I vote for bad reporting, since it's not a direct quote from LE saying 'retrieve', but a reporter.
I also vote for bad reporting - actually irresponsible journalism - on DS purchasing the items from Walmart. This one is particularly bad, since, as we see over and over right here in this forum, people take what a reporter says as fact of which the reporter has first-hand knowledge, rather than what it is - a retelling of information, which, reporters being human beings, and some better in various ways than others, gets lost in translation.
It could be that LE told the first reporter that new info has come out that Venus was retrieving mail, rather than that it is thought she was depositing mail, and it could be that LE told the second reporter that they now have evidence that it was indeed DS who purchased the Walmart items, but (forgive the run-on sentence I'm on a roll with here
) I would think in either of those instances, the reporters would have used different wording, particularly the latter, since that would be a *BOMBSHELL!*
I congratulate anyone who made it through my run-ons.