kwatson-- i think the link to the photo you posted is showing the wrong girl.. and this may be what is confusing people. there is another blonde girl o the site, with big sad eyes and kind of 'pouty' lips, which make her look similar to our girl... BUT.. if you check the 2 side by side i think her eyes are much closer-set than the AZ girl... also AZ girl's face/chin appears to be a little pointier/heart-shaped.
thse sketches are indeed strange. not to knock anyone's talents-- i'm sure forensice sketches & photo reconstruction is a tough job. but i sure wish we has a welsey neville on this one!! also that photo image, IMO, doesn't look like the real photo of her, or the other sketch.
one thing i still believe is that this girl is very young.. definitely closer ot 13. i might even say she was 12 or even 11, since girls are looking more mature for their age these days. there's something very babyish and smooth and unworn about her skin and her face... she just seems very innocent.
i agree about the brooch-- very weird- and not just that, but that almost elizabethan looking collar!! why won't they say what she was wearing?? what, was she a mormon? or in some fundamentalist christian cult living out in the desert somewhere? and she had abusive father or family.. maybe she shamed them or rebelled or threatened to go to authorities about something.. maybe there was sexual abuse.. maybe the father (or someone) took her far away and she ended up dead on the road, and no one reported her missing because they are not internet savvy and they were told she ran away, or they were afraid of their leader... or there is some other reason they are hiding from/don't trust authorities.. or maybe they don't care what happened to her because she 'shamed' or questioned them in some way.. did not go along with their beliefs or tactics... OK- maybe my imagination might be getting away with me here.. but.. i'm just trying to figure out why she would look so pure and unspoiled, as if she was sheltered.. which rules out prostitute theory(?) and the outfit (brooch & collar- very victorian/old-fashioned.. (from what we can tell)- and the fact that no one's looking for her (they are a very secluded group themselves, living off the grid- so no one else has ever seen her, no one misses her and no one's looking for her)
heck, maybe it's even some bizarre thing from out of a movie- where this cult believes she is possessed.. or used her as a scapegoat somehow.. (remember the salem witch trials)-- and so the leader (or someone) made her disappear,, and no one cares that she's gone.
another theory... she could be the illegitimate child that was being cared for by the father & his wife.. from a fling the father had... and the evil stepmother agreed to take the child in but hates her and the father either died or went to prison or is a druggie... and the stepmother killed her... or the girl jumped out of the car and the stepmother was afraid to stop and was hoping she was dead anyway... and was afraid of getting busted for child neglect.
i can't help but think there was sexual abuse of some kind here... and the fact that she was just hitting (or about to hit) puberty, that was very threatening to someone- a male or perhaps even a female. and i really do feel she was trying to escape something of some kind.