I think a large part of this comes from the increasing desire in this country to BE somebody. If you can't be a music or a movie star, or if you can't get notoriety any other way, one sure way to satisfy that little itch is to be controversial. Maybe the best example I can imagine comes from the legion of people on this board who, throughout the trial, have posted things like, 'what about X piece of (possibly exculpatory) evidence? Why isn't the defense mentioning this?' when in fact everyone can rest assured that the defense was using every iota of exculpatory evidence to its fullest. If I can find some bit of minutia that, when examined at the proper angle, makes the case against DW appear shaky, then I have DONE SOMETHING. I have BECOME CONTROVERSIAL. I have RAISED PEOPLE FROM THE MORASS OF THEIR OWN TROUBLES, AND ENMIRED THEM IN MINE.
The problem, of course, is that the entire X-Files-influenced, conspiracy-theorist, fervently not-guilty, someone-else-is-involved crowd takes such items well out of context and obscures them accordingly, when in fact the job of the jury is to align such information in a way that allows for the proper application of the 'reasonable doubt' standard.
Of course, the nihilists, because of their nihilism, implicitly reject the reasonable doubt standard in favor of the 'I won't convict unless I hovered above the known realm and personally WITNESSED the crime, or, failing that, had a really snazzy DVD of the crime, produced by my buddy, who usually videos weddings.' That's what you get in a postmodern world: a required standard of proof that can't be constructed, specifically because it's bound to be DECONSTRUCTED. It's as though they're all saying, look, there is a chance, though tiny, that DW did not do it. Since no one will ever know what REALLY happened (besides a dead girl and DW), I'm going to opt for the thing that makes me look like the hippest iconoclast if a miracle happens and he DIDN'T do it. Runnin' with the crowd is for CHUMPS.
There is no evidence of him being in the home. Ever.
Perhaps not, but there is evidence that Danielle is dead, and her DNA was found on his personal items. The lack of evidence of DW in the VD home is sufficient for conviction, but not NECESSARY.
Put differently, the prosecution need not show HOW Danielle got into DW's world, only that she WAS in his world, and now she is dead.
There is no motive.
None that was made public. I did not hear DW utter a word during the entire trial, so we can only speculate about his motive.
The VDs continuously changed their stories.
Which, I assume, means that they must somehow be complicit, if not downright guilty. We can rest assured, with probability one, that the defense team sought any shred of plausible evidence that the VD family had something to do with it, and that DW was either totally innocent, or was covering up for them. I submit that DW would have sung like a canary if the latter were true, and that the overwhelming police investigation would have uncovered evidence of the former.
The Prosecution went from smoking gun to smoking gun. ie bleach, binocs, blinds, hose, etc.
It's the confluence of the evidence, taken in concert. Circumstances would have been too coincidental, too idiosyncratic to reach the conclusion that DW had nothing to do with it. The combination of the circumstances allowed the prosecution to cross the reasonable doubt threshold. It's a movies-and-TV mentality that requires a single, absolute, incontrovertable, metaphysically consistent smoking gun to justify conviction.
I regret to inform the nihilists that the most obvious answer is almost invariably the answer. I'm sorry you did not get your way, and that the verdict only added to your mistrust of the system. But fear not: another episode of the X-Files is probably about to start on the FX Channel, and soon you can crawl right back into your world of implausibility and least-likely solutions.