While the two possibilities you listed are possible, from the beginning I've wondered about a third possibility--a "hit" or targeted murder. Though Kathleen doesn't, on the surface, seem like the usual type of victim for such a murder, it does happen.
The oddness and mystery surrounding the circumstances of her death, that many have remarked on, are what made me consider the possibility of a contract killing or planned murder. If this was the case, it's not surprising that LE cannot find evidence of where, or if, she stopped somewhere, or how she died.
Kathleen was last seen at her home around 12:30, but the game, only fifty miles away, didn't start until 4:30. If she had left St. Francis around 12:30 to head to Mundelein, it would seem logical that she planned to stop somewhere along the way, yet LE cannot find any evidence of that.
Ryan's family says she was heading to Mundelein, Illinois, on Saturday to watch her sons coach a basketball game. She was last seen at her home near the St. Francis-Milwaukee border around 12:30 p.m. She was supposed to be at the game around 4:30 p.m. but never showed up.
Kathleen's car was found at a location that was not on the route she used to travel to Mundelein.
We just believe that's not her," Sam Ryan said. "It was off the path she would have taken to get to Mundelein."
Family holds hope for missing Milwaukee teacher
I find it very suspicious that Kathleen was not seen anywhere after being spotted at her home around 12:30 and that she and her car were located off of her known route of travel. I believe that Kathleen never started driving to Mundelein that day because she was either killed or abducted before she got the chance. I think Kathleen (dead or alive, but probably dead) was driven in her car under cover of darkness on back roads to the location where she and her car were found "torched." I don't know the area, but there are usually back roads with no, or very few, surveillance cameras in most areas that can be used to get places without being recorded.
The suspicious circumstances involving her disappearance between 12:30 and 10:00 and being found burned beyond recognition in her car are what has led me to think Kathleen's death was a planned murder that involved more than one person--so, either a contract killing or a killer that knew her and had an accomplice. As strange as that sounds, I think from the little information that has been made public that the evidence for this is stronger than for an abduction, robbery and murder from a gas station, store or restaurant along her known route of travel.
I wonder who, if anyone, has benefitted from her death.
All just my opinion only.
