Amanda Knox guilty - all because of a cartwheel

[Fine]

Oh dear. I haven't read down to the bottom of the thread yet to see if anyone else has remarked upon this, so I'm sorry if I'm duplicating. In any case, I wanted to answer directly for myself here, since the last paragraph from this quote directly concerns my post.

You might already know this from other sources, but I was suggesting exactly the OPPOSITE to what you said above was my position. I argued that AK/RS's better strategy, in my view, would have been to MESS UP the entire common area of the apartment - not to make it "spic-and-span". Please read my post again.

But then again, maybe reading someone's post properly before commenting on it (and subsequently representing that poster's position accurately) is either unfashionable or positively frowned upon. Who knew...?

_____________________

Hi London John,

I was discussing the cleanup of BLOOD. I was saying that it would not have been advisable for the suspects to clean up all the blood in the cottage outside of Meredith's room. And I did represent your position accurately. You had said this:

"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."

Q.E.D.

So there must be a cultural British/American problem here. Do you know that "spic-and-span" is an American brand-name cleaning product?

///

 

[Charlie Wilkes]

So how did Raffaele's DNA come to be in Meredith's room? I know, I know...I've asked, Halides has attempted to provide answers. Of course, all those answers rely on one thing: That Raffaele left his DNA elsewhere in the cottage, in a spot that was not tested, nor was brushed up against except in the solitary moment that it was carried to the clasp (or at least, it was not transferred to any of the other areas/items tested - but we'll leave that leap in logic for another post).

In short: the evidence...absence...absence...evidence bit works both ways.

There is no way, at this point, to definitively prove that Raffaele was not in Meredith room - by way of the very same reasoning. Just because his DNA was not found elsewhere in the room/on the body, does not mean it wasn't present and just not in a spot that was tested.

And now, the contamination believers are hoisted by their own petard. ETA: By this, I mean that by their own "absence of evidence" argument, there is no reason to believe that absence of Raffaele's DNA in the room does not require contamination. The doubt in the results is no longer quite so much.

You're quite right. Chances are, if they had taken hundreds of samples instead of dozens, they'd have found Amanda's DNA too. But that is only because Amanda lived there. They found Meredith's fingerprints and DNA inside Amanda's room. What does it prove? Nothing. Meredith lived there. She was in Amanda's room for some reason and she touched something.

This is why it's not reasonable to look at a single DNA result and say "aha! this proves guilt" when the match is with someone who was known to have been on the premises the day of and the day after the murder. That goes double when the sample in question is fished from a pile of debris six weeks into the investigation, after police have made a huge mess of the whole place. It goes triple when you can see not one but two investigators mishandling the evidence on video.

 

[Mary_H]

_____________________

Hi London John,

I was discussing the cleanup of BLOOD. I was saying that it would not have been advisable for the suspects to clean up all the blood in the cottage outside of Meredith's room. And I did represent your position accurately. You had said this:

"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."

Q.E.D.

So there must be a cultural British/American problem here. Do you know that "spic-and-span" is an American brand-name cleaning product?

///

But before he wrote that, he wrote this:

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.

You argued against completely cleaning the bathroom on the basis that it would have raised the suspicions of the police, but no one had suggested that it would have been a good idea to completely clean the bathroom. The original argument was that if Amanda and Raffaele had cleaned the bathroom, they would not have left those spots of blood.

 

[LondonJohn]

I'll accept that and also that there's a high compliance rate. But when the body is in a locked room in the cottage you've rented, you'd be out of your mind to decline your stated right to an attorney.

That's one facet of this case that's frequently overlooked in comparisons to other murder cases. It wasn't just a body found anywhere. It was locked inside a room with no other exit than the common area.

Just as a matter of opinion, and knowing you would be considered a suspect, would you have declined your right to representation?

I know I'm reneging on my commitment never to correspond with you again, but I just needed to point out how readily - and civilly - you acquiesced on this point once a mod had posted a view in a personal capacity. How very interesting. I think many of us can draw our own conclusions.

 

[BobTheDonkey]

You're quite right. Chances are, if they had taken hundreds of samples instead of dozens, they'd have found Amanda's DNA too. But that is only because Amanda lived there. They found Meredith's fingerprints and DNA inside Amanda's room. What does it prove? Nothing. Meredith lived there. She was in Amanda's room for some reason and she touched something.

This is why it's not reasonable to look at a single DNA result and say "aha! this proves guilt" when the match is with someone who was known to have been on the premises the day of and the day after the murder. That goes double when the sample in question is fished from a pile of debris six weeks into the investigation, after police have made a huge mess of the whole place. It goes triple when you can see not one but two investigators mishandling the evidence on video.

If so many samples were taken from Meredith's bedroom, then how was only this single sample contaminated? Again, were the only traces of Raffaele in the room not brought in during the first round of evidence collecting, but rather 46 days later?

You, and others, affirm that the DNA arrived via contamination. Yet nothing else in that room was contaminated. To believe this, one must believe that at no other time during the initial collection of evidence, you know, when those videos of Bruce's were filmed, did any of the multitude of Policemen, Investigators, etc manage to contaminate any of the places tested in the bedroom. No, it wasn't until the handful of forensics scientists returned 46 days later that Raffaele's DNA was transferred via contamination into the bedroom. That just seems unlikely, Charlie.

 

[LondonJohn]

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.

Ooops. The two quotes of mine ARE contradictory (or at least very inconsistent). However, this was simply an accidental word omission on my behalf. I forgot to put the word "not" into the first of the two seemingly contradictory quotes: i.e. "....any refusal to comply would - and should NOT have been....". I probably forgot because of my somewhat gauche sentence structure (my insertion of " - and should - ").

My mistake absolutely. I apologise for the confusion that this caused in interpreting my position. I've gone back and edited the post accordingly.

EDIT: It seems that I can't now edit my original mistake. Is there a time limit on editing? If so, I'll just have to hope that people who are following the thread can understand that I've had to correct it down here instead....

 

[LondonJohn]

_____________________

Hi London John,

I was discussing the cleanup of BLOOD. I was saying that it would not have been advisable for the suspects to clean up all the blood in the cottage outside of Meredith's room. And I did represent your position accurately. You had said this:

"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."

Q.E.D.

So there must be a cultural British/American problem here. Do you know that "spic-and-span" is an American brand-name cleaning product?

///

This truly is "strawman 101"

Where to start....?

Well, firstly, you didn't say in your post that you were discussing the clean-up of blood. You referred to something like "leaving the whole apartment totally spic-and-span". If you only meant with regard to blood, you need to have put that in your original post.

Secondly, you "conveniently" extended your yellow highlighting only as far as the point in my quote where your "argument" could be supported, in order to subtly misrepresent my position. Allow me to point out the difference between

I'd make damn sure that I wiped EVERY relevant surface, and that I left as little as possible
and

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
The second one - which is actually what I said in full - clearly implies that I'm NOT arguing that I would leave AS LITTLE AS POSSIBLE, FULL STOP. I argue that I would leave as little as possible that could conceivably (in my mind) connect me to the crime. The qualifier ("that could conceivably....") is absolutely fundamental to the quote. To omit it in such a wanton manner (and to support your own position) is unintellectual at best. And, at worst.....

And I'd already argued that - had I already decided either to misdirect investigators in general, or that I needed to create a "something's not right" scenario for me myself to "innocently" discover - I WOULD have created a noticeable mess in the cottage.

By-the-by, I didn't know that "spic-and-span" is a brand of American cleaning product. In the UK it simply means "very tidy, with everything clean and in its place". But, to the best of my recollection, it was either you or someone else (but not me) who first introduced this term into the debate. And, to my mind at least, we can all be in common agreement that "spic-and-span" implies a clean-up to a high level of cleanliness and order.

 

[Mary_H]

If so many samples were taken from Meredith's bedroom, then how was only this single sample contaminated? Again, were the only traces of Raffaele in the room not brought in during the first round of evidence collecting, but rather 46 days later?

You, and others, affirm that the DNA arrived via contamination. Yet nothing else in that room was contaminated. To believe this, one must believe that at no other time during the initial collection of evidence, you know, when those videos of Bruce's were filmed, did any of the multitude of Policemen, Investigators, etc manage to contaminate any of the places tested in the bedroom. No, it wasn't until the handful of forensics scientists returned 46 days later that Raffaele's DNA was transferred via contamination into the bedroom. That just seems unlikely, Charlie.

The issue isn't really one of contamination in the bedroom or in the collection of bedroom materials by investigators. There probably was a lot of material that was contaminated with a variety of people's DNA samples (at least partial samples). The sequence of events most likely went like this, though:

On the materials taken from the crime scene immediately after the murder, the lab did open-ended testing; that is, they looked for DNA samples from anyone. The most incriminating samples they found (that is, ones mixed with Meredith's blood and ones on her body), pointed to the killer, who was eventually identified as Rudy.

Who knows what the lab did with any other samples they found? Apparently, at least in the first rounds of testing, there were no samples that pointed the finger at any other suspects. It is still probably safe to say, though, that they did find some random samples of other people's DNA in the room.

We know that once Amanda and Raffaele were in prison, the prosecution set out to find forensic evidence against them. Apparently, none of the original samples from the murder room had held any evidence of Amanda and Raffaele's presence; at least, the lab hadn't found any of their DNA in the open-ended testing. The lab probably stopped doing open-ended tests once Rudy was in custody -- waste of time. To find evidence against the other two suspects, all they needed to do was match their DNA to the materials they had already collected. Unfortunately for the prosecution's case, that didn't produce any matches, either. So out they went to look for more.

Putting the "murder weapon" in Amanda's hands and the bra clasp in Raffaele's couldn't be more contrived or obvious. Their DNA was found ONLY in those two places and nowhere else? How terribly convenient for the prosecution's case! I don't think even a seventh-grader would write such an un-subtle script as that, and not expect to be laughed out of the classroom for it.

 

[Fulcanelli]

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.

The whole line that 'there is no evidence and there is no motive' is an FOA talking point and the only people who believe it are FOA.

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.

What do you mean 'people like Rudy'...you mean BLACK people?

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.

You're right that there is a mountain of evidence. You are completely wrong that it's bad ir irrelevant. Far from it and that's exactly the point...there's a clear pattern of evidence that puts them at the crime scene and murdering Meredith Kercher. Nobody however, can offer a single shred of evidence to show they weren't.

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.

To say that courts have been wrong 'before' and then use that as the basis for an argument that they are wrong in this case is pretty poor...and rather desperate.

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.

It's not a 'label', it's an apt description of the basis of your argument...'Whoever leaves the most evidence at a crime scene wins the prize and gets to be found guilty and sent to jail, while all the other people who left evidence get to be declared innocent and allowed to go home, simply because they left less'.

As for the physical evidence 'proving' that Rudy murdered Meredith, actually it doesn't. All it 'proves' is that he was 'there'. On balance of probability, it shows he was certainly involved in Meredith's murder. Just in the same way, the evidence shows on balance of probability that Raffaele and Amanda were there and involved in Meredith's murder, with in fact Amanda and Raffaele wielding the knives that killed her.

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.

Yes, Raffaele's defence expert Dr Vinci.

Complicated case? Earlier you were saying it's a very simple case. You need to make your mind up.

 

[Mary_H]

What do you mean 'people like Rudy'...you mean BLACK people?

And there, my friends, we have the Straw Man of the day.

 

[Fulcanelli]

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?

Yes...but what's the point unless those unknown samples appear in a place or manner that actually connect them to the crime? The fact is, the lab had many hundreds of samples to test as it was and there was a backlog...they therefore had to prioritise. They therefore focused only on that which could be connected to the crime.

Take the blood stain in Filomena's room or the bloody print on the mat or blood stains in the bathroom or luminol footprints...none of those contained the DNA of any unknowns. Neither did Meredith's body or her room.

However, I should point out all samples taken were compared to the Italian DNA database as well as all the suspects. The whole point of collecting forensic data for elimination purposes is not to provide evidence to bolster the case, but actually to help the police so they can eliminate this or that person...but that's only of help when there isn't a lot of data to begin with and they therefore have the luxury of doing so. In this case, they were drowning in data so more on top would have been a hinderance rather then a help.

 

[Fulcanelli]

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.

Massei has concluded there was a clean-up. He must have had his reasons for doing so, don't you think?

 

[Fulcanelli]

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.

But there is when you work from the total assumption that the lab got everything right when it came to Rudy and everything wrong when it came to Amanda and Raffaele.

 

[RWVBWL]

Hi Fulcanelli,
re: "The whole line that 'there is no evidence and there is no motive' is an FOA talking point and the only people who believe it are FOA."

Myself, I find the term FOA kind of silly, and it only focuses all of the poster's attention on Amanda Knox, completely bypassing Raffaele Sollecito. Hence directing hatred towards 1 person, Amanda, ignoring Raffaele.
I happen to believe that Raffaele and Amanda are innocent, so what would that make me, a FORA? A FOAR?
Anyways, just a random thought.
RWVBWL

 

[Fulcanelli]

I believe that one of the few uncontentious "facts" about the bra clasp is that the unidentified DNA "found" on it could not be used to definitively identify to whom they belong due to being only partial profiles.

(I'm not disagreeing with your main point, though)

ETA: IIRC the unidentified partial DNA profiles on the bra are claimed to be female. Does anyone know the gender composition of the forensic collection team?

Absolutely correct. The other two profiles on the clasp were too small and fractured to be matched to anyone, even if the police had a reference sample for comparison. The most that could be done was to discern they were female and even then not by the anything they would read in the partials, but by what 'wasn't' on the clasp, which was a male haplotype (the only one present could firmly be identified as being Raffaele's).

As for the forensics team nearly all were male...aside from Dr Stefanoni who was team leader.

 

[Mary_H]

Massei has concluded there was a clean-up. He must have had his reasons for doing so, don't you think?

Cite? Italian will do.

 

[Fulcanelli]

Filomena said that she was with her boyfriend that night, not out of town, not even very far away by car.

Ahh, but she wasn't alone with her boyfriend...they were having a birthday party.

The lab developed evidence that pointed to RG as a suspect. There was no axe to grind. On the other hand, AK and RS were already paraded through the old part of the city and in custody by the time forensic evidence was announced. In the case of the bra clasp, this time gap was especially large. Therefore, various kinds of cognitive bias can come into play with AK and RS that are simply not applicable for RG. Check out the article I cited "CSI for Real" for some good discussion on these biases if you like.

They had no axe to grind with Raffaele and Amanda either. Claims that they did all fall apart when one brings Patrick into the reckoning...you know, the one for whom no evidence was found and was let go?

 

[Mary_H]

They had no axe to grind with Raffaele and Amanda either. Claims that they did all fall apart when one brings Patrick into the reckoning...you know, the one for whom no evidence was found and was let go?

Not really. As Charlie suggested a while back, Patrick might still be in prison if he hadn't had an alibi. The prosecution literally had to go away from the crime scene to find evidence to pin on Amanda, and it took them six weeks to find evidence to pin on Raffaele. There is no doubt they could have found something to use on Patrick, too.

 

[Fulcanelli]

You're quite right. Chances are, if they had taken hundreds of samples instead of dozens, they'd have found Amanda's DNA too. But that is only because Amanda lived there. They found Meredith's fingerprints and DNA inside Amanda's room. What does it prove? Nothing. Meredith lived there. She was in Amanda's room for some reason and she touched something.

This is why it's not reasonable to look at a single DNA result and say "aha! this proves guilt" when the match is with someone who was known to have been on the premises the day of and the day after the murder. That goes double when the sample in question is fished from a pile of debris six weeks into the investigation, after police have made a huge mess of the whole place. It goes triple when you can see not one but two investigators mishandling the evidence on video.

But they've not been convicted on the basis of a single DNA result Charlie. It is and always has been simply one part of a much greater whole in terms of the evidence against them. These arguments may have some basis for sympathy were it only one single DNA profile as the sum total of all the evidence against them, but it isn't. Instead, what we have is a clear pattern of evidence that connects them directly to the crime and puts them in the cottage the night of the murder and involved in Meredith's murder.

 

[Fulcanelli]

You argued against completely cleaning the bathroom on the basis that it would have raised the suspicions of the police, but no one had suggested that it would have been a good idea to completely clean the bathroom. The original argument was that if Amanda and Raffaele had cleaned the bathroom, they would not have left those spots of blood.

And I showed that argument to be without weight, as I demonstrated that they 'needed' those spots of blood to be there.