Hypothesizing ....
ZA is a fence. His fencing raises money to buy his drugs.
His property is less than a mile from the town's truck stop on I-40. The life-long friend that gave an interview about his possible involvement used to work there and wore their t-shirt during the interview.
His mules were busted with $60,000 in pearls while he was there. Only he would know how to fence them.
And he had fenced things before .....
Maybe why some still hold out a hope????
Litig8ter, love this thinking. This idea is one I have read and considered and re-considered as the only hope that Holly could be alive somewhere. Human trafficking.
Here's a bit more of a hypothesis .....
At the same I40 interchange that is a stones throw from ZA's crib is a sex store. He is a fence. He looks for stuff he can steal. He has people he meets wherever, say truck stop, sex shop or somewhere tell him what they will pay for stolen goods. Someone raises the stakes from pearls or guns or whatever to young blondes.
Stoned out of his mind and heavily dependent, he recruits a group .... call them the A-team. The bounty from this caper will provide them months of addiction satisfaction.
The team, including a cousin of Holly's, figures out a way to "capture" her for a while. They store her somewhere around Adams Lane. She is delivered as arranged. They stay stoned for a long time.
He has connections locally. He posts on his FB page a membership in a group of a long-time Decatur County family. Local LE stays away from him. He manages to stay out of serious prison despite 25 felonies.
He is the key to finding out where she went. He and the A-team always told a story about her being in a well and then buried .... knowing it could never be proven because it didn't happen that way.
If FBI puts tight enough shoes on him, maybe we find out who he delivered her to.
Just hypothesizing.