10ofRods
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I mostly see people describing him as smart. Who is making him out as stupid?
I do imagine they found at least a little more DNA in the house. And IMO, there cannot be just one latent footprint, because that means he had blood on the bottom of his shoe, which had disappeared as he made 10-15 long strides from where ever he got it.
Arguing about what we don't know (yet) over and over...I guess is our fate until June.
We can see investigators doing analysis on the slider (even with a glove, he would have left something on the door, I figure). It probably isn't as dramatic as the footprint. And again, no PCA is going to list that, because then both the whackadoos and the real killer can make up stories about what route the killer took through the house. DM doesn't actually say she saw him go through the slider.
We have no forensic evidence that he ever exited the house and yet, just a couple of minutes after DM sees him, his car (and it is his car) is seen leaving. That's evidence as well. It doesn't all have to be DNA. Having his car caught on camera immediately after DM sees a man in black leave the house is pretty damning, IMO. Then, about 30 minutes later, he is heading south out of Moscow (even though Pullman is to the West) and takes a long route back to Pullman, pulling off the main road and turning on his phone so that most of that trip is tracked as well.
But you're saying that the "only evidence" is one footprint. And not leaving DNA is not a thing only in crime novels - in crime novels, DNA is much more important than it is presumed to be in real life. Now, having said that, DNA retrieval techniques are improving by leaps and bounds (those forensic vacuum cleaners they used may have dragged some up).
A man wearing a mask isn't breathing out much DNA (this is like saying that an operating room would be filled with medical personnel's DNA after each procedure - but they wear hats, gloves, masks, etc., and staff DNA is almost never found in studies of OR's. It turns out that pre-op prep (where people have their cell phones) does leave bio-traces of the staff behind, but when people leave behind their cell phones (which have lots of DNA on them) and are wearing masks, hats, new gowns and booties while prepping the room, the individual bio-matter of the staff (including bacteria gained from swabbing their noses that is unique to each individual). In Europe (where this study was done), OR people are being urged to gown up twice - and to leave their cell phones out of the OR. They're not concerned about DNA contamination, but bacterial contamination - but where there is bacteria from someone's body in a place, there's DNA as well.
So it is likely hard to find lots of BK DNA at 1122 King Road. But I believe he touched the slider (there are evidence markers there) both going in and going out (it's possible he left the door open though - if he were really smart, he might have done so, even just a crack would have meant he wouldn't have gotten victim blood and his own handprint (gloved) on the door. Naturally, the defense will argue that's not evidence he did it, because no DNA - but juries are not persuaded merely by DNA and in fact, in the Murdaugh case, the jury took less than 3 hours to deliberate the circumstantial evidence (jurors say it was only 45 minutes from first vote to last). The details of why the jurors decided what they did are in recent MSM (and in the Media thread over there).
I'm not sure why we are discussing DNA apart from the other evidence (his drive toward Moscow on that very night; his car seen circling the neighborhood; his car seen doing a 3 point turn to get to an invisible-to-the-camera parking spot; his car seen leaving at goodly rate of speed on camera - from the parking spot next to 1122, as either method of exit would have caught him on camera; his circuitous route home; his return to the scene of the crime the next morning; his use of the same circuitous route home (he would have had more evidence to dispose of after going home and showering).
LE and DA are not going to give the poseur whackadoos (present in every major case I've ever known about) and the real killer the information about what they know BK bought in Albertson's. I think the legal reasoning and the practical reasoning behind that is very clear. But they know what he bought and they caught him on camera doing it. They would have wanted a warrant for Albertson's cash register records, I reckon - just going in and asking staff if they remembered BK would have been prejudicial and really bad investigation. They need to see the digital trail.
ALL IMO. And while he's not an unintelligent person, it was unwise for him to turn his phone back on a mere 20 minutes or so after leaving 1122. BTW, the affiant for the PCA who wrote it from the point of view of being an affiant who visited the crime scene could not have attested to the Albertson's evidence, as that was collected by the FBI. But the DA could open their mouth and speak to the judge and say, "There is also this other evidence; here's the FBI phone number of the guy handling that."
It's not a trial, it's a probable cause affidavit. Probable cause is not based only on one affidavit, but can be based on words said out loud to the judge by the DA, an officer of the court, or by LE in person, as the case may be. The way I read Idaho laws on warrants, a DA can issue an arrest warrant without going before a judge (but generally wants a victim statement in hand, not possible in this case) but if the arrest is out of state it must go before a judge. The minimum requirement for what's in the PCA is way less than what's in this one.
DA and LE are simply not going to play their full hand for an arrest warrant when it isn't needed. IMO and in the opinion of every DA, LEO and Judge I've ever observed or interviewed.
But my main point is that there's way more evidence in this case mentioned in the PCA, and the argument over whether there's more DNA or not is both immaterial and unnecessary in Idaho - they don't need anything more to arrest him and we're not trying him here on WS.
It's tedious looking at each individual piece of evidence in a vacuum, I believe the only productive way to look at what might happen next (or whether BK did it) is to consider the sum of what is known (including public statements by various people who observed him before and after Oct 13).
I am very interested in the receipts and financial transactions; but I'd really like to know if they used the special forensic cameras on his body when when they booked him in Moscow. These cameras can capture evidence of scratches or wounds that are a couple of months old - even older, even if the scratches are not visible to the naked eye or barely so. BK is fair-skinned as well, and even with a regular magnifying glass, one can usually still see remnants of a moderate scratch a couple of months later.
I suppose if LE has found a receipt for purchase of a Ka-Bar knife and a black coverall amongst BK's things that will overshadow the DNA entirely at the preliminary. And, with any luck, they may still recover the knife. Something tells me that he did not take it with him on the way to PA - he got rid of it in Idaho. Unfortunately, the most likely place was in the Snake River, which is unlucky for the prosecution.
IMO.
We know and can infer a lot from the PCA, but you're correct that being able to infer doesn't make it a fact. 1) We know there was at least 1 latent footprint in the hallway and that they used Amido Black to bring it out. 2) Because Amido Black brought the print out, there must have been some sort of protein on the sole of the shoe, but we can only infer that it was blood. 3) We know the print was detailed enough for LE to see at least a partial pattern on the sole of the shoe. 
