Amanda Knox guilty - all because of a cartwheel

[Kevin_Lowe]

The way I read it is that the mistakes in the other labs were (eventually) established as fact with the help of the auditing that took place at those labs. The problem we're facing here (with this case) is that the defense is pointing at all these other cases and telling us that since contamination did occur in those cases we should accept that it happened here as well. They however fail to follow this up with the appropriate action. And that is by studying the audit trial. And then using those audits to bolster their case.

I think that's a subtle straw man, and it's certainly not what's being argued here.

The actual argument is that since contamination did occur in those cases we should accept that it is possible it happened here as well.

I've not seen any evidence about the audit procedures. Neither have I seen evidence that audit procedures are not in place. I default to assuming that audit procedures must have been in place since this is an established crime lab, used in plenty of other cases.

I've been both pleasantly and unpleasantly surprised by the rigour, or lack thereof, of forensics workers in newsworthy criminal cases in the past. So I don't default to assuming anything although I do default to leaning towards the view that forensics people get it right much more often than not.

However in cases where the results are just plain odd, it becomes a question of whether it's weirder that one test result came back wrong, or weirder that a couple teamed up to commit a spur-of-the-moment sex crime with a stranger and managed to do so in such a way that the stranger left highly incriminating physical evidence all over the crime scene but the couple left virtually nothing that could tie them to it. Neither story is one we would normally consider very likely, but in this case whatever the truth of the matter something fairly unlikely happened somewhere along the line.

 

[tsig]

I'm surprised that this needs explaining, since as far as I know you're not a simpleton.

In fact, on reflection, I know it doesn't need explaining, you're just arguing for the sake of it now.

When you can't even discuss things rationally, it doesn't make your argument look very good. In fact, it makes you look like a disingenuous troll.

Yes it does.

Your whole argument is that everybody is conspiring against Amanda. Even Amanda.

 

[stilicho]

???

I can only suggest that you provide yourself with a rudimentary grasp of how the police investigate major crimes. They test everyone who has been at the crime scene. Very often they test first responders like paramedics. It doesn't mean they view the paramedic as a suspect. They just need to eliminate DNA that has no relevance to the crime.

Furthermore, this request should have happened long before the police were sure of anyone's alibi - it probably should have taken place by the 3rd or 4th of November at the latest. Also, bear in mind that these requests would have had to have been for purely voluntary samples at that point. But of course, any refusal to comply would - and should - have been taken by the police as indicative of ulterior reasoning on behalf of those who refused.

In the UK (and in New Zealand and in any other country where this technique is employed), prospective sample-providers are asked to provide samples VOLUNTARILY to help the swift investigation of the crime; they are ABSOLUTELY ALLOWED to refuse to give a sample, and do not have to give a reason (and they are also informed that refusal to give a sample is not taken as a sign of guilt); they are informed explicitly of their right to consult a lawyer if they so wish.

Charlie said they test everyone at the crime scene. They don't. You said first that refusal to comply should be taken as "ulterior reasoning" but alter this to "not taken as a sign of guilt". Which is it?

We could go through all aspects of this case, such as the wiretaps, and ask equally why the Perugia police selected Raffaele and Amanda instead of Filomena and Laura. It will probably always remain a mystery to you that they immediately drew attention to themselves--and only to themselves--during the initial hours after Meredith's murder.

 

[BobTheDonkey]

Well, I wasn't talking about the print on the bath mat, neither was Rudy (he's never said that was his or even might be). The print I'm talking about (as was Rudy) was the one in Meredith's room originally assigned to Raffaele.

I apologize, I was under the impression that we were discussing the footprint on the bathmat...


Regardless, my point still applies - by virtue of the fact that Rudy was not certain he left the print, he might not have noticed he did at the time, thus not cleaning the print.

Anyway, carry on.

 

[Fulcanelli]

It seems to me that you are arguing that you don't need physical evidence because sometimes there is no physical evidence, and you don't need a motive because sometimes there is no motive.

I say absence of evidence is not proof of absence and I've offered logical reasons why, in this case, it may not be there.

I say you don't need a motive because the law doesn't require one. But yes, sometimes there is no motive. Sometimes, we just don't know what the motive was. How can we, unless we can get inside the accused's heads or be there with them when they committed a crime? Just because you weren't there in the woods to watch a tree fall down, does it mean it didn't fall down?

While all this is true, lack of evidence is lack of evidence and lack of motive is lack of motive. It's perfectly reasonable to think that lack of evidence and lack of motive add up to doubt about someone's guilt.

Nice try. You're putting evidence and motive in the same category...again. They are not!

It's not a "defensive on the back foot argument". Lack of evidence is lack of evidence.

Also those alleged footprints can't be linked to Amanda Knox, which is a bit of a problem if you are trying to use them as evidence of guilt.

Only, there's only a lack of evidence, if we were to limit the CRIME SCENE and the CASE to Meredith's bedroom. Again, nice try.

Also those alleged footprints can't be linked to Amanda Knox, which is a bit of a problem if you are trying to use them as evidence of guilt.

However, a good few at the crime scene 'can'.

But then we know this of old...it's the 'old bedroom' dodge', whereby one pretends the crime scene and case is limited to the bedroom and then one can completely any and all evidence outside of the bedroom...like all the evidence in the rest of the cottage, the witnesses, the lies of the pair, their behaviour, the phone records, the computer records, phone records [insert rest of list here]. I would say once again, nice try, but I won't...since the 'limit everything to the bedroom so we can ignore all the other evidence' argument is now positively ancient.

Once again you are asserting factual claims which the evidence simply does not support. You have not ruled out everything other than blood, nor have you demonstrated that the prints match anyone with enough accuracy to prove anything.

YES, the evidence DOES support it, since that evidence was shown and validated in a court of law. Therefore, I can state it as fact.

I think you and Stilicho might need a bit of a time out. I'm prepared to discuss this civilly but it seems that both of you resort to asserting things which simply aren't true and making unfounded personal attacks, and life is too short to deal with a case this complicated unless both sides have a genuine commitment to sticking to the facts and not making things up, either about the evidence or about the other posters in this thread.

Asserting things that aren't true...like asserting the prosecution case is about Satanic cults...like that you mean?

Don't worry...when it get's too complicated for me I'll just quote the case facts from Wikipedia

There's a known human tendency to be more impressed by a large number of bad arguments than a small number of good arguments. There are lots and lots of bad arguments for Amanda and Raffaele's guilt, to be sure, but lots and lots of bad arguments don't add up to a good argument.

Perhaps you'll provide us with a good one for their innocence.

I don't pretend to be able to know what happened that night,

Great! Stop being so certain then!

Then we've got the nice big pile of evidence putting Rudy right at the scene of the crime, which I enumerated for you, and the total lack of similar evidence for Amanda and Raffaele who were supposedly right there alongside him struggling with Meredith Kercher. Either those two are incredibly lucky, or they are the greatest DNA cleaner-uppers in history in that they could remove all trace of their own DNA while leaving all of Rudy's, or they just weren't there when it happened.

I see, we're back to a score card. Rudy scored more goals, so he wins the match...is that it?

As for the DNA cleaner-uppers, that's just weak. You need to convince us 'why' they should have left DNA and at the same time, while also not completely ignoring Raffaele's and Amanda's DNA on the clasp at the same time. And so what if they had left more DNA, what if they'd left loads of it? You'd have a dumb excuse for how each bit got put there by somebody 'else'...or by dust...or by the Yeti, like with the bra clasp, so don't pretend the presence of more of their DNA would make the slightest bit of difference to your view, or at least, your arguments!

 

[Fulcanelli]

If you think Amanda, Raffaele, and Rudy killed Meredith, how do you know a fourth person wasn't involved - one who left the bloody tissues in the driveway, or a cigarette butt in the ashtray?

Was it not cat blood on the tissues?

 

[Fulcanelli]

I apologize, I was under the impression that we were discussing the footprint on the bathmat...


Regardless, my point still applies - by virtue of the fact that Rudy was not certain he left the print, he might not have noticed he did at the time, thus not cleaning the print.

Anyway, carry on.

But if he thought it might have, that thought would have occurred to him at the time?

 

[Fulcanelli]

The actual argument is that since contamination did occur in those cases we should accept that it is possible it happened here as well.

The Yeti is also 'possible'. Should we take him seriously as a factor too?

 

[Fulcanelli]

However in cases where the results are just plain odd, it becomes a question of whether it's weirder that one test result came back wrong, or weirder that a couple teamed up to commit a spur-of-the-moment sex crime with a stranger and managed to do so in such a way that the stranger left highly incriminating physical evidence all over the crime scene but the couple left virtually nothing that could tie them to it. Neither story is one we would normally consider very likely, but in this case whatever the truth of the matter something fairly unlikely happened somewhere along the line.

There you go confining the crime scene and the case to the room again. It's old.

 

[Matthew Best]

Yes it does.

Your whole argument is that everybody is conspiring against Amanda. Even Amanda.

Aha! Another straw man! No, the argument was something completely different, which not surprisingly you wish to divert attention from. Let's recap:

If Amanda is innocent of this murder than why was she found guilty in a court of law?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_miscarriage_of_justice_cases[/url]

Ok, according to you and Wiki there has only been three miscarriages of justice in Italy since 1969.

Nobody, neither LondonJohn nor Wiki, said there were only three miscarriages of justice in Italy since 1969. You cannot have failed to realise that, so the only conclusion I can draw is that you were arguing dishonestly.

right at the top of that page it says"This is an incomplete list".

It's an incomplete list? Then why refer to it?

Do you really think that a complete list of miscarriages of justice could ever be compiled? No, obviously not - you're not a moron. So the only possible conclusion I can draw is that once again you are arguing dishonestly.

Now all of a sudden my whole argument is that "everybody is conspiring against Amanda. Even Amanda". Rather sensibly tsig didn't try to actually quote anything I'd said to back up that accusation, which makes it look as thought you're actually arguing with someone you've made up in your head, rather than me. It doesn't make you look good when you have to make up people to argue against.

 

[BobTheDonkey]

If you think Amanda, Raffaele, and Rudy killed Meredith, how do you know a fourth person wasn't involved - one who left the bloody tissues in the driveway, or a cigarette butt in the ashtray?

I don't. But, there is no reason to suspect either of the other roommates, nor the boys from downstairs, were involved by way of their alibis - they weren't just busy, they were out of town that night.

So I'm guessing your argument is that the Police could, possibly, have eliminated the DNA evidence from these people, and if anything was left it could belong to a fourth killer. My understanding is that the remaining, unaccounted for stains/fingerprints were only partial profiles/prints - so having more references wouldn't help.

Did the Defense Attorneys ask for DNA profiles from the rest of the building's tenants?

 

[stilicho]

Maybe it's the language barrier, but it seemed very much like you were making claims about audit reports specifically about this lab or even this case. Now it sounds like all you are saying is that you found some stories about audits of other labs, and you presume from those other stories that the lab that carried out these tests is therefore so thoroughly audited that mistakes (or falsification) can be ruled out for now.

I didn't find the stories. Halides1 has been posting them over and over again. Each and every story includes in the lead or the second paragraph the auditor's jurisdiction that revealed the problem.

The defence teams would have published the audit reports at a moment's notice. After all, Amanda's lawyers released part of her personal diary because they thought it might affect public opinion.

It is also audit reports that uncovers contamination and not courts of law. Juries typically reject defence arguments of contamination because it's simply not part of their job.

Our challenge remains: Where are the audits that prove contamination?

Has any evidence about audit procedures in the Rome lab been posted at all, or is everyone trying to extrapolate from random news stories about unrelated labs?

Nobody posting here reads or writes Italian. All the information about the case has been translated into English either by reporters or volunteers. This includes the judges' reports, testimony, and virtually everything else about the case.

Halides1 is an academic and could no doubt deploy his connections to secure us a copy of an audit report from the Polizia Scientifica. We could find translators (PMF has several volunteers who speak the language).

If anyone really thought the audits showed the Rome lab to be deficient or corrupt then they could prove it without question.

I'm not arguing that it's absolutely inconceivable that they left no evidence, although the wealth of evidence placing Rudy at the scene stands in distinct contrast to the lack of evidence placing Amanda and Raffaele there. I do think that maybe you are trying to generalise from Generic Murder Scene A to this murder scene where supposedly three people raped someone who the forensic evidence said put up a serious struggle.

That's an FOA talking point. There is no "wealth of evidence" placing Rudy at the scene. We are talking about evidence that may only be interpreted by forensics professionals. The same teams of forensics experts worked on all three suspects' traces. Each piece of evidence pointing to AK and RS is handwaved aside while each one pointing to RG is accepted as valid. There's no consistency.

It seems to me that you are arguing that you don't need physical evidence because sometimes there is no physical evidence, and you don't need a motive because sometimes there is no motive.

This one has physical evidence but the motive is not so discernible.

If you want a plausible narrative, I put it to you that there is none that explains why Amanda and Raffaele would team up with Rudy to rape Meredith in the first place nor any that explains the lack of physical evidence tying them to the murder. I wouldn't say that there's proof of their innocence but I'd certainly say that there was reasonable doubt.

You should talk to some young adults in your city, town or village. The papers are brimming each day with stories of purposeless individuals seeking thrills in all kinds of ways unimaginable to the rest of us. Perhaps you might want to do some volunteer work at a day home or something.

The reason you do not find the senseless murder of Meredith Kercher, by three troubled young adults who barely knew each other, to be plausible is that you simply don't know enough troubled young adults.

 

[Kevin_Lowe]

I say absence of evidence is not proof of absence and I've offered logical reasons why, un this case, it may not be there.

Sure. I can make up any story I like to attribute any crime to any person, and then say "Yes there's no evidence, but sometimes there's no evidence and they still did it. Yes there's no motive, but sometimes there's no motive and they still did it".

It's true but it's just a bit beside the point. Lack of evidence and lack of any remotely plausible motive should make us less inclined to believe in Knox and Raffaele's guilt.

Also the total lack of a plausible story about how the three accused got together to plot their sex crime goes beyond mere lack of motive. Yes they had no reason to do it, but also there's no evidence that they even knew each other or Rudy well enough to get together and conspire to rape someone, let alone evidence that they actually did ever get together and conspire.

I say you don't need a motive because the law doesn't require one. But yes, sometimes there is no motive. Sometimes, we just don't know what the motive was. How can we, unless we can get inside the accused's heads or be there with them when they committed a crime? Just because you weren't there in the woods to watch the tree fall down, doesn't mean it didn't fall down.

It's true. We're talking about issues which should incline us one way or the other as to whether it's probable that Knox and Raffaele did it.

Nice try. You're putting evidence and motive in the same category...again. They are not!

I think I've done a good job of keeping them separate. That said, it's just a fact about the world that more crimes like this are committed by people like Rudy than by off-the-wall conspiracies of people who don't know each other.

Only, there's only a lack of evidence, if we were to limit the CRIME SCENE and the CASE to Meredith's bedroom. Again, nice try.

...

However, a good few at the crime scene 'can'.

But then we know this of old...it's the 'old bedroom' dodge', whereby one pretends the crime scene and case is limited to the bedroom and then one can completely any and all evidence outside of the bedroom...like all the evidence in the rest of the cottage, the witnesses, the lies of the pair, their behaviour, the phone records, the computer records, phone records [insert rest of list here]. I would say once again, nice try, but I won't...since the 'limit everything to the bedroom so we can ignore all the other evidence' argument is now positively ancient.

This is the mountain of "bad" (well, irrelevant) evidence I talked about. None of this proves that Knox and Solecito were in the room helping Rudy when he murdered Kercher.

You can obsess over a mountain of irrelevant oddities for as long as you like, but the problem is that they do not tell us anything about the question I'm interested in, which is whether or not Knox and Solecito did it.

YES, the evidence DOES support it, since that evidence was shown and validated in a court of law. Therefore, I can state it as fact.

Bully for you. Courts have been wrong in the past, and they will be again, and we don't need your permission to entertain the possibility that maybe this was one of those times.

I see, we're back to a score card. Rudy scored more goals, so he wins the match...is that it?

This isn't a counter-argument, it's just a talking point. You can't discredit an argument just by sticking a made-up label ("score card") on it.

The fact is that there is ample physical evidence proving that Rudy killed Meredith. Yet Amanda and Raffaele who supposedly took part in the same crime at the same time left nothing or virtually nothing by way of physical evidence tying them to the crime.

As for the DNA cleaner-uppers, that's just weak. You need to convince us 'why' they should have left DNA and at the same time, not completely ignore Raffaele's and Amanda's DNA on the clasp. And so what if they had left more DNA, what if they'd left loads of it? You'd have a dumb excuse for how each bit got put there by somebody 'else'...or by dust...or by the Yeti, like with the bra clasp, so don't pretend the presence of more their DNA would make the slightest bit of difference to your view, or at least, your arguments!

Can you cite a source for the claim that Amanda's DNA was on the clasp? The sources I have found have said the exact opposite, that Amanda's DNA was not found on the clasp or anywhere else in Meredith's bedroom.

As for the rest of your remarks, I'm not interested in discussing this with you further if this is the tack you intend to take. As I said earlier this is a complicated case and life's too short to try to work through it with someone who resorts to accusing me of being irrational whenever they can't come up with something sensible to contribute.

 

[Amazer]

I think that's a subtle straw man, and it's certainly not what's being argued here.

The actual argument is that since contamination did occur in those cases we should accept that it is possible it happened here as well.

I think you would be hard pressed to find anyone that believes that Amanda is guilty that is going to deny that contamination is possible. I think that is perhaps the one area in this whole case where everyone is in agreement, both the 'guilters' and the 'innocentis'.

It's after this point that our paths diverge. Those that believe Amanda is innocent seem to believe that since it's possible that contamination did occur that it must have. I personally need something stronger, preferably in the way of evidence, or at least workable theory that gives a source, and route, for the contamination to occur.

I've been both pleasantly and unpleasantly surprised by the rigour, or lack thereof, of forensics workers in newsworthy criminal cases in the past. So I don't default to assuming anything although I do default to leaning towards the view that forensics people get it right much more often than not.

There is undoubtedly some/lot of bias at my end due to the fact that a number of family members are or were in law enforcement and I know them to be honest to a t. I do tend, as a result, to project my resultant view on to all those involved in law enforcement and their associate branches. Just as an example, I've been 15 years in India and still shocks/amazes me when those in a position of power (police officers, government officials, etc) are corrupt and expect to be paid 'extra' for work that they should be doing.

However in cases where the results are just plain odd, it becomes a question of whether it's weirder that one test result came back wrong, or weirder that a couple teamed up to commit a spur-of-the-moment sex crime with a stranger and managed to do so in such a way that the stranger left highly incriminating physical evidence all over the crime scene but the couple left virtually nothing that could tie them to it. Neither story is one we would normally consider very likely, but in this case whatever the truth of the matter something fairly unlikely happened somewhere along the line.

There we are completely in agreement... something fairly strange happened somewhere along the line. But since one court of law already pronounced them guilty, i think that the onus is now on the defense to come with stronger evidence that Amanda and Raffaele are not involved. Just going to present the same arguments and evidence is most likely not going to do them any good.

 

[Kevin_Lowe]

I didn't find the stories. Halides1 has been posting them over and over again. Each and every story includes in the lead or the second paragraph the auditor's jurisdiction that revealed the problem.

The defence teams would have published the audit reports at a moment's notice. After all, Amanda's lawyers released part of her personal diary because they thought it might affect public opinion.

It is also audit reports that uncovers contamination and not courts of law. Juries typically reject defence arguments of contamination because it's simply not part of their job.

Our challenge remains: Where are the audits that prove contamination?

So to sum up, nobody has supplied any evidence either way about the Rome lab in particular or this case in particular. That is what I thought, but it's not what you implied.

That's an FOA talking point. There is no "wealth of evidence" placing Rudy at the scene. We are talking about evidence that may only be interpreted by forensics professionals. The same teams of forensics experts worked on all three suspects' traces. Each piece of evidence pointing to AK and RS is handwaved aside while each one pointing to RG is accepted as valid. There's no consistency.

I'll quote myself. According to wikipedia (I paraphrase) they found Rudy Guede's fingerprint left in Kercher's blood, Guede's bloody left-hand print on a pillow found under the victim's back, Guede's DNA on and inside Kercher's body, Guede's DNA on Kercher's shirt and bra (right side and severed strap) mixed with Kercher's blood splatter and more of Guede's DNA on Kercher's handbag (purse).

Given that Rudy had no plausible excuse for why his DNA should be anywhere near Meredith or her bedroom that looks to me like slam-dunk evidence of his guilt. If you call that anything other than a wealth of evidence I think you've lost touch with reality.

You should talk to some young adults in your city, town or village. The papers are brimming each day with stories of purposeless individuals seeking thrills in all kinds of ways unimaginable to the rest of us. Perhaps you might want to do some volunteer work at a day home or something.

The reason you do not find the senseless murder of Meredith Kercher, by three troubled young adults who barely knew each other, to be plausible is that you simply don't know enough troubled young adults.

If you have a world-view like this then I can kind of see how you might talk yourself into believing the prosecutorial conspiracy theory.

 

[stilicho]

I think you and Stilicho might need a bit of a time out. I'm prepared to discuss this civilly but it seems that both of you resort to asserting things which simply aren't true and making unfounded personal attacks, and life is too short to deal with a case this complicated unless both sides have a genuine commitment to sticking to the facts and not making things up, either about the evidence or about the other posters in this thread.

I didn't realise you'd addressed me further down while you were responding to Fulcanelli.

The best thing you could do is what I did when I started in on this thread, Kevin. Instead of making it a JAQ session, spend some time reading the original testimony and other information. Let's move it forward instead of making it about what we were arguing in December or January.

I spent about 60 hours the first week after the verdict reading up on the case and barely dented the repository. I can tell by some of your entries that you're getting your information from summaries on wikipedia or things you've just thought up on your own.

The evidence amounted to several thousands of pages against AK and RS. We're talking a scientific and legal tome on the order of the NIST report or the 9/11 Commission report. Some of it we'll never even see. The pieces we have seen are translated and condensed--often from new stories or blog posts.

So, when you state a "genuine commitment to the facts", let's qualify that. You haven't read all the thousands of pages of evidence (in Italian) and neither have I. So it's my opinion against yours. If you think, for example, that the Polizia Scientifica is authoritative in its investigation of Rudy but unscientific in its investigation of Raffaele and Amanda, don't present that as a "genuine commitment to the facts" but simply as your opinion.

Are we agreed on those points?

 

[stilicho]

I'll quote myself. According to wikipedia (I paraphrase) they found Rudy Guede's fingerprint left in Kercher's blood, Guede's bloody left-hand print on a pillow found under the victim's back, Guede's DNA on and inside Kercher's body, Guede's DNA on Kercher's shirt and bra (right side and severed strap) mixed with Kercher's blood splatter and more of Guede's DNA on Kercher's handbag (purse).

Given that Rudy had no plausible excuse for why his DNA should be anywhere near Meredith or her bedroom that looks to me like slam-dunk evidence of his guilt. If you call that anything other than a wealth of evidence I think you've lost touch with reality.

All of those pieces of evidence were assessed by the forensics teams. Those are the same people who you argue are unable to assess DNA or prints when it comes to Amanda or Raffaele. Or that it might have been the result of contamination.

Do you see the inconsistency in your position yet?

 

[LashL]

Personally, I cannot believe that anyone is seriously arguing that the Perugia police should not have asked all of the tenants of the cottage (and all known visitors for that matter) to voluntarily provide DNA samples. They all should have been asked, and (assuming that they voluntarily complied with the request), those samples could have been compared to the various unidentified DNA found.

In my view, the Perugia police did a poor job in several ways, and it is very sloppy police work not to have tried harder to identify the unidentified sources of DNA, and had they done so, that could very easily have either strengthened or (more likely) weakened their case against Ms. Knox and Mr. Sollecito. So, fair-minded people are left to wonder why the police didn't bother to utilize an investigative tool that was readily available to them, particularly since it turns out that there were multiple different DNA samples on the bra clasp, several of which remained unidentified.

And, stilicho: in Canada, police can and do ask for DNA samples on a voluntary basis in connection with crime scenes on a regular basis, both as a control for purposes of eliminating those that are expected to be found at a particular location, and also as a means to try to locate and identify a suspect. Such voluntary requests have a high compliance rate and relatively few people lawyer up or refuse to provide such samples. Now, generally, this is done on a relatively small scale (e.g. when the crime scene is known and limited), but in some cases, police have gone door to door throughout large sections of a town or city (for instance, on a particular route that a victim is believed to have walked before being abducted), asking for voluntary samples when the circumstances have warranted it, and voluntary compliance rates have been very high. Does the Holly Jones case ring a bell for you?

 

[Bruce Fischer]

Actually, that was never established as fact. The 'fact' is, as soon as he said it could be his it could no longer be argued to be Raffaele's, whether it was or it wasn't.


And here's an interesting question for you Bruce...how did Rudy know it was probably his? There's only one possible answer to that...he was fully aware that he'd stepped in blood and then stepped off without addressing it. That means he knew this at the time, yet he left without addressing it.l It proves therefore, if there was cleaning and anyone cleaned, it certainly wasn't Rudy...since it's clear he left the crime scene in the full knowledge AT THE TIME that he did or at least may, have left evidence. Do we agree on that?

There was no clean up done at all so yes we can agree that Rudy did not attempt to clean up the cottage. He did a quick clean up of himself.

The fact that Rudy didn't clean up goes perfectly with the scenario that Rudy committed the murder.

 

[Kevin_Lowe]

All of those pieces of evidence were assessed by the forensics teams. Those are the same people who you argue are unable to assess DNA or prints when it comes to Amanda or Raffaele. Or that it might have been the result of contamination.

Do you see the inconsistency in your position yet?

There's no inconsistency in thinking that the Rome lab might get things right almost all of the time and wrong occasionally. Nor in thinking that the Rome lab might do things perfectly honestly almost all of the time but have falsified a result once.

You once again seem to want to engage with a straw man, that straw man being the position that the Rome lab should be believed to be absolutely unreliable or that they make all of their results up. Nobody that I am aware of holds this position.