Couple thoughts on why I don't think the POI was CRD.
Based on RAT's explanation, Alexis called up her guy and they met shortly thereafter. Therefore CRD was clearly a local. It's a county of 12k people with everyone no more than 1-2 degrees of separation from each other. It wouldn't take police this long to identify CRD and first speak with him (unless he fled, but then wouldn't they put out on APB on him, especially with Alexis still missing? Absolutely yes.).
IMO the fact that it was out of state indicates a likelihood that it was RAT's ride from CVille (dropping off the car) back to his house. Good chance it was a truck driver. There's a cheap Hess gas station on the southbound side of 29, looks less than a half mile from the theater where the car was found. I see trucks filling up there frequently. Wonder if he hitched a ride there, and maybe was caught on security cameras.