Why would the Ciprianos' lawyer try to get them both to confess though Carana. It doesn't make sense.
He wasn't representing João, as far as I know, just Leonor.
In view of the time already spent in jail, he may have thought that "confessing" to a lesser crime would get her out.
The judges didn't buy the new version, and all she got was an extra sentence. I've no idea whether that was the thinking or not, but if it was, it certainly backfired.
For a long time, I'd simply gone off tabloid media reports, as that was all I could find, and had assumed that they were indeed guilty of a horrendous crime and that the only issue was whether torture had occurred or not. Then I was able to read the judgements (which refers to the alleged facts in the case) and... my jaw dropped. Aside from the various confessions, I couldn't find anything to substantiate what had supposedly happened to her.
I was also gobsmacked by reading the passage that as kids usually do get back home, it could therefore be taken as a common sense fact that she did as well. I think that's when I sat up and wondered what the hell was going on.
I also noticed that the tabloids (pro-PJ) had been whipping up the public into frenzy mode very early on (when the Faro boys took over from the original Portimão PJ team). I can understand the public reaction (similar to the awful Baby P case in the UK), but in the Cipriano case, I simply couldn't find any evidece to back up the "confessions".
If they are guilty of somehow causing her death (if she is dead), I don't see what supports the scenario presented by the prosecution. If there is no robust counter-evidence to refute allegations, the allegations seem to be accepted as "undisputed facts". If there is no robust defence counsel, then who can do the donkey work to find any?
Neither is there any evidence that I've been able to find to support the confessions presented by Leonor's latest lawyer.