You are flat out wrong. Either you are lying or you are mistaken, I don't know which.
I read the whole thing. There was not any of that stuff. No authentication. No chain-of-custody. No investigation. No checking of alibis. Nothing.
What the article did say is that all of this was notably lacking, but they went forward anyway.
Are you looking at the article that I noted in this post? That article (the Enquirer article) can be found here.
Read starting midway through page 11: Months later, Gator will learn that a forensic analysis of the laptop has verified that Bill Conradt was the person who chatted online with “Luke,” but that the computer hard drive was otherwise devoid of anything illegal or indicative of sexual predation.
As carefully as you read the Esquire article go back and re-read my post, which states, "Most of what you asked for is noted in the Esquire article".
Now before you accuse me of anything else, try to understand this- my intent was to inform you that what you were asking about was noted in the Esquire article. Noted. That doesn't mean the article is gospel. The article noted that a forensic analysis of the laptop was done. The article noted that the forensic analysis of the laptop verified that Bill Conradt was the person who chatted online with “Luke”. And the article noted that the computer hard drive was otherwise devoid of anything illegal or indicative of sexual predation. It's neither a lie nor a misunderstanding. It's a point of reference for anyone who is curious about the existence of a forensic analysis. That is not to say that the analysis alone is damning- simply that the article noted the existence of a forensic analysis. You asked. The answer is yes, one does exist.
You can scour the article to find whatever you need. It's a pretty lengthy article that touches on (meaning it makes note of or comments on- as if to suggest the existence of) many factors that surround the case. The article casts a hairy eyeball on all parties concerned. NBC looks bad. The police look equally bad if not worse. And Conradt is portrayed as a villain in conflict with himself.
Regardless if Conradt is guitly, as I've said earlier, NBC was foolish to go to the man's home; as were the police (unless the police had damning evidence requiring immediate action). You either think I'm still lying or have come to your senses and realize you made a mistake.