I'm very late to paying attention to this case. I totally missed that law enf' got a Van's shoe footprint. If Brian was the killer, surely he wouldn't have worn his own shoes, plus surely he'd destroy all the clothes he wore, ditch the knife, burn it all up?
Bryan Kohberger case: Footprint found inside Idaho crime scene could help cops build case And if BrianK is the killer, he sure doesn't seem to be sweating about that knife sheath....
From my POV, whatever shoes the killer put on his feet became "his own shoes" at that point in time. I would figure that Vans would be preferred for slippery footwork in pools of blood - and as it turned out, the killer was a bit sloppy and there was at least one pool of blood! Vans are designed to keep your feet on the deck of a slippery skateboard.
They are also ubiquitous. They are relatively cheap. I think most of us assume he got rid of them - somewhere.
However there were two types of latent prints. From a forensic point of view, that means there were certainly a few more non-latent prints. In other words, a trail of blood of footprints, some of them noticeable by the unaided eye.
A footprint provides really good data about the shape of the toes, joints and other foot components inside the shoe. Height of the arch. Length of big toe in relation to all the others. It would not eliminate tons of people - but it would match the killer and be another piece of evidence, whether or not the shoe is ever found.
It usually also helps forensic footprint specialists to give an approximate height and sex for the shoe wearer. Even if he got used shoes at a thrift store (and I bet he didn't), his own foot would be inside of them and the weight and gait impressions would be his, not the former shoe owner's. If the two kinds of data didn't match and it was clear it was someone else's show (initially), that would tell the investigators that the killer did indeed have "kill shoes" that he'd picked up in order to discard. That's how I would interpret it. A jury might interpret it the same way (evidence of pre-meditation).
Why do you say he's not sweating about the knife sheath? We've seen him in 2-3 second bursts, mostly from behind or the side, in the courtroom where (IMO) he often looks nervous or intense. He's sitting in jail because of that knife sheath. Do you have information about his calmness? (Or can you say why your intuition is telling you this?)
At any rate, many of us believe that sheath is only the tip of the iceberg of upcoming evidence. The search warrants and subpoenas already tell a complex story - and a Grand Jury heard that evidence and indicted him.
He has a lot to worry about, IMO.
