It depends on whether people would talk more, and more inquisitively, about "disappear" as compared with talking about a "car crash" one. It also depends on the

It depends on whether people would talk more, and more inquisitively, about "disappear" as compared with talking about a "car crash" one. It also depends on the relative practical difficulties in orchestrating the two kinds of hits. Making a paranoid journalist vanish might be tricky, since they'd presumably be pretty cautious about meeting shady characters in out-of-the-way locations. I suspect an orchestrated car crash, which provides lots of possible counter-conspiracy narrative bits to grab on to, and for which the practicalities might have been thoroughly worked out ahead of time, could be an attractive approach for eliminating a domestic "threat to national security".