Continuation - Discussion of the Amanda Knox case

[RoseMontague]

The prosecution also writes a story as if recounting an incident that really happened. They should have said it simply was not possible and admitted they made a huge mistake.

There's a HUGE difference Rose. It is the prosecution's job to create a scenario for the court which, to them, fits the evidence and they can have no way of knowing the whole truth of what happened in all it's intricacies. This is what happens in trials. It is the sole job of an innocent person to refute evidence against himself, not tie it up in a nice neat little package incriminating himself with falsehoods and relaying them as truth. If you are innocent you don't write stories explaining why the evidence is correct ie: 'yes Merediith's DNA is on the knife and it is there because I pricked her once with that knife' knowing full well the story is complete rubbish. He lied to explain away why the DNA was there instead of saying 'hey, that's impossible'. Plus he wasn't under duress, it was his own journal.

The main job of the prosecution (in my opinion) is the search for justice and to ensure the public safety. Meredith's DNA was not on the knife. The complete rubbish starts with the prosecution's initial garbage. The motive and method of this scenario they have invented is a pile of horseradish and the physical evidence is a mountain of lard.

It is not the job of the prosecution to invent half-baked toe-suckers out of a banana cart-wheel. It is not the job of the prosecution to send innocent people to prison on such flimsy, filmy, fantastical forkers of foolery.

 

[RoseMontague]

I am new to this discussion, and I freely admit that people here are better informed than me - some of the threads about access to the broken window have left me far behind.

I started taking an interest in this only after the conviction of Amanda and Raffaele; so I picked up the details sporadically, often from snippets on the numerous discussion boards on news items. As soon as it became clear to me that Amanda and Raffaele came to the attention of the police at the murder scene when the victim was discovered, I was convinced that it was a frame-up. I know of too many other cases where police have built a dodgy case against the first people they have come across, and then made it stick in court essentially by getting their assertions treated as fact.

In this case everything I have read since has confirmed that first impression. Key to me is the behaviour of the Perugia police and the conduct of the investigation; it seems that they:

1. announced at the start that they didn't need any evidence to know that the pair were guilty;
2. interviewed Amanda for an excessive amount of time without safeguards;
3. gathered, handled and analysed evidence improperly;
4. leaked distorted information to the media.

On the other hand, there are numerous claims that the 2 of them "lied and changed their stories", and that Amanda "accused an innocent man". Is there any basis for these stories that is independent of the Perugia police? This isn't meant as a rhetorical question - I would like to know how to respond to posters who repeat these claims.

My other question is that I've read in some blogs that the police took Amanda's laptop and wrecked the hard drive (suggesting that they were deliberately destroying evidence). Is this true? (I haven't been able to find confirmation of it in the Injustice in Perugia website or elsewhere.)

Finally, is there an easily-downloadable version of the judges' motivation report in English translation? I have asked this elsewhere and been pointed to various sources, which aren't really easy to use.

Raffaele's appeal covers the issue with the laptops and the lack of a satisfactory explanation for the damage as well as some lack of expertise on the part of the police expert in determining what files could be found on Raffaele's laptop.

The link provided to you earlier is an image pdf which is difficult to work with for translation. I have the Motivations in an easier downloadable format on my docstoc page as well as rough Google translations. The appeals in Italian are available for download as well and they are pretty easy to use for a machine translation. PMF is working on a human translation of the Massei report and will probably finish before the end of the year.

http://www.docstoc.com/profile/rosemontague

 

[Dan O.]

Why is it irrelevant? Isn't it the scenario you are proposing, that Rudy stood on the planter, leaned way over and opened the shutters, got down to throw the rock and then back to the top of the planter to lean way over again, hang by his fingers with a foot on top of the lower window casing and somehow from this position extending his arm through the hole of broken glass to open the latch, open the window and hoist himself up and through the window?
Isn't this the scenario you proposed a page or so back?????

Your ability to turn anything into an outrageous straw man is amazing. Please go back and read what I posted.

 

[JREF2010]

Originally Posted by quadraginta
I have seen nothing convincing yet to suggest that a burglar would choose Filomena's window as a preferred means of entry, and more than a little that he would not. We have as at least one given that the burglar had no reluctance to force entry, and quite noisily as well. Why would one decide against the easy access of windows and, even better, patio doors at a convenient height, and instead choose to indulge in acrobatics on the single most publicly exposed side of the building?




Filomeans room leaves a lot of unanswered questions.

There are a few points that I think a burglar could have chosen Filomenas window.

One is the well hidden area below Filomenas window might be enticing.

Second is the Micheli report.

>As for the window, she remembers to have certainly closed the windows, but probably leaving the shutters open: but can not be hundred percent sure, without both fully closed, since the set on the left met resistance on the sill due to a swelling of the wood.

Her memory was no longer accurate, since she considered to have certainly opened the shutters in the morning needing light to change (while not having stayed home, but with her boyfriend, then left from there to reach him who was celebrating his birthday), but was then removed in a hurry because she was already late
>

A third possible reason to believe it possible to enter through the upper window, is other places in Perugia had been recently broken into through an upper floor window.

Fourth reason, the picture posted here recently of the broken glass showing the layering of the paint chips to the glass shards on the sill was interesting.

Fifth possible reason is the window wasn't that hard to climb at all.
Many people seem to view climbing this window as similar to a skyscraper, when in reality it was climbed quickly, during a walk through of the cottage for Raffaeles legal team. And as the picture shows the climber has three more footings to make entry even easier.

I have a more difficult time imagining the broken glass "jumping" to the window sill, instead of logically falling to the floor.
As in the scenario where the glass was broken with the window opened inward to the bedroom and hit with a rock, as Massei interpreted the scene, it would mean the stager picked up the pieces of glass and perfectly layered them in the order the glass and wood chips would naturally fall.

 

[RoseMontague]

Christiana,

I believe that one of Sollecito's family members first pointed out that the shoe print had the wrong number of rings to be from his shoe. I don't have a citation in front of me, so maybe someone else can help.

The improvised parade happened on 6 November, and one resident of the city said that the only time he could recall anything similar was when a mafia leader was arrested. This is discussed in Murder in Italy. By the time the clasp was collected, Amanda's photo had been hanging in Rome in the LE offices for roughly a month. These actions, along with the police leaks, were (to say the least) unhelpful toward the forensic police maintaining the appearance of objectivity, IMHO.

Mt reading of Raffaelles's appeal relates an incident where his family was robbed and one of the investigators was quoted in the "waste books" as saying ("I'm glad, too little") pg 125/126 of Raffaele's appeal.

 

[Dan O.]

Finally, is there an easily-downloadable version of the judges' motivation report in English translation? I have asked this elsewhere and been pointed to various sources, which aren't really easy to use.

I put copies of a couple of the judges reports up on Google Translator Toolkit. The translation is mostly by google with some sections cleaned up by hand. If you send me a PM with your google account name, I'll send you an invite to those documents.

 

[quadraginta]

As I stated before, Filomena's window is on the side of the cottage away from the nearest streetlight. At night it is in the shadows. Trees on that side of the house block the view from most sections of the road. Someone driving past on the road would have to look sideways at the right time to see a person climbing into the window.

Describing it as the single most publicly exposed side of the building is simply false.

This is a screencap of the Google Streetview of the side of the house with Filomena's window.


It does not appear to be particularly obscured or difficult to see from traffic. Someone driving eastbound "would have to look sideways" to miss it.

The balcony is not only lit by the nearby streetlamp, it's also positioned almost directly ahead for cars traveling South on the road. Headlights of cars will light up anyone on the balcony.

In post #3283 you offered this Google Streetview while arguing the same point with Fulcanelli.


Thank you for the link. It prompted me to investigate more closely.

This is a Google Earth overview of the road. The little camera icons reflect the locations of the Streetview captures.



The icon farthest to the right is the one you linked to. The one farthest to the left is the one I linked to above.

It should be noted that not only is the location you chose a couple of hundred feet away, but also the headlights of any westbound traffic (I'm assuming that's what you meant by south) would not "light up anyone on the balcony" as you claim. A car at that location isn't even pointed at the house.

Two captures farther west is the last view of the deck before it is completely obscured by trees. It looks like this.


Visibility is not improving. Neither is the line-up of headlights.

The next capture which can even show the house at all is this one.



Not much good for deck views.

I'm sorry, but using the tools which you provided in your post to Fulcanelli I am not able to concur with the description you offer of the conditions there.

And as Dan O. pointed out, anyone standing on the balcony breaking a window or forcing patio doors has no place to hide if someone in the cottage should suddenly wake up and turn on the lights.

And?

So they run away. I see no functional difference between getting caught in the process of climbing through a second floor window, or getting caught fleeing over the side of the deck.

Regardless of this, your argument is based on the premiss that any burglar would have to choose the route you decided is optimal. A rather astounding leap of logic.

My argument is not "based on the premiss that any burglar would have to choose" anything at all. It is based on my opinion that he would be more likely to.

What is particularly astounding about that?

But apparently you have to keep pretending that Rudy, who has a history of entering buildings where he doesn't belong via windows, could not possibly have entered the cottage via a window. For the prosecution conspiracy theory to hold, he must have been let in by Amanda.

I pretend nothing of the sort. Based on what I have gleaned from these discussions I find the likelihood that the "break-in" was fabricated to be very persuasive. Prosecution theories aside, I think it is likely that he was let in by someone.

 

[Charlie Wilkes]

_______________________

Thanks for the link.

This also from the same article:

"This led him to produce the Gudjonsson Suggestibility Scales (GSS), which are now used throughout the world when the issue of false confessions arises."
So if it's not malice, and not mental pathology, that led to Amanda's confession/accusation, is it then her "suggestibility"? If true why hasn't she been given this test? If that is the explanation you'd think her defense attorneys would be offering such evidence of the fact. Or maybe she was given the test, but her attorneys didn't like the results????

///

If you are trying to argue that research on false confessions has narrowed the phenomenon to specific mental conditions or personality types, I would suggest you need to read further.

 

[Charlie Wilkes]

Why is it irrelevant? Isn't it the scenario you are proposing, that Rudy stood on the planter, leaned way over and opened the shutters, got down to throw the rock and then back to the top of the planter to lean way over again, hang by his fingers with a foot on top of the lower window casing and somehow from this position extending his arm through the hole of broken glass to open the latch, open the window and hoist himself up and through the window?
Isn't this the scenario you proposed a page or so back?????

My thesis is that the outside shutters were already open, he pitched the rock while standing on the other side of the retaining wall, and then he stood on the planter and grabbed the overhanging roof to swing across to the ledge.

 

[Danceme]

The main job of the prosecution (in my opinion) is the search for justice and to ensure the public safety. Meredith's DNA was not on the knife. The complete rubbish starts with the prosecution's initial garbage. The motive and method of this scenario they have invented is a pile of horseradish and the physical evidence is a mountain of lard.

It is not the job of the prosecution to invent half-baked toe-suckers out of a banana cart-wheel. It is not the job of the prosecution to send innocent people to prison on such flimsy, filmy, fantastical forkers of foolery.

It certainly was, didn't you see the charts? The only point of contention is how it got there.

Your ability to turn anything into an outrageous straw man is amazing. Please go back and read what I posted.

I did. This is what you wrote;

"The evidence is all consistent with an entry through Fillomina's window without climbing up from below including scuffing where he would have slid across the edge of the porch and abrasion on the rock where the ball of his right foot would pivot. It's just a quick swing out holding onto the the planter to open the shutter, and back to fetch the rock. With no climbing, the left hand is free to hold the rock while smashing the window although a toss from the opposite bank is equally viable. There is even abrasion visible on top of the lower window casing where the left foot would have found support. Even if entry wasn't gained through that window, someone certainly tried."

I mistakenly said from top of the planter where you indicate holding on to it. You proposed a scenario where someone accesses the window from the porch area, whether from in front of or on the planter is irrelevant. It is a scenario wherein the intruder does not scale the wall but swings or leans out from the porch area. Same points apply. Hardly a strawman!

 

[quadraginta]

<snip>

Fifth possible reason is the window wasn't that hard to climb at all.
Many people seem to view climbing this window as similar to a skyscraper, when in reality it was climbed quickly, during a walk through of the cottage for Raffaeles legal team. And as the picture shows the climber has three more footings to make entry even easier.

<snip>

Are you suggesting that standing on tiptoe underneath the window, plastered flat against the wall is the equivalent of climbing through it? If not perhaps you could share the images you have found of a legal team actually climbing in the window.

A moot point regardless, since no one I have read in these threads has ever claimed that it was impossible, or even incredibly difficult to climb through the window, just that the likelihood of doing it without leaving any signs of having done so behind is vanishingly small.

 

[Kestrel]

I have a more difficult time imagining the broken glass "jumping" to the window sill, instead of logically falling to the floor.
As in the scenario where the glass was broken with the window opened inward to the bedroom and hit with a rock, as Massei interpreted the scene, it would mean the stager picked up the pieces of glass and perfectly layered them in the order the glass and wood chips would naturally fall.

The prosecution conspiracy theory states that the window was broken from the inside while the exterior shutters were closed. But if you look at the broken glass on the window sill, there is evidence that the window was closed when it was broken. There is no glass on the sill where the closed window would have been.

To get that effect, the prosecutions stagers either had to either leave the window closed or move lots of small pieces of glass to replicate the effect after breaking the window in the open position.

In either case, they also have to catch and place lots of small pieces of glass to produce the scattered pattern we see all the way across the floor of Filomena's room.

How long do you think it would take to do that? *

The alternative theory is much simpler. The rock was thrown from the outside and the glass flew in the same general direction of the rock in keeping with the standard rules of Newtonian Physics.

* Remember that the prosecution conspiracy theory claims that before the Postal Police showed up, they also:

1. Went to a villa down the road to discard Meredith's cell phones.
2. Went to the store to buy cleaning supplies.
3. Did a magical cleanup of trace DNA evidence and fingerprints in the murder room. Removing only evidence pointing to Amanda or Raffaele and leaving evidence pointing to Rudy.
4. Took one knife used in the murder back to Raffaele's flat.
5. Hid all the cleaning supplies, the clothes and shoes they wore during the murder, Meredith's keys, credit cards and the second knife in some location that remains a mystery to this day.

 

[Kestrel]

Google street view of a spot where the car headlights will be pointed directly at the balcony. Step forward in Google street view and you will see the the balcony is clearly in view for several steps. Turn around when you are past the cottage and look back for Filomena's window. It's in the view of only one camera position. Visible for a moment to a driver going the other direction, but at no point directly ahead in the drivers view.

 

[Dan O.]

The fact remains that Filomena's window is the viable means for the intruder to have entered the cottage on the night Meredith was murdered. The entire "staged breakin" was invented after the fact by the prosecution with no hard evidence to back it up.

The prosecution claims that their was no glass on the ground outside below the window. If this is as damning as they claim, where are the photographs documenting that. We know that the investigators were in the downstairs yard on that side of the house. But what were they really investigating while smoking on their cigarette and yapping on the cell phone?

The prosecution claims that there were no signs of anyone climbing that wall. Again, where are the prosecutions photographs? The photo we got from the defense clearly shows that there was a recent assault on that wall that resulted in chipping a couple of bricks that appeared to have had nails in them. The prosecution points to the one remaining nail and says "look that's proof that nobody climbed the wall".

The guilty proponents have further attempted to present distractions. They've so far claimed that Rudy would have kicked open the front door (which happens to be triple bolted), entered through an alternate window like the one to the kitchen from the back deck or even chosen a different apartment entirely.

There could be thousands of such distractions and if were necessary to discuss and dismiss each one in turn, there could never be any progress in understanding the truth of what happened that night. I suggest that we ignore these fantasy based distractions and get back to discussing what did happen and showing real evidence that backs it up.

 

[Chris_Halkides]

Shoeprint contested

Chris,

I do understand that to be the case with regards to the shoes that were taken from Raffaele, however, the police probably assumed he wasn't limited to owning one pair of shoes (I don't know how many shoes were taken from Raffaele). It wasn't until later in the investigation/Rudy's interrogation that the shoe print could be assigned to Rudy rather than Raffaele. I might be wrong with regards to my timeline, however, I don't believe the police were trying to fabricate evidence to keep Raffaele in prison.

I don't want to assign ulterior motives to the forensic police without questioning and knowing why something was done. Why was a photo of Amanda hanging in the Rome offices? Were not the tests done on the clasp after December 18? The results of those tests were attributed to Raffaele, not Amanda. So the photo didn't influence those results against Amanda.

I also, don't believe the forensic police were influenced by the hoopla surrounding the case or because they were corrupt and wanted to get Amanda at all costs. I do realize corruption can exist in law enforcement, however, I don't believe that to be the case in this matter.

Christiana,

I believe that Dr. Giobbi had the photograph put up. I think of Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito as a package deal (so did the ILE from what I gather). Evidence against one is essentially evidence against the other. With respect to the footprint, the arguments from Raffaele’s lawyers began no later than the hearing on the 30th of November.

I was careful to focus on the appearance of objectivity for the simple reason that I cannot be certain what the forensic police were thinking. What is striking, however, is that the police missed some obvious problems with assigning the bloody shoeprint to Raffaele. If this were the only such problem, I might not give it great significance, but this seems to be one more example of investigatorial tunnel-vision.

From the 30 November 2007 hearing, “Mr Sollecito’s lawyers, Marco Brusco and Luca Maori, also contested evidence against their client, saying the footprint found in Ms Kercher’s blood did not match his Nike trainers.”

From Candace Dempsey’s Murder in Italy, pp. 252-253, “Now the twenty-one-year-old Annamaria had come up with the clever idea of counting and measuring the circles on the sole of the bloody footprint, using a compass. The footprint had eleven; Raffaele's Airforce-1 Nikes, only seven.

An expert they'd hired, Francisco Vinci, knew that the police had found an empty shoebox in Rudy's apartment that had once contained Nike Outbreak 2's. So Raffaele's uncle, Giuseppe, went out and purchased that shoe model. The family was thrilled to see that the circles on the bottom of that brand matched the famed footprint, meaning Rudy had probably been the person who hovered over Meredith's bed while she was dying.

‘We had to defend the image of a good boy, portrayed as a monster,’ Raffaele's aunt Sara told Panorama, an Italian magazine. They'd rejoiced, she said, when they found the correct shoe. ‘We thought it was all over. The girls were crying. My husband said, with his eyes to heaven, 'God exists.'’

This new development forced Rudy to come clean on May 15, 2008. In a face-to-face with prosecutor Mignini, he finally admitted, ‘I wore those shoes. That footprint is probably mine.’ He also admitted that he'd dumped the bloody shoes in Germany, where he'd earlier admitted to discarding his bloody pants.”

 

[Charlie Wilkes]

Based on what I have gleaned from these discussions I find the likelihood that the "break-in" was fabricated to be very persuasive. Prosecution theories aside, I think it is likely that he was let in by someone.

The "most likely" test founders on the question of why Amanda and Raffaele didn't stay away from the crime scene until someone else found the body. That is the obvious course of action if they wanted to divert suspicion.

 

[RWVBWL]

<snip>Her memory was no longer accurate, since she considered to have certainly opened the shutters in the morning needing light to change (while not having stayed home, but with her boyfriend, then left from there to reach him who was celebrating his birthday), but was then removed in a hurry because she was already late
<snip>

_________________________________________________________________

Hi JREF2010 and the other posters here,
I read your post, JREF2010, a moment ago and it rang a bell about something I had always considered odd.

According to Candace Dempsey's book "Murder in Italy", Amanda Knox went home around 10:30am on Nov. 1st to use her shower. Meredith's door was closed, and Amanda assumed she was sleeping. After showering, Amanda got dressed and started getting ready to make lunch.
Filomena dropped by their shared apartment around 12:30pm with her boyfriend Marco. She asked Amanda to help her wrap a birthday present for Luca, since Marco was, (as I am too), all thumbs when it comes to wrapping presents.
After Amanda helped her wrap it, Filomena rushed off with her boyfriend Marco. A bit later, Meredith, whom I had read had a late Halloween night out until approx. 5:30am that same day, (probably woke up), and came out of her room...

What has always struck me as odd was how Amanda Knox can wrap a birthday present for another housemate and friend and yet a few hours later is supposed to have taken a huge kitchen knife that she carried around town for "protection", and in 1 of the most brutal, personal ways you can kill a person, thrust this knife into another of her housemate and friend's neck, doing so while in the company of her 1 week old boyfriend and another guy, who was practicily a stranger in comparrison to her boyfriend. And this other guy also raped her housemate while they watched?!?

This prosecution "theory", which involved the same young woman who earlier had helped wrap a birthday present for 1 friend, and then hours later helps murder another friend, in her own residence, is so far fetched that it STILL boggles my mind.
Hmmm...
RWVBWL

PS-As I too had always thought that it was strange that Amanda Knox was supposedly carrying around town a huge kitchen knife in her purse for
"protection", I wondered why didn't she just carry "Pepper Spray", as many gal pals I know do?
Reading this interview yesterday with writer Wendy Murray,

http://wendymurraywritersblog.blogspot.com/2010/07/today-marks-23rd-birthday-of-amanda.html

Amanda's step-dad Chris Mellas mentions that he did give her Pepper Spray that she kept on a keychain. That makes A LOT more sense to me than carrying around some HUGE kitchen knife to protect one's self, don't you think?!?
Funny that I've never seen this "Pepper Spray" mentioned for use by Amanda Knox for personal protection though, instead of that big ol' knife. More character assassination of AK once again...

 

[Fine]

PS-As I too had always thought that it was strange that Amanda Knox was supposedly carrying around town a huge kitchen knife in her purse for
"protection", I wondered why didn't she just carry "Pepper Spray", as many gal pals I know do?
Reading this interview yesterday with writer Wendy Murray,

http://wendymurraywritersblog.blogspot.com/2010/07/today-marks-23rd-birthday-of-amanda.html

Amanda's step-dad Chris Mellas mentions that he did give her Pepper Spray that she kept on a keychain. That makes A LOT more sense to me than carrying around some HUGE kitchen knife to protect one's self, don't you think?!?
Funny that I've never seen this "Pepper Spray" mentioned for use by Amanda Knox for personal protection though, instead of that big ol' knife. More character assassination of AK once again...

____________________

Yeah, well Chris Mellas says Amanda kept that can of pepper spray on her key ring, but how would Chris know? He wasn't there. Amanda may have told Chris this just to "humor him." Or maybe Amanda said no such thing, and Chris is being less than honest.

It ain't always such a brilliant idea to be packing a can of pepper spray for one's personal protection, or for any other purpose. Chris doesn't say explicitly when he gave Amanda the pepper spray, but if that happened while she lived in Seattle and she carried it there.......she would have done so illegally and been subject to arrest. This is true in many jurisdictions around the world. The same is, perhaps, true in Perugia, which would be strong incentive not to carry the can of pepper spray.

///

 

[Charlie Wilkes]

This prosecution "theory", which involved the same young woman who earlier had helped wrap a birthday present for 1 friend, and then hours later helps murder another friend, in her own residence, is so far fetched that it STILL boggles my mind.

Obviously it makes no sense whatever.

When this first happened, I thought all these people were low-life druggies and Amanda Knox must be a really weird, screwed-up chick. But she's not. She's a completely innocent young woman who got caught up in this through no fault of her own.

 

[LondonJohn]

Christiana,

I believe that Dr. Giobbi had the photograph put up. I think of Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito as a package deal (so did the ILE from what I gather). Evidence against one is essentially evidence against the other. With respect to the footprint, the arguments from Raffaele’s lawyers began no later than the hearing on the 30th of November.

I was careful to focus on the appearance of objectivity for the simple reason that I cannot be certain what the forensic police were thinking. What is striking, however, is that the police missed some obvious problems with assigning the bloody shoeprint to Raffaele. If this were the only such problem, I might not give it great significance, but this seems to be one more example of investigatorial tunnel-vision.

From the 30 November 2007 hearing, “Mr Sollecito’s lawyers, Marco Brusco and Luca Maori, also contested evidence against their client, saying the footprint found in Ms Kercher’s blood did not match his Nike trainers.”

From Candace Dempsey’s Murder in Italy, pp. 252-253, “Now the twenty-one-year-old Annamaria had come up with the clever idea of counting and measuring the circles on the sole of the bloody footprint, using a compass. The footprint had eleven; Raffaele's Airforce-1 Nikes, only seven.

An expert they'd hired, Francisco Vinci, knew that the police had found an empty shoebox in Rudy's apartment that had once contained Nike Outbreak 2's. So Raffaele's uncle, Giuseppe, went out and purchased that shoe model. The family was thrilled to see that the circles on the bottom of that brand matched the famed footprint, meaning Rudy had probably been the person who hovered over Meredith's bed while she was dying.

‘We had to defend the image of a good boy, portrayed as a monster,’ Raffaele's aunt Sara told Panorama, an Italian magazine. They'd rejoiced, she said, when they found the correct shoe. ‘We thought it was all over. The girls were crying. My husband said, with his eyes to heaven, 'God exists.'’

This new development forced Rudy to come clean on May 15, 2008. In a face-to-face with prosecutor Mignini, he finally admitted, ‘I wore those shoes. That footprint is probably mine.’ He also admitted that he'd dumped the bloody shoes in Germany, where he'd earlier admitted to discarding his bloody pants.”

Exactly. All the available evidence and testimony suggests strongly that the police believed the shoeprint in Meredith's room to have come from Sollecito's Airforce-1 trainers. It's therefore not the case at all that the police hadn't made what they thought was a positive match between the shoeprints and a specific shoe of Sollecito's.

With that in mind, it's astonishing incompetence (probably driven by "scenario fulfillment" rather than corruption) that the police couldn't spot the difference between the shoeprint and the actual sole of Sollecito's shoe. The fact that it took a relative of Sollecito's to show the police how incompetent they were is further indication of the slipshod forensic work in this case.

I am not suggesting that the police and prosecution were necessarily corrupt or malevolent in their pursuit of Knox and Sollecito. But I am suggesting that they might have been so driven by an urge to "solve" a high-profile murder case (coupled with a desire to "prove" their hypothesis that it was a group killing involving Knox and Sollecito) that this coloured the way in which they collected, analysed and interpreted evidence.