I know I ama fish, but I just had to bite on this one. The lure has been dangling before my eyes too long.
Michelle was killed by someone who knew a bit about jewelry and probably had done a few robberies beforehand. This person maybe was watching the house for an opportunity and thought he saw it when Michelle walked Shelly to her car. He already knew that Jason's vehicle was gone and had seen Jason put his suitcase in the Explorer and pretty well knew that Jason would not be back that night.
Maybe he thought that Michelle left with Shelly, or maybe he just didn't care because he knew that he could easily handle Michelle. So he calls his accomplice to come on over with the car, or just maybe makes his way back to the trailer park and gets his car and accomplice. They wait a couple of hours then head over to 5108 Birchleaf Drive. They enter through the back door. maybe it is locked and maybe not. Picking locks is a trivial exercise for a moderately competent thief. (I once locked my keys to a lock in the locker. An acquaintance easily opened it for me and only charged me a dollar.)
The house was mostly dark at this time. Michelle had left her room to go check on Cassidy. The thieves entered her bedroom while she was in CY's room. Michelle was remembering Shelly's unease and had began to be uneasy herself, so she went throughout the house turning on all of the lights, thinking that this would deter any would be intruder.
The intruders heard her coming back up the stairs and secreted themselves. When Michelle entered the room, the thief wearing the Belleville Hush Puppies grabbed her from behind getting a forearm around her neck with great force. When he put his other hand over her mouth to endure no sound would come out, she bit him. This completely enraged the assailant and he went berserk, beating her to death with his fists and finally with a heavy flashlight or the like which he had brought with him.
In the fury of the attack, Michelle had been knocked off the bed and had rolled in front of Jason's closet. The murderer pulled Michelle up somewhat in order to open the closet and retrieve the wallet containing five hundred dollars which he had found while rummaging through the closet but dropped when he heard Michelle coming up the stairs. He also pulled the rings off her fingers and rummaged through the jewelry box picking out he good stuff from the costume jewelry. His accomplice, who had been rummaging through Michelle's closet, was attending to other things because CY had come into her mother's room while the beating was going on. He or she went to Cassidy and told her something like "It's okay, Mommy's just getting a spanking for biting."
So CY has to go see her mother and saw the "boo boos" and the red stuff. The murderer tells the accomplice to get her out of their, so CY is carried to the hallway bathroom to make the mess that was there while the pair decided what to do. At least one of them really loved kids and persuaded the other to take CY out and clean her up. They decided not to take any of the electronics, TV's etc. because of the chance that the serial numbers had been recorded and could be traced.
They took CY home and cleaned her up. (I have no idea what CY's personality was at the time. There are some children who do not know strangers. I went into a Post Office some years ago to transact a little postal business. There was a mother holding what appeared to be a two or three year old. I smiled at the little one and she wriggled out of he mother's arms and came up to me with her arms out stretched. I rather nervously picked her up to take her back to her mother, but she clung to me as if I were a beloved grandparent or the such. I wound up having to walk out to the mother's car with the mother and put her into her car seat.
I also have a granddaughter who really loves women who have short graying hair. She would go to just about any of them without hesitation, even though she did not know them.)
So CY is now clean but without a diaper since the thieves aren't normally babysitters. They wash and dry CY's clothes and their own clothes which had become rather bloody. The shoes, etc that they had on they put into the bag they had brought for the items they were going to pilfer.
They know they have to get back, turn off the lights and get CY put somewhere. CY is sound asleep when they get back to the house somewhere around five. That is what Terry Tiller saw when she was on Birchleaf Drive closer to four to five A.M. time frame that she first told the LE, before they judiciously helped her to remember that it must have been earlier.
The sleeping CY was placed under the covers on Jason's side of the bed. All of the lights in the house were turned out. It took them a few minutes to find all of the switches. Then they left, to be seen by Cindy Beaver at 5:25 A.M. or so.
This is a totally fictional story. It does not answer all of the questions and some bits may seem improbable. But some type of similar scenario is plausible, given the actual evidence. More plausible than the JY did it scenario, IMO.
Of course, I am going to get some boos. But think bout it.
Glenn
