The crew over at the Mindshock YouTube channel have uncovered something very interesting in an old video interview with Billy Rausch, Maura’s boyfriend at the time of her disappearance. Billy has always asserted that he was on base at Fort Sill, when Maura disappeared on February 9, 2004, and that someone would have missed him if he’d decided to leave that weekend. But apparently it was quite easy to sneak off base without much issue and he had experience doing so. In the interview, Billy takes pride in this fact when discussing how he left Fort Sill without permission to meet up with his future wife in England.
Billy talks about meeting his future wife while a cadet at West Point, at a professor’s wedding in April, 2002. But he never stopped thinking about her, apparently. It was years after Maura’s disappearance that he left the country without permission to visit her in England. In his own words: “I bought a plane ticket, and I just flew to the UK. Without permission, I’ll admit it.” It’s also worth noting that he talks about having a car at Fort Sill that he drove home to his parents’ house, in Ohio.
I talked to you at CrimeCon last month about BR not needing a DA Form 31 to leave base and disappear for a few days. His suspectological profile reveals that he had a history of doing this.