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Probably the publication of the message bottles. The police presumably didn't know how many people there were, and only likely knew who was "supposed" to be there in part (for example, I doubt the police had any way of knowing which servants were supposed to be on duty other than the vague testimony of servants who knew it was their days off).
The message bottles advance 18 apparent humans, including Shannon, Kanon, and Kinzo, all of whom appear to be alive. When it became popular to "realize" that Kinzo was probably long dead, it opened a space for an 18th person in the minds of writers.
I think this is an example of how changes made to the story in-progress may have damaged the flow of the narrative. Kinzo being confirmed dead in ep4 and Beatrice lowering the person count is not as elegant as not confirming his death until ep5, introducing Erika beforehand, and announcing that everything is just the same as before. Sure, lots of people already knew, but that's no reason to screw around with it?
Honestly, the whole show trial segment would've been a bit more punchy had Kinzo's death only finally been confirmed at around that time.
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