Amanda Knox guilty - all because of a cartwheel

[lane99]

///Originally Posted by lane99
Haha, that is an argument for consumption by the witchhunters and other simpleminded folk who aren't willing or able to look at this case objectively.

Anyone who believes consideration of motive is simply a theatrical device invented to add dramatic flair to tv shows is not competent to be pontificating about this, or any other, criminal case.

Trying to determine what the motive was, and who may have possessed that motive, is one of the most important aspects of a murder investigation. Furthermore, for all intents and purposes, a discussion of motive also invariably plays an essential role in practically all murder prosections.

The culties who need Amanda Knox to be guilty might disagree with that. But certainly that disagreement would paint them as laughingstocks in any "rl" ("real life"?) criminal justice community.
//////

And yet I find nothing missing or extremely unlikely in the presented Prosecution scenario. Perhaps that's just me, but I don't find reason to believe that the scenario presented is not what happened. The honest truth is that murders like this happen more frequently than you, or I, would like to admit.

Not sure which of the prosecution's scenarios apparently ring true to you. Since they've indulged themselves in more than one. The one where a middle class girl who's never hurt a flea formed a conspiracy with a virtual stranger (with her new boyfriend tagging along, no less) to rape and murder her roommate in some kind of demonic ritual? Or the one where this same girl formed this same kind of deadly conspiracy because the roommate complained the girl was a bit dirty?

Not that I don't respect your right to believe as you chose, BobTheDonkey. But I'll suggest that, in reality, the prosecution's scenario indeed are, to say the least, "extremely unlikely".

And I simply must disagree with what you claim the "honest truth" to be. In fact, the honest truth is that if anything like either of the prosecution's conspiracy theories actually happened, then it would be a crime so exceedingly rare as to be virtually unprecedented.

Still, if you have examples which echo what you apparently believe happened in this case, please list them. And let's see how similiar they actually are. Actually, you're not the first to make this claim. But, when asked to provide specific examples of cases to support it, the others have been disappointingly silent.

 

[lane99]

////Originally Posted by lane99
Guede Groupies will be grateful that you conveniently neglected to mention that his DNA was also found on the victim's purse.

Which many people (though, naturally, not Rudy's fans ) will find rather incriminating.
/////

Guede has already admitted to being there. I fail to see what it proves that isn't known already and what he hasn't admitted already.

I see. So failing to mention his DNA on the purse was not just an oversight. But a deliberate lie of omission on your part. Because, uh, you fail to see the relevance of a suspect's DNA being found of a murder victim's purse.

You're a real reliable source of "info".

 

[Dan O.]

Point it out to us, I don't see it. Thanks.

 

[shuttlt]

I really don't see the point of this argument. One collection of experts say the blood test is so much more sensitive than the DNA test that there is no publicity of DNA coming from blood and the DNA test is therefore suspect. The other experts say this is not so. Either we are all missing something, or one or other collection of experts are fools/liars. Quoting these experts asserting their opinion over and over does not advance things. Similarly quoting sensitivities of 1:100,000 doesn't advance things. We don't have a way of comparing 1:10,000 to the DNA test, changing the numbers doesn't address the problem. 1:100,000 looks big, but then again there are blood tests as sensitive as 10,000,000 so who knows?

Perhaps when we have the translation of the motivations report we will have a more fleshed out version of the prosecution argument for the DNA test being good. Until then this is getting old fast.

 

[stilicho]

That is foreign DNA contaminating what is supposed to be a clean reference of DNA from a single person. That contamination is the same level as the signal we see from the knife. From the evidence of these two charts, Patrizia Stefanoni's lab conditions produce contamination of 50 RFU at least 50% of the time.

Are you certain that's evidence of contamination?

I get the idea that we're arguing about things that none of us know about except what we've read on the internet or, in halides1's case, in out-of-date textbooks. This reminds me of AGW or 9/11 threads where someone presents a chart composed of data or a slow-motion video and interprets it without any idea of what they're looking at.

Any luck on the audit reports proving that the Rome crime lab and its personnel are inadequate? Halides1 presented plenty of links on the Houston and Washington State crime labs but so far it's just been crickets and Dan O's expertise regarding Stefanoni's lab.

 

[stilicho]

Not sure which of the prosecution's scenarios apparently ring true to you. Since they've indulged themselves in more than one. The one where a middle class girl who's never hurt a flea formed a conspiracy with a virtual stranger (with her new boyfriend tagging along, no less) to rape and murder her roommate in some kind of demonic ritual? Or the one where this same girl formed this same kind of deadly conspiracy because the roommate complained the girl was a bit dirty?

Kelly Ellard was only fifteen years old when she and a group of youths beat, tortured, and finally drowned Reena Virk, another young girl. They were all middle class and had no prior convictions. The motive was said to be a stolen "little black book" and classroom rumours.

As with Charles Wilkes, your arguments are from incredulity. You cannot bring yourself to accept that bored young adults or youths from middle class backgrounds can do something so brutal.

If it turns out that the Massei Report indeed states that they all got high and went nuts then I would similarly reject that as a credible motive. It might read better than bored, jealous, and without anything to do, but that's about it.

The evidence places all of them in the cottage and the lengthy trial provided RS and AK with ample opportunity to sow reasonable doubt. Sollecito said nothing in his own defence--essentially throwing himself on the mercy of the court--and Knox continued with her bizarre claims of self-diagnosed selective memory loss. The mountains of evidence against them, and against Guede, condemned each of them properly to long prison sentences.

 

[Charlie Wilkes]

Fulcanelli writes:

Looking at the Massei Report, I can also tell you that everyone was assigned into teams before entering the cottage. Each team was assigned and restricted to one particular room, no member of which was permitted to enter any of the other rooms. This was done to further restrict any possible cross contamination.

I'll bet you believe it, too. And you sleep soundly, knowing that the public business of Italy is in capable hands.

That is why I pestered you with information about the Seattle Pitted Windshield Epidemic. I hoped that I might shed some light. But, I no longer have that hope, so it is you who have educated me, rather than vice versa. Isn't that ironic?

 

[Charlie Wilkes]

Stilicho writes:

As with Charles Wilkes, your arguments are from incredulity. You cannot bring yourself to accept that bored young adults or youths from middle class backgrounds can do something so brutal.

I suppose I am arguing from incredulity. There are kids who commit senseless acts of violence, and occasionally they are girls... Ellard, Justina Morley, Victoria Lindsay, Cheyenne Blanton, etc. But that doesn't mean any given adolescent may unexpectedly turn out to be a homicidal nut. If that were the case, no one could ever trust their kids with a babysitter.

The irony of this is that Amanda Knox is not merely someone who would never bully a weak or vulnerable peer, she is someone who went out of her way to help and support kids who were being picked on.

 

[shuttlt]

I suppose I am arguing from incredulity. There are kids who commit senseless acts of violence, and occasionally they are girls... Ellard, Justina Morley, Victoria Lindsay, Cheyenne Blanton, etc. But that doesn't mean any given adolescent may unexpectedly turn out to be a homicidal nut. If that were the case, no one could ever trust their kids with a babysitter.

But nobody is saying that any given adolescent is remotely likely to turn out to be "a homicidal nut", or even that, prior to the murder, Amanda was necessarily particularly likely to kill someone. Surely the fact that someone she lived with was murdered alters the odds enormously? It's ludicrous to apply the same odds before and after we know a murder has been committed.

 

[BobTheDonkey]

Stilicho writes:

As with Charles Wilkes, your arguments are from incredulity. You cannot bring yourself to accept that bored young adults or youths from middle class backgrounds can do something so brutal.

I suppose I am arguing from incredulity. There are kids who commit senseless acts of violence, and occasionally they are girls... Ellard, Justina Morley, Victoria Lindsay, Cheyenne Blanton, etc. But that doesn't mean any given adolescent may unexpectedly turn out to be a homicidal nut. If that were the case, no one could ever trust their kids with a babysitter.

The irony of this is that Amanda Knox is not merely someone who would never bully a weak or vulnerable peer, she is someone who went out of her way to help and support kids who were being picked on.

True, it would be incredulous to believe that any given child/adolescent could turn into a murderer...

But that, in no way, means it doesn't happen. That's exactly the point. The odds against life autonomously beginning in the Universe are ridiculously low, and yet we have evidence that it has happened at least once.

That, in fact, makes the odds of it happening 1:1 (or 100%). Same thing here, while the odds might be against this scenario happening, we know that it does happen - we have 1:1 odds that it will, at some point, happen again.

 

[Megalodon]

...the defence believe it's Meredith's DNA, all their forensic experts believe it'#s Meredith's DNA, the victim's genetics experts believe it's Meredith's DNA, the prosecution experts believe it's Meredith's DNA, the genetics experts on PMF believe it's Meredith's DNA, the judges in the trial believed it was Meredith's DNA. The only person arguing that it isn't Meredith's DNA is 'you'. My, aren't all these genetics experts fortunate that a chemist came along to set them all straight from his armchair!

I think you forgot that even Sollecito agrees that it's Meredith DNA. After all, she pricked herself with it at an imaginary dinner party...

 

[shuttlt]

Surely the way to look at it is like family members killing one another. The odds against it are very low, but if the police turn up at my house and my wife and children are lying upstairs bludgeoned to death, it doesn't really matter how much charity work I do, or how clean my prior record is... the odds of me being a killer just went up from almost nothing to something the police would be fools to ignore.

 

[shuttlt]

I've just run the motivations report through OCR and Google translate. Dirty as hell, but it looks very detailed. If I can dig any bits out that seem to have come through OK, I'll post them.

 

[quadraginta]

Surely the way to look at it is like family members killing one another. The odds against it are very low, but if the police turn up at my house and my wife and children are lying upstairs bludgeoned to death, it doesn't really matter how much charity work I do, or how clean my prior record is... the odds of me being a killer just went up from almost nothing to something the police would be fools to ignore.

This is an excellent way to look at it., and perhaps a better example than you intended.

Out of the set of all families, the odds that a family member will kill another family member are low. Out of the set of families where a member has been killed in the household the odds that another family member did it are not merely high, they are likely.

When talking about the probabilities in this crime one needs to bear in mind that most murders committed in a home setting are not committed by strangers, even relative strangers. They are committed by someone well known, probably even close to the victim.

In the absence of other relatively compelling information it is reasonable and rational for LE to look first at immediate family members (or in this case, housemates), then close friends and acquaintances, then less close connections. A break-in might qualify as other compelling information. A poorly staged break-in will have rather the opposite effect.

 

[Fulcanelli]

Not sure which of the prosecution's scenarios apparently ring true to you. Since they've indulged themselves in more than one. The one where a middle class girl who's never hurt a flea formed a conspiracy with a virtual stranger (with her new boyfriend tagging along, no less) to rape and murder her roommate in some kind of demonic ritual? Or the one where this same girl formed this same kind of deadly conspiracy because the roommate complained the girl was a bit dirty?

Perhaps you could give us a link to where Mignini mooted a 'demonic ritual' in the trial. I must have missed that day's proceedings.

 

[Fulcanelli]

[qimg]http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/imagehosting/151444ba30af0272ba.jpg[/qimg]

Wait, let me get my magnifying glass out! What, you mean that tiny little bump?

You're trying to argue that i8sn't Meredith's profile because if that miniscule bit of noise?

You are aware, most forensic profiles have multiple, even hundreds, of little bumps and peaks that don't match the profile one is matching and they don't render the profile invalid?

You don't even understand the basics.

 

[shuttlt]

Fulcanelli,

how's the translation coming on? It'll be nice when we have an injection of new information to go over.

 

[shuttlt]

Wait, let me get my magnifying glass out! What, you mean that tiny little bump?

You're trying to argue that i8sn't Meredith's profile because if that miniscule bit of noise?

You are aware, most forensic profiles have multiple, even hundreds, of little bumps and peaks that don't match the profile one is matching and they don't render the profile invalid?

You don't even understand the basics.

I think he's implying that that's noise and is at a level similar to peaks that are being counted as valid in the LCN profile, hence the LCN profile falls within the level of the background noise.

 

[Fulcanelli]

Fulcanelli writes:

Looking at the Massei Report, I can also tell you that everyone was assigned into teams before entering the cottage. Each team was assigned and restricted to one particular room, no member of which was permitted to enter any of the other rooms. This was done to further restrict any possible cross contamination.

I'll bet you believe it, too. And you sleep soundly, knowing that the public business of Italy is in capable hands.

That is why I pestered you with information about the Seattle Pitted Windshield Epidemic. I hoped that I might shed some light. But, I no longer have that hope, so it is you who have educated me, rather than vice versa. Isn't that ironic?

How can someone who wears blinkers shed light on anything?

The only evidence you have to offer to support your wild theories of Italian conspiracy are all taken from 'other' cases, having nothing to do with this one. The rest is innuendo and relying on claims made by Douglas Preston who has zero credibility.

And if seeing the light requires manipulating and fabricating the evidence to support ones theories, like shrinking footprints to make them fit, I'd rather stay in darkness thanks.

 

[Fulcanelli]

I've just run the motivations report through OCR and Google translate. Dirty as hell, but it looks very detailed. If I can dig any bits out that seem to have come through OK, I'll post them.

Shuttit, I would strongly advise that you NOT do that. Doing so is more likely to lead to confusion and misinterpretation then understanding. It is best to have patience and wait for a professional translation to be done.