Continuation - Discussion of the Amanda Knox case

[LondonJohn]

LondonJohn, I think you're forgetting that Mignini was also in charge of the Narducci case and was the main proponent of the highly implausible 'body switching' theory (later thrown out by Micheli, of course); at this point, he likely wasn't aware that luminol also reacts with turnip juice.

Of course you're right, I had forgotten that. But there was a reduced bus service on November 1st 2007, owing to it being a National Holiday (All Saints' Day).

 

[BobTheDonkey]

Ah, I see what you mean. The second cellphone (Meredith's UK phone) was only found after the first one had already been handed to the police. Hope that clears up any confusion.

You still didn't address the questions posed by Stilicho. 4th times the charm?

 

[LondonJohn]

By the way, what connection did Roman Mero (the Swiss university professor who was in "Le Chic" on the night of the 1st November) have to the "crimescene"? I'm pretty sure he'd never even been to the girls' house, so I have no idea whatsoever why the investigation would have benefited from the police interviewing him...........

 

[Charlie Wilkes]

___________________________

Well, according to Raffaele, he did lie to the cops, in that he pretended to remember an event that he really didn't remember. Here is his diary entry:

"Today the court questioned me and said that I gave three different
statements, but the only difference that I find is that I said that Amanda brought me to say crap in the second version, and that was to go out at the bar where she worked, Le Chic. But I do not remember
exactly whether she went out or less to go to the pub and as a
consequence I do not remember how long she was absent. What is all my
difficulty? I do not remember this, for them, important detail,
therefore I don't break and we're investigating her. I tried to help
in the investigation trying to remember and now I've brought myself to
this place, better I did nothing and limit myself to say that I
remained at my house and I would be spared so much unrest. We speak of
something other that is better ..." (See PMF, BOARD INDEX, IN THEIR OWN WORDS)


And this story wasn't suggested by the cops! According to Raffaele the story had been suggested by none other than Amanda. If Raffaele is being honest in this statement---a very big IF---the natural interpretation is that Raffaele must have misunderstood Amanda's statements to him, since her best alibi would have been for the two staying all night at his flat ....nestled all snug in their bed, while visions of sugarplums danced in their heads.

So I think Raffaele is being, umm, less-than-honest in this diary entry. (The same diary with his "I pricked Meredith" explanation for the DNA on his knife.) He did tell the cops Amanda left his flat but he didn't say this because Amanda told him she had left. (Would Amanda confide this to Raffaele even if she HAD left?) I think he told this to the cops in order to distance himself from Amanda's activities the night of the murder. Not a brilliant decision as he quickly learned......"and now I've brought myself to this place." He blames Amanda, and himself. But not the cops.

///

He started out with the same account Amanda gave - that they spent the night together at his apartment - but then, on the evening of November 5-6, he changed his story and said she left. Why did he change his story? It can't very well be Amanda's fault, because she wasn't in the room. But later, once he had a lawyer at his side, he reverted to his original story when he was questioned by Matteini. But she got him to concede that he might not have known if Amanda slipped out after he fell asleep.

 

[BobTheDonkey]

A digression: Almost all the comments here are debates about whether Knox committed murder with Guede and Sollecito. But Sollecito is hardly mentioned, except that he says he went to sleep at home and couldn't be sure that Knox was with him all night (the degree of his certainty seems to be an issue). But what is the evidence against him? If authorities thought Knox was guilty because Sollecito couldn't confirm her alibi, wouldn't they have to believe that Sollecito was home asleep? What in Sollecito's background and behavior would make anyone think that he could have participated in this brutal crime and then helped cover it up? I continue to believe that if this had been an impulsive act by three people, they wouldn't have participated equally and one of them would have given up the others. If Sollecito had claimed "those crazy foreigners did it, I was paralyzed with fear," the authorities might have been willing to believe that one of their own wasn't involved.

I think you've stumbled on a false dilemma there.

Just because Raffaele couldn't verify Amanda's alibi does not necessarily mean he was home asleep. He very easily could have (and the evidence points towards this) been at the cottage and still unwilling/unable to verify Amanda's alibi - as to do so would mean admitting that he was at the cottage with her.

 

[BobTheDonkey]

LondonJohn, I think you're forgetting that Mignini was also in charge of the Narducci case and was the main proponent of the highly implausible 'body switching' theory (later thrown out by Micheli, of course); at this point, he likely wasn't aware that luminol also reacts with turnip juice.

Evidence of the turnip juice presence in the cottage?

None?

How about any reason that there would be a sufficient amount of turnip juice on their feet for full footprints to have been left behind?

None?

Then could everyone please stop bringing up turnip juice? There is no sufficient reason to believe turnip juice was at all involved in the luminol results.

 

[Sherlock Holmes]

A digression: Almost all the comments here are debates about whether Knox committed murder with Guede and Sollecito. But Sollecito is hardly mentioned, except that he says he went to sleep at home and couldn't be sure that Knox was with him all night (the degree of his certainty seems to be an issue). But what is the evidence against him? If authorities thought Knox was guilty because Sollecito couldn't confirm her alibi, wouldn't they have to believe that Sollecito was home asleep? What in Sollecito's background and behavior would make anyone think that he could have participated in this brutal crime and then helped cover it up? I continue to believe that if this had been an impulsive act by three people, they wouldn't have participated equally and one of them would have given up the others. If Sollecito had claimed "those crazy foreigners did it, I was paralyzed with fear," the authorities might have been willing to believe that one of their own wasn't involved.

I would not be one bit suprised if the murder was done by Amanda and Rudi alone. RS being there only for the staging after Amanda had come to get him after the terrible deed had been done. I really hope one of them talks, I'm not holding my breath, but if RS did as I said above, he may be the one to talk and this appeal would be the right time.

 

[LondonJohn]

Yes. No more talk of turnip juice. Let's wait until we hear what the Massei Report has to say on the whole issue of Turnip juice and other turnip-based products. I think many people will be extremely surprised at what Massei has to say on the matter.

On that subject, I - for one - am almost literally on tenterhooks waiting for the translation of the Massei Report. I salute the tireless humanitarian work of the translators, who have laboured ceaselessly to provide an English translation of an Italian document. I imagine (and hope) that the day on which translation is published there will be plenty of media coverage. It will, after all, be an historic day - not just for the understanding of this case, but perhaps also for a wider understanding of the human condition.

 

[Mary_H]

Not at all. Why do you think investigators should have chosen to question Patrick? What connection did he have to the crimescene that they would have known about? They did talk to the tow truck driver and went so far as to look into the company's dispatch records although the driver was not under suspicion. But he was connected to the crimescene because he was in the vicinity around the time of Merediths estimated TOD.

So, again, what connection did Patrick have to the victim or the crimescene that the police knew about before 06 NOV 2007?

As I wrote earlier, Patrick was Amanda's employer, he was rumored to have wanted to offer Meredith a job, and he was known to some as the "most famous man in Perugia." Of the 84 people the police reportedly interviewed, how many actually had a connection to the crime scene?

 

[katy_did]

Still, it's very difficult to reconcile that with the fact the knife didn't match two out of the three wounds, and that (especially when we take into account the fact the turtle walks at midnight) the technique Stefanoni used to test the knife hadn't been peer reviewed nor supported by scientific documentation of any kind. I fully expect that particular piece of evidence to be thrown out on appeal.

 

[GrouchoMarxist]

Not at all. Why do you think investigators should have chosen to question Patrick? What connection did he have to the crimescene that they would have known about? They did talk to the tow truck driver and went so far as to look into the company's dispatch records although the driver was not under suspicion. But he was connected to the crimescene because he was in the vicinity around the time of Merediths estimated TOD.

So, again, what connection did Patrick have to the victim or the crimescene that the police knew about before 06 NOV 2007?

snip
The biggest problem facing Raffaele and Amanda from noon on 02 NOV 2007 until their arrests was that they were the only ones with a connection to the crimescene and their alibis were weak and getting weaker. Everyone else living at the cottage had been ruled out as suspects.

I think we can agree that AK and RS were the closest things the police had to suspects at that point(I'm not sure about Guede yet).

So if Amanda is at least a potential suspect, why not speak to her employer?
For all the investigators knew, he could have contradicted her alibi, or he may have opined that she had a bad temper, maybe even violent. We now know this would not have been the case, but they didn't.

From all I've read that is just basic procedure.

Also, didn't you say in a previous post that you believed the failure to contact Lumumba was an oversight? I thought we only differed as to it's significance.

 

[stilicho]

By the way, what connection did Roman Mero (the Swiss university professor who was in "Le Chic" on the night of the 1st November) have to the "crimescene"? I'm pretty sure he'd never even been to the girls' house, so I have no idea whatsoever why the investigation would have benefited from the police interviewing him...........

Again I will ask you: What connection had Patrick to the crimescene prior to 06 NOV 2007?

 

[Mary_H]

A digression: Almost all the comments here are debates about whether Knox committed murder with Guede and Sollecito. But Sollecito is hardly mentioned, except that he says he went to sleep at home and couldn't be sure that Knox was with him all night (the degree of his certainty seems to be an issue). But what is the evidence against him? If authorities thought Knox was guilty because Sollecito couldn't confirm her alibi, wouldn't they have to believe that Sollecito was home asleep? What in Sollecito's background and behavior would make anyone think that he could have participated in this brutal crime and then helped cover it up? I continue to believe that if this had been an impulsive act by three people, they wouldn't have participated equally and one of them would have given up the others. If Sollecito had claimed "those crazy foreigners did it, I was paralyzed with fear," the authorities might have been willing to believe that one of their own wasn't involved.

It could be argued that the case against Raffaele is, sadly, even more bizarre than the case against Amanda. Here is an excerpt from Candace Dempsey's book, Murder in Perugia:

When Marco Brusco, one of Raffaele's lawyers, was asked later if the Sollecito family blamed Amanda for anything, he mentioned this particular moment [when Amanda went back to Raffaele's flat to tell him what she had found at the cottage].

"Well, perhaps, the one thing she might have done differently," said the bearded lawyer, a Southern Italian known for his outgoing manners and constant smile. He paused, somber, trying to be tactful , choosing his words with care.

"If only...well, if only Amanda could gave called the police herself and not gone to Raffaele," he continued in a wistful voice. "That's all, just that one little thing. You see, she barely knew him. [......] He never would been part of this."

In Claudia Matteni's report of November 9th, she states that the crime was likely committed with Raffaele's flick knife, which had been confiscated and was being tested. It turned out not to have any DNA on it. Hence, there was NO evidence whatsoever against Raffaele when he was arrested, other than that he said he couldn't remember whether Amanda had been with him the whole night. As Raffaele later wrote in his prison diary, "What an absurd story, all ready to point the finger when nothing is known yet."

Even with all their fantasies and imagery that put Raffaele at the scene, the prosecution seems to have treated him almost as an afterthought -- maybe that's why bloggers do, too -- taking six weeks before it even occurred to them that they needed some forensic evidence against him, and then scurrying out to concoct the bra clasp scam.

 

[Open Inquiry]

Patrick's Alibi

By the way, what connection did Roman Mero (the Swiss university professor who was in "Le Chic" on the night of the 1st November) have to the "crimescene"? I'm pretty sure he'd never even been to the girls' house, so I have no idea whatsoever why the investigation would have benefited from the police interviewing him...........

That is very intersting point.

 

[christianahannah]

Steve Moore:

"Yet the police did not seize a single knife, letter opener, scissors, screwdriver, nail file…ANYTHING from the murder cottage for testing. Not one thing. It is inconceivable that in a cottage where four women lived, there was not a kitchen knife, or a letter opener, or scissors, or anything which might have been used. It leads one to suspect an investigation intent on proving a theory, rather than searching for truth."

http://www.injusticeinperugia.org/FBI3.html


Is the part I bolded in dispute? Is there court testimony or documentation to back it up - or refute it?

It appears from this photograph at PMF that sharp items were, at the very least, looked at from the crime scene flat. Whether they were collected and tested I can't say.

http://perugiamurderfile.org/gallery/image_page.php?album_id=21&image_id=1252

 

[Bruce Fischer]

I would not be one bit suprised if the murder was done by Amanda and Rudi alone. RS being there only for the staging after Amanda had come to get him after the terrible deed had been done. I really hope one of them talks, I'm not holding my breath, but if RS did as I said above, he may be the one to talk and this appeal would be the right time.

Your speculation has no proof to back it up. We could all take time and write fictional stories about how we think the murder occurred but that is not very productive.

Amanda and Raffaele will fully support each other on appeal. They both know they are innocent.

 

[Malkmus]

I've been wondering this myself. How often does someone go into someone else's apartment, murder one of the residents, go out and retrieve or buy some cleaning supplies, return to clean the apartment despite not knowing whether any of the other residents might walk in the door at any moment, and then ransack another bedroom and break a window to give the appearance that the murder was committed by someone who did not live in the apartment?

Exactly. And since that didn't even happen in this particular case, we can safely assume this has never happened.

 

[Malkmus]

What do you think that someone who couldn't sleep because they had just committed a murder might do? Count sheep? You really think that it is implausible that someone who couldn't sleep because they had just committed a crime would kill time by playing around on their computer?

Several problems that I have with this scenario:
First, it makes no sense that Raf and Amanda had any "time to kill" after the murder if you believe they are responsible. "Kill time" waiting for what? Waiting for the mood to strike to stage the break-in or clean all their fingerprints? They had anything but time, especially since the alleged clean-up wasn't completed by the time police arrived.
Second, I don't believe it's the act of listening to music that's impossible (though I do find it unlikely), but the idea that he decided to create a playlist. If you killed someone and you desperately need some tunes to lull you to sleep you don't spend 40 minutes creating a playlist. You just turn on whatever music you have.
Third, I can't conceive of being in a situation like that where I've just killed someone and my entire train of thought until the police arrived not be about how to fix the situation. Trying to get to sleep or listening to music doesn't add up to me. I think I would be a terrified and frantic mess by the time I spoke to police and I probably wouldn't have gotten one wink of sleep. Amanda and Raf were present in front of police the entire next day, sitting through questioning until the sun went down. If they had committed the crime they would have been up all night and their signs of exhaustion, I think, would have been obvious (especially if we're to believe they spent hours scrubbing the cottage down).

And why didn't he go back and clean up the cottage? Maybe because he needed to buy bleach to clean the cottage and the grocery store didn't open until 7:30 (the time at which Ms. Knox showed up to buy bleach)?

As Charlie has pointed out to you there is no evidence to back the claim that they bought bleach.

Maybe because they had locked the door when they left and he didn't know where Ms. Knox kept her key?

Nope. We know they had access to the inside of the cottage, not to mention this completely undermines the notion that they had been cleaning up to the point the police arrived.

 

[Malkmus]

And why no fingerprints of Amanda were found in her own bedroom or the bathroom or the bathroom? Even though she lived there?

Do you honestly believe that Amanda somehow wiped her entire room clean of any and all fingerprints? First, it would take an eternity, which she didn't have (we're talking cleaning every surface, every object, no matter how small). Second, it makes no sense (she lived in her bedroom and no crime was committed there, so why would she care to make it seem like she hadn't been in there?). And third, even if she had spent all night wiping her own fingerprints away - for no reason - what are the chances she would have miraculously located and illuminated every single one? When she was done did she double check they were all gone by using silver nitrate, Fluorescamine, or did she just use old-fashioned powder-dusting to do such an immaculate job?

Can anyone provide a link to the source of this information so we can learn in more detail why this statement was made and in what context?

 

[Mary_H]

Do you honestly believe that Amanda somehow wiped her entire room clean of any and all fingerprints? First, it would take an eternity, which she didn't have (we're talking cleaning every surface, every object, no matter how small). Second, it makes no sense (she lived in her bedroom and no crime was committed there, so why would she care to make it seem like she hadn't been in there?). And third, even if she had spent all night wiping her own fingerprints away - for no reason - what are the chances she would have miraculously located and illuminated every single one? When she was done did she double check they were all gone by using silver nitrate, Fluorescamine, or did she just use old-fashioned powder-dusting to do such an immaculate job?

Can anyone provide a link to the source of this information so we can learn in more detail why this statement was made and in what context?

...The jury also heard that of 108 fingerprints collected from the house, only 47 were viable. Of those only one, found on a glass in the kitchen, was attributable to Knox even though she admitted to being in the house on the morning of November 2, 2007, when Kercher’s body was discovered.

Other traces of Knox’s DNA have been found in the house, including her DNA mixed with Kercher’s blood in the bathroom where Knox says she showered the morning after the murder. But the lack of fingerprints has raised eyebrows. Those who believe Knox is guilty say this points to a cleanup. Those who defend her, including her attorney Carlo dalla Vedova, say that the police weren’t doing their jobs. He asked one of the investigators why fingerprints were not taken from other objects in the house, such as her books and guitar. “It is me and the officer responsible for the inspection who decides what should be analyzed,” testified Antonino Francaviglia. “We decide based on our investigative experience."...

http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2009-04-25/amanda-knoxs-bloody-footprint/full/