Continuation - Discussion of the Amanda Knox case

[katy_did]

Is that the end of the year 2010 or 2011?

LJ, I think it's very unfair of you to put undue pressure on the translators by trying to narrow it down to a specific year.

 

[LondonJohn]

OK, next time I get a hickey I am totally describing it like that. In fact I may even get one deliberately just so I can describe it like that.

(Not to mention that this implies that you get a lot of hickeys: I'm impressed hehe)

 

[LondonJohn]

According to Bruce Fisher's website Amanda and Raffaele assumed the Postal Police were the Carabinieri responding to Raffaele's call. Why would they assume the Postal Police were the Carabinieri if the Postal Police were in plain clothes?

No idea. But the postal police were not wearing uniform, and were driving an unmarked car. The only reason I can think of is that the two men introduced themselves as "police officers", and Knox/Sollecito put 2 and 2 together (since Sollecito had just called the Carabinieri and they had promised to send officers to the house).

 

[Kevinfay]

Hi Kevin, do you have a link to what Laura and Filomena said about it?

Katy, thoughtful on PMF translated the tapes of the trial. Its all there.

Incidentally, I've said that, for me, Filomena and Laura are very good witnesses .... Holomani, Nara, Antonio, Quintovalle; I just ignored their testimony in forming my view after the testimony. You don't need these witnesses to believe that all three convicted were at the scene.

The other very good witness seems to be Alessandra Formica, who said she saw a North African 'definately not Guede' running near the scene of the crime. Her testimony is 'inconvienient' ... doesn't help either the prosecution or defense theories ... but still credible?

Oh, BTW Katy, do you know how to edit a post on this board? I can't put right typos in my posts .. thanks

 

[katy_did]

The prosecution keeps pushing the Time of Death later to match testimony from unreliable witnesses. It is like forcing a square peg into a round hole. After they finally get that thing in there with a sledge hammer, they step back and say, see it all fits so perfectly. Take away the miracle ear lady hearing the scream and the whacked according to me on the park bench and you have a mountain of evidence pointing to a time of death between 9pm and 10pm.

Completely agree. All the objective evidence points to a time of death between 9 and 10. The only reason the prosecution pushed it later is because it's difficult to fit Amanda and Raffaele being guilty into that timeline. So rather than look at the evidence to determine the time of the attack, the Court just looked for a time when they could've done it!

It does seem like the issue of timing is going to be a very big issue in the appeal. The main issues seem to be:

• a time of death estimated by the coroner of between 2-3 hours after Meredith began her last meal. That would make the approximate timing from 20.30-22.00.
• lack of any 'normal' activity on Meredith's cell phones that night, though she usually sent quite a lot of SMSs in the evening.
• lack of activity on her computer (well OK, not an established fact as yet, but I'm gonna go out on a limb and say that if the defence are allowed to try and recover the data from her laptop, they'll find that's the case! Another sterling effort from the award-winning police, there).
• a series of strange, aborted phone calls on Meredith's phone between 20.56 and 22.13. No record of any similar activity on her phone previously. The 22.13 call connected with a cell phone tower her phone had never connected with before, which is more compatible with the area in which the phone was found than with the cottage. Incredible that, in a crime in which a girl is murdered and her cell phones stolen, the Court concludes that strange activity on her phone that night is due to her idly 'playing with her phone'...
• three people outside the cottage from 22.30 to 23.30 saw no lights on, heard no noise, and saw no one entering or leaving the cottage gate. Despite being right outside, they didn't hear Nara's famous double-glazing piercing scream.
• Rudy's own story of arriving at the cottage around 20.30, and leaving some time between 22.00-22.30. Why would he lie about that? He only risked being caught out. I suspect he realized he may have been caught on CCTV/seen by witnesses, so made up a story that fit around the time he was actually there.
• Activity on Raffaele's computer at 21.26: a media file lasting about 20 minutes. If he/they watched it, they can't have left the flat before 21.46 - just 12 minutes before the strange phone call at 21.58. Even if for some reason they didn't watch it, they still couldn't have been at the cottage before about 21.36, just over 20 minutes before the phone call. I don't think a jury will believe they ran home, stabbed Meredith, and left again just before the broken down car people arrived at about 22.30. There has to be a period of drink/drugs first - and this timeline just doesn't allow for that.

I might have missed other evidence pointing to an attack of between 21.00-22.00. IMO Marco 'they filmed me secretly' Quintavalle and 'according to me' are pretty well out of the picture now (though if the Court accepts Curatolo again, he does give Knox and Sollecito an alibi!). Along with Nara 'only in the movies' Capezzali.

 

[LondonJohn]

Shall we have our own hilariously ill-informed discussion on here about hard drug use, and its possible contribution to the crime? Perhaps Sollecito and Knox were high on coke or crack - ah but then sexual desire would be reduced, so....nope. Ooooh: perhaps they were high on LSD....ah but that produces a solitary feeling of separate psychosis, which is not conducive to a group crime, so no again. Perhaps we can go really overboard and claim they were high on PCP, meth, ecstasy, whatever we can think of really. Ketamine? Magic mushroom tea? Fentanyl lollipops?

Let's disregard the small matter that no evidence of any controlled drug use outside cannabis/hash has ever been shown - we can hide behind mysterious unnamed "sources" for all sorts of lurid claims. Let's also gloss over the small matter that no such harder drug use was claimed in court by either side (i.e. either in mitigation by the defence, or as part of the motive narrative by the prosecution). Let's pretend that this was actually a very clever move by the prosecution! Oh, and let's also ignore the well-documented fact that most people under the age of 30 regard cannabis/hash as an extremely soft drug on a par with tobacco and alcohol, and view its use as an acceptable "bending" of the law, but this same cohort generally view the use of harder drugs as "crossing to the other side of the line".

 

[Antony]

Antony,

It was the prosecution who brought the case, not the police.

What point are you making? The blurring of roles was one of the striking aspects of this case. From the beginning, with the public announcement from the police chief Edgardo Giobbi that he didn't need evidence to know that Amanda was guilty, the police set out to fix the evidence around their initial conclusion. The prosecutor Giuliano Mignini was allowed effectively to direct the "investigation".

Have you read the motivations? the judges, lay and professional, rejected large parts of the prosecution case.

This odd aspect of the case is well-known. The prosecution lost the case; yet Amanda and Raffaele were still found guilty. Since the judges didn't agree with the prosecution's piece of fiction unsupported by evidence, they should have dismissed the case (it should never have been brought). Instead, they wrote their own bit of fiction unsupported by evidence.

Do you really believe that the whole Italian state was out to get AK and RS?.

Of course not; but the police, and more importantly, the judge, were demonstrably on the side of the prosecution.

And in reply to your other post:

Where do you get all this Police Brutality stuff from?

It's right here, in your post which I quoted in my previous message:

Last year the police union said in the press that they would back the charges against Knox and her family, especially since it is a high profile case and they were sick of having there members being accused of brutality as part of so many defenses.

Back to your latest post:

Do you know that the prison Knox is in is like a holiday camp compared with the brutal US prison system.

We're talking about wrongful conviction here, not conditions in prison. I wouldn't in any case defend US justice, which locks up a higher proportion of their population than any other country, and executes more people than any country other than China.

Who compared the Italian Police to those Stalinist Russia?

Stalinist Russia used quasi-legal processes to suppress criticism of the state. The current action against Amanda and her parents, merely for complaining about her treatment by police, falls into this category. It's frustrating for me that this point appears obscure to you.

 

[Kestrel]

I think (but I might be wrong) that the coroner identified pizza as the main meal, and that this was the meal that showed 2-3 hours' digestion. I believe that some apple product might have been found in her oesophagus, implying that she had consumed it quite shortly before her death (less than an hour). But I would welcome clarification on this from anyone who has firmer information.

From the Massei Report, pg 109:

Now, from the autopsy dr. Lalli noted with regard to this aspect as follows: "... esophagus containing a fragment apparently a piece of plant-fungus' (p. 46) ... ... stomach containing 500 cc bolus alimentare 500 cc green brown which were recognizable caseous (mozzarella?) and plant fibers ... empty duodenum, small intestine containing digested material at the latest twists ... "(pp. 47 and 48 of the report).

 

[LondonJohn]

From the Massei Report, pg 109:

Ah thanks, Kestrel. My (limited) knowledge of the human digestive system leads me to infer the following from the autopsy report: There was partially-broken-down food in the stomach, recognisable as constituent parts of the Pizza Meredith ate at 18.00-18.30. The stomach acids and enzymes typically convert food to uniform-consistency chyme between 40 minutes (minimum) and 3 hours (maximum), with a norm for a healthy young adult of 90 mins to 150 mins.

Since there was still only partially-digested food (cheese matter, plant matter) in the stomach, this means that death almost certainly occurred within 2 to 3 hours (maximum) of the consumption of this meal. And we know that Meredith ate this meal some time between 18.00 and 18.30. So this puts the time of death at somewhere between 20.30 and 21.30. Maximum.

I think the autopsy tells us more still. The lack of chyme in the duodenum and the beginning of the small intestine means that no food had passed out of the stomach in the previous few hours. This lends far more weight to the opinion that the 18.00-18.30 pizza (apparently Meredith's only solid food since around Midday that day) was still being broken down in her stomach at the time of death. This in turn further supports a time of death of 20.30-21.30.

 

[katy_did]

Katy, thoughtful on PMF translated the tapes of the trial. Its all there.

Incidentally, I've said that, for me, Filomena and Laura are very good witnesses .... Holomani, Nara, Antonio, Quintovalle; I just ignored their testimony in forming my view after the testimony. You don't need these witnesses to believe that all three convicted were at the scene.

The other very good witness seems to be Alessandra Formica, who said she saw a North African 'definately not Guede' running near the scene of the crime. Her testimony is 'inconvienient' ... doesn't help either the prosecution or defense theories ... but still credible?

Oh, BTW Katy, do you know how to edit a post on this board? I can't put right typos in my posts .. thanks

I know Thoughtful translated Amanda's testimony, but I don't think she translated Filomena or Laura's testimony. I did a quick search for articles on Laura's testimony and found this one: apparently Laura mentioned the mark to police 10 months later, and described it as a 'vertical scratch'. She agreed it was the same one as seen in the police pictures. I don't think Filomena mentioned it at all...?

I was also trying to remember if Massei mentions it; I don't recall anything about it, though it's been a while since I read the report. If not, then the jury obviously accepted it was a sucking contusion rather than a knife wound.

I agree that Alexandra Formica is one of the (few!) reliable witnesses in the case, though as you say, not particularly helpful to either side. I'd add the people who found the phones, and the group outside the house in the broken down car (the fact they saw and heard nothing out of the ordinary and there's no mention of olive throwing knife wielding double-glazing shattering screams is reassuring!).

As for editing posts, that's a bit tricky with the thread on moderation. If your post gets approved quickly enough you should be able to edit straight away, but if it takes a while the 'edit' option stops being available. If/when the thread stops being moderated it's easy enough to edit it immediately after posting.

 

[LondonJohn]

Seeing as some people seem to be feigning strange self-righteous anger today (over a case in which they know neither the victim, any of the victim's family, any of the (currently) convicted parties, any of the lawyers, any of the jurors, or anyone actually connected with the case in any way), I thought I'd jump on the bandwagon:

Oooohhhhhh, I'm really really annoyed and angry about people's refusal to accept that all the shoeprints made on the pillow were from a Nike Outbreak 2 tennis shoe - as worn by Rudy Guede on the night of the murder. They were not from any shoes owned by Amanda Knox, and nor were they from Sollecito's Air Force 1 trainers.

And quite how it's possible to compare the bloody prints on the pillowcase with a photograph of Guede's sole without utilising some sort of photo editing software to superimpose one over the other is quite beyond my comprehension. Should it be similarly unacceptable for an electronic microphone to be used in a courtroom to amplify and record the words spoken, for fear that the intervention of an electronic device might willfully distort and change the words? Or perhaps photocopiers should be banned in the courts process, for fear that the copy might contain different text from the original?

 

[quadraginta]

Is that the end of the year 2010 or 2011?

LJ, I think it's very unfair of you to put undue pressure on the translators by trying to narrow it down to a specific year.

Do we have any firm release dates for all the other groups who have undertaken to do a thorough job on their own dime and turn over the results to the public for free?

 

[Kevin_Lowe]

Please explain how, if he "touched" Amanda with the knife, her DNA was not found on it? You really expect anyone to believe Amanda just happened to have Meredith's DNA on that particular place on her hand and when the knife touched that particular place only Meredith's DNA was transferred?

Even if anyone was inclined to believe this fiction, the incident happened while they were cooking together. If it was Amanda he was cooking with it makes logical sense that she would have washed her hands first, thus removing any foreign DNA.

In one way it's a clever double bind: You present RS with evidence which is incredibly difficult to explain if he's innocent (but which is easily explained by police incompetence or misconduct). Then when he tries to come up with an explanation of this "evidence", you declare him guilty because his explanation sucks.

However it's only clever if you are trying to jack up reasons to believe RS is guilty. If you're trying to get to the truth, it's very stupid indeed. The reason that the DNA result is evidence in the first place is that it's not easily explainable.

It has nothing to do with mythology and you have debunked nothing. This is the English version of the paragraph from his diary:

​

​

I suppose I should thank you for posting that, since it confirms exactly what I said. However since you're taking an antagonistic stance I'm puzzled as to what your intent was in posting it.​

 

[Alt+F4]

The other very good witness seems to be Alessandra Formica, who said she saw a North African 'definately not Guede' running near the scene of the crime. Her testimony is 'inconvienient' ... doesn't help either the prosecution or defense theories ... but still credible?

How did Ms. Formica know the person she saw was a "North African"? How does one distinguish a North African from a person from Southern Africa? How did she know he wasn't an African-American or a native born Italian?

 

[RoseMontague]

Katy, thoughtful on PMF translated the tapes of the trial. Its all there.

Incidentally, I've said that, for me, Filomena and Laura are very good witnesses .... Holomani, Nara, Antonio, Quintovalle; I just ignored their testimony in forming my view after the testimony. You don't need these witnesses to believe that all three convicted were at the scene.

The other very good witness seems to be Alessandra Formica, who said she saw a North African 'definately not Guede' running near the scene of the crime. Her testimony is 'inconvienient' ... doesn't help either the prosecution or defense theories ... but still credible?

Oh, BTW Katy, do you know how to edit a post on this board? I can't put right typos in my posts .. thanks

Thoughtful is a good translator and seems a fair minded person with a lot of common sense, but that would be a monster task for even a team of translators. Do you have a link?

 

[Kestrel]

Completely agree. All the objective evidence points to a time of death between 9 and 10. The only reason the prosecution pushed it later is because it's difficult to fit Amanda and Raffaele being guilty into that timeline. So rather than look at the evidence to determine the time of the attack, the Court just looked for a time when they could've done it!

The best explanation for the evidence Rudy left in the toilet is that he was in the bathroom when Meredith arrived home shortly after 9 PM. The problem for the prosecution is that Amanda and Raffaele were still watching a movie at that time, so Rudy had to have let himself into the cottage.

There is something else odd about the prosecution testimony about time of death. They say death occurred at 11 PM with an error of only a half hour each way. The problem is that the methods they used to determine the time of death are not precise enough to for only a one hour window.

 

[christianahannah]

I seem to remember (both from Massei and from reading the appeals) that it's the start of the meal that's important in terms of working out time of death. Something to do with that marking the beginning of the digestion process. Not sure of the exact biological details of it, though!

I am also not sure of the exact biological details (I am still working on my BA in science), however, would it not seem if you eat something a bit later that could be considered a new start of the meal?

 

[Kevinfay]

How did Ms. Formica know the person she saw was a "North African"? How does one distinguish a North African from a person from Southern Africa? How did she know he wasn't an African-American or a native born Italian?

A North African looks very different from a person from central Africa (not southern Africa) she saw him very close up, the important thing is that she was sure it wasn't Guede who is jet black. There was some speculation that it could have been 'Knox's buddy 'Shakey' but he disappeared, this has never been followed up.

Your question seems to miss the point. Shouldn't the defense follow this up on appeal? It is the appeal that will decide the fate of the convicted.

 

[Kevinfay]

Thoughtful is a good translator and seems a fair minded person with a lot of common sense, but that would be a monster task for even a team of translators. Do you have a link?

Rose, yes, if anything thoughful was too fair minded. Normally, the tapes became available in the evening after each day of testimony. The translation was done fairly quickly, thoughfull would work overnight. There was talk of indexing it, but I think she got upset about something before it was done and 'downed tools'. The best way to get at this material would seem to be using the search facility on PMF?.

There were also very good interviews with Filomena, Laura and Alessandra outside the court immediately after they testified.

 

[LondonJohn]

Do we have any firm release dates for all the other groups who have undertaken to do a thorough job on their own dime and turn over the results to the public for free?

I agree that these heroic efforts of egalitarian altruism are truly outstanding. They will, in addition, clearly give this group the moral high ground in the discussion of the case. And it's certainly not as if we can discuss the case intelligently without knowing what the judicial panel thought about the evidence, is it?

By the way, any luck with those Corbin locks where the key mechanism controls both the deadbolt and the spring latch?