Newbie here so bear with me. Regarding the phone, something could have happened to Blaze's phone over the holidays making it inoperable, and the family could easily have had an old phone lying around and said, "here, use this until we can get you another one." Thus, he was using a "relative's phone" (sister, mom, or dad's old phone), operable only by Wifi so they didn't have to add it to their cell service account. I'm a mom of two teens, and I can tell you that if my son lost or rendered inoperable his new $700 iPhone 8, I would not be rushing out to buy him another $700 phone, but instead would let him use his sister's old, cracked 5c or Dad's old 6 that are sitting around in a kitchen drawer and work perfectly fine over Wifi. He could add all his apps to these phones, log into those apps, and bam, business as usual (other than the no cell service issue). There have also been times when my son's phone wasn't working for some reason, and he was going out for the night, and I lent him my phone so he wasn't without one. Thus, again, "a relative's phone." No biggie to me.
Regarding the car, he could either have left his car at school or could be a non-driver. Many teens these days aren't in a rush to get their driver's license, especially if they are used to using Uber and don't necessarily need to be driving themselves around. So asking an old friend to pick him up doesn't seem that odd to me.
I wonder if this was a hookup gone awry. He makes plans to ride with this old friend to the park for a hookup (or runs across this old friend on Grindr and then continues the discussion on Snapchat), then something awkward or bad happens in or near the restroom at the park, and he takes off and something terrible happens in the wilderness area. That of course doesn't account for the third person he was planning to meet there, though.
My gut says this wasn't a drug transaction, although that was my initial thought. Is it possible, though, that Blaze didn't intend to leave his wallet behind and the fact that he didn't have his wallet (and therefore couldn't pay for something he intended to buy) could have angered the third person (or the HS buddy), leading to foul play?
Regarding the car, he could either have left his car at school or could be a non-driver. Many teens these days aren't in a rush to get their driver's license, especially if they are used to using Uber and don't necessarily need to be driving themselves around. So asking an old friend to pick him up doesn't seem that odd to me.
I wonder if this was a hookup gone awry. He makes plans to ride with this old friend to the park for a hookup (or runs across this old friend on Grindr and then continues the discussion on Snapchat), then something awkward or bad happens in or near the restroom at the park, and he takes off and something terrible happens in the wilderness area. That of course doesn't account for the third person he was planning to meet there, though.
My gut says this wasn't a drug transaction, although that was my initial thought. Is it possible, though, that Blaze didn't intend to leave his wallet behind and the fact that he didn't have his wallet (and therefore couldn't pay for something he intended to buy) could have angered the third person (or the HS buddy), leading to foul play?