I have been reading up more about her case again recently, trying to look at it from different angles to see if it might generate some new ideas. I was thinking about the two locations where witnesses saw her on the 31st. The first location, the gas station, and then the second, the Hitchin' Post, I worked out to be roughly about 7km apart, not as the crow flies but if you were walking the streets. I may be wrong so please correct me if I am. If that is the rough distance then it is feasible that she left the gas station on foot (witness statement), heading north and looking to hitch another ride to Ellis but no one passed or stopped. As she continued walking she either lost her direction or decided to make her way closer to the highway to hitch a ride and this is when she found herself at the Hitchin Post. If she did walk this distance between the two spots it may have taken her a good couple of hours, which does still tie in with the witness time lines, that she stopped in at the gas station around 6.30 pm and then the Hitchin' Post 'later in the evening'. After walking that distance and given the time of night I do agree with Carl's theory that she may have looked to rest for the night in truckers cab within the Hitchin' Post car park or truck stop nearby and, given the proximity of where her body was found, that this is where she met her murdered.
At the end of all that I don't know what it does to help identify her, just getting some thoughts down in writing. One question though.... She was seen getting out a car at the gas station but does anyone know if she was seen getting out a car at the Hitchin' Post? As this might debunk my theory that she walked between the two. I am still inclined to think she walked, if she got a lift then I think she would have arrived at the Hitchin' earlier that what seems to be reported. Either way I think she either arrived with or met her killer at her last sighted location.
With the Ellis connection and who she might have been visiting, I came across the post below on another id me site on facebook, I blocked out names for privacy but it's on the the help id me page, what do you guys think?
