Yes, that is what I saw and to my mind I saw buying it, pulling off the hanging tag and tossing that in the bag.... I never thought of ripping the brand labeling tag off of the item....
People with sensory disorders (even mild ones) routinely take the tags off. If any of BK's online personae are really him, two of them mentioned sensory disorders (TapATalk and InsideLooking; not sure about Pappa Rodger).
Since I believe the TapATalk messages are verifiably BK's, it's possible he has a sensory disorder involving rough things touching his skin. There are whole lines of clothing for such people; entire brands have gone to less stiff/smaller/more removable inner tags. It would be interesting if it was that kind of tag, but of little evidentiary value at this point.
Black Diamond tag shoes have diamond pattern on sole.
But
it's different than the
Van's pattern, IMO. Van's has another version of that same sole, but it's still quite distinctive from Black Diamond (which is more like a diamond embossed sole). Black Diamond is also twice as expensive. They are a very nice shoe, though. IMO.
I just don't see them putting a lot of effort into the plumbing traps. This isn't a fresh crime they were investigating, this was 1 1/2 months after the fact on fixtures that were used for a solid month after the crimes. The likelihood of evidence being there at that point is beyond remote.
DNA persists for a long time. It's a pesky little molecule. It cannot be completely destroyed by bleach. Sink traps have gunky stuff in them. Blood cells with DNA love to settle into gunky stuff.
The technical term for the gunky stuff is "biofilm." A very well controlled experiment could, with DNA amplification, show DNA up to 36 days in experimental conditions. It's true that the time gap was longer than 36 days, but BK left his apartment around Dec 13, just one month after the killings. The biofilm didn't change after that, IMO.
So, maybe they did use the fancy retrieval device (which isn't so fancy and is now apparently part of all federal investigative kit) shown below. Here's the best article I can find on the matter:
Biofilms are organized structures composed mainly of cells and extracellular polymeric substances produced by the constituent microorganisms. Ubiquitous in nature, biofilms have an innate ability to capture and retain passing material and may therefore ...
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
Could they have taken that sample and not mentioned it? I don't think so. Chain of custody issues, IMO.
Is daily Mail link MSM / allowed to put here ?
There's some 'news' from today, dunno if its already been posted about here earlier
YES, it's an approved source, as is NYP. And before anyone comments, it's not considered good WS etiquette to say negative things about approved sources.