Continuation Part 13: Amanda Knox/Raffaele Sollecito

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If I remember correctly, Dr. Stefanoni did not herself locate and pick up the bra clasp from the floor in Meredith's room. I seem to recall that it was located under a corner of a rug and was "recovered" from there off-camera by a male police officer who passed it to Stefanoni. (question: If it was "recovered" off-camera, how did the camera miss it?)

Am I correct that the amount of DNA on the bra clasp attributable to Raffaele is a trace amount indicative of contamination rather than direct contact? If that is correct -that it IS indicative of contamination rather than direct contact, then it would seem to indicate that Raffaele did not himself touch the bra clasp. It would also suggest that the clasp was not directly wiped with copious amounts of Raffaele's DNA, as might have been the case if a third party deliberately tried to plant Raffaele's DNA on the clasp.
 
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Most police tampering is either not turning over evidence of innocence and/or shading their testimony. They rarely create evidence from the cases I have looked at.
Arthur Allan Thomas was convicted because evidence was created, and this is cited as an early entry in noble cause corruption in wikipedia. Because I grew up with the case, I sustain the idea it is commonplace, but the injustice specialists like Chris Halkides could easily correct me.
 
If I remember correctly, Dr. Stefanoni did not herself locate and pick up the bra clasp from the floor in Meredith's room. I seem to recall that it was located under a corner of a rug and was "recovered" from there off-camera by a male police officer who passed it to Stefanini.

Am I correct that the amount of DNA on the bra clasp attributable to Raffaele is a trace amount indicative of contamination rather than direct contact? If that is correct -that it IS indicative of contamination rather than direct contact, then it would seem to indicate that Raffaele did not himself touch the bra clasp. It would also suggest that the clasp was not directly wiped with copious amounts of Raffaele's DNA, as might have been the case if a third party deliberately tried to plant Raffaele's DNA on the clasp.

The moment the clasp is 'disovered' is not captured in the video. There is instead an elaborate searching in that corner of the room, everywhere except under the mat. They troop out into the kitchen and crowd around a laptop in a concentrated effort to detect its whereabouts, then they troop back and, after a while, off camera, they 'find' it. All realise at once its profound significance, unlike her bloodied clothes which are viewed as routine items and bagged.

I agree the clasp itself was probably not contaminated. The incriminating profile was generated out of sight and the clasp then destroyed as evidence. Can we have the recent quote again from the High Court judge on chain of evidence?
 
The moment the clasp is 'disovered' is not captured in the video. There is instead an elaborate searching in that corner of the room, everywhere except under the mat. They troop out into the kitchen and crowd around a laptop in a concentrated effort to detect its whereabouts, then they troop back and, after a while, off camera, they 'find' it. All realise at once its profound significance, unlike her bloodied clothes which are viewed as routine items and bagged.

I agree the clasp itself was probably not contaminated. The incriminating profile was generated out of sight and the clasp then destroyed as evidence. Can we have the recent quote again from the High Court judge on chain of evidence?
anglolawyer, so no dna on the clasp ever? Or planted and destroyed to prevent further examination of the damn thing. I am in circles over this.
 
anglolawyer, so no dna on the clasp ever? Or planted and destroyed to prevent further examination of the damn thing. I am in circles over this.

That is what I believe, yes. It's not entirely without significance that this is another 'take my word for it' piece of so-called 'evidence' that Stefanoni destroyed. You won't hear Machiavelli explaining that. The bra clasp would have been laughed out of court here.
 
That is what I believe, yes. It's not entirely without significance that this is another 'take my word for it' piece of so-called 'evidence' that Stefanoni destroyed. You won't hear Machiavelli explaining that. The bra clasp would have been laughed out of court here.

Even in Texas or Virginia, the "oops, I destroyed it" would look pretty bad.
 
It was the bra clasp that was dirty. The glove got dirty when it manipulated the bra clasp, and when it picked it up from behind the carpet where it was found.

The point is it should not have touched it with gloves. The gloves are to stop you shedding DNA, yours and others. Disposable forceps (tweezers) should have been used to pick the bra fastener up. It should have been immediately 'bagged', not handed around, not put back down so a 'staged' photo could be taken. Indeed one could say it should have been collected immediately, not 6 weeks later. This behaviour is not that you would expect of trained crime scene investigators / SOCOs. I previously asked if Stephanoni had any training to investigate a crime scene, her background was as a laboratory scientist.
 
That is what I believe, yes. It's not entirely without significance that this is another 'take my word for it' piece of so-called 'evidence' that Stefanoni destroyed. You won't hear Machiavelli explaining that. The bra clasp would have been laughed out of court here.

We agreed eagle on the par fourth 18th to get to a play off would be analagous. But don't you think DanO's theory covers the bases for real dna on real bra clasp, and allows all potential observers including annoying defence specialists to enjoy completeness?
 
We agreed eagle on the par fourth 18th to get to a play off would be analagous. But don't you think DanO's theory covers the bases for real dna on real bra clasp, and allows all potential observers including annoying defence specialists to enjoy completeness?

With sincere apologies to DanO. I am not up to speed with his theory. In an English court I don't think the clasp would make it in front of the jury so there would be no need for a theory as it wouldn't exist as evidence. Nor would the knife and nor, probably, the luminol given the negative TMB and accompanying lies. I think that leaves ... nothing. Well, except Curatolo maybe. Based on unfortunate precedent, that, I am sorry to say, might be ID evidence a jury would believe and which an appeal court might dishonestly describe as robust. However, Curatolo does not actually prove anything so it's still nothing. A case about nothing. That will be the title of my book.
 
With sincere apologies to DanO. I am not up to speed with his theory. In an English court I don't think the clasp would make it in front of the jury so there would be no need for a theory as it wouldn't exist as evidence. Nor would the knife and nor, probably, the luminol given the negative TMB and accompanying lies. I think that leaves ... nothing. Well, except Curatolo maybe. Based on unfortunate precedent, that, I am sorry to say, might be ID evidence a jury would believe and which an appeal court might dishonestly describe as robust. However, Curatolo does not actually prove anything so it's still nothing. A case about nothing. That will be the title of my book.
The standard model (I am forecasting an historical discussion) will always agree Sollecito never touched the clasp, so there are a limited range of possibilities. DanO's accounts for one possibility completely, all profiles, motive, noble cause corruption, and so on.
I must discount accidental contamination as possible, simply because the independance of occurrence (knife) plus (bra clasp) is statistiscally implausible in one criminal investigation.
Of course this is the duck rabbit shadow paradox, guilters will use this to prove what is disproved by an innocence theory.

Or in simple terms, if both dna profiles exist on real physical objects, and they are innocent, at least one is planted, and it must be the second incidence.
 
The standard model (I am forecasting an historical discussion) will always agree Sollecito never touched the clasp, so there are a limited range of possibilities. DanO's accounts for one possibility completely, all profiles, motive, noble cause corruption, and so on.
I must discount accidental contamination as possible, simply because the independance of occurrence (knife) plus (bra clasp) is statistiscally implausible in one criminal investigation.Of course this is the duck rabbit shadow paradox, guilters will use this to prove what is disproved by an innocence theory.

Or in simple terms, if both dna profiles exist on real physical objects, and they are innocent, at least one is planted, and it must be the second incidence.

Life is a random assortment of improbable incidents. My think is that when somebody screws up as much as the Italian forensics community does, I think all sorts of improbable things may happen. Also, you really don't know how many things they tested and then select the few that they think they can use to argue guilt.

Edit: If you ever watch Mayday / Air Crash Investigators, you will see multiple incidents of crashes due to a combination of improbable incidents which cause crashes.
 
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The point is it should not have touched it with gloves. The gloves are to stop you shedding DNA, yours and others. Disposable forceps (tweezers) should have been used to pick the bra fastener up. It should have been immediately 'bagged', not handed around, not put back down so a 'staged' photo could be taken. Indeed one could say it should have been collected immediately, not 6 weeks later. This behaviour is not that you would expect of trained crime scene investigators / SOCOs. I previously asked if Stephanoni had any training to investigate a crime scene, her background was as a laboratory scientist.

You can put forward all your theories about the best procedures. It's not for me to judge which is more correct; and I also bet agreement is not universal and scientific opinions may change through time.
What has to be said, is that an effective defensive argument cannot be an argument about best procedures.
The defence task is to explain the presence of Sollecito's DNA; show how the presence of the specific profile is n the item is probable.
There was no way the defence could build a defensive argument. Because there is obviously no circumstance that makes an innocent presence become probable.
 
Conti & Vecchiotti's analysis suggested at all the unknown profiles were male. Chris Halkides has covered this.

Nencini surmised (note: had no evidence, just guess from thin air) that one of the three was Meredith's boyfriend. He surmised that the other to were Meredith's "amica", who, acc. to Nencini, pass one another's bras around to be handled.

It's false. Nencini never attributed Y profiles to males, as I have already shown. You ate lying about what people said, as usual.
 
I already told you that the controls that stefanoni has offered belong to a subsequent plate, and not 365bis.

The entirety of plate nos 365 and 365bis constitute the controls for 36b, so let's see them. If we can't see them, it's because something is being hidden.

There weren't 105 interceding tests. Novelli is full of crap.

You are defeated on this point. You argument is shown to be self-contradictory and self-defeating.
The negative controls of 36B exist, they were deposited, and above all Prof. Potenza has assisted to them.

This draws you into a contradiction as you try to theorize that plate 365 showed contamination in negative controls. Can't you see the multiple contradictions?

You need to explain how is it possible that the run recorded on plate 365bis, and witnessed by Potenza, had no contamination in negative controls, despite being allegedly contaminated by an agent already detected in 365.

And you should also explain why Potenza didn't see the run recorded on 365 because Stefanoni decided to suppress it, despite the run was done before the test witnessed by Potenza. Can't you see a contradiction on this one neither?

Then, I also note that assuming that a record has been suppressed based on its number is also particularly idiotic. Imagine that you wanted to suppress and destroy the paper n. 365 and forge a result. What would you do then? You would obviously produce a new " 365 " to replace it, rather than a document with a different number.
 
It's false. Nencini never attributed Y profiles to males, as I have already shown. You ate lying about what people said, as usual.

You are correct. Nencini was unaware that they were Y-Haplotypes. However, his ignorance does not get him off the hook for the inane explanation of how the thee unknown profiles got onto the clasp. Simply guessing as to their origin is not justice for either Meredith, or for AK or RS.
 
Machiavelli said:
It was the bra clasp that was dirty. The glove got dirty when it manipulated the bra clasp, and when it picked it up from behind the carpet where it was found.

Seems you really have nothing better than lying about what people say. Ypur posts are becoming increasingly sad and childish.

Congratulations, Machiavelli. You have finally considered the issue of contamination.

However, in your peculiar way, you have not considered how the bra-clasp (and hook) were potentially contaminated.... you have advanced a theory on how the GLOVE was contaminated!

And it was the bra-clasp which did the contaminating!

This post is a keeper.
 
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I don't know exactly what you are talking about, but ou should know this: I have never been really that interested in motivations reports (even less in narratives). When I talk about "trial papers", basically I mean testiomonies, and documents (such as the autopsy report for example).

This is the first indication that you perhaps believe that the Nencini report is junk. Thanks for this. One hopes you are reflecting the current prevailing opinion in Cassation.

However, you should pay more attention to narratives. Specifically, you have none for this horrible killing, all the while trying to say two innocents were involved.
 
An overall observation, first:

The series of questions above suggest you are departing from some relevant points, those which you should consider if you wish to have a rational approach.

The facts that you should consider of most importance in a rational view, are: the fact that Mignini arrested Carlizzi, that he requested she underwent a psychiatric assessment, and that he publicly declared that she was a mythomaniac who talked while “knowing nothing” and she had no clue about the case. Mignini had this public position and he arrested her; this is a fact, and it’s worth to have its implication drawn from a reasonable point of view.
For example: do you think Mignini believed Carlizzi? It doesn’t make much sense to assume, at the same time: a) that the Narducci investigation was based on Carlizzi’s testimony; b) that Mignini disbelieved Carlizzi, since he publicly discredited Carlizzi and arrested her; and c) that he went on with an investigation allegedly based on Carlizzi’s testimony even after he arrested and discredited Carlizzi.
This theory makes little sense. If you want to make sense something about it, the theory will become extremely complicated.

Also, some other facts that are worth consider on the part of a rational observer, are that Carlizzi’s theory was fundamentally different from the Prosecution’s theory, in that the Prosecution was drawing a scenario around Narducci, where Narducci was implicated as a criminal, whereas Carlizzi has drawn a scenario where Narducci was only a victim and it was Spezi who – in Carlizzi’s mind – became the person of greatest suspicion of being the “Monster of Florence”. In fact, Carlizzi pushed a conspiracy theory which she shared with lawyer and author Franceschetti, that is the “Monster” was a group headed by Florentine Prosecutor Nannucci and included Mario Spezi, while Francesco Narducci was an innocent young guy who was eliminated by his father and by Calamandrei because he was a good guy who wanted to leave the “sect”.
Mignini’s theory was very different; but in fact it was not Mignini’s theory, it was the theory of the Florence Prosecution Office, who was acting also based on the findings by the Florence Appeals Court. Presecutor Vigna and his deputy Canessa begun to investigate on Calamandrei and Narducci. When Mignini opened his investigation about Narducci’s death he only considered that a cold case to investigate the causes of death, on request of Narducci’s wife Francesca Spagnoli. Mignini didn’t know anything about ties between Narducci and the MoF. It was the Florence prosecution office who advised him, they told him they had a secret investigation on Calamandrei and Narducci that was ongoing, and they suggested Perugia should connect it with the MoF file. So Mignini did, and he accepted the Florence “sect” theory as investigation scenario.
Indeed Mignini found huge amount of evidence connecting Narducci’s death to the MoF case. And he also found evidence that the body found in the lake was not Narducci.
The evidence he found about Narducci was so relevant that in fact even Judge Micheli – who attempted to dismiss the charges – wrote in his motivations that narducci was most likely involved with the Florentine criminal group.
Then, let’s point out, as response to your questions:
1. Mignini did not accuse Calamandrei. On the contrary, he requested the preliminary judge to drop charges against him due to insufficient evidence.

2. Mignini argued that Spezi was too dangerous to be released, based on a series of reasons. It is not true that Spezi managed to organize a PR campaign from inside his cell. In fact he organized several things, not just PR campaigns, but from the outside.

3. The specific object Spezi planted against Vinci – not just that he tried, but that he actually successfully presented as evidence – was a written testimony, which was physically presented to the police by ex-officer Zaccaria, but was written by Spezi himself (a hand written copy was found at his home), and it was Spezi who brought Zacaria at the police office in his car, waiting outside while Zaccaria presented his false testimony.
It is not the only thing Spezi did. There is also what he attempted to do: he together with Zaccaria, and thanks to a previous logistic help from Ruocco, planned to place six boxes inside Villa Bibbiani. The boxes were reported of in the false report presented by Zaccaria, their location was accurately described thanks to Ruocco’s indication, but the boxes were not found. Spezi and Zaccaria were caught while they were still lurking around Villa Bibbiani as they were spotted by the personnel working at the estate, thus before they could physically place the evidence. The police inferred that one of the boxes might have contained 50 Winchester bullets .22 caliber, which Zaccaria officially possessed but were missing from his car where the weapons were stored, he didn’t have them at home and were never found.
4. Spezi has not been convicted for “side tracking” an investigation? Well, first, he has not been acquitted neither. The Perugia prosecution dropped the charge of calunnia in 2014, but only because it was time-barred (and Vinci did not take part as a civil party), while there is objective and obvious evidence that he did commit a calunnia. He was anyway ordered to pay legal expenses to the prosecution.
But on the other hand Spezi was convicted of calunnia by the Appeals Court in Milan, on another calunnia case, which he committed in the context of the Narducci investigation, so we can say he was in fact found guilty of side-tracking the Narducci investigation.
5. I explained the differences between Carlizzi’s theory and the Perugia Prosecution theory. Now, what I know about Carlizzi is that she had been convicted of fraud about 10 years before. She deceived some friends to stole money from them. She was a notorious fraud.
I can’t tell how many people she accused of being murderers or Satanists, but I can tell she did so on many notorious murders, including known political murders like the Pecorelli case (where the former prime minister Giulio Andreotti was actually tried for masterminding the murder in Perugia, and Giulia Bongiorno was working as his attorney). Carlizzi loved high profile cases, and on those cases she would side more or less against the same “enemies” (Giulia Bongiorno for example will always be in the “evil sect” group). By the way, Carlizzi did not talk about a “satanic sect” but rather about a “secret society”, she was one of those theorists that talk about “Illuminati” conspiracies and she had this theory about the sect she called the “red rose” society.

Thanks Mach. I think I went a bit 'hilite happy', you gave me so much to consider.

The central point you seem to make, is that Mignini prosecuted Carlizzi, challenged her integrity publicly, and that this therefore is proof that Mignini did not and would not rely on Carlizzi as a source of information.

But I think this is perhaps confusing what Mignini does publicly, with what he does privately. Mignini distancing himself publicly from Carlizzi, does not change the fact that he relied on many of Carlizzi's ideas thereafter.

For example, Mignini had taken information from an associate of Carlizzi's, a woman who claimed she was scared of Spezi and that her fear accounted for her previous silence, and she provided Mignini with a completely false rendition of Spezi's past, parents, childhood and so on. Mignini had kept this information secret using special laws designed to fight mafia & terrorism, and it was read out in the trial of Calamandrei having been discovered in a search if Mignini's office when he was being investigated for abuse of office.

When Spezi defended himself against Mignini in April 2006, Spezi was able to cite numerous charges from Mignini's indictment that had been lifted from Carlizzi's web site.

And when Meredith Kercher was killed, Carlizzi was in immediate contact with Mignini by fax once again linking the cases to Narducci and the MOF, and came to Perugia to meet with Mignini within days of the Kercher murder.

You ask that we simply take at face value an act that would publicly distance Mignini from Carlizzi, but ignore or play down his embrace of Carlizzi's crazy ideas, and mixing them in with his own crazy ideas.

Also, wasn't it Mignini who originally brought the Narducci drowning to the attention of the Florence prosecutor, not the other way around? That Mignini had interpreted a threatening phone call made to a local woman from local loan sharks, that she would 'go through what the doctor went through', and Mignini interpreted the "doctor" as Narducci - who had died 17 years earlier, rather than a local doctor who had drowned a few months earlier and had gambling debts.

Not sure about Ms Spagnioli offhand, but I think I remember something about this.

I found your statements about Spezi's guilt to be extraordinary:

MACH: "The police inferred that one of the boxes might have contained 50 Winchester bullets .22 caliber, which Zaccaria officially possessed but were missing from his car where the weapons were stored, he didn’t have them at home and were never found."

The police inferred that one of the boxes might have contained...weapons were stored in his car....weren't at his home and were never found... Sounds like a whole lot of nothing.
I would be curious to know more about Spezi's conviction in Milan that you refer to, as evidence that Spezi was involved in, and found guilty in court of side-trackings. (I'm guessing you are referring to the recent Spezi's recent conviction for defamation against Giuttari, and being ordered to pay 5,000 euros - btwm is 5,000 euros a big fine as far as these things go?). It would be interesting to know what facts of defamation were actually found by the court to be true defamation.

It still doesn't change the fact that there is zero legitimate or credible evidence that Amanda and Raf ever left raf's apartment that night, nor had anything to do with Meredith's murder, nor were actively involved in any way whatsoever with Rudy Guede. Perugia and Mignini own Rudy Guede, and they own his crimes.
 
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The moment the clasp is 'disovered' is not captured in the video. There is instead an elaborate searching in that corner of the room, everywhere except under the mat. They troop out into the kitchen and crowd around a laptop in a concentrated effort to detect its whereabouts, then they troop back and, after a while, off camera, they 'find' it. All realise at once its profound significance, unlike her bloodied clothes which are viewed as routine items and bagged.
I agree the clasp itself was probably not contaminated. The incriminating profile was generated out of sight and the clasp then destroyed as evidence. Can we have the recent quote again from the High Court judge on chain of evidence?


Not just bagged, but tampered with, then bagged. All on video.
 
Of course they have the right to ask them how they came to their conclusions.
Indeed all witnesses can be asked things through cross-questionings in the courtroom, and by that their credibility can be questioned.

But if the theory is that a witness is lying, there is also a burden of proof on this.

And also, this can happen only inside courtroom. Parties are not supposed claim or "prove" or proclaim they have "proven" something in press conferences or through PR campaigns.

Of course Rudy Guede was never cross examined on his accusations against Amanda and Raf, and his "date with Meredith". (Except on a letter he likely was unable to write, and certainly was unable to read in open court).

Yet Guede's statements were used to convict; providing the only eyewitness testimony of Amanda and Raf being present at the cottage that night yet -contradicts his previous statements that Amanda wasn't there and had nothing to do with it, and that he didn't know Raf, and also is the only basis in testimony of any conflict over money between Amanda and Meredith - which Nencini has identified as the motive of the crime.

Using Guede's testimony used to convict without cross examination, is against both the Italian constitution and ECHR, IIUC.
 
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