Amanda Knox guilty - all because of a cartwheel

[43degreesNorth]

Obviously, this is one case in isolation. But if it can tell us anything, it's that people react in different ways while in prison to what they perceive as wrongful conviction/imprisonment. I therefore think that on this basis (admittedly of low statistical validity), it's difficult to argue that AK should be shouting from the rooftops if she indeed had been wrongly convicted.

So, do you think she is seen as guilty because of a cartwheel or 2? Do you think we are discussing a rare individual who reacts to a murder of an acquaintance as maybe .001% of the population might? and who falsely names their boss as the murder when stressed and confused? ( no idea what percentage of people). Actually, one of the craziest things here is the testimony she made of the blood being perhaps menstrual blood. Doesn't anyone here think this is really off the wall? Sorry, I am afraid that bit of the testimony rates as high on the alarmbell list as ignoring the phone call she first made to her mother and claiming to forget.

 

[Matthew Best]

Do you think we are discussing a rare individual who reacts to a murder of an acquaintance as maybe .001% of the population might?

Cite for the figure quoted, please? Or is it produced by rectal extraction?

 

[Matthew Best]

menstrual blood... anyone else think this is a desperate explanation?

Instead of asking, Why don't you explain why you think it is a desperate explanation?

 

[43degreesNorth]

Cite for the figure quoted, please? Or is it produced by rectal extraction?

Well a brief addition of world murders (highly inaccurate) and a google to find those convicted of murder who do cartwheels before conviction ( could only find 1) and you are right.. I made up a percentage that reflects generously a low number allowing for some crimes not recorded online

 

[43degreesNorth]

Instead of asking, Why don't you explain why you think it is a desperate explanation?

Used to explain away the presence of blood in the flat?

 

[Matthew Best]

I refer the honourable gentleman to the question I asked some moments ago.

 

[43degreesNorth]

I refer the honourable gentleman to the question I asked some moments ago.

Because to me ( and I have no evidence other than personal experience) it seems desperate attempt to explain the presence of blood. I have never know blood to be an issue when i live with women Do other people find this a normal occurrence?

 

[Alt+F4]

sorry, forgot that one
Back OT... menstrual blood... anyone else think this is a desperate explanation?

According to the video of the bathroom at Bruce's website Amanda didn't even see the blood in bidet. As for the blood on the bath mat and faucet, no way that was menstrual blood.

 

[Alt+F4]

Because to me ( and I have no evidence other than personal experience) it seems desperate attempt to explain the presence of blood. I have never know blood to be an issue when i live with women Do other people find this a normal occurrence?

As a woman with lots of personal experience (30 plus years of dealing with "the big red beast") I can tell you that no woman, upon seeing a very small amount of blood on a faucet, would assume it was someone having an accident with their period.

Do accidents happen? Sure, but it is highly unlikely that the amount of blood on the bath mat would go unoticed by a woman having her period.

 

[LondonJohn]

I refer the honourable gentleman to the question I asked some moments ago.

L to the O to the L (I is well street, innit). Got to love the ridiculous anachronisms of tradition that still make our Houses of Parliament look like a laughing stock sometimes!

Can I indulge in an aside here, by way of explanation?! Pretty please!! You can stop reading now if you don't want to know where that phrase comes from (well, actually since none of this post is on-topic you could have stopped reading at the first "L").

Anyhow, every week (it used to be twice a week), the Prime Minister has to answer questions on the floor of the House of Commons (UK's lower parliament). Questioners are selected by the Speaker, on topics that are not known in advance to the PM (the leader of the main opposition party by convention gets a set number of questions automatically, as do leaders of smaller parties on rotation I believe).

So.... PM's Questions always used to begin by the first questioner standing up in the House and asking the PM a fixed, anodyne question about what he/she had been doing that day, and what his/her plans were for the rest of the day. The PM would then reply: e.g. "This morning I chaired a cabinet meeting, and had meetings with advisers. This afternoon, I plan to visit a hospital in Southampton, then I have an official dinner with the Prime Minister of Sweden".

After the PM's explanation of his/her schedule, the first questioner would then be allowed to ask what was called a "supplemental question" - which was the question that (s)he actually wanted answering. E.g. "Could the Prime Minister tell us why 200 of my constituents in the steel industry are about to lose their jobs"? And the PM would answer (or artfully evade) that question.

But for the second questioner onwards, protocol dictated that they all had to formally pretend to ask the PM the same anodyne opening question that had been asked by the first questioner. Except that the explicit asking of this question didn't even have to happen - but the PM had to PRETEND the question had been asked! So, when the speaker called the second (and subsequent) questioner to stand, there was an immediate presumption that the "PM's whereabouts" question had been instantaneously re-asked.

So the PM would start his/her interaction with questioners 2+ by pretending that he/she'd been asked again about his/her movements for the day. And tradition dictated that (s)he would say the precise words "May I refer the honourable gentleman/lady to the answer I gave some moments ago" (i.e. referring to his/her earlier answer to the first questioner's opening question). The questioner could then ask a supplementary question in the same way as the first questioner had done.

This ridiculous and archaic "tradition" was thankfully abolished as part of the general reform/updating of PMQs, but the phrase remains well-known - partly as a self-mocking reminder of how stupid some (but not all) traditions can be.

Indulgence over - just thought some of you might be vaguely interested in a bit of trivia.

 

[LondonJohn]

So, do you think she is seen as guilty because of a cartwheel or 2? Do you think we are discussing a rare individual who reacts to a murder of an acquaintance as maybe .001% of the population might? and who falsely names their boss as the murder when stressed and confused? ( no idea what percentage of people). Actually, one of the craziest things here is the testimony she made of the blood being perhaps menstrual blood. Doesn't anyone here think this is really off the wall? Sorry, I am afraid that bit of the testimony rates as high on the alarmbell list as ignoring the phone call she first made to her mother and claiming to forget.

But my post wasn't in response to a question about how people might behave post-crime and pre-detention. It was in answer to an explicit question about how previous proven miscarriage-of-justice victims have behaved WHILE IN PRISON AFTER CONVICTION. The reason for the question - as I interpreted it - was to try to discover whether all (or even a majority) of those whose convictions were subsequently overturned spent their post-conviction time in prison protesting in some way (or maybe becoming legally qualified in order to be able to better make their own case). So my answer - in relation to my statistically rubbish analysis of ONE case - was that different people do different things under these circumstances. Some protest, some don't. And therefore, one can't infer that AK's avoidance of rooftop protests, hunger strikes or law degree courses signifies her belief in her conviction any more than it signifies her belief in her wrongful conviction.

 

[Matthew Best]

As a woman with lots of personal experience (30 plus years of dealing with "the big red beast") I can tell you that no woman, upon seeing a very small amount of blood on a faucet, would assume it was someone having an accident with their period.

The question now is what percentage of women, on seeing a very small amount of blood on a faucet would assume a grisly murder had taken place elsewhere in the premises?

 

[Danceme]

No, it was not. As I tried to explain to you earlier, in Italy, if there is evidence for crimes sucgh as Mafia, terrorism, or violent sex crime an arrest has to be made immediately. Moreover, if you have evidence against him, then it's pointless questioning him as a witness since that statement cannot be used as evidence against him. Finally, an arrest is a requirement in order to get all the appropriate warrants to take forensic samples from him, to search his home and bar, to access his phone records etc. They needed access to all these things as soon as possible.

This seems a logical explanation. If only statements made under arrest can be used against someone in a court of law then I agree the Police were right in arresting Patrick instead of bringing him in for questioning. They had a pretty convincing (to them) eyewitness testimony and this gave reasonable grounds for arrest.

Steve's opinion has been duly weighed and found to be irrelevant.

Someone must have forgotten to tell him there were trials and verdicts already. His opinion wasn't important then and it isn't important now.

Was Steve given all the documents that Charlie has for example? Did he analyze every single piece of evidence himself to reach his conclusions or is it a kneejerk reaction given his background based on a brief read through the pro-Amanda websites or perhaps articles by Egan or Preston? Where did his information come from? Did he read TJMK or PMF as well in informing his opinion?
I'd really like to know because I deal with a situation whereby my partner is a very experienced lawyer, some criminal work, who fiercely believes Amanda is innocent yet refuses to read any more information on the case than the few articles he's read, such as Egan's, and anything else on CNN or a select few British news sites. He lacks indepth knowledge of the evidence or testimony yet insists she is innocent based on his gut instinct due to his law background etc. Frankly speaking, we can no longer discuss the case because he thinks his background trumps any indepth research I've tried to do and I do read both sides all the time. He always has a pat answer for anything I find troubling about the case and it really reminds me of the way I've seen evidence dismissed by the "innocent" side at times without real skeptical analysis.

More good info is available in Frank Sfarzo's Perugia Shock. Frank is a local who went to most of the trials and knows his stuff. I check it first. I found it especially interesting to read from the beginning, for Frank seemed to feel Amanda Knox and "daddy's boy" Raffaele Sollecito were guilty in the early part, but then changed his mind. An interesting read...RWVBWL

I've gone back and read a fair bit of Frank's older posts as well and I've been very curious as to what it was that made him change his mind. Does anyone have any info on this? Did Frank suddenly come to this conclusion based on anything in particular or was it a gradual process?

ALL of the wounds are stab wounds. It's one of the only things all the medical experts from all sides agree on (those who testified in court). This is all very clear in the Massei Report, which you obviously haven't read.

Fulcanelli, when will the english translation be posted on PMF?

 

[Alt+F4]

The question now is what percentage of women, on seeing a very small amount of blood on a faucet would assume a grisly murder had taken place elsewhere in the premises?

I would assume none. In fact, considering that it was around noon and Meredith's door was locked (as Amanda believed it usually was when she wasn't home) there was no reason to think anything bad had happened to her. Yet in Raffaele's phone call to the police he emphasizes that Meredith is missing and her bedroom door is locked.

 

[LondonJohn]

Well a brief addition of world murders (highly inaccurate) and a google to find those convicted of murder who do cartwheels before conviction ( could only find 1) and you are right.. I made up a percentage that reflects generously a low number allowing for some crimes not recorded online

I would contend that you've made an illogical link here. I'm sure you CAN only find one person convicted of murder between, say, 2005 and 2009 who has done cartwheels in a police station prior to arrest.

But I can show you a convicted murderer who was arrested because he had meat pieces all over his trousers (I kid you not). It happens to be from the "Bridgewater Four" case that I recently made reference to. One of the four men was caught having "handled stolen meat" (again I kid you not), and this was used as leverage against him to elicit a "confession" for the Carl Bridgewater murder. I doubt I could find another such case in the past 200 years. And the man in question was released in 1997 after 18 years of wrongful imprisonment.

The issue is this: one is obviously entitled to attach certain weight to AK's actions at the police station. To me though, there are two important points: Firstly, what EXACTLY did she do at the police station? The words "cartwheel" and "splits" are very pejorative in this context - implying as they do some sort of acrobatic "routine". But this description of her actions is open to debate. She MIGHT have been doing stretching, flexing and bending exercises with far less of a "performance" connotation.

The second point is of course this: how strongly can one equate AK's physical actions at the police station (even if one attaches to them the most pejorative interpretation) with an indication of culpability? I do think that it's reasonable to suggest that young people whose housemates have just been brutally murdered should exhibit either quiet decorum or sobbing hysteria (or something in-between). But different reactions do not in and of themselves indicate any level of culpability.

And that leads to the final point, which absolutely cannot be ignored (and which may well have been raised here previously): Why would AK behave in such an ostentatiously "different" manner if a) she knew she was culpable, and b) she knew that she was being watched? It makes no sense whatsoever. I think that most people would agree that AK had at least above-average mental faculties, especially in those post-murder days when all the indications are that both she and RS stayed away from marijuana or other drugs.

Any rational person who knew themselves to be culpable would surely be making an extra effort to appear as "normal" as possible - ESPECIALLY while seated in a police station, of all places. To do otherwise could ONLY carry downside risk - a risk of being viewed with increased suspicion - with a "best-case" scenario being that these actions were viewed with neutrality.

So I'd argue that AK's ONLY logical thought process - if she knew herself to be culpable - was to "act" while at the police station exactly as a grieving housemate would be expected to act (depression, sadness, shock, introversion).

And the logical corollary to this is that AK's strange behaviour at the police station could (should?) even be viewed as supporting evidence that she DIDN'T believe herself to be culpable.

I'd finally add that my argument above depends on AK being of sound enough mind to have thought these things through logically. Some might of course argue that either she didn't possess these faculties, or that she was so very arrogant/self-obsessed that she didn't even stop to consider the potential implications of her actions (but I personally would disagree with this supposition).

 

[RWVBWL]

I would contend that you've made an illogical link here. I'm sure you CAN only find one person convicted of murder between, say, 2005 and 2009 who has done cartwheels in a police station prior to arrest.

But I can show you a convicted murderer who was arrested because he had meat pieces all over his trousers (I kid you not). It happens to be from the "Bridgewater Four" case that I recently made reference to. One of the four men was caught having "handled stolen meat" (again I kid you not), and this was used as leverage against him to elicit a "confession" for the Carl Bridgewater murder. I doubt I could find another such case in the past 200 years. And the man in question was released in 1997 after 18 years of wrongful imprisonment.

The issue is this: one is obviously entitled to attach certain weight to AK's actions at the police station. To me though, there are two important points: Firstly, what EXACTLY did she do at the police station? The words "cartwheel" and "splits" are very pejorative in this context - implying as they do some sort of acrobatic "routine". But this description of her actions is open to debate. She MIGHT have been doing stretching, flexing and bending exercises with far less of a "performance" connotation.

The second point is of course this: how strongly can one equate AK's physical actions at the police station (even if one attaches to them the most pejorative interpretation) with an indication of culpability? I do think that it's reasonable to suggest that young people whose housemates have just been brutally murdered should exhibit either quiet decorum or sobbing hysteria (or something in-between). But different reactions do not in and of themselves indicate any level of culpability.

And that leads to the final point, which absolutely cannot be ignored (and which may well have been raised here previously): Why would AK behave in such an ostentatiously "different" manner if a) she knew she was culpable, and b) she knew that she was being watched? It makes no sense whatsoever. I think that most people would agree that AK had at least above-average mental faculties, especially in those post-murder days when all the indications are that both she and RS stayed away from marijuana or other drugs.

Any rational person who knew themselves to be culpable would surely be making an extra effort to appear as "normal" as possible - ESPECIALLY while seated in a police station, of all places. To do otherwise could ONLY carry downside risk - a risk of being viewed with increased suspicion - with a "best-case" scenario being that these actions were viewed with neutrality.

So I'd argue that AK's ONLY logical thought process - if she knew herself to be culpable - was to "act" while at the police station exactly as a grieving housemate would be expected to act (depression, sadness, shock, introversion).

And the logical corollary to this is that AK's strange behaviour at the police station could (should?) even be viewed as supporting evidence that she DIDN'T believe herself to be culpable.

I'd finally add that my argument above depends on AK being of sound enough mind to have thought these things through logically. Some might of course argue that either she didn't possess these faculties, or that she was so very arrogant/self-obsessed that she didn't even stop to consider the potential implications of her actions (but I personally would disagree with this supposition).

Hi LondonJohn,
greetings from Los Angeles.
I agree with your post. If I had just done any serious crime, I would try to "blend in" and NOT draw any suspicion unto myself. As I do today, since I STILL have to get my truck smogged and re-registered, hahaha. So I drive illegally and try to look like everyone else, with no shaved head displayed, wearing a hat always, drive slowly and obey ALL of the laws, etc. No more "California stops", flowing with the speed of traffic above 55mph, etc.
I do not want or need to see a police officer while driving, if you get my drift...

In my opinion, Miss Knox, who simply tried to help the police, (since someone murdered her roommate and she was not involved in the murder), did not have anything to worry about, and so she was simply being her self, not "on guard", so to speak. Who in their right mind would kill their roommate and then go hang out at the police station while her boyfriend was being questioned again? Amanda Knox, who met her boyfirend at a classical music concert, worked, went to school and liked to smoke pot and hash? Right!Sounds like the "typical classic murderer" to me, NOT!

It's kind of interesting looking at the larger picture. Miss Kercher was brutally murdered and sexually assaulted, and the police focused their attention on her female roommate???
RWVBWL

 

[Agatha]

Miss Kercher was brutally murdered and sexually assaulted, and the police focused their attention on her female roommate???
RWVBWL

Because that's where the evidence led them.

 

[BobTheDonkey]

Hi LondonJohn,
greetings from Los Angeles.
I agree with your post. If I had just done any serious crime, I would try to "blend in" and NOT draw any suspicion unto myself. As I do today, since I STILL have to get my truck smogged and re-registered, hahaha. So I drive illegally and try to look like everyone else, with no shaved head displayed, wearing a hat always, drive slowly and obey ALL of the laws, etc. No more "California stops", flowing with the speed of traffic above 55mph, etc.
I do not want or need to see a police officer while driving, if you get my drift...

In my opinion, Miss Knox, who simply tried to help the police, (since someone murdered her roommate and she was not involved in the murder), did not have anything to worry about, and so she was simply being her self, not "on guard", so to speak. Who in their right mind would kill their roommate and then go hang out at the police station while her boyfriend was being questioned again? Amanda Knox, who met her boyfirend at a classical music concert, worked, went to school and liked to smoke pot and hash? Right!Sounds like the "typical classic murderer" to me, NOT!

It's kind of interesting looking at the larger picture. Miss Kercher was brutally murdered and sexually assaulted, and the police focused their attention on her female roommate???
RWVBWL

Oh, really? So, her accusation of Patrick was really just to help the Police? Are you sure? Her responses of "I don't know" to the question of "Who did you send this text message to?" was really just to help the Police with their interrogation techniques?

Most people would term that "Deflection" or "Stone-walling" or even could be considered "Obstruction of Investigation"...

 

[RWVBWL]

Because that's where the evidence led them.

Hi Agatha,
The "evidence" or their professional "theory"?
Hmmm...
RWVBWL

 

[BobTheDonkey]

Hi Agatha,
The "evidence" or their professional "theory"?
Hmmm...
RWVBWL

No, the evidence.

You know, the faked break-in, the knife, the bra clasp, the repositioning of the body after Meredith was dead, the evidence of multiple attackers, etc.