MA - Vanessa Marcotte, 27, murdered, Princeton, 7 Aug 2016 #5

[ForensicMass]

Let me preface this by saying that I'm not at all convinced that VM 's murder and KV's murder in queens are not related.

The burns on VM : I think he was possibly torturing her. Not an attempt to destroy DNA, because if he raped her surely he would have burned her genital area ( attempting to destroy DNA ).

The scratches/marks : He is not from this area, and does not have to answer to anyone for changes in his appearance.

I read that LE said that he is somewhat aware of this area, not that he knows the area well. Originally it was reported that VM ran in this area every time she came to visit her mother. So, a very set pattern there. The perp could have done a "dry run" when VM was at her mother's at another time, and so knew the traffic patterns in the area.

Definitely had/has a vehicle. Left the area as soon as he killed VM. These two murders were close together. IF they are connected, it could be because of some grudge held towards both women, something specific to them. In that case one could possibly expect no other repeat crimes by this/these killer(s). jmo.

Good thoughts. Regarding the pattern of Vanessa running while in Princeton though, I thoroughly researched her previously mapped runs and she did not ever run on the same day or at the same time. It's not as if she had a regular Sunday run at 1 o'clock she didn't. In fact when I cross checked the weather it appeared that when it was hot out she like to get the run done early probably to avoid the height of the heat of the day. So the run on this particular day was slightly irregular for her. I guess what I'm saying is yes someone could have known she ran in Princeton and they could have known where she likes to run but they would have had to be willing to wait all day possibly for multiple days to capture her with no immediate knowledge of that particular run. That is why I maintain that someone had seen her on the day of her run but prior to that time. This certainly could've been someone from out of town with a vehicle who encountered her at the store only an hour or so before she went running. It could've been a local that knew her that saw her at the store and knew where she ran and then quickly got set up. It's easier to wait an hour for someone than days.

 

[Massman33]

Is there anywhere online or elsewhere where you can plug a person's name in & see what car they own?

 

[ForensicMass]

Is there anywhere online or elsewhere where you can plug a person's name in & see what car they own?

Nope. No such thing. Registry has all that data but it's private. Of course LE can look up by plate number.

Have you some suspicions?

 

[ThinkHard]

Playing Catch Up and just finished reading through...

-regarding the car...one thought, If a person wasn't planning to kill her but rather an encounter escalated...they wouldn't have been thinking or worrying about there car being seen premeditatively. Also a seriously don't think LE would bring about the dark SUV if it wasn't a piece of this, dismissing it seems illogical.

-Regarding running down the path... I can only relate my personal experience...
I was being followed late one night after getting off a bus, my instinct was to quite literally walk down the center of the road in hopes a car came....(fortunately a taxi did just as his hand wrapped around my wrist, I literally threw myself in front of the cab). I'd think if she had on one hand the wherewithal to consider running up a driveway could be a death trap, surely she'd think running down a path to nowhere would be even more so. Again I can only speak to what my instinct was when put in a situation like the one you describe she might have been in and my instinct was to run to were there was the greatest chance of encounter another person and that was right down the middle of the street. I confess I don't know what I would do if it were a swarm of bees as I have never been in that situation.

-Regarding timeline being so tight. It feels like there are 3 possibilities:
1.) it happened quick and early on
2.) he got lucky
3.) he knew what time she was expected home/bus back to NYC was.

-Regarding the fire....I do think it's most likely a small blow torch. It would give both precise control and eliminate most smoke. I am a sailor and we use them a lot for boat maintenance stuff, specifically slicing line...you heat up a paint scraper with the flame from the torch and then slice nylon line with it, so both sides melt as you cut and they don't fray. Whenever I would use one someone's times we would test it on a piece of scrap wood before using it for its intended purpose...when you run a blow torch flame across wood it darkens it...more so the longer you hold it to the wood and it will do this without actually catching the wood on fire. So the lines mentioned on the tree...when I saw them that is what they reminded me of. BTW The ash spot on the ground could be where he burned a pile of her clothing? Or perhaps if she was laying down it could have been where her hair was, which of course would have caught fire in a different way then her skin...just putting it out there.

Depending on someone's hobby or job, it seems to me it wouldn't be that crazy for someone to have a blow torch on them. Most start by turning up the gas and then using this spark starter little metal devise thing where scraping the halves together starts a spark that you put near the gas...so you don't use a lighter at all.

-Purpose of burning? Obviously hiding DNA is probable...if remorsefulness is off the table....then at the very least of the burning isn't solely about DNA burning the face feels VERY personal....as in her face made this person very very mad or upset...either hers directly or because hers reminded him of someone's....

Also if the face burning is a possibility as being motivated by it being personal (like extreme jealousy) I sometimes wonder if a 2 perp was involved and perhaps a female one? As in one that was all the brains and none of the dirty work meaning none of the DNA.


-body being there? .... it either happened there, or he wanted her found. Now why would he want her found....perhaps to stage the crime, perhaps to get "attention" on the crime...I can see a few reasons here.

-Regarding running times being all over the place...that's just not true...it's been reported she always took a walk/run in Sunday afternoons before catching the bus to nyc. Here map my run runs stopped being reported about a year before her run. But multiple news sources reported her family saying she had a routine of taking this run/walk before returning to NYC.

-Would police check on a car on the side of the road on a Sunday afternoon in Princeton?...probably not considering there are literally like 2 - 4 cops on duty at that time in total...a car on a Sunday wouldn't likely peek their interest.

-this area doesn't get a lot of meth heads. Sadly heroine has been a problem but not
meth as far as I am aware. Meth heads would stick out big time in Princeton FYI.

-how local is local. Keep in mind Paxton, Princeton, Rutland, Sterling, and Holden are all part of the same school system and share a newspaper and in many ways function as one big town.

Westminster and Hubbardston boarder Princeton but aren't in the same "community" Peres as Princeton...but would be pretty familiar with the area if they frequented the Mountain (which is technically in Westminster). Leominster boarders it too but i never go Leominster and I don't know how often people from Leominster go to Princeton.
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[ThinkHard]

A couple perp possibilities;

Another possibility for a perp: Someone who she knew, someone local, perhaps they saw her out and about and knew she was home, knew her well enough to know she ran....either intentionally drove by her to talk, or got lucky for driving by her and decided to try to talk to her....perhaps that was the car that was spotted and then she disappeared ... maybe in the car talking. Maybe drove somewhere else to talk...even just a parking lot. Then something's escalated resulting in her death, and he brought her body back to a place she would have run by and tried to stage it.

-alternative perp scenario: someone who works at the light department...perhaps works Sunday's just to be on hand or can put in extra hours. Maybe he has seen VM run by for months. If he works there he likely takes trips to the market to grab lunch and has seen her there as well...he is familiar with the area, with all the little paths, with cut throughs in the woods...etc and that how he gets to the path and escapes without ever being spotted...it's also how he first spotted VM and became infatuated with her in the first place...just a theory of course.

3rd perp possibility: if he is a serial killer perhaps he is someone who has moved to Princeton within the last few years...and his previous kills were closer to former residences ... perhaps police should expand the MO search and see if location matches former residents of recent Princeton transplants.

 

[ThinkHard]

This case has hit me hard for many reasons; I grew up on the Princeton line, I look a lot like her, I am half Italian, am an only child, only a few years older, and l like her moved from these little bucolic towns to the big bad city of NYC, but instead of working at google, I worked at a high end and well known fashion company. I'm sure her parents like mine worries when there little girl was away in the city, their only child....and felt relief when she was home in the safety and tranquility of Princeton. So to have her taken in the place she likely felt the safest and where they felt like she was safest....it's really just shattering in so many ways. It truly feels like a violation to our entire community and my heart breaks for the Marcotte's especially at this time of year.

 

[The Farm]

This case has hit me hard for many reasons; I grew up on the Princeton line, I look a lot like her, I am half Italian, am an only child, only a few years older, and l like her moved from these little bucolic towns to the big bad city of NYC, but instead of working at google, I worked at a high end and well known fashion company. I'm sure her parents like mine worries when there little girl was away in the city, their only child....and felt relief when she was home in the safety and tranquility of Princeton. So to have her taken in the place she likely felt the safest and where they felt like she was safest....it's really just shattering in so many ways. It truly feels like a violation to our entire community and my heart breaks for the Marcotte's especially at this time of year.

I understand completely. When my daughter finished college she did the same thing only over 2000 miles away. All I did was worry.She was not big city savy and just a country girl.
To think that something like happened to VM could have happened in my little safe haven town is unimaginable but it happens anywhere and everywhere. I honestly do believe that no where is safe anymore.

 

[ForensicMass]

Playing Catch Up and just finished reading through...

-regarding the car...one thought, If a person wasn't planning to kill her but rather an encounter escalated...they wouldn't have been thinking or worrying about there car being seen premeditatively. Also a seriously don't think LE would bring about the dark SUV if it wasn't a piece of this, dismissing it seems illogical.

-Regarding running down the path... I can only relate my personal experience...
I was being followed late one night after getting off a bus, my instinct was to quite literally walk down the center of the road in hopes a car came....(fortunately a taxi did just as his hand wrapped around my wrist, I literally threw myself in front of the cab). I'd think if she had on one hand the wherewithal to consider running up a driveway could be a death trap, surely she'd think running down a path to nowhere would be even more so. Again I can only speak to what my instinct was when put in a situation like the one you describe she might have been in and my instinct was to run to were there was the greatest chance of encounter another person and that was right down the middle of the street. I confess I don't know what I would do if it were a swarm of bees as I have never been in that situation.

-Regarding timeline being so tight. It feels like there are 3 possibilities:
1.) it happened quick and early on
2.) he got lucky
3.) he knew what time she was expected home/bus back to NYC was.

-Regarding the fire....I do think it's most likely a small blow torch. It would give both precise control and eliminate most smoke. I am a sailor and we use them a lot for boat maintenance stuff, specifically slicing line...you heat up a paint scraper with the flame from the torch and then slice nylon line with it, so both sides melt as you cut and they don't fray. Whenever I would use one someone's times we would test it on a piece of scrap wood before using it for its intended purpose...when you run a blow torch flame across wood it darkens it...more so the longer you hold it to the wood and it will do this without actually catching the wood on fire. So the lines mentioned on the tree...when I saw them that is what they reminded me of. BTW The ash spot on the ground could be where he burned a pile of her clothing? Or perhaps if she was laying down it could have been where her hair was, which of course would have caught fire in a different way then her skin...just putting it out there.

Depending on someone's hobby or job, it seems to me it wouldn't be that crazy for someone to have a blow torch on them. Most start by turning up the gas and then using this spark starter little metal devise thing where scraping the halves together starts a spark that you put near the gas...so you don't use a lighter at all.

-Purpose of burning? Obviously hiding DNA is probable...if remorsefulness is off the table....then at the very least of the burning isn't solely about DNA burning the face feels VERY personal....as in her face made this person very very mad or upset...either hers directly or because hers reminded him of someone's....

Also if the face burning is a possibility as being motivated by it being personal (like extreme jealousy) I sometimes wonder if a 2 perp was involved and perhaps a female one? As in one that was all the brains and none of the dirty work meaning none of the DNA.


-body being there? .... it either happened there, or he wanted her found. Now why would he want her found....perhaps to stage the crime, perhaps to get "attention" on the crime...I can see a few reasons here.

-Regarding running times being all over the place...that's just not true...it's been reported she always took a walk/run in Sunday afternoons before catching the bus to nyc. Here map my run runs stopped being reported about a year before her run. But multiple news sources reported her family saying she had a routine of taking this run/walk before returning to NYC.

-Would police check on a car on the side of the road on a Sunday afternoon in Princeton?...probably not considering there are literally like 2 - 4 cops on duty at that time in total...a car on a Sunday wouldn't likely peek their interest.

-this area doesn't get a lot of meth heads. Sadly heroine has been a problem but not
meth as far as I am aware. Meth heads would stick out big time in Princeton FYI.

-how local is local. Keep in mind Paxton, Princeton, Rutland, Sterling, and Holden are all part of the same school system and share a newspaper and in many ways function as one big town.

Westminster and Hubbardston boarder Princeton but aren't in the same "community" Peres as Princeton...but would be pretty familiar with the area if they frequented the Mountain (which is technically in Westminster). Leominster boarders it too but i never go Leominster and I don't know how often people from Leominster go to Princeton.
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Love this post thanks for coming back. I agree with 90% of this. Have a couple of thoughts to consider and add.

Thank you for sharing your own personal experience about someone trying to sell to you. I'm not in anyway invalidating your response to the situation. From the sound of it though it appears that you were talking about making your decisions (Walking down the center of the road) BEFORE you were attacked. In this scenario where she is panicked and running down the path, is salt has already been initiated. And that, I believe, causes the instinctive flight reaction. Not a reaction where in she has time to sort out her options. I agree this is not necessarily what happened, but it still seems just as sensible to me as someone who knew of this path and dragged her in there, especially in the case where an automobile was involved. Her running in there makes more sense to me in that case. I wholeheartedly agree with you in the first part of the post regarding the fact that the perpetrator would not have thought twice about abandoning the car on the road to catch her if he had already assaulted her and she had begun to escape. It lines up with the fact that whatever happened here wasn't planned to go down this way. I also totally agree that if the police are insistent that a dark SUV was involved, then it was. That should be an integral part of our theory development going forward.

Regarding her times of her runs, can you specifically cite where it says she ran at a regular day/time. I have never seen this explicitly stated. Someone stated generally that she always took a run before heading back to NYC that statement isn't precise- it is interpretational and doesn't eliminate that she may have run early in the morning, as she did on a Sunday the previous August. In fact that is direct evidence that she didn't "always " Run just before she headed back. That run was only a year earlier. I don't know if you are a runner but in looking at her workout habits, as a runner, it's clear to me that she is deciding when to run on factors other than when she returns to New York- be they weather conditions, or how her body felt, how much sleep she may have gotten the night before, for example. I do believe that running was a part of her routine in so far as whenever she visited Princeton she likely took the opportunity to run at some point during her visit because of the serene peaceful nature of the surroundings compared to the surroundings of her normal runs in New York City. but I do not think they were down-to-the-hour-regular. That is just like leave the media misreporting or misconstruing a statement that she always or usually ran when she was in Princeton.

 

[ForensicMass]

A couple perp possibilities;

Another possibility for a perp: Someone who she knew, someone local, perhaps they saw her out and about and knew she was home, knew her well enough to know she ran....either intentionally drove by her to talk, or got lucky for driving by her and decided to try to talk to her....perhaps that was the car that was spotted and then she disappeared ... maybe in the car talking. Maybe drove somewhere else to talk...even just a parking lot. Then something's escalated resulting in her death, and he brought her body back to a place she would have run by and tried to stage it.

-alternative perp scenario: someone who works at the light department...perhaps works Sunday's just to be on hand or can put in extra hours. Maybe he has seen VM run by for months. If he works there he likely takes trips to the market to grab lunch and has seen her there as well...he is familiar with the area, with all the little paths, with cut throughs in the woods...etc and that how he gets to the path and escapes without ever being spotted...it's also how he first spotted VM and became infatuated with her in the first place...just a theory of course.

3rd perp possibility: if he is a serial killer perhaps he is someone who has moved to Princeton within the last few years...and his previous kills were closer to former residences ... perhaps police should expand the MO search and see if location matches former residents of recent Princeton transplants.

Each interesting theories in their own right. I like that. The last one is one that we could probably follow up on. Look at dates of houses purchased and look for outsiders. We know there haven't been many cases like this in Massachusetts so the person would probably have come from out of state. and based on their age bracket there would only be so many people moving to Princeton as it is not a place to work but rather a town full of retirees and commuters. Perhaps people trying to hide.

 

[ThinkHard]

Love this post thanks for coming back. I agree with 90% of this. Have a couple of thoughts to consider and add.

Thank you for sharing your own personal experience about someone trying to sell to you. I'm not in anyway invalidating your response to the situation. From the sound of it though it appears that you were talking about making your decisions (Walking down the center of the road) BEFORE you were attacked. In this scenario where she is panicked and running down the path, is salt has already been initiated. And that, I believe, causes the instinctive flight reaction. Not a reaction where in she has time to sort out her options. I agree this is not necessarily what happened, but it still seems just as sensible to me as someone who knew of this path and dragged her in there, especially in the case where an automobile was involved. Her running in there makes more sense to me in that case. I wholeheartedly agree with you in the first part of the post regarding the fact that the perpetrator would not have thought twice about abandoning the car on the road to catch her if he had already assaulted her and she had begun to escape. It lines up with the fact that whatever happened here wasn't planned to go down this way. I also totally agree that if the police are insistent that a dark SUV was involved, then it was. That should be an integral part of our theory development going forward.

Regarding her times of her runs, can you specifically cite where it says she ran at a regular day/time. I have never seen this explicitly stated. Someone stated generally that she always took a run before heading back to NYC that statement isn't precise- it is interpretational and doesn't eliminate that she may have run early in the morning, as she did on a Sunday the previous August. In fact that is direct evidence that she didn't "always " Run just before she headed back. That run was only a year earlier. I don't know if you are a runner but in looking at her workout habits, as a runner, it's clear to me that she is deciding when to run on factors other than when she returns to New York- be they weather conditions, or how her body felt, how much sleep she may have gotten the night before, for example. I do believe that running was a part of her routine in so far as whenever she visited Princeton she likely took the opportunity to run at some point during her visit because of the serene peaceful nature of the surroundings compared to the surroundings of her normal runs in New York City. but I do not think they were down-to-the-hour-regular. That is just like leave the media misreporting or misconstruing a statement that she always or usually ran when she was in Princeton.

Just to clarify I was living in a foreign country at the time, I had gotten off a city bus at about 1030 at night and a man across the street was watching me. He crossed the road and began following me, so I instinctively starting to cross the road to avoid him but kept to the medium so that if a car came by I'd be able to get its attention regardless of which direction it was going. It was a fairly busy in the day time 4 lane road with a median in the middle. As soon as I tried to cross the road he began crossing too...it was very obvious he was following me. On one side was a park, on the other side a big hill with apartments at the top...it all happened very very fast and was very frightening, not much time to think at all...all I can tell you is my instinct was to increase my visibility to potential passerbiers not to run in a direction that would decrease it. The only way I see her running into the woods is if her path to go in any other direction was blocked.....or if she happen to be down that path to pee or something and he followed her down it.

Regarding running times, it was something LE said early on that she had a habit of running around that time when she was home just before she'd board the bus home. I can't remember if it was an article or a video of the news conference...but it was defineky stated she had a routine of a run/walk before a bus ride back. It could be how it was reported and not fact fact but it was stated that way, I will try to find it.

 

[ThinkHard]

Each interesting theories in their own right. I like that. The last one is one that we could probably follow up on. Look at dates of houses purchased and look for outsiders. We know there haven't been many cases like this in Massachusetts so the person would probably have come from out of state. and based on their age bracket there would only be so many people moving to Princeton as it is not a place to work but rather a town full of retirees and commuters. Perhaps people trying to hide.

Pretty much everyone who lives in this area is a commuter. Most people work in tech and finance and commute to Natick or Framingham and many too Boston, some even to RI and NH...but unless they have a small business or work within the local medical field, everyone commutes.

Wachusett is considered a very good school system and Princeton has only 1 school in town k-8, so it can be an attractive bedroom community for people who work really all over...especially as prices get higher closer to Boston more and more people are moving out. It helps slightly that Worcester itself is also in an upswing and I ten years will look more like Portland ME.

 

[ForensicMass]

Just to clarify I was living in a foreign country at the time, I had gotten off a city bus at about 1030 at night and a man across the street was watching me. He crossed the road and began following me, so I instinctively starting to cross the road to avoid him but kept to the medium so that if a car came by I'd be able to get its attention regardless of which direction it was going. It was a fairly busy in the day time 4 lane road with a median in the middle. As soon as I tried to cross the road he began crossing too...it was very obvious he was following me. On one side was a park, on the other side a big hill with apartments at the top...it all happened very very fast and was very frightening, not much time to think at all...all I can tell you is my instinct was to increase my visibility to potential passerbiers not to run in a direction that would decrease it. The only way I see her running into the woods is if her path to go in any other direction was blocked.....or if she happen to be down that path to pee or something and he followed her down it.

Your attack sounds quite terrifying. But it doesn't sound like an all out blitz. Which I think was what happened to VANESSA. Also Vanessa surely knew what kind of traffic to expect down that road. And as was shown in the media from that location you can see a full half-mile in each direction, I don't doubt that she might have looked down the road praying for a car. I just think if she didn't see one a within that mile of flat straight roadway, she may have moved to her next option. With someone right on your tail that kind of a wait (for a vehicle which may or may not be approaching from a half mile away) would probably seemed pretty perilous, and require other actions.
I think of it like a fox. They are incredibly smart animals. A few times I've been driving and a fox has run out in front of me. The fox sees me, panics and does a 90, and starts running down the middle of the road in the same direction which I am traveling, because it knows it's the path of least resistance and it's speed is greatest there. But after about five seconds of full-out sprinting it becomes clear to the fox that he will not out run my vehicle On the road. Thus he takes another 90° turn straight into the forest. This guy could have been so close to her that she ran out of time looking for vehicles approaching. He could have been in physical contact with her even. At which point if she breaks free and stays on the road there is nothing to stop him from catching her again.

 

[ForensicMass]

Pretty much everyone who lives in this area is a commuter. Most people work in tech and finance and commute to Natick or Framingham and many too Boston, some even to RI and NH...but unless they have a small business or work within the local medical field, everyone commutes.

Wachusett is considered a very good school system and Princeton has only 1 school in town k-8, so it can be an attractive bedroom community for people who work really all over...especially as prices get higher closer to Boston more and more people are moving out. It helps slightly that Worcester itself is also in an upswing and I ten years will look more like Portland ME.

For 5 years, 5 years ago, I worked out of the sovereign Bank Tower right in downtown Worcester on Main in Pleasant Streets. The downtown district itself has certainly improved over the last 10 years and you may be right about its continued improvement. As of right now though it's kind of a tough place at least in that district. With respect to this case it does concern me that the Safehaven of Princeton Is not all that far away. I definitely think we could be dealing with a subject who is from Worcester Fitchburg or Gardner. If it isn't someone immediately local to Princeton I don't think it's someone from Pennsylvania, I guess, is what I am saying. I would be thrilled if Worcester was the next Portland Maine.

 

[ForensicMass]

Just to clarify I was living in a foreign country at the time, I had gotten off a city bus at about 1030 at night and a man across the street was watching me. He crossed the road and began following me, so I instinctively starting to cross the road to avoid him but kept to the medium so that if a car came by I'd be able to get its attention regardless of which direction it was going. It was a fairly busy in the day time 4 lane road with a median in the middle. As soon as I tried to cross the road he began crossing too...it was very obvious he was following me. On one side was a park, on the other side a big hill with apartments at the top...it all happened very very fast and was very frightening, not much time to think at all...all I can tell you is my instinct was to increase my visibility to potential passerbiers not to run in a direction that would decrease it. The only way I see her running into the woods is if her path to go in any other direction was blocked.....or if she happen to be down that path to pee or something and he followed her down it.

Regarding running times, it was something LE said early on that she had a habit of running around that time when she was home just before she'd board the bus home. I can't remember if it was an article or a video of the news conference...but it was defineky stated she had a routine of a run/walk before a bus ride back. It could be how it was reported and not fact fact but it was stated that way, I will try to find it.

One last thing about a difference i see in your story versus the subject story. You were living in a foreign country. Vanessa was in a place that was highly familiar to her. I don't think she had the time to make the best decisions, but for the sake of argument if she did , She might've thought that her knowledge of the path and the woods, and perhaps people being home on Connor lane, was a differentiator. A place that would give her an advantage over her attacker if he was not familiar with the area. Versus trying to outrun him on the road when she felt like she had only seconds before capture. Just a thought.

 

[Evey]

Just a question but how did Vanessa travel to Princeton each weekend? By train or bus? Or she drove herself? I ask because I think she's connected to the KV case and she has been at the train station leading me to wonder(and I also saw the missing girl who was headed to the metro) could some serial killer be stalking the local transportation or working for it and picking out joggers? And how often did ally brueger use fbkse forms of transportation? And to me I think she was not killed there but he did the fire to make us assume it. I think he brought her there dead and set fire so everyone would assume some person set it up all sadistic and would suspect him less. And someone mentioned people who live close or would be the backyard of and that makes me wonder was she found near any makes backyard or property? Clearly thought out over time as he stalked her and probably had an obsession with her maybe he was a neighbor. Maybe he stalked her back to New York one day and saw karina and followed her and killed her to fulfill his need because it wasn't safe for him to get Vanessa yet. They look so much alike after all. But why haven't they tested the DNA found against the other DNA? That would rule out the same perp

 

[Rocky1]

One last thing about a difference i see in your story versus the subject story. You were living in a foreign country. Vanessa was in a place that was highly familiar to her. I don't think she had the time to make the best decisions, but for the sake of argument if she did , She might've thought that her knowledge of the path and the woods, and perhaps people being home on Connor lane, was a differentiator. A place that would give her an advantage over her attacker if he was not familiar with the area. Versus trying to outrun him on the road when she felt like she had only seconds before capture. Just a thought.

This theory is as good as any, but I don't see her heading to the woods. It's easy for me to say what I would have done, having time to think, but I think she would have tried running towards that driveway across the road about 100 yards south, only because I think her first reaction would be to get someones attention.
I don't think she had any time at all to think, because I think she was ambushed from behind. That comes from my belief that this was planned, and if that is true, he would have wanted somehow to keep her from screaming. I think he hit her in the head, and knocked her semi conscious.
One question I have been asking myself is, Most believe that she was abducted on the beginning of her walk/run, and I believe that too, but, why was her back towards traffic?(if that was the case) Most runners run towards the traffic. If in fact her back was towards traffic, How did this guy know in advance what side of the road she would be on, unless he knew her pattern and she always ran with her back towards traffic?
Maybe her back wasn't to the traffic, but if that's the case, this guy took stupid chances crossing that road where he would have been seen dragging her across the road from a mile away. That would have given her a chance to run some distance as well,because I don't see him ambusing her without her seeing him cross, meaning he would have had to drag her more distance on the road, and risk being seen for a longer period of time.

 

[Kickoff61]

Just a question but how did Vanessa travel to Princeton each weekend? By train or bus? Or she drove herself? I ask because I think she's connected to the KV case and she has been at the train station leading me to wonder(and I also saw the missing girl who was headed to the metro) could some serial killer be stalking the local transportation or working for it and picking out joggers? And how often did ally brueger use fbkse forms of transportation? And to me I think she was not killed there but he did the fire to make us assume it. I think he brought her there dead and set fire so everyone would assume some person set it up all sadistic and would suspect him less. And someone mentioned people who live close or would be the backyard of and that makes me wonder was she found near any makes backyard or property? Clearly thought out over time as he stalked her and probably had an obsession with her maybe he was a neighbor. Maybe he stalked her back to New York one day and saw karina and followed her and killed her to fulfill his need because it wasn't safe for him to get Vanessa yet. They look so much alike after all. But why haven't they tested the DNA found against the other DNA? That would rule out the same perp

Good point. It hasn't been proven to be where she was killed yet. If the person attacked her somewhere else , it would be on her running route and if they did what you said, bringing her to the path location, he knew of the path location and he was smart, trying to manipulate the crime scene. I have always thought this seems to be that he is a calculated, smart person with experience.

 

[Rocky1]

I thought about her walking in the woods to pee, but if this happened on the start of her walk/run, she would have just left her moms, and I would think she would have done that before she left. The other thing that made me think that wasn't the case, is, someone would have had to see her duck in the woods at the exact time she did, and although that is possible would have also had to make the decision to strike within seconds.

 

[Kickoff61]

I don't see someone ambushing her there as she runs into the woods , leaving car on road in a fast manner or barely time to run back to shut the door and continue to chase her wildly into the woods in such a way with car sitting on the road.

 

[Kickoff61]

I can't fit in the attack from the vehicle. If this SUV is involved, I can only fit it in with Killer doing it at that location on foot, then using vehicle from home to go back to retrieve items and set fire OR it happening at other location on her route and he used vehicle to put her there and change crime scene. Or last slim possibility someone using the vehicle to pick him up.