Continuation Part 20: Amanda Knox/Raffaele Sollecito

[acbytesla]

That makes sense. I still think the less than fully trained Lalli blew the duodenum analysis, which allows for the later death but still not past 10 pm

If he said what Massei wrote he clearly doesn't understand the digestive process:

Dr. Lalli also took into consideration the state of digestion. He stated that solids are ingested into the stomach and are not able to reach the pyloric sphincter until they are reduced to a semi-fluid or fluid consistency; the emptying of the stomach then begins to occur when some of the contents have become sufficiently fluid to reach the pylorus, which happens the third or fourth hour after eating. This is when one can find food material at the level of the duodenum (page 63 of the Lalli report).​

For the vast majority it begins within an hour. Idiot.

Any idea what Lalli's qualifications are? Is he a forensic pathologist?

 

[Grinder]

Any idea what Lalli's qualifications are? Is he a forensic pathologist?

By Italian standards he only attended 3 years of university as he is titled doctor.

 

[Grinder]

here bagels

 

[acbytesla]

By Italian standards he only attended 3 years of university as he is titled doctor.

I know in the US it is a mish mash of what you can expect. Lots of places the coroner is elected and there are no requirements except a majority of voters and some places ...most big cities where it's a forensic pathologist who must be a medical doctor to begin.

 

[bagels]

here bagels

Dan O on IIP pointed out (in his usual eloquent manner) that the bolt flew out and can be seen on the ground in the crime scene photos. I think that does decisively prove the door was locked while closed with a key.

Also at IIP there now appears conflicting information about the 21:58 and 22:00 phone activity.

charlie_wilkes says he exhaustively analyzed the issue years ago and the records show the phones were certainly near Rudy's house at that time, and almost certainly not in the cottage.

Dan O says anyone who thinks the phone were still in the cottage at 21:58 is "stupid."

In lieu of a definitive answer on this issue I must side with them, as Rudy being at a murder scene for 40 minutes longer than any reasonable criminal could ever think to be there strikes me as improbable, and I have had a very difficult time putting together a series of events that ends with Rudy still at the cottage at 21:58, and nobody else here has even attempted it.

 

[bagels]

I'm now trying to determine whether the Italian phone was switched off at the time it was found by Lana's son the next morning. He brought the phone to the postal police, not sure what time but they left for Amanda's around noon. So it's possible the phone could have been switched off all night and switched on by the postal police in time for Amanda's 12:11 call. There was activity picked up by the cell tower on one of the phones sometime after midnight and it's not clear to me if this is the Italian or UK phone, it's not on the billing records for the Italian phone.

I wish I could find a full report of all the cell data...in english

 

[bagels]

Robyn Butterwroth says she tried to call and text Meredith all morning, and she knew Meredith's Italian number because there's about a dozen calls between them in the Italian logs, yet no calls from Robyn (or anyone but Amanda at noon) are in the Italian logs on the 2nd. Maybe she forgot about the Italian phone...or it was off all night and only switched on around noon by the postal police.

 

[LondonJohn]

I'm now trying to determine whether the Italian phone was switched off at the time it was found by Lana's son the next morning. He brought the phone to the postal police, not sure what time but they left for Amanda's around noon. So it's possible the phone could have been switched off all night and switched on by the postal police in time for Amanda's 12:11 call. There was activity picked up by the cell tower on one of the phones sometime after midnight and it's not clear to me if this is the Italian or UK phone, it's not on the billing records for the Italian phone.

I wish I could find a full report of all the cell data...in english

To deal with this one first.....

The phone that was "pinged" at 00.10am on 2nd November (as it lay in Lana's garden) was Kercher's UK phone. That's detailed in the Massei Report, p327.

The Massei report (p326) actually makes specific reference to the cell to which Kercher's Italian phone connected at the time of the 12.11pm call from Knox. I believe the coverage of that cell sector suggests it was as the Postal Police station. The phone necessarily had to have been switched on at this time, since otherwise no connection with any base station would have been made.

IIRC, Lana's family said that this phone was switched off when they found it (it was lying in plain view on the lawn), but I'd need to search for corroboration of that from court transcripts, reliable reports or witness statements. If that were so, then the evidence would indicate that the postal police most probably switched it back on once it was in their possession.

 

[LondonJohn]

Robyn Butterwroth says she tried to call and text Meredith all morning, and she knew Meredith's Italian number because there's about a dozen calls between them in the Italian logs, yet no calls from Robyn (or anyone but Amanda at noon) are in the Italian logs on the 2nd. Maybe she forgot about the Italian phone...or it was off all night and only switched on around noon by the postal police.

And yes, Butterworth's testimony strongly supports the idea that the phone was indeed switched off until some time shortly before 12.11pm on the 2nd. If the phone was switched off, the billing records would show no traffic to that phone.

 

[bagels]

My new working theory sure to be invalided by the end of the day:

~20:45: Rudy breaks into the cottage
~21:00: Meredith returns home, attack soon happens in the standard PIP view
~21:30: The attack is over and Rudy is now in possession of the phones, he switches both of them off and heads home
~21:35: Rudy is back home, cleaning up and cooling off and coming up with a plan
~21:58: Rudy leaves his house to go dump evidence, he switches on the UK phone during his walk to see if anything interesting is on it, there isn't.
~22:13: Rudy is now outside the city gates, the phone beeps with an incoming text he cancels.
~22:20: Rudy dumps the knife and dirty clothes?
~22:30: Rudy returns passing by Lana's and sees the cops responding to the bomb threat, he dumps the hot phones

 

[LondonJohn]

Also at IIP there now appears conflicting information about the 21:58 and 22:00 phone activity.

charlie_wilkes says he exhaustively analyzed the issue years ago and the records show the phones were certainly near Rudy's house at that time, and almost certainly not in the cottage.

Dan O says anyone who thinks the phone were still in the cottage at 21:58 is "stupid."

In lieu of a definitive answer on this issue I must side with them, as Rudy being at a murder scene for 40 minutes longer than any reasonable criminal could ever think to be there strikes me as improbable, and I have had a very difficult time putting together a series of events that ends with Rudy still at the cottage at 21:58, and nobody else here has even attempted it.

The problem is this: since neither of these failed calls generated a billing record, and since billing records were the only think the Keystone Perugia Cops bothered to obtain, neither of these calls showed up on the billing record.

But..... both of these calls would have shown up on the operator's network management records. In both instances, it's clear that an outgoing call attempt was indeed made (presumably both these numbers were within the handset's "called numbers" list, next to the time of each call).

So from a (simplified) technical perspective, what would have happened is along these lines: the handset would have initiated an outgoing call to the network; during that outgoing call handshake protocol, the handset would have transmitted the required phone number to the network; the network would have interrogated the number, and would have determined near-instantaneously that the number was not in a recognisable format; the network would have therefore determined that it would be impossible to connect the call; the network would then automatically have terminated the call.

And all of this would have had to have taken place via an identifiable base station - it was a genuine (if very short and abortive) "conversation" between the phone and the network, via a particular base station.

So from a "billing records" perspective, it's impossible even to see these calls, let alone determine which base station they came via. I don't actually know whether anyone delved deeper into the network management records to try to determine which base station was used. If not, then I would concluded that we (courts/prosecutors/defence included) must all be wholly in the dark as to the location of the phone when these failed calls were made.

For some reason, I always thought it had been reasonably demonstrated that the phone was (or likely was) within the cottage at the time these calls were placed. But as I said, if nobody has/had access to anything more than the billing records, then it would have been impossible to know anything about the phone's location at this time.

And if that's the case, then it's certainly reasonable to suggest that the phones might already have been either en route to Guede's apartment or maybe even within Guede's apartment, at the time of these two calls around 10pm. One can reasonably construct a scenario where Guede left the cottage shortly after 9.30pm (having confronted and killed Kercher by 9.20pm, then having briefly paused to clean most visible blood from himself and figure out how to get out), then got back to his apartment and examined the two phones. He could easily work out how to turn off the Italian phone, since all the menu commands were in Italian, but he couldn't figure out how to do the same to the UK phone - and this prompted the clumsy pressing of buttons which resulted in the random failed calls at 10pm. And he might then have decided that the phones were just too hot to hang onto (and he would probably have come to the conclusion that trying to sell these phones carried far, far more risk to him than any small monetary gain he might make). So he ventured out again to dispose of the phones into the ravine outside the city walls. On the way, the incoming MMS arrived at 10.13pm. And then Guede threw the phones out into the darkness of the ravine - not realising that in fact he'd thrown them into Lana's garden.

 

[LondonJohn]

By the way: if anyone has any recollection of if/how it might ever have been demonstrated that Kercher's UK phone was probably within the cottage at the time of the two 10pm failed calls, it would be interesting to know.

Because it might just be that this is one of those things that the Massei court just concluded out of thin air (probably partly predicated on its further incorrect conclusion that the phone was within the cottage at the time of the 10.13pm MMS), and that sort of passed by osmosis into the history of the case.

 

[LondonJohn]

My new working theory sure to be invalided by the end of the day:

~20:45: Rudy breaks into the cottage
~21:00: Meredith returns home, attack soon happens in the standard PIP view
~21:30: The attack is over and Rudy is now in possession of the phones, he switches both of them off and heads home
~21:35: Rudy is back home, cleaning up and cooling off and coming up with a plan
~21:58: Rudy leaves his house to go dump evidence, he switches on the UK phone during his walk to see if anything interesting is on it, there isn't.
~22:13: Rudy is now outside the city gates, the phone beeps with an incoming text he cancels.
~22:20: Rudy dumps the knife and dirty clothes?
~22:30: Rudy returns passing by Lana's and sees the cops responding to the bomb threat, he dumps the hot phones

Broadly very feasible.

Two small points: firstly, Kercher's UK phone would almost certainly have been switched on when Guede took it - there's evidence that Kercher left this phone on almost constantly, in case there were calls from the UK about her mother's ill health. So I suggest it's much more likely that Guede was trying to turn the phone OFF at around the time of those 10pm random button presses that resulted in the failed calls. And secondly, the 10.13pm event was almost certainly an incoming MMS (not SMS "text message"), which is something like a photo or video. And the evidence suggests that Guede mistakenly pressed a button in response to the "incoming MMS" alert which instigated the download of the message itself. Then the download was cancelled after around 9 seconds.

And I also wonder (as per my previous-but-one post) whether it might be more likely that Guede got home, cleaned himself up properly and changed out of his blood-stained clothes, then examined the phones in the safety of his own house. This would also tally with the 10pm failed calls (assuming for a moment that the phones were inside Guede's apartment at this point) leading onto the 10.13pm MMS event around the area of the park. In other words, Guede messed around with the phones at around 10pm inside his apartment, decided to dump them somewhere remote, then perhaps got dressed and prepared again, and left his apartment again at some time around 10.10pm. And that would correspond with him walking in the vicinity of the park when the MMS event happened at 10.13pm.

 

[Planigale]

Water stays in the stomach for a good while, especially when consumed alongside solid food, provided that the person is not dehydrated or otherwise in need of rapid supplies of water into the bloodstream. The stomach needs to make ingested food into a pretty liquid "soup" (anyone who's vomited - which is probably everyone! - knows that there's a lot of liquid in the mix.

If one were to eat, for example, a pile of dry biscuits without drinking any fluids, the stomach would know to secrete enough water (plus acids and enzymes) to turn the biscuits into a thin porridge. If one were to drink a glass of water alongside the biscuits, the stomach would recognise this and simply secrete less (or no) water alongside the concentrated acids and enzymes.

Incidentally, the phenomenon of wanting to pee - and then peeing - very shortly after drinking a large amount of fluids is interesting, in that what you're peeing is NOT the fluids you've just ingested. Rather, the body recognises (via the sensors in the stomach and oesophagus) that a large amount of fluids have been taken in, and automatically triggers a dump of existing fluids so as to ensure that the body doesn't become over-hydrated. Water can taken from the kidneys and bloodstream as well as the bladder in such an instance. As an aside on this subject, some years ago in the UK there was a spate of clubbers taking ecstasy and killing themselves through having an uncontrollable urge to drink water. What they were doing was taking in water faster than the body could expel other water, meaning that ultimately the water balance of the body became incorrect, with fatal consequences.

Actually when taking ecstasy one was advised to drink plenty of water (since one was generally dancing also), to avoid dehydration. What happened was some people over did it which combined with an effect of the drug in preventing appropriate peeing led to water toxicity.

 

[acbytesla]

By the way: if anyone has any recollection of if/how it might ever have been demonstrated that Kercher's UK phone was probably within the cottage at the time of the two 10pm failed calls, it would be interesting to know.

Because it might just be that this is one of those things that the Massei court just concluded out of thin air (probably partly predicated on its further incorrect conclusion that the phone was within the cottage at the time of the 10.13pm MMS), and that sort of passed by osmosis into the history of the case.

Seems to me they could have been. I thought they connected to Aquila or Lupatelli so I think they were in the area. What I don't think people quite understand is why the distant Wind tower (1500+meters) is the best cell for the park despite the fact the park probably is only 50 meters to 150 meters from the Lupatelli cell.
Three words "Line of Sight".

 

[Planigale]

The alcohol in wine and the caffeine in coffee (and the glucose/sucrose in suspension in a soda) can to some extent be absorbed through the mucosal linings of the oesophagus and stomach. But in all of those liquids the main constituent is water, which will be treated by the GI system in the same way as a glass of water itself.

Both wine (alcohol) and coffee (caffeine) directly effect the brains control of water balance and cause excess urine production, potentially causing dehydration probably part of the cause of hangovers (the paradox of dehydration caused by drinking too much).

 

[Planigale]

Grinder, you have failed to factor in:

1. A possible later meal, as indicated by the additional wine, vegetables (still fibre) and mushrooms.

2. The effect of extreme fear. Imagine you step inside your home and are confronted by knife wielding yobs in an altered state of consciousness and you know you are alone with them.

3. The fact that there are many factors to take into consideration in assessing time of death.

http://themurderofmeredithkercher.c...nssge-method-for-estimating-time-of-death.pdf

4. Not even Lalli, a forensic pathologist, could pinpoint an exact time.

5. In addition, the body was in an advanced state of rigor mortis, thanks to the perps delaying discovery for over sixteen hours. The stomach contents would be dehydrated and impacted.
It is rubbish for an armchair biologist to claim they know the victim's TOD, when the expert forensic pathologists had trouble fixing a time, because of the late examination.

Where do you get this from? We know that the contents were not dehydrated and impacted.

The problem is how joined up was the information. in the absence of knowledge about the time of the last meal the forensic pathologists could not incorporate this into their analysis. It is worth recording that the prosecution switched pathologist because they did not like the first opinion.

 

[acbytesla]

Where do you get this from? We know that the contents were not dehydrated and impacted.

The problem is how joined up was the information. in the absence of knowledge about the time of the last meal the forensic pathologists could not incorporate this into their analysis. It is worth recording that the prosecution switched pathologist because they did not like the first opinion.

One guess Planigale. From a fertile mind. No need for actual evidence or research when you can make it up.

 

[bagels]

Seems to me they could have been. I thought they connected to Aquila or Lupatelli so I think they were in the area. What I don't think people quite understand is why the distant Wind tower (1500+meters) is the best cell for the park despite the fact the park probably is only 50 meters to 150 meters from the Lupatelli cell.
Three words "Line of Sight".

The Massei report has one line where it implies the 22:00 left a record:

3. at 22.00 hours the number ‚08459724724‛ which, according to the phonebook of both mobile phones, corresponds to the user ‚ABBEY‛ is dialled.

The Wind [phone record] printouts register that (but the data is absent in the mobile phone’s memory)"

The report then contradicts itself:

"The number ‚08459724724‛ was therefore dialled (the memory attests to this) but [the call] could not have been successful."

There is no base tower or antenna mentioned at all in regards to the 22:00 action. Only the 22:13 action, and the earlier calls, are connected to an antenna. It seems plausible to me this is just a mistake (one of many) in the Massei report. Possibly he has confused the 22:13 action which did leave a record, but was not in the memory.

 

[query grind]

I'm now trying to determine whether the Italian phone was switched off at the time it was found by Lana's son the next morning. He brought the phone to the postal police, not sure what time but they left for Amanda's around noon. So it's possible the phone could have been switched off all night and switched on by the postal police in time for Amanda's 12:11 call. There was activity picked up by the cell tower on one of the phones sometime after midnight and it's not clear to me if this is the Italian or UK phone, it's not on the billing records for the Italian phone.

I wish I could find a full report of all the cell data...in english

bagels, from my memory my rough recollection is this:

The "Italian" phone was found around 09:00 and taken to the police. Presumably if Knox rang that phone just after 12:00 it would have been around the time they departed to 7 via dell Pergola, so I don't know why the police didn't answer it.

The English phone was found later and I seem to recall testimony that the phone rang with the name "Amanda" on the screen as they took it into the police station for their second visit.

Aside from the lightening response of the police to return the phones on a public holiday, I find the awed response of the Lana family to the presence of the phones curious.
Not only do they refuse to answer the phone when it rang, they don't bother to use the phone to ring some of the numbers to see if they can find out who it belongs.
I know when I found a wallet last year on the street, I didn't bother to involve the police. I just found the address on the driver's licence, checked the white pages to see if it was still current and took it round myself.

The Lana family seem to have treated a couple of phones lying in their garden like unexploded sticks of dynamite.