Continuation - Discussion of the Amanda Knox case

[Chris C]

Initially they said Guede's shoe prints were Raffaele's. After extensive research proved the prints weren't compatible with Raffaele's shoes, the bra fastener came along.

Which is one of the reasons why they don't want to release those dna data files or do any extra testing on the bra fastener. They know if its allowed to be reviewed by experts, other than theirs, it will prove knox and sollecito are innocent.

 

[Kevin_Lowe]

Which is one of the reasons why they don't want to release those dna data files or do any extra testing on the bra fastener. They know if its allowed to be reviewed by experts, other than theirs, it will prove knox and sollecito are innocent.

Well, we don't know that for certain.

It does seem highly likely though.

 

[Kestrel]

Initially they said Guede's shoe prints were Raffaele's. After extensive research proved the prints weren't compatible with Raffaele's shoes, the bra fastener came along.

Raffaele's sister noticed the number of rings in Raffaele's shoe didn't match the number of rings in the print allegedly made by that shoe. Knowing that an empty box for size 12 Nike Outbreak 2 shoes had been found in Rudy's flat, they bought a pair and found the pattern exactly matched the prints found in Meredith's room.

The prosecution also claimed that one of the bloody shoe prints was a women's shoe in Amanda's size. That print also matched the pattern of Rudy's shoes.

It seems that the prosecution shoe expert doesn't have any actual talent in the field.

 

[Chris C]

Well, we don't know that for certain.

It does seem highly likely though.

Just using the same logic Mignini uses. Knox acted strange therefore she is guilty. Prosecution/Judge dont want the dna data files released or the evidence to be examined. Therefore they have something to hide.

 

[Kevin_Lowe]

Raffaele's sister noticed the number of rings in Raffaele's shoe didn't match the number of rings in the print allegedly made by that shoe. Knowing that an empty box for size 12 Nike Outbreak 2 shoes had been found in Rudy's flat, they bought a pair and found the pattern exactly matched the prints found in Meredith's room.

The prosecution also claimed that one of the bloody shoe prints was a women's shoe in Amanda's size. That print also matched the pattern of Rudy's shoes.

It seems that the prosecution shoe expert doesn't have any actual talent in the field.

Oh my, that's a problem isn't it? Some nobody armed only with common sense and a pair of shoes proved that the prosecution's touted footprint expert was completely wrong.

The next thing you know some people armed only with common sense, google, laptops and databases that index the combined scientific literature of the world might prove that the prosecution's experts' statements about Meredith's probable time of death are also completely wrong.

 

[JREF2010]

Oh my, that's a problem isn't it? Some nobody armed only with common sense and a pair of shoes proved that the prosecution's touted footprint expert was completely wrong.

The next thing you know some people armed only with common sense, google, laptops and databases that index the combined scientific literature of the world might prove that the prosecution's experts' statements about Meredith's probable time of death are also completely wrong.

Expert....

Computer expert.
Footprint expert.

DNA Lab expert?

The TOD "list" for the prosecution seems only to contain excuses and responses that no one can prove anything. Like Filomenas room or the bloody knife print on the bedsheet. "the unproveables" list.

Gaping 2 to 12hr TOD windows used to disprove 9:30-10:00, on the other hand, doesn't prove 23:30 either.

And what is it like if the two were sleeping, how do you prove you were home sleeping? And imagine some homless, bench dwellar saying "yes Judge I saw, they were there that night in front of me waving their arms in the air!"

Kokomani also mentioned everyone waving their arms in the air too. Curartolo and Kokomani add the flailing arms in the air, they both probably see that a lot.

 

[Charlie Wilkes]

Which is one of the reasons why they don't want to release those dna data files or do any extra testing on the bra fastener. They know if its allowed to be reviewed by experts, other than theirs, it will prove knox and sollecito are innocent.

I think the test that showed Meredith's DNA on the knife would be thrown out of any reasonable lab as a junk result caused by trace contamination on the equipment. The bra fastener, however, does appear to show Sollecito's profile. How it got there is the relevant question. It showed up on a swab of the metal hook rather than the fabric, which is not consistent with Sollecito cutting the strap of the bra, as the prosecution wants us to believe. The extensive handling of the object in front of the camera gives us a pretty good clue that one of the technicians got some trace of Sollecito's DNA on his/her glove and transferred it to the fastener. That I think is what Steve Moore was alluding to when he raised the possibility that evidence may have been deliberately planted or altered. It is not unreasonable speculation, given the way this evidence came along just when the prosecutor needed something to nail Sollecito. But I think it could just as easily be a fluke, a result of the fact that Sollecito had been on the premises and the investigators were careless in how they handled evidence.

 

[Charlie Wilkes]

Oh my, that's a problem isn't it? Some nobody armed only with common sense and a pair of shoes proved that the prosecution's touted footprint expert was completely wrong.

The next thing you know some people armed only with common sense, google, laptops and databases that index the combined scientific literature of the world might prove that the prosecution's experts' statements about Meredith's probable time of death are also completely wrong.

I have mentioned this before, but there was this shoe print "expert" named Louise Robbins who got involved in a case in the US where a guy was accused of abducting and killing a child based on a dusty shoe print on a screen door.

It looked somewhat like his boot, except it had a diagonal tread pattern that was exactly perpendicular to the pattern on the screen. Louise Robbins came up with a theory that the vibrations made when he kicked the door caused the tread pattern to change directions.

She would say anything if the price was right. And I was amused to see that Rinaldi, the footprint expert for the prosecution in this case, used the "grid of LM Robbins" in his analysis.

 

[katy_did]

In relation to the bra clasp, given the assumption made by many on the pro-guilt side and even by Massei himself that contamination has to be proven or it doesn't exist, I thought the Judge's ruling in the Omagh bomber case was pretty relevant (so much so I'm guessing it must've been linked on the thread before at some point, but it's probably worth repeating):

The Defence submit, correctly in my judgment, that it is for the prosecution to establish the integrity and freedom from possible contamination of each item throughout the entirety of the period between seizure and any examination relied upon. They contend, and I accept the contention, that the court must be satisfied by the prosecution witnesses and supporting documents that all dealings with each relevant exhibit have been satisfactorily accounted for from the moment of its seizure until the moment when any evidential sample relied upon by the prosecution is taken from it and that by a method and in conditions that are shown to have been reliable. This means that each person who has dealt with the item in the intervening period must be ascertainable and be able to demonstrate by reference to some proper system of bagging, labelling, and recording that the item has been preserved at every stage free from the suspicion of interference or contamination. For this purpose they must be able to demonstrate how and when and under what conditions and with what object and by what means and in whose presence he or she examined the item. Only if all these requirements have been satisfactorily vouched can a tribunal have confidence in the reliability of any forensic findings said to have been derived from any examination of the item.

This judge would throw out both the knife and the bra clasp as evidence: the knife because the method used to test it hasn't been shown to be reliable, and the bra clasp because the police can't account for its movements or handling in the period between it having been found and collected (let alone the fact DNA from several people was found on it).

 

[Chris_Halkides]

mixed blood samples

Stilicho,

Kevin_Lowe’s point 9 in his Larsen List was, “Do you acknowledge that Amanda's DNA mixed with Meredith's blood found in the house proves absolutely nothing, because it could have been deposited by completely innocent means before Meredith's death? If not, why not?” In response, you wrote elsewhere, “Wow. You really are an idiot, Kevin_Lowe. Dr Hampikian and Chris Halkides each go to great lengths to explain that DNA evidence is crucial to overturning wrongful convictions. I think you might be pissing them off by telling them their areas of expertise amateur interest are completely meaningless.”


First, no one in the pro-innocence camp is saying DNA profiling is meaningless; that is a position put into our mouths by the pro-guilt camp. My position is the same as Dan Krane’s, “The science of DNA profiling is sound. But, not all of DNA profiling is science.” One problem regards to the mixed blood/DNA samples is ILE is pushing the interpretation of the evidence outside of what the evidence forces us to conclude and into the realm of speculation. Each of these samples would only be evidence against Ms. Knox if in each one Knox’s DNA were derived from her blood. There is no reason to believe that this is the case in the bathroom samples, because they were not tested in a manner that could answer this question. It is not in the slightest bit surprising to find Amanda’s DNA in her own bathroom. If ILE had performed the equivalent of substrate controls, it might have helped their case, depending on the results, but they did not. Other problems relate to the way the evidence was collected, as discussed upthread.


Second, you discredit your whole argument by implying that Dr. Hampkian is an amateur. Here is his publication record, as retrieved using PubMed:
1. Ribonucleotide and ribonucleoside determination by ambient pressure ion mobility spectrometry.
Kanu AB, Hampikian G, Brandt SD, Hill HH Jr.
Anal Chim Acta. 2010 Jan 18;658(1):91-7. Epub 2009 Oct 31.PMID: 20082780 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]Related citations
2. Time for DNA disclosure.
Krane DE, Bahn V, Balding D, Barlow B, Cash H, Desportes BL, D'Eustachio P, Devlin K, Doom TE, Dror I, Ford S, Funk C, Gilder J, Hampikian G, Inman K, Jamieson A, Kent PE, Koppl R, Kornfield I, Krimsky S, Mnookin J, Mueller L, Murphy E, Paoletti DR, Petrov DA, Raymer M, Risinger DM, Roth A, Rudin N, Shields W, Siegel JA, Slatkin M, Song YS, Speed T, Spiegelman C, Sullivan P, Swienton AR, Tarpey T, Thompson WC, Ungvarsky E, Zabell S.
Science. 2009 Dec 18;326(5960):1631-2. No abstract available. PMID: 20019271 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]Related citations
3. Absent sequences: nullomers and primes.
Hampikian G, Andersen T.
Pac Symp Biocomput. 2007:355-66.PMID: 17990505 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]Free ArticleRelated citations
4. An organizational model of transcription factor binding sites for a histone promoter in D. melanogaster.
Crayton ME 3rd, Ladd CE, Sommer M, Hampikian G, Strausbaugh LD.
In Silico Biol. 2004;4(4):537-48.PMID: 15752071 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]Free ArticleRelated citations
5. Long-distance charge transport in duplex DNA: the phonon-assisted polaron-like hopping mechanism.
Henderson PT, Jones D, Hampikian G, Kan Y, Schuster GB.
Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 1999 Jul 20;96(15):8353-8.PMID: 10411879 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]Free PMC ArticleFree text
6. Effect on embryos of injection of phosphorothioate-modified oligonucleotides into pregnant mice.
Gaudette MF, Hampikian G, Metelev V, Agrawal S, Crain WR.
Antisense Res Dev. 1993 Winter;3(4):391-7.PMID: 8155980 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]Related citations
7. Complete amino acid sequence of chicken cartilage link protein deduced from cDNA clones.
Deák F, Kiss I, Sparks KJ, Argraves WS, Hampikian G, Goetinck PF.
Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 1986 Jun;83(11):3766-70.PMID: 3459154 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]Free PMC ArticleFree text

Here is Dr. Stefanoni’s publication record retrieved in the same way:





You can also find more of Dr. Hampikian’s professional qualifications by examining his vita here.

Third, you (and Skeptical Bystander) have an incomplete understanding of what the Innocence Project does. As Dr. Hampikian said, “Sometimes the Innocence Project is a bit of a misnomer. In two of the four exonerations, I developed evidence that led to the arrest of somebody new for the crime, so for some people we are the Guilty Project – and that’s an important part of what we do.”

 

[tsig]

Thank your for the response.

I am happy to call it whatever you like, however if her contested statement were true she was a bystander who lied to police to cover up the murder, and so she was confessing to wrongdoing to that extent at the very least. Regardless this is a purely semantic dispute. We could call it a giraffe instead and it would make no difference.

Her statement was indeed "vague", as is typical for internalised false confessions, expressing doubt about whether she actually remembered what she was recounting. Her subsequent retraction is also perfectly consistent with an internalised false confession.

She did clearly accuse Patrick, however since the police had told her he committed the crime this too is perfectly consistent with an internalised false confession.

I do not believe you can know for certain that Amanda was lying, as opposed to being the victim of an internalised false confession.

You can certainly accuse me of presenting a false dichotomy, however you have not answered the question: How can Amanda's accusation/confession have all the characteristics of an internalised false confession yet be faked, if Amanda did not know what an internalised false confession was?

You have advanced semantic complaints, but you have not actually answered the question. If you feel that the whole question is a false dichotomy, feel free to just answer the part I reproduced in the previous paragraph, which I will cut and paste again for your convenience:

How can Amanda's accusation/confession have all the characteristics of an internalised false confession yet be faked, if Amanda did not know what an internalised false confession was?

It wasn't a confession. Confessions follow the form "I did it" Amanda said "He did it" there's a difference.


First you state that Amanda internalised a false confession then you ask "How could she do that?" You would have to prove that she did in fact internalise false confession before you can ask the question.

Better yet prove how "I did It" = "He did it"

 

[tsig]

Yes, tsig is correct. I have to watch when I post myself and try and force myself not to use the word confession. The guilters would have you believe it was a confession. They constantly throw out the word confession to get people to believe that knox confessed to the crime. In reality its a FALSE WITNESS STATEMENT. Amanda confessed to nothing in the statement. She IMAGINED a scenario at the request of the interragotors that made Patrick the killer. Then hours later retracted her witness statement. If someone gave a witness statement like that in any place other than Perugia, 5 seconds later they would have been offering them immunity or putting them in a safe house to testify against the individual. Its not Amanda's fault Patrick was arrested. Its the polices. She retracted it fairly quickly and the police chose to ignore the retraction. The police even chose to ignore Patricks alibi until they where forced to release him.
You have to ask yourself what crime did Knox confess to doing? Once Patrick is proved to not be the person that killed Meredith, then what in her statement is she confessing to. You could say she is guilty of giving a false statement to police. Yet that statement was quickly retracted. It was retracted before police could even investigate its details. Though they did choose to investigate it after it was retracted. Thats not Amanda's fault. They already suspected Patrick anyway. They were investigating him already. The only thing they could do with that statement is charge her with slander. Of course IMO even the slander conviction will get overturned because of how quickly amanda retracted it and the fact that she was being interrogated and refused an attorney.

I'm sure you have proof of those things?

 

[katy_did]

It wasn't a confession. Confessions follow the form "I did it" Amanda said "He did it" there's a difference.


First you state that Amanda internalised a false confession then you ask "How could she do that?" You would have to prove that she did in fact internalise false confession before you can ask the question.

Better yet prove how "I did It" = "He did it"

If the police coerced Amanda into a false 'confession', they could only coerce her into confessing something they actually thought she did. At the stage she was interrogated, they most likely thought she was involved and covering for someone else, not that she was the murderer. Hence they focused on this person they said she'd met, telling her they had hard evidence she was there and they knew who the murderer was, so she should just tell them.

That it was a coerced false witness statement (in which she implicated herself, too) rather than a false confession in which she said "I did it" is entirely to be expected if the police didn't think at that stage that she was the murderer. Or more accurately, if Amanda had no suspicion at all they thought she was the murderer (as she writes in her prison diary) then she was hardly likely to be coerced into a confession stating that she was. The principle is the same in each case, whether it was technically speaking a false confession or a false witness statement, and making this distinction shows a lack of understanding as to how these statements come to be made.

 

[Alt+F4]

Nonetheless, just for Quadraginta: Do you acknowledge that when Raffaele Sollecito, whose written Italian skills are poor and who has no particular knowledge of DNA forensics that we know of, wrote the passage "I am convinced that she could not have killed Meredith and then return home. The fact that there is Meredith's DNA on the kitchen is because once while cooking together, I shifted myself in the house handling the knife, I had the point on her hand, and immediately after I apologized but she had nothing done to her. So the only real explanation of the kitchen knife is this." he could equally well have been claiming to have touched Amanda's hand with a knife as Meredith's? If not, on what basis do you rule this possibility out?

Kevin, I thought we wacked this mole already? If it was Amanda he touched with the knife then why the heck isn't her DNA on it? How can touching one person with a knife deposit another person's DNA on it?

 

[tsig]

This is a false distinction that has been made before here (by Fiona, if not by others). The techniques used by the police are equally effective at obtaining false accusations or false confessions to suit their own agenda.

A few weeks ago an Iranian woman, Sakinah Mohammedi Ashtiani, made a much-publicised "confession" on TV. Few people in the UK or US are going to doubt that she was coerced into making the confession, simply because people do not make such broadcasts voluntarily.

Similarly, Kevin's point (AIUI) is that Amanda's statements on the night of 5-6 November can be confidently recognised as an internalised false confession (IFC) obtained by coercion, because these kind of statements are never made voluntarily and spontaneously.



Sorry, no. The dishonesty is to continue to make the false distinction.



Again, untrue. The statement of Amanda's in the public domain states "I want to make very clear that these events seem more unreal to me than what I said before, that I stayed at Raffaele's house," and then "In these flashbacks that I'm having, I see Patrik as the murderer." This cannot be described as anything but "vague".

delete

 

[tsig]

Thank your for the response.

I am happy to call it whatever you like, however if her contested statement were true she was a bystander who lied to police to cover up the murder, and so she was confessing to wrongdoing to that extent at the very least. Regardless this is a purely semantic dispute. We could call it a giraffe instead and it would make no difference.

Her statement was indeed "vague", as is typical for internalised false confessions, expressing doubt about whether she actually remembered what she was recounting. Her subsequent retraction is also perfectly consistent with an internalised false confession.

She did clearly accuse Patrick, however since the police had told her he committed the crime this too is perfectly consistent with an internalised false confession.

I do not believe you can know for certain that Amanda was lying, as opposed to being the victim of an internalised false confession.

You can certainly accuse me of presenting a false dichotomy, however you have not answered the question: How can Amanda's accusation/confession have all the characteristics of an internalised false confession yet be faked, if Amanda did not know what an internalised false confession was?

You have advanced semantic complaints, but you have not actually answered the question. If you feel that the whole question is a false dichotomy, feel free to just answer the part I reproduced in the previous paragraph, which I will cut and paste again for your convenience:

How can Amanda's accusation/confession have all the characteristics of an internalised false confession yet be faked, if Amanda did not know what an internalised false confession was?

You haven't considered the possibility that Amanda was lying and not internalizing a false confession.

Her accusation has all the characteristics of a lie in that it was contrary to fact.

 

[Matthew Best]

It wasn't a confession. Confessions follow the form "I did it" Amanda said "He did it" there's a difference.

Sigh. There's none so blind as those who will not see.

First you state that Amanda internalised a false confession then you ask "How could she do that?" You would have to prove that she did in fact internalise false confession before you can ask the question.

This signifies a failure in reading comprehension. Maybe you should go back and read Kevin's post again. What he actually said was that Amanda's statement has the characteristics of an internalised false confession and asked how could she do that. Compare that to your precis of his post. You will find that, in your own words, there's a difference.

Anyway, I don't see any progress coming from this. Most of Kevin's questions have still been ignored as, apparently, they are too difficult to answer.

 

[Alt+F4]

How do you explain the fact that all of Meredith's last meal was still in her stomach, and none of it was in her bowel, if she was undisturbed until 10pm and died after 10pm? This is completely inconsistent with everything we know about human digestion. Estimating time of death by stomach contents is imprecise to a degree, but not to anything like the degree needed to explain this.

Putting the time of death before 10pm doesn't do anything to prove that AK and RS are innocent.

How do you explain the fact that Meredith's mobile phone pinged a tower in between her house and the final resting place of her phones at 22:13, if she was not murdered until 23:30 or similar? Meredith's phone had never pinged that tower before so while it was physically possible for her phone to reach that tower from her room, it would never actually do so in the normal course of things. This is nigh incontrovertible evidence that at 22:13 the killer had left her house and was en route to the place where they dumped her phones.

You are saying that the entire murder, sexual assault and everything else that occured for which there is evidence for occurred between 9:05 and 10:00. Ok, considering how short that amount of time is, it's more likely that more than one person was involved.

How do you explain the fact that the characteristics of Amanda's "confession" (vagueness, doubts about its authenticity, obvious errors of fact, conformity with police theories at the time, later retraction) match with those of an internalised false confession, a well-recognised and objectively documented psychological phenomenon? There is no evidence Amanda knew enough about such false confessions to fake one so convincingly, and indeed if she knew enough to fake one she would almost certainly know that such confessions often lead to the confessor being convicted. If it is highly implausible that she faked an internalised false confession, the only alternative was that this was a real internalised false confession.

Ok, throw out her police interrrogtions. You still have a bunch of inconsistent and contradictory statement from them in regard to her email back home, her trial testimony and his prison diary (none of which were coerced).

Do you acknowledge that since Meredith died long before 23:30, the witnesses who claim to have heard a scream at about that time cannot have been hearing Meredith scream, and that this destroys the claim that these witnesses confirm Amanda's internalised false confession because they heard the scream Amanda described? If not, why not?

The witness was wrong.

If you believe Curatolo's testimony, how do you explain the fact that the computer records provided by the police show that an episode of Naruto was opened on Raffaele's computer at 21:26, which would have lasted for at least twenty minutes, covering the time period when Curatolo very specifically claims to have seen them out of the house?

There has been no evidence presented that RS watched an episode of Naruto the night of the crime. It was not brought up by the prosecution or the defense at trial. It is noting more than something RS's defense team wants examined on appeal.

If you still believe Curatolo's testimony...

I think he's wrong too.

Do you acknowledge that Amanda's DNA on the "double DNA" knife proves absolutely nothing, because it could have been deposited on the handle by completely innocent means after Meredith's death?

How? When?

Do you acknowledge that without this DNA evidence, absolutely no forensic evidence links Amanda to Meredith's murder at all?

Amanda said she came home that morning took a shower, changed and dryed her hair in the other bathroom, and guess what? Only one fingerprint of her's was found in the entire apartment! If fingerprint can go "missing" why not DNA too?

What hard evidence do you have that there was a staged break-in given that we have Filomena's statement that there was glass on the floor of her room as well as on top of her clothes?

Since both Filomena and the police went through her stuff we can't be certain of the position of the glass when the window was broken.

The fact that nothing was stolen from this room is not evidence of a staged break-in, the lack of fingerprints or DNA from Rudy in that room is in no way unusual even if he did search the room without gloves, and the unsupported word of police who did not document their observations is not hard evidence.

So Rudy magically leaves no fingerprints while ransacking Filomena's room but then equally magically leaves them all over the rest of the apartment. Was Rudy wearing gloves when he broke into the kindergarten?

Do you acknowledge that the police destroyed the evidence, in the form of Amanda's hard drive and the Spotlight metadata for Stardust on Raffaele's computer, which could potentially have confirmed their alibi, that they were at home at the prosecution's alleged time of death? Do you acknowledge that they have refused the defence's request to have the damaged hard drives repaired by the manufacturer so this evidence can be examined? If not, why not?

How could Amanda's hard drive possible confirm her alibi? Her alibi was that she was at his apartment and her computer was at her apartment. As for his computer, good gosh, what didn't he supposedly watch that evening?

Finally, doesn't it ever strike you as weird that Mignini...

Mignini got a lot of it wrong but it still doesn't mean they are not guilty. You conveniently left a lot out of your list, such as:

1. Why was Amanda's lamp in Meredith's room?
2. On Nov. 2, why, in the 48 minutes between 12:07 – 12:55 did Amanda spend only a total of 23 seconds trying to phone Meredith though she stated she was “panicked” as to her whereabouts.
3. The pair were back at her apartment by 12:34. The Postal Police didn’t show up for another 21 minutes with Meredith’s phones. Why didn’t Amanda stand outside Meredith’s door, call her phones and listen for rings?
4. Both Amanda’s mother and Filomena told Amanda to call the police based on what she told them, why she didn’t.
5. Why did Raffaelle tell the police that nothing was taken from Filomena's room when there was no way he could have known that?
6. Why didn't Amanda flush the toilet?
7. Why were their no bloody shoeprints leading from the bedroom to the bloody bathmat? FBI guy Steve Moore said no one could have left that room without blood on their shoes, yet there were no bloody prints, why?
8. If it was Rudy that was cleaning up in the bathroom why would he go back into Meredith's room after he had just cleaned up?
9. Why would Rudy bother to lock Meredith's door when he made no attempt to cover up evidence of his being there?

 

[Alt+F4]

double post.

 

[Danceme]

From all of the talking points that about impossible climb is one of the most ridiculous.

There are not one but two easy paths for climbing to the window.

One is the grating "ladder".

The other, even easier is traversing the wall laterally from the concrete planter:
For a reasonably tall guy, like Rudy it's a matter of making one step sideways onto the ledge, without losing hand or feet support at any time. The shutter can be pushed flatly to the wall, so not only it doesn't block the way, it provides additional hand grip if needed.Interestingly such path of access obliterates Massei argument about nails in the wall, dirt, grass etc.


If the shutter was pulled in (we rely only on Filomena's recollection about it) he opened it first. But it is equally possible that Filomena's memory is faulty about it and Rudy arrived to the cottage to see one of the shutters open (IIRC at some point he told so), and it gave him idea to try a rock throw, as was his custom.

Personally I think it's extraordinary to think Rudy would have gotten in this way. Just imagine yourself standing on the planter, obviously facing back in toward the doorway and hugging the corner of the wall, with your right hand on the edge of the wall for support as you lean over. Perhaps if the shutter was partially open he could extend his left foot to hook it and open it all the way. Then he could hop down, throw the rock, and then resume position. Next he leans way out again and here is where it gets tricky for me. His left hand grabs the shutter perhaps, his left foot is placed on the ledge close to the right hand side, then he has to trust that old wooden shutter not to give way as he completes the transition over to the ledge by bringing his upper body and right foot over. This would be difficult to do on a narrow ledge without teetering (and it's a long way down if he falls). Then he has to lean down, insert his arm through the broken glass at the base of the window and undo the locking mechanism, while balancing precariously with very little to grab onto for hand holds as his knees are up against the windows causing his back side to be suspended out over. Plus, with much glass on the outside of the sill Rudy would most likely have kicked some of it off to ensure his footing or inadvertantly knocked it off as he put both feet on this sill. Yet no glass below and no shoeprints on the glass shards.
Think about it.

The "ladder" is much larger beneath Amanda's window and better hidden from the road, why would he not choose Amanda's window over Filomena's? Once the window is broken and unlocked it's just as easy to crawl through. Were her shutters closed too perhaps?

Or, there's the really easy route on the other side, climbing up onto the balcony and through the window there. This in fact is exactly the way he entered the lawyer's office that time, not by trying to be spiderman on the more difficult access.

I am having a hard time understanding something. I have read that Sefanoni's boss (Dr. Renato Biondi) was a consultant for the prosecution. Did the court ever even consider that there may be a conflict of interest here? My understanding is the lab that did the testing is a police lab and I would assume they are paid by the state much as would be a regular police officer. It would seem to me to be a simple ethics issue that the head of the DNA unit would also not be a prosecution consultant in a case where that unit is in charge of the testing. Now I am also assuming that the prosecution costs are covered by the state so if Biondi was paid for his consultant work he was paid by the same folks that are also paying his salary.

I don't get this argument at all. Correct me if I'm wrong but isn't this the way it usually works, State experts generally being the state's employees, coroners, police officers, testing labs etc. and it is the defense who hires outside experts to offer the other side of the story. Stefanoni and Biondi represent the forensics testing lab and can both testify as to the correctness of the protocols used, no? Stefanoni wasn't on trial with Biondi a witness to her defense. They both testified from the point of view of State's evidence did they not with him corroborating her testimony?

Interesting from webpage is the quote:

Police said early in the inquiry that she probably knew her killer or killers because she apparently let them into the flat willingly.

No mention in the article about the broken window, despite the fact that police knew about it from the beginning. When did they first put about the story that it was a staged break-in?

It appears the very first investigators on the scene strongly suspected the staged break-in based on what they saw and not one investigator since has believed it was real. I guess if you don't believe a break-in actually happened it's not a leap to conclude Meredith let her attacker in or they opened the door and let themselves in.

Kevin, I thought we wacked this mole already? If it was Amanda he touched with the knife then why the heck isn't her DNA on it? How can touching one person with a knife deposit another person's DNA on it?

Yes, I'm sure this mole was whacked many times but a very small group, or perhaps just one, thinks he was talking about Amanda's hand not Meredith's.