All pics were taken within a 2 mile radius of OSU. In my campus experience, there are hundreds of 20 something year olds with piggy or pony tails peeking out of college logo baseball caps walking around. Also, being close to any campus usually comes hand in hand with good public transport
http://www.cota.com/assets/Riding-Cota/COTA_system_map_OSU.pdf
While it may be summer, there usually is still a good population around campus, with lots of extra guests...new students coming in, seminars, conferences and such Hero's one from that weekend.
http://pyohio.org/Venue/
IMO a campus is the perfect place to get lost. IMO there are many in this country who are NOT interested in FCA or her location.
Most certainly, I disagree with any notion that this digital camera was "close up" in any photographer's definition of the term. Consider that 90 feet away is not considered "close up", and that would be the closest this camera came to subject IMO. BING has a great app on its maps called "distance calculator" and I used the aerial view in Bing Maps.
In the neighborhood videos, the camera includes long lengths of the street. The camera makes 160 feet look like just a few steps. For a good example of this, stop the very short clip of the TMZ video with her in the white shirt. Note three walkway rails that look like they are very close together, when in fact, there's an alleyway that separates them. At the beginning of that clip, she has just crossed the alleyway. That alleyway and the dead end street are 165 feet from each other. The truck passing behind her in that same clip is 400 feet behind her, and over 500 feet from the street where her walking street ends, and where I believe the camera is.
This is not the average DT camera, nor the average consumer camera. IMO
The clip in black T-shirt where she passes the brick wall is taken from the end street, and the distance is about 90 feet according to Bing's distance calculator
At the closest point in the ON photos, the camera is at least 90 feet away, in the parking area. We know this, because cars going both directions are passing in front of the video. We can also see cars coming in the LTC entrance there. The camera is coming from the parking area, most likely well-hidden in a parked car. We can see what the sign in the store says...sheesh. In the other thread, I posted stills that show the reflection of the parking area from a passing SUV.
This link shows examples of shots with long, medium and short range lenses. It's the best I could come up with in time available.
http://www.vihon.com/Vihon_Calculators/Field_of_View_Examples/body_field_of_view_examples.html
I can post a pic illustrating the discussion of white tee shirt distances, if it is allowed. Otherwise, it is easy to do what I just did for measurements of one's own.
I have tried to find a connection between Splash and TMZ, but no luck. As Think Tank first pointed out, Splash is owned by Corbis who recently purchased it. TT also pointed out that Corbis is owned by BG of MS. 
