The servants of the king have witnessed the death of the king, and certainly understood that there was a violent coup in process. With nothing to do to save their king, they fled. What they did not realize was that this very process of fleeing would play into Amalickiah’s hands. As soon as they are gone, the servants of Amalickiah raise the alarm, and blame the servants of the king.
Social: Why would this scenario be believed? Wouldn’t the servants of the king tell their own story? We cannot know all of the answers to the circumstances played out in this drama, but we can speculate on some of the possibilities based on the kinship tensions that are typical in Mesoamerican kingship. With the support of his own and other lineages, the king would rule. Nevertheless, there were frequently tensions among the ruling families. We saw an example of that in the analysis of the story of Ammon and the king’s flocks (Alma 17:27) where the most likely cause of the scattering of the king’s flocks was an internal feud between elite kin groups. These tensions were not uncommon, and likely not unknown to many, so the idea that the king’s servants might have killed him in order to benefit a rival clan might not seem that far fetched. The rest of the reason for accepting this version of the events is that it was accepted by Amalickiah with the strength of the army behind him. In a time when there was little means of mass communication, the idea with the best communication links behind it could prevail, and Amalickiah had much more access to open communication than did those who had fled. Circumstances piled up against the servants of the king to the point where their guilt was considered established. There were no modern courts to discern the evidence, and their guilt was simply declared and believed.