Murder in Massachusetts

Amanda's Story

In her first statement to police, Amanda Robinson confirmed the telephone calls she had with Patricia on Sunday afternoon, right down to the details Patricia had described to police herself. But Amanda remembered her mother calling back later that night (something Patricia had obviously overlooked or chosen to forget) at around 10:30 p.m.

She said her mother asked about her boyfriend, and then mentioned that Neil had been pulled over by the Lanesborough police because his truck was uninsured and unregistered.

"Oh, does he have to go to court for that?" Amanda asked.

"Yeah."

"That sucks."

Patricia said nothing more and they hung up moments later.

Some time after that, a day or two later, Amanda couldn't recall when, Patricia called back and they talked about what Christopher had apparently reported to police.

"Chris said that Neil hit me and that he was trying to protect me. Neil wouldn't do that," Patricia said to her daughter.

In her statement, Amanda said, "She never told me that Neil hit her. She said that never happened."

For the next 30 minutes or more, Amanda told police stories about her life with Neil and her mother. How Neil's disciplinary tactics bothered her and Christopher, but yet, looking back now, they were disobedient kids and perhaps deserved to be punished. She also described her mother's reaction to Neil's death as "distraught," saying she was crying and drinking wine, blaming Hannah. "That f—king horse. That f—king horse," Amanda said her mother kept saying.

By the end of the statement, one of two things became clear to police: either Amanda and Patricia had gotten together and discussed what they would tell police (because their descriptions of that Sunday and the days following were almost identical), or they were both telling the truth to the best of their ability.

Concluding her statement, Amanda summed it up by saying, "My mom never said that she didn't want Neil around. She mentioned to me a while ago that they argued, but it was nothing out of the ordinary. She never mentioned to me that she wanted to leave Neil or she wanted him to leave. She never mentioned that she wanted Chris to kill Neil. I don't know why Chris did it. Something had to happen to make him snap. That's not my brother. That's not the Chris I know that did that."

As police would find out in the coming days, much of the information Amanda gave them in her original statement was, according to Amanda herself, spun into a very neat package of lies.