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Porchlight International for the Missing & Unidentified -> Fields,Maureen February 15,2006
Maureen Fields
Above Images: Fields, circa 2006
Vital Statistics at Time of Disappearance
Missing Since: February 15, 2006 from Pahrump Valley, Nevada
Classification: Missing
Age: 41
Hair Colour: Reddish Brown
Race: White
Gender: Female
Details of Disappearance
Maureen Fields of Pahrump was last seen on February 15.
Her 2004 Hyundai was found abandoned on February 15 in he Chicago Valley, just over the California border in Inyo County.
According to her husband, he last saw his wife on the morning of Feb.
15, the day after Valentine's Day.
They had what he described as a "spat" that morning, moments before she left for work.
For the previous three months, Maureen, 41, had worked as a teller at the Pahrump Valley branch of Wells Fargo Bank however she never arrived at work on February 15th.
Investigating Agency
If you have any information concerning this case, please contact:
Nye County Sheriff's Office
Detective Division
(775) 751-7000
Source Information
ktnv.com
Pahrump Valley Times
Crime Library
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Http://www.pahrumpvalleytimes.com/2008/Oct...s/24706676.html
Oct.
24, 2008
Tale of a disappearance not over
By KATHY O'BRIEN
Special from the Star-Ledger of Newark, N.J.
COURTESY OF STAR-LEDGER OF NEWARK, N.J.
The green Hyundai driven by Maureen Fields was found outside Death Valley Junction, Calif., but Fields wasn't.
COURTESY OF STAR-LEDGER OF NEWARK, N.J.
Maureen and Paul Fields on their wedding day.
Advertisement
PAHRUMP -- It's 2,585 miles from North Arlington, N.J., where Maureen Fields grew up, to Highway 178 near Death Valley, where her little green Hyundai was found on a February morning in 2006, with no sign of her in it.
The keys were in the ignition, the driver's seat was reclined, religious pamphlets were fanned out next to a purse containing her wallet and credit cards.
Slippers and eyeglasses lay under the gas pedal.
There was a knotted pair of pantyhose, and a bottle of 30 tranquilizers lay empty.
Police assumed she was a suicide who had left her home in nearby Pahrump, driven to the desert, then wandered away to die.
They combed the sagebrush for days -- used dogs, horses, helicopters, ATVs and a plane -- but never discovered a body.
That was 2-1/2 years ago, and the pretty 41-year-old bank teller still has not been found.
She left behind a husband, Paul, whom she met in Bloomfield;
Grieving parents and siblings in Randolph Township and North Arlington;
And a frustrated sheriff's department in Nevada -- run by a retired Jersey City cop -- determined to avenge her.
She also left behind a warning.
To nearly everyone she knew, she issued some version of this plea: "If I ever disappear, tell the police Paul did it."
Paul Fields says he would never harm his wife.
He says she probably skipped town after staging a mock suicide.
"Why would I do all what I done for her, and try to hurt her?" he said.
"What am I, stupid or something?"
Under police suspicion almost from the start, Paul says he would welcome his arrest.
"I'm in limbo, as far as proving my innocence, until they charge me," he said.
No charges have been brought and none seem imminent.
Yet the case remains a curious standoff in the desert.
Police follow Paul around town each year on the anniversary of Maureen's disappearance to show they still believe he killed his wife.
When Paul and Maureen Fields arrived in Pahrump in 2004, among the items they unpacked was their troubled marriage.
They had heard about the town a decade earlier from a Vegas waitress, and purchased a small lot.
Having pulled up stakes from Florida, where they had lived after their 1991 wedding, they had a new plan: Maureen could work at a bank, and Paul, a self-made man, could semi-retire from his used-car business while he recovered from lung-cancer surgery.
Maureen's best friend in Florida, Paula Cammarata, had tried to talk her out of the move to Pahrump.
She worried about Maureen being isolated in a desert town with no friends and with a husband who could be jealous and tyrannical.
Paula remembers a cruise she and her husband took with them a few years ago.
She recalls Paul taunting Maureen after watching her chat briefly with the chef at the buffet's carving station.
When she returned to their table, Paul said: "Are you going to have an affair with him?
Did you give him your number?"
"He was delusional.
He would actually accuse her of having an affair.
He would time her and say, 'You were in that buffet line for 12 minutes,'" Paula said.
Paul Fields says he wasn't a jealous man, but rather one who simply ran interference for his wife when men mistook her friendly nature for flirtation.
Paula said Paul was suspicious of any time Maureen spent out of his sight.
If Maureen stopped by Paula's after work, Paul would call 10 minutes after she arrived to make sure she was really there.
"It got so bad that she'd say, 'He's so jealous that one day he's going to kill me,'" Paula said.
"She'd seen him go berserk over the littlest thing."
He says he called only one time, because his wife was bringing home a lot of cash for a car auction.
"From that day on, that broad hated my guts," he said of Paula.
Maureen had always fallen for older guys, and Paul fit that pattern.
He was 34 when they met;
She was just 19. "She said -- she actually told me -- she felt like he was a father figure," says Kathleen Errico, her sister.
A strapping 6-foot-3 redhead back then -- his nickname remains "Big Red" -- Paul supported himself once he left Bloomfield High School after the 10th grade.
He scrounged a living running a small limousine company, a gas station and a rooming house.
He eventually parlayed that into a collection of low-end real estate investments.
He also fixed and sold used cars.
Paul had been married for five years in the early 1970s, and had two daughters.
His first wife, Linda, said that once they separated, she often would retaliate for missed child-support payments by denying him visits with their daughters.
She'd soon find her windshield smashed or her tires slashed.
One morning she went to start her car and discovered the entire ignition cylinder had been pulled.
Paul denies he did anything at all to her car.
But he said he did slash the tires of the man who became Linda's second husband -- 15 times -- because he thought the man was coming between him and child visitation.
"His tires, not hers," Paul said.
Linda said Paul gave her lots of trouble but wasn't a wife-beater.
"One time he gave me a black eye ...
But I may have choked him," she said.
"I can't stand a man who cheats on his wife." She asked not to be identified by her married name, for fear Paul could find her.
Paul confirmed he was unfaithful, saying that after a fight over a chicken pot pie -- it ended up on the ceiling -- he followed his wife's taunt to find someone else to cook for him.
Their two grown daughters are estranged from their father, one saying if he showed up at her New Jersey home, she'd call 911.
He has never met his grandchildren.
After he married Maureen, her friends and family said he could be quite generous when spending money on her but was reluctant to let her do the spending.
She had to turn over her paycheck to him, her friend Paula said.
Paul says he never received Maureen's paycheck;
On the contrary, she had it direct deposited.
He said he had no control over her money;
In fact, early in their marriage she'd had to declare bankruptcy because of credit card debt.
As Maureen contemplated a Nevada move, Paula recalls, "I told her, 'It's too far away.
You'll have no support.
I don't think it's a good idea.'"
At some point Maureen must have become reluctant to go, Paula said, because one day Paula picked up the phone to hear Paul's voice:
"Ha, ha, ha," he announced without identifying himself.
"I won. We're going to Pahrump."
Maureen, older sister Kathleen and younger brother Jimmy were raised in North Arlington by Jim and Barbara Fitzgerald.
Dad was a Newark vice cop who left the force to work for the John Birch Society;
Mom was a homemaker.
They divorced when Maureen was 12;
Her father remarried and moved to Randolph.
She was a 1983 graduate of North Arlington High School.
College wasn't in the cards, but she had a good head for figures and quickly found work as a bank teller.
She was flat-out pretty -- the kind of woman who looks good in her driver's license photo -- but didn't seem to believe it.
She was a compulsive consumer of beauty products.
She never left the house without makeup;
Never wore jeans, shorts, or T-shirts in public.
She saw flaws where there were none.
She had a nose job and liposuction.
She had so many health concerns -- arthritis, multiple surgeries and joint problems -- that police suspect a touch of hypochondria.
She couldn't have children but claimed it didn't bother her.
She was one of those crazy dog people and didn't care who knew it.
Her pet was an abandoned pit bull that she had tamed and named Wolfie.
She had birthday parties for Wolfie;
Play dates for him, too.
She'd mail her mother photos of "Mommy's Wolfie" with a note saying, "I'm sending you a picture of your grandson."
At work, she was sweet and friendly, the kind of co-worker who would bring in doughnuts to share.
'IF I DISAPPEAR'
Paul and Maureen bought a mobile home in Pahrump and quickly got their lot rezoned so Paul could sell cars.
However, the change in scenery proved to be no cure for their marital problems, according to her sister, who visited a few months after their arrival.
Kathleen said Maureen would give her a pretend "tour" of their garage, then cry.
"She'd say, 'I can't take him no more.
He's not the person he was when I married him.'"
And there was a new source of friction in the marriage: gambling.
Maureen had quickly developed a taste for -- even an addiction to -- video poker.
Yet the couple persisted in dining nearly every night at the local casino, Terrible's Town.
(That's pretty common in Pahrump, where the all-you-can-eat buffet is cheaper than cooking.)
The following September, her family was pleasantly surprised to learn she would be visiting New Jersey -- alone.
She spent the whole week searching through the phone book to find people to visit -- relatives, old school friends.
She looked up Paul's brother and even one of his estranged daughters.
To nearly everyone she encountered, she repeated her warning about Paul.
It was such an unsettling statement, people didn't know how to react.
Her brother says he asked whether Paul was hitting her;
She said no. Paul's own brother found it especially eerie, given that Maureen quickly recovered her composure and stayed for dinner.
She told Kathleen she planned to see a divorce lawyer.
"He's already threatened to kill me, and I think he's going to go through with it," Kathleen said Maureen told her.
Yet she insisted she had to return to Pahrump -- her dog and her new job were there.
She also liked Pahrump.
She wanted to leave Paul but stay there.
She hoped Nevada's community-property divorce laws would entitle her to a portion of the properties -- now worth at least a half-million dollars -- they owned.
Her friend Paula tried to explain the danger in that.
"I said: 'You can't have it that way.
You have to make a move and get out.
It has to be a clean break, and you have to have protection.'"
LAST SEEN
Valentine's Day of 2006, a Tuesday, was the last time police believe Maureen was seen alive.
One of her colleagues at the Wells Fargo bank asked if she were going to have a good Valentine's Day.
"No," she said.
By all accounts she was a basket case that day.
She poured out her fears to co-workers and customers alike -- the pretty, weepy teller making for an almost irresistible damsel in distress.
Bank employees later told police of a gripping encounter between Maureen and a woman from her church.
Maureen reached across the counter and grabbed the woman's arm with both hands.
"Paul's not the man everyone thinks he is," she said.
"Something's going to happen."
When she failed to arrive to work at 8:30 a.m.
Wednesday, bank employees called her home after just 20 minutes.
No one answered, so they reached Paul on his cell.
He said she had left for work.
Then he headed almost immediately to the police station.
Nye County's sheriff is Tony DeMeo, a retired Jersey City cop.
He moved to Nevada to be near his aging parents, eventually finding himself elected sheriff of 18,000 square miles of Mojave Desert.
It's a big change.
He deals with cattle rustling, water rights, nuclear test-site protesters, casinos and whorehouses.
He jokes, "I used to arrest prostitutes;
Now I license them." He misses authentic pizza and good restaurants but enjoys a housing market that lets him own five acres, a goat and a sheep.
The lead detective in the case would be Lt.
Ed Howard, a 28-year veteran of law enforcement.
No backwater cop, he's the president of the state's Fraternal Order of Police.
He notices subtleties, like the way Paul addressed his Valentine's Day card to Maureen: "WIFE," in big capital letters.
"Kind of caveman-y," Howard said.
When it comes to questioning suspects, DeMeo says of Howard, "He gets people to confess."
Howard's motto: "The truth never changes."
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Http://z13.invisionfree.com/PorchlightUSA/...pic=15064&st=0&
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Sheriff's office believes Fields is dead
By Cathy O'Brien
Special from the Star-Ledger of Newark, N.J.
Advertisement
(This is the final part of a three-part series.)
Back in New Jersey, Maureen's family initially believed Paul's tales of suicide or abandonment.
After all, they knew she had been unhappy.
"In the beginning, we honestly did feel for Paul," said Kathleen.
"I almost felt sorry for the guy." They joined him in worry -- while becoming increasingly suspicious.
About four months later, frustrated by the lack of answers, Maureen's sister and father traveled to Pahrump.
They talked with police, her co-workers and Paul.
Kathleen recalls her father confronting Paul, using curse words she'd never heard come out of his month.
Paul coolly leaned back in his recliner and said, "Jim, I swear I didn't do anything to her."
Expecting an arrest at any moment, Jim Fitzgerald wanted to keep Paul from selling the couple's properties to fund his defense.
The father went to court to be appointed Maureen's guardian.
He faced an uphill battle.
The law favors a husband over a father, said Shawn Morris, the lawyer he hired.
At the hearing, Morris said, he told the judge Paul was being investigated for Maureen's murder.
"The courtroom went silent.
It went totally silent," the lawyer recalled.
Paul proclaimed his innocence.
He also complained authorities had questioned him 11 times, although they had formally interviewed him only twice.
That's all the judge needed to hear, Morris said.
Maureen's father was named guardian.
It was only temporary, however.
Paul says the judge erred, and he was able to wrest guardianship away from Maureen's father this past March.
The way he did it was to change Maureen's legal status to that of missing person.
But that meant he couldn't divorce her -- a de facto victory for Maureen's father.
"I'm not after his money," says Jim Fitzgerald, 73.
"I'm after him."
Nevada, land of all-night wedding chapels and quickie divorces, allows a missing person to be declared dead after only three years.
In February, Paul can petition to remove Maureen's name from the couple's properties.
He can then sell them and leave Pahrump.
Open investigation
The disappearance of Maureen Erin Fitzgerald Fields is not a cold case but cooling every day.
Police feel they have enough reason to arrest Paul Fields and charge him with the death of his wife.
"We sent one case to the district attorney's office, and that is Paul Fields," said Sheriff Tony DeMeo.
But District Attorney Bob Beckett has told Maureen's family he doesn't think there is sufficient evidence at this stage to charge Paul.
There is no statute of limitations for murder, so authorities can take their time before charging a suspect.
A defendant who is acquitted can never be tried again, even if more evidence -- perhaps even a body -- were found.
"I would love to get to the bottom of it," said Beckett, who declined to discuss the specifics of the case.
"I remember talking to the lady at the bank.
She was a nice person."
The police investigation remains open.
Paul lives quietly, supporting himself with real-estate and credit cards.
He is a member of Choice Hills Baptist Church, bumping up his attendance to twice a week after Maureen vanished.
Pastor Carl England, along with his wife, Angie, are in Paul's camp, seeing Maureen as a woman who probably ran off.
They don't pay much attention to what the pastor calls "all the scuttlebutt."
Haunting uncertainty
Police believe Maureen is dead.
Paul -- who they believe is the only person benefiting from her death -- is their only suspect.
They doubt she left with a lover;
No one else went missing at the same time.
They find it unlikely that kidnappers took her and left her wallet and car.
Pahrump's battered-women's shelter will help a woman leave town, but Director Clelia Pinza Garrity said they always get word to authorities the woman is safe.
Maureen's loved ones say she wasn't savvy enough to create another identity for herself to get away from Paul.
Since her fingerprints are on file, she'd have been unable to get work at another bank.
And police return to these bedrock beliefs: She wouldn't have left her dog.
And a woman so concerned about the feelings of others that she brought doughnuts to work would surely have contacted her heartbroken mother.
They feel they've caught Paul in many lies.
But even if he is lying, does that make him a murderer?
Howard's rejoinder: "Then what happened to his wife?"
That uncertainty haunts Maureen's friends and family.
"I just want to know before I die that my friend got a decent burial -- because she's out there in the desert being eaten by animals and snakes," said her friend Paula.
If police suspicions are correct, she is a long, long way from the cozy North Arlington, N.J., neighborhood where she grew up.
She's about 2,585 miles from home, her desert resting place one of silent, barren beauty.
Several years ago she received a surgical jaw implant made of titanium, complete with a serial number.
If someday it emerges amidst the sagebrush, they'll know they've found her.
In the desert, titanium lasts forever.
(Reporter O'Brien may be contacted at kobrien@starledger.com.)
http://www.pahrumpvalleytimes.com/2008/Nov...s/25068885.html
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Http://www.pahrumpvalleytimes.com/2008/Oct...s/24840510.html
Oct.
31, 2008
Tale of Fields' disappearance continues
By KATHY O'BRIEN
SPECIAL FROM THE STAR-LEDGER OF NEWARK, N.J.
Advertisement
(Part two of a series.)
When Paul was first interviewed by authorities, he said he tried to report Maureen missing that Wednesday morning but was rebuffed by them because she hadn't been gone 24 hours.
According to Howard, the deputy said Paul merely asked if there were any accidents involving a green Hyundai, then left.
It wasn't until the next morning, Thursday, that hikers came upon the car and called police.
Maureen's car sat 118 feet off the main highway between Pahrump and Death Valley.
It was about 12 miles west of town, just across the California state line.
Its chassis was stuck on a small, wavy berm of rocky sand.
Because of the initial assumption of a suicide, California authorities failed to secure the site.
They eventually found a second set of vehicle tracks but couldn't determine if the tracks had been there before authorities showed up.
About the time the Hyundai was found, Paul arrived at the sheriff's department yet again to report Maureen missing.
In this first interview, police say, he told them he and Maureen had shared breakfast Wednesday morning.
They'd had a "little spat" about sex the night before but patched things up before morning.
As days passed and they failed to find a body, the police switched gears.
Now they considered whether Maureen might have staged a mock suicide -- despite the absence of a suicide note -- and was safe somewhere else.
They also started to look more closely at Paul, whose behavior they already had found odd.
"Running to the police when your wife's been missing 20 minutes is not normal behavior," Howard said.
"People don't do that.
You might be concerned -- legitimately -- but you don't run to the police."
They asked him back for more questioning.
Det. Joe Close recalls when Paul arrived, he handed his keys and wallet to a friend, apparently expecting to be detained.
"That was a very, very telling signal," Close said.
Paul said the only reason he did that was because he doesn't trust cops with his valuables.
"I had a house and a lot of money and I didn't want to have cops get any of it," he said.
In this second interview, according to Howard, Paul came up with a different account of that Wednesday morning after he was asked what Maureen was wearing.
He again said he had been sitting in his recliner, watching TV that Tuesday night, when Maureen, naked under her robe, approached him for sex.
He told police his response was: "No, you're tired.
Go to bed. We'll do it in the morning."
"That's somewhat difficult to believe, just that part," says Howard.
She got mad and stormed off, Paul told the police.
But in this second version, he said the fight spilled over into the next morning.
She was nearly out the door when he awoke, so that's why he didn't know what she was wearing.
Paul now denies this account.
"I never said no such thing," he said.
Howard says the fact that Paul switched stories so quickly has always bothered him: "If your spouse went missing, your story is always going to be the same because that's what happened.
And the truth never changes."
As Howard tried to nail down more details, Paul became agitated, Howard said.
"You're trying to trick me," Paul told him.
"This conversation's over."
The session had lasted just 38 minutes.
It was the last time Paul underwent questioning.
He agreed to take a lie-detector test but eventually backed out.
He says his attorney advised against it, questioning its reliability.
He allowed police to search his house and grounds several times.
In the meantime, police checked to see if Maureen had used her credit cards or obtained duplicates of her driver's license or passport in advance.
She hadn't.
Always in the background, guiding their inquiries, was this certainty:
"Everyone we interviewed -- and I mean everyone -- said she wouldn't have left without the dog," said Howard.
Wolfie remained at home.
Still, police had no body, no witnesses, and nothing linking Paul or anyone else to any foul play.
Paul Fields has no criminal record.
Under Nevada law, a spouse can claim abandonment after 90 days.
Shortly after the 90-day wait, Paul went to court to get Maureen's name taken off the three tracts of land they jointly owned.
Mounting a defense
At 59, Paul is now a burly man with a high, husky voice and a receding hairline.
His Jersey accent is intact: He pronounces Newark "Nerk." He agreed to an interview in his home, a double-wide mobile with used cars displayed fetchingly out front.
A friend sat in on it.
For more than two hours, he mounted a robust defense against his accusers.
He veered between angry and cheerfully conversational, at one point nonchalantly cleaning his fingernails with a steak knife.
He began with a counterattack on his in-laws: Maureen's father is interested only in money, her brother "ain't worth two cents" and her sister is a mooch.
The worst he could say about Maureen's mother was she's Polish and doesn't want anyone to know.
He compared local law enforcement to Mickey Mouse and the Three Stooges: "They don't solve crimes in this town unless they walk through the front door."
He claimed they have failed to pursue two witnesses who can place Maureen alive on that Wednesday morning.
That would counter the police theory that whatever befell Maureen took place the night before.
The first is a cashier at Coyote Corner, a roadside deli where Maureen usually stopped to get a cup of tea on her way to work.
Paul said the cashier recalled Maureen did come in that morning.
But police say when they interviewed the elderly woman, she wasn't so sure.
She told them, "Yeah, I think she did ...
But maybe she didn't."
The second is a truck driver who told police Maureen's car was not in the desert when he brought a delivery to Pahrump at 7 a.m.
Wednesday. Police have interviewed him but don't give much weight to his observation.
As for Maureen's whereabouts, Paul tells people she skipped town after drawing two $7,000 cash advances from credit cards and taking $2,000 from the couple's joint account.
"That is not even remotely true," says Howard.
"We pulled the records on the credit cards, and that is not true." Maureen did take a $4,000 cash advance off one card but used it to pay off another card, Howard says.
Police learned those credit-card bills had arrived about two weeks earlier, prompting Paul to ban his wife from Terrible's casino in an attempt to rein in her gambling.
Paul also suggested his wife may have become addicted to prescription pain medicine: "She was eating it like candy."
In hindsight, Maureen's family now worries that Paul may have beaten his wife.
He countered by pointing out that surely one of her many doctors would have noticed bruises.
"I never touched my wife in a wrong way," he said.
"I had no reason to."
Police say they were never called to the house for a domestic dispute, and that no restraining order had ever been issued.
And Paul said that if Maureen were to return, he'd take her back.
"When you've been with somebody a long time and you have such feelings for somebody, it's not something you can just say, 'Next,'" he said.
"I don't want a girlfriend.
I want my wife. I had a beautiful wife."
He has saved and framed the collar and tags from Wolfie, who died about a year after Maureen went missing.
(He has offered at least three different versions of Wolfie's death -- one to police, another to Paula Cammarata, and a third to The Star-Ledger.)
He closed the interview with this request: 'Please tell the truth." Then he got into Maureen's car, with the DGSRGR8 license plate he bought for her, and headed to the all-you-can-eat buffet.
(Reporter O'Brien may be contacted at kobrien@starledger.com.
The final part of this three-part series will appear next Friday.)
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Http://www.nj.com/news/ledger/jersey/index...5290.xml&coll=1
New twist develops in disappearance of a Jersey native
Monday, March 30, 2009
BY KATHLEEN O'BRIEN
Star-Ledger Staff
It has been more than three years since Maureen Fields, a bank teller born and raised in New Jersey, vanished from her home in rural Nevada.
Paul Fields, her husband, has been and remains the only suspect in her disappearance, according to law enforcement.
Advertisement
The mystery entered a new phase last week when Fields asked a court to have his wife declared dead.
If his petition is granted, he can inherit her assets and remove her name from the couple's three parcels of land.
On the day after she failed to show up for work three years ago, Maureen Fields' empty car was found across the California state line from Pahrump, Nev., stuck in the desert off a road to Death Valley.
The keys were still in the ignition, while a blanket stained with a small amount of blood and vomit lay on the ground.
That was in February 2006.
No one has seen or heard from her since, nor has her body been found.
Nye County Sheriff's Office investigators believe she is dead and have recommended Fields be charged with her murder.
He is their only suspect.
However, the district attorney has told Maureen Fields' family in New Jersey there is not yet enough evidence to warrant an arrest.
Fields says he never harmed his wife and has no idea what happened to her.
He said he has been forced to file his petition because his bid to divorce his wife three months after she vanished was thwarted by his father-in-law.
"I wanted to divorce my wife.
I didn't want her declared dead," the former New Jersey man said in an interview Friday.
"I have no other recourse.
I have to be able to move forward.
I'm being punished for being married -- that's what it comes down to."
A hearing is scheduled for July 6.
With his filing, Fields -- who until recently speculated his wife could be alive after skipping town -- now joins her friends and relatives in believing Maureen Fields is dead.
"It's a gut feeling," he said.
"I don't know for positive one way or the other."
Jim Fitzgerald, the missing woman's father, said Fields' court filing was motivated by greed.
"This is the first time he's admitted she's dead," Fitzgerald said.
"On the surface, it would seem to be a contradiction, but now it's a convenience."
Fields' attorney offered the theory that something bad had befallen Maureen Fields, citing the reputation of both Las Vegas and Pahrump for a certain level of lawlessness.
The rural town is an hour west of Las Vegas.
"In this Godforsaken state, there are predators who look for any opportunity to strike," said Harold Kuehn, the attorney.
Left behind were her wallet, glasses, contacts, shoes and prescription medicine -- as well as her beloved pit bull, Wolfie.
Maureen Fields was 41 at the time of her disappearance.
Fields, 59, attracted the attention of police almost immediately, in part because his wife instructed relatives and friends that if she ever disappeared, they should tell police "Paul did it." Fields contends she may have been setting him up for a staged disappearance.
The couple had been fighting over her gambling and his jealousy, and she had talked of seeing a divorce lawyer, police said.
The case of the former North Arlington woman was chronicled in The Star-Ledger last fall.
After that article, police began a systematic review of her disappearance as if it were a classic "cold case." Police said in the process they learned of the existence of more photographs of the desert setting where her car was found.
Those photos reportedly show a second set of tire tracks.
A Nevada detective also traveled earlier this month to Florida, where the couple lived before moving out West, to re-interview their acquaintances.
He also took a DNA sample from one of them.
Fields' petition asks to be named his wife's executor, giving him sole control over three tracts of land in Pahrump now jointly owned;
A bank account; her IRA;
Two stock-trading accounts;
And $94,000 in proceeds from Florida property.
The petition is risky, said Jeff Segal, a veteran Las Vegas defense attorney.
Should Fields ever be charged with murder, prosecutors could use his testimony at the July hearing to help prove a key element of their case: that Maureen Fields is indeed dead.
"He's taking a huge chance," Segal said.
"If I were his criminal attorney, I'd say this was a very dangerous situation for him."
Fields said he is simply doing what the law requires at this stage.
He said even if his wife is legally declared dead in July, he will ask his church congregation to continue to pray for her.
Kathleen O'Brien may be reached at (973) 392-1721 or kobrien@starledger.com.
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Http://www.nj.com/news/ledger/index.ssf?/b...1530.xml&coll=1
A mystery in the desert
Maureen Fields moved to Nevada with a willful husband and a dreadful premonition.
Two questions now remain: Was she killed and, if so, where's the body?
Sunday, October 19, 2008
BY KATHLEEN O'BRIEN
Star-Ledger Staff
PAHRUMP, Nev.
-- It's 2,585 miles from North Arlington, where Maureen Fields grew up, to Highway 178 near Death Valley, where her little green Hyundai was found on a February morning in 2006, with no sign of her in it.
The keys were in the ignition, the driver's seat was reclined, religious pamphlets were fanned out next to a purse containing her wallet and credit cards.
Slippers and eyeglasses lay under the gas pedal.
There was a knotted pair of pantyhose, and a bottle of 30 tranquilizers lay empty.
Police assumed she was a suicide who had left her home in nearby Pahrump, driven to the desert, then wandered away to die.
They combed the sagebrush for days -- used dogs, horses, helicopters, ATVs and a plane -- but never discovered a body.
When forensic reports came back, they pointed to a more sinister end: A blanket on the ground was stained with a silver-dollar-size spot of her blood and some vomit.
And the pill bottle had no fingerprints.
That was 2 1/2 years ago, and the pretty 41-year-old bank teller still has not been found.
She left behind a husband, Paul, whom she met in Bloomfield;
Grieving parents and siblings in Randolph Township and North Arlington;
And a frustrated sheriff's department in Nevada -- run by a retired Jersey City cop -- determined to avenge her.
She also left behind a warning.
To nearly everyone she knew, she issued some version of this plea: "If I ever disappear, tell the police Paul did it."
Paul Fields says he would never harm his wife.
He says she probably skipped town after staging a mock suicide.
"Why would I do all what I done for her, and try to hurt her?" he said.
"What am I, stupid or something?"
Under police suspicion from almost the start, Paul says he would welcome his arrest.
"I'm in limbo, as far as proving my innocence, until they charge me," he said.
No charges have been brought and none seem imminent.
Yet the case remains a curious standoff in the desert.
Police follow Paul around town each year on the anniversary of Maureen's disappearance to show they still believe he killed his wife....
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Http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2009/07/n...d_in_nevad.html
N.J.
Woman who vanished in Nevada three years ago officially declared dead
by Kathleen O'Brien/The Star-Ledger
Monday July 06, 2009, 6:00 PM
In a near-empty Nevada courtroom today, Maureen Fitzgerald Fields, the North Arlington native who vanished in the desert outside her rural home three years ago, was officially declared dead.
Although neither she nor her body has ever been found, a Nevada judge granted a petition that she be declared dead and named her husband, Paul Fields, executor of her estate.
The move came at the request of Fields, whom police have identified as a suspect in her death.
The Nye County Sheriff's Office in Nevada has recommended he be charged, but the District Attorney has indicated there is insufficient evidence for an arrest.
Fields, also from New Jersey, insists he is blameless in her disappearance.
Under Nevada law, the court simply needs testimony that a missing person has failed to contact those most likely to hear from her - in this case, her husband.
Fields included that in his petition and did not speak in court today
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N.J. woman who vanished in Nevada three years ago officially declared dead
by Kathleen O'Brien/The Star-Ledger
Monday July 06, 2009, 6:00 PM
In a near-empty Nevada courtroom today, Maureen Fitzgerald Fields, the North Arlington native who vanished in the desert outside her rural home three years ago, was officially declared dead.
Although neither she nor her body has ever been found, a Nevada judge granted a petition that she be declared dead and named her husband, Paul Fields, executor of her estate.
Photo provided by the Nye County Sheriff's DepartmentA blanket with a small stain of Maureen Fitzgerald Fields' blood was found next to her car in a ditch in Nevada three years ago.
Fields was officially declared dead today.
The move came at the request of Fields, whom police have identified as a suspect in her death.
The Nye County Sheriff's Office in Nevada has recommended he be charged, but the District Attorney has indicated there is insufficient evidence for an arrest.
Fields, also from New Jersey, insists he is blameless in her disappearance.
Under Nevada law, the court simply needs testimony that a missing person has failed to contact those most likely to hear from her - in this case, her husband.
Fields included that in his petition and did not speak in court today.
Previous Star-Ledger coverage:
A Mystery in the Nevada desert
A Mystery in the Desert
In the aftermath of his wife's disappearance, Fields offered several theories as to her fate: that she'd skipped town with a lover, that she'd become despondent over health problems or an addiction to pain medication, or that she was a victim of a random crime.
Countering those theories were reports that his wife had instructed numerous people that if she ever disappeared, they were to "tell police Paul did it." She'd also told them she was considering a divorce.
In asking the court to declare her dead, Fields joined his wife's friends and relatives in their assumption that she had died in 2006.
District Court Judge Robert Lane noted that consensus in granting Fields' petition.
"No one is here in opposition, so it's perfunctory," he said.
Jason Bean/For The Star-LedgerPaul Fields, left, speaking today to his lawyer Harold Kuehn at a hearing in Pahrump, Nev.
The hearing was held in Pahrump, Nev., a rural town an hour west of Las Vegas, where the couple had moved before her disappearance.
It was sparsely attended and over in a matter of minutes.
Jim Fitzgerald, of Randolph, Maureen's father, recently traveled to Pahrump to get an update on the investigation, but the district attorney declined to meet with him.
"There's always hope that things will change, but I'm not overly optimistic at this point," Fitzgerald said today when told of the hearing's outcome.
"You'd hope either this district attorney or a new one would wake up and take a closer look and realize something terrible happened to this woman."
The court set the date of her death as Feb.
15, 2006 - the first day she failed to show up to her bank teller's job.
Her husband told police he talked to his wife briefly that morning before she left for work.
However, authorities say the last time anyone else saw her alive was in the bank's video footage from the previous afternoon.
Her car was found Feb.
16, stuck in a shallow desert wash off the road from Pahrump to Death Valley, Cal.
The keys were still in the ignition, and her purse, money, credit cards, slippers, eyeglasses and medication were in it.
A selection of religious pamphlets were fanned out, seemingly in display, along with an empty bottle of Xanax anti-anxiety pills, which led police to conclude they'd encountered a suicide.
But when a several-day search of the surrounding desert failed to turn up a body, they moved to consider foul play.
Those suspicions were confirmed when lab reports revealed a blanket found next to the car was stained with a spot of her blood on it, and the pill bottle had no fingerprints on it.
(Photo courtesy of Jim Fitzgerald, Maureen's fatherMaureen Fields was devoted to her pit bull, Wolfie, still at home when she disappeared.
Authorities were skeptical she'd run off because she never used her credit cards or health insurance, never refilled any prescriptions, and never contacted any friends or family.
In addition, her beloved pit bull remained at home when she went missing.
Today's court ruling does not change the status of the police investigation, said Tony DeMeo, the retired Jersey City police officer who was elected Nye County Sheriff after moving to Pahrump.
The case remains open, and Fields is the department's only suspect, he said today.
Maureen Fields was 41 at the date set by the court for her death.
She is survived by Fitzgerald, her father;
Her mother, Barbara Fitzgerald of North Arlington;
A sister, Kathleen Errico, of North Arlington;
A brother, James J.
Fitzgerald, of North Arlington;
Three nephews and two nieces.
http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2009/07/n...d_in_nevad.html
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Http://www.cnn.com/2009/CRIME/07/29/mauree...case/index.html
DNA twist to woman's desert disappearanceStory Highlights
Maureen Fields of southern Nevada was 41 when she went missing in 2006
Her abandoned car, with keys, purse and pill bottles, was found off a desert highway
Presumed dead, there's been no sign of her body and no evidence pointing to a killer
Unknown male's DNA, however, was recently discovered and may hold new clues
updated 3 hours, 27 minutes agoNext Article in Crime ยป
By Philip Rosenbaum
Nancy Grace Producer
NEW YORK (CNN) -- Off a desert highway, about 15 miles from her home in the southern tip of Nevada, the mystery of Maureen Fields' disappearance began with the discovery of her abandoned car.
The body of Maureen Fields, seen here in June 2005, hasn't been found since she went missing in 2006.
1 of 2 Investigators found the 41-year-old woman's 2004 green Hyundai just across the California border on February 16, 2006.
It was one day after her husband, Paul Fields, said he last saw her.
Investigators say they discovered Fields' purse and wallet, the keys in the ignition and a fully reclined driver's seat.
There were slippers and eyeglasses beneath the gas pedal, religious pamphlets, a knotted pair of pantyhose as well as three bottles of prescription tranquilizers and pain killers.
A small spot of her blood and vomit stained a blanket strewn across the ground beside the car.
But Fields, who'd been working as a Wells Fargo bank teller in the small town of Pahrump, Nevada, has never been found.
"Just looking at the circumstances, it could appear staged" by whoever was responsible for her disappearance, said Detective Dave Boruchowitz, an investigator with the Nye County, Nevada, Sheriff's Office.
Reported inconsistencies in her 60-year-old husband's story, police said, paired with the fact that the couple was described as having a stormy relationship, made Paul Fields the initial suspect.
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A lack of physical evidence, however, has made the case unprosecutable, said Detective Joe Close, also with the Nye County Sheriff's Office.
Paul Fields, who runs an auto business out of the double-wide trailer he and his wife shared, maintains his innocence.
He's speculated that she faked her death before running off with another man.
A message left at his home was not returned.
But his attorney, Harold Kuehn, said, "His contention is and my belief is that if she's truly dead, and the court says she is for civil purposes, then he didn't do it.
... What he told police is what he told me.
Basically she left one day, never to be seen again."
In a new twist, Nye County District Attorney Bob Beckett says an unknown male's DNA was found on key items at the scene of the abandoned car.
"What we have to explore is the possibility of another suspect," Beckett said.
"We have to find out who this male was and whose DNA was found at the scene.
It's a lot more complicated than one may think it is."
The prosecutor said he's sure a jury would have reasonable doubt if presented a case with this question mark looming.
"We have a duty to make sure we're doing the right thing," he said.
"There are too many unanswered questions at this time."
Maureen Fields has been declared dead, and the search for her body, and her killer, continues.
Her father, Jim Fitzgerald, has been doing some investigating of his own.
The former detective with the Newark, New Jersey, Police Department -- and now a national director with the conservative John Birch Society -- has made repeated trips from his Randolph Township, New Jersey, home to speak with his daughter's former friends and co-workers.
He's also consulted with a psychic in his search for clues.
No matter when her body is found, a serial numbered metal jaw implant -- which served to combat Fields' teeth grinding habit -- will stand as proof of her identity, Fitzgerald said.
Since murder carries no statute of limitations, time is on the law's side.
"The case isn't dead to us," said Boruchowitz, one of the detectives still on the investigation.
"We're going to continue to work it until we prove who did it."
Anyone with information about this case should call the Nye County Sheriff's Office at 775-751-7000.
Attached Image (Click thumbnail to expand)
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Aug. 07, 2009
DNA from unknown male found in Fields disappearance site
By GINA B.
GOOD
PVT
More than three years have passed since Maureen Fields' car was discovered abandoned just beyond the California border in Chicago Valley.
The Pahrump resident was officially declared dead by Judge Robert Lane on July 6, upon petition of her husband, Paul Fields.
The newest evidence in the ongoing investigation was revealed July 29, in a comment from Nye County District Attorney Bob Beckett, who told a CNN reporter that an unknown male's DNA was found on key items at the scene where Fields' abandoned Hyundai was found Feb.
16, 2006.
Fields' father, Jim Fitzgerald, feels there is more than enough evidence to bring charges against his daughter's husband, who is still living in the home the couple bought in Pahrump.
Paul Fields has always been the Nye County Sheriff's Office only suspect.
"We sent the case to the DA's office for charging.
We suspect it was a murder and we suspect the husband was culpable," said Sheriff Tony DeMeo.
However, the DNA does not belong to Paul Fields.
"What we have to explore is the possibility of another suspect," said Beckett.
"We have to find out whose DNA was found at the scene."
DeMeo said he understands Fitzgerald's frustration and feels a rapport with the former cop.
"Mr. Fitzgerald came out here and introduced himself.
He's from Newark.
He worked right across the river from where I was," DeMeo, himself a former New York police officer, said.
However, DeMeo also understands the district attorney must prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.
"We have no DNA or fingerprints matching the husband," said DeMeo.
"However, we have other evidence.
DNA does not take the place of responsible police work or of the DA's investigation.
It still goes back to the investigation.
The sheriff's office believes, based on the evidence, that the suspect is Mr.
Paul Fields."
Fitzgerald said he traveled to Pahrump from New Jersey about two months ago but wasn't able to see Beckett.
"The DA didn't even have the decency to see me.
I have a daughter missing.
The prosecutor's whole argument is 'We only get one shot at this.' I have examined the evidence.
A grand jury would bring an indictment in New Jersey, but Nevada doesn't do things that way."
DeMeo explained that in New Jersey the police bring charges against suspects, but "in Nevada, the DA is the charging authority."
Beckett said Fitzgerald came to town unannounced.
"I was swamped. I would have re-arranged my schedule, but he came by the office without any notice.
At the time, we hadn't gotten the DNA report back yet, so there was nothing new I could have told him.
I have spoken with him in the past.
We are very interested in seeing justice done in this, and I want Mr.
Fitzgerald to work with us."
Beckett said Fitzgerald has also spoken with Chief Deputy District Attorney Kirk Vitto.
"There is no statute of limitations on murder," said Beckett.
"Time is on our side as far as finding evidence to prosecute this case.
But we cannot bring charges prematurely.
"If we go to trial and get a not guilty verdict, we can never try the same person again;
Even if substantial evidence surfaces in the future.
Double jeopardy attaches."
Paul Fields has always maintained his innocence, offering the explanation that his wife was despondent because of health issues or may have run away with another man and faked her own disappearance by leaving personal effects in her car to be discovered.
The presence of another man's DNA at the site where her car was found would appear to support his suspicions.
http://www.pahrumpvalleytimes.com/2009/Aug...s/30466495.html
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Search Underway for Pahrump Woman Missing Since 2006
Posted: Oct 29, 2009 12:53 PM EDT
Updated: Oct 29, 2009 8:12 PM EDT
Video Gallery
PREVIEW: Nye County Police Search for Missing Woman
0:17
A high-tech plane is helping solve missing persons cases all across the country.
Detectives in Nye County brought in that plane and its expert search team hoping for some answers in a missing person's case.
The plane looks like a toy.
It's remote controlled and could fit in your backseat.
But it has software that no helicopter, airplane or search and rescue team does and it only flies 300 feet above the ground.
The three-foot long drone may be the key to solving Maureen Fields' murder case.
The plane flew over the Inyo County, California desert where Maureen's car was found two and a half years ago.
"W'll see things out there that just shouldn't be there.
We'll be looking for her clothes, skeletal remains.
We fly this thing 300 to 400 feet high and identify a small Styrofoam cup or a tennis shoe," said Tim Miller with Texas EquuSearch.
So far, Nye County Sheriff's Deputies only have one suspect -- Maureen's husband Paul.
"Paul went to the court and asked specifically that she be declared dead legally and the judge granted that request, and pursuant to law, she is dead and that changes the case to a homicide for us," said Det.
Dave Boruchowitz.
Detective Boruchowitz and Miller went to Paul Fields' home Thursday to let him know about their search efforts.
He declined to help.
That's why they're relying on a small piece of plastic.
If they find something from the air, then search and rescue teams will investigate it on the ground.
"We're here to help law enforcement and help bring some closure to this family, and we hope our experience and technology is going to be an asset in the search for Maureen," said Miller.
Miller started Texas EquuSearch 10 years ago after his own daughter was abducted murdered and found 17 months later.
The non-profit search team operates entirely on volunteers and they don't charge law enforcement or victims' families for their efforts.
http://www.lasvegasnow.com/Global/story.asp?S=11407736
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