Continuation Part 13: Amanda Knox/Raffaele Sollecito

[Bill Williams]

If they do as suggested at the bottom, they will be panned and I think even a number of pro guilt will turn against them (He suggests at the end that they will find Amanda but not Raff guilty)

I do not agree with Thor Klamet on the conclusion to this. I fear for the worst, but am preparing for the best!

 

[Desert Fox]

I do not agree with Thor Klamet on the conclusion to this. I fear for the worst, but am preparing for the best!

I have trouble getting into the mind set but this whole case is about the politics within the Italian legal system. If it does not adversely effect them politically (internally) to exonerate Raff while condemning Amanda, they might very well do that. I suspect they will request to the Justice Minister to request extradition however not sure if he or she will do so because that position appears to be independent. I also don't think they really care how this looks in the United States or anywhere else even the ECHR.

 

[Bill Williams]

I have trouble getting into the mind set but this whole case is about the politics within the Italian legal system. If it does not adversely effect them politically (internally) to exonerate Raff while condemning Amanda, they might very well do that. I suspect they will request to the Justice Minister to request extradition however not sure if he or she will do so because that position appears to be independent. I also don't think they really care how this looks in the United States or anywhere else even the ECHR.

I somewhat agree. The decision will be made with internal politics in mind - which group makes the decision, and how much it will piss off the group they're competing with.

Justice for Meredith is a distant memory. Justice for AK and RS hangs in the balance.

 

[Chris_Halkides]

tertiary transfer via contact

I do not often venture onto other websites discussing this case. But I did do today, and I found someone called Jackie saying this;

"1) I'll start with a common refrain among the Groupies: 'If there's no DNA from AK in the "murder room", she's innocent.'

There are a lot of studies out there showing that people often leave no DNA on objects they touch, but I was quite interested when I found this particular study because it involved not just a gentle handling of objects but rough and tumble simulations of bare-fingered strangulation:
Rutty GN. "An investigation into the transference and survivability of human DNA following simulated manual strangulation with consideration of the problem of third party contamination." Int. J. Legal Med. (2002) 116: 170-173

Despite the violence of the simulated struggles, the male "perps" only left their DNA behind in ~ 7 of the 29 strangulations....2) Now, as important as studies of that kind are to understanding the case, I think Dr. Mull's contribution has been the most important. He opened my eyes to the truly surprising proposition that never, not even once, in the history of genetic research, has anyone proven that tertiary transfer of touch DNA occurs"

Planigale,

This is a common refrain from the pro-guilt crowd. However, there was a paper coauthored by Mariya Goray last year where they filmed people talking in a social setting (reference given about 1-2 months ago). There was an unknown profile A that underwent tertiary transfer during the experiment via contact. And this is not counting the transfer event that put profile A there in the first place. The citation that I gave earlier today also documented multiple transfer by contact, although in some cases the original source of DNA was something other than touch.

 

[Bill Williams]

Florida Criminal Attorney Spencer Cordell

Yet another blogger on the Knox/Sollecito wrongful conviciton:

https://crimcourts.wordpress.com/category/criminal-law/amanda-knox/

The New Amanda Knox Verdict is Ridiculous. WTF Italy?
Posted on May 12, 2014 | 23 Comments
The reinstatement of the guilty verdict in the trial for the murder of Meredith Kercher in Perugia came down several weeks ago. American Amanda Knox and her then-boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito were convicted, then acquitted, then retried and have now been re-convicted for the 2007 slaying of Kercher, who had been Knox’s roommate. Here’s what’s bizarre about the conviction: the court declined to believe the prosecutor’s argument that the murder occurred during a sex-game gone wrong. Instead, they came up with an entirely novel theory of the case, that Knox had killed Kercher over a dispute about the rent.

WTF, Italy?

The court, in its decision, rejected the the prosecutor’s theory of the case. But, they still found her guilty. To do so, they still relied upon the worst of the government’s evidence, the discredited DNA evidence, and MADE UP a new theory about what happened out of thin air. The capper is that the court found that Knox delivered the fatal blow with one knife, which does not match the imprints at the scene. He then finds that Sollecito also cut the victim with a different knife, which has never been found or put into evidence. The judge is literally making stuff up.​

Emphasis added and not in the original.

 

[AmyStrange]

-

Not only is there no DNA evidence, there is no fingerprint evidence, no footprint/shoe print evidence, no motive, very narrow to no window of opportunity matching the likely TOD . . .

-

What proves confirmation bias in my opinion is that same situation with Rudy in the break-in room helps prove he's innocent of that crime to some probably guilty folks, but they don't extend that same courtesy to Amanda.

It just doesn't make any sense except in the cartwheel world of the probably guilty crowd,

d

-

 

[Desert Fox]

What proves confirmation bias in my opinion is that same situation with Rudy in the break-in room helps prove he's innocent of that crime to some probably guilty folks, but they don't extend that same courtesy to Amanda.

It just doesn't make any sense except in the cartwheel world of the probably guilty crowd,

One of the items the guilty side always has problems with, and I see this with other cases, is that the fact of guilt has to be proven not just supposed. Maybe, although I doubt, Amanda and Raffaele really are guilty but I do not see it as proven.

 

[Kauffer]

Hmm, he was certainly very brave in a 3 on 1 situation against a young woman when he stabbed her in the neck.

On the other hand on Nov 5/6th he folded very quickly and threw AK under a bus. Haven’t you guys heard about this That’s what led to AK falsely accusing an innocent black guy.

In fact RS gave up AK quicker than RG did. Honour Bound eh?

And now? Well, those ties of ‘honour’ which were flimsy at best appear to have been completely severed.
The concept of ‘thieves hanging together or they will definitely hang apart’ seems to no longer apply given that they are all going to ‘hang’.

March 25 (and subsequent moves) will tell a tale - if the recent TV interview is any indication.

So that would be the "3 on 1 situation" in which only one of the three left any time stamped direct evidence of themselves. Where's the blood spatter on Mr Sollecito and his clothes? Where are his fingerprints in the room? Where are his shoe prints in blood?

Do you still want to claim that he left his DNA, in the course of the murder, on Ms Kercher's bra hooks? How did he do this, whilst leaving no trace of himself anywhere else? Did he fly, Platnov?

Have a go, Platnov of reconstructing the murder, so as to permit only for the evidence found, where three killers are in the room. Go ahead, make my day.

Care to comment on the illegality of both Mr Sollecito's and Ms Knox's interrogations? Do you actually understand why they were illegal under Italian and Convention law?

 

[MichaelB]

Hmm, he was certainly very brave in a 3 on 1 situation against a young woman when he stabbed her in the neck.

On the other hand on Nov 5/6th he folded very quickly and threw AK under a bus. Haven’t you guys heard about this That’s what led to AK falsely accusing an innocent black guy.

In fact RS gave up AK quicker than RG did. Honour Bound eh?

And now? Well, those ties of ‘honour’ which were flimsy at best appear to have been completely severed.
The concept of ‘thieves hanging together or they will definitely hang apart’ seems to no longer apply given that they are all going to ‘hang’.

March 25 (and subsequent moves) will tell a tale - if the recent TV interview is any indication.

Not according to the cops in the room it wasn't.

Witness: Detective Lorena Zugarini

Question: Something of the sort. He no longer gives a big [sic] alibi; he removes the alibi, I don’t know: the operations concerning the little message found in Amanda’s telephone, did these occur after this communication?
Lorena Zugarini: Anyhow I tell you that when the Deputy Commissioner, or whoever entered inside that room on her behalf, it’s not that they spoke in front of Amanda, so Amanda could not hear the content of our discussions. After which, I honestly, I believe that the message was shown to Amanda after the presence of Deputy Commissioner Napoleoni or someone on her behalf.

~Transcript February 28, 2009

Witness: ‘mediator’ Anna Donnino

Ghirga: Do you remember if anyone originating from the room where Sollecito’s interview was in progress came into your room, where Amanda’s interview was in progress, and said, saying that Sollecito in some way, quote-unquote, had dropped Amanda’s alibi or some wording of the sort?Anna Donnino: Let’s say that I saw it, I remember that Inspector Ficcara exited…
Ghirga: No I’m asking if anyone…
Anna Donnino: If anyone had come in then, no, no.Judge Massei: So you remember Inspector Ficcara had left…
Anna Donnino: I remember Inspector Ficcara had left.
Judge Massei: But no-one who came in nor in particular if coming in said this?Anna Donnino: Absolutely not.
~Transcript March 13, 2009

 

[Planigale]

Whilst on the roll; from Goray, M. and R. A. H. van Oorschot "The complexities of DNA transfer during a social setting." Legal Medicine 17(2): 82-91.

"While transfer of participants DNA was detected in a number of instances, further evidence of DNA transfer was evident through the detection of the unknown DNA profiles on a number of experimental items and surfaces. This non-self DNA was possibly present on the hands prior to experiment commencement or alternatively picked-up during the experiment from the ‘‘dirty’’ objects/surfaces. This is supported by a number of studies which show that hands can contain non-self DNA. An example of this was the multi-step transfer of DNA in experiment 1 where DNA from the chair arm was picked up by a participant’s hand and transferred to other experimental surfaces. In the five experiments, detectable secondary and further DNA transfer of the participants DNA was observed in 36% of the samples (data excluding samples that failed during processing, complex un-interpretable mixtures and samples taken from jug body and jug handle). Multiple transfer events were observed in some of these samples."

Perhaps of more general interest are part of her conclusions;

"Although it may be easier not to address questions relating to transfer in court, there is an expectation by the legal community that such issues should be within the DNA expert’s domain. A recent publication by Champod raised two questions regarding DNA transfer: (1) Is it the role of the scientist to offer expertise on issue of the DNA transfer and its probability? and (2) Can the scientist provide a reasonable answer on such probabilities with the current state of knowledge? The author was adamant that such notions are indeed within the forensic biologist province stating ‘‘. . .it is definitely the role of the forensic scientist to provide as much guidance to the tier of facts if the knowledge he/she may bring is outside the general knowledge of the courts and relevant to the task at hand. Shying away from this duty on the ground that considerations regarding transfer of trace DNA is less known than source level DNA statistics is not acceptable’’. As to the second question, the author states ‘‘. . .experience constitutes a poor substitute to a systematic and structured acquisition of data. Any scientist offering views as to his/her expectations for the forensic findings under given case-related circumstances should be able to put forward documented set of controlled experiments whose relevancy to the case under dispute can be argued’’

So in conclusion I do not know the background of 'Jackie' or the Dr Mull she references, but both appear unable to do a simple literature search which can identify experiments published in peer reviewed journals demonstrating (as Chris has previously said) tertiary and greater transfer of touch DNA with results that give typable DNA profiles. One interesting but consistent feature is despite the very controlled circumstances of these experiments the subjects imported into the experiment DNA profiles of third persons which 'contaminated' the experiment.

 

[Samson]

Popper from PMF just discovered this

"""probably someone already mentioned it

Amanda Knox, born 9 July
Jodi Arias, born 9 July
Thomas Dillon, born 9 July (serial killer)
OJ Simpson, born 9 July

a person very close to me was born on 9 July, the above is certainly a coincidence, after all there are thousands of killers ... but I will watch knives when this person is around"""

Disclosure of interest I was born 10th july.

The more significant issue is the prurience these people display. If anything the opposite should be proposed, that one or more of these people must be statistically innocent.
(Maybe it is Amanda Knox)

 

[Desert Fox]

Popper from PMF just discovered this

"""probably someone already mentioned it

Amanda Knox, born 9 July
Jodi Arias, born 9 July
Thomas Dillon, born 9 July (serial killer)
OJ Simpson, born 9 July

a person very close to me was born on 9 July, the above is certainly a coincidence, after all there are thousands of killers ... but I will watch knives when this person is around"""

Disclosure of interest I was born 10th july.

The more significant issue is the prurience these people display. If anything the opposite should be proposed, that one or more of these people must be statistically innocent.
(Maybe it is Amanda Knox)

If you look for the pattern 9-11 and tie it into New York, you will find many interesting patterns such as the battleship USS New York was laid down 9-11-1911.

 

[platonov]

Let the confusion commence.

Not according to the cops in the room it wasn't.

Well spotted MichaelB. Well spotted. [See guys, that’s how it’s done].

It wasn’t the salient point of my post but it is an interesting aspect nonetheless.
Now let’s look into this a little deeper – let’s not put too much faith in a couple of lines from a cop and a cop translator. After all they are part of the huge conspiracy. Let’s see what AK has to say on the matter.

This issue has always interested me. We have had thousands of posts on Internalised False confessions, Injected false memories, hypoglycemia, waterboarding etc etc. And as a result of ignoring/denying [It’s irrelevant etc] the fact that RS threw AK under the bus the whole business of the timing of the PL accusation versus the bus throwing is skipped over.

I asked this Q again in a recent post and the response was (as usual) confusion. It was certainly discussed years ago - possibly in the context of PL’s lawyer's Q to AK on the stand regarding whether she went to the Questra that night to accuse PL.


So let me simplify/ restate.
AK has spoken/written/obfuscated several times on the terrible events of Nov 5/6. Where, in the temporal plane, does she place her knowledge that RS was withdrawing her alibi relative to her accusation of PL?

What’s her story?

 

[Samson]

If you look for the pattern 9-11 and tie it into New York, you will find many interesting patterns such as the battleship USS New York was laid down 9-11-1911.

Of course this is all confirmation bias. Statistics deliver clusters of events all the time. People in retail shops find this...

 

[MichaelB]

Well spotted MichaelB. Well spotted. [See guys, that’s how it’s done].

It wasn’t the salient point of my post but it is an interesting aspect nonetheless.
Now let’s look into this a little deeper – let’s not put too much faith in a couple of lines from a cop and a cop translator. After all they are part of the huge conspiracy. Let’s see what AK has to say on the matter.

This issue has always interested me. We have had thousands of posts on Internalised False confessions, Injected false memories, hypoglycemia, waterboarding etc etc. And as a result of ignoring/denying [It’s irrelevant etc] the fact that RS threw AK under the bus the whole business of the timing of the PL accusation versus the bus throwing is skipped over.

I asked this Q in a recent post and the response was (as usual) confusion. It was certainly discussed years ago - possibly in the context of PL’s lawyer's Q to AK on the stand regarding whether she went to the Questra that night to accuse PL.


So let me simplify/ restate.
AK has spoken/written/obfuscated several times on the terrible events of Nov 5/6. Where does she place her knowledge that RS was withdrawing her alibi relative to her accusation of PL, in the temporal plane?

What’s her story?

She testified and wrote in her book that she was told he'd dropped the alibi.

Just then a cop —Monica Napoleoni , who had been so abrupt with me about the poop and the mop at the villa— opened the door. “Raffaele says you left his apartment on Thursday night,” she said almost gleefully. “He says that you asked him to lie for you. He’s taken away your alibi.” My jaw dropped. I was dumbfounded, devastated. What? I couldn’t believe that Raffaele, the one person in Italy whom I’d trusted completely, had turned against me. How could he say that when it wasn’t true? We’d been together all night. Now it was just me against the police, my word against theirs. I had nothing left. “Where did you go? Who did you text?” Ficarra asked, sneering at me. “I don’t remember texting anyone.”

Knox, Amanda (2013-04-30). Waiting to Be Heard: A Memoir (pp. 113-114). HarperCollins. Kindle Edition.

But you can't have it both ways. Someone is lying.

It's either the police are honest public servants and have no reason to lie about this which means Amanda must be and she named Lumumba for some other reason.....but what is it?

Or she's telling the truth and the cops are lying. If that's the case then what else are the cops lying about? Maybe how they treated her for starters?

What do you think?

She'd already told them about Lumumba a little earlier when she gave Ficarra the 6 names (including Guede) and Ficarra wrote them in her November 6 memo. The cops have never said she was trying to hint it was Lumumba, Guede or anyone else before things went pear shaped which even according to the cops was because of the text message. They thought they'd cracked the case finding the deleted text and reply "see you later" and she'd arranged a meeting the night of the murder and it must be with the killer if she'd been lying about it.

 

[Diocletus]

It's either the police are honest public servants and have no reason to lie about this which means Amanda must be and she named Lumumba for some other reason.....but what is it?

It's really a stretch to say that Napoleoni lied. I mean, illegally accessing confidential computer files, harassing officers to the court, malicious destruction of property and abuse of office, yes. But lying?

 

[Diocletus]

I've done an experiment to prove tertiary DNA contamination. I'm going to publish my results in a journal soon.

What I did was as follows: I took some DNA-containing bacterial culture (more specifically, peach yogurt), and I put in on a spoon. Then, I smeared some of that yogurt on my hand, and rubbed it on the refrigerator door handle. The next person to open the door got it on his hand and wiped it off onto a kitchen towel. So, that peach yogurt DNA was on the towel, even though I never touched the towel or even touched anything that touched the towel!

 

[Kauffer]

Well spotted MichaelB. Well spotted. [See guys, that’s how it’s done].

It wasn’t the salient point of my post but it is an interesting aspect nonetheless.
Now let’s look into this a little deeper – let’s not put too much faith in a couple of lines from a cop and a cop translator. After all they are part of the huge conspiracy. Let’s see what AK has to say on the matter.

This issue has always interested me. We have had thousands of posts on Internalised False confessions, Injected false memories, hypoglycemia, waterboarding etc etc. And as a result of ignoring/denying [It’s irrelevant etc] the fact that RS threw AK under the bus the whole business of the timing of the PL accusation versus the bus throwing is skipped over.

I asked this Q again in a recent post and the response was (as usual) confusion. It was certainly discussed years ago - possibly in the context of PL’s lawyer's Q to AK on the stand regarding whether she went to the Questra that night to accuse PL.


So let me simplify/ restate.
AK has spoken/written/obfuscated several times on the terrible events of Nov 5/6. Where, in the temporal plane, does she place her knowledge that RS was withdrawing her alibi relative to her accusation of PL?

What’s her story?

Her story is that the interrogation was illegal. And, also....

Quote:
[of] obsessive length. . . , carried out during [both] day and night, by more than one person, on a young and foreign girl who at the time did not speak Italian at all well, was unaware of her own rights, did not have the assistance of an attorney (which she should have been entitled to, being at this point suspected of very serious crimes), and was moreover being assisted by an interpreter who . . . did not limit herself to translating, but induced her to force herself to remember, explaining that she [Amanda] was confused in her memories . . .


So that's pretty clear then, isn't it??

 

[platonov]

A breakthrough at last

She testified and wrote in her book that she was told he'd dropped the alibi.



But you can't have it both ways. Someone is lying.

It's either the police are honest public servants and have no reason to lie about this which means Amanda must be and she named Lumumba for some other reason.....but what is it?

Or she's telling the truth and the cops are lying. If that's the case then what else are the cops lying about? Maybe how they treated her for starters?

What do you think?

She'd already told them about Lumumba a little earlier when she gave Ficarra the 6 names (including Guede) and Ficarra wrote them in her November 6 memo. The cops have never said she was trying to hint it was Lumumba, Guede or anyone else before things went pear shaped which even according to the cops was because of the text message. They thought they'd cracked the case finding the deleted text and reply "see you later" and she'd arranged a meeting the night of the murder and it must be with the killer if she'd been lying about it.

Excellent, MichaelB. Good work.

After 4+ years of the cartwheel spinning furiously and getting nowhere you have managed to make the connection between (& find a timeline for) RS’s betrayal and AK’s false accusation.

According to her book she falsely accused PL after RS threw her under the bus.
So far so good. If only this info had been incorporated into the IFC/Wb theory earlier think what might have been achieved. Still better late than never.

One not so minor point. I am familiar with much of AK’s testimony. While she addresses the betrayal by RS [ June 2009 in response to Maresca IIRC] she doesn’t actually connect this with her false accusation. Do you have a cite for this.
Platonov has the (annoying apparently ) habit of being right in these matters but perhaps I have overlooked something

Now moving on.
RS has also written a book I believe. Does he place his disavowal of AK before her false accusation.
Do their stories (in the books ) match ?
AFAICS he is not very clear on this. He says

“When I first found out what Amanda had signed her name to, I was furious. Okay, she was under a lot of pressure, as I had been, but how could she just invent stuff out of nowhere? Why would she drag me into something I had no part of?”

It doesn’t sound like he is admitting that his ‘disavowal’ was the cause of the false accusation.
What time does he give for his withdrawal of the alibi and claim that his earlier lies were AK’s idea?

 

[Chris_Halkides]

Transfer of profile A was at least tertiary; quaternary transfer

With respect to Profile A in Dr. Goray and Dr. Van Oorshot's paper ("The complexities of DNA transfer during a social setting"), I contacted Dr. Goray for clarification. Profile A was also detected by swabbing the chair arms. From the chair Profile A was transferred to the hands of participant 1 (first step). Then it moved onto other surfaces (second step). Then, profile A was also detected on the right table segment that was not directly contacted by Participant 1 (third step). That is tertiary transfer, where the first two were by touch, then the third by contact. If Profile A originated by Person A touching the chair, then it would be quaternary transfer. The article makes reference to the possibility of other transfers that may have been quaternary: "Recordings showed that Participant 2 has touched the underside of the glass while handling it, possibly transferring some of the Participant 1’s DNA to the underside and then to the right table segment via quaternary transfer. Alternatively, DNA of Participant 1 may have been first transferred to the right segment of the table and then to the underside of the glass, also via quaternary transfer (Fig. 2)."