During the summer of 2008, not long after the vandalism incident, I visited the Southwest (SW) residential area of UMass to get the overall lay of the land.
Kennedy Hall (dorm), where Maura lived, and nearby Melville Hall (dorm), where Maura worked a security assignment, are part of the SW residential area.
After looking around a little, I noticed a UMass cop on bicycle patrol.
I showed the officer, Jeffrey Skinner, a folded-over photo of the Saturn, revealing only the UMass parking sticker on the left rear passenger window. I said nothing to Skinner about Maura Murray or the car’s identity. I asked him to what lot the vehicle had been assigned. He said the permit was for Lot 12.
I also asked him whether students and/or the general public were usually allowed to park within most of the SW cluster itself after business hours – IOW, evenings, overnights, weekends, holidays, etc. – regardless of the parking lot to which they were assigned, if any.
At this point, Skinner appeared evasive and defensive. He seemed clearly disinclined to answer the question.
A couple of days later, Skinner, to my complete astonishment, appeared at my home with a no-trespass order for me.
Kennedy Hall (dorm), where Maura lived, and nearby Melville Hall (dorm), where Maura worked a security assignment, are part of the SW residential area.
After looking around a little, I noticed a UMass cop on bicycle patrol.
I showed the officer, Jeffrey Skinner, a folded-over photo of the Saturn, revealing only the UMass parking sticker on the left rear passenger window. I said nothing to Skinner about Maura Murray or the car’s identity. I asked him to what lot the vehicle had been assigned. He said the permit was for Lot 12.
I also asked him whether students and/or the general public were usually allowed to park within most of the SW cluster itself after business hours – IOW, evenings, overnights, weekends, holidays, etc. – regardless of the parking lot to which they were assigned, if any.
At this point, Skinner appeared evasive and defensive. He seemed clearly disinclined to answer the question.
A couple of days later, Skinner, to my complete astonishment, appeared at my home with a no-trespass order for me.
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| Officer Skinner, his right foot on doorstep, about to serve the no-trespass order. |
I asked Skinner why he was serving it. There had been no problem when I politely talked to him only a couple of days earlier. Why not just tell me what was going on?
But Skinner refused to answer my question, saying only that the order reflected his professional judgment. Beyond that, he refused to specify. But the order was clearly Skinner’s idea.
It’s hard to believe Skinner, and whoever else may have approved the order, barred me from the UMass campus merely because I had asked a couple of questions about parking regulations and a long-expired parking permit.
Why, I wondered, had Skinner sought to ban specifically me from UMass? Were other campus visitors with an interest in the case treated to no-trespass orders, too? Or was I on some kind of watch list? And, just as important, why was the reason a secret? How often are people given no-trespass orders but not told why? I was totally baffled.
Between BSG and Skinner, the Saturn suddenly seemed a far more sensitive concern than I had previously realized.
If the no-trespass order followed hard on the heels of the vandalism, which it did, was it, too, related to what I had recently written on Topix?
Little did I know, when I asked him about the parking sticker, that Skinner, a UMass alum, had worked in residential security with Maura while they were both students.
In other words, Maura Murray, Jeffrey Skinner, and the unidentified cadet mentioned in the Missing Maura Murray podcast (Ep. 22, 24:55) must have known one another, maybe quite well. After all, they worked together.
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Yet one more message? Hard to believe otherwise when it was tacitly approved by Northwestern District Attorney's Office (Northampton MA).
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Added 22 October 2017: Just before Skinner showed up, a man and a woman, traveling in a red pickup truck, parked it down the street a couple of houses. They walked fast or nearly ran up my driveway. They went around the side of the house and into my backyard near where the vandalism had occurred, then they left as quickly as they had come. The woman wore a head scarf, the old fashioned handkerchief type. At the time, I thought they were simply looking for a missing dog.
But Skinner refused to answer my question, saying only that the order reflected his professional judgment. Beyond that, he refused to specify. But the order was clearly Skinner’s idea.
It’s hard to believe Skinner, and whoever else may have approved the order, barred me from the UMass campus merely because I had asked a couple of questions about parking regulations and a long-expired parking permit.
Why, I wondered, had Skinner sought to ban specifically me from UMass? Were other campus visitors with an interest in the case treated to no-trespass orders, too? Or was I on some kind of watch list? And, just as important, why was the reason a secret? How often are people given no-trespass orders but not told why? I was totally baffled.
Between BSG and Skinner, the Saturn suddenly seemed a far more sensitive concern than I had previously realized.
If the no-trespass order followed hard on the heels of the vandalism, which it did, was it, too, related to what I had recently written on Topix?
Little did I know, when I asked him about the parking sticker, that Skinner, a UMass alum, had worked in residential security with Maura while they were both students.
In other words, Maura Murray, Jeffrey Skinner, and the unidentified cadet mentioned in the Missing Maura Murray podcast (Ep. 22, 24:55) must have known one another, maybe quite well. After all, they worked together.
*******************
Yet one more message? Hard to believe otherwise when it was tacitly approved by Northwestern District Attorney's Office (Northampton MA).
********************
Added 22 October 2017: Just before Skinner showed up, a man and a woman, traveling in a red pickup truck, parked it down the street a couple of houses. They walked fast or nearly ran up my driveway. They went around the side of the house and into my backyard near where the vandalism had occurred, then they left as quickly as they had come. The woman wore a head scarf, the old fashioned handkerchief type. At the time, I thought they were simply looking for a missing dog.
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