Can anyone come up with a theory about the hospital connection?
The only thing I can think of is if the perp was hurt really bad. He realized that he couldn't take the car with bodies in the back to the hospital, knowing he would be admitted while the cops were looking for it.
I say that someone (LE) should check admittance records from the hours of ?-? on the day the girls went missing.
Looking at a map, the car really was left just around the corner from the hospital. Here's a Google Earth screenshot; Point A is where the car was left and Point B is the Dale Medical Hospital:
The car was found on Herring Avenue 90 feet from James Street. It is approximately 0.2 miles from the car to the hospital. To walk from the location of the car to the hospital takes about five minutes, according to Google Maps.
Note the large parking lot on the east side of the hospital. I think it's interesting that this lot is on the near side of the hospital when approaching from the direction of Herring Avenue on James Street.
One of my two initial thoughts on a possible hospital connection was that the hospital would have a large parking lot. While likely far from packed at that time of night, there still would have been a fair number of vehicles parked in the lot. The hospital would have been one of the very few places open at that time of night in Ozark. A person walking up, getting into a car, and driving away would have been less conspicuous here than the parking lot of an establishment that was closed for the night. Like say, for example, the Big/Little Store.
Was the hospital parking lot a key location in the killer's getaway plan?
Did the killer have access to a vehicle that was parked at the hospital while he was with J.B. and Tracie? Did the killer work at the hospital?
My other thought was in line with jenstar's thinking:
Though the perp seems to have kept his distance during the commission of the crime, thus making it unlikely that one or both of the girls injured him according to one MSM report, the girls when found showed "few signs of struggle" and it was never reported that DNA evidence was found, for instance, under the girls' fingernails he still could've sustained an injury, possibly while leading or pursuing the girls through the same rough/wet/dark landscape behind the girls' wet pants, muddy shoes, and the scrape on Tracie's arm. Possibly he hurt his ankle or something along these lines. If injured and in pain, he might've driven the car with the bodies as close to the hospital as was comfortable, then hobbled the rest of the way to the ER.
I wholeheartedly agree with you, jenstar: admittance records should be checked for the night of July 31 and the early morning hours of August 1.
