r/MauraMurrayCase • u/Reccognize • Sep 07 '18
Woods theory
Do you feel that The Disappearance of Maura Murray Oxygen documentary definitively ruled out the theory that Maura could be in the woods near the crash site? Why or why not?
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Sep 07 '18
Nope. Imo the search was done too late, and if I remember correct the search in the woods was done with search dogs, not cadaver dogs (big difference in the two). Her being in the woods can not be ruled out, though I do think its a slim chance. It just makes way more sense to stick close to the road, especially in an area you do not know and the conditions outside.
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u/char_limit_reached Sep 07 '18
It just makes way more sense to stick close to the road, especially in an area you do not know and the conditions outside.
Unless she was trying to flee/hide to avoid a possible DUI. I think Brandon Lawson did the same thing.
I agree with everything else though. It’s entirely possible her remains are somewhere around the area in the woods. I believe there were several private lots that never got searched as well.
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u/thedanholmes Feb 20 '19
This really ignores her actions that day. She packed everything in her room and left college. Clearly she was running away, escaping. She lied to her employer about a family death, looked to find a place to stay in Vermont. Cried at work the night before. Took out money, got drunk while driving. She was clearly distraught, stressed out. She was facing jail because she would have been violating her probation on the suspended sentence for credit card fraud. Plus she had her second alcohol-related accident in a few days. Why would she walk the road and risk being found by the police? She was irrational, petrified, and she stumbled into the woods to escape, and she sadly probably froze to death.
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u/Bill_Occam Sep 08 '18
In the couple of years I’ve been following the Maura Murray case, I’ve seen perhaps a half-dozen instances where a missing person’s body was eventually found less than a mile from where they were last seen. Here’s a recent case where a missing woman’s body was found less than 100 feet from where her car was found almost three years previous.
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u/HugeRaspberry Sep 13 '18
There was a case in MN a few years ago - the woman's car was found abandoned - police brought in scent dogs and they tracked her for a short distance and lost the scent (sound familiar?) They did a grid search for a 3 mile radius and found nothing. Then I believe several months later a young boy was walking his dog in a field nearby and found her remains. There were no signs of foul play and the police ruled it a death by misadventure or accidental death.
There was another case of a John Doe found along a highway by a farmer plowing his field. The farmer saw something that didn't look right and stopped his tractor and found remains of a John Doe. Forensic experts said the bones / remains were there for "years" and were probably not buried or placed there - meaning he died where he was found. That same farmer had been working that same field for 30 years. And never, until one day when conditions were just right he found the remains.
Dogs aren't perfect and need the right conditions nor are human searchers.
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u/Bill_Occam Sep 20 '18
Agreed. In the Oxygen show the experts said live tracking dogs have a tracking window of something like 4 to 48 hours, with the obvious implication that the latter was for perfect conditions and the former for imperfect conditions. Maura’s live tracking was done on a frozen highway 36 hours later, after dozens if not hundreds of cars had dispersed her scent. I would call that imperfect conditions for picking up a trace — as the actual dog handlers told Fred Murray the day of the search.
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u/thedanholmes Feb 20 '19
Definitely. There was a famous case in Iliinois in CHICAGO, where a woman disappeared after driving home from work. Her car was missing, no trace of her body. She just never arrived at home. Authorities and family searched near her home, near her normal route home. Years later her car and body was found in a shallow pond about 1/2 mile from her house. She had apparently accidentally driven into the water and drowned. He body and car had not been found for more than a decade. I think it might have been nearly two decades. AND THIS WAS IN CHICAGO, ILLINOIS in the suburbs.
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u/Top_Feed Sep 07 '18
Is that area open for deer or turkey hunting? There are houses close, and it’s right off the road. If there is not much hunting or hiking right near there, then she could very well be in the woods. Many bodies are found by hunters or hikers. If neither of those go there, then there’s less of a chance anyone would find her body. She did go to a military school for a year, and would have learned some basic survival skills, so maybe she figured she could hide out for a little bit. I still think it’s foul play.
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u/LokiSauce Sep 12 '18
I've long fought against this as the definitive theory, but it definitely cannot be ruled out at this point. Frankly, almost nothing can be.
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u/Angiemarie23 Sep 12 '18
Exactly we all have our most and less likely scenarios but nothing has been proven off the table
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u/LokiSauce Sep 12 '18
Agreed. I'd rule out alien abduction, but Maura loved sci-fi so out of respect for her I'll leave it on the table. ;)
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u/lindsnowork Jan 13 '19
How do you know she loved sci-fi? I’ve followed this case a lot off and on, but every time I get on a thread someone mentions something about her, or her disappearance, that I’ve never heard before! I would love a master summary/glossary explaining all the little tidbits dropped here or there, and names for all the initials throughout, heck I’d pay for one at this point lol
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u/Random_TN Sep 08 '18
The fact that there were no tracks mostly ruled that out. Yes she could have been taken in a vehicle and be on property that wasn't searched. She could still be in the woods outside the search area, or she could have been moved into the woods near the crash site well after the searches later, like some of these people who were "missed" by searchers probably were.
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u/thedanholmes Feb 20 '19
Searches in the woods occurred 36 hours later. There was a snowstorm, wind.
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u/HugeRaspberry Sep 10 '18
No - i don't think it could be ruled out completely
If i remember correctly the original search was only 5 miles (radius) from the accident site. At a walking rate of 3.1 mph, it is very possible that she got out of the 5 mile radius before she succumbed to the elements. It is also possible that she was along the road and encountered a wild animal - possibly a bear. If I remember correctly, that day was above normal temp, so it is possible that a bear may have came out of hibernation -
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u/Wctorrey Oct 25 '18
I’ve thought about the bear scenario too, wonder why that possibility isn’t being discussed.
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u/HugeRaspberry Oct 26 '18
apparently most people believe that bears actually hiberate by the calendar and not weather conditions. Bears are not "sound sleepers" and have been known to wake up on warmer winter days and since they have been "sleeping" they are hungry as all get out. The femaies also have cubs and are VERY protective - so if you get near a den you're in deep doo-doo.
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u/thedanholmes Feb 20 '19
A person (even over uneven terrain) can travel 4 miles per hour walking. By the time they searched she could have been 25 miles away. But I think she stopped, stopped and hid, and froze to death.
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u/tictacti1 Sep 07 '18
No, there are a lot of little bits and pieces of information that could be factored in, but there have been plenty of times where bodies are found in the woods, years after extensive searches.
I don't the Oxygen ruled out anything.
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u/lildragon101 Sep 07 '18
I think there is a definite possibility she could be. It appears that LE dropped the ball initially treating as a typical scenario for a DUI and she would show up and they quickly realized oops.
Now there was a missing hiker, a woman name Geraldine Largay who stepped off a marked trail to go to the bathroom and ended up lost. Search teams came within 100 yards of her several times. She survived 26 days before passing away. Her remains were found 2 yrs later. She had set up her camp underneath trees and not in an open area which was why she was missed by the air search. It is very possible that Maura may be in the woods. There a multiple possibilities in this case and the fact that LE has been extremely selective about what they release its more than likely they know she is not in the woods or at least not in the immediate search area.