Just a fanciful thought, but maybe the perp presented himself as a wealthy understanding "john" like the character played by Richard Gere in the movie " Pretty Woman "?
As in, "Leave your phone and everything at home and I will take you shopping and buy you all new things, that way you have a phone to exclusively receive calls from me."
speculation.
Similar to what I’ve been thinking… the two that he got to leave their cell phones (Amber & Megan) are also two that we’re able to know that they’d each spoken w/someone else after speaking with him and told someone that he’d offered $1000 & $1500, respectively… so, that could be a pretty big deal for one night or even a few hours… he also could have been telling them that he may well become a ‘regular’ customer… a lot of working women have ‘regular’ customers, and he could have led them to think that he may be interested in seeing them once every two or three weeks and that $1000 or $1500 isn’t unusual for him… in other words, just letting them think that they were meeting w/someone who can become a big source of good, somewhat easy, steady income for them… that he was a wealthy guy, liked to party, and didn’t mind spending a lot of money…
Amber had the male room mate, who said that the guy kept calling, a number of times, (it occurred to me that he may have been calling her over a period of days), so, I’m thinking he really worked on them to get them to leave their phones behind… he (the roommate) said he tried to talk her into taking her phone, but, she said… “no, that’s not
what he wants”…
Megan is the one that her mother was adamant that it would only be something really rare for her to not take her phone, she said, she believes that Megan must have met him at least 5 or 6 times, to get her to do that… and, we know from Amber’s roommate that the guy had called Amber a number of times, prior to their meeting… I believe that although Megan’s mother thinks she must have met him 5 or 6 times, that, talking with him a number of times, possibly over a few days, may have done the same thing…
So, I just think that he worked pretty hard, contacting them over some period of time… had a good story… made them feel comfortable that he as a decent person to talk with and be around… and that he had and liked spending a lot of money… so, when he says… it’s just the way I like to do things… leave your cell and your stuff at home… you won’t need it… also, he could have told them that he’d had too many occasions when he’d be with a woman, and she’d be taking cell calls while they were having their time together, or that whenever he’d walk out of the room to go to the bathroom or get a drink or something, that he’d come back to the room, and they’d be scrolling through their phones, or texting or something, and he just found it a very annoying thing…