Continuation - Discussion of the Amanda Knox case

[LondonJohn]

Someone please expalin (not a typo) this reasoning to me. From the PMF translation of the Massei report:

Absolutely amazing. Let's go through that logic bit by bit:

"It should therefore be considered that the taking of the telephones and the locking of the door of Meredith’s room were aimed at preventing someone [415] from prematurely entering the English student’s room and discovering what had happened in there, and this, probably, because of the need to check for possible compromising traces left behind, and the necessity, in that case, of eliminating these traces."

So Massei reasons that Meredith's door was locked so that Knox and Sollecito could go back later and clean up the murder room which contained "compromising traces" of the murderers. Only, there's no evidence of a clean-up whatsoever in Meredith's room itself.

"A plan which, as has been said, is confirmed by the testimony of Quintavalle: entering the shop which also sold cleaning products at opening time, shows an unquestionable urgency which is easily explained by the objective indicated, [and] all the more so because that going into [the shop] and at such an early hour, was denied by the defendant Amanda Knox."

The fact that Knox denied going into the shop at that early hour on that day is indicative to Massei of there having been nefarious reasons for her being there at all. Never mind that the prosecution's witness in this regard did not remember Knox's presence when asked about it by the police some two weeks after the murder, yet remembered tiny details of Knox's visit over a year later.


"This action of checking and cleaning was carried out, therefore, in the very early hours of the morning of 2 November. And also this circumstance constitutes a clue to the charge of both defendants: of both because it must have been a common [joint] decision, taken at the time the mobile phones were taken and Meredith’s room was locked; carrying out [the task of going to the store] was entrusted to Amanda alone since, if they had been together, and someone had seen them at that time of the morning, they would have been far more noticeable and if they had met anyone who knew them, they would have most likely have had to give an explanation."

Massei firstly reasons - somehow - that the decision to buy necessary cleaning fluids at the store must have been taken before midnight on the 1st. Then he makes the extraordinary logical deduction that they decided that Knox alone should go to the store, since two people going shopping together in the early morning are much more noticeable (to Massei) than one, and two people together would have to give an "explanation" (according to Massei) of why they were in the shop - whereas apparently Knox alone would not have had to give such an "explanation" had she been recognised.


"That this action of cleaning could have been carried out the same night, immediately after the murder, seems difficult to hypothesise. To linger on in the house where Meredith’s body lay could have been risky. On the contrary, returning in the morning would have allowed [them] to do the cleaning under better conditions and with more time available;"

So Massei reckons that it would have been unacceptably risky for Knox and Sollecito to conduct the clean-up during the night hours, whereas they would have had "more time"(?!!!) if they started the clean-up at 8am, and it would also - according to Massei's logic - have been less risky for them to conduct the clean-up at this time. Riiiiiight.........


"....it is also possible that more cleaning products were needed, as the visit to Quintavalle’s shop leads us to believe."

Except that it's almost certain that no cleaning products were bought that morning even if Knox were there (and in fact it's more likely that Knox wasn't in the shop at all).


"Furthermore, once the mobile phones had been taken, and the door had been locked, there would have been no compelling reason not to put off the cleaning until early the next morning. If anyone had arrived at the house (Silenzi, for example) the closed door would have convinced him or her that Meredith was not in her room, and the impossibility of hearing Meredith’s phones ring would not have given rise to any suspicion."

No commentary needed here. Arrant nonsense.

 

[Kevin_Lowe]

Here's some information from Raffaele's appeal on the 'time of death' issue, and what the defence are arguing:


* Does anyone know if there's an English term for 'things relating to time of death' or 'study of the time of death'? The Italian term is 'tanatocronologici', which I think must be a combination of 'thanatological' (to do with death) and 'chronological' (to do with time), thus meaning WTTE of 'determination of time of death'. I can't find an English equivalent, so just coined the word 'thanato-chronological'...

Thanks, Katy_Did!

It looks like the defence is arguing for a slightly later time of death than we forumites, but either way unless the court ignores the inconvenient matter of the stomach contents altogether it still proves absolutely that both Mignini's and Massei's narratives were a load of old cobblers, hence the stated reasons for both the prosecution and the conviction were completely unsound.

 

[Chris_Halkides]

Dr. Stefanoni's "theories" on DNA contamination

Here are three passages from the English translation of the Massei report (pp. 204-205) on ILE’s handling of the bra clasp:

“With those very same gloves, however, the sock was then taken and catalogued [repertato] (page 166). She pointed out, however, that on that sock only Meredith’s traces were found. To this regard she pointed out that, since over a month had gone by (it was the search carried out on December 18), the traces were ‚very dry, dehydrated and, therefore, the possibility that I could contaminate the findings by touching them is practically equal to zero‛ (page 167).”

And

“With reference to the fact that at a certain point the clasp was placed on the floor to be photographed, without a precautionary examination of the cleanliness of the floor, Dr Stefanoni stated the irrelevance of that circumstance. Firstly, she pointed out that the piece was merely placed [on the floor] and that, due to what previously explained, it wouldn’t have been possible that the act of simply placing it there, could result in something being transferred unless there had been some liquid on the floor. Had that been the case, even the mere placement [on the floor] would have allowed the transfer of that liquid either to the fabric or to the bra clasp. In that case, however, there weren’t any signs whatsoever of any liquid substance and the bra clasp was simply placed [on the floor] [214] without any rubbing or applying any pressure. She specified again, that, on the floor, there could have been some exfoliated cells present, but cells that were keratinized, and therefore not suitable for any transfer of DNA.”

And

“She did not conduct a test to see what could have been on the floor before placing the piece of bra there since the risk of contamination, she reasserted, was believed to be equal to zero, given the absence of liquids.”

The notion that one needs liquid or rubbing to transfer DNA is dubious, to say the least. For one thing, it flies in the face of the guidelines to change gloves after handling each sample that I documented in a previous comment. For another, it does not explain how the DNA from a murder victim’s fingernails was found on the wedding ring of Gregory Turner, a known case of DNA contamination.


Suzanne Ryan wrote, “A 2006 study by Poy and van Oorschot showed an example of secondary transfer when a mixed DNA profile was found on a swab taken from an examination magnifying lamp. This profile was searched in the lab's database and a match was found with a case that had been worked on the bench-top with the magnifying lamp. It was determined that DNA was transferred from the item being examined to the analyst's gloves and then onto the top of the magnifying lamp.”

Dr. Stefanoni should be asked to explain how these contamination events occurred.

 

[katy_did]

Someone please expalin (not a typo) this reasoning to me. From the PMF translation of the Massei report:

Darn, I only just got that.

 

[LondonJohn]

All this is true, but it doesn't mean that the online debate, at JREF or elsewhere, is futile. I think it highly likely that Amanda and Raffaele will be exonerated at their coming appeal, after which they (or, rather, their lawyers) will face a new problem: dealing with the extraordinary amount of defamatory misinformation that has characterised the discussion of the case, and which will undoubtedly continue to be repeated after they are released.

Anything you and other informed sympathisers can do to challenge the falsehoods will make this process easier, and indeed assist less well-informed sympathisers (which I count myself as one) in being able to recognise the misinformation and respond to it.

Hi Anthony

I agree totally with what you've said. I categorically don't believe that our debate is futile in all respects. My argument purely related to its effect (or lack of effect) upon the legal process. I hope - and believe - that the points we are bringing up here are being examined in far more depth by the defence lawyers in preparation for the upcoming appeals.

However, I'd add that if Knox's/Sollecito's convictions are overturned on appeal, then they (and their legal advisers) will probably be very capable of defending their reputations going forward.

 

[katy_did]

Thanks, Katy_Did!

It looks like the defence is arguing for a slightly later time of death than we forumites, but either way unless the court ignores the inconvenient matter of the stomach contents altogether it still proves absolutely that both Mignini's and Massei's narratives were a load of old cobblers, hence the stated reasons for both the prosecution and the conviction were completely unsound.

No worries! Yeah, I noticed that too (the later time) and I think it might be because they're taking the start of the last meal as being 18.30-19.00, rather than 18.00 (or even earlier, as I think one of Meredith's friends said). So they seem to be arguing for the same sort of timespan, just shifted half an hour later. Personally I think the 21.30-22.00 timeframe is very plausible, assuming it was a gradually escalating attack and that Meredith died within 10-15 minutes of the major wound being made. It would fit with the first phone call at 21.58, too (probably as the attacker was about to leave).

 

[Chris_Halkides]

She apologized

Amanda is paying for her own mistake. Patrick was arrested because of Amanda. And, she has never apologised to Patrick.

Capealadin,

Amanda apologized on November 30, 2007 in court. This was after Patrick said that she had no soul. And while we are whacking moles, no, Patrick did not fire her, as is documented in Ms. Dempsey's book, among many other places. Please do try to keep up.

 

[Justinian2]

Hello!

I'm new to this forum. I have been thrown off six other forums in which I've presented my arguments on the Amanda Knox case. It seems that the way most of the world handles free speech is to lock the thread or your member name.

Anyway, I've just finished "Murder in Italy" by Candace Dempsey. Candace gave a very complete discussion of the case and I am starting to feel that Amanda's innocence is 100%. There is no way she could be guilty. Ok, a fact in the book might possibly be wrong, but that seems unlikely. What is absolutely certain is that Amanda got very bad justice. Extremely bad justice.

I started reading the translation of the Massei Report. I was asking how Meridith could have screamed while being strangled and suffocated with a knife wound in her neck when I was thrown off my last forum. They explained that she got off one scream before this happened. I said that a recent report on Yahoo said that drowning victims are never heard since people don't scream loudly when terrified. Indeed, when I thought I encountered an intruder in my apartment, my scream - meant to terrify the intruder - was more like a hoarse whisper.

Then my membership in another forum bit the dust. Probably because if there was no scream, then Amanda's confession was entirely incorrect and merely the result of police "questioning".

Oh yeah, I was also talking about the Murder Hot Line in Boston MA. The minute a person is charged with murder, lawyers trained in murder cases are instantly assigned to the accused. The result is that no person in Boston would ever get harrassed the way Amanda was. Amanda would never have gone to court in Boston.

Anyway, I've been thrown out of six forums talking this way. Hope this forum really does believe in freedom of speech.

 

[JREF2010]

Page 330 of the Motivations Report: "Nothing compels [us], among the circumstantial evidence available, to consider that the assault took place in the minutes between 21.58 and 22.00 of 1.11, and not rather merely moments of relaxation during which Meredith Kercher, still alone in the house and probably just lying on her own bed, was absent-mindedly playing with the mobile phone in her hand."

And here is where he got the idea for that image:

If I'm not mistaken she's holding a camera in that picture, not a cell phone. Not that it matters to Massei, but it looks to me she's viewing pictures on the back of a digital camera.

 

[Kevin_Lowe]

Hello!

I'm new to this forum. I have been thrown off six other forums in which I've presented my arguments on the Amanda Knox case. It seems that the way most of the world handles free speech is to lock the thread or your member name.

Anyway, I've just finished "Murder in Italy" by Candace Dempsey. Candace gave a very complete discussion of the case and I am starting to feel that Amanda's innocence is 100%. There is no way she could be guilty. Ok, a fact in the book might possibly be wrong, but that seems unlikely. What is absolutely certain is that Amanda got very bad justice. Extremely bad justice.

I started reading the translation of the Massei Report. I was asking how Meridith could have screamed while being strangled and suffocated with a knife wound in her neck when I was thrown off my last forum. They explained that she got off one scream before this happened. I said that a recent report on Yahoo said that drowning victims are never heard since people don't scream loudly when terrified. Indeed, when I thought I encountered an intruder in my apartment, my scream - meant to terrify the intruder - was more like a hoarse whisper.

Then my membership in another forum bit the dust. Probably because if there was no scream, then Amanda's confession was entirely incorrect and merely the result of police "questioning".

No offence, but this isn't a very strong argument. Personally I find the scream story unlikely because more than one or two people should have been able to hear it if it was that loud, not because it's in any way physically impossible for a healthy woman to scream loudly. I don't think people make horror movie screams in real life very often, but I see no reason to think it's impossible that Meredith screamed.

Oh yeah, I was also talking about the Murder Hot Line in Boston MA. The minute a person is charged with murder, lawyers trained in murder cases are instantly assigned to the accused. The result is that no person in Boston would ever get harrassed the way Amanda was. Amanda would never have gone to court in Boston.

This is almost certainly true. Without Amanda's internalised false confession there's no case against her at all.

Anyway, I've been thrown out of six forums talking this way. Hope this forum really does believe in freedom of speech.

It believes in the freedom of polite, on-topic speech. That is not nearly enough freedom for some, but it suits us. This is indeed however a place where both sides can speak their mind without getting banned on some pretext or another for having the "wrong" opinion.

 

[Mary_H]

If I'm not mistaken she's holding a camera in that picture, not a cell phone. Not that it matters to Massei, but it looks to me she's viewing pictures on the back of a digital camera.

You're right, JREF2010, but it is hard to tell, if you just glance at it in a newspaper or on TV. Anyway, it's not a sure thing; just a guess on my part.

 

[Mary_H]

Hello!

I'm new to this forum. I have been thrown off six other forums in which I've presented my arguments on the Amanda Knox case. It seems that the way most of the world handles free speech is to lock the thread or your member name.

Anyway, I've just finished "Murder in Italy" by Candace Dempsey. Candace gave a very complete discussion of the case and I am starting to feel that Amanda's innocence is 100%. There is no way she could be guilty. Ok, a fact in the book might possibly be wrong, but that seems unlikely. What is absolutely certain is that Amanda got very bad justice. Extremely bad justice.

I started reading the translation of the Massei Report. I was asking how Meridith could have screamed while being strangled and suffocated with a knife wound in her neck when I was thrown off my last forum. They explained that she got off one scream before this happened. I said that a recent report on Yahoo said that drowning victims are never heard since people don't scream loudly when terrified. Indeed, when I thought I encountered an intruder in my apartment, my scream - meant to terrify the intruder - was more like a hoarse whisper.

Then my membership in another forum bit the dust. Probably because if there was no scream, then Amanda's confession was entirely incorrect and merely the result of police "questioning".

Oh yeah, I was also talking about the Murder Hot Line in Boston MA. The minute a person is charged with murder, lawyers trained in murder cases are instantly assigned to the accused. The result is that no person in Boston would ever get harrassed the way Amanda was. Amanda would never have gone to court in Boston.

Anyway, I've been thrown out of six forums talking this way. Hope this forum really does believe in freedom of speech.

The Massei report's discussion of the testimony of the several doctors who conducted the autopsy or looked at the photos suggests the doctors from both sides were in fairly, if not fully, unanimous agreement that it was unlikely Meredith had screamed.

I have always believed the primary reason the prosecution or police found one or two witnesses who said they heard a scream was because they needed to bolster Amanda's false confession. The police, through suggestion, had encouraged Amanda to say she had heard a scream. After she retracted the "confession," they figured that if they could show that someone else had heard a scream, it would lend credence to what Amanda had said during the interrogation.

Regarding the question of providing lawyers to suspects, hidden away in a tangle of legalese and not-quite-accurate English vocabulary in the Massei report is the admission that Raffaele was denied his legal right to counsel before he was arrested.

From page 17: "At the hearing of January 16, 2009 the Defence for Sollecito, in limine litis, inferred the nullity of the interrogatory session by the magistrate to which the defendant had been subjected because of the iolation of his right to assistance – it was affirmed that the Prosecutor, when Sollecito had been subjected to police arrest, had deferred the exercising of the right to confer with his Defence, without however issuing the required decree with the report on the grounds for arrest, as is evidenced by the physical unavailability of the provision of Article 104 section 3 of the criminal procedure code, not present in the acts; for this reason the inefficacy of the remand measure taken out against Sollecito is pleaded consequent to the nullity of the interrogatory session taken at the hearing for the ratification of the arrest; the violation of the right to a defence is inferred, in so much as the obligation to [5] deposit the acts of the investigation before the admission of the interrogatory session itself."

If you read the rest of the section, you will find that Raffaele's lawyers tried to obtain a nullification, but it was not allowed, because they had not filed before the legal deadline.

 

[Chris C]

Chris, why do you keep pointing a finger at Sophie Purton? She has been most helpful to the prosecution from the beginning of this case. If it weren't for Sophie establishing the time she walked Meredith home, we wouldn't know that Meredith wasn't killed before 9pm. Sophie even went back to the police station on Nov. 17 to change her story so the police would know that at exactly 8:55 Meredith was still alive and safe and only 5 minutes walk from her cottage. When Sophie left Meredith on the corner of Via del Lupo she was only a few steps away from her own home where she was going to watch a television show.

Sophie was also helpful in portraying Amanda as someone that brought boys back to the cottage and bringing up the dispute between Amanda and Meredith about toilet cleaning. A suspect would never do that.

Its not that I suspect her. Im showing that the police zeroed in on Knox eventhough, there is a better suspect for Mignini's crazy theory. Mignini had this satanic sex game theory but chose to ignore Sophie who was alone with Meredith around the ToD. Eventhough, Knox's boyfriend gave her an alibi, he chose to only pursue knox. Yet he ignores another female that had been alone with meredith shortly before her death.
Just showing you that Sophie is a better candidate for Mignini's retarded theory.
You are also saying that a Suspect wouldn't finger someone else for a crime they committed.

 

[Chris C]

If I'm not mistaken she's holding a camera in that picture, not a cell phone. Not that it matters to Massei, but it looks to me she's viewing pictures on the back of a digital camera.

I agree, i've not seen a mobile phone that has a retractable camera lens.

 

[Antony]

(msg #4345)

I hope - and believe - that the points we are bringing up here are being examined in far more depth by the defence lawyers in preparation for the upcoming appeals.

The appeals texts are downloadable (in Italian) from the injusticeinperugia website (menu bar heading Strong Case for Appeal), and the English-language summaries posted as web pages.

However, I'd add that if Knox's/Sollecito's convictions are overturned on appeal, then they (and their legal advisers) will probably be very capable of defending their reputations going forward.

I'm sure the legal teams will do all they can, but it's still likely that the 2 of them (particularly Amanda) will have to spend the rest of their lives resisting the label of killers. On a general note, there is nothing unique about the situation they find themselves in; and anything we can say is worthwhile to alert forum participants to the way in which legal systems worldwide are loaded against the victims of miscarriages of justice.

What needs to happen is that the Perugia police and judiciary are held to account for the travesty - with as much publicity as was directed at the original case, but of course that never happens in cases like these.

 

[Mary_H]

The "switched-off" cell phones

For those of you who find yourself up against Harry Rag's ubiquitous lists of "evidence" against Amanda and Raffaele, there is some strong support in the motivations for eliminating the infamous, long-lived claim that Amanda and Raffaele both turned off their cell phones the night of Nov. 1, then turned them back on around 6 a.m. on Nov. 2nd, which supposedly proves they lied about the time they got up.

Twenty pages (pp. 311-331) of the report are spent on the cell telephone usage, with some fascinating information contained therein. For example, we learn that "phone record printouts do not give information as to whether a mobile phone is switched on or turned off" (page 320); they give information only as to whether the phone was inactive.

The phone-record "evidence," then, that the defendants turned their phones off or on at specific times is non-existent. The police and the prosecution can only know for sure that there was no traffic on the phones the night of November 1st; they merely surmised that Raffaele had turned off his phone, and they must have guessed at when Amanda turned hers back on.

Amanda informed the police herself that she had turned off her phone after texting Patrick at 8:35 p.m. on Nov. 1. On page 323 of the report, however, where Amanda's phone activity for November 2nd is listed, there is not even a claim that Amanda turned her cell phone back on around 6 a.m. on the morning of 11/02/07. The first record is of her first call to Meredith, at 12:07 p.m.

The suspicion about Raffaele's phone arose from the fact that he didn't pick up the message his father had sent him at 11:14 the night before until 6 a.m. The police hired a consultant to make some measurements about where Raffaele's phone was likely to have been and whether traffic could have been interrupted, and as a result, the court determined that is was likely Raffaele had shut off his phone. However, it was not proven, and there is absolutely no evidence whatsoever that A & R turned their phones on at the same time.

One glaring omission from all the facts and figures about the phone records is that there is no mention of when the records were obtained by the police. Knowing when the records were obtained would allow us to determine whether the police knew about Amanda's text to Patrick before they interrogated her. Equally important is the question of whether Amanda and Raffaele were being treated as suspects, not witnesses, long before their interrogations, which would make the failure to provide them with counsel even more egregious.

 

[katy_did]

Hello!

I'm new to this forum. I have been thrown off six other forums in which I've presented my arguments on the Amanda Knox case. It seems that the way most of the world handles free speech is to lock the thread or your member name.(...)

Anyway, I've been thrown out of six forums talking this way. Hope this forum really does believe in freedom of speech.

Hey Justinian, welcome to JREF. Such a lovely, warm, and tolerant lot they are over on PMF, aren't they? Can't think why you didn't stay.

 

[Mary_H]

<snip>Suzanne Ryan wrote, “A 2006 study by Poy and van Oorschot showed an example of secondary transfer when a mixed DNA profile was found on a swab taken from an examination magnifying lamp. This profile was searched in the lab's database and a match was found with a case that had been worked on the bench-top with the magnifying lamp. It was determined that DNA was transferred from the item being examined to the analyst's gloves and then onto the top of the magnifying lamp.”

Dr. Stefanoni should be asked to explain how these contamination events occurred.

Another note on contamination, or, more precisely, on writing style.

From pages 103-104 of the document, where the judge describes the investigative activity at the cottage:

"Monica Napoleoni, Deputy Commissioner of the State Police, arrived at the Via della Pergola house around 13:30 pm, and colleagues of the postal police gave information about the discovery of the body of a girl. Arriving almost at the same time as the staff from 118, there was a female doctor and a nurse. In Romanelli's room, she saw the break-in and glass "that had fallen on top of the stuff lying on the floor" (page 226). She approached Meredith’s room with the chief assistant Buratti, who remained at the door as Napoleoni took one step inside the room "while the 118 doctor uncovered the corpse" (page 228, hearing [96] on February 27, 2009).

"She was wearing shoe covers and sterile gloves. "I then saw this girl who was on the floor with her face lying towards the right of the viewer, with a terrible wound. Was semi-naked, had the t-shirt rolled up above the breast and lots of blood and spatters of blood even on the breast" (page 229).

"Everyone who entered had gloves and shoe covers on except the 118 personnel who certified the death. Soon afterwards, Dr. Chiacchiera and colleagues from the Scientific Police arrived."

Notice that the author chose to write, "Everyone who entered had gloves and shoe covers on except the 118 personnel who certified the death." He could have written, "Three people entered the room, but only one, Napoleoni, had gloves and shoe covers on."

The first description diminishes the number of people who did not wear gloves and protective shoe covers, while the second description emphasizes it. Stay alert for more stylistic "choices" like this when reading the report.

 

[katy_did]

If I'm not mistaken she's holding a camera in that picture, not a cell phone. Not that it matters to Massei, but it looks to me she's viewing pictures on the back of a digital camera.

No I think Mary's right - bit of a random video but if you go to 0:56 you can see the back of the same phone that Meredith has, and it has a camera on it like the one she's holding in the picture:

 

[Fine]

Your logic is impeccable, as usual.

We know that Merdedith could not have been attacked before 9.00pm. Would you agree? We also know that she ate the pizza between 6.00pm and 6.30pm (latest), according the the testimony of her friends. Would you agree?
Would you therefore agree that there was a period of at least 2.5 hours after Meredith ate the pizza, when she was not suffering any sense of fear or terror?

Would you then agree that the food would have taken a totally normal transit through Meredith's stomach in those minimum 2.5 hours?

Would you then agree that any terror which was undoubtedly suffered by Meredith would have only taken place at some time after 9.00pm?

Are you therefore suggesting that a state of terror experienced after 9.00pm can not only slow down or (in very extreme cases) stop the normal digestive function, but that it can also reverse it?

Are you, in other words, suggesting that food which was normally digested by Meredith in the 2.5 hours between 6.30pm and 9.00pm - which would a) have been completely broken down into chyme over this period, and b) would have been well into its transition into the duodenum and beyond - was actually induced by the post-9.00pm terror to pass back from the duodenum into the stomach, and for parts of it to reconstitute itself into its component parts inside the stomach?

Because this is what has to have happened for Meredith's stomach/duodenum/intestine contents to be found the way they were found at the autopsy. You may want to contact a medical or scientific journal to publish your breakthrough discovery.

///

__________________

Nope. And Raffaele's attorneys don't agree either. Quoting from their APPEAL (posted by kaky-did, post #4335):

"However, it is possible from a scientific point of view to further restrict such a range using the gastric contents,... and comparing this with the last meal eaten by the victim as reported by witnesses: the time of death would in this way be placed, based on forensic criteria of maximum reliability.... at a distance of 2-3/3-4 hours from the start of the consumption of the last known meal (18.30-19.00 on 1.11.2007) and thus at about 21.30-22.00."

And note also that the "normal" time of transit for these lawyers is not LondonJohn's 2 1/2 hours but 3 hours. It gets worse. The lawyers recognize that the transit time can vary between 2 and 4 hours, so the time of death could be as late as 10:30 -11:00 PM (22:30 -23:00). And, as I pointed out in my last post, this time might instead be the time the assault began---retarding the transit time--- in which case time of death would be even later.

The lesson. This method of calculating time of death for Meredith is too imprecise to be relevant to who killed her.

///