Continuation - Discussion of the Amanda Knox case

[tsig]

Sometimes a straw man is so blatant that it feels somewhat redundant to even flag it as one. It feels like I'm insulting a hypothetical reader's intelligence.

As we have repeated several times now, false statements under interrogation are a well-known, well-studied scientific fact. I'm struggling to see any explanation for your post other than wilful ignorance seeing as we have made this point repeatedly just in the last few pages. The idea that false statements are a fantasy cooked up specifically to exonerate Amanda Knox by an internet "industry" dedicated to her defence is deranged fantasy.

ETA: Would I be completely off-beam if I guessed that you are repeating something you heard on PMF, that you liked the sound of?

I'm amazed that the cops even have to do any work to solve a crime when all thy have to do is pick up someone, beat them and get them to accuse their boss.

 

[BobTheDonkey]

That's an interesting question. Until quite recently, owing to an error in a translation of the index to the DNA test results, I thought the sample in question was Rep. 176, in which Meredith's genetic markers are clearly visible and a faint secondary profile, which seems to correlate with Amanda's markers but is not called on the chart, is also visible.

I recently found out (and disclosed on this forum) that I was mistaken. The sample Stefanoni described in court was Rep. 177, which I thought had been taken in Amanda's room but was actually taken in Filomena's room.

Only half a dozen DNA samples (including two of the rock) were taken from Filomena's room. Two were from the luminol reaction on the floor, which had no shape but was just a large blob. Both clearly show Meredith's DNA, one of them clearly shows Amanda's DNA, and the other seems to show Amanda's DNA faintly. Here are the charts:

http://www.friendsofamanda.org/rep_176_luminol_stain_filomena_room.gif
http://www.friendsofamanda.org/rep_176_luminol_stain_filomena_room_color.gif
http://www.friendsofamanda.org/rep_177_luminol_stain_filomena_room.gif
http://www.friendsofamanda.org/rep_177_luminol_stain_filomena_room_color.gif

Reference profiles showing where the markers are found on each allele:

http://www.friendsofamanda.org/knox_profile.gif
http://www.friendsofamanda.org/kercher_profile.gif

Now we find out that a TMB test was done on the luminol reaction, and it came up negative. So what is the most likely answer here? The luminol tests were done on December 18, after dark. Typically these are the last tests done in a forensic investigation, and that seems to have been the case here. I would argue that the most likely explanation for these DNA results is that they show material from the investigator's gloves rather than anything that was on the floor.

What part of the "Luminol before TMB can, and often does, result in false negative results from TMB" study did you miss, Charlie?

 

[Kevin_Lowe]

Kevin, you need to get more than just the one "fallacy". in your rhetorical toolbox. You're wearing that one out, and it's becoming apparent that it doesn't mean what you think it means.

Don't blame me if people keep making the same mistake over and over again and I keep pointing it out. Which I'm pretty sure I have been doing accurately, by the way, and if you can point to a specific instance where you think I've got it wrong I'll endeavour to explain myself (or admit error if indeed I have made one).

I'm not the defense. I'm not arguing in court. I'm not even the jury. I'm not making a judgment in court. If I was I would employ a different standard. If you were you would have to as well, since only the evidence presented in court ... as presented in court ... would be valid for you to draw a conclusion. That isn't the standard you are holding yourself to here, either.

If you are arguing for the position that AK and RS should not have been convicted but are nonetheless probably guilty, sure.

I'm primarily addressing the question of whether that conviction was sound and from that perspective I'm interested in whether the evidence rises to the level of proof beyond reasonable doubt.

I don't care bubkes about how they would do it in court. I'm just trying to make up my own mind about whether or not I think Knox and Sollecito were involved based on the data available to me. What is legitimate or useful in court is an entirely different subject.

It's odd that this ploy is used whenever it is helpful to discount anything which casts doubt on Knox's innocence, but the fact that she was convicted in just such a court under just such rules of evidence is always glossed over, or worse, pointed at as proof of collusion and conspiracy.

Nice to have it both ways like that.

We're reviewing the court's decision to see whether or not we think it was correct. Assuming that the court's decision is correct because it was the court's decision would be blatantly question-begging. If you start from the assumption that the court was correct there's nothing to discuss.

What exactly is the problem you see in approach? You seem to be under the false impression that this is "having it both ways", but I'm unable to discern the basis for this misunderstanding.

 

[Kevin_Lowe]

I'm amazed that the cops even have to do any work to solve a crime when all thy have to do is pick up someone, beat them and get them to accuse their boss.

Are you and Symbol and Fine working towards some kind of merit badge for wilful denial of established scientific fact?

 

[Sherlock Holmes]

Anyone who thinks that it's easy to kick in a modern design of exterior door, with tempered hinges and cylinder locks, and steel reinforcement plates, has probably never tried to kick in a modern design of exterior door. And the front door of the murder house appeared to be very modern (at least post-1980) in design and construction.

///

LJ, you are correct here, there is no way in the world Rudi is going to kick in this solid outer door when a 23 year old, kickboxing trained man can not even kick in a hollow interior door. No wait, Filomena's boyfriend did just that. I bet Amanda could have kicked it in too, soccer player, mountian climber, I bet she has very strong legs, she should have been kicking that door instead of RS.

 

[Charlie Wilkes]

What part of the "Luminol before TMB can, and often does, result in false negative results from TMB" study did you miss, Charlie?

I've been following the thread. What is your theory to explain this? What happened that resulted in Amanda and Meredith's DNA being mixed together on the floor of Filomena's room?

 

[BobTheDonkey]

I've been following the thread. What is your theory to explain this? What happened that resulted in Amanda and Meredith's DNA being mixed together on the floor of Filomena's room?

I've stated it before, Charlie.

It's from when Amanda staged the break-in. When else would Amanda be walking around in barefeet while Meredith's blood was still wet? After all, it's not Filomena's DNA that was found - it's Amanda's. You don't find it peculiar that the DNA found in Filomena's room didn't belong to the person who'd lived in the room for months, but instead to her roommate who would not have had such a presence in the room?

Oh, but it's contamination now...

Isn't it convenient that anywhere Amanda's DNA went, it was via contamination. Her DNA was floating around the cottage in sufficient quantities to contaminate anything and everything, and yet none of the other roommates, who had lived there longer, had this problem with their DNA...

Ever heard of "special pleading"?

 

[quadraginta]

_______________________

Oh my. Armchair mountaineering and now armchair lock smithing.

Quadraginta has demonstrated his familiarity with door locks---no?---so let's hear his judgment.

Don't be surprised when he tells you the kid down the street ---not to mention "athletic" Rudy---can kick in your front door anytime he chooses. (But you heard it here first!)

The cop's battering ram is a luxury. The kid down the street can't afford one. That's the reason.

///

I can't offer an opinion on the security of that particular door with the available data. LJ is quite right to point out that some doors and frames, especially modern ones, can be quite resistant to brute force B & E.

Having said that, it is also true that big locks don't make big security, but many people think that they do. Although that door and frame could be hollow metal construction and all but immune to "TV tuff guy" shoulder throwing smash throughs, many doors and frames are not, and will splinter away from the big lock quite easily. We have no way of knowing which that one is.

It's a moot point, regardless, since there was no evidence of forced entry through the door in this case.

If I was casing that place for a smash-and-grab I'd sure be looking pretty close at the deck. If I was fleeing from inside and encountered a locked, double-deadbolt entry door I'd make for that deck like a honey bee back to the hive.

If I was so skittish that stopping for a few seconds to lock the entry door in a dark alcove at night was terrifying I sure wouldn't choose Filomena's window as the way to go in to start with.

 

[quadraginta]

<snip>

We're reviewing the court's decision to see whether or not we think it was correct. Assuming that the court's decision is correct because it was the court's decision would be blatantly question-begging. If you start from the assumption that the court was correct there's nothing to discuss.

What exactly is the problem you see in approach? You seem to be under the false impression that this is "having it both ways", but I'm unable to discern the basis for this misunderstanding.

If you are reviewing the court's decision then the only legitimate basis for doing that is to review only the evidence as presented in the courtroom, and any failures of procedure which may have occurred. If you are considering the accuracy of the court's judgment then you can offer other data not presented at trial as arguments.

What I seem to be seeing here is that any discussion bearing on Knox's guilt keeps being held to the yardstick of court rules and procedure (as you just did with me), and arguments in defense of her innocence range wildly over all sorts of conjecture, extremes of plausibility, and argument by anecdote without the same concern for the niceties of jurisprudence.

That's having it both ways.

 

[Kevin_Lowe]

If you are reviewing the court's decision then the only legitimate basis for doing that is to review only the evidence as presented in the courtroom, and any failures of procedure which may have occurred. If you are considering the accuracy of the court's judgment then you can offer other data not presented at trial as arguments.

No. I'm completely at liberty to think that the conviction was mistaken based on evidence the court didn't see, for example. At worst that would make the conviction a defensible mistake, it wouldn't make AK and RS actually guilty.

What I seem to be seeing here is that any discussion bearing on Knox's guilt keeps being held to the yardstick of court rules and procedure (as you just did with me), and arguments in defense of her innocence range wildly over all sorts of conjecture, extremes of plausibility, and argument by anecdote without the same concern for the niceties of jurisprudence.

That's having it both ways.

No. There's a very simple rule: They should not have been convicted unless there is proof beyond reasonable doubt they did it. "Conjecture" and "argument by anecdote" is relevant and potentially conclusive, because all we need to do is show that reasonable doubt exists.

I can't recall ever discussing court rules and procedure, so I suspect you're addressing some amalgamated straw man of things a variety of people have said. Court rules and procedure mean almost nothing to me personally, but reasonable doubt means a great deal.

 

[Charlie Wilkes]

I've stated it before, Charlie.

It's from when Amanda staged the break-in. When else would Amanda be walking around in barefeet while Meredith's blood was still wet? After all, it's not Filomena's DNA that was found - it's Amanda's. You don't find it peculiar that the DNA found in Filomena's room didn't belong to the person who'd lived in the room for months, but instead to her roommate who would not have had such a presence in the room?

I do find it peculiar. But it is arbitrary to link it to the murder. If she was tracking Meredith's blood around, why isn't there some evidence of that in Meredith's room, the source of the blood? Why did the footprints in the corridor reveal no trace of anyone's DNA? How did Amanda track Meredith's blood into Filomena's room without leaving a trail?

Oh, but it's contamination now...

Isn't it convenient that anywhere Amanda's DNA went, it was via contamination. Her DNA was floating around the cottage in sufficient quantities to contaminate anything and everything, and yet none of the other roommates, who had lived there longer, had this problem with their DNA...

Her DNA wasn't floating around in sufficient quantities to find its way into the room where Meredith was killed. Instead it was found in the bathroom she used every day, in the corridor, and in her own room - all of which proves nothing. The samples from Filomena's room are the only ones that are hard to explain, and I don't see that they fit into any larger pattern of evidence linking them to the crime.

 

[katy_did]

What part of the "Luminol before TMB can, and often does, result in false negative results from TMB" study did you miss, Charlie?

I think you may have missed the fact that the only situation in which these 'false negatives' occur is if the tile has been cleaned with bleach, which results in a 'faint luminescence' and no recognizable hand/footprints when luminol is used. Since we know the tiles can't therefore have been cleaned in bleach, TMB would not have given a false negative.

 

[Mary_H]

This raises interesting questions. For example, if the knife were one of the murder weapons, how could it have been cleaned sufficiently to remove all traces of Meredith's blood, but yet not cleaned enough to remove other sources of her DNA, such as skin cells? And, for example, if the knife had been extensively scrubbed with bleach after the murder to remove incriminating evidence, why did the oxidising agent in the bleach destroy any and all blood DNA, but leave some skin cell DNA intact?

I haven't been around today so I haven't read all the posts. Did anyone answer these questions, yet, LJ?

 

[katy_did]

Please explain. Under what circumstances is it not peculiar that a burglar ransacks a room but fails to take anything of value?

It's not the only issue that leads me to believe the break-in was staged. It's just the one issue that sealed it for me.

When the burglary is interrupted by one of the residents and the resident is killed? Just a guess...

However, this does appear to be the main reason the police initially thought the break-in was staged, rather than any actual evidence that it was. Which I find pretty staggering. At least Micheli, to be fair, does acknowledge that a burglar probably wouldn't want to take traceable objects from a murder scene.

 

[katy_did]

Some people seem to have a hard time reading what quadraginta wrote about that. Depending on how he closed it it actually would have been pretty obvious that it wouldn't stay shut.

There's a picture of the door frame itself here. From that it looks as if the door worked with some kind of roller mechanism at the top and bottom where the rollers fit into a groove in the door. If that's the case, it probably would have looked to Rudy as if the door would lock automatically, given the lack of a lever handle on the outside of the door (and that the lever handle inside the door was also non-functional). The door certainly wouldn't have immediately swung open again, in any case.

 

[katy_did]

Quadragnita is just guessing. A guess that contradicts Amanda's testimony that the door could be shut for at least a short period of time.

Good point, Malkmus. Amanda says the door would swing open again in the wind, not that it wouldn't stay closed at all. So from that we can infer that it would stay closed initially.

 

[katy_did]

The paper quoted does not state if the blood stains tested were diluted (they were probably not), and also the testing was done after blood was applied to surfaces and cleaned, which I think is what not happened in this case.

Luminol sensitivity is 1:1,000,000 to 1:10,000,000 blood dilution, while tetramethylbenzidine (TMB) is up to 1:1,000,000 (in lab tets), but substances apart from bleach can cause false negatives for TMB tests (http://www.fbi.gov/hq/lab/fsc/backissu/july1999/ponce.htm and http://www.fbi.gov/hq/lab/fsc/backissu/july1999/poncet2.htm) for high dilutions.

If I remember the footprint in question was thought to have been made by Knox walking back to Kercher's room after washing her feet in the bathroom, probably with some cleaning product and water, and the footprint was missed in cleaning up afterwards because it was so faint it was not visible.

This is what I'm curious about. If the footprints had been made as Massei suggests - if they were invisible, diluted footprints, and especially if they were so diluted as to test negative for blood with TMB - would the luminol reaction have been as strong as it was?

In other words, would these diluted footprints with so little blood in them test so strongly positive with luminol, but then (even though they hadn't been cleaned up) test negative for TMB? I wonder if the scenario Massei proposes is even possible.

 

[LondonJohn]

Here's a thought:

What if someone decided to commit a burglary of a house which a) he had visited previously (although had no strong ties to), and therefore had some knowledge of the layout and the occupants, b) he might reasonably suspect would contain various laptop computers and personal electronics devices (cameras, iPods etc)?

So this someone broke in through the window, in order to commit the burglary, and immediately had a sudden strong urge to defecate*. But while the would-be burglar was in the large bathroom, Meredith returned home, locking the front door behind her (and placing the keys back in her handbag), going to the fridge for a mushroom, then going to her room.

The would-be burglar would have logically waited until Meredith had returned to her room before making his next move. Clearly, he couldn't now flush the toilet, since the noise would alert Meredith. His best bet, by far, would be to just slip quietly out of the front door.

So, the would-be burglar then went quietly to the front door, and tried to open it. However, it soon became apparent to him that the door was locked, and required a key to open it. He pulled on the door in frustration, making enough noise to alert Meredith.

Meredith went to her bedroom door to see what the source of the noise was. The assailant ran over to confront her at her bedroom door. The assailant demanded the keys, and Meredith refused. There was a struggle. The assailant pulled a knife. And Killed Meredith. He was by then psycho-sexually aroused by the situation, and committed some form of sexual assault**.

So the person who is now a murderer was now in Meredith's room, in full knowledge of the fact that he needed a key to get out of the front door. He searched in Meredith's handbag, finding the keys. He also opportunistically decided to take her wallet (purse) and phones. He left some of his DNA on the handbag in the process of doing all this.

The murderer then made a swift exit from the scene. He was now in a highly-agitated state, and any thoughts of a comprehensive burglary had completely exited his mind. He could see that there was a lock on Meredith's door, and that there were only a few keys on Meredith's key ring. So he spontaneously decided that he would try to delay discovery of the body by locking Meredith's door on his way out. He selected the correct key by trying it on the inside face of the door, then exited and locked the bedroom door behind himself.

The murderer then proceeded straight to the front door. He unlocked the door, and let himself out. Realising that he was now once more in full public view, he panicked somewhat, pulled the door shut and ran as fast as he could away from the house.

Is this a reasonable proposition? Comments appreciated!

* And bowel movements are physiologically linked to fear, and I suspect that someone who had just climbed through a visible window would have experienced feelings of fear (of being spotted, or of being confronted as soon as he was inside the house).

** A documented phenomenon.

 

[Mary_H]

I'm amazed that the cops even have to do any work to solve a crime when all thy have to do is pick up someone, beat them and get them to accuse their boss.

That's pretty much the way it's been done throughout history -- the beating, that is, not the boss-accusing. As I understand it, that's how it's done to get suspects in Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantanamo to admit they're terrorists. Suspects and prisoners all over the world are routinely beaten in order to get information out of them; it's nothing new. Many former prisoners of war have written about it.

You might think it's a joke to say the cops didn't have to do any work in order to get their suspects, but the fact is, it pretty much was a failure to work hard that led them to the wrong suspects. If they hadn't been in such a big hurry, if they had followed the law and protocols more precisely, and if they had relied on evidence instead of intuition, they would have gotten the job done right, instead of wrong. They were lazy, lazy, lazy.

 

[LondonJohn]

When the burglary is interrupted by one of the residents and the resident is killed? Just a guess...

However, this does appear to be the main reason the police initially thought the break-in was staged, rather than any actual evidence that it was. Which I find pretty staggering. At least Micheli, to be fair, does acknowledge that a burglar probably wouldn't want to take traceable objects from a murder scene.

See my coincidentally similar (but very verbose!) post just after yours......