HAVERHILL, N.H. (AP) – Family and friends continued their search this weekend for a Massachusetts woman who disappeared after a car accident in northern New Hampshire in February.
“I’ll never give up hope,” the missing woman’s mother, Laurie Murray, said through tears on Saturday.
Although state officials ended their search weeks ago, K-9 teams from the Adirondack Rescue Dog Association resumed searching the Haverhill area for any sign of Maura Murray, 21, of Hanson, Mass.
Police have said there is no evidence of foul play and are treating the disappearance as a missing person investigation. Searchers found no signs of struggle at the scene, and it appears Murray was planning a getaway. She lied to professors about a death in the family, and said she would be gone from class for the week. Then she packed her belongings as if she was moving out. Police said Murray may have wanted to get away for a while.
From her home in Hanson, her mother said she doesn’t buy it.
“Two months, and there have been no clues, nothing. Isn’t that odd,” she said.
Laurie Murray said she planned to travel to the Haverhill area on Sunday to deliver a message to police.
“She’s not a runaway,” she said. “She was abducted. She would never not call her family.”
Laurie Murray said she also wants to distribute new flyers announcing that the reward for information leading to Maura Murray has risen to $40,000.
Fred Murray, the missing woman’s father, said he was returning to the accident scene this weekend to search areas not being searched by the K-9 teams.
Meanwhile, Sharon Rausch, whose son, Billy, is Maura Murray’s boyfriend, is enlisting the help of University of Massachusetts at Amherst officials. Murray was a junior nursing student there.
Rausch is asking them to send an e-mail message to students this month reading: “Please help us find Maura. Please forward this to all the contacts in your address book.”
The e-mail will contain a description of Murray and information about the accident on the night of Feb. 9.
“It will literally (reach) hundreds of thousands of people,” Rausch said.
AP-ES-04-03-04 1450EST
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