I don't know if this is the best place to post this, but since I can not post a new thread (maybe my post count is not high enough?), I'm going to stick it in this one.
I keep circling back to the strangulation. I know that some people think that the garrotte is evidence of staging, but why is it needed at all? It seems to unneeded.
I assume that it was a quick way to explain her death, but why not just leave the body in the WC? That seems to be just as easy. "Oh No! JB must have come down here playing a game/to look for the unopened presents/as a joke/sleepwalking/who knows why 6 year olds do what they do and been trapped! What if our baby froze to death in our own basement! What if she panicked and had a heart attack!"
What would that have changed? JR could have still snatched her up and carried her upstairs, disturbing evidence. All LE would have had then was a dead little girl, who could have died of anything, including natural causes. By strangling her and leaving the ugly rope on her neck, they instantly knew that they had a murder. True, the head injury would have still been found at autopsy, even without the strangulation, but that wouldn't happen for hours, giving both sides time to figure out what to do.
I just don't get why she was strangled at all. They had to have known she was dying and would be gone before the police were ever called, or even thought that she was already dead. Why not just wrap her little body in that blanket and leave it in the WC? Was the act of strangulation itself important?
For the record, I do think that Pansy hit her in an act of rage, and she and JR staged the scene together. I go back and forth about whether the previous vaginal trauma was from an outside person (not an intruder that night) or innocent play with her brother.