Continuation - Discussion of the Amanda Knox case

[katy_did]

Judge Claudia Matteini

"Your family lives in the Unitied States, so it would be extremely easy for you to leave the country," Matteini wrote. "The fact that you did not do so before you were arrested is totally irrelevant. We must remind you that your arrest was made very early, and was effected purposely before the arrival of your mother in order to avoid just such a possibility."

Thanks for this Draca, I knew I'd seen this somewhere but couldn't remember where!

Steve Moore's recent article and the discussion it's created has been really interesting. I'd always assumed that Amanda wasn't supposed to go the police station that day, that the police had had a conversation with her and discovered the text message, and that things went from there.

But there are a lot of things that don't add up about the 'spontaneous' interrogation scenario. Re-reading Amanda's testimony, the police didn't discover the SMS until she was already in the interrogation room, and this is also when Raffaele said she may have left the apartment. So neither of those can have been a reason to start interrogating her. It also sounds as if the interrogation may have begun a lot earlier than has been suggested, perhaps even at 22.30, not long after Amanda and Raffaele arrived at the Questura. Three police officers came to speak to Amanda. That's not just a casual conversation to ask a few quick questions, that's a planned interview.

Then there's the fact that, as Steve Moore points out, at least 12 officers were available for the interviews that night (possibly more, if some stayed in Raffaele's room). Were they really all there to interrogate Raffaele? Seems unlikely. And last, there's the very important fact that Amanda's mother was arriving the next morning. It seems like too much of a coincidence that Amanda just happened to be interrogated and arrested the night before, especially given Matteini actually states her arrest was "effected purposely before the arrival of your mother".

So I now think Amanda was supposed to go down to the station that night, as Giobbi says, and that for whatever reason she just wasn't aware of it. Presumably Raffaele must have taken the call from the police, since Amanda thought he was the one they wanted to interrogate; perhaps the message she needed to go to was lost somewhere down the line - maybe Raffaele misunderstood, or maybe he didn't explain properly to Amanda, or Amanda misunderstood him.

And if Amanda was meant to be interrogated that night, as now seems likely, I wonder what their reasons were at that stage for being so suspicious of the couple...? They had no real evidence against them, it was purely behavioural stuff, much of it really quite innocuous (kissing outside the house and buying underwear?). It's starting to look even more like a huge rush to judgment...

 

[katy_did]

However, I believe that the police then asked him a somewhat "philosophical" question: How could he be certain that AK had also been inside his apartment all night, when he had been asleep from around 11pm (say) until 9am (say)? Sollecito was then essentially obliged to agree that it was possible that AK had left the apartment as soon as he had fallen asleep.

I believe that the police then took this and distorted it into Sollecito "now" saying that he thought AK might have left the apartment during the evening/night. I believe that this is what the police then presented to AK in her interrogation, thus confusing and bewildering her as to why her boyfriend was seemingly "betraying" her - when he'd done nothing of the sort.

I agree. I think initially, RS said it was 'possible' AK had left the apartment while he was asleep, and that this was presented to AK as him dropping her alibi and saying she definitely did leave. Once the text message was 'discovered' (very interesting thought that this too may have been pre-planned, btw) they would then have gone back into RS's room and told him they now had definite evidence AK did leave the apartment that night, and told him to stop covering for her. The "contradictions" RS was presented with were probably this 'hard evidence' showing she left the apartment along with the fact she was supposed to work that night, which were contradicted by both of them "lying" and saying they spent all night together at home. This probably then led to RS being more definite about her leaving, because he "didn't think about the contradictions".

The police must have really thought they were onto something. If it turns out they got the right people after being so completely wrong in their initial suspicions, these must be the luckiest cops in the world...

 

[capealadin]

Amanda did herself no favours by pin pointing Patrick.. and placing herself there. Then the *confused* and *can't remebers*....If I was Amanda, I;d start to remember real quick..How about 6 WORDS!! " I was at Raffaele's". That's it!!!

 

[capealadin]

I have just one question to ask. To all those that believe that Amanda is innocent. Under other circumstances, would you have reservations as to quilt?? Let's say, this was an ugly, meth addicted suspected culpit? Would you feel differently? I feel somehow, that just because Amanda is the girl next door, anyone's daughter, she couldn't do this crime. But, these things do happen. You hear all the time: Not him/her. The perfect neighbour/friend etc. Is that what grabs us?.. It is shocking to belive that someone so pretty, wholesome, smart could be involved in such a tragic death. It does indeed boggle the mind.What a sad ending to so many lives.

 

[capealadin]

What was so difficult here? I was at Raff.. Amanda was with me!! So simple. So true. Except not. Oh what a tangled web we weave, when first we practise to deceive. WHY the lies? At the very best, how do you find Amanda blameless? Not finding fault with her, for anything??

 

[capealadin]

No,six words. I was at Raffaele that night.

 

[LondonJohn]

I have just one question to ask. To all those that believe that Amanda is innocent. Under other circumstances, would you have reservations as to quilt?? Let's say, this was an ugly, meth addicted suspected culpit? Would you feel differently? I feel somehow, that just because Amanda is the girl next door, anyone's daughter, she couldn't do this crime. But, these things do happen. You hear all the time: Not him/her. The perfect neighbour/friend etc. Is that what grabs us?.. It is shocking to belive that someone so pretty, wholesome, smart could be involved in such a tragic death. It does indeed boggle the mind.What a sad ending to so many lives.

Speaking for myself, this has nothing whatsoever to do with who Amanda Knox is, nor what she looks like*, nor what her education level is, nor what country she comes from. I fully appreciate that people are often not what they seem, and that people from all walks of life can commit horrific offences. I do however think it's appropriate to take Knox's (and Sollecito's) background into account to a small degree, but that the case should predominantly be decided on the actual evidence surrounding the crime itself. Certainly neither AK nor RS had any sort of history of violence against people, and I also think that both AK and RS have had their alleged sexual deviancy greatly over-analysed and over-exaggerated.

Again speaking purely personally, I don't even know whether Amanda Knox or Raffaele Sollecito are culpable or non-culpable of these crimes. I personally have no interest in "saving" a college student from Seattle, although I could understand why others who are closer to her or her family might. What I do have an interest in are the apparent inconsistencies in this case. I find the case to be a very interesting potential miscarriage of justice - and I want to discuss, argue and explore that idea. It may turn out that no such miscarriage has occurred, and I won't sleep any more or less soundly for that. But as I currently see things, I think that there might well be a reversal of the verdicts on appeal. That's where my personal investment in this case starts and finishes - at a purely intellectual/jurisprudence-led level.

* Furthermore (but more peripherally), I think that the distasteful little lust-driven innuendos that crop up from time to time in this regard (more notably on another forum, but they occasionally leach onto JREF) are disgusting and very discrediting to their authors.

 

[LondonJohn]

Amanda did herself no favours by pin pointing Patrick.. and placing herself there. Then the *confused* and *can't remebers*....If I was Amanda, I;d start to remember real quick..How about 6 WORDS!! " I was at Raffaele's". That's it!!!

I contend that you have no idea how you'd respond if the police were telling you that a) your boyfriend now said you weren't at his apartment all night, b) they (the police) had solid evidence placing you in the murder house at the time of the crime, c) they (the police) were telling you that you had definitely met with Lumumba, despite your denials, d) probably you'd subconsciously "blocked-out" these bad memories, so that despite your firm belief that you were at RS's house all night, you had in fact met Lumubma, gone to the house, then participated in some way in Meredith's murder.

It's astonishingly easy (and equally simplistic) to sit in a comfy room in front of a computer keyboard and "rationalise" that you would have simply repeated "I was at Raffaele's", if that was what had really happened. The whole point is this: AK's real memories were very possibly being challenged and overridden by the police, who were telling her things "as fact" which she simply couldn't reconcile with her own core beliefs and remembrances. So when the police then introduced the concept of her "remembering things which she'd blocked out", she was in a pliable enough (and susceptible enough) state to be willing to play that game. Obviously, if she'd had an attorney by this stage (WHICH SHE SHOULD HAVE DONE, NO QUESTION*), then she'd never have engaged in this (probably phony) game.

* Assuming that the police did tell her that they knew she was involved, but that she was blocking out the memories. Clearly if this sort of questioning was going, on she SHOULD have already been arrested and read her rights. After all, the police have no business whatsoever telling mere "witnesses" that they were involved in a serious crime (and that the police have evidence to support that), but that they are denying involvement only because of "blocking-out" behaviours.

 

[RoseMontague]

This is a transcript of an intercepted phone call that is contained in Amanda's appeal. To me, it seems to indicate that she was already under quite a bit of pressure from the police questioning on 4 November. It is possible that I am misreading or the google translation does not accurately reflect the meaning. I am providing both the Italian and English version
here:

http://forums.talkleft.com/index.php?topic=2118.15

 

[Bruce Fischer]

You know, LondonJohn, all Amanda had to say was " I was at home with Raffaele." Every single time. Unchanged fact. Six words. Over and over again. No problem about being confused, or can't remembers. 6 WORDS!! Maybe you can't remeber what you ate, or what you saw on TV. Or phone calls. But you remember, always, if you didn't go out. Unless you are comotose. No??

You have posted 3 or 4 posts today that basically say the same exact thing. You need to research coerced confessions. You need to research the techniques that are used to confuse the suspect. This is not classified information. Whether or not you believe Amanda and Raffaele is not relevant to this topic. If you do a little research, you will understand the basic reasons why suspects get confused during interrogations.

 

[Bruce Fischer]

Question to whomever may know.

The double DNA knife found in R.S.'s appartment, where abouts was it found?

I heard it was in a shoe box, but where in the appartment?

Thanx in advance

The knife was found in Raffaele's kitchen drawer.

 

[Bruce Fischer]

Thanks for this Draca, I knew I'd seen this somewhere but couldn't remember where!

Steve Moore's recent article and the discussion it's created has been really interesting. I'd always assumed that Amanda wasn't supposed to go the police station that day, that the police had had a conversation with her and discovered the text message, and that things went from there.

But there are a lot of things that don't add up about the 'spontaneous' interrogation scenario. Re-reading Amanda's testimony, the police didn't discover the SMS until she was already in the interrogation room, and this is also when Raffaele said she may have left the apartment. So neither of those can have been a reason to start interrogating her. It also sounds as if the interrogation may have begun a lot earlier than has been suggested, perhaps even at 22.30, not long after Amanda and Raffaele arrived at the Questura. Three police officers came to speak to Amanda. That's not just a casual conversation to ask a few quick questions, that's a planned interview.

Then there's the fact that, as Steve Moore points out, at least 12 officers were available for the interviews that night (possibly more, if some stayed in Raffaele's room). Were they really all there to interrogate Raffaele? Seems unlikely. And last, there's the very important fact that Amanda's mother was arriving the next morning. It seems like too much of a coincidence that Amanda just happened to be interrogated and arrested the night before, especially given Matteini actually states her arrest was "effected purposely before the arrival of your mother".

So I now think Amanda was supposed to go down to the station that night, as Giobbi says, and that for whatever reason she just wasn't aware of it. Presumably Raffaele must have taken the call from the police, since Amanda thought he was the one they wanted to interrogate; perhaps the message she needed to go to was lost somewhere down the line - maybe Raffaele misunderstood, or maybe he didn't explain properly to Amanda, or Amanda misunderstood him.

And if Amanda was meant to be interrogated that night, as now seems likely, I wonder what their reasons were at that stage for being so suspicious of the couple...? They had no real evidence against them, it was purely behavioural stuff, much of it really quite innocuous (kissing outside the house and buying underwear?). It's starting to look even more like a huge rush to judgment...

I agree,

When you remove the pro-guilt spin from all of the details, it becomes pretty clear what actually happened.

 

[Sherlock Holmes]

http://www.seattlepi.com/local/401876_Knoxvogt01.html

Thanks a lot Mary - I remember reading that now that you've re posted it.

I have been reading this thread from the beginning and they were talking about it being found in a shoe box which seemed strange, but thanks again, there sure was a lot of mis-information early on in this thread, yet it started after the trial was over.

 

[Bob001]

I have just one question to ask. To all those that believe that Amanda is innocent. Under other circumstances, would you have reservations as to quilt?? Let's say, this was an ugly, meth addicted suspected culpit? Would you feel differently? I feel somehow, that just because Amanda is the girl next door, anyone's daughter, she couldn't do this crime. But, these things do happen. You hear all the time: Not him/her. The perfect neighbour/friend etc. Is that what grabs us?.. It is shocking to belive that someone so pretty, wholesome, smart could be involved in such a tragic death. It does indeed boggle the mind.What a sad ending to so many lives.

No, they don't.

The prosecution contends, and persuaded a jury, that two upper-middle class college students who had known each other less than two weeks and a small-time thug who may previously have met one of the students one time brutally murdered a third student during some kind of a demented sex game gone wrong. Is that plausible? I live in a big city with a high crime rate and I've never heard of such a thing. And how often does one young woman help a man rape another young woman? Especially after she and her boyfriend have spent the evening smoking dope? Since when does marijuana inspire bloodlust? The thug has already been convicted on the basis of overwhelming physical evidence he left behind as he fled the country as fast as he could. Which is more likely: A burglar/robber acting alone committed an ordinary crime of opportunity (most likely following Meredith to her door as she walked home alone at night), or that three people who barely knew each other conspired to commit a crime of a horrific nature rarely seen or even imagined?

The case against Knox seems to boil down to the notion that this 20-year-old (at the time) coed may have said some things or behaved in ways that are different from what we think we would have done if we were accused of murder in a foreign country. Knox sounds immature and self-absorbed. But is that enough to convict her (or Sollecito) of murder? No history of violence, no history of bizarre sex parties, no substantial physical evidence, lengthy aggressive interrogation in a foreign language without a lawyer or a recording, sloppy and questionable forensics, a cult-crazed prosecutor notorious for seeing Satanic gangs behind every tree and who himself was convicted of abuse of office (in a system that calls the prosecutor a "judge"), doubtful if not provably false witness testimony, false inflammatory releases to the media, and more. Would you feel that your wife/daughter/friend/yourself were being treated fairly if they were sent to prison under these circumstances? (Saying "That's just the way the Italians do things" doesn't really answer the question.) The oft-repeated JREF mantra, "Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof," applies here, and no extraordinary proof, or much proof at all, has been forthcoming.

 

[Mrs.Columbo]

Amanda wasn't scared when she was doing her homework and even the cartwheel. She became scared after the police started using heavy handed interrogation techniques on her.

What were the reasons for the heavy handed interrogation techniques and what techniques in detail?

 

[Danceme]

So far the scenario goes something like this:

1) There is a brutal murder with sexual overtones of a young adult female. The police would naturally be profiling at least one male perpetrator.

<snip>

Mr. D, I think your explanation is a lot easier to accept, with the police suspicion on Sollecito, than the police trying to railroad Amanda from day one, which I have never bought.

 

[TellyKNeasuss]

However, I believe that the police then asked him a somewhat "philosophical" question: How could he be certain that AK had also been inside his apartment all night, when he had been asleep from around 11pm (say) until 9am (say)?

Someone played music on his computer at around 5:30am. His cellphone which had been turned off the previous evening was on when his father called at around 6am. So it's not likely that he slept until 9am.

 

[Chris_Halkides]

it is all about the evidence

I have just one question to ask. To all those that believe that Amanda is innocent. Under other circumstances, would you have reservations as to quilt?? Let's say, this was an ugly, meth addicted suspected culpit? Would you feel differently? I feel somehow, that just because Amanda is the girl next door, anyone's daughter, she couldn't do this crime. But, these things do happen. You hear all the time: Not him/her. The perfect neighbour/friend etc. Is that what grabs us?.. It is shocking to belive that someone so pretty, wholesome, smart could be involved in such a tragic death. It does indeed boggle the mind.What a sad ending to so many lives.

Capealadin,

Frank Sfarzo has a post about Rudy called "The boy with the ball in his hands," IIRC. When I read that piece, I have a hard time reconciling this image with the image of a murderer. However, the evidence inclines me toward his guilt, just as the evidence inclines me toward Amanda's and Raffaele's innocence. MOO.

 

[LondonJohn]

Someone played music on his computer at around 5:30am. His cellphone which had been turned off the previous evening was on when his father called at around 6am. So it's not likely that he slept until 9am.

Hence my use of the words "say".

And, in this regard, many have remarked on the "change of alibi" from Sollecito in particular when confronted by the police with evidence of his cellphone/computer activity in the early hours of the 2nd November. It's somehow seen as damning that Sollecito might have forgotten this, and equally damning that he might have changed his story accordingly when proof of his early morning activities was presented to him.

However, I personally can perfectly easily reconcile this - to me, it doesn't necessarily indicate any deliberate attempts to obstruct, forget or misdirect on Sollecito's behalf. I myself frequently wake up at strange early hours, get up to go to the bathroom, then check emails, voicemails, online newspapers etc - all in a kind of semi-awake state. Then I go back to sleep again. More than once, I've sent someone an email in this way, then they've spoken to me a day or two later and said something like "what were you doing emailing me at 4.30am?!" And initially, I forget that I'd sent that email at that time. And I don't touch weed, and barely drink........

PS I also find it interesting that this evidence pointing to Sollecito's presence in his apartment on the early morning of the 2nd could only really be to Sollecito's benefit - yet his failure to remember the computer/cellphone activity is then held up by some as indicative of his guilt. In other words, if Sollecito could remember doing these things at that time, why wouldn't he have told the police something which would place him in his apartment rather than at the murder house?

PPS What's the real truth about the "coordinated switching-off of cellphones" which the prosecution alleges took place between AK and RS on the murder night? Since the judicial panel seems to reject any notion of premeditation, why would AK/RS have needed or wanted to purposefully switch off their phones before going to the house? The intention of such switching off could, after all, only be interpreted as either a) trying to silently enter the house without fear of an incoming call's ring tone alerting anyone in the house to their presence, or b) an attempt to avoid being subsequently placed in the vicinity of the murder house through cell location tracking. And if they didn't enter the house with the intention of committing a crime, why would they have even thought of either of these things?

 

[katy_did]

This is a transcript of an intercepted phone call that is contained in Amanda's appeal. To me, it seems to indicate that she was already under quite a bit of pressure from the police questioning on 4 November. It is possible that I am misreading or the google translation does not accurately reflect the meaning. I am providing both the Italian and English version
here:

http://forums.talkleft.com/index.php?topic=2118.15

Thanks Rose. My Italian's pretty bad but I tried to tidy it up slightly, hopefully someone else can do a better job.

The report on a conversation, an 'environmental' interception, which occurred 4 November 2007 at the Questura of Perugia reads:

<< The moment where we begin listening to the conversation, from the part where it is written that AMANDA SPEAKS ON THE TELEPHONE, and she says: "I was the only one who was with her and so they want me to squeeze my brain [rack my brain?] to say things..."

Then the girl relates to the other speaker that there is a boy with her who is helping her, who is nice and also speaks a bit of German; then she passes the phone to Raffaele for him to speak to the person on the other end. Raffaele (in English): "I can't do anything, we are in the Questura, they're squeezing our minds (literally: taking a kick at the mind) then the boy passes the phone again to Amanda).

Amanda: "There is nothing you can do. Yesterday with the girls who lived in the house, we tried to understand what happened. >>

And also: << Resuming discussion of the interrogation she underwent[??]: "I'm feeling bad... They shouted at me... I slept only two hours last night... I'm very stressed..." >>

And also: << One of the two girls begins immediately to say: "I don't feel well at the moment, jumping at anything", and then: "How are you, Amanda?"
Amanda: "Not good, I am treated like a criminal". >>

That last sentence is pretty significant, to say the least.