Continuation Part 10: Amanda Knox/Raffaele Sollecito

[codyjuneau]

Hi Planigale,
I've wondered about the cats blood story for years.
Finally saw the crime scene video from the downstairs apartment,
and I found it odd that only Stefano's bed was unmade, and had blood on it.
Like Meredith's bed too.

But none of the other guys and gals had blood on their beds
nor were the bedding removed or tossed into a heap.

I'm uploading a few pix which show Stefano's bed, and what is supposed to be cats blood on it.
The drops are like what we see on the stairway down to the apartment,
but what about the blood stains seen in the 3rd photo?

They sure look different than what I'd think a cat would leave.
Thoughts anyone?

[qimg]http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/picture.php?albumid=480&pictureid=9188[/qimg]

[qimg]http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/picture.php?albumid=480&pictureid=9190[/qimg]

[qimg]http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/picture.php?albumid=480&pictureid=9189[/qimg]


The blood on the 2 creases, pictured above, bothers me,
what, did the cat rub up against the crease?

What about the lower stain,
heck it almost looks like part of a knife imprint from the blade...

.
Was Rudy or someone else trying to frame Meredith's boyfriend for Rudy's murder by putting Meredith's blood on her boyfriend's bed and linens? It could have worked had her boyfriend not had an airtight alibi for that night.

The important question is whether or not it is Meredith's blood, and if so, why the police claim otherwise?

Cody
.

 

[Diocletus]

Italy is a signatory of the European Court of Human Rights and is bound to accept the ruling of the ECHR. That being said the type root and branch changes being discussed here would require an Italian government elected by its people to make such changes. Interestingly, there is talk of centre right European political parties seeking the reform of ECHR or in some cases withdrawing from it all together, after all America isn’t a signatory of any international judicial body or court.

Hm. So the UK is going to withdraw from the ECHR because the US isn't a signatory to any international tribunal? That's weird. Anyway, I like to think of the Constitution as an international pact where a bunch of sovereign states agreed to join up. Think of Italy as New Jersey.

 

[acbytesla]

Well, having googled Antonelli's name and having come up with a Daily mail article I also read about an impression of "extraordinary self-confidence and steadfastness", of someone who was not vain, who wrote to Sollecito that "her accusers just cannot look at themselves properly and see that they are wrong. ", and that she gave Antonelli presents. True, I also read that: "even when she was released, she didn’t say goodbye to a single person in the prison,’ In Antonelli's opinion " she showed no compassion or sensitivity to others. She just walked out. "
This bit seems a bit different to the New York Post's account as posted above:

"Just hours after Amanda Knox was acquitted of murdering her British roommate, her fellow inmates reportedly gave her a loud hero’s welcome upon returning to the prison where she’d spent the last four years of her life...
“All the prisoners, 500 or 600 of them, started to greet Amanda from the windows, like soccer stardom...It’s difficult to describe the happiness of them seeing Amanda and greeting her and seeing her free now — yelling, ‘Oh, wow, ciao Amanda!’ It was really, really incredible emotion.”

(Corrado Maria) Daclon said Knox walked back into the prison, where inmates crammed into each small window, cheering and waving clothing in the air like flags.

“All the prison was greeting her like a champion,” he said.

An elated Knox returned the greeting.

“She was moved and jumped two times to greet them. She was so touched, you can’t imagine,” Daclon said.

He added Knox was a “model prisoner.”
​

Your evaluation of the evidence seems a bit Nenciniesque if you don't mind me saying so.

I find it interesting to read the Daily Mail article if only to see what Antonelli saw as maybe Amanda being anti-social, could also be read as Amanda being cautious, and reasonably paranoid. Consider that not only was Amanda in prison for something she did not do, her letters were stolen by the authorities and found their way into the tabloids, she was told that she was HIV positive so the police could get her to list her sexual partners which was also leaked to the press. Amanda did not know who to trust so she trusted herself and her books.

But obviously Amanda was well liked in the prison given the outpouring of joy upon her release. I'm not sure that Antonelli deliberately made up stuff or if she was cherry picking or if she really did not know Amanda well.

The one thing I do know however is that Antonelli is ethically challenged. That she betrayed the trust of her charges for 30 pieces of silver.

 

[RWVBWL]

.
Was Rudy or someone else trying to frame Meredith's boyfriend for Rudy's murder by putting Meredith's blood on her boyfriend's bed and linens? It could have worked had her boyfriend not had an airtight alibi for that night.

The important question is whether or not it is Meredith's blood, and if so, why the police claim otherwise?
Cody
.

Hi CodyJuneau,
Excellent point!

But keep in mind that it was Stefano's bed,
not Giacomo's -(who was Meredith's boyfriend) bed.
But maybe the person picked the wrong room to try and frame Giacomo?
Your theory has possibilities.

Look, we know that cat -(supposedly) was dripping blood drops on the outside downstairs stairway.
(I thought it cute that the cat liked walking down the stairs, kinda like people do.)
There is a blood drop near a downstairs window too.

There are blood drops on Stefano's bed also.

But this photo below shows something besides a blood drop.

There are straight lines of blood, not circles, on the bedspread crease in 2 spots
and another 2 lines, seen right below the date + timestamp, show what could be blood from a knife blade.
It would be really interesting to compare the width of this stain to the bloody knife imprint on Meredith's bed sheet.

We also know that blood was found on the light switch, a strange place for a cat to leave it's blood.
It's possible your theory has some truth to it.
RW

 

[RWVBWL]

Hi ya'all,
If anyone wants to try and help me figure out more about the cats(?)blood scenario,
download the 2nd Crimescene video that Methos earlier linked:

Nov 3, 2007 pt.2: 22.44 min

Watch around the 18:13:28 time stamp mark.

I'm curious to see if the blood drops stop when the cat reaches the window,
or do drops also appear on the inside near this same window and if so, do they then form a distinct trail leading to Stefano's bed. They should, the cat was dripping blood.
Or was Rudy or someone else?
Thanks, RW


PS - If you do watch the video,
note that everyones bed is made, except for the one with blood on it.
Just like upstairs where the girls lived...

 

[RWVBWL]

PS - Here are the links that Methos posted in August of many more of the CrimeScene video's:

Not for all the videos that are available
Nov 2, 2007: 19.44 min

Nov 3, 2007 pt.1: 20.14 min

Nov 3, 2007 pt.2: 22.44 min

Nov 16, 2007: 52.00 min

Dec 18, 2007 pt.1: 54.12 min

Dec 18, 2007 pt.2: 118.22 min

 

[lonepinealex]

Those straight lines of blood look to me like the fabric was scrunched or folded up when the blood got on it, then has been unfolded before being photographed - leaving straight lines where the creases were. Which wouldn't surprise me at all, given what we've seen the police do in the other crime scene footage.

 

[Methos]

Feinstein again, really ???

I find it interesting to read the Daily Mail article if only to see what Antonelli saw as maybe Amanda being anti-social, could also be read as Amanda being cautious, and reasonably paranoid. Consider that not only was Amanda in prison for something she did not do, her letters were stolen by the authorities and found their way into the tabloids, she was told that she was HIV positive so the police could get her to list her sexual partners which was also leaked to the press. Amanda did not know who to trust so she trusted herself and her books.

But obviously Amanda was well liked in the prison given the outpouring of joy upon her release. I'm not sure that Antonelli deliberately made up stuff or if she was cherry picking or if she really did not know Amanda well.

The one thing I do know however is that Antonelli is ethically challenged. That she betrayed the trust of her charges for 30 pieces of silver.

Just for the record:
the Antonelli thing started here: http://www.sharonfeinstein.co.uk/main/interviews/Amanda_Knox.php
Quite a war in the comments of Feinstein's blog back then...
http://www.sharonfeinstein.co.uk/blog/sharonspeak-856/

ETA: Looks like Ms Feinstein isn't a stranger to making things up: http://www.theguardian.com/media/2012/feb/08/hugh-grant-leveson-daily-mail

The Mail says a freelance, Sharon Feinstein, got a story purportedly emanating from Khan herself, that Grant had been having an affair with a "plummy-voiced woman" who called him on the phone. Khan says she was completely unaware of Feinstein until the story was published.

 

[RWVBWL]

Those straight lines of blood look to me like the fabric was scrunched or folded up when the blood got on it, then has been unfolded before being photographed - leaving straight lines where the creases were. Which wouldn't surprise me at all, given what we've seen the police do in the other crime scene footage.

Hi Lonepinealex,
Interesting observation.
But I wonder why the blood is splattered also, but only on the left side on those 2 creases?

Wouldn't it have soaked thru a larger area?

I was thinking about the lower 2 lines abit. What could they be from?
Someone with blood on their belt?


I watched that Crimescene video again.
There is blood near an open window with bars on it.
It looks like the cat came in thru the bathroom window, right?
A lotta blood there on the bathroom floor underneath the window bars, but it seems to stop there.
Then there is blood drops on Stefano's bed.
But those lines on the bedspread and the splatter pattern bother me,
maybe I'm watching the Dexter series of Showtimes DVD's too much...

Still,
keeping an open mind, it's odd to see probably clean clothing lying on the ground near the chair in front of the tv, did someone knock them off the drying clothes line? That chair too bothers me, it has it's seat cover up-ended, and the casing removed. It almost looks like someone coulda been searching for something? And there's more of them blood drops again. Weird.

Diocletus,
back in summer a few months ago, was digging into this, he posted some interesting ideas:

I believe that the dripping blood going down the outside stairs is watered-down blood of Meredith Kercher, dripping off of a wet item of clothing.

I am not certain whether the person who was dripping the blood (let's call him "Rudy") went inside. It does look like a cat could have gone through the window. On the other hand, there are some things about the inside blood that look wrong: it's on a lightswitch; the bloody bedding looks like it was pressed down by someone sitting on it; the splatters on the floor look too large/sporadic to be coming from a cat.

On the issue of Stefanoni suppressing evidence, I believe that the answer is "yes." First of all, given her frequent inaccuracies/lies, I disbelieve anything said by her or written in her reports unless it is backed by contemporaneous documentation, or is a statement against the prosecution's interests. There is nothing whatsoever to back up her reference to the blood as "cat" blood, so I disregard it. She has clearly suppressed egrams that she ran on some of these samples, so there is evidence of suppression right there.

 

[CoulsdonUK]

Criticizing the government in the US is not only considered a right but a RESPONSIBILITY. Americans see criticism as a requirement for good government Without that feedback governments are unlikely to be responsive.

Interesting, what are we to make of the fact that 17 of 51 US states do not record police interviews\interrogations then?

Not sure you do understand my position. . . .I want you to protest.

Texas deserves all the scorn they can get.

Apologies, my bad.

Hm. So the UK is going to withdraw from the ECHR because the US isn't a signatory to any international tribunal? That's weird. Anyway, I like to think of the Constitution as an international pact where a bunch of sovereign states agreed to join up. Think of Italy as New Jersey.

No; I said that some centre right political parties are considering reforming ECHR or in some cases such as the UK Independence Party want to withdraw from the European Union as well as ECHR.

What I was asking was whether it would concern you if police in the UK extracted a 'confession', but couldn't provide the recordings - even though as a serious crime, they had a duty to record the interrogation?

I repeat, in the UK police interviews\interrogations regarding serious crimes are recorded.

 

[Chris_Halkides]

the pen is mightier

Interesting, what are we to make of the fact that 17 of 51 US states do not record police interviews\interrogations then?

CoulsdonUK,

It means that you should be writing to the ones that do not. I mean this only half-jokingly. This would be a wonderful reform.

 

[Diocletus]

No; I said that some centre right political parties are considering reforming ECHR or in some cases such as the UK Independence Party want to withdraw from the European Union as well as ECHR.

That's cool. Italy is going back to the Lira, too. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/economics/11159649/The-great-Lira-revolt-has-begun-in-Italy.html

I can't wait, because it sounds so much cooler when houses cost 1,000,000,000 monetary units.

 

[NancyS]

I repeat, in the UK police interviews\interrogations regarding serious crimes are recorded.

And the point is - what would be your opinion of UK police who failed in their duty to do this? Am I really not making myself clear, or are you you just possibly Michael Howard?

 

[toto]

Just for the record:
the Antonelli thing started here: http://www.sharonfeinstein.co.uk/main/interviews/Amanda_Knox.php
Quite a war in the comments of Feinstein's blog back then...
http://www.sharonfeinstein.co.uk/blog/sharonspeak-856/

ETA: Looks like Ms Feinstein isn't a stranger to making things up: http://www.theguardian.com/media/2012/feb/08/hugh-grant-leveson-daily-mail

This was interesting, Thanks for posting. I was particularly impressed by what Kaosium wrote on the blog. I am quite impressed that she made good use of her time, reading all those books.

 

[carbonjam72]

I find it interesting to read the Daily Mail article if only to see what Antonelli saw as maybe Amanda being anti-social, could also be read as Amanda being cautious, and reasonably paranoid. Consider that not only was Amanda in prison for something she did not do, her letters were stolen by the authorities and found their way into the tabloids, she was told that she was HIV positive so the police could get her to list her sexual partners which was also leaked to the press. Amanda did not know who to trust so she trusted herself and her books.

But obviously Amanda was well liked in the prison given the outpouring of joy upon her release. I'm not sure that Antonelli deliberately made up stuff or if she was cherry picking or if she really did not know Amanda well.
The one thing I do know however is that Antonelli is ethically challenged. That she betrayed the trust of her charges for 30 pieces of silver.

It's also worth mentioning that the Daily Mail has a record of simply fabricating articles out of whole cloth. Reporting events that never occurred, and fabricating quotes.

So what Ms Antonelli said or didn't say, or made up is only part of the problem.

And why would Amanda feel obligated to "say goodbye" to someone who openly says she thinks Amanda is guilty, and wanted her to spend decades in prison for a crime any rational person would know Amanda nor anyone one else committed, except Rudy Guede.

That prison guard is a piece of work. Whatever money she got paid, should be clawed back through legal action. It's unconscionable she made one cent off of a miscarriage of justice, or even for that matter, from an actual criminal.

It's sickening watching people continue to attack Amanda's character. It shows a lack if integrity, if you ask me, or even if you don't ask. It shows a lack of personal integrity.

 

[LondonJohn]

LondonJohn,

This is an informative posting. I believe one must allow some additional time for the start of gastric emptying due to the fat content of the meal compared to the typical test meal. But I think the argument that 9:30 pm is the most likely time of death, and anything after 10:00 pm is impossible, is sound.

Funnily enough, if one were to chose a sample meal with reasonably balanced food group contributions, one might very well choose a pizza with various vegetable toppings, a small amount of meat protein (pepperoni?) and not tooooo much cheese.

All the evidence suggests that Kercher didn't eat very much pizza or apple crumble, and again that's entirely consistent with what was found entirely in her stomach. So again, I think it's very scientifically reasonable to say that the known experimental data can be used as a good benchmark in our case. I would however agree that one should perhaps build in a leeway of up to 20% with regard to the experimental data, in order to recognise that we are not dealing with precise experimental conditions here. But even with that consideration, 10pm is the absolute upper limit.

As I've said many times before, I think the defence teams dropped the ball on this issue (as, in my view, they did with quite a few important issues). Here, they should have used an Italian gastro expert in the Massei trial to testify that death could not possibly have taken place later than 10pm, and that in fact it almost certainly took place soon after 9pm. After all, the defence teams already knew about the earwitnesses, plus the 10pm/10.15pm phone activity, plus the Sollecito computer activity records - even though they didn't yet know the prosecution were going to spring a last-minute shift back of the ToD to 11.30pm+. It was important in the Massei trial to show that a) the earwitnesses had to be either wrong or irrelevant, b) the 10pm and 10.15pm activity on Kercher's phone had to have been the work of the killer, and c) the ToD window made it even more unlikely that Knox and/or Sollecito could possibly have made it over from Sollecito's apartment, then teamed up with Guede and participated jointly in this murder.

 

[carbonjam72]

Hi CodyJuneau,
Excellent point!

But keep in mind that it was Stefano's bed,
not Giacomo's -(who was Meredith's boyfriend) bed.
But maybe the person picked the wrong room to try and frame Giacomo?
Your theory has possibilities.

Look, we know that cat -(supposedly) was dripping blood drops on the outside downstairs stairway.
(I thought it cute that the cat liked walking down the stairs, kinda like people do.)
There is a blood drop near a downstairs window too.

There are blood drops on Stefano's bed also.

But this photo below shows something besides a blood drop.
[qimg]http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/picture.php?albumid=480&pictureid=9189[/qimg]
There are straight lines of blood, not circles, on the bedspread crease in 2 spots
and another 2 lines, seen right below the date + timestamp, show what could be blood from a knife blade.
It would be really interesting to compare the width of this stain to the bloody knife imprint on Meredith's bed sheet.

We also know that blood was found on the light switch, a strange place for a cat to leave it's blood.
It's possible your theory has some truth to it.
RW

Seems like a really interesting question, so I fished out a few photos from Injustice in Perugia for comparison. (could only get one to load, but its intriguing. There's physical measurements of the knife impression on the bed sheet upstairs available, I wonder if a comparison of width/length or other characteristics would provide insight as to whether it could be the same knife. (Paging DANO).

 

[carbonjam72]

Funnily enough, if one were to chose a sample meal with reasonably balanced food group contributions, one might very well choose a pizza with various vegetable toppings, a small amount of meat protein (pepperoni?) and not tooooo much cheese.

All the evidence suggests that Kercher didn't eat very much pizza or apple crumble, and again that's entirely consistent with what was found entirely in her stomach. So again, I think it's very scientifically reasonable to say that the known experimental data can be used as a good benchmark in our case. I would however agree that one should perhaps build in a leeway of up to 20% with regard to the experimental data, in order to recognise that we are not dealing with precise experimental conditions here. But even with that consideration, 10pm is the absolute upper limit.

As I've said many times before, I think the defence teams dropped the ball on this issue (as, in my view, they did with quite a few important issues). Here, they should have used an Italian gastro expert in the Massei trial to testify that death could not possibly have taken place later than 10pm, and that in fact it almost certainly took place soon after 9pm. After all, the defence teams already knew about the earwitnesses, plus the 10pm/10.15pm phone activity, plus the Sollecito computer activity records - even though they didn't yet know the prosecution were going to spring a last-minute shift back of the ToD to 11.30pm+. It was important in the Massei trial to show that a) the earwitnesses had to be either wrong or irrelevant, b) the 10pm and 10.15pm activity on Kercher's phone had to have been the work of the killer, and c) the ToD window made it even more unlikely that Knox and/or Sollecito could possibly have made it over from Sollecito's apartment, then teamed up with Guede and participated jointly in this murder.

Ws there ever any DNA or other forensic analysis performed on the phones? IS that information/results known? Seems like finding Rudy's DNA/prints on the phones would be a big help.

 

[Diocletus]

Seems like a really interesting question, so I fished out a few photos from Injustice in Perugia for comparison. (could only get one to load, but its intriguing. There's physical measurements of the knife impression on the bed sheet upstairs available, I wonder if a comparison of width/length or other characteristics would provide insight as to whether it could be the same knife. (Paging DANO).

[qimg]http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/imagehosting/thum_67903543f0005cded3.jpg[/qimg][qimg]http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/imagehosting/67903543f007007acd.jpg[/qimg]

Or, even if the measurements don't match, maybe it's the second knife!

 

[platonov]

Have they cracked it ?

You're correct in your contention.

Of course it's fair to say that digestion evidence is fraught with temporal precision issues, but in this specific case we are extremely fortunate inasmuch as events conspired to minimise the levels of imprecision to the point where this evidence has real value.

Why? Because 1) we know roughly (to within half an hour or so) when Kercher began her last meal; 2) we know with certainty when she was last seen alive; 3) we know with certainty that all of her last meal was entirely contained within her stomach at the time of her death; 4) we have sufficient experimental data on stomach emptying to enable us to reasonably apply the same algorithm to our situation.

And because of all of these things, we know with a high degree of certainty that Kercher must have died (or at the very least been mortally wounded) within three hours of the commencement of her last meal, since none of that meal had yet started to transit from her stomach*. And since we know that Kercher started her last meal at around 6.30pm, she must have died by around 9.30pm. And since we know for sure that Kercher was alive at 9pm, this therefore implies that she must have died between 9pm and around 9.30pm.

It might be just possible to push this backstop ToD out to 9.45pm or so, but no later. It's beyond all doubt impossible that ToD occurred later than 10pm, let alone the 11.30pm+ used by Massei. And why is this important? Well, of course it renders the "earwitness" evidence of Capezzali et al either unreliable or irrelevant, and casts further aspersions (not that any more are needed...) on Curatolo's testimony. It also indicates that the 10pm phone activity was the work of the killer(s), not that of Kercher. It also chimes with Guede's admitted timings, and with other evidence (washing machine, no call back to mother, etc). And it also makes it significantly less likely that Knox and/or Sollecito could/would have travelled from Sollecito's apartment in the narrow time window now available, hooked up with Guede, and committed the murder in concert.

* There appears to be some ongoing confusion about whether food matter could have been accidentally manipulated by the autopsy pathologist so as to give misleading results. It could not have been. The pyloric sphincter (between the stomach and the duodenum) is a very strong, tight circular muscle which, in its relaxed state, allows only a very small opening between the pylorus and the duodenum. Furthermore, the anatomy of the stomach and duodenum also dictates that food matter does not and cannot travel easily by accident from the stomach to the duodenum or vice versa. And onward from the duodenum, the small intestine is a c.5m fleshy tube that is not rigid, meaning that food matter would have to be actively manipulated (by squeezing etc) along the intestine for it to travel. Simply put, there is no practical way in which there might have been food matter within Kercher's duodenum (or jejunum) that was somehow accidentally moved by the pathologist either back into the stomach or right along to the end of the small intestine.

Finally a new argument. Phew !

Would you mind (awfully) outlining the whole gastric issue.

This could be the breakthrough the whole western world is waiting for.