If he was standing near the stopping sign, he must have seen everything and everyone IMHO. I used to think that he had been hiding in the bushes on the other side of the road - that is next to impossible with the river nearby. There is hardly any ground to stand on, one step backwards and he would have fallen into the ravine.
The stopping sign also explains whe the Al-Hilli family stopped there.
BTW the shooter was not posiotioned 'above' the parking lot. That is one of those things that become muddled in translation. A better translation would be:
Only one killer is positioned upstream from the parking lot. At the top side of the parking lot, but the road is not very steep there and this does not indicate an alleged height of the person nor that he was standing on a rock or similar.
He possibly escaped through the woods in the back of the parking lot to the road on the other side nearby.
Thanks, that's what I was wondering, would he have been able to lurk, hidden. It seems not, because there's a stream. Here's an image showing some trees by the stop sign,
https://goo.gl/images/au86u1. And another showing how anyone by the sign would be seemingly in view to anyone approaching
https://goo.gl/images/5wAvq8. So to me, it doesn't apoear as an ideal location if someone had a long-held fantasy of committing the perfect crime. It's a bit vulnerable: someone else could have driven in, the car could've got away. I think the location was okay, but there was likely a murderous anger on that particular afternoon, and the person being already in that area.
I wonder if forensics could detect signs of a car or motorcyle there, part way off the road. Or certainly, that other road being so close seems an obvious place to park, though hard to turn around a car. All these possibilities do point to a motorcycle. It strikes me as inconsistent someone would commit all this brutality, and then pass the lone cyclist Martin without threatening him at all. Perhaps the motorcycle slowed because he wanted to stop and kill Martin too, but decided against it because he was out of ammo and was focussed on getting away.
I think the cyclist was shot first because he was coming fairly fast towards the shooter, he would have ridden past in a few moments. He had to be knocked off his bike to prevent his escape. Also, the driver was outside his car, so seemingly unable to escape. I think the shooter might have waited for them all to get out, but then the cyclist came along, so he went ahead with the attack.
Assuming a lone psycho, what was it about that location, that moment, that he chose to start shooting? Even random killers aren't completely random, they're predators who choose the location and victims for a reason. Especially if they intend to get away with it and only do it once.
He must have wanted to shoot people in a car, because he chose a parking lot. Was it a calculated version of road rage, had he become fed up with drivers and cyclists interfering with 'his' road? Or become annoyed with Al Hilli's driving in particular, or hated British tourists (foreign license plate) and drove ahead to lie in wait and get revenge?
Another idea I had is it could have been a hiker who had developed hatred for people who came to that location, who invaded the person's 'land'. I don't think he hated tourists, the cyclist was local, most of the users were local. And why didn't he shoot the forest workers, if he wanted to keep it for himself? So that scenario seems less likely to me, somehow.
