They scarcely had enough time to set up the chairs, get the translator, go over the information already gathered, finish with the basic interview routine, and finally advise her that RS had turned on her, before AK blurted out that Patrick had murdered Meredith.
It has none of the earmarks of the false/coerced statements:
- AK is not mentally handicapped.
- This was either the third or the fourth interview with the suspect.
- The interviewers were under no particular time restraints; the investigation had started only a few days earlier.
- AK was unable to identify those who verbally coerced her; she has always stated only that she was confused.
- There is no evidence she was physically coerced.
- She did not really confess; she blamed the murder on someone else.
- AK was rested and well-fed.
There are several other points on this but without further evidence we will have to concur this was not a false or coerced confession.
Again, could you use less of the "we" please. You're stating your opinion, after all.
I want to pick up on something that's been said time and again, by you and others. You use an argument that not enough time had elapsed in the interview for the police to build up pressure on AK. I see phrases like "barely time to set up the chairs" rather glibly used to imply (as i interpret it) something like this: they all sat down, adjusted their chairs, introduced themselves, went over AK's alibi with her, said something anodyne like "So, Amanda, how about you tell us a little more about this text message on your phone?", then AK out of nowhere blurts out "Patrick did it! He's the killer! He's a bad man! I was there! I was covering my ears against the screams!".
Firstly, let's try to clarify what time AK was actually brought back in from the waiting room for interrogation. I believe it was around midnight, but if anyone has a better estimate, please correct me. Let's say 00.30, to err on the side of caution. Unfortunately we will never know for certain exactly what time the interrogation started, as it wasn't recorded and time-coded by the police.
As a slight side-issue, I await a stream of invective along the lines of "The police had no requirement to record the interview - AK was merely a witness at this point". To that I would argue: I believe that's open to serious debate. Firstly, RS had just said he couldn't be sure of where AK was on the night in question, thereby seriously denting her alibi. It seems incredible that the police didn't consider somebody whose alibi had just been holed below the waterline by her own boyfriend as a suspect, rather than simply a witness. And there's no getting away from that crucial fact. Secondly, EVEN IF the police didn't consider AK a suspect as she walked into that interview room, best practice would dictate that they tape the interview as a matter of course - even though in that circumstance they wouldn't have been REQUIRED by law to do so. After all, the recording equipment would obviously have been at hand, and this was a high-profile case with international dimensions. Why would the police NOT want to record ALL interviews where it was practical to do so? The fact that seemingly no tape exists of this interrogation seems troubling to me, from all sorts of different angles.
Anyhow....back to the interrogation. If we assume for the moment that AK entered the interview room at 00.30, she apparently made her verbal "confession" at 01.45 - in other words an hour and 15 minutes later. If you're suggesting that it takes an hour and 15 minutes to arrange chairs, effect introductions, and go through AK's story once more, then I suggest you set a stopwatch for 1hr15 and observe the passage of time. It's a LONG time. And just out of interest, from where do we get the 01.45 timing for AK's "confession"? Is it from the police's records? I genuinely don't know.
So, what was ACTUALLY said and done in that 1hr15 (conservative time estimate)? Well again, we'll never know for certain, because no recording exists. And for those who say that police transcripts exist, I say that the very reason that recordings were introduced was that it wasn't unknown for the police to........enhance........transcripts in certain ways - a practice that's difficult with audio tape, and near impossible with video recording. What a shame that no tape exists of the interrogation.............
Here's a scenario for that 1hr15. It may be completely wrong, but it may just be close in some ways. I'd agree that the first 10 mins or so are taken up with formalities and introductions etc. The next 20 minutes are essentially given to AK to run over her version of events again (20 mins is time enough to cover a LOT of alibi testimony - try it some time).
So, we're now half an hour in. Let's say that the next 20 minutes are spent "cross-examining" AK on the testimony she's just given - clarifying and fixing her version of events. It's during this period that AK's asked for her phone, and asked to clarify the text to Lumumba.
Now we're 50 minutes in. It's now that the police drop the bombshell: RS is no longer supporting her alibi. They also tell her that they think she's lying about the text message, and that they regard it as proof that she planned to meet Lumumba that night. The police leave the room for 5 minutes to let AK stew in that knowledge, to build tension, and to decide on the strategy for the following period of interrogation.
As the police re-enter the room, we are now 20 minutes away from the "confession". Twenty minutes is more than enough time for the "nasty cop / nice cop" routine to work a treat: AK is told aggressively that she's in enormous trouble: the text message and RS's abandonment have sealed her fate. She's going to go to prison for a long, long time. Nothing she can say in her defence will help her now - the evidence will flat contradict it. She met with Lumumba that night, didn't she? She went together with Lumumba to the cottage so that Lumumba could assault Meredith, didn't she? It all got out of hand and Patrick killed Meredith, didn't he? That's what happened, isn't it? She's going to be middle-aged when she comes out of prison. She's not going to see America again until she's in her 40s. She'll never have a family. She's in deep, deep trouble.
But she CAN help herself, in spite of this. She can tell the police now what happened, as fully as possible. If she tells the truth tonight, then probably the judge will be kinder with the sentencing, since helping the police is a big tick in the right box. So she should try to remember everything about that night. She should remember meeting with Lumumba, she should remember going to the cottage, she should remember exactly what happened in the cottage. Because, after all, the police KNOW that she was there. Now maybe she didn't actually wield a knife. It would help her if she can remember that she didn't hold the knife. Perhaps she remembers Lumumba with the knife. Can she remember Meredith's screams as Lumumba plunged the knife into her? Surely she can remember those horrific screams? Or did she cover her ears to block out the screams? She can tell the police everything now. It will be OK. Telling everything now will make her situation better. And she must tell them NOW, because they need to make sure that nobody else can get hurt. And she must tell them now because a failure to do so will count against her in the future.
Now, what I've just written there is pure conjecture - some might say it's fantasy. And yes, to a degree it is. And, as I've already said, it might be massively wide of the mark. But it's written to illustrate two points: firstly, it's possible to cover an awful lot of ground in 1hr15; and secondly, it's entirely possible to employ sophisticated interrogation techniques to elicit all sorts of actions and statements from scared and confused people.
And the fact is this: nobody outside of the police, the interpreter and AK knows for sure what was said and done in that room. The police have their version, which is corroborated by an interpreter who's been engaged by the police and who's a resident of Perugia. And the police say that no tape exists of the interview. The police and the interpreter make more credible witnesses on the stand than Amanda Knox, who contradicts their version of events. Amanda Knox is on trial for murder, after all, and she clearly has a strong motive to dispute the police's account. And the police take a sworn oath to uphold the law. But the police have an agenda too - something that people often overlook.
What a shame there's no tape.....................
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