Certainly possible. A daytime abduction would be more dangerous to the perpetrator, despite it being an early hour. It doesn’t explain her leaving her wallet though, as well as Mollie remaining in her jogging clothes.
Thank you, Stephen Smith. Great stuff. Your expertise is very welcome.
All of it seems plausible to me, except the part about feeding pets in middle of an abduction. This is all speculative and assuming a lot from a little on my part, but that's what we do here. I very much appreciate your contribution to the thread.
The dog were said to only be kept in the basement while everyone was away. I'm stuck on the idea that she may have been taken or tricked into a ride or a bite to eat, but more likely abducted, just as she was returning before she let the dogs loose or just as Mollie was getting ready to leave.
The perp may have wanted to dogs not to seem out of place possibly, so if anyone did come to check on Mollie that night somehow, they would have the impression she left willingly.
Was the snapchat received by DJ, if not sent by Mollie, a contingency too? If her brother for some reason came by to drop off the car and found Mollie missing, he'd contact DJ. DJ would see the snapchat and perhaps assume she's with a friend. What kind of digital hack could be involved with that snapchat?
A former thief once told me the one thing they don't like is unpredictability and loose dogs that can blindside them is the bane of their existence.
I agree about the dogs. I didn't know that information when I originally posted. Yes, I think that the dogs would pose an unnecessary hindrance to the abduction, and you are probably right that she was taken either just as she arrived back or just as she was leaving. I imagine that would be easiest time to abduct her.
Was it normal for Mollie to walk home to her Mother's at night? Correct me if if I am wrong, but my understanding was that she normally spent her nights at her bf's house.
With regard to the Snapchat, I think you may be crediting the abductork with having more knowledge of MTs life and relationships than he actually probably did.
But because you asked: In my there are only two people who would have had the motivation to send the Snapchat message- Either MT or her abductor. That said, the message would have had to originate from a device ultilized by one or the other. Let's look at each individually as well as the necessary components and knowledge one would have had to possess in order to send that message:
- Assuming that MT sends the message of her own free will, all she needs to do is snap a picture or choose an old picture, log into her account (if she not already logged in) and send it to her bf. Pretty simple.
- Assuming that the abductor sent the message from his phone from her account, he would need:
-A picture of Mt that looks like a selfie;
-to be able bypass two factor authentication in order to access MTs account (meaning he would have to have her device on hand to authenticate using the token sent to her email or phone number via SMS) and he would need to know MTs password;
- to know who to send the picture to.
Assuming that the abductor forced MT to send the message:
- this would be simple to do, but you are still assuming that he knows who the picture should be sent to to make it appear as though she is safe.
Any "hack" beyond these three scenarios becomes exponentially more complex and difficult for the lay person to pull off. Furthermore, in my mind the risk for the abductor to force Mollie to send a message at any time during the abduction far outweighs the reward, because he would run the risk of location data (IP address) being associated with the sent message. There is also the the high probability that if he were to force her to send the message she would have to use an old photo of herself, which would show up in the metadata of the photo and seem inauthentic once any tech forensic analyzed it. Finally, the scenario where he uses his device to send a message from her account is by far the riskiest, because in doing so he would essentially digitally link his device to hers at the exact time of the abduction and there would be a record of it both in her SMS messages and through her Snapchat account.
Honestly, I suppose anything is possible, but I have never questioned the authenticity of the Snapchat message, because I don't think it would make any sense for the abductor to waste his time in the midst of an abduction or to risk gifting vital information to the authorities.
