Jennifer's Car

SeriouslySearching said:

I want them to check more into the ex-bf and see if they can shake his alibi. Would love for him to take a LD test.

I know you meant not a trace was found in the 8 years since she went missing besides the car and not that the car was found 8 years later. People need to understand you have been here from the very beginning and know this case inside and out.

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Correct- car was found on 1/26/2006 which is now over 9 1/2 years later... and yet nothing of Jenn's besides her car. Oh how I pray for answers every single day.

I am trying to make an exhaustive general list of possible reasons her car was moved. It seems like everything falls into subsets of a ruse or use in the crime.

Ruse:

• Cast suspicion on someone else
• • The perp hoped police would zero in on a specific person in that neighborhood, but the police either didn't figure it out or didn't release that info.
  • The perp wanted to suggest she went there to buy drugs or something.
  • The perp works or lives at her complex and wanted to cast suspicion anywhere but at her complex.
• Delay investigation of the crime. In Orlando, which is less walkable than other parts of the world, her car being home with her gone would raise suspicion to anyone who discovered it. If she and her car are both missing, it becomes more plausible she just went somewhere and was not a victim of foul play.

Use in the crime:

• Carjacking
  • She was in the car when the perp confronted her. They either jump in her car or convince her to give them a ride.
  • He confronted her before she was at her car and made her drive at gunpoint so he could transport her and keep the gun trained on her. Maybe they didn't want their car to be seen and associated with the crime.
  • The perp(s) didn't have his own car, and they need hers to transport her.
• Some other aspect of the crime required a car.
• Stupidity: One of the perp(s) (in this case there are at least two) decides to ride in car for the fun of it or for no good reason.

What broad scenarios am I missing?

This is a great summary, Circuitguy. What if Jennifer went out that night and met somebody she knew. Something went wrong. Her car was somewhere linked to the perp and/or poi. They had to move it to throw suspicion elsewhere.

Connected said:

What if Jennifer went out that night and met somebody she knew. Something went wrong. Her car was somewhere linked to the perp and/or poi. They had to move it to throw suspicion elsewhere.

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That's a good idea. I do not have a guess whether she went missing the previous night.

When it comes to the car, though, your explanation is simpler than all the ones I thought of. I suspect usually criminals are thinking simply, not in complicated ruses. It's much simpler to think the car was somewhere other than her apartment, and the perp moved it so police wouldn't know where the abduction happened. The notion that they pulled off the crime successfully at her apartment but then moved the car as a ruse is more complicated. Complicated scenarios make sense when we spend months thinking about a crime, but the criminal didn't have this much time to think about it, and anything that can go wrong will, so they don't have time for complicated ruses.

Your suggestion increases, in my mind, the chance the abduction happened the night before.

CircuitGuy said:

That's a good idea. I do not have a guess whether she went missing the previous night.

When it comes to the car, though, your explanation is simpler than all the ones I thought of. I suspect usually criminals are thinking simply, not in complicated ruses. It's much simpler to think the car was somewhere other than her apartment, and the perp moved it so police wouldn't know where the abduction happened. The notion that they pulled off the crime successfully at her apartment but then moved the car as a ruse is more complicated. Complicated scenarios make sense when we spend months thinking about a crime, but the criminal didn't have this much time to think about it, and anything that can go wrong will, so they don't have time for complicated ruses.

Your suggestion increases, in my mind, the chance the abduction happened the night before.

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This is one scenario. I tend to give it a lower chance of probability since whoever parked her car walked back to condo complex. Of course, what is it, 80% to 90% of murder victims are killed by someone known to them? If she left the complex that morning, stopped somewhere on the way to work and ran across someone she knew in a parking lot, that is a possibility. Of course, again, I keep coming back to the person who parked the car walking back to her complex. That would lead me to believe (1) the perp lives there or (2) they don't live there but for some reason the perp was parked there. And the trail ends there, like they got in a car, on a motorcycle/scooter or a bicycle.

I'm still confused about the movement of her car. A similar crime appears to be Jodi Huisentruit in the Midwest. She was apparently abducted at her car, BUT the abductor did nothing with her car. And it was obvious the crime scene was at her car by the fact she apparently dropped items she was carrying and they were found in such a manner to suggest a struggle. We don't have that here either.

It doesn't appear from what LE has told us that the perp used Jennifer's own car to move her or at least they have not mentioned forensic evidence such as blood. So if the perp didn't use Jennifer's car to transport her, why move it? There is a risk of leaving forensic evidence.

Of course, it could be a car jacking and the murder occurred outside the car. But there is almost no forensic evidence left in her car. That is a VERY good cleaning job.

The best theory I have seen as to why the car was moved is this.......'it was moved to cause confusion.'
I would think it worked big time.

Going off on a tangent; the answer to this mystery lies in Jennifer's workplace.

SeriouslySearching said:

There was an examination of her car, but there is no way to really know how much gas was in the vehicle regardless of what she may have purchased. She drove in from South Florida and went straight to work so that took some gasoline for the trip and then to her home. She could have stopped at any point and paid cash so there may not have been a record.

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She could have filled up the night before. We don't have records so anything is possible.

JnRyan said:

whoever parked her car walked back to condo complex.

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We know this based on the dogs, right? I always wonder how accurate they are. They should have a handler with no knowledge of the case manage the dogs and interpret their signs. If the handler is someone who knows where the victim lives, the handler might send subconscious signs to the dog, just by looking that way or pulling slightly less on the leash when the dog goes that way. The dog may go one way, and the handler thinks, "Oh he's following that other dog or heading to that trash." When the dog goes in a direction the handler knows is related to the crime, he may get excited and unwittingly encourage the dog. Dogs are sensitive to these subtle cues as they are to scent.

So I wonder how certain we are that the perp walked from the car to her apartment complex.

Connected said:

This is a great summary, Circuitguy. What if Jennifer went out that night and met somebody she knew. Something went wrong. Her car was somewhere linked to the perp and/or poi. They had to move it to throw suspicion elsewhere.

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I am new to Websleuths and was just reading through some of the pinned posts that have news articles linked. In this one from CBS (https://www.cbsnews.com/news/stolen-beauty/4/), her brother states that when he went to Jennifer's apartment after finding out she didn't show up to work that day, the shower was wet, the blow dryer was out, and there were clothes on her bed. To me, this means that she showered that morning. I don't think the shower would still be wet from the night before at the time he got there. I think this points to her being abducted that morning. I think it is more likely that the car was moved because it was needed as part of the crime (the perp needed it to transport her). The location where the car was parked may have been related to the perp in some way (he or a friend lives there, he was doing work there, etc.). It definitely makes sense to move it because if Jennifer was missing and her car was in the lot at her own complex, that would immediately raise suspicion with police. If the car was moved, we could suppose that Jennifer drove there on her own...obviously with the surveillance footage, we now know that someone else got out of the driver's side when the car was parked. Long winded, but I think she definitely was abducted/attacked that morning, not the night before.