Continuation - Discussion of the Amanda Knox case

[Sherlock Holmes]

If rudy went in through the front door, he tossed a rock through the window to check and see if anyone was home.

And just how does that that work? He tosses the rock through the window to see if anyone's home, if someone is, they will surely come to the window to see whats happening, Rudy can then ask them to open the door and let him in? Something not very logical there, wouldn't you agree?

 

[Sherlock Holmes]

Quote: I have said several times on this board and on others that I believe Rudy went in through the front door, either with or without Meredith's cooperation.

I happen to think the same thing but then I can't get past why he would stage a break-in.

Simple, he wanted to make it look like some random burgler did it, thats also why he left so many other clues leading straight to him, he wanted to get caught and drag two innocent people down with him.

 

[Sherlock Holmes]

Just a thought on the whole "will you ever change your opinion" notion that's been coming up...

I think it will be harder for those on the innocent to switch over to thinking Amanda and Raf are guilty because the majority of them have been well versed in all the reasons they were found to be guilty in the first place. With the release of the motivations report and the appeals documents it seems that most of the new information is in regards to what went wrong the first time around as well as seeing how the judge simply glossed over relevant facts or made ridiculous assumptions that even most guilters don't believe in. It seems very unlikely that the prosecutors in the appeals trial will present any new evidence to support their claims and we've only seen the destruction of most of the old claims anyway. Let's not forget that Rose was on the guilty side for a while before changing her mind.

Of course your right, the Judge was a complete joke in this trial, thank goodness for the appeals and the fact they will get a different Judge. What are the chances of getting another one that see things the same way as the last, how many is it now?, 15 judges is it. The odds have to be in Amanda's favor.......

 

[Sherlock Holmes]

Quote: Bear in mind that the only "solid" evidence we have for a staged break-in relies on the word of police at the scene, who didn't document their claimed observations with photographic or video evidence.

And Filomena's observation and statement as well. (page 43 of translated version) I was picking up pieces of glass, in the sense that there was actually glass on top of it" (p. 41), and she noticed this circumstance so particularly that she added the following comment: "It was really a stupid burglar; not only did he not take anything, the broken glass was actually on top of the things"

I am not anti- or pro-AK; at this point I am really trying to decide. I'm just sayin' we do have that other testimony.

One of my biggest problems with the whole case is, it seems to me, to be pro-AK, you must throw out a serious amount of evidence. Mistaken witnesses, shoddy police work, incompetent lab techs, etc. I have a hard time reconciling the fact that all of those people would have to have been mistaken, incompetent, lying, etc.

I would truely love to see the FOA collectively, make up a list of everyone that they believe lied, mistaken or was incompetent in this case, then compare it a Guilters, (which has but 2 names on it). That would surely be quite telling.

 

[Sherlock Holmes]

How did Rudy climb through the window and ransack Filomena's room without leaving a single fingerprint, any DNA or a footprint anywhere in the room?

Same way that Amanda did in the murder room, can`t allow one and not the other.

 

[Alt+F4]

Same way that Amanda did in the murder room, can`t allow one and not the other.

Except I don't think she was in Meredith's room when the murder occurred. I believe her when she said she was in the living room covering her ears.

 

[Amazer]

Nothing I'm aware of that conclusively shows that the window was broken after the room was rifled through.

Neither am I aware of such conclusive evidence. Which leaves us with Filomena's testimony on what she found in her room. I have no reason to doubt her word, do you?

We've established already that our personal understandings of what should constitute reasonable doubt are wildly different. For myself, the word of people who are known to be dishonest to a degree and incompetent to a degree, who have the opportunity and indeed the obligation to record hard evidence but somehow fail to do so, does not constitute proof of anything beyond reasonable doubt. Even if they honestly believed it was a faked break-in, I am far from convinced that they are competent to accurately make such determinations given the lack of relevant evidence.

You sure you want to go down this road? Because i'm becoming increasingly convinced that you are modelling your argument less and less on the facts of the case and more and more on the outcome you desire.

Okay. Either way you're wrong. The evidence is not inconsistent with someone climbing through the window, it's just that there's no particular evidence around the window either way whether someone did or not.

The evidence is inconsistent with someone climbing through the window precisely because evidence that should be there if someone climbed through the window is not there. Your claim that this 'missing' evidence doesn't prove anything either way just doesn't wash.

Besides, I only clarified the position of us 'guilters'; a simple acknowledgement that your earlier statement was wrong would have been quite sufficient.

 

[Alt+F4]

I want to make a correction to what I wrote in post #4680. RS's lawyer did state that he said he watched Naruto the night of the crime. She made this announcement about a year after the murder. It took him a whole year to remember this?

Amanda (as far as I can tell) never mentioned anything about Naruto or watching Japanese animation in any of her statements. How come she wasn't asked about this during her trial testimony?

RS had a computer expert on his defense team, why wasn't any of this brought up at the trial?

 

[Malkmus]

Of course your right, the Judge was a complete joke in this trial, thank goodness for the appeals and the fact they will get a different Judge. What are the chances of getting another one that see things the same way as the last, how many is it now?, 15 judges is it. The odds have to be in Amanda's favor.......

Huh?
Sherlock, you really need to start living up to your name, and I would start by actually understanding the basic meaning of what certain people are posting instead of having a knee-jerk reactions like this. I said nothing about what I perceive the outcome of the trial to be, whether Amanda and Raf will have their convictions overturned. But while we're on the subject now I'll have you know that I don't expect that to happen, and only possibly once it gets to the supreme court. But even then I'm not holding my breath.

My post had strictly to do with the notion that I believe ONLINE POSTERS on the innocent side are less likely to change their minds because the majority of new information coming out about this case has been detrimental to much of the prosecution's evidence and the judge's theories of what happened that night. There has been little to no new evidence from the guilty side.

 

[Chris C]

Except I don't think she was in Meredith's room when the murder occurred. I believe her when she said she was in the living room covering her ears.

Then you have to believe Rudy when he says he was in the Apartment when the killers entered through the front door. The people that killed Meredith might have changed in his story but he has always stuck to the fact that he was already in the apartment. So either he broke in or Meredith let him in. Remember when leaving that apartment Rudy ran into two different Man and Woman couples. First there is the 2 at the gate he admits seeing. Which means he places the ToD before the supposed scream at 2330. Then there is the couple he bumped into fleeing the scene. Convenient that he fingers 2 people committing this crime and saw 2 couples on the streets while fleeing the scene. Either way through Rudy's own eyewitness testimony he places the ToD before the prosecutions. So why wouldn't the prosecution use Rudy's ToD testimony against knox?

 

[Ampulla of Vater]

Quote: Except I don't think she was in Meredith's room when the murder occurred. I believe her when she said she was in the living room covering her ears.

But if she really did not participate in the murder and was a mere bystander why wouldn't she have cut a deal? I would think being charged with murder and being locked up in prison in a foreign country would be a good time to change course and tell the truth and cut a deal, if they even have deals in Italy. If not at that point, surely as so much bad evidence came out in the media and then hearing about Rudy taking the fast-track route you would think she'd have realized how badly it was going to turn out for her. If she wasn't realizing it, certainly her defense team should have recommended a change of course.

 

[Chris C]

I want to make a correction to what I wrote in post #4680. RS's lawyer did state that he said he watched Naruto the night of the crime. She made this announcement about a year after the murder. It took him a whole year to remember this?

Amanda (as far as I can tell) never mentioned anything about Naruto or watching Japanese animation in any of her statements. How come she wasn't asked about this during her trial testimony?

RS had a computer expert on his defense team, why wasn't any of this brought up at the trial?

Why would the prosecution ask an open ended question like that? Amanda could say she was sleeping. By asking that question Mignini would validate Sollecito's claim that he was watching his computer. If he was watching his computer then the eyewitness could not have seen them at 2130 hours. Mignini has claimed every thing they say was lies and it would make the Jurors wonder how much was destroyed in the lab while examining the computer. If he admits Sollecito was watching the computer then you have to believe that there is a possibility that Knox/Sollecito are telling the truth. The prosecutions evidence was thin and suspect. You dont want the jury thinking about Knox sleeping at Sollecito's house or having to admit that Sollecito was on his computer after the time the guy says he saw them at the court. Mignini spent to much time branding Knox and Solliceto as liars in the press.

 

[Chris_Halkides]

What if no one were home

And just how does that that work? He tosses the rock through the window to see if anyone's home, if someone is, they will surely come to the window to see whats happening, Rudy can then ask them to open the door and let him in? Something not very logical there, wouldn't you agree?

If no one came to check on the window, Rudy would know that there was no one home, and he could enter the house.

 

[Chris_Halkides]

finding ethylene glycol where there was none

Quote: Bear in mind that the only "solid" evidence we have for a staged break-in relies on the word of police at the scene, who didn't document their claimed observations with photographic or video evidence.

And Filomena's observation and statement as well. (page 43 of translated version) I was picking up pieces of glass, in the sense that there was actually glass on top of it" (p. 41), and she noticed this circumstance so particularly that she added the following comment: "It was really a stupid burglar; not only did he not take anything, the broken glass was actually on top of the things"

I am not anti- or pro-AK; at this point I am really trying to decide. I'm just sayin' we do have that other testimony.

One of my biggest problems with the whole case is, it seems to me, to be pro-AK, you must throw out a serious amount of evidence. Mistaken witnesses, shoddy police work, incompetent lab techs, etc. I have a hard time reconciling the fact that all of those people would have to have been mistaken, incompetent, lying, etc.

PDiGirolamo,

I respectfully submit the Patricia Stallings case for your consideration. At least four times a clinical laboratory claimed to find ethylene glycol in Ryan Stallings' blood or in his feed bottle. His mother was sentenced to life. Trouble is, the lab work was beyond slipshod, and Ryan had a metabolic disease that mimicked some but not all of the symptoms of ethylene glycol poisoning. What are the odds that four chemical analyses would be wrong? I don't know, but they were wrong, and Ms. Stallings was eventually released from prison.

http://viewfromwilmington.blogspot.com/2010/06/how-does-patricia-stallings-case-shed.html

 

[Dan O.]

Amanda said Filomena's door was closed when she (Amanda) returned to the apartment. Rudy would have to have touched the door to close the door behind him.

It's impossible that he left no fingerprints on that door but left fingerprints everywhere else. He was never in Filomena's room.

You are reaching for mighty weak evidence to maintain your position.

A burglar would try not to leave fingerprints behind when committing a burglary. This typically begins by wearing gloves. Of course, there are times when wearing gloves can be problematic. Have you ever tried wiping your butt while wearing gloves? Do you disagree that it would be reasonable for someone to remove their gloves while using the toilet?

Closing Filomena's door while wearing gloves, removing the gloves to use the bathroom then encountering and attacking Meredith while the gloves are off is entirely possible and even plausible. Why can you not see such possibilities, especially after they had been pointed out before in these threads?

 

[LondonJohn]

Of course your right, the Judge was a complete joke in this trial, thank goodness for the appeals and the fact they will get a different Judge. What are the chances of getting another one that see things the same way as the last, how many is it now?, 15 judges is it. The odds have to be in Amanda's favor.......

This is a completely misleading statistic, and demonstrates your (and others') ignorance of the court process - whether in Italy or elsewhere in a modern judiciary. Ready for the truth? Here it comes:

All the judges before Massei were not ruling on Knox/Sollecito's guilt or non-guilt. They were essentially ruling on whether there was a prima facie case against them which justified either their continued custody or their committal to trial. In addition to this fact, many of these "15 judges" based their rulings on evidence which has now been entirely discredited, but which was placed before them at the time by the prosecutors as proven, solid evidence.

So can we, once and for all, drop this ridiculous mis-statement that "15 judges" (or sometimes even more than that) judged that Knox and Sollecito were guilty of the murder of Meredith Kercher. It's simply not true.

 

[Sherlock Holmes]

If no one came to check on the window, Rudy would know that there was no one home, and he could enter the house.

Except your missing the first half about him comming in the front door - he has no key, so if no one comes to the broken window, who lets him in?

Chris C said: If rudy went in through the front door, he tossed a rock through the window to check and see if anyone was home.

 

[LondonJohn]

Amanda said Filomena's door was closed when she (Amanda) returned to the apartment. Rudy would have to have touched the door to close the door behind him.

It's impossible that he left no fingerprints on that door but left fingerprints everywhere else. He was never in Filomena's room.

I don't think you quite understand the ephemeral nature of fingerprints. Even if Guede had removed his gloves (which he'd inevitably have worn for the B&E) by the time he closed Filomena's door, his fingerprints would almost certainly have been smudged over when Knox touched the door handle, and could very possibly have been smudged further by Filomena and/or the policemen.

When people operate door handles, they make contact with the handle in almost exactly the same places. And this is why door handles are notoriously difficult surfaces from which to lift latent prints. You, on the other hand, seem to be under the impression that Guede's fingerprints would somehow "set" on the handle like drying paint, and would therefore resist smudging or total eradication by subsequent fingers on the same handle.

 

[LondonJohn]

Wow, what an alibi! If this was true you would think either Amanda or Raffaele would have mentioned this considering they were facing a life sentence for murder.

In none of their statements to authorities, their families, their friends or in their prison diaries has watching Naruto on the night of the murder ever been stated. It won't work on appeal.



The walk from his apartment to hers is about 10 minutes so even if they left his apartment at 9:10 they could be at hers by 9:20, just in time to walk in on the attack, which is what I think happened. It's good to you say "his innocence" because it's ridiculous that "human interaction" on a computer explain the whereabouts of two people.

Except you've cherry-picked the 9.10pm time. There was actually activity on Sollecito's computer at 9.26pm. Which blows your theory out of the water.

 

[LondonJohn]

I would truely love to see the FOA collectively, make up a list of everyone that they believe lied, mistaken or was incompetent in this case, then compare it a Guilters, (which has but 2 names on it). That would surely be quite telling.

I don't think that most of the posters on here who disagree with your views would categorise themselves as FOA. I certainly don't. I would categorise myself as FOJ. You can work out what the "J" stands for, I'm sure........ (it's not a proper name)