Amanda Knox guilty - all because of a cartwheel

[BobTheDonkey]

I had heard about Fabio Gioffredi. The guy who showed up a year later claiming to have seen Amanda in a coat she didn't own, Raffaele on a day he was somewhere else and recognized Rudy from a job Rudy never had. But since you said "witnesses", I was wondering who the other ones were.

Cite?

 

[Chris_Halkides]

forensics on the body?

Given the dubious nature of this string of coincidences, coupled with the forensics on the body, we lean very strongly to multiple assailants. We've determined Guede was one, we're looking for at least 1 more - if not 2 and that requires that this was not merely a burglary gone wrong...

Then we find Amanda's DNA mixed in with Meredith's blood. Again, not 100% proof of Amanda's guilt - but tied together with the lack of an alibi, it really starts to look bad.

Amanda's DNA found with Meredith's blood is not a probative result in my eyes. I am not sure what you mean by forensics on the body. However, Frank Sfarzo has a interesting post about the time that Carlo Torre demonstrated to him how the wounds might have been made:

http://perugia-shock.blogspot.com/2009/07/professor-carlo-torre-confirms.html

Chris

 

[BobTheDonkey]

Amanda's DNA found with Meredith's blood is not a probative result in my eyes. I am not sure what you mean by forensics on the body. However, Frank Sfarzo has a interesting post about the time that Carlo Torre demonstrated to him how the wounds might have been made:

http://perugia-shock.blogspot.com/2009/07/professor-carlo-torre-confirms.html

Chris

Edit:

NVM. Here we go again, nitpicking at all the little details...as if that's somehow going to reduce the mental gymnastics required to believe Amanda and Raf had nothing to do with the murder.

 

[katy_did]

I can understand that he would be reluctant to take the laptop after a murder. However, we are expected to believe that he would take 2 cell phones that could be traced back to the murdered girl far more easily than a laptop, as well as her credit/debit card(s). That just doesn't make any sense at all. Now we are so far into the coincidences and back-stepping that the logic-gymnastics required are worthy of a Gold medal (even if they are underage - *cough*china*cough*).

Since a call was made from one of the cell phones to Meredith's bank, it's reasonable to assume he took the phones to see if he could get information on her bank details, especially since he also took her credit cards. Rudy was broke, remember, and had most likely already decided to flee the country at that stage.

Another interesting point was raised by Yummi on another site, who suggested that an obvious reason for taking the phones would be so that if someone tried to call them, they wouldn't hear them ringing in Meredith's room. If the phones could be heard ringing it would be further cause for alarm; if not, the locked door could simply mean she was out. It would just be part of the more general attempt to delay the discovery of the body by Meredith's housemates.

Look, people, the logic-nastics that are required to believe Guede acted alone and this was a mere burglary turned homicide are simply astounding. And sure, bits here and there could be believed to point to this - but when we add the sum of those bits together, it's just not a believable story any longer.

See, what I find strange is that you find it so strange that a cornered burglar armed with a knife might turn violent. Is it really so much more unlikely than the bizarre sex game gone wrong theory that the prosecution suggest, followed by an elaborate staging of a sexual assault on top of a sexual assault and a pretend burglary? That's the theory that requires the 'logic-nastics''. In comparison, a simple burglary turned nasty looks extremely plausible, especially when the protagonist had already been caught breaking and entering another building in a similar manner, armed with a knife.

Then we get into Amanda's "bad memories", her obfuscation regarding Lumumba, the footprint in Filomena's room, the footprint in the bathroom that implicates Raf (who was her alibi for the night), Raf's DNA on the bra clasp, Raf's admission that Meredith had contact with the suspected murder weapon with a made-up story to explain it, etc.

You're talking again about this footprint from Amanda in Filomena's room. Do you have a source?

 

[katy_did]

Edit:

NVM. Here we go again, nitpicking at all the little details...as if that's somehow going to reduce the mental gymnastics required to believe Amanda and Raf had nothing to do with the murder.

Of all the prosecution's forensic evidence, you must agree that Amanda's DNA in her own bathroom is surely amongst the weakest of it. All it shows is that she lived in the house. Apparently they found 'mixed DNA' from Amanda and Raffaele in his bathroom too. If DNA is 'mixed', it doesn't mean it was deposited at the same time, it just means it happens to be in the same place. Proves nothing.

 

[katy_did]

Cite?

Some information on Gioffredi from here:

A third witness, Fabio Gioffredi, an unemployed young man from Perugia, told the court that two days before the murder he saw Knox, Sollecito, Kercher and someone he said he thought was Rudy Guede walking together up the street from Knox and Kercher's cottage.

He had seen Guede before, he said, handing out pamphlets in front of the university. He said that he was 99.9 percent sure it was Guede. Gioffredi also said that he noticed Knox because she was wearing an unusual red coat with big red buttons.

Gioffredi's account prompted Sollecito to stand up in court, as defendants can do in Italy, and make a statement. Sollecito said he wanted to make it clear that Gioffredi could not have seen him with Guede "because I don't know Rudy Guede, I have never seen him in my life."

Sollecito also told the court that he had never seen Amanda Knox wear a red coat. "What he [the witness] said, is impossible," continued Sollecito. "I was somewhere else on that day, and this will be demonstrated later in the trial."

Wasn't it Lumumba who had a job handing out pamphlets in front of the university? It certainly wasn't Guede, despite the witness's 99% certainty. More information on Gioffredi:

A number of witnesses came forward with incriminating evidence - but not until long after the police investigation had been completed. They were known as the 'magic witnesses' who appeared and gave evidence for the prosecution in the trial.

The credibility of their evidence is to become a focus during the appeal. Each will be asked to give detailed statements, explaining why they came forward so long after the investigation had been completed.

The first was Fabio Gioffredi, a university researcher who approached the prosecution a year after the murder and helped provide a statement that linked Meredith to Knox, Sollecito and Guede.

He is considered unreliable because he said he saw Knox on the day of the murder wearing a red, Sixties-style coat that was never found and which no one else had seen her wear.

He also says he saw Meredith, Knox, Sollecito and Guede together on the afternoon of October 30, around 4.30pm to 5.30pm. But a defence computer expert showed Sollecito was using his computer from 3.30pm to 6.30pm that day.

 

[BobTheDonkey]

Of all the prosecution's forensic evidence, you must agree that Amanda's DNA in her own bathroom is surely amongst the weakest of it. All it shows is that she lived in the house. Apparently they found 'mixed DNA' from Amanda and Raffaele in his bathroom too. If DNA is 'mixed', it doesn't mean it was deposited at the same time, it just means it happens to be in the same place. Proves nothing.

Nit. Pick. Mental. Gymnastics.

So, where was she the night in question?

 

[BobTheDonkey]

Since a call was made from one of the cell phones to Meredith's bank, it's reasonable to assume he took the phones to see if he could get information on her bank details, especially since he also took her credit cards. Rudy was broke, remember, and had most likely already decided to flee the country at that stage.

Another interesting point was raised by Yummi on another site, who suggested that an obvious reason for taking the phones would be so that if someone tried to call them, they wouldn't hear them ringing in Meredith's room. If the phones could be heard ringing it would be further cause for alarm; if not, the locked door could simply mean she was out. It would just be part of the more general attempt to delay the discovery of the body by Meredith's housemates.

Because they weren't going to notice the blood in the house? Or this bowel movement in the toilet? Taking the time to mop up his bloody footprints in the hallway, but not flushing the toilet? The list goes on.

And none of that explains why he'd pass up the laptops in favor of debit/credit cards. Which do you think are more easily traced? A laptop harddrive is extremely easy to wipe - even a MAC address can be spoofed so it wouldn't be easily traced. And yet as soon as a debit card is swiped, it would raise red flags and give an exact location and time (which even a MAC address doesn't do).

Oh, that's right. He'd used his "get of out jail free for possessing a stolen laptop" card already, right? What the hell did he think would happen if/when he was found with the murdered girl's debit card? He'd get another free pass because it was a different item?

Mental. Gymnastics. Of. The. Highest. Order.

Continue to nit pick all you want, explain away all these little nits...and yet...

And Yet, when all these little nits are picked together, they don't, at all, add up to what the Defense would like everyone to believe.

See, what I find strange is that you find it so strange that a cornered burglar armed with a knife might turn violent. Is it really so much more unlikely than the bizarre sex game gone wrong theory that the prosecution suggest, followed by an elaborate staging of a sexual assault on top of a sexual assault and a pretend burglary? That's the theory that requires the 'logic-nastics''. In comparison, a simple burglary turned nasty looks extremely plausible, especially when the protagonist had already been caught breaking and entering another building in a similar manner, armed with a knife.

There was more than one assailant. How hard is that to get through your collective heads?

N.i.t. P.i.c.k. M.e.n.t.a.l. G.y.m.n.a.s.t.i.c.s.

More than one person was involved. Where was Amanda the night in question?

You're talking again about this footprint from Amanda in Filomena's room. Do you have a source?

I gave my source previously. Nit. Pick.

 

[Chris_Halkides]

more than one assailant?

Edit:

NVM. Here we go again, nitpicking at all the little details...as if that's somehow going to reduce the mental gymnastics required to believe Amanda and Raf had nothing to do with the murder.

BobTheDonkey,

You have done a good job in assembling some of the reasons to question the lone assailant theory, though I do not agree with all of them. If the defense had let the prosecution's claim of the need for multiple assailants go unchallenged, I would see this case very differently and might lean toward the guilt of RS and AK. That is why I included the link about Carlo Torre and his reconstruction of the crime.

Chris

 

[Kestrel]

In comparison, a simple burglary turned nasty looks extremely plausible, especially when the protagonist had already been caught breaking and entering another building in a similar manner, armed with a knife.

Both Meredith and Rudy would be close to panic at this stage. In Meredith's case, because she finds a strange man in her flat. In Rudy's case, because he is cornered. When a similar situation happened back in September, Rudy pulled out a knife. It's easy to see Meredith using her self defense training and kicking Rudy in the groin. Rudy's fear turns to rage. He chases Meredith into her bedroom and uses the knife.

Loss of blood would render Meredith incapable of resisting rather quickly. Rudy rage turns to thoughts of rape. He pulls off Meredith's pants, cuts off her bra and turns her on her back. He takes off his own shoes and pants, but Rudy doesn't complete the rape. Perhaps finding that sex with a bleeding and dying girl isn't all that fun.

Rudy then gets up, takes a few steps into the bathroom to rinse off some of the blood. He drops a towel on the floor. Stepping on it creates an imprint of his foot in the victims blood. Rudy then picks up his stuff and steps back into the murder room, to put his pants and shoes back on. He finds Meredith's rent money, grabs her credit cards and one of her sweatshirts to wear over his blood soaked shirt. Rudy picks up her keys and steps outside the room, locking the door to delay finding the body.

Rudy can now escape. he uses Meredith's keys to unlock the front door. Stepping outside, he finds himself exposed. The front door is lit by the streetlight and visible from the road. Rather than take the time to lock it, he just closes the door and disappears into the night.

 

[katy_did]

Nit. Pick. Mental. Gymnastics.

So, where was she the night in question?

Why is it "Nit. Pick. Mental. Gymnastics." to suggest that Amanda's DNA in her own bathroom was nothing unusual? Do you have to do mental gymnastics to understand why someone's DNA might be found in the house in which they live?

Me, I find more need for 'mental gymnastics' when trying to understand how someone can take part in a bloody rape/murder while leaving not a trace of themselves in the room...

 

[katy_did]

Both Meredith and Rudy would be close to panic at this stage. In Meredith's case, because she finds a strange man in her flat. In Rudy's case, because he is cornered. When a similar situation happened back in September, Rudy pulled out a knife. It's easy to see Meredith using her self defense training and kicking Rudy in the groin. Rudy's fear turns to rage. He chases Meredith into her bedroom and uses the knife.

Loss of blood would render Meredith incapable of resisting rather quickly. Rudy rage turns to thoughts of rape. He pulls off Meredith's pants, cuts off her bra and turns her on her back. He takes off his own shoes and pants, but Rudy doesn't complete the rape. Perhaps finding that sex with a bleeding and dying girl isn't all that fun.

Rudy then gets up, takes a few steps into the bathroom to rinse off some of the blood. He drops a towel on the floor. Stepping on it creates an imprint of his foot in the victims blood. Rudy then picks up his stuff and steps back into the murder room, to put his pants and shoes back on. He finds Meredith's rent money, grabs her credit cards and one of her sweatshirts to wear over his blood soaked shirt. Rudy picks up her keys and steps outside the room, locking the door to delay finding the body.

Rudy can now escape. he uses Meredith's keys to unlock the front door. Stepping outside, he finds himself exposed. The front door is lit by the streetlight and visible from the road. Rather than take the time to lock it, he just closes the door and disappears into the night.

I wonder whether when Rudy suddenly had to run to the bathroom (darn that kebab) he would have thought to switch off Filomena's light and close her door to hide evidence of the break-in while he was in the bathroom. I'm thinking most likely not, given the urgency of the situation, that no one else was in the house at the time, and that he'd most likely only be in there a few minutes. So if Meredith came home while Rudy was still in the bathroom, she would have walked right past Filomena's room on the way to her own room, and probably seen the break-in and the mess inside. Is that when she called her mother, to tell her what she'd discovered and to ask for advice (as Amanda did the next day)? Could Rudy have assumed Meredith had gone into her own room and come out of the bathroom holding the knife, only to find Meredith in Filomena's room trying to make a call? There was DNA from Meredith in Filomena's room, I believe (though I'm not clear as to whether it was tested for blood). Could it be that it wasn't transferred there by someone else, but left there directly because she'd discovered the break-in and been confronted by Rudy?

Another reason why Rudy may not have locked the front door when he left is that he didn't realize the door was broken, and assumed he could just close it. Although it stayed closed initially, it would have blown open at some point during the night due to the faulty closing mechanism. A mistake Amanda and the other girls who lived in the cottage would not have made...

 

[katy_did]

Because they weren't going to notice the blood in the house? Or this bowel movement in the toilet? Taking the time to mop up his bloody footprints in the hallway, but not flushing the toilet? The list goes on.

The toilet incident happened before the attack - he didn't flush because he heard someone enter the house and didn't want to draw attention to himself. Naturally enough the lack of flushing slipped his mind, given what happened afterwards. There's no trace of blood in the big bathroom.

He did his very best not to leave traces of blood outside the bedroom, removing his shoes when he saw he was leaving prints. He might have been OK if he hadn't stepped on one of the bloody towels he was using to mop up the blood (hence lack of a similar bloody footprint in the smears of blood in Meredith's room). No footprints were 'mopped up'; Rudy simply took his shoes off. That's why his shoe prints reappear by magic in the corridor, despite there not being any of his footprints either in the bathroom, or between Meredith's body and the corridor.

And none of that explains why he'd pass up the laptops in favor of debit/credit cards. Which do you think are more easily traced? A laptop harddrive is extremely easy to wipe - even a MAC address can be spoofed so it wouldn't be easily traced. And yet as soon as a debit card is swiped, it would raise red flags and give an exact location and time (which even a MAC address doesn't do).

Oh, that's right. He'd used his "get of out jail free for possessing a stolen laptop" card already, right? What the hell did he think would happen if/when he was found with the murdered girl's debit card? He'd get another free pass because it was a different item?

What was Rudy gonna do with a laptop? Sell it, thus leaving a handy witness who could connect him to the crime? No chance. Worth grabbing the cards, since he was desperate for cash and he could easily discard them later if he couldn't use them, and he could put them in his pockets easily enough. He probably just emptied her wallet and her pockets, and grabbed any cash/cards/phones that he found there (he needed the keys anyway). I find it bizarre anyone would think he'd grab a couple of laptops from a murder scene to try and sell them.

 

[lector]

See, what I find strange is that you find it so strange that a cornered burglar armed with a knife might turn violent. Is it really so much more unlikely than the bizarre sex game gone wrong theory that the prosecution suggest, followed by an elaborate staging of a sexual assault on top of a sexual assault and a pretend burglary? That's the theory that requires the 'logic-nastics''. In comparison, a simple burglary turned nasty looks extremely plausible, especially when the protagonist had already been caught breaking and entering another building in a similar manner, armed with a knife.

So, how does "a simple burglary turned nasty" come to include a sexual assault, in your view?

That's one of the few things that we seem to know definitively: that Rudy performed a sexual assault on Meredith. (I suppose there are still those who will argue that it was consensual but that doesn't apply in this scenario.)

This discussion keeps going on, as I've said before, because the evidence of multiple attackers will remain forever hidden to us outsiders. It's something that one has to take on faith: that the evidence was strong and fairly presented, that the defense couldn't refute it, and that the "jury" evaluated it rationally and didn't simply kowtow to the prosecution & the professional judges. I have always had trouble with this faith-based aspect of the case and still do. I am hoping that the Sentenza will shed some light on it.

 

[BobTheDonkey]

The toilet incident happened before the attack - he didn't flush because he heard someone enter the house and didn't want to draw attention to himself. Naturally enough the lack of flushing slipped his mind, given what happened afterwards. There's no trace of blood in the big bathroom.

He did his very best not to leave traces of blood outside the bedroom, removing his shoes when he saw he was leaving prints. He might have been OK if he hadn't stepped on one of the bloody towels he was using to mop up the blood (hence lack of a similar bloody footprint in the smears of blood in Meredith's room). No footprints were 'mopped up'; Rudy simply took his shoes off. That's why his shoe prints reappear by magic in the corridor, despite there not being any of his footprints either in the bathroom, or between Meredith's body and the corridor.

What about the movement of the body after it had been in one position for some time.

Your scenario, again, requires so many twists, turns, and coincidences to explain it that the mental gymnastics are worthy of admiration (ok, not really, but they are quite involved).

This is exactly what FoA (and so far, all the pro-Amanda crowd here) does - try to explain all these little bits, without looking at how these bits fail to fit when combined.

The biggest indication of their guilt is the required mental gymnastics to believe these two were simply the victims of a horrible chain of coincidences.


Where was Amanda on the night of the murder?

What was Rudy gonna do with a laptop? Sell it, thus leaving a handy witness who could connect him to the crime? No chance. Worth grabbing the cards, since he was desperate for cash and he could easily discard them later if he couldn't use them, and he could put them in his pockets easily enough. He probably just emptied her wallet and her pockets, and grabbed any cash/cards/phones that he found there (he needed the keys anyway). I find it bizarre anyone would think he'd grab a couple of laptops from a murder scene to try and sell them.

Debit cards are infinitely more tied to the murder than a laptop that can be wiped. Period. This is not some fantasy, or some random bit I'm picking out here and trying to tilt to fit what I want to believe happened. This is the real world. Where a debit card can be traced to a time, place, and be used to track a suspect down. A laptop cannot be traced in such a manner, at all.

So why, if he's trying to not be linked to the murder would he steal the debit card of a murdered girl, return later to reposition the body, and yet still not take anything else of value (laptop or otherwise)? The twists in logic required to believe this scenario are just too much for the scenario to be believable.

 

[BobTheDonkey]

Both Meredith and Rudy would be close to panic at this stage. In Meredith's case, because she finds a strange man in her flat. In Rudy's case, because he is cornered. When a similar situation happened back in September, Rudy pulled out a knife. It's easy to see Meredith using her self defense training and kicking Rudy in the groin. Rudy's fear turns to rage. He chases Meredith into her bedroom and uses the knife.

Loss of blood would render Meredith incapable of resisting rather quickly. Rudy rage turns to thoughts of rape. He pulls off Meredith's pants, cuts off her bra and turns her on her back. He takes off his own shoes and pants, but Rudy doesn't complete the rape. Perhaps finding that sex with a bleeding and dying girl isn't all that fun.

Rudy then gets up, takes a few steps into the bathroom to rinse off some of the blood. He drops a towel on the floor. Stepping on it creates an imprint of his foot in the victims blood. Rudy then picks up his stuff and steps back into the murder room, to put his pants and shoes back on. He finds Meredith's rent money, grabs her credit cards and one of her sweatshirts to wear over his blood soaked shirt. Rudy picks up her keys and steps outside the room, locking the door to delay finding the body.

Rudy can now escape. he uses Meredith's keys to unlock the front door. Stepping outside, he finds himself exposed. The front door is lit by the streetlight and visible from the road. Rather than take the time to lock it, he just closes the door and disappears into the night.

It was Sollecito's footprint in the bathroom. This, again, has been discussed in this thread.

Who repositioned the body?

Why didn't Meredith defend herself against Rudy?

And again, you cannot explain how he went from being well enough to climb in the hardest to reach window at the cottage, to being sick enough to have to use the restroom immediately, to being well enough to attack/rape/murder Meredith with two different knives while she didn't use her martial arts skills to defend herself.

Where was Amanda on the night of the murder?

 

[RoseMontague]

I don't see the multiple attackers or possible motives for murder of AK and RS to be very believable. At the same time I find that the the possible staging of the break-in and murder/rape scene by AK and RS to be credible. How can I resolve this? One possible theory is that AK and RS used this as an opportunity to cover a subsequent crime (one possible is that they stole something from Filomena's room that they knew she would not report to the police (like drugs) or would in any case be blamed on the burglar). How would this theory fit with the evidence? Would it make more sense that the prosecutions theory?

 

[BobTheDonkey]

I don't see the multiple attackers or possible motives for murder of AK and RS to be very believable. At the same time I find that the the possible staging of the break-in and murder/rape scene by AK and RS to be credible. How can I resolve this? One possible theory is that AK and RS used this as an opportunity to cover a subsequent crime (one possible is that they stole something from Filomena's room that they knew she would not report to the police (like drugs) or would in any case be blamed on the burglar). How would this theory fit with the evidence? Would it make more sense that the prosecutions theory?

Where was Amanda on the night of the murder?


ETA: And if they were just stealing Filomena's drugs, why would they make themselves party to the murder by repositioning the body instead of just stealing the drugs and calling the cops about the murder?

That makes even less sense than any other suggested scenarios...

 

[RoseMontague]

Where was Amanda on the night of the murder?


ETA: And if they were just stealing Filomena's drugs, why would they make themselves party to the murder by repositioning the body instead of just stealing the drugs and calling the cops about the murder?

That makes even less sense than any other suggested scenarios...

Amanda comes home sometime after 10:30 or so, finds the body and decides to take advantage of the situation. She wanted to make it real obvious about the burglary so she wouldn't be blamed and even more obvious about the rape (a girl would not be blamed).

 

[BobTheDonkey]

Amanda comes home sometime after 10:30 or so, finds the body and decides to take advantage of the situation. She wanted to make it real obvious about the burglary so she wouldn't be blamed and even more obvious about the rape (a girl would not be blamed).

So rather than just take the drugs following a burglary - which would leave her in the clear, mind you - she decides to get involved in the murder?

Honestly, that's just as bad as if she were involved in the murder in the first place. It makes her no less a party to the murder.