I finally got around to reading through the appeal motivation and the relevant parts of the Conti-Vecchiotti report, and I find nothing to lend credence to the innocence hypothesis. If anything, I would judge the timing of the double-DNA knife testing seems to move the 'laboratory contamination' hypothesis from very very very unlikely to very very very very unlikely.

So in the end, I have to apologize to kompinisto as I have inadvertently wasted both of our time in suggesting this debate; our failure to reach a consensus on an accurate truth in this issue is a mild lose-lose.