Hm. Here's some thoughts.
- The ammo was old. I think this is significant - as it was said the ammo was so extremely old as to be degraded. I think it would be worthwhile looking into the nature of gunpowder and how it degrades, timespans, conditions..
That the ammunition used was degraded implies that this was not a murder committed by somebody who had easy access to new ammunition - and perhaps wasn't very familiar with using guns (because iirc - isn't old ammo quite dangerous to use?)
- The sealing of the barrel is a big deal. As another stated, it's unusual and takes somebody with knowledge of how to do that. Plus, the equipment. Plus an area to do it in.
- My thoughts on the dismemberment are that it was a first-time attempt that didn't go as planned. They cut her body up (in a very amateurish way, as reported) and stuffed it in a barrel.. but there were parts leftover. Rather than sealing those in a barrel, too.. they simply put them in a bucket. Did they not have time? Were they getting sick, at that point, and just wanted her remains gone?
I would imagine that people unfamiliar with disposing of bodies might think a barrel weighted down with a body might sink. They sealed it, so it was secure and 'hidden', but perhaps didn't take into account that it would have air trapped in it and float..
The old ammo, the bucket of leftover parts, the floating barrel, the inexpert dismemberment.. it all says to me inexperienced killers panicking about body disposal and coming up with a slightly harebrained scheme to put the body in a barrel and dump it, perhaps to make it look like a 'hit' or a Torse murder, perhaps just because they were inexperienced..
She wasn't raped, as far as anyone can tell. Plus a number of bullet wounds to the back of the head - execution style killing. Who'd want to execute a 15 year old girl with elderly ammunition? Someone with a gun handy, who held a very large grudge, is my guess.
Yup, that family acted strangely. Very strangely. I'm inclined to scrutinise them and their actions and comments.
I'm also thinking how odd it was that Kenneth the boyfriend had two girls on the hop - and they were BOTH with him at the same time? He was obviously not very mature (changing his idea about who to marry at the drop of a hat) -- and there was another girl, who might have been extremely jealous.
Just looking at that as an obvious motive. If Ken was a sailor, would he not know how to seal a barrel? And not being a very strong-minded person, might he have been part of a conspiracy to murder?
That's another situation I'd look into.
As for Nick-the-child-molester... Up front, I'll say I loathe pedos. The end. BUT. Kids who molest other kids are not always but usually victims of molestation themselves. Nick was young when he committed that crime against another male child. That does not automatically translate to his a/ being a habitual predatory pedo and b/ being likely to rape a female his own age, in my mind.
And because he molested a boy, maybe nobody (back then) was too concerned he'd molest girls. Views on homosexuality tended to be very very black and white, and pedos were even less understood than they are now. I was recently reading an article by a woman who grew up in the era and didn't know what a homosexual -was- until she went to college.
That doesn't mean he didn't have poor impulse control, or may not have had it in him to kill - but I really am not focussing on this being a sex crime perpetrated by him.. I'd rather focus on the ammo and the barrel, and who says what about who was where..
