Lawton, OK, 2004
Two weeks ago, I was contacted by a woman who lived in Lawton, Oklahoma, in 2004. She knew Bill a few months after Maura Murray disappeared in 2004. He visited the people who lived in her house, often, as some had ties to Fort Sill, where Bill was working at the time. He was friends with the man she was seeing at the time, who warned her that Bill "had gone off the deep end" and that his girlfriend was missing.One day, Bill found out that her guy was not home for a while and he texted her, asked if he could come over. There was a party at the house that night and so she didn't see the harm. Once he arrived, though, he took her outside and grabbed her and started kissing her. He suggested they go to a hotel. She agreed and went with him in the car.
At a stoplight, she says, Bill reached over and grabbed her by the neck and said, "I'm going to kill you like I killed Maura." She reached over and dug her nails into him. "I'll rip your crotch off," she said.
Immediately, Bill's demeanor changed and he became gentle again. He said he was just joking and they continued on to the hotel. However, at the hotel she decided not to have sex. Later, she says, Bill explained that he was glad she never slept with him because "the only people I care about that I have sex with die." He mentioned how a girl he slept with before Maura had died in an accident (something to do with horse back riding, she believes). I have not been able to track back this incident.
Bill told her he was working on a book, titled "You'll Never Be Happy Until You Realize That You Will Never Be Happy."
She remembers the day he came back to town after his sister died and how he responded by being flippant, "I was home and she shot her face off -- so that's awesome."
Washington D.C., 2011
Please listen to the interview (click YouTube link above) with these two women to hear the story in their own voices. Below is a summary.Two years ago, I learned that Bill lost his job at Ray Group International in 2011 after a woman alleged that he sexually assaulted her in the office one night. This woman says his aggression toward her began before that, when she was going up the escalators on the Metro one morning. Someone jogged up beside her and pushed her down. Luckily fellow commuters caught her before she could tumble to the bottom. But her dressed was ripped. She looked up and saw Bill at the top of the escalators. Later, when he assaulted her, he began by saying that it was him who pushed her down that day as (in her words) the humanity in his eyes went away and he became robotic in the attack.
Last month, another woman contacted me about her encounter with Bill in the fall of 2011. She was working as a bartender at the time. She hooked up with Bill one night. The sex started consensual but quickly progressed to choking. He wanted to hear her gasp for breath. She too described the lack of emotion in his eyes. After it was over, she says he was threatening. "This never happened."
When I asked Bill about the second woman, he said it wasn't true. That he never knew her. When I told her that he denied it, she sent me a picture of the napkin they used to communicate at the bar that night. It contains his cell phone in his hand writing.
What the Phone Bill Tells Us
We can track some of Bill's movements during the search for Maura Murray by looking at his phone bills. At the time, both Maura and Bill's phone bills were consolidated into a single bill that went to Sharon Rausch (Bill's mother) in Marengo, Ohio. After the disappearance, Sharon provided a copy of the bill to Helena Murray. John Smith then obtained these documents. Sharon threatened to sue John (he says) if he ever made them public. Two years ago, he gave them to me.
Maura disappeared on Monday, February 9, 2004.
When Bill arrived in New Hampshire on Wednesday night, his cell phone went on roaming. The roaming charges are at the end of each individual bill and listed by location. This gives us a rough look into where he was traveling as they searched for Maura. Below are those rough locations by date:
Wednesday, Feb. 11
4:55 - Rutland, Vermont
7:02 - Burlington, Vermont
Thursday, Feb 12
10 a.m. - noon - Lebanon, New Hampshire
3:24 - Streaked Mountain, Maine
4 p.m. - 4:20 - Concord, New Hampshire
4:40 - 5:30 - Lebanon, New Hampshire
Friday, Feb 13
10:30 - Rutland, Vermont
10:40 - Burlington, Vermont
Saturday, Feb 14
No calls
Sunday, February 15
4 p.m. - Concord, New Hampshire
4:53 - Lebanon, New Hampshire
Now, during these days Bill was calling Maura's cell phone, each call lasting a minute as it was likely going to voicemail. But that last call, at 4:53 was to Maura's phone, too. And that one lasted from 3 - 4 minutes. And after that call, Bill makes no further calls on his cell phone for four days. There are no further calls from his cell phone until Thursday, February 19.
Was it a really long voicemail?
Is it possible Maura answered?
Where was Bill in the four days he didn't make a single call?
If Maura answered her phone - and she was in the area - her call would have been logged in her "roaming" section of her bill, which would come directly after her in-service calls, but before Bill's section begins. The copies Sharon provided are 25 pages long. One page is missing. It's the page at the end of Maura's bill, Page 9.
Heather
In 2007, Bill's sister Heather committed suicide in the home of their parents in Marengo, Ohio. A gun.When I contacted the medical examiner of Morrow County, William Lee, he told me that in the days leading up to the suicide, Heather had wanted to speak to the police about a crime she knew about. However, her suicide note makes no mention of any crime and the Sheriff's department has no record of her trying to contact them.
Sharon was interviewed by the New Hampshire Union Leader in 2007. Here's what she said about their trip to New Hampshire to search for Maura:
"We arrived Wednesday around 7 p.m. They interviewed Billy. He was a prime suspect. He was totally distraught. I'll never forget the look on his face. He said 'I feel as dirty as Scott Peterson. They think I've got something to do with it.'"Bill refused to be interviewed by the journalists behind the recent Oxygen series.
He has not spoken about Maura in many years and was never a major part of the search for her after 2004.
Note by the Author
These are serious allegations against Bill Rausch, who is now a public figure, Executive Director for Got Your 6, and a married father. It was a very difficult decision to write this piece. Bill has suggested he would commit suicide if more was made public. He has threatened to sue me. And he may, though the women he wronged are no longer afraid to speak up. These women have a voice, too. They believe Bill is capable of violence because they have seen it firsthand. And as someone with a daughter, I'd want others to know what Bill is capable of if I were the next woman's father.If you have any information that could help in solving this case please contact the New Hampshire Cold Case Unit at coldcaseunit@dos.nh.gov
You can also contact me directly at jameswrenner@gmail.com
If you have specific evidence and wish to remain 100% anonymous you can also submit tips through Globaleaks.
***UPDATED***
A 4th Woman
Another woman came forward yesterday. She and Bill had a brief relationship in 2006. "I'm not surprised to hear all this," she said. "He was a pathological liar."He spoke about Maura Murray only once, by saying he had a girlfriend who had "passed" but that they were broken up at the time.
She describes Bill as being extremely pushy, obsessive, arrogant, and controlling. She said even his friends at Fort Sill called him, "Billy Liar."