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interrogation techniques used by police around the globe – the interrogators told Amanda that Raffaele had placed her at the crime scene, and vice versa. Although the pair had initially told investigators the same story regarding their activities and whereabouts the night Meredith was killed, at various points during the long night of questioning the police would convince them that each had turned against the other. In fact, before the night was over, Amanda and Raffaele would each change their stories, and the new accounts that they provided would be markedly different from what they had said at the outset of the investigation.
    The interrogation rooms at the police station were dingy, cold and dismal, with a smell of stale cigarette smoke. The lighting felt intimidating, made all the more so by the uncomfortable institutional chairs and the pacing back and forth of the tireless inquisitors. It was intended to be that way, an aid to help the interrogators wear down the suspects.
    The police learned a lot during the questioning which lasted over the Monday evening and into early Tuesday morning. Although the investigators hadbrought the pair in for questioning several times over the previous couple of days, the interrogation that began on Monday afternoon had been the longest and most intensive and, many would later say, the most telling. By the time it was over, a number of those who had been critical of the tactics being employed by Mignini and the police began to wonder whether the controversial prosecutor may have been on the right track after all in going after Amanda and Raffaele to the exclusion of other potential suspects. In fairness to the police and the prosecutor there were many details, of course, that had not yet been made public and would later weigh heavily in their decisions regarding how they handled the case.
    Convinced by his interrogators that Amanda had placed him at the scene of Meredith’s murder, Raffaele at one point told the police that it was possible that Amanda could have left his apartment, perhaps around 9.00 p.m., killed Meredith in her bedroom, and returned afterwards to his apartment and pretended that all was well and that nothing out of the ordinary had occurred that evening. He thought that she had been gone for about four hours, but his statement seemed less than convincing. After all, he had said that his memory was clouded from smoking marijuana and hashish with Amanda, and it was difficult for him to remember precise details about the evening. However, here is part of what he purportedly told the police during questioning:
    ‘I don’t remember how she was dressed, or if she was dressed differently from before when we said goodbye. I don’t remember if we had sex that evening.’
    This seemed to contradict his original story that he and Amanda had watched Amelie , ate dinner, and made love the night Meredith died.
    ‘The next morning, we woke around ten and she told me she wanted to go home to have a shower and change her clothes,’ he continued. ‘She told me that when she got home she had found the door open and traces of blood in the small bathroom. She asked me if it seemed strange. I said to her it was.’
    Raffaele said that when he returned to the villa with Amanda, the room of another housemate had been in disarray, while he noticed that Amanda’s room had been neat and tidy.
    ‘Then I went to Meredith’s door and saw it was locked,’ he said. ‘First, I checked to see if it was true what Amanda had said about the blood in the bathroom, and I noticed drops of blood in the basin. On the mat there was something strange, a sort of mixture of water and blood, while the rest of the bathroom was clean and tidy. Amanda came into the bathroom and she hugged me tight. I tried to force the door, but couldn’t, and at that point I decided to call my sister for advice because she is a Carabinieri officer. She told me to dial 112 [the Italian emergency number] but at that