Hi,
I am new here. I am a technology professional and a bit of a hacker and technology forensic as well.
My thoughts are:
If they have MT's laptop and her phone was synced to a Google or an iCloud account (which nearly all phones are these days) then LE should have to all of the location information they would need to track MTs location up to the time she disappeared, especially if she was taking her phone on her runs, as many witnesses have claimed. Moreover, the back up of the phone should include all of the data files LE would need to read all of the messages that were on the phone when it was last backed up. That said, it seems that LE may be wasting time trying to obtain the Fitbit information via warrants when that same information is probably within an apple or Google account.
Browser and application use history would also be useful information to have. This would be useful in understanding MT's state of mind before the disappearance. I can't imagine she would have disappeared willingly without looking up something related to the topic of doing so.
I also wonder if they have checked the router logs from her boyfriend's house. At the very least that would give them an idea of the last time one of her devices was connected to the wifi network within the house and would, therefore, give them an idea of whether she was taken from the house or whether she disappeared during the run. Under ideal circumstances, the router data could give them browser history, password hashes, etc.
Correct me if I am wrong, but we don't know for sure that the last ping came from near WCs pig farm. That is speculation, correct?
Even if we were 100% certain of the last tower the phone pinged that doesn't necessarily give a highly accurate representation of her location, especially if we don't know the locations of other cell towers in the area.
Assuming:
-that the FBI has someone who is better at this stuff than me, and knowing that if I had MTs laptop, I would have been able to gather and analyze all of the aforementioned data within a timeframe of 1-5 days
- that RTs messaging to the public about "someone she knew took her" is strategic;
- that anyone who loves their dogs enough to hire a dogsitter for them wouldn't normally be keeping them in the basement with plenty of food and water. ( I feed my dog two times a day a rationed portion of food, because if I let him have access to unlimited amounts of food, he would eat himself into a gluttonous diabetic coma)
- that if she left her boyfriend's house after her run to walk to her mom's, she would have communicated that to her mom in some fashion.
My conclusion is that she was likely taken by someone who knew her from her bfs house and who she had interacted with at least a few times. This person likely knew her well enough to know that she would feel better about leaving the house if she knew the dogs would be fed if she did not return. He knew her well enough to know her routine and when she would be most vulnerable. I imagine this person stalked her, which means he would have had to possess the time to do so. I would guess that he is likely a divorced father, a college student, unemployed, disabled, retired, and/or someone whose profession it is to sit around in a car and wait for something to happen (LE) (no offense).
The absence of a crime scene tells me that his attack was planned out, and that this person is meticulous and organized, and would also lead me to believe that it is probable that he older than college age.
He probably owns a gun.
I believe he probably was knocked on the door while she was doing homework. He lied and said there was something he needed help with (ie. Flat tire). She let him in for a minute. He pulled a gun. She said, ok dont shoot, let me feed the dogs and I will go with you. He follows her downstairs. She feeds dogs. He tells her to get her phone. She gets phone. They get in his vehicle, he tells her to power off the phone, and they leave.
Hopefully she is being held somewhere and she is not dead. If I was LE, I would be looking at divorced dad's who occasionally picked their kids up from daycare, who own guns, and who have large properties with multiple structures on site or second properties where they could hold someone hostage without being discovered.
