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Tagging @SteveKirk and @birb_cromble. Whether he has the ID and gun (and manifesto) on him absolutely matters. Remember Brian Laundrie? Every time a high profile suspect is at-large there are going to be sightings, and most of these are going to be superfluous. They aren't going to be able to hold a guy for murder based on the ID of a McDonald's employee in another state who had never seen the guy before. I don't even know how they got PC for the search, though I wouldn't rule out that he consented, and he already misidentified himself to the police, so he's not exactly making all the right moves here. But even still, had they searched him and came up empty they wouldn't have been able to arrest him; he's being held on gun charges (and also misidentification and forgery, though those alone wouldn't be enough to hold him). He hasn't been charged with murder yet, but when he is, the ballistics evidence, fake IDs, and manifesto will all be key pieces of evidence against him. Without that, right now we're looking at "this guy looks kind of like the person wearing a mask in the videos" (and one without a mask), which is a much tougher case to make.
I don't disagree with anything you said here.
My main question is still "why Altoona?"
"Second most notable city in the country for shitty pizza and industrial decay" is a weird place to stop for a burger while on the lam.
From what I've read it looks like he was riding Greyhounds around and one happened to stop there.
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