I love posts like these. Lots to chew on back and forth.
Ok, since things slowed down I read the timeline backwards until I saw enough to figure something out. What a great timeline.
These are my impressions on it.
Steven took the opportunity of getting $100 in hand to go visit AN. I believe he had something important he wanted to discuss with her, and it involved being in Vegas (Henderson) or his plans for the future involving a big step like moving there and discussing with her. Yet he didn't call ahead and arrange the visit. I think he wanted to see her in person first before deciding whether to discuss.
I think he actually did make contact with AN before he went. Steven's mother told some folks at the search that AN's parents mentioned "change of plans" for why she wasn't there. (This takes me back to the "polite brush-off/PBO theory: AN lives/works in SLC and Steven contacts her. He wants to see her, and she says "I'm sorry, I'll be at the ranch" as the PBO. When Steven gets there, he finds out that she'd never intended to be there then.)
Why do I think that? Because her parents were surprised by his visit. It wouldn't be a surprise, if her parents were aware that *she* was going to be there and a friend just happened to drop by.
If she really had plans to be there, she'd have let him know about a change of plans.
Although I'm East Coast, I've driven I-80 across including Salt Lake City to Sacramento. I believe he told AN's family he was on his way to Sacramento so as not to embarrass himself and/or hurt AN's feelings by driving all the way there unannounced and she wasn't home.
Absolutely. Of course, being that her home is actually in SLC (where she works), it would have been odd that she'd be in Ruby Valley mid-week -- wouldn't it?
I thought it was odd that he was home for 30 minutes and then left again, but then I saw the time of his drive to Ruby Valley, leaving at 2:15 am. Not odd at all, was continuation of his pattern from a few nights earlier. He was driving to Vegas this time.
The 2:15am MST is the latest he could have left, to get to Ruby Valley by 11:00am PST. We don't know when he left.
Most significant thing I saw was, unless timeline is misleading, declined to call a basketball game scheduled three days later saying he was in Vegas.
Maybe it's misleading, I don't know. I need to find a way to word it better, while keeping the "event" short and concise?
Steven was scheduled to make some announcements in church, in just a few hours. One of those announcements included the fact that the FIRST ward basketball game would be the next Wednesday night. SK told SA that he couldn't make the announcements because he was in Vegas. SA then asked SK if he was going to be at the game, and SK said no.
The thing is: Although SK had helped with a summer Junior Jazz camp (obviously in SLC), SK wasn't a basketball player. He golfed a bit, and loved water sports. It wouldn't be unusual for him to not be in line for a start-up ward basketball game.
He clearly wasn't planning on heading back home in next three days, but was planning on returning for Christmas, maybe even for next weekend. He had pillows and blankets, shaving kit. I think he was determined to find a job there. That's what I was doing driving on I-80 that time. I was packed same way. Many years ago though.
I think those series of calls, landlord to parents, mother to son and telling him she was depositing money, and father to son where he hung up, made him determined to find a job, and you go to the big city to do that. Been there, done that, many times, many cities.
I agree...but I can't figure out why (if he really did plan to be gone for that long), he didn't take his computer, his cellphone charger, a change of clothes.
How would you find a job, if you're living out of your car and can't even put on clean clothing? What good does a shaving kit do you?
If there was a receipt from a C-store/gas station in the Vegas area, I could see him perhaps going into the rest room and shaving.
Steven would have been in Vegas early morning. I feel he got the SCA area address and directions that morning. If no directions found in his car, and I haven't seen any description of it, must have been carrying it when he walked away up the street.
The voice mail call late that night / early Monday morning is the most ominous. That I feel is a fairly common practice, if common can be used here for such horrendous *advertiser censored* sapien behavior, by a murderer who makes a victim disappear to make it appear the victim is running away, to establish doubt that they are still there after they're dead and wanting to know who is checking on them, when in fact it is the murderer doing so.
In one of my down and out days looking for work as a programmer many years ago, I answered a small ad in the Atlanta paper in the computer section. It was an address, and I drove to it, but turned out to be a house in a somewhat commercial industrialized area in Marietta. I thought it was a small software startup, which is where I got most of my work in those days, but there was only one guy there. He was too big around to fit in a cockpit but was telling me he used to be a test pilot for Lockheed and, I don't know, I think said he was a pilot for Middle Eastern sheiks and in general I think used the ad to lure young men to his house. He then said he would be back, disappeared for awhile, and I got the heck out of there.
If Steven parked where he did and walked back to the street and up the street, I think he had an address he was going to on that street. However, the murderer isn't going to have the victim park the car down the street from his house, much less leave it there, so I think the address was one known to be vacant and the murderer was waiting inside or in a vehicle outside at the appointment time. Was the vehicle whose windows his reflection could be seen in recognized by security camera owner or others in neighborhood? That would be where a murderer would park, at end of street by cul-de-sac to wait for the victim to park and walk by.
My guess is by same token that murderer would not want communications record, phone call or email, so talked to him in person sometime that morning. Where would Steven go looking for work in Vegas on Sunday morning, and why Sunday? Or had he possibly been given those directions earlier, as much as a week earlier, to feel like like he would be in Vegas for awhile?
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What I don't understand about "met up with a murderer" theories, and yours makes good sense, is this: WHO inside SCA would have been so crafty as to secretly lure a man from 120+ miles away, make him disappear, without a trace? That's the work of someone who's experienced at that kind of thing.
All I can think of, is that he was asked to meet someone so they could "go talk to someone else and by the way, leave your car right there so it'll be undisturbed for awhile."
