Continuation - Discussion of the Amanda Knox case

[Chris C]

Perhaps someone more knowledgeable can help me out here:

When exactly is it claimed that Amanda and Raffaele watched Stardust (or the first half of it)? The Massei report is ambiguous on this point, which makes me somewhat suspicious, but Raffaele's appeal does not mention it at all as far as I can ascertain. The PMF timeline is also ambiguous on this point, claiming that the files were watched "in the afternoon" but not specifying any source for this claim, which leads me to suspect that this is wishful thinking on their part. Certainly their claimed source, the Massei report, says no such thing.

I have pasted in the only passage of the Massei report which contains the word "stardust". As you can see he attributes the overwriting of the Stardust file to peer-to-peer network activity, which is a very odd conclusion indeed if the computer was in police hands at the time and not plugged in to Raffaele's internet connection at home.

Once again it looks like Massei is either whitewashing for the police or not very good at joining up the dots.

If indeed Amanda and Raffaele claimed that they watched Stardust after Amelie and Naruto, and it turns out that the police happened to destroy the evidence which could potentially have proved or falsified that claim, that would be very interesting indeed. That would be one more piece of vital evidence which the police in this case have destroyed or hidden, and past a certain point the charitable assumption that the concealment or destruction of this evidence is mere incompetence or accident wears thin. If so I'd be inclined to think it highly likely that Amanda and Raffaele were at home until at least 22:40, and that the police deliberately destroyed the evidence proving this.

Then again if they claimed they watched Stardust before Amelie, it's pretty much irrelevant.

ETA: I've found some claims that they downloaded Stardust while watching Amelie, but again with no source. If this is correct, then once again I'm inclined to believe that they watched Stardust after Naruto and hence were at home long, long after the latest remotely plausible time of death for Meredith.

When talking about Sollecito's computer there have always been things i found odd or contradicting. Maybe someone can help me.
1st. Did Knox and Sollecito finish watching the movie before Amanda got her message to not come to work. And if they finished watching the movie at what time did they finish.
2nd. If they finished the movie prior to the 21:10 time then you would have to assume the program to play video files doesn't auto close. Since the movie started at 18:27:15 and finishes at 21:10:32. I'm assuming this is the movie they where watching.( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amélie ) if not what was the movie. There doesn't seem to be any evidence provided by the prosecution to show that the program auto closes.
3rd. Which Naruto episode did Sollecito supposedly watch. Again there is the claim that this video autoclosed. Yet you would know for sure if you matched the episode length against the open and closed timer.
4th. There is the claim that Sollecito accessed mp3 file on his computer during the early morning. Apparently he tried to access the same file 3 times over a 4 second period of time and it crashes all 3 times. How are they able to detect the same file being opened 3 times and yet can only detect if the other programs times when they are opened and closed. Oh and I have itunes and its impossible to attempt to open the same mp3 file 3 times in 4 seconds. You can click it as many times as you want its gonna open just that 1 time. Sounds more like a computer glitch. If you dont believe trying clicking on a mp3 file 3 times in Itunes. A music file will just reset at the beginning. It wont crash or close and start over. If it played for the next half hour, what was the playlist.
5th. Itunes was already open. If the computer tried to access an mp3 file using itunes there would have been mention of someone accessing Itunes to play the mp3 files. Therefore the program was never closed and would had to already been open on the computer.
6th. I dont see any mention of when stardust finished downloading. Itunes does send you a message when its finished downloading. This could very well be the notification at around 0058hrs it receives from itunes. I dont know how fast his internet connection is. Could also be a notification that he downloaded something else. Either an auto download message. He could also have accessed the itunes store at 0058 hrs himself.

 

[Katody Matrass]

1st. Did Knox and Sollecito finish watching the movie before Amanda got her message to not come to work. And if they finished watching the movie at what time did they finish.
2nd. If they finished the movie prior to the 21:10 time then you would have to assume the program to play video files doesn't auto close. Since the movie started at 18:27:15 and finishes at 21:10:32. I'm assuming this is the movie they where watching.( snip ... url ) if not what was the movie. There doesn't seem to be any evidence provided by the prosecution to show that the program auto closes.

Friendly hello from a new user and a short answer for 1. and 2: IMDB states running time for "Amelie" as 122 or 129 mins (depends on edition), so it is likely that the movie was on pause for a considerable time.
Apparently Amanda got the message around 8 o'clock, during the movie. Raffaele answered a phonecall at 20:42 and his friend Jovana Popovic also visited around that time. The movie stopped half an hour later. It's of course possible that it stopped by itself and it allows Massei to stretch the time window of "no alibi" even more.

 

[Chris C]

Friendly hello from a new user and a short answer for 1. and 2: IMDB states running time for "Amelie" as 122 or 129 mins (depends on edition), so it is likely that the movie was on pause for a considerable time.
Apparently Amanda got the message around 8 o'clock, during the movie. Raffaele answered a phonecall at 20:42 and his friend Jovana Popovic also visited around that time. The movie stopped half an hour later. It's of course possible that it stopped by itself and it allows Massei to stretch the time window of "no alibi" even more.

Not really the Amelie file closes at 21:10 and Naruto starts playing at (21:27?) So there is no window to close I was just wondering if they said if the movie was paused or when they claim to have finished watching it. If they didn't pause it or they finished watching before 21:10 we know the movie didn't autoclose.

 

[Katody Matrass]

Not really the Amelie file closes at 21:10 and Naruto starts playing at (21:27?) So there is no window to close I was just wondering if they said if the movie was paused or when they claim to have finished watching it. If they didn't pause it or they finished watching before 21:10 we know the movie didn't autoclose.

If by "they" you mean Amanda and Raffaele then you shoudn't expect any precise timings
Assuming other file started playing 20 minutes after "Amelie" finished it is totally irrelevant whether the movie autoclosed or was closed interactively.
To play "Naruto" and still have time to kill they would have to pack the knives and run immediately after starting it.



What is more interesting is how many facts you need to explain to move the time of death the way the prosecution wants it:

Meredith didn't try to redial after the 20:56 unsuccessful call to her mother.
But an hour later she mindlessly played with her phone pressing random buttons. Between her coming home and fumbling with the phone a full hour elapsed. It's a long time. What was she doing during that hour?
She didn't text or call her English friends that she's safely home.
In fact she didn't send any text messages as was usual for her in the evening, she didn't call anyone.
She didn't use her computer or accessed the Internet.
She didn't change her clothes. She didn't prepare to go to sleep.
There's also no trace that she made herself a warm drink and started to read the book she borrowed for the night.
She left her wet clothes to rot in the washing machine.

And lastly her stomach contents indicate a pathological digestion problem which she made no attempt to remedy. If she was really still alive at 23:30.

 

[RoseMontague]

This discussion on the computers has become quite rather detailed and a bit circumstantial in the 47 posts I have seen on the subject. The only thing clear to me is that additional testing on the computers should be granted by the Appeals court. Glad to see the moderated status lifted and katody joining the discussion.

 

[LondonJohn]

This discussion on the computers has become quite rather detailed and a bit circumstantial in the 47 posts I have seen on the subject. The only thing clear to me is that additional testing on the computers should be granted by the Appeals court. Glad to see the moderated status lifted and katody joining the discussion.

Absolutely. And, just remember: truth is a four-letter word.

 

[katy_did]

This discussion on the computers has become quite rather detailed and a bit circumstantial in the 47 posts I have seen on the subject. The only thing clear to me is that additional testing on the computers should be granted by the Appeals court. Glad to see the moderated status lifted and katody joining the discussion.

I dunno, I thought it was only very quite fairly circumstantially detailed myself.

Welcome Katody and yay for lack of moderated status.

 

[Kevin_Lowe]

This discussion on the computers has become quite rather detailed and a bit circumstantial in the 47 posts I have seen on the subject. The only thing clear to me is that additional testing on the computers should be granted by the Appeals court. Glad to see the moderated status lifted and katody joining the discussion.

Well played.

To sum up the state of play as I understand it:

Everyone including the PMF/TJMK brigade agrees that there was computer activity up until 21:10.

The appeals team state, based on data given to them by the police, that a Naruto episode was fired up at 21:26. If they are lying it will be trivial for the police to show this, so let's assume for now it's correct.

A Naruto episode lasts for 23 minutes give or take (I'd guess they watched a torrented version with no ads, and they may well have skipped the intro and outro, so give or take a few minutes there). If this was a premeditated crime then they could have set this up as an alibi, but nobody thinks that was the case, so it's not particularly crazy to call this evidence that supports their story that they were at home watching Naruto until some time around 21:49, give or take.

That puts them well outside the plausible window for Meredith Kercher's murder, since the stomach contents show she probably died shortly after 21:00. If you're willing to stretch a point you could argue for a time of death as late as 22:00 but it's really pushing it. Even if you accept a 22:00 time of death they still have to run to Amanda's place after watching Naruto and stab Meredith as they get through the door, which makes no sense for an unpremeditated crime anyway.

What's left to settle is whether Amanda and Raffaele claimed to have watched Stardust (or half of it) after Naruto. If they made that claim, then if it were true it would nail down their presence for at least another hour (Stardust has a runtime of 127 minutes according to IMDB) until 22:49 or something like that... which is getting close to excluding the prosecution's official time of death too.

That's what interests me currently: the possibility that Amanda and Raffaele claimed that their alibi for the period leading up to the prosecution time of death was watching Stardust together, and the prosecution "accidentally" destroyed that evidence. Remember that this is exactly what the police did in the Kiszko case: conceal the evidence that should have exonerated their suspect, because they were irrationally convinced that they were guilty (despite that evidence). So it's not as if it's a totally unprecedented idea that a motivated police team might do such a thing.

It's a heck of an unfortunate coincidence that, knowing what Amanda and Raffaele's alibi was, they nonetheless chose the one vital video file to amuse themselves with at the police station, thus destroying the evidence for their alibi. It's also a bit odd that Massei writes this off as peer-to-peer activity rather than police action.

 

[Alt+F4]

1st. Did Knox and Sollecito finish watching the movie before Amanda got her message to not come to work. And if they finished watching the movie at what time did they finish.

According to the Massei report, it was at 8:18 when Amanda got the text from Patrick telling her not to come to work. She was neither at her apartment or Raffaele's, rather walking somewhere inbetween (see page 322).

Which Naruto episode did Sollecito supposedly watch?

Episode 101.

Oh and I have itunes and its impossible to attempt to open the same mp3 file 3 times in 4 seconds.

I think the issue here is what the 2007 version of iTunes could and couldn't do.

 

[Alt+F4]

And lastly her stomach contents indicate a pathological digestion problem which she made no attempt to remedy.

What does this mean?

 

[Supernaut]

There is no video whatsoever showing any investigators changing gloves at anytime. Video does show ample proof that transfer did occur from the samples to the gloves. This observation proves without a doubt that contamination occurred during evidence collection.

How? Is the argument here that they touched something else in Meredith's room that had his DNA on it and then transferred that DNA to the bra clasp?

A picture is worth a thousand words - Stefanoni's soiled gloves as she handles the bra-clasp ;

Note that the gloves are also stretched and seem to be slick with sweat against her skin - it looks as if she had been wearing them for hours.

Given this appalling sloppiness (whether due to laziness or ignorance), the onus is on no-one to explain how she then obtained a positive match to RS's DNA profile on this object, if in fact she actually did so.

 

[Katody Matrass]

What does this mean?

Citing in full will make it clearer:

And lastly her stomach contents indicate a pathological digestion problem which she made no attempt to remedy. If she was really still alive at 23:30.

basically if at 23:30 she had her whole 18:00 meal still in the stomach, only partially digested, it would indicate serious digestive problems. And probably make her seriously uncomfortable long before 23:30.

 

[Alt+F4]

A picture is worth a thousand words - Stefanoni's soiled gloves as she handles the bra-clasp.

What is this supposed to prove? Is it contamination or another person's DNA (Stefanoni's?). Even Raffaele's appeal can't come up with a definitive answer.

In my opinion, Raffaele's defense team should subpoena a DNA sample from everyone else involved (Stefanoni, Laura, Filomena, lab team, retririeval team). The court might reject the request but at least they made an attempt to find out who the unknown DNA is from. Why don't they?

 

[Alt+F4]

Citing in full will make it clearer:

Where are you citing it from? What is your source?

basically if at 23:30 she had her whole 18:00 meal still in the stomach, only partially digested, it would indicate serious digestive problems. And probably make her seriously uncomfortable long before 23:30.

Do you have any evidence that Meredith had "serious digestive problems"? Source please, we're skeptics.

 

[Katody Matrass]

Where are you citing it from? What is your source?

My previous post, that you cited partially, maybe?

Do you have any evidence that Meredith had "serious digestive problems"? Source please, we're skeptics.

I don't need any such evidence, because in my opinion she was dead shortly after 9 o'clock.

My point was that if anyone wants to make 23:30 time of death more probable, he not only needs to provide evidence of digestive pathology but he also needs to explain away other facts I listed before.
And if we consider cellular pings relevant, he also needs to explain the peculiar 22:13 ping of Meredith's phone.


BTW thanks everyone for the warm welcome.

 

[Alt+F4]

My previous post, that you cited partially, maybe?

Where are you getting your information from or are you just making it up?

I don't need any such evidence, because in my opinion she was dead shortly after 9 o'clock.

Not having evidence won't get you far in this sub forum. Many who post here think that Meredith died between 9-10 and they have presented evidence as to why they believe that to be the case.

So, again, what is your evidence that Meredith had serious digestive problems?

 

[Chris_Halkides]

poor technique

What is this supposed to prove? Is it contamination or another person's DNA (Stefanoni's?). Even Raffaele's appeal can't come up with a definitive answer.

In my opinion, Raffaele's defense team should subpoena a DNA sample from everyone else involved (Stefanoni, Laura, Filomena, lab team, retririeval team). The court might reject the request but at least they made an attempt to find out who the unknown DNA is from. Why don't they?

Good DNA forensic technique has some analogies with good sterile technique. Just as one usually does not know for sure when one became infected with a germ, one often does not know for certain the exact moment of contamination. The dirty gloves may or may not contain DNA. However, they are evidence that poor technique was used in retrieving the clasp, and not the only evidence, either.

To my way of thinking when a lab uses poor technique, the evidence ought to be tossed, whether or not contamination actually occurred in that instance. Otherwise, there is no penalty for sloppiness (or no reward for taking the extra pains that good technique demands, if you like). MOO.

 

[Chris C]

According to the Massei report, it was at 8:18 when Amanda got the text from Patrick telling her not to come to work. She was neither at her apartment or Raffaele's, rather walking somewhere inbetween (see page 322).



Episode 101.



I think the issue here is what the 2007 version of iTunes could and couldn't do.

Episode 101 is 23:47 long. Anyone know the exact times?

I have had Itunes since 2007. I worked Offshore until Obama shut us down. So i season pass all my favorite shows. I might not know all of itunes features, but I do know alot about it.
I know that if I click my music files while they are playing they start over from the beginning.
I know videos work differently. As an example if I close a video out on Itunes and shut itunes down or not. If i come back to the movie/tvshow i was watching and click it. It will pick up where it left off. It wont got back to the beginning. That being said.
If itunes was closed there is no chance that Sollecito could manually access a MP3 file thats associated with itunes 3 times in 4 seconds. There would be longer than a 1 second pause while itunes loaded up.

 

[Justinian2]

I didn't see your post, but you're right all the way.

The other pins would be bent if plugged in another way. I'm not an expert and have forced connectors on and bent pins, and you have to really force the cable connector to plug it in wrong, imo.

Plugging in hard-drives is far from "expert" level, I have done over 20 of these hard-drive removals or installations of laptops or desktops, and consider my self a novice. There must be more that happened to destroy a few hard-drives by experts. I saw Charlies picture and searched the model number and reviewed the Toshiba pdf manual and its a very standard hard-drive any expert would be familiar with.

being kind to the police, the wrong voltage sounds more logical to me, but even then, to destroy 3 or 4 hard-drives is mind boggling, how can that be?
One ok, but two...then three...then four?

And then even more atrocious, the "computer expert squad" erases the activity on Raffaeles pc while he was in jail, deleting/overwriting the Stardust movie activity. This would have been critical evidence after 21:46pm.

Over the years, I have plugged in several hard drives incorrectly. Haven't lost one! Evidently, they are designed to be somewhat idiot proof.

To destroy more than one hard drive is so incompetent that it defies comprehension! The infamous 'Black Magic' of the Oklahoma forensic labs was a genius by comparison.

 

[Katody Matrass]

So, again, what is your evidence that Meredith had serious digestive problems?

Alt, let me restate what I said before, hopefully with correct unreal conditional this time:

• And lastly If she really was still alive at 23:30 her stomach contents would indicate a pathological digestion problem which she made no attempt to remedy.

I hope this will clear out the misunderstanding
I'm also curious what do you think about the rest of my post?