I still can't wrap my head around the fact that LE issued a SW for a person who does not fit the physical parameters that they have issued to the public. Why would they do that?.
Good question. I have wondered the same, because it simply doesn't add up.
I finally came to the speculative conclusion that at some point they decided to broaden their search, because they were running out of places to look. And here's where that took me.
First, I'm observing that they didn't go for that SW until about 7-8 months later.
Second, I'm assuming they looked at him early on, and they had the following:
- multiple people kept tipping him as fitting the description of the walk,
- he was somehow in the mix around the funeral scene, so maybe some connection to MB,
- he had some ties to LE (and therefore could have had that sort of swat-wear),
- he had a dark SUV,
- he had a hazy alibi for the night of the murder,
- BUT he was the wrong height.
So in the short term, he was discarded as a possibility, based on the height.
Third, I'm guessing that after 6 months, maybe they decided to start investigating possibilities that were not exactly right, but that checked a lot of the boxes. Who "almost" fit the list of characteristics they were looking for? Maybe one of those things was a mistake. In his situation, perhaps someone asked "What if that height range calculation is wrong" and then with all the other things that fit together, they were intrigued.
That was what I came up with. Maybe someone else has a better idea.