If so that would suggest premeditation as didn't neighbours say it was on his car roof on Thursday?
Just a quick note re the roof box...I would seriously doubt that MS hid her body in the roof box of the car for a number of reasons. Have you ever tried to get things into/out of a roof box? It is incredibly difficult as you have to heave everything up above your head. I don't think a man on his own would be able to hold a grown woman above his head and manoeuvre her into the roof box on his own. It would definitely be very difficult, particularly if any form of rigor mortis had set in. It would also be very conspicuous - not really what you want if disposing of a body.
Secondly, if the family had planned a camping trip and the neighbour had seen them putting on the roof box on the Thursday night, it may have been that they packed the roof box the night before in anticipation of their trip. Which is why the neighbour would have been so confident that they were going away. Lots of people would do this on the Thursday night, so they could leave straight after work on the Friday to get the most from their weekend away.
It would seem more likely that perhaps the threat to SE was more recent, as in MS had become more threatening in the run up to his holiday, if he was due to leave on the Friday perhaps SE had received a text/call at work the night before from an erratic and threatening MS, which is why her colleagues would have been so concerned at her sudden disappearance.
I would think it is more likely that SE arrived home from work as normal and parked in her own drive. MS arrived around lunch time to confront her over payment and things got out of hand. This would tie in with the scream being heard at 2pm. MS obviously then had to dispose of her body as there would have been text messages/phone calls linking him to SE.
SE car was found at the very rear of her drive, which would be an unusual place for her to park according to neighbours, so it seems sensible that MS moved her car further down the drive so that he could reverse his own van into the drive where he could easily move things between his van and the side door of the house without attracting too much notice. This would have seemed particularly innocuous behaviour given that neighbours would have seen him working at the house as little as two weeks previously. This seems likely given that both SE's car and MS's van have been forensically tested.
Tape around the eyes is quite possibly an indication of remorse. It doesn't state anywhere that the tape covered her nose/mouth so it is unlikely that it contributed to the cause of death. MS may not have been able to cope with SE looking at him after he had murdered her and so he used the masking tape to cover her eyes, winding it around her face and head to stop the feelings of guilt. He would have needed the duvet to cover the body while transporting it to the van.
The timeline from here on is interesting though. Why did MS not just immediately dump her body? Is this where the assisting an offender charges come in? Did he phone someone to tell them what he had just done? Did they help him to cover it up? It doesn't make sense as to why he would waste time and leave himself exposed to SE's body being potentially discovered in his van until hours later before going to dump the body. If the police are looking at a window between 9pm and 11pm he waited 7 hours before doing anything. He would have had to make an excuse to leave the house in his work van at that hour surely.
If SE was reported missing at 7.20pm on the Friday night, then the police would have needed to check her home first before confirming her as missing. I saw somewhere that a friend had been part of a group who had gone to check SE's home as her behaviour was so out of character...that must surely have taken time. So at what point would MS have been made aware that other people knew SE was missing.
I am assuming that KS would have heard on the Friday night that SE was missing, either from JP/the police directly so they left on the Saturday morning already aware that SE was missing and what the neighbour assumed was them leaving for their holiday, was in fact them going to see JP and help with the search for SE. MS would already have been a suspect at this point given other people were aware of his threats.
Perhaps the suggestion that SE was visiting Whitby/just needed time alone came from MS when he was interviewed by police? There must have been texts/phone calls showing that he was the last person to be in contact with her, perhaps he said he called around for the money, they sorted it out and she suggested that she needed some time away. It seems odd that the police would put any stead in her suddenly up and leaving if it was so out of character and she had work that night. They must have been pointed in that direction by someone. Do we know if the sighting of her at the train station came from a member of the public? (just thinking could it have been one of the other suspects, confirming MS's version of events by saying they had seen SE at the station)
The most obvious option I guess is that MS needed to dispose of the body so he asked SS & the 28yo to give him an alibi so he could reasonably leave the house between 9pm and 11pm on the Friday night. I wonder should the fact that the van was found in the drive of the 28yo allude to something more though? How did MS get back home for him to leave in the family car on the Saturday if the work van was at his friend's? What did he tell them he was up to that he dropped the van around that late on the Friday night? ...and why did they forensically test his Dad's car too?
