The following is my transcription of the interview with Todd Bogardus from Episode 5 of Oxygen’s “The Disappearance of Maura Murray”. This post contains no additional analysis. (I am currently studying the ground search so this is a very important piece of that analysis).

Interview with Todd Bogardus from Oxygen’s The Disappearance of Maura Murray (Season 1, Episode 5, “Something Bad Happened”) – starts at 12:18

(MF: If Maura was so intoxicated she became disoriented in the woods and died is it possible the multiple search parties missed her?)

(MF: Art and I are meeting with Todd Bogardus at the crash site to find out.  A 24 year veteran with NH Fish and Game he was the supervisor in charge of the official search for Maura which commenced a day and a half after she vanished)

MF: How many search and rescue missions have you done?

TB: I’d say I’ve been participating and managing in the hundreds

MF: how many of those are still outstanding missing people?

TB: there are still 2 that are unfounded

MF: and Maura is one of them?

TB: she is

AR: what was your initial involvement in the search?

TB: … the law enforcement – they had done most of the cursory searching that evening as well as the next day

(MF: Todd’s team was brought in 36 hours after the crash on a clear cold morning)

TB: we had about a foot and a half two feet of snow there was a very thin crust on the top but if you or I were to walk off this road into the snow we would very easily leave a footprint

(MF: because the temperature remained steady and it didn’t snow again the snow on the ground had not changed since the crash – the search party used this to their advantage)

AR: did you have any helicopters?

TB: we did.  we searched the immediate area and we had them tone out and go several miles away from the area.  that helicopter is also equipped with a FLIR unit which is forward looking infrared – so had she been out there and giving off any heat signal we would have been able to pick that up.  after covering the significant area at least 112 and outlying roads over probably 10 miles distance the end result was we had no human foottracks going into the woodlands off of the roadways that were not either cleared or accounted for.  At the end of that day the consensus was she did not leave the roadway

(MF: 10 miles of roadway checked just on that first official search and not a single footprint that could have been Maura’s)

(MF: in case they missed something a second search was organized 10 days after the crash to inspect the woods – this time with three cadaver dogs who were trained specifically to find human remains)

MF: so at that point you could have been looking for a deceased person

TB: yes – those dog teams went into the woodlines and searched (in) different segments on both sides of route 112 within the half mile radius … any time we’re searching we’re looking for people yes but more importantly we’re looking for clues

AR: in clues you mean like clothing or a backpack or a cell phone …

TB: Anything any human object

MF: did you ever find any?

TB: no clues to my knowledge that were directly related to Maura

(MF: Todd’s team went on to conduct 3 more searches one with 7 dog teams.  In the end they searched 12 miles of roadway, 1-2 miles into the woods with dogs and even places up to 50 miles away that they knew Maura loved to visit.  They never found a single thing related to Maura. With her missing for 6 months the official search was called off.)

MF: we’ve heard from people we’ve interviewed that it’s hard to find a body in these woods because they are so thick.  Do you agree with that?

TB: I do agree it’s hard but I can tell you I’m not a big believer in people levitating and going long distances.  So she had to have left the track for us if she went into the woodlands. I’m fairly confident to say she did not go into the woods when she left the area

MF: where do you believe she went?

TB: There’s a NH state police bloodhound that was brought in on our first day of searching.  That dog did run a track off the crash site. He actually did it twice. And each time he ran a track from the crash site it ended at the intersection of Bradley Hill Road which is just within sight of the crash site.  It’s possible she may have been picked up by a vehicle there.