Yes. I think the police had enough. Everyone wants more of a good thing, even the police, but at the time they knocked on the door at 6am, yes, I think they had sufficient. To lay a charge of murder requires a hell of a lot. It's more than one detectives 'instinct'.. it has to be hard, repeated, unchangable, unique stuff. ..It all has to sheet home to the one suspect, the one the warrant is out on. So the starting point is high.
Value added by the search and interview... the search would have given up clothing, papers, documents, history, possibly tools, and maybe implements of some nature, but also to the trained eye, an insight into his overall living arrangements and habits., how he places things, what priority he hangs on to certain actions, ordered and disciplined or slothful and gritty ....
The interview, he , Stephenson, probably thought he was blocking the police with the silence, but trained interrogators can pick up an awful lot, a flicker of the eyebrow, a downturn of the lip, a sudden burst of prolonged blinking, uncontrolled reactions to scenarios and theories put to him. We speak as much without words as with, to someone who can read the signals.
Obviously, the conviction of the detectives doesn't appear to have changed, if anything, it has cemented in, really. Has it increased, I cannot tell . I expect it has, though.. I also genuinely believe that VICPOL will find this missing body. I do not think it was a matter of cunning and outstanding intelligence on the part of Mr Stephenson. That will tell, in the end.,,