Amanda Knox guilty - all because of a cartwheel

[Fulcanelli]

Prosecutor Comodi demonstrated one way it could have been done, not the only way it could have been done.

The Italian prosecutors created a screenplay for the events of that night. Details such as how the bra clasp was removed are little more than speculation on their part.

Well, as much as you assert there are other ways, obviously, from the DNA on the clasp, Raffaele didn't use 'other' ways did he?

The DNA on the clasp shows that it was held in order to cut it with a knife.

 

[Kestrel]

So how would you do it Kestrel. Take your time now

I already explained how the clasp could have been cut off without grabbing the clasp. Simply undoing the bra clasp would be easier if all you wanted to do was remove the bra. If you want to know why it wasn't done that way, ask Rudy.

 

[Fulcanelli]

Details such as how the bra clasp was removed are little more than speculation on their part.

Well at least they base their 'speculations' on a full knowledge of the facts, unlike you who makes blanket assertions while clearly not knowing hardly any of the facts (I have to keep spoon feeding them to you), while most of what little you do know is wrong. Yet you continue to make your assertions with utmost 'confidence'.

 

[Fulcanelli]

I already explained how the clasp could have been cut off without grabbing the clasp. Simply undoing the bra clasp would be easier if all you wanted to do was remove the bra. If you want to know why it wasn't done that way, ask Rudy.

How would Rudy know? His DNA was nowhere in sight in the clasp. Raffaele's DNA is all over the clasp, therefore making him the informed party on how it was removed. Moreover, the bra was removed long after Meredith's death when Rudy was long gone.

 

[Kestrel]

Well, as much as you assert there are other ways, obviously, from the DNA on the clasp, Raffaele didn't use 'other' ways did he?

The DNA on the clasp shows that it was held in order to cut it with a knife.

Or it was on the clasp because the investigators managed to contaminate it during their clumsy collection of that bit of evidence.

Contamination is of course impossible, except when it supports the prosecution theory. For example, when a lab report showed that Meredith's blood had a high alcohol level, the prosecution claimed it was contaminated.

 

[Fiona]

I already explained how the clasp could have been cut off without grabbing the clasp. Simply undoing the bra clasp would be easier if all you wanted to do was remove the bra. If you want to know why it wasn't done that way, ask Rudy.

No I am sorry but you did not explain how it can be done. That is what I am waiting for. So far you have cut the bra. now we have a broken bra with a clasp on it. You have to get from there to a clasp separated from that bra.

 

[Fulcanelli]

Or it was on the clasp because the investigators managed to contaminate it during their clumsy collection of that bit of evidence.

We've been over that. Change the record.

Or it was on the clasp because the investigators managed to contaminate it during their clumsy collection of that bit of evidence.

Because it was. It hadn't been stored properly. Meredith's blood test revealed no alcohol. The same blood then showed high alcohol when retested many months later. This is a common symptom of blood not being stored properly.

 

[Fulcanelli]

For example, when a lab report showed that Meredith's blood had a high alcohol level, the prosecution claimed it was contaminated

Oh and stop blaming the prosecution for everything! It wasn't the prosecution that said it was contaminated but the scientists.

 

[Kestrel]

Oh and stop blaming the prosecution for everything! It wasn't the prosecution that said it was contaminated but the scientists.

When scientists supporting the prosecution talk about contamination, you believe it without question. When scientists supporting the defense talk about contamination, you dismiss it as silly and resort to name calling. Clearly you are applying different standards depending on what side they support.

 

[Fulcanelli]

When scientists supporting the prosecution talk about contamination, you believe it without question. When scientists supporting the defense talk about contamination, you dismiss it as silly and resort to name calling. Clearly you are applying different standards depending on what side they support.

The scientists are not there to 'agree' with the prosecution, they are merely there to test the evidence and provide the results. But they still have a job and get paid even if they don't find anything. Defence experts in contrast are hired specifically to argue against the evidence. They wouldn't be hired otherwise.

The contamination argument is a standard argument in all Italian cases where the defendant is pleading innocent. It is the last ditch defence because they have no other. And in this case, just like many others, the contamination claim amounts to no more then implication, an assertion, with no evidence to support it and weak arguments to show how it may have taken place. And you, and others like you, support the claims based on faith rather then actual evidence or a convincing argument. Instead, they are stock arguments that can be used against any DNA in every case there's ever been, arguments like...the CSI's had to walk on the floor. That is NOT a convincing argument.

I've never called you any names other then 'Kestrel'.

 

[Fiona]

So about the bra clasp?

 

[lector]

Amanda wasn't even a suspect when she was questioned, the police had no idea she was in any way involved in the crime or knew who was. She wasn't even called to the station. They called in Raffaele because they wanted to speak to him alone. She insisted on going with him. While Raffaele was being questioned, since Amanda was there, they thought they may as well ask her some questions, so they questioned her informally in the police station public waiting room. Hardly iron maidens and thumb screws.

They became suspicious of Amanda because during his questioning Raffaele dropped Amanda's alibi and told police she'd left his apartment to go to Le Chic and he'd told them a load of rubbish before because Amanda had told him to. Then, when asking to look at Amanda's phone they saw the text to Patrick, when hitherto she had told them she hadn't sent or received any messages that night. The message was written in a way that in Italian meant she was going to meet the recipient of the message that night. When they asked her who it was to, she broke down in tears and started hitting herself in the head saying over and over 'It's him, it's Patrick, he's bad, he murdered Meredith'.

Excuse the intrusion, but isn't there a very recent discussion on PMF, involving photos, that indicates the police had some suspicions of Amanda from the very beginning? Admittedly that's all speculative - we aren't privy to their thoughts or conversations - but several people have weighed in on this point & are pretty convincing.

This doesn't change the fact that she wasn't an official suspect when she went to the station with RS, but I think it's unlikely that light bulbs suddenly went off in the investigators' heads after they began questioning her as a witness. I'm sure she would have been called in for questioning after RS; she just accelerated the process by tagging along.

 

[Fulcanelli]

Excuse the intrusion, but isn't there a very recent discussion on PMF, involving photos, that indicates the police had some suspicions of Amanda from the very beginning? Admittedly that's all speculative - we aren't privy to their thoughts or conversations - but several people have weighed in on this point & are pretty convincing.

There is a major difference in Italy between merely suspecting someone (what police in the US and UK would term as a 'suspect') and their actually being a 'Suspect'. In Italy, the designation of 'Witness' and 'Suspect' are actual formal legal terms and the legal rules differ for each. I suppose the closest comparison is in the UK, where an individual moves from being simply 'helping the police with their enquiries' to being 'under caution'. When under caution (or under arrest) they are then read their rights. It is a similar situation in Italy and when one moves from the formal designation or 'Witness' to 'Suspect' then the legal rules change. When someone becomes a Suspect the courts and public have to be notified, they cannot be questioned without the presence of a lawyer and their statements can be used against both themselves and others. They must also be informed of their rights. A different set of rules apply for those under 'Witness' status.

But yes, she was probably suspected from the get go. But, that does not make her a Suspect in Italian 'legal' terms (hence the capitalisation of the terms).

 

[stilicho]

The official prosecution conspiracy theory has AK and RS struggling with the victim for 15 minutes. Rudy is in the room at that same time and leaves his DNA and fingerprints all over the place. But somehow AK leaves no fingerprints and no DNA in that room. RS leaves no fingerprints and only one small bit of his DNA that isn't collected when the scene is first processed. It's claimed that RS and AK somehow clean up the room of evidence pointing to them, while magically leaving all the blood splatters and evidence pointing to Rudy in place. Why should any skeptic believe this absurd story?

The guy who's fingerprints were found in the victims blood is clearly guilty. Rudy had minimal contact with RS and AK. We are expected to believe he would join a murderous conspiracy with people he barely knew. To a skeptic, this should be a red flag.

As Fulcanelli explained, you are picky about your red flags.

For one thing, we do not know that RS and AK left no evidence of their presence in the room with Meredith. We do know that the forensics teams could not find much physical evidence of their presence.

Why do you find the physical evidence of RS or AK at the murder scene to be magical while that of RG isn't? Why are you ready to hand-wave away AK's DNA mixed with Meredith's and RS's DNA on an item of carefully collected clothing while offering no alibi for RG?

You are ready to pin the missing cell phones on RG without a shred of evidence--not even circumstantial evidence or even any logical reason that stands up to about a minute's worth of scrutiny. You have blithely made assertions about the DNA evidence without any reference to the lab tests you ask others to supply for confirmation of the prosecution case. You produced no evidence behind your assertion that RG was a thief who typically broke second-storey windows with rocks to rob people. You have never been able to explain how or why RG would or could lock the door to Meredith's room. You have manifestly ignored all the witnesses placing AK and RS near the murder scene on or about the time they told police, initially, they were cooking bloody fish and having forgettable sex at his semi-flooded apartment.

I could name more red flags but those are more than sufficient to make the case that you are not sceptical at all in this case but merely incredulous.

And where have we heard the "official...conspiracy theory" line before? Oh, right, it's in David Ray Griffin's fictional accounts about 9/11.

 

[Kestrel]

You are ready to pin the missing cell phones on RG without a shred of evidence--not even circumstantial evidence or even any logical reason that stands up to about a minute's worth of scrutiny.

Rudy had been picked up by the police not long before this murder with a stolen cell phone. That phone had been lifted in a second story burglary where entry was gained via a window broken with a rock. It's not exactly out of line to suspect Rudy may have stolen Meredith's phones. Or that he may have gained access to the apartment in the same manner as that earlier crime.

There is exactly zero evidence that proves that AK and RS stole the missing cell phones. Yet you accept the prosecution theory that they took them without question.

 

[stilicho]

Well at least they base their 'speculations' on a full knowledge of the facts, unlike you who makes blanket assertions while clearly not knowing hardly any of the facts (I have to keep spoon feeding them to you), while most of what little you do know is wrong. Yet you continue to make your assertions with utmost 'confidence'.

As I said earlier on in this thread, I spent about 60 hours of reading on the PMF site in the first week following the verdict against AK. I consider myself to be relatively unschooled in the intricacies of the case and have still had to go back to discern events as related by the media versus the actual evidence confirmed in the court rooms.

@Kestrel (again): What makes science believable is its falsifiability, for one. The examples that you yourself provided (eg the WA state DNA lab, the Duke LaCrosse case, various individuals faking reports, the swabs contaminated during production, etc) demonstrate this amply. The controls, the reputation, the credentials, and other minutiae are open to scrutiny by the defence teams and you know this (or you should). So why do you think the defence teams are diminishing these in favour of a brand new hypothesis that Fulcanelli so aptly described "Dust-Gate"?

Also interesting that you blame Lumumba's incarceration on the Perugia Flying Squad. This is a ridiculous assertion. AK was the one, the only, individual who deliberately accused her ex-boss. Not only accused him but said absolutely nothing to help him after her mysterious mental fog had lifted. (You know, the fog that set in only a day after she had sent an explicitly detailed email to her friends and family about her whereabouts and activities while Meredith was being murdered.)

It's almost funny that you expect investigators to have instantly leapt to the conclusion that AK had lied to them about Lumumba but not that she had lied to them about the hopping bathmat episode (among many other things).

 

[stilicho]

Rudy had been picked up by the police not long before this murder with a stolen cell phone. That phone had been lifted in a second story burglary where entry was gained via a window broken with a rock. It's not exactly out of line to suspect Rudy may have stolen Meredith's phones. Or that he may have gained access to the apartment in the same manner as that earlier crime.

There is exactly zero evidence that proves that AK and RS stole the missing cell phones. Yet you accept the prosecution theory that they took them without question.

What are you talking about? RG has no criminal record. There is no evidence that he broke any windows anywhere with a rock. I noticed you couched your phrases carefully so that you could insinuate that he did without actually producing any evidence. This is a transparently desperate tactic at avoiding the facts.

There is, on the other hand, plenty of evidence that AK and RS both knew the burglary at the cottage was faked. They had details of the murder scene, behind a locked door, and that nothing had been stolen from Filomena's room before the investigators knew.

The staged burglary was probably one of the dumbest things AK and RS did following their murder of Meredith. It was easy to spot, especially when they offered it as an alibi even before they should have. They even picked the wrong room to stage it in.

 

[Fulcanelli]

Rudy had been picked up by the police not long before this murder with a stolen cell phone. That phone had been lifted in a second story burglary where entry was gained via a window broken with a rock. It's not exactly out of line to suspect Rudy may have stolen Meredith's phones. Or that he may have gained access to the apartment in the same manner as that earlier crime.

So, he had a phone from the burglary. That doesn't prove he burgled the office. In fact all the evidence proves he didn't. First of all, it was a 'professional' job (the burglar alarm had been disabled) and second of all, the 'break-in' at the cottage was faked, as proven in court. Finally, you harp on and on about Rudy's bloody fingerprints all over the crime scene yet fail to even attempt to explain why micro traces of blood were not found on the phones. Instead, we get a completely implausible 'explanation' of why he'd have taken the phones, but left the items of real value.

But, it seems rather contradictory to me Kestrel how you are perfectly happy to try and convict Rudy of burglary on the flimsiest of evidence, yet for Raffaele and Amanda where there is more evidence by an order of magnitude and has actually been through multiple Italian courts and lead to a guilty conviction in a full 11 month trial you don't believe the evidence against them to be 'enough'.

So Kestrel, please tell me, why is your bar raised so high for Raffaele and Amanda, but so low for Rudy Guede? I'm just asking, since you raised the question of double standards earlier.

 

[stilicho]

When someone becomes a Suspect the courts and public have to be notified, they cannot be questioned without the presence of a lawyer and their statements can be used against both themselves and others. They must also be informed of their rights. A different set of rules apply for those under 'Witness' status.

But yes, she was probably suspected from the get go. But, that does not make her a Suspect in Italian 'legal' terms (hence the capitalisation of the terms).

And in the "What Were You Thinking?" department, Fulcanelli, there's the written "gift" that AK presented after she had been clearly told that her status had changed. I am quite sure that her defence team must have been left shaking their heads at such a stupid gesture. Again, though, it speaks to AK's sense of always being in control, always the centre of attention, always reassured of her own intelligence and guile.

 

[Fulcanelli]

And in the "What Were You Thinking?" department, Fulcanelli, there's the written "gift" that AK presented after she had been clearly told that her status had changed. I am quite sure that her defence team must have been left shaking their heads at such a stupid gesture. Again, though, it speaks to AK's sense of always being in control, always the centre of attention, always reassured of her own intelligence and guile.

Indeed.

And here's a little inside secret for you. That handwritten statement she made in her cell and handed to police as a 'gift'? It wasn't the only one. There was another, shortly after that and that one even had pictures. But that one didn't come up in the trial