They were fishing! (And I'm not saying that just because you are prone to being annoyed from lack of sleep.)
In addressing the wrong question, you may have already answered it. Raffaele can be mistaken as to order, and still have his basic narrative remain intact. I'm not sure why "spur of the moment" is the important phrase here.[/QUOTE]
Are you not, Bill? Well, Amanda's 1.45 confession has her receiving a text from Lumumba at 8.30, lying to Raffaele and going out to meet him immediately. On the spur of the moment, you could say. The fact the cops already had a sense of this before she 'spontaneously' told them about it ought to attract some interest. Or, of course, you could hand-wave it away like De Felice's statement about being told what they already knew. Yes, Raffaele may be mistaken of course, but also, he may not. Which other parts of his account don't you believe and why?
I maintain Lumumba was a suspect before the interrogations began and Raffaele's account lends further support to the idea.
Can anyone turn up a reference to Lumumba's cell phone being detected in or near the Piaza that night? I thought it was in Matteini but could not find it there and now I am not sure if I made it up.
I'm not following, really. I hope it doesn't show.
I get the feeling that Lumumba was a suspect, but really cannot say why. With Guede unknown, and the pressure mounting to solve the case quickly, the cops pancked at the thought of all leads eventually drying up. By the time Guede was on the radar (not just the fourth man suspected when preliminary forensics came in), all the police could see were their leads drying up.
So I get the feeling that Lumumba was a suspect, and, yes, probably before the text message fiasco. Maybe it was the early reports of an Afircan person's hair in Meredith's hand. Amanda was a quasi-suspect only because of being a key holder. At the time all they knew was there was a Nike shoe print and Raffaele wore Nike's.
So the whole case by the 5th, under tremendous pressure, was dwindling on to three.
And, yes, however you cut it - the "Raffaele has withdrawn Knox's alibi" is before the text message fiasco. Regardless of what Raffaele got precisely right or wrong - almost all authors are agreed on the basic timeline....
It's not a matter of going through all Raffaele's point one by one and listing which are believable and which are not... it's a matter of coming up with a believable narrative that I can live with: not that my musings are important.
But these are a desparate group of cops - who if they follow Chiacchiera's advice will have nothing by the morning daylight of Nov 6th, except for two released students, and a bar owner in jail with nothing by a confused statement from a 20 year old, stressed out non-Italian speaker who's barely not a teenager.
Why not have this start with a fishing trip. Desperate questions. They have to ask that question of Raffaele about Amanda leaving on the spur of the moment - that's the way Raffaele would view it anyway. It would be up to the cops to fill Raffaele in on the "why" of it - because they suspect she'd gone either to give Lumumba the keys, or to go over herself and let him in without even remaining at the cootage herself.
If they had not let Raffaele in on the "meeting with Lumumba", why would Raffaele call it any different than in his book?
Then the police think they hit the jackpot - the verification - when they stumble on the text. Their desperation to close this case before sunrise seems to them to finally be gaining momentum.
I just hesitate to think that any of this can be the result of a mind trying to construct a conspiracy - right at that moment.
