Oh,
acbytesla, it's the nature of the beast.
The case was already solved by the time you got here. The ensuing five years have been retread.
At least there seems to have been little recent discussion of door locks. I thought I was gonna slit my wrists over that one.
Ha! True and true. All rational, critical thinkers with sufficient intellect and understanding of the scientific method, who are sufficiently well-informed about this case, have long been able to see that
at the very least there's absolutely no credible, reliable evidence of Knox's/Sollecito's involvement in the Kercher murder (and thus it was correct and fair that they were acquitted on all charges related to the murder). Furthermore, all rational, critical thinkers etc. have long been able to see that
at the very least it's a plausible and reasonable possibility that Knox was unlawfully coerced by the police in her 5th/6th interrogation into making her infamous "confession/accusation", and that therefore she did not possess the required (in law and ethics) intent to have committed the crime of criminal slander against Lumumba.
So I fully agree, the fundamental debate on those issues, from a criminal justice perspective (i.e. how should Knox and Sollecito stand in law) is resolved. And since the Italian criminal justice system has (albeit highly belatedly and somewhat cackhandedly) ruled in that direction on the murder-related charges, there's really nothing more to say on the murder. On the criminal slander, I think there's still some interesting and debatable ground to tread
vis-a-vis the ECHR ruling (and Italy's reaction to any such ruling).
But on top of that, I think there are two avenues that do still warrant ongoing discussion and analysis. The first is an attempt to use the current evidence set to get as close as possible to understanding exactly what DID happen that night. I believe (as, I think, do many others here) that the evidence - and lack of evidence - points towards Guede acting alone, and towards Guede being inside the cottage (having broken in through Romanelli's window and closing the outer shutters to conceal the evidence of the break-in from anyone outside the cottage) when Kercher arrived home just after 9.00pm. I believe the evidence (and lack of evidence) points towards Guede confronting Kercher shortly after her return, and matters escalating towards threats of violence (with an knife used as a threatening weapon), forced compliance, the start of a sexual assault, the stabbing, and the continuation and culmination of the sexual assault.
I believe the evidence (and lack of evidence) points towards Guede staying in the cottage for around 20 minutes after Kercher's death (which I believe the evidence, taken together, shows occurred almost certainly between 9.30pm and 9.40pm, with the actual stabbing occurring between 9.20pm and 9.30pm). Guede was possibly in immobile shock for part of that period, and then he cleaned himself up in the small bathroom (washing blood from his top, then taking off his shoes to wash blood off his trousers, probably in the shower, and leaving a dilute blood/water partial print on the bath mat as he stepped from the shower tray to the mat) and made a cursory attempt to clean some of the scene in Kercher's room.
The shoe print evidence shows clearly that Guede left Kercher's room in the direction of the front door, but then stopped, paused, and turned around to walk back in the direction of Kercher's room (at which point the prints fade out). I believe this is very probably because Guede suddenly remembered that the front door was locked shut and unable to be opened without the key (and I think he knew this because he had previously tried to exit silently via the front door after Kercher came home shortly after 9.00pm), so he turned and returned to Kercher's room to find her keys, to enable him to unlock the front door and leave. At the same time, he took her phones and bank cards - I think the evidence shows that he tried to turn off both phones (possibly because he was worried about signal tracking, and/or because he did not want the phones ringing while in his possession) - he succeeded with the Italian phone (possibly because all the screen menus were in Italian), but failed with the UK phone, making the strange aborted phone calls to voicemail and Kercher's UK bank in the process).
So I believe Guede exited the cottage shortly after 10.00pm. I believe he walked back towards his apartment via the quiet, dark road around the outside of the old city wall (rather than the more obvious, more direct route through Piazza Grimana and up Corso Garibaldi - which was well-lit and where there would be many more potential eyewitnesses). I believe that he was surprised and alarmed by the unexpected incoming multimedia message to Kercher's UK phone (which, remember, he had been unable to turn off IMO) - he eventually managed to abort and cancel the MMS download, but decided at that point to dispose of the phones, throwing them into the darkness of the ravine (but in fact throwing them into Mrs Lana's garden). He arrived back at his apartment by around 10.30pm, and decided his best bet was to act "normal" as an alibi - he met with some friends at around 11.30pm, and then went to the city-centre bars and discos until the small hours of the morning. Later the following day and the day after that, he got increasingly frightened about the huge profile of the murder and its investigation, and decided his best bet was to flee Perugia - he got on a train and headed as far away as practically possible, to central Germany.
I think that my version of "the truth" as described above is a) reasonable and plausible, and b) in keeping with all the available evidence (and lack of evidence). But I definitely think it's wide open to debate - and I think there is an interesting and informative debate still to be had on most of the elements here.
The second avenue that I think is worthy of ongoing discussion and analysis - perhaps more now than ever before - is the nature of the media and online debate (and the sociological and psychological aspects behind that debate). I've offered my opinions on this in a post from a few days ago, so I won't repeat them here. Suffice it to say, I think this case created a new paradigm in the way it was disseminated, reported, debated and understood in a Web2.0 world of social media and the blurring of the lines between neutral, trusted sources and biassed, partisan sources (especially where the latter were posing as neutral, trusted sources). And I believe it's true to say that the combination of irresponsible media reporting of this case (owing to low-quality stringers on the ground who clearly became utterly beholden to the cunning prosecutor, who fed them juicy (but usually false or inflated) tidbits in implicit return for favourable coverage) and the fanning of the flames of righteous outrage among the public (almost all of which was a further exaggeration of the already-false or already-inflated factoids coming from the prosecutor's office to the pliant journalists) might well have had some material effect upon the trial process in this case - especially the Massei trial.
