Last edited Fri Mar 27, 2015, 10:35 PM - Edit history (1)
1) A corrupt investigator.
2) A theory put forth too quickly before the public. A black man, and Rafaelle and Amanda committed a murder.
3) When they realized they got the wrong black man, they stuck with the original theory in front of the world wide press.
4) Crazy, crazy tabloid journalism in the U.K. and Italy that snowballed into a media frenzy.
5 Amanda was stupidly naive, and did change her stories (over 50+ hour of investigation over the course of 4 days).
6 Extremely inept handling and collecting of evidence, which would surely have been thrown out in a U.S. court.
Note: When the investigators saw a message from Amanda stating "See you later," to Patrick Lumumba, the owner of the bar where Amanda worked, the prosecutors then coerced her into framing Patrick as the killer. Amanda then signed a confession written in Italian, a language in which she was not yet fluent. A few hours later, in her own handwriting in English, I believe, Amanda retracted the story.
From this, Amanda has been legally charged and convicted with lying, and Patrick Lumumba has won a case of slander against her. Patrick also accused the police of physical mistreatment, but withdrew that charge.
Amanda also faces other charges of lying in her book. Journalists have been threatened when the prosecutor didn't like what they wrote. At least one journalist was driven out of the country for fear of prison.
I will say this - there is a certain common sense in the theory of the Italian court system, but unfortunately, there are rules of procedure that make it difficult to mount a defense. Procedures that deny due process.
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