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

[acbytesla]

I don't need no stinking motive if I'ves got the evydence. No motive is necessary. Not needed. Yes it can help understand the why but so what? In this case the evidence is bad, compromised or fabricated but the no motive isn't needed. It can be an add-on.

Give us those other cases since it is clear that Scott was convicted on a lot more than motive.

I think as always we are dancing around each other on this point. I agree that if there is compelling evidence, the requirement for motive falls by the wayside.


I disagree with you about Scott Petersen. He starts out being a suspect in his wife's disappearance just being the husband. Killing one's spouse is very common. But there was no real physical evidence tying Scott to the crime. Mostly Scott was convicted because he had a motive and his wife washed up ashore close to where he was fishing.

And so what that he told his new girlfriend that he was in Paris while he was at a candle light vigil for Laci? I can see why a man would lie to a girl about something like that. The guy must have been a practiced liar. He was having extramarital affairs. But that doesn't make someone a murderer.

The evidence against Scott Peterson is very circumstantial, nothing really but one huge coincidence and a bunch of lies.

 

[kwill]

A lot of work went into this and she has tried hard to be logical in reaching conclusions.

It's a pretty strange document; I opened it randomly to page 21/22 and read enough in two minutes to make me wince. The voice attempts formality (maybe in hope of sounding like an academic?) but repeatedly gets easy details wrong and worse, goes on to draw conclusions from her own errors.

For example, Amanda doesn't get out of the shower, she "exits" it. Who talks like this?

Also, the writer implies that the **** in the toilet was in the same bathroom where Amanda took her shower. It wasn't, and for someone who is claiming to have studied this case carefully, that's a pretty big error.

She's also weird on the subject of Amanda's Nov 4th email to her contact list. According to this writer, that mail went out "within hours" of Amanda finding out Meredith had been murdered. That's another pretty big error, especially given how much meaning she attaches to this email.

Amanda was using the mail to tell everyone all at once what had happened, because by the time she wrote it, (not hours but a couple of mostly sleepless days and nights later) she'd been repeating the same details over and over and over. If you've ever been in a crisis of some kind while far from your family and friends, you know the problem that mail was meant to solve.

If not, maybe you're like the writer and you miss not just the timing of it but also the whole point. Amanda is describing what she thought at the time about the possibility of menstrual blood left in her bathroom (ew). It's not -- as the writer implies -- evidence that she's marking herself with some sinister pattern common to some set of "female perpetrators." It's Amanda telling what happened and how she saw it at the time.

Proceeding with the narrative, AMK has stated after entering the bathroom she noticed “◊◊◊◊” in the toilet, some drops of blood on the sink and a blood stain on the floor mat. The latter was discovered only after she exited the shower, according to AMK. The total volume of blood in the bathroom at that time was miniscule and her claim that this did not alarm is plausible, assuming she was not aware of the condition of the bathroom a few hours earlier.

The combined discovery of both the open door and the blood in the bathroom, in my view, has insufficient probative value to the case. She has hypothesized in writing on one occasion that she initially thought that the blood may be attributed to Meredith experiencing menstrual issues, which she concluded with the quote, “ew”.

This was within hours of learning that Meredith was the victim of a homicide in the bedroom adjacent to her own in a residence where the only other person in town living there with a key to the house was AMK and whereby AMK, as it turned out, was the first responder to the scene. At that time, AMK was home alone taking a shower and within feet of bodily remains not yet discovered by authorities.

(sinister italics in the original, and also another error, since obviously Filomena was in town and she had a key.)

She goes on darkly . . .

This does not necessarily indicate the presence of a personality disorder by implication of a lack of empathy for the victim or fear of a perpetrator but rather indicates something else. Pay attention. This pattern is present in all the American female perpetrators exhibiting the pattern referenced before, and we shall see that it reliably appears in cases just like this. I will divulge this pattern later.

I think she lost me completely at "Pay attention." Memo to blogger: If you have to stop and instruct your readers to pay attention, you're doing it wrong.

 

[Grinder]

I think as always we are dancing around each other on this point. I agree that if there is compelling evidence, the requirement for motive falls by the wayside.

Good. Motive is not a requirement but evidence is.

I disagree with you about Scott Petersen. He starts out being a suspect in his wife's disappearance just being the husband. Killing one's spouse is very common. But there was no real physical evidence tying Scott to the crime. Mostly Scott was convicted because he had a motive and his wife washed up ashore close to where he was fishing.

He didn't just have a motive you are just plain wrong. The husband is always an initial suspect but things became much more than that and he wasn't convicted on motive alone or almost alone. They had his relationships and what he was telling Frei. By the time he was convicted they had the bodies from the place he admitted fishing. I believe they found concrete in the boat with no good explanation. They had him lying to Frei after the death.

And so what that he told his new girlfriend that he was in Paris while he was at a candle light vigil for Laci? I can see why a man would lie to a girl about something like that. The guy must have been a practiced liar. He was having extramarital affairs. But that doesn't make someone a murderer.

The evidence against Scott Peterson is very circumstantial, nothing really but one huge coincidence and a bunch of lies.

I guess it's more the fact that after his wife was murdered he was still calling the chick.

You use the term circumstantial as if it is an inferior form of evidence when in fact it often is the best evidence. Perhaps you should join the "free Scott" brigade which I'm sure exists.

8. Scott made one concrete anchor for his boat.

Bruce Peterson told Scott he intended to buy another boat, so he wanted to keep his ten and fifteen pound anchors. Scott had left over concrete from fence work he'd done in September, so he made an eight pound anchor similar to those he'd seen in rental fishing boats. A typical rental boat is on the left, Scott's boat and the one anchor he made is on the right. See the exhibits below:
​

Oops another unfortunate huge coincidence.

 

[Grinder]

Thanks Kwill - she is a nutter that gets the facts wrong from page one. They were in the cottage when Meredith returned at 8:56. It was a prank blah, blah blah.

I don't suggest it but if you read the first two pages of her scenario you will ask why anyone would have linked to it.

She is an exhibitionist that is transferring her mental problems to Amanda.

 

[Desert Fox]

I know I have read of cases that seem to be convictions based on motive alone.
I always think to myself "These are bad cases" though.
Let me see if I can wrack my brain however to see if I can find one of the cases and maybe somebody else can remember one.

 

[acbytesla]

Good. Motive is not a requirement but evidence is.



He didn't just have a motive you are just plain wrong. The husband is always an initial suspect but things became much more than that and he wasn't convicted on motive alone or almost alone. They had his relationships and what he was telling Frei. By the time he was convicted they had the bodies from the place he admitted fishing. I believe they found concrete in the boat with no good explanation. They had him lying to Frei after the death.



I guess it's more the fact that after his wife was murdered he was still calling the chick.

You use the term circumstantial as if it is an inferior form of evidence when in fact it often is the best evidence. Perhaps you should join the "free Scott" brigade which I'm sure exists.

8. Scott made one concrete anchor for his boat.

Bruce Peterson told Scott he intended to buy another boat, so he wanted to keep his ten and fifteen pound anchors. Scott had left over concrete from fence work he'd done in September, so he made an eight pound anchor similar to those he'd seen in rental fishing boats. A typical rental boat is on the left, Scott's boat and the one anchor he made is on the right. See the exhibits below:
​

Oops another unfortunate huge coincidence.

I know the evidence against Scott Peterson well. If he had barely known Laci, most of this so called evidence would mean very little to you. If he had been a roommate of a month and not a husband with a life insurance policy on his wife and one who was about to be a father who didn't want to be a father.

No the circumstances about who Scott Peterson was as well as his relationship with the victim are key. That's a huge difference compared to Amanda and Meredith. Amanda wasn't going to be a beneficiary, Amanda could easily just find another room somewhere else if she didn't get along with Meredith. I'm not sure I would convict anyone on the evidence that they had against Amanda. That said, if Amanda was spouse who had both a financial motive as well as a lifestyle motive...it would be a lot harder to argue for innocence.

 

[Grinder]

I would like those that suggested the nutter would be a good addition here read more of her grand insights, here's one:

The biggest question for the United States is this. What are you going to do about raw materials? The good fortune found in tight oil will avail nothing if the United States doesn’t also dramatically increase the rate at which it can “produce” raw materials, particularly elements of the periodic table. The only way to do this is to create a crewed space flight infrastructure whose purpose is to collect these materials from asteroids, where they appear in amounts astronomically greater than anything found on Earth. If the United States fails to do this, it and Canada will go the way of the rest of Humanity. To explain, it may survive the tight oil period. The problem won’t present until the switch to kerogen is attempted in some 30 or more years. But it would take 30 years to develop such a space flight infrastructure. There is no room for gaps. Because of kerogen’s poor EROEI, it will absolutely depend on higher production rates of raw materials; i.e. increased flow of capital.

Of course, at some point alternative energy will have to be developed and the entire primary mover infrastructure will have to be updated. That is really the end goal. But this is no small task. It will cost trillions and will take decades to convert humanity over to a fully electric infrastructure. That is one of the key requirements for comprehensive conversion to alternative energies. And alack, we do not have the raw materials on Earth to build enough batteries for all of it. Thus, once again, the asteroids loom as our only hope. When and if we achieve an energy infrastructure that does not include fossil fuels we will have taken a key step in our development. At that point, for the first time, humanity will be progressing using the fundamental physical principles common throughout the universe and not specific to Earth. It will be a seminal transition.​

Anyone doubting http://kirkomrik.wordpress.com/

 

[Grinder]

I know the evidence against Scott Peterson well. If he had barely known Laci, most of this so called evidence would mean very little to you. If he had been a roommate of a month and not a husband with a life insurance policy on his wife and one who was about to be a father who didn't want to be a father.

But alas he was her husband and did have the LI policy. If I had a concrete anchor in my boat and even if I went to the bay to fish I wouldn't have been convicted. Certainly the reality is if there is a strong motive it is easier to get a conviction but that doesn't mean the lack of a KNOWN motive is a solid defense against evidence which these courts believed they had.

No the circumstances about who Scott Peterson was as well as his relationship with the victim are key. That's a huge difference compared to Amanda and Meredith. Amanda wasn't going to be a beneficiary, Amanda could easily just find another room somewhere else if she didn't get along with Meredith. I'm not sure I would convict anyone on the evidence that they had against Amanda. That said, if Amanda was spouse who had both a financial motive as well as a lifestyle motive...it would be a lot harder to argue for innocence.

It is just a silly argument you make. I would not convict on the evidence they had but it has nothing to do with a lack of motive. Repeating, if there is a clear motive that adds immensely to the case but the absence of clear motive is not proof of innocence.

 

[acbytesla]

I would like those that suggested the nutter would be a good addition here read more of her grand insights, here's one:

The biggest question for the United States is this. What are you going to do about raw materials? The good fortune found in tight oil will avail nothing if the United States doesn’t also dramatically increase the rate at which it can “produce” raw materials, particularly elements of the periodic table. The only way to do this is to create a crewed space flight infrastructure whose purpose is to collect these materials from asteroids, where they appear in amounts astronomically greater than anything found on Earth. If the United States fails to do this, it and Canada will go the way of the rest of Humanity. To explain, it may survive the tight oil period. The problem won’t present until the switch to kerogen is attempted in some 30 or more years. But it would take 30 years to develop such a space flight infrastructure. There is no room for gaps. Because of kerogen’s poor EROEI, it will absolutely depend on higher production rates of raw materials; i.e. increased flow of capital.

Of course, at some point alternative energy will have to be developed and the entire primary mover infrastructure will have to be updated. That is really the end goal. But this is no small task. It will cost trillions and will take decades to convert humanity over to a fully electric infrastructure. That is one of the key requirements for comprehensive conversion to alternative energies. And alack, we do not have the raw materials on Earth to build enough batteries for all of it. Thus, once again, the asteroids loom as our only hope. When and if we achieve an energy infrastructure that does not include fossil fuels we will have taken a key step in our development. At that point, for the first time, humanity will be progressing using the fundamental physical principles common throughout the universe and not specific to Earth. It will be a seminal transition.​

Anyone doubting http://kirkomrik.wordpress.com/

I have my hand up Grinder.

 

[acbytesla]

But alas he was her husband and did have the LI policy. If I had a concrete anchor in my boat and even if I went to the bay to fish I wouldn't have been convicted. Certainly the reality is if there is a strong motive it is easier to get a conviction but that doesn't mean the lack of a KNOWN motive is a solid defense against evidence which these courts believed they had.



It is just a silly argument you make. I would not convict on the evidence they had but it has nothing to do with a lack of motive. Repeating, if there is a clear motive that adds immensely to the case but the absence of clear motive is not proof of innocence.

We are going to have to agree to disagree Grinder, because of course motive matters...you just pointed it out in the Laci Peterson murder.

There was a reason for Scott Peterson to murder his wife. There is no reason for Amanda or Raffaele to murder Meredith. So then you take the next step. Are Amanda and Raffaele deranged? Do they have severe mental problems?? And the answer is no.

So, when the lab tech says she finds DNA matching the male defendant on the female victim's bra clasp whom he is not having relations, you either think that this defendant is guilty or there is a problem with the testing or the collection of this piece of evidence.

Motive and the mental conditions of the defendants do matter. But they are not as important as the evidence, physical or circumstantial. I agree with that.

 

[Grinder]

I have my hand up Grinder.

You doubt that it is from the same source?

 

[Bill Williams]

I have my hand up Grinder.

Why is your hand up Grinder?

 

[Grinder]

We are going to have to agree to disagree Grinder, because of course motive matters...you just pointed it out in the Laci Peterson murder.

There was a reason for Scott Peterson to murder his wife. There is no reason for Amanda or Raffaele to murder Meredith. So then you take the next step. Are Amanda and Raffaele deranged? Do they have severe mental problems?? And the answer is no.

So, when the lab tech says she finds DNA matching the male defendant on the female victim's bra clasp whom he is not having relations, you either think that this defendant is guilty or there is a problem with the testing or the collection of this piece of evidence.

Motive and the mental conditions of the defendants do matter. But they are not as important as the evidence, physical or circumstantial. I agree with that.

Motive is evidence (as per Anglo). If a motive can be shown (LI policy) that is added to the guilty side of the scale. Lack of discernible motive does not subtract from the evidence of guilt.

I'd say most every murderer that isn't a pro is deranged or at least temporarily insane.

"Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men? The Shadow knows!"
​

If there was solid evidence I could think of some petty beef that zoomed out of control.

Had Scott had an alibi other than I was fishing in the middle of winter in a little boat where my wife's body was found maybe even the obvious motive wouldn't have gotten him convicted.

There are plenty of crimes without a real motive. Group dynamics can come into play.

The judges could when writing their true crime novels just said we can't fathom why she would do such a thing but we have the evidence. This is only a bitch because they have to write these ridiculous books reports.

Are you ready to conceded that Scott was convicted for reasons other than motive? I'd go so far as to say that he would have been convicted without the LI policy or even the "my wife's dead" comment if he gave his alibi as I was fishing where the body was found. I would have convicted him on that alone since he was her husband.

 

[acbytesla]

You doubt that it is from the same source?

I haven't read the .pdf yet. Just the blurb you put out and I went to the link for the blog. I keep a close eye on the science and the development of alternative energy resources. Ever since my Junior year in high school when the debate resolution for the year was "The development of scarce world resources should be controlled by an international organization". I probably follow the development of alternative energy more than any thing else. I have bookmarks for the NREL for example and google alerts for "battery breakthroughs" photovoltaic breakthroughs, algae biofuel etc.etc.etc. I'm fascinated by it.

And until recently I have been pretty pessimistic about whether man can come up with a technological answer to the eventual energy Armageddon we have been heading toward. But the one place I have never considered to be an an answer, at least not in the near term is the mining of asteroids. It costs $10,000 just to put a single pound into orbit....so mining asteroids is no short term answer to solve our energy problem. This guy's blog is actually kind of fascinating. He seems very smart but he's very hard to follow. I actually think the guy might be that dangerous combination of genius and crazy. If he thinks that mining asteroids is some kind of answer to our energy problems near term, the guy has gone off the deep end of the pool and needs to return to shallows.

 

[acbytesla]

Motive is evidence (as per Anglo). If a motive can be shown (LI policy) that is added to the guilty side of the scale. Lack of discernible motive does not subtract from the evidence of guilt.

I'd say most every murderer that isn't a pro is deranged or at least temporarily insane.

"Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men? The Shadow knows!"
​

If there was solid evidence I could think of some petty beef that zoomed out of control.

Had Scott had an alibi other than I was fishing in the middle of winter in a little boat where my wife's body was found maybe even the obvious motive wouldn't have gotten him convicted.

There are plenty of crimes without a real motive. Group dynamics can come into play.

Not really Grinder. I can't find a single similar crime in the annals of criminal history to the three virtual strangers of Amanda/Raffaele/Rudy committing a murder. There really is a motive or a reason for pretty much every murder..maybe there is an exception that proves the rule. I agree that group dynamics and acceding to authority can cause people to commit crimes. Or certain individuals can bond together to commit crimes that seem to have no answer. But those always seem to be people that have long relationship with each other.

The point from my perspective on this discussion is that unless there was some pretty convincing evidence that these people without motive committed the crime you wouldn't consider them as suspects. The police and the prosecution has to start from somewhere. Marginal evidence against suspects without motive is almost always and probably should leave a jury with reasonable doubt.

If you took the same evidence that they have on Amanda and made her an ex boyfriend who had been stalking Meredith, would you think he was guilty? The relationship with the victim matters.

Are you ready to conceded that Scott was convicted for reasons other than motive? I'd go so far as to say that he would have been convicted without the LI policy or even the "my wife's dead" comment if he gave his alibi as I was fishing where the body was found. I would have convicted him on that alone since he was her husband.

I'd say those are marginal pieces of evidence Grinder. If Scott Peterson was a female roommate of 42 days with Laci as opposed to the disillusioned male husband having extramarital affairs, I doubt I would vote for her conviction.

 

[acbytesla]

Why is your hand up Grinder?

No, my hand is up Bill.. I was replying to Grinder...

 

[Desert Fox]

If you took the same evidence that they have on Amanda and made her an ex boyfriend who had been stalking Meredith, would you think he was guilty? The relationship with the victim matters.

A bad DNA match on a knife and mixed blood in a bathroom they both shared?
Um, no. . . .

I'd say those are marginal pieces of evidence Grinder. If Scott Peterson was a female roommate of 42 days with Laci as opposed to the disillusioned male husband having extramarital affairs, I doubt I would vote for her conviction.

If that roommate had a boat, was on that boat on the date of disappearance, and the body later found in the water where she was boating. . . .That is some pretty damning evidence.

I actually don't worry too much about the affair because my experience has been that it is more common than not (I am a former PI, guess what one major subject PIs investigate is?) and few result in murder.

 

[Samson]

Sigh.

The crime scene was never "unaltered" if by that you mean the whole cottage was sealed and undisturbed, just as the murderer left it. The postale police, AK, RS, Filomena + 3 of her friends were all in there, none of them knowing yet that they were at a murder scene, for some period of time. Presumably they all had the potential to inadvertently "alter" some detail, though it's impossible to know if any of them did.

And later Filomena was allowed to slip back into her room to get her laptop. You can't use "glass on top of clothes" for anything, imo, just as you can't use "glass under clothes."

What you can do is look at the shard of glass embedded in the wood and then come up with an explanation for how that happened. If you're certain that the video shows an "unaltered" room, you can look at the pattern of spray of glass, remembering that this is supposed to be either

a. a pristinely kept crime scene
b. a pristinely kept staged crime scene

And then you can demonstrate how exactly the pattern you see + the embedded shard got there.

I probably wasn't clear, I meant the video showed no glass on the clothes before the crime scene was altered. The point is that the fake wiki people talk about glass on top of clothes suggesting the glass was broken after the ransacking as in a staging. This young lady said she saw a video showing the opposite.

 

[Dan O.]

..maybe there is an exception that proves the rule.

The RULE is: there is an exception to every rule that proves the rule. This rule is that exception.

(such a stupid rule, it must be Italian)

 

[Chris_Halkides]

mixed DNA and its discontents

A bad DNA match on a knife and mixed blood in a bathroom they both shared?
Um, no. . . .

Meredith's blood mixed with Amanda's DNA. It is not surprising, and it is also quite possible that the questionable sampling technique caused mixed DNA to be formed. This is another example of why the Court of Cassation (and apparently the Nencini court) is wrong to ignore bad technique.