Hmmm... I'm not buying this one. I hope the cops interview this family a few more times about what happened.
FGS, lighten up; sometimes things just are what they are.
My first reaction too. I hope we're being too cynical.
I wouldn`t rule out any criminal activity either.
This event with the dog is plausible though.
It`s plausible that when the dog jerked on the girls scarf, it became so tight, even when the dog let go, it could have continued to strangle the girl.
So the dog didn`t have to drag the girl all over the yard for a longtime for this to happen.
So it very well may just be a tradic event. But the police need to follow up on other possiblities. If they don`t , then they are not doing their job.
I can see exactly how it would happen, just as described.
The real killer even had the time and the ability to soak the scarf in dog saliva. What's your timeline say about that? Maybe a neighbor helped, eh?
I'm not either. Seems suspicious to me. She was 40 lbs and the dog 80 lbs, not enough lbs to continuously keep the child in the same stranglehold for the time necessary to kill her. I'd dig deeper. As a boy I used to play the same way with my 80 pounder and all I had to do was play dead and/or be inactive and the dog knew playtime was over. I can't imagine a dog continue to keep the pressure on long enough to strangle her.
Your skepticism is good. It sounds like the cause of death is known to be strangulation however whether the dog did it or someone else is speculation.
I don't think I'd close the books on this right away either.