Some quick thoughts from a local...these are my interpretations of all I have read, heard, and seen...I apologize I don't have links to everything, but maybe some can confirm/refute what I think I remember.
The timeline:
11:30am - Grandma OK's a bike ride
12:15pm - Grandma sees girls across the street, behind Lederman's
12:15pm - Video footage of girls leaving the area
12:20pm - Approximately...cyclist swerves to miss two kids' bikes laying on the trail
12:27pm - Cyclist phones daughter with his cell phone from nearby gas station (IMO, could have covered that distance in under 5 mins)
2:00 pm - Grandma, mother, brother begin driving and searching
2:45 pm - Witness at Meyers Lake parking area tells of seeing girls on trail nearby
2:45 pm - Girls reported missing to police - park is 2 blocks from police station
3:00 pm - LE "swarms" the lake area
4:00 pm - Approximate...firefighter (they are mostly volunteers in E'dale) discovers bikes
After 4:00pm - Cyclist learns girls are missing (I think he sees a search group), reports his earlier sighting of the bikes, confirms time of phone call
I'm guessing, since LE was operating at that time as if the girls had gone in the lake, that the bikes were moved by the firefighter or other LE, and when Abben arrived they'd been propped against the fence. Just a guess, but based on what we've heard (cyclist says bikes were laying on trail, Abben says bikes propped "when he arrived.")
It seems, if we can count on that video being the girls, and the cyclists time being correct, then the window of opportunity for the perp is very small. Given that, and what I personally have witnessed of the area, here is a possible scenario:
Perp is in lake area, has backed a vehicle thru the brush into the woods near where the trail is secluded. His vehicle can be parked in those woods and not seen from the road or the trail (and I know I saw tire tracks leading in there, reported to police, photographed, etc). He's out of his vehicle, walking up and down that portion of trail. The girls enter the "trap," and he somehow - by luring or by force - gets them off the bikes and into his waiting vehicle, and pulls out onto Arbutus Ave, drives away, leaving the bikes on the trail. Perhaps the purse was dropped in the woods, around the fence, when he was putting the girls in the vehicle. Minutes later, the cyclist happens past the bikes. If perp's local, he can be at home or wherever before the grandmother notices the girls are missing. The river, and many remote locations, are mere minutes away. If he's not local, he could have gotten to Hwy 20 within 3-5 mins, and be traveling west, north, or south (Hwy 218 intersects Hwy 20 within a mile of him getting on) at 60mph for 2+ hours before police are notified. This would give him time to reach I-35, or even to loop back and go east, almost to the Mississippi River.
All speculation on my part, fwiw. Obviously I am biased having seen tracks in the woods. If those tracks were not made by LE (which I doubt, as they repeatedly gained access to the trail/lake w/o having to plow thru woods with a vehicle, and doing so would/could be dangerous, considering the girls may have been in that underbrush), they are incredibly suspicious. I have not heard any LE and/or press mention them, ONLY ME, so again, this is pure speculation. A perp could also simply have had his vehicle backed into the woods there partway, so as to shield only the rear of his vehicle in the woods, or he could have had his vehicle waiting as far as Arbutus, and somehow gotten the girls that far (altho that is close to a block - maybe 100 yds - from where the bikes were found).
This all depends on the girls making it from where/when the camera recorded them, to the lake, in that time. I will definitely double-check that distance tomorrow, but IMO, they'd have to be racing to make it, from Brovan, to Sipple, to Morrell and over to the trail, or just to Evans, and then south to the lake. I'd bet I could do it, tbh. Two young girls on kids bikes, tho? :dunno:
