Continuation - Discussion of the Amanda Knox case

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Everyone, I think, would agree that the murder took place sometime between 9:15 and midnight. Does the exact time have any significance in the case?

It's pretty much fundamental to the prosecution case that Rudy, Raffaele and Amanda had to have spent a fair chunk of time in drug-fuelled, sexy shenanigans at Amanda's house which got out of hand and led to Meredith's murder.

If Meredith was killed around 9pm there's no coherent prosecution narrative that gets Amanda and Raffaele from an evening in at Raffaele's place (where the evidence says they were at that time) over to Amanda's in time for them to have committed the unpremeditated murder of Meredith as part of a sex romp gone wrong.

Nobody that I know of has even tried to make the case that Meredith's murder was a well-planned military-style operation where the three of them synchronised watches, set a video running, sprinted to Meredith's house and killed her as soon as they got in the door.

Although I wouldn't put it past the PMF crowd to shift to that story if the weight of evidence for an early time of death piled up too high. After all, once you've swallowed the whale of the existing prosecution narrative about a three-way sex murder, a perfect cleanup, a staged burglary that miraculously fits Rudy's M.O. and so on, you don't need to get your mouth open much wider to swallow the additional strangeness of a motiveless, premeditated murder on a tight timetable committed by three people who don't know each other and who never communicated with each other.
 
What appears to have happened is that Sollecito was told by the police that Meredith's DNA was found on his kitchen knife, and this proved with absolute certainty that the Knife had been in direct contact with Meredith.

RS did not hear about this information from the police. It was from a television news story that he learned the police said that MK's DNA was found on the knife. Since it came from a television news story, it proved nothing with absolute certainty. He was under no pressure to respond to the news story, yet he choose too. He lied.

If one takes the position that Sollecito was not culpable, then one can quickly see how this would cause a huge internal conflict

Again, no. If it was you John, an innocent person, wouldn't you just say it was impossible? Why would there be a "huge internal conflict", the police were just 100% wrong, why make up a lie about it?

This to me is far more indicative of Sollecito's naivete and deference to authority figures than it is of his culpability. It's much the same as when Sollecito naively agreed with the police that he could not say with certainty that Knox remained in his apartment for the entire night of the 1st/2nd November, since he himself was asleep for many hours.

They had been dating a week/10 day, about? He must have known if she had keys to his apartment or had access to his. This again ties into my previous post regarding the fact that RS seems to be somewhat illiterate, or was suffering that evening from a hazy memory due to drug use.
 
Every single shoe print belonged to Rudy Guede. When proof is shown, it is written off, and said to be not that important.

Bruce, were there any any shoe prints of RG (or of anyone else) found in the other three women's rooms? Thanks in advance.
 
The attempts to overlook the evidence when it comes to the shoe prints in Meredith's room is very telling. This behavior shows that there is no search for truth. The evidence is very clear.

Ok, but I think the attempts to overlook the evidence when it comes to the blood in the bathroom is very telling. The photographs, the Postal Police, Filomena and her friends all agreed that there was very little blood in the bathroom, yet both AK (in her call to Filomena) and RS (in his call to the Carabiniere) said there was a lot of blood. The evidence is very clear that they knew there was much blood....in MK's room.
 
There has been discussion that the shoe prints on the pillow have never been released. Charlie has posted this information on JREF in the past. Every shoe print in Meredith's room matched Rudy Guede.

Raffaele Sollecito's forensics expert Francesco Vinci showed in great detail, in court, that all of the shoe prints belong to Rudy Guede.

http://www.injusticeinperugia.org/Vinci.pdf

I don't see how it is possible that this print can be attributed to Amanda. However the Motivations report seems to take another path, implying that the print in question may be a combination of Amanda's bare footprint and Rudi's shoeprint. Perhaps I am reading this incorrectly based on the Google translation. If I am not, that would seem to me to be a bizarre way to interpret this evidence. Google and original Italian translation to follow.

Opposite view with respect to advice Bohemia is prof. Vinci technical consultant Raffaele Sollecito, who did a thorough study along with others from different object on the footprint of the 105 photos. The culmination of the advice Vinci is entirely different from that reached by the Scientific Police. In proposing to compare the image of the sole of his right shoe Nike Outbreak mod. 2 of Guede and enlarged the footprint found in it 105 on the pillow of Meredith (see table of the technical report), the consultant brings to 105 the footprint pattern of the sole of the shoe right of Guede.
The impression is thus left in the second co-defendant of the shod foot, just the right (Arquati elements are shown to correspond to homologous elements of the pattern on the front of the right shoe, because the effect abandoned the methodological approach that would bring the lab footprint in the mail towards the heel instead of the forefoot), resulting in exclusion from the crime scene the presence of a shared need a shoe that can fit small, to consider fully complete the footprint size 105. The Court, on the point, notes the opposite conclusion without expressing a particular option. It is not inconceivable that the pavement of the cushion resting on the ground was entirely the work of Guede with the exception of Knox (the smaller size footprint right foot could be explained by the characteristics of the surface sink, pillow, whose structure is not rigid and where the fabric of the pillowcase may have presented are not perfectly drawn but rather soft and results in folds), which in fact is credited to have moved mainly to the scene barefoot into account as part of the exhibition which takes reviews the genetic investigation of certain biological traces and fingerprints positive luminol.
(Pg353/354)

Di avviso contrario rispetto alla consulenza Boemia è il prof. Vinci consulente tecnico di Raffale Sollecito, il quale ha approfondito uno studio unitamente ad altri di differente oggetto, relativo all’impronta della foto 105. Il punto di arrivo della consulenza Vinci è del tutto diverso da quello raggiunto dalla Polizia Scientifica. Proponendo a confronto l’immagine della suola della scarpa destra Nike Outbreak mod. 2 del Guede e l’ingrandimento della impronta 105 repertata sul cuscino di Meredith (cfr. tavole della relazione tecnica) il consulente riconduce l’orma 105 al pattern della suola destra della scarpa del Guede.
L’impronta sarebbe dunque lasciata dal secondo piede calzato del coimputato, appunto il destro (gli elementi arquati sono indicati corrispondere agli omologhi elementi del pattern nella parte anteriore della calzatura destra, essendo per l’effetto abbandonato l’approccio metodologico della Scientifica che vorrebbe ricondurre l’impronta alla parte posta verso il tacco anziché a quella dell’avampiede) con il risultato di escludere dalla scena del delitto la presenza di un compartecipe che possa calzare una scarpa necessariamente di piccola taglia, a considerare del tutto complete le dimensioni dell’impronta 105. La Corte, sul punto, prende atto delle opposte conclusioni senza esprimere una particolare opzione. Non è infatti da escludere che il calpestio del cuscino appoggiato a terra sia stato opera interamente del Guede con esclusione della Knox (le più ridotte dimensioni dell’impronta di piede destro potrebbero spiegarsi con le caratteristiche della superficie di affondo, il cuscino, avente struttura non rigida e dove la stoffa della federa può essersi presentata non perfettamente tirata ma al contrario morbida e tale da determinare piegature), alla quale anzi si attribuisce di essersi mossa sulla scena del delitto essenzialmente a piedi scalzi, come da conto la parte della esposizione che prende in rassegna le indagini genetiche di talune tracce biologiche e le impronte luminol positive.
 
The attempts to overlook the evidence when it comes to the shoe prints in Meredith's room is very telling. This behavior shows that there is no search for truth. The evidence is very clear.

Every single shoe print belonged to Rudy Guede. When proof is shown, it is written off, and said to be not that important.

It was said that the shoe prints in the murder room had no bearing on the verdict. If that is the case then why has misinformation regarding the shoe prints been posted on the internet thousands of times?

The thousands of posts your refer to is what has mainly been posted on message boards and forums by commenters. While interesting, these posts can include misinformation (or not) and are not part of the court record or motivations (that I am aware of).

If it is shown in the motivations that a contested footprint was attributed to Amanda and that information was used in the jurors' verdict of guilty against her, this would carry much greater weight than what is written on a blog or message board.
 
The attempts to overlook the evidence when it comes to the shoe prints in Meredith's room is very telling. This behavior shows that there is no search for truth. The evidence is very clear.

Yes, it does appear that rather than a strategy of searching for truth the police followed a plan of digging for proof.

Another example of this is Meredith's cell phone traffic the night of the murder. There was a mms call received from a mast that Meredith's phone had not gotten one previously. The police consultants tested the area of Meredith's flat and the area where the cellphones were recovered. It appears that this particular tower could cover Meredith's flat but is not a strong signal and had not covered an incoming or outgoing call from that area before. The area where the phones were recovered is not covered by this particular mast (30064).

The defense had the insane idea of testing an area between these two points and wham pow-eureka found that this mast (30064) covered an area between the two masts that covered the flat and the dumping of phones area. Meaning at 22:13 the phone was most likely on the way to the point where it was dumped and Meredith was already dead sometime previous to this. This kind of search for truth is missing from the investigation and the judges tend to explain away the parts that do not fit. It sounds like such a simple thing to do if you were truly looking for the truth.
 
"Heroic", "altruistic", "outstanding", or not they seem to be the only ones who have publicly undertaken the effort at all. I don't understand the point in constantly taking them to task for their rate of progress. Even more-so since the parties who seem to be most inclined to do that have already decided in advance to dismiss the product out of hand.

I've have absolutely no clue what "moral high ground" you are referring to.

It is quite obvious that there is no impediment to discussing the case in the absence of a comprehensive translation of the report. The nearly 20K posts on this board alone are certainly evidence of that. On that aspect we agree.

The quality of that discussion is more problematic, but unrelated to the status of the translation effort.




I've already made it quite clear that I am not inclined to further your education on locksets beyond the effort I have put forth. That effort has obviously fallen on deaf ears. Whether the deafness is willful or not I have no idea, but I am quite comfortable with the attempt I have made, one which is based on significant, 'hands-on', professional experience regarding the subject. (Not to mention Dan O's contributions to the topic.) If you are in need of continuing edification you will have to devote your own resources to the endeavor. (Self-study hint: It will require more than a cursory review of the catalog web pages of a big-box DIY store, or even the discovery of a single Corbin catalog.)

Does being a locksmith require a university/college degree these days then?
 
You are right John, I have never been to North Africa. Has Ms. Formica? Since I haven't been to North Africa I would not even attempt to say that a black man that I saw for maybe a minute was from North Africa.

What evidence do you have that Ms. Formica could distinguish the ethnic classification of any person of African descent? I suggest you do some basic research on that.

Your arguments are now entering the realms of pure nonsense. You might want to stop there.
 
RS did not hear about this information from the police. It was from a television news story that he learned the police said that MK's DNA was found on the knife. Since it came from a television news story, it proved nothing with absolute certainty. He was under no pressure to respond to the news story, yet he choose too. He lied.



Again, no. If it was you John, an innocent person, wouldn't you just say it was impossible? Why would there be a "huge internal conflict", the police were just 100% wrong, why make up a lie about it?



They had been dating a week/10 day, about? He must have known if she had keys to his apartment or had access to his. This again ties into my previous post regarding the fact that RS seems to be somewhat illiterate, or was suffering that evening from a hazy memory due to drug use.

Sorry? you think that it's right and proper that a person charged with murder hears about one of the more important pieces of evidence against them via a TV report, rather than via the police or the courts? I'm afraid you seem to know next to nothing about the dynamics of this case. And anyway, it wasn't impossible that Meredith's DNA got onto his kitchen knife via an innocent route - it was just wildly improbable. It appears that his conjecture in his diary was an ill-conceived attempt to explain the improbable. Only people with a closed mindset interpret what he wrote as a deliberate lie - if he had intended to mislead, he would have told this story directly to the police, not merely written it in his diary.
 
They had been dating a week/10 day, about? He must have known if she had keys to his apartment or had access to his. This again ties into my previous post regarding the fact that RS seems to be somewhat illiterate, or was suffering that evening from a hazy memory due to drug use.

What does Sollecito's literacy skill (or lack of) have to do with this? And similarly, what does Sollecito's knowledge about Knox's access to keys have to do with it? Ye olde straw man has made an unwelcome reappearance here, by the looks of it.

Basically, it looks to me as if Sollecito may have been tricked into admitting that he couldn't be certain that Knox had remained in his apartment all night, since he couldn't be certain of Knox's movements while he was sleeping. Are you suggesting that Sollecito was in the habit of hiding his keys from his girlfriend? Because, otherwise, the one part of the prosecutors' massively improbable scenario which does make sense is that Knox could have easily taken Sollecito's keys (from his trouser pocket or his table or wherever) and used them to let herself out of his apartment and back in again as Sollecito slept. Of course, in reality this didn't happen....but the police seemingly tricked a credulous Sollecito into admitting that he couldn't be 100% certain that it hadn't happened.
 
I found the discussion below from a commenter elsewhere. This is the first time I have heard that Rudy was studying law. Does anyone know whether this is true? How can he be studying law if he has not been to college.

“Sort of orphaned in a manner of speaking; half-abandoned; preferred playing video games instead of doing real stuff, like hard work; eating kebabs instead of lots of healthy food; scrounging off of his mates; looking for company; a passion for basketball; a good mover, so dancing is up his alley; a bit of a ladies' man (in his own estimation; and he's bettering himself while in prison, studying law and things. So, your typical youngster, in other words.”

Perhaps he's doing a distance learning course for paralegals via the College of Law, London...?
 
phone records

Yes, it does appear that rather than a strategy of searching for truth the police followed a plan of digging for proof.

Another example of this is Meredith's cell phone traffic the night of the murder. There was a mms call received from a mast that Meredith's phone had not gotten one previously. The police consultants tested the area of Meredith's flat and the area where the cellphones were recovered. It appears that this particular tower could cover Meredith's flat but is not a strong signal and had not covered an incoming or outgoing call from that area before. The area where the phones were recovered is not covered by this particular mast (30064).

The defense had the insane idea of testing an area between these two points and wham pow-eureka found that this mast (30064) covered an area between the two masts that covered the flat and the dumping of phones area. Meaning at 22:13 the phone was most likely on the way to the point where it was dumped and Meredith was already dead sometime previous to this. This kind of search for truth is missing from the investigation and the judges tend to explain away the parts that do not fit. It sounds like such a simple thing to do if you were truly looking for the truth.

This seems like a hugely important point, but this is the first time I have heard about it. Thanks, Rose.
 
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?

Drugs don't react the same in everyone and there is no evidence that either AK or RS sexually assulted MK.

Let's disregard the small matter that no evidence of any controlled drug use outside cannabis/hash has ever been shown

People have a tendency to not broadcast their illegal drug usage.

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".

I agree and again, if they were using drugs harder than weed they would have kept it secret.
 
Raffaele called 112, the Italian emergency number. Then waited in the cottage driveway for the police to show up. Two men walk up shortly after his call and introduce themselves as police Why would it be out of place for Amanda and Raffaele to assume they were responding to the 112 call?

1. The Carabinieri wear uniforms, Raffaele, of course knew this.
2. The timing. If I had just called the police and almost immediately afterwards two men, not in uniform, came to my door, no I wouldn't assume they were the police. BTW, what was the average response time for the Carabinieri to respond to an emergency call in Perguia in 2007?

The theory that you still seem stuck on is that Raffaele called 112 about 25 minutes after the Postal Police arrived. Showing them the broken window, the blood and the locked door would only take about 5 minutes. For your theory to be true, we have to assume the Postal Police did nothing during the next 20 minutes. That somehow Amanda and Raffaele managed to slip away and call the Carabinieri without being overheard by these officers who were just standing around.

Wrong. It's not "my theory" and I've said no such thing.
 
Ok, but I think the attempts to overlook the evidence when it comes to the blood in the bathroom is very telling. The photographs, the Postal Police, Filomena and her friends all agreed that there was very little blood in the bathroom, yet both AK (in her call to Filomena) and RS (in his call to the Carabiniere) said there was a lot of blood. The evidence is very clear that they knew there was much blood....in MK's room.

One of the Italian members on PMF a couple months back took the time to listen to Raf's 112 call and determined that the translation was incorrect and that he actually had said "there is some blood", not "a lot". Of course, this revelation went nearly unremarked after it was made, but some of us here certainly took notice.
 
RS did not hear about this information from the police. It was from a television news story that he learned the police said that MK's DNA was found on the knife. Since it came from a television news story, it proved nothing with absolute certainty. He was under no pressure to respond to the news story, yet he choose too. He lied.

What does it matter if it was on television? It was a news report where the source was the police. And no, it wasn't just this "report" that caused him to explain the DNA to himself, as his explanation is prefaced by this:

they are keeping me in jail because there is a kitchen knife with a
trace of Meredith's DNA.

So obviously it was quite an "official" piece of evidence and not something he could simply take as rumor.

And he didn't respond to it in the way you imply. He simply responded to himself in his personal diary about how the DNA could be on the knife.

I think what's crucial to understanding how Raffaele thought Meredith's DNA could have gotten on the knife is in reading the previous diary entry where he says this:

today I saw Tiziano who calmed me down: he told me
that the knife could not have been the murder weapon, according to the
legal doctor, and has nothing to do with anything as Amanda could take
it and and carry it from my house to her house because the girls
didn't have knife so, they are making a smokescreen for nothing

So two days later is when he writes about touching Amanda's hand with the knife, AFTER he has been told by someone else that Amanda could have taken the knife to her place to use it.

Again, no. If it was you John, an innocent person, wouldn't you just say it was impossible? Why would there be a "huge internal conflict", the police were just 100% wrong, why make up a lie about it?

DNA evidence is often regarded as infallible. And in fact, that notion seems to be supported by many on the guilty side who can't fathom LCN DNA as being in any way unreliable, despite its controversial history. So, is it any wonder that Raf took it as infallible proof that Meredith's DNA actually was on the knife? It would be like if he were told he was being held in prison because they had crystal clear imagery of him on video at the cottage on the night of the murder. Of course his response wouldn't be to say he wasn't there if he was staring at the footage with his own eyes.
Interesting, since claims of video tape evidence are what were used to convince Amanda that she had been there during the murder. And even more interesting when you consider that Amanda and Raffaele's two big "lies" were generated out of being told by police that there was infallible evidence placing them at the scene. Both pieces of evidence have since proven to either be completely false or highly dubious.
 
The attempts to overlook the evidence when it comes to the shoe prints in Meredith's room is very telling. This behavior shows that there is no search for truth. The evidence is very clear.

I've noticed this rather disingenuous behavior as well. What's rather striking to me is that over on PMF the members have flat out said that they "fear" Amanda and Raffaele's appeals will be successful. That seems completely hypocritical and counter-productive to someone who is "seeking the truth". It also furthers your point, Bruce, that those who believe in their guilt will continue to do so no matter if they are eventually proven innocent.
 
You are right John, I have never been to North Africa. Has Ms. Formica? Since I haven't been to North Africa I would not even attempt to say that a black man that I saw for maybe a minute was from North Africa.

What evidence do you have that Ms. Formica could distinguish the ethnic classification of any person of African descent? I suggest you do some basic research on that.

This is a rather weak argument from incredulity. Simply because you can't different between certain ethnicities is no evidence whatsoever that Ms. Formica could not, especially considering it was just explained to you that there is an obvious distinction.
 
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