Continuation - Discussion of the Amanda Knox case

[Rhea]

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.

All the witnesses are not credible at all, it astounds me they were taken seriousely …

Also, a bit similar to you, I wondered if the only reason they charged Raffaele was to destroy amanda's alibi. If he is a suspect for the crime too, her alibi isn't worth anything anymore, on the other hand, they sensed accomplicity in the way amanda and raffaele interacted from the very beginning, so I don't really know what to think about that … the motivations of the prosecution are often a big mistery to me …

 

[Charlie Wilkes]

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.

All the major stab wounds were on her neck, although she had a number of bruises and some minor cuts on her hands and face. She had two deep puncture wounds on the right side of her neck, inflicted without any significant lateral cutting force. The largest wound, on the left side of her neck, was a slashing wound. It could hypothetically have been made with the knife from Sollecito's kitchen.

My initial take on this was that Guede grabbed her from behind and threw her to the floor, and stabbed her in the right side of the neck with a knife held in his right hand while she was faced away from him. I thought she must have twisted around, which is why the final, large wound was on the left side of her neck.

But Steve Moore disagreed. He is quite sure Meredith was being held from behind when all the major wounds were inflicted. He thinks Guede inflicted the large wound by reaching around and slashing her throat from left to right. And indeed, here is how Massei summarizes the pathologist's report:

The main wound was located in the left lateral region of the neck, and was [105] 8cm in length; the width could not be measured because the edges had separated due to the elasticity of the tissues both in relation to the region and to the position of the head, which could have modified the width. These wounds had a small "tail" at the posterior end. The wound "penetrated into the interior of the structure of the neck in a slightly oblique direction, upwards and also towards the right" (page 15).

 

[Justinian2]

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.

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.

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

And a scream:

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

I think the Massei report can be a huge help to the defense. Everytime I've tried to quote a source on a forum I get the objection that it is prejudiced because it comes from the defense. This overcomes that fundamental objection as you can quote sufficient fact from the Massey report to make that report appear to be the source.

Imagine if they start arguing the validity of your fact from the Massei report? They sabotage their own case!

I think the key to the case is to get a new judge and prosecutor.

 

[Charlie Wilkes]

To me, the mop is of no relevance whatsoever to the investigation.

If Massei's followers are mired in a swamp of untenable speculation, it is because he has brought them there. Here is what he writes on p. 85 of the translated motivation (p. 77 of the original):

Fetching the mop to dry the floor also seems to be a scarcely credible action: at Raffaele Sollecito’s there was someone attending to the cleaning; it is therefore considered that everything needed to clean up some water was already there, such that on the morning of November 2, not much could have been left on the floor, as was also reported by Amanda Knox herself.

If Amanda's account is not credible, then what is credible? Massei doesn't say. He merely insinuates a sinister meaning and leaves it to others to flesh out the details.

 

[Kevin_Lowe]

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.

Kindly do not misrepresent other peoples' positions. There is no "two hour window".

Computer activity up to and including 9:45pm is an alibi for the time up until 9:45pm. What other explanation for files opening and closing do you propose?

The stomach evidence shows that Meredith was almost certainly attacked well before 9:45pm. Thus barring psychic powers, premeditation or secret elite hacking skills Amanda and Raffaele could not have been involved.

 

[JREF2010]

Malkmus, you wrote

"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? "


This is really a question for the guilters group, but I agree it makes no sense to blame Rudy and Patrick.

 

[JREF2010]

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.

The fact Amanda was planning on going to work and Raffaele agreed to help a friend by driving seems to align with being fairly sober, maybe stoned, but not out of control as the prosecution accuses.

So with the above timeline it seems they'd have to become irrational and murderous in a matter of minutes.

Where is the proof of them being completely out of control on drugs, as insinuated in Masseis report?

From all I have read, there was one joint smoked at the cottage around 4pm and another one smoked at the apartment.
Two joints, they admit to smoking. Will two joints turn someone into a murder? Probably not.

 

[Mary_H]

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.

International pressure obviously is effective. The UN routinely condemns the acts of countries that violate human rights, and gets results. Nations that recognize they are outnumbered in terms of world opinion usually consider the best way to cut their losses, and respond accordingly.

Bullying implies an abuse of power -- the big guy against the little guy. Bullying is what happened to Amanda and Raffaele, it is not what Amanda and Raffaele's supporters are doing to Italy.

International pressure and negotiations don't have to follow a bullying model. They can be legal, fair and rational. Whether the Perugian civil authorities want to release the defendants the easy way or the hard way is up to them.

 

[Chris C]

Definition of alibi: An alibi is a type of defence found in legal proceedings by demonstrating that the defendant was not in the place where an alleged offence was committed.

According to the the autopsy the murder had to be performed before 10pm.
Knox/Sollecito have an alibi for a crime committed before 10pm.
The problem is the prosecution, judge, and jury refused to accept the autopsy.

So long as Sollecito says knox was with me, it doesn't matter how many lies Amanda says. It doesn't matter how many cart wheels she does in the police station. It doesn't matter how many guys she screws on a train. It doesn't matter how many times she imagines Patrick killing Meredith. It doesn't matter how many bogus knives you find with Merediths and Amanda's DNA that dont fit the the stab wounds. It doesn't matter how much dope she smokes or coke she snorts. It doesn't matter how many shopkeepers see her somewhere other than her apartment. It doesn't matter how many homeless guys see her somewhere other than her apartment. It doesn't matter how many screams you hear at 2330. It doesn't matter if she screwed Guede everyday she was in Italy. The real truth is, Knox and Sollecito didn't kill Meredith. They have an alibi.

 

[Mary_H]

If Massei's followers are mired in a swamp of untenable speculation, it is because he has brought them there. Here is what he writes on p. 85 of the translated motivation (p. 77 of the original):

Fetching the mop to dry the floor also seems to be a scarcely credible action: at Raffaele Sollecito’s there was someone attending to the cleaning; it is therefore considered that everything needed to clean up some water was already there, such that on the morning of November 2, not much could have been left on the floor, as was also reported by Amanda Knox herself.

If Amanda's account is not credible, then what is credible? Massei doesn't say. He merely insinuates a sinister meaning and leaves it to others to flesh out the details.

This is a good example of how absurdly speculative the judge's opinions are. There is as much reason to believe cleaning supplies were not in Raffaele's apartment as to believe they were. Many housekeepers bring their own tools with them from home to home, like carpenters and painters. It is probably more likely Raffaele would have had a mop in his home if there was not anyone "attending to the cleaning."

On the same page, he chastises Amanda as being inconsistent for saying she wanted to go home and change her clothes:

"Since she knew she and Raffaele had made plans for a trip to Gubbio on November 2nd, she could well have brought the clothes with her that were going to be needed for the next day....."

Well, yeah, she could have, but since the two lived so close to each other, why would she pack a bag when she could just go home and pick up her stuff?

One gets the feeling the judge's reasoning was not rigorous.

 

[Chris C]

This is a good example of how absurdly speculative the judge's opinions are. There is as much reason to believe cleaning supplies were not in Raffaele's apartment as to believe they were. Many housekeepers bring their own tools with them from home to home, like carpenters and painters. It is probably more likely Raffaele would have had a mop in his home if there was not anyone "attending to the cleaning."

On the same page, he chastises Amanda as being inconsistent for saying she wanted to go home and change her clothes:

"Since she knew she and Raffaele had made plans for a trip to Gubbio on November 2nd, she could well have brought the clothes with her that were going to be needed for the next day....."

Well, yeah, she could have, but since the two lived so close to each other, why would she pack a bag when she could just go home and pick up her stuff?

One gets the feeling the judge's reasoning was not rigorous.

Actually Knox was suppose to go to work, so bringing clothes to work with her for a trip the next day doesn't make sense. At some point she would have had to return home. She chose to return home the next day before the trip.

 

[Kevin_Lowe]

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

I have no information beyond what has already been presented: That at 9:45pm someone opened and closed a file on Raffaele's computer, that this was established by the police investigation of his computer, and that this fact has not been contested.

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

Yet you keep hinting at a theory where Raffaele and Amanda somehow arranged for the 9:45pm computer activity to provide themselves with an alibi, which necessitates that they knew they would need one, which necessitates premeditation.

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?

No it is not correct. I'm glad we could get that straight.

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

That's nice. I'd rather talk about the prosecution narrative used to convict them, in which they did.

 

[katy_did]

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.

I think the moment when this really struck me was when, after talking about the computer and phone records, Massei concludes by saying:

With regard to the time period subsequent to 21:15 pm and until shortly after midnight, no element confirms the presence of Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito in the house at Corso Garibaldi.

I thought, well if all it proves is that it doesn't prove they didn't leave the house, why spend so much time talking about it? No wonder the whole thing is so damn long. Next thing I was expecting him to run through the guest lists of all local parties happening that night, just to show they weren't there.

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

The bag quotes get better, though:

Amanda had with her a very large bag (...); in this bag the knife in question could have been placed.

And from Raffaele's appeal:

With this argument, in fact, it must be suspected of any woman armed with a rather large bag (practically the entire feminine world) that within it she could be concealing, for defensive purposes, some lethal weapon to use as required.

Makes me splutter on my coffee every time. Can you imagine what those older women who use the large trolley bags on wheels must be carrying with them? And to think, international governments are so focused on Muslims!

 

[LondonJohn]

Let's try and nail this issue of stomach/duodenum contents and time of death.

Many people seem to have seized upon the (true) fact that estimating time of death accurately with reference to stomach/intestinal contents can be very difficult, with large margins of error. But this imprecision is only the case when a) there is an absence of other indicators of ToD, and b) there is some continuum in the transit of food through the entire digestive system observed at autopsy.

In the case of Meredith Kercher's death, however, I believe that it's relatively easy to say with confidence that her death must have occurred before 10pm at the very latest, and most likely before 9.30pm. This is because none of her stomach contents had yet passed through to her duodenum.

I don't believe anybody will be able to find a credible witness or online source (academic paper, credible medical site etc) which would state that 100% of ingested food from a moderate sized meal will still be present in the stomach more than 3 hours after ingestion - at a very maximum. We know that Meredith's pizza meal was consumed between 6.00pm and 6.30pm (or 7.00pm at the very latest). So for 100% of that meal to still be within her stomach at the time of death, her death HAS to have occurred between around 8.00pm and 9.30pm (or 8.00pm and 10.00pm at the very outside). And since we know she was still alive at just before 9.00pm, then in this case her time of death can be narrowed down from 9.00pm to 10.00pm maximum.

It's astonishing to me that the defence seemingly let this issue get past everyone at the first trial. In order to support the prosecution's time of death (which was accepted by the court) of 11.30pm-11.50pm, the pizza meal would have had to remain totally within Meredith's stomach for at least 4.5 hours - and probably in fact more than 5 hours. This is so far outside of known parameters of gastric emptying that it's simply laughable.

I very deeply believe that this one point, if argued strongly and correctly by the defence attorneys in the appeal, will by itself render the first court's verdicts unsafe. There is, I believe, no documented case in medical history of a meal such as Meredith's pizza meal remaining 100% in the stomach for more than 3 hours. In fact, normally a meal such as this will start to pass through to the duodenum within 90 minutes of ingestion, but 3 hours is the outer boundary. There's no way that 4.5 or 5 hours is medically feasible - especially given that Meredith was a fit, healthy young girl, who was in a relaxed state for at least a couple of hours after eating, and who drank no alcohol with her meal.

Just for further reading, here are some more links:

http://www.vivo.colostate.edu/hbooks/pathphys/digestion/basics/transit.html

(Note the red line on the graph in the above link, showing stomach emptying % Vs time in minutes)

http://www.ijp-online.com/article.a...e=4;spage=238;epage=240;aulast=Awasthi;type=0

(The average time for 50% emptying of stomach contents in healthy adult males is given as 82 minutes)

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1440-1746.2006.04449.x/abstract

(Median time of 50% emptying of stomach contents from a solid meal is given as 127 minutes, with the 75th percentile mark at 168 minutes. This study also gives T(lag) times, which is the time elapsing before the first food leaves the stomach to the duodenum. For solid meals, median T(lag) is 81.5 minutes, with the 75th percentile at 102 minutes).

If there was no food matter in her duodenum, Meredith Kercher was definitely killed before 10.00pm, and almost certainly before 9.30pm.

 

[Chris_Halkides]

she thought she was going to work that evenin

This is a good example of how absurdly speculative the judge's opinions are. There is as much reason to believe cleaning supplies were not in Raffaele's apartment as to believe they were. Many housekeepers bring their own tools with them from home to home, like carpenters and painters. It is probably more likely Raffaele would have had a mop in his home if there was not anyone "attending to the cleaning."

On the same page, he chastises Amanda as being inconsistent for saying she wanted to go home and change her clothes:

"Since she knew she and Raffaele had made plans for a trip to Gubbio on November 2nd, she could well have brought the clothes with her that were going to be needed for the next day....."

Well, yeah, she could have, but since the two lived so close to each other, why would she pack a bag when she could just go home and pick up her stuff?

One gets the feeling the judge's reasoning was not rigorous.

I must be missing something. Until roughly 8:30 in the evening, Amanda thought that she would be working, and she may have initially intended to go to her flat after work, and perhaps clean up. Why would she have taken stuff to Raffaele's under those circumstances?

 

[Alt+F4]

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.

I noticed that too then wondered if that is particular to this report or is that just the way these reports are written in general. I think there is no way to know for sure unless you read another motivations report from another murder trial.

 

[Alt+F4]

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.

A consultant for RS's defense, Bruno Pellero, said the signal was weak inside the apartment. Yet:

1. Neither RS or AK ever mentioned getting poor cell reception at his apartment.
2. RS's father called him on his cell, not his land line.
3. There was no activity at all on the land line on Nov. 1 or 2 (btw, I think most people with cell phones keep their land lines too and not because of poor cell reception).
4. RS received many calls during the night indicating that he was probably in bed at the time, not at the enterance.

 

[Alt+F4]

Computer activity up to and including 9:45pm is an alibi for the time up until 9:45pm. What other explanation for files opening and closing do you propose?

"Computer activity"? Very vague. Could you provide more specific details?

 

[Alt+F4]

International pressure obviously is effective.

Of the hundreds of Americans that are arrested in other countries each year how many have been freed due to international pressure?

The UN routinely condemns the acts of countries that violate human rights, and gets results.

The UN has not condemned these convictions as a violation of human rights. Neither has Amnesty Internation or any other human rights NGO. The State Department won't get involved and Amanda's family should be glad they won't. The absolutely best they could hope for would be an extradition which would put her in a much worse (federal) prison than where she already is.

Nations that recognize they are outnumbered in terms of world opinion usually consider the best way to cut their losses, and respond accordingly.

The only time I can recall this happening is apartheid in South Africa and that took longer to dismantle than Amanda's entire sentence.

Has there ever been a case where international pressure led to the overturning of a conviction in a murder case?

 

[Alt+F4]

I have no information beyond what has already been presented: That at 9:45pm someone opened and closed a file on Raffaele's computer, that this was established by the police investigation of his computer, and that this fact has not been contested.

The only source I have for this is RS's lawyer. Do you have a link to something else? Thanks. I don't know how it can be established that "someone" opened and closed a computer file without knowing the details about the file. Many computer programs (such as anti-virus) can go on automatically. An even if "someone" physicallydid access a computer file how can that be an alibi for two people?

Yet you keep hinting at a theory where Raffaele and Amanda somehow arranged for the 9:45pm computer activity to provide themselves with an alibi, which necessitates that they knew they would need one, which necessitates premeditation.

Nope. If there was computer activity I think it was automatic, no premeditation. They simply left the computer on when they went to her apartment to get clothes for the day trip.

That's nice. I'd rather talk about the prosecution narrative used to convict them, in which they did.

I think the prosecution got a lot of it wrong, but they are still guilty (to lesser degrees - I think AK was there but did not participate, I think RS only helped hold Meredith down, I think RG did the stabbing and sexual assult).