The Rachel Chandler Connection:
Rachel graduated in June 2005 from Brentwood School, a pretty elite prep school on the Westside of LA. There are a lot of kids from prominent Hollywood/media families in attendance there. Jordan McGraw, Dr. Phil's son, was also Class of '05. Jimmy Iovine's son was Class of '06 (Jimmy is the founder of Interscope Records, hebrought Eminem and 50 Cent to prominence and is the brains behind the Beats headphones empire that Dr. Dre is the public face of). Arnold Schwarzenegger's kids were there too (can't remember which year, they were several years younger than Rachel). Andrew Breitbart, the now-deceased founder of the Breitbart news site, was a graduate (not sure when … 80s? 90s?).
Rachel herself comes from a very prominent, elite family. She's one of many descendants of the Chandler family, which owned the Los Angeles Times for decades. Look up Otis Chandler on Wikipedia. The family is divested of the paper today and not as powerful/prominent in LA high society today as they used to be, but up through the 80s they were super powerful.
So, Rachel is definitely a part of the LA-based Hollywood/media elite. She's not some runaway or kidnapped kid or anything like that like some have theorized. She's probably the most powerful scion of one of the most powerful families in Southern California.