OK, well, I said I would go all the way through the thread again, and I have now.
Firstly, I don't believe that either Frankie or his dead body are out there on the hills somewhere. The police have used dogs, drones, divers, mountain rescue teams, helicopters and God knows what else. If he was there, he would have been spotted by now, unless moved into a building or extremely well concealed. Even newly disturbed earth would have been spotted imo.
It's interesting to me that Frankie was caught on CCTV in Pentir. I don't know this area at all and have been zooming in and out on google maps for an hour. If someone local reckons I'm talking nonsense, then please feel free to set me straight! However, if the rave was in Waunfawr, and he was also seen on CCTV in Brynrefail, then to me the fact that the next sighting was in Pentir makes me think he was
not making his way home to Llandegfan. If he had been, I think he would most likely have followed the A4244 and then the B4547, or the country lanes off it, and headed towards the Parc Menai area. The fact that he definitely did go through Pentir makes me think he was heading towards either Caerhun, where I believe he had friends, or via Caerhun to Bangor, which is what his (very switched-on imo) mother has said all along.
The bike is interesting. The tyre got punctured on Saturday, on the way
to the rave, so on Sunday Frankie walked with a non-functional bike all the way from the location where he stashed it when he ran into (was overtaken by) the friends who picked him up and gave him a lift to the rave, to at least the Vaynol Arms in Pentir. Afaik, we don't know where that overnight stash location was, but I'm guessing the police do, as they've clearly heard from whoever it was who gave him the lift. So he walked from the rave site to that location unencumbered, and then with the bike from there all the way to Pentir, which must have been a bit of a drag, but he's young and fit, and seems to be sportive - hiking, cycling, skiing, snowboarding are all in his repertoire. Also, I don't think he's in much of a hurry. It's the Sunday of a bank holiday weekend, he's already taken hours over a journey that would have taken a fraction of the time in a car, and from what we know he doesn't strike me as much of a deadline-driven kind of guy anyway.
So why does he then stash the bike again at Pont Felin? The logical answer to me is: for the same reason he stashed it overnight. He's overtaken by someone he knows, who offers him a lift but can't take the bike too. I think this is why the police are so keen to identify those cars - because one of them was driven by someone who either knows him, or who pulled over and offered him a lift anyway (and it may also be why the 4x4 with the trailer was the first one ruled out - because it could have taken the bike too). Any car driving north from the Vaynol Arms imo is most likely to be heading to Caerhun or on to Bangor. It might also be heading towards Anglesey via the bridge, or Caernarfon via the A487 or Conwy via the expressway, but if so, for any of those, there seem to me to be more direct routes if their starting point was anywhere south of Pentir.
So if I were in charge of the investigation, what I would be doing next is:
- looking at any CCTV or ANPR data from the roads between Pentir and Bangor for matches with the cars that went past the Vaynol Arms
- appealing for dashcam footage from any cars or cyclists travelling in the opposite direction in the relevant time window
- pulling DVLA data for all of the vehicles that went through Pentir to see if any of them have any prior connection with Frankie or any relevant criminal record
- looking at pedestrians on CCTV in Bangor to see if Frankie himself shows up later on Sunday than the Pentir sighting
- checking out any friends, associates, social media contacts in Bangor.
Failing any leads there, I would be timing the drive from Pentir to the interchanges with the major roads and looking at CCTV/ANPR from there too.
JMO