I have some thoughts on your questions. Long post, but here goes:
IMO, it was still light out around 7 pm when they drove through there on a Friday of a holiday weekend when a lot of people that work there either had the day off or were busy at home preparing to head out of town or to nearby lakes, rivers, or the beach for the weekend. Before night fell and local people came out for the evening to hang out.
Albany Ave is not heavily residential, IMO, and the people who do reside on it are probably impoverished and living in squalid conditions, hence, no one would think twice about people malingering, doing illegal stuff, or digging through trash cans like the man who said that's how he found the pillow and knife.
I think Occam's Razor still applies here, in that the simplest explanation was that FD picked that stretch of that part of the city to dispose of incriminating evidence because the crime rate is so high, and it is a 'forsaken' area where LE is not 'on the scene' unless they are responding to a 911 call. And people mind their own business, and are anti-police, anti-ratting on other people doing illicit things, etc.
It took this man over 2 months to come forward, and even then, he had been in jail, and said he traded the knife for crack, putting himself in even more potential trouble with the law by admitting that. I wonder if while he was in jail, he heard about the case, and had an aha moment that he may have some valuable information that could potentially help him look good to LE if he cooperated. I think this was the case because the MSM article said IIRC that LE approached him as he was coming out of jail. So they heard while he was in there what he told someone he had found.
As for FD being so smart and thinking ahead about being captured on video cameras and doing it on purpose, I just don't believe that is feasible. I think he was not smart, in a bit of panic mode, and just assumed nobody would think to look at videos along that corridor for someone dumping evidence of a crime committed 70 miles southeast of there in NC. The mistake they made was having their cell phones turned on so that LE could place them there and then go looking for video footage there. I think their phones were on because he was waiting for word from the children to confirm his visitation with them the next day, and/or to communicate with an accomplice. Also, because Hartford isn't far from where they lived in Farmington, they probably thought they could say if cell phone data placed them there, they could just say they had gone out for a bite to eat there. Criminals do stuff to trip themselves up, or as I've seen quoted by LE, something along the lines of "if criminals didn't do stupid stuff all the time, we would never catch any of them."
I don't think FD's 'smarts' were in the minute details, just the bigger picture: dispose of the bloody evidence 70 miles away from the wealthy, quiet, safe little town where JD went missing "while jogging at the park" (where they planted her car) in a sketchy, high crime part of a major city where no one would pay attention to what they were doing. To that point, no one came forward and said they saw them, even though they stopped 30 times over a 4 mile stretch while it was still daylight.
It was just their cell phone pings and the videos that LE located from Albany Ave based on those pings that tripped them up, and he wasn't expecting that she would be reported missing and LE would jump on it so soon and so some of the bloody evidence was still in the trashcans LE went through. He probably thought it was such a 'cleanly' executed crime that he would never be asked to give LE his cell phone or have search warrants on his properties, he really thought he would get away with it, and LE would have no reason to hone in on him. That is why I think FD looked like he did at the hearing -- he was surprised as all get out that LE had figured it out and found video and evidence 70 miles from where she went missing.
He was a dope about a lot of things for a lot of years in terms of the way he was outwardly abusive and threatening towards JD and the children, the refusal to comply with judge's orders during the divorce, defaulting on loans from his FIL, shady business practices, lying in court, enlisting his children to lie for him, etc. that were so obvious to other people, but never stopped him from trying to go after what he wanted before. He is that far 'out there' IMO, JD was given full physical custody, he wasn't allowed to be alone with his children or go to their school, and had been sanctioned by the court more than once for lying and breaking their orders. He is just a crazy, abusive, selfish, clueless criminal, bent on fleecing his wife's family, control and vengeance, not a criminal mastermind, IMO.
MOO and MOO and MOO
