I'm trying to play catch up a bit. Thanks for the messages and comments. We're still in the hospital, but we're in a different place than what we were in last week so that's at least a change. Hopefully be able to go home soon. I don't feel like getting on the computer much right now because there are other things going on and I'm ill myself so I'm just going to make one big post. Sorry for being wordy. Normally I'd try to break this up and space it out a bit.
I still think the girls were randomly chosen. I think he went there with the intention of hurting someone and that it was just a wrong place at the wrong time kind of deal. There may have been some planning on his part, even if just in a general sense, but I also think he had a great deal of luck on his side. Not all unplanned crimes end up in frenzied, chaotic messes. Considering that this crime took place outside, the environment may have lent itself to a more pristine murder scene: no pictures to knock off the walls, no furniture to knock over, no broken glass, etc.
JP in the Jayme Closs case had both planning and luck on his side. On the one hand, he went so far as to shave his head, use a weapon that was difficult to trace, and remove the light on his car, but he was also extremely lucky in that if he'd been just a couple of minutes slower, if her dad had shot at him, or if the oncoming police cruiser had paid more attention to him, he'd have been caught on his way out. Or if one of them had fought back and gotten his skin under their nails or his blood.
As for why Abby/Libby and not someone else that day? It may have been timing. The other girls who were there may have been within closer range to other people and he didn't want to risk it. When he reached the end of the bridge with A&L, he knew that there wasn't anyone behind him for at least another 5-7 minutes because he'd have been able to see the length of the bridge. So right then and there he knew he'd have at least a small window of flex time to get them "down the hill." Perhaps he'd surveyed the area moments before and knew that there wasn't anyone under the bridge at that time, too. I think he underestimated the ease in which he could attack these two little girls. His ego probably thought hey, they're just kids and this will be easy. They did not, however, make it easy for him. Good.
I'm not convinced at all that anyone's afraid to turn him in. At least, I don't think they're fearful for what HE might do to them. Maybe they also have some sketchy things in THEIR past and now that they've seen LE arrest people for various crimes while doing interviews in this case they don't want to draw attention to themselves. (In fact, if I have any criticism about how the crime has been handled, that's it.)
More than likely, though, IMO someone has either turned him in and the tip somehow got buried, LE shrugged it off for some kind of reason (no idea why, but perhaps for a good alibi), or the people in his life are just having trouble connecting the pieces. LE released Ted Bundy's first name, description, and vehicle and some of his friends even joked with HIM about it. I'm wondering if it's one of the first two and that's why LE is regrouping and looking back at what happened in the early stages. Perhaps they've realized that they DID miss something in one of those tips in the beginning. They certainly reverted back to the OG sketch, so...