Cora was five. That is the detail that stays with you.
Unlike Dawson, who was three, or Callan, who was eight months old and still lived in a world of warmth, milk, and faces that meant safety, Cora had already crossed the threshold where a child begins to understand. She knew her mother’s voice. She knew the person strangling her was supposed to protect her.
In her final terrifying moments she would have understood that something was terribly wrong. The person she trusted most had become the source of her terror. A five year old can recognize danger, feel the shift from comfort to threat, and look into a familiar face that no longer matches the love she expected. That sudden, complete betrayal is almost unbearable to imagine. Horrifying.
Dawson and Callan were spared that knowledge. Cora was not. She was old enough to know what was happening, and that knowledge makes her death twice a brutal.
Justice for Cora, Dawson, and Callan.