Amanda Knox guilty - all because of a cartwheel

[capealadin]

Bruce: I will give that you are honestly convinced in your belief of Amanda's innocence. As to the facts and the truth? If Amanda is so confused and can,t remember, how does she know she didn,t kill or take part in this murder?

 

[Bruce Fischer]

Bruce: I will give that you are honestly convinced in your belief of Amanda's innocence. As to the facts and the truth? If Amanda is so confused and can,t remember, how does she know she didn,t kill or take part in this murder?

Evidence suggests that she had no part in the murder. You are changing the subject. This has been a huge talking point with the guilters. It has been said repeatedly that the shoe prints suggest that it would be impossible for Rudy to lock the door. This is completely false.

Go try this for yourself.

Walk out of a door that closes like Meredith's door. In other words, find a door that swings closed in the same direction. Exit the room leading with your left foot. Use your right hand to pull the door closed. When you put your left foot on the floor make sure your toes are pointing at an angle toward your right. Keep your hand on the handle of the door the entire time as you close it. Now, your right foot is free to land anywhere you like. If you make this very natural motion, you will close the door and your body will be nearly facing the door. Now ask yourself if it would feel like a natural position to lock that door.

Make the motion to lock the door. Proceed with tour right foot in the direction that your left foot is facing.

With a very natural motion, you just repeated the movements of Rudy when he left Meredith's room. He stepped out of the room with his left foot. His foot was angled toward the front door. His toes were not directly facing the door but the angle was leading in that direction. He closed the door with his right hand. He inserted the key with his right hand. Then he walked out the front door.

Try it a few times. It is a very natural motion.

 

[capealadin]

Bruce: What do you mean, distract the truth with more nonsense? We were having a discussion. You said it would work. It didn,t. It is nonsense to try and make it happen, I give you that. No need to get bad tempered and pouty. I appreciate the lengths you went to.

 

[stilicho]

Please clarify your position. Are you saying that Amanda and Raffaele Were expecting Filomena to show up long before Raffaele decided to call the police? Because she didn't show up, you feel that Amanda and Raffaele then felt the need to do more staging? When they were comfortable with their staging work, Raffaele called the Carabinieri?

Is that what you are saying?

Your theory doesn't work. Raffaele called the Carabinieri. He wanted the police to come to the cottage. He called before you claim that they were surprised.

Are you trying to claim that they had an elaborate plan to time the Carabinieri with Filomena to have her arrive just seconds or minutes before them?

No matter how you twist it, I cannot make your theory work.

Common sense based on the evidence, tells us that Raffaele called the Carabinieri because he wanted the police to investigate the cottage. This is not the action of a guilty person.

One other thing about the "staging" - If Raffaele made that bloody print on the bathmat he would have known the print belonged to him. Why would Amanda and Raffaele clean up every print in the entire cottage that belonged to them and leave the bathmat in the bathroom?

Common sense notwithstanding, the evidence tells us that they called other people before they phoned the police. This, in itself, is not terribly suspicious. But it is suspicious that they waited so long to call the Carabinieri after knowing Filomena's original reaction.

It takes both Amanda and Raffaele to be incredibly dull to have done that. According to her story, Amanda first found the break-in and the signs something was wrong. She dilly-dallied around, taking a shower alone in a house in which there had apparently been an intrusion, and in an area known to be frequented by druggies. Brave woman! Nerves of steel when she wants to.

Then, still according to her, she went to get Raffaele and he, too, saw nothing disturbing enough to spring into action. It stretches credibility to accept that both of them were that dull.

As for the bathmat print, I'm willing to accept that it was not sufficiently well-lit in the bathroom for either of them to notice it when they staged the scene. The version we have appears to have been photographed under bright light and possibly after a reagent had been applied to it so it stood out. They just didn't notice it during the cleanup.

 

[Fulcanelli]

Bruce: The first problem is stepping out of the door with your left foot ( oh, Daniel Day Lewis, right). It continues downhill from there.

I wouldn't even bother entertaining this lame scenario with the effort of an intelligent response. Don't waste your time with it Cape.

 

[Bruce Fischer]

I wouldn't eve bother entertaining this lame scenario with the effort of an intelligent response. Don't waste your time with it Cape.

Don't waste your time with it? I have proven one of your major talking points to be completely false and you don't want to talk about it?

 

[capealadin]

Right, Fulcanelli. And I,m almost lame from trying it

 

[capealadin]

Bruce: I think you'd be far better off trying to figure out a way for Amanda to get her memory back. That might be easier than trying pirouettes and contortions.

 

[stilicho]

An interesting read, if you too believe Amanda Knox is not guilty.
I hope that her lawyers do a much better job in the up-coming slander trial that she faces, and her up-coming appeals trial...

http://www.westseattleherald.com/20...x-book-reading-near-uw-campus-sparks-emotions

RWVBWL

[Amanda] wanted to get out into the countryside. She was excited about that.

She'll have her opportunity to hike and climb in about 26 years or so.

 

[LondonJohn]

Well, Bruce, why would Rudi lock the door? Why would he care who found Meredith or when?

I can't understand the argument that IF Guede was the lone assaulter/killer, then it wouldn't have been logical for him to lock the door - especially when set against the logical reasons offered as to why AK/RS would have benefited from locking the door if they'd been involved.

There are very many sound reasons why Guede would have wanted to delay the discovery of the body for as long as possible (if he were the lone attacker). Here are three of the biggest ones:

1) It would have given him far more time to be seen acting "normally" around town - thus establishing a pattern of behaviour that Guede could rationally have thought might later work in his favour (i.e. "How could I be her killer? I was dancing and chatting totally normally into the small hours of the morning!". NB: Clearly, Guede would have known that he had no alibi for the time of the murder (given that he was the killer), so maybe he'd have thought that this "post-crime alibi" was the next best thing.

2) Delaying discovery of the body by locking the door would have been a viable way (as Guede might logically have thought) to maximise degradation of evidence within the room, thereby possibly making it harder (in his mind) for police to find usable evidence of his presence.

3) Perhaps more significantly, Guede might have reasoned that a lengthy delay in the discovery of the body might make it very difficult to determine with accuracy a time of death. This would dovetail in with reason (1) above, since suddenly Guede's very visible behaviour in the early hours of the 2nd November could also be seen as an attempt to actively construct a time-of-murder alibi if Guede hoped the time of death would be ruled indeterminate.

In addition to these case-specific reasons, I think it's fairly well-established that most murderers (but often, interestingly, not serial killers, who routinely harbour a strange desire to get caught) actively try to hide (or delay discovery of) their victims - if they have the opportunity to do so. To me - in addition to the more specific reasons I've given above - this applies equally to Guede acting on his own (as, incidentally, it would also apply to a RG/AK/RS combo).

 

[Fulcanelli]

Don't waste your time with it? I have proven one of your major talking points to be completely false and you don't want to talk about it?

You've proven nothing. You've offered a whole lot of waffle that's completely contradicted by the evidence...Rudy's footprints.

And you know...where you even to put in a third of the effort into looking at the evidence against Amanda and Raffaele with a suspicious eye as you put into all the mental gymnastics to shoehorn Rudy into all and any of the evidence while making excuses for the other two, we wouldn't even be having a debate in this thread here for there would be no need for this farce...we could all just go home.

 

[43degreesNorth]

Why would Guede even care to lock a door and leave his shoe prints? There was no point for him to delay his exit and go to try to establish an alibi dancing. The only ones benefiting from a locked door would be those who wanted someone else to discover the body..someone who knew they would have to answer questions, so best to play confused and uninformed. Better to call another housemate.. to be there with you to witness the unfolding horror... better to call the police and play upset and worried...

 

[43degreesNorth]

Posted same time as LJ so will read his version of why Rudy would want to take time to lock a door.....

 

[LondonJohn]

[Amanda] wanted to get out into the countryside. She was excited about that.

She'll have her opportunity to hike and climb in about 26 years or so.

Yeah, that was well worth saying. Thanks for that addition to the debate...

 

[stilicho]

Everyone should try this at home. Walk out of a door that closes like Meredith's door.

....

The most logical conclusion, Amanda and Raffaele weren't there.

I tried it several times and it's not credible. The most logical conclusion is either AK and RS locked the door, and most probably AK, to prevent a too-early discovery of Meredith's body.

The moral of the story, to any prospective murderers out there, is not to lock your victim in a room in the house you rent or own. Notwithstanding the ****-buddies' unusual reactions, the first thing that the police would have connected to Amanda was that locked door. It was a rookie mistake.

 

[capealadin]

Well, LJ. First of all, it is very NECESSARY to believe that it was Rudi who locked the door. He didn't have to be seen around town. Not everyone in Perugia was seen out and about. Not everyone was with someone to verify their whereabouts. As Rudi didn't try and get rid of any evidence, I don't think he would know about degradable times. Probably not a fan of CSI. Probably did'nt know much about autopsies either. Jeez. He didn't even bother to wipe his blood off Meredith's purse. Or flush. And, very smart and considerate of him to try and get rid of Amanda's and Raff's evidence, but leave all of his there. Oh, But, the IMPORTANT evidence, was locking that door.

 

[stilicho]

No coroner's report? Or were there multiple reports for whenever Mignini changed his mind. I guess the coroner was suborned into the great conspiracy as well.

The medical examiner (Lalli) is one of those included in the conspiracy from day one. They latch onto his terminology, which is typically scientific in explaining the wounds as "consistent with...", and argue that he was fired by Mignini because he didn't buy into the multiple attacker scenario:

Posted by funnycat at 4/10/09 12:34 a.m.
And of course, Luca Lalli was fired by the PM, perhaps with justification, since he spoke publicly about matters he was supposed not to comment on. Of course, others who leaked just about everything true and untrue about Amanda Knox and Raffaele were not even rapped on the knuckles. Those were just "police leaks." Didn't those leaks include Lalli's conclusions, anyway?

(Source: http://blog.seattlepi.com/dempsey/archives/166025.asp )

That's from Candace Dempsey's blog. It's a comment from someone close to the Knox/Mellas family and who has arguably been the primary source for many of Dempsey's weak claims.

 

[capealadin]

Locking the door: What a genious plan to fool the cops. That single action would throw them for a loop.Assuming he's off to meet and greet, why bother?

 

[stilicho]

I guess so. After two days why would they bother taking it at all? After much more than one day it starts going back up again.

How do we know this? I haven't seen it mentioned before. Did the defense bring up sloppy (non-existent?) forensic pathology in the trial?

I believe the Massei Report will have all the evidence about the ToD determination. If they didn't do anything for two days then that would be almost unbelievably careless and should become a feature in the defence case.

 

[stilicho]

I can't understand the argument that IF Guede was the lone assaulter/killer, then it wouldn't have been logical for him to lock the door - especially when set against the logical reasons offered as to why AK/RS would have benefited from locking the door if they'd been involved.

There are very many sound reasons why Guede would have wanted to delay the discovery of the body for as long as possible (if he were the lone attacker). Here are three of the biggest ones:

1) It would have given him far more time to be seen acting "normally" around town - thus establishing a pattern of behaviour that Guede could rationally have thought might later work in his favour (i.e. "How could I be her killer? I was dancing and chatting totally normally into the small hours of the morning!". NB: Clearly, Guede would have known that he had no alibi for the time of the murder (given that he was the killer), so maybe he'd have thought that this "post-crime alibi" was the next best thing.

2) Delaying discovery of the body by locking the door would have been a viable way (as Guede might logically have thought) to maximise degradation of evidence within the room, thereby possibly making it harder (in his mind) for police to find usable evidence of his presence.

3) Perhaps more significantly, Guede might have reasoned that a lengthy delay in the discovery of the body might make it very difficult to determine with accuracy a time of death. This would dovetail in with reason (1) above, since suddenly Guede's very visible behaviour in the early hours of the 2nd November could also be seen as an attempt to actively construct a time-of-murder alibi if Guede hoped the time of death would be ruled indeterminate.

In addition to these case-specific reasons, I think it's fairly well-established that most murderers (but often, interestingly, not serial killers, who routinely harbour a strange desire to get caught) actively try to hide (or delay discovery of) their victims - if they have the opportunity to do so. To me - in addition to the more specific reasons I've given above - this applies equally to Guede acting on his own (as, incidentally, it would also apply to a RG/AK/RS combo).

All of this is FOA talking points. I believe you said this once:

As I've pointed out before, it's very possible (and arguably more nuanced) to take a position based on interpretation of legal processes and interpretation of evidence, without AK's culpability or lack of involvement (explicitly as opposed to legal "guilt" or "non-guilt") ever becoming a factor. This is where I place myself.

http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showpost.php?p=5961895&postcount=13828

What was it that changed you from feeling neutral about Amanda's guilt to becoming an Amanda supporter?

To your FOA talking points:

1] You're describing what he actually did. He went out to dance and hopefully establish an alibi. In doing that, he proved himself to be slightly smarter than RS and AK, although he made the mistake of leaving them alone after they murdered Meredith.

2] Burning the cottage down would have been an even better way to cover his tracks. He wouldn't have known whether all the keys inside the house were identical because they weren't security locks. Although that type of lock is supposed to have 200 variations, there's nothing to suppose that the mechanism cannot be forced by a different key.

3] Your problem here is that RG is both brilliant and stupid at the same time. He did nothing to remove his handprints or footprints and didn't even quickly check to make sure he'd flushed the toilet. Yet he locked the door.

None of the evidence supports your conclusion. Rudy did not lock Meredith's door.