Didn't a family use her food stamp card after she went missing? Or am I mistaken?
Not not true
Didn't a family use her food stamp card after she went missing? Or am I mistaken?
many people believe it was one of the illegal workers. The illegal workers come here to make money and they will not be involved in crimes risking losing their job. Even if we go with this theory an illegal worker will not have the mind set to plan this crime .
Not every crime has to be carefully planned out, and I don't think this case is an exception. There's every possibility that Jen's abduction could have been a crime of opportunity. The reason that this is possible is because many predators like to 'cruise' or stalk their victims. This means that on any given day a predator could choose their next victim at random. This victim might be what they're looking for in appearance or behavior. Many predators choose victims based on both characteristics.
For many predators, inebriation makes subduing their victims much easier. Of course, this is mostly irrelevant information since Jen was probably abducted in the early hours of the morning. However, Jen was small-framed and her weight would have been a considerable factor in the success of being able to grab her without much of a fight while taking her to an awaiting vehicle. I'm just trying to understand what the movements of the perpetrator might have looked like.
It would not be strange for a predator to cruise around neighborhoods, college campuses, apartment complexes, etc. trying to find victims. What a predator is really looking for are victims that are not paying attention to their surroundings for whatever reason. We might presume that Jennifer was distracted that morning, maybe taking a phone call before leaving for work. The point I'm making here is that the best possible position for a predator to be in that in which the victim is not looking in their direction.
This makes them open for attack and unlikely to put up much of a fight if they are surprised from behind. There are, however, exceptions. For example, some predators prefer to take a different approach before they attack. They might pull up next to the victim and ask for directions, they might say their car is broken down and ask for a ride, they might fake an injury and ask for help loading something into their vehicle, etc.
The perpetrator probably found Jennifer appealing because she may have fit their ideal victim profile. Investigators have explored this possibility by looking for other women around Florida with similar features who have been abducted. The perpetrator has eluded us in this case for over ten years because they have either gone through a dry spell where they have discontinued the hunt for victims or the more likely possibility which is that they have been careful not to get caught. However, if I've learned anything about criminals over the years it's that this kind of behavior is addictive to them and it won't be too long before they need to get their next fix, which means that most of them will slip up sooner or later.
We really don't know that the perp needed access to Jennifer's apartment. We don't know if she was abducted from her apartment. Whether or not the apartment was processed, nobody reported any signs of a struggle having been noticed inside the apartment.
One thing I have thought about, is that predatory behavior tends to be about power and control. Therefore despite the popular myth that a predator can't control his sexual urges, most predators are liable to sense and be attracted to fear and vulnerability (while some will prefer a challenge). I presume that this is why a disproportionate number of women seem to become the victims of random abduction shortly after getting in a fight with their significant other (I have no statistics, but this is probably obvious to those who have followed many cases). At such a time, they are in an emotionally vulnerable state that theoretically makes them attractive to a predator who happens to cross their path.
Why is this relevant here? Because Jennifer's phone stopped pinging for good shortly after she got off the phone with her boyfriend. I am pretty sure I recall reading that they had argued (purportedly, "it wasnt so much an argument as a I miss you/we live far away kinda deal"), but Jennifer might have been more angry or otherwise affected than Rob or anyone else had realized or otherwise let on.
So, what if the OPD's detectives' initial instincts were more accurate than given credit for. She got in a fight with her boyfriend. Just because she didn't run away, does not mean she couldn't have done something slightly rash when tired and angry, and crossed paths with the wrong guy in the process. If she had made a rash decision that she was going to break up with Rob - or what not - how might she have reacted, who might she have turned to? A phone conversation would have left a foot print. A conversation via AOL IM - I'm not sure.