Continuation Part 20: Amanda Knox/Raffaele Sollecito

[acbytesla]

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.

I think you're reading too much into inconsequential events. Why they did this? Why they didn't do that? I might or might not answer a ringing phone that isn't mine. People are individuals. To expect everyone to behave as we might doesn't seem realistic.

 

[acbytesla]

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.

What about the 21:58 record? I use to have all this data but not any more.

 

[query grind]

I think you're reading too much into inconsequential events. Why they did this? Why they didn't do that? I might or might not answer a ringing phone that isn't mine. People are individuals. To expect everyone to behave as we might doesn't seem realistic.

Quite, far more sensible to turn up unannounced at a house at midday of a long weekend and expecting someone to be home.

After all, if the police had turned up 10 minutes earlier then no one would have been home. Perhaps then they might have plucked up the courage to ring some of the recently called numbers or answer the phone when it rings.

 

[bagels]

What about the 21:58 record? I use to have all this data but not any more.

In the Massei report the 21:58 is always assumed to be a local interaction in the phone's memory and is never connected to any network event.

At IIP charlie_wilkes asserts that the 22:00 was logged but not on the cottage tower.

I would like to at least see MKs UK phone records, which don't seem available.

 

[acbytesla]

Quite, far more sensible to turn up unannounced at a house at midday of a long weekend and expecting someone to be home.

After all, if the police had turned up 10 minutes earlier then no one would have been home. Perhaps then they might have plucked up the courage to ring some of the recently called numbers or answer the phone when it rings.

You're applying logic based on too littled info. Maybe the battery was weak or it was turned off or may be the signal was weak. Etc etc etc.

 

[acbytesla]

In the Massei report the 21:58 is always assumed to be a local interaction in the phone's memory and is never connected to any network event.

At IIP charlie_wilkes asserts that the 22:00 was logged but not on the cottage tower.

I would like to at least see MKs UK phone records, which don't seem available.

Then we just don't know....

Me too...

 

[bagels]

It seems reasonable to connect the phone dump with the police scouting around Lana's as I believe Dan O believes. It's a pretty big coincidence that Rudy happens to dump the phone in the garden on the same night at the same time she received a bomb threat. There was some posts early that said the bomb threat was on the 31st, but the witness testimony from everyone else involved contradicts this and there was also testimony that the call happened at exactly 22:30 on the 1st. As usual with Italy we don't have any reports or data, just a bunch of people that said something allegedly happened.

It also would make sense for Rudy to dump the phones after being spooked by the police nearby, because otherwise he took the phones just to dump them for some inexplicable reason.

 

[query grind]

One thing to remember in cell phone reconstructions is, as fans of Serial will know, incoming calls are not so reliable. My non-technical explanation would be that when the network tries to deliver a message it looks up the last connection (a location status update - not a call) the phone made and then sees if a connection can be made, even if the tower is not optimal.

So phone might look like it was via Della Pergola but in fact be Lana's garden

In the Massei report the 21:58 is always assumed to be a local interaction in the phone's memory and is never connected to any network event.

At IIP charlie_wilkes asserts that the 22:00 was logged but not on the cottage tower.

I would like to at least see MKs UK phone records, which don't seem available.

With PMF and IIP you are dealing with two fundamentally dishonest groups of people. PMF say that IIP just steal documents from their website that they acquire, IIP accuse PMF of stealing documents from Frank Sfzaro's USB. I don't know who is right or wrong in this priority dispute - although I would suspect that Sfzaro, as an Italian and by definition two-faced, more likely deliberately leaked them.

However, there is a fairly straightforward reason why the English phone logs might not be available - to protect the contact details of her relatives. Although you could probably achieve this by blanking out the relatives' numbers.

More sinister explanations?
I seem to recall reading testimony of one of the postal police technicians saying that texts had been deleted from the English phone after her death and that they had no explanation for this. I could be mistaken because a quick search failed to find the name of the technician.

The explanations I have come up with from innocent to more sinister:
1. The first person to find the phone did it by accident
2. Something vaguely raunchy was found in the phone and deleted to "protect the family" (Don't think this is likely, but a possibility)
3. A perpetrator did it to hide some evidence. For example Giacomo Silenzi claims that on the 31st of October Meredith send him a flirty message saying how much she was looking forward to seeing him. If she had sent him a message saying keep away from me you creep, you can see why he might want to delete that. Alternatively Rudy Guede might have seen that flirty message and been so overcome with jealousy he decided to delete it in denial.
4. Police deleted a message that showed some contact between Kercher and Guede. A message setting up a date? A message after he was ejected saying "RU OK?" Since Guede's phone is a bit of mystery this can't be excluded by consulting his phone records.



That is assuming I haven't misunderstood some google translate testimony. The content of the text can't be recovered, but in theory if we had the phone logs we might be able to work out the identity of the sender/recipient.

 

[query grind]

It seems reasonable to connect the phone dump with the police scouting around Lana's as I believe Dan O believes. It's a pretty big coincidence that Rudy happens to dump the phone in the garden on the same night at the same time she received a bomb threat. There was some posts early that said the bomb threat was on the 31st, but the witness testimony from everyone else involved contradicts this and there was also testimony that the call happened at exactly 22:30 on the 1st. As usual with Italy we don't have any reports or data, just a bunch of people that said something allegedly happened.

It also would make sense for Rudy to dump the phones after being spooked by the police nearby, because otherwise he took the phones just to dump them for some inexplicable reason.

I see, so he sees the specialised Toilet Bomb Flying Squad of the Postale Police searching the garden and throws both phones at them to distract them? Sort of "Look behind you!" and then runs away?

 

[acbytesla]

It seems reasonable to connect the phone dump with the police scouting around Lana's as I believe Dan O believes. It's a pretty big coincidence that Rudy happens to dump the phone in the garden on the same night at the same time she received a bomb threat. There was some posts early that said the bomb threat was on the 31st, but the witness testimony from everyone else involved contradicts this and there was also testimony that the call happened at exactly 22:30 on the 1st. As usual with Italy we don't have any reports or data, just a bunch of people that said something allegedly happened.

It also would make sense for Rudy to dump the phones after being spooked by the police nearby, because otherwise he took the phones just to dump them for some inexplicable reason.

Coincidences happen. I dont read too much into it. I can't imagine whomever threw them there would have any desire to have them found the next morning.

I've always believed he ran down into the ravine and doubled back to his apartment probably trying to get back to his apartment either through the door in the city wall or just wanted to be approaching his apartment from the other direction. Lana's garden is really quite hidden from the road and the park. From the street it looks like a good place to throw them where they wouldn't get discovered quickly if ever.

The probability is high based on the evidence that the phone was in the park at 10:13. We have no evidence to draw upon for where it was at 9:58 or 10:00.

 

[bagels]

I thought where he threw them appeared to be a natural ravine from the path or something and it was only by chance they landed in a garden.

And it's not just disbelieving a coincidence, it's giving Rudy a reason to dump the phones he went out of the way to pick up in the first place. So it actually is a multi point coincidence - he coincidentally picks up the phones for no reason just to dump them - and this coincidentally happens in view of where the police would be around the time they would be there.

It's almost (but not quite) like the PGP view that Rudy, a burglar connected to a previous rock smashed upper story clothes throwing break-in, was coincidentally at the cottage when it had a rock smashed upper story clothes throwing break-in, but miraculously wasn't responsible for it.

 

[acbytesla]

One thing to remember in cell phone reconstructions is, as fans of Serial will know, incoming calls are not so reliable. My non-technical explanation would be that when the network tries to deliver a message it looks up the last connection (a location status update - not a call) the phone made and then sees if a connection can be made, even if the tower is not optimal.

I don't use a TV show to draw my technical expertise. I've worked in voice and data communications for more than 20 years.

That said, this is mostly right. But, if the connection is poor it is likely to change connections very fast. And according to the Vodafone employee multiple entries in the log would be made. So if it switched cell stations that would be logged.
By the way there are 1092 records associted with Mereditth's phone and wind cell antenna. But in fact there were only 2 calls that began and ended on that cell repeater. The 10:13 call and one on October 12th None of Amanda's used that repeater.

So phone might look like it was via Della Pergola but in fact be Lana's garden

Actually no. Pretty much all the traffic to the cottage was served by 3 cell repeaters and 85 percent was served by the Lupatelli antenna. I think Sector 3 (could have the sector wrong but not going to look it up right now) Lana's garden is on the opposite side of the Lupatelli tower so whereas it might use use that cell antenna it would connect to a different sector.

 

[bagels]

I see, so he sees the specialised Toilet Bomb Flying Squad of the Postale Police searching the garden and throws both phones at them to distract them? Sort of "Look behind you!" and then runs away?

I assume he saw the police car up ahead in the driveway and quickly tossed them off the side of the road, not paying attention to where as it was dark.

 

[acbytesla]

I thought where he threw them appeared to be a natural ravine from the path or something and it was only by chance they landed in a garden.

And it's not just disbelieving a coincidence, it's giving Rudy a reason to dump the phones he went out of the way to pick up in the first place. So it actually is a multi point coincidence - he coincidentally picks up the phones for no reason just to dump them - and this coincidentally happens in view of where the police would be around the time they would be there.

It's almost (but not quite) like the PGP view that Rudy, a burglar connected to a previous rock smashed upper story clothes throwing break-in, was coincidentally at the cottage when it had a rock smashed upper story clothes throwing break-in, but miraculously wasn't responsible for it.

We can guess about a lot of this forever. We'll still never get all the details right. But lots of coincidences happen, many simultaneously. Most do not mean anything. But if you need logic for Rudy taking the phones, it is probably the same reason he shut and locked her door. He thought if someone came back that night they might hear her phones ringing and he took them meaning to throw them away.

But we'll never know.

 

[acbytesla]

However, there is a fairly straightforward reason why the English phone logs might not be available - to protect the contact details of her relatives. Although you could probably achieve this by blanking out the relatives' numbers.

I agree with this. As for the documents. I don't care. This was a public trial so neither IIP or PMF actually own any of this any way. They are part of the public domain.

 

[bagels]

We can guess about a lot of this forever. We'll still never get all the details right. But lots of coincidences happen, many simultaneously. Most do not mean anything. But if you need logic for Rudy taking the phones, it is probably the same reason he shut and locked her door. He thought if someone came back that night they might hear her phones ringing and he took them meaning to throw them away.

But we'll never know.

Well my initial interest in this case was figuring out why a bunch of people believe a ditsy girl living out her Eat Pray Love fantasy and her airheaded boyfriend stabbed a giant kitchen knife into their housemate's neck for no reason while a random burglar stood around in the background and covered himself in blood after breaking-in in exactly the same manner he just was released by the police for, and all the outrageously stupid claims that went with it: like calling the police 30 minutes after they already arrived, shopkeepers who are shown a picture of a girl and say they didnt see her, then miraculously remembers a year later seeing the girl in the jacket she was wearing in the newspaper that in reality she was actually handed by Raff moments before the photo was taken, bloody footprints that tested negative for blood and DNA, homeless heroin bums that saw nothing until the prosecution needed evidence and then they saw everything, etc etc.

But lately I've become more interested in something i always before found kind of boring - which is what exactly Rudy was doing that night. If the stupid Italian police hadn't botched this case I never would have even heard about it, so it's kind of interesting that their incompetence has brought to my attention the only actual mystery in this case, which is the precise activities of Rudy Guede. We may never find out the exact truth but I'm hoping the right bits of data coming together in the right way - and the theory that is the truth will somehow stand out and put it all together. It may just remain clouded, lots of solved cases are. But who knows.

 

[acbytesla]

Well my initial interest in this case was figuring out why a bunch of people believe a ditsy girl living out her Eat Pray Love fantasy and her airheaded boyfriend stabbed a giant kitchen knife into their housemate's neck for no reason while a random burglar stood around in the background and covered himself in blood after breaking-in in exactly the same manner he just was released by the police for, and all the outrageously stupid claims that went with it: like calling the police 30 minutes after they already arrived, shopkeepers who are shown a picture of a girl and say they didnt see her, then miraculously remembers a year later seeing the girl in the jacket she was wearing in the newspaper that in reality she was actually handed by Raff moments before the photo was taken, bloody footprints that tested negative for blood and DNA, homeless heroin bums that saw nothing until the prosecution needed evidence and then they saw everything, etc etc.

But lately I've become more interested in something i always before found kind of boring - which is what exactly Rudy was doing that night. If the stupid Italian police hadn't botched this case I never would have even heard about it, so it's kind of interesting that their incompetence has brought to my attention the only actual mystery in this case, which is the precise activities of Rudy Guede. We may never find out the exact truth but I'm hoping the right bits of data coming together in the right way - and the theory that is the truth will somehow stand out and put it all together. It may just remain clouded, lots of solved cases are. But who knows.

I think Rudy was committing burglary. At least that was his original intent. I don't think his intent at the start was to rape and/or kill Meredith, but it morphed I to that. But if you're demanding logic in each his actions I think that would be a mistake. Some may be logical and others not so much because his thought processes were bound to be clouded by panic and adrenalin and maybe other drugs. Was he tested?

I I think the evidence points to who and a general narrative, which is enough for me. Beyond that, I really don't care. I am actually now more fascinated by the cultural, social and judicial side issues.

I would really like to know why the cops and prosecution continued to prosecute and persecute Amanda and Raffaele after the shoe prints were matched to Rudy and the case against the young pair disappeared? What makes people double down on stupid? Then there's the media, the bizarre Italian legal system not to mention the crazies that are logic impaired.

 

[query grind]

I don't use a TV show to draw my technical expertise.

Serial refers to the podcast series regarding Adnan Syed. Strictly speaking the fact that incoming calls aren't reliable for location was not part of Syed rather it forms part of the basis of a Brady claim post conviction review of Syed on the grounds that the cover sheet containing this information was withheld from the defence and the prosecution expert witness.

I've worked in voice and data communications for more than 20 years.

I have no doubt your expertise as a salesman is legendary through-out the Greater Seattle area. To the extent this provides you with a deeper engineering knowledge I have no idea.

Friends of Amanda are notorious for providing "expert" opinions in areas which they are unqualified: Plangiale and Chris Halkides (the DNA guy) are some examples.

That said, this is mostly right. But, if the connection is poor it is likely to change connections very fast.

As I understand 22:13 was a text.
Perhaps we might have more confidence in your expertise if you had independently introduced this into your discussion rather than having brought to your attention by an acknowledged non-expert?

Actually no. Pretty much all the traffic to the cottage was served by 3 cell repeaters and 85 percent was served by the Lupatelli antenna. I think Sector 3 (could have the sector wrong but not going to look it up right now) Lana's garden is on the opposite side of the Lupatelli tower so whereas it might use use that cell antenna it would connect to a different sector.

The Sollecito defence disagrees with you [Summary of Sollecito's defence in the Marasca report]

4) at 10:13, an SMS was received by the cellular phone, in the place where it was abandoned, in via Sperandio.

And the Italian Cassation Court endorsed the defence in this instance

The Appeal Court further reduced the temporal range, placing it in the hours between 9 PM of the 1st of November (time of Kercher’s farewell to her friend) and 12:10:31 AM of the next day, on the basis of the recording (resulting from the acquired phone records) of a signal of one of the cellular phones of Kercher intercepted in a telephonic cell covering the area of via Sperandio, where the cellular phones had been abandoned by the perpetrators of the homicide.

But this observation also suffers from approximation, because at the last indicated time, Meredith Kercher was already dead, even if only for a little time, precisely because the signal was registered in the area where the telephones had been abandoned, after being stolen, shortly after the homicide, within the house in via della Pergola, some hundreds of meters from the place of their retrieval.

The contestant’s defense has offered, in this regard, a more reliable analysis, backed up by incontrovertible facts.

From the examination of the telephonic traffic has emerged that, after the departure from her English friend’s house at 9 PM, the young woman had, in vain, tried to call her parents in England, like she used to do every day, while a last contact was registered at 10:13 PM, so that the temporal range has been further reduced to approximately 9:30/10:13 PM.

I am not competent to discuss telecommunications, but if I am looking for an expert I will take the Sollecito's defence expert if it has been specifically endorsed as reliable by the Court over that of an anonymous person on the internet.

 

[bagels]

I think Rudy was committing burglary. At least that was his original intent. I don't think his intent at the start was to rape and/or kill Meredith, but it morphed I to that. But if you're demanding logic in each his actions I think that would be a mistake. Some may be logical and others not so much because his thought processes were bound to be clouded by panic and adrenalin and maybe other drugs. Was he tested?

I I think the evidence points to who and a general narrative, which is enough for me. Beyond that, I really don't care. I am actually now more fascinated by the cultural, social and judicial side issues.

I would really like to know why the cops and prosecution continued to prosecute and persecute Amanda and Raffaele after the shoe prints were matched to Rudy and the case against the young pair disappeared? What makes people double down on stupid? Then there's the media, the bizarre Italian legal system not to mention the crazies that are logic impaired.

I agree Rudy was committing a burglary, in fact I am probably the biggest advocate for Guede the burglar there is. I even believe CT.

The evidence is more than enough, I'm just trying to put it into perfect chronological order like a brain teaser even though we probably wont be able to , although we get a lot closer than the PGP (errr it was drugs or a floating turd or something and a random guy they didn't know showed up i guess while Amanda and Raff stood in the cold outside for 2 hours during the whole crime)

BTW I have lined up the spots where the phones were found with google streetview and have concluded my hypothesis that Guede saw the police car in the driveway and immediately dumped the phones is unlikely. It's possible he only noticed the car in the driveway just as he was walking near it, waited until he walked by, and then dumped the phones after the car was out of sight behind him. Another alternative is as he was walking home the police were just driving down the road to Lana's, and this caused him to dump the phones, but that the police drove by him on his walk right at the very spot where the police were going is another coincidence, and you know how I feel about those

It may be right to say the bomb threat investigation went unnoticed by Guede, and he just tossed the phones at a random point that happened to be the property where the threat was called in.

Edit: actually looking over these images I was wrong, Guede could have seen the driveway from where he tossed the phones.

 

[query grind]

It may be right to say the bomb threat investigation went unnoticed by Guede, and he just tossed the phones at a random point that happened to be the property where the threat was called in.

What a lot of co-incidences need to be overlooked to believe in the Lone Wolf scenario.

- a postal police (of all people) turning up to search a garden in response to a toilet bomb threat at the precise time or just after Guede tosses the phones in the garden
- a cat with a bleeding ear leaping all around the downstairs apartment and leaving large bloodstains on the bed sheets.
- a bunch of cars and a tow-truck employing stealth CCTV evading technology appearing right outside the house at the exact same time a woman's scream is heard an hour after Kercher's death
- Guede describing one of the intruders being blond, wearing a white woollen cap and jacket with the Norwegian flag on it - with precisely the same clothing being worn by a similar man at 5-6 am in Piazza Grimana

It is all uncanny - even down to Knox gabbling about blood being on Sollecito's hand....or was that from the delicious sea-bass he was filleting while she read Harry Potter?

Yeap, it all points to one thing: a crazed black sexual predator attempting a burglary and being surprised in the act. Thank god Friends of Amanda are here to explain it all to us.