Continuation - Discussion of the Amanda Knox case

[Bruce Fischer]

I am honestly surprised that we are discussing the difficulty of climbing down in comparison to climbing up. It is human nature to have a fear of falling. Not everyone has this fear. Most people do. When you step off of a roof onto a ladder it is much more difficult for most people. This is common knowledge. The window would be no different.

 

[act1roson]

Amazer, thanks for responding. I'm going to go over your comments slowly, I may even take days!

yes


You wrote regarding her confession "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."

Here are Amanda's actual confession words from her unrecorded interrogation in the middle of the night (which I admit to believing were coerced), translated via google from La Stampa November 7, 2007 (I'm not allowed to insert link). I'm interested in knowing specifically which sentences you believe are lies and which ones are truthful:

"I met him (Patrick, ed) the evening of 1 November, after having sent a response to his message with the words" We'll see. " We met soon after, at around 21 or so, at the basketball pitch square Grimana. We went to my house. Can not remember exactly if my friend Meredith was already at home or came after, I can say is that Patrick and Meredith were in the secluded room of Meredith, but I think I was in the kitchen. I can not remember how long they stayed together in the room but all I can say that at some point I heard Meredith screaming and I scared, I covered my ears. Then do not remember anything, I have a lot of confusion in my head. I do not remember if I heard Meredith screaming and even if the thuds because I was upset, but I figured what could have happened. I'm not sure if this also Raffaele (Reminder, ed) that night, but I remember waking up at home of my boy in his bed, and that I'm back in the morning in my house where I found the apartment door open . Notes the prosecutor: "It is recognized that the Knox moves his hands repeatedly on the head and shakes it."​

Do you believe the trial witness, the homeless fellow (who almost gave Amanda and Raffaele an alibi because he extended their stay at the basketball court past the prosecution's establish murder hour) and that they indeed hung around a basketball court, with no other witnesses to that fact?

One thing about Amanda's above statements, she never once mentioned seeing Meredith, before or after the violence. She doesn't mention anything about the details of what took place beyond Meredith's door. I'm finding this amazing since she was interrogated for up to 53 hours (according to some sources) by people (12 interrogators in the final session according to various sources) highly trained in getting what they want.

Thank you for your time.

 

[LondonJohn]

The claim so far was that the window was easy enough to climb through (by your side). And now you suddenly have a change of heart, and the window entry/exit is difficult?

I think this may have more to do with relative ease than absolute ease.

On the way in, it may have been relatively easier to scale the wall and break the window than it would have been to try to break down the front door or pick its lock. On the way out, however, it would have been relatively easier to find some keys and unlock the front door than it would have been to exit via the same window. And there's the added factor of relative "suspiciousness" to take into account on the exit as well.

 

[quadraginta]

Yes, true of course. My main point is that if the purpose of taking the keys was to lock Meredith's door, that motive points to no one in particular, i.e. anyone could've done it to delay the body being found. But if the person who took the keys also needed them to get out of the house, that makes Guede's motive very much stronger than that of the other two. Particularly since the locking of the door is a slightly odd action anyway - it makes more sense as something done spontaneously simply because the person had the keys, than that he/they would go to the trouble of finding the keys just for that purpose.

If Guede felt it needful to lock Meredith's bedroom door, presumably to delay detection of the crime by returning tenants, then locking the entry door as he leaves would be equally if not more important, and for the same reasons.

Your last sentence makes no sense. If he needs the keys to open the door to get outside, then the next thing is standing outside the door with the keys. What is "slightly odd" about someone locking a door as they leave?

 

[Bruce Fischer]

If Guede felt it needful to lock Meredith's bedroom door, presumably to delay detection of the crime by returning tenants, then locking the entry door as he leaves would be equally if not more important, and for the same reasons.

Your last sentence makes no sense. If he needs the keys to open the door to get outside, then the next thing is standing outside the door with the keys. What is "slightly odd" about someone locking a door as they leave?

Rudy may have gotten outside the cottage and at that instant reality hit him and he panicked and left in a hurry. We will never know exactly what he did.

Nothing with regard to Rudy's possible actions as he left the cottage leads to the guilt of Amanda or Raffaele in any way. Some people seam to miss that point.

 

[Amazer]

I think this may have more to do with relative ease than absolute ease.

On the way in, it may have been relatively easier to scale the wall and break the window than it would have been to try to break down the front door or pick its lock. On the way out, however, it would have been relatively easier to find some keys and unlock the front door than it would have been to exit via the same window. And there's the added factor of relative "suspiciousness" to take into account on the exit as well.

I did realize that... just trying to make you guys work on explaining your scenarios in more detail

 

[RoseMontague]

Ah, thank you for the summary - as I said, it's tricky when it sounds a bit like gibberish in English, too! This part of the appeal does sound like a reiteration of what was said during the initial trial, so it would need the appeal court to accept that the first court had made a mistake; at the same time, the arguments do sound quite valid.

One interesting thing earlier in the same section is that the defence point to the very convenient discovery of RS's DNA on the bra clasp just as other evidence against him had 'crumbled', perhaps implying they're prepared to argue the evidence might have been planted...

Yes,
I believe the defense is bringing this up again because the expert was made to look foolish by Kercher's lawyer regarding this testimony. Frank gives a good summary in his "Too Low" post. The argument was:

Tagliabracci gave a fascinating lesson explaining why, on the knife, the DNA is a Low Copy Number and can't be taken into account, since we don't even know if there was actually DNA there.
Same --even if in a much more complex environment-- for the presumed Raffaele's DNA on the bra. The quantity there is perfect, but there are more profiles. Tagliabracci sees only Meredith's DNA in the proper quantity, the other profiles are, here too, Low Copy Number and according to him, can't be attributed to anyone.

And then the lawyer makes him look foolish.

But the most unbelievable result is achieved by Kercher's lawyer Francesco Maresca, who, simply using the logic, brought Tagliabracci, the prophet of the contamination theory, to say that there's no contamination.
Which is the most obvious consequence of Tagliabracci's new position. If that profile is not Raffaele's why did you always maintain that it was Raffaele's because of the contamination?

It would have been enough saying, I changed my mind due to new data acquisition and now propose a new theory. But he seems the kind of person not really keen to admissions, so, his contradiction remains in the trial acts, and, because of that, Raffaele's DNA too. A result of which the DNA on the blade certainly can't benefit, at least from the image point of view.

What to say, it seems that Franco Sollecito has bad luck with DNA experts.

http://perugia-shock.blogspot.com/2009/09/too-low.html

It is an interesting contradiction having the result that neither argument made by this expert is considered valid, yet the arguments themselves may have some validity.

 

[quadraginta]

Originally Posted by katy_did View Post
I imagine it would be easier for him to take the keys and unlock the door rather than attempt to climb back out through the window. It would also be a lot easier to climb up than it would be to climb back down again.
_________________________________________________________



Climbing up is generally easier than climbing down. If you climb a ladder up to a roof, the step onto the roof is much easier than the step back onto the ladder going down.

This would also apply for most people climbing out of a window.

For people who have been so nonchalant about suggesting Olympic class gymnastics to get Guede up through the window without leaving any traces of his passage, you all are sure getting mighty timid about him climbing back out again. Remember, the biggest issue with the entry is that there was no external trace of it.The considerable athletic ability required to have done that and done it inadvertently would make leaving by the same route a piece of cake.

 

[Amazer]

For people who have been so nonchalant about suggesting Olympic class gymnastics to get Guede up through the window without leaving any traces of his passage, you all are sure getting mighty timid about him climbing back out again. Remember, the biggest issue with the entry is that there was no external trace of it.The considerable athletic ability required to have done that and done it inadvertently would make leaving by the same route a piece of cake.

The height from the window is certainly no impediment.

 

[Chris_Halkides]

paradox

Yes,
I believe the defense is bringing this up again because the expert was made to look foolish by Kercher's lawyer regarding this testimony. Frank gives a good summary in his "Too Low" post. The argument was:



And then the lawyer makes him look foolish.



http://perugia-shock.blogspot.com/2009/09/too-low.html

It is an interesting contradiction having the result that neither argument made by this expert is considered valid, yet the arguments themselves may have some validity.

RoseMontague,

I have always been puzzled by that passage in Frank's post. Perhaps it would be helpful to distinguish between law and fact. If Raffaele's profile were culled from a LCN sample, then not repeating the experiment would mean that the profile is not Raffaele's from a legal standpoint. LCN samples should be run at least twice, to account for alleles dropping in or out, based on cites given in the previous thread. However, the failure to reproduce the profile does not contradict the idea that Raffaele's DNA was responsible for the peaks on the electropherogram. I don't see a contradiction, only a paradox.

 

[quadraginta]

You might have overlooked the small point that a man climbing out of a broken window, suspending himself by his fingertips from the ledge, and dropping to the floor, would appear somewhat more suspicious to any passing vehicles or pedestrians than a man exiting from the front door.

And yes, I do realise that he may have done the suspicious-looking reverse manoeuvre to get into the house through the window. But that doesn't negate my argument: if he did enter through the window, it would have been be because he had no choice but to do so - i.e. no option to use keys to open the front door and enter the house.

<snip>

I thought the front door was supposed to be so exposed that merely stopping and locking it with a key already in hand (an otherwise normal occurrence) would be too suspicious. It seems like anything that is inconvenient to an innocence theory is too suspicious.

 

[RoseMontague]

I take it to mean the test was not repeated because Stefanoni did not consider the sample as LCN and in the expert's opinion she should have repeated the test because Raffaele's portion of that sample was of the LCN variety.

 

[quadraginta]

Yes, I thought this was common knowledge, really. I suppose it's also just easier to find footholds on your way up because you can see what you're doing, whereas when you climb down you're going feet first. Seems obvious. AK and RS certainly wouldn't have needed to take the keys, anyway, AK having her own. As far as motives go, RG's reason to take them was a lot stronger.

Common knowledge is vastly over-rated. Common knowledge is the sort of thing that tells you the number thirteen is bad luck.

You're on the right track, though. When climbing down there is more of a challenge placing your feet, except that in this case the window isn't high enough for that to be an issue. Your acrobatic gymnast Guede could easily just hang and drop. He already knew where the next place to put his feet would be. On the ground.

 

[quadraginta]

If Rudy needed the keys to exit, locking the bedroom door could have been a last second decision. The keys would have given him the idea to lock the door. The purse was in open view. He would not have needed to search. He could have also retrieved the keys as he was taking the credit cards and cell phones. This would have been a lucky break for him when he arrived at the front door.

So, Rudy goes through the purse, takes the cell phones, credit cards and the keys. The keys give him the idea to lock the bedroom door. A spur of the moment decision that did not require a lot of thought. He gets to the front door and realizes that he needs the keys. It just so happens that he has them.

This is a very reasonable scenario. We will never know for sure exactly what happened.
All of the credible evidence points at Rudy. There is a reasonable scenario that fits Rudy's actions.

There is no reasonable scenario that would put Amanda and/or Raffaele at the scene to lock the door.

What's the reasonable scenario for locking the bedroom door and leaving the entry door swinging in the wind?

 

[Fine]

If Rudy needed the keys to exit, locking the bedroom door could have been a last second decision. The keys would have given him the idea to lock the door. The purse was in open view. He would not have needed to search. He could have also retrieved the keys as he was taking the credit cards and cell phones. This would have been a lucky break for him when he arrived at the front door.

So, Rudy goes through the purse, takes the cell phones, credit cards and the keys. The keys give him the idea to lock the bedroom door. A spur of the moment decision that did not require a lot of thought. He gets to the front door and realizes that he needs the keys. It just so happens that he has them.

This is a very reasonable scenario. We will never know for sure exactly what happened.
All of the credible evidence points at Rudy. There is a reasonable scenario that fits Rudy's actions.

There is no reasonable scenario that would put Amanda and/or Raffaele at the scene to lock the door.

__________________________

Except that if Rudy broke in through the window he wouldn't know that he needed the keys until he had left Meredith's room and came to the LOCKED front door. So then he's already in front of Filomena's room, ...why not just slip out the window, being such an athletic type guy?

///

 

[quadraginta]

I am honestly surprised that we are discussing the difficulty of climbing down in comparison to climbing up. It is human nature to have a fear of falling. Not everyone has this fear. Most people do. When you step off of a roof onto a ladder it is much more difficult for most people. This is common knowledge. The window would be no different.

I am honestly surprised that someone is making a big deal out of climbing out of a window that isn't even two whole floors up after vigorously proclaiming the simplicity of slithering up through it without leaving a trace.

Sure, there's a difference, but you seem to have this window somehow changing from being a grade school jungle gym climb going up to a descent back down the North Face of Everest. There's not that much difference.

 

[HumanityBlues]

How about the blood test coming back negative on those "bloody footprints". Is that something or what?

 

[el buscador]

I am honestly surprised that someone is making a big deal out of climbing out of a window that isn't even two whole floors up after vigorously proclaiming the simplicity of slithering up through it without leaving a trace.

Sure, there's a difference, but you seem to have this window somehow changing from being a grade school jungle gym climb going up to a descent back down the North Face of Everest. There's not that much difference.

Perhaps the reason rudy didn't climb down were the cuts on his fingers. Climbing down with these injuries would be somewhat more dangerous than exiting with the front door keys.

 

[Bob001]

I am honestly surprised that someone is making a big deal out of climbing out of a window that isn't even two whole floors up after vigorously proclaiming the simplicity of slithering up through it without leaving a trace.

Just a question here: If a burglar exited by the upstairs window, and suspended himself by his fingertips from the ledge, how far would he fall if he then just dropped to the ground? From the position of the ground-floor window itself, I would guess about five feet, certainly manageable for many young men, but the picture doesn't actually show the ground. I think it's more likely that the assailant left through the front door (why wouldn't he?), but it wouldn't take a rock climber or gymnast to use the window.

 

[LondonJohn]

I thought the front door was supposed to be so exposed that merely stopping and locking it with a key already in hand (an otherwise normal occurrence) would be too suspicious. It seems like anything that is inconvenient to an innocence theory is too suspicious.

The killer had to get out of the house somehow. And any way in which the killer left the house was open to being spotted by passers-by. With that in mind, is it really rational to suggest that leaving by the front door would NOT be a) less suspicious and b) less time-consuming than climbing out of a broken window, suspending oneself by one's fingertips from the window ledge, and dropping to the ground?

What you're talking about is something different altogether, I'm afraid. Again, we're back to conditional probability. The issue here is this: given that the front door was a quicker and less-suspicious way to leave the house than via the window (for the reasons given above and elsewhere), what would be the best way of minimising risk when exiting from the more favourable option of the front door?

And the best way to minimise this risk would be to close the door behind you and get away from the house as quickly as possible. Why? Well, because of this: although, as you say, any bystander obviously wouldn't find it unusual to see someone closing a front door and locking it behind them, the extra time needed to lock the door would increase the risk of being seen at all next to the door. Better to be away and gone in seconds, rather than hang around longer than necessary, be spotted while locking the door, then subsequently identified. After all, I suspect it wouldn't be hard for a bystander witness to identify a wiry man of black African appearance, and it wouldn't take the police long to figure out that he had no business letting himself out of the girls' house.