8th Bob-White, those are ALL very good questions. We will never know exactly how everything occurred at the site and who actually did what. But, I think we do know enough to understand that evidence at the scene was grossly compromised by HCSO actions as well as by their neglect to follow well know protocol for collecting and preserving evidence. For example, the killers when under the extreme emotional stress throughout the dark, cold night invariably would not be able to prevent leaving at least some amount of trace evidence behind including fingerprints and touch DNA. Heck, one of them even urinated next to the Durango before walking off. That in itself indicates that the killers were not very conscious of trace evidence that they may leave behind. The killers were driving as well as in and out of that vehicle for 6 hours!
From the TM article: "But the next morning, Lewis ordered that the Durango be towed back to the sheriff’s department. He told me he had spent a sleepless night thinking he should inspect the Durango one more time to make sure no evidence was overlooked. “We did everything again,” he said. “We re-wiped the blood spot. We went and we put more ink on that car, fingerprint dust, than you can imagine to make sure we didn’t miss anything.”
What did Lewis mean when he said, "We did everything again"? The female deputy told Penny that HCSO did not check for fingerprints before returning the vehicle on the day it was found. That is the real reason that Sheriff Lewis had a "sleepless night" and decided to take possession of the vehicle a second time. A week or so later when Penny picked the vehicle up she stated that there was fingerprint dust all over the outside of the vehicle. She noted that she saw no fingerprint dust inside the vehicle. Fingerprint "dust" is an extremely fine graphite based powder (or similar) and is difficult to clean, especially from cracks, crevices, leather/vinyl such as are found on the interior of a vehicle. They did not "dust" the interior because they knew it was useless at that late point. IMO they brushed "dust" over the entire outside of the vehicle in a weak attempt to make their efforts look better.