Amanda Knox guilty - all because of a cartwheel

[katy_did]

The bathroom in question was shared by only two of the roommates, not all four. Katy, upon seeing a tiny bit of blood on the faucet would your first thought be a period accident? I too would have thought a cut or a nose bleed.

Either/or. With it being in the bathroom (and apparently only there) I might've thought menstrual blood more likely. Especially since it being on the faucet would imply someone with blood on their hands using the running water to wash it off, rather than someone with a bloody nose. In fact yes, I think my first impulse would be to think menstrual blood.

 

[Alt+F4]

Amanda's explanation is that she thought the blood on the faucet was from an infected ear piercing, but she ruled that out when she saw the blood on the mat because it was too much. Since the blood on the faucet turned out to be Amanda's (not a mixed DNA sample, BTW) and the blood on the mat turned out to be Meredith's, I would say Amanda may have been right with her first guess.

Charlie, when did she make the "period accident" comment? I don't recall.

 

[LondonJohn]

Either/or. With it being in the bathroom (and apparently only there) I might've thought menstrual blood more likely. Especially since it being on the faucet would imply someone with blood on their hands using the running water to wash it off, rather than someone with a bloody nose. In fact yes, I think my first impulse would be to think menstrual blood.

Surely it was not only the blood in the bathroom that might or might not have raised suspicions in AK/RS. What about the the additional factor of the front door being open (according to AK's account, admittedly, but not contested to my knowledge)?

I am now off from here to watch a gripping documentary about UK electro-pop of the 1970s/80s on BBC4. Ah the joys of a publicly-funded major media network

 

[Alt+F4]

With it being in the bathroom (and apparently only there) I might've thought menstrual blood more likely. Especially since it being on the faucet would imply someone with blood on their hands using the running water to wash it off, rather than someone with a bloody nose. In fact yes, I think my first impulse would be to think menstrual blood.

I'm not sure I'm following you. Wouldn't someone with a bloody nose or a cut also use the runnng water to wash it off?

In addition, according to Charlie, the blood on the faucet was determined to be Amanda's alone, who I believe was not having her period. As for the blood on the bath mat, it was too much to be a period "accident".

 

[stilicho]

Stilicho,

So all you can find is D.A. Bill Peterson’s web site? That’s the same Bill Peterson whose office not only convicted Tommy Ward and Karl Fontenot, but also Ron Williamson and Dennis Fritz, two demonstrably innocent men. Mr. Peterson is not a disinterested observer. He sued John Grisham, Dennis Fritz, and Robert Mayer (the author of “The Dreams of Ada”), among others. Maybe he went to the same law school as Mr. Mignini.

I repeat, it only took two hours to produce a false confession from Mr. Fontenot.

http://www.innocenceproject.org/Content/990.php
http://www.nowpublic.com/people/da-...obert-mayer-and-their-publishers-retiring-jan
http://gerbeans.blogspot.com/2007/04/district-attorney-bill-peterson-website.html

halides1

Without any further information than that from advocacy sites, we will have to conclude that Grisham was in error. He did not have access any of the primary evidence nor did he interview anyone from law enforcement in OK. He is a competent novelist and that's about it.

Do you have anything about the case that isn't from an advocacy site? The wiki links to it are all dead or dormant and it appears that nothing has been done by anyone to try to fix them.

 

[RoseMontague]

Charlie, when did she make the "period accident" comment? I don't recall.

I think I remember it being in the email to everyone.

 

[Alt+F4]

I think I remember it being in the email to everyone.

Ah, I think you are correct Rose, thanks.

 

[stilicho]

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?

You'd call the police if you came home, the front door was open, nobody was home, you lived in an area strewn with discarded syringes, and there was blood in the washbasin. The only person on earth who wouldn't have done this was Amanda Knox and/or the murderer.

She has a fully documented alibi email dated 04 NOV 2007 to explain to you and her Outlook spam list why she didn't phone the police. She knew she'd have to explain why she didn't immediately call them.

Were you convinced?

 

[stilicho]

Normal people would just assume the blood was from a nosebleed or a minor cut. Only someone who knew there had been a murder would start out thinking homicide.

Normal people can include those who knew there was a homicide. Your statements above create the false impression that these two variables are mutually exclusive.

You're welcome.

 

[stilicho]

Charlie, when did she make the "period accident" comment? I don't recall.

It's from her alibi email of 04 NOV 2007:

i assumed that perhaps meredith was having menstral issues and hadnt cleaned up yet. ew, but nothing to worry about. i left the bathroom and got dressed in my room.

(Source: http://perugiamurderfile.org/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=39 )

She explains her whole reasoning there for not phoning the police even though she knew there was something horribly wrong. That's the email (to her spam list) where she muses about whether Meredith had anal sex. She is terribly worried about her rental agreement:

It kind of sucks that we have to pay the next months rent, but the owner has protection within the contract.

Not much about her dead roommate at all.

 

[katy_did]

I'm not sure I'm following you. Wouldn't someone with a bloody nose or a cut also use the runnng water to wash it off?

In addition, according to Charlie, the blood on the faucet was determined to be Amanda's alone, who I believe was not having her period. As for the blood on the bath mat, it was too much to be a period "accident".

The fact of someone having blood on their hands in the bathroom would probably lead me to think it was menstrual blood, as opposed to a nose bleed where I'd expect there to be more blood in the sink itself. The blood on the bath mat would also indicate menstrual blood to me (someone stepping on it after having been in the shower).

I don't really think this is a significant issue either way. AK thinking it was menstrual blood initially is completely reasonable, as would be her assuming it was someone with a cut or a nosebleed. On the other hand, thinking there'd been a grisly murder wouldn't be particularly reasonable!

 

[katy_did]

You'd call the police if you came home, the front door was open, nobody was home, you lived in an area strewn with discarded syringes, and there was blood in the washbasin. The only person on earth who wouldn't have done this was Amanda Knox and/or the murderer.

And Filomena. IIRC, although she knew everything Amanda had found, she didn't tell her to call the police till she heard about the break-in. Didn't bother calling Meredith, either.

 

[katy_did]

Just having a look at the list of DNA test results on the FOA site. Is it true that Amanda and Meredith's DNA was found in a shoe print revealed by luminol?

That seems quite significant, if so. Since all the other shoe prints were Rudy's, it seems logical to assume this was his too, perhaps missed by the police or too faint to be seen with the naked eye. Shoes don't have DNA, obviously, so the only ways for Amanda's DNA to have gotten there are either that it was latent and there already, or that Rudy had trodden in something containing her DNA and was tracking it through the house. It also seems very likely that the faint trace of Amanda's DNA in Filomena's room came from the same source. the shoe-wearer stepping into the room and transferring a much smaller amount of her DNA to the luminol-revealed stain found there.

 

[Bruce Fischer]

Charlie Wilkes: For example, the TMB test on the knife blade definitively ruled out the presence of blood.

Fulcanelli: Incorrect. As Judge Massei made clear in his report, the sensitivity of the blood test is not able to detect blood below a certain level. It therefore cannot say the material on the knife for certain is not blood, only with certainty that there is no blood above a certain level. He also points out that almost all the material on the knife was removed to test for DNA leaving none to be tested for blood. Therefore, all that can be said with certainty is that no blood was detected on the knife, not that the origin of Merediths was certainly not from blood.


Charlie Wilkes: Also, no blood was found in Sollecito's apartment, other than luminol reactions which were not confirmed to be blood.

Fulcanelli:It can safely stated to be blood, since bleach can be ruled out...since Raffaele's cleaner never used bleach.


Charlie Wilkes:A number of items involve terminology, like whether Meredith's throat was slashed. Steve has no reason to mislead the public about such matters.

Fulcanelli:Nobody's saying he's deliberately attempting to mislead. It is being argued and has been shown, that he is simply ignorant of the facts of the case.


So just to be clear, it was never proven that there was any blood on the knife. It was also never proven that any blood was found in Raffaele's apartment.

Charlie stated those points very clearly.

Fulcanelli,

You think it is safe to say something is blood even though no tests confirm blood? Is that the standard you have given to all evidence presented in this case? You don't think it's bleach so it must be blood?

You state that no blood was detected on the knife. We agree there.

You are not qualified to attack Steve Moore's professional opinion of this murder. I will dismiss your comments about Steve without debate.

 

[BobTheDonkey]

You seem to be of the opinion that tertiary transfer is - almost by definition - implausible (e.g. your explicit use of "...and is therefore not a plausible scenario" in the above quote).

But didn't - for example - SOME OR ALL of Meredith's DNA found elsewhere in the cottage have to have got there via tertiary transfer: e.g. 1) Meredith deposits blood onto her bedroom floor; 2) That blood is transferred to the Perpetrator(s)' feet or shoes; 3) The perpetrators transfer the blood from their feet/shoes onto the hallway or bathroom floors. That's tertiary transfer as I understand it. It therefore seems odd to suggest that if tertiary transfer was the only (or only conceivable) transfer method in any other instance, it must by definition be implausible...

We're talking tertiary transfer of skin cells, not tertiary transfer of wet blood. I'd say there's a fair bit of difference in how well one transfers over the other

 

[Bruce Fischer]

Just having a look at the list of DNA test results on the FOA site. Is it true that Amanda and Meredith's DNA was found in a shoe print revealed by luminol?

That seems quite significant, if so. Since all the other shoe prints were Rudy's, it seems logical to assume this was his too, perhaps missed by the police or too faint to be seen with the naked eye. Shoes don't have DNA, obviously, so the only ways for Amanda's DNA to have gotten there are either that it was latent and there already, or that Rudy had trodden in something containing her DNA and was tracking it through the house. It also seems very likely that the faint trace of Amanda's DNA in Filomena's room came from the same source. the shoe-wearer stepping into the room and transferring a much smaller amount of her DNA to the luminol-revealed stain found there.

From Friends of Amanda:

Investigators took swabs of each of the six bare footprints they detected with luminol. These swabs were not tested to confirm the presence of blood, but they were subjected to DNA testing, with the following results:

LOCATION_____________DNA PROFILE
Amanda's room..................Amanda
Amanda's room..................Amanda
Amanda's room..................Amanda
corridor............................none
corridor............................none
corridor............................none

These results seriously undermine the prosecution's claim that the bare footprints were made by someone who tracked Meredith's blood into the corridor following the murder. In fact:

* Meredith's DNA was not detected in a single one of the bare footprints

* No test was ever performed to establish that any of these prints were made with blood rather than one of the many other substances that react with luminol.

* No comparable footprints were found inside the room where Meredith was killed.

What about the other stains revealed with luminol?

Along with the bare footprints, three other luminol reactions were observed at the cottage. Two were stains with no shape description, and one was described as a shoe print. The shapeless stains were in Amanda's room and Filomena's room. All were swabbed and subjected to DNA tests. The stain in Amanda's room showed the DNA of both Meredith and Amanda. The stain in Filomena's room showed the DNA of Meredith with a very faint profile corresponding to Amanda. The shoe print was in the corridor, and it showed the DNA of Meredith and Amanda.

These results are unsurprising for samples taken from the floor of a shared residence where all kinds of residue got tracked around. As with the bare footprints, no other test was performed to determine the presence of blood in any of these stains.

 

[katy_did]

Surely it was not only the blood in the bathroom that might or might not have raised suspicions in AK/RS. What about the the additional factor of the front door being open (according to AK's account, admittedly, but not contested to my knowledge)?

I am now off from here to watch a gripping documentary about UK electro-pop of the 1970s/80s on BBC4. Ah the joys of a publicly-funded major media network

Yes, true. I suppose at the point AK saw the blood, there was just the open front door to be concerned about, which she'd dismissed as someone going outside and leaving the door unlocked. Certainly the blood in the bathroom would have been more and more concerning, the more 'odd things' were discovered.

Documentary sounds rather interesting! Enjoy.

 

[katy_did]

Thanks, Bruce. That shoe print surely proves beyond doubt that Amanda's DNA was tracked there from another source, rather than left there by her directly (or alternatively, that it was left there at some earlier point and then stepped on by the shoe-wearer, who then transferred it into Filomena's room).

 

[BobTheDonkey]

Thanks, Bruce. That shoe print surely proves beyond doubt that Amanda's DNA was tracked there from another source, rather than left there by her directly (or alternatively, that it was left there at some earlier point and then stepped on by the shoe-wearer, who then transferred it into Filomena's room).

If we're sticking strictly to those results, the shoe certainly didn't pick up Amanda's DNA from the corridor where there was none of her DNA


Interesting that one side can argue that just because Raffaele's DNA wasn't found anywhere else doesn't mean it wasn't there...but then turn around and argue that just because Amanda's DNA wasn't found in a large amount in the blob in Filomena's room, it means Amanda didn't enter the room...

Of course, who knows, maybe it was Raffaele that went into Filomena's room...

 

[katy_did]

If we're sticking strictly to those results, the shoe certainly didn't pick up Amanda's DNA from the corridor where there was none of her DNA


Interesting that one side can argue that just because Raffaele's DNA wasn't found anywhere else doesn't mean it wasn't there...but then turn around and argue that just because Amanda's DNA wasn't found in a large amount in the blob in Filomena's room, it means Amanda didn't enter the room...

Of course, who knows, maybe it was Raffaele that went into Filomena's room...

But the shoe print was in the corridor, wasn't it...? Since her DNA profile was stronger there, but very faint in Filomena's room, it seems quite logical that the shoe-wearer transferred DNA from one to the other (fainter in the second mark).

I didn't argue anything showed Amanda didn't enter the room (I imagine she did, since she and Raffaele discovered the break-in) just that the presence of DNA in a shoe print would obviously indicate it wasn't left there directly (since shoes don't contain DNA).