Continuation Part 15: Amanda Knox/Raffaele Sollecito

[Planigale]

I doubt anyone would even want to go near that disgusting mess. I am sure it's true Rudy had a dodgy kebab.

The theatre part is making a conscious decision not to flush. It was useless for DNA analysis anyway. The person who decided not to flush it after the event, also made a conscious decision not to call the police over a suspected crime, but waited for the police to find it.

The 3/4 bloody fingerprints on the wall is also pure theatre. Cliched horror movie shot. Whoever did it - and I am unsure whether it is a left or right hand streak, because, of course, photography can get reversed - had a ring finger and middle finger of similar length, with the index and little finger shorter. The finger marks in blood look long and elegant.

Rudy's fingers from the "holding a knife" photo look sausage like, with the ring finger much shorter than the middle finger. Hard to tell, of course, it all depends on angles.

The bomb in the toilet prank phone call is a strange sort of coincidence. However, I am sure it is just that.

This means it was a male. (I do not think you can conclude anything about the length of the fingers from the marks, but if you can a long ring finger means a male).

 

[Planigale]

They were not expecting to be interrupted by the postal police.

BTW Do you believe Amanda took a shower that morning at the cottage?

My view is yes. Assuming Knox is innocent this would be normal behaviour to go back to your own flat for a shower after spending the night with your boyfriend. I think the faint luminal positive marks in the hall way may be from Knox stepping on the blood stained bathmat with damp feet, then walking down the hall. There are are other possible explanations for these marks. E.g. bleach based shower cleaner.

 

[Planigale]

Don't want to speak for others, but my POV is that even if the DNA against Rudy were thrown out, there is plenty of other evidence to convict him. I agree the DNA is powerful, but his finger, palm, and shoe prints in Meredith's blood, in a flat where he had never before been, and had no provable reason to be, is plenty, IMO.

Agree

 

[Planigale]

Chris, I had a DNA test done by "23 and Me" which provided me with data related to health factors and ancestry. (As an American, I found it fascinating to learn of my various ancestry contributors. I had no idea I have so much English and Welsh ancestry and so little German.) I posted the results here a long time ago because it showed the types of information a DNA (saliva) sample can produce.

Could a reputable lab develop ancestral data from a minescule blood sample collected at the murder scene?

If a sample were collected from downstairs, for example, and it showed the contributor was of 70 percent Balkan ancestry, I would think that would be significant, even if the suspect was not identifiable. That would indicate someone other than Rudi or the cat was involved downstairs and give some idea as to his ethnic origin. (Rudi is likely to be 95+ percent West African ancestry with some North African ancestry and zero Neandrathal. Neanderthals did not live in Africa. "Pure" Africans have zero Neandrathal ancestry, whereas the "average" European is about 3.5 percent Neandrathal.)

Actually one can do far better now. One can do an entire genomic sequence from small amounts of DNA. (Depending on details 1 mcg to 1 mg DNA). Sequencing can identify hair and eye colour and increasingly information about face shape etc. Ancestry is best from mitochondrial DNA (female) and Y typing (male).

 

[carbonjam72]

Didn't know Numbers was a DNA expert.



Mostly hokum. Do you have any data on "foreign students were fleeing Perugia"? Was this the day of the murder? He wasn't indicted for claiming Spezi was something, but rather wiretapping journalists and police IIRC.

Yes, and Al Capone was only prosecuted by authorities who were offended because of his tax evasion.
IIRC, numbers has done some good DNA posts, as have others. It hard to tell who's an expert, and who has just done their homework well enough to fool me.

And yes, I have a secret economic report on the per capita effect of the mass student exodus after the crime, the cost per Perugia resident per unsolved crime minute, as well as TGP (Tuscany Gross Product) loss valuations projected out for a full year. Unfortunately though I can't share this data for fear of compromising my sources. I refuse to use emoticons on principle.

 

[carbonjam72]

luminol prints were tested negative for blood, ie not blood

My view is yes. Assuming Knox is innocent this would be normal behaviour to go back to your own flat for a shower after spending the night with your boyfriend. I think the faint luminal positive marks in the hall way may be from Knox stepping on the blood stained bathmat with damp feet, then walking down the hall. There are are other possible explanations for these marks. E.g. bleach based shower cleaner.

Thought these luminol spots tested negative for blood, and that Stef was caught on the stand late in the first trial for having lied about it, by concealing that fact earlier?

 

[Planigale]

Thought these luminol spots tested negative for blood, and that Stef was caught on the stand late in the first trial for having lied about it, by concealing that fact earlier?

There is an argument (pace Mach), that highly dilute blood may be detected by Luminol, but not TMB. It may not be blood, if it is blood it fits with Knox's story. Either way not evidence of guilt.

 

[katy_did]

All I can say is, if any of us was proven to have been at the scene of a rape/murder, in a flat we had previously never visited, and the person that lived there ended up dead, and there was no evidence of other perps, I don't think it would matter if we went dancing later, or not.

Yes, agreed. I'm just a bit cautious in assuming there's a typical way of behaving for someone who'd witnessed a murder and was worried he might be blamed for it. I don't believe Guede because of the evidence at the house and because his story is basically implausible, but the dancing doesn't sway me one way or the other (lol, so to speak).

 

[katy_did]

There is an argument (pace Mach), that highly dilute blood may be detected by Luminol, but not TMB. It may not be blood, if it is blood it fits with Knox's story. Either way not evidence of guilt.

There's also the fact the police over-applied the luminol, which might've interfered with the later TMB test. As you say, it may not be blood, but if it is blood there's an obvious innocent explanation for it. I think this is why the prosecution laughably tried to attribute one of the prints to Sollecito - they knew they could be explained away too easily otherwise.

 

[Kauffer]

There is an argument (pace Mach), that highly dilute blood may be detected by Luminol, but not TMB. It may not be blood, if it is blood it fits with Knox's story. Either way not evidence of guilt.

Good grief! This is the first argument for innocence I've read that gives credence to claims that the luminol hits might have been blood.

The absence of confirmatory testing means that the discussion on this subject can only be moot. It doesn't raise itself to a level sufficient to be called evidence. It represents a partial, incomplete investigation, the tentative results of which, despite their overwhelming tendency to exonerate, have been offered as proof of guilt! But of course, Planigale is not suggesting it is evidence of guilt.

If it could ever be suggested that each of the luminol hits was blood, the dilution of which, in each case was, improbably, to be found between the thresholds of luminol and TMB sensitivity, without, indeed, the disclosure of the TMB testing method, then the court should have declined to consider it at all in the absence of the confirmatory test.

We don't even know for certain who the prints belong to, at least the ones in the hall.

But, the luminol is blood and is evidence of Amanda walking with bloody bare feet after the murder hypothesis, also fails to explain why, in any case, Amanda would be padding about in bare feet in the first place, having just slaughtered Kercher. Did she take off her shoes because they were blood soaked? Then where are the shoe prints? Where is the blood residue on these shoes? Why are there no prints in Kercher's room nor evidence of cleaning?

 

[anglolawyer]

Good grief! This is the first argument for innocence I've read that gives credence to claims that the luminol hits might have been blood.

The absence of confirmatory testing means that the discussion on this subject can only be moot. It doesn't raise itself to a level sufficient to be called evidence. It represents a partial, incomplete investigation, the tentative results of which, despite their overwhelming tendency to exonerate, have been offered as proof of guilt! But of course, Planigale is not suggesting it is evidence of guilt.

If it could ever be suggested that each of the luminol hits was blood, the dilution of which, in each case was, improbably, to be found between the thresholds of luminol and TMB sensitivity, without, indeed, the disclosure of the TMB testing method, then the court should have declined to consider it at all in the absence of the confirmatory test.

We don't even know for certain who the prints belong to, at least the ones in the hall.

But, the luminol is blood and is evidence of Amanda walking with bloody bare feet after the murder hypothesis, also fails to explain why, in any case, Amanda would be padding about in bare feet in the first place, having just slaughtered Kercher. Did she take off her shoes because they were blood soaked? Then where are the shoe prints? Where is the blood residue on these shoes? Why are there no prints in Kercher's room nor evidence of cleaning?

Uh oh, somebody hasn't been reading Vixen's theory, have they? Which in turn owes a lot to Barbie's fantasy in which they were naked when they committed the murder, a fact Guede glossed over to save everyone from embarrassment, presumably. I think in Vixen's version they were naked because they had calculated (but not bothered to tell Guede, the moron) they could better conceal their involvement that way, whereas, as Barbie has it, it was because they were making love in Amanda's room and transited to murder without getting dressed.

 

[Planigale]

Good grief! This is the first argument for innocence I've read that gives credence to claims that the luminol hits might have been blood.

The absence of confirmatory testing means that the discussion on this subject can only be moot. It doesn't raise itself to a level sufficient to be called evidence. It represents a partial, incomplete investigation, the tentative results of which, despite their overwhelming tendency to exonerate, have been offered as proof of guilt! But of course, Planigale is not suggesting it is evidence of guilt.

If it could ever be suggested that each of the luminol hits was blood, the dilution of which, in each case was, improbably, to be found between the thresholds of luminol and TMB sensitivity, without, indeed, the disclosure of the TMB testing method, then the court should have declined to consider it at all in the absence of the confirmatory test.

We don't even know for certain who the prints belong to, at least the ones in the hall.

But, the luminol is blood and is evidence of Amanda walking with bloody bare feet after the murder hypothesis, also fails to explain why, in any case, Amanda would be padding about in bare feet in the first place, having just slaughtered Kercher. Did she take off her shoes because they were blood soaked? Then where are the shoe prints? Where is the blood residue on these shoes? Why are there no prints in Kercher's room nor evidence of cleaning?

Knox says she had a shower the next morning and stood on the bath mat. Sufficient to explain highly dilute blood on her feet, which she then deposited as she walked down the hall. If to take the common pro-guilt argument Knox got blood on her feet at the time of the murder, then the Luminol positive marks would be from undiluted blood, and should be TMB positive. The Luminol positive marks cannot be attributable to someone standing in blood, they might be compatible with highly dilute blood, or some other chemical (e.g. iron rich soil, bleach etc.).

Just like the Knox DNA on the handle of the knife, the Luminol positive marks even if attributable to blood are most compatible with the innocent actions of Knox the next morning.

 

[sept79]

Good grief! This is the first argument for innocence I've read that gives credence to claims that the luminol hits might have been blood.

The absence of confirmatory testing means that the discussion on this subject can only be moot. It doesn't raise itself to a level sufficient to be called evidence.
.
.
.
.

Stef may very well have obtained negative results from a confirmatory test for blood and hidden these results. Her concealment of findings which would exonerate is legend . . .

 

[Kauffer]

Uh oh, somebody hasn't been reading Vixen's theory, have they? Which in turn owes a lot to Barbie's fantasy in which they were naked when they committed the murder, a fact Guede glossed over to save everyone from embarrassment, presumably. I think in Vixen's version they were naked because they had calculated (but not bothered to tell Guede, the moron) they could better conceal their involvement that way, whereas, as Barbie has it, it was because they were making love in Amanda's room and transited to murder without getting dressed.

Lovely theory! So now we have to wonder where the non dilute bloody footprints belonging to Amanda in Kercher's room are, and how Amanda gets from the room to the hall to the bathroom and back. Yummi's "presentation" on the bathmat actually suggests there were two prints, the second smaller than the first!

In fact, if you string together all the prosecution claims in this case, including the staged break in, staged murder/rape scene, lamp etc, it requires multiple entrances and exists of Kercher's room, Romanelli's room and the bathroom. We should see criss-crossing patterns of bloody prints either to the naked eye or through luminol fluorescence or both.

 

[Kauffer]

Knox says she had a shower the next morning and stood on the bath mat. Sufficient to explain highly dilute blood on her feet, which she then deposited as she walked down the hall. If to take the common pro-guilt argument Knox got blood on her feet at the time of the murder, then the Luminol positive marks would be from undiluted blood, and should be TMB positive. The Luminol positive marks cannot be attributable to someone standing in blood, they might be compatible with highly dilute blood, or some other chemical (e.g. iron rich soil, bleach etc.).

Just like the Knox DNA on the handle of the knife, the Luminol positive marks even if attributable to blood are most compatible with the innocent actions of Knox the next morning.

Yes, quite so. I'm saying that whichever way you cut this, it shouldn't have been admitted to court and Comodi should not have been permitted to argue, speculatively, that there was blood.

Massei, after the data dump, should have censured Stefanoni, ordered full disclosure and appointed independent experts, or else, just thrown out the case.

 

[Vixen]

This means it was a male. (I do not think you can conclude anything about the length of the fingers from the marks, but if you can a long ring finger means a male).

You could, from the initial contact. Try it, dab your fingers in powder or something that will show up, and then dab them on a wall, or paper extended in front of you. You'll see it matches your finger profile.

The victim would reach out a hand directly in front, presumably to stabilise themselves. A show off perp finger painting in the victim's blood, which looks like the case here, would probably extend their arm above shoulder height.

I can't tell the height from the photo, but it was clearly done by someone fully standing up, and looks left-handed to me.

 

[Vixen]

Actually one can do far better now. One can do an entire genomic sequence from small amounts of DNA. (Depending on details 1 mcg to 1 mg DNA). Sequencing can identify hair and eye colour and increasingly information about face shape etc. Ancestry is best from mitochondrial DNA (female) and Y typing (male).

It's best to use cells scraped from the inside of a cheek, or saliva. Specks of DNA lying around a murder scene probably wouldn't show the full allelle profile.

 

[Vixen]

Lovely theory! So now we have to wonder where the non dilute bloody footprints belonging to Amanda in Kercher's room are, and how Amanda gets from the room to the hall to the bathroom and back. Yummi's "presentation" on the bathmat actually suggests there were two prints, the second smaller than the first!

In fact, if you string together all the prosecution claims in this case, including the staged break in, staged murder/rape scene, lamp etc, it requires multiple entrances and exists of Kercher's room, Romanelli's room and the bathroom. We should see criss-crossing patterns of bloody prints either to the naked eye or through luminol fluorescence or both.

IIRC Amanda claims she was whizzing around on a bath mat and the luminol could have detected pineapple juice, rather than blood.

 

[anglolawyer]

It's best to use cells scraped from the inside of a cheek, or saliva. Specks of DNA lying around a murder scene probably wouldn't show the full allelle profile.

DNA does not lie around in 'specks', for the most part. It is housed within cells from which it must be extracted. [And before Chris shows up and wraps me on the knuckles, I have not forgotten about free DNA but I am sure Vixen is not talking about that].

 

[anglolawyer]

You could, from the initial contact. Try it, dab your fingers in powder or something that will show up, and then dab them on a wall, or paper extended in front of you. You'll see it matches your finger profile.

The victim would reach out a hand directly in front, presumably to stabilise themselves. A show off perp finger painting in the victim's blood, which looks like the case here, would probably extend their arm above shoulder height.

I can't tell the height from the photo, but it was clearly done by someone fully standing up, and looks left-handed to me.

What the … You would have fit right in to the investigating team with insights like this one.