Amanda Knox guilty - all because of a cartwheel

[Agatha]

You don't believe AK's accusation - that's fair enough, you have the benefit of hindsight and the knowledge that Patrick had an alibi. The Perugia police had no such knowledge, and no reason to disbelieve AK.

Patrick ran a bar, early morning is his evening.

 

[quadraginta]

I'm sorry, what was the point you guys were originally trying to make? That the Police arrested Patrick because of his race?

I don't see why not. It seems to be clear already that they are lecherous, sexist America haters engaged in a massive conspiracy encompassing everyone from the Rome forensics labs to them, the prosecutors, the judges, the media, the defense attorneys, and even, occasionally, the defendants themselves.

I don't see where a little bit of racism is such a leap.

I bet they kick dogs, too.

 

[stilicho]

So any way you cut it, Lumumba would have been off the streets by 9.30 if you follow my argument.

...

I DO think that most serious sexual offences against strangers are committed in the evening or the early hours of the morning (i.e. between, say, 7pm and 4am).

...

If this IS accurate, then the police could have a certain amount of confidence that any potential serial sex attacker (including Lumumba) would not have committed any further offences against members of the public between 6.00am and 9.00am on the 6th November 2007.

What a load of crap. We would rather have the suspect in custody at the earliest opportunity rather than guessing whether he would rape and murder another woman just because it was too late to get a drink. Notwithstanding the legal requirement for the Perugia police to arrest him right away, you've woven an intricate and unfounded set of speculations to support some point that's rapidly being lost.

I would love to see the presentation of "Constable LJ" to the rioters in front of his police station after an early morning rape/murder: "I had a certain amount of confidence that no such offences occur between the hours of 6 am and 9 am and so we did nothing. You see, it takes a certain number of waking hours for a rapist to become sufficiently frenzied. Pip pip."

I think you should give it up while you're still behind.

 

[Mary_H]

Hi Mary H,
I agree, many police in my city seem to know of the local bars, clubs and establishments serving alcohol, I would imagine the same is true for other small cities. Those places, especially clubs and bars, are where many fights occurr between inebriated patrons...

The whole jist of my joining this particular discussion was that if Miss Alessandra Formica had already gone to the police to report that she had seen a black male leaving the area of the murder that night, then the police might have been aware that there might be a black male individual involved. And so, when they questioned Miss Knox, and she told them where she worked, someone probably knew of Mr. Lumumba being the owner of Le Chic, and that he was a black male. If they had Miss Formica's eye witness report by then, that might have rang a bell in someone's mind.
When the police were interrogating Miss Knox about that "see you later" text message, they possibly thought that Mr. Lumumba was planning to meet Miss Knox later and so he was involved in Miss Kercher's murder. They could have thought that he was the black male that Miss Formica saw the night of the murder.
Since Miss Knox has continuously said that the police "helped" her to remember, (and now she has to go to trial next month for stating that belief), maybe her "confession" was the last piece of the puzzle in their reasoning to arrest Mr. Lumumba in the early morning hours a short time later.
But they were, as we now know, wrong...

I wonder who knows when Miss Formica did actually report what she saw,
before Miss Knox, Mr. Sollecito and Mr. Lumumba were arrested or afterwards?
If it was before, that would make things kind of interesting. Personally, I would think that she would have went to the police right away, for a murderer was on the loose in her town, and she might have seen him. Yikes!
RWVBWL

I agree, RWVBWL. Also, Amanda testified that at her interrogation, the police repeatedly asked her, "Who are you protecting?" which implied they thought she was withholding the name of someone who was trying to elude the police. This strongly suggests the police gave Amanda the orginal idea that the guy on the cell phone was a "bad man."

 

[LondonJohn]

Why? Are rapes only committed in the afternoon or evening? They had evidence (AK's accusation and statement) that they had a rapist and murder at large; they could not take any chance that he would flee or reoffend.

Another point about this: the police could have been highly confident that Lumumba would not flee if they had delayed going to his house from 6am to 9am. The reason is this:

a) Fleeing implies some sort of congnisant culpability on behalf of the perpetrator. Here, the "perpetrator" would be Lumumba. So, if Lumumba HAD committed the crime, he'd have known of his culpability - and presumably risk of capture - since around 11pm on the 1st November.

b) Often, perpetrators flee without having any knowledge that they are under suspicion. Lumumba palpably didn't do this - he was continuing to live at home with his wife and child, and working at his bar.

c) Other times, perpetrators flee as soon as they hear that they are under police suspicion/investigation. Now, we can all pretty much agree (I think) that Lumumba first became a true "person of interest" on the evening/night of the 5th/6th. And the only people that knew of the police's new suspicion of Lumumba were AK and the police/prosecutor (and possibly RS). And AK and RS had been in police custody ever since. So unless someone from within the police or prosecutor's office had tipped off Lumumba at some time after midnight that night that he was now under any level of suspicion, he would have been totally unaware of such suspicion until the police knocked on his door (WHATEVER time on the morning of the 6th that occurred).

d) So, given that Lumumba hadn't fleed already, the chanced that he was going to flee between 6am and 9am were virtually zero - UNLESS the police/prosecutor THEMSELVES had tipped him off that he was now under suspicion.

 

[stilicho]

It's appearing more and more to me that a small hard core of posters is deliberately choosing to attack my arguments not based on logic, but rather on mis-quoting my arguments or telling me I am either contradicting myself or not remembering what I've previously written. Is there an agenda at work here?

No agenda. It's just incredibly difficult to figure out what the hell your point is. I don't think you know what it is.

 

[BobTheDonkey]

I agree, RWVBWL. Also, Amanda testified that at her interrogation, the police repeatedly asked her, "Who are you protecting?" which implied they thought she was withholding the name of someone who was trying to elude the police. This strongly suggests the police gave Amanda the orginal idea that the guy on the cell phone was a "bad man."

Right. The 5-10 times the Police would have asked that really set in stone that Patrick was the murderer...

 

[Mary_H]

What a load of crap. We would rather have the suspect in custody at the earliest opportunity rather than guessing whether he would rape and murder another woman just because it was too late to get a drink. Notwithstanding the legal requirement for the Perugia police to arrest him right away, you've woven an intricate and unfounded set of speculations to support some point that's rapidly being lost.

I would love to see the presentation of "Constable LJ" to the rioters in front of his police station after an early morning rape/murder: "I had a certain amount of confidence that no such offences occur between the hours of 6 am and 9 am and so we did nothing. You see, it takes a certain number of waking hours for a rapist to become sufficiently frenzied. Pip pip."

I think you should give it up while you're still behind.

Was the triumphant caravan of police cars driving all through town with lights and sirens also necessary?

 

[stilicho]

Another point about this: the police could have been highly confident that Lumumba would not flee if they had delayed going to his house from 6am to 9am. The reason is this:

a) Fleeing implies some sort of congnisant culpability on behalf of the perpetrator. Here, the "perpetrator" would be Lumumba. So, if Lumumba HAD committed the crime, he'd have known of his culpability - and presumably risk of capture - since around 11pm on the 1st November.

b) Often, perpetrators flee without having any knowledge that they are under suspicion. Lumumba palpably didn't do this - he was continuing to live at home with his wife and child, and working at his bar.

c) Other times, perpetrators flee as soon as they hear that they are under police suspicion/investigation. Now, we can all pretty much agree (I think) that Lumumba first became a true "person of interest" on the evening/night of the 5th/6th. And the only people that knew of the police's new suspicion of Lumumba were AK and the police/prosecutor (and possibly RS). And AK and RS had been in police custody ever since. So unless someone from within the police or prosecutor's office had tipped off Lumumba at some time after midnight that night that he was now under any level of suspicion.

d) So, given that Lumumba hadn't fleed already, the chanced that he was going to flee between 6am and 9am were virtually zero - UNLESS the police/prosecutor THEMSELVES had tipped him off that he was now under suspicion.

Why not wait a week to ask him in for a chit-chat then? What's with the 09:30 arbitrary time? What's so magical about this three-and-a-half hour interval?

Either he is a suspect in a rape-murder or he isn't. Three-and-a-half hours or two weeks doesn't change this fact.

 

[BobTheDonkey]

Was the triumphant caravan of police cars driving all through town with lights and sirens also necessary?

I've seen a single source for this story - Darkness Descending. Being as I find that a bad source (before the attacks come, I don't rely on Nadeau as a source either), do you have any news stories that indicate this actually occurred?

 

[LondonJohn]

What a load of crap. We would rather have the suspect in custody at the earliest opportunity rather than guessing whether he would rape and murder another woman just because it was too late to get a drink. Notwithstanding the legal requirement for the Perugia police to arrest him right away, you've woven an intricate and unfounded set of speculations to support some point that's rapidly being lost.

I would love to see the presentation of "Constable LJ" to the rioters in front of his police station after an early morning rape/murder: "I had a certain amount of confidence that no such offences occur between the hours of 6 am and 9 am and so we did nothing. You see, it takes a certain number of waking hours for a rapist to become sufficiently frenzied. Pip pip."

I think you should give it up while you're still behind.

Don't patronise me. I have reported your post. I hope you get censured or banned. And I hope that other reasonable-minded posters on this forum (as well as the balanced and objective moderators) can see just what you're doing (or trying to do) here.

Arguing with you is like trying to juggle with sand. You are implying that my argument would lead to a potential rapist or murderer remaining unnecessarily at large to commit further potential offences. This is both a distortion AND a complete misrepresentation of my closely-argued position. And I wonder why you've elected to do that?

 

[RoseMontague]

Was the triumphant caravan of police cars driving all through town with lights and sirens also necessary?

I don't believe Darkness Descending mentions the sirens. They may have honked their horn once or twice.

 

[LondonJohn]

Why not wait a week to ask him in for a chit-chat then? What's with the 09:30 arbitrary time? What's so magical about this three-and-a-half hour interval?

Either he is a suspect in a rape-murder or he isn't. Three-and-a-half hours or two weeks doesn't change this fact.

At least this is a counter-argument, rather than a personal attack (well, almost).

The reason for the "09.30" is that I argued that 6am was an unnecessarily early hour to have pulled Lumumba out of his house. And it would also have been an unnecessarily early hour even to have requested his presence for an interview under caution. The reason why police forces all over the world conduct so-called dawn raids is so that suspects are roused from sleep and are, as a result, less likely to either think clearly or physically resist.

So, for the sake of argument, I suggested that 9am would have been an appropriate time to have knocked on his door. This was somewhat arbitrary, but indicative of a more correct approach in my view. A quick check of Lumumba's background would have revealed that he owned and ran a bar in town - so he most likely wouldn't have been leaving the house at 08.00 to travel to a 9-to-5 job. The "09.30" flows from that - I assumed that if the knock on the door took place at 09.00, Lumumba could have dressed, called an attorney and accomanied the police back to the station in the ensuing half an hour. Hence, he'd be sitting in the station by 09.30. Alternatively, he'd have refused to go voluntarily, at which point the police would have arrested him there and then (justifiably now, in my view), and taken him under arrest to the station by 09.30.

Note that while I do think that Lumumba shouldn't have been woken at 6am, the rest of my argument still stands even if action HAD been taken at such an immediate rate. In other words, it would have still been appropriate in my view (but less so than my preferred scenario) for the police to knock on Lumumba's door at 6am, and ask him to accompany then to the station immediately for an interview under caution. If he'd refused, then again they could have arrested him on his doorstep. This scenario eliminates the somewhat emotive argument about "leaving a murdering rapist on the streets" - which in any case is a risk that I've also argued was incredibly small between the hours of 6am and 9am on that morning.

 

[43degreesNorth]

Don't patronise me. I have reported your post. I hope you get censured or banned. And I hope that other reasonable-minded posters on this forum (as well as the balanced and objective moderators) can see just what you're doing (or trying to do) here.

Arguing with you is like trying to juggle with sand. You are implying that my argument would lead to a potential rapist or murderer remaining unnecessarily at large to commit further potential offences. This is both a distortion AND a complete misrepresentation of my closely-argued position. And I wonder why you've elected to do that?

Sorry LJ, I don't get your logic either. Either a rape suspect is at large and they know where, or they wait and hope he hasn't done a runner in 6 hours.... Tell me, if it was your daughter, and they had the name given by someone who claimed to be at the scene of the crime, rape, murder and the police didn't go question the accused pronto... you wouldn't let all hell break loose with the police the next day if they had decided to wait till they had breakfast and espresso?

 

[Fulcanelli]

She might know his surname because he was her boss and the owner of the bar in which she worked. It is likely she knew his name. Moreover, the police didn't set off to arrest some guy named Patrick. They went after a guy named Patrick Lumumba.

Why? He owned the bar she worked in...she didn't need to know his surname for that. Why would she have even wanted to know? All she cared about was what she needed to call him...Patrick. Let's clarify this...Patrick, an Anglo name, even that she didn't know what it was...couldn't spell it right...in her written note she spelt it 'Patrik'. Clearly she'd never seen it written...and if she couldn't spell a common English christian name right, what chance for 'Lumumba' even if she had, on the off-chance heard it? And let's remember, Patrick wasn't his name anyway, it was 'Dia'...Patrick was a name he'd given himself. That tells us she knew not the first thing about him. And why should she? She was casual part-time labour being paid under the counter.

The clincher of course, is the absence of his surname in her statements. It would be there, if only once...at least...had she known and offered it.

 

[stilicho]

Note that while I do think that Lumumba shouldn't have been woken at 6am, the rest of my argument still stands even if action HAD been taken at such an immediate rate. In other words, it would have still been appropriate in my view (but less so than my preferred scenario) for the police to knock on Lumumba's door at 6am, and ask him to accompany then to the station immediately for an interview under caution. If he'd refused, then again they could have arrested him on his doorstep. This scenario eliminates the somewhat emotive argument about "leaving a murdering rapist on the streets" - which in any case is a risk that I've also argued was incredibly small between the hours of 6am and 9am on that morning.

Huh?

So it would have been OK for them to get him at 6 am. Thanks for clearing that up. You've just wasted several minutes of everyone's time just to arrive at the same conclusion that everyone--incuding the Perugian authorities--already had.

Do you have anything of substance to add to the discussion or are all your entries going to be this endless circle of troll?

 

[Fulcanelli]

The Rome crime lab would have a hard time failing an audit. The reason is that the lab doesn't have an auditor.

Yeah, 'cos third world countries like Italy don't have audits or regulation, right?

Edited by Professor Yaffle: 

Edited to remove incivility

 

[Chris_Halkides]

courtroom versus audit

I'm speaking of real-life auditors.

Judges/jurors will almost always agree with the forensics results regardless of the paid stumping done by the defence. You'd have a difficult time finding a single example of contamination being proved in a court of law or accepted by a jury (or set of judges).

That's because it's necessary to prove contamination through audits and not on the fly.

I believe you're also talking about other forensics such as the knife wound analyses and so forth. I am not certain how often paid defence experts are believed over crime lab experts in that regard but I doubt it's at a very high rate.

Stilicho,

You are ignoring the Leskie case from Australia. Here are three quotes from the “Inquest into the death of Jaidyn Raymond Leskie” This contamination event was assessed in the courtroom, despite the lab following requirements of accreditation. An exact mechanism for this contamination event was never uncovered.


www.bioforensics.com/conference09/Workshop/Leskie_decision.pdf
Mr. Scheffer [assistant director at the Victoria Police Forensic Services Centre] said that VPFSC complied with the requirements of its accreditation from the National Association of Testing Authorities. This accreditation establishes quality control assurance programs and some of these programs deal with prevention of contamination.461 The laboratory had a system of “diagnostic and corrective actions” and it attempted to diagnose exactly how contamination occurred and undertake corrective action to ensure that it did not reoccur.462 (p. 71)

Realistically, as the majority of the independent experts conclude, contamination in the VPFSC laboratory is the only logical answer. From a coronial perspective, irrespective of not being able to identify precisely how this contamination occurred, there is also that comfortable degree of satisfaction to enable this conclusion to be reached. The evidentiary material from the two separate and distinct cases was dealt with by the same laboratory scientist within a period of time that was, on any construction, proximate. In addition, there have been other cases where contamination has occurred but precisely how this has happened has not be able to be discovered. (p. 85)

Findings

8. During the conduct of the preliminary investigation (before it was decided to undertake an inquest) the female DNA allegedly taken from the bib that was discovered with the body was matched with a DNA profile in the Victorian Police Forensic Science database. This profile was from a rape victim who was subsequently found to be unrelated to the Leskie case. The match to the bib occurred as a result of contamination in the laboratory and was not an adventitious match. The samples from the two cases were examined by the same scientist within a close time frame. (pp. 93-94)

 

[Chris_Halkides]

Dr. Hampikian

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/weekend/2010/0227/1224265260550.html
The Irish Times - Saturday, February 27, 2010
DNA testing project offers fresh hope to the wrongfully convicted

A forensic genetics expert, Dr Hampikian’s expertise is called on by the Innocence Project all over the US and further afield. He is currently working with the family of Amanda Knox, the American student jailed in Italy last year for the murder of British student Meredith Kercher.


A professor of genetics at the University of Boise, Idaho, Dr Hampikian’s role with the Innocence Project is voluntary, but one he takes seriously. He has been involved in four exonerations over the past decade, though, ironically, his DNA testing has confirmed guilt in two further cases.
“I can’t tell who is telling the truth or who is lying, but the DNA can tell,” he says. “Sometimes the Innocence Project is a bit of a misnomer. In two of the four exonerations, I developed evidence that led to the arrest of somebody new for the crime, so for some people we are the Guilty Project – and that’s an important part of what we do.”

I am putting this forward to show that Dr. Hampikian is indeed a consultant for the Knox defense team. Dr. Johnson indicated the same thing to me about herself in a personal communication. It also documents that Dr. Hampikian does not get paid for his work on the Innocence Project, contrary to an assertion by an unnamed commenter.

 

[LondonJohn]

Sorry LJ, I don't get your logic either. Either a rape suspect is at large and they know where, or they wait and hope he hasn't done a runner in 6 hours.... Tell me, if it was your daughter, and they had the name given by someone who claimed to be at the scene of the crime, rape, murder and the police didn't go question the accused pronto... you wouldn't let all hell break loose with the police the next day if they had decided to wait till they had breakfast and espresso?

Please see my immediately previous posts. I argue that there was VERY LITTLE AND IN FACT ALMOST NO risk that Lumumba would either flee or commit another offence between the hours of 6am (the earliest he could have been approached) and 9am. The police knew that he had no idea that his name was suddenly in the frame (unless the police or prosecutors had tipped him off themselves at some point after midnight that same night). And nobody had been raped or murdered (to my knowledge) in all of the previous five days since the Kercher crime. So if Lumumba HAD raped/killed Meredith, her murder/rape clearly wasn't the kicking off point for a spree killing/raping rampage in Perugia.

HOWEVER, if it makes everyone here feel more comfortable, I'll willingly change my position to this (since it doesn't change my central argument): The police could have gone to Lumumba's house AS SOON AS they had seen AK's written statement from 05.45, in order to totally eliminate any risk of "letting a murderer/rapist slip unnecessarily through their hands or letting another girl be raped and murdered".

Two or three officers could therefore have gone to Lumumba's house at 6am - the earliest time possible - and knocked on his door. If he'd refused to answer the door, and they'd believed him to be inside, they could have radioed for backup, forced his door open, and arrested him, since his refusal to open the door could correctly be interpreted by the police as indicative of some sort of guilt. They could then have handcuffed him inside his own house, and placed him in a police car for transportation back to the station.

If he'd come to the front door in his nightwear, the police could have informed him that he had come to their attention in connection with a serious offence, and told him that they required him to accompany them immediately back to the station to answer questions under caution. If he'd agreed, the policemen could have either waited at his front door while he got dressed etc, or they could have accompanied him inside the house while he did so if they judged that he was either a flight risk or at risk of harming himself or others in the house.

If he'd refused to accompany the police back to the station immediately (and that includes him saying something like "Oh I WOULD come with you right now, but I've got a consignment of beer being delivered at 8 O' Clock. Is it OK if I come to the station at 11.30am?"), they would have again been justified in arresting him on the spot, placing him in handcuffs, and transporting him back to the station.

If Lumumba had gone voluntarily to the station at 6am to answer questions under caution (as in hindsight I believe he would have done), he could have been given the opportunity to account for his whereabouts on the night of the 1st. He could also have been asked about the meaning and significance of the text message. His answers to those questions could have been checked by the police either during the interview, or immediately afterwards (he could have been asked to voluntarily wait while his version of events was checked). In addition, the police could have simultaneously been checking through all the forensic evidence they had at this point, to see whether any of it implicated Lumumba. He could have been asked to supply samples of his blood, fingerprints, footprints and hair - all voluntarily. An innocent man would have had no problem complying with that voluntary request. Had Lumumba refused to supply such samples, that in itself would, in my view, have constituted sufficient suspicion to move to arrest at that point.

My overarching point is this: the police didn't have to ARREST Lumumba in order either to get him off the streets and into the station, or to enable them to question him about the crime. He could (and, I believe WOULD) have done all these things voluntarily if he'd been given the chance. And if he hadn't complied, or had exposed himself through his answers under interview, he could and would have been arrested at THAT point.