****** HISTORY *******
If I recall correctly, the original Maura Murray website, the one with a discussion similar to WebSleuths, lasted around two to four years, after which time the discussion quickly migrated to a Topix forum that corresponded roughly to the Franconia/Woodsville area.
There was constant disagreement about a number of issues, one of which was the origin of the Saturn’s body damage. Some posters believed the damage was caused, as Sgt. Smith’s report indicated, by the car’s having hit a tree near the side of the road. Others disagreed.
In order to satisfy my own curiosity, I showed a photo of the Saturn’s damage to five or six autobody repairmen. I said nothing to them about the car itself, nothing about its history. I asked only what they thought had caused the damage.
As far as they knew, I was showing them a photo of a random car they had never seen. I wanted only their objective opinions on what had caused the damage.
All autobody repairmen agreed that the pronounced dent on the front left corner of the hood was caused by contact with some kind of overhanging object, such as a trailer hitch, the stinger of a tow truck, or a tractor trailer’s ICC bar, or something else. But not a tree.
******** BSG ********
However, one repairman, BSG, took me by surprise. He said he recognized the Saturn. To quote him either exactly or very closely when I handed him the photo: “Oh, I know this car.” Instant reaction. No hesitation.
BSG definitely referred to the Saturn registered to Fred Murray – not to some other Saturn - because with no prompting whatsoever from me, not a single word, he went on, after briefly talking about the Saturn, to say that he had also seen Fred’s Corolla – specifically Fred’s Corolla - and that detectives had examined it closely. His words were something like, “They were all over it.” In other words, it wasn’t just a passing glance.
I had never met BSG before. I approached him randomly, only for his expert opinion on the cause of the Saturn’s damage. It never occurred to me that he might have seen that specific Saturn before.
There is simply no question that BSG saw the Saturn registered to Fred Murray, the same Saturn found abandoned at the WBC.
“WBC” refers to the location of the Saturn's discovery in Haverhill, New Hampshire.
****** PHOTO OR IN PERSON? ******
But did BSG see the Saturn with his own eyes or did he see a photo of it? I assume, by the way he talked, that BSG saw the Saturn with his own eyes, that it was directly in front of him, physically, not in a photo.
Unfortunately, I wasn’t thinking fast enough to ask him.
So I’ll consider the photo possibility first. It’s only a possibility, a scenario.
****** A PHOTO *******
If BSG saw a photo of the Saturn, then there are lots of moving parts. Who showed it to him? When? Where? Why? These questions quickly get very complex and are hard to disentangle.
IF BSG SHOWN PHOTO BEFORE WBC, FROM WHOM:
If BSG saw a photo of the damaged Saturn before Maura disappeared, then almost certainly it was shown to him by either Maura, Fred, or someone they knew. No other person would, just out of the blue, take a picture of the damaged Saturn and send it to BSG.
But how would they know to show it specifically to BSG? Did they pick him out of a phone book? Did they know him personally? Or did someone recommend him? Did they show it to anyone else?
IF BSG SHOWN PHOTO BEFORE WBC, WHY?
If BSG saw a photo of the Saturn before the WBC – and assuming the photo was shown to him by Fred, Maura, or a friend, which I think is a safe assumption - then it was presumably shown to him to get some sort of quick, informal estimate of repair costs; to see whether the Saturn could be either fixed or totaled out by insurance, declared salvage.
If the Saturn was declared salvage by an adjuster, then that would be a fairly quick source of cash. It should be kept in mind that the replacement of any deployed airbags could easily push the total repair cost above the market value of the car, which would then qualify it for salvage. Easy money. Needed money. Happens all the time. Especially handy if the car has serious engine problems.
So maybe a photo of the Saturn was shown to BSG in order to get his informal assessment of repair costs. Maybe an adjuster had refused to write it off as salvage and they wanted to contest that decision by presenting BSG’s opinion. Nothing wrong with that.
But if this is what happened, wouldn’t there have been some kind of report filed about the origin of the damage, filed with the police or at least the insurance company? Right after the damage happened? Wouldn’t the cause of the damage have been documented somehow?
If previous damage has been documented and/or reported, then why has that information never surfaced?
Photographic proof that the Saturn was damaged at any time before Maura disappeared would obviously be huge news. It would certainly have altered the eventual story of what had happened at the WBC, including Sgt. Smith’s final report.
So, it seems very unlikely that a photo of a damaged Saturn was taken before the WBC.
With this exception:
BSG seemed to think the overall damage was the result of two impacts.
The big dent, he thought, was the result of some kind of overhanging object. But he went on to say that the rest of the damage to the hood looked like something larger but softer had impacted it, rolled over it, like a large sack of potatoes. Or a person. He was careful to say that this was just his opinion, he didn’t know for sure what had caused all the damage.
So, I would guess it’s possible that BSG was shown a photo of the car, probably on Friday, and if so, then probably by Maura, Fred, or a friend/relative, before the car left Massachusetts, but the damage was never reported to the insurance company. There was no other ordinary record of it.
It’s possible then that the dents were caused not only by hitting Vasi, but, simultaneous to the event, hitting something else in an attempt to avoid him.
If, for whatever reason, a pedestrian suddenly appears in the road in front of you, wouldn’t it be normal to both brake and swerve?
If this was a Vasi hit, then presumably police, like they often do, would keep details of the hit to themselves.
Although showing BSG merely a photo of damage caused by a Vasi hit may have provided a layer of anonymity, it still seems, even for a nervous 21-year-old, like it was playing with fire. Too risky, too foolish. Possible, but doubtful. Much better to repair or junk the car far away, beyond the reach of local LE’s curiosity and regular contacts. Maybe someplace familiar.
IF AFTER WBC, THEN WHO GAVE BSG PHOTOS?
If BSG was shown a photo of the damaged Saturn after the WBC, then who showed it to him?
The most likely source I can think of is the police. Who else would send BSG a photo of the damaged Saturn? Almost certainly, nobody else. But from what specific agency?
Haverhill police at least appear to have been, initially, investigating a walk-away. A day or two later, New Hampshire State Police together with Haverhill police were investigating a missing, possibly endangered person case. UMass police were investigating the unexplained disappearance of the same UMass student. All while Amherst police were investigating the Vasi hit.
So, was it either Haverhill or NHSP? Seems unlikely either agency would have any reason, sans communication with Amherst or UMass police, to just send off a photo of the Saturn to BSG. Or to any other autobody person.
When police find an abandoned car that they believe was crashed locally, do they send out photos of it to body shop guys in the area near where the car was garaged - in this case, over a hundred miles away?
If it wasn’t Haverhill or NHSP, then was it UMass police? UMPD was indeed searching for some reason Maura left UMass, but basically it was the UMass end of the Haverhill case. UMPD was not investigating a motor vehicle crash. The closest they had come, according to the Missing Maura Murray podcast, was to have initially responded to the Corolla crash in Hadley.
That leaves Amherst PD, which was not, strictly speaking, investigating Maura’s disappearance. Amherst PD was investigating the Vasi hit.
IF AFTER WBC, THEN WHY GIVE BSG PHOTOS?
Why would Amherst PD show a photo of the Saturn, after it was found in New Hampshire, to BSG, a man who had at least seen, if not supervised initial work on, the Corolla, a car needing extensive repair after Maura crashed it in Hadley?
Did Amherst police supply photos of the damaged Saturn to other body shops in the general Amherst area? If they showed BSG a photo, then why not show others, just to see whether the car that hit Vasi had showed up for repair anywhere? Seems like a normal thing to do. And even in 2004, it would have been easy to canvas a bunch of auto repair shops via email.
It’s worth remembering that Amherst police were investigating a case that could, any day, turn into motor vehicle homicide. Or, if a connection became established between Vasi and the driver that hit him, could turn into a case of manslaughter, even murder.
In other words, this was, at least at first, a potentially big case, well worth following up a lead concerning an abandoned and inexplicably damaged UMass student’s car found in Haverhill NH.
If the person who hit Vasi had also known him, if there was some sort of beef between them (remember, Vasi was bounced from a local, downtown barroom just prior), then police would obviously be looking at something beyond a random hit-and-run.
Police simply did not know what they had on their hands. If this case could have turned more serious than an average hit-and-run, possibly even more serious than a potentially fatal hit-and-run, then police should have investigated the Vasi hit thoroughly and carefully, starting from day one.
Since Amherst PD was the sole agency investigating the Vasi hit, and since Amherst PD is the likely source of any possible photo BSG was shown, then either they photographed the Saturn themselves - in which case they were in Haverhill, probably on Tuesday morning - or they arranged for police in New Hampshire to send a photo to them back in Amherst, probably electronically, and then they showed it to BSG and probably other repair shops, to see whether anyone had turned up with this kind of damage.
Either that or police blew off the Vasi investigation less than an hour before Maura Murray left Amherst. Doubtful.
I just don’t see any way around this. If Amherst PD showed BSG a photo of the Saturn, then how could they not have been at least in the process of connecting, early on, the Saturn’s damage with the Corolla crash and their investigation of the Vasi hit?
This doesn’t mean police didn’t eventually rule out a connection between the Saturn and the Vasi hit, but it does support their at least initial curiosity. If police showed BSG a photo, then they must have been very interested in Maura as a suspect in the Vasi case.
According to my non-answer from Amherst Police, as of 02 July 2018 (a date I'll occasionally update), Maura has not yet been ruled out as a suspect in the Vasi hit. Maybe I’ll hear differently from Amherst police in the future, but they’ve now had over five months to respond.
So, if BSG recognized the Saturn from a photo, then it appears there are only two possible choices:
1) Maura, Fred, or a friend showed BSG a photo of the damaged Saturn before the car left Amherst, which seems possible, but unlikely.
2) Amherst police showed BSG the photo after the WBC because it was part of their Vasi investigation – meaning that at least initially Maura was a suspect in the Vasi hit, a missing suspect.
Or both. It’s always possible that Amherst police showed BSG a photo of the Saturn and asked him whether he’d ever seen the car before. In other words, BSG could have been shown a photo of the Saturn before it left Amherst – again, by Maura, Fred, or a friend – and then been shown, a few days later, another photo of the Saturn by Amherst police who asked him whether he’d ever seen the car. At which point, BSG might have said something like, “Yes, someone came in a few days ago with a photo of the same car.” This scenario would surely not lessen the possibility of a Vasi-Murray connection.
Either way, if a photo of the Saturn was shown to BSG, it leads back to the very high probability that, in the eyes of police, the Saturn struck Vasi.
****** PHYSICALLY ******
If BSG did not see a photo of the Saturn, then he must have seen the real thing, the Saturn itself, physically, right in front of him.
Since BSG was local to the Pioneer Valley area of western Massachusetts, and he had obviously not seen the Saturn in New Hampshire, then he must have seen the car, damaged, while it was still in Massachusetts - before it left Amherst, before Maura Murray disappeared.
******* FIRST CONCLUSION *******
The damage to the Saturn, including the big dent in the front left hood area, must have occurred in Massachusetts. No way around it. BSG could not otherwise have recognized the car.
Keeping in mind the significance of the 2008 vandalism described below, if BSG saw the Saturn directly, before it left MA, and told police what he had seen – after all, he saw police inspect the Corolla right in front of him – then Maura would have been at least a POI by Tuesday morning; perhaps even as early as Monday night if Haverhill police had contacted UMass police about the Saturn’s parking permit decal. Which they must have done, if for no other reason than to confirm that Butch Atwood had in fact talked with a young woman who resembled Maura Murray, not a sixty-something year old man named Fred Murray from Weymouth MA, a man old enough to be Maura’s father.
Likewise, if BSG only saw a photo of the Saturn, then that, too, would indicate police interest in Maura and/or the Saturn.
Either way, if BSG saw the Saturn itself or a photo of it, the Saturn was damaged before it left Massachusetts.
This conclusion is additionally supported by the fact that it’s perfectly normal for police to tell the public that someone has been ruled out as a suspect. Happens all the time. But 14 years later, police, to my knowledge, have still not said whether Maura Murray is a suspect in the Vasi hit, which apparently is still an open investigation.
******** VANDALISM ********
After I talked with BSG and a few other autobody repair guys, I went home and posted on the Maura Murray Topix thread that every autobody repairman with whom I had spoken agreed that the Saturn’s damage was caused by an overhanging object.
I also wrote that one of the repairmen – I didn’t specify which one - had told me that police closely inspected the Corolla. I never said that BSG was previously familiar with the Saturn.
A few hours later, after dark, someone started to vandalize my backyard. They probably stopped after a flood light became activated by a motion detector, but they may have stopped for some other reason. Perhaps the vandal assumed I had heard something in the backyard and turned on the flood light myself. While the vandalism was fairly light, it was quite apparent when I discovered it the next morning.
I had lived on that street for twenty-one years. It was a very quiet street, miles out of town, with virtually no through-traffic. A car might drive by slowly, on average, every 10-15 minutes during the day. Late at night, a car might drive by every 3-4 hours. Many of my neighbors left their doors unlocked while absent during the day. Some slept in unlocked houses all night. It felt like the safest street in America.
Because I had never heard of any kind of crime on that street, including vandalism, I believe that the vandalism to my backyard, while not extensive, was a clear message to me. The timing was obvious. So, no, it wasn't a bear or a teenager or an act of god. And since I had never identified myself to BSG, there is no reason to believe he was the vandal either. But if this unknown vandal was giving me a message, did he tell BSG to keep quiet, too?
Although I regularly posted on Topix under the moniker “beagle,” I had naively posted, a few weeks or months prior, my real name and address after a challenge from another poster. I thought nothing of it at the time. All other posters retained their anonymity.
I can be seen describing this vandalism with my hands near 10:23 of this YouTube video.
******* SOMEBODY’S WATCHING *******
While I actually said three things in my Topix post, I thought I had said only two:
1) I argued, based on my few interviews, that the Saturn’s damage was not caused by hitting a tree. This argument supported the twin possibilities that the damage had happened some other way and at some other place, two big bones of contention on the Topix thread.
2) I noted that police had closely inspected Fred’s Corolla.
The third point – that BSG saw the Saturn, damaged, before Maura disappeared - was unintentionally and unwittingly implied in my comment. It was exactly the one most important thing I should have inferred from talking with BSG but didn’t. So I never mentioned it in the Topix thread. Stupid oversight at the time, but paid dividends later.
This third, unspoken point, however, was the one point that only someone with inside, undisclosed knowledge could grasp.
In other words, somebody who was watching Topix knew that because BSG had witnessed the Corolla inspection by police, BSG therefore must have recognized the Saturn, by its damage, from the photo I had showed him, hence BSG knew the damage occurred before Maura disappeared. And BSG was apparently unconcerned about disclosing this, at least until shortly after he talked with me.
The vandal had good reason to think that, even though I didn’t state it on Topix, I knew what he knew; that I might, any day, shout it out to everyone following the Maura Murray case.
Did the vandal think I was deliberately withholding this information, ready to use it later for some reason?
There’s no other explanation for someone to get so unnerved about what I wrote that they would travel to my house and begin tearing up my backyard as a message for me to shut up.
******* LAST CONCLUSION *******
No one vandalized my backyard merely because I had polled some autobody experts about the cause of the Saturn’s damage.
This vandal blew a fuse because BSG revealed himself to me as one of the few who knew that police had closely examined the Corolla – because he was there when it happened. That little piece of information held within it some hidden meaning for someone, someone almost certainly with something to hide.
There are only three choices: My backyard was vandalized by
1) a bad guy who, for whatever reason, did not want police and/or the public to know the Saturn was damaged before Maura disappeared; or
2) a cop who, for whatever reason, did not want the public to know the Saturn was damaged before Maura disappeared; or
3) both 1 and 2.
If it was only a bad guy:
1) Would a bad guy even infer something like this in the first place if police had shown BSG a photo?
2) Wouldn’t a bad guy already have assumed, or at least have hoped, that police were focused solely on Maura, thus no need to risk exposure, no need to bring attention to himself like this?
3) Even if a bad guy could infer something like this, wouldn’t he think that if BSG had seen police inspect the Corolla, then BSG would have told police about seeing the Saturn, damaged, before Maura disappeared? After all, BSG had, in effect, told me the same thing. Surely, he would have told police. No one with inside knowledge, bad guy or cop, would fail to notice this.
4) If police were looking for a bad guy, an unknown Saturn driver or someone who had harmed or colluded with Maura, perhaps even a killer, wouldn’t they have been very interested in the vandalism? If this bad guy was giving me a message to shut up, wouldn’t police have expressed interest in this? (Yes, police, including Jeff Skinner of UMass police, were informed of the vandalism in person.) In fact, wouldn’t police have been all over it?
But they weren’t.
Therefore, police must have believed, at least into the summer of 2008, and probably to this very day, that the Saturn, likely driven by Maura, hit Vasi. She was their main suspect. They had no need, they believed, to respond to the vandalism. In the minds of police, there was simply no bad guy to consider – no murderer, nothing else. Why waste time looking at some vandalism? Maura was gone.
I can conclude from this only that the vandal was a rogue cop, one with at least some inside knowledge of the Vasi/Murray cases, a cop who could conveniently avoid detection by relying on the fact that Maura was the main or only suspect in the Vasi case. He would have known, therefore, that police would take no interest in the vandalism. Which only further confirms the likelihood that Maura was a suspect in the Vasi case.
This rogue cop must have been someone who did not want his colleagues to know something that he alone knew about the Vasi hit.
*************
But what did he know?
And who was he?
Did he hurt Maura or did he help her skip town? For good reasons or bad. Or both?
Was Maura the victim of covert incest and therefore deserving of covert assistance? Or did Maura leave someone for dead in the road? Or both?
Was the vandal someone who took a special interest in domestic violence, violence against women, or sexual assault?
Was the vandal somehow involved, even passively, in the Vasi hit? Did he witness it or unintentionally contribute to it, if even from a distance?
Was his girlfriend in the bar?
Whatever the answers to these last questions, I can conclude only that Maura Murray was the leading, if not the only, suspect in the Vasi case. And that a cop with some inside knowledge of the Murray and Vasi cases vandalized my backyard in order to keep me from saying that the Saturn was damaged before it left Amherst.
But vandalism wasn’t the only means of discouraging my curiosity.
Shortly after the vandalism incident, I received another message – this time, an official message: a two-year no-trespass order served by UMass police officer Jeffrey Skinner.
No comments:
Post a Comment