Continuation Part 15: Amanda Knox/Raffaele Sollecito

[Planigale]

No, that is highly unlikely. Whenever I go abroad to a strange country, I ensure I have the local British Embassy and local police on my mobile. We know Amanda was au fait in this respect, for she rang home for the first time on the morning after the murder, just before the body was found, knowing to dial the international code.

I've rung up foreign police and the chap spoke English OK.

Not in France! (Certainly anywhere in Scandanavia or the Netherlands.) Anyway mostly a non sequitur, Knox did not have the embassy on speed dial The police concerned did not speak English, this is clearly documented as is the fact that Knox had only begun to learn Italian.

 

[Planigale]

The aim AFAICS is to provide an easily comprehensive chart of where the luminol highlighted footsteps are.

We do it in chemistry so it's easy to see how molecules are structured, or in physiology to highlight areas of the brain.

Nobody really thinks the floor is navy blue, it's to simulate the dark conditions required to take flourescent photos.

As a physicist I think chemists are a bit dumb, but even my boys know how to spell fluorescence.

 

[Bill Williams]

If we take the safe premise Mez' blood comes directly from her murder, then other then wet fluid mixed in with it, to produce a mixed DNA result, shows that both parties had been in contact - or at least their bodily fluids - within apx 20" of each other.

Amanda testified to Mignini, there had been no blood there the day before.

Please declare your conflict of interest, Chris, that prevents you giving any support to the prosecution, as a paid up member of the defense team.

Your opinion needs to be seen in context, of someone who has a vested interest in denying mixed DNA is relevant.

Oh brother.

When guilters run out of arguments, out comes the, "they are only paid to say that," idiocy.

Perhaps it's true. All i know - I've never been paid. But the complementary BMW was nice. Credit card in the glove box was a nice touch - repairs and petrol!

 

[Antony]

The question of how the police decided that the break-in was staged is particularly interesting. Giobbi's testimony included a reference to glass fragment on top of clothes, but was I believe primarily based on his intuition (or experience) that Filomena's window was not an entry point a burglar would choose; rather, the entry point should be the balcony.

My pet hypothesis, as I have stated, is that police selected Amanda as a suspect of convenience (meaning, in part, that they did not have to search to find her, and more importantly, that they could easily defeat her alibi, she had a key, and that she did not have a lawyer or sense the danger the police posed to her). In that hypothesis, the reasons the police give for believing the break-in is staged are actually a cover-up, as are the "behavioral" reasons for suspecting Amanda.

Is there any objective evidence that would tend to contradict the suspect of convenience hypothesis, such as objective evidence that could have led the police to believe that the break-in was "staged"? The police AFAIK did not do forensic work to establish this staging - am I missing some information on this? (One would think a "staged" break-in being unusual, it would be necessary for police to demonstrate forensically that it had indeed been staged.)

The "suspect of convenience" factor was one of 2 things (the other was the coerced false confession) that convinced me right at the beginning that this was a railroad job. It's a recurring feature in miscarriages of justice, that when police are seeking to "solve" a crime the easy way, it's people right under their noses who are at greatest risk.

Think Lindy Chamberlain, Kate McCann, Shrien Diwani. Not only do they suffer horrible personal tragedy, they then find themselves fighting for their freedom as a result - and even when the police and courts back off, their names are permanently vilified among a weird cult of morbid individuals.

 

[Planigale]

Mixed DNA, which is reasonable to infer is derived from blood, or some other bodily fluid that mixes before drying.

So what other body fluids? Urine, saliva, sputum? Why not epithelials from cleaning her teeth, or skin from the hands, or face? Lots of options. You accept that mixed blood is only one option. Not proven just a possibility. The thing about mixed blood is it would be provable by doing ELISA for blood grouping. Was it proven - NO. Therefore we can assume there was not mixed blood.

 

[Planigale]

I do not speak Italian. Only some of the testimony has been translated. I trust my sources, of which there are at least four, who have no motive to make it up.

I did not say it was not Knox.

I stated, it was reported by police who arrived at the scene, the washing machine cycle was just finishing.

You have added your own conclusion. Don't put words into my mouth.

So let us examine the source. Mostly you reference journalists quoting anonymous police sources. Police sources who should not be leaking to journalists. Presumably they are being paid to leak. The more sensational the leak the better the pay. Big conflict of interest. We do not even know if the sources were on the investigating team. Certainly we know that the investigation was preliminary and so we can not conclude anything coming out this early represents the final conclusions.

 

[anglolawyer]

Vixen has not thought of asking herself: why did none of the killer points that were leaked to Richard Owen make it to the trial?

 

[Kauffer]

Thanks Rose. That machine looks well used and has a lot of rust. The longest time seems to be 2 1/2 hours. Had it actually been warm or running at 1 pm that would mean a start time of 10:30 so clearly Amanda started it then and forgot to put the bathmat in while washing Meredith's clothing she wasn't wearing the murder night.

It is fun to watch the PGP squirm trying to explain why the blood spots in the bathroom clearly noticed by Amanda well before the PP arrived and yet left instead of being wiped with a wet tissue and flushed. But, she started up the washer on it's longest cycle, weird.

Yes, that's a checkmate point, I think. I've been trying to think of a counter move. All this selective cleaning and the washing machine, yet we know that a guilty Amanda couldn't have merely overlooked the bathroom blood because she phoned Romanelli and told her about it. So why, as you point out, didn't she just wipe it down, minimally, even if not bleach it? Wouldn't have taken five minutes, yet she was on her hands and knees with a lamp, apparently, looking for stuff the human eye can't see.

 

[Bill Williams]

Yes, that's a checkmate point, I think. I've been trying to think of a counter move. All this selective cleaning and the washing machine, yet we know that a guilty Amanda couldn't have merely overlooked the bathroom blood because she phoned Romanelli and told her about it. So why, as you point out, didn't she just wipe it down, minimally, even if not bleach it? Wouldn't have taken five minutes, yet she was on her hands and knees with a lamp, apparently, looking for stuff the human eye can't see.

I think I may have cracked the case, and anglolawyer will have to rethink the lamp.

Click here to see a pic of the lamp the PLE actually found.....

http://www.aliexpress.com/item/High-Quality-Portable-Microscope-Electron-Microscope-Portable-USB-Microscope-Digital-Microscope-U500X-Free-shipping/2046618291.html

 

[Grinder]

It is contributions from Vixen which now cause serious consideration that she could be a innocence-believer who is faking a guilt position. I mean, where-else would an innocenter go for info in trying to portray that side of the fence, than Peter Quennell.

She's a Kercher supporter.

 

[anglolawyer]

I think I may have cracked the case, and anglolawyer will have to rethink the lamp.

Click here to see a pic of the lamp the PLE actually found.....

http://www.aliexpress.com/item/High-Quality-Portable-Microscope-Electron-Microscope-Portable-USB-Microscope-Digital-Microscope-U500X-Free-shipping/2046618291.html

Oh no! The electron-micro-DNA-selector-nano-omotor lamp . How did we miss it? That's how they did it! It's back to the drawing board for me alright.

 

[Grinder]

The question of how the police decided that the break-in was staged is particularly interesting. Giobbi's testimony included a reference to glass fragment on top of clothes, but was I believe primarily based on his intuition (or experience) that Filomena's window was not an entry point a burglar would choose; rather, the entry point should be the balcony.

My pet hypothesis, as I have stated, is that police selected Amanda as a suspect of convenience (meaning, in part, that they did not have to search to find her, and more importantly, that they could easily defeat her alibi, she had a key, and that she did not have a lawyer or sense the danger the police posed to her). In that hypothesis, the reasons the police give for believing the break-in is staged are actually a cover-up, as are the "behavioral" reasons for suspecting Amanda.

Is there any objective evidence that would tend to contradict the suspect of convenience hypothesis, such as objective evidence that could have led the police to believe that the break-in was "staged"? The police AFAIK did not do forensic work to establish this staging - am I missing some information on this? (One would think a "staged" break-in being unusual, it would be necessary for police to demonstrate forensically that it had indeed been staged.)

It has been established by many recent posts here that the PP believed it was staged immediately. When the Raf 911 tape was added in it became even more likely to them.

Amanda along with Raf were suspects or key persons of interest for many reasons. Discovering the crime, relating that nothing was stolen when they couldn't know, inconsistent details and even bigger than details if the Mansey story is added, which is likely since they focused on dates the 5th.

Staged break ins are not unusual and proving forensically could be impossible if the staging were done well. If they had staged it by throwing a rock from the parking area and then went through some stuff what exactly would the police do to prove it was staged? What proof did Rudi leave behind that proves he broke in?

 

[Grinder]

Yes, that's a checkmate point, I think. I've been trying to think of a counter move. All this selective cleaning and the washing machine, yet we know that a guilty Amanda couldn't have merely overlooked the bathroom blood because she phoned Romanelli and told her about it. So why, as you point out, didn't she just wipe it down, minimally, even if not bleach it? Wouldn't have taken five minutes, yet she was on her hands and knees with a lamp, apparently, looking for stuff the human eye can't see.

Had she taken 30 seconds to run hot water (on demand I assume) with a little soap and used the tissue I doubt any DNA would be left but certainly no visible blood. This is where a PMFer used to say she left it there and stayed in Perugia so she could control the investigation. Hell she didn't know the difference between locked and closed in Italian.

They removed their evidence they somehow knew was in the hall and wherever the PGP say but left the blood from her neck cut or the bloody nose they like to say Mez gave her on the sink AND tells the police she doesn't remember it being there the day before.

 

[Grinder]

Oh no! The electron-micro-DNA-selector-nano-omotor lamp . How did we miss it? That's how they did it! It's back to the drawing board for me alright.

Really Mr. Big Win it was the Hoover DNA Dial-A-Matic Vacuum. Bill was just fooling you.

 

[Bill Williams]

It has been established by many recent posts here that the PP believed it was staged immediately. When the Raf 911 tape was added in it became even more likely to them.

Amanda along with Raf were suspects or key persons of interest for many reasons. Discovering the crime, relating that nothing was stolen when they couldn't know, inconsistent details and even bigger than details if the Mansey story is added, which is likely since they focused on dates the 5th.

Staged break ins are not unusual and proving forensically could be impossible if the staging were done well. If they had staged it by throwing a rock from the parking area and then went through some stuff what exactly would the police do to prove it was staged? What proof did Rudi leave behind that proves he broke in?

Some may believe that. It's a bit of a stretch, though, to say, "it's been established".

Like I said upthread, Battistelli's thought about it real-time could have been that it was an interrupted burglary; and all that got lost in what was found 10 minutes later, as well as lost to the detective-geniuses who then came upon the murder-scene, writ large, where they were trying to factor in the condition of Filomena's room into that.

 

[Bill Williams]

Really Mr. Big Win it was the Hoover DNA Dial-A-Matic Vacuum. Bill was just fooling you.

I always forget to bring the vacuum. What good is it to see the microscopic stuff, when there's no vacuum to clean it selectively?

 

[Numbers]

It has been established by many recent posts here that the PP believed it was staged immediately. When the Raf 911 tape was added in it became even more likely to them.

Amanda along with Raf were suspects or key persons of interest for many reasons. Discovering the crime, relating that nothing was stolen when they couldn't know, inconsistent details and even bigger than details if the Mansey story is added, which is likely since they focused on dates the 5th.

1. Staged break ins are not unusual and 2. proving forensically could be impossible if the staging were done well. 3. If they had staged it by throwing a rock from the parking area and then went through some stuff what exactly would the police do to prove it was staged? 4. What proof did Rudi leave behind that proves he broke in?

You have posed some interesting points. But I think there remains the need for some objective evidence to establish staging, especially to support Giobbi's testimony that there was glass on top of the clothes. If that statement were untrue, and Giobbi knew it was untrue (rather than his reporting something someone told him, which from my reading I do not recall he said), wouldn't that be perjury (at least in the US)? And perjury intended to prejudice the case against the defendants?

I numbered some points in your post and I have some questions about them.

1. Do you have any citation(s) regarding the frequency of staged break-ins (in Italy preferably, or the US)? I would have thought such stagings in the US are rare; I do know of cases where break-ins to steal or to harm persons have occurred.

2. Did the police or prosecutor make some claim that the window breakage was actually done with the window swung open to the inside? (I vaguely recall some discussion on ISF/JREF on this with Platonov and/or Mach.) Wouldn't that have a detectable effect on the glass fragment spray pattern?

3. If the rock had been thrown from outside and then the room somewhat tossed, how indeed could there be evidence of staging different than that in a real break-in? That would suggest that the evidence was solely the opinion of the police - and even perhaps based, as in my hypothesis, on the police assuming Amanda was a suspect, and therefore the break-in was staged.

4. There apparently was a blood stain associated with the break-in. I am not clear on the details, but it may have been on the rock or on some other item. This stain apparently did not yield a reported DNA profile. This other bit of evidence was a reported glass fragment on a blood stain (Meredith's, most likely?) on the floor in the murder room. I am uncertain that any of this, with the information available, directly ties to Rudy, or to anyone else specifically, although the glass fragment in the murder room suggests to me that the person who broke in had been in Filomena's room after the window was broken and then, at some point, went to the murder room. If the glass shard was actually found in Rudy's shoe print in blood, that IMO would be telling.

 

[Kauffer]

Some may believe that. It's a bit of a stretch, though, to say, "it's been established".

Like I said upthread,Battistelli's thought about it real-time could have been that it was an interrupted burglary; and all that got lost in what was found 10 minutes later, as well as lost to the detective-geniuses who then came upon the murder-scene, writ large, where they were trying to factor in the condition of Filomena's room into that.

But that's not supported by Battistelli's testimony:

"I told him (Raffaele) without hesitation that I did not believe it was a robbery."

"I noticed the camera, the computer, things that contradicted the hypothesis of a theft… I saw that everything inside the house seemed to be in place."

Shortly after, Profazio comes at it from a different angle:

"Detective Profazio said there was evidence of a burglary at the house, with a window broken in a bedroom belonging to one of the Italian girls.
But he immediately noticed something odd about the apparent break-in. The window which had been broken was so high up that it would have required "a superhuman effort" to clamber up to it.
Detective Profazio said there was a far easier way to break into the cottage – a window at the back which was easily accessible via a terrace."

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/wor...ce-station-after-Meredith-Kercher-murder.html

 

[Bill Williams]

Some may believe that. It's a bit of a stretch, though, to say, "it's been established".

Like I said upthread,Battistelli's thought about it real-time could have been that it was an interrupted burglary; and all that got lost in what was found 10 minutes later, as well as lost to the detective-geniuses who then came upon the murder-scene, writ large, where they were trying to factor in the condition of Filomena's room into that.

But that's not supported by Battistelli's testimony:

"I told him (Raffaele) without hesitation that I did not believe it was a robbery."

"I noticed the camera, the computer, things that contradicted the hypothesis of a theft… I saw that everything inside the house seemed to be in place."

Shortly after, Profazio comes at it from a different angle:

"Detective Profazio said there was evidence of a burglary at the house, with a window broken in a bedroom belonging to one of the Italian girls.
But he immediately noticed something odd about the apparent break-in. The window which had been broken was so high up that it would have required "a superhuman effort" to clamber up to it.
Detective Profazio said there was a far easier way to break into the cottage – a window at the back which was easily accessible via a terrace."

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/wor...ce-station-after-Meredith-Kercher-murder.html

But that is exactly my point. There is actually no way to recover, even by asking Battistelli, what his thoughts were in the short time between his assessment of Filomena's room and the grisly discovery.

If I were a betting man, which I am actually!, I would agree with the overall assessment. It's just that if the genius detectives had settled upon an, "it was an interrupted burglary, interrupted by the poor woman's return home," my bet would be that Battistelli would have testified at trial, 18 months later, that that was what he initially thought, too.

Human memory is plastic and suggestible. (Look closely at your screen, your eyelids are getting heavy.....)

 

[Numbers]

Source: http://www.komonews.com/news/local/70617977.html

Prosecutors: Knox staged break-in after murder
By MARTA FALCONI, Associated Press Published: Nov 20, 2009 at 8:12 AM PDT Last Updated: Nov 21, 2009 at 7:10 PM PDT

{exerpt:}

Also on Friday, Mignini said that Knox and Sollecito staged a burglary in the apartment by breaking a window in a bedroom in an attempt to sidetrack the investigation.

A rock was found in a bedroom, and witnesses testified that shattered glass was found all over clothes on the floor, suggesting the window was broken after the room was put into disarray.
"The key to the mystery is in that room," Mignini said, adding that it would be nearly impossible to climb through the window without getting cut and leaving blood on the shattered glass.

Also, he argued, that window, the most exposed of the apartment, was an unlikely choice for a burglar. Nothing in the room with the broken glass, which belonged to a roommate of Knox and Kercher, was reported missing, Mignini noted.

"All of this was done to channel suspicions on a stranger, and divert them from those who had the apartment keys," he said.

My understanding of Mignini's argument, since there was no objective evidence presented that glass fragments were on the clothes, or even to support that the window broken into was the most exposed (rather, it is relatively hidden from view from the road), is that the chain of reasoning by the police and prosecution is the reverse of what they claim.

Amanda Knox was in possession of a key. She was in Perugia on the relevant night, and had only Raffaele Sollecito to back up her alibi. Therefore, she was a suspect of convenience. That is, she was to be fitted-up (framed) for the crime, as the fastest way for the police and prosecutor to claim the crime had been "solved".

Therefore, the break-in had to have been staged, since Amanda lived at the cottage and had a key.