I am not Christian, but I am very confused as to what prayer "working" actually means in this context. It seems like it would be heretical for a Christian to think that their post-murder intervention would change a soul's destination. Do they think they're making these murders less frequent?
I don't know of any Protestant doctrine on this topic, but my understanding is that Catholic doctrine allows that the living can offer prayers for the souls in Purgatory to reduce their time there. I am not a Catholic, however, so this should be taken with an appropriate amount of salt.
As a former-Catholic atheist: Catholicism has a tradition of claiming prayers for the dead help souls avoid "purifying punishments". That is already monstrous to be saying about murdered children. But Leavitt is not using "believe that prayer works" in that sense. She is using it as an excuse.
Killed while praying? I guess the power of prayer has nithing to do with preventing murder..
Doesn't seem like it's working.