Amanda Knox guilty - all because of a cartwheel

[Matthew Best]

You're right. It was. But the CCTV showed that the Postal Police were already there before RS called the carabinieri. His defence team put the arrival of the Postal Police a half hour later to accommodate this.

Note, too, that RS called his sister, who worked for the carabinieri before he called 112 (their version of 911).

The defence was never able to prove that RS called anyone before the Postal Police arrived.

Sollecito's calls to the carabinieri were played in court and I don't believe he was heard to be talking in anything other than a normal voice. Where were the Postal Police while he was making these calls? Why didn't they hear them?

When the Postal Police arrived at the scene they found Knox & Sollecito who immediately told them that they were waiting for the carabinieri. This fits with their story that they have phoned them before the Postal Police arrived. The CCTV clock's accuracy is disputed also.

 

[Matthew Best]

According to the testimony of the witness, they weren't joking. But anyway, at least you're of the frame of mind to accept that the day immediately following her house mate's brutal murder they were joking around.

Here's a conversation on the very day of the murder between Sollecito, Knox and Luca Altieri:

Raffaele: Is she dead?
Luca: Yes.
--Amanda cries--.
Raffaele: Did they kill her?
Luca: Yes, they cut her throat.
Raffaele: With a knife?
Luca: No, with the bread.

I guess Luca was capable of joking around, too.

 

[Chris_Halkides]

OK, once again Kestrel, you are only arguing that Sollecito's DNA expert is incompetent. Don't wag your finger at new members unless you're able to explain why Sollecito's expert was unable to prove this in court.

You yourself are appealing to authority by claiming nine stooges who present their junk science on the internet without any access to the data outweigh the DNA expert that Sollecito's team produced. How do you explain this?

Stilicho,

Calling people with relevant PhD degrees and experience in the field "stooges" and claiming without one scintilla of evidence that that are doing "junk science" is many things; it is not civil and intelligent discourse. Claiming that the have no data is wrong; they show some of the data in the open letter. It does show, however, that you have not even read their letter and yet formed strong opinions about it.

Chris

 

[Chris_Halkides]

I am obviously not following your point Kestrel.

If I pick up an object from the floor in a room which has been closed for 47 days I will pick up dust as I do it. In fact if I do anything at all with my hands in such a room it is likely I will pick up dust.

In order for that dust to contaminate an object with DNA that DNA first has to be there. I still do not understand where it is supposed to come from.

Sollecito's DNA was not in the room
There is nothing whatsoever to suggest that the gloves were not new
There is no reason to suppose that the team got changed across town in the lab with the samples; or that they visited him in jail before they went to the scene; or that they searched his house first; or that they were in contact with any other source of his DNA.
The amount of DNA on the clasp was "abundant" ( which in this field actually means a sample size of 1400: a sample testable by normal means is 100 and up)
I just do not see what it is that makes you think contamination is possible, much less likely

Fiona,

Dust is partially human epithelial cells. There is obviously plenty of DNA in epithelial cells; they are like other cells in this regard, but using dust itself for forensic DNA appears to be recent, from what I have learned so far.

Chris

 

[piktor]

Knox Seattle rape prank

Yesterday a rape prank that involved Knox was mentioned. Today I found this

'' Joh wrote:
Knox once got a bunch of her friends to dress up in ski masks and break into her apartment and assault her roomates as an "april fools" joke. She's guilty and ****ing nuts. '' Posted by Joh | December 2, 2007 2:50 PM

A comment by site Admin Michael:

'Joh' was contacted by PMF Administrator Skeptical Bystander over a year ago and he confirmed the incident. The story came from a friend of his who lived in the student house in Seattle with Amanda Knox, the same student house incidentally where the infamous 'rock throwing party' for which Knox was fined took place. However, neither Joh or his friend wanted to come forward to the authorities with their story or go on official record, so it is a case of make of it what you will. It therefore does not form any of the official evidence against the suspects in the ILE file and will not be heard in trial or appeals. For these reasons, this information has been filed down the Rabbit Hole, instead of one of the main data threads.

http://perugiamurderfile.org/viewtopic.php?f=21&t=173

Knox also posted on her Facebook page a university paper with a rape story.

Knox recently won a writing competition in jail with another rape-themed essay.

http://bit.ly/93jQM6

She now stands convicted of a murder where a sexual assault took place.

 

[piktor]

What the judge saw

Stilicho,

Calling people with relevant PhD degrees and experience in the field "stooges" and claing without one scintilla of evidence that that are doing "junk science" is many things, starting with rude. Claiming that the have no data is wrong; they show some of the data in the open letter. It does show, however, that you have not even read their letter and yet formed strong opinions about it.

Chris

This was brought up because Kestrel argued that you cannot argue logic with fallacies such as ''The Authority says so'' fallacy and ''The Emotional appeal'' fallacy that needs no logic but a big heart.

The problem with that argument is Kestrel then brings up the 9 Scientists argument as if they do not precisely embody the faulty "Authority fallacy" Kestrel decries.

I don't think there is justice in the world. The deceased victim will never return. The judges reviewing this case are not scientists and scientists can refute scientists with more science.

The sentencing judge uses all the elements before him to elaborate his judgement. It is an analysis of the facts before him and not a statement of absolute, positive, scientific truth.

This is the Micheli judgement on Guede:

http://www.penale.it/page.asp?mode=1&IDPag=750

This is the same verdict in English (Google translation):

http://bit.ly/4Q51Dj

 

[Fulcanelli]

None of Meredith's blood was found on the knife at all, and how one could clean a knife to remove blood but not DNA is one of several factors that make the claim of finding DNA on this knife dubious at best. (see upthread for links).

Chris

That's the wonder of bleach and a bit of scrubbing. It wasn't 'DNA' on the blade, it was biological cells (around 20) that 'contained' DNA. When putting a knife into someone it's going to come into contact with more then simply blood...skin, flesh, sinue, organs, bone for example. It therefore doesn't 'have' to be blood.

 

[Fulcanelli]

Here's a conversation on the very day of the murder between Sollecito, Knox and Luca Altieri:

Raffaele: Is she dead?
Luca: Yes.
--Amanda cries--.
Raffaele: Did they kill her?
Luca: Yes, they cut her throat.
Raffaele: With a knife?
Luca: No, with the bread.

I guess Luca was capable of joking around, too.

And where did that come from?

 

[Fulcanelli]

Sollecito's calls to the carabinieri were played in court and I don't believe he was heard to be talking in anything other than a normal voice. Where were the Postal Police while he was making these calls? Why didn't they hear them?

Amanda and Raffaele disappeared into Amanda's room shortly after the police arrived.

 

[Fulcanelli]

Stilicho,

Calling people with relevant PhD degrees and experience in the field "stooges" and claiming without one scintilla of evidence that that are doing "junk science" is many things; it is not civil and intelligent discourse. Claiming that the have no data is wrong; they show some of the data in the open letter. It does show, however, that you have not even read their letter and yet formed strong opinions about it.

Chris

You yourself stated earlier in the thread they didn't have all the data. Were these people also in court when the evidence was given and being discussed? Have they visited the laboratory in Rome? Were they present when samples were collected? Were they present when Stefanoni performed the tests in the lab? Have they had access to the original 10,000 page case file?

Also, are these 'scientists' not connected to the 'Innocence Project'? Is it not so that a leading member of the FOA (Paul Ciolino) is a member of the Innocence Project'?

Do the experts representing the prosecution also not have PhD's? Do not the experts representing the victims in the trial who agreed with the prosecution findings also have PhD's?

 

[Chris_Halkides]

not a rebuttal

You yourself stated earlier in the thread they didn't have all the data. Were these people also in court when the evidence was given and being discussed? Have they visited the laboratory in Rome? Were they present when samples were collected? Were they present when Stefanoni performed the tests in the lab? Have they had access to the original 10,000 page case file?

Also, are these 'scientists' not connected to the 'Innocence Project'? Is it not so that a leading member of the FOA (Paul Ciolino) is a member of the Innocence Project'?

Do the experts representing the prosecution also not have PhD's? Do not the experts representing the victims in the trial who agreed with the prosecution findings also have PhD's?

Your comments in no way refute the arguments put forth by the forensic scientists in the letter from which I have repeatedly quoted and to which I have linked more than once. To give just one example, they say:

"Electronic (.fsa) files that would allow independent analysis of the data have not been disclosed."

This type of file is routinely part of the case file (see upthread). Fiona indicated that the prosecution intended to release certain files (upthread), but that is not the same thing as actually doing it.

Chris

 

[steverino]

aaaah...don't tell me you're Steve Shay????

That explains everything!

As do your 58 posts.

 

[Brainster]

No one took a shower the night of the murder or the day after the murder in the house where the murder took place. Rudy Guede took a poop just before he stabbed Meredith to death. That was the key DNA in the bathroom.

First, wrong bathroom. Second, by Amanda's own account she took a shower the day after the murder in the house where the murder took place:

Then I went into my room, um, and I changed, well no, I made a mistake, I went into the bathroom. I had these earrings, I had a lot of them, I like earrings, I had had them pierced recently, and I always had to wash them carefully because one was a little infected, and I had to take the earrings out and clean the ear, and that's when I saw some drops of blood on the sink. At first I thought they had come from my ears. But then when I scratched the drops a bit, I saw they were all dry, and I thought "That's weird. Oh well, I'll take my shower." Then when I got out of the shower, I saw that I had forgotten my towel, so I wanted to use the bathmat to get to my room, and that's when I saw the bloody stain that was on the bathmat.

No. I am a newspaper reporter. I am trying to clarify misnomers I see on this thread. Amanda and Reffaele returned from his place the morning of Nov. 2. One of Amanda's two other roommates made a motion with her index finger across her neck as Amanda neared her house and noticed the police activity. It was then that she learned a murder took place in her home. The home was taped off. In it was her clothes, passport, and other personal belongings. She and Raffaele went to a variety store and she bought plain underwear as she had no access to her clothes in her house.

Several people have called you out on this already, but these two posts are so far from being truthful that they raise severe doubts in my mind about your intentions on this thread. You state that you are clearing up misnomers and yet you come up with bizarre "facts" that are completely unsupported. As the old gag goes, that's not right, it's not even wrong.

 

[Kestrel]

This was brought up because Kestrel argued that you cannot argue logic with fallacies such as ''The Authority says so'' fallacy and ''The Emotional appeal'' fallacy that needs no logic but a big heart.

The problem with that argument is Kestrel then brings up the 9 Scientists argument as if they do not precisely embody the faulty "Authority fallacy" Kestrel decries.

Let me explain.

A policeman is an authority figure, but would you trust his word over that of a physician on how to treat a medical condition?

A preacher is an authority figure, but should you trust his claim that the Earth is only 6,000 years old over what a geologist says?

It's a fallacy when you invoke an authority outside of that persons area of expertise. A judge is not an expert on DNA, the nine scientists I referred to are experts in that field. They can speak with authority on that specific subject.

 

[Kestrel]

Fiona,

Dust is partially human epithelial cells. There is obviously plenty of DNA in epithelial cells; they are like other cells in this regard, but using dust itself for forensic DNA appears to be recent, from what I have learned so far.

Chris

It also helps to note that an object weighing 1.4 nanograms is in the same size range as what we call dust. It shouldn't be considered massive by anything larger than a dust mite.

 

[Fulcanelli]

It's a fallacy when you invoke an authority outside of that persons area of expertise. A judge is not an expert on DNA, the nine scientists I referred to are experts in that field. They can speak with authority on that specific subject.

But unlike the the scientists, the judge doesn't have an agenda. So, I think I'll trust a neutral judge who has experience with DNA and has all the evidence in front of him, then 9 agenda driven non-Italian speaking scientists postulating from their armchairs over 3000 miles away across the Atlantic who have had minimal access to the data and have never attended a single day of the trial. But, I'm just picky.

 

[Fulcanelli]

It also helps to note that an object weighing 1.4 nanograms is in the same size range as what we call dust. It shouldn't be considered massive by anything larger than a dust mite.

How big do you think microsopic cells are? 1,4 nanograms is 1400 picograms. That's no small sample.

 

[Chris_Halkides]

DNA and bleach

That's the wonder of bleach and a bit of scrubbing. It wasn't 'DNA' on the blade, it was biological cells (around 20) that 'contained' DNA. When putting a knife into someone it's going to come into contact with more then simply blood...skin, flesh, sinue, organs, bone for example. It therefore doesn't 'have' to be blood.

Forensic Sci Int. 2005 Nov 10;154(1):53-61.
Use of bleach to eliminate contaminating DNA from the surface of bones and teeth.

Kemp BM, Smith DG.

Speaking as a chemist, I can tell you that bleach is an oxidant, and there are chemical groups within DNA that could act as reductants.

Chris

 

[Chris_Halkides]

"But unlike the the scientists, the judge doesn't have an agenda."

By claiming that the scientists have an agenda without offering proof, you do not help your argument. The judge may or may not have understood these sorts of arguments. I'll stick with the scientists any day of the week.

Chris

 

[JihadJane]

According to the testimony of the witness, they weren't joking. But anyway, at least you're of the frame of mind to accept that the day immediately following her house mate's brutal murder they were joking around.

How would the store owner be able to tell whether or not they were actually going to go home and have hot sex?

Do you have any expertise on how shock effects people's interest in sex or ability to joke about it?

According to the article you linked (see below) to it says they were "laughing and joking". It also says it was two days after the killing.

How did you come to the conclusion that they were "very turned on"?

How many other possible explanations for their behavior in the store did you consider before reaching your conclusion?



"...surveillance footage showing Knox and Sollecito buying thong underwear two days after Kercher's killing. . In one leaked statement, store owner Carlo Maria Scotto di Rinaldi told police that the couple was laughing and joking as they were holding up the lingerie. 'I heard her as she was choosing the underwear—particularly the G-string—and they were ready to pay,' he said. 'In front of the till, she whispered, "Afterwards I'm going to take you home so we can have wild sex together"."

http://www.newsweek.com/id/94993