Since we have nothing new, I've also been thinking of that odd quote along with some other things...
1. LE stated Erin is involuntarily missing but no criminal activity.
2. LE has been looking in mines for weeks.
3. A witness most people feel is credible saw Erin with a person in a red car.
4. A red car was not mentioned in any search warrant information we have seen.
I know it's highly improbable, but I'm mulling over the extremely off-chance possibility something like this happened...
Erin meets with the man in the red car, somehow she gets him out of the car and she takes it, he walks home, she is suicidal and drives to a mine, she (and the car?) are at the bottom of a mine.
Reasonably certain, though you wold know better than I, that a Kia or Hyundai similar small sedan would have no chance to get to any of the mines that are along dirt/rocky roads. I'm still trying to sort out what "driving thru the Park" entails if she went there to scout for location to shot photos, or picnic, or what other insane "reason" she was headed there or at least stated she was headed there to do.
But since I don't envision she probably ever made a drive on paved roads or easily passable dirt ones, personally I can't envision a suicide scenario, at least one that would involve a mine.
pretty sure she'd have to do some serious walking in serious heat to make it to a mine?
The suicide scenario has occurred to me as one possibility, but likely not "death by mine." Or she may have run away with the man in the red car, but Kia/Hyundai dude would have to be pretty well set for cash funds since LE is not, at least openly, looking outside the Park and general Twentynine Palms area. About impossible to truly go off the grid these days, unless you really understand how to do it and have a lot of cash available. A 19 year old kid understand how to do that, and one well-connected to at least her mother?
personally, I can't get there. Not seeing alien abduction (perhaps human) or witness protection program either.
if somebody other than what by current appearances would seem to be behind her disappearance, then I have to think LE is spending an inordinate amount of time and effort in Joshua Tree for nada.
They have something and we sit and wait.
Or have nothing and need to go back to square one. As we sit and wait.
Beyond my comprehension what her family is going through. Can they ever sleep? Eat? Do anything "normal?" I imagine I'd be wrecked but thankfully have never had to find out. My heart truly goes out to them.