I however, tend to think entry was in fact gained through the front door which goes to the other person who could have gained the trust of Sherrill or Suzie
I agree with your belief that entry was gained through the front door by someone one of the women was very familiar with. With a dog in the house, entry gained via a window or the sliding glass doors would have gotten the attention of the dog pretty quickly. Dogs will bark even sensing the approach of someone.
As is often said, the prosecutor can indict a ham sandwich. The odds are good that knowing he had but one bite at the apple (double jeopardy applies), he decided not to move forward with that case at that time. The evidence wasn't sufficient to establish a certitude of a conviction.
That brings to mind Cox. He had his murder conviction in the beating death of Sharon Zellers reversed by the Florida Supreme Court due to a lack of evidence. Makes me wonder if the Springfield prosecutor doesn't want a repeat in this case, if the prosecutor firmly believes it is Cox, and wants more evidence.
This case is solvable from what I have been told.
I agree, Richard. This case IS solvable. LE's case review, digitizing tens of thousands of documents to be sent to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children for review took a huge effort, so there is a renewed interest in solving this case.
The only thing missing is the physical evidence or in the alternative a confession
Or an ex-wife who has information that could crack the case.
So far as I know the broken globe fragments were recovered. I often wonder if any attempt was made to reconstruct it for clues. I think that is an area ripe for further exploration
If the globe was made of a thick glass, as mine is, the shards may have been larger, which would have had a greater chance of having intact fingerprints.
The tape was gone over with a fine toothed comb and yielded up nothing of value per my contact.
Forensics is always advancing. There might be the ability to get information off an erased tape someday, if they don't already have that.