About the "close to the road" angle: The body was 25 feet from the edge of the road and the embankment was 7 feet high so it was never visible from the highway. (The fact that it was 7 feet up is why they built those stairs).
I am going to try not to be too greusome about this..... But have you ever been anywhere near a decaying body? Because if you have, it is a smell that is unmistakable and unfogettable. If the area was searched prior to the time the body was found, and the body was in such an advanced state of decay, how could it not have been found in the first search? The smell alone should have led anyone to the area that the child's body was.
My thoughts were that her body could not have been there very long. There are coyotes that roam the hills in East County and there are birds of prey and other animals that would have drawn attention to a body there.
We did not stop but there were many people paying tribute and the small parking lot was full.
It all seems very strange...