Young couple goes on van tour of US, boy comes back with van - no girl

Logic went that the perp isn't considering the consequences when performing the crime. Once the crime is done, they have motivation to eliminate the witness
Yeah, exactly. What was in my head also was that when we are upset at crime we yell for more laws, stricter laws. What we mean is we want crime to stop, but more laws don't seem to work as a deterrent.