting all this different info
00:36:59
um uh from the different groups of people and I'm talking like you know high school friends College friends law
00:37:05
enforcement uh private investigators um family and and kind of putting it all together well uh our I'm gonna say uh
00:37:15
you don't look a day over 30. foreign just like Nick carries the beauty on our show I think you I think art you carried
00:37:24
the beauty very well on the documentary I don't know I don't know no art really okay we would
00:37:32
interview people women whenever we had a female interviewee they loved art like it was
00:37:41
it was really wild like I didn't exist it was just all about art well they couldn't see you because you weren't
00:37:48
tall enough [Laughter] so I've been following this case for a very long time and I've seen most of the
00:37:57
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 been
00:38:05
investigating the case from the beginning and I thought came off very well I thought he came off with great
00:38:12
ideas very intelligent and that is John Smith but I heard that there are some rumors that he's not really happy with
00:38:19
how the production came out did we have heard that too um but I think John like a lot of other
00:38:27
people has has have come up with some uh conclusions not based on real facts and which which is I mean I I can see
00:38:40
that from the point of view when you don't have all the information in front of you I mean we didn't have 100 of the
00:38:46
information but we had a lot a lot of information was shared with us that was never shared with anybody else which
00:38:53
which we can come to more uh intelligent conclusions based on those facts and and
00:39:00
corroborating the stuff than probably anybody else can that's just like looking up the stuff online and talking
00:39:05
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
00:39:15
get the truth and we've tried to corroborate any information that's either out there on the internet that's
00:39:22
online that's in James books that's been published in in magazine articles and that's all we've really tried to do
00:39:30
um but there's so much bogus information out there that people have relied on that really was that it took us a lot of
00:39:39
time to Wade through a lot of that stuff and actually come up with facts as opposed to just conjecture and then
00:39:48
basing uh you know conclusions on wrong premises and I think a lot of people have done that and we see we see it
00:39:57
online all the time what was the hardest question that you had to ask during the
00:40:02
interview process and to whom um I mean definitely asking yeah I mean definitely asking Fred
00:40:10
um if he sexually assaulted more I was probably the hardest and we also thought he knew about that rumor we were both
00:40:19
even surprised that his reaction I mean before that we had said and everyone producers had said to him you know we
00:40:28
have to ask you a tough questions we're gonna have to ask you tough questions and we would look him in the eye and be
00:40:33
like there's going to be some really tough questions today and you know he was like hey man I'm ready like we got
00:40:37
to get it all out there so we can move on and I thought that he was ready for that
00:40:42
question um turns out he had never actually heard that before and it was it was pretty difficult
00:40:50
because I was very caught off guard um you know I just thought he was going to go absolutely not that never happened
00:40:56
you know that scumbag James Runner and I was caught off guard by his reaction yeah but his but but his reaction was
00:41:05
completely genuine I mean there is no doubt I mean he had he had never heard that before I think
00:41:12
on occasion you know people and I've heard this before that that a lot of times you know when Fred's
00:41:18
talking to family and friends they don't tell him everything they they kind of keep the you know Fred's naughty young
00:41:25
guy anymore um and you know we've we've looked at him in the eye and you know he said to
00:41:31
us on on a couple of occasions I just want to do everything I can before I before I die to try to find out what
00:41:37
happened to my daughter and he was completely taken aback that was probably by far the toughest
00:41:43
question and his reaction was I thought completely genuine and he was really upset about it and I got a lot a lot
00:41:52
of um people saying that I'm like the worst journalist ever and I'm like you know so
00:42:00
insensitive and I softball questions to the police but I give Fred the hardest question
00:42:07
um that's just totally bogus um this is a question that needed to be addressed because people would not stop
00:42:12
talking about it and it was out there and he had never been asked that so to be told that I'm a horrible journalist
00:42:19
for asking questions that somebody has never actually been asked is really contradictory to itself
00:42:25
um you know art would agree it's just something that had to be asked when he said he even said he looked at me he
00:42:33
said you know how do I make this go away and I just said answer the question all
00:42:39
you have to do is just confront it and say no you know that didn't happen and of course it's terrible and horrible
00:42:46
that this is even out there you know where it even came from was we don't even you know it was in render it was
00:42:53
implied in render's books somebody told it to renter and this person who told it
00:42:57
to Renner is not a particularly favorite character so of course all this information is
00:43:03
you know it's unfortunate it's out there but it needs to be addressed we wouldn't
00:43:07
be doing our job as we just brushed over it well and you're exactly right because as we have learned you're
00:43:15
kind of damned if you do and damned if you don't you know if you hadn't asked that question you would have been there
00:43:20
would have been the same number of people coming out saying well you didn't ask Fred the hard questions and I don't
00:43:25
think we softball either I mean they're saying we softball the police we asked them every single question anyone else
00:43:31
would ask them I would like to know what questions they have for the police that
00:43:35
we did not ask right while we're on the subject of talking to Fred Murray Art one thing that I noticed throughout the
00:43:42
documentary was that when you are asking questions you're very busy with pen and
00:43:47
paper jotting down notes taking notes and when you spoke with Fred there was a much different approach you put the pen
00:43:54
and paper aside and you were really focusing in on his face and his eyes we all know that Fred's a animated
00:44:01
character and he talks with his hands what was your strategy there I I know Fred I've met with him several times off
00:44:08
camera I mean he works at a hospital on Cape Cod that I that I actually uh visit
00:44:15
the town quite a bit and I've actually bumped them on bumped into them on the Street downtown a couple times unrelated
00:44:22
to this and um you know I I this was going to be probably the toughest interview we had
00:44:28
we've interviewed we've probably sat down with them want Maggie three or four times yeah I think for different
00:44:34
interviews and this this was going to be the toughest one and I just wanted to to
00:44:39
to to look at his reaction to all this and I kind of knew what he was going to say anyway when you see me taking those
00:44:47
notes generally it's because this is the first time I've heard this stuff and in
00:44:51
this particular case um we kind of knew the answers he was going to give us to these questions
00:44:57
and you know if something different came out then of course I would have written
00:45:00
some down but you know I kind of knew what he was going to come across and I just wanted to
00:45:05
to look him in the eye and and you know get his get his true reaction and I think that's exactly what we got because
00:45:13
that interview was tough let me tell you so with all the chatter going on with you know the possible theories out there
00:45:20
you know the five main theories but one of them being that it's a police conspiracy that maybe the police had
00:45:26
something to do with it now it's 13 years later they're finally given interviews that they never gave before
00:45:32
and a lot of people watching this I I think they kind of assume that the police aren't being uh upfront or
00:45:39
truthful or honest yeah I mean I will tell you this that that it's hard for them to talk about this particular case
00:45:50
and share you know all the information because this in this is an open criminal case in
00:45:56
their mind um and which means it's difficult for them to share the information and all
00:46:04
the information which creates this Gap and I call it the big gap you see it almost every single
00:46:11
time where you you see a gap like this in law enforcement information and then they
00:46:18
then the public fills the Gap in with all these conspiracy theories and I will tell you that that you know
00:46:25
we had several meetings with law enforcement and it took them a while to feel comfortable with us and realize
00:46:31
that we were that we were the real deal that we were just trying to get to the base facts
00:46:36
and I what did it take maybe Maggie six weeks before they started sharing um information with us hadn't been out
00:46:44
there in the public before I understand their point that you know they have to keep some
00:46:51
information back uh you know for the day that they do arrest somebody on this particular case they have to have
00:46:57
information that they're keeping in their back pocket to corroborate whatever anybody's saying so it's it's
00:47:04
that they're they're walking a fine line here and and I think because they felt comfortable with this they did share a
00:47:12
lot of a lot of information with us that have has never been made public before do you feel like the police ultimately
00:47:19
felt like this was a dead-end case at this point all these years later yeah 13 years later yeah until you guys came
00:47:25
along yes I mean I I I think they you know task forces and Cold Case task forces you have to have something to
00:47:33
work on you can't keep a large group of people together in just sitting around in the office kind of rehashing stuff
00:47:39
that you've already done and eliminated leads so cases that are like 13 years old cold cases it's kind of like you're
00:47:46
on a roller coaster sometimes you're going really fast and there's a lot of stuff to do and other times you're just
00:47:51
moving real slow and that was exactly what happened here is that you know investigations go up and down as you
00:48:01
proceed with them and I think what the state police and the AG's office recognize is this could breathe some new
00:48:08
life into this case and you know with the with the first four or five shows already out it already has and not only
00:48:16
that but even when we were around uh filming this show people would come up and talk to us about the case so even
00:48:23
then it was generating new interest in the case us bringing them new information and angles that they hadn't
00:48:30
looked at I mean the more eyes the better and and really the online community it is it is great to have them
00:48:35
there are a lot of things I mean Renner got a lot of his information from his blog from people on that we know that
00:48:41
the police do book at all this stuff and it's just unfortunate that the online community is focusing so much of their
00:48:48
actually really good resources on a on a dead end lead um but yeah I think I think the police
00:48:56
are are pretty hopeful with with the show and what we have have found now that the production is over on this case
00:49:04
um was there ever any time because I know with uh Tim and Lance when they went up and did some uh boots on the
00:49:10
ground investigation that they had some threats that were made to them did you have any threats did you feel scared at
00:49:18
all never got threats and I was really surprised about that yeah I don't think that we were ever scared I mean we have
00:49:28
gone into a few interviews that didn't make it into the show um into some pretty CD situations where
00:49:35
it was the first time that I looked at Art and said do you have your gun on you and he did
00:49:43
um but that was probably the one time yeah there wasn't much I mean I've been in a lot worse situations I can tell you
00:49:55
that than this and was I I thought the whole thing regarding Tim and Lance those were that was all very
00:50:01
strange stuff interesting and strange um but that I think we had any issues I don't think so
00:50:09
um you know over my career I've been threatened many times and God there was a portion of my life where I had my
00:50:17
children under protection so did I think any of this stuff was going to come back
00:50:21
I wasn't worried about it um so it's uh I don't think it's one of these you know
00:50:30
we get that part of New Hampshire is kind of like people move up there to be alone
00:50:35
you know like leave me alone type scenario I don't need the government poking around in my business
00:50:41
and I only talked to law enforcement when I have to which is fine I mean that's what makes
00:50:47
this a great country you can do what you want to do but um I think maybe with with Tim and Lance
00:50:54
people took exception to that and and um uh you know maybe tried to pull some stuff online with them of course we all
00:51:04
want to know what happened to Mara Murray but if you could ask one of if you could have one of the smaller
00:51:10
questions in this case answered for you what would that question be to me it's always
00:51:20
a lot of stuff out there about a police conspiracy that you know for all intents and purposes
00:51:28
there is no police conspiracy we've almost ran that to a hundred percent to the ground
00:51:35
and you know I can say that that Cecil Smith was at that scene in his SUV 001 um and
00:51:46
you know as he said in his interview um uh you know ending in episode four beginning of five
00:51:54
um that's exactly what he was I mean everybody thinks there's this big conspiracy but what they forget was
00:52:01
you know we're looking at it 13 years later and we've got hindsight um but what you forget is the police were
00:52:10
responding to a simple motor vehicle accident property damage and it didn't look like
00:52:15
anybody was hurt and that's that held that way for probably a day day and a half
00:52:22
I think for me I think all of that will come out in the end I think that when um there's an arrest made or her body is
00:52:31
found all these people that have been gung-ho on a police conspiracy are going to feel pretty silly about it you know I
00:52:37
think it was it was a great lead in the beginning like we we thought about it and
00:52:42
we went with it and we found the information um unfortunately there's information
00:52:46
that cannot be released but I mean you know there is no police conspiracy um all of these questions that people
00:52:54
shoot out online we have answers to those people questioning Monahan's timeline they aren't even looking at Monahan's
00:53:00
timeline you're actually looking at another officer's timeline Monahan's dispatch log is not in the Grafton
00:53:07
County logs he was not a Grafton County officer he was a state officer so these people have their facts completely wrong
00:53:13
but anyway so besides answering that which will be answered um I I would want to know where her her
00:53:22
body is where her remains are because that's where the evidence is and that is key where where is Laura I've never
00:53:29
found enough evidence to lead me to believe that she was going up there to commit suicide or take a break from her
00:53:37
whole life but there's definitely evidence that she's going up there and she's heading towards somewhere to take
00:53:43
at least a break do you have any thoughts on where she was heading or who she's heading with I think that Renner
00:53:50
is accurate in that there was somebody else involved probably um whether she's going to meet a friend or
00:54:01
somebody I personally don't think that she was going alone there could have been a tandem
00:54:10
driver like a friend or somebody I don't think it was a tandem driver and somebody helping her Escape I think they
00:54:16
were just going to clear her head spot enough booze for two people um I I think that there was possibly
00:54:24
somebody going with her to just spend the weekend hang out take a break she had all intentions on coming back
00:54:32
yeah I I agree I think you know you've got five or six theories and you see us map them out in one of the episodes yeah
00:54:41
none of those none of those are completely off the table until we can actually find her or her remains so but
00:54:49
we looked at the probability of which is what is more than likely that happened to her and more than likely you know
00:54:56
something there was Foul Play involved in what happened to her now whether it was somebody she knows or somebody that
00:55:03
picked her up on the highway that's the big that's the big question you know what happened in that seven to ten
00:55:10
minute time period which we've probably even narrowed down to like shorter than that but you know what happened in that
00:55:17
time frame [Music] oh foreign we will see everybody back here tomorrow night in the garage and until then be
00:55:34
good be kind and don't litter [Music] [Applause] thank you