Continuation - Discussion of the Amanda Knox case

[LondonJohn]

You got it exactly right this time LJ and I don't agree with random chance either. The blood on the light switch for instance, was found only on the top part of the actual switch, exactly where one would expect to find it if placed by "someone who regularly used the bathroom" as opposed to being found on the wall around the light switch if placed there by someone unfamiliar with the switch location who would have had to feel around in the dark to find it. Do you consider that "spinning the facts"? and if so, on whose part, yours or mine?

Sorry for my slow response to your post. I had thought that your parting question was rhetorical, but clearly I was mistaken.

So......in response to your point, you might be partially correct if the house was in complete darkness at the time that the light switch in the small bathroom was operated by whoever had Meredith's blood on their hands. However, I'd wager that there was some artificial light present - either coming from Meredith's room, which was right next to the door to the small bathroom, and/or from the lights in the hallway itself. So whoever was searching for the light switch would have had (in my opinion) enough ambient light to make out at least the outline of the switch against the wall. Therefore, it's not a great stretch to propose that even someone who was in the house for the first time would successfully locate the switch first time.

So, if you're asking me who's "spinning the facts" in this particular instance, I'd say that it was you.

Incidentally, just for the sake of completion, the portion of my post where I discussed the "spinning the facts" opinion set out by LiamG was truncated by you (for reasons of length, no doubt...). What I actually said, though, to place things in context, was as follows:

"Lastly, this is not a case of "spinning the facts" at all. It's a case of looking at the evidence and the prosecution's interpretation of the evidence, and seeking a plausible alternative explanation for this evidence. It's not incumbent upon the defence (or upon any people studying this case) to prove these alternative explanations in order to cast reasonable doubt on the prosecution's interpretations of the evidence. It is, however, incumbent upon the prosecution to provide proof beyond reasonable doubt of guilt, and this necessarily involves providing proof regarding key pieces of evidence. I don't think the prosecution has met its burden of proof with regard to the evidence in the small bathroom. But I respect your right to disagree. It will be interesting to see how the appeal court sees it."

Anyway, I hope this answers the question you put. Please let me know if you'd like further discussion on this issue (or other issues). By the way, a question of my own: Do you think that Knox was lying or telling the truth when she said in her statements of the 6th November that she was in the kitchen of the murder house, with her hands over her ears, while the murder was being committed?

 

[Malkmus]

quadraginta suggested that someone could have broken the window by putting their arm outside the open side of the window and hitting the closed window with the rock. This is not a logical scenario because the glass is seen on the floor as far as Filomena's nightstand. If the glass was broken as suggested by quadraginta, no glass would have been scattered on the floor. It all would have remained on the ledge or have fallen to the ground.

The evidence clearly shows that the window was broken from outside the room.

I also don't think that had it been broken the way Quadragnita stated that one would be able to get the amount of force to cause the dent in the wood of the shutter or send glass shards flying so fast that they would be embedded in the wood. I believe if someone reached around like that, it would have been a blunt blow to the glass with a lighter amount of impact than someone hurtling it from outside.

 

[Alt+F4]

He admitted that he could not be absolutely certain that Amanda hadn't snuck off while he was asleep. This is scarcely shocking stuff, unless you think it's normal for people to chain their girlfriends to the bed at night to stop them going off and murdering people, or for people to stay awake all night for the same reason.

He knew two things for certain. Did Amanda have keys to his apartment? Was his own keys where he left them when he went to bed? Has he clarified either point?

Perpetuating the claim that he did so is indicative of dishonesty or excessive partisanship, because his statement was ambiguous but taken in the context of everything everyone else has ever said the only logical interpretation was that he talked about accidentally touching Amanda's hand, not Meredith's.

Nope. Kevin, since you or I don't speak/read Italian you can't say with certainty that his statement was ambiguous (again, he seems to be barely literate in Italian). In addition, you have yet to explain how Amanda could transmit Meredith's DNA on to the knife blade, but not her own.

 

[Bruce Fischer]

A translation section of the Massei report that was recently posted on another forum shows what happens when the evidence you have to work with is very weak. Small details that are not incriminating in any way are exaggerated in an attempt to show otherwise. This is a perfect example of how a so called mountain of evidence is fabricated.

Amanda was worried about Meredith because of the observations she made in the cottage. The court states that there should have been no concern about the locked door because Amanda already stated that Meredith always locked her door.

Amanda's concern was not only in regard to the locked door. She was concerned because of what she had observed in the cottage plus the fact that Meredith was not responding. This is completely normal behavior.

The court believes it is suspicious that Amanda was more concerned than Filomena. Once again, this is an exaggeration. If you have a group of people, you will have different reactions to certain situations. Amanda was concerned by what she saw, Filomena had a different reaction: "Stupid Burglars"

When Battistelli and Marzi arrived, they were immediately taken into the cottage to be shown the observations that Amanda and Raffaele had made. They were obviously part of the conversation regarding Meredith's door because they didn't want to break the door down. Amanda and Raffaele were not hiding anything. They were more than willing to show the Postal Police what they observed.


The court also makes a big deal out of the fact that Amanda didn't mention every detail to Filomena in a phone call. This is another exaggeration that is not incriminating in any way.

I guess the court feels that Raffaele is guilty because he wasn't strong enough to break the door down.

Some would like you to believe that the Massei report is written in stone and cannot be refutted. The truth is, the report is Massei's interpretation of the evidence. Massei is wrong.


Translated section of the Massei report as posted on PMF:

Filomena Romanelli had ascertained from a quick check of her room, even though (it was) in a complete mess with the windowpane broken, that nothing was missing. Nonetheless, what Amanda had told her about the front door being found open, about the presence of blood stains found in the bathroom used by Amanda and Meredith, and about the discovery of the two mobile phones, created a worrisome situation, all the more so because there was no news about Meredith and the door of her room appeared to be locked.

This last circumstance, downplayed by Amanda, who said that even when she went to the bathroom for a shower Meredith always locked the door to her room (see declarations of Marco Zaroli, page 180, hearing of February 6, 2009 and declarations of Luca Altieri, page 218, hearing of February 6, 2009), had alarmed Ms Romanelli more. She said she was aware of only once, when she had returned to England and had been away for a few days, that Meredith
had locked the door of her room. (This circumstance was confirmed by Laura Mezzetti, page 6, hearing of February 14, 2009).

It was in this context, full of anxiety and concern, that the decision was made by the four young people – Filomena Romanelli, Paola Grande, Luca Altieri, Marco Zaroli - to break down the door of the room of Meredith Susanna Cara Kercher.

Nevertheless, with regard to this specific aspect – the locked door and the decision to break it down – some - to say the least - contradictory elements had emerged:
Amanda, as has already been reported, had stated that Meredith always locked the door to her room and therefore it was normal that it was locked; Raffaele Sollecito had tried to break down the door with a kick, thus putting in action behaviour which contradicted the normality of the locked door claimed by Amanda; strangely, however, he had not persisted in his effort to break down the door, which had suffered only a scratch, and notwithstanding that he had not been able to offer genuine resistance to a greater and effective determination – as is evidenced by the fact that Luca Altieri, a little later, had been able to force it with a kick and a blow from his shoulder – he had not tried again to force the door.

It must also be remembered that Amanda Knox, on this specific detail [19] in the e-mail sent on November 4, 2007 to 25 people in the US, after having referred to the chaos in Filomena’s room, the open window and the broken pane, continued in this way:
“I then went into the part of the house which Meredith and I shared and checked in my room whether anything was missing, and in fact nothing was missing. Then I knocked on Meredith’s door. At first I thought that she was sleeping and for this (reason) I knocked quietly, but then because nobody answered I started to knock repeatedly until I began to bang hard on the door while I was shouting her name. No reply. Panic stricken I ran to the terrace to see whether I could see something over the window sill, but I could not see inside.”

We will have an opportunity to return to this e-mail and other documents originating from Amanda Knox, as well as to her own statements made in the course of this debate.

Nonetheless, it appeared necessary to evidence, straight away, the attitude of panic affirmed in the e-mail referring to the locked door, which in contrast was completely lacking on the arrival of Ms Romanelli and the other young people. Furthermore, it does not appear that either one or the other said a thing to Battistelli and Marzi about this locked door – which apparently had occasioned such panic in Amanda –or about the (timid) attempt of Raffaele to break it down, when the two officers arrived at the house; nor was any reference made to it by Amanda during her phone conversations with Ms Romanelli.

 

[Charlie Wilkes]

I have no idea, and welcome any additions from other forumites. However the relevance to the murder is not clear to me.

This is another one of those points that involves a false premise. Comodi asked Amanda why she called her mother at noon, before she had called anyone else and before she was aware of the broken window. Amanda said she didn't remember.

In fact, the cell phone records show that Amanda did not call her mother until 12:47 - after she had spoken to Filomena four times, and after she and Raffaele had discovered the broken window.

This is like the measuring error in Rinaldi's footprint presentation... was it an honest mistake, or was it deliberate? Either way, it served the interests of the prosecution at the expense of the truth.

 

[Kevin_Lowe]

That "large kitchen knife" was not brought by Rudy. He found it on the premises. Where it was left.

Thanks for the correction, Fine.

This may have been true, but Rudy was also allegedly caught breaking into the home of Cristian Tramantano five weeks before the murder, again armed with a large knife.

Whether Rudy was in the habit of bringing his knives with him, acquiring them at the scene of his crimes, or both, his M.O. was of housebreaking while armed with a blade and thus it remains curious that the Perugia focused on Lumumba instead of a known local crook with a history of very similar crimes with very similar weapons.

It's also curious that the Milan police popped a criminal who had been caught red-handed stealing cash and a digital camera while in possession of a potentially lethal offensive weapon, who was then found to have additional stolen goods on his person from another break-in, straight back on a train to Perugia without charging him with anything.

It's quite frustrating that the English-language internet has so few details about these aspects of Guede's history: We've seen enough hilariously inaccurate reports of the Kercher case from other English news organs that taking uncited claims as fact is clearly premature. These are claims that confirmation bias inclines me to want to believe are accurate, because they make sense of later oddities about the investigation, but I guess we'll have to wait for the defence to make their case at the appeal before we get all the facts and can reach really solid conclusions.

 

[LondonJohn]

Thanks for the correction, Fine.

This may have been true, but Rudy was also allegedly caught breaking into the home of Cristian Tramantano five weeks before the murder, again armed with a large knife.

Whether Rudy was in the habit of bringing his knives with him, acquiring them at the scene of his crimes, or both, his M.O. was of housebreaking while armed with a blade and thus it remains curious that the Perugia focused on Lumumba instead of a known local crook with a history of very similar crimes with very similar weapons.

It's also curious that the Milan police popped a criminal who had been caught red-handed stealing cash and a digital camera while in possession of a potentially lethal offensive weapon, who was then found to have additional stolen goods on his person from another break-in, straight back on a train to Perugia without charging him with anything.

It's quite frustrating that the English-language internet has so few details about these aspects of Guede's history: We've seen enough hilariously inaccurate reports of the Kercher case from other English news organs that taking uncited claims as fact is clearly premature. These are claims that confirmation bias inclines me to want to believe are accurate, because they make sense of later oddities about the investigation, but I guess we'll have to wait for the defence to make their case at the appeal before we get all the facts and can reach really solid conclusions.

I'm not sure that the Perugia police investigating the Kercher murder should necessarily be blamed for not connecting Guede with the crime soon after it occurred. For one thing, I'm guessing that burglary and fencing were covered by a different set of detectives to murder, rape and robbery. And for another thing, although escalation from burglary to sexually-motivated murder is not unknown (indeed, it's what I think probably happened in this case), it's not often foremost in the minds of detectives investigating a murder case.

However, having said that, I do think that the police should have approached this crime in a very different way once they discovered that the fingerprints belonged to Guede. Unfortunately, they seem to have convinced themselves by that point of two crucial things: a) Knox and Sollecito were definitely heavily involved; and b) the break-in was staged. It's interesting to think how differently things might have turned out if Guede's prints had been matched on day one of the investigation.....

Also, as you say, the Milan police clearly behaved in a strange and seemingly improper way towards Guede after the Kindergarten incident. There are really only two possible explanations for this: either they were negligent in their duty (perhaps content to shoo Guede away from their patch, rather than bothering to apply the law properly), or they had information from other sources to treat Guede differently. I can't think of any other reasons why he might have been merely "told off" and sent on his merry way. Heck, he wasn't even brought up before a court to be told off in any way - despite there being a pretty cast-iron case for him having broken the law in several different non-trivial areas.

 

[Kestrel]

Kestrel said: "The interior shutter of the window in this case was damaged. Glass fibers imbedded in the damaged wood show us that the rock hit the window and then the interior shutter. The pattern of glass on the window sill shows us that the window itself was closed when it was broken. Combining these two facts, we know the window was broken by a rock thrown from outside the room."

This is exactly right. The evidence clearly shows that the rock was thrown form outside the room. This is not complicated. Any small pieces of glass that fell to the ground would have blended in with the yellow leaves that blanketed the ground. It would have been very small particles of glass. The investigators never photographed the ground. They have provided no proof showing that glass particles did not fall to the ground. A large majority of the glass including all of the larger pieces would have gone the direction of the rock, toward the room.

quadraginta suggested that someone could have broken the window by putting their arm outside the open side of the window and hitting the closed window with the rock. This is not a logical scenario because the glass is seen on the floor as far as Filomena's nightstand. If the glass was broken as suggested by quadraginta, no glass would have been scattered on the floor. It all would have remained on the ledge or have fallen to the ground.

The evidence clearly shows that the window was broken from outside the room.

Quadraginta's theory is rather odd. He starts with the idea that not finding glass on the grass below the window is proof that the window was broken from the inside to fake evidence for a burglary. Then he comes up with a theory that the window was broken from the outside by leaning out of the other window and hitting it from the outside with a rock held in a hand.

Quadraginta seems to believe believe that a thrown rock always sprays glass toward the impacting force, why does he believe that a rock held by hand will not do exactly the same?

 

[Alt+F4]

This is another one of those points that involves a false premise. Comodi asked Amanda why she called her mother at noon, before she had called anyone else and before she was aware of the broken window. Amanda said she didn't remember.

In fact, the cell phone records show that Amanda did not call her mother until 12:47 - after she had spoken to Filomena four times, and after she and Raffaele had discovered the broken window.

This is like the measuring error in Rinaldi's footprint presentation... was it an honest mistake, or was it deliberate? Either way, it served the interests of the prosecution at the expense of the truth.

How does when she called her mother serve the interests of the prosecution? If you are saying the truth is that she called Filomena four times, my question is why? Call her once, tell her what happened and ask her to come home.

 

[JREF2010]

Sorry for my slow response to your post. I had thought that your parting question was rhetorical, but clearly I was mistaken.

So......in response to your point, you might be partially correct if the house was in complete darkness at the time that the light switch in the small bathroom was operated by whoever had Meredith's blood on their hands. However, I'd wager that there was some artificial light present - either coming from Meredith's room, which was right next to the door to the small bathroom, and/or from the lights in the hallway itself. So whoever was searching for the light switch would have had (in my opinion) enough ambient light to make out at least the outline of the switch against the wall. Therefore, it's not a great stretch to propose that even someone who was in the house for the first time would successfully locate the switch first time.

This is a good example, the bathroom light-switch blood smear, where we have a person who admits he was in the blood, and admits he went into the bathroom after being in the blood, and there is proof he was in the blood and there are a few towels with blood on them that quantify this person's admission of this event and there is a small blood smear on the bathroom light switch, which to our knowledge this person hasn't admitted to.

Many would just accept that this blood smear is probably left by this same person.

Then there are others who try "too hard" to place someone else as the person who "could" have left the smear there.

One poster even tries "too hard" and mentioned that to have found the light switch it had to have been a long term resident! Again its trying "too hard" to place another person in a crime scene , imo. To find a light switch on a wall doesn't require you live there for months or years, does it?

With this same mentality , we could use Merediths purse evidence, the Kitchen knife lab work is another example of trying "too hard", the bloody footprint on the bathmat.

We can assume Rudy per the evidence took the things from the purse, or create some other theory without any proof.

We can find it suspicious the lab tried "too hard" on the knife, and if they had tested it as all the other evidence, it would have nothing found on it and no association to this crime.

The bathmat blot.
Rudy admits to his shoes being in blood, he admits to throwing away the tennis shoes with blood on them, his shoe prints proven by forensics, to quantify his own admission. He also admits he was in the bathroom and coming from the room with blood.

Who else has the evidence to logically be placed in the bathroom with blood on their feet?

 

[Alt+F4]

Amanda was worried about Meredith because of the observations she made in the cottage. The court states that there should have been no concern about the locked door because Amanda already stated that Meredith always locked her door.

A normal reaction would have been relief that the burglary didn't enter Meredith's room.

Amanda's concern was not only in regard to the locked door. She was concerned because of what she had observed in the cottage plus the fact that Meredith was not responding. This is completely normal behavior.

Amanda and Meredith were not lovers who kept constantly up with where the other one was. They were roommates for less than two months. Why would Amanda assume that Meredith was missing or something had happened to her when it was Amanda belief that Meredith always locked her door? The completely normal behavior would have been the belief that Meredith did not come that night. Didn't she have a new boyfriend? British friends in Perugia?

As for what was observed in the cottage, the Postal Police had such little worry about wrong-doing they were unwilling to break down the door.

The court believes it is suspicious that Amanda was more concerned than Filomena. Once again, this is an exaggeration. If you have a group of people, you will have different reactions to certain situations. Amanda was concerned by what she saw, Filomena had a different reaction: "Stupid Burglars"

Yet when Filomena's friend finally did break down the door, Amanda didn't even bother to look in the room. Where was all Amanda's concern then about what was behind that locked door? Then let's not forget all of Amanda's grief and outreach to Meredith's family. Oh that's right, there was none. Amanda was so worried about what had happened to Meredith up until the second the door was broken down. After that she didn't give a damn. She wanted to make sure the police found the body....on her terms.

When Battistelli and Marzi arrived, they were immediately taken into the cottage to be shown the observations that Amanda and Raffaele had made. They were obviously part of the conversation regarding Meredith's door because they didn't want to break the door down. Amanda and Raffaele were not hiding anything. They were more than willing to show the Postal Police what they observed.

They had no choice other than let the Postal Police in.

I guess the court feels that Raffaele is guilty because he wasn't strong enough to break the door down.

Again, what is wrong with Raffaele? He can barely speak or read Italian and if he did try to break down why couldn't he do it when another young man around his age could?

Some would like you to believe that the Massei report is written in stone and cannot be refutted. The truth is, the report is Massei's interpretation of the evidence. Massei is wrong.

Bruce, your posts here, in fact everyone posts in this thread are people's interpretation of the evidence. You could be wrong too.

 

[Dan O.]

The prosecution seems to have gone to great lengths to set this up to appear incriminating.

At 12:47, in an 88 second phone call Amanda conveys the basic elements of the situation to her mom and her mom says call the police. Similarly, at 12:50, in a 39 second call to his sister, Raffaele is told to call 112. This is two independent sources appraising the situation and concluding that enough has happened to warrant calling the police.

By the evening of November 2nd, the investigators would have the phone records and enough witness statements to piece together a reasonably accurate timeline of this period.

On November 10th, Amanda's mother is recorded questioning Amanda in her prison cell about the phone call at Noon before anything happened. Since there was no call at Noon and the first call at 12:47 was after enough had happened to warrant calling the police, this questioning must have been prompted by someone questioning Amanda's mother about a factitious call at Noon. I doubt that the initiator could have been Amanda's lawyers since if they thought this was important they would have prepared Amanda to answer the question in court. That leaves only the investigators/prosecution.

A year and an half later, the prosecutor springs his trap. Manuela Comodi asks Amanda in court why she called her mother at Noon before anything happened. Amanda of course says she doesn't remember any such call. Then Comodi uses the recorded conversation from prison that he set up saying in court: "Even your mother was amazed that you called her at midday, which was three or four o'clock at night, to tell her that nothing had happened."

Notice how this lie was seeded and played leaving the impression in the minds of the jurors (and many of the guilters) that Amanda had called her mother to say that nothing had happened. The hard evidence tells us that Amanda called her mother AFTER there was enough concern to warrant calling the police. The Italian authorities knew this as early as the evening of November 2nd. Yet they played this intentionally setup lie to win a conviction.


I find it amazing that there are actually people that fall for this kind of crap even when they have the resources to find the facts themselves.

 

[Kestrel]

How does when she called her mother serve the interests of the prosecution? If you are saying the truth is that she called Filomena four times, my question is why? Call her once, tell her what happened and ask her to come home.

Amanda called Filomena only once at 12:08.

Filomena made three calls to Amanda at 12:12, 12:20 and 12:35.

 

[LondonJohn]

A normal reaction would have been relief that the burglary didn't enter Meredith's room.

Amanda and Meredith were not lovers who kept constantly up with where the other one was. They were roommates for less than two months. Why would Amanda assume that Meredith was missing or something had happened to her when it was Amanda belief that Meredith always locked her door? The completely normal behavior would have been the belief that Meredith did not come that night. Didn't she have a new boyfriend? British friends in Perugia?

First, they were housemates, not roommates...

Second, I think that this stuff about Knox stating that Meredith always locked her door is definitely open to debate - apparently, only one person present that lunchtime (Luca - Filomena's boyfriend's friend) even heard that remark, and neither of the two policemen present appear to have heard it. Bear in mind that Luca's English was very bad, and that at this point Knox's Italian wasn't very good, and you have a recipe for misinterpretation. I don't think that this alleged remark by Knox should be taken as set in stone.

Third, Meredith did indeed have a new boyfriend - one of the boys in the house downstairs. And all the boys were away. And also, bear in mind that Knox had interacted with Meredith earlier on the 1st - it's far from inconceivable that Knox was roughly aware that Meredith planned to go over to her English friends' house, but that she planned an early night after the Halloween party the night before.

As for what was observed in the cottage, the Postal Police had such little worry about wrong-doing they were unwilling to break down the door.

The police's main concern seems to have been that they didn't want to have to involve themselves in all the bureaucracy that would have followed if they themselves were responsible for damaging property. However, IIRC, they agreed that there was sufficient concern to warrant the door being broken down - they just didn't want to be the ones to actually do it. Hence they let the Filomena's boyfriend break down the door. Of course, they should really have called the relevant police department in as soon as they realised that there was a blood/burglary/locked door/possible missing person situation in the house. This was totally outside the remit of the Postal Police, virtually from the moment they walked into the house. Yet it appears that they failed to follow proper procedure, and decided to investigate things themselves. Oops.

Yet when Filomena's friend finally did break down the door, Amanda didn't even bother to look in the room. Where was all Amanda's concern then about what was behind that locked door? Then let's not forget all of Amanda's grief and outreach to Meredith's family. Oh that's right, there was none. Amanda was so worried about what had happened to Meredith up until the second the door was broken down. After that she didn't give a damn. She wanted to make sure the police found the body....on her terms.

These remarks are highly partisan and subjective, and not worth discussing in the context of a proper debate. I'm disappointed that this sort of stuff is being used as part of your overall argument.

They had no choice other than let the Postal Police in.

Why is this even an issue, when we know now that they had already summoned the Carabinieri befre the Postal Police even turned up? They wanted the police to investigate.

Again, what is wrong with Raffaele? He can barely speak or read Italian and if he did try to break down why couldn't he do it when another young man around his age could?

You might be forgetting that the suspicion and concern was on a constantly escalating trajectory. In addition, the Postal Police essentially gave validation to the door being broken down. With that in mind, I don't think it's a case of Sollecito trying as hard as he could to break down the door, and failing. I think he may have pushed against it with moderate force, to see if it would give, but stopped when he realised that the lock was relatively secure.

Bruce, your posts here, in fact everyone posts in this thread are people's interpretation of the evidence. You could be wrong too.

Nobody's saying that Bruce might not be wrong. And nobody's saying that I or anyone else on this thread, or anyone on any of the forums discussing this case, might not be wrong. On the other hand, various people (with an agenda) have planted the seed that Massei's interpretation is inviolable, and that his interpretations will be the final word on the case. Unfortunately, even professional judges get things wrong sometimes - especially if they are also presented with prosecution evidence that is given misleading levels of certitude...

 

[Sherlock Holmes]

Do you think that Knox was lying or telling the truth when she said in her statements of the 6th November that she was in the kitchen of the murder house, with her hands over her ears, while the murder was being committed?

That is a really good question. While all (Amanda Sympathy Society) members will all have the same answer, No, she was at RS's, Guilters answers will differ widely, I myself am not even sure if she was in the house when the final blow was struck, or if she was right there in the room delivering the final blow. While I do believe there was a lot of truth in her Nov 6th statements, the truth is usually far worse than the guilty are ready to admit, I’d bet there is also a lot of truth in Rudy's story as well, but it is also far worse than he is admitting.

 

[Charlie Wilkes]

How does when she called her mother serve the interests of the prosecution? If you are saying the truth is that she called Filomena four times, my question is why? Call her once, tell her what happened and ask her to come home.

It has been presented as vaguely suspicious behavior, which is why The Machine includes it in his boilerplate. But the call home makes more sense when it is accurately placed on the time line - i.e., after Amanda had discovered the broken window, discovered that Meredith's door was locked, and had spoken to both Raffaele and Filomena.

As for why she called Filomena four times, she didn't. She called Filomena once and Filomena called her back three times.

 

[Dan O.]

Again, what is wrong with Raffaele? He can barely speak or read Italian and if he did try to break down why couldn't he do it when another young man around his age could?

You might be forgetting that the suspicion and concern was on a constantly escalating trajectory. In addition, the Postal Police essentially gave validation to the door being broken down. With that in mind, I don't think it's a case of Sollecito trying as hard as he could to break down the door, and failing. I think he may have pushed against it with moderate force, to see if it would give, but stopped when he realised that the lock was relatively secure.

Piecing together the bits that we know, Amanda is in a near panic trying to find Meredith, pounding on the door, trying to see into the window from the balcony, she finally turns to the person she always relies on and phones her mom. While waiting for the phone to be answered (this is a quarter to 5 in the morning in the Seattle) she is able to calm down and prepares to appraise her mother on the situation. Meanwhile, Raffaele continues the attempt to access Meredith's room first by peering through the keyhole and finally by trying to break down the door by force. 88 seconds later, Amanda receives the instructions from her mom and relays them to Raffaele: "Call the police". Raffaele immediately breaks off the attack on the door and calls his sister, a lieutenant in the carabinieri (that's italian for police) and is told to call the emergency number (112) which he does. Raffaele is told that the police are being sent so they both leave the cottage to wait for the police outside.


Of course, this is an interpretation of the available evidence most favorable to the defendants. But this is what the prosecution must counter when we apply a presumption of innocence. There has been no contrary evidence presented except for manufacturing the lie that the postal police arrived earlier.

 

[Alt+F4]

Amanda called Filomena only once at 12:08.

Filomena made three calls to Amanda at 12:12, 12:20 and 12:35.

Thank you for the correction.

 

[Kevin_Lowe]

He knew two things for certain. Did Amanda have keys to his apartment? Was his own keys where he left them when he went to bed? Has he clarified either point?

I don't know, has he? If he hasn't would it be evidence of something?

Nope. Kevin, since you or I don't speak/read Italian you can't say with certainty that his statement was ambiguous (again, he seems to be barely literate in Italian).

By that argument I can't say with certainty that he was talking about the murder at all as opposed to discussing a recipe for pumpkin soup. However I'm pretty certain that the subject of a sentence is a concept that survives translation, thus I'm pretty certain that the sentence the guilters get hung up about employs an ambiguous pronoun as its subject.

In addition, you have yet to explain how Amanda could transmit Meredith's DNA on to the knife blade, but not her own.

I didn't think I had to, but possibly I haven't fully absorbed the implications of my time at PMF in terms of what needs to be explained at a level that might normally seem patronising. If you have dirt on your hand, do I need to explain how you might leave dirt on something you touch without leaving your DNA on it? Especially if the knife is subsequently cleaned so that only a few picograms of dirt are left, which might explain the absence of any DNA you could have left with the dirt when the dirt is later tested for?

It seems to me that all you are doing is randomly expressing incredulity about anything that catches your eye, rather than thinking things through yourself and trying to identify genuinely damning problems in the defence story (if indeed any such exist).

 

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First, they were housemates, not roommates...

Like Amanda, I'm an American and when sharing an apartment with another person, even if you are not sharing the same bedroom, the term used is roommates.

The police's main concern seems to have been that they didn't want to have to involve themselves in all the bureaucracy that would have followed if they themselves were responsible for damaging property. However, IIRC, they agreed that there was sufficient concern to warrant

The police had no reason to believe anything bad had happened behind that door based on the what they observed in the apartment. If they were not worried about wrong-doing in Meredith's room why were AK and RS?

Of course, they should really have called the relevant police department in as soon as they realised that there was a blood/burglary/locked door/possible missing person situation in the house. This was totally outside the remit of the Postal Police, virtually from the moment they walked into the house. Yet it appears that they failed to follow proper procedure, and decided to investigate things themselves.

Could you please present evidence on how the Italian Postal Police are trained in police procedures versus how the Carabinieri are? Do you know how many Postal Police were once part of the Carbinieri and vice vesa? What is your expertise in law enforcement?

Why is this even an issue, when we know now that they had already summoned the Carabinieri befre the Postal Police even turned up? They wanted the police to investigate.

Yes, he called the Carabinieri. It was almost noon, they knew that Filomena and/or Laura could come back at any time and they wanted to control the situation.

With that in mind, I don't think it's a case of Sollecito trying as hard as he could to break down the door, and failing. I think he may have pushed against it with moderate force, to see if it would give, but stopped when he realised that the lock was relatively secure.

Again, what's wrong with him? Another young man, around his own age broke down the door without being injured. Why couldn't he, considering how "concerned" Amanda was about Meredith?

Nobody's saying that Bruce might not be wrong.

Bruce is. He is 100% sure that AK and RS are innocent of the murder of MK.