Olivia Pratt-Korbel's killer drove around on a bicycle trying to intimidate her local community into silence after his arrest, police believe.
Thug Thomas Cashman - jailed for life this month - shot dead the nine-year-old after attempting to barge into her family home while chasing convicted drug dealer Joseph Nee.
The schoolgirl's mum Cheryl Korbel tried to block off the door to the 34-year-old masked killer - a dad himself - before he fired blinding into the property.
Cheryl was struck in the hand, but a bullet hit Olivia in the chest and she lay dying in her mother's arms as Cashman and Nee - unknown to the family - fled the scene.
Police launched a major manhunt in the aftermath of the killing in Dovecot, Merseyside, on August 22 last year.
Cashman was initially arrested on suspicion of Olivia's murder on September 4, 2022 - his birthday.
However, investigators didn't have enough evidence to charge him and he was released on bail.
He was re-arrested the following month.
Detective Superintendent Mark Baker, who was one of the leads in the case for Merseyside Police, said he attended a community meeting the night before Cashman was arrested the second time.
He said people there claimed he'd been riding around Dovecot on a bicycle on the day of the Queen's funeral - September 19.
DS Baker told the Liverpool Echo: "Now, that was quite important really, because from an investigation point of view we thought he was trying to intimidate potential witnesses by doing that, it was telling people in the community he was still here, and he was still out and about, and people that were considering coming forwards to support the police may well have thought: 'I'll think about that, I'm not so sure now whether I want to'.
"So we were saying to the Crown Prosecution Service, we believe, if we're able to charge him, there are other members of the community that will trust us further.
"And that did happen, we went back to them and said 'listen, he's in custody, he's out of the area, he's been charged, and he'll stand trial, now we want further evidence from yourselves'."
Asked if the detectives had seen evidence that Cashman was feared in area, Detective Chief Inspector Jude Blease said: "I would say so yes."
"And I think the whole investigation team would agree with that. I think he had the community probably, almost eating out of his hand. You know, sort of what he said went."
After Cashman was found guilty it emerged he had been suspected of involvement in the unsolved murder of Karl Bradley in West Derby in 2013.
Cashman had in fact been arrested on suspicion of that murder three years later, although he was never charged.
DCI Blease agreed that the widespread rumours did pose some problems for the team investigating Olivia's murder.
She said: "I think there's always going to be that isn't there with anybody if you're fearful that somebody else has been responsible for something, and then they've gotten away with it, and all of a sudden they're now believed to be responsible for that, it's always going to stop people from ever speaking to us.
"What I will say with all of our murders that are unsolved we have a serious case review team.
"They go through any pieces of information any pieces of intelligence that come through they will look at, if they feel there are viable lines of enquiry."
However, witnesses did find the courage to speak and one in particular, a woman who had a sexual relationship with Cashman and cannot be named for legal reasons, provided critical evidence of him admitting "I've done Joey" in her home shortly after the shooting.
DCI Blease said: "One of the things that always sticks out in my mind is how she described him when he went round to the house.
"Pulling at his hair, almost in that frantic moment knowing that something's gone wrong. She did the right thing, she was very, very brave and came forward.
"That allowed us to get to the position of charge, and then as Mr Baker says, you could see the community tensions, that feel of 'actually, we've managed to get something back here.
"We've got some control back'. And other people were willing to come forward then, and that's exactly what we needed."
Cashman was sentenced earlier this month to a minimum of 42 years in prison after being convicted of Olivia's murder at Manchester Crown Court.
