It's not hard to fathom, and there is little need to be rude about it, we disagree, so be it.
Not meant that way, but apologies if it sounded that way.
We're arguing a shade of grey here, and I am am having problems disputing anything you say, really. The shade of grey really is, just how surprised WERE police prior to the 1:45 confession memorandum?
I'm pushing for that they thought the evidence that they had, as you outline very well, was a bit of a long shot. The shade of grey is that you bump it up to being theory numero uno. Is this not a fair description of the "grey" that separates us?
I don't think the police were stupid, I think you don't give them enough credit.
We know they had the parking garage camera footage and had identified the woman returning to the house (now known to have been Meredith) as Amanda due to their getting the time wrong. This means that they had the footage of a black man (Rudy) heading to the cottage as well.
Why would they not then have serious suspicions about Amanda and a black friend being involved? They had them on tape going to the scene at a time Amanda claims she was nowhere near. Add to that Giobbi's belief that Amanda was one of the killers based on her "hip swivel" and "eating pizza when she should have been in bed crying" and there is no way that you can deny that Amanda was prime suspect on the 5th, and likely before that.
They never had that sort of evidence on Romanelli, she had multiple witnesses to her movements early on, and her boyfriend for the rest of the night, and she was also out of walking distance, whereas Amanda wasn't.
The shade of grey, then, is that if Amanda had a black boss, and if the police had mistaken the timing of the CCTV camera to make it look like Amanda and Lumumba going to the cottage, rather than Meredith and Rudy, I think the police were very aware that they could not be sure about the Amanda/Lumumba pairing. So here we are, two innocenters, trying to make the police seem smart!
This is the problem I am having in arguing this - I just repeat, that the police were more than likely as vigourously investigating the other possibilities; Amanda's black boss vs. Romanelli scoffing her laptop from a crime scene both could (and should) fuel police suspicions in those early, fog-of-war days. It's just that Romanelli had lawyered up.... and the police needed to solve this faster than the regular processes seemed to allow.
Amanda too had multiple witnesses early on - visitors to Raf's place who saw her. So I think it is a saw-off, and on the late evening of Nov 5, they just took full advantage of having Knox in the building to put the boots to Raf, as you say.
What's coming is like the scene between Cruise and Nicholson in "A Few Good Men," all Cruise has to do is get Nicholson to say, "I ordered a code red." And no one is more surprised than Cruise that Nicholson actually says it. Even though, Knox is only parroting the police-imaginings... I believe the cops are equally surprised, "Tun-der-en, Jay-zuz, me boy, we wuz right!"
Even with Raf's alibi-destroying forced imaginings of his own, if Knox had not played along, if she'd clammed up, or fainted and needed hospitalization, I don't think the cops would have had anything to upgrade her to "suspect".
It would be just like it is with PGP people today (four years later) - "she knows something she isn't telling."
Remember, Knox's mistake was that she thought she was being helpful, and was genuinely mystified that the police thought she had ANY information that might solve this. She lives that betrayal to this day.
I'm not sure what else to argue, given that I'm not dismissing at all what you claim the cops think they had. But they also had other investigative routes - frustratingly, they simply couldn't pull Romanelli into an interview room like they'd done to Knox. They took advantage of her helpfulness, lied to her basically.
It wouldn't have taken the Police that long to figure that Amanda has a black boss, and getting her phone records would have at least revealed the occurrence of the texts between them right before the two are seen on the car parking garage tapes. Further investigation of his phone would have revealed its presence near the Cottage at the time in question.
And if they'd showed a little patience - maybe that's what we're arguing about - by that time Guede might have been in the picture, and Commissioner Marco Chiacchiera could have said, "I told you so!"
You yourself pointed out that the parts of Amanda's statement that were fuzzy were the parts that the police were fuzzy on. If Amanda had created the story and shocked the police with it, then this would not be so, she would have given details the police didn't know, or suspect. The only way that her story would be fuzzy in the exact places the police’s knowledge was fuzzy, was for them to have been feeding her the story, which they did based on the evidence they had.
This fits both our scenarios, as they are reflected in the memorandums. We are arguing about the beginning of the process which led to the memorandums. I think the police were genuinely surprised to find that this one struck oil. To the police it must have seemed like hitting a home run on their last at-bat.
Oh, and they didn't actually lie to Amanda as such. I think that they truly did believe that they had the evidence against her and Patrick.
Similarly they wouldn't have been lying to Romanelli as such - if they'd put the screws to her, thinking that stealing her laptop suggested "Romanelli knows something that's going to break this wide open. All we have to do is to get Romanelli's
boyfriend to admit that he couldn't verify her whereabouts while he's asleep, and take that to Romanelli and see if she starts to sweat."
If Romanelli started to imagine how Meredith could have died, there could have been a similiar, "You must then have been there, Filomena, or else how do you know? After all, you've got a front door key, and we have evidence the break-in in
YOUR room was staged." They could have even accused her of a nice bit of misdirection by agreeing with postal police on Nov 2 that it looked staged - arguing that point would draw attention to her.
My point is that it could have easily been Filomena subsituted for Knox, or even four perps instead of three - that would have been even more lurid for the tabloid press.
So what is it that we're aruging other than a shade of grey - one that (and I'm not being rude here) there's no evidence to suggest that other possibilities could have been just as pressing.
Please, I'm not being rude - your position is based on 20-20 hindsight. I believe that a fair description, and not an insult or anything.
