Here's my theory, for what it's worth.
Anyone with an ounce of medical knowledge would know that when you smother someone, you leave distinct clues. For one, the front teeth would cause bruising or indentation on the inside of the upper and lower lip lines. Two, there is usually a showing of petechial hemorrage. From the National Institutes of Health:
"[Dr. Fierro]: Petechial hemorrhages are small pinpoint hemorrhages generally seen and looked for in the lining of the eyes in the conjunctiva, either that of the lids which is called palpebral conjunctiva or the bulbar, that covering the bulb of the eye and they generally are sign of terminal asphyxia. Now what's interesting of course is what causes people to have petechae in the first place and it's generally because there's increased intravascular pressure that causes the small end vessels of the capillaries to rupture. When do you have that? You have that when you breathe against resistance or try and breathe against resistance. So what would cause that? Well, many varieties of asphyxia such as smothering, strangulation, anything that compresses on the neck, while the person is conscious and trying to breathe against it. So generally petechae are something that you need to account foryou have to explain those."
I particularly love that last sentence. She is a nurse. She had to invent a stranger to cover up because she knew what the evidence would show.
I think something went wrong at the beach. Maybe he completely ticked her off. Maybe he wouldn't settle down and she was trying to headlock him to hold him and she cut off his airway. Maybe he had a screaming fit and didn't want to go home and things got out of hand.
Somehow I don't get the feeling that she was gearing up to do this. I think it happened by accident and she had to cover her tracks. Seriously, in this day and age, I can't imagine that she would leave a MySpace up like that----party central---while she was "planning" to kill her son.
I'd be interested to know if the pillow had any trace evidence that could show that it was actually used. I'd also like to know if his hyoid bone in his neck was crushed. That most likely wouldn't happen in a typical smothering, but would happen in asphyxiation.
Just my :twocents: .