Continuation Part 16: Amanda Knox/Raffaele Sollecito

[davefoc]

...

I would suggest showing the Clemente knife section to friends and then asking how many knives were tested at his place. Obviously I think the vast majority would say one knife.

...

You suggest that you take out of context something said by somebody when the person he is participating with and agreeing with in the discussion with makes the exact situation clear. Further your post suggests that you hold that it is worth noting that Clemente said that something is true and that thing is only wildly likely to be true. Your post fails to acknowledge what it seems apparent that you do understand: that it is extremely likely that there was only one knife used to kill Kercher.

If you wish to make the point you are trying to make and you wish to be fair about it then you need to put Clemente's statement in context of being made in the presence of somebody that makes the exact situation clear and that Clemente doesn't disagree with him. You should also acknowledge that your objection to Clemente's statement is that while it is extremely likely to be true based on all the available evidence it still can not be proven that a second knife wasn't used and looking at Solecito's knife in isolation it can't be ruled out as one of the potential murder weapons just as no other knife that was in Perugia on the night of the murder can't be ruled out as one of the potential murder weapons.

Your claim is that Clemente and Moore have misrepresented facts in their role has an advocate for Knox and Sollecito. It seems pretty clear that you are engaging in the same kind of misrepresentation with your focus on this issue.

 

[Vixen]

How do people parse this:

Imagine for a minute a schoolroom chalkboard with a couple of footprints drawn on it in chalk. Now, take an eraser and erase the prints. This is a little what a bleach-cleaned crime scene looks like under luminol examination. A crime scene cleaned with bleach wouldn’t have footprints or fingerprints; it would have wide swaths of bleach, many times in arcs that give away the tell-tale motions of cleaning and wiping, kind of like we used to see on chalk-board erasures. You would see luminol reactions everywhere; it would look like a huge florescent blue paint spill.

This was not what the Polizia Scientifica found at Raffaele’s apartment on November 13. They found approximately 14 luminol ‘hits’, and no blood. And, no indications of a cleanup. The crime scene investigators knew on November 13 from luminol tests that the scene wasn’t cleaned with bleach. How can we be sure that the luminol ‘hits’ were not blood? Because finding blood would be damaging evidence, and Mignini would have used it. How do we know that the scene wasn’t cleaned with bleach? Because of the 14 luminol ‘hits’, and the fact that a cleanup would be damaging evidence, and Mignini would have used it.

However, in a court filing on November 28, two weeks after the tests, Prosecutor Mignini alleged that Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito cleaned both the cottage and Raffaele’s apartment with bleach. He knew that to be untrue from luminol testing. He had known for two weeks that no cleanup occurred at Raffaele’s cottage, but still insinuated it throughout the trial—knowing it to be a lie.

Would the author be saying that the cottage was luminolled on the 13th?

You can only detect bleach under luminol within eight hours. Source:

Abstract
The forensic luminol test has long been valued for its ability to detect trace amounts of blood that are invisible to the naked eye. This is the first quantitative study to determine the effect on the luminol test when an attempt is made to clean bloodstained tiles with a known interfering catalyst (bleach). Tiles covered with either wet or dry blood were tested, and either water or sodium hypochlorite solution (bleach) was used to clean the tiles. As expected, the chemiluminescence intensity produced when luminol was applied generally decreased with the number of times that a tile was cleaned with water, until the chemiluminescence was neither visible nor detectable. However, when the tiles were cleaned with bleach there was an initial drop in chemiluminescence intensity, followed by a rise to a consistently high value, visibly indistinguishable from that of blood. Examination of bleach drying time suggested that any interfering effect becomes negligible after 8 h.
(c) 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15966054

Examination of bleach drying time suggested that any interfering effect becomes negligible after 8 h.
I am looking for a logical explanation as to how it is concluded, "police found no evidence of a clean-up", given the test needs to be done within eight hours of assumed clean up, and given, Mez' body was not even found for apx fourteen hours.

I want to understand how police determined "there was no clean up", when AFAIAA police were satisfied there was.

 

[zotz]

The Scientific Police did not use luminol testing until 18th Dec, so how do you suggest they could have detected a bleach clean up?

Remember, you soundbited that "no bleach clean up was found."

Because the footprints would have been smeared if there had been a clean up.
This is common sense. Luminol is a presumptive test. Bleach is not the only substance that will cause luminol to reflect light. There are other substances besides bleach that would do that, rusty water for example.

 

[Vixen]

Another 'Guilter' posting the usual mountain of sludge, but I will address one claim about "phone records" since that claim is clearly false:



'Guilters' claim that Amanda had left Raffaele’s apartment because Amanda's cell-phone had used this tower that night:

Via dell’Aquila 5-Torre dell’Acquedotto sector 3

The claim is that the Via dell’Aquila 5-Torre dell’Acquedotto sector 3 tower did not service Raffaele's apartment, so they claim that as proof that Amanda had lied.

However, Amanda had connected to the Via dell’Aquila 5-Torre dell’Acquedotto sector 3 from within Raffaele's apartment at other times, as can be easily proved by reading Massei (see below citations).

Apparently, how that prosecution error had occurred, is that a police expert went to Raffaele's apartment, and while standing in front of the building he couldn't detect the Via dell’Aquila 5-Torre dell’Acquedotto sector 3 tower.

The prosecution expert couldn't detect the Via dell’Aquila 5-Torre dell’Acquedotto sector 3 tower from the front of the building since the building was blocking the signal (since that tower was on the other side). HOWEVER, defense experts proved that inside Raffaele's kitchen the Via dell’Aquila 5-Torre dell’Acquedotto sector 3 tower's signal was strong.

Based upon erroneous testing Massai incorrectly concluded that the Via dell’Aquila 5-Torre dell’Acquedotto sector 3 tower doesn't service Raffaele's apartment. This was one of the prosecution's main proofs attacking Amanda's alibi, but the prosecution was clearly WRONG since Massei’s own report proves that this cell-tower does indeed service Raffale’s apartment (at PAGE 323 below):

Massai at PAGE 322:


However, Judge Massai does say that Amanda was back at Raffaele's apartment just a few minutes later when she replied to Lumumba using the Via Berardi sector 7 tower, which DOES service Raffaele's apartment:



Elsewhere in Massai's report the judge incongruously states that the Via dell’Aquila 5-Torre dell’Acquedotto sector 3 tower DOES indeed service Raffaele's apartment:

Massai at PAGE 323:


So which is it, does the Via dell’Aquila 5-Torre dell’Acquedotto sector 3 tower service Raffaele's apartment, or not?

Clearly, the Via dell’Aquila 5-Torre dell’Acquedotto sector 3 tower DOES service Raffaele's apartment (since Amanda connected to that tower at other times when we know she was at Raffaele's apartment), so this is just another example of Italian bumbling, as well as a prime example of 'Guilters' running off half-cocked with yet another phony claim that Amanda had lied.

“It appears Judge Massei … made an error. He got mixed up and switched the locations of the two text messages around.. the second Judge, Nencini, repeated the same error as Massei.”

http://www.examiner.com/article/deceit-shocking-expos-of-amanda-knox-murder-case

 

[davefoc]

Several posters have noted that Vixen's latest post consists of numerous pro guilt claims that have all been discussed previously in this thread with Vixen participating and that Vixen failed to acknowledge any of the discussion that has been on the subject of those claims. I think that is correct.

My suggestion is that any additional claims in Vixen's post and any additional claims that Vixen makes in subsequent posts beyond the location of Knox based on the cell phone site that her phone was connected to be deferred until Vixen has responded to the evidence that has been put forth about Knox's location based on the cell phone site that her phone was connected to.

Ken Dine has put forth an excellent summary of the issue and previously Dan O. has done the same. Vixen's posts that are non-responsive to serious arguments against Vixen's claims cause the thread to jump from topic to topic without any reasonable time for a discussion of a topic possible. If somebody wishes to argue that Knox's location was other than where she claimed to be based on the cell phone site Knox's phone was connected to these present a good summary of the arguments that are relevant to this topic. I don't see any reason to move on to another Vixen initiated topic until the arguments put forth in these posts have been responded to.

 

[Vixen]

Because the footprints would have been smeared if there had been a clean up.
This is common sense. Luminol is a presumptive test. Bleach is not the only substance that will cause luminol to reflect light. There are other substances besides bleach that would do that, rusty water for example.

No, the footsteps would only be smeared if still wet or damp. Blood dries notoriously quickly, due to its clotting agents. A dried footstep in blood might be bleached over (assuming it's sodium hypochlorite*) and be invisible to the naked eye, but luminol will pick up the ferric elements within the haemoglobin causing it to glow and this chemoluminescence can be photographed.

That is the whole point of luminol. If you could see the blood, you'd hardly call in the forensic guys to investigate. Rust will react, being an iron based substance. So will copper, as most copper is made of alloys.

Seriously, unless you are postulating Raff and Amanda had been wading in copper alloys, rusty water or some fruit juices, their bloody footprints were caught bang to rights.

No amount of "no that parrot is not dead" sophistry is going to change the facts found by forensic police and a court of law.

*ETA However we know ACE bleach is an oxygen based bleach, which would obliterate the blood all together. This would explain the unexpected one-sided set of footprints, as though someone had hopped along on one foot.

You can see the detectives' reasoning that perhaps Raff, master cleaner, had researched this issue on the internet.

 

[Bill Williams]

The luminol does not just respond to bleach and other cleaners. When there is a clean up of a bloody crime scene, what the Luminol later shows is smear marks from the mopping/wiping, etc. of the blood and other substances that were moved around. In this case, the luminol revealed foot and shoe prints, which later tested negative with TMB, which is used to confirm that the luminol found blood, not some other substance it reacts to.

Your other points, about the woman's shoe, Raffaele's fingerprint on inside of Meredith's door, etc. have been refuted many times in the past by others here.

No soundbites, just factual information you don't seem able to refute. What I asked is for you to please provide proof of your personal attack that myself, and other posters here are members of a group that where we "See it as their mission to suppress truth ..." .

Here the relevant part of your post, in case you forgot:

Originally Posted by Vixen
Any independent person reading this needs to bear in mind this poster, and most of the posters in this thread are signed up members of an aggressive pro-innocence lobbying advocacy group (IIP). They see it as their mission to suppress truth and run down the Italian cops and prosecution.

If the facts you are posting are accurate, please show us. There have been several you have been asked to prove, and have not been able (or willing to).

The highlited claim by Vixen is ironic,in the sense that the IIP website is in essential agreement with what the Italian Supreme Court found on March 27 2015. Does this mean that "any independent person" must also regard the Italian Supreme Court as a "pro-innocence, lobbying advocacy group?" Vixen says this as if that is a bad thing.

People can make up their own minds as far as "independence" is concerned, but one truly wonders at the independence of any poster who rarely provides cites to their claims, and when they do it is either Edward McCall's pro-guilt-lobby wiki, or Peter Quennell's TJMK.

Make up your own mind on those. Nothing Vixen posts is new, really, and is derived from those two sites.

 

[Numbers]

No, the footsteps would only be smeared if still wet or damp. Blood dries notoriously quickly, due to its clotting agents. A dried footstep in blood might be bleached over (assuming it's hyrdochlorate) and be invisible to the naked eye, but luminol will pick up the ferric elements within the haemoglobin causing it to glow and this chemoluminescence can be photographed.

That is the whole point of luminol. If you could see the blood, you'd hardly call in the forensic guys to investigate. Rust will react, being an iron based substance. So will copper, as most copper is made of alloys.

Seriously, unless you are postulating Raff and Amanda had been wading in copper alloys, rusty water or some fruit juices, their bloody footprints were caught bang to rights.

No amount of "no that parrot is not dead" sophistry is going to change the facts found by forensic police and a court of law.

If this "bloody footprints" statement is true, why did Stefanoni finally testify in Massei's court that the footprints were indeed not blood, when she was confronted by the defense with her having performed TMB tests that came out negative for blood?

 

[Bill Williams]

No, the footsteps would only be smeared if still wet or damp. Blood dries notoriously quickly, due to its clotting agents. A dried footstep in blood might be bleached over (assuming it's hyrdochlorate) and be invisible to the naked eye, but luminol will pick up the ferric elements within the haemoglobin causing it to glow and this chemoluminescence can be photographed.

That is the whole point of luminol. If you could see the blood, you'd hardly call in the forensic guys to investigate. Rust will react, being an iron based substance. So will copper, as most copper is made of alloys.

Seriously, unless you are postulating Raff and Amanda had been wading in copper alloys, rusty water or some fruit juices, their bloody footprints were caught bang to rights.

No amount of "no that parrot is not dead" sophistry is going to change the facts found by forensic police and a court of law.

Please cite a "court of law" whose verdict was not annulled in its entirety.

 

[Mr Fied]

No, the footsteps would only be smeared if still wet or damp. Blood dries notoriously quickly, due to its clotting agents. A dried footstep in blood might be bleached over (assuming it's hyrdochlorate) and be invisible to the naked eye, but luminol will pick up the ferric elements within the haemoglobin causing it to glow and this chemoluminescence can be photographed.

That is the whole point of luminol. If you could see the blood, you'd hardly call in the forensic guys to investigate. Rust will react, being an iron based substance. So will copper, as most copper is made of alloys.

Seriously, unless you are postulating Raff and Amanda had been wading in copper alloys, rusty water or some fruit juices, their bloody footprints were caught bang to rights.No amount of "no that parrot is not dead" sophistry is going to change the facts found by forensic police and a court of law.

Which footprints were proven to be from Amanda and Raff, and of these which were proven to be made in blood?

Where are the results of the confirmatory tests that prove footprints were made in blood?

 

[Bill Williams]

This I agree with. He had knowledge of court procedures and helped when researching various facts concerning the case. Whether one agreed with him or not what he wrote was interesting and almost surely would initiate debate amongst the participants here.

My view is that he had access to the timing and nature of court dates for all the peripheral proceedings, even better than the pro-innocence people in Italy - even those who are well connected.

On many things Machiavelli was a virtual encyclopedia.

 

[Dougm]

No, the footsteps would only be smeared if still wet or damp. Blood dries notoriously quickly, due to its clotting agents. A dried footstep in blood might be bleached over (assuming it's hyrdochlorate) and be invisible to the naked eye, but luminol will pick up the ferric elements within the haemoglobin causing it to glow and this chemoluminescence can be photographed.

That is the whole point of luminol. If you could see the blood, you'd hardly call in the forensic guys to investigate. Rust will react, being an iron based substance. So will copper, as most copper is made of alloys.

Seriously, unless you are postulating Raff and Amanda had been wading in copper alloys, rusty water or some fruit juices, their bloody footprints were caught bang to rights.

No amount of "no that parrot is not dead" sophistry is going to change the facts found by forensic police and a court of law.

Your idea of what the luminol shows after a clean up does not match what several law enforcement sources have said.

Also, you are claiming, definitively, that there was a clean up with bleach. But there is no evidence of any bleach clean up, none at all. You can't just say that bleach stops reacting to luminol after 8 hours, and that proves there was a bleach clean up! The police found foot and shoe prints that glowed with Luminol, but tested negative for blood with TMB. That is a fact. How does that prove there was a bleach clean up? It doesn't.

 

[Grinder]

Luminol chemiluminescence can also be triggered by a number of substances such as copper or copper-containing chemical compounds,[13] and certain bleaches; and, as a result, if a crime scene is thoroughly cleaned with a bleach solution, residual cleaner will cause the entire crime scene to produce the typical blue glow, effectively camouflaging any organic evidence, such as blood.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luminol

ACE Bleach ingredients:

Ingredients

5-15% Oxygen-Based Bleaching Agents,
<5% Anionic Surfactants, Non-Ionic Surfactants, Phosphonates,
Perfumes,
Benzyl Salicylate,
Butylphenyl Methylpropional,
Hexyl Cinnamal
Manufacturer

Fater S.P.A.,
Via A. Volta, 10,
65129 Pescara.
(Italia).

http://www.sainsburys.co.uk/shop/gb/groceries/ace-laundry-bleach--colour-safe-1l

This is a picture from your favorite source site

This a picture of the product you provided the ingredients for

Yours is for Ace Gentle Stain Remover.

Are you saying they didn't find bleach?

This is a link to info of the product found under the sink. http://www.pg.com/en_balkans/brands/household_care/ace.shtml

however this page isn't for Italy but it is for Albania - do you think maybe Koko bought it?

This bleach is for whiteness and hygiene unlike the one you fobbed off on us which can be used on colored material.

From here:

ACE BLEACH CLASSIC can be used on colored fabrics? ACE BLEACH TRADITIONAL, like the other conventional bleaches, was made ​​for use on garments white and can not be used on colored garments since the color can be damaged (eg. Discoloration) due to a chemical reaction between the hypochlorite sodium and the dye in the fabric.

Sodium hypochlorite is a chemical compound with the formula NaClO. It is composed of a sodium cation (Na+
) and a hypochlorite anion (ClO−
); it may also be viewed as the sodium salt of hypochlorous acid. When dissolved in water it is commonly known as bleach, or liquid bleach.

From your forensic site:

Understanding Bleach And Evidence
To understand how it all works, you have to consider that there are two kinds of bleach that are found in the majority of cleaning products within your home. There are bleaches that are primarily chlorine and there is also oxygen bleach.
Chlorine bleaches can remove a Bloodstain to the naked eye but fortunately, forensics experts can use the application of substances such as luminol or phenolphthalein to show that haemoglobin is present. In fact, even if the shady criminal washed a bloodstained item of clothing 10 times, these chemicals could still reveal blood.

With oxygen bleach, the bleach has an oxidising agent, which could be a substance such as hydrogen peroxide. In these instances, haemoglobin is completely removed and can't later be detected. As expected, this presents a unique challenge for forensic scientists. Not only that, but it can significantly compromise an investigation and may mean that Evidence is not properly investigated and used in a trial.

 

[Grinder]

“It appears Judge Massei … made an error. He got mixed up and switched the locations of the two text messages around.. the second Judge, Nencini, repeated the same error as Massei.”

http://www.examiner.com/article/deceit-shocking-expos-of-amanda-knox-murder-case

Please quoting an article that refers to NLV's "book"

 

[Dougm]

I gave you a clear link to what the luminol tests revealed. Your turn to explain in which way the information was refuted; by whom and when.

http://themurderofmeredithkercher.com/Luminol_Traces

Here's another link re bleach clean ups and crime scenes.


http://www.exploreforensics.co.uk/detecting-evidence-after-bleaching.html

Bearing in mind, we recently established on this forum, the effects of bleach will only show up in luminol within eight hours, and will tend to show as a blanket light blue glow.

The Scientific Police did not use luminol testing until 18th Dec, so how do you suggest they could have detected a bleach clean up?

Remember, you soundbited that "no bleach clean up was found."

BTW, I didn't ask you about Luminol, I asked you, several times now, about your claim about the stated agenda of some group that you say I and other posters here are members of, which you said is, at least in part, to obscure the truth. If true, that would be both a personal attack on my and other posters' integrity, and an effective way to discredit our motives and truthfulness in posting about the case.

Except it's not true. You made it up. So I asked you to show where you got it -- where the pro-innocence group you claimed I, and other posters here, are members of states that the group "sees it as their mission to suppress truth." If the members of that group see that as their mission, then surely you can show us where they have said that.

In case you forgot, here is the part of your post I am referring to (the "this poster" you are referring to is me):

Originally Posted by Vixen
Any independent person reading this needs to bear in mind this poster, and most of the posters in this thread are signed up members of an aggressive pro-innocence lobbying advocacy group (IIP). They see it as their mission to suppress truth and run down the Italian cops and prosecution.

I realize you have tried to avoid addressing questions like this, and others where you have been asked to provide documentation of various claims you have made. Please address the issue in question, not some other issue.

 

[Vixen]

If this "bloody footprints" statement is true, why did Stefanoni finally testify in Massei's court that the footprints were indeed not blood, when she was confronted by the defense with her having performed TMB tests that came out negative for blood?

Probably because finding blood was not the standard of proof required to show the pair were present at the crime scene and to secure conviction. Finding the footprints being enough.

 

[Grinder]

You suggest that you take out of context something said by somebody when the person he is participating with and agreeing with in the discussion with makes the exact situation clear. Further your post suggests that you hold that it is worth noting that Clemente said that something is true and that thing is only wildly likely to be true. Your post fails to acknowledge what it seems apparent that you do understand: that it is extremely likely that there was only one knife used to kill Kercher.

Ends/means? Yes I believe that only one knife was used and I don't believe that Raf's kitchen's knife was it. That has nothing to do with Clemente misleading at best and purposeful deception at worst. It is not true calmly of wildly.

If you wish to make the point you are trying to make and you wish to be fair about it then you need to put Clemente's statement in context of being made in the presence of somebody that makes the exact situation clear and that Clemente doesn't disagree with him. You should also acknowledge that your objection to Clemente's statement is that while it is extremely likely to be true based on all the available evidence it still can not be proven that a second knife wasn't used and looking at Solecito's knife in isolation it can't be ruled out as one of the potential murder weapons just as no other knife that was in Perugia on the night of the murder can't be ruled out as one of the potential murder weapons.

It is hard to follow your point. It is not true that only one knife was tested which is the only point I made. As I said sit some friends down and show them the video and ask how many knives of Raf's were tested. I've already stated that I was directed to the video and the time for some reason and have watched that part only. If he corrects himself elsewhere give me the link and time.

Your claim is that Clemente and Moore have misrepresented facts in their role has an advocate for Knox and Sollecito. It seems pretty clear that you are engaging in the same kind of misrepresentation with your focus on this issue.

Really? I disputed the informer meme from Moore and someone posted the video from 3/7/2015 for some reason and I watched until his BS about the presser came up. The vast majority of his stuff isn't interesting because it was well known before he came along. Do you have a list of "new" things he brought to the discussion?

Do you believe Rudi was an informer? Someone else here claimed no one here believes that.

Please detail my misrepresentations of facts. Please use your own research.

 

[Vixen]

Which footprints were proven to be from Amanda and Raff, and of these which were proven to be made in blood?

Where are the results of the confirmatory tests that prove footprints were made in blood?

This link can explain it better than me:


http://themurderofmeredithkercher.com/Luminol_Traces

Any questions, please don't hesitate to ask.

 

[Grinder]

You can only detect bleach under luminol within eight hours. Source:

Abstract
The forensic luminol test has long been valued for its ability to detect trace amounts of blood that are invisible to the naked eye. This is the first quantitative study to determine the effect on the luminol test when an attempt is made to clean bloodstained tiles with a known interfering catalyst (bleach). Tiles covered with either wet or dry blood were tested, and either water or sodium hypochlorite solution (bleach) was used to clean the tiles. As expected, the chemiluminescence intensity produced when luminol was applied generally decreased with the number of times that a tile was cleaned with water, until the chemiluminescence was neither visible nor detectable. However, when the tiles were cleaned with bleach there was an initial drop in chemiluminescence intensity, followed by a rise to a consistently high value, visibly indistinguishable from that of blood. Examination of bleach drying time suggested that any interfering effect becomes negligible after 8 h.
(c) 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15966054

Examination of bleach drying time suggested that any interfering effect becomes negligible after 8 h.
I am looking for a logical explanation as to how it is concluded, "police found no evidence of a clean-up", given the test needs to be done within eight hours of assumed clean up, and given, Mez' body was not even found for apx fourteen hours.

I want to understand how police determined "there was no clean up", when AFAIAA police were satisfied there was.

It says the interfering effect becomes negligible. It doesn't say that it's use can't be detected. As has been pointed out cleaned blood would show swirls or lines and wouldn't be effective in the grout areas.

If you were correct why do you think they didn't clean the whole floor.

 

[Mr Fied]

Probably because finding blood was not the standard of proof required to show the pair were present at the crime scene and to secure conviction. Finding the footprints being enough.

Finding footprints, not in blood, in a house you lived in would be enough to prove you were guilty of murder?

Wouldn't you have thought that to secure a conviction the footprints would need to show some evidence that they were made at or after the time of the murder?

Anyway, were there any footprints that were proven to be from Amanda or Raff whether in blood or not?