I've thought this myself and posted something about it the other day. My working assumption is that the perp grabbed her at or near her home, took her somewhere nearby to do whatever he was going to do and then dumped the remains first and then the backpack later on his way out of town. If you look at a map to get from the abduction site to where the remains were dumped you would most likely go west on 100th Ave to CO Rt 5 (Indiana St) and then South on Indiana to 82nd Ave and then west on 82nd to where the body was found. Assuming the next step was to dump the backpack. Back to Indiana and North to 120th and then a slight jog west and then north on McCaslin to Christenson Ave and then a quick right on Andrew Way and drop the backpack. Turn around back to McCaslin and then North to Highway 36. My assumption is that he then went west on 36th through Boulder and up into the mountains near Estes Park to hide out for awhile. As I mentioned yesterday, I'm really bothered by the forest fire in the Estes Park area that was started on Tuesday the 9th and think it may be connected.
I've driven that route and looked for cameras. As far as I can tell there is only one and that is a traffic camera at the intersection of 86th and Indiana. If you do a google street view and zoom in you can clearly see them at the top of the lights at that intersection. If my theory is correct though, the vehicle would have had to pass that intersection at least twice and possibly three times on the route that I described. There is almost no other route that wouldn't take you significantly more time. So, if you look at the time window between 8:30am on Friday and say midnight on Saturday night assuming LE has that video feed you should be able to identify a set of vehicles that could possibly be involved. It's probably not a small number, but also not likely to be a huge number either -- maybe 100 or so if I had to guess.
I also think this path suggests that the despite the suggestions of others, that the backpack drop site was random and doesn't have some other meaning. Clearly he intended it to be found, but likely wanted it far enough away from the body that it wouldn't be found too quickly and far enough away from him to give him time to get away. If you follow my path, you will see that the right on Christenson from McCaslin is literally the second place you can turn right from the site of the body where there is really any kind of humanity at all and also the last right before you get to the highway that isn't a larger street or commercial. And the house it was dropped in front of is the first house that doesn't have windows facing the street.
As for the backpack being a distraction it worked. Immediately the search area was changed to the North and in fact the few days before the body were found were spent searching the open areas to the West of McCaslin bordered by 36th to the North and 120th to the South. Basically due North of the location of the body.
Map:
http://goo.gl/maps/M6XJD
Cameras:
http://goo.gl/maps/JTSNm
lease: