London John, there is no need to assume that Sollecito was confused or even that he made a statement at all. Lying to one suspect about what another suspect is saying is an old police trick. And as we have seen the Perugia police don't consider it wrong to lie to suspects. They also don't seem to mind spreading lies in the press.
He was probably legitimately confused, as he was by his own admission stoned on hash on the fifth. He signed a statement, but it actually said he and Amanda parted at the town square and he went home and she went to
Le Chic. That's basically what happened on Halloween, thus the speculation he was confused by the nights. Oddly enough he also 'admitted' that he called the
Carabinieri after the postal police arrived, later disproven conclusively in court by correlating the cell phone records to the proper time differential on the garage camera, as it was ten minutes slow whereas police had maintained it was ten minutes
fast. All of this is covered in the Matteini report, which makes for
fascinating reading at this stage in the case.
In fact, this suggests to me that mistake was made early in the investigation and was one of the reasons for this debacle, and the 'hard evidence' referred to by Amanda in her note. The timestamp actually reads 8:51 on the figure crossing in front on the night of the murder, and the initial reports of it being released to press have it timed as 8:41 (or 8:43) when of course it was actually about 9:01 when it happened.
Since a camera pointing towards the road in front of the cottage seems a
real obvious thing for police to be interested in, and Meredith's exact movements the night of the murder another thing you'd figure they'd key on immediately, making this polarity error they'd think it couldn't have been Meredith as she was still with the girls watching the movie thus must have been someone else, notably Amanda. The camera does not catch
every person crossing, but it also caught a man headed towards the cottage shortly before, which they might have 'hypothesized' as Patrick on his way to meeting up with Amanda at the cottage, his SIM card indicating he was in the vicinity at this time.
They might
also note that with the time differential reversed and either the sloppy postal police records of their arrival, or Raffaele's phone records, that it appears that Raffaele
must have called the Carabinieri
after the Postal Police arrive. They are suspicious! So much so that they don't stop to think just how
strange it is to suspect that Raffaele and Amanda actually tried hide the discovery of the body and were overly alarmed by the arrival of the postal police with context of them calling all over everywhere, trying to break down the door, and asking the Postal Police in to investigate anyway, when they could have just sent them on their way and later said it was trying to return the phones to Meredith that they became alarmed, if they really wanted to delay discovery and finish a clean-up. However I think the pure coincidence of the mop movements and Raffaele's 'suspicious' pipe breaking caused them to lose sight of that.
It seems to me the most plausible sequence of events is that the police wanted to talk to both Raffaele and Amanda as due to reversing the polarity of the CCTV time differential they thought they had 'hard evidence' Raffaele had called the
Carabinieri after the arrival of the postal police, and that figure looks vaguely female and 'couldn't' be Meredith as they'd tracked her movements at that point, thus they 'hypothesized' that was Amanda in the camera capture, they noted she'd messaged Patrick shortly before all this and used a phrase that suggested a definite future meeting that night, they might have had other reasons to be suspicious of Patrick, they were suspicious of Amanda not properly playing
La Bella Figura, and they admitted to playing with mops!
So they call them in, Raffaele is stoned and they get their 'admission' that he called the
Carabinieri after the postal police arrived, that he and Amanda parted around that time the night of the murder, and either he said she'd asked him to lie or that he'd just went with her version of events (I never did get conclusive answer on how that should have been translated 'influence from the girl') but at any rate we know from Amanda's note they told
her that Raffaele had told them she asked him to lie to them, and at this point they're
absolutely sure that figure in the CCTV capture has to be Amanda, 'their hard evidence,' and that text to Patrick is just too big a coincidence for them to ignore, especially with the male figure also caught on the camera walking towards the cottage.
I think that's what probably happened, and as they at this point don't have reason to suspect Raffaele actually being involved in the murder, but perhaps helping with the clean up the next day and lying for Amanda, which explains why he
just sits there after his 10:40 statement is signed and they put the screws to Amanda, and Raffaele barely receives a mention in either statement. That's just weird, as they'll arrest him later anyway, and they got all those 'admissions' from him when he first walked in, if they actually thought him involved in the murder part that just
doesn't make sense, nor does spending all that time with Amanda about Patrick when the boyfriend they have in the next room has told them he 'lied' about the
Carabinieri call and Amanda's alibi. I suspect later on when they make the mistake with the shoeprints and arrest him Raffaele is no longer stoned, pissed off, and not talking. Thus he goes from a probable accomplice to just the 'clean-up' and 'cover-up' to actually being involved in the murder.
At any rate, them making that mistake with the CCTV camera polarity early on suggests a scenario which explains the otherwise unlikely event of Raffaele 'admitting' he called the
Carabinieri after the arrival of the postal police, and that they'd even think it likely and press him for that 'admission' being as it really doesn't make much sense in the context of the events that afternoon, but they might have looked at their actions much differently if they thought they had 'hard evidence' that Raffalele called after the postal police arrived, and that Amanda must have met Patrick at the cottage around the time of the murder, as the CCTV camera seems to suggest two people, a male and a female, arriving at the cottage shortly after Amanda's text with Patrick inadvertently implying in Italian she would be meeting Patrick that night.
