Amanda Knox guilty - all because of a cartwheel

[christianahannah]

He had a substantiated alibi 'combined' with a lack of evidence against him. Had there been hard evidence against him, alibi or not, he'd have remained in custody.

The police still had Amanda's statement that Patrick was Meredith's killer. Or had she withdrawn that claim previous to Patrick being relased?

 

[Bruce Fischer]

Well Kevin_Lowe, I'd like to hear from you a non-contrived explanation of the missing bloody heelprint in the bathroom.

The only plausible explanation I'm aware of is that the bloody bare footprint was originally complete, and that the part of the footprint on the tile floor was later cleaned up, leaving behind just the part on the bathmat.

I said earlier that I've seen only contrived explanations---other than the clean up scenario--- but I welcome any thoughts you have on this topic.

///

Why would anyone clean up the small amount on the tile and leave the visible print on the bathmat?

If you were trying to eliminate evidence, you would eliminate the bathmat.

There was no clean up done. The visible blood in the bathroom helps to explain this. A quick rinse of the sink and that blood would have been gone. Same with the bidet. The print on the bathmat was easy to see. It would have been removed from the scene in a clean up was attempted.

 

[Fulcanelli]

The police still had Amanda's statement that Patrick was Meredith's killer. Or had she withdrawn that claim previous to Patrick being relased?

The statement alone wasn't enough to continue to hold him, in the face of a seemingly strong alibi. After having investigated the murder for nearly two and a half weeks one would have expected some other form of evidence to corroborate the one piece of evidence they had emerge. It didn't.

But even so, even with only that one piece of evidence (Amanda's statement) it wasn't over for Patrick when he was released. He remained a formal suspect for several months after his release, even though by that time Amanda had withdrawn her accusation against him.

 

[christianahannah]

Mary_H said:

Remember a few days ago when Fulcanelli was trying to convince us that the police did not know who Patrick Lumumba was, nor that he was black? I found an interesting article to the contrary from the early days of the case:

I do not know if the police had suspicions of Patrick prior to Amanda being interrogated, however, they did know information about his color and place of business after Amanda was questioned re: her 1:45 and 5:45 statements.

 

[Fulcanelli]

Why would anyone clean up the small amount on the tile and leave the visible print on the bathmat?

If you were trying to eliminate evidence, you would eliminate the bathmat.

There was no clean up done. The visible blood in the bathroom helps to explain this. A quick rinse of the sink and that blood would have been gone. Same with the bidet. The print on the bathmat was easy to see. It would have been removed from the scene in a clean up was attempted.

'Some' of the blood had to be cleaned...too much blood in the bathroom and Amanda would have been expected to call Filomena and/or the police immediately on entering the bathroom and seeing it. At the same time, some blood, not too much needed to to be left, in order to give Amanda cause to 'begin' to become concerned.

I don't see it was necessary to eliminate the bath mat.

 

[LondonJohn]

Mary_H said:



I do not know if the police had suspicions of Patrick prior to Amanda being interrogated, however, they did know information about his color and place of business after Amanda was questioned re: her 1:45 and 5:45 statements.

But certain posters are seemingly wedded to certain positions (sometimes posters from both "sides", it has to be said, but usually posters from just the one "side"). That, of course, is their prerogative. But it makes it somewhat difficult to conduct a constructive debate.

By the way (and intended for ALL posters, not specifically for christianahannah), I find the idea that I belong to some sort of "advocacy group" for AK both risible and offensive. I'd appreciate not being bracketed in such a crude and one-dimensional fashion again. Thanks

 

[christianahannah]

The statement alone wasn't enough to continue to hold him, in the face of a seemingly strong alibi. After having investigated the murder for nearly two and a half weeks one would have expected some other form of evidence to corroborate the one piece of evidence they had emerge. It didn't.

But even so, even with only that one piece of evidence (Amanda's statement) it wasn't over for Patrick when he was released. He remained a formal suspect for several months after his release, even though by that time Amanda had withdrawn her accusation against him.

Patrick ended up filing suit against the police for false imprisonment. He had asked for a high amount but received considerably less on judgment. I am not sure if he is appealing the case or if that is possible.

Do you (or anyone else) know the particulars of the case filed by Patrick? I think it may have only involved monetary damages for loss of business, reputation, but am not sure.

 

[christianahannah]

But certain posters are seemingly wedded to certain positions (sometimes posters from both "sides", it has to be said, but usually posters from just the one "side"). That, of course, is their prerogative. But it makes it somewhat difficult to conduct a constructive debate.

By the way, I find the idea that I belong to some sort of "advocacy group" for AK both risible and offensive. I'd appreciate not being bracketed in such a crude and one-dimensional fashion again. Thanks

I have done this?

 

[Fulcanelli]

Patrick ended up filing suit against the police for false imprisonment. He had asked for a high amount but received considerably less on judgment. I am not sure if he is appealing the case or if that is possible.

Do you (or anyone else) know the particulars of the case filed by Patrick? I think it may have only involved monetary damages for loss of business, reputation, but am not sure.

No, he didn't. He didn't need to. It's automatic in the Italian system. When someone has been imprisoned 'on remand' and have then been found innocent, they are then entitled to compensation of a certain figure for each day they spent inside and this has to be decided in a court. It is not to imply any wrongdoing by the police. We don't have that in our common law system, whereby if you're arrested for a few days and then released without charge we have a right to compensation. In Patrick's case, he was asking for more then the standard amount. Not because of police wrongdoing, but because of the greater harm he claimed his imprisonment had done to him (psychological harm, damage to reputation, loss of business as you say).

 

[LondonJohn]

'Some' of the blood had to be cleaned...too much blood in the bathroom and Amanda would have been expected to call Filomena and/or the police immediately on entering the bathroom and seeing it. At the same time, some blood, not too much needed to to be left, in order to give Amanda cause to 'begin' to become concerned.

I don't see it was necessary to eliminate the bath mat.

If the bloody footprint was visible on the bathmat (I'm currently not certain as to whether it was - or whether it was so faint as to only be picked up under lighting/luminol etc), then in my view there's NO WAY that AK and RS would have elected to leave it there - IF they'd knowingly been involved in the murder. Only a totally disoriented or mentally incapacitated person could fail to see how potentially incriminating that footprint would be. After all (assuming for a moment that AK and RS were knowingly involved in the murder / clean up), they'd have known that the print would have likely been in Meredith's blood, and that it was likely made by RS. They could therefore easily have concluded that leaving the bloody print there could only help to implicate RS in a number of ways.

My conclusion is that the ONLY reason why AK and RS might have left the bloody footprint on the bathmat in situ is that they either forgot to dispose of (or wash) the bathmat, or that they were interrupted before they got a chance to do so. And either of these things might indeed have happened.

However, I don't buy the argument that they deliberately would have left "bits and pieces" of blood all over the bathroom (let alone a footprint in blood) in order to provide them with an excuse for heightened awareness of foul play. It makes no sense to me from a logical analysis - even if AK and RS were still stoned on the morning of the 2nd.

There were plenty of other ways in which they might have elected to do that (again, assuming for a moment that they WERE culpable). They could, for example, have played up the open front door far more, or they could have strewn belongings around the common areas of the cottage, or they could have smashed up the TV etc etc). All of these examples would have had the effect of providing the "something's not right" scenario that they would have been chasing, but without risking leaving any evidence of their culpability.

 

[LondonJohn]

I have done this?

Nonononononoooooo. Not you. I appreciate the way you analyse the case, and your open and honest approach. Sorry if I might have given the impression that this part was aimed at you. I should have said it in a response to another post. I just wanted to add it in somewhere, kind of by-the-by.

EDIT: I've just re-read my post. Frankly, it does erroneously appear that I was in some way accusing you personally of adopting this position. I apologise again. I'll go back and edit the post accordingly.

 

[Fulcanelli]

If the bloody footprint was visible on the bathmat (I'm currently not certain as to whether it was - or whether it was so faint as to only be picked up under lighting/luminol etc), then in my view there's NO WAY that AK and RS would have elected to leave it there -

It wasn't clearly visible 'as' a footprint, they didn't realise that it was, they thought it was just a blood stain.

However, I don't buy the argument that they deliberately would have left "bits and pieces" of blood all over the bathroom (let alone a footprint in blood) in order to provide them with an excuse for heightened awareness of foul play. It makes no sense to me from a logical analysis - even if AK and RS were still stoned on the morning of the 2nd.

It makes every piece of logical sense. If there had been no blood, what need for Amanda to knock on Meredith's door, or go back to Raffaele's and 'raise the alarm' with him, or phone Meredith, or phone Filomena? What reason would they have had to then go back to search the cottage and so 'discover' the break-in in Filomena's room?

 

[Kevin_Lowe]

The onus is on your advocacy group(s) to find them.

It certainly would be, if anyone was arguing that they had evidence that the DNA results were faked. I don't think I've seen anyone argue that. My position is that under the circumstances I can't rule it out, but that I don't think anyone's innocence or guilt hinges on it.

The DNA is a bad place to look for corruption/fabrication--especially on an internet forum. Auditors examine controls and procedures all the time. I supplied the examples from the US labs mentioned by halides1.

If Amanda's supporters were really interested in discrediting the lab then they'd get someone who speaks and writes Italian to locate those audit reports. There is simply no other way to do it.

Which audit reports do you refer to? Can you provide a link or a citation?

He didn't spend a lot of time at the cottage. Amanda spent more time at his flat. It was either once or twice that he'd been to the cottage. There was no reason for him to be in Meredith's room, either.

You've stumbled into precisely the same problem that Raffaele's defence team did. They want to explain the presence of his DNA on a girl's bra when there's no good reason for it being there, hence floating dust, transference from the door knob, contamination at the lab, and so on.

Those all work as explanations though, so it's not something I'd leap to describe as a problem.

The prosecution has a perfectly logical explanation for it being there that doesn't require any of those things, nor is he required to have been a frequent visitor.

I'm not sure I'd describe it as perfectly logical, because as a theory it seems to me to have a couple of holes. There's no plausible motive, but more importantly there's no physical evidence of his presence in the room at the time of the murder at all other than on that one bra clasp, and there's no explanation for that lack of evidence.

The prosecution's story as I understand it was that it was some kind of four-way sexual assault thing that got out of hand, and I just don't find it very plausible that after a four-way sex thing turned into a four-way struggle and an unplanned, bloody murder that there was no trace of two of the supposed assailants left behind.

Maybe you don't buy the prosecution's story either and you think something else happened, but I'm not sure what it could be.

That's the main problem I have with the Amanda-is-guilty position. I just don't see how she and Raffaele could have pulled off a nearly perfect crime scene coverup to completely eliminate almost all traces of their presence while leaving their "accomplice" to take the fall, given that the rest of the time they behaved like dumb kids caught in the headlights of a deranged prosecutor. The satanic cult theory is just inane, and the physical evidence rules out a four-way sexual assault and murderous struggle.

You'd have to use the same arguments for every single case that was solved by the forensics after the original investigation turned up nothing then.

Well, no, I wouldn't. I could instead argue that this might be an unusual case because it was a high-profile case with a prosecutor who was dangerously out of touch with reality.

This case is peculiar, too, in that one of those originally arrested was released due to lack of evidence. Somehow the authorities were right about Patrick and Rudy (releasing one and arresting the other) yet wrong about Raffaele and Amanda (fabricating or falsifying evidence).

What mechanism would you have to have in place for that to happen? In all the examples provided by halides1 and the rest of the troupe there is simply nothing quite like it.

I don't follow the argument here. You seem to want anyone who disagrees with you to completely commit to some story where the Italian police are all terrible, horrible, no-good, very bad men who do everything wrong and I don't see any necessity for an extreme position like that. I think they got the killer, I just think they also buffaloed themselves into fitting up two people who are more likely than not innocent of murder.

You're also stating that the police were frustrated by the lack of evidence. Unless you know something about the particular individuals involved, that's quite a claim. Wouldn't all crimes therefore be likely to be "solved" by planting or fabricating evidence? Forensics labs would merely convert to evidence-manufacturing nodes. Why stop there? They could just plant witnesses too.

I didn't claim that it was true. If you read what I wrote, I just said that it was a plausible fairy story.

The only thing that makes Meredith's murder a high-profile case is that an American woman was involved in it. There's nothing else that remarkable about it or those involved. Meredith wasn't JFK or Princess Di. To suggest the police were motivated by something other than professionalism is simply misguided.

Since that contradicts other things said here, I'll just say that we've got conflicting information as to whether or not there was unusual pressure to secure a conviction or support the prosecutor's pet theory.

If it weren't for the relentless engine of powerful advocacy groups behind the American woman now jailed for her part in the murder, you wouldn't have even heard of this case, and she'd be simply doing her time. In the two years since she helped kill Meredith, these groups have produced nothing of value that might make a small dent in the mountain of evidence used to convict her.

It looks to me like the problem is that it's a mountain of evidence that never quite proves what it's supposed to. You can't prove it false because it's not. All you can do is say "Look, folks, the problem with this huge pile of evidence is that none of it is evidence that Amanda and Raffaele actually killed anyone. You've got loads of oddities which make great conspiracy theory fodder, and you've got some scary knives and evil comic books and terrible drugs and other things which might convince Italian grannies that these kids were rampaging Satanist serial killers, but when you get right down to the nitty-gritty the evidence that puts them in the murder room sucks".

No, you clearly have the clasp confused with the knife.

Fair enough.

It's not a low probability, it's a zero probability. Positive profiles cannot be extracted from dust.

Shed skin cells can contain DNA. That is a fact. Dust is to a significant extent shed human skin cells. That too is a fact.The bra clasp was sitting on a dusty floor. That too is a fact.

According to wikipedia DNA from at least three other unknown persons was also found on that bra clasp. That to me says that either the Satanic cult had three more members who were also ninjas, or something else was going on with that clasp that contaminated it as evidence and I think the second is on balance more likely. I have no idea what, but it certainly doesn't fit with a narrative where any speck of foreign DNA on that bra clasp proves that the possessor of that DNA was in the room murdering Kercher.

My, isn't it a wonder anyone ever gets convicted in any court anywhere at all, what with the bar being where you've put it?

Well sure, I've got no problem with that. If there's a really straightforward story that fits the physical evidence in the room (creepy drifter with a knife murders a girl and runs) it should be hard to convict extra people with a bizarre story about Satanic sacrifices and whatnot.

Oh my, and now when it comes to accusing the police of corruption, you've lowered that bar all the way down to the floor, hell...we don't even need actual evidence. Oh my.

Like Stilicho you are taking a statement about what is plausible and trying to misconstrue it as a statement about what is true. Please don't do that.

There is a highly plausible motive. However, I note with interest that you have suddenly conveniently changed your tune and are demanding something to be plausible before it can be accepted. It's a pity you hadn't walked the Road to Damascus back when you were declaring completely implausible explanations for the luminol prints to be just dandy.

I think there's a major difference between saying "that given piece of evidence could be a false positive in many different ways, and we've talked about the many different substances that could give a false positive, therefore we don't need to pick one and prove that substance was the one that caused it" and saying "that given story about Satanic ritual sacrifice is ridiculous".

Well Kevin_Lowe, I'd like to hear from you a non-contrived explanation of the missing bloody heelprint in the bathroom.

Can you bring me up to speed on this missing bloody heelprint business? It's not been discussed in anything I've read yet, nor does wikipedia have any mention of it. What's the evidence, and how does it make Amanda or Rafaelle murderers? I assume that this is something distinct from the luminol business, because you wouldn't be referring to luminol traces as "bloody heelprints".

Ahh, but what about the footprint on the bathmat? The multiple attackers (Rudy held Meredith while Amanda attacked? Or Raffaele and Amanda held Meredith while Rudy attacked?)

Just because you don't agree with the motive(s) presented doesn't mean those motives are implausible . It is quite plausible that Amanda and Raffaele set off to merely scare/play a "joke" on Meredith. At some point, it went too far/someone got mad at her/etc, and Meredith was stabbed in the throat. That's not exactly an implausible scenario - unless you simply choose to believe that such things cannot or do not happen. However, other than personal opinion, you have no reason to believe that these things don't happen.

It's a balance of probabilities thing for me. We've got a nice simple story that fits a common criminal pattern and the overwhelming majority of physical traces in the room, which is that Kercher just got murdered by Rudy Guede. Then we've got this wild story about Satanic ritual murder, which is very much reminiscent of the McMartin affair and similar idiotic adventures in moral panic, which is supported by the aforementioned mountain of crappy evidence but has a gaping hole where the good evidence ought by rights to be. Whatever you say about the "joke turned into brutal stabbing" theory or the Satanic cult theory such murders are indeed vanishingly rare compared to boring old solo sex murders, if indeed they exist at all.

 

[LondonJohn]

It wasn't clearly visible 'as' a footprint, they didn't realise that it was, they thought it was just a blood stain.



It makes every piece of logical sense. If there had been no blood, what need for Amanda to knock on Meredith's door, or go back to Raffaele's and 'raise the alarm' with him, or phone Meredith, or phone Filomena? What reason would they have had to then go back to search the cottage and so 'discover' the break-in in Filomena's room?

If you read my post again, you'll see that I've argued that there were many other ways in which they could have "created" the heightened awareness necessary for them to have raised the alarm. These include (but are not limited to) strewing belongings all over the common areas of the cottage, breaking any communal TV sets (or other communal electrical equipment) on the floor, or overturning furniture in the kitchen/lounge.

Any of these such actions would have given them justifiable "excuses" to be concerned. And none of these actions would have led to any potential increase in police suspicion of AK or RS down the line. After all, there would be innocent reasons why AK in particular might have her fingerprints on all the items they might have strewn around the flat (e.g. coats, cutlery, crockery, books in common areas, ornaments) or items of furniture in common areas that they broke or overturned.

Whereas any decision to leave blood lying around, while I'd agree it would provide the "excuse" for further investigation, also would provide an opportunity for the police to tie AK and/or RS to the crime - and they MUST have known that (again, assuming for one moment that they were involved in the murder and/or clean-up).

So I'd argue that IF they a) were involved in the murder/clean-up, and b) had decided that they needed to create a scenario that would justify mounting concern by both themselves and other flatmates (and ultimately the police), then there were far safer ways in which they could have created such a scenario - ways which didn't involve deliberately leaving visible blood evidence in the bathroom. And I think they'd have figured this out - regardless of the level of panic or drug ingestion.

 

[LondonJohn]

By the way, this whole prosecution-sided explanation of how there came to be a significant amount of visible blood left in the bathroom - IN SPITE OF simultaneous claims of a morning clean-up by two of the perps - seems suspiciously to me like finessing the theory to "explain" certain evidential findings.

After all, if one is asked to accept that AK and RS cleaned up the crime scene after the murder - and that they had a clear five or six hours MINIMUM in which to do so - then at first glance it's difficult (if not impossible) to reconcile this with the amount of blood left in the bathroom. Yes, I know the bathroom wasn't dripping in blood, but there was certainly a fair amount of visible blood in there that was subsequently linked to the murder room. There's little evidence (as far as I know) that AK/RS were interrupted before having a chance to complete this clean-up (if we are asked to accept that such a clean-up took place).

It therefore seems to me that the apparently conflicting positions of "considered and completed clean-up over many hours" and "blood in the bathroom, including potentially RS's footprint in Meredith's blood" needed to be reconciled somehow. And so was born the sub-theory of "deliberate leaving of blood evidence in the bathroom, in order to create an excuse for AK's escalation of the situation".

Or am I back on the loony conspiracy bandwagon again? I'd say that I'm not (but, as Mandy Rice-Davies once said, "Well, he would say that, wouldn't he").

 

[LondonJohn]

PS I agree with pretty much all of Kevin's reply a few posts further up (I won't quote it, cos it's possibly EVEN LONGER than one of my posts )

I would add that it's very difficult to argue against positions that twist one's original position. It's like arguing something like "it's not out of the question that ABC happened", then having someone come back at you and counter-argue "You say you believe that ABC happened". Vairrrrrr frustrating.

 

[Charlie Wilkes]

The only plausible explanation I'm aware of is that the bloody bare footprint was originally complete, and that the part of the footprint on the tile floor was later cleaned up, leaving behind just the part on the bathmat.
///

Maybe the mat was moved a few inches from where it was when the print was made, and the heel mark was faint enough so no one noticed it on the terra cotta floor. Here's a high-res picture of the scene as it appeared at the time:

http://www.friendsofamanda.org/small_bath_floor_nov2_2007.jpg

You're citing ambiguities and implying that they can only mean one thing - Amanda Knox inexplicably participated in an unplanned and disorganized frenzy of violence, and then carried out a very organized effort to eradicate evidence. To me, that's not plausible.

 

[43degreesNorth]

You're citing ambiguities and implying that they can only mean one thing - Amanda Knox inexplicably participated in an unplanned and disorganized frenzy of violence, and then carried out a very organized effort to eradicate evidence. To me, that's not plausible.

Why is that not plausible?

 

[Fulcanelli]

I'm not sure I'd describe it as perfectly logical, because as a theory it seems to me to have a couple of holes. There's no plausible motive, but more importantly there's no physical evidence of his presence in the room at the time of the murder at all other than on that one bra clasp, and there's no explanation for that lack of evidence.

Of course there's a plausible motive. Meredith was murdered because after what had been done to her she couldn't be allowed to live and report it and then any doubts on the matter were settled because she screamed. That sounds perfectly plausible to me.

Why does there 'have' to physical evidence of Raffaele's presence in the room? There was no physical evidence of Amanda's presence either, yet she had lived in the cottage for two months...why would physical from the pair be a requirement simply because they'd spent a mere half hour or less in there? In any case, a good explanation for the lack of it is that some of the evidence they left are some of the many partial fingerprints and footprints in the room that are too damaged to match to anyone and so remain unidentified. As for Guede, he only left evidence because he came into contact with fluids (both with his hands and stepping in them) and then went about touching things in the room. Had he not done so, there wouldn't have been very much evidence of him being in the room either.

That's the main problem I have with the Amanda-is-guilty position. I just don't see how she and Raffaele could have pulled off a nearly perfect crime scene coverup to completely eliminate almost all traces of their presence while leaving their "accomplice" to take the fall, given that the rest of the time they behaved like dumb kids caught in the headlights of a deranged prosecutor. The satanic cult theory is just inane, and the physical evidence rules out a four-way sexual assault and murderous struggle.

Except it wasn't 'nearly perfect'. If it was nearly perfect they wouldn't have been arrested after a mere three days, faced a whole heap of evidence against them in a trial and then been found unanimously guilty. They made a great many mistakes.

What 'Satanic cult' theory? There isn't one, never has been.

Well, no, I wouldn't. I could instead argue that this might be an unusual case because it was a high-profile case with a prosecutor who was dangerously out of touch with reality.

You could 'argue' it, but you have no evidence for it. It therefore, would be no more then an assertion.

Shed skin cells can contain DNA. That is a fact. Dust is to a significant extent shed human skin cells. That too is a fact.The bra clasp was sitting on a dusty floor. That too is a fact.

No, you are incorrect. Shed skin cells are dead, therefore keretinised. Whilst it's possible to extract some small segments of DNA from them, it is not possible to extract complete profiles: Telltale DNA sucked out of household dust

I'm afraid that throws out the 'dust' idea (if you read back through the thread you'll see this was done a long time ago).

Well sure, I've got no problem with that. If there's a really straightforward story that fits the physical evidence in the room (creepy drifter with a knife murders a girl and runs) it should be hard to convict extra people with a bizarre story about Satanic sacrifices and whatnot.

Not when the 'Lone Wolf' theory is disproved by all the other evidence, as it is in this case.

I think there's a major difference between saying "that given piece of evidence could be a false positive in many different ways, and we've talked about the many different substances that could give a false positive, therefore we don't need to pick one and prove that substance was the one that caused it

You don't have to 'prove' the substance, just some 'evidence' for it would be nice...like showing it's presence somewhere in the cottage and then offer a logical and plausible scenario of how it came to be on the feet of two different people and left prints only in certain areas. Evidence must be undermined with a 'plausible' alternative.

I will also point out, the luminol prints are explained quite well by the the bloody bare footprint on the bathmat and that footprint is identical to the one of the luminol prints in the corridor. It therefore can safely be said, it is blood. Unless you are suggesting the same unlucky person happened to step in both blood AND a bowel of turnip juice all on the same night and you think that to be a more plausible explanation. I don't.

Can you bring me up to speed on this missing bloody heelprint business? It's not been discussed in anything I've read yet, nor does wikipedia have any mention of it. What's the evidence, and how does it make Amanda or Rafaelle murderers? I assume that this is something distinct from the luminol business, because you wouldn't be referring to luminol traces as "bloody heelprints".

It's evidence for a clean-up. Since Rudy Guede had no reason to clean-up (the only person who would have had a motive to do so would have been someone who lived there) and since by the wealth of evidence he left he patently wasn't interested in cleaning up, it is evidence against the lone wolf scenario and against the two students.

It's a balance of probabilities thing for me. We've got a nice simple story that fits a common criminal pattern and the overwhelming majority of physical traces in the room, which is that Kercher just got murdered by Rudy Guede. Then we've got this wild story about Satanic ritual murder, which is very much reminiscent of the McMartin affair and similar idiotic adventures in moral panic, which is supported by the aforementioned mountain of crappy evidence but has a gaping hole where the good evidence ought by rights to be. Whatever you say about the "joke turned into brutal stabbing" theory or the Satanic cult theory such murders are indeed vanishingly rare compared to boring old solo sex murders, if indeed they exist at all.

Only all the evidence disproves the lone wolf scenario and shows Raffaele and Amanda to be involved. There you go with this Satanism nonsense again. What trial have you been following? Certainly not this one.

 

[LondonJohn]

Maybe the mat was moved a few inches from where it was when the print was made, and the heel mark was faint enough so no one noticed it on the terra cotta floor. Here's a high-res picture of the scene as it appeared at the time:

http://www.friendsofamanda.org/small_bath_floor_nov2_2007.jpg

You're citing ambiguities and implying that they can only mean one thing - Amanda Knox inexplicably participated in an unplanned and disorganized frenzy of violence, and then carried out a very organized effort to eradicate evidence. To me, that's not plausible.

I personally CAN reconcile a disorganized frenzy of violence at, say, 22.00 on the 1st with a calmer, more organised attempt to clean up the crime scene between - say - 05.00 and 11.30 on the 2nd. I'm not saying by any stretch that I believe these two things DID happen, but I do think that one doesn't automatically rule out the possibility of the other.

Instead, I find an irreconcilable problem between a lengthy, organised clean-up and the amount (and nature) of blood left in the bathroom. Frankly, if I had knowingly participated in the bloody and brutal murder of my flatmate (or my girlfriend's flatmate), and I knew that I had a fair few hours to clean up the scene, I'd make damn sure that I wiped EVERY relevant surface, and that I left as little as possible that could conceivably (in my mind, at least) connect me to the crime. This means that I might inadvertently leave traces that were invisible to the human eye, but not that I would leave visible blood and/or footprints. And I'd either be unconcerned about misdirection, or I'd think of ways to misdirect that didn't potentially incriminate me into the bargain.