Hello all, long time lurker and a new member here.
I'm from the area and have read the discussions so I want to answer a few questions that were asked on this thread.
Snow & schools- it snowed on Jan 22 Friday & Jan 23 Saturday. VT was only closed for those days and were back to regular schedule on Monday 25th. I think Nicole's school was closed on Jan 22, Jan 25 and Jan 26th and would have opened with a 2 hr delay on the 27th.
Snow & roads - main roads were cleared by Jan 25th monday morning but many of the secondary roads and neighborhood roads were still quite bad at that time. Crews were working on those roads on Jan 25& 26. By Tuesday night/ Wednesday morning of Jan 27, I would say the secondary roads were passable but not in perfect condition. One major issue that everything would refreeze at night so it would be icy and slippery. On Jan 27th, there were definitely snow on the sides of the road. It took 1+ week for it to melt and still there is snow here and there. So they would have left footprints in the snow.
About VT dorms - You can only enter into the dorms with a ID card that only opens your dorm. Both DE and NK live in freshman dorms which means roommates and shared kitchen, living rooms and bathrooms. Plus there is good amount of cameras. So I think it's impossible for something happening in the dorms without someone seeing it.
About Nicole being to VT campus - You don't need to be a student or know someone working at campus to visit the campus. VT campus is right by the downtown, with buses going through it and offer a lot of events, locations for the locals to visit (such as restaurants, running, biking etc). So Nicole could have been on campus and it would be quite normal.
As for transportation - There is a very good public transportation system at Blacksburg. So it is really easy to go to the campus and leave campus. When school is in session - and it was in session - there will be a bus every 5 minutes.
As for winter session - VT offers a winter session. Campus classes were between Jan 4 - Jan 16. Fall semester had ended on December 18th. So if DE and NK were enrolled in a winter session class, they could have been on back on campus as early as Jan 4th.