Continuation Part 11: Amanda Knox/Raffaele Sollecito

[Samson]

Here is an argument by an intelligent guilter, as in he is articulate while being wrong, on the gastric evidence. I haven't time to really address it now, but essentially it confirms Meredith died at 9pm.

Quote:

Agreed. To put it another way:
(1) Almost all the gastric emptying studies were designed to study normal physiology under controlled conditions that deliberately eliminate the variables seen in the real world.

(2) Those same gastric studies that the Groupies cite to show that the TOD couldn't have been at 11:30 also show that it's unlikely that the TOD was after 9:00, but we know it was.

(3) It is generally agreed that the gastric contents were in an "advanced digestive state" (Massei, p. 119) making it unlikely there would not be digested food in the duodenum and beyond.

(4) Is is generally agreed that there was food at the ileocecal valve (Massei, p. 148) and obviously at some point that food came from the duodenum.

(5) Professor Ronchi, one of the three pathologists appointed by Micheli, opined that the bowel ligatures were not applied properly before "running the bowel" and this explained how there could be food in the stomach, no food in the duodenum, but food at the ileocecal junction. (see his testimony, also quoted in Massei)

(6) Sollecito, in his appeal, asserts that the autopsy video shows that the ligatures were indeed applied correctly but doesn't give a convincing explanation for the autopsy findings.

In conclusion, Professor Ronchi's theory is the only one that explains the evidence and if he is correct that there was slippage of the duodenal contents before or during the autopsy then there is no point in discussing the empty duodenum because any evidentiary value that it may have had was lost. End Quote.

 

[Chris_Halkides]

secondary and tertiary transfer of biological material in sexual assault cases

On p. 375 of the ninth edition of Criminalistics, Dr. Saferstein describes tertiary DNA transfer during sexual assault. DNA from a woman's consensual sexual partner was found on the underwear of a man accused of sexual assault. The source of information is Gary Verret Proceedings of the Canadian Society of Forensic Science, November 2001.

G. G. Verrett
48th Annual Meeting of the Canadian Society of Forensic Sciences: Sexual Assault Cases With No Primary Transfer of Biological Material From Suspect To Victim: Evidence of Secondary and Tertiary Transfer of Biological Material From Victim To Suspect's Undergarments.

(Also recorded in 35(1) Can. Soc'y Forensic Sci. J. (Mar. 2002)). Abstract: "The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate various sexual assault cases where AmpF/STR Profiler Plus TM DNA typing results obtained from inside a suspect's undergarments have shown a forensically significant association to a female complainant. Results demonstrate the value of secondary and higher order transfer of DNA from a complainant to the inside of a suspect's undergarments. In cases of sexual assault and in the absence of a forensically significant association involving spermatozoa originating from a suspect, undergarments seized from the suspect can provide valuable DNA typing results and a link to a complainant." link

 

[Machiavelli]

Questions such as why did Guede lock the bedroom and whether this is logical are foolish. People do not behave logically at the best of times let alone when under stress. the whole murder was illogical. To try and argue that because it was not logical for Guede to lock the bedroom door therefore he did not lock it is not proof of anything apart from the foolishness of the person who argues it.

This is not an acceptable approach, when applied to reality such as in evidence analysis. You cannot accept an illogical sequence of actions as it was something normal. It is not true that people do not follow logical patterns. They do commit foolish things, but the sequence of actions by an individual follows some logic, it is never a sequence of events disconnected from each other.
The important thing to understand is that the single questions "why did Guede lock a bedroom" are not to be assessed each one by one, they must be considered all together.
The FOAs are contending a very unlikely scenario, by a very unusual type of perpetrator. And they claim that very peculiar actions took place (like a second walk back in the corridoor, a washing, a second entry, a post-mortem rape, a second washing and so on) of which there is absolutely no evidence, or evidence of the contrary. They have quite a burden to prove something, at lest they should start by showing why their sequence is more logical than the alternatives.
The FOAs scenario is also utterly self-contradictory: think about the location in time of the stepping on the pillowcase for example, or the denial and assertion of a cleanup at the same time.
Also look at their lack of alternatives when trying explanations about innocent substances and dynamic for the luminol prints, and their failure to contest the bathmat print measurments.
Now, think that there would be a simple point when it comes to assess evidence: which one is more logical. How do you put together luminol footprints and shoeprints. Washed away shoeprint and bathmat print. Raping and killing. And so on. Do you think one should accept a minestone with all elements mixed together without any logical thread whatsoever, say this is good, and choose it over alternative explanations that include logic?

 

[Chris_Halkides]

off the cuff response on stomach contents

Sampson,

Briefly, there are two problems with the PG commenter's interpretation that I can see. One is that there is video evidence pertaining to the autopsy. Two is that "advanced state" is undefined and perhaps wrong. There were recognizable bits of food in the stomach.

 

[Dan O.]

This may be technically correct. However,
Let me imagine I have been accused of a murder I did not commit, a serious allegation that puts my life at risk. I will endeavour to escape this situation by any means. I am asked about my activities 4 nights ago. I always surf the internet when home, and I know I was home. I will expect to use the electronic records as an alibi. There was one night I did not use the internet, but I don't necessarily remember which one. Unfortunately that was the night of the murder. Of course you automatically will dismiss this argument with out further thought, but try to consider it, and that it might even be an accurate representation.

Machiavelli just claimed that he wanted to discuss these issues one at a time. Why is he now then reopening the subject of the computer alibi?

Before you start making excuses for Raffaele, first find what the evidence is. I believe the browsing statement comes from the November 5 interrogation:

from http://www.corriere.it/cronache/07_novembre_07/meredith_verbali_sarzanini.shtml
"I've known Amanda for two weeks. From the evening when I met her she started sleeping in my house. On November I woke up around 11, I had breakfast with Amanda and then she came out and I went back to bed. I reached his house at about 13-14. There was also Meredith came out hurriedly towards the 16 without saying where he went. Amanda and I went downtown at about 18 but can not remember what we did. We stayed in the center up to 20.30 or 21. I went alone to 21 are at home, while Amanda has said she was going to the pub Le Chic because she wanted to meet his friends. At this point we said goodbye. I went home, I smoked a joint, I had dinner, but I do not remember what I ate. Around 23 fixed on the user called me at home my father. I remember Amanda was not back yet. I navigated to the computer for another two hours after the call from my father and I stopped only when Amanda came back, presumably to the 1.​

What facts can we take from this interrogation? What we have was written up by the interrogators and as we have seen with Amanda's, it has more to do with what the investigators wanted to believe than it has to do with reality.

Raffaele says he had the dates confused durring that interview. Going in stoned didn't help. And the interrogators seeking to confirm the erroneous account in the Kate Mansey interview and Raffaile finding it is easier to go along and not fight the current explains the product of that interrogation we see.

Even with that, what does the interrogation say he was doing? "I navigated to the computer for another two hours". Form other sources we understand he browsing music and video files already downloaded on his computer. Nothing about the Internet is here.

As if that wasn't enough, what is the evidence that there was no Internet activity that night? The postal police trashed the hard drive of one of Raf's computers. They wern't exactly thourough analizint the remaining computer. And the ISP's logs of the browsing activity only covers the standard port 80 and ignores any encrypted connections such as one would create to access a webmail site or secure proxy.

 

[Machiavelli]

This may be technically correct. However,
Let me imagine I have been accused of a murder I did not commit, a serious allegation that puts my life at risk. I will endeavour to escape this situation by any means. I am asked about my activities 4 nights ago. I always surf the internet when home, and I know I was home. I will expect to use the electronic records as an alibi. There was one night I did not use the internet, but I don't necessarily remember which one. Unfortunately that was the night of the murder. Of course you automatically will dismiss this argument with out further thought, but try to consider it, and that it might even be an accurate representation.

Without getting too much into detail, let's just say: people can make mstakes. Defendants and witnesses can make mistakes. They may declare things they are not sure about, or have doubts. The English girls went to the police several times to testify, they went again on their own initiative, they did so also when they were back in England before the British police, to add further details and memories they thought they forgot to talk about or useful elements they thought they didn't clarify enough.
However, the judges job, and the job of a neutral observer as well, is not to bring up excuses for the defendant mistakes one after another. When one makes a mistake, has also a responsability to correct it and clarify it, as the English girls did. If Sollecito was not sure of his alibi, it's up to him to clarify this. Sollecito's alibi is proven false on multiple points, not just one, and a proven false alibi is a proven false alibi as a matter of fact. It is also inconsistent on multiple points and it is changing, and tends to incriminate Knox. Justifications and explanations are the defendant's job, not the judge's job. Sollecito said he had a computer alibi as well as other things. He may have his reasons to dismiss, rationalize out of self-suggestion or get memories wrong, or lie, but Sollecito also had the chance to present more convincing recollection of events and explanations, and then he declared that he was satisfied with what he had told to Matteini. Bear in mind that he was questioned for the first time on Nov. 2., not years later, and his testimony appeared immediately not credible.

 

[kwill]

Behold the falsehoods.

Knox had also contacts with older drug dealers and even had causal sex with some of them.

I also noted that in fact there the label of Knox as “honor student” in Seattle was not backed by evidence.

Amana Knox was also involved in another incident, a burglar-prank in which she staged a burglary and reportedly acted in disguise as a violent burglar/rapist

In fact, the truth is she wasn’t even in Perugia as a University student. . . . like a kind of sabbatical or a diversion from her ordinary university course. . . what she became there: a freshman student at a language school.

She drifted from the Bundestag to Perugia not because she was prioritizing the values of hard work, sacrifice, self-commitment, self-programming, but because she was prioritizing the values of fun, party, the excitement of the student life in Perugia renown for its drug-and-sex party style.

Well, it was 985 words and I just edited it down to the essential lies.

150 words, and all of it is false. No need to try so hard. A succinct lie will serve just as well as a verbose one, and people are more likely to read them.

 

[Bruce Fischer]

Behold the falsehoods.



Well, it was 985 words and I just edited it down to the essential lies.

150 words, and all of it is false. No need to try so hard. A succinct lie will serve just as well as a verbose one, and people are more likely to read them.

I just signed in for the first time since the new forum was created. I just wanted to catch up on the conversation here. Thanks for the outstanding editing work. It saved me some time.

 

[toto]

Let’s summarize it differently: someone else had attempted to make the argument that Knox could not hang around with Rudy Guede or attend people alike, nor have drug dealers as dates or company, nor would be likely to take part to drug fuelled sex parties, since she was “very different” from those kind of folks. She would not attend or belong to those environments and was far from those people’s lifestyles. Why? Because she was a “honor student”, a character committed to completely different life values and social values, someone who was there for other purposes and a completely different lifestyle. In other words because she was a totally different human being , who was living on completely different values. Different likes, purposes and lifestyle: should be seen different, because of what she was.

The pro-Knoxes expressed this point of their narrative by the words “honor student”.

I pointed out that, in reality, Guede and Knox in Perugia they knew each other, they attended the same bars, the very same places and companies, the same people, they shared the same friends there who were also her downstairs neighbours and they shared some nights together, and they both attended the same downstairs apartment. Knox had also contacts with older drug dealers and even had causal sex with some of them.

I also noted that in fact there the label of Knox as “honor student” in Seattle was not backed by evidence. Actually, a couple of episode of recent student’s life of Amanda Knox in Seattle would not be seen as consistent with a definition of “honor student”, at least as “honour” is understood by Europeans: her extra-curricular behaviour did not seem entirely honourable as she was recorded by the Seattle police organizing an alcohol-fuelled party which caused noise disturbance and dangerous rock throwing, and was described by the police officer as a “war scene” as well as “dangerous “ and “juvenile”. Amana Knox was also involved in another incident, a burglar-prank in which she staged a burglary and reportedly acted in disguise as a violent burglar/rapist causing an experience of shock and terror to her own flatmate.

The claims that Knox would never take part to strange pranks or violence-themed actions, nor to unsafe drug-fuelled parties, or that she would never attend drug users or shady individuals, all seem somehow unfounded.

The claim by the Knox supporters was that Amanda Knox was not in Perugia after fun or seeking exciting experience. No, she was there only after totally different values like sacrifice for career study and hard work. She had gone to Perugia only to study, prioritizing hard work, “honourable” value like study, self-commitment, programming, and not on a whim but as a necessity to perfection her study.

In fact, the truth is she wasn’t even in Perugia as a University student. She was enrolled at the University of Washington meanwhile, but it was not in Perugia after an idea or a program by the University of Washington, it’s not the University of Washington’s idea that she should go to Europe. She want to Europe on her own decision, in fact like a kind of sabbatical or a diversion from her ordinary university course: she left on her whim and on her initiative, on a self-made “program” that was anarchical and changing; at first she went in Germany, she asked her relatives to find her a job or an internship and her uncle – not the University of Washington - found her a prestigious internship at the Bundestag. Note: it was not the University who sent her there, it was thanks to her honor student curriculum, it was thanks to her uncle’s program and connections.

But she left the job after only one day of work, with her uncle’s bafflement. In her myspace page she describes, with “LOLs”, how her “acted” with her uncle, hoe with her “crying” and “freaking out” she was able to manipulate her uncle’s feelings so that he would comply with her new plans. It was only then that she decided she would move to Perugia and enrol at the University for Foreigneers.

The University for Foreigneers was not part of her study plan as she had enrolled at the University of Washington. In fact, the University of Foreigneers of Perugia is normally considered a prestigious language school, not a university. There are also a few bachelor university courses there, but really few of them and their quality is not at the top; its activity is that of a language school. In fact Knox there enrolled at a language school course. That was what she became there: a freshman student at a language school.

She had literally drifted from the Bundestag to Perugia following her whim. The Bundestag was not fun and was not exciting. She chose Perugia herself, it was not a University nor an uncle’s idea. She chose Perugia not because of a necessity of the study and career program of the University of Washington, but because she saw opportunity for fun and exciting experiences. She drifted from the Bundestag to Perugia not because she was prioritizing the values of hard work, sacrifice, self-commitment, self-programming, but because she was prioritizing the values of fun, party, the excitement of the student life in Perugia renown for its drug-and-sex party style.

As I pointed out that Knox was in Perugia not because of her “honor-student”-like values but because he was pursuing other existential values, the pro-Knox supporters went mad. In fact it was Raffaele Sollecito who wrote about her “she is only interested in pleasure”, while “she lives in her own world” and “she has almost no contact with reality”.

All this has nothing to directly with Knox's being guilty or innocent. It has to do though with the thinking of the pro-Knox supporters, with the arguments they attempt to bring out and with the picture they try to portray of Knox's charachter.

Have you got any testimony from any of Amanda's Italian or American teachers and lecturers that she was a lazy student? I got the impression that while in prison she used her time quite productively.

 

[LondonJohn]

Here is an argument by an intelligent guilter, as in he is articulate while being wrong, on the gastric evidence. I haven't time to really address it now, but essentially it confirms Meredith died at 9pm.

Quote:

Agreed. To put it another way:
(1) Almost all the gastric emptying studies were designed to study normal physiology under controlled conditions that deliberately eliminate the variables seen in the real world.

(2) Those same gastric studies that the Groupies cite to show that the TOD couldn't have been at 11:30 also show that it's unlikely that the TOD was after 9:00, but we know it was.

(3) It is generally agreed that the gastric contents were in an "advanced digestive state" (Massei, p. 119) making it unlikely there would not be digested food in the duodenum and beyond.

(4) Is is generally agreed that there was food at the ileocecal valve (Massei, p. 148) and obviously at some point that food came from the duodenum.

(5) Professor Ronchi, one of the three pathologists appointed by Micheli, opined that the bowel ligatures were not applied properly before "running the bowel" and this explained how there could be food in the stomach, no food in the duodenum, but food at the ileocecal junction. (see his testimony, also quoted in Massei)

(6) Sollecito, in his appeal, asserts that the autopsy video shows that the ligatures were indeed applied correctly but doesn't give a convincing explanation for the autopsy findings.

In conclusion, Professor Ronchi's theory is the only one that explains the evidence and if he is correct that there was slippage of the duodenal contents before or during the autopsy then there is no point in discussing the empty duodenum because any evidentiary value that it may have had was lost. End Quote.

In addition to the two points made by Chris in his response to this post, I'd add another major one. It speaks to the lack of proper knowledge of human gastrointestinal anatomy and operation on the part of the person making this "argument":

There was indeed some food matter found at the very end of the small intestine, at the ileocaecal junction (i.e. where the small intestine becomes the large intestine). It is of course true to say that this food matter would have passed through the duodenum on its way to the position in which it was found.

BUT....... the spot where it was found is some SIX METRES (around 20 feet) along the small intestine. That's how long the adult human small intestine is! It would be functionally impossible either a) for that food matter to have been accidentally manipulated or "slid" along that distance, or b) for that food matter to have been anything to do with Kercher's last meal.

In a typical adult, food takes from four to six hours to transit the small intestine (in addition to time spent in the stomach of course). It's therefore a near certainty that this food matter was related to a snack consumed by Kercher at home some time in the early-mid afternoon, before she left for her friends' house.

And as pointed out above, it's fallacious to think that the autopsy pathologist might possibly have accidentally manipulated any food matter along that whole length of intestine, and nor is it possible for the food matter to have "slid" down that length. The small intestine is an elastic tube that is highly constricted in its resting state (not dissimilar to a long deflated balloon. It would take real, concerted effort to manipulate food along any section of the small intestine. That didn't happen.

It's really very simple. Kercher's last meal was demonstrably still entirely within her stomach at the time of death, and the small amount of food matter at the end of her small intestine was associated with a different meal consumed much earlier in the afternoon. And owing to the happy accident that Kercher happened to have a stomach t(lag) time at the upper end of the limit, coupled with firm knowledge of the last time she was provably alive, means that we can without doubt place Kercher's time of death at some time between 9pm and 10pm, with a very high degree of probability that it was between 9pm and 9.30pm.

And that fact that a ToD prior to 9.30pm also fits with all the other evidence (failure to re-phone mother, still wearing outer clothes, failure to take damp washing out of washing machine, no texts sent, no evidence of reading uni text book, Guede's specific mentioning of the scream at "9.20-9.30ish" (very probably because he feared that somebody outside the cottage might have heard this scream)) only serves to bolster its credibility.

It's also perhaps worth noting that the stomach/intestines evidence was (and still is) immensely important in totally refuting Massei's court's theory of the crime, and it also puts a massive hole in the prosecution case. Remember that Massei ruled that Kercher must have been killed some time later than 11.30pm, since this allowed the earwitness testimony and Curatolo's account of timings to be ruled reliable and valid, and since it allowed Massei to construct a "sex game gone wrong" escalation of violence.

There is NO SCIENTIFIC WAY in which the stomach/duodenum evidence is consistent with a ToD later than 11.30pm. That's why it was such a high-profile debating point just after the Massei verdict. And while it's true that there's an intrinsic element of imprecision in stomach/intestinal evidence, we can state with total certainty in this particular instance that death must have occurred before 10pm, and almost certainly before 9.30pm. This is still very important, since it renders the earwitness testimony irrelevant and inadmissible, and raises (yet another) huge red flag over Curatolo's testimony. It also of course means that it's very hard indeed to construct a plausible narrative whereby Knox and Sollecito, having had provable computer interaction in Sollecito's apartment at 9.26pm, decide for some reason to rush over to the cottage, either hooking up with Guede (with whom they have had no phone contact) on the way, or meeting him there (but why?), then having an escalating argument with Kercher that culminates in a group attack and murder.

This murder was carried out by just one person, Guede, acting alone.

 

[Machiavelli]

You refer to Spezi being involved in "side-trackings" with respect to the Monster of Florence crimes. By Spezi's "side-trackings", are you referring to Spezi's insistence that the 'satanic sect' theories leading to the convictions of Pacciani, Vanni and Lotti were false, and his pursuit of the "Sardinian Trail" lone killer theory, leading to Antonio Vinci as the true monster of Florence?

No. If we talk about the side-trackings he did about the MoF case, besides the malicious falsehoods he wrote in his books, I am referring, now most specificall,y to three actions. He also was involved in other things but now I was thinking of those ones leading to the Antonio Vinci calunnia events.
The first, was a true "disinformation" operation by which Spezi, with the help of a television journalist his friend from the national network Rai (on a regional Umbria channel) gav a false account about discoveries related to the Narducci case. This was probably not a crime, but it must be noted that Spezi disseminated information that he knew was false, I mean it was not a mistake, therefore it was a serious ethical breach as a journalist.
The second action was basically masterminding an action committed by Alfredo Brizioli, that consisted in duping his client, specifically tricking the the wife of a deceased person into hiring him as a lawyer pro-bono so that he could manipulate the case to the purpose of interferring with the Narducci investigation (and betraying the interest of the client). This is a serious ethical charge and a serious criminal attempt.
Third, there was the Villa Bibbiani attempt, which consists in luring the police to the discovering of false evidence through submitting a false witness report, he planned this operation together with former police officer Zaccaria, and for the purpose of collecting the needed intelligence information they hired mobster Luigi Ruocco. Zaccaria and Spezi were arrested on the place. Villa Bibbiani, where they were trying to have the police "find objects" related to the MoF case, and Spezi manufactured a false document to have the police believe a narrative which would connect Villa Bbbiani with Antonio Vinci. For this job, he partly relied on some false intelligence information Luigi Ruocco provided to him in exchange of money (since Ruocco was not exactly a reliable agent).
But in general, Spezi spew lies as his main activity about the MoF case. The interesting fact is that there is evidence he doesn't believe anything of his theories, and also perfectly knows that his reports are false, he uses bits of reality to draw narratives that are only propaganda ploys to push public opinion, in attempts to discredit this or that investigation and muddy waters (like he did about Gabriella Carlizzi).

Is that the issue of side-trackings: Spezi believed the Sardinian Trail, and the authorities formally closed that line of inquiry, and pursued only the satanic sect theory?

The s.c. "Pacciani-Vanni track" (which you call satanic track) and the "Sardinian track" are not entirely separate tracks. They have an ancient connection, since there are some early perpetrators from an old crime who were actually connected with the Pacciani-Vanni gang. Those people after all belonged to the same environment of local criminals and were connected.
But there is nothing besides this connection from the early times, nothing except the fact that the person was a Sardinian and therefore also had a connection with other Sardinian people in the area. No "Sardinian track" in fact actually exists, this is a fictional term a fantasy connection that Spezi started to talk about to draw attention from the Sardinian Mr. Vinci (who was a Sardinian and actually involved by a false testimony) away from the real perpetrators.

But in fact Mario Spezi himself believed that no Sardinian was involved at all, he used to express opinions against any "Sardinian track", until the day when, in the late eighties, the police started to become interested in Pietro Pacciani. At that point Spezi became a believer of a full scale "Sardinian track".

Now, you may need to understand a little of the context of what "Sardinian track" would mean when referred to the Seventies, the time when this idea was devised and rumored for the first time and Spezi did not appear happy at all about it.

In the Seventies the Carabinieri (military police) used to keep lists of Sardinians residents in each ‘comune’ of the mainland. This because there used to be teams of Carabinieri working as a surveillance agency on some 'ethnic groups' and immigrant populations of natives from certain Italian Regions living in country areas in some other Italian Region.

Sardinians living in central or northern regions such as Tuscany were a peculiar target, and were on top of the list of concerns.
This is because at the time there were organizations in Sardinia that would operate kidnappings on a large scale (“Anonima Sequestri”). In that climate Sardinians in Tuscany were a population under observation, they were tracked as potential bandits, to make a comparison (not entirely fit but gives an idea) they were listed by the military police like Irish Republican in Londonderry.

The “Sardinian track” was in fact easily spread since it is an openly ethnical, 'racist' track, its spread persiosted as a rumour linked to a prejudice. That was like targeting a group that, at that time, was already seen as ethnically ‘suspicious’ and related to violent actions, or suspected of being a backward and tribal society split between families feuds and with the habit of ‘covering up’ crimes.

The ‘evidence’ against a bound of ‘Sardinian perpetrators’ was pushed by Mario Spezi only later, but in reminder of such a climate of prejudice, at the time an innocent person - Mr. Vinci - was accused; he was convicted based on a testimony which later was found out to be false. Spezi was against the Sardinian track for some time, but then, when a true 'track' made of true connections started to emerge, he became favourable.

Bear in mind that I am not an expert of the MoF case. But I know enough about it to spot the existence of the egregious side-trackings and enough to feel stunned about how incredibly a lying liar Spezi is.

I also responded in an earlier post about Carlizzi and Mognini, but you may have gotten to it by now -

I think I missed it.

 

[Machiavelli]

Have you got any testimony from any of Amanda's Italian or American teachers and lecturers that she was a lazy student? I got the impression that while in prison she used her time quite productively.

I never said she was a 'lazy student' or that she was improductive.
But she was a bohemién, an anarchical self-ruled learner. She went after pleasure, betraying commitments, not after utility.

 

[Bill Williams]

<.................... yada yada yada ................>

As I pointed out that Knox was in Perugia not because of her “honor-student”-like values but because he was pursuing other existential values, the pro-Knox supporters went mad. In fact it was Raffaele Sollecito who wrote about her “she is only interested in pleasure”, while “she lives in her own world” and “she has almost no contact with reality”.

All this has nothing to directly with Knox's being guilty or innocent. It has to do though with the thinking of the pro-Knox supporters, with the arguments they attempt to bring out and with the picture they try to portray of Knox's charachter.

This is one long strawman argument, Machiavelli. What does "the thinking of Pro-knox supporters" have to do with anything?

Why don't you just read Judge Massei's report if you want to know the "judicial fact" about who Amanda Knox is? Judge Massei gave a description of Knox's personality which conforms with what you say is the FOA view of her. Judge Massei found her (and Raffaele) guilty because of an inexplicable "choice for evil", which was his way of trying to explain why such a normal person would (for him) engage in murder.

That was it. A choice for evil. Nothing to do with the noise ticket in Seattle, nothing to do with associations with Rudy Guede.... which you are fixated upon.

Oh hell. I thought for a minute I was going to save myself the time in reposting what Massei himself wrote, which is 180 degrees at odds with you own assessment of Knox and her supporters, so here it is:

It is not possible, however, to know if Rudy went to Meredith’s room on his own
initiative, almost subjugated by the situation which he interpreted in erotic terms
(the two young lovers in their room and Meredith who was on her own in the room
right next to it) or, instead, he went to Meredith’s room at the urging of Amanda
and/or Raffaele.
This Court is inclined towards the first hypothesis.
It cannot see, in fact, the motive for such an invitation on the part of Amanda Knox
and/or of Raffaele Sollecito.............

Why, then, two young people, strongly interested in each other, with intellectual and
cultural curiosity, he on the eve of his graduation and she full of interests, resolved
to participate in an action aimed at forcing the will of Meredith, with whom they
had, especially Amanda, a relationship of regular meetings and cordiality, to the
point of causing her death, falls within the continual exercise of choice among [the
range of] possibilities, and this Court can only register the choice of extreme evil
which was put into practice. It can be hypothesised that this choice of evil began
with the consumption of drugs which had happened also that evening, as
Amanda testified.......

​

I don't know why the Pro-guilt lobby which you represent needs to continually reinvent the crime, and make out Knox to be something not even the judges thought her to be.

You are, after all, winning. Are you afraid you might one day lose, and need to have this exaggeratedly-false depiction of Amanda Knox to buttress you?

Do you ever read the motivation reports?

 

[Bill Williams]

Knox had also contacts with older drug dealers and even had causal sex with some of them.

I also noted that in fact there the label of Knox as “honor student” in Seattle was not backed by evidence.

Amana Knox was also involved in another incident, a burglar-prank in which she staged a burglary and reportedly acted in disguise as a violent burglar/rapist

In fact, the truth is she wasn’t even in Perugia as a University student. . . . like a kind of sabbatical or a diversion from her ordinary university course. . . what she became there: a freshman student at a language school.

She drifted from the Bundestag to Perugia not because she was prioritizing the values of hard work, sacrifice, self-commitment, self-programming, but because she was prioritizing the values of fun, party, the excitement of the student life in Perugia renown for its drug-and-sex party style.

Behold the falsehoods.



Well, it was 985 words and I just edited it down to the essential lies.

150 words, and all of it is false. No need to try so hard. A succinct lie will serve just as well as a verbose one, and people are more likely to read them.

Perhaps the quote from Judge Massei's motivations report should be put here, instead of directly on Machiavelli's smear campaign.

Giuliano Mignini had an agenda of smearing Amanda Knox, trying to make her look like the whore of Babylon. Once one realises that this was the basis of Mignini's case, it is astounding that ALL that stuff is missing from Judge Massei's motivations report.

For Judge Massei, the crime was Rudy's, and Rudy's lust alone. For Massei, AK and RS joined in only as a "choice for evil", and Massei does not really explained the basis for them making that choice.

For Massei Amanda and Meredith were friends which only highlighted the inapplicability of the choice for evil. For Massei, it was not a sex-game gone wrong and it was not a satanic-rite.

I could go on, how much of Mignini's case was rejected by even the first convicting judge. Yet the current version of the on-line pro-guilt lobby rejects Judge Massei......

Don't they read?

 

[LondonJohn]

In fact, the truth is she wasn’t even in Perugia as a University student. She was enrolled at the University of Washington meanwhile, but it was not in Perugia after an idea or a program by the University of Washington, it’s not the University of Washington’s idea that she should go to Europe. She want to Europe on her own decision, in fact like a kind of sabbatical or a diversion from her ordinary university course: she left on her whim and on her initiative, on a self-made “program” that was anarchical and changing; at first she went in Germany, she asked her relatives to find her a job or an internship and her uncle – not the University of Washington - found her a prestigious internship at the Bundestag. Note: it was not the University who sent her there, it was not thanks to her honor student curriculum, it was thanks to her uncle’s program and connections.

But she left the job after only one day of work, with her uncle’s bafflement. In her myspace page she describes, with “LOLs”, how her “acted” with her uncle, hoe with her “crying” and “freaking out” she was able to manipulate her uncle’s feelings so that he would comply with her new plans. It was only then that she decided she would move to Perugia and enrol at the University for Foreigneers. The University for Foreigneers was not part of her study plan as she had enrolled at the University of Washington. In fact, the University of Foreigneers of Perugia is normally considered a prestigious language school, not a university. There are also a few bachelor university courses there, but really few of them and their quality is not at the top; its activity is that of a language school. In fact Knox there enrolled at a language school course. That was what she became there: a freshman student at a language school.

She had literally drifted from the Bundestag to Perugia following her whim. The Bundestag was not fun and was not exciting. She chose Perugia herself, it was not a University nor an uncle’s idea. She chose Perugia not because of a necessity of the study and career program of the University of Washington, but because she saw opportunity for fun and exciting experiences. She drifted from the Bundestag to Perugia not because she was prioritizing the values of hard work, sacrifice, self-commitment, self-programming, but because she was prioritizing the values of fun, party, the excitement of the student life in Perugia renown for its drug-and-sex party style.

While the rest of this post is an incoherent rant, I wanted to pick up on the specific false assertion that Knox made some sort of last-minute hedonistic decision to go to Perugia to study. The truth is rather different. In fact, Knox planned for many months (while still in Seattle) to attend the Perugia University for Foreigners in September 2007, before moving to Rome for the final semester of the university year. She had discussed this with the relevant UW staff, and had secured agreement that the Perugia language courses would count as credits towards her UW degree.

And of course, as Machiavelli himself points out, in any case none of this is of any importance when trying to consider rationally whether Knox (and/or Sollecito) was involved in Kercher's murder. Even if Knox had been a provably horrible person who had previously stabbed a room mate while in Seattle, you need credible, reliable evidence in order to find Knox (and/or Sollecito) guilty beyond reasonable doubt of participating in Kercher's murder. And there happens to be no such evidence in this case. Not just "not very much". None whatsoever*.

* Reminder to pro-guilt commentators: there's a critical difference between "evidence" and "credible, reliable evidence"........

 

[Bill Williams]

While the rest of this post is an incoherent rant, I wanted to pick up on the specific false assertion that Knox made some sort of last-minute hedonistic decision to go to Perugia to study. The truth is rather different. In fact, Knox planned for many months (while still in Seattle) to attend the Perugia University for Foreigners in September 2007, before moving to Rome for the final semester of the university year. She had discussed this with the relevant UW staff, and had secured agreement that the Perugia language courses would count as credits towards her UW degree.

And of course, as Machiavelli himself points out, in any case none of this is of any importance when trying to consider rationally whether Knox (and/or Sollecito) was involved in Kercher's murder. Even if Knox had been a provably horrible person who had previously stabbed a room mate while in Seattle, you need credible, reliable evidence in order to find Knox (and/or Sollecito) guilty beyond reasonable doubt of participating in Kercher's murder. And there happens to be no such evidence in this case. Not just "not very much". None whatsoever*.

* Reminder to pro-guilt commentators: there's a critical difference between "evidence" and "credible, reliable evidence"........

I remember reading a book some years ago about another crime, where the author was setting out to prove that the fellow executed had actually done the crime. This was in a context where many people doubted that the cops had arrested the right guy, and that the justice system had executed an innocent man.

The first 243 pages of this book was a smear campaign against this guy, now deceased. I finally put down the book and did not return to it because it was at about page 200 that the author made a big deal that the guy had been breast fed by his mother when still a teenager. The thesis seemed to be that being breast-fed as a teenager somehow turned him into a homicidal maniac.... the reader was supposed to be totally disgusted by the guy before the first factoid was considered....

It occurred to me that the author had gone 243-full pages without one fact presented (or even a factoid for that matter!) to do with the actual crime for a reason. The actual case was iffy.

I get that feeling here. The pro-guilt lobby seems to WANT this person to be guilty, just like that author.

We do owe Machiavelli a debt, though. He's willing to make 3,940 word postings trying to make the case as he sees it. Unlike most of the pro-guilt lobby-universe, he engages his opponents. His views can be evaluated in the light of day.

So with that said..... I get that feeling.... Machiavelli simply wants us to hate Amanda Knox even before looking at a photo of grooves in a kitchen knife.... where even Judge Massei said they could not be seen in photographs. It seems that no lie is small enough to tell about Amanda Knox.

 

[Desert Fox]

I don't know why the Pro-guilt lobby which you represent needs to continually reinvent the crime, and make out Knox to be something not even the judges thought her to be.

You are, after all, winning. Are you afraid you might one day lose, and need to have this exaggeratedly-false depiction of Amanda Knox to buttress you?

Do you ever read the motivation reports?

The thing is that even if Raff is once again imprisoned (I consider it unlikely Amanda will be), this will come back and haunt Italy eventually. Some of the pro guilt side cannot see that but I think that Machiavelli can.

 

[Machiavelli]

(...)
If all of the points you have put forward, were in fact found to have been disproven, again just for sake of argument - would you then agree that Amanda and Raf are entitled to be found "Not guilty beyond a reasonable doubt", because there is (under our assumptions in this thought experiment) insufficient evidence upon which to rest a conviction?

In other words, even if there were no evidence against them, would you still think they were guilty, and should be found guilty in court?

No, obviously not. If there was no evidence, I would argue there is insufficient proof.
But I don't think that could be the case: sufficient proof was collected, and I do not believe it is possible that all points of evidence could be proven false.
I do not believe there is a possibility of re-sizing the bathmat print, or to find defensive arguments that are better than Vinci's tricks. I don't believe there is another reasonable substance for luminol, and I don't believe a reasonable scenario for Guede as lone perpetrator that explains the evidence could be drawn. And also, for example, I don't believe a contamination of the bra clasp with Sollecito's DNA is realistic or likely; I do not believe Knox accused Lumumba out of a false memory syndrome; nor that a burglar would enter through Romanelli's window instead of the back balcony or that would leave no soil on the floor after climbing from the ground or sprawl clothes around instead of searching drawers etc. I don't think it would be possible to prove that the suspects' accounts were consistent, or that Mignini coerced Knox instead of collecting a spontaneous statement, or to find a computer or telephone record alibi for anyone of the two suspects nor scientific alibies whatsoever.
And you would need to disprove basically all points of evidence, or better in order to have reasonable doubt on the whole of them, you would need to disprove completely a large majority of them. They should be all factually false in a scenario of factual innocence.
Obviously if things were different I would see the picture differently. But things are so.

 

[Machiavelli]

While the rest of this post is an incoherent rant, I wanted to pick up on the specific false assertion that Knox made some sort of last-minute hedonistic decision to go to Perugia to study. The truth is rather different. In fact, Knox planned for many months (while still in Seattle) to attend the Perugia University for Foreigners in September 2007, before moving to Rome for the final semester of the university year. She had discussed this with the relevant UW staff, and had secured agreement that the Perugia language courses would count as credits towards her UW degree.

(...)

But remind that Knox had already factually suspended the Washington University course as she moved to Germany for an internship at the Bundestag. You seem to cut away the Bundestag program: this changes the overall plan.

PS: I will re-consider my narrative of last minute hedonistic decision if I have evidence that Perugia was the planned step. But that won't really make the point of FOAs about Knox charachter as "different" or as a "honour student".

 

[Desert Fox]

But remind that Knox had already factually suspended the Washington University course as she moved to Germany for an internship at the Bundestag. You seem to cut away the Bundestag program: this changes the overall plan.

I don't even know if you wrote is correct or not but do you know how common it is for college students to change their majors or courses of studies? It is incredibly common.