Continuation - Discussion of the Amanda Knox case

[LondonJohn]

Question:

Did the police ever ascertain whether any of Knox's clothes were missing following the murder? I am assuming (coupled with the viewing of photos of Knox's room and wardrobe) that Knox did not have a particularly large selection of clothing in Perugia. After all, she would only have what she had brought over from Seattle, coupled with anything she might have bought while in Germany and Italy.

I imagine that the police would have interviewed the housemates about Knox's clothing and footwear, both in regard to the clothes they had seen her wearing at any time while she was in Italy, and also of course in regard to what she was wearing on the day of the murder. I can't believe it would be that hard to work out whether any of Knox's clothes or shoes had mysteriously disappeared after the murder.

Of course, all of this presumes that the Perugia "Flying Squad" did their job properly in this area of the investigation. Either way, surely the defence can make a strong argument about Knox's clothes and shoes (I think it would be harder to make as strong an argument about Sollecito's clothes/shoes, since he lived alone and probably had more clothes/shoes than Knox at his apartment).

I believe that the prosecution's case is that Knox and Sollecito somehow disposed of their contaminated clothing/footwear after the murder. But if this is the case, why can't the prosecution figure out exactly which clothing/footwear Knox is supposed to have disposed of? Don't they have evidence from someone like Filomena saying something like "I remember Amanda wearing a pair of light coloured jeans often, but they are not among the clothes of Amanda's that the police have recovered from the flat or Sollecito's place"? I'm guessing not, and I'm guessing the police and prosecution have totally failed to identify any of Knox's clothing/footwear that was known to her housemates before the murder, but which was missing after the murder.

 

[Charlie Wilkes]

So it's not Raffaele and Amanda's task to prove their innocence or present an alibi, the court has to prove they were at the cottage at the time the murder occured, I haven't seen any convincing evidence of that yet.

Hi Rhea, welcome to the discussion.

As a practical matter, Amanda and Raffaele are in a situation where they do have to prove their innocence, and even when they offer proof, it is not accepted. For example, after being stonewalled for a year and a half, their attorneys finally extracted proof that the luminol stains tested negative for blood, but the judge ruled that the luminol stains were made with blood anyway. It's really up to the public, globally, to exert pressure and make the Italian justice system understand that this problem will not go away until Amanda and Raffaele are free.

 

[lane99]

I'm already aware of a number of reasons to be skeptical that the knife retreived from the boyfriend's home was used to attack the poor victim in this case. I'm wondering if I've recently learned of another...

I know that the victim was stabbed a number of times. But that the knife from the kitchen is not compatible with at least some of the wounds.

Till now, I had been thinking (merely my assumption) that the wounds which were *not* compatible with the kitchen knife, and those that could (in theory) have been made by that knife, were not located in the same general vicinity on the body.

Am I mistaken about this? Read something that I interpreted to mean that all the stab wounds, in fact, *were* in the same, and rather specific, area.

If that's true, relatively speaking, it looks more likely only one knife was used in this crime. And, as most objective people probably agree, if only one knife was used, it will *not* have been the knife from the boyfriend's kitchen.

 

[Chris C]

Hi, I'm new and believe in Raffaele's and Amanda's innocence. I apologize for my non perfect english.





This is something I don't understand, not having an alibi isn't an indication of guilt, it just means you have nobody to confirm your whereabouts and therefore can't prove your innocence. Filomena for instance has the exact same Alibi as Amanda, she was with her boyfriend, nobody else to confirm it …

Not having an alibi is however the precondition to bring somebody to court. If Amanda and Raffaele had a provable alibi, they wouldn't have been brought to court, as they would have been capable of proving their innocence, the way Lumumba was.

But if we think, the fact they can't provide an alibi makes them guilty, following that logic, every person tried for murder is guilty, as the usually don't have an alibi. Therefore it's the court's task to detect if their guilt is proven beyond a reasonable doubt. The lacking alibi is the precondidtion based upon which their guilt has to be established.

So it's not Raffaele and Amanda's task to prove their innocence or present an alibi, the court has to prove they were at the cottage at the time the murder occured, I haven't seen any convincing evidence of that yet.

You got to remember, Knox did have an alibi. The prosecution wanted Knox for the crime. They tried to get Sollecito to admit that Knox wasn't with him so they could charge Knox. When Sollecito kept giving Knox an alibi they got Knox to imagine a scenario. However they had a problem. Knox didn't imagine Sollecito in this scenario. So she still had an alibi. To get around the alibi they charged them both with the crime. When Patrick turned up with an alibi thats just as good as Knoxs, the prosecution still kept him in Jail. They later released Patrick.
All the prosecutions witnesses that breaks Knox/Sollecito's alibi:
1. Either came forward a year later after talking to the media.
2. Couldn't identify knox in court, or couldn't even get the correct day right.
3. Where already convicted of the crime that Knox/Sollecito where charged with and fingered them at his appeal. Plus the defense wasn't even allowed to question Guede.

 

[Kevin_Lowe]

To Chris C and Kevin_Lowe:

Yes, the court/jury does determine the truthfulness and reliability of a witness. Quintavalle was found to be credible by the court. If the court has erred in its examination of the evidence and its decision that is what the appeal process is for. But to say that the court is complicit, negligent, or incompetent is not a place I am willing to go or think is correct.

A court legally "determines" whether a witness is reliable, in their own terminology. However the fact is that all they are really doing is forming an opinion about their reliability. It that case their opinion is simply bonkers, because a convenient "recollection" that pops up a year after the events should not trump the conflicting testimony of multiple witnesses immediately after the events.

I am more than willing to go there: Massei is simply a poor logician and a sloppy thinker.

There is no conundrum. They have no alibi. The closest I've heard to an alibi (but have seen no evidence of it) is that a video file turned on RS's computer around 9:45. How they heck is that evidence that they were both there? Is there another alibi I'm not aware of?

I'm not sure what scenarios you want to talk about.

Are we talking about something resembling the prosecution theory, where Raffaele and Amanda and Guede all get high on drugs and commit unpremeditated murder? If so it's a rock solid refutation of that theory because one of them was at home clicking things when Meredith died.

Or are we talking about some novel conspiracy theory of your own devising where Raffaele premeditated the crime and set up his computer to provide himself with an alibi, only to be foiled when the prosecution got the time of death completely wrong? If so you've taken leave of reality and entered your own private fantasy world where it's the defendant's responsibility to prove beyond unreasonable doubt that they could not possibly have committed the crime, even if they were psychic computer hacking ninjas.

Hey, I think lots of people lied in this case but that doesn't diminish the fact that Amanda and Raffaele lied too.

Lied, or got things wrong, or stated the truth but conflicting witnesses got things wrong, and always about inconsequential matters.

Long enough? I thought we wacked that mole about how long their interrogation actually was.

Ignoring your trivialisation of their interrogation, as I'm sure you are aware my point is based on the sheer volume of facts collected, not the time-frame in which they were obtained. Ask me enough questions and I'll get some things wrong and/or contradict myself. Ask other people enough questions and they'll get things wrong and/or contradict me. None of this is evidence that they were in the murder room holding a knife.

You can try and spin it all you want to. The bottom line is they LIED.

That's not evidence hat they were in the murder room holding a knife.

 

[Malkmus]

Including the latest hilarious "Hercule Poirot"-style triumphant reveal by SomeAlibi over at PMF, in which he confidently announces that he has definitively figured out "what happened" with regard to the mop (and then goes on to congratulate himself on his extraordinary powers of deduction).

Unfortunately for him, there is no evidence of any mop usage at the murder house, and none of the mops or buckets showed any trace of having been used to clean up the crime scene. He also fails to understand that mops are not only used merely to soak up water. If Sollecito had indeed had a significant amount of dishwater leaking onto his kitchen floor on the evening of the 1st (and we have no reason to doubt that, since he mentioned it explicitly to his father in the 20.48 phone call), then it's highly likely that there would have been residual tide marks and even small pools of water still there the following morning. The purpose of fetching a mop that morning would therefore have not merely been to soak up residual water, but also to actually clean the kitchen floor of the dirty tide marks and water stains.

His "grand theory" of the mop-head-exchange also signally fails to explain why it wouldn't have been far, far easier for Knox to buy (or steal, if you prefer) a new mop head, then just take it straight back to the girls' house to swap it with the "covered-in-Meredith's-blood" mop head. His "reasoning" for this seems to be that a new mop head would in itself look suspicious, and therefore it needed to be "dirtied-up" a bit in order to lend it credibility.

But if that's the case, why couldn't Knox have done something simple such as engineer a "spillage" of some juice in the girls' kitchen? If she'd done this, she could have used the new mop head to clean up this spillage, thereby giving it the vital "used" appearance. And this could have been done without risking re-contamination from the murder scene, or without having to take the mop and bucket to-and-fro to Sollecito's apartment.

To me, the mop is of no relevance whatsoever to the investigation. And this idea that Knox and Sollecito would have the wherewithal to go to these extraordinary lengths in order to wave red herrings in front of the police is equally risible. In my opinion, SA's "grand theory" buckles under the slightest scrutiny, and is yet another example of a biased search for malevolent behaviour from Knox and Sollecito where none exists. Oh, and you'd think that a "defence lawyer with 20 years' experience" would know the grammatical difference between a colon and a semi-colon - but maybe good writing isn't an important requirement in legal circles these days (particularly if the Massei report is anything to go by)....

Yes, I'm rather surprised myself that the mop keeps coming up, despite it never having played a role in their guilt.

Two major problems with the mop:

1. You can't clean up blood with a mop, then erase ALL traces of said blood. It's just impossible. You'd be better of destroying the mop head then trying to clean it.

2. Those on the guilty side maintain that Amanda and Raf cleaned up incriminating evidence of themselves, bloody footprints, etc. with the mop. Amanda then directed suspicion towards Rudy by not flushing the toilet with his feces and leaving all of his fingerprints, footprints, and DNA in the cottage. If this were true and Amanda truly wanted to direct the police's suspicion toward Rudy THEN WHY DID SHE IMPLICATE PATRICK DURING THE INTERROGATION ON NOVEMBER 5TH? It makes no sense that she would want LE to pick up the fact that Rudy was involved, but then protect him and point the finger at someone who in no way could have been involved. Amanda KNEW Patrick was working that night since he told her not to come in. It makes no sense.

 

[Malkmus]

Do we know anything about Rudy's actions the day of the murder? Who he had the "bad kebab" with? What his activities were? Last known witnesses before the murder took place?

 

[RoseMontague]

A Quick look at Raffaele's Appeal's Summary of the Massei Report:

I have been trying to explain to several posters on various boards why the Massei report actually helped convince me of Innocence. A section of Raffaele's appeal explains it better than I have been able to.

Firstly, rather than explaining the reasons which induced the Court to attribute guilt to the accused, nearly all of the sentencing report is limited to a long description of what happened during the trial.
Naturally, in all judgments the exposition of the facts is an essential part of the provision. However, when one is faced with an in-depth illustration of hearings and witness testimonies (quotes which in this case are partial or inaccurate), whilst the space dedicated to the reasoning that guided the Judges to accept one theory rather than another is almost non-existent, this signifies that the judgment has not fulfilled its duty to explain its reasoning.
The imbalance between the exposition of evidence and reasoning requires that the provision be reprimanded because, alongside the extremely long summary of the trial, the enunciation of the choice to embrace one theory [rather than another] translates into a sort of act of faith in one of the various hypotheses under consideration.

Reading the Massey report, you can't help but notice this. A lot of it seems to be padding, droning on and on, page after page of "candy floss", pure fluff and without context and explanation.

To this it must be added that, in the rare portions of the provision in which the sentencing report gives credit to a hypothesis, it displays a second defect: the contested judgment proposes a reversal of logical procedure in its evaluation of the criminal responsibility of the accused.

I have a feeling they are going to talk about a large bag. (Yep, it's there). And a boxcutter:

Think also of the consideration given by the Court to the habit of Raffaele Sollecito of carrying an ornamental boxcutter knife. Starting from this premise, the judgment claims that “Raffaele Sollecito not only found himself at the scene of the crime and pursuing with violence the same objective as Rudi Guede, but was armed with a sharp boxcutter (…). Elements which lead one to consider that the wound with a depth of 4cm was inflicted by Raffaele Sollecito with the boxcutter that he always carried with him” (pages 400 and 401 sentenza).
In essence, in the view of the Court, Raffaele Sollecito’s habit of carrying in his pocket a small boxcutter would be enough to deduce that he used it to strike the victim, and it is for the defence, if anyone, to prove otherwise.

And a scream:

Symptomatic of this erroneous and misleading approach is the passage in which the judgment comments on the declarations given by a witness, Nara Capezzali, on the alleged scream heard the evening of 1 November: to justify the credibility of an absolutely unreliable witness it is noted “if this scream did not happen and Capezzali did not hear it, we do not see the reason why she would have spoken about it” (p. 89 sentenza).
The illogicality of this assumption is obvious: rather than objectively evaluating the inconsistencies which emerged from the testimony of the witness, we start, without any justification, from the presumption that the same is reliable.

OK. Amanda and Raffaele had a hard time overcoming this type of logic. Go figure.

 

[Alt+F4]

Furthermore, Raffaele was worried about a leak under the sink, helping someone with their suitcases and listening to a movie his father saw. Amanda thought she would be working. Are we to believe that suddenly their minds would shift to murder and actually rush to do so in the next hour???????

Ridiculus, absolutely ridiculus!

Hi Justin, no one, not even Massei believes there was premeditation.

 

[Alt+F4]

Including the latest hilarious "Hercule Poirot"-style triumphant reveal by SomeAlibi over at PMF, in which he confidently announces that he has definitively figured out "what happened" with regard to the mop (and then goes on to congratulate himself on his extraordinary powers of deduction).

Unfortunately for him, there is no evidence of any mop usage at the murder house, and none of the mops or buckets showed any trace of having been used to clean up the crime scene. He also fails to understand that mops are not only used merely to soak up water. If Sollecito had indeed had a significant amount of dishwater leaking onto his kitchen floor on the evening of the 1st (and we have no reason to doubt that, since he mentioned it explicitly to his father in the 20.48 phone call), then it's highly likely that there would have been residual tide marks and even small pools of water still there the following morning. The purpose of fetching a mop that morning would therefore have not merely been to soak up residual water, but also to actually clean the kitchen floor of the dirty tide marks and water stains.

His "grand theory" of the mop-head-exchange also signally fails to explain why it wouldn't have been far, far easier for Knox to buy (or steal, if you prefer) a new mop head, then just take it straight back to the girls' house to swap it with the "covered-in-Meredith's-blood" mop head. His "reasoning" for this seems to be that a new mop head would in itself look suspicious, and therefore it needed to be "dirtied-up" a bit in order to lend it credibility.

But if that's the case, why couldn't Knox have done something simple such as engineer a "spillage" of some juice in the girls' kitchen? If she'd done this, she could have used the new mop head to clean up this spillage, thereby giving it the vital "used" appearance. And this could have been done without risking re-contamination from the murder scene, or without having to take the mop and bucket to-and-fro to Sollecito's apartment.

To me, the mop is of no relevance whatsoever to the investigation. And this idea that Knox and Sollecito would have the wherewithal to go to these extraordinary lengths in order to wave red herrings in front of the police is equally risible. In my opinion, SA's "grand theory" buckles under the slightest scrutiny, and is yet another example of a biased search for malevolent behaviour from Knox and Sollecito where none exists. Oh, and you'd think that a "defence lawyer with 20 years' experience" would know the grammatical difference between a colon and a semi-colon - but maybe good writing isn't an important requirement in legal circles these days (particularly if the Massei report is anything to go by)....

Why are you commenting here on what people post there?

 

[Alt+F4]

Are we talking about something resembling the prosecution theory, where Raffaele and Amanda and Guede all get high on drugs and commit unpremeditated murder? If so it's a rock solid refutation of that theory because one of them was at home clicking things when Meredith died.

Could you provide more information about "home clicking things"? Thanks.

Or are we talking about some novel conspiracy theory of your own devising where Raffaele premeditated the crime and set up his computer to provide himself with an alibi, only to be foiled when the prosecution got the time of death completely wrong?

Kevin, please show where I ever posted that the crime was premeitated? Oh, that's right, you can't.

If so you've taken leave of reality and entered your own private fantasy world where it's the defendant's responsibility to prove beyond unreasonable doubt that they could not possibly have committed the crime, even if they were psychic computer hacking ninjas.

You have taken leave of reality when you make up statements I never said.

Lied, or got things wrong, or stated the truth but conflicting witnesses got things wrong, and always about inconsequential matters.

So let me get this straight. When it comes to AK and RS they always were confused or had faulty memories, when it comes to everyone else they lied? Is this correct?

Ignoring your trivialisation of their interrogation, as I'm sure you are aware my point is based on the sheer volume of facts collected, not the time-frame in which they were obtained. Ask me enough questions and I'll get some things wrong and/or contradict myself. Ask other people enough questions and they'll get things wrong and/or contradict me. None of this is evidence that they were in the murder room holding a knife.

Again, Kevin keep up. My theory of the murder doesn't have either of them holding a knife.

 

[Alt+F4]

You got to remember, Knox did have an alibi.

What is it?

 

[Alt+F4]

It's really up to the public, globally, to exert pressure and make the Italian justice system understand that this problem will not go away until Amanda and Raffaele are free.

Hi Charlie. Why do you think international pressure would help their cases? No nation likes to feel bullied (especially by the U.S.). Look what happened to Lori Berenson when her parents pushed the issue.

 

[Justinian2]

Question:

I believe that the prosecution's case is that Knox and Sollecito somehow disposed of their contaminated clothing/footwear after the murder. But if this is the case, why can't the prosecution figure out exactly which clothing/footwear Knox is supposed to have disposed of? Don't they have evidence from someone like Filomena saying something like "I remember Amanda wearing a pair of light coloured jeans often, but they are not among the clothes of Amanda's that the police have recovered from the flat or Sollecito's place"? I'm guessing not, and I'm guessing the police and prosecution have totally failed to identify any of Knox's clothing/footwear that was known to her housemates before the murder, but which was missing after the murder.

I think you're giving people way too much credit for their powers of observation. I had the fortunate/unfortunate experience of being charged with A & B on a police officer which carries with it a 2 year sentence. I had many sleepless nights, migraine headaches, and much confusion over what actually happened and the police report.

The assault was merely removing a can of mace from a police officer's hand. Since acting defensively would look better than acting offensively, it was important to determine what happened first. That was more difficult than it seemed. Five witnesses said that the officer grabbed my wrist. Only the police officer that was macing me and myself knew I grabbed his wrist. The point is ALL five witnesses got it wrong.

The cops writing the report got the names of the officers reversed. Only by correlating everything to the "wrist holding" incident did the truth emerge. One eye witness even thought the cop was holding a gun instead of a can of mace. I think he did draw his gun after I threw his mace across the street because I heard a click as a gun being cocked might make. I was blinded by mace so I didn't see anything else...

Don't take ANYTHING the cops or witnesses say as the absolute truth. CORRELATE! Find out what's consistent in all the testimony and that's a fact. You will probably find that there aren't too many dependable and relevant facts.

 

[Alt+F4]

Did the police ever ascertain whether any of Knox's clothes were missing following the murder? I am assuming (coupled with the viewing of photos of Knox's room and wardrobe) that Knox did not have a particularly large selection of clothing in Perugia. After all, she would only have what she had brought over from Seattle, coupled with anything she might have bought while in Germany and Italy.

You are making an assumption based on no evidence. I'm a woman too, and yeah, even if it's not expensive stuff, we have a lot of clothes.

I imagine that the police would have interviewed the housemates about Knox's clothing and footwear, both in regard to the clothes they had seen her wearing at any time while she was in Italy, and also of course in regard to what she was wearing on the day of the murder.

These four women had been roommates for about 2 months and didn't spend everyday together. They all lived separate lives.

I can't believe it would be that hard to work out whether any of Knox's clothes or shoes had mysteriously disappeared after the murder.

Again, who would know with certainty the particulars of Amanda's wardrobe?

 

[Rhea]

Hello new person

I'm not saying that they are guilty because they have no alibi, I'm saying that calling some sort of short "computer activity" on RS's laptop an alibi for two people for at least a two hour window is ridiculous.

Hi there,

It seems I misunderstood you here. I've read many times the fact they haven't got an alibi is thought to be very suspicious by many. Usually expressed by the question; "Why don't they have an alibi??!" That's the way I've received your post, I apologize.

The computer alibi until 9:10 is pretty much accepted by the prosecution and court as far as I know. The defense claims the alibi is even extended, as there was more activity until 9:46 (downloading and watching of a cartoon) according to their experts. Of course a computer alibi isn't the same as a person confirming your presence. But it does make it very likely they were there at least until then.

And it is difficult to imagine how they could have gone to the cottage and murder Meredith in this short time frame. They could have been at the cottage at 9:56 at the earliest, the phones were most likely thrown away by 10:13, 10:30 every action was defenitely over, as stated by the people with the broken down car. It's a very short time frame. Doesn't really work at all I think.

Also, if Amanda and Raffaele had faked this Alibi it would have been much cleverer to establish an alibi for a more extended time, so the alibi being faked doesn't seem very reasonable to me. Also if the murder was not premeditated, as stated by the prosecution, it doesn't really work either, why would they know beforehand they would need an alibi later?

That they just kept a film running unnoticedly is possible of course, yet not very likely in my mind.

 

[Dan O.]

According to the report his home received very strong cell phone signals.

According to the report, the signals were measured from the outside or Raffaele's apartment near the entrance. Chief Inspector Latella never went inside any of the homes.

 

[Kestrel]

I'm already aware of a number of reasons to be skeptical that the knife retreived from the boyfriend's home was used to attack the poor victim in this case. I'm wondering if I've recently learned of another...

I know that the victim was stabbed a number of times. But that the knife from the kitchen is not compatible with at least some of the wounds.

Till now, I had been thinking (merely my assumption) that the wounds which were *not* compatible with the kitchen knife, and those that could (in theory) have been made by that knife, were not located in the same general vicinity on the body.

Am I mistaken about this? Read something that I interpreted to mean that all the stab wounds, in fact, *were* in the same, and rather specific, area.

If that's true, relatively speaking, it looks more likely only one knife was used in this crime. And, as most objective people probably agree, if only one knife was used, it will *not* have been the knife from the boyfriend's kitchen.

Meredith was stabbed three times in the neck. All three wounds are in close proximity.

The kitchen knife blade is too wide to have made two of these three wounds.

The kitchen knife is wider and longer than the outline of a knife left in blood on the victims bedding.

A knife of the size indicated by that outline is compatible with all three wounds on the victim.

 

[Dan O.]

The video that accompanied the Spheron files included a brief glimpse of the "mop and bucket"...

Actually, there are 3 glimpses from 3 different angles. None of them give any better identification to the objects. Maybe Barbie has a better picture (assuming that she kept the out takes)

 

[Rhea]

Hi Rhea, welcome to the discussion.

As a practical matter, Amanda and Raffaele are in a situation where they do have to prove their innocence, and even when they offer proof, it is not accepted. For example, after being stonewalled for a year and a half, their attorneys finally extracted proof that the luminol stains tested negative for blood, but the judge ruled that the luminol stains were made with blood anyway. It's really up to the public, globally, to exert pressure and make the Italian justice system understand that this problem will not go away until Amanda and Raffaele are free.

Oh yes, I'm aware of this, they're expected to prove their innocence and that is really tragic. I often think, the only thing the prosecution really has against them is the fact that they haven't got an alibi and so they can invent which ever scenario they want, however unlikely and absurd. But how can Raffaele and Amanda prove these things didn't happen?

In one Mignini theory Amanda had an affair with Rudy, how implausible is that? Yet how does she prove she didn't? They just invent, imagine things, and Amanda and Raffaele are then left to somehow prove the contrary, which of course they can't. (Their only help therein is logic, which usually refutes practically all of the prosecution's claims).

I'm a bit optimistic though that the higher courts will have a different understanding of reasonal doubt.