Amanda Knox guilty - all because of a cartwheel

[Mary_H]

Marco Quintavalle was the shopkeeper who claimed to have seen Amanda outside his store on the morning after Meredith was killed. Claims to have recognized Amanda from seeing her in the news four days after the murder. But he didn't come forward at that time. He also didn't mention seeing Amanda when an officer came to ask questions about the crime a few days later. It was almost a year after the crime when he started telling his story.

An employee who was working at the store that day testified that Amanda wasn't there.

Weren't we talking about the storekeeper from the place where Amanda bought underpants? His connection to the case is much more questionable, which is why Fulcanelli hasn't answered the question yet.

 

[HumanityBlues]

Weren't we talking about the storekeeper from the place where Amanda bought underpants? His connection to the case is much more questionable, which is why Fulcanelli hasn't answered the question yet.

Mary, it is very common for female killers after an erotic sex game gone wrong to buy underwear. Didn't you know this?

 

[shuttlt]

As I understand it, Amanda couldn't remember who the text message was from, until she had had some time to figure it out. I would be the same way -- who remembers a text message from four days ago? Can you imagine how many of her friends and family she had been in touch with in the interveniing four days?

Not that it matters, but the message on her phone was TO Patrick, not FROM him. As for having difficulty remembering who she sent it to, wouldn't it have the number that it was sent to on the text?

The question is how the text message came to be presented at the interrogation. Do you think the police repeatedly asked Amanda to remember what happened the night of the crime and she said, "Wait, let me look at my phone?" Or do you think the police presented the text message to her and asked her to remember what and who it was about?

I tend to favor the latter. Which leads back to the suggestion that the police were prepared with a line of questioning about Patrick, which leads back to why they did not question Patrick in a conventional way without interrogating Amanda.

Have you read her testimony? All this is covered.

 

[quadraginta]

No, I'm saying exactly the opposite. Nobody seemed to have a problem with Amanda's account of things until the interrogation.

Let me rephrase what you just said.

No one publicly expressed a problem with Knox's accounts of things until the interview where she was informed that her boyfriend no longer corroborated her alibi, and she decided to accuse her boss of the murder instead, claiming herself to be a witness at the scene of the crime.

Suddenly they changed their approach.
​

Why does my version sound so much different than yours?

 

[Kestrel]

Is this a new claim? Where did you get that from? When did they start talking to Raffaele then?

By the time everyone gets settled in for an interview and all the routine stuff is disposed of you might have had 15 minutes of tough questioning out of the one hour and forty-five minutes. That's assuming Amanda didn't need any of the translations repeated.

The police were tapping Amanda's phone. During Amanda's testimony a conversation between Amanda and Filomena at 10:29 on November 5 was played. Amanda tells Filomena that she is at the police station. They chat for a short while, then the call ends like this:

AK: Sure, of course. Oh, right now somebody wants to talk to me. Ciao bella.

FR: Ciao, ciao.

 

[Kestrel]

Weren't we talking about the storekeeper from the place where Amanda bought underpants? His connection to the case is much more questionable, which is why Fulcanelli hasn't answered the question yet.

The guy that ran a small general store that the press kept referring to as a lingerie shop?

The underwear morphed into a g-string in some of the tabloid accounts.

 

[Mary_H]

Mary, it is very common for female killers after an erotic sex game gone wrong to buy underwear. Didn't you know this?

So true. I did it myself last time.

 

[shuttlt]

The question I asked was whether anyone knows of any stabbing cases committed by anyone whose past wasn't troubled in some way. Many cases of animal cruelty, for example, are committed by children, for whom conviction records would not be available.

Mary,

For one thing, a LOT of peoples past could be described as troubled if you retrospectively go back and look for trouble. For another, what do you mean by troubled past? You presumably don't mean all people who stab someone have a background of animal cruelty. Do you mean people whose parents divorced at an impressionable age? What counts as troubled?

 

[Mary_H]

Let me rephrase what you just said.

No one publicly expressed a problem with Knox's accounts of things until the interview where she was informed that her boyfriend no longer corroborated her alibi, and she decided to accuse her boss of the murder instead, claiming herself to be a witness at the scene of the crime.

Suddenly they changed their approach.
​

Why does my version sound so much different than yours?

Because I am focusing on what the situation was before the interrogations and you are focusing on what it was afterward.

 

[shuttlt]

I checked but couldn't find it. I'll look again.

I am aware that Amanda's lawyer released some excerpts from the diary. Presumably he leaked parts that supported her innocence, while other leaks were made to support her guilt. This bolsters the claim that Italians try their cases in the media in addition to the courtroom.

Mary, I did quite a bit of digging into the way the diary came out. Initially there were a few fragments here and there. Then, two weeks after she finished it there is a mention of her lawyers releasing another chunk. I need to do more work on this, but my impression is that the wholesale release of her diary (with unhelpful bits held back) is down to Amanda's family and lawyers. It's a complicated business though.

 

[shuttlt]

An employee who was working at the store that day testified that Amanda wasn't there.

I wasn't under the impression the employee had said this. I had thought the employee had simply been unable to confirm that she was.

 

[Mary_H]

Mary,

For one thing, a LOT of peoples past could be described as troubled if you retrospectively go back and look for trouble. For another, what do you mean by troubled past? You presumably don't mean all people who stab someone have a background of animal cruelty. Do you mean people whose parents divorced at an impressionable age? What counts as troubled?

The discussion started with a quote I posted from the blog of a former prosecutor. He stated:

"...Stabbing someone to death is not an “entry level job”; the people who perpetrate such crimes have worked their way up to such deeds by committing school yard fights, animal cruelty, brandishing weapons, unlawful threats, etc.....”

http://www.grahamlawyerblog.com/tag/giuliano-mignini/

A few people disagreed with it, but so far they haven't provided any evidence to the contrary.

 

[stilicho]

The police were tapping Amanda's phone. During Amanda's testimony a conversation between Amanda and Filomena at 10:29 on November 5 was played. Amanda tells Filomena that she is at the police station. They chat for a short while, then the call ends like this:

That's when they got to the Questura (cf her own testimony). They wanted to talk to Raffaele when they got there (cf her own testimony). She had some time to do homework by the elevator (cf her own testimony). And they she variously did some yoga (cf her own testimony) or performed a bit of ruota del carro.

Maybe she stopped the call with Filomena because the mystery cop wanted to see her do some cartwheels. We know it wasn't to begin her questioning.

 

[shuttlt]

It doesn't take more that one officer to interview a suspect. Perhaps two if you need a translator. But if the goal is to intimidate a suspect, it helps to have several.

How many people were involved in interrogating Amanda on the night of November 5 and 6?

How many people were there? Bruce says he has the statement and it was signed by more than 30 people. He takes from that that more than 30 people were in the room during the interrogation (this is correct, isn't it Bruce?). He feels showing the statement would harm Amanda and has so far been unwilling to show the 30+ signatures, or list the names of the people who signed.

To me 30+ people in an interrogation is chaos and I struggle to imagine is what happened even if there was an "Illegal Interrogation" where she was pressured into a false statement.

 

[Mary_H]

Mary, I did quite a bit of digging into the way the diary came out. Initially there were a few fragments here and there. Then, two weeks after she finished it there is a mention of her lawyers releasing another chunk. I need to do more work on this, but my impression is that the wholesale release of her diary (with unhelpful bits held back) is down to Amanda's family and lawyers. It's a complicated business though.

The journalist who published the book containing the whole diary, including the "unhelpful bits," lost the lawsuit brought by Amanda's lawyers against publication. I don't think they would have given her the diary and then sued her for publishing it.

 

[shuttlt]

That's when they got to the Questura (cf her own testimony). They wanted to talk to Raffaele when they got there (cf her own testimony). She had some time to do homework by the elevator (cf her own testimony). And they she variously did some yoga (cf her own testimony) or performed a bit of ruota del carro.

Maybe she stopped the call with Filomena because the mystery cop wanted to see her do some cartwheels. We know it wasn't to begin her questioning.

She did enough homework her legs got tired, hence the yoga, at least in one version. Also there is the bit where the cops asked her some routine questions in the waiting room - what male visitors had their been to the house, etc....

 

[stilicho]

The discussion started with a quote I posted from the blog of a former prosecutor. He stated:

"...Stabbing someone to death is not an “entry level job”; the people who perpetrate such crimes have worked their way up to such deeds by committing school yard fights, animal cruelty, brandishing weapons, unlawful threats, etc.....”

http://www.grahamlawyerblog.com/tag/giuliano-mignini/

A few people disagreed with it, but so far they haven't provided any evidence to the contrary.

That's not how unwarranted claims work, Mary_H. You were interrupted in your search for evidence by a couple long-time JREF posters who were simply left dumbfounded by such an incredibly stupid assertion.

 

[stilicho]

The journalist who published the book containing the whole diary, including the "unhelpful bits," lost the lawsuit brought by Amanda's lawyers against publication. I don't think they would have given her the diary and then sued her for publishing it.

They would sue and would win the lawsuit if the conditions of the diary's release were not met. In fact that's exactly what happened. If you don't obtain permission to publish then you are liable.

 

[Mary_H]

That's not how unwarranted claims work, Mary_H. You were interrupted in your search for evidence by a couple long-time JREF posters who were simply left dumbfounded by such an incredibly stupid assertion.

I don't understand why they or you find it incredibly stupid. Do you have a lot of knowledge about knife murderers?

 

[quadraginta]

Because I am focusing on what the situation was before the interrogations and you are focusing on what it was afterward.

Umm, ... no.

My version covers the exact same time frame as yours. It just doesn't have the salient facts strategically omitted. When you leave out important, relevant, basic information that way one could be led to believe that you are purposely dismissing germane information with the intent to mislead, and misrepresent the circumstances.