Only on pg 15 of this thread - way behind...but compelled to get some thoughts out there:
I've only seen one video. I don't recall seeing a time stamp on the first version, only that it was claimed to have been taken at 12:15. I followed a link to the "new video obtained" (by a reporting news agency, not LE), which appeared, to me, to show the exact same video. In the previous version, it was cropped to show the area where the girls rode by, the second began with the entire screen of the video, demonstrating why the girls were so out of focus in the initial version. The reporters in both pointed at the same camera, IMO. Each report showed a shot of the camera, the camera was somewhat unique, and I believe it was the same camera, same video. The second report made a point of showing the time-stamp, which would not have appeared in the initially-released, zoomed/cropped version.
Secondly, ppl keep saying the girls were riding away from the lake. Technically this is false. The girls were riding west, we see them riding for about 20 yards, and they are over a mile north of the lake. If anything, they are negligibly closer/farther from the lake from either end of that street or video. The lake is as long, from east to west, as from Evans to River Forest in that spot (note River Forest is not a straight N-S road, but curves). To say they are heading away from the lake is like saying a football player running from sideline to sideline is running away from the endzone, IMO. And to say that the area they are riding in is impoverished or commercial is really not accurate, either. Lafayette has two large strip-mall-styled lots, each with block-wide parking lots. The rear of one block of these business is on Brovan, which is a fairly nice residential area. Yes, the immediate rear of the auction house, in the video, appears to be commercial, but I could take 100 pics from that same spot that would show it to be residential. Its a fairly innocuous spot, even at night, but especially during the day, to the extent that I doubt any parent who looked at it IRL would mind allowing their kids to ride their bikes on the road - there's very little traffic due to it being the back of the businesses. The fact that it has such light traffic makes it a great spot for kids to ride, but also there are several houses on the street, so it definitely doesn't feel secluded, hidden, or dangerous. Just saying, (and maybe a little defensive of my hometown, lol).
Lastly, a witness - apparently ignored or discounted by LE - is on record saying he saw the girls bikes laid across the path in such a way that he had to swerve to miss them. He'd made a call on his cell shortly thereafter - unconnected to the bikes - and later had extrapolated the time of "approximately 12:20" as when he saw the bikes. I believe on FB it was stated that the phone call he'd made was at 12:27 according to his phone. I do not know that or if the call was later and he was guessing that meant he'd seen the bikes at 12:27, but either could be true. I can remember seeing "approximately 12:20" in some article, but the time of "12:27," I believe, was never stated by MSM, but was mentioned on FB. (Anyone have links showing these times?) I could be wrong about that, but his picture didn't appear until in an article that was dated the following Monday. But he has clearly stated that the bikes were laying on the path. However, in a press conference several days later, the spokesman, who claimed to have no knowledge of this witness (and many other details that were reported in MSM, strangely), stated that "when he arrived," the bikes were leaning on the fence. I highly doubt he was in the first 5-15 ppl to arrive at that scene. We don't know - at least I've never seen - in exactly what state the bikes were found by the fireman who located them, whether they were lying down and he picked them up (maybe to allow LE vehicles to pass along the path), or whether they were found leaning against the fence.
On another note, I haven't followed any of the FB pages since early on. I don't know "the boyfriend's" name, or anything about him, except what I've seen here, but he seems to me to be the most-obvious POI at this time, and I'd assumed his connection to Meyers Lake was the "evidence" that the girls may be alive.
OKOK...back to catching up...at least 10 (prolly many more) pages behind.