Continuation Part Eight: Discussion of the Amanda Knox/Raffaele Sollecito case

[RandyN]

The broken down car was a Toyota Avensis. The friends car parked immediately behind it was a Citroen Picasso,one of whose occupants, Carmela Occhipinti,was asked if she had seen a dark coloured car by the cottage. She said she had not noticed any car there but that her view was obscured.

The tow truck driver testified that he arrived at around 11pm and noticed a dark car parked at the entrance to the cottage. He said it was still there when he left at around 11.15pm

What are the timings of the car break down people plus the tow truck driver? They were broke down at ? and were finally gone from the scene at 11:15 PM then?

I find it hard to believe that the Toyota broke down and not the Citroen. Sure that isn't backwards?

I was always surprised at the lack of interest in these broke down people by both the prosecution and the defense. IIRC one person plus the tow driver testified. Why not put them all on and at least get them saying look...no scream, or any activity between X and Y times.

Finally the CCTV thing. It looks like a guy to me...but even if it was Knox, doesn't it prove that she was not there? She is going away from the cottage at the same time as MK arrives heading towards the cottage. So we go with Toto then...Knox is heading to the plaza to meet RS for their 2 1/2 hour outdoor chat session on a cold November night in Perugia. Just need to squeeze in the Popovic alibi when she dropped by to cancel the bus station trip.

Why is just one CCTV camera in the area between RS and the cottage and RG place working? Where is Toto on CCTV? Where is Knox the next morning? No other cameras were working? I find that unlikely and even impossible. Someone is lying about CCTV data...and I think the liars are the police and prosecutor. There should be numerous video data for all the running back and forth that Knox did that day to shower and then return and then RS and AK go to the cottage...where is that? Or where is the Quintinvale video claim that Knox was there at 7:45? All those cameras and nothing? Right Italians! Someone is lying...all broken? All turned off? Or all proving that AK story is confirmed seems more likely. So...move along...nothing to see here.

This recent video story still feels like the bad old days when police and prosecutor were leaking worse than the Titanic. Reminds me of the pink bathroom pic "accidentally" leaked from a crime scene somehow????

If this was not in the trial files then how did the Italian media get CCTV of this supposedly Knox alibi breaker? There is only one place they could have gotten it. The police. So when will Mignini write up the arrest papers for the police leaker? Lets wait and see... haha.

ETA...I wonder who the "judge in charge of the investigation" mentioned in the linked article was? Not Mignini right? Well actually it has to be him on Nov 13th 2007 right. Bad Mignini. Evil Mignini.

"The moment at which the young American is said to have been filmed is 17 minutes before the estimated time of Kercher's death, as reported by the judge overseeing the inquiry. "

 

[RWVBWL]

Dark colored car with an old license plate...

The broken down car was a Toyota Avensis. The friends car parked immediately behind it was a Citroen Picasso,one of whose occupants, Carmela Occhipinti,was asked if she had seen a dark coloured car by the cottage. She said she had not noticed any car there but that her view was obscured.

The tow truck driver testified that he arrived at around 11pm and noticed a dark car parked at the entrance to the cottage. He said it was still there when he left at around 11.15pm

Hi Magister,
Wow, thank you for the detailed info!

I recall that the car seen by the tow truck driver, per FS at The Old Perugia Shock, had old license plates,
as did Hekuran Kokomani's car.

Here's a link from back in April of 2009:
http://web.archive.org/web/20101015182419/http://perugia-shock.blogspot.com/2009_04_01_archive.html

This particular month of postings has FS even make mention of The Spanish Erasmus neighbors Marta and Carolina, and of Rudi G'Day dancin' with the blonde gal too. Gosh, I'd luv Frank Sfarzo to interview and discuss this case in-depth with Nacho Azparren, 1 of The Spanish Erasmus students!!! Heck, the guy was even there when Carlos and Carolina went to The Questura to be interrogated by???


Anyways,
these paragraphs attracted my attention the most,
they were from April 2nd of 2009, back when Amanda and Raff were sitting thru their 1st Trial, read on:
"But attention, because at about 23:00 of the 1st a mechanic said to have picked up a broken car outside the garage. So, we finally see a little confirmation to a testimony. Let's see the value of it.

The mechanic only knows that he needed 10-12 minutes to pick up the car, that the people were two pairs from Rome, with no kids, and who were staying in Perugia for the long weekend while their car was being fixed. Nobody was going to Cesena . Assuming that he didn't notice there was also a boy certainly nobody else sat on his truck, he only drove it. And you would remember a guy of his size and dressed as a mechanic.
Then he sees a dark car stopped outside the cottage gate. The gate is semi open (as always) and the car is parked with the front towards the cottage. And he doesn't see, or hear, anyone else. Not Kokomani, nor the quartet, not screams, no knives, no spaces in teeth (strange because it was just 23:00, when the neighbor girl --as she remembered after one year-- heard the scream, went to the window to look down and there was no one, no one running, no lights, no noises).

That car outside the gate could be Kokomani's old dark car and he could have stopped there for some reasons, like going to meet someone at the basketball court. He could have met some of the junkies who hang out around there. A girl with spaced teeth and someone else, maybe.
Or the car outside the gate could be someone passing by who just stopped there or parked there for a while. Or it could be the murderer who went to the cottage with the car and parked right outside the gate. If the mechanic had seen a black Audi A3 we would finally have almost a real element of suspicion for Raffaele. But if you go pick up the body you enter the garden, where nobody could see you doing the risky transportation, and certainly you wouldn't park with the front towards the cottage. Actually, in an interview the mechanic added it was a dark old car, with old plate, just like the one of Kokomani. But in the court he didn't repeat this detail for some reasons, nor he stated it to the police."


Now check out this interesting tidbit, also from PS, in the same linked post,
I believe that it is FS paraphrazin' what Koko stated to the Massei Court:
"A tow truck comes forward, inside there's a man, a woman and a boy. They ask Hekuran directions for Cesena. He answers What time is it?. He doesn't understand their replay. Probably it was This one is crazy, let's go. How rude, so we will never know exactly what time it was.


Koko states that he spoke with the folks whose car broke down?
We know that Kokomani's cell phone pinged in the area of Meredith's flat that night. Wasn't it around 8:00 to 8:30pm-ish?


Is there any way to confirm that Koko did indeed talk with the occupants of the broken down car, for if so, wouldn't it show that Hekuran Kokomani was indeed seen in front of Meredith Kercher's flat later that night she was brutally raped and murdered? If he was there at 11:00, what the heck was he doin' in the area for some 2 to 3 hours?

Just wondering about this and those unidentified fingerprints found in Meredith's flat,
and why a friend of Rudy Guede's was picked up for interrogation 4 days after Miss Kercher was murdered...
RW

 

[Dan O.]

The broken down car was a Toyota Avensis. The friends car parked immediately behind it was a Citroen Picasso,one of whose occupants, Carmela Occhipinti,was asked if she had seen a dark coloured car by the cottage. She said she had not noticed any car there but that her view was obscured.

The tow truck driver testified that he arrived at around 11pm and noticed a dark car parked at the entrance to the cottage. He said it was still there when he left at around 11.15pm

Thanks. It is from the testimony of Pasqualino Coletta, the driver of the broken down car, that we learn some additional details. Pasqualino pulled out of the car park and turned up the hill. When he was in the middle of the intersection his car stopped. The friends had somehow gotten back to where the road slightly widens near the entrance to the carpark where they could park without blocking traffic.

Where is the car park video of Pasqualino pulling out?

 

[JREF2010]

The sadness is the way this was used in the media as somehow to build doubt amongst the generala public. What surprises me..although it shouldn't. Is how the guilters have jumped all over it as if it has meaning. The one thing it really demonstrates to me is lack of intellectual honesty of the guilters. .

I think this whole media show was a plant job. Negative press to sway the public opinion which in turn often sways those in power.

Just reading a little of Nencini's report again, its a possibility that floated through my mind that they would have confiscated Amandas passport had she shown up. Yet, Maresca and the other slime were all trying to pretend the system is so pure and honest that she should come out of respect to this sewer system of Italy.

 

[Dan O.]

Hey DanO., I did a quick visual check for the link you provided, at this address: http://murderofmeredithkercher.com/rudy-guede/

Same video frames as far as I can tell. The rounded road side curb in the lower right hand corner, and the double cement guard rail in the upper left hand corner. It's obviously the same. So, I'm confident there is no visual distortion whatsoever in the frames and images I posted.

But I appreciate your precision. Just to be sure, you really ought to double check for yourself, please don't take my word for it. It won't take you 30 seconds to confirm.

It would indeed take seconds if I were at a desktop. But the tools I have on this 1st gen iPad are just not up to the task. What I would do on the desktop is bring up a window with each of the images and do a screen capture of part of the image bounded by two fixed reference points as you have described above. Then I would note the X and Y dimensions of the captured area for each. Then I would compute the relative change in the aspect ratio. This value (X₁/Y₁)/(X₂/Y₂) should be 1.0 otherwise the aspect ratio of one of the images is distorted.

 

[Sherlock Holmes]

Oh c'mon Sherlock. You're smart enough to know that ISN'T Amanda Knox. Keep in mind that even the prosecution DIDN'T think this was Amanda Knox. They had this image since day one. This isn't new.

Also notice the direction this person is moving. They are coming from the Southwest and the from the street above the cottage. Which is the OPPOSITE Direction of Raffaele's apartment and the Piazza Grimana And 15 minutes before this Amanda is at the front door of Raffaele's apartment greeting Jovana Popovich who is there to tell Raffaele that she doesn't need Raffaele to take her to the train station.

It is one thing to think that Amanda Knox is guilty. It is another to desperately jump at ever piece of nonsense trivia.

I have no idea if that is Amanda or not, but I just love the way you PIPs make up excuses why it's not her and how you all jump on each others bandwagon. I said there is no reason I know of why she is going into the car park, and yes, she is carrying her purse on the wrong shoulder. But that girl does carry some resemblance to Amanda, yes, not enough to say for certain, but perhaps she has a sore right shoulder, perhaps she has a reason for going into the car park, only she knows, but it is a bit suspicious the way she is carrying that purse, the timing is about correct for where she would be at that time, and it also is a bit of a coincidence the three woman, Meredith, Amanda and this stranger then should all appear around the same location around the same time. It very well may not be her, but no more that it may be as well. I'd give it about a 50 / 50 chance.

 

[kwill]

It very well may not be her, but no more that it may be as well. I'd give it about a 50 / 50 chance.

Huh. Based on what, exactly? Do you mean there are only two people in the world that this could be, and one of them is Amanda Knox? Or do you mean that half the picture looks like her and the other half looks like someone not her? Where does 50/50 come from?

What a weird thing to say.

She never left Raffale's flat that night, and neither did he. She wasn't in the cottage when Guede killed Meredith, and neither was he. That's why there's no forensic evidence tying her to the murder. There's a 100% chance that they're both innocent.

 

[Sherlock Holmes]

Huh. Based on what, exactly? Do you mean there are only two people in the world that this could be, and one of them is Amanda Knox? Or do you mean that half the picture looks like her and the other half looks like someone not her? Where does 50/50 come from?

What a weird thing to say.

She never left Raffale's flat that night, and neither did he. She wasn't in the cottage when Guede killed Meredith, and neither was he. That's why there's no forensic evidence tying her to the murder. There's a 100% chance that they're both innocent.

The weird thing to say here is that she never left her flat that night, 2 courts have found her guilty of doing far more than that. the question isn't whether she left or nor. it's what she did when she was gone. That picture looks enough like her to be her. it certainly isn't conclusive though, I myself would give it a 50/50 chance of being her.

 

[kwill]

That picture looks enough like her to be her. it certainly isn't conclusive though, I myself would give it a 50/50 chance of being her.

50/50 based on what? Why not 60/40? Or 40/60? It's very strange. Why not just say you can't tell and you wouldn't be surprised either way? The image is either Knox or one of the other 100,000 + people who were in Perugia that night. It can't be her, though, because she never left Raffaele's flat that night.

By the way,here's a Fox news story claiming that it was definitely her, dated November 12, 2007, about a week after they had arrested her. And yet the video wasn't introduced into any court proceeding, maybe because it's meaningless, like so much of what appears on Fox. And it wasn't released to the you and me until last week . . . I wonder who did that, and why?

A judicial system that's capable of convicting people so plainly innocent ought to trouble honest people. It sure troubles me.

 

[RWVBWL]

I have no idea if that is Amanda or not, but I just love the way you PIPs make up excuses why it's not her and how you all jump on each others bandwagon. I said there is no reason I know of why she is going into the car park, and yes, she is carrying her purse on the wrong shoulder. But that girl does carry some resemblance to Amanda, yes, not enough to say for certain, but perhaps she has a sore right shoulder, perhaps she has a reason for going into the car park, only she knows, but it is a bit suspicious the way she is carrying that purse, the timing is about correct for where she would be at that time, and it also is a bit of a coincidence the three woman, Meredith, Amanda and this stranger then should all appear around the same location around the same time. It very well may not be her, but no more that it may be as well. I'd give it about a 50 / 50 chance.

50/50!?!

Would you send someone else to prison for what you believed was 50/50% chance a grainy image caught on CCTV might or might not be them?

 

[Samson]

50/50 based on what? Why not 60/40? Or 40/60? It's very strange. Why not just say you can't tell and you wouldn't be surprised either way? The image is either Knox or one of the other 100,000 + people who were in Perugia that night. It can't be her, though, because she never left Raffaele's flat that night.

By the way,here's a Fox news story claiming that it was definitely her, dated November 12, 2007, about a week after they had arrested her. And yet the video wasn't introduced into any court proceeding, maybe because it's meaningless, like so much of what appears on Fox. And it wasn't released to the you and me until last week . . . I wonder who did that, and why?

A judicial system that's capable of convicting people so plainly innocent ought to trouble honest people. It sure troubles me.

Thanks for that link kwill, it's a great read.

 

[acbytesla]

I have no idea if that is Amanda or not, but I just love the way you PIPs make up excuses why it's not her and how you all jump on each others bandwagon. I said there is no reason I know of why she is going into the car park, and yes, she is carrying her purse on the wrong shoulder. But that girl does carry some resemblance to Amanda, yes, not enough to say for certain, but perhaps she has a sore right shoulder, perhaps she has a reason for going into the car park, only she knows, but it is a bit suspicious the way she is carrying that purse, the timing is about correct for where she would be at that time, and it also is a bit of a coincidence the three woman, Meredith, Amanda and this stranger then should all appear around the same location around the same time. It very well may not be her, but no more that it may be as well. I'd give it about a 50 / 50 chance.

To Sherlock. I don't really care which shoulder she carries her bag. In fact, I think that is irrelevant to whether that is Amanda or not. I don't think that looks much like Amanda, but whatever. Maybe in a general way maybe. My reasoning that isn't Amanda is simply that it is an illogical route for Amanda to be taking.

I don't really think it is that much of a coincidence and really silly to think it is. And Amanda doesn't appear...so how does she figure into your discussion? And how did you come up with a 50/50 chance? Do you think that only Amanda and one other woman live /work in that area that might possibly walk by or through the garage? And out of curiosity, if that is Amanda, where is she coming from, since Raffaele's flat is in the total opposite direction? And where is her so called accomplices, Raffaele and Rudy?

What I find interesting is you even thinking for one minute that it is Amanda. Keep in mind that the police had that CCTV footage since November 2007, so for 7 years and three trials, they never once suggested that this was Amanda.

 

[MichaelB]

RWVBWL, the parked car belonged to the friends of the people with the broken down car. There's no ifs or buts. They testified at the trial that the cars belonged to them. The tow truck driver didn't realize the second car was owned by the friends of the people whose car he was fixing.

The unidentified car is the one parked at 8pm and in Guede's deposition he says there was two people in it. Maybe he's lying and there was only one.....most likely Kokomani doing who knows what.

 

[codyjuneau]

It gets more and more difficult to take the PGP seriously. There's an old Monty Python sketch, maybe you all have shared it before?

She's a witch.

Every time I look at this, it reminds me of this travesty. Some choice lines:

PGP (with great enthusiasm): We have found a witch, may we burn her?

Nencini: How do you know she is a witch?

PGP: She looks like one!

Nencini: Bring her forward.

Amanda: I'm not a witch, I'm not a witch!

Nencini: But you are dressed as one . . .

Amanda: They dressed me up like this! And this isn't my nose, it's a false one!

(Nencini pauses to examine ridiculous carrot attached to "witch's" face.)

Nencini to PGP: Well?

PGP: Well, we did do the nose . . . and the hat . . . but she's a witch!! Burn her, burn her, burn her!!!

Nencini: Did you dress her up like this?

PGP: No, no, no . . . yes, yes. A bit! A bit. She has got a wart!

They dressed her up like this, but hey, she does have a wart, so it's all justified.

They turned her into a slut party girl druggie monster murderess, but she did do yoga at the police station, so it's all justified.

.
This is sooo apt. Much better than the Jessica Rabbit analogy. Very good Kwill!

Defense team, if we get to a best 3 out of 5, try this one in court.
.

 

[Sherlock Holmes]

To Sherlock. I don't really care which shoulder she carries her bag. In fact, I think that is irrelevant to whether that is Amanda or not. I don't think that looks much like Amanda, but whatever. Maybe in a general way maybe. My reasoning that isn't Amanda is simply that it is an illogical route for Amanda to be taking.

I don't really think it is that much of a coincidence and really silly to think it is. And Amanda doesn't appear...so how does she figure into your discussion? And how did you come up with a 50/50 chance? Do you think that only Amanda and one other woman live /work in that area that might possibly walk by or through the garage? And out of curiosity, if that is Amanda, where is she coming from, since Raffaele's flat is in the total opposite direction? And where is her so called accomplices, Raffaele and Rudy?

What I find interesting is you even thinking for one minute that it is Amanda. Keep in mind that the police had that CCTV footage since November 2007, so for 7 years and three trials, they never once suggested that this was Amanda.

Are you 100% sure that is not Amanda?

 

[Kevin_Lowe]

Are you 100% sure that is not Amanda?

Not 100% sure, but then again I'm philosophically opposed to 100% certainty about anything except tautologies.

May I ask how sure are you that it is Amanda, and what is your reasoning?

 

[Dan O.]

Are you 100% sure that is not Amanda?

Was Mignini?

 

[codyjuneau]

Hi Magister,
Wow, thank you for the detailed info!

I recall that the car seen by the tow truck driver, per FS at The Old Perugia Shock, had old license plates,
as did Hekuran Kokomani's car.

Here's a link from back in April of 2009:
http://web.archive.org/web/20101015182419/http://perugia-shock.blogspot.com/2009_04_01_archive.html

This particular month of postings has FS even make mention of The Spanish Erasmus neighbors Marta and Carolina, and of Rudi G'Day dancin' with the blonde gal too. Gosh, I'd luv Frank Sfarzo to interview and discuss this case in-depth with Nacho Azparren, 1 of The Spanish Erasmus students!!! Heck, the guy was even there when Carlos and Carolina went to The Questura to be interrogated by???


Anyways,
these paragraphs attracted my attention the most,
they were from April 2nd of 2009, back when Amanda and Raff were sitting thru their 1st Trial, read on:
"But attention, because at about 23:00 of the 1st a mechanic said to have picked up a broken car outside the garage. So, we finally see a little confirmation to a testimony. Let's see the value of it.

The mechanic only knows that he needed 10-12 minutes to pick up the car, that the people were two pairs from Rome, with no kids, and who were staying in Perugia for the long weekend while their car was being fixed. Nobody was going to Cesena . Assuming that he didn't notice there was also a boy certainly nobody else sat on his truck, he only drove it. And you would remember a guy of his size and dressed as a mechanic.
Then he sees a dark car stopped outside the cottage gate. The gate is semi open (as always) and the car is parked with the front towards the cottage. And he doesn't see, or hear, anyone else. Not Kokomani, nor the quartet, not screams, no knives, no spaces in teeth (strange because it was just 23:00, when the neighbor girl --as she remembered after one year-- heard the scream, went to the window to look down and there was no one, no one running, no lights, no noises).

That car outside the gate could be Kokomani's old dark car and he could have stopped there for some reasons, like going to meet someone at the basketball court. He could have met some of the junkies who hang out around there. A girl with spaced teeth and someone else, maybe.
Or the car outside the gate could be someone passing by who just stopped there or parked there for a while. Or it could be the murderer who went to the cottage with the car and parked right outside the gate. If the mechanic had seen a black Audi A3 we would finally have almost a real element of suspicion for Raffaele. But if you go pick up the body you enter the garden, where nobody could see you doing the risky transportation, and certainly you wouldn't park with the front towards the cottage. Actually, in an interview the mechanic added it was a dark old car, with old plate, just like the one of Kokomani. But in the court he didn't repeat this detail for some reasons, nor he stated it to the police."


Now check out this interesting tidbit, also from PS, in the same linked post,
I believe that it is FS paraphrazin' what Koko stated to the Massei Court:
"A tow truck comes forward, inside there's a man, a woman and a boy. They ask Hekuran directions for Cesena. He answers What time is it?. He doesn't understand their replay. Probably it was This one is crazy, let's go. How rude, so we will never know exactly what time it was.


Koko states that he spoke with the folks whose car broke down?
We know that Kokomani's cell phone pinged in the area of Meredith's flat that night. Wasn't it around 8:00 to 8:30pm-ish?


Is there any way to confirm that Koko did indeed talk with the occupants of the broken down car, for if so, wouldn't it show that Hekuran Kokomani was indeed seen in front of Meredith Kercher's flat later that night she was brutally raped and murdered? If he was there at 11:00, what the heck was he doin' in the area for some 2 to 3 hours?

Just wondering about this and those unidentified fingerprints found in Meredith's flat,
and why a friend of Rudy Guede's was picked up for interrogation 4 days after Miss Kercher was murdered...
RW

.
I second RW's thank you Magister! I have puzzled over this for a while. So there were three cars, either in or opposite the driveway where Meredith had just been murdered, not just two as many, including myself thought. Which brings the dark car with old license plates back into play. A good thing the mechanic spotted the old license plates so we know it was not Raffaele's car.

I sure would like to find out from the mechanic what was wrong with that car, but that is another issue.

Some things are so curious. Curatola describes seeing two people around that time, standing in an area where they could not see the cottage, but could see the end of the driveway, which is exactly where all the cars and tow truck were. And we had Kokomani in the area with his cockamamie story which I believe included his assertion that Rudy offered to rent his car. Then a little later Koko takes off for his homeland, but returns later to try and help finger Raf and Amanda.

Now just saying, but if I rented my car to someone who had blood on his clothes, and he parked my car at the cottage but could not retrieve it because a couple of other cars plus a tow truck were parked right in front of the driveway, well I would be anxiously waiting with him to determine when the coast was clear so I could void my rental agreement with him and get my car the hell out of there. Another interesting thing is that Koko came to court incognito. I wonder if he knew Curatola? If not, could it be that he was afraid Curatola would recognize him? Did he have long hair by any chance? Did he look like Amanda the same way the cherubic CCTV boy/girl does?

And as RandyN says, where are all the CCTV videos? It seems impossible the police did not retain these, just like it seems impossible the police could fry 4 or 5 computers, and impossible Stefanoni could forget testing with TMB or forget the amount of DNA she found on the most important item in the case, and impossible they could forget, or not afford, depending on which of Mignini's versions you believe, to record Raffaele's, Amanda's AND Lumumba's interrogations.

Unfortunately, equally unbelievable to me is that the defense has apparently never bothered to verify if the bomb threat phone call to the exact house Rudy discarded Meredith's phones, within an hour of her death, is truly the kid's hoax these same honest, diligent, competent police claim it is.
.

 

[acbytesla]

Are you 100% sure that is not Amanda?

I'm sure beyond a reasonable doubt Sherlock. At first I thought the image was guy. But after looking at a few times, I came to the conclusion that it was woman. I feel confident of that. But I think the image is very poor. The resolution is horrible and it's dark. I really have no idea who it is. To me, I think Amanda is far better looking than that girl. That said, I go back to it being dark and the camera can play tricks on people so on the basis of just looking at the image alone, I would say it probably wasn't Amanda, but I couldn't be 100 percent sure.

But then I consider the direction this person is coming from and heading to and I can't see how it could be Amanda. People tend to take DIRECT routes to and from places and that is not a direct route that she would be on. In fact, it would require a huge loop out of Amanda's way and I'm left shaking my head wondering if she is walking around in circles.

 

[Planigale]

planigale,

It was Sarah Gino who said that about 50% of luminol hits are positive by TMB. I think it is in the Massei report, but I don't have a page number handy.

Massei says this p257/8 of motivation report. But I cannot find this in Sarah Gino testimony. It makes no sense for her to say this, she is a forensic geneticist, why would she be doing a TMB test. If any one can reference the original testimony it would help to put it in context.