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

[carbonjam72]

Interesting Issue With Respect to Perception & Expectations

I say it must be resized/recompressed just because that is standard operating procedure before posting media to the web. This is a subject in which I specialize. It is not standard to distort the aspect ratio, but my students do it all the time before they learn better.

I understand that Dan O. Has some other stills from the same camera, and that the aspect ratios are different between the ones that you have the ones that Dan has. Ergo, some of them have been distorted. I have not examined them closely myself. I was just floating the idea that the difference did not have to be deliberate, but could be the result of a commonly committed error.

If you like, I can take a look at the image sets as well and offer a third or fourth opinion about the possibility of distortion.

Ok, we resolved this a few comments earlier. But here's what happened in a nutshell.

I only saw the show segment with the CCTV imagery from the clip provided by the TV producers on their website. Here's that link:

http://www.video.mediaset.it/video/...nuovi-particolari-nell-omicidio-meredith.html

I wasn't aware there was the original camera footage available, which DanO was talking about, and others probably also. Dano provided that link here:

http://murderofmeredithkercher.com/rudy-guede/

If you scroll down to the part that says, 'Rudy Guede, caught on CCTV".

Which is actually interesting, because I believe the media sat clip also has the same CCTV footage of Guede in their piece.

So we have the chance to do a side by side comparison of the Guede footage both the original (from murderofmeredithkercher.com site), and the distorted (wide body - from the mediasat link) versions.

When DanO kept saying, it doesn't look right, I had no idea what he was referring to. But as soon as I saw the original imagery, it was obvious. I don't know WHY it's visually obvious, but it is.

So here's my conundrum: I was pretty sure the claim that there's video that breaks Amanda's alibi, had to be false. So I figured if I took a close look at the video, I'd find it was bogus. And sure enough, I saw a female figure that presents visually, as morbidly obese - and I hit the roof.

Now it turns out, that factually, the image was distorted, so its not actually true "in reality". But without an outside frame of reference, how would I or anyone else be able to know? It's "true" within the context of the TV show that was aired.

And, that show played on national TV in Italy, and everyone who saw it basically agreed that an apparently obese person was in fact Amanda Knox. (I think AbcTesla pointed it out above too).

The international media ran with the story, again, on the same basis. Nobody cared that what they were claiming, based on the TV presentation itself, was patently absurd.

So that's what I'm wrangling with. There's patent absurdities flying around, and no ones pulling the emergency cord.

But a side by side video or still frame comparison of Fat Rudy and Regular Rudy would be hugely instructive (and I can put it to use actually). I can do the stills easily enough, if you could help with a video version, I'd be grateful.

And, if you are taking requests, I have one more. The "investigative team" for this show, did a side by side walking comparison with footage of Amanda walking at regular speed, and matches it to literally 3 or 4 frames of this CCTV lady, over a period of 5-6 seconds. Could you please Run Fat Rudy backwards, so he's walking backwards into the garage just like the lady, and match it to the split screen that they used to compare to Amanda. You understand what I'm asking for?

Lastly - It's also interesting to see my own reactions when I'm mistaken, but let's keep that between us, eh?

 

[Bill Williams]

I know, I'm being sarcastic.

That reminds me of when Yankee pitcher Whitey Ford ran to cover home plate after throwing a wild pitch, causing catcher Yogi Berra to go scrambling for the ball. A runner from third was charging for the plate - Berra threw to Ford for what was a sure out at home-base.

Yet the umpire called him safe. Ford jumped up calling the umpire every name in the book, and for his efforts the ump threw him out of the game.

Manager Casey Stengal charged out from the dugout screaming bloody-murder at having his ace tossed, the ump threw out Stengal too.

Berra ambled up to the umpire and said, "If it means anything to you, I thought he was safe, too."

Beat red with anger, the umpire threw Yogi out of the game!

Yogi said, "Wait a minute I agreed with you, what was that for?"

The ump said, "For being sarcastic."

 

[acbytesla]

That reminds me of when Yankee pitcher Whitey Ford ran to cover home plate after throwing a wild pitch, causing catcher Yogi Berra to go scrambling for the ball. A runner from third was charging for the plate - Berra threw to Ford for what was a sure out at home-base.

Yet the umpire called him safe. Ford jumped up calling the umpire every name in the book, and for his efforts the ump threw him out of the game.

Manager Casey Stengal charged out from the dugout screaming bloody-murder at having his ace tossed, the ump threw out Stengal too.

Berra ambled up to the umpire and said, "If it means anything to you, I thought he was safe, too."

Beat red with anger, the umpire threw Yogi out of the game!

Yogi said, "Wait a minute I agreed with you, what was that for?"

The ump said, "For being sarcastic."

That's hilarious.

 

[Grinder]

Has the person that accused Comodi of passing money to her husband for the video recanted or produced proof?

Why do people think Rudi was on the pot when Meredith returned home?

Has there been any verification that the neighbors's house was broken into and that it was her gold watch that was found in Rudi's backpack?

 

[Bill Williams]

The following is an Italian piece, severely critical of the Nencini verdict. Yet even it cannot get basic facts right.

http://worldmeets.us/altri-mundi000001.shtml#axzz31jB9xwVc

These are the reasons for the decision, announced April 29, and contained in 400 pages of reasoning, deduction, induction, and shaky assertions that offer us little clarity about the events surrounding the crime. A thriller, as it is called by the magistrates, that no Italian publisher would agree to publish.

Wrong:

- It appears at least that Amanda and Guede are involved, although no one has been able to convincingly explain how they proceeded. But - what if they were innocent? (Note: they probably mean Sollecito)

- Among them was the American Amanda Knox with whom, according to many witnesses, the rest didn't get along with because she was messy and brought home too many men. (Note: the household issues were completely normal, and nothing to do with the murder.)

- The phones brought officers to Via della Pergola. They found Amanda and Sollecito, engaged at the time, in conversation with police that they themselves had called. (Note: this badly mangles the issue of whether or not Raffaele called 112 before/after the arrival of postal police. No one claims the Carabinieri were there when the postal police arrived.)

- Amanda, in particular, first said she was in the kitchen when she heard something but didn't go to investigate. She then changed her version and claimed to have been at Sollecito's house watching television all night. (Note: Amanda only ever had two stories, the first one was that she was at Raffaele's. After recanting the "confession in her Nov 7 memorial, she repeated she'd been at Raffaele's and that has been the story since Nov 7, 2009.)

- including (Guede's) excrement in the bathroom, which remained there for over a year before being tested. (Note: No one has ever claimed the police waited a year to test Rudy's pooh.)​

But this piece says that once Americans read the Nencini report, they will shred the Italian legal system. (I don't know why it is so important to this otherwise sympathetic author what Americans do or don't think.)

 

[acbytesla]

Has the person that accused Comodi of passing money to her husband for the video recanted or produced proof?

Why do people think Rudi was on the pot when Meredith returned home?

Has there been any verification that the neighbors's house was broken into and that it was her gold watch that was found in Rudi's backpack?

Nobody is ever going to be able to verify whether or not that ladies watch found in Milan belonged to Ms Diaz. As for the other two things, I know nothing about them.

 

[Kestrel]

Why do people think Rudi was on the pot when Meredith returned home?

Rudy being on the pot when Meredith returned is the simplest explanation that fits the known evidence.

DNA evidence from the toilet paper tells us that Rudy left the evidence UN the unflushed toilet. The absence of blood traces in that bathroom indicate it was left before the murder. The fact that he didn't flush indicates that something happened that before he had a chance to flush. Meredith coming home is one possible reason.

Next we look at Rudy's original story and his motives for telling it that way. According to Rudy, he was sitting on the toilet when an unknown person entered the front door. Rudy would understand that his story must explain the evidence, but still present a case for being innocent. But he doesn't know exactly what evidence the investigators have found, If he sticks as close to what really happened as he can without being the lone killer of Meredith, he is more likely to tell a story that fits the evidence found by the investigators. So yes, Rudy probably was sitting in the can when someone came in the front door and a fight ensued. But he can't tell us it was Meredith and maintain his innocence. So Rudy puts an unknown stranger in her place.

 

[Samson]

Has the person that accused Comodi of passing money to her husband for the video recanted or produced proof?

Why do people think Rudi was on the pot when Meredith returned home?

Has there been any verification that the neighbors's house was broken into and that it was her gold watch that was found in Rudi's backpack?

I would suggest he was hanging outside with the kebab causing internal trouble, and the first thing he did after climbing in was deal with it. Under these circumstances it is likely he spent long enough trying to recover his well being on said pot that there was a broad overlap with Meredith's arrival, and then he would never flush the toilet because of the noise. It seems sensible speculation, Hellmann might have come up with it for example.

Did Mrs Diaz specifically report a missing gold watch?
Nencini has declared as legal fact Guede was an experienced professional burglar, thus presumably rendering it unnecessary to contend any longer that AK an RS had a more serious criminal history at the time of the murder. Nencini has effectively hollowed out HarryRag's obsession with this point, though how the contorted logic he uses to suggest Guede never broke in helps satisfy the PGP I would be keen to learn.

 

[acbytesla]

Rudy being on the pot when Meredith returned is the simplest explanation that fits the known evidence.

DNA evidence from the toilet paper tells us that Rudy left the evidence UN the unflushed toilet. The absence of blood traces in that bathroom indicate it was left before the murder. The fact that he didn't flush indicates that something happened that before he had a chance to flush. Meredith coming home is one possible reason.

Next we look at Rudy's original story and his motives for telling it that way. According to Rudy, he was sitting on the toilet when an unknown person entered the front door. Rudy would understand that his story must explain the evidence, but still present a case for being innocent. But he doesn't know exactly what evidence the investigators have found, If he sticks as close to what really happened as he can without being the lone killer of Meredith, he is more likely to tell a story that fits the evidence found by the investigators. So yes, Rudy probably was sitting in the can when someone came in the front door and a fight ensued. But he can't tell us it was Meredith and maintain his innocence. So Rudy puts an unknown stranger in her place.

Me, I just figure that Rudy is stupid and a really bad liar.

 

[Chris_Halkides]

no comparison

Vibio,

USA Today wrote, "It noted that at least two knives were used to attack 21-year-old Meredith Kercher and that there were also finger imprints on her body, indicating she had been restrained." (highlighting mine) Some scenarios have suggested that Ms. Kercher was restrained for many minutes. Comparing the present case to the Latko case with respect to DNA is facile and claiming that the Latko case explains the lack of DNA transfer from Ms. Knox to Ms. Kercher is a specious argument.

 

[Desert Fox]

Vibio,

USA Today wrote, "It noted that at least two knives were used to attack 21-year-old Meredith Kercher and that there were also finger imprints on her body, indicating she had been restrained." (highlighting mine) Some scenarios have suggested that Ms. Kercher was restrained for many minutes. Comparing the present case to the Latko case with respect to DNA is facile and claiming that the Latko case explains the lack of DNA transfer from Ms. Knox to Ms. Kercher is a specious argument.

As I understand, the evidence does not support that there are necessarily two knives though?

 

[Chris_Halkides]

one knife is compatible with all of the wounds

As I understand, the evidence does not support that there are necessarily two knives though?

Only the extremely dubious DNA result 36B would suggest a second knife. Nencini blathers on about the wounds being on opposite sides of Meredith's neck as if it were evidence of more than one attacker. Logic is not Nencini's strong suit.

 

[Desert Fox]

Only the extremely dubious DNA result 36B would suggest a second knife. Nencini blathers on about the wounds being on opposite sides of Meredith's neck as if it were evidence of more than one attacker. Logic is not Nencini's strong suit.

My argument is that the USA Today article is highly dubious.
Not sure if what you are arguing is if Nencini is to be believed, it is likely that there would be more physical evidence?

 

[Bill Williams]

Fuoriuscita dalla scena

Luca Cheli is savaging the Nencini report. And since Vibeo is reading it in the original Italian, perhaps Vibeo can check for us that Nencini actually does use the Italian idiom, "fuoriuscita dalla scena" on or near page 92.

It's impossible to guess what Nencini is trying to accomplish by using that term. However, it is important enough to Nencini to make reference to what actors do at the end of a play, they leave the stage (or in Italian "fuoriuscita dalla scena").

This is what Knox and Sollecito were supposed to be doing at the end of the hypothesized clean-up, a clean-up that Nencini first implies happened in Meredith's room, and then he abandons that, saying that the reason why the door was locked was because a selective clean could not have taken place.

But back to the "fuoriuscita dalla scena". The reason the clean-up took so long is as Cheli writes, paraphrasing Nencini:

(T)he only possible aim of the cleanup and of the overall alteration of the crime scene (including the faked burglary) was that of “preventing that the murder were discovered before its authors had had the possibility of organizing their fuoriuscita dalla scena”.​

This alone shows that Judge Nencini has no overall, osmotic command of the details of this case. Later in the ruling, Cheli summarizes, Nencini implies that Knox and Sollecito had been prevented from exercising this act of fleeing, their "fuoriuscita dalla scena" by the arrival of the postal police.

Whatever one believes about the order in which Raffaele called the Carabinieri vs. the arrival of the postal police, as Cheli observes:

..... calling Romanelli and alerting her about the burglary and that something could have happened to Meredith (albeit not a murder) well before the arrival of the Postal Police belies such an interpretation, as we will repeat when dealing with the discovery of the murder.​

Note that Knox had called Filomena well before any controversy over the order in which the police were called/postal police arrived.

The "such an interpretation" is that Nencini implies that the arrival of the postal police prevented Knox and Sollecito from "leaving the stage", in essence fleeing hoping that a staging of the crime-scene would buy them some time.

In the end, Cheli confesses that there really is no meaning to those words and that perhaps Nencini meant to pick up on this point later in the report, but forgot. Be any of that as they may, Knox and Sollecito had been "raising the alarm" to both Filomena and to Raffaele's then-Carabinieri sister, as well as Amanda back to Seattle.

They had a strange way of leaving the stage, by getting the whole world to take note of the stage!!!

But this whole line of "reasoning" simply gets dropped by Nencini, leaving Cheli to wonder if something had been "left in the pen," by multiple writers not coordinating their sections of the report which would bear Nencini's name.

Everyone has to give Cheli's piece a read. I, for one, never thought I'd think that Massei's report was reasonable, but compared to Nencini.....

http://wrongfulconvictionnews.com/knox-and-sollecito-dissection-of-a-conviction/​

This really is the fiction and fantasy that Judge Hellmann described it as. Is Cassazione REALLY going to sign off on this?

 

[Chris_Halkides]

My argument is that the USA Today article is highly dubious.
Not sure if what you are arguing is if Nencini is to be believed, it is likely that there would be more physical evidence?

Yes. Nencini's scenario should have produced some DNA transfer. I am not making the claim that this is 100% proof of innocence, but I am saying that this is part of the evidence that should be there if the pair were guilty, yet is not there. The reason I included a quote is that I wanted to provide a source for Nencini's using finger marks as evidence.

 

[acbytesla]

Vibio,

USA Today wrote, "It noted that at least two knives were used to attack 21-year-old Meredith Kercher and that there were also finger imprints on her body, indicating she had been restrained." (highlighting mine) Some scenarios have suggested that Ms. Kercher was restrained for many minutes. Comparing the present case to the Latko case with respect to DNA is facile and claiming that the Latko case explains the lack of DNA transfer from Ms. Knox to Ms. Kercher is a specious argument.

I'm under the impression that the absence of DNA belonging to Amanda Knox is only significant when you consider all of the evidence that Rudy left behind. A dozen shoe prints, a palm print and 5 samples of DNA compared to ZERO for Amanda Knox. Latko may have not left behind significant DNA when he murdered the Patterson's. But he certainly left an unequivocal trail. Something that you cannot find belonging to Amanda in this case.

Vibio's argument is downright absurd. Even he must know this.

 

[JREF2010]

it is peculiar, for example, that no traces of amanda marie knox were found in the cottage of via della pergola

that always stunned me, the "absence of evidence means she's guilty" perspective. wow?

 

[Bill Williams]

Maybe Vibeo can help us out here, to either confirm or deny an observation Luca Cheli makes about the Nencini report.

On or about page 219, did Judge Nencini REALLY say that the defendants experts should have reported in detail the possible causes of contamination during the inspections and the collection of the samples (knife included)? As Cheli observes: "Well, until about noon on November 6 there were no defendants and hence no defendants’ experts."

After Nov 2 and 3, the future experts and defence personnel would be totally dependent on Stefanoni's people to "'fess up", which they apparently didn't do - even when laughed out of the court during the playing of their own Dec 2008 video of that later collection.

And to this, Nencini seems to make no mention of Stefanoni's own admissions of four possible routes, as she testified in the Massei trial.

No. Acc. to Nencini, it is the defence's responsibility to detail the possible routes of contamination, even when the "defence" does not logically exist.

 

[Strozzi]

near

Has the person that accused Comodi of r money to her husband for the video recanted or produced proof?

Why do people think Rudi was on the pot when Meredith returned home?

Has there been any verification that the neighbors's house was broken into and that it was her gold watch that was found in Rudi's backpack?

I will answer the second question because that is what I believe likely occurred.

Rudy left evidence in the toilet that he used it. The fact that he did not flush can mean that he was absent-minded again, in a great rush when he rose from the toilet, or that at the moment he arose he was trying to remain silent. He used the toilet before he attacked Meredith; oltherwise he would have left blood spots in the bathroom - enough that even myopic police investigators would have seen it.

Hendry's analysis of the blood spray evidence on the wall by Meredith's bed shows that Meredith was first knifed as she was near the head of her bed standing/rising at less-than-fully-erect heigh.

Her being fully dressed, the fact that she had not yet placed a second call to her mother, had not moved her laundry, or left evidence that she had been in another room lounging or eating indicates to me that she was attacked very, very soon after she returned home.

I believe that liars incorporate truthful elements in lengthy lies. Rudy claimed he was in the toilet when he heard Meredith scream. The detail he provided of rushing out of the toilet struggling with his pants only partially up sounds credible and memorable. It suggests he was in the toilet when he suddenly moved in a rush on Meredith, possibly upon being discovered. If he had not been discovered, he woud not have left the toilet so hurriedly that his pants were not yet fully up and belted.

 

[acbytesla]

near

I will answer the second question because that is what I believe likely occurred.

Rudy left evidence in the toilet that he used it. The fact that he did not flush can mean that he was absent-minded again, in a great rush when he rose from the toilet, or that at the moment he arose he was trying to remain silent. He used the toilet before he attacked Meredith; oltherwise he would have left blood spots in the bathroom - enough that even myopic police investigators would have seen it.

Hendry's analysis of the blood spray evidence on the wall by Meredith's bed shows that Meredith was first knifed as she was near the head of her bed standing/rising at less-than-fully-erect heigh.

Her being fully dressed, the fact that she had not yet placed a second call to her mother, had not moved her laundry, or left evidence that she had been in another room lounging or eating indicates to me that she was attacked very, very soon after she returned home.

I believe that liars incorporate truthful elements in lengthy lies.

YES, YES, YES.

Rudy claimed he was in the toilet when he heard Meredith scream. The detail he provided of rushing out of the toilet struggling with his pants only partially up sounds credible and memorable.

NO, NO, NO. memorable??? maybe....credible? NOT IN THE LEAST BIT.
In fact, I think this is one of the most absurd tales imaginable.

It suggests he was in the toilet when he suddenly moved in a rush on Meredith, possibly upon being discovered. If he had not been discovered, he woud not have left the toilet so hurriedly that his pants were not yet fully up and belted.

It does, but it is still absurd and NOT credible.