cannot create computer account

1. A technician resets, disables, and ultimately deletes a computer's account in Active Directory.  (123456-E)
   
2. The technician creates a new computer account in Active Directory, 123456-X, and rejoins to the computer to the domain with that new computer account name.
3. More than 1 month passes.  (Approx. 1 month, and 1 week)
   
4. 123456-E has no tombstone record.
   
5. 123456-E has a dnsNode tombstone record.
6. the computer account 123456-E DOES NOT exist in Active Directory (to the best of my LDAP queries)
7. The technician wants to create a new computer account, but with the old name:123456-e
8. We receive this error message:  "Windows cannot create the new computer object because the pre-windows 2000 computer name123456-e is already in use.  Select another name, and then try again."
9. I've searched AD to verify that there ARE NOT any computer objects with the "name=123456-e" attribute.

Why can't I create the computer account?