otg's last paragraph provides an interesting possibility- that which some believe anyway IDI as well as RDI- that the ligature may have not been intended to kill her. There are three possibilities as far as the ligature, as I see it:
The ligature was part of a bondage/sexual activity and NOT meant to kill her
The ligature was MEANT to kill her
The ligature was STAGING, meant to lend credence to a cause of death for a child who was unconscious/comatose from the head blow which had no outward signs, and was dying. The purpose of the strangulation in that case was to provide an instantly visible, plausible cause of death for a child that otherwise had no visible explanation why she was dead in her basement. If this was the case, this last theory could only be RDI as a intruder wouldn't care about providing a visible cause of death, they'd simply have left her anyway.
I go with #3...the ligature was STAGING. A head blow and molestation would have caused the BP to take the family to headquarters and grill them.
The first has the head bash coming during the activity, in response to her scream. It not only silenced her immediately, but knocked her out. If the ligature activity continued after that, it may explain how one of the ligature marks was white (postmortem) and the others were red. She may have died during this activity and the perp(s) did not know it.
The second and third have the head bash coming first, to silence her.
As to whether she could have been tied to a chair or otherwise suspended- there were no marks of any kind on her wrists, and had she been suspended by the wrists or had they been tied to anything tightly enough to restrain her, there would have been marks on her wrists. Not as deep as the ligature furrow, perhaps, but still there would be evidence that cord was tied fairly tightly around her wrists, and the loose cords found on one wrist are not enough evidence the cord was TIGHT, as they could be staging. JR's comment that they were tightly bound has to be false because:
1. there are NO marks on her wrists and 2. JB was in full rigor mortis by that time, which develops about 12 hours after death, and her wrists would still have been frozen in that close together position, even without a cord around them. We know her her wrists were more than a foot apart.
If she were tied to a chair some other way, the only way I see it happening is cord around her torso. We haven't seen photos of her torso from the front, only of her back.
I find it hard to believe the coroner would not/could not determine she had been tied to anything or suspended at some point, but there were other things, as we all know, that the coroner did not put in the report. He did specify ligature strangulation, not hanging.
One thing is certain- whatever position she was in when she died, she was placed on her back in the wineceller within the period that livor mortis was in the early blanching stage. Because if she had died in any other position or been moved at all during that period, there would be another livor mortis pattern on the body and there is only one- indicating blood pooling as she lay on her back, head cocked to the right. There is no livor mortis pattern indicating she was hung, suspended or in a sitting position after she was dead more than about 10 minutes.
So she COULD have died in a sitting or suspended position, but had to be placed on her back right after.