Amanda Knox guilty - all because of a cartwheel

[Dan O.]

It would take a long stick to open the shutters so what happened to it?

Why would anybody want to fetch your stick?

If you have anything besides insinuations please post it.

Are you insinuating that there was no stick in that forest. It's quite likely if the stick was used to open the shutter that it was put back where it was found since at the same location there are a number of decent size rocks that don't even require digging out of the soil.

 

[BobTheDonkey]

​

Are you insinuating that there was no stick in that forest. It's quite likely if the stick was used to open the shutter that it was put back where it was found since at the same location there are a number of decent size rocks that don't even require digging out of the soil.

Evidence of said stick?

Or are you claiming that Raffaele went to the "forest" behind the cottage, picked out a stick, went back and opened the blinds, returned the stick to the forest, returned to the cottage, broke the glass with a rock, climbed up, partially cleaned off the window sill, climbed down to remove all the glass shards from the garden, then back up to open the window - all without leaving a trace of having done so?

 

[Fiona]

I found this quite interesting

http://rds.homeoffice.gov.uk/rds/prgpdfs/prs144.pdf

32 per cent of the first-time murderers and 36 per cent of the serious sexual
offenders had no previous convictions

So although none of those convicted of this murder had any previous convictions at all that does not make them very unusual.

Since part of this discussion rests on the idea that Guede was previously involved in some criminal activitiy (although he had no convictions) related to theft and drug offences it is also interesting to note that

Table 6 also suggests that those previously
convicted of a range of offences – for example, other theft, shoplifting, receiving,
fraud, theft from vehicles and drugs offences – have a lowered risk of murder
compared to those offenders without such convictions in their criminal career

[]

Two risk factors relating to custody have been identified as significantly increasing
the risk of murder: a custodial sentence on any previous occasion, and at the
immediately previous sentencing occasion. However, a third custodial measure, the
number of sentencing occasions where no custodial sentence was awarded – appears
as a factor that significantly decreases the risk of murder. The greater the number of
‘custodial-free’ sentencing occasions, the lower the risk of becoming a murderer.
Although supporting the suggestion that custodial measures lead to an increased
relative risk, this does not equate to a simple ‘more custodial terms = greater risk of
becoming a murderer’.

The study also compares the criminal records of murderers with two types of control: those with a history of violent offences and those with a more general criminal record. It found that

The most striking difference between Table 6 and Table 7,
however, is the disappearance of all of the so-called ‘protective’ factors. No measures
of previous criminal history appear to identify those who are less likely to murder
when a population of violent offenders is considered.

Even those who focus on Guede's alleged previous criminality have not shown that he has any history of violence: and the evidence seems to suggest that the kind of history which they allege makes murder less likely, not more.

The evidence relating to serious sexual offences in this study is less certain because of the lower numbers. But once again the kinds of offences which Guede is alleged to have committed are shown to be more in the nature of protective factors in terms of serious sexual offences; not risk factors.

while the most prevalent offence (‘other theft’) leads to a slightly reduced
risk of serious sexual offending, it still needs to be remembered that almost one-half
(46.8%) of the SSA offenders still had this offence in their prior criminal history
(Table 2). Taken together, these findings reinforce the heterogeneity of the criminal
backgrounds of those convicted of serious sexual offences and the range of
‘offending pathways’ that exist

And see table 8.

 

[stilicho]

Are you insinuating that there was no stick in that forest. It's quite likely if the stick was used to open the shutter that it was put back where it was found since at the same location there are a number of decent size rocks that don't even require digging out of the soil.

So you don't have any evidence that a long stick was used to pry open the shutters. These would be the same shutters you have argued were open anyhow because you don't trust Filomena. Have I got that about right?

 

[BobTheDonkey]

So you don't have any evidence that a long stick was used to pry open the shutters. These would be the same shutters you have argued were open anyhow because you don't trust Filomena. Have I got that about right?

"One way or the other, those shutters were open and the rock went through the glass from outside!"


So, Dan O, can you provide evidence that Rudy threw the rock?

 

[Fiona]

Hmmm. I wonder why the burglar would put the stick back where he found it? It is not like he can hope that nobody will notice there has been a burglarly, what with the broken window and all. And it was really remiss of him not to put the rock back where he found it too, if he went to all that trouble with the stick.

Seems to me he was a really annoying burglar, more intent on confusing the issue than on burgling the cottage. Which is rather strange for a burglar who is not, at that stage, a murderer. Perhaps he just has a great sense of humour?

 

[BobTheDonkey]

Hmmm. I wonder why the burglar would put the stick back where he found it? It is not like he can hope that nobody will notice there has been a burglarly, what with the broken window and all. And it was really remiss of him not to put the rock back where he found it too, if he went to all that trouble with the stick.

Seems to me he was a really annoying burglar, more intent on confusing the issue than on burgling the cottage. Which is rather strange for a burglar who is not, at that stage, a murderer. Perhaps he just has a great sense of humour?

Ahhh, but you're forgetting. He must have burgled the knife from Raffaele's apartment earlier that night so he knew he was going to murder Meredith.

It's all part of the shell game...or something.

ETA: And he would've gotten away with it, too, if it weren't for those damn meddling kids Amanda and Raffaele.

 

[Kermit]

New to JREF so I apologize in advance if I don't have the "JREF logic" down.

1) Shouldn't the question be is there evidence they were at the crime scene? Not having an alibi does not make one guilty. What am I missing here?

2) Is your point that Dr. J's analysis is somehow tainted and not reliable due to who commissioned it? Have you emailed her/him and asked?

3) If it is Raffaele's DNA, then it came from Raffaele. How it got there is unanswerable.

Best of luck finding "satisfactory, evidence based answers".

.
1) If you're new, what you're missing is that there is (disputed) DNA evidence which links both Amanda and Raffaele to the crime, there are witnesses who link them to the crime, there is other circumstantial evidence which links them to the crime .... and they still don't have alibis which coincide as to their whereabouts on the night of the crime. We had a rather long debate here, which petered out once it was underlined that in addition to stating to police prior to his arrest that Amanda wasn't in his apartment between 9 p.m. and 1 a.m. on the night of the crime, Raffaele's most recent pronouncement concerning their alibis was to the supreme court in early 2008 when he stated that it was erroneous to believe that they were together that evening. So the alibis are just another layer of inconsistency in Amanda's legal posture.


2) As for "Libby" Johnson's document, some noise was made here some time back by the pro-Amanda crowd, that Dr. Stefanoni's analysis could be tainted by a pre-existing belief in the guilt of Amanda and Raffaele. While I don't believe that, the pro-Amanda crowd should apply a similar posture to Johnson's paper. Here is a DNA scientist whom FOA and The Entourage want to paint as independent, however, Johnson doesn't limit herself to merely and coldly analysing peaks and noise, but includes in her report as fact debatable statements such as:

-"Her body was found the next day when her housemate, Amanda Knox, called police after noticing blood in their common bathroom, a broken window, and Meredith’s locked door. Before the police arrived, Amanda’s Italian boyfriend, Raffaele Sollecito, unsuccessfully attempted to force open Meredith’s door." (evidence contrasts with this version of the suspects)

- "Police initially theorized that Amanda, Raffaele and Amanda’s boss, Patrick Lumumba, were involved with Meredith in a group sex tryst gone awry." (Knox is the one who fingered Patrick, not the police)

- "a drifter named Rudy Guede" (at the time of the crime, Rudy was living in the city that he had grown up in)

- "Although Rudy Guede has been tried and convicted of Meredith’s murder, the prosecution continues to believe that Amanda and Raffaele are complicit in this crime" (this is classic FOA spin. In fact, Amanda, Rudy and Raffaele were all tried on the basis of the same body of evidence which resulted from the same and only investigation. The only difference is that Rudy chose the fast-track trial)

Poster Hilades has claimed to have contacts sufficiently close to the action to be able to state that Johnson was "working pro bono". We have merely asked him to complete / extend his sentence and say for whom. The person, persons or group who engaged or commissioned Johnson could be part of the explanation for the totally non-scientific and very partial preamble to her document.


3) I think that Bob is merely trying to evoke a consistent response, as sometimes it seems that the pro-Amanda crowd say that the bra clasp DNA comes from crime-scene contamination (pe. household dust, fingerprints on door), sometimes from lab contamination (pe. not following "Libby" Johnson's best practises), sometimes from Amanda and Meredith swapping bras, sometimes from Raffaele kindly helping out by hanging the laundry .... but never from Raffaele touching the item on the night / morning after the crime.

 

[Kermit]

Yes I did have him (Kermit) on ignore. I even have the option in my preferences turned off so I don't even see the notice that I'm missing a post. But Google doesn't have anyone on ignore

.
Each one of us interacts as we wish with the rest of the posters here.

However, it is indeed curious that you put me on ignore here within the forum, but you Google my statements from outside. It's like a kid who covers his eyes to watch a part of a movie that makes him uncomfortable, yet he continues to look through the cracks between his fingers.

 

[shuttlt]

Kermit,

I think you're wrong about the Supreme Court. Raffaele's statement is much more ambiguous than you imply. It can be read as you read it, but he could also be meaning that, while he believes she was with him all night, it is logically wrong to assume on that basis that she necessarily was. That's my view of it in English anyway, perhaps the Italian is clearer.

 

[Kermit]

Raffaele's statement is much more ambiguous than you imply. It can be read as you read it, but he could also be meaning that, while he believes she was with him all night, it is logically wrong to assume on that basis that she necessarily was. That's my view of it in English anyway, perhaps the Italian is clearer.

.
Unfortunately we only have this paraphrased summary which is at Frank's place.

While there may be different levels of interpreting to what extent he is sure of her possible departure from his flat, what is clear is that he's not standing up to bat for her and affirmatively stating that they were definitely together all evening and all night, and that she never left his apartment.

 

[shuttlt]

Kermit,

I agree. I wouldn't be too happy if my alibi (not that I need one) was pro-actively making sure that people consider the possibility that, even if everything he says is true, I could still have slipped out with the kitchen knife for long enough to have been involved in the murder.

 

[Dan O.]

Reaching up with a stick would do the job if the burglar didn't want to climb.

And what's suddenly with all the fantasy? What stick? Where is it? Again, someone seems to not have carefully read the posted section from the Massei Report...he states that to open the shutters from outside some sort of tool would have been needed (this would include a stick, although I can't see how one would open a set of tightly wedged shutters with a stick) and he notes there was not such tool of any kind found at the scene. So, whence this magical, invisible 'stick'?

So you don't have any evidence that a long stick was used to pry open the shutters. These would be the same shutters you have argued were open anyhow because you don't trust Filomena. Have I got that about right?

Nobody was claiming that a stick was used to open the shutters. But Fulcanelli replied with a definite claim: "no such tool of any kind was found at the crime scene". Seeing that there was indeed a sufficiently long stick there at the crime scene at the time and in plain sight, was Fulcanelli lying about what Massei said? (The google translation of page 36 mentions "The non-discovery of suitable means to achieve such opening" which could mean that the specific tool was not identified not that no tool was present). Or is Massei lying about what the prosecutor said? Or did the prosecutor lie about what the inspector reported? Or did the inspector fabricate a story about searching for sticks because that was what he was supposed to be doing. All we know is that someone in this chain is lying.

Skeptics may want to investigate this further. Guilters will want to dismiss it because no result that it leads to can support their cause.

 

[Amazer]

I found this quite interesting

http://rds.homeoffice.gov.uk/rds/prgpdfs/prs144.pdf



So although none of those convicted of this murder had any previous convictions at all that does not make them very unusual.

Since part of this discussion rests on the idea that Guede was previously involved in some criminal activitiy (although he had no convictions) related to theft and drug offences it is also interesting to note that



The study also compares the criminal records of murderers with two types of control: those with a history of violent offences and those with a more general criminal record. It found that


Even those who focus on Guede's alleged previous criminality have not shown that he has any history of violence: and the evidence seems to suggest that the kind of history which they allege makes murder less likely, not more.

The evidence relating to serious sexual offences in this study is less certain because of the lower numbers. But once again the kinds of offences which Guede is alleged to have committed are shown to be more in the nature of protective factors in terms of serious sexual offences; not risk factors.



And see table 8.

Thanks Fiona,

That is indeed an interesting read.

 

[BobTheDonkey]

​

Nobody was claiming that a stick was used to open the shutters. But Fulcanelli replied with a definite claim: "no such tool of any kind was found at the crime scene". Seeing that there was indeed a sufficiently long stick there at the crime scene at the time and in plain sight, was Fulcanelli lying about what Massei said? (The google translation of page 36 mentions "The non-discovery of suitable means to achieve such opening" which could mean that the specific tool was not identified not that no tool was present). Or is Massei lying about what the prosecutor said? Or did the prosecutor lie about what the inspector reported? Or did the inspector fabricate a story about searching for sticks because that was what he was supposed to be doing. All we know is that someone in this chain is lying.

Skeptics may want to investigate this further. Guilters will want to dismiss it because no result that it leads to can support their cause.

I find it interesting that you continue to claim anyone who doesn't agree with your stance is, essentially, not a skeptic.

The truth lies somewhere in the middle, I'm afraid.



That aside, do you have evidence to present that there was indeed a stick found outside the window?

 

[Charlie Wilkes]

I look forward to the PMF translation of Massei's opus. Perhaps it will seem less ridiculous than the google translation. With regard to the "missing knife," I gather that Raffaele's friends from Giovinazza testified that he had a certain type of pocket knife, which in the opinion of the esteemed Massei, was the murder weapon... or, to be more precise, one of two murder weapons. But, the judge reasons, the Giovinazza knife was prudently discarded, while the other murder weapon was pressed back into service as a kitchen utensil. Lesser detectives might have never have taken an interest in it, because it isn't the kind of knife suggested by the victim's wounds, nor is it the kind of knife people usually carry around. But the super-sleuths of Perugia are not so easily led off the scent. They seized the knife, had it tested, and once the "too low, too low, too low" technicalities were brushed aside, it was scientifically proven to be the (second) murder weapon, the one Amanda Knox wielded while saying, "now you'll be forced to have sex, you prissy girl!"

And then, when the ghastly deed was done, she hopped backward into the hallway, leaving a single bare footprint, which was later detected with luminol.

It's interesting how Mignini finds himself in charge of such far-out cases, with backward hopping barefoot murderesses, double-body-swapping Satan worshippers, the sort of stuff that appears nowhere else in the annals of crime.

 

[shuttlt]

Charlie,

Good to have you back. You mention the missing knife. One of the big realizations for me over the past few weeks has been how few knives there were at Raffaele's. I had had the impression that there were dozens. Unless you tell me otherwise, my impression now is that that really isn't the case. So, now the collection of the knives from Raffaele's makes sense to me. All the knives that could plausibly have caused the injuries to Meredith were taken for testing. I wondered what your thoughts were on this and whether you had any pictures from the kitchen showing other sharp knives not so far accounted for?

 

[Fulcanelli]

New to JREF so I apologize in advance if I don't have the "JREF logic" down.

1) Shouldn't the question be is there evidence they were at the crime scene? Not having an alibi does not make one guilty. What am I missing here?

2) Is your point that Dr. J's analysis is somehow tainted and not reliable due to who commissioned it? Have you emailed her/him and asked?

3) If it is Raffaele's DNA, then it came from Raffaele. How it got there is unanswerable.

Best of luck finding "satisfactory, evidence based answers".

1) As far as I recall, evidence showing just this was presented in the trial.

2) I think the point is that Dr Johnson is hardly transparent and her interests are undeclared and that raises important questions if she's to be accepted as valid. There is also a question about on exactly what evidence their argument is based (how much of the data did they have to come to their conclusions) and finally, there is also a question of whether she ever contacted Dr Stefanoni or her lab or not, which doesn't seem to be the case.

3) Actually, how it got there is answerable. He handled the bra clasp. This answer can be given because it is skin cells. Shed surface cells (the kind that can be transferred by a third party for example) are dead and therefore keretinised and so do not contain DNA profiles. Live skin cells, just under the surface contain full profiles and they only come off via direct and vigorous contact with an object (friction, or scraping). Therefore, he directly handled the bra clasp.

 

[Fulcanelli]

No, it's not almost unheard of. It's fairly common. As (not having read the rest of the week's posts yet) I suspect someone might have already pointed out to you.

Please reconsider your opinion as it's based on erroneous assumptions.

Should the accused be tried on the basis of statistics, or on the evidence against them?

 

[Fulcanelli]

To the contrary. Under the circumstances it seems to me not at all improbable as a genuine robbery. Since the most commonly stolen items were indeed stolen. And even if they hadn't been, considering the apparent burglary was interrupted and subsequently escalated to a murder, it wouldn't be particularly unusual that nothing that could be traced was taken and converted into cash.

Why were the phones taken then? Why was Meredith's I-pod left? Why were the computers left (with not even one taken). Why was the jewellery left? Why was the digital camera left?

Why was Meredith's bank cards taken...could they be converted to cash? If yes, why not the phones, computers, digital camera, jewellery?

It's the lamest burglary I ever saw.