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Amanda Knox guilty - all because of a cartwheel

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Fiona,

Just so that there is no misunderstanding, would you provide your reasons or cite a particular message in this thread which lays them out?

Chris
 
halides1 said:
Fiona,

Then what was your reason for asking to see it?

Chris
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I did not know which video you referred to.

Fiona,

Just so that there is no misunderstanding, would you provide your reasons or cite a particular message in this thread which lays them out?
Click to expand...

My reply to Matthew Best at #613 ( in reponse to a video which does not appear to have been edited, in the way this one has)

Since then I have learned from the PMF people that this video evidence was presented in court, which I had not been sure of. The defence tried to make a great deal of it: but it did not impress the judge or the jury, apparently.

They have also given me permission to show this:

http://img523.imageshack.us/img523/7913/bongiornosflyingclasp.png

Which is a drawing of the actual positions of the clasp on the two separate occasions.
 
I linked to a video of the bra clasp in at the murder scene (not the one where it is in the hands of the police) in message 637. You had asked to see it and even suggested that I contact one of the signers of the open letter. I did and he sent the link therein.
 
halides1 said:
BobTheDonkey,

You asked me for the video, as well as Fiona. Please tell me what you think of the specks on the gloves and the appearance and position of the strap.

Chris
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Here is what Fiona (or at least what I'd expect she'd have to say given her previous posts on the subject) and I have to say:

Explain why, if there was a contamination issue, there was only one other source of Sollecito's DNA? We must therefore accept that the cigarette butt in the kitchen, the only other source of Sollecito's DNA, was handled immediately prior to handling of the clasp and that nothing else was handled in the interim.

We must ignore that there was not just a light trace of his DNA on the clasp.

Finally, must also overlook that no other DNA was found on the clasp.

So, now we are asked to believe that out of all the possible DNA samples that could have contaminated the clasp, only Sollecito's DNA was transferred onto the clasp, the contamination was in such a manner as to leave a heavy trace, and that this cross-contamination must have come from a cigarette butt found in a different room (and probably removed during the initial evidence collection).



That, sir, is quite a bit of unlikely circumstances and it behooves us very little to suspend reason simply to allow that the DNA evidence is contaminated.
 
you are being unresponsive

BobTheDonkey,

I will not answer your question until you answer the one I posed first, which was essentially why, given what you just said, ask for the link in the first place.

Chris
 
BobTheDonkey,

Finally, must also overlook that no other DNA was found on the clasp." That statement is false. Three other individuals contributed DNA to this clasp. You, sir, are either mistaken or worse.

Chris
 
halides1 said:
BobTheDonkey,

I will not answer your question until you answer the one I posed first, which was essentially why, given what you just said, ask for the link in the first place.

Chris
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Well, to be honest, the vid you linked to doesn't show that the clasp had been moved till it was collected. The vid you linked shows the clasp being handled when it was being collected and at no point shows where it was initially vs being collected.

This is, of course, why I asked for a link to pics/source that could verify how much the clasp moved. My understanding is that the clasp was covered by a pillow the duration of the 47 days and I was asking for you to prove that the clasp was moved in such a manner that it could be contaminated.

Now, we move onto the real reason that in this case it doesn't matter if it was moved - mostly because there were no other sources of Sollecito's DNA in the bedroom. So no matter how much it was moved around the bedroom, how would his DNA have contaminated it and no one else's?
 
halides1 said:
BobTheDonkey,

Finally, must also overlook that no other DNA was found on the clasp." That statement is false. Three other individuals contributed DNA to this clasp. You, sir, are either mistaken or worse.

Chris
Click to expand...

Source?
 
halides1 said:
It was the strength of the arguments such as given by Professor Hampikian and the other signers of the letter that swayed me.

Chris
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This intrigues me. The suggestion here is that Sollecito employed the wrong expert. Can you briefly contrast the major points Professor Hampikian would have used during the trial with those of A. Tagliabracci--the actual expert they employed?

(Source: http://perugiamurderfile.org/viewtopic.php?p=17212#p17212 )

A side-by-side comparison and contrast would help us understand why the defence failed in refuting the prosecution evidence.

Did they hire the wrong expert?

-------

ETA: You are correct about other DNA on the bra clasp. I could probably find the cite at PMF but you're right.
 
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halides1 said:
Brainster,

Thank you for your kind words. I teach biochemistry at a university and have, on rare occasion, used some of the techniques that are the building blocks of forensic DNA, such as PCR and the use of restriction endonucleases to digest DNA. I am not a forensic DNA expert, however. I have also taken an interest in forensic DNA due to its importance in the Duke lacrosse case, of which I became a student some years ago. Contrary to claims made here, I take no position on the guilt or innocence of the two individuals in question, only on the quality of the DNA evidence.
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You're quite welcome. The work I've done over the last 3-1/2 years debunking the 9-11 "Truth" Movement has taught me to value the input of experts in the relevant fields, and I've been impressed at the number of such people at the JREF forums.

As it happens, I took a couple of whacks at the Duke lacrosse pinata myself; initially believing they were guilty and then rapidly changing my opinion as more information came to light (although I didn't get into the DNA side of things; my research was more on the timelines involved.)

I have said in this thread that I myself would not vote to convict on the evidence I've seen here (which is only a small portion of what the actual jurors saw). But setting my "reasonable doubt" aside, it is definitely my suspicion that Knox and Sollecito were involved somehow. I think getting a stronger feeling for the reliability of the DNA evidence would tip the scales for me. Your posts have convinced me that there should remain a reasonable doubt at least as to the knife. The bra clasp is more of a problem, but as you point out potential contamination may be hard to rule out.

An aside on the question of whether the defense has abandoned the argument that the DNA test on the knife was valid: As a legal argument they may have decided to go with Sollecito's claim. But it is not impossible that he made up a lie to explain a piece of evidence he'd heard about, and still be innocent of the underlying charge.
 
stilicho said:
Almost all the information about the knife comes from RS's diary (top link here: http://perugiamurderfile.org/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=49 ). He hears about the DNA and the blood on NOV 16 and offers his own explanation for it on NOV 18. (This prison diary was seized by police and included in the infamous "dossier" used to build the case).
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Thanks for that link. I realise that the diary as presented is a translation, but it doesn't seem that Sollecito says anything about Kercher being in his flat when she came in contact with the knife. What he says is:

The fact that there is Meredith's DNA on the kitchen [knife] is because once while cooking together, I shifted myself in the house handling
the knife, I had the point on her hand, and immediately after I
apologized but she had nothing done to her.
Click to expand...

Another translation says:

The fact there is Meredith's DNA on the kitchen knife is because once when we were all cooking together I accidentally pricked her hand. I apologized immediately and she said it was not a problem.
Click to expand...

The second translation certainly reads better but I do not speak Italian and have no way of knowing which is more accurate - can someone here help?

In any case, neither one is specific about where this incident took place, despite the fact that over and over in this thread we've been told that Sollecito's claim was that Kercher came to his flat and pricked her hand on the knife there. Did he claim this somewhere else, I wonder?
 
Fiona said:
She then went straight to her room (fair enough) and changed for a shower. She found blood in the bathroom (having presumably missed the blood in the hall): and even with the open door she went on to have a shower.
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I wonder if you have seen the video of the bathroom which shows the amount of blood we are talking about (you can skip the first 1' 20" which is just text). I think if I had walked into this bathroom I probably might well not have had a second thought about having a shower:



It certainly gives a quite different impression to the photo printed in The Sun (among other places, no doubt) which you can see as Photo 2 on this page, which says that the photo was released by the Italian police (that photo also appears in the video at 5' 25").
 
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Matthew Best said:
It certainly gives a quite different impression to the photo printed in The Sun (among other places, no doubt) which you can see as Photo 2 on this page, which says that the photo was released by the Italian police (that photo also appears in the video at 5' 25").
Click to expand...

Quite a different impression?! The two bear no resemblence at all. What's the explanation for such a profound difference?
 
BobTheDonkey said:
So, now we are asked to believe that out of all the possible DNA samples that could have contaminated the clasp, only Sollecito's DNA was transferred onto the clasp, the contamination was in such a manner as to leave a heavy trace, and that this cross-contamination must have come from a cigarette butt found in a different room (and probably removed during the initial evidence collection).
Click to expand...

We know Sollecito had been in the apartment. The cigarette butt was the only item the police tested that matched Sollecito's DNA, but they didn't test every surface of every item in the apartment. The cross contamination could have come from anywhere the policemen, their suits and the equipment they were using had been.

For example, in the video of the police collecting the bra strap, watch the second policeman. Notice that he handles the evidence with the same hand he was using to hold the flashlight. If same flashlight was used to collect other evidence, or even set down on a table in another room, it could be a source of contamination.
 
Matthew Best said:
I think if I had walked into this bathroom I probably might well not have had a second thought about having a shower:
Click to expand...
The bloody footprint on the bath mat is pretty powerful evidence that a cleanup had taken place. There's only one such footprint outside Kercher's bedroom?

-Mike
 
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