I live about ten miles west of the Greeley Mall. Highway 34 is a major road we take to get to various lakes and even to Chicago or New Jersey.
It's always been obvious to me that the younger kids that hang out at the mall have to be exposed to a long walk and dangers to get to it unless they live behind it. I think about this on every visit to a business near the mall. To me, it's got a creepy feel to it compared to other malls and whenever possible we go in another direction and do a little farther to avoid it. That creep factor, I mean.
That stretch of road looks like if someone took her, they could be in another state just as easily as in another county if they're not in her best interests, and they could know the area from delivering stuff all along there. If you go when the parking lot is full, you don't get this feeling, but when it's not, I do.
I remember the Jonelle Matthews photos in the newspapers and on milk cartons, and how we worried endlessly, trying to think of places to look. I think that case gave GPD a black eye like the more recent Jonbenet Ramsey case in Boulder did for them. That's why the mobile lab is there, and it's the right thing to take a disappearance in a junction town very seriously and bring in 50 FBI agents.