I have been assuming all alone that the horse trail where Jennifer was found was not the crime scene. I got that impression from articles but is that incorrect? As I watched the video recently posted, they say again that it rained and washed away all the evidence. But I also know that people interviewed said the trial was used everyday. She was taken in daylight, and it is only about a 25 minute ride to the trail. So people would be around and would hear if someone was screaming or something was going on, no? It is also a long ride to keep a 12 year old in a vehicle for that length of time if you are kidnapping her. But once again, if you have a gun pointed at somebody, they will probably stay put. Do you think she was murdered on that trail? Because that makes a difference in details of getting from point A to point B.
Also owning a horse or riding takes some money. If the person rode there and hauled a horse trailer or just boarded the horse, it still takes some money. So if the person is connected to the trail, he or she is not poor.
Bern, I honestly feel Jennifer was killed almost instantly. Because if we are right that she wouldn't have agreed to go very far, she had to have known pretty quick that the person was up to no good. Like if he said he'd drive her up to her house and then went past it or turned around, she'd know right then and there that he had tricked her. And you're right: It would be pretty hard to control an angry, frightened 12 yr old.
In fact, at one point you had speculated that he might have somehow taken her outside of the truck. After I saw your video, I think that's very possible--because if she was between the truck and the grove, he would know that they couldn't be seen. And he could kill or knock her out very quickly and put her into the truck. In fact, that might have been the easiest way for him to do it, because he could have then placed her on the floor and not let her be visible in the window.
If something like this is what happened, though, it would discredit the one witness who thought he saw Jennifer in the truck. So I don't really know. In any case, though, I kind of doubt she was killed on the horse trail.
You know, it would pay to know who owned the land with the trail where she was found. Who owned it at the time of the crime, I mean. In my area, the horse clubs are active year round and the ones that have their own land and facilities do events all the time. But land that the state owns is closed, usually in October and then not opened until sometime between March and May. (How soon they open it depends on the budget of the Dept of Natural Resources)
Sometimes lovely big hunks of land in our area are owned by businesses, such as a logging company. These businesses sometimes open their land for people to use recreationally ... but the business can close the land at any time. A business may decide they don't want the liability of the public on their land. Or they may close an area if they're getting 'squatters' or drug activity. If crime has become a problem in the area, it might be closed ... and of course, when the business itself wants to use its land, they close the area.
The killer may have known when those horse trails would be opened and closed. I'm thinking if there were groves in the area, the trails might have been closed for the recent orange harvest. Here when an area is 'close,' it has locked gate across the main access points--but sometimes there's enough clear space around the gate to drive around it, and sometimes the locals know other routes for getting in.