Busy Anderson reported this story on assignment from the Bradford Journal-Opinion. The Community News Service is a program in which University of Vermont students work with professional editors to provide content for local news outlets at no cost.
Since Carol Nicholeris bought her home on state Route 112 in Haverhill, N.H., in 2009, a continuing cascade of uninvited visitors has descended on her property. They traipse around her yard, pepper her with questions and leave litter for her to clean up.
The intruders come looking for clues leading to Maura Murray, who was a 21-year-old Massachusetts nursing student when she went missing in 2004 after it appeared she crashed her car on Route 112 near Nicholeris’ house. In the subsequent 20 years, while the Murray family has searched for answers in the case, a growing cadre of amateur sleuths have fixated on the mystery, making frequent pilgrimages to Haverhill and causing disruption for Nicholeris and her neighbors.
Haverhill residents are compassionate about the suffering of Maura Murray’s family but have grown frustrated with the relentless incursion, Nicholeris said.
“The sympathy that we feel for them is not a license for the Murrays and their followers to abuse our neighborhood or our town,” Nicholeris said. “We who live here shouldn’t have to deal with this stuff because we live here. We did not cause this.”
The rise of social media has fueled an age-old fascination with true crime, giving devotees of particular cases a way to connect with one another, stay abreast of new discoveries and obsess over tiny details and theories. Some of these enthusiasts have provided tips that help solve cases. But the online frenzy can lead to inappropriate interference for residents near sites that have garnered widespread attention.
Maura Murray disappeared at a unique moment in this trend — five days after the invention of Facebook, which ignited the modern era of Internet social networking. Julie Murray, who lives in Richmond, Va., has embraced these tools as a means of keeping her sister’s memory alive and the case in the public eye.
“We never thought that this would go for two decades,” Murray said during an interview a week before the 20th anniversary of Maura’s disappearance. She has served as the spokesperson for the family, representing her father, Fred Murray, and two brothers. Her mother and another sister both died of cancer, she said.
The Facebook group she started, Maura Murray Missing, has 27,000 members. The TikTok account @mauramurraymissing has more than 265,000 followers. Through these channels and her interviews with various true-crime podcasters, Murray continues to implore those interested in Maura’s case to remain vigilant and provide any information they can.
Just this month, Murray started a podcast called Media Pressure to tell Maura’s story.
“The only way we’re going to get tips and leads is if we continue to keep Maura in the public consciousness,” she said.
The fascination with the Murray case is unusual for New Hampshire, said Myles Matteson, chief of the state’s Criminal Justice Bureau. “Most cold cases do not have this level of public attention,” he said, adding that he hopes such attention brings forth relevant information or convinces someone with “information that they’ve long known about, it’s time to share with an investigation.”
Matteson advised against outsiders pursuing their own evidence at the expense of neighbors’ rights. “Our investigators and the state police are best positioned to be conducting investigations,” he said. “We would never recommend trespassing on anybody’s property or otherwise conducting those types of investigations.”
The Haverhill Police Department would respond to any residents’ complaints about unwanted visitors, Matteson said. Multiple calls and emails to the Haverhill Police Department and Chief David Appleby were not returned.
Nicholeris said she has never filed a formal trespassing complaint with police.
For 20 years, many locals have provided repeated access to their properties. They have allowed police investigators and the Murray family to search their yards and their homes, sometimes with evidence-sniffing dogs, even opening their doors for the family and offering them coffee and tea, Julie Murray said. More recently, though, it seems the amount of activity has worn some neighbors’ patience thin.
“I think folks, at least initially, thought that if they just let these things happen then eventually it would stop, because there was nothing to be found,” Nicholeris said.
She added, “It hasn’t turned out that way.”
In March 2022, about 30 property owners signed a letter that they sent to state and local law enforcement, as well as town officials, stating that they deny permission to access their properties unless law enforcement is involved, according to a copy of the letter provided by Nicholeras, with the names of listed residents redacted. The letter specifies properties on Old Peters Road, McGuire Lane, Bunga Road and Route 112/Wild Ammonoosuc Road, as well as surrounding areas, and notes that the prohibition of access extends to search dogs, drones and other automated devices.
“We, the under-listed, should not be contacted by any Murray associates or supporters, whether by name or anonymously,” the letter reads. “The Murrays should inform their ‘community’ that if anyone wishes to discuss anything with any of us, they should refer such interest(s) to the Haverhill Police Department Chief David Appleby.”
With nearly every online post that encourages people to seek and share information, Julie Murray said, she makes a point of reminding followers to remain respectful of neighbors and avoid any illegal intrusions or disorderly activity.
“I have a documented history all over social media saying, ‘Be empathetic, be respectful, don’t cause more harm. It’s not helping my sister. It’s not helping the case,’ ” she said.
In a 2021 Facebook post, she wrote, “We’d like to reiterate that harassment of any kind is completely unacceptable.”
The family also has experienced the downsides of online fervor and the visibility of Maura’s case, Murray said. Her posts have drawn attacks on her family, misinformation and unkind speculation about Maura’s behavior.
“The vast majority of the folks online truly want to help and have been amazing,” she said, adding, “It’s worth the backlash that my family gets.”
On Feb. 9, Maura packed her bags on campus at University of Massachusetts at Amherst, where she was studying to be a nurse and headed north, ending up in New Hampshire, where she had often hiked in the White Mountains. The black Saturn sedan she was driving was found in a snowbank on the side of Route 112, near the village of Woodsville. Someone who saw Maura called 911, but by the time police arrived soon after, Maura had vanished.
Every year on that date, the Murray family holds a vigil in the northbound lane of Route 112. On Friday last week, during a candlelight ceremony there, surrounded by residents’ homes, Fred Murray turned and faced the woods behind the group that had gathered.
“Hang in there with us,” he said, addressing his daughter. Some people, even those who had never met the missing woman, began to cry and embrace each other.
Afterward, about 100 people gathered in a small lodge located down a series of dirt roads that had eroded from recent rainfall. The area remains a dead spot for cell reception and dark without street lights at night. Many of the guests had no relation to the Murrays.
Allie Pomykala and Jess Morse-Davis heard about Maura’s disappearance in 2004 through a Vermont newspaper. They have participated in searches twice a year for the past four years and joined a group called Boots on the Ground, which has organized such clue-seeking expeditions since 2017.
“I think we’re gonna find her,” said Nancy Cory, the Boots on the Ground founder, who attended the vigil last week.
Cory said she is aware of Haverhill residents’ consternation about the unauthorized sweeps but insisted that Boots on the Ground participants break no laws. “The tension I think is from all the attention that we’re putting, energy we’re putting towards this case,” she said.
Jim and Joyce Connolly moved to their home near Route 112 in 2021. Soon after, Murray case watchers in online posts began calling for parts of the house to be excavated, suggesting that prior searches weren’t correctly located, Jim Connolly said. Some online commenters threatened them with harm when the Connollys declined such access, he said.
“I’m not about to have my house torn apart by armchair detectives,” Connolly said, adding that he and his wife have grown suspicious of vehicles slowing down as they pass Maura’s reported crash site.
Some people who emerge from the woods behind Nicholeris’ house or show up on her doorstep seem to think that she and other local residents have information they haven’t shared, she said. She has felt unsafe after some volatile encounters.
“I’m not a detective or anything other than someone who retired here,” she said. “You don’t know if somebody has some other hidden agenda (when) they’re tromping through the woods and showing up at your place.”
Julie Murray said she cannot control others’ behavior. “I would love to have a better relationship with the handful of neighbors that are affected by this,” she added.
Some Haverhill residents suggest that she can influence the disciples of Maura’s case. “The fact is that Murray followers take their cues from the Murray family,” Nicholeris said.
Since neighbors sent the letter restricting access to their properties, activity has calmed down, Nicholeras added.
She and other neighbors would like nothing more than for law enforcement to resolve Maura’s case. Besides his desire to stop the unwanted scrutiny, Connolly said, he’d like Fred Murray and his family to have closure.
“I hope the guy finds out what happened to his daughter,” he said. “I really do.”
Correction (2/20/24): A previous version of this story mischaracterized Haverhill resident Carol Nicholeris’ view of the Murray family’s responsibility for the behavior of outsiders.