Our guts appear to be similar. I'm not sure why we're arguing any more. Impressions of Amanda and Raffaele have often seemed important and worth arguing over. "Honors student" etc... etc... etc... At some point one has to look at them and think "I think they could have done this". Perhaps our impressions of them are important in that regard.
Whether one 'thinks they could have done this' there still needs to be some evidence they did, and also the 'story' of her accusers has to be scrutinized, and the events analyzed to determine what is the real truth of the matter.
The police took two college kids into the backrooms and got stories from both of them that weren't true--demonstrably false and there's no one who would disagree at this point. Raffaele didn't part with Amanda at the town square on the night of the first and he definitely didn't call the
carabinieri after the Postal Police arrived. Amanda didn't meet Patrick at the basketball courts around nine and then go to the cottage where he went into a room with Meredith.
How did this happen? I would suggest the evidence indicates it was because the cops blew the interrogation and lied and threatened these college kids until they told them what they wanted to hear. I suspect in the case of Raffaele they took advantage of kid stoned on hash, they messed with his mind until they convinced him he must be mistaken about what night it was and when he called the
carabinieri. I think also one can get the impression he just told them what they wanted to hear so they'd go away and bug Amanda about it.
I think the evidence suggests they then mentally and emotionally abused Amanda whilst subjecting her to physical deprivations which eventually caused her to 'buckle and give a version of facts we knew to be correct.' Except of course
they weren't 'facts'--and at this point I think that suggests just where those false statements came from. Interrogations are by their very nature
designed to change a subject's story, and if they can convince a guilty person to confess and say something that will cause them to spend decades behind bars, they can convince an innocent person to say what they want to hear by virtue of convincing them in myriad ways it's in their best interest to do so--or even that they must be right and a person's own memories incorrect or incomplete.
I don't think the police story stands scrutiny either, these
two statements don't in anyway explain the police--who claim they had absolutely nothing else to go on--arresting Patrick and then parading through the streets of Perugia with all three of them with sirens blaring and lights flashing and announcing 'case closed' and then less than 48 hours later
with absolutely no physical evidence to back it accusing Amanda of holding down Meredith whilst Raffaele and Patrick raped and murdered her. That 'story' doesn't hold up
at all.
I think the cops are lying, Shuttlt, perhaps that is something unbelievable to you, but I do think it happens. The murder is easily explained by Rudy Guede assaulting and murdering Meredith, however the arrests of Patrick, Amanda and Raffaele are
not easily explained except by the police making a mistake. If they made an error in the arrests, and the murder shows evidence of no one else, I think it highly unlikely the two kids they scared into submission were actually involved with a totally different person with no actual evidence they were complicit with him either.
