Looking again at the photo of the home attached in the following post:
Websleuths Crime Sleuthing Community - View Single Post - MI MI - AMBER ALERT: Mariha Trenice Smith, 5, Detroit, 24 July 2011
It looks like the front screen door locks with a key. Do they lock both the storm and screen doors with keys and were both locked with keys when Mariha went missing?
There is not enough room on the right side of the house to take a child and not be heard due to the proximity of the house next door. IF that house is occupied. IF the home is vacant it would have provided obstruction from the view of seeing the perp.
The front of the house appears to have hosta's? or some kind of ground covering plant bordering most of the front of the house. If someone stepped along this area checking the windows that would be evident as the plants would show evidence of someone walking along them.
The house looks like it has a basement of some sort. Someone could have entered through an unlocked window going into the basement. Does the basement have walkdown stairs in the rear? If so, maybe they got in that way or through a rear door that was left unlocked or unlocked by one of the children and went unnoticed by the adults.
Also, if the mother was involved why would she have purchased gasoline? She wouldn't. She'd have probably siphoned it before going to purchase it or found some other type of flamable accelerant in the home.
That .57 cents worth of gasoline is what is throwing me.