born, why don't you believe DH's version of that night, that she was on the couch, heard someone, got up, relocked the door, and then went upstairs at 3? It fits the timeline - do you think she imagined it?
I just think it makes more sense if she was upstairs when it happened. Being in the middle of the house on the sofa, there are so many things that she could have heard just before or just after he got in -- and if she got up and checked & locked the door then -- especially if she turned on the outside light, opened the front door, yelled, and then locked the door, he would have heard or seen all that & probably freaked.
It's just that I think she may have heard him enter the residence if she had been on the couch -- if he really used the plastic sign to jimmy the lock; or she could have heard him coming down the outside steps -- or both. The sofa was about 4--5 feet from the front door.
The inside stairs were about 3--4 feet from the sofa -- if he actually went upstairs & came right back down when he entered the residence (that's what
he said, so who knows about that possibility), seems like she would have heard it.
The MBR door was only about 12 ft. away from the sofa -- once in the BR, he, the liar, said KT made a noise & he the bashed her head in, and seems to me, the acts he then perpetrated on her would have probably caused him to utter some kind of sounds, especially if he were drunk, and in such a murderous, monstrous state. That may have awakened her. Now he could have just waited in the bedroom for DH to do what she did -- we'll never know. That is one possibility I can figure if she had been downstairs when he came in the house. Would he have waited for her to do all that? Maybe so.
To exit the residence, he would have had to have passed within 1--4 feet of her there on the sofa if she were still on the sofa, depending on how he went to the front door from the bedroom door. And then out the door and either up the steps of the house, or over the little bridge to the back paths. It could have been his exit that woke her, and that's one more possibility that she could have been on the sofa, but I don't feel that that is what happened.
And remember that his mom said that he did nothing without noise in his clumsy way -- he was not light on his feet. The house has hardwood floors downstairs and they are noisy underfoot.
That's my take -- but DH could be absolutely right -- I am certainly not saying she was misrepresenting what she thought had happened. She was there and I wasn't, that's for sure.