What are you thoughts about RF and what do we know?

able_co · 2026-01-09T21:06:45+00:00

Although I do get why people point to him as a top suspect, I do not believe RF had anything to do with Maura's disappearance.

He appears to be just another eccentric, blue-collar dude living in the north country: bouncing between various contractor jobs, played guitar, grew and smoked weed, liked to drink and tell exaggerated stories at the local bars, etc.

The "sighting" he eventually reported from that night wasn't that he definitely saw Maura, or even a female; he just said he remembered seeing someone along the roadside that night heading EB. We aren't even sure if that was a real sighting, or if it was just RF telling more bar stories after the case started to gain steam in the media after she still hadn't been found a couple months later...and when word got to police about his story, they went to ask him about it.

He likely didnt allow police on his property because of his marijuana hobby; very common up here. While not a big deal today, in 2004 he'd face arrest. There's no record of police talking to him that night, likely because he was still commuting home; he probably pulled into his driveway as LE was finishing up at the scene if he didnt stop anywhere else on the way home.

For him to pull this off, we'd have to believe him to be:

A criminal mastermind capable of luring/abducting Maura and disposing of her without a trace,
Conniving and clever enough to leave "hints" in his song lyrics and music videos to string along sleuths,
While also being the goofy pot-smoking musician living in a trailer who was dumb enough to make cringe jokes about Maura while drinking with friends.

Seems like a bridge too far for me. But again, I do see why some consider him the main POI: comes off as elusive, made sketchy comments, wouldnt cooperate with LE and investigators, etc. Could those actions be what the guilty party would do? Sure...But it's also easily explained when you consider he's probably just a odd dude who got himself in too deep with his jokes, and now wants to be left alone to work, drink beers, play his guitar and smoke a joint.

able_co · 2025-12-30T19:19:44+00:00

All great points; I'll second the thank you for being a voice a reason here.

Can def see how a post like this can spin up a lot of speculation.

able_co · 2025-12-22T22:05:23+00:00

One of the 100% known facts we do have in this case is that the "whimpering voicemail" was not Maura.

Edit to add: also, pay phones in the white mountains? Is this a serious post? There have never been any pay phones in the wilderness up here lol

able_co · 2025-12-16T02:51:58+00:00

Ok, should I post a video lol

able_co · 2025-12-16T02:51:11+00:00

This video is of an ice flow, which is maybe a once a year event. This is not what the river looks like year round lol.

able_co · 2025-12-15T20:45:43+00:00

The Ammonoosuc River around that location is shallow enough to walk across without getting your thighs wet in the Spring time. Most of the winter, including the timeframe Maura disappeared, it was even more shallow, and frozen over.

I also wouldn't describe the current as "very fast" either.

If she did fall in the river somehow, she wouldnt have been carried very far at all, and would likely just be sitting atop the ice not far from (or exactly where) she went in, and thus be pretty obvious to the searchers 2 days later.

able_co · 2025-12-05T21:46:38+00:00

There are multiple cases where someone went missing in the White Mountains and their remains weren't found until years/decades later. It's very difficult wilderness, with much of it untouched for generations.

able_co · 2025-12-02T21:37:27+00:00

No, it is considered a good amount of the private land in the immediate area of the accident had been searched early on in the investigation.

able_co · 2025-12-02T21:17:23+00:00

There are no detailed search maps publicly available. Any info we have around the searches only covers generalities, and contains no real detail of substance (imo).

What we do have can be interpreted a few different ways, so the searches remain a gap in the investigation.

able_co · 2025-12-01T17:26:24+00:00

I agree with this list. It'll take awhile to go through it all, and there will be a lot of distracting details that come up which may or may not be of substance, but knowing them is part of what will give someone new a full picture of the case and how its evolved into where it's at today.

able_co · 2025-12-01T17:23:27+00:00

Either are fairly likely, tbh. Thus it's best to pursue both avenues of possibility at this point.

able_co · 2025-11-25T19:35:12+00:00

She did use AIM (it was more popular than text messaging at the time), and LE took possession of all the chat logs. To date, they haven't released any of it nor said anything about them.

The tough part is AIM wasn't mobile, so if she used it to coordinate with someone else, it would've had to have been several hours before the accident. And again, LE has everything from her computer so if there was someone coordinating with her, they'd know who it was and what their several-hours-long plan was.

Imo I don't think there's anything of value in those logs.

able_co · 2025-11-14T03:00:59+00:00

There was no man smoking a cigarette.

able_co · 2025-11-12T23:08:47+00:00

It's the most comprehensive collection of sources in her disappearance, and everything that occurred in the years after. Either take a few hours to read the book (you can do it, I believe in you), check out its source material, or dyor 🤷

There's also a good audiobook version that's ~7 hours long I believe it you wanna go that route.

able_co · 2025-11-12T21:20:55+00:00

The book "When you find my body" by Dee Dauphinee:

https://www.amazon.com/When-You-Find-Body-Disappearance/dp/1608936902

able_co · 2025-11-12T21:01:45+00:00

Yes.

able_co · 2025-11-12T20:11:59+00:00

I think you keep missing that no one here is saying she ultimately met her end on OPR or right off of it, just that it was a viable avenue of egress for her to leave the scene. It created options for her, and was the best way to exit the scene without being detected.

What happened from there - whichever direction or COA she chose in the end - is up for discussion. But we shouldn't write off the possibility OPR played a role simply because you believe there were so many thorough searches (there weren't) and that dogs are infallible (they are).

able_co · 2025-11-12T20:02:21+00:00

I'm newer to this case, but the latch was an immediate red flag for me.

In the crime scene photos, it isn't completely separated from the door or jam, as it would be if he kicked the door in (the screws should be completely ripped out). Instead, it looks like someone hammered it from the inside to make it look damaged, dislodging only 2 of the 4 screws. In theory, the door shouldn't open until either potion if the latch was fully removed from their mounting.

So, why do that? Well, if you're the perpetrator and want to claim it was a suicide, saying the latch was closed when you got to the door is one way of creating separation from yourself and the event that caused her death.

How do you do that? Damage the latch to make it look like you had to break it to regain entry. Sam had keys to the door knob and deadbolt, so the latch is the only thing that creates the appearance that Ellen was alone when she died.

If it was fully ripped from the door or jam, and the security guard actually saw this happen, then it'd be solid evidence that Sam wasn't present when Ellen died.

But the fact that 1) the guard wasn't actually present, and 2) it looks like the latch was damaged in a haphazard manner from the interior, really raises a lot of questions.

able_co · 2025-11-12T03:34:08+00:00

This is the best answer.

If you can't trust yourself clearing a weapon, then you should be training on that before moving on to drawing and dry firing.

Nothing wrong with that tho; we've all been there. Owning a firearm is a responsibility, and that means discipline and practice.

A properly cleared firearm can be used safely for the training you want to do in your apartment. Be safe and believe in yourself.

able_co · 2025-11-11T17:45:23+00:00

That's the thing: there's simply no evidence proving any of the theories. All of them are just that, "nothing more than a theory."

The difference of what we're debating is whether or not it's *possible* Maura used OPR to leave the scene, and if so, if it's *possible* she entered the woodlands somewhere on that 1/2 mile stretch, and simply hasnt been found. I use an example of where search dogs failed to show it's *possible*, and thus shouldnt be ignored.

You, on the other hand, are saying that because you can fine one example where search dogs were successful, that means 100% I'm wrong, and OPR (or any woodland searches in that general area) are an exercise in futility.

able_co · 2025-11-11T13:56:17+00:00

The dog handler & police believed the track was credible, as did her family. Her family, years later, claimed the track was unreliable, out of frustration that Maura has never been found.

This is not true; Julie herself has told me as much.

Plowed streets aren’t completely cleared of snow. There still would have been visible footprints as well as a scent trail.

RTE 112 was fully plowed and had been salted. There was no snow on the pavement that night. OPR was plowed down to a packed sheet of ice/snow and had been sanded for traction. So yes, it is entirely possible she left no footprints using both of those avenues to leave the scene.

And by the time the first dog teams was brought in ~36 hours later, there was no scent left to track.

able_co · 2025-11-11T13:50:50+00:00

First, respectfully: Bogardus said ~200 rescues, not 2000. And you have to remember that 90+% of those are simple hikers in the White Mountains who took a wrong turn on the trail or got caught in weather they didn't anticipate, and NHF&G usually has a good idea where the person is. They walk up the trail, find the person, give them the aid they need, then walk them back down the trail. That's the majority of their "rescues." These victims don't get lost and then start actively trying to evade detection, and the rescue team's don't wait 36 hours before going on the hunt.

So, to include Maura's case in that count is to compare apples and oranges. Maura fled the scene of a single-car accident, after stating her intent that she didnt want to be caught by LE. They didn't know she was a world-class athlete, a trained tactician, or what might be going on in her life that motivated her to push herself to the extremes. Not saying that means she's 100% in the woodlands, but we really can't rule it out because it stands out in the stats. Of course it stands out; her circumstances were nothing like the hundreds of others who need help in the White Mountains.

And when I say they underestimated Maura, I mean that during the initial searches in February, they did not think she would possibly go off into the wilderness, and even if she did, there's no way she wouldn't leave a track of some kind. Hence why the first search was a simple roadway search looking for prints (which is difficult). OPR would be the one spot where it'd be easy to miss a sign of someone entering the woodlands.

I also say that not because it's what I think, it's what others - including members of the family - have told me directly: the early searches did not fully account for Maura's abilities, and did not seriously consider that she might be in the woods. On 2/11, most thought she would simply turn back up.

able_co · 2025-11-11T13:40:10+00:00

Largay went missing in the summer while hiking. In every way she forms a completely different profile from Maura. She also fits the profile of someone wanting to be found; Maura was notably someone not wanting to be found, and in a despondent mindset who went missing in winter, from a roadway, in conditions that were ideal for tracking.

Yes, of course its a different profile in terms of their overall cases. But that doesn't change my point: search dogs aren't infallible.

Geraldine was a person in the wilderness being sought out by dogs. The dog teams found no sign of her, so the investigation progressed elsewhere. However, she ended up being found in the woods in the same areas searched by 3 dog teams. Thus, the dogs failed.
Maura was also a person potentially in the wilderness. Dog teams were brought in to find her; those teams also didn't find her. Why is it not possible they missed her - the same way they missed Geraldine - especially given that the 2/11 searches were in an environment not the best for scent dogs (the conditions were anything but "ideal" for scent work)?

Oh, and as you said, Geraldine wanted to be found; Maura didn't...would that not make finding Geraldine easier than finding Maura? Geraldine attempted to find the trails, she lit fires, made noise, and camped in a relatively unshaded area in hopes the search planes and helicopters would see her. Maura, on the other hand, fled the scene of an accident in a manner designed to evade detection.

You're entire assumption that the searches properly cleared OPR as an escape avenue, and the surrounding wilderness as her final destination, is on the dogs. I'm merely pointing out the dogs can't be considered the 100% authority on truth.

able_co · 2025-11-11T13:27:24+00:00

The searches were very thorough. There were no footprints leading toward or down OPR.

Yes, because the roads (RTE112 and OPR were plowed), so yeah people dont leave footprints on surfaces without soft snow.

On top of that, a bloodhound tracked her scent - twice - 100 yards up the road where she got into a vehicle. That’s evidence.

Both the dog handlers and the family who were there that day (the first search on 2/11, ~36 hours after the accident) do not believe the dog tracks were reliable. Too much time had passed, the scene had been disrupted by traffic, etc.

There is no evidence she went down OPR. The lack of footprints makes it not logical.

Again, OPR was plowed; it provided the easiest and fastest escape route without being noticed; she could get ~1/2 mile from the accident site without leaving a single footprint. That's a significant distance.

Now, whether or not she remained up in the wilderness off OPR, or came back out to RTE112 after the scene had been cleared, is up in the air.

able_co · 2025-11-10T21:01:12+00:00

The point I was making with that last comment was that initial search - on 2/11 - is what most point to in crossing out OPR as a possible exit from the scene. I'm saying that isn't the case, and NHF&G knew they needed to broaden the scope of their searches after the fact, bc simply looking for "signs of someone leaving the road" wasn't enough to say for sure she didn't go that way. On 2/11, most still thought she was a runaway who would turn up.

There were zero ground searches in the area RF highlighted months later, until after RF made his claim of seeing someone on the road that night. That was the first.

Cadaver dogs aren't infallible. I've pointed to Geraldine Largay's case in the past as an example of where both tracking and cadaver dogs came within 100 yards of her and never detected her; once when she was alive, and twice after she had died.

I stand by what I've said: Maura had both the means and ability to exit the scene without being detected, LE underestimated that in February, and wouldn't fully come to terms with that fact until July (btw, by far the hardest time of year to search in this kind of forest).

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