Show notes
Putting this together was very difficult so please be patient.
The other day I was researching Maura Murray’s disappearance when I stumbled on an article that flips this case on it’s head.
It was an article featuring quotes from Butch Atwood. Here’s an extract from the article:
“The next thing he knew, Haverhill Police Department Sgt. Cecil Smith was banging on his bus window. Smith asked him if he had called in the accident and seen anyone at the scene. Atwood told Smith he had seen a girl about 20 with dark hair.
Smith said when he arrived, Murray was no longer with her car. In the seven to nine minutes between the time Atwood had left Murray to call for help and the time Smith arrived, Murray had vanished.
“I took a ride around the back roads,” Atwood said. “I was gone about 15 minutes. Then I took a ride to French Pond.”
He even drove about a mile down the road to the store in Swiftwater to check and see if she was there. She wasn’t.
When he returned to the accident scene, a New Hampshire State Police trooper was there.
Atwood said they checked the woods in the immediate area to see if Murray had gone into the forest. There weren’t any tracks.”
So why is this so important? Well it completely contradicts the statements made by John Monaghan on the Oxygen documentary. Here is what John Stated:
First he claims to have been near the Wire Mill in Lisbon NH. This area is approximately a 17 minute drive from Maura’s crash site.
So if John as he stated began driving in the direction of the crash site, he should have arrived no later than 7:47 PM, a minute after Cecil arrived, but clearly by Butch’s statements, this isn’t the case.
Monaghan claimed to have made two stops, one to a dark colored Subaru. He asked the driver if she saw a female walking.
This is another problem since Monaghan claims Cecil Smith called dispatch to advise that a female was missing, yet in reality when Cecil Smith arrived on scene, he called dispatch to have the license plate run. It came back to being owned by Fred Murray of Weymouth MA per an article written in the journal opinion. Here is Cecil’s statement:
“On Feb. 9 at 7:29p.m., a 911 call was placed by residents on Wild Ammonoosuc Road about a motor vehicle accident. At 7:46 p.m., Grafton County Dispatch received a call that Sgt. Cecil Smith arrived at the scene. Smith found the vehicle locked and without a driver. He had dispatch run the license plate for the black 1996 Saturn 4-door. He was informed that the car was owned by Fred Murray of Weymouth, MA. “
Oddly enough, John Monaghan never once comments on this!
John also claimed that he ran into Welma Robinson who was working at the switwater stage stop. She was on her way home from working her shift. Again, in Butch Atwood’s statement he claims to have driven to that store in his bus however there is no mention by Welma of ever seeing Butch Atwood at that store. Also, if Butch Atwood left shortly after Cecil Smith arrived on scene and knocked on his window, then wouldn’t Butch and Monaghan crossed paths?
According to John he claims the caller said that they couldn’t see her anymore, however he doesn’t specify if it’s Butch or if it’s Faith. The problem here is that it’s unlikely that it’s Butch since he had a hard time getting throught, but either way we have the transcripts of the 911 calls and there was no mention of this conversation ever existing. It’s like John made the whole thing up!
Now we know from Butch’s statement that John Monaghan was on scene when he returned from his 15 minute drive. Check out what John claims in the documentary:
“so, when I got to the scene, [00:07:30] I pulled up and Cecil Smith was already there and I saw the car kinda smashed into the tree, on the side of the road. And I rolled down my passenger side window and said, hey, what’s up? And he goes, I don’t know. There’s a box of wine in here and it looks like she’s been fillin up a soda bottle with wine. Um, and so I said OK, uh, do you need me to do anything and he said well, Butch, I believe Butch is the name of this bus driver, who, uh, had said that he had stopped to check on her. Um, his checking up in the Mountain [00:08:00] Lakes area. And, I said, well I’ll, I’ll look around and I’ll, I’ll check some of the back roads”
Clearly this isn’t adding up to Butch’s statement. Butch claimed when he returned that John was on scene, but if John left to search before Butch returned then someone is lying, period. Now we know that by Butch Atwood’s statements that he was searching for Maura in and around the French Pond area. Here’s what John had to say about his “search”:
“I drove, um and if you want the playby-play, I can give you. I reread my reports. So, my path of travel, I’d turned around and I went back towards Swift water. I took a right onto what’s called Porter Road and checked this area called The Big Eddie, it’s a parking lot. In the summertime, a lot of people swim there. And then I took, um what is the name of that road. I took … will you excuse [00:08:30] me for a second?
Can we cut and paste this? So, uh, let’s see. (mumbles). So, I took Plains Road. So I went, from Route 112, I took a right on Porter Road and took a left on Plains Road and drove that to Route 302. So, I was back where I had come from.
And, I drove that into Woodsville and then I drove Swift water Road back into the area of Swift water, [00:09:00] from Woodsville, where Cottage Hospital is. It ends up there. And, then I took a right on French Pond Road and drove out. Because, there’s a whole bunch of side roads – “
Now if anyone does research on John’s movements, they literally make zero sense. Why would John go back on 302, go to Bath and then back to Lisbon only to return to Woodsville about 45 minutes later? This makes zero sense. Wouldn’t it make more sense to search the immediate area? Then he claims he went down to French pond, the exact place that Butch went. How did they not cross paths. The next statement from John flored me. Here’s what he claims:
I left. About an hour later, I think [00:09:30] I was over in Pike at Becket school, helping Haverall talk a suicide kid down off the power lines, so. That was my night.
Wait a minute, we know for a fact that Cecil Smith had been dispatched to this call, so why is John sticking around when it’s not his jurisdiction? This was Cecil’s call and he didn’t need John’s help, why did he claim to have helped with the suicidal teen?
John claimed that after he was at French Pond he went to 116. That intersection intercedes with Lime Kiln Rd, the same road where that teen tried to commit suicide. What was John doing there?
John also said the following:
“I don’t recall him saying anything about that but, it’s possible. I guess it’s possible that there was one. I just didn’t spend enough time. I didn’t get out of the car and look around and that kinda thing to help him out. I don’t know anything about it (laughs). “
Now this contradicts the statement made by Butch Atwood when he states the following:
“When he returned to the accident scene, a New Hampshire State Police trooper was there.
Atwood said they checked the woods in the immediate area to see if Murray had gone into the forest. There weren’t any tracks.”
So according to Atwood, he claims that a State Trooper was there, Monaghan and that they checked the woods in the immediate area however Monaghan said the following in the documentary:
“I didn’t get out of the car and look around and that kinda thing to help him out. I don’t know anything about it (laughs).”
So here he’s contradicting Butch Atwood and he even laughs as he’s saying this during the interview with the oxygen documentary. Not only that, he laughed 6 times in the documentary. How on earth did Art and Maggie miss this?
The other problem here is the timeline. Now Cecil claims he arrived on scene at 7:46 PM. If you consider the time it would have taken him to first check the vehicle, call dispatch and have the plate run, walk over to the Westman’s and then walk to the Atwood’s. It’s a 3 minute walk between the Westman’s and the Atwood’s. So let’s say it took him about 5 minutes to call dispatch and speak to the Westman’s, it would have taken him an additional 3 minutes to walk to the Atwoods and talk to Butch. Let’s say the entire even took approximately 10 minutes (this includes Cecil pulling up on scene, checking the Saturn, Calling dispatch to both advise he arrived on scene and to pull the plates, then go to the the Westmans and Atwoods, we are now at almost 8 PM. However, John Monaghan claimed to have been in Lisbon and as I mentioned earlier it takes 17 minutes from where he was to get to the crash site. He made two stops on the way which would have added anywhere between 2-5 minutes. Let’s say it’s 5 minutes, then it should have taken him 22 minutes to get to the crash site. The call came in at 7:29 PM, which means if John Monaghan went straight to the crash site like he claimed and stopped to speak to the driver of the Subaru and Welma Robinson, then he would have arrived on scene at about 7:51 PM, while Cecil was talking to both the the Westman’s and the Atwood’s.
Now another things I want to discuss is Cecil’s so called travel path that night. Here’s what he said in the Oxygen documentary:
“uh, you’re just gonna add another couple miles to your trip ’cause you can go up past our hospital, which is Swiftwater Road- … and then m-maybe a mile or so up there’s a small road, Sawyer Hill Road, that drops down and connects back up with 112. That the route I took- “
Ok, so what I decided to do is time each location. Now he claims he was on Route 10 and his call prior to Maura’s call was about an hour prior to Maura’s accident. It was at the North Haverhill Agway, so I will give him the benefit of the doubt and use this as the point of reference on Route 10. So between the Agway and Swiftwater Rd is 5 minutes, between Swiftwater and Sawyer Hill Rd is 4 minutes and between Sawyer Hill Rd and the crash site it’s 7 minutes for a total of 16 minutes. Now what’s odd is that if Cecil Smith left the North Haverhill Agway as soon as the call came in, he would have arrived at 7:46 PM on the nose, and that’s what happened, so it’s safe to assume that’s the direction he took. So to put this into perspective, it took Cecil 16 minutes to get to the crash site, John took 17 minutes as well, so they should have arrived at the same time, but then why did Butch Atwood say he saw the state trooper after returning from his 15 minute search of the French Pond area.
Here are some of the claims he made on the Oxygen documentary that are contradictory. Now remember, he called dispatch once on scene and ran the plates of the Saturn and it came back to being owned by Fred Murray. Here is what Cecil said:
“Um, as I approached the scene I, uh, there was a 90 degree corner, um, I came around the corner and there was a black vehicle in my lane, facing me. Um, I could see, uh, tire impressions from the, going from the road to [00:04:00] a group of trees and then back to the vehicle that was at final rest. Um. I activated my take-down lights, they’re like spotlights on your light bar, you can see everything in the area, and there was no one around the vehicle. So, uh, I went first to the first 911 caller, uh, Westman’s house. Said “Where’s the girl?” He said “We don’t know. N-nobody’s been here so we don’t know. We, we haven’t seen anything, [00:04:30] n-nobody leave.”
So he went to the Westman’s first as soon as he arrives on scene ans asks where’s the girl? He just ran the plates and it came back to being owned by Fred Murray, and keep in mind he hasn’t yet spoken to Butch, the only one to see her and be able to tell him it was a female. How did Cecil Smith know that a female was the driver when the vehicle was registered to Fred Murray and Faith and her husband Tim weren’t sure if it was a female or male.
He goes on to describe his visit with Butch Atwood:
“I went and talked to Mr. Atwood. He said “I just talked to her a couple minutes ago. She’s right there at the car.” I said “No, she’s not there.” Uh. He described her for me, he said “It’s a pretty young lady, uh, shoulder-length brown hair. She was the only one I saw.” Uh. I said “Was she, did she look like she was hurt, ’cause the wh-when I made a quick, uh, check of the vehicle both airbags were deployed and there was [00:05:00] a crack on the windshield, driver’s side.” He said “Nah. She looked shaken up but she didn’t look hurt, but I think she’d been drinking because she slurred her speech and, uh, she had to lean on somethin’ while she was standin’ there.” Uh, he said “I asked her if she wanted me to call the police. ‘Nope. No. Please don’t call the police.'” And, uh, as soon as he left there he went and apparently made another 911 call, which, uh, for some reason went through the Hanover [00:05:30] dispatch and took a lot longer to get back to me then, uh, what it normally would’ve taken.”
So there’s a few things that are lies here. First off, Butch Atwood NEVER once described Maura as being a pretty young lady in ANY publication. It also contradicts Butch’s version of events, remember this is what Butch said happened:
“The next thing he knew, Haverhill Police Department Sgt. Cecil Smith was banging on his bus window. Smith asked him if he had called in the accident and seen anyone at the scene. Atwood told Smith he had seen a girl about 20 with dark hair.”
Who’s telling the truth?
Sources:
Article with timeline of events after Maura disappeared
Article discussing Butch Atwood’s statements used in the podcast
Oxygen documentary transcripts Cecil Smith used in podcast
Oxygen documentary transcripts John Monaghan in podcast
~Acdetective~
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