This has been my thought all along… very very tight window of time between apartment door locking (coinciding w the time she was known to leave for work) and the time she didn’t arrive to work and subsequently reported to LE.
Since the beginning, this case has had undertones of Eliza Fletcher to me, as someone who followed that case from the very beginning. Obviously circumstances and locations are quite different (running vs leaving for work, Tennessee vs Oregon), but the tight timeline, quickly reported missing, time of day, and general age are similar. Heck, even the time of year if I remember right… September?
Anyway, my point as it relates to this case - I remember thinking how odd it was for someone with bad intentions to be out at such an early hour in Eliza’s case. While we have no clue at this point (and hope and pray it is NO where near the case here) if others were involved in Melissa’s disappearance, I do think it could be another important thing to consider — what type of people may be known to this community that would be out at 6am? Someone working a different shift may be returning home if their shift is 6p-6a, or similar off-time, or someone known to be an early morning walker/jogger? Surely in such a large apartment building, others were at the very least awake, but I would be surprised if no one else were nearby- either in the garage on a different level, or outside the garage walking/jogging on nearby sidewalks and streets.