Gone on a Dark Road

0:00 Speaker 1: The disappearance of Mara Murray. On the cold evening of

0:03 Speaker 1: February ninth, two thousand and four, a young woman named

0:06 Speaker 1: Mara Murray was driving alone through the quiet roads of

0:09 Speaker 1: New Hampshire when something happened that would create one of

0:12 Speaker 1: the most mysterious missing person cases in America. Mora was

0:16 Speaker 1: twenty one years old, a nursing student at the University

0:19 Speaker 1: of Massachusetts Amherst, and by all accounts, she had a

0:23 Speaker 1: promising future ahead of her. But that night everything changed.

0:27 Speaker 1: Earlier that day, Mara had sent an email to her

0:30 Speaker 1: professor's saying she would be away from school for a

0:32 Speaker 1: few days because of a family emergency. She then packed

0:36 Speaker 1: some belongings withdrew money from her bank account, and left campus.

0:41 Speaker 1: Nobody knew exactly where she was going. Later that evening,

0:45 Speaker 1: Mara was driving through the small town of Haverl, New Hampshire,

0:49 Speaker 1: along a dark rural road surrounded by trees and snow.

0:52 Speaker 1: At around seven twenty seven pm, a passing motorists saw

0:57 Speaker 1: a car that had crashed into a snow bank. It

0:59 Speaker 1: was more Ra's vehicle. A man named Butch Atwood, who

1:03 Speaker 1: lived nearby, stopped to help. He saw a young woman

1:06 Speaker 1: standing beside the car. She appeared shaken but not seriously injured,

1:11 Speaker 1: but when he asked if she needed emergency assistance, she

1:15 Speaker 1: told him everything was fine. Atwood returned to his home

1:18 Speaker 1: and called police anyway, but just minutes later, when authorities arrived,

1:23 Speaker 1: Mara was gone. The strange part was that almost everything

1:27 Speaker 1: she owned was still there. Her car remained at the scene,

1:30 Speaker 1: her phone was missing, her backpack was inside, her credit

1:35 Speaker 1: cards were there, her clothing was there. Her accident had

1:39 Speaker 1: happened only minutes earlier. There was no sign that she

1:42 Speaker 1: had walked away voluntarily for long, and there was no

1:45 Speaker 1: evidence showing where she went. Police searched the surrounding woods.

1:50 Speaker 1: Dogs tracked her scent for a short distance, but then

1:53 Speaker 1: the trail ended. It was as if Moura had disappeared

1:57 Speaker 1: into the darkness. As investigators looked deeper, they discovered more

2:01 Speaker 1: unusual details. Before leaving school, Mora had been dealing with

2:06 Speaker 1: personal stress. She had recently experienced difficulties in her life,

2:10 Speaker 1: including an accident involving her father's car and emotional struggles,

2:14 Speaker 1: but investigators could never determine whether those events had anything

2:18 Speaker 1: to do with her disappearance. Some believed Moura may have

2:22 Speaker 1: left the road intentionally and disappeared somewhere nearby. Others believed

2:26 Speaker 1: she may have accepted help from a stranger. Some suspected

2:30 Speaker 1: someone found her after the crash. Over the years, countless

2:34 Speaker 1: searches were conducted. People searched forests, investigators followed tips, witnesses

2:40 Speaker 1: came forward, but every possible lead seemed to create more questions.

2:45 Speaker 1: Why did Mara leave her university, why was she traveling

2:48 Speaker 1: that night, why did she disappear so quickly after the crash,

2:52 Speaker 1: and most importantly, where did she go. More than twenty

2:56 Speaker 1: years later, the disappearance of Maura Murray remained unsolved. Her

3:01 Speaker 1: family continues to search for answers. A young woman drove

3:05 Speaker 1: down a quiet road on a winter night. Her car

3:08 Speaker 1: was found, her belongings were found, but Mora Murray was

3:12 Speaker 1: never found.