Cont: The Trials of Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito: Part 32

[Stacyhs]

Hi, did you deliberately misquote me? It is poor netiquette to do so.

On the assumption that perhaps there was difficulty in comprehension, may I offer the following advice?

• First, read carefully the post/s that were being responded to for full context. (This is indicated by the small arrow pointing upwards.)
• Next, please be aware that a sentence doesn't end until a full stop - a period in the US - nor a subclause expressing a full idea until a semi-colon.

To run through my sentence again, carefully, we have:

"It is simply not possible to obtain anyone's full DNA profile - for forensic criminal purposes, this is the full 17-alleles, as was found of Sollecito's, by stirring it in an alphabet soup; and as expert witness to the court, Professor Novelli testified under cross-examination, the chances of the profile being for anyone other than Sollecito is over 3.4billion to one against. "

EXPLANATION

First subclause:

"It is simply not possible to obtain anyone's full DNA profile - for forensic criminal purposes, this is the full 17-alleles, as was found of Sollecito's, by stirring it in an alphabet soup;"

It is simply not possible to obtain anyone's full DNA profile - [this indicates an insertion] for forensic criminal purposes, [Subclause to explain why this is referred to as a FULL DNA profile] this is the full 17-alleles, [COMMA: this indicates a pause] as was found of Sollecito's, [COMMA relating to whom the full profile belongs and ending subclause] by stirring it in an alphabet soup; [SEMI- COLON indicates end of subsentence]. For ease of understanding: 'It is simply not possible to obtain anyone's full DNA profile by stirring it in an alphabet soup', or in other words lest the meaning still is not clear: simply chucking the letters of the alphabet, as it were, into a soup, will not by a fluke transform by chance into an ordered alphabet from A to Z, as the poster was claiming re Sollecito's DNA being found by a sheer fluke.

Second subsentence, as follows the SEMI-COLON, finishing the first:

"and as expert witness to the court, [COMMA = pause] Professor Novelli testified under cross-examination, [COMMA end of pause providing someone's name] the chances of the profile being for anyone other than Sollecito is over 3.4billion to one against. " [FULL STOP = end of sentence.]

Thus the full idea with supporting evidence and with reference to expert court testimony conveys that ,no, Sollecito's proven DNA-profile was not there by random chance.

To hammer the message home - and as confirmed by Dr. Gill who states secondary transfer of DNA is only likely to happen within 24-hours and not at all in tertiary transfer except under controlled conditions of keeping the initial organic material moist (such as sebaceous oil from skin that contains sebaceous sweat glands [the palm of the hand doesn't contain any unless you sweep your fingers through your hair or face]). The total lie that Sollecito's DNA was somehow conveyed there some six weeks later by a rogue detective is one AK fans prefer to believe because truth is expendable rather than to face the truth of the pair's involvement in a horrible murder.

I hope you are now able to comprehend the argument. Let me know if anything I said is still unclear.

Congratulations! A word salad AND a gish gallop all in one post. I misquoted nothing.

What else did Peter Gill say specifically about the bra clasp DNA? Lessee..

The method of collecting, handling, transporting, and analyzing the bra clasp did not conform with basic protocols to minimize risks of cross-contamination. There were numerous opportunities in this process for cross-transfer and contamination of the clasp.

and

Whereas it was possible to agree that the tests detected DNA matching the reference profile of Sollecito’s on the bra clasp, it does not follow that this tells us anything about his presence at the crime scene. In light of the 46-day delay in collecting the clasp, the presence of profiles of other individuals in the sample (as discussed in the next section), and the failure to follow basic standard protocols for the collection and storage of the clasp, the evidence was irreversibly compromised. Consequently, the most likely explanation for the presence of Sollecito’s DNA is that it resulted from a contamination event, although the specific route cannot be discovered.

And I've never claimed that the DNA on bra clasp wasn't Raffaele's so your rant on that is irrelevant.

 

[Chris_Halkides]

The others were fragments of DNA of less than 6 alleles (legal standard 10 or 11) which is found in normal every day dust. Sollecito's full DNA of 17 allele-pairs was found on the bra hook UNDER the body and can only have been so strong by Sollecito pressing down hard on it.

In my strongly held opinion, a forensic scientist should not make statements regarding strong pressure (or based upon heights of the peaks), unless careful studies have been published in the peer-reviewed literature. Along similar lines statements about the biological source of the DNA must have experimental support, or they are pernicious nonsense.

 

[Chris_Halkides]

To hammer the message home - and as confirmed by Dr. Gill who states secondary transfer of DNA is only likely to happen within 24-hours and not at all in tertiary transfer except under controlled conditions of keeping the initial organic material moist (such as sebaceous oil from skin that contains sebaceous sweat glands [the palm of the hand doesn't contain any unless you sweep your fingers through your hair or face]). The total lie that Sollecito's DNA was somehow conveyed there some six weeks later by a rogue detective is one AK fans prefer to believe because truth is expendable rather than to face the truth of the pair's involvement in a horrible murder.

I hope you are now able to comprehend the argument. Let me know if anything I said is still unclear.

Regarding the part of this passage that deals with Dr. Gill, do you have a citation?

 

[Vixen]

Congratulations! A word salad AND a gish gallop all in one post. I misquoted nothing.

What else did Peter Gill say specifically about the bra clasp DNA? Lessee..


And I've never claimed that the DNA on bra clasp wasn't Raffaele's so your rant on that is irrelevant.

HOUSTON, WE HAVE A BREAK THROUGH!!!

Next step: do you still believe the full-profile DNA magically flew under a locked door and a corpse to land perfectly on a bra clasp hook, exactly where a person would grip to undo it...?

 

[Vixen]

Regarding the part of this passage that deals with Dr. Gill, do you have a citation?

Try reading Peter Gill's "Misleading DNA Evidence" where he contradicts himself on the case by saying chances of getting a reportable profile via passive transfer is "very low" >24 hrs after last contact (p76-77)

 

[TomG]

I don't know whether the Court of Appeals was allowed by the CSC to consider anything beyond Memoriale 1. The new CSC hearing may be free to consider additional information, or refer the case again.

I'd be interested to know if the 1st memoriale was ever subsequently used as evidence or leverage against Lumumba when he was being detained. I can imagine the 1.45 and 5.45 statements being waved in front of Lumumba with the implication that they were incriminating; however, if the 1st memoriale wasn't regarded as incriminating when it was written then why would it be incriminating now?

Did Pacelli even know that the 1st memoriale and subsequent retractions even existed when Lumumba was being detained? No doubt he would jump into bed with Sacco now and agree that the 1st memoriale is a reiteration of calunnia since it benefits him and Lumumba to do so, but would he have seen it in the same light when it was originally written? My guess is that he'd have considered it to be a retraction since it would have benefitted Lumumba at the time.

My argument is that if the 1st memoriale wasn't considered at the time to implicate Lumumba then why should it be so now? The only reason it becomes significant now is due to the fact that the 5.45 and now the 1.45 statements are unusable. In that case I'd argue that the 1st memoriale shouldn't be considered as valid since it wasn't considered valid at the time when it could have been significant in influencing the proceedings.

Hoots

 

[Numbers]

I'd be interested to know if the 1st memoriale was ever subsequently used as evidence or leverage against Lumumba when he was being detained. I can imagine the 1.45 and 5.45 statements being waved in front of Lumumba with the implication that they were incriminating; however, if the 1st memoriale wasn't regarded as incriminating when it was written then why would it be incriminating now?

Did Pacelli even know that the 1st memoriale and subsequent retractions even existed when Lumumba was being detained? No doubt he would jump into bed with Sacco now and agree that the 1st memoriale is a reiteration of calunnia since it benefits him and Lumumba to do so, but would he have seen it in the same light when it was originally written? My guess is that he'd have considered it to be a retraction since it would have benefitted Lumumba at the time.

My argument is that if the 1st memoriale wasn't considered at the time to implicate Lumumba then why should it be so now? The only reason it becomes significant now is due to the fact that the 5.45 and now the 1.45 statements are unusable. In that case I'd argue that the 1st memoriale shouldn't be considered as valid since it wasn't considered valid at the time when it could have been significant in influencing the proceedings.

Hoots

Your post seems intent on suggesting some aspects of rational logic motivated the actions and beliefs of the Italian authorities.

I suspect that Knox's 1:45 am coerced false statement was sufficient for the police to arrest Lumumba, and IIRC information from it was indicated as the major motivation in Mignini's arrest warrant for Lumumba, Sollecito, and Knox.

I believe that Memoriale 1 has only become a significant piece of evidence to the Italian authorities in response to the ECHR judgment Knox v. Italy, and as a way to appear to avoid reversing Knox's conviction for calunnia against Lumumba, despite the clear violations by Italy of Knox's Convention rights to a fair trial found in the ECHR's judgment.

 

[Numbers]

The concept of allele sharing, and its effects in mixtures, may need some examination for its relevance in STR DNA profiling of DNA mixtures.

Suppose that we consider three persons: A mother (A) and a father (B) and their biological child (C). Each autosomal chromosome of the child is composed of an autosomal chromosome from the mother and one from the father, and the sex chromosomes are either XX (female child) or XY (male child) - assuming no abnormalities in meiosis or related processes.
For each autosomal STR DNA locus, number i, for the mother, her two alleles are A(i_mA) and A(i_fA), where mA and fA indicate that the allele was derived from the mother's mother or father, respectively.

For the father, each autosomal STR DNA locus, i, has two alleles: B(i_mB) and B(i_fB), where mB and fB indicate the allele was derived from the father's mother or father, respectively.

For the child, each autosomal STR DNA locus, i, has two alleles: one from the mother that is either A(i_mA) or A(i_fA) and a second from the father that is either B(i_mB) or B(i_fB).

When a DNA sample consisting of about equal amounts of DNA from each of the mother, father, and child is mixed together, the DNA profiles of the mixture will appear to be the DNA profiles of only two persons, since each allele creates a separate peak in an electrophergram, and each of the child's alleles is also one its parent's alleles.

Among unrelated individuals, a certain amount of allele sharing is to be expected, although of course not to the extent of the parents and their biological child or of identical twins. That is one reason the US FBI DNA database (CODIS) is now based on the DNA profiling of 20 alleles, rather than the previous 13 alleles. The possiblity of the presence of allele sharing is one of the several challenges of interpreting DNA profiles of DNA mixtures. Another is that in a mixture of autosomal DNA from two or more individuals there is no simple scientific way to decide a priori which allele belongs to which of several persons of interest. The method used for the bra clasp appears to have been to assign those alleles that agree with the known DNA profile of Sollecito to him, and to ignore the other alleles of the mixture; this is called the "suspect-centric" method, and it is a violation of scientific integrity and the principle of innocent unless proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.

Application of some of the issues of DNA mixtures is discussed specifically for the bra clasp and Sollecito in the following paper by Vecchiotti and Zoppis; this paper may clarify and expand some of the statements in the Conti-Vecchiotti report:

DNA and the law in Italy: the experience of “the Perugia case”​

DNA and the law in Italy: the experience of “the Perugia case” - PMC

pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

 

[TomG]

Your post seems intent on suggesting some aspects of rational logic motivated the actions and beliefs of the Italian authorities.

I suspect that Knox's 1:45 am coerced false statement was sufficient for the police to arrest Lumumba, and IIRC information from it was indicated as the major motivation in Mignini's arrest warrant for Lumumba, Sollecito, and Knox.

I believe that Memoriale 1 has only become a significant piece of evidence to the Italian authorities in response to the ECHR judgment Knox v. Italy, and as a way to appear to avoid reversing Knox's conviction for calunnia against Lumumba, despite the clear violations by Italy of Knox's Convention rights to a fair trial found in the ECHR's judgment.

It was Chieffi who first weaponised the 1st memoriale and the November 10th prison intercept when he was confronted with the fact that the 1.45 statement was extracted when Amanda was in a "prolonged moment of bewilderment, amnesia, and confusion" and the 1.45 statement became under pressure in that respect. None of it should matter given the overarching considerations of the ECHR judgment, I'm just pointing out how flimsy it was in the first place.

I would argue that if the 1st memoriale wasn't considered at the time to be significant in implicating Lumumba at the time then how can it be so now? If it was clear at the time that the 1.45 statement was unusable as it now is then the cops would have had no reason to hold him since the 1st memoriale wasn't considered to incriminating by the cops at that time. It's possible in that scenario that Pacelli would have considered the 1st memoriale as a retraction as do the ECHR and might have significantly altered events.

I'd say that Chieffi's and now the Florence appeal court's use of the 1st memoriale is flawed since their considerations are retrospective ignoring the possiblity that it may not have been viewed that way a the time by Lumumba or his lawyer if that was all that was all that was keeping him detained.
Hoots

 

[Chris_Halkides]

Try reading Peter Gill's "Misleading DNA Evidence" where he contradicts himself on the case by saying chances of getting a reportable profile via passive transfer is "very low" >24 hrs after last contact (p76-77)

Pages 71-80 of Dr. Gill's book cover fingernail DNA specifically. On pages 78-79, the period of 24 hours is mentioned. The context is that Dr. Gill is discussing the likelihood of detecting foreign fingernail DNA as a function of time after the transfer took place. After 24 hours the probability of finding foreign DNA on the fingernails of a living person is very low, probably due to hand washing or showering. The Anne Le case showed that DNA deposition could happen a long time before its transfer of DNA to underwear of a murder victim (months or years).

 

[Numbers]

It was Chieffi who first weaponised the 1st memoriale and the November 10th prison intercept when he was confronted with the fact that the 1.45 statement was extracted when Amanda was in a "prolonged moment of bewilderment, amnesia, and confusion" and the 1.45 statement became under pressure in that respect. None of it should matter given the overarching considerations of the ECHR judgment, I'm just pointing out how flimsy it was in the first place.

I would argue that if the 1st memoriale wasn't considered at the time to be significant in implicating Lumumba at the time then how can it be so now? If it was clear at the time that the 1.45 statement was unusable as it now is then the cops would have had no reason to hold him since the 1st memoriale wasn't considered to incriminating by the cops at that time. It's possible in that scenario that Pacelli would have considered the 1st memoriale as a retraction as do the ECHR and might have significantly altered events.

I'd say that Chieffi's and now the Florence appeal court's use of the 1st memoriale is flawed since their considerations are retrospective ignoring the possiblity that it may not have been viewed that way a the time by Lumumba or his lawyer if that was all that was all that was keeping him detained.
Hoots

Your arguments are interesting, but I'm not at all confident that the Italian courts work that way in practice.

I'll present this quote on Italian law from the Vecchiotti and Zoppis paper I cited above; the substance of the quote is itself referenced to another paper (Grosso C. F. (2011). L'incerta Prova Scientifica. Torino: La Stampa).

Finally, it is worth recalling a key principle of the Italian criminal justice system, the presumption of innocence: a defendant can only be declared guilty if the prosecution proves beyond any reasonable doubt that he committed the crimes for which he is being prosecuted. If a single doubt remains, even the slightest, the defendant must be acquitted. Judges who convict in the absence of strong, unambiguous and consistent evidence violate the law.

From the evidence of the Knox - Sollecito case, it appears to be not uncommon for Italian courts to violate the law. There are certainly many cases annulled without referral by the CSC in several years that I had checked in a CSC yearly review document.

 

[Stacyhs]

Pages 71-80 of Dr. Gill's book cover fingernail DNA specifically. On pages 78-79, the period of 24 hours is mentioned. The context is that Dr. Gill is discussing the likelihood of detecting foreign fingernail DNA as a function of time after the transfer took place. After 24 hours the probability of finding foreign DNA on the fingernails of a living person is very low, probably due to hand washing or showering. The Anne Le case showed that DNA deposition could happen a long time before its transfer of DNA to underwear of a murder victim (months or years).

Thanks for putting Dr. Gill's statement into context which reveals Vixen's comment is either intellectual dishonesty or ignorance. I've seen that same snippet from Gill's book used by the colpevolisti many times as evidence that RS's DNA on the hook could not be from contamination.

 

[Stacyhs]

HOUSTON, WE HAVE A BREAK THROUGH!!!

Next step: do you still believe the full-profile DNA magically flew under a locked door and a corpse to land perfectly on a bra clasp hook, exactly where a person would grip to undo it...?

How you infer Gill saying that RS's DNA on the hook was most likely from contamination as supporting your argument is mind-boggling.

Your fallacy of exaggeration is noted. I've never seen anyone, including me, ever claim that RS's DNA "magically flew under a locked door and a corpse to land perfectly on a bra clasp hook". Why you need to resort to that kind of rubbish only you can answer.

I know from previous discussions that you are well aware of the police video showing gross violations of anti-contamination protocols by the police during the clasp collection. You've seen that same hook being directly touched by a visibly dirty and admittedly unchanged glove...a glove that had previously touched who knows what. You are also well aware that it was passed around to others and dropped on the floor. A floor where people had walked during the past 46 days with no record of what, if any, anti-contamination protocols were followed.

It's glaringly dishonest to restrict the only time for this contamination to have occurred being during the time the bedroom door was locked and not during the following 46 days.

Your claim that the hook is "exactly where a person would grip to undo it" is nothing but BS. You know better than that and so do we. When you unhook a bra clasp, you don't touch just one of the hooks; you grasp both sides of the cloth that the hooks and eyes are sewn to. Yet none of RS's DNA was found on any of the cloth or the other hook or on the eyes side of the clasp.
You also know that the clasp was cut off, not unhooked.
You've been peddling your version of the facts for years but that doesn't make them actual facts.

ETA: How do you explain the Y-DNA of at least two other unidentified males on that same tiny bra hook? Did that DNA "magically [fly] under a locked door and a corpse to land perfectly on a bra clasp hook, exactly where a person would grip to undo it..."?

 

[Numbers]

Your arguments are interesting, but I'm not at all confident that the Italian courts work that way in practice.

I'll present this quote on Italian law from the Vecchiotti and Zoppis paper I cited above; the substance of the quote is itself referenced to another paper (Grosso C. F. (2011). L'incerta Prova Scientifica. Torino: La Stampa).


From the evidence of the Knox - Sollecito case, it appears to be not uncommon for Italian courts to violate the law. There are certainly many cases annulled without referral by the CSC in several years that I had checked in a CSC yearly review document.

The citation to Grosso in the V & Z paper links to a brief article, La Prova Scientifica, by S. Lorusso, in the Google Scholar database.

Here are some points from the Lorusso article (Google translation):

Scientific evidence must also be freely evaluated, and must contribute to overcoming any reasonable doubt in order to support a conviction: otherwise it would be legal evidence {meaning: arbitrary judicial fact (?)}, which our legal system has long since renounced. Scientific evidence, in short, is not infallible evidence but verifiable evidence - and to be verified - like any other evidence, the evaluation of which, indeed, requires greater attention since the interpretation of the evidentiary data presupposes the mediation of an expert. Its reliability, then, is directly proportional to the respect of internationally recognized and shared protocols in the collection, conservation (through a rigorous "chain of custody") and analysis of the traces of the crime {meaning: the overall evidence of the crime}. Otherwise, scientific evidence ends up becoming more misleading than any other evidence.

See:

https://scholar.google.com/scholar_lookup?title=L%27incerta%20Prova%20Scientifica&author=C.%20F.%20Grosso&publication_year=2011&

 

[Chris_Halkides]

I only have time for a short comment. It is possible that the DNA from the construction worker that was found on Annie Le's underwear in the Richard Clark case arrived from secondary, as opposed to tertiary or higher, transfer. There is no doubt, however, that Raymond Clark was guilty or that the transfer happened years after the deposition. Norm Pattis wrote, "In the Le case, investigators found that the mysterious DNA belonged to a construction worker who had done work at the lab in which Ms. Le’s body was found years before the killing. Interviews with co-workers suggested that as the work progressed, workers often sweat, sometimes copiously. Some may have worked with their shirts off. Investigators concluded that the DNA in question here was transferred innocently from a construction worker to a wall or other physical object in the wall. The humidity in the room created an environment in which the cells retained their structure. Had the DNA donor not died long before the event, his DNA would have made him a suspect."

 

[Vixen]

The concept of allele sharing, and its effects in mixtures, may need some examination for its relevance in STR DNA profiling of DNA mixtures.

Suppose that we consider three persons: A mother (A) and a father (B) and their biological child (C). Each autosomal chromosome of the child is composed of an autosomal chromosome from the mother and one from the father, and the sex chromosomes are either XX (female child) or XY (male child) - assuming no abnormalities in meiosis or related processes.
For each autosomal STR DNA locus, number i, for the mother, her two alleles are A(i_mA) and A(i_fA), where mA and fA indicate that the allele was derived from the mother's mother or father, respectively.

For the father, each autosomal STR DNA locus, i, has two alleles: B(i_mB) and B(i_fB), where mB and fB indicate the allele was derived from the father's mother or father, respectively.

For the child, each autosomal STR DNA locus, i, has two alleles: one from the mother that is either A(i_mA) or A(i_fA) and a second from the father that is either B(i_mB) or B(i_fB).

When a DNA sample consisting of about equal amounts of DNA from each of the mother, father, and child is mixed together, the DNA profiles of the mixture will appear to be the DNA profiles of only two persons, since each allele creates a separate peak in an electrophergram, and each of the child's alleles is also one its parent's alleles.

Among unrelated individuals, a certain amount of allele sharing is to be expected, although of course not to the extent of the parents and their biological child or of identical twins. That is one reason the US FBI DNA database (CODIS) is now based on the DNA profiling of 20 alleles, rather than the previous 13 alleles. The possiblity of the presence of allele sharing is one of the several challenges of interpreting DNA profiles of DNA mixtures. Another is that in a mixture of autosomal DNA from two or more individuals there is no simple scientific way to decide a priori which allele belongs to which of several persons of interest. The method used for the bra clasp appears to have been to assign those alleles that agree with the known DNA profile of Sollecito to him, and to ignore the other alleles of the mixture; this is called the "suspect-centric" method, and it is a violation of scientific integrity and the principle of innocent unless proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.

Application of some of the issues of DNA mixtures is discussed specifically for the bra clasp and Sollecito in the following paper by Vecchiotti and Zoppis; this paper may clarify and expand some of the statements in the Conti-Vecchiotti report:

DNA and the law in Italy: the experience of “the Perugia case”​

DNA and the law in Italy: the experience of “the Perugia case” - PMC

pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

Whilst familial DNA will show some common characteristics, it is a mistake to imagine the DNA of two parents and a child mixed together somehow becomes an indistinguishable soup is erroneous. Firstly, to be of legal standard you need to identify SNP's with at least 11 allele peaks, fragments of <6 or any fragment cannot be stuck together to form one long ribbon. They remain individual fragments.

 

[gabeygoat]

Hi, did you deliberately misquote me? It is poor netiquette to do so.

On the assumption that perhaps there was difficulty in comprehension, may I offer the following advice?

• First, read carefully the post/s that were being responded to for full context. (This is indicated by the small arrow pointing upwards.)
• Next, please be aware that a sentence doesn't end until a full stop - a period in the US - nor a subclause expressing a full idea until a semi-colon.

To run through my sentence again, carefully, we have:

"It is simply not possible to obtain anyone's full DNA profile - for forensic criminal purposes, this is the full 17-alleles, as was found of Sollecito's, by stirring it in an alphabet soup; and as expert witness to the court, Professor Novelli testified under cross-examination, the chances of the profile being for anyone other than Sollecito is over 3.4billion to one against. "

EXPLANATION

First subclause:

"It is simply not possible to obtain anyone's full DNA profile - for forensic criminal purposes, this is the full 17-alleles, as was found of Sollecito's, by stirring it in an alphabet soup;"

It is simply not possible to obtain anyone's full DNA profile - [this indicates an insertion] for forensic criminal purposes, [Subclause to explain why this is referred to as a FULL DNA profile] this is the full 17-alleles, [COMMA: this indicates a pause] as was found of Sollecito's, [COMMA relating to whom the full profile belongs and ending subclause] by stirring it in an alphabet soup; [SEMI- COLON indicates end of subsentence]. For ease of understanding: 'It is simply not possible to obtain anyone's full DNA profile by stirring it in an alphabet soup', or in other words lest the meaning still is not clear: simply chucking the letters of the alphabet, as it were, into a soup, will not by a fluke transform by chance into an ordered alphabet from A to Z, as the poster was claiming re Sollecito's DNA being found by a sheer fluke.

Second subsentence, as follows the SEMI-COLON, finishing the first:

"and as expert witness to the court, [COMMA = pause] Professor Novelli testified under cross-examination, [COMMA end of pause providing someone's name] the chances of the profile being for anyone other than Sollecito is over 3.4billion to one against. " [FULL STOP = end of sentence.]

Thus the full idea with supporting evidence and with reference to expert court testimony conveys that ,no, Sollecito's proven DNA-profile was not there by random chance.

To hammer the message home - and as confirmed by Dr. Gill who states secondary transfer of DNA is only likely to happen within 24-hours and not at all in tertiary transfer except under controlled conditions of keeping the initial organic material moist (such as sebaceous oil from skin that contains sebaceous sweat glands [the palm of the hand doesn't contain any unless you sweep your fingers through your hair or face]). The total lie that Sollecito's DNA was somehow conveyed there some six weeks later by a rogue detective is one AK fans prefer to believe because truth is expendable rather than to face the truth of the pair's involvement in a horrible murder.

I hope you are now able to comprehend the argument. Let me know if anything I said is still unclear.

If you need this many words to explain a sentence, then your sentence was poorly written.

 

[Numbers]

Getting back to the 2013 paper by Vecchiotti and Zoppis, available at:

DNA and the law in Italy: the experience of “the Perugia case” - PMC

pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

Table 1 of the paper compares the interpretations of the electropherograms (graphs) of the Y chromosome STRs - the Y chromosome DNA profiling results for the bra clasp - by the prosecution's technical consultant (Stefanoni) and by the Hellmann court's independent technical consultants (Conti and Vecchiotti).

There are 16 STRs listed; the DYS prefix on the locus identifiers stands for DNA - Y chromosome - sequence number; these identifiers are assigned by an international organization that sets standards for human gene nomenclature.

According to Table 1:

For 15 of the STR loci, Stefanoni reported only 1 peak, but for 1 STR she reported 2 peaks. She concluded that the Y-STR results showed the DNA profile of one male and that the profile was compatible with Sollecito.

For 4 of the STR loci, Conti & Vecchiotti reported only 1 peak, but for 9 STRs they reported 2 peaks, and for 3 STRs they reported 3 peaks. All the additional peaks were above the manufacturer's threshold (50 RFU), with the heights of the peaks not reported by Stefanoni ranging from 59 to 201 RFU. This last peak reached over 32% of the height of the Stefanoni-reported peak, while the others were also of significant relevant height. The peaks not reported by Stefanoni were not in stutter position. Therefore, since the peaks were above threshold and not in stutter position they were not artifacts of the test and, following accepted international DNA profiling standards should have been reported. The C & V results show that three males contributed DNA to the bra clasp sample.

Why did some of the STRs have only 1 or 2 peaks rather than 3? A likely reason is that the Y chromosome STRs of one or both of the males that were the source of the DNA that had not been reported by Stefanoni shared allele repeat values with the DNA profile attributed to Sollecito for those STR loci. "Allele sharing" - a person having some STRs with the same number of repeats as another, even unrelated, person is not uncommon. Persons who are in the same haplogroup although extremely very distantly related will be likely to share some STR alleles*. On the other hand, other technical reasons that are DNA profiling artifacts, for example, drop-out, may be responsible. Yet another possibility is that the two unknown male DNA deposits had degraded during the time (deposited up to 46 days prior to collection and subsequent profiling) that the bra clasp lay on the floor of the murder room, while possibly the DNA compatible with Sollecito's profile was deposited later, at the time the clasp was collected by the obviously dirty and possibly DNA contaminated gloves of the scientific police. (The recommended method of collection is to use DNA-free sterile disposable forcepts.)

The conclusion is that the DNA profiling results, and the known failings to follow appropriate storage, chain of custody, and collection methods strongly suggest the male DNA on the bra clasp are the result of contamination. Thus, under Italian law, CPP 192, paragraph 2, no fact against an accused could be lawfully inferred from the DNA profiling of the bra clasp.

*See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_Y-chromosome_DNA_haplogroup

 

[Rolfe]

I only have time for a short comment. It is possible that the DNA from the construction worker that was found on Annie Le's underwear in the Richard Clark case arrived from secondary, as opposed to tertiary or higher, transfer. There is no doubt, however, that Raymond Clark was guilty or that the transfer happened years after the deposition. Norm Pattis wrote, "In the Le case, investigators found that the mysterious DNA belonged to a construction worker who had done work at the lab in which Ms. Le’s body was found years before the killing. Interviews with co-workers suggested that as the work progressed, workers often sweat, sometimes copiously. Some may have worked with their shirts off. Investigators concluded that the DNA in question here was transferred innocently from a construction worker to a wall or other physical object in the wall. The humidity in the room created an environment in which the cells retained their structure. Had the DNA donor not died long before the event, his DNA would have made him a suspect."

Crikey! I wasn't aware of that one.

 

[Vixen]

How you infer Gill saying that RS's DNA on the hook was most likely from contamination as supporting your argument is mind-boggling.

Your fallacy of exaggeration is noted. I've never seen anyone, including me, ever claim that RS's DNA "magically flew under a locked door and a corpse to land perfectly on a bra clasp hook". Why you need to resort to that kind of rubbish only you can answer.

I know from previous discussions that you are well aware of the police video showing gross violations of anti-contamination protocols by the police during the clasp collection. You've seen that same hook being directly touched by a visibly dirty and admittedly unchanged glove...a glove that had previously touched who knows what. You are also well aware that it was passed around to others and dropped on the floor. A floor where people had walked during the past 46 days with no record of what, if any, anti-contamination protocols were followed.

It's glaringly dishonest to restrict the only time for this contamination to have occurred being during the time the bedroom door was locked and not during the following 46 days.

Your claim that the hook is "exactly where a person would grip to undo it" is nothing but BS. You know better than that and so do we. When you unhook a bra clasp, you don't touch just one of the hooks; you grasp both sides of the cloth that the hooks and eyes are sewn to. Yet none of RS's DNA was found on any of the cloth or the other hook or on the eyes side of the clasp.
You also know that the clasp was cut off, not unhooked.
You've been peddling your version of the facts for years but that doesn't make them actual facts.

ETA: How do you explain the Y-DNA of at least two other unidentified males on that same tiny bra hook? Did that DNA "magically [fly] under a locked door and a corpse to land perfectly on a bra clasp hook, exactly where a person would grip to undo it..."?

Forensic evidence is circumstantial evidence which needs to be looked at as a whole together with all of the other circumstantial evidence. Leaving your DNA at a crime scene is considered a strong piece of circumstantial evidence, when looked at as a whole with ALL of the evidence. The picture as a whole is why Knox and Sollecito, together with Guede, shows they are irrefutably involved in the murder and which is why Marasca-Bruno had little choice but to spell it out.

"Circumstantial evidence is evidence that relies on an inference to connect it to a conclusion of fact—such as a fingerprint at the scene of a crime." wiki

Not only is Sollecito's DNA on the victim's bra hook, his footprint also appears in the victim's blood on the bathmat and his footprint highlighted in luminol - which is designed to highlight blood - outside the victim's locked door. The victim's DNA appears at the tip of Sollecito's kitchen knife, when the victim had never been in his apartment ever. Sollecito switched off his phone the same time as his co-partner as their victim returned home after an evening out with her college friends. Sollecito lied in his police statements, "I told you a sack of ◊◊◊◊" he affirms re claiming Knox was with him all evening. Sollecito has never retracted his claim Knox went out without him and did not return until 'about one a.m.'. Sollecito gave a false alibi of being on his computer all evening and speaking with his father on the phone. The forensic circumstantial evidence of hard phone logs and his internet provider shows Sollecito was not on his computer and nor did he pick up his father's phone call. Sollecito claimed his flat was flooded with water whilst he was doing the washing up, hence why Knox had to go back and forth between his flat and hers with a mop and why he had to dismantle his U-bend. Knox claimed to have had at least the need for two showers that evening and morning with Sollecito himself needing to scrub her thoroughly (she writes in an email to all her contacts as of the time). Knox' lamp was found on the floor underneath the victim's bed as though looking for something on the floor. When asked how come she didn't notice the lamp missing from her room when she had a shower next morning - despite the front door swinging open, she claims - and her response was she got dressed in the semi-dark. Sollecito claims he was too weak to smash down the victim's door, yet a colleague had no problem kicking it open, whilst Knox and Sollecito retreated to the back of the cottage whilst he did so. Clearly the pair locked the door themselves and wanted a third party to discover the body to offset any suspicion away from themselves.

Not to mention the staged burglary and the laptops of the victim, Knox and her flat mate's, plus one of Sollecito's laptops being professionally fried. How curious that Sollecito was a fourth year IT computer student who might know how to do such a thing! Yet Lumumba's tested the same time was absolutely fine, so the defence claim the police IT guys fried the incriminating ones makes you think, how unlucky for Knox and Sollecito that their frying was so highly selective!

Whilst it is understandable defence lawyers will look for holes in the prosecution case ("If the glove don't fit, you must acquit") it is hard to see why some killers attract a fan base that blindly refuses to accept any of the evidence.