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Continuation - Discussion of the Amanda Knox case

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Amanda's actions

Halides1, will you please stop repeating this lie! Amanda never said this at all, Chris Mellas said it! And I refer you to Amanda's OWN TESTIMONY (as I've done several times before on this matter) on the stand in the trial where she explains exactly why she did yoga and cartwheels down the police station and being told/asked/requested to by a policeman was not a part of it...it never happened, it's just another bare faced lie from Chris Mellas and his own daughter with her own testimony make him him a liar.

Fulcanelli,

This is false. Amanda's testimony mentions the officer making a comment, but it does not go any further. In other words, Amanda's testimony is silent on the question of whether the officer asked her to demonstrate anything more, but her earlier statements mention this. Calling Mr. Mellas a liar does not advance your own credibility.
 
Greetings Fulcanelli,
Nice to see you back here again!
I liked how you prefaced a particular sentence above, so I will "borrow" useage of the same, if you don't mind:

A common act of human behaviour when you are a tired woman is to put on your pajamas or a nightgown on and crawl under the covers and go to sleep.

Since Miss Kercher had stayed out partying until 5:30am that morning, 1 can imagine that indeed she might have been just a bit tired after leaving her girlfriends apartment the night she was murdered.

An interesting thing I recently read was that the English girls stated they did not drink any alcohol that evening, but yet I believe Miss Kercher had, what was it, .043/liter BAC after she was found murdered?
If none of the English girls drank alcohol that night while watching "The Notebook", then I would make a good guess that Miss Kercher's .043 BAC was from the previous night/early morning's partying with the girls.
Hence, in my opinion it would be easy to see that Miss Kercher was possibly tired and a bit burnt out.
From what I have read, she wasn't even very hungry, and only ate a part of her pizza.

Too me, it sounds like Miss Kercher might have drank just a little too much alcohol the night before, that is keeping in mind her BAC many hours later when she was found dead.
Myself, after a late night of heavy drinking, I am usually exhausted, tired and burnt out
the next day and usually do not have much appetitie for food...


As you probably know, she borrowed a history book from Robyn that evening,
I think it was "Early Modern Europe, 1450-1789" to read a bit,
before giving it back to Robyn the next morning at class.

I can just imagine a gal, coming home to a cold, empty apartment, a bit tired and burnt out from partying with the girls, putting on her pajama's or night gown on, and climbing into bed to read herself to sleep. Can you?

But she wasn't found dressed that way, even though that borrowed book was found in her room afterwards. Miss Kercher still had her pants on when she was found. This leads me to believe that the murder, (though it doesn't fit in with the court's, and hence your own timeline), happened shortly after Miss Kercher came home.

And since Miss Kercher's bedroom was not found totally trashed, as one might think it should be if a brutal life ending struggle took place, it looks to me at least, that Miss Kercher was totally suprised by the murderer(s) when she came home that night, not even having time to put on her pajama's or nightgown on and get comfy...

Your thoughts Fulcanelli?
Thanks, RWVBWL

Ps-How'd you like C. Dempsey's work?
No, I'm not asking about Candace Dempsey, the author of "Murder in Italy"
but Clint Dempsey, who helped give us Americans a tie in yesterday's World Cup match with you English blokes! Great shot, huh?!!


No. She was found completely naked except for her t-shirt which was rucked up to her neck. Meredith had also made no secret that she intended to study first. Whilst some people may decide to get into their nightclothes to do that, others may not. Therefore, using clothing in order to put a time on the murder is stretching things.
 
The statement that you made regarding Amanda's confusion shows me that you have never done any research on coerced confessions. If you have done the research then you have chosen not to believe the facts with regard to coerced confessions.

The police ran out and arrested Patrick with nothing more that bad information they obtained from a coerced confession. You can spin it anyway you like. Patrick as innocent. They arrested him with nothing else to go on. The facts are very clear in this matter. It was very poor police work.

You unmovable faith that Amanda's questioning was coerced is akin to the unmovable faith by some that God indeed created the World in 7 days. That may be tour faith, but don't expect others to assert it, no matter how zealously. And frankly, it us immensely boring. There is no evidence of coercion. Not only that, I don't think you people even know strictly 'what' coercion is. I would suspect, that for some, in their eyes, if a policeman raises his voice slightly it qualifies as coercion. Moreover, it wasn't a confession, it was an accusation. You might also want to explain 'who' was coercing Amanda when she gave the voluntary statement she insisted on giving to Mignini. It was the statement Amanda gave Mignini that led to Patrick's arrest, not her earlier statement. Therefore, Patrick was not arrested on the back of a 'coerced comfession'.

Patrick is innocent, on that one thing we agree. But saying they did so 'with nothing else to go on' implies they arrested him with minor evidence. Amanda's accusation was not considered minor evidence, but substantial evidence that ticked all the boxes that not only permit permitted them to arrest him, but ensured they HAD to arrest him. There was no other course under ITALIAN LAW.
 
Fulcanelli,

This is false. Amanda's testimony mentions the officer making a comment, but it does not go any further. In other words, Amanda's testimony is silent on the question of whether the officer asked her to demonstrate anything more, but her earlier statements mention this. Calling Mr. Mellas a liar does not advance your own credibility.

Halides1, for the hundredth time I refer you to Amanda's own testimony on WHY she was doing cartwheels:

FM: Did you suffer from the loss of this friend?

AK: Yes, I was very, very shocked by it. I couldn't even imagine such a thing.

FM: Do you think about her in your daily life, do you think about this friend
who was with you in your house?

AK: Yes, I remember her. But in the end, I only knew her for one month, and
more than anything, I am trying to think how to go forward with my own life,
so yes, I remember her, and I am so upset about what happened, and
sometimes it seems to me that it can't be real. I don't really know what
to think of this thing. But yes. I suffered.

FM: All right. We heard, and you gave testimony on this point, about your
behavior in the Questura, the cartwheel, the gymnastics, the stretching and
so forth.

AK: Yes.

FM: According to you, was this behavior appropriate, a normal behavior faced
with such a misfortune, or was this something special?

AK: According to me, each person confronts a tragedy in their own way, and I am
used to trying to find normality, at least my own normality, in situations
of difficulty. This is my way of feeling more secure, because I was feeling
really, really, really scared of what had happened, very shocked. I didn't
know how to face up to the situation, and for me it was surreal, but I
was obliged to accept the fact that it had happened, so my behavior -- yes,
I know that they are a bit lighthearted, but that's just how I am.

FM: But at that moment, were you scared, or grieving? Or both?

AK: I was so -- I was very disoriented.

http://www.perugiamurderfile.org/viewtopic.php?p=17375#p17375


AK: ...that Meredith had had her throat slit, and at that point I became a bit...uh
[sigh]...I closed myself off a bit inside...I cried a bit because I kept thinking
but...how is it possible? No...[slightly desperate laugh], it was too
much, so [sigh, voice trembling], and then, we went to the Questura.

LG: To the Questura. After the Questura...there followed all these phases,
you were heard, then they took photographs, and you did cartwheels and splits?
Are those things true? How did they happen? And where did they happen?

AK: So, on that first day, I didn't do those things, I was always talking with
the police, but...uh...in the following days, but also...in general, I'm
a person who kind of, when I feel in difficulty, I kind of try to "lighten
up" [in English, asks interpreter; silence, lawyer says "non lo so", "I don't
know", the interpreter then suggests "to relax"], to relax the situation,
it was too heavy, really everything was really, really heavy, so somehow I
had to...uh [sigh] I don't know, it's an outlet, it's a way of, for me it
was a way of...

LG: We heard that you did some free-climbing, yoga...

AK: Yes, right, often people tell me "You're really flexible, how do you manage
to do that?" and I say yes, I do yoga and gymnastics.

LG: So, you were questioned on the second, we know, we have a long declaration.
On the third, did you go back on Nov 3 to the Questura?


http://www.perugiamurderfile.org/viewtopic.php?p=17363#p17363
 
It wasn't poor police work at all. These sort of comments come from people who don't understand the first thing about police work.

Are you saying that Steve Moore, with 25 years as an FBI agent, doesn't know the first thing about police work?

What is your experience in this area?
 
Fulcanneli,
I don't see where she repeats her conversation with the police officer. If she does give that information elsewhere it would give more than this quote of her testimony does. The police office may have encouraged her or may have not. Hard to say from this.
 
No rights were 'violated'. We've already covered this:

http://www.perugiamurderfile.org/viewtopic.php?p=17394#p17394

All the court rules is what was correct under Italian law. Statements made as a witness cannot be used against the self in court. Statements made against the self as a suspect can only be admitted in court if a lawyer was present. This does not mean her rights were violated, it means simply that the legal criteria for it being used against her court was not present. The statements themselves were in fact perfectly legal and could be used to further the investigation, just not used in court. In exactly the same way, Rudy's statements were not admissible in the trial either. Under your logic, that would mean all of Rudy's statements were a violation of rights, which is clearly nonsense. It is therefore, your reasoning and understanding of the Italian system that is at fault.

No Fulcanelli, not according to what Amanda's lawyer stated in court. She said that Amanda's first statement - made as a witness - could be used as evidence against other people, but not as evidence against herself. But that second statement was unusable against ANYONE - whether Amanda or anyone else - because although she was "substantially a suspect", no lawyer was present when she made it. The only time at which that statement could be used was during the slander trial, which is covered by different rules. So you are wrong to keep saying that both statements were only not usable against Amanda because she was a witness when she made them. The Supreme Court ruled her rights were violated because she did not have a lawyer present, and declared the second statement unusable "for any purpose". I'll re-post the statement from Dalla Vedova, since you don't seem to have read the relevant parts:

One thing is, that the declarations -- the sommarie informazioni testimoniali of 1:45 given without the pubblico ministero, and the spontaneous declarations of 5:45 with the pubblico ministero, should be correctly considered as constitutive elements and body of evidence as for being objective elements in the crime of slander. Another thing is their usability for the purpose of ascertaining the truth. Because, the second [5:45 declarations] were declared to be totally unusable erga omnes [for any purpose] since they were violating the right to defense of a person who was substantially a suspect. This is written by the first section of the Supreme Court. The first [1:45 declarations] are not usable contra se [against oneself], against Amanda, since those declarations were being released by the same person who was to become a suspect for that crime. So, in what concerns the acquisition of these documents for the trial dossier, as by our knowledge, we know their content, they can be there. But on the issue of their usability for any future question, the second ones, the ones where the PM was present, are absolutely not usable here. The first ones are not usable against Amanda. We would like to verbalize this.

The first statement was usable against others, but not against Amanda. The second was not usable against anyone. I think that's pretty clear from this statement. You quote Mignini, but neglect to mention the way the Supreme Court actually ruled on this issue. That almost seems like deliberate misinformation.
 
You unmovable faith that Amanda's questioning was coerced is akin to the unmovable faith by some that God indeed created the World in 7 days. That may be tour faith, but don't expect others to assert it, no matter how zealously. And frankly, it us immensely boring. There is no evidence of coercion. Not only that, I don't think you people even know strictly 'what' coercion is. I would suspect, that for some, in their eyes, if a policeman raises his voice slightly it qualifies as coercion. Moreover, it wasn't a confession, it was an accusation. You might also want to explain 'who' was coercing Amanda when she gave the voluntary statement she insisted on giving to Mignini. It was the statement Amanda gave Mignini that led to Patrick's arrest, not her earlier statement. Therefore, Patrick was not arrested on the back of a 'coerced comfession'.

Patrick is innocent, on that one thing we agree. But saying they did so 'with nothing else to go on' implies they arrested him with minor evidence. Amanda's accusation was not considered minor evidence, but substantial evidence that ticked all the boxes that not only permit permitted them to arrest him, but ensured they HAD to arrest him. There was no other course under ITALIAN LAW.

Yes, my choice of words was poor. It was a coerced statement. I have always stated that Amanda never confessed.

Why have you decided to ignore my question about your statement that the appeal will only last 5 days? I asked you to reveal your source for that information. You told me it was a matter of public record so you should have no problem with posting it here.
 
Even if the police behaved badly, it doesn't excuse her accusing of Patrick (not that I believe they did).

Moreover, where is the 'coercion' when she was heard again by Mignini on her own insistence, when she gave the bulk of her detail in her accusations against Patrick? It was actually on the basis of that second statement, made to Mignini, that the order for Patrick's arrest was given. She then reinforced it with her signed two page note the next day. That's two occasions where she accused Patrick where there was CERTAINLY no coercion going on. On that basis, your whole argument for 'coercion as an excuse' is without basis and falls down.

OK first, and I've asked this before, where is your evidence that statement was made at "her own insistence"? Yes, I realize that when the police typed up the statement, they made sure to include a sentence stating that it was "spontaneous", and then asked Amanda to put her signature on the bottom. I wonder, do you think Amanda - her rights violated because she was without a lawyer - fully understood the legal implications of the word 'spontaneous' in this context? I'm going to take a wild guess here and suggest she didn't.

I find it highly improbable that a woman who wasn't able to insist on her right to a lawyer subsequently "demanded" to be heard by the Public Prosecutor who then had to be woken from his bed to hear her and take her statements. And that's putting it mildly. In my view, by far the most likely scenario is that Mignini was woken so that he could come in and question Amanda for himself, so that she could say what she had said earlier in his presence. That second interview was for Mignini's benefit, not Amanda's.

And secondly, you completely ignore the facts mentioned earlier - that Amanda's second statement was deemed unusable by the Supreme Court because her rights were violated as she didn't have a lawyer present. Therefore I think using this statement where her rights were violated by the police as evidence that there was no coercion is not the most credible of arguments.
 
They were also asking her who it was to "who is this? who were you going to meet?". For reasons I don't quite understand, y'all seem desperate to muddy things rather then clarify them.

Yes, they were. Do you think she should have said "Patrick"?
 
We already know she was doing cartwheels before starting her homework. To try and nail a time for when the questioning began by assuming when she began her homework is a non-starter. She had no idea how many questions they wanted to ask Raffaele and how quickly it would be sorted out...they could have been done with him in half an hour or so. A common act of human behaviour while waiting for someone/something is to try and amuse themselves in their surroundings and then sit around and just wait for a while. Only when it becomes apparent that one is in for the long-haul does one then fish out their homework/work they've taken home from the office and begin to do that. She could have just as easily started her homework quite a long while after getting off the phone with Filomena and we know at 11 pm she still wasn't being questioned since it was at that time she was told off for doing cartwheels. She could have started her homework any time after that...30 minutes...45 minutes.

So in other words, you have absolutely no evidence at all that her interrogation started at 00.30, despite stating repeatedly this was the case, and it might very well have begun after that phone call to Filomena at 22.29 when Amanda said there was someone who wanted to talk to her - a good two hours before the supposed start of the interrogation at 12.30? I thought that might be the case. It's funny how when you dig into some of these claims they turn out to be not quite as authoritative as they first appear.

The only new bit of evidence you mention appears to be the 'cartwheels' happening at 11pm. Do you have a source for this or...not?
 
Halides1, for the hundredth time I refer you to Amanda's own testimony on WHY she was doing cartwheels:

http://www.perugiamurderfile.org/viewtopic.php?p=17375#p17375

http://www.perugiamurderfile.org/viewtopic.php?p=17363#p17363

It's funny Fulcanelli, but in all those quotes you seem to have missed this one:

I did some "stretching", and that's when one policeman said something about my flexibility. A comment.

Do you think it's appropriate that a police officer comments on a young woman's "flexibility"?
 
Because it's a myth. They were never in his original statements, original statements which the court had in any case.

Bruce quoted from Curatolo's original statement where he mentions witches earlier in the thread! You said we should ignore that and go on what Massei said instead. Yet here you are saying again that Curatolo never mentioned witches in his original statement. Why are you being deliberately misleading? Here is what Bruce posted earlier:

"Mentre mi alzavo, mi sono accorto che i due ragazzi non piu'. Se ne erano andanti via, ma io non ne ero accorto. Preciso che erano passati davanti a me e quindi credo siano scesi verso via della Pergola. Mentre leggevo, infatti io, di tanto in tanto sollevavo lo sguardo per guardare gli studente mascherati o vestiti di nero o da streghe o anche per fumarmi una sigaretta e nella zona che potevo vedere io, do via Pinturicchio all universita per strainieri, passando l'Arco Etrusco , non notai transitare i due ragazzi."
 
The police ran out and arrested Patrick with nothing more that bad information they obtained from a coerced confession. You can spin it anyway you like. Patrick as innocent. They arrested him with nothing else to go on. The facts are very clear in this matter. It was very poor police work.

Bruce,

There's nobody on this thread who is even suggesting that Lumumba had anything to do with Kercher's murder. I've even explicitly asked with no responses.

With hindsight is is absolutely clear that Lumumba "ought" not to have been arrested as he is innocent of the crime. But your contention is putting the cart before the horse - you are assuming your conclusion (the accusation was falsely coerced) to prove the premise (it was poor police work because the information was coerced).

The only way around that is if you are contending that the police went into the Knox interview with the intent to elicit a false confession and subsequently went to arrest Lumumba knowing the accusation was untrue. And that would not be "poor police work." It would be outright corruption.

The fact is, once Knox accused Lumumba, coerced or not, lie or not, the police had at least three _apparent_ bits of evidence;

a) Sollecito's saying that Knox could have left his apartment.
b) Knox's outgoing text message that indicated meeting up with someone that night
c) Knox's accusation of Lumumba

That (b) was a red herring due to a language barrier is reasonably clear to us now. Fortunately for him (c) would later be proven wrong by an alibi witness and lack of forensics.

But at the time, the most reasonable course of action for the police would be to focus attention on Lumumba. That the nature and severity of the crime caused that attention to come in the form of an arrest is hardly surprising or unusual.
 
But by this time I believe that the police had convinced themselves that a) AK was lying about the meaning of the text, and b) she was deliberately withholding the name of the recipient because of the gravity of the "arrangement to meet up" that the police had convinced themselves existed. So I believe that they then made the next logical leap, which was that whoever the text was sent to was likely involved in the murder, and also that AK knew an awful lot more about the murder than she was letting on.

What do we know about when (relative to Knox's interview) Sollecito changed his alibi story?

Depending on the timing, there's another way to look at the Knox interview. Perhaps the police were suspicous of Sollicito because the change in his story meant that Knox couldn't alibi HIM.

In this scenario, the police are still reading the text message as an indication Knox left Sollecito to meet up with someone that night, but are interpreting her denials as covering up for her boyfriend (or hiding that she was cheating on him). The police then put pressure on her to (in their view) "admit where she really was" to use as evidence against HIM. After all, at this point in the investigation wouldn't they be looking primarily for a MALE suspect(s)?
 
But as Mary pointed out, not a single bit of what you quoted suggests that the police were asking her who the message was to, and that she told them she didn't know. It all indicates that they were asking her who she met, and then indicating the text message, saying they knew she met someone. To read that as Amanda telling them she didn't know who sent the text is a major distortion of what was said.

Well except for where they said "who is this?"

You can read it any way you like, katy_did. We all have the same information.

As I see it, the police thought that "who is this?" was interchangeable with "who did you meet?", because in Italian the words she used make an arrangement to meet. They showed her the text they were referring to, so there was no doubt which one was being discussed. I would have thought that she would have remembered who it was to once she saw it, even if she did not remember sending it at first. The fact that she then did remember tends to confirm me in that view. But even if she did not, she still knew that the form of words she used did not mean what they thought it meant, to her. If Knox thought it meant "ciao", as she said, then I see no reason she would not have said so. They asked her if she replied to Patrick's message. She said no. They showed her the text. They asked her who is this, who did you meet. She said she did not remember and did not meet anyone. They told her the text proved she arranged to meet someone and called her a liar. She still did not tell them who the text was to nor what it meant from her understanding of the language. They found that frustrating and unbelievable: that is perfectly natural. Why did she not then say "no it doesn't mean that. In english that form of words just means "ciao"", and have the interpreter confirm that? Why did she not even ask the interpreter what they were talking about, because the text quite clearly did not mean what they said it meant? That would have taken the interview in a different direction and perhaps led to clearing up that misunderstanding. But she did not do anything like that, so far as her testimony goes.

Perhaps it was a shock to her that they did not believe her: I can see that. Perhaps she could not understand why they were saying it proved she met someone, because it never occurred to her that is what the words mean in Italian. But it must have been obvious that they thought the questions were interchangeable because they used them interchangeably: who is this? who did you meet?

She said they wanted the name of the person the text was to. She did not give it and she said she could not remember. But when she later did give it she did not say "Oh I remember now: the text was to Patrick. I forgot I did reply to his text that I did not have to go to work. But I did: I replied so he would know I got it and I said I would see him around". They might well have challenged that along the lines of "but the text proves you arranged to meet him" and then the natural response would be "what are you talking about? it is there. it says no such thing" etc.

But instead of any of that she said it was to Patrick and accused him of murder and went on to invent an elaborate tale about what happened. On the 17th she stated that the police suggested his name to her: and she retracted that in court. There was no suggestion from the police. His name came from her and the accusation came from her and the detailed account of what happened came from her.

That seems reasonable to you in the circumstances: it does not seem so to me. It is another of those impasses. No more to be said really
 
No. She was found completely naked except for her t-shirt which was rucked up to her neck. Meredith had also made no secret that she intended to study first. Whilst some people may decide to get into their nightclothes to do that, others may not. Therefore, using clothing in order to put a time on the murder is stretching things.
Hi Fulcanelli,
Stretching things?!?
I beg to differ, sir...

The police didn't even let the cororner take Miss Kercher's body temerature to help pinpoint the time of her death. So why wouldn't it make a little sense to try and pinpoint that time better?
What Miss Kercher wore at the time of her death could help do that, to a small degree, though not as well as if the police had simply let the cororner take her body temperature after her death.

I have pointed out something that could help narrow down the time of Miss Kercher's murder, and yet you just shrug it off like the court did with Mr. Aviello's info. Interestingly, the court seemed to had already made up it's mind many months before the trial ended that NO FURTHER investigation was needed into who-done-it,
as it possibly shows from the ignored letters that Mr. Aviello wrote 3 times to the court...

It's been written that Miss Kercher was very tired after the late night partying that she did with the other girls, and it has been written that she had alcohol in her system too,
0.43grams/liter BAC, probably from the night before festivities.
BUT I have not read much of the English girls saying that they did not drink any alcohol that particular evening. So I am curious about this:
Did Miss Kercher drink again that day?
Or was the alcohol simply still in her system from the night before?
If so, one can imagine her being tired and a little "burnt out".
But you might not...

From looking at the photo's:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...-scene-reveal-apartment-bloodbath-horror.html

and video:

http://saberpoint.blogspot.com/2009/12/amanda-knoxmeredith-kercher-rare-video.html


and reading the many articles that I have,
it appears that Miss Kercher was still in her street clothes at the time she was murdered.

But yet I had never read of any "theory" that Miss Kercher probably would have changed into something more comfy and warm too when she came home to her empty apartment that chilly night.
But that is what one of my sister's said, and a gal pal too.
Miss Kercher, being the only one home alone that night, and after having had a long night out, (until almost day break), the evening before, would have probably thrown on something warm and comfy, such as her pajama's or her nightgown, shortly after arriving home tired that evening.

But yet I do not see any evidence of Miss Kercher wearing a nightgown or PJ's that night in the photographs or videos that I have viewed.

In the photograph that I linked, her bluejeans are to the right of her, her bra and underwear are below+infront of her, and she was laying on her blue zipped top/jacket and 1 of her Puma sneakers. Her white t-shirt is still on her though, pulled upward.

Since Miss Kercher was still wearing her day-time street clothes, instead of her night-time PJ's,
it looks to me, at least, that shortly after she arrived home at 9:00pm that night, Meredith was suddenly suprised and attacked by the person(s) who did indeed pull out a knife and raped+murdered her or murdered+raped her.
Not waaay later that evening near 11:30pm...

But our opinions seem to differ on this, Fulcanelli,
as they do with much of the odd turns in this particular murder case.
Have a good one,
RWVBWL

Info:
Pg. 46,48,49,+69 Murder in Italy, Author: C. Dempsey
+
http://www.truejustice.org/ee/index...e_staged_scene_who_returned_to_move_meredith/
+
http://perugia-shock.blogspot.com/2008/04/meredith-sobers-up.html
 
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