Continuation Part 17: Amanda Knox/Raffaele Sollecito

[Kauffer]

I hope they use they Machiavelli defense:

We didn't suspect her of knifing Kercher; we just suspected her of being a person without an alibi, who, after imperatively initiating a meeting with the guy who we thought was the real suspect, escorted said suspect to the crime scene, gave him ingress, and hung around while he did the knifing.

Yes: and the guy concerned happened to be innocent, something the convicting judge in the previous callunia case said Amanda should have known even though we the police knew he was guilty.

 

[Diocletus]

This Aussie/Italian cop, as I understand it, was the source of numerous off the record inaccurate briefings to the media in the whole case - aka leaks. Is Donnino going to show up? The whole list of these "witnesses" should be analysed in order to better understand the circumstances of the last interrogation - the nature of the extraordinary planning involved to routinely question the not-a-suspect, Amanda Knox.

It's interesting, though, if this is a criminal prosecution of Amanda for saying: "I was hit". In theory, the prosecutor would have conducted an "investigation" and compiled a dossier of information that should have been turned over to the defense. Item No. 1 in said dossier would obviously be the recordings or a finding as to what happened to the recordings. Item No. 2 would be a statement by the hitter (Ficcarra, the crooked cop), denying the hitting. The rest of these witnesses are kind of atmospheric, in the sense that they can't prove that Ficcarra didn't hit Knox, unless they singly or together were in the presence of Knox and Ficcarra at all times. Maybe they were.

Are we going to hear Giobbi and Mignini testify? How about Sollecito?

Are we finally, 8 years later, going to create a "judicial truth" that the cops didn't hit Knox?

What will the ECHR think of this procedure, in which the cops conduct a coercive interrogation, there is no investigation of the interrogation methods by the authorities, the prosecution uses the fruits of the interrogation against the defendant at trial, and then charge the defendant with a crime for testifying about the coercion? This seems like a very bad precedent.

Finally, if the authorities do end up "convicting" Knox, in abstentia, of this crime, right on the heals of a spectacular acquittal on the principal charges, the optics for Italy are going to be just terrible.

 

[Bill Williams]

It's interesting, though, if this is a criminal prosecution of Amanda for saying: "I was hit". In theory, the prosecutor would have conducted an "investigation" and compiled a dossier of information that should have been turned over to the defense. Item No. 1 in said dossier would obviously be the recordings or a finding as to what happened to the recordings. Item No. 2 would be a statement by the hitter (Ficcarra, the crooked cop), denying the hitting. The rest of these witnesses are kind of atmospheric, in the sense that they can't prove that Ficcarra didn't hit Knox, unless they singly or together were in the presence of Knox and Ficcarra at all times. Maybe they were.

Are we going to hear Giobbi and Mignini testify? How about Sollecito?

Are we finally, 8 years later, going to create a "judicial truth" that the cops didn't hit Knox?

What will the ECHR think of this procedure, in which the cops conduct a coercive interrogation, there is no investigation of the interrogation methods by the authorities, the prosecution uses the fruits of the interrogation against the defendant at trial, and then charge the defendant with a crime for testifying about the coercion? This seems like a very bad precedent.

Finally, if the authorities do end up "convicting" Knox, in abstentia, of this crime, right on the heals of a spectacular acquittal on the principal charges, the optics for Italy are going to be just terrible.

Just on optics alone, even Section 1 of ISC was not going to be persuaded. A compelling case might be made that anti-optics was the motivation for the Chieffi panel's reversal..... we'll show those damn Americans and their all powerful media interests!

 

[Diocletus]

Reading the comments on Rudi's blood reminded me of Massei's logic on the clean-up. You know stuff wasn't there so it must have been cleaned up. In this example he must have bled so they must have found it or at least it must have been there. It made me wonder at what point Stef decided to stop producing evidence for the unknown perp and how she covered up what was found after that perp was in custody.

He was cut. It either happened during the attack, as he said, or sometime later as you seem to want to believe on the basis of a witness who said merely that he spent 30 minutes watching tv with Rudy the next day and didn't notice any cuts.

The evidence doesn't require an immediate, active conspiracy, as you seem to be suggesting. Let's look at the where Rudy's blood likely was:

1. Knife handle: The imprint on the bed sheet was not tested for DNA. Incompetence.

2. V-Swab: No test for blood done; Stefanoni much later testified that the DNA was from skin cells, without explaining that she had no way to determine this or allowing that it could have been blood. Incompetence/Dishonesty.

3. Palm print: Not tested for DNA. Incompetence.

4. Purse: This was blood positive, and showed a mixture of Rudy/Kercher DNA. Fine.

5. Bloody towels: Not tested before spoliation. Incompetence.

6. Bra, Kercher's trousers, sweatshirt, handprint on wall: Need to further research these.

7. Downstairs: Suppressed. Dishonesty.

8. Stuff in Rudy's flat: Some blood positive; much suppressed. Dishonesty.

So, by my tally, most of the above is attributable to incompetence, except the results from the vaginal swab, Downstairs and Rudy's flat.

 

[Ken Dine]

Reading the comments on Rudi's blood reminded me of Massei's logic on the clean-up. You know stuff wasn't there so it must have been cleaned up. In this example he must have bled so they must have found it or at least it must have been there. It made me wonder at what point Stef decided to stop producing evidence for the unknown perp and how she covered up what was found after that perp was in custody.

With the help of various judges, Stefanoni was quite adept at hiding test results which didn't help the prosecution, such as the EDFs, which likely contained testing concerning Guede, as well as negative test controls which would have proved that Stefanoni had major contamination problems in her lab.

Several judges (Massei & Hellmann) had ordered Stefanoni to cough up the EDFs, but she never did produce them.

Reading the comments on Rudi's blood reminded me of Massei's logic on the clean-up. You know stuff wasn't there so it must have been cleaned up. In this example he must have bled so they must have found it or at least it must have been there. It made me wonder at what point Stef decided to stop producing evidence for the unknown perp and how she covered up what was found after that perp was in custody.

He [GUEDE] was cut. It either happened during the attack, as he said, or sometime later as you seem to want to believe on the basis of a witness who said merely that he spent 30 minutes watching tv with Rudy the next day and didn't notice any cuts.

The evidence doesn't require an immediate, active conspiracy, as you seem to be suggesting. Let's look at the where Rudy's blood likely was:

1. Knife handle: The imprint on the bed sheet was not tested for DNA. Incompetence.

2. V-Swab: No test for blood done; Stefanoni much later testified that the DNA was from skin cells, without explaining that she had no way to determine this or allowing that it could have been blood. Incompetence/Dishonesty.

3. Palm print: Not tested for DNA. Incompetence.

4. Purse: This was blood positive, and showed a mixture of Rudy/Kercher DNA. Fine.

5. Bloody towels: Not tested before spoliation. Incompetence.

6. Bra, Kercher's trousers, sweatshirt, handprint on wall: Need to further research these.

7. Downstairs: Suppressed. Dishonesty.

8. Stuff in Rudy's flat: Some blood positive; much suppressed. Dishonesty.

So, by my tally, most of the above is attributable to incompetence, except the results from the vaginal swab, Downstairs and Rudy's flat.

I just have two comments to add.

First, the witness watching TV with Guede the next day likely wouldn't have noticed cuts on the inside of Guede's fingers, and even if he did notice a cut finger, there wouldn't be any reason to tie that observation to a crime, so doubtful if he would have remembered such a minor detail weeks later when Guede became a suspect.

Second, with 99% of the blood in Meredith's bedroom likely from Meredith's neck wounds, chances are that if a few drops of Guede's blood had landed on her floor (or on other items), that the CSI people would have assumed it was Meredith's blood and neglected it – after all, they had no way of knowing that Guede had cut himself during the murder.

Of course, several weeks later when they entered Guede's apartment and found his blood shed there, and since Guede left for Germany the next day, Guede obviously had been cut during the murder.

Couple Guede's blood traces in his apartment with the German police photos of his hands, at that point the Italian police should have known they likely had some of Guede's blood at the crime scene, but at that point finding Guede's blood there conflicted with Mignini's wet-dream about Amanda slashing Meredith's throat as Guede merely had restrained her, so Stefanoni's incompetence (or dishonesty) only helped support Mignini's bogus case.

 

[Grinder]

Reading the comments on Rudi's blood reminded me of Massei's logic on the clean-up. You know stuff wasn't there so it must have been cleaned up. In this example he must have bled so they must have found it or at least it must have been there. It made me wonder at what point Stef decided to stop producing evidence for the unknown perp and how she covered up what was found after that perp was in custody.

He was cut. It either happened during the attack, as he said, or sometime later as you seem to want to believe on the basis of a witness who said merely that he spent 30 minutes watching tv with Rudy the next day and didn't notice any cuts.

The original contention was that his blood was found and there is no evidence or source to establish that.

After 17 days most light cuts are healed in my experience. If he was cut enough to bleed enough to expect his blood being found and still visible after 17 days, I would think they would be pretty good cuts and noticeable. If he had noticeable cuts it would be nerve racking to go out in public only a couple of hours later.

The evidence doesn't require an immediate, active conspiracy, as you seem to be suggesting. Let's look at the where Rudy's blood likely was:

1. Knife handle: The imprint on the bed sheet was not tested for DNA. Incompetence.

2. V-Swab: No test for blood done; Stefanoni much later testified that the DNA was from skin cells, without explaining that she had no way to determine this or allowing that it could have been blood. Incompetence/Dishonesty.

3. Palm print: Not tested for DNA. Incompetence.

4. Purse: This was blood positive, and showed a mixture of Rudy/Kercher DNA. Fine.

5. Bloody towels: Not tested before spoliation. Incompetence.

6. Bra, Kercher's trousers, sweatshirt, handprint on wall: Need to further research these.

7. Downstairs: Suppressed. Dishonesty.

8. Stuff in Rudy's flat: Some blood positive; much suppressed. Dishonesty.

So, by my tally, most of the above is attributable to incompetence, except the results from the vaginal swab, Downstairs and Rudy's flat.

So they hid three pieces by your account before knowing the game plan?

It makes no sense to me that after identifying Rudi multiple times they would hide his blood evidence.

The alleged cuts look much more like defensive wounds to me.

 

[Kauffer]

The original contention was that his blood was found and there is no evidence or source to establish that.

After 17 days most light cuts are healed in my experience. If he was cut enough to bleed enough to expect his blood being found and still visible after 17 days, I would think they would be pretty good cuts and noticeable. If he had noticeable cuts it would be nerve racking to go out in public only a couple of hours later.



So they hid three pieces by your account before knowing the game plan?

It makes no sense to me that after identifying Rudi multiple times they would hide his blood evidence.

The alleged cuts look much more like defensive wounds to me.

It makes perfect sense to me that they would hide evidence of Guede sustaining bloody cuts to his hands as a result of stabbing Kercher to death and his hand sliding down the blade, because such evidence would exonerate Amanda of doing so.

 

[Strozzi]

Reading the comments on Rudi's blood reminded me of Massei's logic on the clean-up. You know stuff wasn't there so it must have been cleaned up. In this example he must have bled so they must have found it or at least it must have been there. It made me wonder at what point Stef decided to stop producing evidence for the unknown perp and how she covered up what was found after that perp was in custody.

Also looked at the knife cut photo montage at amandaknoxcase.com and wondered who would ever hold a knife as shown. It is upside down. Either it would be gripped for a puncture wound with the hand wrapped around the handle or a slashing/wave cut - in neither case would the cuts result where they found them. Also the cuts could not have occurred in one instance yet they appear to be exactly parallel. I say self inflicted to look like defensive wounds. And since we all get to use our own examples - I cut my thumb with a box cutter (undoing a sofa packaging) and used hydrogen peroxide and rubbing alcohol on it, both of which delay healing, yet a week later almost healed. When it was fresh it was quite noticeable.

[qimg]http://www.amandaknoxcase.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/Vinci-Guedesrighthandinjuries.jpg[/qimg]

I'm surprised no one yet has commented on the odd coincidence that the knife in the nursery so resembled the "murder" knife found at Raf's. I'm sure Prato and the Milan LE must have been in on the framing.

ETA - Oh and the defense experts said the knife had a hilt and left a bruise.

The images that Grinder posted above (# 2607) of wounds across several of Rudi's fingers appear to be less angled (less diagonal, a bit more perpendicular to each finger) than the simulated wounds (red lines) marked for study purposes on the caucasian hand. That suggests to me that the slice wounds across Rudi's fingers fit well with one knife blade.

If Rudi was cut by an attacker as he alleged, I would expect stab injuries or cuts to the sides or top surface of his hand but not a slice uniformly made across the underside of his fingers.

 

[Diocletus]

So they hid three pieces by your account before knowing the game plan?

No.

The Guede-positive vaginal swab wasn't hidden. Much later, Stefanoni testified dishonestly about the nature of her findings.

I believe that the downstairs results were suppressed, at least partially. But, these samples were analyzed before the arrests, and were not really "suppressed" until Stefanoni issued her report almost a year later and failed to disclose everything that she was supposed to disclose.

Similar situation with stuff from Rudy's flat.

 

[Diocletus]

After 17 days most light cuts are healed in my experience. If he was cut enough to bleed enough to expect his blood being found and still visible after 17 days, I would think they would be pretty good cuts and noticeable. If he had noticeable cuts it would be nerve racking to go out in public only a couple of hours later.

Scarring is permanent.

 

[Grinder]

With the help of various judges, Stefanoni was quite adept at hiding test results which didn't help the prosecution, such as the EDFs, which likely contained testing concerning Guede, as well as negative test controls which would have proved that Stefanoni had major contamination problems in her lab.

They released plenty of evidence that implicated Rudi. Even some of the earliest DNA work pointed to a "fourth" suspect. Their theory is multiple knives and stabbers. It would not be compromised by finding Rudi's blood.

Several judges (Massei & Hellmann) had ordered Stefanoni to cough up the EDFs, but she never did produce them.

I'm not sure what all has been released by now.

First, the witness watching TV with Guede the next day likely wouldn't have noticed cuts on the inside of Guede's fingers, and even if he did notice a cut finger, there wouldn't be any reason to tie that observation to a crime, so doubtful if he would have remembered such a minor detail weeks later when Guede became a suspect.

I'm not basing anything on his friend's testimony. I found this as the top hit for "how long does it take for a knife cut to heal:

Accidents and Injuries: How long will it take for a 1-cm deep cut on my finger to heal?
I was pumpkin carving last night with a fairly new, very sharp swiss army knife and I cut myself about a cm deep on my third finger, it was bleeding a lot at first, but I applied pressure and kept it elevated and the blood went away.

This morning the cut is starting to clot with blood, but it still really hurts. How long will it take to heal?
Re-AskFollow7Comments1+
3 Answers

Robert Gluck, Hand Surgeon, The Healthy Hands Center -- Long Island, NY
Upvoted by Quora User, Neurosurgeon with ties to the Bay area and Silicon Valley. • Liang-Hai Sie, Retired general internist, former intensive care physician. • David Chan, MD from UCLA
Robert has 4 endorsements in Medicine and Healthcare.
Ultimately this will depend on a number of factors, not least of which is how you define healing and what you want to do with the finger when it's "healed", but generally about 1-2 weeks.
​

That's a pretty deep cut as it is about .4 of an inch. there would have been a lot of blood from cuts that deep and two hours later they could start bleeding again.

Second, with 99% of the blood in Meredith's bedroom likely from Meredith's neck wounds, chances are that if a few drops of Guede's blood had landed on her floor (or on other items), that the CSI people would have assumed it was Meredith's blood and neglected it – after all, they had no way of knowing that Guede had cut himself during the murder.

Right they didn't find his blood.

Of course, several weeks later when they entered Guede's apartment and found his blood shed there, and since Guede left for Germany the next day, Guede obviously had been cut during the murder.

I can't find this information much as I couldn't find your original contention that his blood had been found in the cottage. I searched the Rudi page at Amandaknoxcase. Now if he was bleeding all over his flat after returning before going out, it makes it even harder for me to believe he went out dancing and that no one noticed the cuts. If they found a tiny amount in his sink that could be from other sources than knife cuts.

Couple Guede's blood traces in his apartment with the German police photos of his hands, at that point the Italian police should have known they likely had some of Guede's blood at the crime scene, but at that point finding Guede's blood there conflicted with Mignini's wet-dream about Amanda slashing Meredith's throat as Guede merely had restrained her, so Stefanoni's incompetence (or dishonesty) only helped support Mignini's bogus case.

I'll wait for the link to the discovery at Rudi's of of his own blood. But Mignini has multiple knives so Rudi's cuts would change that.

 

[Grinder]

It makes perfect sense to me that they would hide evidence of Guede sustaining bloody cuts to his hands as a result of stabbing Kercher to death and his hand sliding down the blade, because such evidence would exonerate Amanda of doing so.

It wouldn't change the murder conviction. Whether she did the stabbing or not doesn't matter for being convicted. Obviously Raf was convicted.

 

[Diocletus]

They released plenty of evidence that implicated Rudi. Even some of the earliest DNA work pointed to a "fourth" suspect. Their theory is multiple knives and stabbers. It would not be compromised by finding Rudi's blood.

The "fourth" guy was Rudy: Knox, Sollecito, Lumumba and (4) Rudy. This is what they tried to say when the realized that Sollecito and Lumumba didn't match the vaginal swab dna. Instead of disclosing the non-match, they just said that there was a fourth guy.

And, as I recall, they didn't come up with multiple knives until later, only after the defense raised colorable challenges to the dna work on "the" knife. So, at the time they were releasing/suppressing lab results, there was only one knife, and it was critical that that knife be Rep. 36 and not some other knife traceable to the hand of Rudy Guede.

 

[Diocletus]

It wouldn't change the murder conviction. Whether she did the stabbing or not doesn't matter for being convicted. Obviously Raf was convicted.

That's just absurd. It would have changed everything.

 

[Diocletus]

I'm not basing anything on his friend's testimony. I found this as the top hit for "how long does it take for a knife cut to heal:

Accidents and Injuries: How long will it take for a 1-cm deep cut on my finger to heal?
I was pumpkin carving last night with a fairly new, very sharp swiss army knife and I cut myself about a cm deep on my third finger, it was bleeding a lot at first, but I applied pressure and kept it elevated and the blood went away.

This morning the cut is starting to clot with blood, but it still really hurts. How long will it take to heal?
Re-AskFollow7Comments1+
3 Answers

Robert Gluck, Hand Surgeon, The Healthy Hands Center -- Long Island, NY
Upvoted by Quora User, Neurosurgeon with ties to the Bay area and Silicon Valley. • Liang-Hai Sie, Retired general internist, former intensive care physician. • David Chan, MD from UCLA
Robert has 4 endorsements in Medicine and Healthcare.
Ultimately this will depend on a number of factors, not least of which is how you define healing and what you want to do with the finger when it's "healed", but generally about 1-2 weeks.
​

The pictures of Rudy's hand show closed wounds that have recently scarred. So, the above is a red herring.

 

[Grinder]

The images that Grinder posted above (# 2607) of wounds across several of Rudi's fingers appear to be less angled (less diagonal, a bit more perpendicular to each finger) than the simulated wounds (red lines) marked for study purposes on the caucasian hand. That suggests to me that the slice wounds across Rudi's fingers fit well with one knife blade.

If Rudi was cut by an attacker as he alleged, I would expect stab injuries or cuts to the sides or top surface of his hand but not a slice uniformly made across the underside of his fingers.

Strozzi - I have a very hard time seeing much in the pictures of his hands. The recreation makes no sense to me as I wouldn't hold a knife like it is shown and there doesn't seem to be any hilt on the knife as the defense experts insisted there was.

I would expect the opposite of you from fending off the attacker. Hands open batting away the knife. OTOH if the penknife closed it would cut on the top of the hand. The thumb would be cut if the knife were held "fight style" as the finger would be under the knife and on the none edge side.

 

[Grinder]

The pictures of Rudy's hand show closed wounds that have recently scarred. So, the above is a red herring.

You can tell from those pictures that the scars were recent scars? What is the technique for dating scars?

 

[Grinder]

That's just absurd. It would have changed everything.

How did it change things for Raf? According to them the three killed Meredith and it doesn't matter who plunged the fatal wound. Each guilty judge changed the story and still convicted. Massei didn't but Mignini for example.

 

[Grinder]

The "fourth" guy was Rudy: Knox, Sollecito, Lumumba and (4) Rudy. This is what they tried to say when the realized that Sollecito and Lumumba didn't match the vaginal swab dna. Instead of disclosing the non-match, they just said that there was a fourth guy.

And, as I recall, they didn't come up with multiple knives until later, only after the defense raised colorable challenges to the dna work on "the" knife. So, at the time they were releasing/suppressing lab results, there was only one knife, and it was critical that that knife be Rep. 36 and not some other knife traceable to the hand of Rudy Guede.

Yes I know Rudi was the fourth, that was my point. They found his evidence and disclosed it. They originally were looking for a penknife and they all had the knife outline from early on so the multiple knife theory was in place as soon as they tested Raf's and "found" Meredith's DNA. The multiple knife theory had much more to do with some of wounds and the outline than the issues about DNA.

 

[Diocletus]

You can tell from those pictures that the scars were recent scars? What is the technique for dating scars?

Cutting edge forensics science:

The person bearing them voluntarily makes a statement against interest establishing the exact date, time and place of incurring the wound.