Magz, girl, you know I respect your opinion and experience and I think you often have great insight and ideas. However, I have to disagree here. LE have said they have nothing to indicate this crime is gang related. They found the car and Hania wasn't in it. Respectfully, I don't think he wanted the car. Hania was not let out on a corner somewhere once the man was safely away (or else she would have been found). He had no reason to force her into the car if he only wanted the car. He didn't need a hostage to insure his escape from somewhere. No other major crimes (that we know about) happened right before he took Hania. I think the carjacking was simply a handy means of taking Hania away quickly. I think she was the target, not the car.
Do you remember the
little 4 year old who was abducted from SC after the man beat and raped her mom? We were talking about it in Jayme's thread. I don't know if you got a chance to read that case or not, anyway-- The 4 year old was taken away in a stolen car too-- but it wasn't stolen from her family it was stolen from the
perp's "girlfriend," who is still missing. My point is, it is not uncommon for an abductor to steal a car to commit his crime. The only thing in this case that is unusual is that the car was also the family vehicle and happened to be already running with no adults in or near it and a child was standing right there. He took a big risk, but it's possible he simply saw an opportunity to abduct Hania with the car and took it. JMO.
As for the bandanna, migrant workers or people who do heavy labor wear and carry bandanas. If you have ever worked in the sun in 100 degree temps with 95% humidity you would want to have something to wipe the sweat from your brow or keep your sweat-drenched hair out of your face. If you have ever worked a landscaping job or a farm job you might want a bandana to cover your nose and mouth in case the wind shifts, so you don't end up tasting chemicals or breathing in dust and debris from a leave blower. It's very common for a laborer to carry something like that IME. Criminals in warm climate rural areas realize this is a common item to own and it is also handy for concealing their identify (they might even be laborers by day and criminals at night). Criminals will use them when robbing banks or other crimes where they don't want their face on camera. Just google "bank robber wore bandana" (or bandanna-- it's spelled both ways) and you will see many cases where LE is asking for help ID'ing the suspect.
Finally, locals have reported that people in the area doing hurricane clean up handed out free bandanas. I did a search and found articles showing at least two hurricane clean up volunteer groups that wore yellow for their group colors. I didn't see any yellow bandanas (so I'm not going to link to the MSM as they may not be relevant and there is no need to name volunteer groups IMO) but that is not to say they didn't hand out yellow bandanas while their groups were in town. Most the media coverage focused on the more essential items given out like food and water, and repairing damage. MOO.