Exactly. Let's say that two co-workers left prints or DNA on the shovel. They aren't suspects. One of them is dead. The other left the state out of fear of BM.
BM clearly is touching the tools, so if he then WASHED them in the hotel room, that's really hinky. No one washes shovels in a hotel.
If the tools were then touched by the coworkers, and there's evidence of bleaching the shovel, then it stands to reason that Barry washed/removed his own DNA and purposefully placed the tools where others' DNA might get deposited on them. He surely is the one who took that shovel into the hotel, used the bleach, cleaned the tool and then staged it in the hotel lobby.
IMO. Doesn't matter at all who touched it. And it wasn't in any kind of "chain of evidence" at that point anyway - it was still part of a potential crime scene (the shovel). All of the information from the shovel will be useful at trial, IMO. Particularly the fact that no shovel was needed for the job they were about to do, and that he brought it into a hotel room said by a witness to be strongly smelling of bleach (which he had purchased in Salida at the spa store only the day before).
Most jurors will be able to follow the implications of this. And let's not forget that Barry admits to having animal tranquilizers in one of his many interviews with police. And he admitted to dumping trash (and I can't now remember what was found - but that was also on camera). And the one still-living co-worker said that he did not bring the right tools for the job that they were supposed to do, and he wasn't supposed to be at that work site on a Sunday. The two workers eventually just left and went home, and no work was done (the botched freeway wall was properly fixed by a real cement contractor months later).
IMO.
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