All of these are great points. I don't know if you are from the area or not, I am assuming not based on your reference to the maps. There's some things these maps don't show, now don't get me wrong....the maps are great but there are many access points to the water that no map would necessarily show or it wouldn't be obvious to the viewer how secluded an area near the water may be. Here's the thing; if you grew up in the area as I did, or even after living there long enough you begin to learn that there are numerous secluded areas that provide access to the water that won't necessarily put you in danger and that are secluded enough that you may never be noticed. For instance, I can think of numerous little back country sort of two lane roads that are completely bordered by water on at least one side. I'm talking roads where you could drive miles at night and never pass a car and could easily park your car on the side of the road and walk directly up to the river bank. There are also bridges, such as the shands bridge, where tons of people park and fish at both ends of the bridge or they will park and trek through the woods to a more secluded fishing spot. These are not areas that people would be surprised to see a car stopped or someone pushing a cooler or whatever the case may be, they are also secluded enough that there's a great possibility of no one even passing by for 20/30 minutes that late at night. The area I specifically referred to is not an area WRE was known to have gone, however, the two hour time frame unaccounted for means he literally could have gone anywhere and there are NUMEROUS areas like this.....ESPECIALLY on Jacksonville's Northside.
This is spot on. WRE has lived at about 10 different addresses spread throughout Duval and Baker Counties. Baker County is positively rural and Duval is sparsely populated in some areas. The places he would have been familiar with are infinite. Yes, he did live with his parents on and off over the years and would have become familiar with the more rural Northside areas just from driving back and forth. Lots of preservation land.
The weather is another factor. It was raining hard enough that night to keep ME from driving anywhere. I was monitoring the weather radar watching a line of back to back storms coming in from the northeast . I was waiting for it to pass over, but it kept coming so I ended up staying home. There probably were not many cars on the road.