I've been lurking occasionally since early on in this case, and wanted to catch up on all of the posts before commenting myself...but you guys/gals are too fast for me! Every time I finish a page (and I'm a speed-reader!) there are more at the end of the thread. So, I'll just jump in here if that's ok!
My thought is that these two girls, as others have suggested, were lured away by someone they had met on previous occasions, and with whom they felt comfortable (at least until things got weird, but by then it's often too late).
As a child, I was the victim of not just one, but TWO attempted abductions. One when I was 10, and one when I was 11. BOTH in broad daylight...the first literally occured in my own driveway, and the second on a busy street in the middle of town as I walked WITH A FRIEND on the sidewalk.
In the first case...the man (who was really only about 18 at the time), spent 2 weeks befriending me, "visiting" me at the park adjacent to my home every day. He first got my attention with his adorable little dog, Max, who was great at jumping to catch frisbees. This man put a lot of effort into making me think we were great friends, and that I was helping him SOOOO much by assisting in the design of the bandana that "Max" would wear in his next frisbee-catching competition. He brought me soda, he played basketball with me....totally unbeknownst to anyone in my family despite the fact that my front door was literally 500 feet away! This man, Mark, (he actually told me his real name...he is listed at the Megan's Law website...why?...because shortly after he tried to abduct me, he was arrested for raping/sodomizing some other poor child under 14 years of age that he managed to get his hands on), convinced me that we were friends. I looked forward to seeing him each day. In fact, I went into the park and *waited* for him in the mornings! The last day I saw him (before finding him on the Megan's Law website, that is), his car approached as I was standing in my driveway. He cheerily greeted me by name, all smiles, and excitedly said that he wanted to buy me some new markers for all of the artwork I'd been doing on Max's bandana. Hop in the car, he said....we'll go up to Newberry's (less than a mile from my home) and you can pick out the art supplies yourself!
I was a poor kid from a (very) broken home (even though we lived in a nice beachtown in southern California). New art supplies and a great (not to mention, handsome) buddy to hang out with was a dream come true for a girl like me. I took a step forward and immediately realized that "Max" was not in the car with Mark this time. For some reason, that terrified me, and I ran. As fast as I could go.
Had the dog been in the car, I believe I would have happily climbed right in.
Oh...and I *never* even mentioned any of this to my mother until I was about 35 years old. Just goes to show, that kids do some things we seriously don't understand sometimes.
The other incident was quite different, but it *was* an attempt by multiple men to take two girls at once, so I will describe it in a different post.
But of course, with my own history, I cannot HELP but wonder if anyone in the girls' families (or maybe even neighborhood friends?) might know if either of the girls had ever spoken of an adult "friend"...maybe someone with a "really cute dog"...someone that several neighborhood children might know of, but who has never been convicted of anything so wouldn't be an RSO. Or perhaps, someone who had ever "paid" them for cleaning their yards, bringing their mail up, etc.???