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Continuation - Discussion of the Amanda Knox case

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act1roson said:
Thank you, Charlie. I will correct my list regarding the lcn in (5).

My source for the cartwheel incident is from what I thought Edda herself said on the Oprah show. Did I misunderstand her? I'll have to look that up.

Since Amanda herself was not involved in rock throwing, I'll leave my list the way it is on that issue.
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Don't forget about Raffaele’s collections of animal porn and tactical knives.
 
About that door...

Charlie Wilkes said:
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9:00 PM - Guede breaks the window in Filomena Romanelli’s room and uses it to gain entry, using either the planter box adjacent to the window or the bars on the downstairs window as a starting point.
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A question. Some commenters (maybe even here) have speculated that Rudy may have pitched a rock through the window of the darkened apartment to see whether anyone was home, and when no one responded he entered through the front door. Then Meredith returned while he was inside (and the rest unfolded as you describe). We have heard that the front door had a defective lock and didn't latch properly. Is it possible that whoever left the apartment last inadvertently failed to lock the front door, and Rudy could have waltzed in? If not, how hard would it have been for a burglar to force the locked door open without leaving obvious damage? If the door had a spring lock instead of a deadbolt it might have been fairly easy to pop it open with a credit card, knife blade, coat hanger etc., and a burglar would have brought a suitable tool. And then when Rudy left he might have just pulled the door closed behind him, not realizing that the latch alone wouldn't lock it. That would explain why the door wasn't locked when Amanda came home. What do we know about the front door and the lock on it? Is any of this more plausible than somebody climbing through a second-story window?
 
LondonJohn said:
I'd obviously agree that it's extremely unlikely (if not impossible) that an adult used that nail as some sort of foothold and didn't deform it (or the brickwork it was nailed into) in any way.

But I still can't see how a tall, athletic adult male couldn't pull himself up by his fingers until his waist (centre of gravity) was level with the upper window ledge, without needing to find any footholds between the lower window grate and the upper ledge. Upward momentum would be provided not only by arm strength, but also by a sharp push upward from the legs, via the firm foothold on the lower window's grate. This upward momentum would (I believe) be more than sufficient to propel someone up until their waist was level with the upper ledge, after which they could manoeuvre themselves fully onto the ledge.

Of course, this is all sheer speculation. But I believe that an entry to the murder house via Filomena's window would have been possible for an agile male. Whether that's what actually did happen, however, is another matter altogether...
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That's a really good picture of the window and the climber.

Its obvious in the picture the climber has two more rungs on the window left to use, in addition, also the upper window frame making it an easy access for a burglar. It appears another lift of 18 inches approx.
Looking at the climbers arms, he already is touching the ledge and hasn't even utilized the next 18" lift. So he could in theory be resting his elbows on the ledge, with the added 18".

Another issue I notice is so many accept the officers report, that nothing was found of a burglary, as the absolute truth.

But haven't we all seen so many times in this case the "experts" are anything but that. They have made mistakes numerous times. Example. the infamous tennis shoe print of Rudy's, the computer hard-drives being destroyed (not one, but three), the missed opportunity to obtain the bra clasp earlier, to name only a few mistakes.

So to accept the officers report and "blindly" accept the officer didn't miss a few pieces of glass on the ground or missed some foliage leaves stepped on is too much to ask.

What did this officer actually do to determine no burglar was there below Filomenas window?
Did they spend hours and hours in that area scraping the dirt and using a magnifying glass, or was it a 30 minute walk-by and then go have tea?
 
act1roson said:
1) Amanda Knox accused Patrick Lumumba voluntarily of murder in her final middle-of-the-night unrecorded confession without coercion on the part of the interrogation team.
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yes

2) Even though Amanda pointed a finger towards Patrick Lumumba as the murderer and he proved innocent, her other statements in the interrogation were truthful, such as she was in the cottage covering her ears. This “covering my ears” statement is as good as admitting to abetting in the murder of Meredith Kercher, even though Amanda made no other statements regarding witnessing the actual murder.
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No, her other statements might or might not have been truthful. It's probably a mix of the two. But the fact that she wasn't truthful in some of statements tells me that she's covering up something. I've got no idea what that something was. It could be that she was involved in the murder, it could be something else that she didn't want to be made public.

3) That during this final interrogation, Amanda Knox was not threatened with jail for 30 years, nor hit on the back of the head, and she had an adequate professional interpreter. The denying of an attorney was for expediency and she was not yet a suspect. She was good enough at speaking Italian and mature enough to understand what was occurring. She deserves being sued for defamation for stating she was struck by the policewoman she identified with “long, chestnut colored hair.”
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I pretty sure that Amanda was threatened with 30 years jail, and I see nothing wrong with that. Amanda could have lawyered up any time she choose to do so. The police were under no obligation to provide her with one or to suggest that she do so until she was formally a suspect. I've got no idea if her Italian was good enough, although I suspect it was poor enough that even the police felt compelled to arrange for a translator. Amanda was legally an adult and as such a I consider her mature enough to have understood the gravity of the situation. I don't believe she was physically abused because of Amanda's inability to identity the police woman when she was asked to do so in court.

4) Rudy Guede was in the murder room assisted by Amanda Knox and Raffaele, even though there is no DNA or other evidence of Amanda's being there, and no communication was ever proven prior (or subsequently) via cell phone, or any evidence produced that they even really knew each other. Amanda knew Rudy by sight and had seen him a few times (due to her downstairs roommates) and Raffaele didn’t know him at all.
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As some said earlier, absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

5) The bra clasp with Raffaele’s DNA collected 47 days after the murder (all the while Raffaele was in jail with NO evidence against him) found in a separate part of the murder room and even dropped on the floor by the collection team unquestioningly did indeed have his DNA along with 3 other people still unidentified. This DNA had to have been deposited while the murder was taking place by Raffaele himself. The rare low copy number process of DNA analysis used is sound.
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They did have Raffaele's DNA, and they have 3 partials that they couldn't match even if they wanted to. Also LCN was not used for the DNA analysis of the clasp.

6) The Double DNA knife found in Raffaele’s apartment several blocks away was indeed one of the murder weapons (there had to be 2 knives because Raffaele’s apartment knife was too big for two of the neck wounds), and the fact that Amanda’s DNA was on the handle, which could be expected since she cooked with it, definitely proves to be the murder weapon because Meredith’s non-blood DNA was found on the blade. No other knives from this drawer were tested to cross check for contamination. This is proof Amanda did at least one neck injury to Meredith.
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Till I'm provided with a reasonable scenario that explains how Meredith's DNA got onto the knife, i have to consider the kitchen knife as the one that inflicted wounds on Meredith.

7) The smoking of hashish by Amanda and Raffaele is an indication of poor character and helped lead them to becoming murderers. They may have been addicts. Amanda and Raffaele’s positive school attendance records and teacher interactions, or lack of prior history towards violence, have no bearing on this case.
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More likely that something besides hashish was used by Amanda and Raffaele. Hashish in and by itself doesn't strike me as a likely candidate for inducing a murder.

8) Amanda Knox heavily influenced Rudy Guede and Raffaele. She had power over them.
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Not sure about this.

9) Even though Amanda never did a true “cartwheel” at the police station while talking politely with police officers (she really did a yoga exercise), it doesn’t matter. It was behavior of a murderess, along with her purchase of underwear, and odd behavior at the police station witnessed by Meredith’s British friends who had learned of the murder several hours after Amanda.
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Not necessarily the behavior of a murderess, but definitely odd and unexpected behavior.

10) Rudy Guede’s prior brushes with the law do not indicate a violent person. He needed Amanda Knox to push him to murder.
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First part I agree with, the second part I'm not too sure.

11) The times Amanda and Raffaele turned off their cell phones is an indication of guilt.
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No, it's just odd like a great many things that Amanda and Raffaele did and said during and following the days of the murder.

12) The conflicting statements by Amanda regarding times and durations of phone calls made to roommates and Amanda’s mother before the murder was discovered is an indication of guilt. The time of Amanda’s call to her mother in a different time zone, waking her up, is also an indication of guilt.
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Again it's odd, in and by itself it doesn't prove a whole lot.

13) The interrogations were done properly and legally, and there is no way that Amanda Knox’s final statement in the middle of the night after 50+ hours of attendance at the police station and interrogations during the first 90 hours of the discovery of the body would have made the statements she did unless she was guilty. Doesn’t matter that she attended class that week and couldn’t sleep at night, because she was guilty. (Many students were fleeing Perugia due to fear.)
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The interrogation was done properly and legally.

14) The mixed DNA of Amanda and Meredith in the bathroom they shared must be due to Amanda’s involvement in the murder. Also, the one case of mixed DNA of Amanda’s in another roommate’s room Amanda had entered is an indication of guilt.
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Yes, Meredith and Amanda weren't the only ones living in that house. If other samples had been found where mixed DNA was found of the other house mates then I could reconsider the mixing of Meredith's and Amanda's DNA

15) There was a staged break-in. No doubt about it. (I need a succinct sentence or two here on why those who believe in guilt believe this.)
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Correct, the lack of valuables taken from Filomena's room while it was ransacked sealed the deal for me.

16) The prosecution’s leaking of evidence and falsehoods to the press in Italy has nothing to do with the outcome of the trial.
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Correct, until you prove otherwise

17) The illegal behavior in a prior serial murder case by the main prosecutor of Amanda and Raffaele, Giuliano Mignini, has no bearing on this case.
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Correct

18) The noise citation Amanda Knox received due to live bands at a party she had in Seattle is an indication of a troubled person. (There was no rock throwing at this party as reported in tabloids.)
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Doesn't play a role IMO
 
JREF2010 said:
That's a really good picture of the window and the climber.

Its obvious in the picture the climber has two more rungs on the window left to use, in addition, also the upper window frame making it an easy access for a burglar. It appears another lift of 18 inches approx.
Looking at the climbers arms, he already is touching the ledge and hasn't even utilized the next 18" lift. So he could in theory be resting his elbows on the ledge, with the added 18".

Another issue I notice is so many accept the officers report, that nothing was found of a burglary, as the absolute truth.

But haven't we all seen so many times in this case the "experts" are anything but that. They have made mistakes numerous times. Example. the infamous tennis shoe print of Rudy's, the computer hard-drives being destroyed (not one, but three), the missed opportunity to obtain the bra clasp earlier, to name only a few mistakes.

So to accept the officers report and "blindly" accept the officer didn't miss a few pieces of glass on the ground or missed some foliage leaves stepped on is too much to ask.

What did this officer actually do to determine no burglar was there below Filomenas window?
Did they spend hours and hours in that area scraping the dirt and using a magnifying glass, or was it a 30 minute walk-by and then go have tea?
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It's also pretty clear from that picture that the bottom window is situated below the right side of Meredith's window. That is the side where the glass was on the sill. Care to explain how someone is going to hold that sill without disturbing the glass pieces that were there? How someone is going to lean a little to the left (in order to use the part of the sill that is free of glass), boost themselves up without encountering that nail in the wall?
 
Bob001 said:
A question. Some commenters (maybe even here) have speculated that Rudy may have pitched a rock through the window of the darkened apartment to see whether anyone was home, and when no one responded he entered through the front door. Then Meredith returned while he was inside (and the rest unfolded as you describe). We have heard that the front door had a defective lock and didn't latch properly. Is it possible that whoever left the apartment last inadvertently failed to lock the front door, and Rudy could have waltzed in? If not, how hard would it have been for a burglar to force the locked door open without leaving obvious damage? If the door had a spring lock instead of a deadbolt it might have been fairly easy to pop it open with a credit card, knife blade, coat hanger etc., and a burglar would have brought a suitable tool. And then when Rudy left he might have just pulled the door closed behind him, not realizing that the latch alone wouldn't lock it. That would explain why the door wasn't locked when Amanda came home. What do we know about the front door and the lock on it? Is any of this more plausible than somebody climbing through a second-story window?
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I think he really forced his way in through that window. The authorities have been adamant that the break-in was staged, just as they were adamant that the postal police showed up 20 minutes before Raffaele called the emergency number. But it is merely an assertion, unsupported by evidence.

Besides which, staging doesn't fit with the official theory of the crime. This is an area where it helps to have followed other cases. Staging is the act of someone who wants to avoid becoming a suspect, and killers who think like that want to be as far away as possible when the body is discovered, if they have that option. If Amanda and Raffaele had killed Meredith, and were concerned that they might be suspects, they would have let someone else find the body. Not call Filomena and say "there's blood in the bathroom and I think someone has been in the house."
 
Bob001 said:
A question. Some commenters (maybe even here) have speculated that Rudy may have pitched a rock through the window of the darkened apartment to see whether anyone was home, and when no one responded he entered through the front door. Then Meredith returned while he was inside (and the rest unfolded as you describe). We have heard that the front door had a defective lock and didn't latch properly. Is it possible that whoever left the apartment last inadvertently failed to lock the front door, and Rudy could have waltzed in? If not, how hard would it have been for a burglar to force the locked door open without leaving obvious damage? If the door had a spring lock instead of a deadbolt it might have been fairly easy to pop it open with a credit card, knife blade, coat hanger etc., and a burglar would have brought a suitable tool. And then when Rudy left he might have just pulled the door closed behind him, not realizing that the latch alone wouldn't lock it. That would explain why the door wasn't locked when Amanda came home. What do we know about the front door and the lock on it? Is any of this more plausible than somebody climbing through a second-story window?
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We have been told with some claim of authority (photos not yet forthcoming) that the entry door had a fairly standard combination of spring bolt knob assembly and deadbold lock. The deadbolt lock is supposed to be double cylinder. As you point out, a deadbolt can't be forced without obvious damage. (Well, not without hypothesizing additional lock-smithy talents, and there's more than enough of that sort of conjecture already.)

So there's really only three sorts of scenario for the perp's initial entry.

1) A legitimate entry through the agency of a resident (i.e., invited in by someone who lived there.)

2) Your suggestion of an unauthorized entry through the door with the deadbolt disengaged. This could include knocking and forcing their way in or some similar action, or the deadbolt having been left disengaged and entry forced without the presence of a resident.

The latter, we are told, is extremely unlikely. We have been assured by no less an authority than Knox herself that none of the residents would leave the deadbolt disengaged unless they were planning to return to the door promptly, because left unattended even a breeze could blow it open.

The former would presumably leave some other traces of conflict in the apartment, but even if not there is no good reason for a perp to fabricate a break-in after that, and efforts to rationalize such an action have been singularly unconvincing. In fact this issue pertains regardless of how an unauthorized entry through the door might have been achieved.

3) Forced entry through Filomena's window.

I remain highly skeptical of this third option, even after having carefully considered the explanations offered as attempts to support its plausibility.

Without hypothesizing an ineptitude on the part of LE which would make the Keystone Kops look like high-tech drama, or a conspiracy so complete that it included Filomena herself as well as all of the enforcement and judicial apparatus of the city, or both, I have to think that the break-in was staged.

This leaves me with the first option as the most likely.
 
katy_did said:
In the picture of the lawyer, the sill is already at about shoulder level, even though he has another rung of the grating still to climb. On 6ft+ Rudy, the sill would easily be at mid chest level. The climber would need only to be tall and athletic, which Rudy was.
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Rudy is about 5ft 10.5 (179cm), as established by his Italian ID card posted on the previous thread. Pesky facts!
 
An interesting blog on the case from Michelle Fabio at "bleeding espresso" (part 1):

http://bleedingespresso.com/2010/06...rspective-of-an-american-lawyer-in-italy.html

To me, it seems pretty well-balanced. I would 100% agree that claims of anti-American bias in the Italian judicial system are not only absurd, they are also insulting. For me, I've never even contemplated that being a motive.

I would, however, question her puzzlement that "no one from a higher level of Italian government has stepped in at any point to question the arrests and convictions". It would be very improper indeed for the Italian executive branch of government to question the operation of the judiciary. As, incidentally, it would also be very improper for the US executive branch (e.g. the US Sec of State) or even the US judiciary (viz Judge Heaney) to question the operation of the Italian judiciary. This case, and its various trials and appeals, should remain safely within the confines of the Italian judicial system, without any intervention from any other branch of the Italian (or any other) government. I fully trust that the Italian judiciary will apply justice correctly in the long run.
 
Charlie Wilkes said:
Here are pictures of the front door:

http://www.friendsofamanda.org/cottage_front_door01.jpg
http://www.friendsofamanda.org/cottage_front_door02.jpg
http://www.friendsofamanda.org/cottage_front_door03.jpg
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I think these are mis-labelled photos, Charlie. They appear to show one of the bedroom doors (probably Meredith's), and not the cottage's exterior front door.

EDIT: actually, I may be wrong on that. Was the entire front door removed by the police after the crime? Because the post-crime photos of the crime scene appear to show a completely different door (older, different colour etc). Was a makeshift door put onto the cottage by the police after the original front door had been removed?

FURTHER EDIT: More investigation shows that I'm wrong - this IS the exterior front door (or at least it matches the exterior front door of the cottage that was there some weeks after the crime, when a new student moved into Meredith's former room). There's nothing like having an ultimately futile argument with yourself! Time for an espresso........
 
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Agatha said:
Rudy is about 5ft 10.5 (179cm), as established by his Italian ID card posted on the previous thread. Pesky facts!
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Still looks taller than the short-ass lawyer, who could nonetheless have gotten up (who in fact did climb up, judging from what Charlie posted earlier...?).

Completely irrelevant anyway, since the jury never said he couldn't have climbed up.
 
katy_did said:
Thanks Charlie. Issue finally settled!
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Photo "....02" shows the exterior side of the door. There's no lever handle. So in my view this lends considerable weight to the opinion that whoever closed the front door assumed (incorrectly) that it would lock shut (i.e. be unable to be opened from the outside without a key). Therefore, whoever shut the door behind them would have felt no need to lock the door further with the key (which would have wasted time and increased the risk of being spotted by a passer-by).
 
katy_did said:
Thanks Charlie. Issue finally settled!
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Well, one issue has.

That's definitely a double cylinder deadbolt lock on the door in the photo.

This doesn't really tell us much about the actual state of the door during the crime, but it does settle the question about a key being needed to disengage the deadbolt from the inside if it were to be locked.

But now we have a brand new question. Why is that spring bolt jammed open? That isn't broken. Someone wedged a piece of wood into it to keep it back.
 
LondonJohn said:
Photo "....02" shows the exterior side of the door. There's no lever handle. So in my view this lends considerable weight to the opinion that whoever closed the front door assumed (incorrectly) that it would lock shut (i.e. be unable to be opened from the outside without a key). Therefore, whoever shut the door behind them would have felt no need to lock the door further with the key (which would have wasted time and increased the risk of being spotted by a passer-by).
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Assumes facts not in evidence. If the door was so easily opened that a breeze could swing it ajar there is no reason to assume that someone exiting wouldn't notice.

Also, I'm a bit curious about the absence of a handle. How exactly does somebody pull the door closed without one? You did notice that it is the pull side of the door?

There may be more left to learn about the entry door.

BTW, what do you think about the piece of wood jamming the spring latch open.
 
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