I would have spent the last night with him if I was Christina. If he confessed to her in the car while driving to the attorney's office then told the attorney (who might have kept a secret considering this is a high profile case that his name would be attached to, it could make him famous and very rich). If someone in the seat next to you in a car confessed they killed someone...and that person is your husband...can you imagine how she would feel? Especially if he finally admitted there was sexual contact with Lauterbach. I would be terrified but planning to alert the officials the moment I got the chance and the moment I felt that he would trust me again enough to leave me alone to escape.
Think about those people with Stockholm's Syndrome. When it's either be killed or adjust your way of thinking, you are most likely to adjust your way of thinking.
I don't know. I'm guess I'm not as quick to think she was in on this.
The facts as I understand them:
His wife knew about the rape charge, but her husband denied it.
His wife knew a couple of months later that Maria was pregnant, but her husband is still denying he had sex with Maria.
His wife goes to he party on the 14th, expecting her husband to be there also. He never shows. We don't know what reason he gave to her.
Maria was killed in the home the night of the 14th.
Blood was involved. Some reports say "lots of blood" - but all I've read is that there was blood in two different rooms and that some of it was "splatter." Splatter can be huge drops on the wall or ceiling, or small drops.
We don't know what time his wife got home that night, or whether she saw any blood. If there was splatter on the ceiling - it could still have been small drops that someone might not have noticed if arrived home late and went straight to bed, especially if having been drinking.
CL could also have washed the blood so that none could be seen, except by using luminol.
For all we know, nothing may have looked strange in the house when his wife got home. He could have temporarily hidden the body in a plastic container or in plastic bags in the trunk of Maria's car, so you wouldn't notice the smell.
We don't know what CL told her at that point, if he told her anything.
We don't know what reason he gave her for wanting to paint a couple of rooms. It could have been a perfectly innocent/reasonable explanation. For all we know, they could have had painting a couple of rooms on their "to do" list and CL suggested they do them before Christmas.
Maria has not been reported missing at this point.
I'm not sure when he buried Maria, but it could have easily been done days later when his wife was not home, under the guise of creating a BBQ pit. Innocent explanation for having purchased shovels, blocks, etc.
We know that late in the afternoon on January 10, he and his wife drive to the attorney's office. During the drive, he tells her the story about Maria coming over on December 14th and how she committed suicide. That he was scared they would suspect him because of the outstanding rape charge.
They get to the lawyer's office. We do NOT know if she went into the meeting with the lawyer or if she waited in the waiting room. I would be surprised if the lawyer did not spend at least some of the time alone with CL. (Doesn't having a third person in the room negate the lawyer/client privilege?) OTOH - wives cannot be forced to testify again their husbands.
For all we know, she sat in the waiting room during some or all of the lawyer visit, and then driving home, he shared with her what the lawyer said - or shared with her
his version of what the lawyer said.
We don't know if he was totally honest with the attorney. He may have downplayed his part in things. He may have stressed the suicide angle. The lawyers may have believed there was more to the story than they were being told, and informed him of the seriousness of things if the facts were not exactly like CL described to them.
It sounds like after they got home, his wife tried to convince him to turn himself in (at least I think that's what her dad had been quoted as saying).
Maybe they talked about it until late. I've heard unconfirmed reports that some family may have come over and there was a discussion about what to do. Wasn't the arguing that the neighbor overhead from the evening of the 10th? That would tie in with his wife trying to convince him to turn himself in. At some point, she went to bed. He may have also gone to bed, promising to do the right thing in the morning.
She wakes up and he is gone. She calls her father and her former sgt., and they accompany her to the police station.
From what I can tell, she learned about Maria being buried in the yard late afternoon on the 10th, and she went to LE at 9ish in the morning.
She may have believed that after he slept on it, he would do the right thing and turn himself in.
I just don't get why everyone wants to assume that she sat on this for a long time or helped him in this. She clearly has a conscience or she would not have called people she trusted (like her father) to discuss what to do about it. Assuming that it is true that she first learned about this late afternoon on the 10th, she really only sat on this info less than a day. Maybe only 12-16 hours. During that time, she had to come to grips with the information, pull herself out of denial, and seek the counsel of those she trusts. All the while, she also has to come to grips with the fact that her life as she knew it was now totally gone, and the man she had married was not the man she thought she had married. She has to start to process that he may be in trouble and that she will be a single mother, supporting a young child all by herself. That's a lot for someone to process in such a short time; I'd be surprised if she got any sleep at all that night.