I doubt Atwood had any real involvement in this. Not only was it an extremely tight time frame, but his wife and mother were also home at the residence at time as well. Also, he was big guy with health problems at the time, if I recall, so I really don't think he had anything to do with it.
However, it's been said that perhaps he saw something that he wasn't entirely comfortable sharing, out of fear of his personal safety. So I suppose there is a chance he could have witnessed more but never spoke of it, maybe knowing this was a dangerous or well connected individual who interacted with Maura. But that's all speculation for now.
The tight timeline has always bothered me and IMO doesn't work in BAs favor.
Let's assume a person took advantage of the accident situation to harm MM. Between the accident and BA arriving, a bit of conversation and departing and then LE arriving--if the timeline is accurate and true--and then MM going missing is an impossible short period of time. We have witnesses from the house corroborating the timeline.
So if MM was harmed three possibilities.
One the perp was following her and waiting for an opportunity. Maybe he knew the car had issues from a previous stop she made--maybe he put the rag in the tail pipe. Maybe the Pedro just happens to be driving randomly and just sees the car smoking like crazy with young attractive and alone Woman driving and then she takes a desolate and rural route. Maybe he decides to follow her awhile knowing if the car is smoking that badly there is a good chance it will quit stranding her and the long it runs the more isolated that route is making her. It's a calculation that's reasonable for him to make if you have some basic car knowledge.
If he's following her he's seen BA in a big yellow bus and sees the houses nearby. He has such a tight window to formulate and execute a plan without being caught. Certainly possible he picked her up down the road out of view but the timing all has to be flawless within a very short time period.
The second possibility if MM was harmed was a chance encounter of opportunity presenting itself due to the accident. Again time frame so short but possible. This is where BA bothers me. I'm not accusing him but he was the last known to see her alive, spoke with her and he has some credibility problems.
The third possibility is a known person to her was following her with or without her knowledge.
This is all just a summary of what is known. I still see the condition of the car important to make hypothesizes about many factors.
I see the timeline as so tight to make many scenarios improbable but not impossible.
Basically after law of these years the investigation is still at square one.
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