The offender who abducted the girls, is most likely from the area, either the recovery or from the abduction site, no matter what anyones feelings are , barring the investigators themselves, the data is there to support this claim .
Could it be different?.. absolutely, but unless everything that LE has been studying all these years, is wrong, the safest bet is to stay to what we do know about these type offenders and the evidence in this case, falls pretty well into those typologies.
Sometimes we tend to over think things, I know when we get a hunch , we want to stay with it , but you have to understand unless you have 20 years investigating actual homicides as a member of a sworn LE department, you are basing your feelings off what you have probably read in the past etc... In reality most crimes, are not as scripted, or as romanticised, or even as deviant as we imagine.
I call it the TV syndrome
Motives certainly aren't always as complicated as we may make them seem, those who make the best investigators are the ones who stick to the evidence, and dont make assumptions about what couldve happened, they work with what they know did happen.
They may call in support (FBI etc..) to help calculate other factors, in which case hey may offer suggestions to aid in an investigation but ALL of those are based upon data we know applied to the evidence.
As hard as it may seem, you have to stay on track
The biggest issue I see here, on WS are members trying to link cases, without thoroughly investigating what they have 1st. Think trapping vs hunting, trapping you never know what you are going to get hunting you are looking for s specific prey item, thats what we want to do , allow their behavior, the evidence they left, put out what the public should be looking for prior, and post.
Instead of making suggestions
Now I know its not easy because only so much is listed, but think of it like this
Of all the millions of homicides committed per year , just under 1% may be attributed to serial killers , and I say MAY , because some aren't identified .
One guy in particular almost made me leave WS, everything was the work of the his "killer" .
Anyway Serial murder is actually an exceedingly rare phenomena, yeah it makes great TV, books and movies, but in reality its not that prevalent (thankfully).
But I'm willing to bet in 90% of the threads on here you'll be willing to find SOMEONE who will wager their kids souls, that said crime is the work of the infamous Serial Killer.
They will look up some case, that may have been 40 years earlier, it may have been completely different victim types, all evidence pointing away from any type of predatory crime....
Yet they will try to link it "He may have moved here as a kid and this could've been an early attempt".... The incident could have happened on the damn MOON, but they'll try to link it.
And its almost always not .
Police impersonators are indeed a problem, not because of what potential they have but because they may also cause suspicions and create distrust, in LE which in this day and age,can have huge implications.
Sometimes we get too into our own head in other words.
It isnt wrong , but its like going to the depths of space to see what our own planet is like , instead of looking at our own planet to see what other planets may be like ...If that makes sense
In cases where people were arrested for impersonating police officers , they usually aren't venturing far from home, police impersonation, is a MO, MO isn't always a reliable crime scene indicator, the reason is that MO is a dynamic, IE it can and does change over time , with experience, trial error.
The mere fact that someone reported a police impersonator , may change the offenders behavior , because now he knows, the public is wary of his (their) MO.
