Continuation Part 22: Amanda Knox/Raffaele Sollecito

[Bill Williams]

Well, firstly, your quoting of opinion pieces from TJMK is pathetic and laughable in the extreme.

< ..... sinister deletia ..... >​

Lastly, you still haven't presented one iota of evidence in respect of what Curt Knox actually paid to Gogerty Marriott. And since I know you don't have any such evidence, and that you're pulling numbers out of thin air (based on grotesquely incorrect extrapolations of numbers which themselves actually refer to the grand total of monetary outlay - the overwhelming majority of which will correspond to legal fees), I can confidently conclude that:

a) you have zero credible evidence of what Curt Knox actually paid Gogerty Marriott for services;

b) you have zero evidence to support any estimation of the scale and scope of the work done by Gogerty Marriott in this case;

c) your claim of $2 million paid by Curt Knox to Gogerty Marriott is therefore wholly and entirely without foundation, and is nothing more than a number plucked out of thin air by you and other pro-guilt commentators with an agenda.

Hope that's all clear

Here's a link to an Italian language piece from Vincenzo Giglio of "Filo Gilitto" about the problems in the history of the wrongful prosecution of two innocents with regard to the Kercher case.

Apologies for Google Translate into English, but one of the many ways of looking at how this travesty happened, is the misguided view that "the victim must not be forgotten", which is a laudable goal in and of itself, except....

....... that sentiment in this case actually prevented justice for the victim, in the sense that the wrong people were prosecuted for the horrible crime. It was a bait and switch - mercy and respect for the plight of the victim, was inappropriately used as a hammer to continue the injustice towards the accused.

Sound familiar? Vixen?

http://www.filodiritto.com/articoli/2016/09/parole-soltanto-parole-le-esternazioni-sullassassinio-di-meredith-kercher.html

Be prepared for the usual English-language nut-cases to add Vincenzo Giglio to their list of Mafia-inspired, Gogerty-Marriott bought-off villains.

As for this article - it lauds the March 27, 2015, Supreme Court acquittal as finally managing to dispel the shadows associate with this case, while shedding much light on the real investigative (ie. police) and evaluative (ie. judicial) disaster that the 7 1/2 year odyssey represented.

 

[Vixen]

When someone responds to a claim they said something with "what?" that indicates surprise at what was just said. At least in most people's reality.

Why would I video me throwing a rock UP almost 13 ft when I could toss it almost directly straight across about half that distance? I wouldn't throw it from the ground. And neither did Guede.[qimg]http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/imagehosting/thum_7166957e83f65d89e6.jpg[/qimg]

I challenge you to produce a video showing you lobbing a 10lb rectangular rock/brick through a window obtructed by a shutter leaving just 18" for your 11" diameter rock to penetrate. In addition, prove you can do it without a single shard of glass falling on the ground below, and the rock landing at an angle rather than in a straight 180 degree line.

You said you could do this easily.

Having done this, prove you can shimmy 12'4" up a sheer wall with no upper window bars to grip and without anything to safely hold onto, unlatch the window and inner shutters.

 

[Vixen]

It's the "local sources" you need to quote.

No, the source is respected LA REPPUBLICA journalist Riccardo Staglianò, who wrote the article.

 

[Vixen]

This reminds me of the Trump tactic for spreading misinformation. His favorite lines are "I read somewhere", "I've heard somewhere", and "People have told me". When pressed for sources, he just says he can't remember exactly. A new analysis by Politico today said that Trump presents misinformation every 3.2 minutes when he speaks or tweets.

Riccardo Staglianò clearly set it out in his LA REPPUBLICA article. Are you so obtuse you refuse to accept responsible reporting in a staid newspaper?

Trump is an idiot. He didn't know the difference between Paris and France. He never particularises. I particularise in the finest detail all the time. Trump and I are polar opposites in that respect.

 

[Vixen]

Well, firstly, your quoting of opinion pieces from TJMK is pathetic and laughable in the extreme.

You do realise, don't you, that I could write on a website (on this website, for example) anything I liked? I could write, for example: "Prosecutor Mignini is known to have spent $400m on a global campaign to discredit Knox and Sollecito". Merely quoting that elsewhere in support of the idea that Mignini spent $400m on such a campaign does not make it true. Do you have any concept at all of the principle of trusted primary sources?

On top of that overarching failure on your part, you also appear utterly oblivious to the meaning of the words before your eyes. You have quoted something which says that the Knox family has apparently spent "more than $1,000,000", and that this amount has been spent on such things as "airplanes, lawyers, press offices". You've then miraculously extrapolated this to Curt Knox spending some $2,000,000 on PR. Can you seriously not see how ludicrously stupid and bone-headed this extrapolation is?

I'll give you a few clues. Let's firstly accept that the ballpark "$1 million" figure mentioned is roughly correct (I suspect, actually, that it is probably close to the true figure - but remember that the only people who know the true figure are the Knox family themselves, and possibly their financial advisers). Now let's realise that the Knox family has paid for the legal services of dalla Vedova, Ghirga and their respective law firms for some 7.5 years, on and off, including several lengthy trial processes and preparations of appeals. Do you have any understanding whatsoever of what decent lawyers cost to hire? I strongly suggest that you do some of your now-fabled research to try to discern what kind of cumulative fees the Knox family might have paid to dalla Vedova, Ghirga and their firms over all these years and all these trials/appeals. And that's before even considering the payment to expert witnesses.

If you're even 1/8 as good at research as you'd like to believe you are, then you'll by now realise that it's actually entirely possible that the Knox family spent a large majority of this alleged $1m on legal services alone. OK so far? Good. Now we move on to travel expenses. The Knox and Mellas families travelled to Italy from the West coast of the US at least several times, occasionally spending many weeks in Italy at a time. Sometimes one or two family members travelled, sometimes up to five or six people travelled (including children). Add up the total approximate number of airfares, the total number of hotel room nights, the total cost of house rentals, the total subsistence costs (food, car hire etc). You'll find that you probably get to a figure well above $100k. Add that figure to the legal costs figure.

And by now, hopefully, even you will be able to see that whatever money was spent by the Knox family on PR and "press services", it cannot have been anywhere remotely near the $1m alleged as the total outlay. In fact, it's far more likely to have been in the five-figure range as a maximum.

Lastly, you still haven't presented one iota of evidence in respect of what Curt Knox actually paid to Gogerty Marriott. And since I know you don't have any such evidence, and that you're pulling numbers out of thin air (based on grotesquely incorrect extrapolations of numbers which themselves actually refer to the grand total of monetary outlay - the overwhelming majority of which will correspond to legal fees), I can confidently conclude that:

a) you have zero credible evidence of what Curt Knox actually paid Gogerty Marriott for services;

b) you have zero evidence to support any estimation of the scale and scope of the work done by Gogerty Marriott in this case;

c) your claim of $2 million paid by Curt Knox to Gogerty Marriott is therefore wholly and entirely without foundation, and is nothing more than a number plucked out of thin air by you and other pro-guilt commentators with an agenda.

Hope that's all clear

Trust me: a promissory note is a legal debt. Curt Knox has invested heavily in the then Gogerty-Marriott agency and now Marriott's new employer Allison and Partners PR. Nowhere did I talk about satisfying his debtors. Why do you keep putting words into my mouth?

 

[Bill Williams]

I challenge you to produce a video showing you lobbing a 10lb rectangular rock/brick through a window obtructed by a shutter leaving just 18" for your 11" diameter rock to penetrate. In addition, prove you can do it without a single shard of glass falling on the ground below, and the rock landing at an angle rather than in a straight 180 degree line.

You said you could do this easily.

Having done this, prove you can shimmy 12'4" up a sheer wall with no upper window bars to grip and without anything to safely hold onto, unlatch the window and inner shutters.

Vixen - you keep setting up conditions on the assumption that this issue was forensically investigated. It wasn't. If it was you would point to it.

What you WILL do is make reference in your own words what you claim others said. What you WON'T do is to link to those primary-source words so that we can read them for ourselves.

Once again, you make claims - you quote from compromised websites as if the third-party claims they have assembled are fact. There it sits.

 

[Vixen]

Cannons don't catapult. Just saying.

Well spotted. The defence was hoist by their own petard with their 'what-if?'malarkey.

 

[Stacyhs]

I challenge you to produce a video showing you lobbing a 10lb rectangular rock/brick through a window obtructed by a shutter leaving just 18" for your 11" diameter rock to penetrate. In addition, prove you can do it without a single shard of glass falling on the ground below, and the rock landing at an angle rather than in a straight 180 degree line.

You said you could do this easily.

Having done this, prove you can shimmy 12'4" up a sheer wall with no upper window bars to grip and without anything to safely hold onto, unlatch the window and inner shutters.

And you're doing it yet again. What I said is that I could throw that rock from the car park into through the window. That's all. Please stop putting words in my mouth.

As for the video; I don't have to make one. It's already been done by:

"Francesco Pasquali, a retired forensic police officer hired as a consultant by Sollecito's defense, presented a video in court that included three different scenarios showing how the rock could have been thrown from the outside to break the window, located 13 feet off the ground.

According to Pasquali, the rock was thrown from a terrace across from the window, making the glass "explode" on the inside and spreading glass fragments everywhere on the inside and the outside of the windowsill.

Pasquali said that he had re-created the same conditions that were found in Romanelli's room at the time of the break-in. Pasquali said he constructed a window of the same size, with the same paint and the same type of glass, and threw the rock through it into a room with the same characteristics as Romanelli's room. Two video cameras -- one inside and one outside -- filmed the rock being thrown through the glass.

By analyzing the trajectory of the rock and the projection of the glass shards, Pasquali said he could "exclude that the glass could have been broken from the inside."
http://abcnews.go.com/International/story?id=7995762

I've never claimed I can shimmy up that wall. I couldn't. But I'm a 5'4" woman in her 60's, not a tall, athletic man in his early 20's.
And I'd mention the video of the man doing exactly that in the Channel 5 documentary, but you'll just claim it was doctored and he really couldn't have done it. Darn $2 million PR machine must have got to him and the two hosts, too.

 

[Stacyhs]

Trust me: a promissory note is a legal debt. Curt Knox has invested heavily in the then Gogerty-Marriott agency and now Marriott's new employer Allison and Partners PR. Nowhere did I talk about satisfying his debtors. Why do you keep putting words into my mouth?[/QUOTE]

It's rather irritating, isn't it? So please stop doing it to me.

 

[Vixen]

Vixen - you keep setting up conditions on the assumption that this issue was forensically investigated. It wasn't. If it was you would point to it.

What you WILL do is make reference in your own words what you claim others said. What you WON'T do is to link to those primary-source words so that we can read them for ourselves.

Once again, you make claims - you quote from compromised websites as if the third-party claims they have assembled are fact. There it sits.

Here's the link, BiWi. Methos posted it earlier. Did you not notice, the police have meticulously recorded glass shard measurements and their distribution.

http://themurderofmeredithkercher.c...ary3/docs/photos/2010-11-08-Photos-rock.pdf#2

Included in the police photo books, are crime scene photos of the foliage below the window, completely unspoiled by any recent human footfall.

 

[LondonJohn]

Trust me: a promissory note is a legal debt. Curt Knox has invested heavily in the then Gogerty-Marriott agency and now Marriott's new employer Allison and Partners PR. Nowhere did I talk about satisfying his debtors. Why do you keep putting words into my mouth?

What in the world are you talking about now?

I wrote nothing whatsoever (nor implied in any way whatsoever) about Curt Knox "satisfying his debtors". How can you be so unable to comprehend what I wrote, which was simple and straightforward?

Now, let's get to "Trust me: a promissory note is a legal debt". What the hell do you even mean by this? Who was talking about promissory notes?

The question is almost absurdly simple. I shall ask it again:

What evidence do you have to support your claim that Curt Knox paid Gogerty Marriott (and/or David Marriott personally) $2 million (or, indeed, anything anywhere near to $2 million)?

Do you have verified copies of an invoice from GM/Marriott to Knox?

Do you have sworn affidavits from any of the parties to the deal which specifically mention the amount of money paid by Curt Knox to GM/Marriott?

Do you have verified copies of financial records of either Curt Knox or GM/Marriott which show the amount of money transferred from Curt Knox to GM/Marriott?

Do you have any of these things? Or, for that matter, anything else (which is reliable and verifiable) which shows how much money Curt Knox paid to Gogerty Marriott and/or David Marriott?

How is this so difficult to understand? Do you have proper evidence? Yes or no? If "no", then we can dismiss this number as the product of mendacious fantasy. If "yes", then please provide the required evidence. It couldn't be more simple.

 

[LondonJohn]

Here's the link, BiWi. Methos posted it earlier. Did you not notice, the police have meticulously recorded glass shard measurements and their distribution.

http://themurderofmeredithkercher.c...ary3/docs/photos/2010-11-08-Photos-rock.pdf#2

Included in the police photo books, are crime scene photos of the foliage below the window, completely unspoiled by any recent human footfall.

No. There are not proper photos of the ground below the window. This crap about "completely unspoiled by any recent human footfall" is just that: crap. Pseudoscientific crap at that. There is nothing to demonstrate scientifically that the condition of the ground below Romanelli's window on the afternoon of 2nd November 2007 proves that a person could not have walked over that piece of ground some 18 hours earlier, on the evening of 1st November 2007. To claim otherwise is nonsense.

In addition, the inept police abjectly failed to search the ground below Romanelli's window in the way that they should have done: with fingertip examination and sifting of the soil and other ground covering. The whole thing was an amateurish, incompetent bungle. Topped off by the risible spectacle of the police personnel using that very piece of ground as early as the afternoon of 2nd November as a place to make mobile phone calls and have a cigarette. Morons.

 

[Vixen]

And you're doing it yet again. What I said is that I could throw that rock from the car park into through the window. That's all. Please stop putting words in my mouth.

As for the video; I don't have to make one. It's already been done by:

"Francesco Pasquali, a retired forensic police officer hired as a consultant by Sollecito's defense, presented a video in court that included three different scenarios showing how the rock could have been thrown from the outside to break the window, located 13 feet off the ground.

According to Pasquali, the rock was thrown from a terrace across from the window, making the glass "explode" on the inside and spreading glass fragments everywhere on the inside and the outside of the windowsill.

Pasquali said that he had re-created the same conditions that were found in Romanelli's room at the time of the break-in. Pasquali said he constructed a window of the same size, with the same paint and the same type of glass, and threw the rock through it into a room with the same characteristics as Romanelli's room. Two video cameras -- one inside and one outside -- filmed the rock being thrown through the glass.

By analyzing the trajectory of the rock and the projection of the glass shards, Pasquali said he could "exclude that the glass could have been broken from the inside."
http://abcnews.go.com/International/story?id=7995762

I've never claimed I can shimmy up that wall. I couldn't. But I'm a 5'4" woman in her 60's, not a tall, athletic man in his early 20's.
And I'd mention the video of the man doing exactly that in the Channel 5 documentary, but you'll just claim it was doctored and he really couldn't have done it. Darn $2 million PR machine must have got to him and the two hosts, too.

You claimed you could easily throw a boulder of the density of sandstone or limestone from a distance similar to that of the car park outside Filomena's window. Now you are bottling out. You are all front.


If you had read the article you yourself linked to, you would have been alerted to the following:

Francesco Pasquali, a retired forensic police officer hired as a consultant by Sollecito's defense, presented a video in court that included three different scenarios showing how the rock could have been thrown from the outside to break the window, located 13 feet off the ground.

According to Pasquali, the rock was thrown from a terrace across from the window, making the glass "explode" on the inside and spreading glass fragments everywhere on the inside and the outside of the windowsill.

Pasquali said that he had re-created the same conditions that were found in Romanelli's room at the time of the break-in. Pasquali said he constructed a window of the same size, with the same paint and the same type of glass, and threw the rock through it into a room with the same characteristics as Romanelli's room. Two video cameras -- one inside and one outside -- filmed the rock being thrown through the glass.

By analyzing the trajectory of the rock and the projection of the glass shards, Pasquali said he could "exclude that the glass could have been broken from the inside."

Prosecutors, however, contend that shutters outside the window could have prevented a rock from breaking it.

Did Shutters Block Rock?

The two prosecutors in the case, Giuliano Mignini and Manuela Comodi, made a number of objections when they cross-questioned Pasquali, who admitted that he had not taken into account the fact that there were shutters on the outside of the original window.

Prosecution witnesses have testified that the shutters were partially closed on the morning after the murder, and Pasquali conceded that the closed shutters would have prevented a rock from the breaking the window from the outside.

"It does not take a technician," Pasquali said. "If the shutters were ajar then the rock couldn't fit through."

 

[LondonJohn]

You claimed you could easily throw a boulder of the density of sandstone or limestone from a distance similar to that of the car park outside Filomena's window. Now you are bottling out. You are all front.

Are your reading comprehension problems really this bad? Stacy is saying she couldn't do the climb up the wall. Not only is she not saying she couldn't throw that rock (not "boulder", note) from the distance of the car port area, she's actually written at the start of the post that she COULD do exactly that!

It's getting beyond ridiculous. If you're going to reply to posts, please can you have the common courtesy to read them properly first, to understand what it is you're replying to? Thanks in advance.

 

[bagels]

The sad thing is Vixen isn't even aware that Rudy breaking in through the window isn't even a necessary condition for Amanda's innocence.

It's just what surely happened based on the (ample) evidence.

Rudy gave his motive for staging the break-in - he was on a date with Meredith and if Meredith told any of her friends about it, the last person to see Meredith alive better be an intruder and not poor Rudy. Grinder pointed this out ages ago.

 

[Stacyhs]

Riccardo Staglianò clearly set it out in his LA REPPUBLICA article. Are you so obtuse you refuse to accept responsible reporting in a staid newspaper?Trump is an idiot. He didn't know the difference between Paris and France. He never particularises. I particularise in the finest detail all the time. Trump and I are polar opposites in that respect.

Well, the thing is, Vixen, the "local sources" aren't Riccardo Stagliano. He is the author of the article, not the source of the claim that "the direction of the reconstruction of this nasty story, very professional and entrusted to a proven spin doctor, whose fees according to local sources are about $ 100,000 a year. David Marriott is the journalists tamer that has been managing the family’s relations with the press for two years. "

Are you so obtuse you can't differentiate between the author and the unnamed "local sources"?

At least we agree on Trump.

 

[Vixen]

The sad thing is Vixen isn't even aware that Rudy breaking in through the window isn't even a necessary condition for Amanda's innocence.

It's just what surely happened based on the (ample) evidence.

Rudy gave his motive for staging the break-in - he was on a date with Meredith and if Meredith told any of her friends about it, the last person to see Meredith alive better be an intruder and not poor Rudy. Grinder pointed this out ages ago.

There is zero trace of Rudy in the burglary room. There is a mixed DNA sample of Amanda and Mez. Amanda trailed Mez' blood into Filomena's room (i.e., post-murder). Having smashed the window she then trailed a glass shard into the murder room. Bits of paper scattered in Filomena's room are also scattered on top of the duvet, proving the murder came before the staged burglary.

Rudy's shoeprints lead straight out of the front door. Luminol shows Amanda's barefootprints in presumed blood facing Mez' door.

 

[LondonJohn]

The sad thing is Vixen isn't even aware that Rudy breaking in through the window isn't even a necessary condition for Amanda's innocence.

It's just what surely happened based on the (ample) evidence.

Rudy gave his motive for staging the break-in - he was on a date with Meredith and if Meredith told any of her friends about it, the last person to see Meredith alive better be an intruder and not poor Rudy. Grinder pointed this out ages ago.

Exactly. It's a fundamentally incorrect assertion that the only people who'd have any motive to stage a break-in would be keyholders to the cottage. So even if it was proven that the break-in was truly staged, this would in no way whatsoever either a) preclude Guede as the person who conducted the staging, or b) imply that a keyholder (=Knox) must have been involved in the staging.

Of course, this is all moot as you point out, since all of the evidence is entirely consistent with a real break-in, and in fact certain evidence is incompatible with a staging from the inside. And taken together with other factors, it's wholly reasonable to conclude that Guede entered the cottage by 1) climbing up to Romanelli's window and opening the unsecured right-hand exterior shutter, 2) dropping back down again, taking a rock, going to the car port area and throwing the rock through the right-hand window pane (which was not full exposed with the exterior shutter swung open), 3) climbing up again and reaching through the broken glass (to open the window with the latch, and entering Romanelli's room, and 4) closing the right-hand exterior shutter (which would be the left-hand exterior shutter as viewed from the inside), so as to hide the evidence of the broken window to anyone looking at the cottage from outside.

 

[Stacyhs]

You claimed you could easily throw a boulder of the density of sandstone or limestone from a distance similar to that of the car park outside Filomena's window. Now you are bottling out. You are all front.


If you had read the article you yourself linked to, you would have been alerted to the following:

How is AFFIRMING that I could throw that rock from the car park "bottling out"?

 

[LondonJohn]

There is zero trace of Rudy in the burglary room. There is a mixed DNA sample of Amanda and Mez. Amanda trailed Mez' blood into Filomena's room (i.e., post-murder). Having smashed the window she then trailed a glass shard into the murder room. Bits of paper scattered in Filomena's room are also scattered on top of the duvet, proving the murder came before the staged burglary.

Rudy's shoeprints lead straight out of the front door. Luminol shows Amanda's barefootprints in presumed blood facing Mez' door.

This is factually wrong in so many places, on so many levels, that it's simply not worth even attempting to correct. Do some proper research.