It looks like findleah.org is down :-(
I missed this episode, does anyone remember what the mods made to the car were? I'm wondering if maybe they were made sometime during the trip, just to get the car running.
It doesn't make a lot of sense that someone would take the risk of climbing down the embankment after a setup to place blankets in the window. You've got glass that can cut you and leave DNA behind. A lack of blankets would lead investigators to think that she immediately left the car.
Bellingham isn't that small of a town (80K), for the record. The mall in question is right off I-5, visible from the Interstate. I don't think the list of movies playing is visible from I-5.
IF Leah didn't get any gas starting in Brooks, then her tank would have been getting close to empty by the time she got to Bellingham, that's a 300 mile trip.
The fuel capacity of a 1993 Jeep Cherokee is 22 gallons, and mileage is 19 combined city-highway. So you'd be looking at a 418-or-so mile range. Her gas tank would have been 1/4 full, and she would be setting off for Mount Baker, another 40 miles away, with only the occasional gas station and certainly nothing once she entered the park (and even a non-local would have guessed that.) In other words, she almost certain refueled sometime after Brooks, Oregon.
It would be pretty easy to verify the claims of the person who called to say they saw her fueling up in Everett, that's only 60 miles so her tank would have been close to full. I'd say it would be a safe assumption that she was always filling up the car, she certainly had the cash. So if the police measured the amount of gas in the car, they'd be able to verify at least that part of the story. In fact, they may be able to tell approximately the last time she filled up.
As far as the car being found on a logging road - there are logging roads and there are logging roads. Some really don't go anywhere except up a mountain. Some are in decent shape and are common roads for people looking for a place to hike (or ski during the winter) travel on. I've been on those before.
That a jogger found her car means it was probably one of the latter. I don't see why someone - presumably a local - would dump her car in an area where people are jogging. Consider the chances of being seen! And the car being found quickly. There are plenty of logging roads that basically go nowhere where the car could be dumped at and probably wouldn't have been found for months.
Lastly - she left North Carolina on March 9. She was in Brooks, Oregon on March 13. That's NOT a lot of time to cross the country. I know she really wanted to get to Washington State, which may explained why she hauled, er, you know, across the country, but she also didn't seem to stop and "smell the roses" once she entered the state; she filled up on the morning on the 13th in Oregon, and went through 250 miles of Washington State apparently without stopping and enjoying the beauty of the state. March 13 was also a Monday, meaning she'd be fighting traffic in Portland/Vancouver, Olympia, Tacoma, and Seattle. Driving all this way to get to Washington and then going to a movie that you could have seen anywhere in the country? I don't get it. Yes, Kerouac's novel was set in Whatcom County where Bellingham in located - but you don't stop to check out Seattle when she probably drove right through it?
Not a lot about this case makes a lot of sense, but Leah's actions don't make much sense either to me.
