Continuation - Discussion of the Amanda Knox case

[Kestrel]

No it was not complicated at all - Amanda and RS are equally as guilty as Rudi, this is a well know and established fact, and no one can dispute this.
It starts getting complicated when you go the lone wolfe route, and try to explaine things like

a) how Rudi locked Meredith's door, someone posted a video on here a while ago that will just crack you up when you watch it.

b) How Rudi came in through the window and didn't ransack the place

c) How everyone other than Amanda and RS are liars, con artists, crooked and stupid

d) how everyone has it in for Amanda and RS, Judges, prosecutors, jury, witnesses, police, Media (except a few American ones), and basically, everyone

May I suggest taking your straw man to a forum where they don't understand logical fallacies?

 

[Kestrel]

Well, okay then. But since you bring up the subject of police interrogations, I have actually undergone one. It was one of the worst experiences of my life. As a result, it certainly informs how I evaluate the interrogations in this case.

Now, you are of course correct that false confessions/accusations certainly do occur. I am a history buff and am well acquainted with the workings of men like Torquemada or Lavrenty Beria. However, I don't think that that is what happened in this case. And part of that reasoning is undoubtedly based upon my own idiosyncratic experiences in similar circumstances.

You are making two false assumptions:

First that the interrogation you experienced was roughly similar to Amanda's interrogation in Preruia.

Second, that everyone is able resist a coercive interrogation just like you did.

 

[Fuji]

You are making two false assumptions:

First that the interrogation you experienced was roughly similar to Amanda's interrogation in Preruia.

Second, that everyone is able resist a coercive interrogation just like you did.

You are making two false assumptions:

First, that the interrogation I experienced was entirely dissimilar to Amanda's interrogation in Perugia.

Second, that no one is able to resist a coercive interrogation just like I did.

 

[Fulcanelli]

So, you only think it plausible that Rudy might have taken a well-earned bathroom break after a good hour, say, of energetically ransacking the house? I'm tempted to repeat your last sentence...

No. But somewhere beyond the first two minutes...which is all it took to ransack Filomena's room (badly). Even the ransacking was clearly faked, done by someone who clearly has no idea how to ransack a room...yet, we're supposed to accept Rudy was some sort of 'pro'...hardly.

 

[LiamG.]

You are making two false assumptions:

First that the interrogation you experienced was roughly similar to Amanda's interrogation in Preruia.

Well, he said, just like Amanda did, that this was one of the worst experiences in his life. So I think, he`s in a "better" position to put himself in AK`s shoes than you, as you obviously never experienced a "cruel" interrogation.

Now, you are of course correct that false confessions/accusations certainly do occur.

Second, that everyone is able resist a coercive interrogation just like you did.

????

 

[Fulcanelli]

This is utter nonsense.

As noted by the UK's Metropolitan Police:

"Burglary, on the whole, is an opportunist crime. A burglar will select his target because it offers him the best opportunity to carry out his crime undetected and with the fewest number of obstacles in his way."

And the requirement to scale a sheer eleven foot wall and gain entry via window covered with closed external shutters in full view of the main road and anyone entering the cottage drive all starting from a sloping piece of ground is hardly an 'opportunity' is it? And opportunity for what anyway...what would have been the perceived pay off? It sounds like a huge amount of effort and risk for...what? What was the treasure? What was the gold at the end of the rainbow that drove such determination? Why was the cottage all of a sudden the most eligible house in Perugia to warrant such exploits? What was wrong with all the others? Someone tell me.

Nobody has ever provided an answer to this basic question...what made the cottage so special to the exclusion of everywhere else?

 

[Chris_Halkides]

Do we need a lesson in anatomy?

A knife that was used to stab someone would have cells that are not blood cells. Therefore, your argument regarding the knife is invalid.

Also, while the tests for blood are sensitive, there were less than 20 cells found and Stephanoni could only spare a few for testing for blood - it was much more imperative to determine to whom the cells belong.

That you continually choose to ignore these points is yet more evidence of your disingenuous nature in regards to this case.

BobTheDonkey,

So you know more than Drs. Johnson and Hampikian? How about providing us with your credentials, so that we can decide this for ourselves? You continue to claim in effect that red blood cells can be removed from a knife without removing other cells (white blood cells, skin cells, or any other). Which cleaning fluid and/or which cleaning method can do this? Please provide appropriate citations of the forensic literature. When you do, I will no longer refer to your argument as either knavery or foolishness.

If ILE really thought that the kitchen knife were the murder weapon, they should have disassembled it and looked for blood inside, as Colonel Garofano suggested in Darkness Descending. They did not, and this implies something about their true beliefs

 

[Fulcanelli]

And I might equally argue that it would make more sense for Rudy to use the bathroom not long after arriving in the house, so's he could fully concentrate on the more important business of burglary. Or to minimize the chances of being caught in there, since the more time he spent in the house, the more chance of someone coming back.

Yes...because 'Mr leave evidence everywhere' is well known for 'thinking' isn't he? That makes sense. If he'd have 'thunk' so well, wouldn't he have gone to the toilet
'before' he decided to burgle somewhere? Would he not have 'thought' about the evidence he was leaving? Yet he 'thought' not to take the laptops, jewellery etc. Yet he didn't think not to take Meredith's credit cards...

'What' exactly is the lone wolf narrative and which candidate makes sense?

So...he was thinking...he was not thinking...which is it? Because the 'thinking Guede' as a lone wolf doesn't fit. The 'non-thinking' Guede as a lone wolf doesn't fit.

The pattern of evidence at the crime scene doesn't fit a single mind, but rather several minds thinking in different ways.

 

[BobTheDonkey]

BobTheDonkey,

So you know more than Drs. Johnson and Hampikian? How about providing us with your credentials, so that we can decide this for ourselves? You continue to claim in effect that red blood cells can be removed from a knife without removing other cells (white blood cells, skin cells, or any other). Which cleaning fluid and/or which cleaning method can do this? Please provide appropriate citations of the forensic literature. When you do, I will no longer refer to your argument as either knavery or foolishness.

If ILE really thought that the kitchen knife were the murder weapon, they should have disassembled it and looked for blood inside, as Colonel Garofano suggested in Darkness Descending. They did not, and this implies something about their true beliefs

If, as you claim, bleach removes all traces of DNA containing cells that easily, how could contamination occur in a lab environment where everything is cleaned with bleach?

Or, perhaps, as was the case here, the cells were found in a microscopic crack in the blade - where they were (somewhat) protected from the bleach. Much like in your example of how a pipette might not have been cleaned fully in the lab.

Apparently we do need an anatomy lesson:

Now, I don't know all that much about DNA...but I do know that there are far more cells in the human body that contain DNA than merely blood cells. I also know that in order to reach the blood cells in the human body, a knife must pass through multiple layers of DNA containing cells.

I know, I know. Your argument is that if all the blood cells are gone, so should any other cells that contain DNA...except...well...that doesn't necessarily work for what I would hope are fairly obvious reasons - mainly those I've pointed out in this post and the post you responded to.

 

[Fulcanelli]

Your summary of the DNA contamination issue is innaccurate, and it has been pointed out to why it does not reflect the position of Johnson/Hampikian open letter many times before. There was no blood on the knife. Therefore any DNA found cannot have been from blood. If one argues that the DNA came from non-blood tissue, then one is relying upon the properties of magic cleaning fluid, that removes blood but not other cells.

Oh, for crying out loud...there was no blood detected on the knife because there was no organic material left to test for blood. Dr Stefanoni removed all the present organic material to test for DNA. After she performed the DNA test, then she tested for blood...on a blade from which she'd already removed all organic material. And that's irrelevant anyway, since the confirmation test for blood is DNA testing..which is the first test she did. But, that only works above LCN level and there was only enough material for LCN. It's impossible to determine the nature of cells (what type of cells they are, blood or whatever) via LCN testing. LCN will only provide a profile, or not. In this case it did...Meredith's.

It's all in that report which you haven't read.

 

[Fulcanelli]

Your summary of the DNA contamination issue is innaccurate, and it has been pointed out to why it does not reflect the position of Johnson/Hampikian open letter many times before. There was no blood on the knife. Therefore any DNA found cannot have been from blood. If one argues that the DNA came from non-blood tissue, then one is relying upon the properties of magic cleaning fluid, that removes blood but not other cells.

Alternatively, we could just 'assume' her interrogation was coercive...right? I only mention it since we are on the topic of assumptions.

 

[LondonJohn]

And this is a good illustration of why jurors are usually specifically told to set aside all their personal experiences of the law and any prior prejudices, and to assess the case only on the evidence presented in the trial.

Obviously, jurors (and/or judges) are expected to use their general understanding of the human condition (and any logic which flows from that knowledge) in assessing the validity/importance of evidence, but that's as much as they should bring into the arena.

If, as you claim, bleach removes all traces of DNA containing cells that easily, how could contamination occur in a lab environment where everything is cleaned with bleach?

Or, perhaps, as was the case here, the cells were found in a microscopic crack in the blade - where they were (somewhat) protected from the bleach. Much like in your example of how a pipette might not have been cleaned fully in the lab.

Apparently we do need an anatomy lesson:

[qimg]http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/picture.php?albumid=506&pictureid=3225[/qimg]

Now, I don't know all that much about DNA...but I do know that there are far more cells in the human body that contain DNA than merely blood cells. I also know that in order to reach the blood cells in the human body, a knife must pass through multiple layers of DNA containing cells.

I know, I know. Your argument is that if all the blood cells are gone, so should any other cells that contain DNA...except...well...that doesn't necessarily work for what I would hope are fairly obvious reasons - mainly those I've pointed out in this post and the post you responded to.

The hypochlorite in bleach denatures DNA by breaking the hydrogen bonds between the double-helix pairs, and then by oxidising the DNA protein chains themselves. Once the DNA is denatured, it is essentially useless for DNA identification analysis.

Household bleach containing hypochlorite is extremely effective at denaturing DNA. In fact, it's so effective that it's standard procedure for DNA analysis labs to use a 10% solution of bleach (i.e. 1 part bleach to 9 parts water) to clean down surfaces, since this level of concentration will denature any DNA on the surfaces and therefore eliminate surface contamination of future samples.

http://www.cci.ca.gov/Reference/biosmpl.pdf

http://lib.bioinfo.pl/pmid:1571142

(The second link shows an abstract which states that a 10% hypochlorite solution destroys all DNA (and/or prevent PCR amplification) within one minute.)

So, if Knox and/or Sollecito cleaned the kitchen knife with anything equal to or stronger than a 10% concentration of hypochlorite-based bleach, they should have successfully denatured all the DNA on those parts of the knife which the liquid bleach could reach. This would include "microscopic cracks in the blade". The only parts which the bleach could have missed would be areas around and underneath the join where the tang meets the handle components, but then we know that a) the forensic examiners didn't even disassemble these areas of the knife to check properly, and b) there's little reason to suspect that liquid or solid body matter (blood, skin) could find its way into these areas during the commission of the crime, but that a liquid bleach solution somehow could not find its way into the same areas during the cleaning (especially if the knife were immersed in the bleach solution).

 

[odeed]

Would bleach have an effect on white blood cells, since the it's the iron in red blood that bleach reacts to, and luminol and TMB both use hydrogen peroxide (a bleach) in the procedure to test for blood, and have little effect on any subsequent DNA tests?

 

[LondonJohn]

And, in a beautifully-timed irony, a poster on another forum has just introduced a link to an academic paper, which she believes to indicate that it's possible for a presumptive blood test on a sample to show negative, but for a DNA profile to be recoverable nonetheless:

http://www.hartnell.edu/faculty/jhughey/Files/bloodpatternsandDNArecovery.pdf

Unfortunately, what this poster seems to have overlooked is that the entire rationale of this paper is that specifically fire/heat can cause anomalies to the widely-understood and widely-applied principle of "negative for blood = no DNA". The specific conclusion of the paper is that DNA examiners should not follow this accepted thinking when analysing fire-exposed samples..

So, in fact, this paper actually adds weight to the idea that (outside of a fire-damaged scene), investigators should conduct a presumptive test for blood first. And that only if this presumptive blood test shows positive should they proceed with a full DNA test. The paper argues that an exception to this rule should be applied in the case of fire/heat at the crime scene, but that this is explicitly an exception to the rule.

 

[Fulcanelli]

And, in a beautifully-timed irony, a poster on another forum has just introduced a link to an academic paper, which she believes to indicate that it's possible for a presumptive blood test on a sample to show negative, but for a DNA profile to be recoverable nonetheless:

http://www.hartnell.edu/faculty/jhughey/Files/bloodpatternsandDNArecovery.pdf

Unfortunately, what this poster seems to have overlooked is that the entire rationale of this paper is that specifically fire/heat can cause anomalies to the widely-understood and widely-applied principle of "negative for blood = no DNA". The specific conclusion of the paper is that DNA examiners do not follow this accepted thinking when analysing fire-exposed samples..

So, in fact, this paper actually adds weight to the idea that (outside of a fire-damaged scene), investigators should conduct a presumptive test for blood first. And that only if this presumptive blood test shows positive should they proceed with a full DNA test. The paper argues that an exception to this rule should be applied in the case of fire/heat at the crime scene, but that this is explicitly an exception to the rule.

That's because 'most' presumptive blood tests are less sensitive then DNA tests (the exception is luminol, since that detects the iron, rather then DNA which may be negligible), and those that aren't are no good alone since they are only presumptive. DNA tests are the confirmation tests for blood. But if there's only enough material for LCN DNA testing, that's not enough to confirm blood or any other type of biological material...LCN can provide a profile for an individual person and that's it.

 

[Chris_Halkides]

hydrogen peroxide and sodium hypochlorite

Would bleach have an effect on white blood cells, since the it's the iron in red blood that bleach reacts to, and luminol and TMB both use hydrogen peroxide (a bleach) in the procedure to test for blood, and have little effect on any subsequent DNA tests?

Odeed,

Both hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) and bleach (sodium hypochlorite; NaOCl) are oxidants, but they are not the same substance. Bleach is relatively nonspecific as an oxidant. It also kills many kinds of cells (bacteria, for example). These facts and others lead me to believe that bleach would destroy white blood cells.

 

[LondonJohn]

Would bleach have an effect on white blood cells, since the it's the iron in red blood that bleach reacts to, and luminol and TMB both use hydrogen peroxide (a bleach) in the procedure to test for blood, and have little effect on any subsequent DNA tests?

Yes it would. Bleach attacks red blood cells in different ways - it breaks down the metalloprotein chains in haemoglobin molcules, and oxidises the iron. But it attacks white blood cells by denaturing other proteins in these cells (including DNA and RNA). So, to put it simply, hypochlorite-based bleach "destroys" both white and red blood cells, but in slightly different ways.

Incidentally, you're correct to say that hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) is sometimes used as an oxidising agent in TMB, PhTh and other presumptive tests. However, it's only applied in trace amounts to the sample - at concentrations which are not usually capable of denaturing protein molecules (but which are sufficient to cause chemiluminescence).

 

[Chris_Halkides]

She split the sample

Oh, for crying out loud...there was no blood detected on the knife because there was no organic material left to test for blood. Dr Stefanoni removed all the present organic material to test for DNA. After she performed the DNA test, then she tested for blood...on a blade from which she'd already removed all organic material. And that's irrelevant anyway, since the confirmation test for blood is DNA testing..which is the first test she did. But, that only works above LCN level and there was only enough material for LCN. It's impossible to determine the nature of cells (what type of cells they are, blood or whatever) via LCN testing. LCN will only provide a profile, or not. In this case it did...Meredith's.

It's all in that report which you haven't read.

If Stefanoni actually did what you said, she would be incompetent. If one actually took all of the biological material first for DNA testing, then there would be nothing left and the blood test would be meaningless. However, she split the sample, according to Perugia-Shock.“So she said O la va o la spacca, make it or break it, and took a 20% of it to test it for blood: negative. The test failed but Dr Patrizia wasn't discouraged and she took what remained, about 20 microliters, she dried it to 10 and tested it for DNA.”

On a different subject, one follow-up test to luminol for blood is the Kastle-Meyer test, which is more specific.

 

[LondonJohn]

That's because 'most' presumptive blood tests are less sensitive then DNA tests (the exception is luminol, since that detects the iron, rather then DNA which may be negligible), and those that aren't are no good alone since they are only presumptive. DNA tests are the confirmation tests for blood. But if there's only enough material for LCN DNA testing, that's not enough to confirm blood or any other type of biological material...LCN can provide a profile for an individual person and that's it.

All chemiluminescence-based presumptive blood tests work by detecting the presence of iron (haemoglobin, to be more accurate). And the well-established forensic protocol is that all samples are presumptive-tested for blood first (unless they are from fire-damaged crime scenes). Only if this presumptive test shows a positive should the sample be submitted for DNA identification testing. LCN-levels have nothing to do with it.

 

[Kestrel]

And the requirement to scale a sheer eleven foot wall and gain entry via window covered with closed external shutters in full view of the main road and anyone entering the cottage drive all starting from a sloping piece of ground is hardly an 'opportunity' is it? And opportunity for what anyway...what would have been the perceived pay off? It sounds like a huge amount of effort and risk for...what? What was the treasure? What was the gold at the end of the rainbow that drove such determination? Why was the cottage all of a sudden the most eligible house in Perugia to warrant such exploits? What was wrong with all the others? Someone tell me.

Nobody has ever provided an answer to this basic question...what made the cottage so special to the exclusion of everywhere else?

The cottage was empty. It's what makes any house a target for burglars.

You also claim that the shutters were closed at the time of entry. Filomena's testimony indicated she didn't really remember if she closed the shutters. Even if she had, they didn't close properly, could not be latched and could easily be opened from the outside.