I think my major observations were of the elevations being how like the father described and they don’t translate in pictures. Walking it in person really gives you a feel for things as I was actively sliding going up and down areas around there that look relatively flat in pictures.
After experiencing the environment first hand, it really makes it feel like Daniel would be close. There are a lot of cases resulting from accidents that include paradoxical undressing and terminal burrowing. This isn’t law enforcement making excuses, these are actual things that are frequently seen in missing person/accident scenes that haven’t been thoroughly researched. The circumstances mimic hypothermia and would make for a great research project.
The theory is that could sustaining a head injury and damage to the hypothalamus keep one from being able to regulate body temperature and display the paradoxical undressing and terminal burrowing that we seen in hypothermia cases?
You have airbag deployment, a rolled over vehicle, multiple attempts to start the vehicle from a seat belted driver and then you have the shedding of clothes near the vehicle. If the accident occurred around 10am, the temperatures were in the 80s but had a high that day of over 100. I was wanting to understand the area and learn about places that could support a terminal burrowing effect and couldn’t find any. The closest thing that I could see in the area would be the base of the larger trees in the area that cast decent shade.
I’m not familiar with the “well” area the father described but I would be curious how close it was to the vehicle recovery site.
Related post: Car accidents, Missing Persons and Hide-and-Die Syndrome