I think I have probably seen too many movies/tv shows and read too many books, but many of those are based on true stories anyway. When I read that there were similarities between the murder of TW and the murders of A&L, I was having a hard time coming up with what they might be. For one, they may have all been shot with the same caliber weapon. They were all killed on/near trails, they were all nice people (from what those who knew them have said), they were all unarmed, and to some extent all appear to have been at least somewhat athletic.
Some of those things have little to nothing to do with their deaths, but a couple of them do. My sick thought on it was that he looked for people in semi-secluded areas, waited for them to get a distance from him and then shot them. I'm curious to know how far he was from TW when he was shot; if he was lying in wait and shot him as he rode by, that would mean my thought is off base. If he had talked to TW at some point and then told him he was going to shoot him (or didn't tell him and just waited for him to get past him and a distance away), it may have been a combination of the thrill of hunting and the release of anger toward people. He could have done something similar with the girls - made them go down the hill into the wooded area and try to escape while hewaited for a good time to shoot them.
He could have waited for them to cross the creek and shot them while they were trying to get up the slope on the other side. At that point, he could have walked back across the bridge, gone down to make sure they were dead (accounting for one set of footprints leading to the body) and then left with no blood on him and leaving little to no DNA. I have mixed feelings on the idea. I find it extremely unlikely that it's what happened, but it would be so nice to know that they didn't have to go through torture and long term pain. MOO