I live 3 miles from where this happened and my family lives about 1 mile from Karina's family. Along the Belt Parkway from the exit to my neighborhood to the exit to Howard Beach is 3 miles of biking and walking/running paths. Off the Belt is the weeds, where the brush is so thick and high in some places that I can imagine people in the area not seeing or hearing anything. Once you move off off the Belt Parkway it is a very secluded area. There are many unofficial paths leading from the Belt Parkway that would lead right to the area that her body was found. Homeless people are known to set up camp in the weeds as well and some panhandle at the exit when you are coming off the Belt into Howard Beach.
Between the exit to my neighborhood and the exit to Karina's neighborhood there is another exit on the belt called Erskine Street. Directly off that exit is a shopping mall with a large parking lot. It is possible to walk from that shopping mall to the Belt Parkway and cross over the Belt, taking one of those unofficial paths leading right to where Karina was found. The mall is about a mile and a half to 2 miles from where Karina was found.
Forgive me if I am all over the place but my thoughts are all trying to come out at once.
4 days before she died, Karina posted a photo of herself and a South African businessman and captioned it "You + Me+ Rose + Saint Tropez= Happiness"
2 days before she died she broke up with a boyfriend who told the police that the reason they broke up was because he thought what they had was more than casual and she considered it to be more casual. Although I have never been one to believe in huge coincidences, from the news reports, the police have already cleared him and he is not considered a suspect so I guess this is just a coincidence.
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Now, I say all that to say this. This feels more to me like something personal than a random attack. I'm not sure how common it is for rapes to be both vaginal and anal and so violently brutal. Even though the area is isolated, it was still light outside and I would think that a rapist/killer would want to get in and out of the area as fast as possible. I also was thinking that if this was a crime of opportunity that was supposed to be "just a rape", once he realized how hard she was going to fight back, wouldn't he have just given up and ran off instead of committing a murder? Hearing the details of the beating and rape makes me feel like this was someone that was angry with her for some reason.
Just my opinion though, I could be way off.
On another note, hi WS'ers, it's been a long time. I haven't posted since Caylee <3