I grew up in this same area, I lived just outside the town that is 12 miles away, the only source of services or stores -- Bishop, CA.
I will tell anyone who listens two things, this area is known to have tons of "older" pedophiles and sex offenders. I know this first hand when I was a teenager there was always creepy old men hanging around our local park and schools. If you look up the town on the California database it pop-ups like dots everywhere--really its pretty shocking. I personally believe that if she is still in the area still, she is being held against he will by one of these creeps.
Another element is that were she was spotted, at the adjunct of the highway--That highway is heavily traveled by long haul truckers going between Tonopah/Reno, Nevada and Los Angeles. Once you take highway 6 to Bishop, you connect to highway 395 and from there you can go south to Los Angeles, Las Vegas, San Diego, Phoenix--really the roads are endless. She could have been picked up by a trucker and killed or worse sold into sex trafficking.
One thing the police should do or should have was to look into trucking records and the one gas station in town that services semi trucks.
This area is so remote, almost 6 hours north of LA and 4 hours south of Reno, there is not much by way of services until you get down to the lower desert communities along highway 395 and the 14 freeway.
There is one gas station/rest stop in Coso Junction, its a chevron station its the only one open at that hour that is serviced by the semi truck, many truckers "camp" in the lot next to the store.
I personally think the police would have wise to investigated the cameras of the stores/gas stations along the highway, if she is alive and was alive after leaving the road/highway intersection sighting, she would have had to stop somewhere along the way; if she was hitchhiking of her own free will it shocks me that by now no one has every spotted her, not one.
Since I grew up here until I was 18 I feel connect to this case. Unfortunately I know what it is like to be a teen stuck in this small town, she could have just left with the hopes of going to a friends place or whatever happened at that party the night before made her want to run away. Has any of her friends come forward about what happened at the party ? (the step mom said she was scared and looked like she saw a ghost) is it possible that a boy could have tried something? I know from personal experience in this same town that is a real possibility..
This town is small, and so is the police force investigating this. It the neighboring county, the city of Bishop their police force should be working on this because they are larger and have more resources. Inyo Co (Bishop is the county seat) should also be in on this giving assistance where needed. Mono County is severely short staffed as there is only one in-cooperated town, Mammoth Lakes which is an hour away. The police needed to establish a multi county/city task force IMO. I think that they dropped the ball by immediately thinking it was a run away situation, there was no real evidence to suggest she left because she wanted to, they should have waited longer to make that ruling, but then again its a small police force, and lets be honest here they don't do hardly anything other then drug busts and speeding tickets, having lived there I feel like they just didn't want have to do any real police work.
