Continuation Part 18: Amanda Knox/Raffaele Sollecito

[Vixen]

Yes, that's a good one and you should also read a bad one for balance. The worst bad one by far is by Barbie Nadeau. Thats so bad it's funny. A better bad one is by John Follian, which is a guilter bible. Of the two, I would go for Barbie, for laughs and because it's shorter. There are about ten others I could suggest but I have formed the impression that you are pretty much a sane person with better things to do in your spare time.

Darkness Descending came out before the spin doctors got their clammy jaws into the case. Recommended.

 

[Bill Williams]

I don't agree with this. I go along with something a poster, Alex K, wrote on the injustice website:

Flawed motivations for a definitive acquittal are preferable to impeccable motivations for a retrial. From the defendants' point of view, at least.​

The headlines were helpful to A and R, and it is too late for the pro guilty people to hope for headlines such as "Amanda WAS there!" If A and R are well advised they won't go near the pro guilt sites and this thread will slowly fade after a flurry of activity regarding the recent report. I do hope the remaining trials go well for the two, but even if they don't I don't think it will alter their lives that much. Considering how it could have turned out, freedom for the remainder of their lives is not so bad. Their friends and family and the majority of decent people they will come across will wholly outnumber the odd few who will mainly comment on censored websites.

That's my point - presently there seems to be NO traction for anything other than that Marasca believes the problem for the last 8 years was massive judicial/investigative amnesia and bungling.

The "flaws" in the report are coming into focus - but Italians seem to "get" why those flaws are there. Machiavelli can tweet Porta a Porta all he wants.....

More importantly, Italians are not distracted by them. We are!

 

[Bill Williams]

Darkness Descending came out before the spin doctors got their clammy jaws into the case. Recommended.

Darkness Descending is why Michael Winterbottom made the movie he made - about early journalistic bungling, and relying solely on the emerging prosecution case..... "emerging" because nearly all of the early lurid stuff never even made it to trial! But the early stuff sold newspapers.

Truly, this is where one needs to read the Marasca report and the role of the media on why this went wrong for so long. Read Darkness Descending to read the real spin of the haters. At least Follain's "A Death in Italy" tried to stay with one version of "the record", and he was close to 1/2 of the sources he should have had. And even Follain presented the reason why this all fell apart for the Mignini's of the world....

 

[Vixen]

Nowhere more so than how Machiavelli handles the issue of Anna Donnino, the interpreter who came into Amanda Knox's first 11:00 pm - 1:45 am interrogation at the cuff hand of Rita Ficarra.

Donnino herself reported she'd arrived at 12:30 am, and saw that the interrogation was in disarray. So much so that she herself said she then acted "as a mediator" between the police and Knox. Apparently this is when Donnino tried to engender Amanda's trust with her story about how she herself had once had had amnesia because of trauma.

Instead of attacking this allegation which pro-innocence people refer to, Machiavelli confirms it! Look back in these very threads - he said that it was her role not only to act as a mediator, but further as a diplomat - whatever that means.

The theory of "The Big Lie" is that it is such a whopper, that people would not believe anyone would have the nerve tell such a thing, so people (the theory goes) tend to believe it.

Speaking of books - my sin is that I paid full price for Follain's "A Death in Italy," billed as the true account of the Kercher murder and its aftermath.

Say what you want about Follain, but the way he choreographs and blocks out the very-same interrogation is proof as to what he's on about. Donnino doesn't even have a name in Follain's narrative and is barely mentioned, and truly a reader can be forgiven for believing that the reason why Knox eventually cracked was because of all the good treatment Ficarra et al. were doling out. Amanda eventually had to confess, because of all those biscuits and the chamomile tea.

One's position in all this can be ascertained by how they would narrate the interrogations. Machiavelli simply makes stuff up about it.

At the recent calunnia hearing Zugarini (sp_?) and A N Other testified they comforted Amanda with hugs as they felt sorry for her, as a twenty year old.

 

[bagels]

Burleigh is a self professed advocate for Amanda, and as a consequence, half the book is an astonishing attempt to demonstrate Rudy was the most prolific burglar Perugia has ever seen, as supposed proof of her darling's innocence and Rudy as the sole killer. If you find didactic or proselytising prose that browbeats the reader's basest emotions irritating, avoid this book. Burleigh is basically a liar who sets out to convince the reader her lies are the truth.

Well, at least somebody was investigating the man who raped and murdered Meredith.

 

[Vixen]

Hi Machiavelli,
So, ah did your Italian investigators ever discover
who it was that stabbed and Miss Meredith Kercher?

http://images.teinteresa.es/sucesos/agonica-muerte-Meredith-Kercher_TINIMA20110907_1137_18.jpg


Might it be the same person whom left seminal fluid,
err, presumed seminal fluid on a pillow placed underneath Miss Kercher's naked body?


Don't look at this video
http://www.focus.de/focustv/faszina...er-neue-prozess-um-amanda-knox_vid_36840.html
unless you want to see what we are really discussing
in this brutal rape + murder case we discuss.

As MichaelB put it:
It certainly puts things in perspective.
Don't look if can't stomach it....it's graphic.

You can see Meredith Kercher's body lying on the floor of her bedroom
with that semen stained, err presumed seminal fluid stained pillow
lying underneath her in this preview of a 2013 German documentary about the case.

Randy : the person/s who went back post-murder to move Mez' body put the pillow under her. Strangely, Raffaele Sollecito and his defense team most emphatically did not want the stain tested, in case...it "turned out to be mine" ~ Raffaele Sollecito in Honour Bound.

 

[Bill Williams]

Randy : the person/s who went back post-murder to move Mez' body put the pillow under her. Strangely, Raffaele Sollecito and his defense team most emphatically did not want the stain tested, in case...it "turned out to be mine" ~ Raffaele Sollecito in Honour Bound.

Actually, Vixen, you should read his book. Both he and his lawyers were convinced at the first trial that Stefanoni would put her thumb on the scale like she'd done with 165B and 36B.

By the time of the 2013 Nencini trial, Sollecito and his lawyers requested that the court test the stain. Their request was denied.

 

[Bill Williams]

At the recent calunnia hearing Zugarini (sp_?) and A N Other testified they comforted Amanda with hugs as they felt sorry for her, as a twenty year old.

Good for them. That's then another thing Follain forgot to include. Who knows, maybe it was because Zugarini was slashing tires for Napoleoni in the latter's nasty divorce.....

 

[Vixen]

Looking from the perspective of working to correct wrongful convictions, it was disappointing to see the court working so hard to cover for all involved, including their prior ruling regarding Guede. The report added unnecessary information in an attempt to connect all of the dots. In this case, that is not possible and not the right path to take.

The report shows the flaws of a system in need of reform. The court should not feel the need to protect others involved. They should not feel the need to protect their prior rulings. They should follow the facts as they know them to be at that given time. They should stand up and say the system got it wrong. Of course, no one ever admits they were wrong, so that is just wishful thinking.

In the end, the system did what was right and released Amanda and Raffaele. Sadly the truth will forever be clouded due to the flawed process. It would be nice to see lessons learned about the issues raised about the investigation. We can only hope that something positive will eventually come from all of this.

I agree with you. <fx lie down in a darkened room> The Italian Supreme Court had no business to stray into politics, the press or unproven and outrageous allegations against the police. Thoroughly tainted.

 

[bagels]

At the recent calunnia hearing Zugarini (sp_?) and A N Other testified they comforted Amanda with hugs as they felt sorry for her, as a twenty year old.

Ah, the old good cop bad cop. This one wouldn't have worked on me. I've seen too many episodes of Law and Order.

 

[Vixen]

Well, how about this?

On the face of it, Machiavelli is describing something that can happen. But one cannot take the phenomenon of one woman's DNA overwhelming and perhaps masking by volume an alleged female's perp's DNA-signature as **positive** proof of the female perp's identity.

It's only when there is other, overwhelming evidence of that perp in the room, that this can be dusted off as explaining the lack of DNA evidence.

There's also, for instance, the matter that there is no Meredith forensic material which anyone other than Rudy Guede took out of that room. Meaning, there is no evidence at all that either Raffaele or Amanda took forensics out of that room.

They simply were not there.

ETA - not a total loss, though. I'd never heard "chuntering" before!

Yorkshire dialect.

 

[Vixen]

Well, how about this?

On the face of it, Machiavelli is describing something that can happen. But one cannot take the phenomenon of one woman's DNA overwhelming and perhaps masking by volume an alleged female's perp's DNA-signature as **positive** proof of the female perp's identity.

It's only when there is other, overwhelming evidence of that perp in the room, that this can be dusted off as explaining the lack of DNA evidence.

There's also, for instance, the matter that there is no Meredith forensic material which anyone other than Rudy Guede took out of that room. Meaning, there is no evidence at all that either Raffaele or Amanda took forensics out of that room.

They simply were not there.

ETA - not a total loss, though. I'd never heard "chuntering" before!

Well, at least somebody was investigating the man who raped and murdered Meredith.

A paid shill who had an axe to grind, i.e., earn her money as a Friend of Amanda shill.

 

[anglolawyer]

Darkness Descending came out before the spin doctors got their clammy jaws into the case. Recommended.

Crap.

 

[Vixen]

Actually, Vixen, you should read his book. Both he and his lawyers were convinced at the first trial that Stefanoni would put her thumb on the scale like she'd done with 165B and 36B.

By the time of the 2013 Nencini trial, Sollecito and his lawyers requested that the court test the stain. Their request was denied.

Only at the eleventh hour when they safely knew that judge was bound to dismiss the late application.

 

[carbonjam72]

Ah, the old good cop bad cop. This one wouldn't have worked on me. I've seen too many episodes of Law and Order.

And that, would be your downfall! It's well known the Italians favor Perry Mason and Columbo.

 

[Vixen]

Good for them. That's then another thing Follain forgot to include. Who knows, maybe it was because Zugarini was slashing tires for Napoleoni in the latter's nasty divorce.....

Follain's book is 500 pages already. Follain's focus was the trial itself.

 

[Bill Williams]

Yorkshire dialect.

I know exactly the accent......!

 

[carbonjam72]

A paid shill who had an axe to grind, i.e., earn her money as a Friend of Amanda shill.

Like Amanda, one more woman writer with the gall to be more successful.

 

[bagels]

A paid shill who had an axe to grind, i.e., earn her money as a Friend of Amanda shill.

Didn't she have some sort of falling out with the family and write that Amanda was, "not a very nice person." I suppose that was just a clever ruse to appear more objective.

At any rate her book didn't even contain the most damning indictment from Rudy's past, which was the official testimony from the law office break-in describing the state of the scene. It could nearly be substituted for the break-in at the cottage verbatim without losing any veracity.

 

[Bill Williams]

Follain's book is 500 pages already. Follain's focus was the trial itself.

That was one focus. The book opens with his account of what he presents as the "right" reasons the pair were even suspected. The part about the trial(s) was to explain why that case fell apart once it got there. Then he concludes with the reactions of the Kerchers and the British friends.

There is much to commend in the book, the reader is privy to the very thoughts of investigators. Yet because of the way he presents the trial(s) I came away from it thinking Follain privately thought the pair innocence, he just didn't have the guts to come out and say it.