2004-04-04 - Parents push search for student

Parents push search for student
By Associated Press  |  April 4, 2004

HAVERHILL, N.H. -- Family and friends continued their search this weekend for the Massachusetts woman who disappeared in northern New Hampshire in February.

"I'll never give up hope," Laurie Murray said through tears yesterday of her daughter, Maura.

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 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. Numerous searches, using dogs and a helicopter, turned up no sign that Murray wandered into the snow-covered woods and led police to say Murray may have wanted to get away on her own for a while.

From her home in Hanson, Laurie Murray said she doesn't buy it.

"Two months, and there have been no clues, nothing. Isn't that odd?" she said.

The distraught mother said she planned to travel to the Haverhill area today to deliver a message to police.

"She's not a runaway," she said. "She was abducted. She would never not call her family."

She said she also wants to help distribute new fliers announcing that the reward for information leading to Maura Murray has risen to $40,000.

Sharon Rausch, whose son Billy is Murray's boyfriend, said she, her son, and Murray's family have not given up hope she will be found and safely returned.

Fred Murray, the missing woman's father, said he was impressed by the teams when they searched the area last weekend. He was returning to the scene of a car accident that preceded her disappearance this weekend to search areas not being searched by the K-9 teams.

Meanwhile, Rausch is enlisting the help of officials at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. 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.

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