Ok, long post, be forewarned
Just some thoughts over the last few weeks...and with respect to everyone's ideas....JMOO
As far as the bus idea, she didn't make it home to get her badge and so she did not get on a bus. In other words, she did not ride with her friend because she forgot her badge. She would not get on a bus without first going home and getting her badge. He badge was found at home.
Ultimately, we just don't have enough evidence or motive. But, in an effort to not over think this and to come up with some reasonable, if not out of left field scenarios that might help LE focus and investigate, here are my latest thoughts.
Because we have no idea whose blood is in the car, I am disregarding it for now.
Because I don't think Cheryl committed suicide, I am disregarding that idea as well. I think we do have to consider it, but here are a few reasons why I believe it is unlikely.
Cheryl and her husband were outdoors people and I would bet there was a gun at home. Why walk home to shoot yourself when you could drive. Why walk to a culvert when you could jump off an overpass 3 blocks away. Why walk to a culvert when you could walk (or drive) home and take pills. She could have driven head on into an oncoming car. I know of people who have committed suicide by stabbing themselves but I am sorry, jumping a short distance into a culvert in the hope you would drown or hit your head does not seem likely and I don't think that fall would kill a person.
Where she was left in the culvert is important but it is just one location in this crime. The other being the point of contact with the killer. The culvert is important because there are so many places around western Washington to leave a body in complete solitude if that is what you are trying to do. The culvert is quick, easy, hidden (sort of), would really hide a body well, temporarily, but it is not a place you would hide someone if you had time, gas money and never wanted them to be found. Anyone who thought this through would have noticed the water was going to move the body out into the open eventually. I am going to be focusing on the street her car was found because I believe that is where this all started.
Because the motive for this crime seems to be so elusive I started thinking of more generic scenarios....unlikely as they may be, including, just plain old bad decisions.
Someone planning abduction would not pick a place where lots people are arriving to park. Shopping mall abductions happen but you actually would have a lot of hiding space between cars to grab someone. A street with people arriving to go to work is not very hidden or private and there are houses all along that street.
Someone looking to rob someone would not take a purse and phone and then decide to pick up the person and carry her off as well.
I think lacking a "manner of death", we are looking at blunt force trauma, without clear evidence that it was done by a human or vehicle. I think the street where Cheryl's car was found, is the likely point of contact with whatever/whomever killed Cheryl.
There are endless "what if's' out there and so I wanted to focus on things that would also have concrete ways to investigate.
In the spirit of brainstorming here goes..
Scenario 1
Random accident compounded by bad decisions.
Cheryl parks on the right side of the street, facing north, gets out of her car into the street. She starts walking across the street, realizes she has forgotten her badge and texts the workmate and abruptly turns back around while on or back into the street toward her car. She gets hit accidently (because the driver is probably texting too). The person who hits her decides to put her in his car, truck, and van and hide what happened.
That street is a back way to the main business center of MLT and could be used by delivery people delivering goods to those businesses. Maybe it is a driver/delivery person/commuter who can't afford a ticket due to driving record or due to being a delivery person and does not want to lose their job. He picks Cheryl up and puts her in his car/van/delivery truck maybe with the intention of driving the short ride over to Swedish Hospital and she dies along the way and he decides to hide the whole incident instead.
I would be looking for delivery schedules to local nearby businesses and possible worker/employee deviation soon after that Monday Cheryl went missing. Also I would look at any deliveries that might have been late that day. I would look at the cameras in that area looking for consistent vehicle traveling that route at that hour. I would talk with local business owners to see if delivery schedules and/or delivery people changed.
Scenario 2
Because the POI list starts with the people closest to the victim and moves outward, after the family is removed from the list, the next people who would have seen her consistently would be the people who live on the street where she parked. Maybe some sort of confrontation, with one of the people living on that street, occurred after Cheryl parked that morning and it escalated.
I have been commuting to Seattle for 30 years. As the Seattle area grows I see more and more hostility on the streets by drivers but also by people walking and riding bikes. There seems to be a real power struggle going on between these three modes of transportation.
I am sure people do not like having tons of cars show up every day to park on their street. I would be really curious to know the backgrounds of everyone on that street as well as any reports of problems on that street with commuters and the people who live there. I also think canvassing that area by police doing knock and talks would possibly be beneficial.
Scenario 3
From what little I know of abduction cases, it seems like the abductor is often someone who has watched the person for a while. Someone in an apartment complex or neighbor. In Cheryls case, someone in that neighborhood, someone with a pickup, car or van. Or someone who was visiting someone along that street at that time...a relative of someone who lived on that street. I would be doing knock and talks along that street and side streets.
I have mentioned using bloodhounds and I don't know if LE have exhausted that idea or not, or if it is even a good idea. I remember a documentary where a bloodhound tracked a car carrying an abducted person all the way down a freeway. I would think it would be interesting to go over every inch of that whole block/neighborhood with dogs that are adept at tracking scent. If there is nothing found, it would lend credence to the idea she was taken by someone in the street. Of course, if she parked their regularly, maybe dogs would just reveal past paths she traveled.
I think the toxicology report is to rule out Cheryl being under the influence of something that would have created a scenario where she is wandering in a confused/drugged state in that area and ended up falling into the culvert or being hit by a car and thrown into the culvert.
Just some thoughts...
Stay strong Stryker, the person who did this will eventually be caught.
artyguy: Thanks for joining in with some new material for us to mull over...