Continuation Part 13: Amanda Knox/Raffaele Sollecito

[NotEvenWrong]

Machiavelli,
MDDVS, in post #915 in this thread, posted a figure showing gastric emptying t lag data for food from a peer reviewed scientific study published in the Journal of Gastroenterology and Hepatology. The figure shows that the 95% confidence interval for t lag for someone of Meredith's age is around 140 minutes at the upper bound.

In addition, platonov pointed out in a separate argument (after LondonJohn corrected his facts) that Dr. Lalli stated Meredith's death occurred 2 to 3 hours after eating. This range is within the 95% confidence interval upper bound for t lag according to the paper.

Both of these facts together are incredibly strong evidence (honestly, this is as close to proof as you can possibly get for forensic evidence) that Meredith died 2 to 3 hours after her last meal.

We know she began eating between 6 and 6:30pm. This puts her absolute latest time of death between 9 and 9:30pm. Remember this number is actually beyond the upper confidence interval for t lag. By 40 minutes!

platonov's [corrected] argument (Dr. Lalli's estimate) combined with the known scientific data on gastric emptying means we have a known latest time of death for Meredith. Within this window, we know Amanda and Raffaele were at Raffaele's apartment because a file was accessed on Raffaele's computer and we have a time stamp of this.

This means we know beyond any reasonable doubt that Amanda and Raffaele could not have been at the cottage when Meredith was killed. In other words, they are provably innocent based on any reasonable forensic definition of "proof".

Is forensic proof that Amanda and Raffaele are innocent convincing for you? Can you comment on this?

* A brief thank you to platonov for pointing out Dr. Lalli's testimony which bolsters the time of death and gastric emptying argument.

 

[Diocletus]

Pascali, as well as the rest of the defence team, had obviously access to Stefnoni's mail, since it was deposited in the trial papers. So she was well aware about Stefanoni's response.
But also, Pascali had a confrontation with Micheli and Stefanoni on Oct. 4., they were all three in the courtroom, Pascali spoke with the judge and with Stefanoni, and he was able to make requests (he did) and to mention and discuss his instances.

Kindly point to the page number where Pascali says "I don't want to see those log files". Thanks in advance.

 

[christianahannah]

Machiavelli,
MDDVS, in post #915 in this thread, posted a figure showing gastric emptying t lag data for food from a peer reviewed scientific study published in the Journal of Gastroenterology and Hepatology. The figure shows that the 95% confidence interval for t lag for someone of Meredith's age is around 140 minutes at the upper bound.

In addition, platonov pointed out in a separate argument (after LondonJohn corrected his facts) that Dr. Lalli stated Meredith's death occurred 2 to 3 hours after eating. This range is within the 95% confidence interval upper bound for t lag according to the paper.

Both of these facts together are incredibly strong evidence (honestly, this is as close to proof as you can possibly get for forensic evidence) that Meredith died 2 to 3 hours after her last meal.

We know she began eating between 6 and 6:30pm. This puts her absolute latest time of death between 9 and 9:30pm. Remember this number is actually beyond the upper confidence interval for t lag. By 40 minutes!

platonov's [corrected] argument (Dr. Lalli's estimate) combined with the known scientific data on gastric emptying means we have a known latest time of death for Meredith. Within this window, we know Amanda and Raffaele were at Raffaele's apartment because a file was accessed on Raffaele's computer and we have a time stamp of this.

This means we know beyond any reasonable doubt that Amanda and Raffaele could not have been at the cottage when Meredith was killed. In other words, they are provably innocent based on any reasonable forensic definition of "proof".

Is forensic proof that Amanda and Raffaele are innocent convincing for you? Can you comment on this?

* A brief thank you to platonov for pointing out Dr. Lalli's testimony which bolsters the time of death and gastric emptying argument.

This subject is interesting. I hope to be able to read the indivual expert testimonies to see exactly what they had to say concerning this and any documentation they used to back their claims.

As far as their testimonies were concerned (in summary) there was a wide range of time given from 2-5 hours for gastric emptying, along with one expert's testimony that maybe ligatures were not done (or not done correctly) during autopsy.

I often wondered if Meredith maybe only ate substantially the apple crumble which was done around 8 p.m. and not much (or anything) of the pizza. I thought there was testimony (or maybe I read it in a book) concerning one of the friends saying Meredith wasn't hungry and didn't eat much pizza (if any). Also, cheese and ice cream are dairy products - would they be difficult to differentiate from one another in the stomach? Same with the flour crust of the pizza and flour component of the apple crumble? If that is the case would that change any of the numbers/time being bandied about? I think most, if not all, the experts were able to identify the apple content in the stomach.

Anyway, all this is way beyond my level of understanding but if I come across the testimony of the friend concerning Meredith's eating habit that evening or testimony of the individual experts I will post and get everyone's opinion.

 

[Diocletus]

This subject is interesting. I hope to be able to read the indivual expert testimonies to see exactly what they had to say concerning this and any documentation they used to back their claims.

As far as their testimonies were concerned (in summary) there was a wide range of time given from 2-5 hours for gastric emptying, along with one expert's testimony that maybe ligatures were not done (or not done correctly) during autopsy.

I often wondered if Meredith maybe only ate substantially the apple crumble which was done around 8 p.m. and not much (or anything) of the pizza. I thought there was testimony (or maybe I read it in a book) concerning one of the friends saying Meredith wasn't hungry and didn't eat much pizza (if any). Also, cheese and ice cream are dairy products - would they be difficult to differentiate from one another in the stomach? Same with the flour crust of the pizza and flour component of the apple crumble? If that is the case would that change any of the numbers/time being bandied about? I think most, if not all, the experts were able to identify the apple content in the stomach.

Anyway, all this is way beyond my level of understanding but if I come across the testimony of the friend concerning Meredith's eating habit that evening or testimony of the individual experts I will post and get everyone's opinion.

The problem with the friends is that they were all coached by Mignini. Since Mignini was interested in pushing the TOD back, an "oh, she didn't really eat at first" comment doesn't surprise me.

 

[MDDVS]

This subject is interesting. I hope to be able to read the indivual expert testimonies to see exactly what they had to say concerning this and any documentation they used to back their claims.

As far as their testimonies were concerned (in summary) there was a wide range of time given from 2-5 hours for gastric emptying, along with one expert's testimony that maybe ligatures were not done (or not done correctly) during autopsy.

I often wondered if Meredith maybe only ate substantially the apple crumble which was done around 8 p.m. and not much (or anything) of the pizza. I thought there was testimony (or maybe I read it in a book) concerning one of the friends saying Meredith wasn't hungry and didn't eat much pizza (if any). Also, cheese and ice cream are dairy products - would they be difficult to differentiate from one another in the stomach? Same with the flour crust of the pizza and flour component of the apple crumble? If that is the case would that change any of the numbers/time being bandied about? I think most, if not all, the experts were able to identify the apple content in the stomach.

Anyway, all this is way beyond my level of understanding but if I come across the testimony of the friend concerning Meredith's eating habit that evening or testimony of the individual experts I will post and get everyone's opinion.

The relevant time is not the time for gastric emptying but the time until the start of stomach emptying (tlag). That 2-5 hours range is for the former not the latter. The ligatures were well done as can be verified by the rest of the evidence (full still recognizable in the stomach etc). I think there's also a video of the autopsy where you can see the procedure, but I'm not sure.

 

[christianahannah]

The relevant time is not the time for gastric emptying but the time until the start of stomach emptying (tlag). That 2-5 hours range is for the former not the latter. The ligatures were well done as can be verified by the rest of the evidence (full still recognizable in the stomach etc). I think there's also a video of the autopsy where you can see the procedure, but I'm not sure.

Don't go by any of my terminology because it will be misplaced (meaning I do not know this subject at all), however, if there is testimony that attest to what I have written (actual time of meal and what was eaten, compatibility of certain foods to resemble one another in the stomach, evidence that ligatures might not have been done correctly, etc.) would that change any of the timeframe?

I don't know if I will find these answers or if they are even given in testimony. But if I do find testimony I will bring it back here to let all and sundry dissect.

 

[Chris_Halkides]

just dessert?

The relevant time is not the time for gastric emptying but the time until the start of stomach emptying (tlag). That 2-5 hours range is for the former not the latter. The ligatures were well done as can be verified by the rest of the evidence (full still recognizable in the stomach etc). I think there's also a video of the autopsy where you can see the procedure, but I'm not sure.

MDDVS,

I agree that t(lag) is the key parameter. However, I reiterate that some gastric studies define t(lag) as the time at which 10% emptying has occurred and others define it as the time at which gastric emptying is at its maximal rate. In the only study in which I had enough data to make this comparison, the latter definition occurred a little bit later than 10% emptying, more like 20% emptying.

My recollection is that the young women finished their dessert around 7:45, but the time is probably approximate.

 

[Desert Fox]

Machiavelli,
MDDVS, in post #915 in this thread, posted a figure showing gastric emptying t lag data for food from a peer reviewed scientific study published in the Journal of Gastroenterology and Hepatology. The figure shows that the 95% confidence interval for t lag for someone of Meredith's age is around 140 minutes at the upper bound.

In addition, platonov pointed out in a separate argument (after LondonJohn corrected his facts) that Dr. Lalli stated Meredith's death occurred 2 to 3 hours after eating. This range is within the 95% confidence interval upper bound for t lag according to the paper.

Both of these facts together are incredibly strong evidence (honestly, this is as close to proof as you can possibly get for forensic evidence) that Meredith died 2 to 3 hours after her last meal.

We know she began eating between 6 and 6:30pm. This puts her absolute latest time of death between 9 and 9:30pm. Remember this number is actually beyond the upper confidence interval for t lag. By 40 minutes!

platonov's [corrected] argument (Dr. Lalli's estimate) combined with the known scientific data on gastric emptying means we have a known latest time of death for Meredith. Within this window, we know Amanda and Raffaele were at Raffaele's apartment because a file was accessed on Raffaele's computer and we have a time stamp of this.

This means we know beyond any reasonable doubt that Amanda and Raffaele could not have been at the cottage when Meredith was killed. In other words, they are provably innocent based on any reasonable forensic definition of "proof".

Is forensic proof that Amanda and Raffaele are innocent convincing for you? Can you comment on this?

* A brief thank you to platonov for pointing out Dr. Lalli's testimony which bolsters the time of death and gastric emptying argument.

This subject is interesting. I hope to be able to read the indivual expert testimonies to see exactly what they had to say concerning this and any documentation they used to back their claims.

As far as their testimonies were concerned (in summary) there was a wide range of time given from 2-5 hours for gastric emptying, along with one expert's testimony that maybe ligatures were not done (or not done correctly) during autopsy.

I often wondered if Meredith maybe only ate substantially the apple crumble which was done around 8 p.m. and not much (or anything) of the pizza. I thought there was testimony (or maybe I read it in a book) concerning one of the friends saying Meredith wasn't hungry and didn't eat much pizza (if any). Also, cheese and ice cream are dairy products - would they be difficult to differentiate from one another in the stomach? Same with the flour crust of the pizza and flour component of the apple crumble? If that is the case would that change any of the numbers/time being bandied about? I think most, if not all, the experts were able to identify the apple content in the stomach.

Anyway, all this is way beyond my level of understanding but if I come across the testimony of the friend concerning Meredith's eating habit that evening or testimony of the individual experts I will post and get everyone's opinion.

Do not forget that the stomach content is supported by other evidence including phone calls. Meredeth's mother was sick and she would have likely tried to call. Ron Hendry also uses the state of dress from Meredeth to support an early time of death.

What we have is all these items which converge for a time of death from 21:00 to maybe 21:30. If she died after that time, the prosecution needs to show some pretty solid evidence of that which they have not especially when they are arguing (we think) that Amanda and Raff murdered her sometime after that and likely considerably later.

 

[Rolfe]

You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it drink . . .

Hey, that's my PhD subject. No, srsly.

 

[Desert Fox]

If I decide to post something, such as Stefanoni's CV (which you can well ask yourself), the purpose won't be to increase my credibility, but to trash yours (albeit, I take platonov's remark).

Should we value Michael Behe's conclusions just because he has a CV. If not, why should we automatically value Stefanoni's, assuming that she has them?

 

[Rolfe]

Machiavelli,
MDDVS, in post #915 in this thread, posted a figure showing gastric emptying t lag data for food from a peer reviewed scientific study published in the Journal of Gastroenterology and Hepatology. The figure shows that the 95% confidence interval for t lag for someone of Meredith's age is around 140 minutes at the upper bound.

In addition, platonov pointed out in a separate argument (after LondonJohn corrected his facts) that Dr. Lalli stated Meredith's death occurred 2 to 3 hours after eating. This range is within the 95% confidence interval upper bound for t lag according to the paper.

Both of these facts together are incredibly strong evidence (honestly, this is as close to proof as you can possibly get for forensic evidence) that Meredith died 2 to 3 hours after her last meal.

We know she began eating between 6 and 6:30pm. This puts her absolute latest time of death between 9 and 9:30pm. Remember this number is actually beyond the upper confidence interval for t lag. By 40 minutes!

My reading of the data is that you can't put an early limit on Meredith's time of death based on the stomach contents as we know them. Five minutes after she finished the meal, it was all in her stomach and none in her duodenum. You'd have to get more technical as regards the extent to which the food had been broken down to come up with an early limit, and I don't think that would be reliable.

The early limit in the case of Meredith is that she was seen to be alive shortly before nine. This is not a mistake or a misidentification, therefore we can put an early limit on the time of death at the time it would have taken her to get from where she was seen alive to where she was found dead. Nine o'clock.

It is the later limit that depends on the stomach contents. We have a period of time known as the t-lag, before the stomach starts to empty. The 95% confidence limit figure for this is 3 hours (forget the 2 hours part, it's irrelevant). Fix on the latest time she could have begun her meal, which seems to be 6.30 from what you say. There is a 97.5% confidence limit (because you're only concerned with the upper side of the bell curve) that she was dead by 6 9.30. If she ate earlier, then this time becomes earlier.

Guede stated that she screamed about 9.20. That is highly consistent with the time of death indicated by the stomach contents. There is no evidence that she did anything at all after returning home at 9 o'clock. She was still wearing her street clothes. Guede didn't have a watch and his estimate of the scream could be a bit late. The overall aggregation of the evidence suggests she died soon after returning home at 9 o'clock and disturbing a burglar. Bear in mind that the 9.30 time is close to the outslde limit of the time the digestive evidence will allow us, and earlier is more probable. But the latest reasonable time is 9.30-ish.

She didn't make these aborted phone calls.

 

[Samson]

This subject is interesting. I hope to be able to read the indivual expert testimonies to see exactly what they had to say concerning this and any documentation they used to back their claims.

As far as their testimonies were concerned (in summary) there was a wide range of time given from 2-5 hours for gastric emptying, along with one expert's testimony that maybe ligatures were not done (or not done correctly) during autopsy.

I often wondered if Meredith maybe only ate substantially the apple crumble which was done around 8 p.m. and not much (or anything) of the pizza. I thought there was testimony (or maybe I read it in a book) concerning one of the friends saying Meredith wasn't hungry and didn't eat much pizza (if any). Also, cheese and ice cream are dairy products - would they be difficult to differentiate from one another in the stomach? Same with the flour crust of the pizza and flour component of the apple crumble? If that is the case would that change any of the numbers/time being bandied about? I think most, if not all, the experts were able to identify the apple content in the stomach.

Anyway, all this is way beyond my level of understanding but if I come across the testimony of the friend concerning Meredith's eating habit that evening or testimony of the individual experts I will post and get everyone's opinion.

Good call about the pizza, the time of death, 9pm suggests she did not start eating at 6 to 6 30, but more likely saw the desert arriving and hurriedly ate the pizza. There is almost no chance she ate at 6pm according to the numerous studies that have been posted here. Gastric emptying never starts as late as 120 minutes after eating so she could not have eaten before 7 pm. Machiavelli sins egregiously when suggesting these studies are not relevant to this one normal unstressed human being.
The Kercher family should have these studies rammed down their throats.

 

[NotEvenWrong]

MDDVS,

I agree that t(lag) is the key parameter. However, I reiterate that some gastric studies define t(lag) as the time at which 10% emptying has occurred and others define it as the time at which gastric emptying is at its maximal rate. In the only study in which I had enough data to make this comparison, the latter definition occurred a little bit later than 10% emptying, more like 20% emptying.

My recollection is that the young women finished their dessert around 7:45, but the time is probably approximate.

Chris,
Maybe you addressed this in your last post on this subject, but do you know how the paper in question defines t lag? I don't have the entirety of the document. Also, how does whatever definition they use change the confidence and time in (latest reasonable) time of death?

I will try to find your last post on the subject -- I recall you replied to me but I only got a quick glance as I got distracted.

 

[MDDVS]

Chris,
Maybe you addressed this in your last post on this subject, but do you know how the paper in question defines t lag? I don't have the entirety of the document. Also, how does whatever definition they use change the confidence and time in (latest reasonable) time of death?

I will try to find your last post on the subject -- I recall you replied to me but I only got a quick glance as I got distracted.

Yes, I mentioned that in the same post where I posted the figure. They define it as the time of maximum emptying rate.

 

[Planigale]

Points of information.

One, no university offers any "programme for PhD study". There's no such thing. You do original research on a topic you propose and have approved, and if it's good enough, you get the degree.

Two, universities employ people without PhDs in various capacities, even in research laboratories. All the time.

I do agree. I think the whole discussion about Stefanoni's qualifications is irrelevant. whether she has a BSc, MSc, or DSc, makes no difference to the quality of the work. I have known Professors who should not be allowed to touch anything on the bench; whilst many laboratories are highly dependant on extremely competent BSc level career scientists who may have excellent publication records on boring but essential topics such as quality control and sit on the International Standing Committee on Standards in Cable Tie Colour Coding (and tell you all about the latest intrigues in cable tie colour coding over tea at great length). (Brian , if you read this I am not referring to you).

 

[Planigale]

I asked this of Machiavelli, but there were too many rapid-fire questions being put his way...... so mybe you, LJ, can have a go:

What is the implication of this reality (the responsibility of Micheli, really) when considering Article 111 of the Italian Constitution?

​

There are other issues there.... like the fact that:

The guilt of the defendant cannot be
established on the basis of statements by persons who, out of their own free
choice, have always voluntarily avoided undergoing cross-examination by
the defendant or the defence counsel.​

.... tends to relegate anything at Rudy's fast-track process irrelevant to AK and RS's process, althought perhaps a lot hinges on the legal interpretation of the word, "voluntarily".

In a common law jurisdiction one would have expected this to be an important case establishing precedents. The defence applied for the EDF. They were turned down, they would appeal this point on the grounds that all documents from the incident probatario should be deposited and the EDF are documents. It might go to the supreme court for a final definition on what are documents. Then as happened in the UK the whole issue of use and interpretation of LCNDNA could have been ruled on. The chain of evidence issue for the knife would have been a point of appeal. Then a legal definition of how to prove contamination or rather how to establish reasonable doubt. There are lots of important issues in this case that the Italian legal system needs to nail down.

 

[NotEvenWrong]

This subject is interesting. I hope to be able to read the indivual expert testimonies to see exactly what they had to say concerning this and any documentation they used to back their claims.

As far as their testimonies were concerned (in summary) there was a wide range of time given from 2-5 hours for gastric emptying, along with one expert's testimony that maybe ligatures were not done (or not done correctly) during autopsy.

I often wondered if Meredith maybe only ate substantially the apple crumble which was done around 8 p.m. and not much (or anything) of the pizza. I thought there was testimony (or maybe I read it in a book) concerning one of the friends saying Meredith wasn't hungry and didn't eat much pizza (if any). Also, cheese and ice cream are dairy products - would they be difficult to differentiate from one another in the stomach? Same with the flour crust of the pizza and flour component of the apple crumble? If that is the case would that change any of the numbers/time being bandied about? I think most, if not all, the experts were able to identify the apple content in the stomach.

Anyway, all this is way beyond my level of understanding but if I come across the testimony of the friend concerning Meredith's eating habit that evening or testimony of the individual experts I will post and get everyone's opinion.

While there are a lot of possibilities, the main point to consider is that we are interested in the fact there was no food in the duodenum which is entirely different than the time for total emptying. This puts an upper bound on her time of death as others have noted. The exact approximation depends on what definition the paper used for t lag, as Chris pointed out.

I don't know about the difficulties with respect to differentiating the cheese and ice cream in the stomach, I'd have to defer to Dr. Lalli on that.

Like you said, we can potentially play with the variables and assumptions and see if that changes anything (what kinds of food did she eat, is it possible she started eating later than her friends actually stated, did the person doing the autopsy screw up, etc., etc. etc.). But the key point is that if we make our best unbiased estimates of these variables using what we know and what the witnesses tell us, then we can get a good idea of an upper bound on TOD. We can also take into consideration what Dr. Lalli's estimate was using a separate set of considerations -- she used state of digestion as an estimate rather than t lag. Both of these independent estimates came to a similar conclusion -- that Meredith died within 2-3 hours of her meal.

It just so happens that this is completely compatible with Rudy killing Meredith alone around 9:20 pm. It is also completely incompatible with Amanda and Raffaele being at the apartment. Meaning we can infer that the probability of Rudy acting alone is dramatically higher than Rudy teaming up with Amanda and Raffaele. This evidence is much stronger than any pro-guilt evidence that is available, and also, since we must start with the proposition of the prosecution needing to prove "guilt beyond a reasonable doubt", the presumption of innocence, and the burden of proof belonging to the prosecution, the conclusion that Amanda and Raffaele are innocent should be overwhelmingly favored by anyone who understands the forensics.

 

[Numbers]

I do agree. I think the whole discussion about Stefanoni's qualifications is irrelevant. whether she has a BSc, MSc, or DSc, makes no difference to the quality of the work. I have known Professors who should not be allowed to touch anything on the bench; whilst many laboratories are highly dependant on extremely competent BSc level career scientists who may have excellent publication records on boring but essential topics such as quality control and sit on the International Standing Committee on Standards in Cable Tie Colour Coding (and tell you all about the latest intrigues in cable tie colour coding over tea at great length). (Brian , if you read this I am not referring to you).

The whole issue of Stefanoni's formal qualifications or credentials is a diversion from the guilters. Her malpractice in collection of forensic samples, laboratory analysis of DNA, and her misstatements in court testimony about, among many subjects, the luminol footprints, the quantity of DNA allegedly on the knife blade, the identification of alleles and alleged stutter on the bra clasp DNA profiles, and generally low ethical standards and suspect-oriented forensic analyses are the issues.

 

[Rolfe]

I think everyone is just a bit tired of the deferential, argument from authority, lionisation of "Dr." Stefanoni, when she's nothing of the sort.

There are dumb PhDs, and BSc-level technicians who are meticulous and trustworthy. I've worked with plenty of both in my time. But let's not allow a status to be awarded to this woman which she doesn't possess.

 

[Desert Fox]

I think everyone is just a bit tired of the deferential, argument from authority, lionisation of "Dr." Stefanoni, when she's nothing of the sort.

There are dumb PhDs, and BSc-level technicians who are meticulous and trustworthy. I've worked with plenty of both in my time. But let's not allow a status to be awarded to this woman which she doesn't possess.

I think it is time to move on however