Continuation - Discussion of the Amanda Knox case

[Fine]

The stock PMF/guilter position is to refuse to speculate about any crimes Rudy might have committed and not been caught for, and to repeat the question "What was Rudy convicted for?" to emphasise the point that despite being repeatedly caught red-handed the police always turned him straight back out on the streets.

* * *

This accusation would also explain how the police never seem to have thought to look for a local criminal with a matching M.O. and dark, curly hair after finding the crime scene, but instead immediately latched on to the nearest available suspects and an entirely unrelated man (Lumumba) with matching hair. They only started treating Rudy as a suspect after he was picked up by foreign police.
* * *

___________________________

Incorrect. The Perugia police started treating Rudy as a suspect as soon as they had identified a bloody fingerprint (found in Meredith's room) as belonging to Rudy. That happened before his arrest in Germany.

See HERE

///

 

[LondonJohn]

Danceme, Most runners in a marathon complete the corse in about 6 hours. So how is is possible year after year that the winner finishes in 2 to 3 hours? When you figure that out, maybe you will be able to realize what the rest of us are talking about.


For everyone else, the link that Danceme provided above does necessitate rethinking the timeline because one of the measures they made was the time of half emptying. Though phase II was a small study of only 10 participants, the T1/2 times ranged from 24 to 137 minutes.

As you point out, this was a very small study with therefore a low statistical validity. In a much larger research study which I quoted from previously, the 75th percentile point for T(1/2) was 168 minutes, versus a median of 127 minutes. In the same study, the 75th percentile point for T(lag) was given as 102 minutes, versus a median of 82 minutes.

Statistically, one can perform a rough bell curve extrapolation form the given numbers* to estimate that the 95th percentile for T(1/2) would be around 220 minutes, and the 95th percentile for T(lag) would be around 130 minutes. In other words, 5% of people might statistically be expected to retain 100% of ingested food within their stomachs for over 130 minutes (and 5% of people might take longer than 220 minutes to pass 50% of an ingested meal out from their stomach to their duodenum). It's therefore perfectly statistically valid for Meredith to fall within this outer 5%.

Furthermore, the same bell curve extrapolation can also be used to illustrate how incredibly statistically unlikely it is for Meredith to have retained all her food within her stomach for even 3.5 hours (210 minutes) after ingestion. The T(lag) percentile corresponding to 210 minutes is more than 99.99%. This means that fewer than one person in 10,000 might statistically be expected to retain all of an ingested meal within their stomach for over 3.5 hours.

* Using the normal curve, as per the link below:

http://concordspedpac.org/Bell-curve-ss.htm

(For anyone who's not statistically-minded, the percentile equivalents are shown below the curve. Since we know the horizontal distance (= time in minutes) between the 50th percentile point (the median) and the 75th percentile point, we can then extrapolate the curve out to any given percentile point, or conversely we can plug in any value of time to give the corresponding percentile point.)

 

[Justinian2]

The last definitive human interaction with the laptop was at 21:10, not 21:45. Give me a source, that says, that there was human interaction with the laptop at 21:45.

You have no medical profession, you ignore two witnesses, that heard the scream a long time after 22:00, you ignore two other witnesses, who heard the running of people, as did one person shortly after she heard the scream, at about 23:30 and you want me to believe yor rubbish theory of the ToD because of your knowledge of the stomach evidence?

Working backword from the ping of the cell phones at 22:13 to determine the time of attack we can add in the following:

1.) The walk from RS's house.
2.) The walk to the garden where the phones were deposited.
3.) The length of time M was strangled (ten to fifteen minutes).

It RS and AK could still make it in time to participate in the murder, it still doesn't prove they did the murder. Hardly. All it proves is that the prosecution's theory is, while highly unlikely, not entirely disproven.

But at the same time, we could not that the Massie report also states on page 80 that:

From the statements just mentioned it is so found that between 9:30 pm - 10:00 pm, when Curatolo arrived at his bench in Piazza Grimana located next to the newspaper seller Amanda and Raffaele were together already ...

So, for the last remnaints of the prosecution's theory and/or the accuracy of his report to be intact, AK and RS would have had to rush from this location at 9:30 to participate in the 9:45 attack. Even if they could have done all this in 15 minutes, it still doesn't PROVE anything, it just means that the prosecutors' fantastic theory is still slightly plausible and not completely absurd.

 

[Rhea]

How in the world, would anyone other than RS - Rudie and Amanda herself know what shirt she was wearing when she murdered Meredith? And surely were not taking their word on this, are we?

It was Filomena who told the police what sweatshirt Amanda was wearing the day of the murder. People somethimes do remember such things.

That Sweatshirt wasn't found until march and it the meantime there was made a big thing out of it by the police, that Amanda somehow got rid of that sweatshirt.

 

[Rhea]

How in the world, would anyone other than RS - Rudie and Amanda herself know what shirt she was wearing when she murdered Meredith? And surely were not taking their word on this, are we?

Oh, and I was talking about the shirt she was wearing the day of the murder, not during the murder. It's an illogical assumption that Amanda told the police what she was wearing while she was murdering Meredith, as that would be a confession to the crime.

 

[RoseMontague]

You have no medical profession, you ignore two witnesses, that heard the scream a long time after 22:00, you ignore two other witnesses, who heard the running of people, as did one person shortly after she heard the scream, at about 23:30 and you want me to believe yor rubbish theory of the ToD because of your knowledge of the stomach evidence?

I think it is the court that ignores the testimony of these two witnesses. Both showed they can't get dates and times correct and this was demonstrated to a degree through examination and testimony that any reasonable court should not ignore. The witnesses that absolutely had documented times (broken car/tow truck) heard and saw nothing. This was ignored by the court as well, in favor of demonstrably unreliable witnesses. The pile of rubbish is the court's fantasy, in my opinion.

 

[Justinian2]

As you point out, this was a very small study with therefore a low statistical validity. In a much larger research study which I quoted from previously, the 75th percentile point for T(1/2) was 168 minutes, versus a median of 127 minutes. In the same study, the 75th percentile point for T(lag) was given as 102 minutes, versus a median of 82 minutes.

Statistically, one can perform a rough bell curve extrapolation form the given numbers* to estimate that the 95th percentile for T(1/2) would be around 220 minutes, and the 95th percentile for T(lag) would be around 130 minutes. In other words, 5% of people might statistically be expected to retain 100% of ingested food within their stomachs for over 130 minutes (and 5% of people might take longer than 220 minutes to pass 50% of an ingested meal out from their stomach to their duodenum). It's therefore perfectly statistically valid for Meredith to fall within this outer 5%.

Furthermore, the same bell curve extrapolation can also be used to illustrate how incredibly statistically unlikely it is for Meredith to have retained all her food within her stomach for even 3.5 hours (210 minutes) after ingestion. The T(lag) percentile corresponding to 210 minutes is more than 99.99%. This means that fewer than one person in 10,000 might statistically be expected to retain all of an ingested meal within their stomach for over 3.5 hours.

* Using the normal curve, as per the link below:

http://concordspedpac.org/Bell-curve-ss.htm

(For anyone who's not statistically-minded, the percentile equivalents are shown below the curve. Since we know the horizontal distance (= time in minutes) between the 50th percentile point (the median) and the 75th percentile point, we can then extrapolate the curve out to any given percentile point, or conversely we can plug in any value of time to give the corresponding percentile point.)

Great analysis. However, I think the conclusion gets lost in the math. My conclusion is that Massei was highly incorrect to use the AVERAGE times in these ToD determinations as statistically significant.

What you have shown is that the ToD due to digestion has a unpredictability of at least 86 minutes. In other words, there is an 86 minute period around the mean where the Tod is statistically feasible. These ToD determinations are not, as the prosecution seem to suggest, accurate to the minute, or even the half hour. Maybe the prosecution has some ability to predict the ToD only within an 86 minute interval.

 

[Kevin_Lowe]

The last definitive human interaction with the laptop was at 21:10, not 21:45. Give me a source, that says, that there was human interaction with the laptop at 21:45.

We've been over this: Raffaele's defence team has claimed that a "cartoon" was opened and closed at 21:46. We have no more information than that, but lawyers very rarely if ever lie about matters of fact in court. They spin and misinterpret, naturally, or even ignore inconvenient facts (as Massei does egregiously) but they very rarely lie about them.

However even if you want to push that evidence off the table, it still doesn't save the prosecution theory. To save that thing you need to push the time of death all the way back to 11:30pm or later, which is straightforwardly ridiculous.

Even if you only accept that Amanda and Raffaele were at home at 21:10 there simply isn't time for them to decide to run home, say hi to Rudy who they didn't know personally but who was already there, get drugged up for the sex-fuelled orgy the prosecution fantasised about and kill Meredith within a plausible time frame.

If the police hadn't conveniently trashed every other hard drive, and refused to have them repaired, we might well have further computer evidence to place them at home. (This is another part of the case, like the failure to immediately identify Rudy's M.O., that I really struggle to rationalise. How the hell do you trash three hard drives in a row? Who was their computer forensics officer, Bozo the Clown? This aspect of the case really pushes what I can explain away to myself as mere incompetence).

You have no medical profession, you ignore two witnesses, that heard the scream a long time after 22:00

There's a peculiar strain of irrationality at work here, where evidence based on computer records or on physics and chemistry is seen as less credible than a vague and confused witness statement that someone heard a scream, maybe even on the same night.

What do you really think is more incredible: That the laws of physics and chemistry took a holiday to create the illusion that Meredith died shortly after 9pm and that her phones were on the move by 10:13pm? Or that a woman imagined she heard a scream, possibly mishearing the sound of a car being towed?

, you ignore two other witnesses, who heard the running of people, as did one person shortly after she heard the scream, at about 23:30

What do you really think is more incredible: That the laws of physics and chemistry took a holiday to create the illusion that Meredith died shortly after 9pm and that her phones were on the move by 10:13pm? Or that an entirely unrelated person or persons happened to run down a street that night?

and you want me to believe yor rubbish theory of the ToD because of your knowledge of the stomach evidence?

Please don't try to personalise this. It's not my personal knowledge of the stomach evidence, it's hard scientific fact. It's available for anyone to examine. The scientific fact is that Meredith's stomach contents are only just compatible with a time of death shortly after 9pm, and any substantially later time of death defies what we know of reality.

 

[Fine]

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.

______________________

Hmmm, how do we know that John? Raffaele's attorneys don't know that. Here's what they wrote in their APPEAL:

"....from the start of the consumption of the last known meal (18.30-19.00 on 1.11.2007)...." [See Post #4335]

So, you know that Meredith had consumed her last meal by 7:00 pm but Raffaele's attorneys say she may not have begun to start eating that meal until 7:00 pm. Please explain. Ideally by quoting from trial testimony of Meredith's English friends, Robyn Butterworth, Amy Frost, and Sophie Purton since they were the ones who were there at the dinner party.

///

 

[Justinian2]

Page 25 of the Massei Report

This garden and the house, both hidden by trees, are in the area of Parco S. Angelo, a short distance from 7 Via della Pergola: a distance which would have required a very few minutes to cover by car (two of three minutes), about 15 to 20 minutes on foot (see statements by Fiammetta Biscarini, hearing of February 6, 2009) or less, (cf. statements by Dr Chiacciere, who indicated that the time needed to reach Via Sperandio from Via della Pergola was 5-7 minutes, specifying that it was possible to go via Corso Garibaldi, which is 200 metres from Via Sperandio - or also via the park, declarations made by Dr. Chiaccchiera at the hearing of February 27, 2009, page 145).

It would take 20 minutes to walk from RS to 7 Via della Pergola. Then it would take 15 minutes for the strangulation of MK, and another 20 minutes to transport the cell phones to their resting place in the garden. That's 55 minutes. Working back from the 10:13 ping of the cell phone in the garden, then that means that AK an RS would have had to leave his place at 9:18 PM.

Witnesses placed AK and RS at his place at 8:42. That leaves 36 minutes for everything else. Possible, but not probable. The alibi is not perfect. Anyway, the case against AK and RS has not been proved by American standards and probably not by many other world judicial systems either.

But if we include that fact that AK and RS were seen at 9:30, then their alibi is perfect. They are perfectly innocent.

 

[LondonJohn]

______________________

Hmmm, how do we know that John? Raffaele's attorneys don't know that. Here's what they wrote in their APPEAL:

"....from the start of the consumption of the last known meal (18.30-19.00 on 1.11.2007)...." [See Post #4335]

So, you know that Meredith had consumed her last meal by 7:00 pm but Raffaele's attorneys say she may not have begun to start eating that meal until 7:00 pm. Please explain. Ideally by quoting from trial testimony of Meredith's English friends, Robyn Butterworth, Amy Frost, and Sophie Purton since they were the ones who were there at the dinner party.

///

Well, "Fine", as I imagine you know, there are no direct trial transcripts from which to quote (well, I assume you know that, being a student of the case and all....). But I can quote from contemporaneous newspaper reports:

Here's one from Richard Owen of the Times, which was filed in November 2007, and which references the girls' witness statements to police. It quotes the meal taking place at "around 6pm":

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/europe/article2864713.ece

The next article is from The Independent newspaper, filed on 14 February 2009:

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/w...girl--arrive-to-incriminate-knox-1609172.html

It quotes directly from Robyn Butterworth's trial testimony, attributing the following direct quote to her (my emphasis):

"We invited Meredith to have dinner together and watch a film," she said. "She came to our house at about 4 pm. We cooked a pizza, ate it, then looked at photos on the computer that we had taken ... the previous night. Then we watched the film but halfway through we stopped it and made apple crumble which we ate with ice cream. Meredith went home at about 9pm. It was quite a relaxed night, we talked about boys from home."

So, from Ms Butterworth's court testimony, the pizza was consumed before the movie started. And they interrupted the movie to eat the apple crumble. The movie was "The Notebook", which is listed on IMDB at a running time of 123 minutes (2 hours, assuming they didn't bother to watch the end credits):

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0332280/

If Meredith and Sophie Purton parted company at 8.55pm, then they must have left the other girls' house by 8.45pm at the latest. There is nothing to suggest that the girls didn't watch the whole of the movie, and I am going to make the natural assumption that they did indeed watch the whole film.

If this is the case, then even if Meredith and Sophie left their friends' house the moment the end credits of the movie started rolling, this places the end of the movie at 8.45pm. Subtract 2 hours (the running time of the movie), to get a start time for the movie of 6.45pm. But the girls paused the movie to get the apple crumble, so let's allow 10 minutes for that to occur. This pushes the start time of the movie back to 6.35pm. And Robyn Butterworth's court-testified chronology of the evening specifically states that the pizza meal was consumed before the movie started playing.

Does that explain things for you?

///

 

[LondonJohn]

Great analysis. However, I think the conclusion gets lost in the math. My conclusion is that Massei was highly incorrect to use the AVERAGE times in these ToD determinations as statistically significant.

What you have shown is that the ToD due to digestion has a unpredictability of at least 86 minutes. In other words, there is an 86 minute period around the mean where the Tod is statistically feasible. These ToD determinations are not, as the prosecution seem to suggest, accurate to the minute, or even the half hour. Maybe the prosecution has some ability to predict the ToD only within an 86 minute interval.

Absolutely. The crucial point here is that the inherent margin of error involved is often cited by the prosecution (and those who agree with the prosecution's case) as a way of disregarding the stomach/intestinal contents as evidence of ToD.

However......since it is known what the time of Meredith's last meal was (to within half an hour), and it's well established in medical science what the statistical bell curves look like for T(lag) and T(1/2), it's apparent that a 9.00-9.30pm ToD is at the upper end of the margin of error. This is the fundamentally important point.

If a ToD of 9.00-9.30 were in the middle of the range, or at the lower end of the range, then much more uncertainty would be introduced into the actual ToD. But in this instance, the effective range for ToD based on Meredith's stomach/intestine contents is something like 8.00pm-9.30pm. Since it's known beyond doubt that Meredith was alive between 8.00pm and 9.00pm, then the ToD in this instance can be further narrowed down to 9.00pm-9.30pm.

In my view, Meredith was attacked almost as soon as she walked through the front door of the cottage, was stabbed by 9.10, and was dead by 9.30.

 

[RoseMontague]

In the Micheli report Sophie's statement is that they ate at "6pm or even earlier". I believe I posted the full quote and link previously. The Micheli report also quotes the 2-3 hours after the meal as time of death quoting "CT" if I remember correctly? The amusing thing is Rudy's Motivation report that I have posted on my docstoc page alludes to this and then says something along the lines that Amanda and Sophie left for home around 9pm so dinner must have been finished by then and the immediately gives the time of death 2-3 hours after that (11-12). Just amazing, in my opinion.

 

[RoseMontague]

I should probably give the quote from Rudy's motivation since I have not quoted it before:
(Google translated)

The time of death was placed with minimum waste and maximum of one hour, at 23.00 (ie, between the hours. 22.00 and 24.00 hours) of November 1, 2007; this, on the assumption that dinner between it and English friends found to be consumed at; 21.00 earlier, but, according to the GIP, this time could be anticipated timing arc between the hours of 21.00 to 23.00 is, given statements of Sophie Purton, that at 21.00 the dinner was finished,

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

The original Italian is also on my docstoc page if you prefer or want to give us a better translation.

 

[Chris C]

How in the world, would anyone other than RS - Rudie and Amanda herself know what shirt she was wearing when she murdered Meredith? And surely were not taking their word on this, are we?

Actually this brings up a good question. The police looked through photo's of amanda for clothes she might have been missing or clothes that her roommates described her wearing. The police where also looking for the clothes that witnesses described amanda wearing that night or previous day.
There was no photos that were found of Knox wearing any clothes that was described by any of the prosecutions super witnesses.
All the clothes that Knox had a photo taken of her wearing or her roommates described her wearing were accounted for. Except that Sweatshirt.
Which was found later and of course tested.

The question it raises is how many photo's of knox did they look at on her computer before they destroyed it. That could be the actual reason the computers where destroyed. The fact that they looked at all the pictures on them and found every outfit that knox had worn in Italy that a picture was taken of.

 

[Charlie Wilkes]

______________________

Hmmm, how do we know that John? Raffaele's attorneys don't know that. Here's what they wrote in their APPEAL:

"....from the start of the consumption of the last known meal (18.30-19.00 on 1.11.2007)...." [See Post #4335]

So, you know that Meredith had consumed her last meal by 7:00 pm but Raffaele's attorneys say she may not have begun to start eating that meal until 7:00 pm. Please explain. Ideally by quoting from trial testimony of Meredith's English friends, Robyn Butterworth, Amy Frost, and Sophie Purton since they were the ones who were there at the dinner party.

///

On page 34[21] of the motivation, Massei says Robyn Butterworth doesn't remember what time they ate, but thinks it may have been around 6 pm. But let's suppose Meredith finished eating at 7:30 and had the apple crisp at 8:00. That still points to a ToD before 10:30.

Danceme has cited research in which gastroenterologists were able to detect food residue in the stomach of a test subject six hours after the subject ate. That does not mean the subject had a full stomach at that time. In fact, the article explicitly says that food residue was detected hours after the subject's stomach had emptied most of its contents.

This is an issue that comes up quite often in murder cases. If you can find a cite in which a forensic pathologist says a normal, healthy person may have a full stomach four hours after eating, post it. But unless everything I have ever read is completely wrong, you won't find it.

 

[lane99]

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.

Tks, Kestrel (and CharlieW, too) for the info.

You saw in my post the assumption I made which led me to think it might not be totally unreasonable to conclude two knives were used in the attack.

Now that I know that assumption was incorrect, it certainly seems that much more unlikely that two knives were used.

 

[Danceme]

Look this Coroner has a medical degree. If you refuse to accept his 2 to 3 hours after eating as ToD. Then you must refuse to accept everything else he testified about. Including the ToD using body temperature. I think he also testified about the bruises and the knife wounds. If you throw out 2 to 3 hours as ToD, you must throw out everything.

It's not even logical to say that.

This talks about residue, not the complete meal. Even the Micheli report mentions a 2-3 hour time frame.

ut in this instance, the effective range for ToD based on Meredith's stomach/intestine contents is something like 8.00pm-9.30pm. Since it's known beyond doubt that Meredith was alive between 8.00pm and 9.00pm, then the ToD in this instance can be further narrowed down to 9.00pm-9.30pm

From the Massei report, 5 separate experts, varying conclusions, as is expected when trying to pinpoint a definite time of death based on analysis of stomach contents. It is simply not reliable and does not tell us exactly when Meredith was so brutally and viciously murdered.

Lalli - death 2nd or 3rd hour after eating
Bacci - meal eaten 3 or 4 hours before death due to advanced stage of digestion, TOD between 21:00/21:30 and 23:00 to 24:00
Norelli - concluded this method could not indicate TOD which would be late, very late into Nov 1 or early hours of Nov 2
Introna - 21:30 and 22:30 TOD - emptying occurs 3 to 4 hours after eating, meal was between 18:30 and 20:30
Ronchi - farinaceous meal needs 6 to 7 hours for emptying to occur, TOD can be midnight or later

However, nevermind what any of these guys said. Somebody found an article....therefore it must be definitive.

 

[Justinian2]

In my view, Meredith was attacked almost as soon as she walked through the front door of the cottage, was stabbed by 9.10, and was dead by 9.30.

All ToD analyses point to a possible or probable death between 9 and 10. This is good news for the alibi's of AK and RS.

The alibi shouldn't matter because there is no evidence that they are guilty. The unsubstantiated theory of the prosecutor is substuted for fact. Crazy.

It helps to source fact with the Massie translation because that way the fiends of the prosecution can't claim the data is prejudiced.

 

[Fine]

Well, "Fine", as I imagine you know, there are no direct trial transcripts from which to quote (well, I assume you know that, being a student of the case and all....). But I can quote from contemporaneous newspaper reports:

Here's one from Richard Owen of the Times, which was filed in November 2007, and which references the girls' witness statements to police. It quotes the meal taking place at "around 6pm":

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/europe/article2864713.ece

The next article is from The Independent newspaper, filed on 14 February 2009:

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/w...girl--arrive-to-incriminate-knox-1609172.html

It quotes directly from Robyn Butterworth's trial testimony, attributing the following direct quote to her (my emphasis):

"We invited Meredith to have dinner together and watch a film," she said. "She came to our house at about 4 pm. We cooked a pizza, ate it, then looked at photos on the computer that we had taken ... the previous night. Then we watched the film but halfway through we stopped it and made apple crumble which we ate with ice cream. Meredith went home at about 9pm. It was quite a relaxed night, we talked about boys from home."

So, from Ms Butterworth's court testimony, the pizza was consumed before the movie started. And they interrupted the movie to eat the apple crumble. The movie was "The Notebook", which is listed on IMDB at a running time of 123 minutes (2 hours, assuming they didn't bother to watch the end credits):

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0332280/

If Meredith and Sophie Purton parted company at 8.55pm, then they must have left the other girls' house by 8.45pm at the latest. There is nothing to suggest that the girls didn't watch the whole of the movie, and I am going to make the natural assumption that they did indeed watch the whole film.

If this is the case, then even if Meredith and Sophie left their friends' house the moment the end credits of the movie started rolling, this places the end of the movie at 8.45pm. Subtract 2 hours (the running time of the movie), to get a start time for the movie of 6.45pm. But the girls paused the movie to get the apple crumble, so let's allow 10 minutes for that to occur. This pushes the start time of the movie back to 6.35pm. And Robyn Butterworth's court-testified chronology of the evening specifically states that the pizza meal was consumed before the movie started playing.

Does that explain things for you?

///

________________

LondonJohn,

Thank you for your thoughtful and well-researched response. I couldn't ask for a more explicit---and relevant--- quote from Robyn Butterworth's court testimony. And since Robyn was speaking English, no translation problems here.

There was only an apparent difference between your estimated time Meredith ate her pizza and Raffaele's attorneys' estimated time. That was due to a translation error in the text posted by Katy_did (#4335). The proper translation should read "...from the last known meal consumed..." ("...a distanza di 2-3/3-4 ore dall’inizio dell’assunzione dell’ultimo pasto noto (ore 18:30-19:00 dell’1.11.2007) e quindi intorno alle ore 21:30-22:00.")

But as you can see, Raffaele's attorneys ---in opposition to your position--- still leave open the time of death as between 8:30 pm-9:00 pm and 10:30 pm-11:00 pm., using what the attorneys call "criteria of maximum reliability." And if the "time of death" is, instead, the "time of onset of terror," the attorneys' argument hardly precludes the lovebirds' participation in the murder.

A question. How does the one-hour-later consumption of the apple cake (with ice cream) alter the formula for calculating time of death? Doesn't it depend on the ratio of mass for the pizza meal/ mass for the cake meal? Intuitively, this makes sense. But was the autopsy able to measure this ratio? Is there any research on digestion time for back-to-back meals?

///