I think some of the scenarios being offered here suffer from one serious problem, too many points between a and b. I tend to follow the logic of Occam's razor in thinking that the reality is much simpler. The girls were riding around, a predator spotted them, a predator lured them and kidnapped them.
SBM
My problem with that is -- why go after 2 girls? That isn't exactly Occam's razor. It seems too difficult for a random predator to target 2 girls.
Also, can you discount Dan's pre-trial hearing date? To me, Occam's razor looks more like --
Dan was a rat. People got pissed. People decided to make him pay by taking what was most precious to him.