...yes...somewhere earlier in all that babbling I think I outlined at least 3 options that could've resulted in K9 alerts in the backyard:
1) Casey exploits in the backyard w/ the body or something that had come in contact with it (lots of options on this one)
2) George setting down the gas can(s) in the back yard incidentally leaving trace decomposition from residual on the bottom of the can(s) after recovering them from Casey 6/24.
3) Cindy exploits in the backyard w/ item(s) (e.g. pants, boots, knive, etc.) recovered from the Pontiac 7/15-7/16 being washed in some fashion
4) George and/or Cindy's exploits in the backyard 7/16-7/17 <7PM just prior to LE arriving w/ the K9 units, either:
a) unintentionally xferring decomp from a single pre-existing location that existed from Casey's exploits (#1), OR
b) unintentionally xferring decomp from a new location (if none pre-existing) created by Cindy's exploits (#3)
I added #4 after re-reading the LE report on the K9 units coming to the house and George telling the officer that he & Cindy had already gone through the sheds and looked for areas they considered potential for foul play - that he'd even looked under the playhouse already.
Sooo...
total speculation to illustrate the point...if Cindy took something out of the trunk and washed it off into the mulch near the sandbox first...creating a K9 alert spot...then in the process of looking under the playhouse George created a cross-contamination....voila, another K9 alert spot...then going to look in the pool storage box and sheds George or Cindy created a third cross-contamination...3rd and final K9 alert spot, we'll that kinda creates a scenario.
That being said...I'm hard pressed to think of a practical cross-contamination scenario @ the moment. For example...if it was an item (such as a hose sprayer that Cindy used...then George sat down to lift the playhouse...then sat down again before placing it in the pool box - well, then that object (i.e. sprayer) itself would be contaminated w/ decomp and would've received a K9 alert too. Alternatively, a wet shoe that had trace decomp on it sufficient to create alerts far away from the original source...well...it seems there would be several more alert locations from the footsteps along the way. :waitasec:
Just thinking out loud again.
FWIW...a moved hose reel on 7/15-7/16 would support #3 a bit.
I haven't seen any corroboration of a faucet attachment being taken by LE. I'd appreciate it if someone has & can provide. TIA!