I agree, it seems like the child (just like the mother) was in the wrong place at the wrong time. Since they've never released a cause of death on the child I keep going back to her being smothered. Once the body had decomposed, smothering wouldn't leave a trace to be able to determine the cause of death.
What trips me up (and I don't want to get too deep in this discussion in this thread as it may belong elsewhere) is the child being so neatly and cleanly preserved like the first four girls, while the mother was potentially one of the girls that were dismembered. These are two completely different personalities that derive pleasure in completely different ways, so it would be odd to have someone kill by both methods. Even if someone wouldn't dismember a toddler, it would be strange for them to take the time to wrap and the body instead of just tossing it or putting it in a tub.
Oh - and I remembered one other big lightbulb that turned on for me that may explain the death of the child as well as why some care seems to have been taken in how she was disposed. The question about why the child was killed kept nagging at me and wouldn't leave me alone, but earlier today it finally hit me. As has been speculated many times before, I really, really, really think this child knew the killer on a first name basis, for whatever reason (insert your own speculation - related, party house, friends, etc.), but the reason this would matter so much to the killer is since the child was old enough to be talking there's a really good chance she would be able to say the name of the person that killed her mother. Plus, after killing the mother this person couldn't very well suddenly have a kid - especially if the mother and the child were known acquaintances of the killer.
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I have a theory on this. Size. I think LISK began killing women of usual size. But he had some kind of problem which meant that he could not move the bodies in one piece to hide them. He couldn’t manage to dispose of them in one piece alone. I think the cutting up was a necessity for him to dispose of the bodies, rather than the bit he got the thrill from. Obviously that would have made a huge mess to clean, had lots of potential to leave forensic evidence behind and made the remains more risky to transport (smell, leakage) and travelling to multiple locations over a longer distance also would have increased the risk of police stops etc.
I think the toddler is why his MO changed. He took her in one piece to the beach, probably in some sort of bag or using the blanket as a sling carrier of sorts. I think after he’d done it he thought how much easier it was not to dismember. No cleaning. No hard physical work butchering. Less driving. Easier to cleanse the bodies of forensic evidence.
So I think after that, his MO was to find small, light women of less than 100lb. Use burlap sacks as slings to carry them. I think that’s how and why his MO changed for the final 4.
Regarding Peaches. I remember in the Fred and Rose West case many early victims were partners and family members. If he knew Peaches well, if she was his partner, he may well have known that regardless of the tattoo nobody would come looking for her or recognise it. Maybe a recent migrant from a poor country lacking communications. That could be why he didn’t bother removing it as he had with others.
LISK could have been her father. But also, going back to the West case, he could have been a stepfather in her life who chose to keep the child around to be abused and exploited like West did to his Stepdaughter Charmaine. But then when she became too much of a hassle or nuisance and a block to their offending Charmaine was murdered, possibly by Rose alone. Fred West also killed his first wife Rena who was Charmaine’s mother. They never killed any other child as young as Charmaine, who was 8. I wonder if this is similar.
Someone mentioned Brewer having a female child with him for a while but I can’t find any info so if anyone could point me in the right direction for that, I’d appreciate it.
I also think a personal relationship with Peaches is possible because a toddler would not have the language to explain that she had seen her mother killed or had gone to a party after which she could have disappeared. She could just have been dumped alive on a street corner. But she could have had enough language to say she had a Dada and police would have started looking for a man alone who had a child with him (possibly not the same race) whose child had suddenly disappeared. I also think it’s interesting the child was killed at an age when her speech would have been developing fast.
Anyway, pure speculation. But that’s my theory.