Well, if "it" is being tested, it's forensic. That suggests fingerprints, DNA, human remains, etc., or they've gone back to the car or the items therein and found something. But the article says that work is based on new "leads." Wow. Wonder what?
Let's hope this case is going somewhere now.
I really hope it's the knife that was handed to Mr. Murray by a local years ago, claiming it was the murder weapon. LE had never tested it for any DNA - can you believe that? It supposedly sat in storage. (LE also returned all of Maura's 'personal items' to her family, thereby disrupting the chain of custody of evidence and compromising anything that could have been tested. Unbelievable).
from the Whitman-Hanson Express (which has an EXCELLENT writeup on her case):
http://www.whitmanhansonexpress.com...ing-part-iv-the-aftermath&catid=912&Itemid=83
"
In late 2004, a man came forward to Fred with a stained, rusty jackknife. The stains were a reddish-brown color, Fred said.
The man told Fred he thought his brother may have been connected to Maura's disappearance. At the time of Maura's accident the brother was living less than a mile away, the man related. He described his brother as having a record of violence and said that his brother's live-in girlfriend began acting strange around the time of Maura's disappearance.
Fred tried to turn the knife over to police but did not get beyond the plate glass window at state police headquarters, "I have what could be evidence in a capital crime," he recalled saying to the dispatcher, but the dispatcher said no one was available at headquarters to accept such evidence. Fred was told to come back during regular work hours. Fred then mailed the knife to state police along with all the information he received on the suspect. A few days later Fred received a proof of receipt that his package had reached the police
but was never contacted by police regarding the knife or the possible suspect.
The man who came forward with the rusted jackknife died earlier this year. Efforts to reach his brother were unsuccessful.
The brother's identity and the identity of the man who approached Fred are not being disclosed because there is no evidence he is considered a suspect in Maura's disappearance.
Police refused comment when asked about the knife."
In this case, it appears that LE incorrectly used deductive reasoning - they established a theory to begin with and tried to fit all the evidence discovered into that one theory, instead of being open to possibility and letting the evidence lead them to a theory or conclusion.