Been parsing the official and unofficial chatter since WBT’s Tara Servatius broke word this afternoon that CMPD was looking at new DNA evidence in the Kim Thomas murder case from 1990.

Short story, I am 60 per cent encouraged, 40 per cent discouraged. The wagons are quickly circling around the default city of Charlotte position — now 20 years old — that investigators could not have possibly considered Marion Gales a suspect in this case back in 1990. Or 1995. Or 2000.

We’ll see if that holds, but that is certainly the state of play right now.

Update: Figures — the UPoR is “site reviewing” my comment on the fact that opted to immediately slap up its March 2003 story Inside the case: Why police suspected her husband.

My comment: “Key-rist! You ACTUALLY put up a “why the police suspected the guy who didn’t do it sidebar?” I give up — you guys cannot be helped….Do you EVER question official city of Charlotte spin?”

The one saving grace of this decision is that it resurrects City Attorney Mac McCarley’s infamous quote explaining the city’s dogged fight against Ed Freidland’s wrongful prosecution law suit: “The city wasn’t going to pay a dime to a man the Police Department had probable cause to believe had murdered his wife.”

Uh-huh.