Or maybe the phone w as never actually ditched and the situation was manipulated to look like so?
This is just a most likely scenario.
That's a possibility too.
If it was manipulated to look like it was there, then that could possibly be an indication as well as someone trying to make use of the dead signal zone in the area.
Perhaps to explain a possible lack of calls to the phone. If the phone was never out there, and he called the phone while it was in his possession... the signal would read off the local towers near his house, pin pointing the location of the phone, where and when the calls were made.
Knowing of that dead signal area out there on 23, it's possible it could have been planted there, to make it appear that the calls were dropped because of that dead signal... to perhaps attempt to explain a lack of calls.
If their carrier was AT&T, then it's possible that he didn't know that there was a strong signal for AT&T.
That adds additional questions to mix though.
Instead of planting the phone out there and then "finding it"... why not say that Jennifer had left her cell phone at home when she left?
That could be the snag in the possible narrative.
It was presented as a "runaway wife" scenario at the beginning. It was also emphasized that she was playing games via her phone and may have met someone through that, and ran away with them.
I feel that it would have been more likelier for her to have left her phone at home if she was leaving GR, so that he couldn't track her through the "Find My IPhone" app, or call her, to try to talk her into coming back. That's assuming she "ran away" of course, which there's no indication that she was planning to do so.
Assuming that the phone was actually there all along...
It's possible that the phone was purposely tossed out to make it appear that it was a "runaway wife" scenario, but again also to mask the location of the eventual site where Jennifer's body was left (preventing cell towers from reading off the signal).
It's also possible that Jennifer could have been alive, and had attempted to dial 9-1-1, and the perpetrator grabbed the phone, and tossed it (not knowing whether the call to 9-1-1 had gone through or not), then diverted course off the main road as a precaution (again, possibly up Moon Hill Road, as treacherous a drive as it is up to the top of Moon Hill through that way).
Adding to that scenario... it's even possible that she was overcome by the perpetrator in that area on the assumption of it being a dead signal zone. The perpetrator could have thought along the lines that a call made to 9-1-1 couldn't be made there, but tossed the phone as a precaution.
Which leads me to wonder if there was a possible dropped call on the 11th of December from that phone to the 9-1-1 dispatcher, that was abruptly disconnected.