He was being cheeky.
Picture this: He knew/ was informed cops are coming for him and it would be whole weekend chilling in the coolers.
Before the first batch of cops arrive and secure all exit routes, he has already left the premises. Knowing how the security agents operate, he leaves his known phones at the homestead with someone tweeting. Reinforcement is called expecting showdown with the locals. After cops 'confirm' he is still in the residence, they storm in, search everywhere the guy is nowhere to be seen.
This leaves cops with egg on their face. They lash out at the nearest targets: wochi fatally shot, few others in the homestead injured some in icu. They don't know what to tell their bosses. In order to save face, a story has to be cooked.
As all this was going on, throughout the night, the guy was just across watching with the villagers.
All along the cops were following a gadget