Why do you all think KD is so convinced that the person who instigated the murders was present when they were committed?
I am having trouble convincing myself that any one of the obvious individuals who wanted the Shermans dead would be willing or able to get their hands dirty, literally or figuratively. These types of people are clay pigeon shooters, not deer hunters. Death by strangulation is not a tidy or instantaneous event. That's why I associate it with immediate rage (DV), sexual sadism (serial killers), or professional military/security types. If a murder were highly premeditated and committed primarily for money/control, it's hard for me to imagine the affected individual committing it personally via strangulation. A hired killer, yes. Strangulation does not require acquisition of a gun, nor does it leave ballistics evidence. Could the soft-handed people in this circle of suspicion really have committed these murders personally? JMO, of course.