While I'm desperately hopeful that she is out there alive, my rational side thinks it's unlikely.
I definitely don't think she's a runaway:
- Police have had access to her computer and phone for some time. If she had left with someone, there must've been evidence there of planning it, which they don't seem to have found.
- She doesn't appear to have had much money, nor does she have a cash-earning job or trade, so being able to support herself for this long seems unlikely. She does NOT seem like the type to be involved in the sex or drug trade, which are two places a person could go 'off-radar'.
- While she did have medical conditions, I'm not seeing anything that implies a mental break. I know these things can be sudden, but it doesn't ring true for me personally. Also, she would still have to be intentionally hiding, and that doesn't ring true with the (minimal, I admit) experience I have with people in mental-health crisis.
- If Police had ANY reason to suspect she ran off, I think we'd have heard from them, as it would tally with GR' statements - it's not as though he is out there insisting foul play, so there'd be no harm in stating they thought it was possible that she left. They have not.
- The van being covered in mud, ditched where it was, and the phone - those two just don't ring with a runaway IMO.
I think a stranger abduction is possible:
- For a random abduction/murder I can't quite see motive. No cash withdrawal, phone ditched, car ditched. It'd take a seriously wrong place wrong time moment.
- I have wondered if this is a ransom situation. It would explain the quiet, the 'humanising' list of her character traits, even, to an extent, oddities in GR's interview. Would love to hear others thoughts on this possibility. However I think abduction for ransom is pretty rare?
I also think a suicide is possible:
- But very unlikely, as why the mud, and why ditch the phone. And how did she manage to get far enough away to not have been found. I think it's possible, but I don't really include it in my theories of what happened. I might go and see if I can find some stats on women suicides as from memory they often happen in the home. From the little I've seen of Jennifer, she doesn't seem the type who would want people to never know what happened.
I think her coming to harm at the hands of someone she knew is possible:
- Personally I think this is most likely. I can't see anything that works against this, but would like to hear it if anyone else can!