Continuation Part 22: Amanda Knox/Raffaele Sollecito

[Bill Williams]

Vixen - from the Wikipedia article on the Supreme Court:

A sentence confirmed by the Supreme Court of Cassation is final and definitive, and cannot be further appealed. Although the Supreme Court of Cassation cannot overrule the trial court's interpretation of the evidence it can correct a lower court's interpretation or application of the law connected to a specific case.

 

[acbytesla]

To all my friends still battling the irrelevant pgp poster who won't give up the ghost.

You might want to consider moving on even if this one nobody won't. There was a time when correcting the record was important. It just isn't anymore. Both Amanda and Raffaele are free and both are prospering. Vixen's ignorant rants cannot change that. Her rants won't effect the ECHR decision or the compensation Italy will pay. There is nothing to gain by aging the details of the case for the thousandth time with someone who doesn't care about the facts or logic or science. I keep returning hoping to see the joy of all of you when the ECHR lays down the hammer on Italy and puts an exclamation point to this farce.

But coming back and perusing the pages of comments that could easily been written years ago makes me want to beg you to quit. It's not worth it in any way whatsoever.

I say this with great feeling for all of you. Time to move on.

AC

 

[Numbers]

Vixen - from the Wikipedia article on the Supreme Court:

A sentence confirmed by the Supreme Court of Cassation is final and definitive, and cannot be further appealed. Although the Supreme Court of Cassation cannot overrule the trial court's interpretation of the evidence it can correct a lower court's interpretation or application of the law connected to a specific case.

Sorry to interrupt...but this information on the authority of the Italian Supreme Court of Cassation is not correct, based on CPP Article 606.1E.

The text of the CPP Article 606.1E (translated) is:

1. The appeal to the Court of Cassation may be lodged if it is based on the following arguments:

E) the grounds of the judgment are lacking, contradictory or manifestly illogical, when the defect results from the text of the appealed decision or from other documents of the proceedings specified in the arguments fro the appeal to the Court of Cassation.

The term "grounds of the judgment" covers the admissibility and interpretation of evidence as well as interpretation of other laws. The admissibility and interpretation of evidence is actually governed in part by some specific provisions of the CPP, for example, CPP Articles 188, 189, 190, 191, and 192. Here are the texts of some of these relevant articles:

CPP Article 188. Moral freedom of the person during evidence gathering

Methods or techniques which may influence the freedom of self-determination or alter the capacity to recall and evaluate facts shall not be used, not even with the consent of the person concerned.

CPP Article 191 Unlawfully gathered evidence

1. Evidence gathered in violation of the prohibitions set by law shall not be used.

2. The exclusion of evidence may be declared also ex officio at any stage and instance of the proceedings.*

CPP Article 192 Evaluation of evidence

1. The judge shall evaluate evidence specifying the results reached and the criteria adopted in the grounds of the judgment**.
2. The existence of a fact cannot be inferred from circumstantial evidence unless such evidence is serious, precise and consistent.

3. The statements made by either the co-accused charged with the same offense or a person accused in joined proceedings according to Article 12 shall be corroborated by the other elements of evidence confirming their reliability.
_____
* Thus, the CSC may declare evidence inadmissible.

**Emphasized to show that the "grounds of the judgment" includes the evaluation of the evidence according to Italian procedural law.
Source: The Italian Code of Criminal Procedure: Critical essays and English translation; M. Gialuz, L. Luparia, and F. Scarpa, eds.; Wolters Kluwer Italia (c) 2014

 

[Mike1711]

It could be a 'putative" budgerigar stain.

The police could see by looking at it (it glowed under flourescence) that it was a vaseline stain. Vaseline glows under a black light.

If you knew anything about biology, you'd know spermatozoa only live any length of time in the fallopian tubes. Those that fail to reach the safe haven die very quickly.

To get DNA from spermatozoa, you'd need to extract the DNA from the spermatozoa head. Not much use if it is all dried up and shrivelled away.

In any case, Vaseline kills spermatozoa.

You do know the perps delayed the body being found for a considerable amount of time.

Raff expressed great concern the forensics would identify the spermatozoa as his and that was why the defence carefully declined from requisitioning a spermatozoa test.

Oh, I see. I get the picture! Only living sperm gives up DNA. Oh, really? What about dead human bodies?

To be honest it's not just RS who would be concerned about any Italian forensic team's finding on any DNA in this bungled case. I would be concerned and I guess most skeptics would. The Italian investigative team was appallingly bad and the B/M court ruled as such.

Who would trust the Mignini investigation after all their errors, distortions and outright lies?

 

[Mike1711]

Ah, the non sequitur.

As if that cancels anything out.

You don't know what a non sequitur is.

 

[Bill Williams]

_____
* Thus, the CSC may declare evidence inadmissible.

**Emphasized to show that the "grounds of the judgment" includes the evaluation of the evidence according to Italian procedural law.
Source: The Italian Code of Criminal Procedure: Critical essays and English translation; M. Gialuz, L. Luparia, and F. Scarpa, eds.; Wolters Kluwer Italia (c) 2014

Standard disclaimer. I am not a lawyer, nor an Italian lawyer - and all this may be fine points of law beyond me.

However at first blush, what you quote does not seem to be at odds with what is in the Wikipedia article.

The citation Wikipedia uses for what I quoted is, "G. Di Federico, La Corte di cassazione: la giustizia come organizzazione, Laterza Editore, 1969."

A rather wooden Google-translation from the Italian version of Wikipedia puts it all thusly:

Judges not knowing but the law is the judge of legitimacy . This means you can not take care to re-examine the evidence, but can only verify that it is correctly applied the law and that the process in previous degrees was conducted according to the rules (ie that the procedural law has been correctly applied, even in relation to the training and assessment of evidence, as well as that of the merits of the case).​

In the dozens of thread over the years where people have provided cites for their views, this seems to be in line with them.

The way the English version puts it is: "Although the Supreme Court of Cassation cannot overrule the trial court's interpretation of the evidence." This seems simply to be another way of saying that once a judicial fact is found in the lower court (as Mike1711 observed) the ISC may disagree with it, but it is bound by it.

Meaning that the M/B court could not disagree with evidence as found, it could only disagree with the way the evidence was assembled. As per the way the Chieffi court set it out in 2013, as well as the way the M/B court concluded in Section 10 of its report, the point is that the evidence in front of Nencini should not have resulted in a conviction, but an acquittal.

Perhaps the only relevant example to what you have noted above is if there was no legal grounds for (say) Nencini to have found something as factual, meaning that Nencini did not follow procedural law in establishing a fact.

Be all this as it may, there is no mechanism for the ISC to do fact-finding, so as to declare on it's own something to be factual. Vixen keeps implying that they do.

That's the issue.

 

[Stacyhs]

Fits just fine with my "cod theory" (whatever that is). Yes, strands were left behind, but not necessarily by the person they belonged to. Could they have belonged to the woman with long blonde hair that Guede was seen dancing with the night of Halloween and brought in on his jacket or hoodie? As the mother of a daughter with long blonde hair, I can attest that it sticks to everything. It's all over my house. I've ruined several vacuums due to it getting wrapped around the beaters and had to have a ball of long, blonde hair surgically removed from one of my dog's stomachs . Or perhaps they were brought in by Meredith previously on her clothing. After all, the two girls whose apartment she had just left, Amy and Robyn, both had dark blonde hair. We know they had also been in Meredith's cottage from their testimony. Laura Mezzetti also had blonde hair. But these hairs couldn't possibly belong to any of these girls, right? Because only Amanda would shed hair.

As far as I'm aware, there are no records at all indicating that these hairs were ever even examined. If not, then it's just another example of the incompetence of the technical police. If they were, no root must have been found as that would provide DNA. Finding no root would also indicate that these where hairs that had naturally shed, not been "pulled out by their roots" since shedding leaves the root in the scalp.

You're doing it again. You are projecting your own thoughts and motives onto Amanda. You think you are 'coming to Amanda's rescue'.

My sprog had long fair hair in his teens (natural), as a heavy metal fan, and he never left a hair anywhere.

So much for your 'explanation' as to how a long fair hair was found across the top of Mez' bag.

Oh, please. Do you think no one can read here? QUOTE where I have put my "own thoughts and motives onto Amanda". Go on. And try this time to actually follow through instead of doing your usual tactic of diversion...as if none of us notices. I mentioned Amanda exactly once without any mention of her "thoughts and motives".

"You think you are 'coming to Amanda's rescue'."
Amanda doesn't need rescuing. She was definitively acquitted. And it looks like it's you who is assigning thoughts and motives to me. But I will clearly and openly state that I think you feel you are defending and doing this "all for Meredith".

Your claim that your son "never left a hair anywhere" is physically impossible. We all shed hair. Why must you resort to such an obvious lie?

Now quote where I assigned emotions and motives to Amanda. Not that I expect any.

 

[Stacyhs]

Raff criticises Amanda in several places he couldn't understand why Amanda stayed at the cottage for such a long time.

Did Amanda mention in her book if she ever met anyone coming back in?

When one returns home with the door swinging open, surely the worry is who is inside, not outside?

You still don't get it about the shower. All you can think about is sex and the American way. Perhaps you need a cold shower. IMV both Amanda and Raff shared a shower together during the night, not when Amanda popped by at 10:30 in the morning. Hence the blood stain on the light switch and the cotton bud box. In her email home she gushes on about Raff cleaning her ears with a cotton bud and brushing out her hair. Her good scrub wasn't to do with sex, it was to do with her 'washing off Mez' blood', as decreed by Marasca. Fact.

1) You claimed Amanda stayed at the cottage for over two hours. I showed she didn't. You are taking what Raff said out of context in a desperate attempt to support your false claim. It had nothing to do with her staying for over two hours. But nice try. I do have the book, you know.

2) Why would she mention anyone coming back in when no one did? And what has that to do with anything?

3) Yes, which is why she was worried and looked around. Finding the apartment empty, she assumed the broken latch had simply not held the door shut...which is exactly what happened when Guede left through it. But you know that. As I already told you, she wrote that she didn't lock it in case she locked one of her roommates out.

4) As far as a "cold shower", I'm not the one with the fevered imagination of Raffaele and Amanda having sex over Meredith's body or needing to relive the thrill by rushing home and having sex again while thinking about it. That's you.

 

[Stacyhs]

Um, I rather suspect their day trip to Gubbio was interrupted by the arrival of the police.

The kids knew Filomena would probably be first back home/ It's not rocket science they realised questions would be asked as to how come Amanda saw nothing and reported nothing.

So they gave a few half-signals. Lied by omission.

You "suspect", do you? Is that why all the courts, including Massei, found that Raff called the police to report the break-in before the postal police arrived? Exactly when were they planning to go on to Gubbio? Just catch the next train after pointing out the blood, the locked door, the break-in, and the missing roommate to the police?

You're right about one thing; it's not rocket science to figure out that by NOT calling and telling Filomena about going to the cottage, she could avoid any questions as to why she saw and reported nothing. All she had to do was go to Gubbio for the day and no one would have known she was at the cottage that morning at all. Let Filomena come home and deal with it.

 

[Stacyhs]

It is a fact it decreed Amanda washed off Mez' blood at the murder scene'.

Clear now?

And yet there is not a single shred of physical evidence to support this. Go figure.

 

[Numbers]

Standard disclaimer. I am not a lawyer, nor an Italian lawyer - and all this may be fine points of law beyond me.

However at first blush, what you quote does not seem to be at odds with what is in the Wikipedia article.

The citation Wikipedia uses for what I quoted is, "G. Di Federico, La Corte di cassazione: la giustizia come organizzazione, Laterza Editore, 1969."

A rather wooden Google-translation from the Italian version of Wikipedia puts it all thusly:

​

In the dozens of thread over the years where people have provided cites for their views, this seems to be in line with them.

The way the English version puts it is: "Although the Supreme Court of Cassation cannot overrule the trial court's interpretation of the evidence." This seems simply to be another way of saying that once a judicial fact is found in the lower court (as Mike1711 observed) the ISC may disagree with it, but it is bound by it.

Meaning that the M/B court could not disagree with evidence as found, it could only disagree with the way the evidence was assembled. As per the way the Chieffi court set it out in 2013, as well as the way the M/B court concluded in Section 10 of its report, the point is that the evidence in front of Nencini should not have resulted in a conviction, but an acquittal.

Perhaps the only relevant example to what you have noted above is if there was no legal grounds for (say) Nencini to have found something as factual, meaning that Nencini did not follow procedural law in establishing a fact.

Be all this as it may, there is no mechanism for the ISC to do fact-finding, so as to declare on it's own something to be factual. Vixen keeps implying that they do.

That's the issue.

There are items of raw evidence, and there are inferences that may be drawn from the raw items of evidence.

The CSC may rule, according to Italian procedural law, that the raw evidence was inadmissible, because it was obtained in a way contrary to law.

The CSC may rule, according to Italian procedural law, that the existence of a fact, inferred from circumstantial evidence, was an invalid inference, because the evidence was not serious, precise or consistent. This is what the Marasca CSC panel did in this case, for example, regarding the alleged DNA evidence on the knife blade and on the bra strap hook.

The CSC may rule, based upon its review of the interpretation of the evidence in the judgment (= grounds of the judgment), that the grounds are lacking, contradictory or clearly (= manifestly) illogical, and therefore annul those particular interpretations and even the entire judgment. Both the Chieffi CSC panel and the Marasca CSC panel made use of this provision of Italian procedural law.

The question is whether a CSC panel, in applying these procedural laws to review the interpretation of evidence, are doing so fairly rather than arbitrarily, from an objective viewpoint.

In the case of a final conviction brought before the ECHR as an alleged violation of rights, the ECHR may conduct a review of the judgment with regard to any arbitrariness.

For specificity, consider a hypothetical conviction that rests primarily on the denial of the prosecution providing evidence that DNA profiles were free from contamination and were otherwise obtained according to recognized international scientific standards. We can be confident that such a judgment of conviction was arbitrary. The Marasca CSC panel, in Sections 4.1 and 4.2 of their MR, relied on Italian procedural law CPP Article 606.1E (even if not specified) to make the following statements:

4.1...So when the central point of technical activity contains specialist genetic investigations, the contribution of investigative activity is ever more relevant; credible parameters of correctness must respect international standards of protocols, following fundamental rules of approach prescribed by the scientific community, on the basis of statistical and validated observations.

The rigorous respect of such methodical norms offers a conventional coefficient of acceptable credibility of such results, primarily linked to their reproducibility - namely the possibility of obtaining these results, and only these, reproduced with a constantly identical method and under identical conditions, according to fundamental empirical rules. ... This is typically leading to “objective” reality, reliable, verifiable and agreeable {= consistent?} ....
4.2 As will be seen, all of this is essentially missing from the present trial {that is, the Nencini judgment}.

This is an example of a CSC panel judging the evaluation of evidence (grounds of the judgment, CPP Article 606.1E) and the quality of the evidence used to infer a fact (CPP Article 192.2) in the decision that is being appealed.

The CSC does not hear new evidence; that is for the lower courts. But it can look at other court rulings from the CSC or the Constitutional Court, and at the legal or scientific literature.

What PGP and some PIP misunderstand is that the CSC indeed has the legal authority to review the evaluation and quality of evidence, whether or not evidence was admissible, and incorporating previous CSC or Constitutional Court decisions and legal and scientific literature into its judgments. Those activities are different from hearing new evidence.

The Wikipedia article appears to be incorrect and incomplete in its statement that the CSC does not interpret evidence. The CSC evaluates the lower court's interpretation of evidence, and can only do that by itself evaluating the documented evidence.

You point out that the Wikipedia article reference is from 1969. It's important to note that the CPP underwent some reforms beginning in 1988; I don't know if those reforms made the 1969 reference obsolete with respect to the authority of the CSC under current CPP Articles 606.1E or 192.

ETA: The Marasca CSC panel MR specifically mentions CPP Article 192 in its discussion of the DNA profile evidence in Section 7.1. This discussion continues into Section 7.2. Essentially, the Marasca CSC panel MR accepts the criticism that the DNA profiles of the knife blade and bra clasp had no scientific validity, and thus had no legal inculpatory significance. Here is one excerpt of their lengthy discussion: "Taking into account such considerations one really cannot see how the results of the genetic analysis – that were performed in violation of the recommendations for the protocols regarding the collection and storage – can be considered endowed of the characteristics of seriousness and preciseness. {Terms from CPP Article 192.2}"

 

[Stacyhs]

Really? So how come (a) there are bloody hand prints on the inside of the door, but not the outside? (b) Why did Rudy leave the front door swinging open if he is so concerned about locking up before he goes? (c) How come his footprints point outwards, away from the door? Yet luminol shows both Amanda's and Raff's bare footprints in blood (as the standard forensic test for the recent presence of blood) facing towards Mez' door in the hallway?

Their foot tracks were not "in blood". Apologies, I couldn't fix it for you in your text.

I'll take this one, Bill, since you already addressed the "in blood" factoid and Bagle's addressed the reason Guede didn't lock the font door.

None of the luminol revealed (TMB negative) footprints were ever matched to Raffaele or Amanda. They had no DNA to definitively identify them. They could just as well have been Meredith's, or Filomena's or Laura's and Silenzi's footprints. Or Amanda's. There is no record that they were ever compared to any of these others' footprints. As for Amanda and Raff, they were only deemed "compatible". They may have been just as compatible with the 3 other girls who lived there and Silenzi who had a relationship with Meredith.

 

[LondonJohn]

Rudy surely closed the front door, but didn't realize it wouldn't stay shut without being locked since he was just a burglar and didn't live there. His recent embellishment about the doorbell and the key in the Italian TV interview makes me wonder if he really did think about another roommate coming home and Meredith not being able to answer, so he left the front door unlocked for them, with Meredith's door locked, giving the appearance of her being home but sleeping. Although I have no firm theory.

The police trying to match the luminol to both Amanda and Raffaele was really funny in its transparency. They both just happen to get blood on their right feet and not their left feet, and they clean both the stains in exactly the same way so they wash away below the threshold of TMB and DNA.

I think the luminol stains surely all belong to the same person, though I'm not certain who. They don't serve any real help in solving this crime though. Luckily, they don't need to, since the crime is more than solvable without them.

The whole front door issue is IMO something of a red herring - as well as being something that pro-guilt commentators tend to want to magnify, distort or flat-out misrepresent.

The front door to the girls' cottage looked and operated, to all intents, like pretty much every front door, in that it would latch shut when closed. But that happened not to be reality for this particular door. Its latch had been playing up, and someone had attempted to fix the problem but in the process had screwed it up even more. The result was that when the door was pulled/pushed shut, it didn't actually latch shut - though friction kept the door closed temporarily. Eventually, however, the door left in this state would resist friction and swing partially open (NB: not "wide open").

As with many other front doors, there was also a mortice lock which householders could use in addition to the latch - either to lock themselves in more securely, or to lock the door more securely when there was nobody in the house. Because of the broken latch, the girls had learned that in order to secure the front door, they needed to use this mortice lock. They adopted the convention that if it was daytime or evening and people were in and around the sitting room/kitchen and going in and out, they would not use the mortice lock and just pull the door shut again as and when it partially opened. But in all other situations (e.g. the last person leaving the cottage, or at night, or maybe if just one girl was in) the mortice lock would be used. Every girl had a key to this mortice lock, and the lock was operable from inside and outside the cottage, so this system was efficient (it was only for time-saving and hassle-saving reasons that they didn't bother to lock the door in certain circumstances).

So, in the light of all that information, Guede's actions (and lack of actions) are actually wholly logical and reasonable. When (IMO) Guede tried the front door shortly after Kercher returned to the cottage and found it locked, this would still be entirely consistent (in his mind) with a front door with a properly-working latch, which Kercher had effectively double-locked by using the key in the mortice lock. Therefore, when Guede retrieved Kerchers keys and unlocked the mortice lock on his way out of the cottage, he would have had zero reason to believe that simply closing the door firmly behind him would have secured the door on the latch. Furthermore, Guede surely would have wanted to waste as little time as possible standing outside the cottage door (as he would have had to do if he was going to insert the key from the outside to lock the mortice lock), since this obviously would have increased the chances of somebody seeing him. Guede's aim, once he opened the cottage's front door, would have been to leave the cottage and its vicinity as quickly, quietly and unobtrusively as possible.

So IMO Guede left the cottage stealthily, pulling the door closed behind him and quickly moving either up the driveway or down into the bushes and scrubland below. Subsequently (and unknown to Guede, who would have believed he had secured the door on the latch) the door moved open again - to the position where Knox found it the next morning.

 

[LondonJohn]

Sorry to interrupt...but this information on the authority of the Italian Supreme Court of Cassation is not correct, based on CPP Article 606.1E.

The text of the CPP Article 606.1E (translated) is:



The term "grounds of the judgment" covers the admissibility and interpretation of evidence as well as interpretation of other laws. The admissibility and interpretation of evidence is actually governed in part by some specific provisions of the CPP, for example, CPP Articles 188, 189, 190, 191, and 192. Here are the texts of some of these relevant articles:

CPP Article 188. Moral freedom of the person during evidence gathering

Methods or techniques which may influence the freedom of self-determination or alter the capacity to recall and evaluate facts shall not be used, not even with the consent of the person concerned.

CPP Article 191 Unlawfully gathered evidence

1. Evidence gathered in violation of the prohibitions set by law shall not be used.

2. The exclusion of evidence may be declared also ex officio at any stage and instance of the proceedings.*

CPP Article 192 Evaluation of evidence

1. The judge shall evaluate evidence specifying the results reached and the criteria adopted in the grounds of the judgment**.
2. The existence of a fact cannot be inferred from circumstantial evidence unless such evidence is serious, precise and consistent.

3. The statements made by either the co-accused charged with the same offense or a person accused in joined proceedings according to Article 12 shall be corroborated by the other elements of evidence confirming their reliability.
_____
* Thus, the CSC may declare evidence inadmissible.

**Emphasized to show that the "grounds of the judgment" includes the evaluation of the evidence according to Italian procedural law.
Source: The Italian Code of Criminal Procedure: Critical essays and English translation; M. Gialuz, L. Luparia, and F. Scarpa, eds.; Wolters Kluwer Italia (c) 2014

To give a (reductive and simplified) example to illustrate the point:

1) An alleged eyewitness describes seeing two people (A and B) in a certain place (X) over a certain period of time (T) relevant to the case being tried.

2) This alleged eyewitness gives testimony to this effect in a particular court and is cross-examined. The person's testimony is littered with contradictions and the person is discovered to have serious mental health problems (some of which are linked to long-term narcotic drug addiction) and serious character problems.

3) Nonetheless, the court in question accepts the testimony of this person as reliable and credible, and thus establishes the judicial fact that A and B were present at X at the time T.

4) The Supreme Court (correctly) rules that the testimony of this alleged eyewitness clearly ought (in law) to have been deemed fundamentally unreliable and thus of no probative value, owing to the extremely significant issues around contradiction and the credibility of the witness.

5) In doing so, the SC effectively nullifies the previously-established judicial fact that A and B were present at X at the time T.

6) But the SC has not simply nullified a finding of fact in and of itself. In fact, the SC has made a (correct) ruling on a point of law (the testing, weighing and acceptance criteria for evidence and testimony), and it is this ruling which in turn has led to an overturning of a finding of fact.

 

[Numbers]

To give a (reductive and simplified) example to illustrate the point:

1) An alleged eyewitness describes seeing two people (A and B) in a certain place (X) over a certain period of time (T) relevant to the case being tried.

2) This alleged eyewitness gives testimony to this effect in a particular court and is cross-examined. The person's testimony is littered with contradictions and the person is discovered to have serious mental health problems (some of which are linked to long-term narcotic drug addiction) and serious character problems.

3) Nonetheless, the court in question accepts the testimony of this person as reliable and credible, and thus establishes the judicial fact that A and B were present at X at the time T.

4) The Supreme Court (correctly) rules that the testimony of this alleged eyewitness clearly ought (in law) to have been deemed fundamentally unreliable and thus of no probative value, owing to the extremely significant issues around contradiction and the credibility of the witness.

5) In doing so, the SC effectively nullifies the previously-established judicial fact that A and B were present at X at the time T.

6) But the SC has not simply nullified a finding of fact in and of itself. In fact, the SC has made a (correct) ruling on a point of law (the testing, weighing and acceptance criteria for evidence and testimony), and it is this ruling which in turn has led to an overturning of a finding of fact.

Yes, the above is a correct example of how the CSC evaluates evidence in accordance with Italian procedural law CPP Article 606.1E.

 

[Planigale]

How do you know? They were never found to come from a llama, either.

Hair isn't good forensic material as it is difficult to timestamp how long it's been there, only the follicle is useful for DNA analysis. Fact is though, a long fair hair WAS found across the bag, another clutched in Mez' hand in rigor mortis and down below.

It certainly was NOT Rudy's hair.

something Vixen posts I can agree with. Telling hair colour from a single hair is difficult. People's hair is not all one colour. I have looked (and I know others know the evidence better than I), but I can find no report of the examination of the hairs. One would expect the hairs to have been examined under a microscope (and photographed), to confirm that it is human. Possibly cross sectioned to confirm ethnicity and to look for dye. But there seems to be no report of the examination. equally surprisingly there are no reports of the examination of the hair of the suspects for comparison. There was a blonde (i.e. white to pale brown) hair that we have to assume was human found. Since Knox dyed her hair comparison should have been easy, e.g. root colour, dyed colour and length of undyed hair (length of time since dyeing), even a range of dyes, some girls change their hair colour! None of this was done. the problem is Steffanoni was a one trick forensic scientist; she did DNA. Other stuff like fibre analysis, hair analysis, trying to get fingerprints off the body or fabrics were never done. One of the odd things is having a bloody hand print of Guede on the wall no other bloody fingerprints were found.

My guess is the different units failed to co-operate, the telephones were in possession of the postal police they did not process them for DNA. Steffanoni had the bathmat and she did not allow the print specialists to look at the original only photographs. what was lacking was a senior experienced forensic scientist to co-ordinate the different elements of the investigation.

 

[Planigale]

Fits just fine with my "cod theory" (whatever that is). Yes, strands were left behind, but not necessarily by the person they belonged to. Could they have belonged to the woman with long blonde hair that Guede was seen dancing with the night of Halloween and brought in on his jacket or hoodie? As the mother of a daughter with long blonde hair, I can attest that it sticks to everything. It's all over my house. I've ruined several vacuums due to it getting wrapped around the beaters and had to have a ball of long, blonde hair surgically removed from one of my dog's stomachs . Or perhaps they were brought in by Meredith previously on her clothing. After all, the two girls whose apartment she had just left, Amy and Robyn, both had dark blonde hair. We know they had also been in Meredith's cottage from their testimony. Laura Mezzetti also had blonde hair. But these hairs couldn't possibly belong to any of these girls, right? Because only Amanda would shed hair.

As far as I'm aware, there are no records at all indicating that these hairs were ever even examined. If not, then it's just another example of the incompetence of the technical police. If they were, no root must have been found as that would provide DNA. Finding no root would also indicate that these where hairs that had naturally shed, not been "pulled out by their roots" since shedding leaves the root in the scalp.

Very good post. Most of what i want to say about hairs. But especially the highlighted.

 

[Planigale]

To all my friends still battling the irrelevant pgp poster who won't give up the ghost.

You might want to consider moving on even if this one nobody won't. There was a time when correcting the record was important. It just isn't anymore. Both Amanda and Raffaele are free and both are prospering. Vixen's ignorant rants cannot change that. Her rants won't effect the ECHR decision or the compensation Italy will pay. There is nothing to gain by aging the details of the case for the thousandth time with someone who doesn't care about the facts or logic or science. I keep returning hoping to see the joy of all of you when the ECHR lays down the hammer on Italy and puts an exclamation point to this farce.

But coming back and perusing the pages of comments that could easily been written years ago makes me want to beg you to quit. It's not worth it in any way whatsoever.

I say this with great feeling for all of you. Time to move on.

AC

Wise counsel.

 

[Mr Fied]

IMV both Amanda and Raff shared a shower together during the night, not when Amanda popped by at 10:30 in the morning. Hence the blood stain on the light switch and the cotton bud box. In her email home she gushes on about Raff cleaning her ears with a cotton bud and brushing out her hair. Her good scrub wasn't to do with sex, it was to do with her 'washing off Mez' blood', as decreed by Marasca. Fact.

But but but........She had obviously dirty hair, she smelled of sex, she smelt like an alley cat.

 

[Mr Fied]

It is a fact it decreed Amanda washed off Mez' blood at the murder scene'.

Clear now?

No it is not a fact. A fact needs to be proven. Where is the proof.

An example of a fact is, it has been proven the only shoeprints left in blood do not match Raff's trainers. This is provable because Raff's team managed to prove the crack forensic team wrong by........wait for it.......being able to count.