She was known to have left to meet Luke. They had no idea where she was so a logical place to start is where she was known to be heading and follow her route, taking it from there Imo.
If Jodi was going to see Luke is the path not the way they would usually meet? I think Jodi sometimes got a bus home and I’m sure there are other ways to each other’s house, so how did they normally meet up if not the path and why would luke wait for her at the bottom if that’s not the usual route?
They had no idea where she was, so I would say the logical place to start was where she said she was going that evening (according to her mother) - Easthouses and Mayfield. Jodi rarely went to Newbattle - they spent most of their time in Easthouses/Mayfield and latterly, Woodburn, none of which would require them to meet "at the path" - either end. Luke said they had, on occasion, hung out behind the big gap in the wall at the Easthouses end with others and the story about Luke meeting Jodi at the Newbattle end of the path came from Alice - nobody else ever made that claim. According to Judith (and Luke) they had no fixed meeting place - it just depended where they were going to be hanging out day to day. But, according to all of the family's statements, they had no idea Jodi was going to Newbattle that night.
So I suppose, with all of the different options to choose from (and the information that she was supposed to be hanging out in Easthouses/Mayfield - "up here" - the only information they had to go on),the question, really, is why choose the path and only the path? Why, by their own admissions, did they not search anywhere else, not even on the way to the path - the very route Jodi would have used if she was heading to her Gran's or Yvonne's? And why did they have no intention, according to Janine, on the stand, of continuing onto the Newbattle Road if they didn't find her on the path? There are many points on the Newbattle Road where a person could be pulled into the woodland either side of the road.
I just don’t see anything strange with family members heading out to look for her and starting on the path between her house and Luke’s.
If it had been a path she regularly used and they knew she was heading to Newbattle, I'd agree. But it wasn't and they didn't. It wouldn't even have been quite so strange if they'd searched elsewhere as well, on the basis of the information they had, but they didn't. They, themselves, couldn't explain why they went to the path and, instead, made statements saying they'd communicated with Luke, either in texts or phone calls - the phone records show that is simply not true. Judith didn't know why they went to the path - she said nobody had explained that to her. Even on the stand, when Alice was asked why they went to the path, and only the path, her answer was "we just did."
Surely, if it was the most logical place to start because that was the path Jodi would have used to meet Luke, they would just have said so? But they didn't. Instead, we have all these convoluted claims - Jodi wasn't allowed to use the path alone, Janine didn't even know the path existed, it was her Gran who led them there, but they were only going to search the path, nowhere else. They knew Luke was on the path when they set off because Janine had called or texted Luke, but she hadn't. Alice said they'd arranged to meet Luke "halfway" but they didn't. And even if they did, why did the search trio stop at the junction of the paths. The claim that it was to discuss whether to go down Lady Path or Roan's Dyke makes no sense in light of the claim that they'd arranged to meet Luke "halfway."
If it was a simple decision - that's the path Jodi always used, so that's why we went there - where would there have been the need for so many conflicting and incorrect claims?