Hi Claudici, Dave or DeeDee probably know more about this, but I gather he was pretty frail following heart surgery. The thing about him was that he was a biggish man and probably couldn't have used the Lou Smit method to get into the house. He was also a human bigfoot so I don't see how he could have failed to have left more evidence of his presence. Lots of people spoke of his sexuality, but the implications they were making more-or-less excluded him from consideration since homosexuals are much less frequently paedophiles than heterosexuals.
I know Ann Rule thinks he should have been looked at much more closely but, as I understand it, he was investigated inside out.
Santa Bill gave saliva, hair samples. There was NO evidence linking him to this crime. And there were many more people the Rs "suspected". LHP was immediately mentioned.
I'll admit that the novel written by Janet McReynolds gives me the creeps (WHY would anyone choose to write about that topic?) And the coincidences surrounding the date of the crime and what happened to their own daughter also seem strange. But with both McReynolds' DNA samples in LE databases, and to use Lacy's words: The DNA belongs to the "killer", the DNA was NOT Santa Bill's.