I've been a frequent lurker here since the posters here report on the news way faster than any specific news outlets. I generally come when I see a story that really affects me, as this one did. Poor girl was merely out for a jog and faced a horrible, horrible situation without anyone to help her.
Even with the limited information released from LE at this point, I fear this case won't be solved anytime soon, if ever. All indications so far is that the person who did this set out with the intention to get away with it. And I was thinking this before the report today saying the killer struggled to strangle her and didn't know how to set the fires, which were likely set to hide the DNA evidence.
He had probably been staking out this area for a while and at a very minimum did some planning. There are many advantages to random assault/murder in a rural area; notably no one to hear you, no video cameras, sparse traffic, etc. How he lured/captured her is unclear, but either way most males wouldn't have found this challenging since this is what they were prepared to do. He did his thing and got out of there. There are no cameras, and since no one saw anything, he gets away with it. Seems like he even knew to turn off her phone. Probably kept the clothes either as a trophy or to hide DNA evidence. Even if he has ties, he can just lay low for a couple days and everything will be back to normal. Perhaps he was inspired by the murder of KV.
I was afraid that would be the case as soon as I heard about it, and now with the lack of any real developments after a week, I fear this will be the situation. The perp is wearing long sleeves now or staying in. I can't imagine what horror the family is experiencing right now, with the knowledge she was murdered shortly after leaving for an innocent jog in a safe area, and with her only being 1/2 mile away from home when she needed help.
Just thinking back to Hannah Graham, court docs showed that the JM's friends commented to him that he looked like the sketch. And he even reacted awkwardly to that. But no one believes their friends can do such things. Naturally, none of them called to report the resemblance, since it was 'obviously a coincidence'. Fortunately, it didn't matter due to the numerous witnesses and video surveillance. But here, every tip is needed.
I hope I'm wrong. I fear this guy will be back, probably in a couple months or more, and probably even more effective learning from his few mistakes this time.
