Is Tim McVay (the boyfriend) the lead suspect in the Carrie Olson disappearance and murder?

Hang tight with this one, because it gets confusing. Carrie Olson lived in Iowa and went missing in late December of 2013. Here’s the basic breakdown:

Carrie Olson, 29, was last seen around 4 p.m. on Saturday, December 28th at the 7-Eleven on 38th Street and 18th Avenue in Rock Island, according to her father Dave Olson. He says a surveillance camera recorded her getting gas and wearing an Iowa Hawkeye sweatshirt. The family also describes Carrie as 5’8″ and 190lbs with green eyes and sandy brown hair or brown hair with highlights.

Between 6:30 and 7 a.m. Sunday, December 29th, Dave says the camera captured video of a man getting gas again in Carrie’s car.  The videos do not clearly show if there was anyone else in the car at the time.

Dave says the man is Carrie’s friend and they have contacted him.

“He’s presently out of town in Las Vegas and we can’t get a lot of information out of him yet. He’s supposed to be back in town so the police can question him,” Dave said.

Hang onto that Las Vegas nugget for one second.

Regrettably, the body of Carrie Olson was found in April 2014. It was found in a rural section of Hastings, Minnesota — which is about 300 miles from where she disappeared. Now get this:

While Olson doesn’t appear to have any links with Hastings, the town where her body was found, Fox has learned that her boyfriend does have a tie with that area. This disappearance was a high-profile missing person’s case in Iowa.

Apparently the boyfriend was seen in Hastings around the time that Olson went missing and he does have a female friend that lives in the town. Authorities have question the woman who said that the unnamed boyfriend came to Hastings before flying to Las Vegas three months ago. This was around the time that Olson went missing.

See the connection? The boyfriend’s name appears to be Tim McVay. McVay has never been named a suspect, but if that Vegas connection is to be believed, there might be something there. (It’s possible the information on the second link isn’t 100 percent. In short, am I law enforcement? No. I’m just trying to piece anything together I can.)

This link has a strong summary of different timelines and competing ideas about when she was last seen, when the car was last seen, when McVay was with the car, etc.

Based on WebSleuths and the official Facebook page for the search, it does appear McVay lawyered up at some point in the process. McVay was in court this morning on a traffic charge, as well. 

If you put everything together, it looks like this: there does seem to be a tie between McVay and another woman (who flew to Vegas with him, or met him in MSP from Vegas), and that might be enough to have caused harm to Carrie Olson. Maps-wise, it looks like this. This is the gap between where she was last seen — the 7-11 in Rock Island — and where her cell phone was pinging from last — Camden Park in Milan, IL. Those two locations are fairly close:

Milan Park to Hastings, MN looks like this (about a five-hour drive):

When Olson was found in Minnesota, her wallet and cell phone were missing from her purse.

Davenport, Iowa police are running lead on this case (there were some questions around that beforehand), and there appears to be extra work needed in addition to the autopsy.

If you want the whole timeline put together, try this:

See a full recap of the Carrie Olson investigation, including a timeline from when she went missing, to now. –> http://t.co/qFBzmH70Uf

— WQAD (@wqad) April 12, 2014