It wasn't a moonless night.
I was referring to the death disposal fields in Albuquerque - the rock was black and the killer apparently went up on the darkest nights. I wasn't referring to this case. There is no black rock in the Morphew case. The West Mesa of Albuquerque became, first, a dumping ground for a serial killer, but it's thought that maybe one other murderer also used the place. The region is mostly non-black rock, so the fact that a person wearing black and driving a black car could better disappear on that mesa led at least one killer to choose it. My point was that killers *do* think about such things.
But, did this killer do so?
Maybe, in this case, the murderer did not put as much thought into moon phases as the killer (serial killer) in Albuquerque. Because he chose a night with a nearly full moon - although, that moon wasn't going to rise way above the horizon at that time of year. Personally, I don't think he thought about this aspect at all, but it's interesting to ponder.
On the day and night that Suzanne disappeared, the moon was indeed nearly full. At 12 am to 3 am, it would have been coming up over the Colorado horizon and providing some light for anyone wandering around on that prairie (but most passersby would be noticing the nearly full moon and not what was lurking in the shadows).
By 5 am, the moon would have been shining brightly at 30 degrees above the horizon, certainly illuminating (along with dawn approaching) the area near the road. At that time of year, it looks like the moon was never directly overhead, and the mountains in the east would have blocked it as it rose (12 am is the time it came up on the horizon of Colorado - not the time it cleared the Rocky Mountains). It's possible the moon was just starting to peep out from the mountains at the time that Barry arrived there (3:15 am-ish?)
I just doubt that he planned it that way. Maybe. I mean, perhaps that's something hunters learn to understand and calculate. I strongly believe that BM had a lot of night hunting experience and was expert at blending into terrain where elk or deer might be out at night. It would be so eerie to learn that he had chosen nights just like this one...to be out that way, hunting.
Wearing dark clothes even on a moonlit night would mean he didn't have to use a headlamp, which would obviously grab attention from the road. For all I know (and it was rumored) Barry had night vision goggles, as a hunter. It was also rumored he had an ATV, but neither of those facts are in the public record, as far as I know.
I still can't quite figure out how close the grave was to the main road - looks to me like the reporter had to go down a second road or maybe a creek bed. A driver's eyes are focused on the road and not completely dark adapted, not like someone out on that prairie, digging a grave, with a shovel. And I'll say again that he wasn't so far from the main road that he wouldn't have been able to see cars coming and make himself basically invisible until they passed by. He may very well have adapted his criminal behavior to the local conditions (just as the Albuquerque killers did).
ETA: Going on the timeline numbers, above, it would seem he could have gotten out to Moffat by 11 pm ish (moon would not rise for an hour and not get up above the mountains until about 1 am, IMO - some locals will know more). So it's possible he did get a dark of the moon setting.
IMO.
