Continuation Part 11: Amanda Knox/Raffaele Sollecito

[LondonJohn]

I presume this is an example of the two part TMB test kit mentioned by LondonJohn and others - the proper test used by CSIs at crime scenes:

http://tritechforensics.com/store/product/tetramethylbenzidine-tmb-blood-test-kit/#readmore

This one is $42 - not expensive.

Yes, that's the 2-part test. The TMB reagent and the peroxide reagent are in separate bottles and are applied separately and consecutively to the swab being tested.


By contrast, these are Hemastix sticks:




The TMB and the peroxide are both contained on the tip of the stick and are therefore effectively applied simultaneously to the surface being tested. That's why it's impossible to know with Hemastix whether a positive reaction is due to a positive from the TMB alone (in which case it's not blood) or a positive from the TMB plus peroxide (in which case it's presumptively blood).

 

[Ampulla of Vater]

I just had to post this because of what has been discussed about it in this thread. I've seen it posted that Italy blamed several seismologists for not predicting an earthquake. Well, today Cuomo publically blamed the National Weather Service for not accurately predicting the large snowfall in Buffalo. I suppose it's not all that surprising -- he's Italian! LOL!

 

[Machiavelli]

No sorry - there is an updated version of "The Forensic Handbook" cited by Chris Halkides, from 2011. Gefrides' position with regard to following a fluorescent test with a columetric test is the same. It is not out of date. Her chapter is here:

http://www.springer.com/cda/content...618713-c1.pdf?SGWID=0-0-45-1034561-p174018742

The relevant section on presumptive tests is on page 24/25.

Yes but, independently from the date, it is just a handbook and the alleged need for a colorimetric test, or alleged usefulness of it, is just disproven by scientific researches.
It makes no sense to infer a scientific "truth" from a protocol or from an existing habit of the scientific community.

 

[LondonJohn]

1. Your claim that the s.c. two-part test is "hugely more specific" appears to be comletely unsupported. There is no scientific study in support of this.

2. The hypothetical existence of "better" TMB tests would be completely irrelevant. You don't seem to understand this irrelevance. This is maybe because you think you could "play" a card like "incompetence" against the forensics, if you could find that the "protocol" was to make another type of test, in order to make a case for the defendants innocence. But this argument is wrong.

What on earth are you talking about?

You clearly don't understand the science here, unfortunately, in spite of it having been explained numerous times.

I'll try to explain it to you once again.

On a Hemastix stick, the TMB and the peroxide are contained together on the tip of the stick. They are therefore by definition both applied simultaneously when the stick is used. When the stick is rubbed against the surface under test, if it shows a positive colour outcome it will be impossible to know whether the colour change was due to a reaction with the TMB alone (not blood) or a reaction with TMB + peroxide (blood). Therefore a Hemastix positive opens the door to a large number of false positives. This is the definition of low specificity.

By contrast, the 2-part TMB test separates the application of TMB and peroxide. Firstly the TMB is applied and the tester watches to see whether there's a positive reaction. If there is a positive in this first part, then substances other than blood are causing that positive. If there's no colour change in this first part, then the second part (the peroxide) is applied. If there is only now a colour change, then the substance is very likely to be blood.

Therefore, by definition, the 2-part TMB test is vastly more specific for blood than Hemastix, since it enables the elimination of all of the Hemastix false positives that are caused by the substance reacting to TMB alone rather than TMB+peroxide.

It's too bad if you reall cannot understand the chemistry or logic underpinning all this, but that's how it is. The 2-part test is vastly more specific - by definition - than Hemastix TMB. And it's only the 2-part TMB test that should be used following a Luminol (or Hemastix) positive, since it's much more specific and thus allows for the elimination of most Luminol/Hemastix false positives prior to confirmatory tests.

 

[Machiavelli]

(...)
The TMB and the peroxide are both contained on the tip of the stick and are therefore effectively applied simultaneously to the surface being tested. That's why it's impossible to know with Hemastix whether a positive reaction is due to a positive from the TMB alone (in which case it's not blood) or a positive from the TMB plus peroxide (in which case it's presumptively blood).

This is original deduction from LJ, not science, and it stands out as incorrect. The two step process, in particular the step without peroxide, would only allow to detect the interference from strong oxidants (such as bleaches); but no way this could rule out all the many false positives substances that can catalize the reaction.

 

[LondonJohn]

This is original deduction from LJ, not science, and it stands out as incorrect. The two step process, in particular the step without peroxide, would only allow to detect the interference from strong oxidants (such as bleaches); but no way this could rule out all the many false positives substances that can catalize the reaction.

This is utter nonsense and bluster. Please stop. You're wrong.

 

[Machiavelli]

What on earth are you talking about?

You clearly don't understand the science here, unfortunately, in spite of it having been explained numerous times.

I'll try to explain it to you once again.

On a Hemastix stick, the TMB and the peroxide are contained together on the tip of the stick. They are therefore by definition both applied simultaneously when the stick is used. When the stick is rubbed against the surface under test, if it shows a positive colour outcome it will be impossible to know whether the colour change was due to a reaction with the TMB alone (not blood) or a reaction with TMB + peroxide (blood). Therefore a Hemastix positive opens the door to a large number of false positives. This is the definition of low specificity.

By contrast, the 2-part TMB test separates the application of TMB and peroxide. Firstly the TMB is applied and the tester watches to see whether there's a positive reaction. If there is a positive in this first part, then substances other than blood are causing that positive. If there's no colour change in this first part, then the second part (the peroxide) is applied. If there is only now a colour change, then the substance is very likely to be blood.

Therefore, by definition, the 2-part TMB test is vastly more specific for blood than Hemastix, since it enables the elimination of all of the Hemastix false positives that are caused by the substance reacting to TMB alone rather than TMB+peroxide.

But the explanatory words "by definition" make your argument look comical.
The step that consists in trying first with TMB on the swab without peroxide, is a step which only allows to detect the interference from strong oxidants (without ruling them out completely by the way).
No way this would make it "vastly" more specific. In fact, if it was "vastly more specific", there would be some scientific literature that suggest this test as a necessary second step. But scientists did not find TMB as a better test, not even suggested its use as second step.

It's too bad if you reall cannot understand the chemistry or logic underpinning all this, but that's how it is. The 2-part test is vastly more specific - by definition - than Hemastix TMB. And it's only the 2-part TMB test that should be used following a Luminol (or Hemastix) positive, since it's much more specific and thus allows for the elimination of most Luminol/Hemastix false positives prior to confirmatory tests.

Another couple of things that you seem to miss:
1) The sicentific researches pointed out that Hemastix was the TMB test "most commonly used by forensics". Hemastix, not the two step test.
2) The irrelevance of the properties of a two step test overall. What matters at best, logically, is the test that was actually performed (likely the "most common one") and nothing else.

 

[Kauffer]

Sleep

There was no need to be "refreshed" and there was no "psychic-battle".

There was, actually, not even an interrogation taking place during most on Knox's false testimony, since the most elaborate parts of Knox's calunnia take place within the 05:45 spontaneous statement before a magistrate (no questioning, no threats, no police battle) and in her hand written notes.

What about the amount of time she was awake from the morning of November 1st through to November 2nd night, during which time she apparently planned her revenge against Ms Kercher, arranged her conspiracy by manipulating Guede and Mr Sollecito, stabbed and murdered Ms Kercher, planned and carried out the staging of a burglary, stayed up all night cleaning the crime scene, shuttled back and forth to Garibaldi, appeared fresh as a daisy for the police at lunchtime and underwent hours of questioning at the questura whilst behaving, according to Vibio, in a "gleeful, sexually charged" manner. She was awake for about 40 hours straight and did all this. Incredible!

 

[LondonJohn]

But the explanatory words "by definition" make your argument look comical.
The step that consists in trying first with TMB on the swab without peroxide, is a step which only allows to detect the interference from strong oxidants (without ruling them out completely by the way).
No way this would make it "vastly" more specific. In fact, if it was "vastly more specific", there would be some scientific literature that suggest this test as a necessary second step. But scientists did not find TMB as a better test, not even suggested its use as second step.



Another couple of things that you seem to miss:
1) The sicentific researches pointed out that Hemastix was the TMB test "most commonly used by forensics". Hemastix, not the two step test.
2) The irrelevance of the properties of a two step test overall. What matters at best, logically, is the test that was actually performed (likely the "most common one") and nothing else.

Oh boy, I think there's no hope. A potent combination of scientific semi-literacy and overwhelming obstinacy. Impossible to engage in debate.

 

[Machiavelli]

Oh boy, I think there's no hope. A potent combination of scientific semi-literacy and overwhelming obstinacy. Impossible to engage in debate.

Especially if you have no scientific sources.

 

[MDDVS]

Why would someone perform an irrelevant test? For fun?

 

[Kauffer]

Yes but, independently from the date, it is just a handbook and the alleged need for a colorimetric test, or alleged usefulness of it, is just disproven by scientific researches.
It makes no sense to infer a scientific "truth" from a protocol or from an existing habit of the scientific community.

What? You haven't disproven it! Where does it say that Gefrides is wrong?

 

[Bill Williams]

I believe this incarnation of Machiavelli will not try to tackle the sleep deprivation issue again. M. may wish to correct me, though, in that last time it was that M. discerned, merely through Amanda Knox's writings, that she had the ability to choose not to sleep. And more than this, therefore, go into the Nov 5/6 interrogation refreshed and ready to do psychic-battle with the police; and being quite successful in pulling the wool over the eyes of the PLE.

There was no need to be "refreshed" and there was no "psychic-battle".

There was, actually, not even an interrogation taking place during most on Knox's false testimony, since the most elaborate parts of Knox's calunnia take place within the 05:45 spontaneous statement before a magistrate (no questioning, no threats, no police battle) and in her hand written notes.

Machiavelli, with apologies, you are by far the most interesting person I have ever interacted with on-line. Bar none.

With further apologies, the reply above meets your own definition of "proof" that there must be more than one person using the account.

Some months ago I had challenged you on this very point. I had said something akin to it being unreasonable to consider Amanda Knox at interrogation (one that started at 11:30 pm, where no competent translator was there..... at least until 12:30 am, where even the translator said that things were so chaotic in the room that she acted as a mediator.... and which by your own admission ended at 5:45 am...).....

I had said it was unreasonable to assume that someone who'd had as little sleep in the previous days, not to mention being constantly stressed by continual questioning.....

That it was unreasonable to assume that Knox was anything other than completely psychically "pliable", and open to coercive suggestion at 11:30 pm, even before she went in.

You presented a long treatise on sleep deprivation, based on what you said was your own experience, your own reading, and most importantly your own observations in Amanda's own writings to counter my claim by saying......

That Amanda could choose not to sleep.

The import of this, as you then claimed, was that Amanda was in a psychic state rested and refreshed. Therefore you concluded that whatever it was that had happened that night was done wilfully by Amanda and could not possibly be the result of the kind of fatigue I was claiming.

You say to replace this, "the most elaborate parts of Knox's calunnia take place within the 05:45 spontaneous statement before a magistrate (no questioning, no threats, no police battle) and in her hand written notes."

This was the interrogation begun by Giuliano Mignini just after 1:45 am, when that one, too, produced what was claimed as "spontaneous statements".

Even in Mignini's own account, where he said all he did was (for four hours) act "as if only a notary", he (without saying a thing to her, according to him) noted through her body language that she was "relived of a great burden," "was afraid of Patrick", and "wanted to continue with spontaneous statements."

This stretches credulity to limit which would make even you proud.

To claim that the next four hours were not an interrogation is an interesting thing to consider - because we can always check the mandatory videotapes of the interrogation....... oh wait, I think you will now say that it was Amanda's fault that Mignini forgot to do that mandatory part of the process.

Or you might reboot: Mignini, acc. to you, was not required to do it. You've said this many times before. It's what makes conversing with you so interesting.

Now you've said something completely different for some undiscernable reason..... "There was no need to be "refreshed" and there was no "psychic-battle"."

Why then all the previous treatises about how Amanda could choose not to sleep? Why didn't you just say months ago, "that she had no need to be refreshed"? Why the coy response?

 

[Bill Williams]

I just had to post this because of what has been discussed about it in this thread. I've seen it posted that Italy blamed several seismologists for not predicting an earthquake. Well, today Cuomo publically blamed the National Weather Service for not accurately predicting the large snowfall in Buffalo. I suppose it's not all that surprising -- he's Italian! LOL!

At appeal, all but one were acquitted. The lone person convicted was convicted because of a further alleged action of his, that he told people to go home and resume their lives and "drink wine".

I have no way of knowing if this alleged cavalier attitude, rather than urging caution, accounted for his provisional conviction.

 

[Numbers]

A Medal for Patience

What on earth are you talking about?

You clearly don't understand the science here, unfortunately, in spite of it having been explained numerous times.

I'll try to explain it to you once again.

On a Hemastix stick, the TMB and the peroxide are contained together on the tip of the stick. They are therefore by definition both applied simultaneously when the stick is used. When the stick is rubbed against the surface under test, if it shows a positive colour outcome it will be impossible to know whether the colour change was due to a reaction with the TMB alone (not blood) or a reaction with TMB + peroxide (blood). Therefore a Hemastix positive opens the door to a large number of false positives. This is the definition of low specificity.

By contrast, the 2-part TMB test separates the application of TMB and peroxide. Firstly the TMB is applied and the tester watches to see whether there's a positive reaction. If there is a positive in this first part, then substances other than blood are causing that positive. If there's no colour change in this first part, then the second part (the peroxide) is applied. If there is only now a colour change, then the substance is very likely to be blood.

Therefore, by definition, the 2-part TMB test is vastly more specific for blood than Hemastix, since it enables the elimination of all of the Hemastix false positives that are caused by the substance reacting to TMB alone rather than TMB+peroxide.

It's too bad if you reall cannot understand the chemistry or logic underpinning all this, but that's how it is. The 2-part test is vastly more specific - by definition - than Hemastix TMB. And it's only the 2-part TMB test that should be used following a Luminol (or Hemastix) positive, since it's much more specific and thus allows for the elimination of most Luminol/Hemastix false positives prior to confirmatory tests.

LondonJohn,

Your explanations and those of others on this issue are extremely clear, IMO.

I will recommend you all for the Congressional Medal of Patience {which I just invented}.

 

[LondonJohn]

Just out of additional interest, here's a letter of expert opinion written by Australia's leading expert on blood forensics, Emeritus Professor Barry Boettcher (who was also very active in correctly supporting the dingo theory in the Chamberlain case):

http://www.abc.net.au/4corners/special_eds/20090810/bikies/docs/Boettcher_Report.pdf


It contains some rather interesting and relevant passages:

"1. A general note: "Presumptive" tests for blood are not specific. Consequently, a positive result for blood in a presumptive test cannot, and should not, be claimed to identify the presence of blood."

"A positive result in such tests (Luminol, Hemastix, TMB etc) indicates that blood might be present. On the other hand, because of the sensitivity of such tests, a negative result indicates that blood is not present."


And the remainder of the letter contains numerous cautionary statements about the absolute necessity of proper confirmatory tests. If only the defence teams in our case could have solicited and presented this sort of proper expert opinion in court......

 

[Kauffer]

But the explanatory words "by definition" make your argument look comical.
The step that consists in trying first with TMB on the swab without peroxide, is a step which only allows to detect the interference from strong oxidants (without ruling them out completely by the way).
No way this would make it "vastly" more specific. In fact, if it was "vastly more specific", there would be some scientific literature that suggest this test as a necessary second step. But scientists did not find TMB as a better test, not even suggested its use as second step.



Another couple of things that you seem to miss:
1) The sicentific researches pointed out that Hemastix was the TMB test "most commonly used by forensics". Hemastix, not the two step test.
2) The irrelevance of the properties of a two step test overall. What matters at best, logically, is the test that was actually performed (likely the "most common one") and nothing else.

Well I'm not a scientist but my working hypothesis is that they at least ran the two part test. Why on earth would Stefanoni run a Hemastix test? Doesn't make sense. The 2 part test is easy and cheap to do. Poor Machiavelli - his hat hangs on Hemastix - but even that's not going to get him very far.

I'm grateful to LondonJohn for new knowledge.

 

[Machiavelli]

Thank you, it is the first time I see this whole report (if it is the whole report).
So far only some newspaper excerpts were available for me.

But it is weaker than I thought.

Simply there is no proof in it that Naruto was actually started.
Only an "ultima apertura" metadata time stamp. Which is a simple last access, not necessarily made by a video player. Could have been simply a P2P download access.
No surprise it does not appear on the VLC recently viewed file list where it naturally should appear if it had been played by VLC. OK, it could have been played by another player, but which one is it? What is on the recently watched file list of that player?

This expert report is a double edged weapon, anyway.
If we accept that the Amélie on the recent file list is the one that was played on the evening of the murder, then it also proves that they did not watch anything on VLC except the five copies of Stardust and it could be anytime after Amélie, not necessarily that evening. And they seem to be, as Massei wrote, just looking into several downloaded copies rather than actually watching the full movies.

(...)

In fact, at page 14 the report says:

(...)In realta’ queste due informazioni sul percorso suggeriscono che l’interazione delle 21:10:02 e’ dovuta con ogni probabilità allo spostamento del film per terminata visione.

It says, the 21:10 interaction is likely just the moving of the Amelie film into the "viewed" folder, as a consequence of the fact that the movie was at the end.
While Amelie and many Stardust version were viewed (presumably checked during download) through VLC, there is no "Naruto" file in the "recently viewed" log of VLC; so this one was not viewed with VLC. This is an element that tends to rule out that someone watched Naruto that evening (and, btw, would you watch a "Naruto" episode with your girlfriend?). Some program accessed the Naruto file, but it was not a video viewer.

The "windowserver" argument on the other hand is even worse evidence, since an open VLC window (even without anything being viewed) with default setting would have kept the keyboard active and prevented the screensaver from running.

 

[Machiavelli]

Well I'm not a scientist but my working hypothesis is that they at least ran the two part test. Why on earth would Stefanoni run a Hemastix test? Doesn't make sense. (...)

And why then, Hemastix is among the "most commonly used by forensics", while other versions of TMB are not?
Did you consider that perhaps Stefanoni would run a Hemastix test precisely because it is "the most common" among forensics?
And maybe, this is so common also because of the so frequent unjustified scientific habits (that occur on many disciplines) like the diffuse protocols encouraging the "colorimetric" second test as reported in wrong handbooks?

And also, did you realize that LJ provided no scientific literature in support of his claim that the two step test is "hugely more specific" than luminol?

 

[Planigale]

Chris
My understanding of Planigale's post is that
1. It is unlikely to be blood as confirmatory tests would have proved it to be so and if such proof was available it would be used for unequivocal evidence by the prosecution.
2. However there are posters here who employ a hypothetical sensitivity gap between different tests to say it can not be totally ruled out as blood.
3. Secondary transfer between Rudy's direct imprints and Amanda's feet during her shower and activities would be consistent with this barely detectable possibility.

Thus everyone's theories can be accomodated.

I suspect there is a reason this is not plausible, as otherwise the discussion would have been concluded some time ago.
Any thoughts anyone?

Thanks more or less what I meant.