I'm not picking at you. i just end up quoting you a lot. How do we know the method changed? She beat the daughter, very well could have beaten Paul to death and did away with the body, and she could have done exactly the same to Shannon. The motive is the sticky part, if it isn't a sick need for security, then I would be completely lost on motive.
Method could certainly have been the same, but I think sticking to a consistent motive is the stronger trend. Method is often closely related to the motive, so can show a pattern too. E.g. (sorry to get horribly graphic) child molesters who kill their victims often strangle/suffocate them -- they're doing something to them in secret, so need to keep them quiet, guns are noisy, they need to depart the scene without getting themselves covered in blood so stabbing isn't a "good" option, and they often don't have any weapons with them because they didn't need one to lure and keep a young child). The motive was sexual abuse, and the killing method naturally followed the circumstances of the particular type of abuse.
What I wouldn't expect to see is someone who had strangled a child following a sexual assault, and either before or after that, had strangled a child in the culmination of a pattern of non-sexual "discipline", or in an impulsive rage after the child did something that upset the perpetrator -- the "you're a bad kid and I'm going to show you I'm in control of whether you live or die" killings tend to involve smashing the child's head into a wall or other hard object, or repeated beatings with an object that eventually cause death due to extensive bruising and internal injuries (i.e. the sort of violence that SB inflicted on her surviving victim). But that sort of violence -- relentless, ongoing beatings over a period of time -- is typical of violence against older children (at least toddlers), and usually seems to be associated with the perpetrator's desire to feel powerful and force the child to show total submission and fear (i.e. acknowledge the perpetrator's tremendous superiority/authority/power, thus reassuring the perpetrator that s/he *is* really powerful and in control) -- sometimes this results in the child's death, but that doesn't usually seem to be the perpetrator's objective. But that pattern is not really possible with a 7 pound baby -- Shannon wasn't even close to capable of challenging SB's authority, breaking her "rules", failing to follow her orders, etc., nor would it give a convicted beater of an older child (and quite likely killer of another older child) much of a rush of feeling powerful, to beat a 7 pound preemie into terrified submission.
I'm just having a very hard time coming up with what SB's objective in physically harming Shannon could have been, even realizing that whatever it was, it would have to have been totally evil/twisted/irrational. The only thing I can think of at all is that she intended to inflict minor harm on Shannon, to get back at Tina and/or Rusty for something (or maybe even to get back at Michael or adult Erica for something, since they seemed to be major targets of her letter, as far as actual abuse allegations were concerned), and accidentally killed her. Trouble is, that doesn't really fit with the overnight disappearance from the trailer home. If SB managed to sneak in there intending to harm Shannon and leave her to be found injured with only Tina/Rusty/Michael/Erica present, and accidentally killed her, it would have been a lot easier, and more consistent with the original goal, to just leave the body there and sneak back out by herself, than to sneak back out *with* the body and try find a way to dispose of it without getting caught.
Perhaps a bit more likely is that she intended to stage a disappearance of Shannon, during a time when Tina/Rusty/Michael/Erica were supposedly the only adults in the home with her, took Shannon outside in the middle of the night and dropped her unharmed in the woods somewhere, thinking she'd be a hero and help "find" her later, and leave T/R/M/E facing neglect-type charges, and something went horribly wrong with the plan (e.g. as some others have suggested, an animal could have gotten tiny Shannon). Motive could have been retaliation against T/R/M/E for something and/or an idea that she'd deflect suspicion from herself re missing Paul, by having first sent the warning to the Governor about Shannon being in danger, and then heroically helping save Shannon when she ended up in the woods after DCF failed to "properly" follow up on SB's altruistic warning. Her letter to the Governor suggests she had some sort of plan to be seen as a hero, or at least a very commendable concerned citizen, who's looking out for the safety of helpless children and blowing the whistle on abuses of taxpayers' money.
Well, I'm just thinking out loud here. I hope there's somehow a happy ending, but with the cast of characters involved, and what we've heard about the crime scene truck at SB's house and DCF releasing the report that they said they'd never release unless they'd confirmed Shannon was dead, I'm not holding out a lot of hope at this point.
Bedtime for me. I really hope I'm wrong and that there's good news in the morning (though I'm not likely to have much time to follow this tomorrow).
It's been an interest first day of posting here for me.
G'night,
pinkpuddytat (who, as you may have guessed, is posing as a relative of the renowned sleuth, Pink Panther)
