This is starting to take the tone of either a thrill killing or a robbery.......or maybe a little of both.
There's going to be two perps involved.......one driving, one controlling.
Victims items missing--- phone, wallet, car keys.
Per stryker57--- Cheryl's car was never moved after she parked it, that's good enough for me.
Now that the M.E. and Pickard have decided to release the cause of death after 6 weeks of "investigation", a conclusion that most of us could have arrived at in about 10 minutes or less, this indicates to me that this was an attack by a couple of individuals that are as much of a failure at murder as they are at life in general.
The plastic bag was used as a control mechanism. "If you behave and sit still, I'll let you get a breath of air. The harder you fight, the tighter I hold the bag". She could have been restrained by simply being put into a chokehold or being straddled and sat on. This would have resulted in very few defensive wounds as well as little to no bruising. This act would have been a team effort by at least two individuals, one driving, one controlling her and more than likely it occurred in a large vehicle such as a van.
If robbery was the motive, then obviously they didn't get much. That's another reason why this has the feel of a thrill kill, or better yet, somebody acting out something they watched in a horror movie. This wouldn't be the first time that a couple of psychopathic friends decided to kill somebody just to experience the adrenaline rush.
If you shoot someone, you leave behind evidence. If you stab someone, you leave behind evidence. If you smother someone....well, depending on the circumstances, there may be little evidence left. The plastic bag itself is the murder weapon. I'm sure after 5 or 6 days in the water, there wasn't any fingerprints left to lift from the bag. The cuts on her fingers may have come from grappling with the person holding it over her head.
When they pulled up next to the culvert and tossed her out, it was believed she was dead. She wasn't. Unconscious yes, but still breathing. Maybe a pinhole was torn in the bag, maybe it wasn't sealed completely around her neck, but she was still alive. Had the culvert been dry that day and no water running through it, she may have actually survived this attack. This is where the conflicting cause of death is stemming from, it appears to be both, but we all know it has to be one or the other. The bag over the head leans towards asphyxiation, the water in the lungs leans towards drowning.
There's two killers on the loose in Mountlake Terrace.....but good luck convincing the PD of that. Like I said three weeks ago, they are either going to file this under suicide or "undetermined." They're going to take the evidence they have and mold it and form it to fit a theory. In this case, suicide.
As has become standard operating procedure, in the press release yesterday, LE stated that efforts to look into her computer records and cell phone records were ongoing. Great !! If this was a random crime though, nothing is going to come from those searches. What you see is what you get. What you know, is all your're gonna know.