Continuation - Discussion of the Amanda Knox case

[Dan O.]

Just for quick clarification: Is it true that neither Filomena nor Laura attended the vigil for Meredith on November 5th?

I'm not sure that they would have. That vigil was organized by Meredith friends at Merlins bar. I don't think Laura and Filomena were in that crowd but the boys downstairs might have been. I can find statements that they were there but these are always in conjunction with Amanda not being there and never with a shred of evidence.

According to Patrick's lawyer, Amanda refused to have anything to do with the vigil. Patrick may have tried to recruit Amanda into handing out the flyers. Amanda has been through three days of dealing with questions from the police about the murder. And she just got out of a class where even the teacher brought it up. The last thing Amanda would want to do is seek out strangers to tell them about Meredith.

 

[LiamG.]

It has been posted many times that Rudy ran right out the front door so there was no way that he could have stopped in the bathroom to cleanup, leaving the footprint on the bathmat.

If this was indeed the case, how did Rudy get the towels?

Well, as I understand it, that happened as follows. After the stabbing, Rudy came in contact with the blood with his hands and then panicked (see the bloody hand smears on the wall and on the wardrobe). That must have happened before he stepped into the blood as no bloody footprints leading towards wall/wardrobe. In his state of panick he went to the bathroom (or wherever the towels were located) grabbed them, returned to MK and tried to "help" her. That`s, when he stepped into the blood and obviously thought, that it would be better to flee the scene.

 

[katy_did]

It has been posted many times that Rudy ran right out the front door so there was no way that he could have stopped in the bathroom to cleanup, leaving the footprint on the bathmat.

If this was indeed the case, how did Rudy get the towels?

Indeed... I've never heard any explanation for that. Rudy knew about the blood-soaked towels when he was first arrested in Germany, saying he fetched a towel from the bathroom, it became soaked in blood, so he went to fetch another. Those aren't details that would've been reported in the press; Rudy couldn't have known about them unless he was the one to take them in there in the first place. His lawyers even wanted further tests done on the towels to detect his DNA, as some kind of further mitigating circumstances (the request was refused, because the blood saturation apparently made it impossible to test them).

So we can be pretty confident Rudy went into the small bathroom immediately after the attack, and we know he had blood on his hand(s). Yet somehow we're supposed to believe that he didn't leave any trace of blood in the bathroom, the blood was left by two people who would've had the entire night to clean it up...

 

[katy_did]

How curious. One would have thought that this might be quite an important piece of evidence: a lamp belonging to one of the suspects in a room with a locked door which contained the murder victim, with the flex of the lamp leading out under the door to the hallway. Did the police conduct a forensic examination of the lamp for DNA and/or fingerprints?

And I'd re-iterate once again, if the lamp was in that position before the door was broken down, I can't believe that none of the multiple concerned people looking at Meredith's bedroom door (and deciding whether to break it down or not) would notice it and find it unusual. Surely they would have testified to it in witness statements and/or in the trial?

Ah, the lamp! Yeah, as I've said before, I think there are only two things we can be sure of: (1) the lamp flex wasn't leading out into the corridor when the door was broken down, or, as you say, one of the eight people there at the time would've mentioned it; (2) in pictures taken later that day by the police, the flex is shown leading into the corridor, with the plug outside the door (unplugged).

Curious...

I remain semi-convinced that it wasn't in there at all when the door was broken down, but that one of the earliest police officers on the scene used it to light up the crime scene. I'll take a wild guess and say it could've been Battistelli (went back into the house on his own when he was talking to the Carabinieri on the phone, described the scene to them but said he stood at the door, witnesses said the room was dark...) Perhaps he unplugged it and left it near the door, and those he came after just assumed it was always there. When I was discussing this with Fulcanelli, he said that Battistelli would just have used Meredith's ceiling light. I was about to reply that any competent police officer would realize that using the light switch in a room where a girl had just been found murdered isn't the most sensible of ideas, but, erm, yeah.

Also curious is the way the prosecution used it as evidence, i.e. they didn't. The only time I think it was mentioned is during Amanda's testimony, when Mignini asks her if the lamp in Meredith's room was hers, and then asks if Raffaele tried to break down the door to get it back (Maresca also asked if she noticed it was missing). It's almost like he avoided asking if she took it in there in the first place...

 

[LondonJohn]

It has been posted many times that Rudy ran right out the front door so there was no way that he could have stopped in the bathroom to cleanup, leaving the footprint on the bathmat.

If this was indeed the case, how did Rudy get the towels?

I see that someone who claims to be a long-standing expert on this case wasn't even aware that bloody towels were found in Meredith's room. I wonder if he's also aware of Guede's testimony about getting the towels from the small bathroom and using them to "try to stem the blood flow"? In my view, Guede made this admission because he was worried that his DNA/prints might be found on the towels, and since they were found in the murder room he needed some form of semi-innocent explanation as to how that might be so.

To me (and others), it's perfectly plausible that Guede committed the murder, went to the small bathroom to clean blood off himself and retrieve towels, conducted a very rudimentary clean-up of Meredith's room, possibly then went to the front door to try to leave, found that he needed the keys, returned once again to Meredith's room, took her keys from her handbag (along with her phones and credit cards), stepped in Meredith's blood on his final exit from her room, locked Meredith's door behind him, went down the hallway (leaving bloody footprints) and exited.

 

[katy_did]

I believe she is referring to the "contested" shoeprint on the pillow. Her interpretation of the passage makes more sense than mine. The court seemed to reluctantly acknowledge that it was Rudy"s print because Amanda was probably barefoot which would fit more with their theory somehow. Meaning the fact that the police were wrong only confirmed the court's version (LOL).

Hopefully we will get that long awaited translation maybe even tonight and will be better able to make sense of it. In general, I believe her point that the court did not put much if any weight on this possibly being Amanda's print is correct.

Yeah, it does seem to be a very churlish acknowledgment that it's just possible the police were wrong, but that this only makes the suspects more guilty anyway (a bit like the 112 call, where Massei acknowledges the police error 'in parentheses', as Raffaele's defence team complains, then somehow twists that around to be evidence against him too!). I think the reason the paragraph is muddled in Google is because it's a bit convoluted in the original. In the absence of any sign of the one and only official translation, here's my understanding of the relevant sentences:

On this point, the Court takes note of the opposite conclusions without committing itself to a particular one. It is not, in fact, out of the question that the footsteps on the pillow on the floor were all made by Guede and none by Knox (the smaller dimensions of the right footprint may be explained by the characteristics of the surface, the pillow having a non-rigid structure, and where the material of the pillowcase may not have been pulled perfectly taut but was, rather, loose, and this led to folds in the material) who in fact is considered to have been moving around the crime scene barefoot.

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

 

[RoseMontague]

It has been posted many times that Rudy ran right out the front door so there was no way that he could have stopped in the bathroom to cleanup, leaving the footprint on the bathmat.

If this was indeed the case, how did Rudy get the towels?

According to Rudy's Motivation document he said he got them from the bathroom.

 

[RoseMontague]

Forgot to include quote (Google translated)

and noticing Cutting the wound to Meredith's neck, try to patch the wound with a towel in the bathroom but, but, as blood flowed, took - another, he realized that Meredith tried to speak but could only understand the word " AF "did not call the doctor because, because of-all that blood was totally confused, then, having experienced the noise, probably coming from the apartment below and left the house while he went out

http://www.docstoc.com/docs/39951657/Rudy-Motivation-Document_2_

 

[Chris_Halkides]

Rafaelle's lawyers at the Supreme Court

There are too many indicators presented by the prosecution, debated by the defence teams, and judged upon, to ignore Amanda's direct participation in both the sexual assault and murder of Meredith Kercher.

These include but are not limited to:

- Raffaele told the Italian courts that he should not be held responsible for actions taken by Amanda.
- Amanda's lamp was inside Meredith's locked room.
- Amanda's DNA was on the knife also containing Meredith's DNA.

Stilicho,

One cannot date when DNA was deposited. Therefore, Amanda's DNA on the kitchen knife is strictly meaningless. She used the knife to cook, and that would be expected to deposit her DNA.

Are you referring to what Raffaele's lawyers said to the Supreme Court in your first point? Please clarify this if I am wrong. But the lawyers said it was an "erroneous assumption" that Amanda and Raffaele were together the night of the murder, not that it was an "erroneous belief." An erroneous belief is an error in fact, but an erroneous assumption means to proceed as if an argument has been given when it has not. In other words the latter is concerned with the act of assuming, not with the truth or falsehood of the thing being assumed.

Now that you have returned, perhaps you could attend to my other comment(s) directed at you. And if you run into BobTheDonkey, would you be so good as to tell him that there may be one or two comments for him as well. Thank you.

 

[Chris_Halkides]

lack of discovery

We established something else that is important. The Massei report's claim that smoking hashish, watching dirty movies and reading sexually explicit comic books led to AK and RS participation in the murder is completely ludicrous.

The links I posted concerning Dr. Hampikian during his stay in Ireland indicate that the files containing information about the DNA forensics were not given to the defense.

 

[el buscador]

It has been posted many times that Rudy ran right out the front door so there was no way that he could have stopped in the bathroom to cleanup, leaving the footprint on the bathmat.

If this was indeed the case, how did Rudy get the towels?

Did the prosecution ever claim that Amanda and Raffaele brought the towels into Meredith's room? Or that either one of them was responsible for the use of the towels? Rudy claimed he went into the small bathroom and got the towels, making two trips because the first towel was quickly saturated with blood so he went for a second towel. Were the towels being in Meredith's room attributed to Rudy in his trial?

 

[Bruce Fischer]

Raffaele's kitchen knife had nothing to do with Meredith's murder.

This point has been brought up but not addressed. The simple fact that Meredith's blood was not found on the handle of the knife proves that Amanda's DNA found on the handle was not deposited there at the time of the murder.


If Amanda's DNA was deposited on the knife handle during the attack, why wasn't any blood from Meredith found on the handle? If Amanda's DNA was deposited on the knife handle at the time of Meredith's death, Meredith's blood would have certainly been on the handle.

If you claim that the blood was cleaned off the handle then that cleaning process would have certainly cleaned off Amanda's DNA.

This fact proves that Amanda's DNA was deposited on the knife handle at another time. Most likely when she used the knife to prepare food in Raffaele's kitchen.

There is no logical scenario to connect Amanda's DNA on the handle with Meredith's murder.

 

[Jungle Jim]

The lamp's status of being on or off, Nov 2, made me curious after reading the Knox Appeal.

If we believe Rudy when he said the lamp was on and if we believe the tow truck driver stating lights were off, and possibly the police confirmed the lamp was off on Nov 2. Someone turned off the lamp light, it seems? who?

The window in Meredith's room does not face the street. Furthermore, if the window shutters were closed, then it is unlikely that anyone would have noticed the light from a small desk lamp emanating from the cottage.

As to the lamp Rudy said was on, is he talking about Meredith's lamp or Amanda's lamp? That is, was Amanda's lamp in Meredith's room before the murder? If not, when was it placed there?

 

[el buscador]

This is from rudy's diary: "Her mouth was full of blood and her neck was bleeding. Maybe that’s why she wasn’t able to say what she wanted to say. I tried to stop the blood. I took a towel from her bathroom, but in less than a minute it was all soaked. I took another, but it was no use."

 

[LiamG.]

I see that someone who claims to be a long-standing expert on this case wasn't even aware that bloody towels were found in Meredith's room. I wonder if he's also aware of Guede's testimony about getting the towels from the small bathroom and using them to "try to stem the blood flow"? In my view, Guede made this admission because he was worried that his DNA/prints might be found on the towels, and since they were found in the murder room he needed some form of semi-innocent explanation as to how that might be so.

To me (and others), it's perfectly plausible that Guede committed the murder, went to the small bathroom to clean blood off himself and retrieve towels, conducted a very rudimentary clean-up of Meredith's room, possibly then went to the front door to try to leave, found that he needed the keys, returned once again to Meredith's room, took her keys from her handbag (along with her phones and credit cards), stepped in Meredith's blood on his final exit from her room, locked Meredith's door behind him, went down the hallway (leaving bloody footprints) and exited.

Ehm, can you give me a plausible explanation, why, in your "version", RG took off not only his shoes but obviously also his socks and how he achieved, that his barefoot became soaked in blood from heel to toes?

 

[LondonJohn]

Raffaele's kitchen knife had nothing to do with Meredith's murder.

This point has been brought up but not addressed. The simple fact that Meredith's blood was not found on the handle of the knife proves that Amanda's DNA found on the handle was not deposited there at the time of the murder.


If Amanda's DNA was deposited on the knife handle during the attack, why wasn't any blood from Meredith found on the handle? If Amanda's DNA was deposited on the knife handle at the time of Meredith's death, Meredith's blood would have certainly been on the handle.

If you claim that the blood was cleaned off the handle then that cleaning process would have certainly cleaned off Amanda's DNA.

This fact proves that Amanda's DNA was deposited on the knife handle at another time. Most likely when she used the knife to prepare food in Raffaele's kitchen.

There is no logical scenario to connect Amanda's DNA on the handle with Meredith's murder.

I don't agree that a necessary corollary of Knox's DNA being on the kitchen knife handle is that Meredith's DNA should have been there too. After all, if Knox had been holding the knife by the handle, and had stabbed Meredith in such a way that the blade didn't fully penetrate the skin, then it's feasible that Knox's skin-cell DNA might be on the handle, with Meredith's blood DNA confined solely to the blade.

However........all of this is overridden by the fact that the knife tested negative for blood on the blade, and yet Meredith's DNA was apparently found there. This goes against every rule in the forensics handbook, and in fact points towards contamination (at least).

As has been pointed out many times previously, the knife blade would have been drenched in Meredith's blood during the attack (if it were indeed one of the murder weapons). So for the police to have found it in the condition it was found, it must have been cleaned extensively after the attack. The prosecution is claiming that this cleaning process was sufficient to remove all traces of Meredith's blood from the blade, but insufficient to remove very small traces of her DNA. Furthermore, the prosecution claims that bleach was used to clean the knife, yet we know that bleach would have denatured and broken down all DNA on the blade (as well as breaking down all red blood cells).

Plus, as you say, Knox's DNA on the knife handle is in no way probative towards her, since she had handled Sollecito's kitchen knife in the course of normal cooking/washing activities in his apartment. So the only thing linking the knife to the murder is the minute trace of Meredith's DNA on the blade, which is unreliable evidence to say the least.

The last piece in the puzzle is of course that the DNA lab was going way outside its competency in its quest to find Meredith's DNA, and ended up conducting LCN analysis under conditions of insufficient air sterility, in the absence of control samples or repeatability. I strongly believe that, for all these reasons, the kitchen knife evidence will be thrown out in the appeal.

 

[el buscador]

The keys to the boys downstairs doors were found inexplicably in Amanda's room, the lamp was missing from Amanda's room. Could there be a connection here? Rudy first tried to use the boy's keys to open the front door, when that didn't work he picked up Amanda's lamp, leaving the keys on the way back to Meredith's room. He used Amanda's lamp because he didn't want to move around the bloody bedroom to reach Meredith's lamp and didn't want to turn on the brighter overhead lights. Just a thought.

 

[el buscador]

Oops, forgot to add, Rudy went back to Meredith's room to find the right set of keys and needed to shed some more light on the situation, no pun intended.

One other thing. Rudy's bloody left shoe prints were found on the pillowcase under Meredith's body, correct? And it was bloody left shoe prints trailing down the hall, correct? So, Rudy stepped in blood with his left shoe before Meredith was pulled onto the pillow. Or, at least, his left bloody shoe came into contact with the pillowcase. Did all the blood get wiped off on the pillowcase and then he stepped again in blood with his left shoe before he left the room and trailed blood down the hall?

 

[LondonJohn]

Ah, the lamp! Yeah, as I've said before, I think there are only two things we can be sure of: (1) the lamp flex wasn't leading out into the corridor when the door was broken down, or, as you say, one of the eight people there at the time would've mentioned it; (2) in pictures taken later that day by the police, the flex is shown leading into the corridor, with the plug outside the door (unplugged).

Curious...

I remain semi-convinced that it wasn't in there at all when the door was broken down, but that one of the earliest police officers on the scene used it to light up the crime scene. I'll take a wild guess and say it could've been Battistelli (went back into the house on his own when he was talking to the Carabinieri on the phone, described the scene to them but said he stood at the door, witnesses said the room was dark...) Perhaps he unplugged it and left it near the door, and those he came after just assumed it was always there. When I was discussing this with Fulcanelli, he said that Battistelli would just have used Meredith's ceiling light. I was about to reply that any competent police officer would realize that using the light switch in a room where a girl had just been found murdered isn't the most sensible of ideas, but, erm, yeah.

Also curious is the way the prosecution used it as evidence, i.e. they didn't. The only time I think it was mentioned is during Amanda's testimony, when Mignini asks her if the lamp in Meredith's room was hers, and then asks if Raffaele tried to break down the door to get it back (Maresca also asked if she noticed it was missing). It's almost like he avoided asking if she took it in there in the first place...

I think your Battistelli theory makes a lot of sense, especially since we can now be pretty certain that he has a somewhat...ahem..."revisionist" view of his actions between 1pm and 2pm on the 2nd November.

And Mignini's line of questioning was, in my view, intended to plant in the jury's minds that 1) Knox's lamp was in Meredith's room, and 2) this might have been part of the motivation for Sollecito trying to break the door down - all without directly asking Knox if she had taken the lamp there herself. I suspect he was hoping that the jury might make that subliminal (but erroneous) connection themselves......

I wonder if the defence in the appeal will bring up Battistelli's seemingly improper activities at the crime scene? After all, what else might he have contaminated, then kept quiet about? It could be rather important.

 

[LondonJohn]

Ehm, can you give me a plausible explanation, why, in your "version", RG took off not only his shoes but obviously also his socks and how he achieved, that his barefoot became soaked in blood from heel to toes?

Well, firstly, I don't think that the bloody footprint on the bathmat was the result of the foot "soaked in blood". The actual print was very faint, whereas many of the crime scene photos show the print post-enhancement.

As to how it got there, it's quite possible that, for example, Guede got Meredith's blood on his trouser leg during the attack, as well as over his hands and his top. It's then possible that he took one or both of his tennis shoes off in order to wash the blood off his trousers (and his hands and top) using either the shower or the bidet. I suspect that he might have used the shower. And therefore a blood/water mix would have pooled in the shower pan (or the bidet). Guede could then have placed the sole of his foot into this blood/water mixture, and stepped onto the bathmat - thereby leaving the whole footprint trace in a weak mixture of blood and water.

At this point, I'll speculate further. I suspect that Guede might have realised that he needed to use one of the towels in the small bathroom to dry off his feet and hands. He may not have realised the probative value of the weak footprint on the mat, but might have cleaned up other blood/water drops from the tiled floor. Having soiled one of the towels, he might therefore have decided to take it into the murder room to soak it in Meredith's blood, in order to mask its original use.

All this time, his tennis shoes would have remained unsoiled - probably on the bathroom floor or in the hallway. I suspect that Guede put his shoes on just before his intended exit from the house via the door, but found the door locked. He therefore went back into Merdith's room wearing the shoes - during which time he moved Meredith's body (leaving the shoeprints on the pillowcase, and placing Meredith on top of the pillow), located and removed her keys from her handbag (together with the phones and credit cards), and inadvertently stepped in the now-pooling blood on the floor. He then tracked this blood out towards the front door.