Continuation Part 10: Amanda Knox/Raffaele Sollecito

[Desert Fox]

Good question, Desert Fox. Suppose the scientific police in a search 47 days later had come up with items which showed Curatolo's fingerprints. Curatolo "lived" in the square across the road. It is reasonable that he could have entered the unmonitored cottage to find warmth or dry shelter during inclement weather or to pilfer. A blanket or canned food might have been welcome as winter set in. Curatolo's prints were presumably already on file since he had probably been arrested previously. How would the authorities know if he had trespassed after the crime or if he was there with Guede?

I do building security patrols and one of the buildings I patrol (a closed down trucking facility) has exactly that. Evidence of a person sleeping in the building.

 

[Bill Williams]

The trouble is that there is about a thousand possibilities of contamination and figuring out which one is impossible.

Curious, do you think the defense should present the Lukis Anderson case in Italian court?

It's too late to present things in an Italian court.

 

[lonepinealex]

Please ecplain where the contamination could possibly have come from. While Novelli's demand to explain where Meredith's DNA could have come from the DNA of Koko or another wouldn't be explained in the same way.

There is a picture by Barbie that many believe indicates the cottage was entered but there is no evidence that the cottage was burgled and most think that the police entered it without recording the entrance.

It doesn't matter who went in. The point is we don't know. If it was the police on an unrecorded visit, were they wearing protective clothing? Who cleared out the crime scene after the first investigation? Who moved the mattress? Who piled up all the clothes and mixed them with the bloody clothes? Were those people wearing protective gear?

We have no idea who went in and out of the cottage between the 2nd November and the 18th December and what they did there, or who they'd had contact with before they went. So while it would be weird and unlikely to find Kokomani's DNA in there, there are other ways it could get there if only found on the December visit. Therefore I personally would not consider it to be useful evidence.

Do you think that someone carried Rudi's DNA into the cottage and rubbed it on some of Meredith's stuff?

Nope, but context is everything with DNA isn't it? With all the clothing etc jumbled up between the two dates of investigation, Rudy's DNA could have transferred to items or areas of the cottage that are out of the context of the crime. How would that be useful evidence?

While LCN DNA is very easily transferred not so much with plain old DNA and if it was found in certain forms it would absolutely solid evidence.

The last remark would indicate no LCN DNA could ever be used. You would say that Koko would claim he had a beer at Le Chic and must have transferred DNA to the glass which Amanda picked up and brought home and put it on the towel which Meredith touched and then put on the clasp?

I think people here are overdoing the contamination angle. The residents of the house are different from people that had never been in the place and had Koko's DNA been found the first day the same theory of meeting a resident would apply.

Yes Koko or his lawyer could easily argue that, and probably make a good fist of a defence case from it, given the state of the cottage on the 18th Dec. Not so much on the 2nd November.

The police should have done it properly in the first place. Evidence is ruled inadmissible due to poor procedure in cases like these all the time - it's tough on the prosecution, but that's why they should be careful to get it right in the first place. Apart from anything else, it would be far too easy to plant evidence if judges allowed this sort of thing through routinely.

 

[Desert Fox]

It's too late to present things in an Italian court.

In many jurisdictions you can presently newly discovered evidence.
I would think that the ability of DNA transfer would be classified under this.

 

[Strozzi]

And you don't? As usual we have hyperbole as I didn't say "covered" with semen or blood.

Let's say that the bloody top recovered on the 18th had a small semen stain that matched Rudi, Raf or someone else why would the moving of the mattress or anything else contaminate in that way.

It is totally obvious that something of value could have been found on the 18th.

Yes I would believe that the PLE or ICSI could overlook big time evidence. As proof I give you the bra clasp and the bloody clothes.

Don't omit the police overlooking the smaller knife that made the stab wounds - you know, the one the perp discarded as he took the scenic route to where he dumped the victim's phones. The police never found it, and there is indication that they didn't look very hard or even at all for it once the police took Raffaele's large kitchen knife and closed the case on the morning of Nov 6.

 

[Desert Fox]

The police should have done it properly in the first place. Evidence is ruled inadmissible due to poor procedure in cases like these all the time - it's tough on the prosecution, but that's why they should be careful to get it right in the first place. Apart from anything else, it would be far too easy to plant evidence if judges allowed this sort of thing through routinely.

"People should not be afraid of the government, Government should be afraid of the people." - V

 

[Grinder]

Well Grinder, it depends on what you consider evidence. The footprint in fact does not match Raffaele, although that didn't stop the prosecution from arguing that it did. Curatolo, wasn't actually dependable. And if anything, he provides the couple with an alibi. The Knife of course was discredited. It doesn't match the wounds or the knife stain. Saying he pricked Meredith with the knife. That is more a sign of desperation than it is evidence. Turning off the phone is not evidence of anything.

Or how I thinking I would put it. . . .
"Just because you could hoodwink a jury with an item of evidence does not mean it is really evidence of guilt."

Edit: Usually I can at least understand where Grinder is coming from. I can in this case but consider him to be just chasing rabbit holes.

So you both consider the bra clasp as good evidence against Raf.

Df looks like you just found those rabbit holes you were looking for.

 

[Grinder]

It doesn't matter who went in. The point is we don't know. If it was the police on an unrecorded visit, were they wearing protective clothing? Who cleared out the crime scene after the first investigation? Who moved the mattress? Who piled up all the clothes and mixed them with the bloody clothes? Were those people wearing protective gear?

You don't know then how can you discuss this case?

We have no idea who went in and out of the cottage between the 2nd November and the 18th December and what they did there, or who they'd had contact with before they went. So while it would be weird and unlikely to find Kokomani's DNA in there, there are other ways it could get there if only found on the December visit. Therefore I personally would not consider it to be useful evidence.

Can you provide anything that indicates the cottage was entered by non-police? Since Koko left for Albania perhaps a bird flew in and dropped his DNA. Why would Dec. be different from Nov?

If someone's semen was found on the 18th on her clothing most every court in the world would admit it.

 

[Strozzi]

The phone intercepts of the Sollecito's call must have included their discussing the shoe ring discovery. The visit was planned in advance.

I know this from reporting at the time and discussions over the last 7 years.

When did the police or the family discover the shoe box at Rudi's. When did Rudi admit he ditched the shoes in Germany?

Anyway I'm not giving up Mariner time to find the cites and if you and yours wish to believe that they found out the shoes didn't match until the day before and then set up the visit feel free.

The police found Rudy's shoebox when they searched his place. It was described by brand, model, and size in their written search inventory. I can't date the police search of Rudy's flat but it had to be after Rudy's Skype call wherein he told his friend that he was at the house when Meredith was murdered and that Amanda wasn't present during the murder - which suggests the police search of Rudy's flat was done after they arrested Amanda on Nov 6 and the news of her arrest was headlines. I don't know if the police search occurred before Rudy was extradited back to Perugia from Germany.

Raffaele's lawyer had access to the police inventory of items they found when searching Rudy's flat, including the description of the shoebox's shoe specs. That is how Raffaele's family knew what kind of shoe to look for.

Raffaele's father, sister, and uncle looked in many stores to try to find the model owned by Rudy. From Raffaele's description of the search, it was an ongoing activity that took many days. The family discussed their search many times and since they were in different parts of Italy - Vanessa in Rome, Raffaele's father often in Perugia, and his uncle around their hometown of Barrie in southeast Italy, their many conversations were done by cell phones- which the police were monitoring. Raffaele's description of the search for the shoe does not provide the date a sample was located, but it appears to me that it was in later November given the other known time points.

Once the shoe sample was located, the family debated for many days whether to keep their discovery quiet or to announce it publicly. Vanessa and Raffaele's uncle wanted to withhold the information and present it later in court, but Raffaele's father wanted to put it out to counter the poisonous claims being made by police sources against Raffaele. The police would have picked up these conversations; the conversations were numerous.

The police and prosecution knew of the shoe discovery a long time before returning to the cottage for a belated search 47 days after the crime.

 

[Grinder]

Don't omit the police overlooking the smaller knife that made the stab wounds - you know, the one the perp discarded as he took the scenic route to where he dumped the victim's phones. The police never found it, and there is indication that they didn't look very hard or even at all for it once the police took Raffaele's large kitchen knife and closed the case on the morning of Nov 6.

You have no way to know the knife was discarded.

You don't know how hard they looked and how hard it would be to find something over that big of an area.

 

[Bill Williams]

You have no way to know the knife was discarded.

You mean other than it was never found?

 

[Desert Fox]

So you both consider the bra clasp as good evidence against Raf.

Df looks like you just found those rabbit holes you were looking for.

No, this is just called playing word games.

If someone's semen was found on the 18th on her clothing most every court in the world would admit it.

Why isn't semen found the date [well date after] of the murder valid evidence?
In a non Bizarro world, I would actually agree with you.

 

[Strozzi]

You have no way to know the knife was discarded.

You don't know how hard they looked and how hard it would be to find something over that big of an area.

Good points, Grinder. I have wondered from many of your recent posts if you have gone "soft" on us. You, more than anyone else, keep our conversation honest and accurate. That is very important. Recently, I noticed others commenting and wondered why nobody was challenging the accuracy of the purported facts. I figured you were off your game. You're back! Please keep us accurate.

Yes, I do not know if the knife was discarded. It is an assumption that it was; it is not an established fact. Maybe the killer discarded the cell phones but kept the knife. Or perhaps there were two killers who split up, went in different directions, and did different things with the phones and knife.

I do know that the police did not find the knife that was used to stab the victim - the knife that left the bloody imprint on the victim's bed sheet. Or maybe the police did find it but Mignini or Stefanoni dismissed it as not the real knife - you know, the one that Fazio picked out of Raffaele's kitchen drawer.

Frank S. wrote in his blog at the time (post arrest) that he asked a policeman at the house if they had searched the woods for the knife. The policeman replied the police already had the knife. That suggests that at that time (post arrest) the police were then not looking for a knife in the woods.

 

[JREF2010]

Good points, Grinder. I have wondered from many of your recent posts if you have gone "soft" on us. You, more than anyone else, keep our conversation honest and accurate. That is very important. Recently, I noticed others commenting and wondered why nobody was challenging the accuracy of the purported facts. I figured you were off your game. You're back! Please keep us accurate.

Yes, I do not know if the knife was discarded. It is an assumption that it was; it is not an established fact. Maybe the killer discarded the cell phones but kept the knife. Or perhaps there were two killers who split up, went in different directions, and did different things with the phones and knife.

I do know that the police did not find the knife that was used to stab the victim - the knife that left the bloody imprint on the victim's bed sheet. Or maybe the police did find it but Mignini or Stefanoni dismissed it as not the real knife - you know, the one that Fazio picked out of Raffaele's kitchen drawer.

Frank S. wrote in his blog at the time (post arrest) that he asked a policeman at the house if they had searched the woods for the knife. The policeman replied the police already had the knife. That suggests that at that time (post arrest) the police were then not looking for a knife in the woods.

Nothing can be excluded with a corrupt prosecutor/police group of slimebags.
I always felt the semen stain was tested and the data hidden. Why couldnt other things have been tested and data "erased" like hardrives, several of them.

It doesnt seem to be hard to believe, after understanding Stefoni's lies and corruption in her work, the Cherry picking peaks and not being transparent about anything...that it would be below her to dismiss evidence that didnt "fit" Migninnis twisted mind.

 

[Desert Fox]

Nothing can be excluded with a corrupt prosecutor/police group of slimebags.
I always felt the semen stain was tested and the data hidden. Why couldnt other things have been tested and data "erased" like hardrives, several of them.

It doesnt seem to be hard to believe, after understanding Stefoni's lies and corruption in her work, the Cherry picking peaks and not being transparent about anything...that it would be below her to dismiss evidence that didnt "fit" Migninnis twisted mind.

That is a question that Grinder needs to answer. . . . .Why go back to the crime scene to find more evidence when you have not tested the evidence you have?
It sure looks like they were looking for something.

 

[acbytesla]

So you both consider the bra clasp as good evidence against Raf.

Df looks like you just found those rabbit holes you were looking for.

I consider the 'bra clasp" as evidence. Just not good evidence.

 

[Strozzi]

You have no way to know the knife was discarded.

You don't know how hard they looked and how hard it would be to find something over that big of an area.

Does anyone know if the police used metal detectors and walked along, and off, the routes that Rudy - whoops, I mean the perpetrator whoever he may be - took from the cottage to Lana's garden? If they did not use a metal detector, one might wonder how serious they were to locate the murder weapon.

I was just with a friend, an electrical engineer, who develops sensors to locate metal objects in the ground. He showed me the prototype of a sensor he just developed on a (public/civilian) contract for the US Government that can penetrate pavement and the ground to 15' to 20' to locate small metal objects. It can be mounted on the bumper of a vehicle - even a very small wagon - and can be taken overland. It produces an electrical field to excite metal deep in the ground which it then senses.

 

[Dan O.]

Does anyone know if the police used metal detectors and walked along, and off, the routes that Rudy - whoops, I mean the perpetrator whoever he may be - took from the cottage to Lana's garden? If they did not use a metal detector, one might wonder how serious they were to locate the murder weapon.

Frank wrote that they used metal detectors to search around the cottage after one of the defense found a table knife in the bushes. But Frank insists that they didn't search the ravine which would be the logical place to ditch a murder weapon. A search of his blog would reveal when this happened.

 

[Desert Fox]

I consider the 'bra clasp" as evidence. Just not good evidence.

I can kind of agree with that. . . . It is an item which needs to be explained
Much of the other items Grinder brought up do not need to be explained and can just be dismissed.
The Bra clasp at least needs to be explained as low template DNA, highly probably to be contamination, ect.

 

[anglolawyer]

I can kind of agree with that. . . . It is an item which needs to be explained
Much of the other items Grinder brought up do not need to be explained and can just be dismissed.
The Bra clasp at least needs to be explained as low template DNA, highly probably to be contamination, ect.

Grinder himself said he was not claiming the other items were robust pieces of evidence. His sole point is that the bra clasp is not the only item of claimed evidence against Raffaele.

He also said that I said you could make a good case with lots of pieces of weak evidence. That is not what I intended to be understood as saying when I used David Gilroy as an example of a circumstantial case. Or rather, it is an over-simplification. The items of evidence in Gilroy's case are not weak or strong or anything else when viewed individually because viewing them individually is itself wrong (there is judicial authority for this in the common law world). It is always the totality of the evidence that counts.

Of course, these individual items still have to be proved. It had to be proved that it was Gilroy who bought the air freshener and not someone else. It had to be proved that his car journey took longer than it normally would etc The parallel in our case is that it still has to be proved that Curatolo saw them, that the footprint is Raf's etc etc In Gilroy's case, all the elements could be proved quite firmly. Not so with the the evidence against Raffaele.

Where things get complicated is that one weak piece of evidence (weak in the sense of a dubious identification or merely 'compatible' print) may corroborate another. As I have said before, systematising this stuff is difficult, but suppose there had been another witness in Piazza Grimana during the evening. Suppose this witness was a regular there and was a pretty reliable person. Suppose they proved Curatolo was there on the 1st as he said he was but that he was not there the night before. Now that would firm up Curatolo's evidence somewhat. No, we could be satisfied he really was there whereas before doubts on that point entitled us to reject his claim that he was.

Suppose, further, that our new witness also saw the couple Curatolo claims to have seen. He never saw their faces but he remembers the clothes the female was wearing and these clothes are similar to those Amanda was last seen wearing. Again, not a positive ID but evidence that firms up Curatolo's evidence (which in turn corroborates the evidence of the new witness).

The collection of evidence against Raffaele is weak in a special sense i.e. not because it is merely within one of Grinder's categories of weak circumstantial evidence (everything other than DNA, prints etc) but the individual items are themselves of doubtful interpretation and unsupported by anything else. Contrary to the ISC's osmotic claim, they do not assemble to form a coherent picture that tells us what happened. The picture is instead full of incongruity and even impossibility such as to require considerable interference with already weak evidence in order to make it work, Curatolo's being the best example. We have to let him only look up when Raf and Amanda happened to be in the square but not when they were missing. The fact we have to do this to the point of attracting ridicule suggests something is wrong and what's wrong is - they didn't do it.

ETA reading the judgment in Gilroy in which his appeal was rejected I saw another item of CE which had been used against him.

When examined, his car had 4 fractures to 3 suspension coils; it being unusual to find even one fracture in a suspension coil of a car subject to ordinary road use. The plastic under-tray had been scraped and vegetation was stuck to the underside. It had clearly been driven off road. The inference to be drawn from that, which the jury were asked to make, was that the deceased had disposed of the body somewhere off the road between Tyndrum and Inveraray.

That is 'weak' evidence per Grinder (because not DNA, fingerprints etc) but strong both in being very clearly proven and in the further sense of working well in combination with the rest of the case against him.