I've read many of these stories over the years. I find it fascinating that well-meaning and seemingly quite intelligent people are so eager to exonerate the very-obviously-guilty whenever they have any redeeming features at all. Charisma, intelligence, or just a similar background to the befriender. They refuse to accept that liars, cheaters, thieves, murderers, fraudsters, etc are often normal people like themselves who may even have admirable traits and qualities. Often, they do victimize people they truly love.

I believe this phenomenon is also rooted in the persecution fantasies that many people entertain, which play out in politics daily in all quarters. Like a kind of primal social anxiety - people have irrational fear of the crowd turning against without them having done anything wrong.

The undated and anonymous tip is meaningless and incredible, the policeman returning from holiday a few days early for a brutal murder investigation sounds very normal, the lack of DNA on the thoroughly cleaned murder weapon is irrelevant, the notion of the murderer killing Dianne hours before the robbery and waiting for the rest of the town to wake up before leaving is absurd, his 'alibi' for 4:30-6:30 is that there was such a continuous stream of customers to serve - yet not so many that any observed the robbery at 8:30 or saw the burglar enter hours earlier, or heard the brutal murder, and is anyway dependent on a theory that she was alive at 6:30 which presupposes the time of death was wrong, and therefore creates the opportunity for Robin to have also murdered her after 6:30.

Also, when a jury finds that a defendant probably or very likely committed a crime they must find them not guilty. A guilty verdict is reserved for proof beyond a reasonable doubt (not beyond all doubt though - an impossible standard). The minority jurors did not necessarily consider him innocent.