I read Johns articles .he's doing a good job there ! I already have the translated ones saved with many other news articles however.
I think it is highly unlikely that Joana is alive and I am sure she must have been apprehended on the backroad home.
I agree that Joana was likely abducted on the way home.
I dont think I agree with you over the likely route home, but I am open minded of course.
I prefer the route up the curved steps of the church as described by a smoking witness sitting IIRC outside his home (?on his balcony?). This is the route that John describes. The only likely abduction place there would be if she chose to take the northern path around the church, by the school. There are only public looking buildings there with no houses at the NW corner of the church plaza. She would be totally out of sight to anyone and there is also plenty of out-of-general sight parking there.
However, there is a possible variation to that path that nobody seems to have noticed. Just 3 or 4 houses east of Joanas house there is a metal ladder which appears permanent leaning up against the road way wall. This wall appears to be in excess of 6ft tall. Everything is hilly in the area, and there is a gap between the houses at that point. The gap links the upper road to the lower road.
Did the locals use that gap as a shortcut? Did Joana come down that incline between the houses to be grabbed by someone?
Street lighting at either end ... but the upstands are wide concrete and the lamps themselves are on the wrong side of the upstands to throw light on that cut thru. They light the roads but not the cut thru. There are no house windows that I can see closely overlooking either the short cut itself or the area at the bottom.
There is parking at the bottom in a recessed car park.
Had Joana used this cut thru, or even intended to use it, then your route back, anna, would have been shorter and comes into the picture again, imo. Likewise this cut thru is a slight short cut for the church route.
So we have three possible abduction places
1) On the route across waste land that anna pointed out earlier
2) Between the church and the ?school
3) On this short cut just about 3 - 4 houses along from Joanas home