For me, to discover the fact that they've had this drawing, and this witness who made the description for the police artist, since 3 days after the crime, .. it changes everything that I had been initially thinking about that press conference. This is not new information.
This has got to be a rehash.. for some reason, it seems like the police did not put any, or enough, weight into this witness's account and description at the time. Perhaps because it *seemed* to be so different from the actual phone recording they had obtained from the victim herself? Perhaps because the info seemed *unbelievable* at the time, for some unknown (to us) reason?
(ie as one example, the witness may have had a known, pre-existing prejudice of some sort, and perhaps had been bringing attention to someone (or a member of some group) in particular, but police, knowing about this specific witness's/person's prejudice, discounted the witness altogether, and especially since the drawing did not seem to match the actual footage? Just a possibility for why this witness account would not have been put out there from day#1?)....
But now it seems they have gone back to square one, re-examining with renewed eyes (perhaps new sets of eyes too?), and it bopped them in the head that this witness's rendering could in fact be the same person in the footage afterall. It could explain the "you never thought we would shift gears to a different investigative strategy, but we have", and the request for media to leave family alone for 2 weeks (to digest this new course of thinking), and the high emotion from Supt. Carter even after 2 years on the case with the exact same information at hand. (One would beg to ask why a seasoned LE would be so highly emotionally charged while delivering 2-year-old information?) They may have been handed the perp right away, but completely discounted him based on different factors? Possible?
For two years it seems they've been focusing on 'outside' of their community, wanting the photo, drawing and recording to reach out and be exposed across the nation.. people in the community likely became 'comfortable' within *themselves*, feeling the perp was someone unknown to them and from far away - someone they didn't necessarily need to worry about, nobody close needed attention paid to them. This seems a wake-up call that the killer IS amongst them, could even be in this room right *now*, - look who is beside you, think about your neighbor afterall, and if you had a weird vibe about your son, nephew, guy at the church, then YES, bring that to us.
I'm feeling very cautiously optimistic. Just my take after finding out this 'new' drawing is in fact the first drawing from over 2 years ago.