There appear to be several innocent explanations for the Luminol positive smudges found around the flat. There is no time stamp to say when they occurred, their nature is uncertain. They may be attributable to dilute blood, but whose or what's is unknown. They may have been produced by people moving around after the murder. Pictures show Luminol positive material on the overboots. (Also I believe there was a break in prior to the Luminol testing being carried out.) The smudges may be due to non blood material. Certainly there is insufficient detail to derive any identity as to who made these smudges. So we have no identity, no time and uncertainty as to the nature of these smudges. The smudges show no evidence of cleaning so that is in favour of the defence. The smudges do not lead from MK bedroom and show no fading nor do they fit with any particular narrative of the crime.
I would take the view (and I may be wrong) that the defence do not have to provide a single explanation for the evidence. Several alternatives would seem legitimate. It does seem that the defence does need to provide explanations for all evidence, e.g, Nencini's criticism of the defence for failing to explain the telephones being dumped. If the defence cannot explain this then it must be evidence of guilt he seems to argue.
That's another one of his stupid mistakes. They did but he mustn't read it.
Sollecito Defence Witness – Bruno Pellero
I have done a range of scientific-based studies, immediately after entry to the Faculty of Engineering at the University of Genoa I began to travel for work and I started to design mobile communications systems, in particular in Japan, in Korea and later in Finland. I’m referring to first generation cell phone devices, and later GSM cell phones. In about 1989 I was called back to Italy to assist the management of the judicial authorities in terms of design and solutions for intercepting cellular communications which I designed and made available to the judicial authorities. Later I specialized at Oxford University in the United Kingdom in GSM systems and network installations, design, operations for both the 900 network and the 1800… In the course of my professional activities my collaborations in the industry have extended from telephone manufacturers to manufacturers of wiretapping devices, for telephony companies and public administration. For a few years I was a consultant for the Cabinet of the Ministry of Justice on wiretapping, consultant for the Minister of Communications on the same subject, technical component of the Ministry for network security and safeguard of communications in the field for which I have defined the characteristics, the costs of the mandatory services that the operators provide to the judicial authorities for wiretapping and documentation of traffic. I do a lot of consultancy and above all lecturing, I work in the lecturing of forensic techniques, for the High Council of the Judiciary at the study days for the Magistrates of the judicial authorities and I’m the coordinator of the lecturers of methodological and technical subjects of the Upper University institute of Pavia and at that institute I’m a member of the Scientific Council of the centre for risks and security, lecturer in electronic surveillance systems of Intelligence of the (inc.) of Calabria, I deliver seminars in investigative technologies in 4 continents.
p106-108 questioning by defense lawyer Giulia Bongiorno
Q: Now what interests us, other than this theoretical reconstruction, which is the most important fact for us for the findings that interest the Court, is to understand: based on all these reconstructions, cell repeaters and measurements, and from your experience when did this cell phone leave Meredith’s house? Are we able to say?
A: I’ll refer to the summarized result and then I can explain it. On the basis of the summarized result the telephone would have been in the area for which it has was established that there wasn’t any unusual traffic, the Judicial Police did tests regarding the quantity of traffic and that is not a concern, the area in which the cell repeater 30064 is received which you find in this area and so excluding the rural area over here which is of no interest, it would be the area of Sant’Angelo Park. So where? What connection could there be? It’s not the area of Meredith and Amanda’s house, because from the measurements taken I will explain what the situation is, and so it was in any case already a distance from the house of via della Pergola. How far? Let’s imagine that at 22.13…
Q: Ok first, then later you can explain to us the slide, however just to call to the Court’s attention, because this premise is needed for this conclusion. All of this reconstruction on the basis of the documents submitted by the Judicial Police, of the measurements taken for us, they must be of use in practice and not just to know how things work in theory and it must be used to inform us when the telephone leaves. Seeing as we have a time, 22:13, with a GPRS connection, the question which I’d like you to respond to is this: given the premise that this time 22:13 exists with this connection according to your reconstruction and the following slides this connection occurred when the telephone was inside the house of via della Pergola or outside?
A: No, the connection for me, and I’m convinced of this, occurred here, while the telephone was inside Sant’Angelo Park, in the vicinity of the garden of via della Pergola and probably the reason why the telephone was thrown in the garden of via della Pergola, otherwise there wouldn’t be a reason to throw it there. For me it happened that the telephone received an MMS message, the telephone rang, whoever had the telephone remembered in that moment having a telephone which amongst other things was proof of a crime and decided to get rid of it and it was gotten rid of in the place where the person was. So at 22:13 the telephone was here, it was more or less here, it couldn’t have been very far, but the fact that it couldn’t be very far is a result of the compatibility of the radio-electric coverage with that cell repeater, and we’ll see it in detail later, and of the compatibility with the toss which can’t be 200 meters further there, but must be in the region of a few meters or very few tens of meters. At this point when could it have left? I can go back in time to the exit from the house within the limits of the journey that was done, I’ve done it by road, and it’s about 800 meters, it can be done on foot cutting across the field. Just to be clear and then from the photos it’s easier to understand, going via the center of Perugia, especially after such an event, hence likely to be out of breath, perhaps covered in blood and so on, whoever was carrying Meredith’s telephone and so had taken it from her in the moment or moments immediately before or after Meredith’s murder probably wouldn’t want to be noticed. At this point this person would have passed through the center, this person would have gone via the external route, and having the choice and knowing Perugia probably not along the road that is the longest route but perhaps along Sant’Angelo Park which is the shortest route. In combination with this route the cell repeater which covers much better than all the others is repeater 30064 and it is that one which corresponds with the highest value of parameter C2 which is what causes the decision for. [Italian original stops unexpectedly mid-sentence]. Along Sant’Angelo Park the reason why the person arrived here, it’s not for me to say, but in this moment something happened, the telephone which could have been abandoned in the field, in a bush in Sant’Angelo Park, is thrown down a steep bank along the road and it finished in a restricted area that is the garden. At about 22:00 when in November it is completely dark, the garden cannot be distinguished as a place in its own right, it appears just as a thicket, perhaps the biggest thicket of the steep bank which comes after via Andrea da Perugia. So probably the intent to get rid of the phone is executed through a toss which hoped to send it as far away as possible and which carried it into the trees without knowing that beyond those trees there was a garden. This is the conclusion I arrived at.
p131 questioning by defense lawyer Giulia Bongiorno
Q: But is the most likely hypothesis that the telephone had left?
A: 99 times out of a 100 the cell repeater 30064 would have been chosen as the repeater serving the points measured in Sant’Angelo Park, there exists a residual possibility in Meredith’s house that could be one, two or three per cent.
Q: It’s not possible to objectively say that the cell repeater 30064 is incompatible with via della Pergola, on the basis of these calculations which take into account the C2 factor, one can say that it is more likely that it was in Sant’Angelo Park, as a probability it’s about 99%?
A: Look the probability can be measured in these terms and what I can tell you is that at Sant’Angelo Park, the difference with the next nearest cell repeater is considerable, really considerable, so it would have used this repeater and wouldn’t have searched for another. This also because obviously I have taken into account the results of the measurements that were obtained by the Procura and this certainly permits me to exclude that the repeater 30064 was incompatible with via Sperandio, which emerged from the other side.
Q: Are there any other clarifications that you’d like to make now?
A: No.
p166-168 questioning by prosecutor Manuela Comodi
Q: Yes, but I have to connect to the Internet.
A: No, the terminal is connected, it’s always ready to connect, if the Context is not open it opens automatically when an MMS is received otherwise the MMS would never be received.
Q: But was the MMS found in the memory?
A: I wasn’t the one to carry out these tests, the Postal Police did it.
Q: Exactly, so taking for granted that the Postal Police did not alter the contents of Meredith’s cell phone…
A: But nothing is taken for granted, because there are 3 calls missing from the list… there are also 3 items missing of the 30 memorized last calls, nobody has doubted what they have done, then there is the log, so … we have another case, on the 2nd in the afternoon when Meredith was dead…
Q: Excuse me, so we don’t take anything for granted, because this is what interests me, we don’t take anything for granted and so it’s being suggested the Postal Police deleted the MMS, and then?
A: We continue to confuse the terminology, the fact that I don’t take anything for granted is because I don’t know…
Judge Massei: Excuse me, the fact?
A: That I can’t take for granted what had been done before, because I don’t know what the Postal Police did, this does not mean that I wish to claim that they made mistakes, it just means I can’t exclude it!
Q: On the other hand I can exclude it, so excluding the possibility that the Postal Police could have deleted some potential evidence…
Defense intervention: But who decided that?
Q: I exclude it!
Judge Massei: Let’s hypothesize that this is the case, what would the question be?
Q: Hypothesizing, because I take for granted that they did not delete evidence, the absence of the MMS, other than the intentional deletion by the Postal Police, what could have caused it?
Judge Massei: Given this hypothesis that the Prosecutor says didn’t happen…
A: I’m a technician and so I can respond also hypothetically: given this hypothesis what could have caused a situation where a user who had it in his hand deleted it before the telephone was taken as evidence.
Judge Massei: Before the telephone was taken?
A: before it was handed over as evidence.
Q: So it was deleted when thrown?
A: No no, let’s not confuse things, I’m responding hypothetically to the possibility that an MMS received is no longer found on the telephone, the simplest explanation is that it was deleted, I continually delete MMS advertisements.
Q: Well, certainly not the murderer then!
Judge Massei: However let’s avoid these…
A: I’m a technician, I can’t say more than this.
p171 questioning by prosecutor Manuela Comodi
Q: To me it is, we also examined the last few days, for example the 3rd October on 6 occasions Meredith’s telephone, especially when calling abroad connects the famous cell repeater 30064, the 4th October connects one, two, three, four times, the 5th October once, but of course one would have to see what is the overall traffic, no?
A: In particular one needs to see where Meredith was.
Judge Massei: In particular where?
A: Where Meredith was when she made these calls.
Q: Where she was. Well, where do you think she was?
A: I’m not able to know, the point is this: we have to compare apples to apples and pears to pears. I can compare against objective data, measure the values, I look at the values and seeing as they automatically place themselves on a scale, I respond that it would have chosen the one with the highest value. To go on and imagine from the communications Meredith did that day using cell repeater 30064 at a certain time and at that time she was at home rather than sitting in the arena of Sant’Angelo Park, I’m not in a position to say.
Q: So your alternative is that, either she was at home, or she was in the area of Sant’Angelo Park? Sant’Angelo or sant’Antonio?
A: Sant’Angelo. The alternative is simpler, the cell repeaters offer coverage to an area and to the extent that is possible in areas in the immediate vicinity, the possibility depends on the factors that we discussed earlier which I won’t repeat. So it couldn’t have been in an area that is absolutely not covered by cell repeater 30064. So with it established that there is a residual probability in via della Pergola I’ve already said that I cannot exclude via della Pergola, but there also isn’t this probability clearly shown in the reading of the logs which tells me yes, it was certainly in via della Pergola at that time. That is to say, without having information that tells me that at that time it was certainly there, at this point I could evaluate a compatibility between the fact that it was certainly there and it used that cell repeater where I have already said that in via della Pergola there is a marginal probability as much as we want, but there was, there is, while at Sant’Angelo park I would say it’s a significant probability, it’s the most significant probability, in the sense that in most cases, unless there is some specific reason, it would always use that one.
Q: Good, so all the times that Meredith’s telephone used cell repeater 30064 you maintain that it is more likely that Meredith was in the park rather than at home, correct?
A: She could also have been at Ponte Rio, should could have been in any area covered by that cell repeater.
Q: Also at home?
A: With a marginal probability she could also have been at home, but marginally, that is to say the probability of being at home could have been due to the nearest cell repeaters being busy and in order of priority that we have established it could have used that one.
). What she is saying is that, as it is highly unlikely the killer/thief would have deleted it, the inference must be that MK was still alive at 22.13 and deleted it herself. Why, if at all, is she wrong about that?
)