Continuation - Discussion of the Amanda Knox case

[Chris_Halkides]

did they or didn't they

Well considering how whiney RS was in his diary regarding his plight it's hard to believe he would leave out an interrogation about this. In addition, did his lawyers ever say he was questioned or interrogated about it?

Alt+F4.

One of my previous posts suggest that the police asked Raffaele about the knife, but I was just speculating with only a little bit of evidence. Even in Amanda's case, the conversation between her and the officer was short. I am happy restate my position in a more open-ended way: perhaps they did, but perhaps they did not.

 

[Rhea]

I keep hearing that Amanda wouldn't participate in a killing because she had no history of violence. Then when the point is brought up that there are many, many murderer who had no history of violence the goalpost shifts to Amanda couldn't kill Meredith because they were such great friends.

There's a difference though, many murderers kill not for the pleasure they have in hurting, torturing other people, but instead with a clear motive; for example to get rid of a person, get rid of a problem or to use it as a warning. If we take the Scott Peterson case for example, he didn't seem to have pleasure in acting out violence (at least we don't know about that), he just wanted to get rid of his wife, he had a motive; she needed to disappear so he would be free. He was probably sociopathic, but somebody can be a sociopath and never hurt anybody his whole life. In his case, prior violent behaviour isn't necessary to make his actions believable. He comes into a situation, somebody needs to disappear and as a sociopath, he doesn't have real feelings for the pain of others and therefore has no problem in just killing the person. But a sociopath can do that without necessarily taking any pleasure in those actions.

Or a mother who kills her children, it doesn't categorically mean she likes torturing people or is a violent person per se, but rather that she wants to get rid of a problem. Therefore when people act out like this, it's very well possible that they have never been violent before. It's not about the violence itself but to make a problem disappear, it's about lacking emotions for other individuals.

In Amanda's case though, the behaviour she is supposed to have shown towards Meredith this evening would strongly suggest that she is a person who enjoys harming, torturing other people. Taking pleasure in those actions. Because she din't have any (believable) motive to kill Meredith, she supposedly did it just for the fun or kick it gave her. But this is extremely unlikely that somebody would exhibit behaviour like that to such an extreme extent without ever showing any interest in violence or torturing other people or animals before.

 

[Alt+F4]

If we take the Scott Peterson case for example, he didn't seem to have pleasure in acting out violence (at least we don't know about that), he just wanted to get rid of his wife, he had a motive; she needed to disappear so he would be free.

I could never understand him. Why not just get a divorce?

In Amanda's case though, the behaviour she is supposed to have shown towards Meredith this evening would strongly suggest that she is a person who enjoys harming, torturing other people. Taking pleasure in those actions. Because she din't have any (believable) motive to kill Meredith, she supposedly did it just for the fun or kick it gave her. But this is extremely unlikely that somebody would exhibit behaviour like that to such an extreme extent without ever showing any interest in violence or torturing other people or animals before.

I agree with you. I don't think she actively participated in the murder but I think she was there, she lied and covered up evidence.

 

[Mary_H]

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.

Excellent post, katy.

 

[Rhea]

I could never understand him. Why not just get a divorce?

It is hard to understand, I agree. But it does happen a lot, man kill their wifes instead of divorcing them and then go to prison for it, it's absurd in a way.

I saw an interesting interview with a psychiatrist who wrote a book about the Scott Peterson case and he was able to explain it to some degree. Seems that the psychopath wants the instant solution and not go through a long and painful divorce …

 

[Slayhamlet]

He was NOT told by the police about the DNA evidence, he heard about it on television. Please present evidence that the polices ever confronted him about it.

Fine, he took the lab report at face value when he heard the news media saying it proved that both Meredith's and Amanda's DNA was on the knife. It seems completely logical to me that the police would have mentioned the report when interrogating him as well, but whether they really did or not hardly matters for the matter at hand.

Now, how does Sollecito's explanation for the false DNA evidence implicate him and Amanda Knox in the murder? Be specific.

I don't think the knife itself is at all incriminating and the prosecution got it wrong. It's RS's lie about it that is incriminating. If he just kept his mouth shut about it, as Charlie said, I think the whole second knife argument would go away.

How do you know it's a lie? Why could the knife incident not have happened exactly as he described it? Any DNA traces might have been removed later by rinsing. Or perhaps the touch was so light that no traceable amount of DNA was transferred to the knife in the first place. Nor can we discount the possibility that he simply misremembered; false memories and confabulations are well known psychological phenomena in cases like this.

Why are none of these explanations considered possibilities by guilters but the suggestion of mendacity on Sollecito's part is not just considered a possibility but is automatically assumed to be the only possibility?

 

[Charlie Wilkes]

Charlie, I've always believed that Amanda did not kill Meredith, but rather that she was present at the time so not finding her DNA in Meredith's room does not conflict with my theory.

Well, then, when the police grilled her, she could have said: "I didn't do it - Guede did it." Raffaele could have mentioned Guede too, and it might have seemed like a good idea when he was being hauled off to jail. But neither of them said a word about Guede. Why?

As we both know, a motive is not necessary for a conviction, but it's helpful. I keep hearing that Amanda wouldn't participate in a killing because she had no history of violence. Then when the point is brought up that there are many, many murderer who had no history of violence the goalpost shifts to Amanda couldn't kill Meredith because they were such great friends.

Could someone point me to a photograph of Amanda and Meredith together? A post from either of their MySpace or Facebook accounts where they talk about how great friends they were? An email to a family or friend?

I'm not saying this proves that they hated each other but I don't understand why, if there is no evidence against Amanda, do her supporters continue this great friends line of which there is no evidence.

I'm not moving goalposts. I didn't say they were best friends. I merely said Amanda had no motive. But it doesn't matter. Your premise is false. When young people kill one of their peers for no reason, or for a trivial reason, they invariably have a track record of really weird, disturbing, abnormal, screwed-up behavior. If you can find an exception, post it. Usually this is something boys do, but once in awhile a girl will be involved. Like Justina Morley:

She had a history of self-mutilation. She tried to kill herself twice. She
started smoking marijuana at 12, then moved on to pills, coke, heroin and,
weirdly, pot laced with embalming fluid. She abused herself by having
indiscriminate promiscuous sex. She was twice admitted to a psychiatric
institution. She'd been diagnosed with depression, for which she was taking
medication at the time of the crime.

http://www.philadelphiaweekly.com/news-and-opinion/kid_snuff-38393579.html

No, that's not what I think happened. I think RG was already in the apartment when AK and RS came back there to get her clothes for the next morning's day trip.

They came back to get Amanda's clothes and they ended up committing murder instead? How did Guede get into the place? Did Meredith invite him in?

Your thinking makes no sense to me.

 

[Mary_H]

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.

If she was lying, then why did the experienced police believe her? In fact, they not only "believed" her, they approved of what she said: "She buckled and made an admission of facts we knew were correct ..."

You would think if she were lying, they would have continued their interrogation until they got the truth.

Looking at what the police accepted versus what they disregarded from all three defendants during that time, we don't see them basing their choices on much more than what fit their preconceived notions, or on what they may have been ordered to look for. All three defendants protested, but their protests fell on deaf ears, while anything incriminating was readily used without any doubt at all (and, of course, without any evidence at all).

 

[Dan O.]

You bring up an intresting point. Amanda said she didn't realize that morning that her lamp (only sourse of artifical light in the room) was missing which means, if she is telling the truth, the shutters were open, that's where she was getting light from when changing. So yes, why didn't the burglar come in through her room?

You are still grasping at straws trying to maintain your guilty beliefs. And you are getting everything wrong. There are pictures taken of Amanda's room in the immediately following days showing strong natural light coming from the double glass doors to the porch directly across the hall from Amanda's door. Amanda herself has stated that she typically leaves her door open and mentioned that the room gets lots of natural light. The exterior shutters on the cottage are louvered so it is not necessary to open them to get additional indirect light through the window.

In addition to climbing the grate on the window below to reach Filomena's window and the high path that Charlie presented of standing on the planter and using the eve of the house for support, there is the path of standing on the edge of the porch behind the planter, using the planter for a hand hold and reaching a foot to the top of the casement of the lower window for a toe hold. Not only is this third path extremely easy, it was the abrasions evident in the photos where the feet would have contacted the edge of the porch and the top of the casement that drew my attention to it. If the broken window was anywhere else in the cottage, I would be asking why the burglar didn't take this path to enter a window that was within easy reach from the porch and where the shutter could not have been fully closed.

The placement of the two lamp on the floor at the ends of the bed indicates to me that they were used for lighting for dramatic effect such as taking a self portrait while dressed in a vampire costume. Amanda had been spending her nights at Raffaele's so she would not have had any need for that lamp since Halloween Night. Supposing that someone had to borrow Amanda's lamp to clean up the crime scene when there is already a suitable lamp on an extension cord in the room and when there is no evidence of any cleanup in that room is just illogical.

 

[Mary_H]

Why are none of these explanations considered possibilities by guilters but the suggestion of mendacity on Sollecito's part is not just considered a possibility but is automatically assumed to be the only possibility?

This is the other side of Alt+4's earlier question: "Your assuming that the police broke the law rather than either RS or AK lying or being mistaken. Why?

Ideally, we would all pay attention to all of the information that is available before concluding guilt or innocence, but it is apparent from the ongoing debate that people will ignore information they don't like.

The innocentisti believe there is more evidence supporting a charge of bad faith against the police, the prosecutors, the lab and the judges, while the colpevolisti believe there is more evidence of bad faith on the part of the defendants.

I continue to see it as coming down to a matter of choice, based on preferences.

 

[Chris_Halkides]

Toasted Toshiba and a Halloween hello

As we both know, a motive is not necessary for a conviction, but it's helpful. I keep hearing that Amanda wouldn't participate in a killing because she had no history of violence. Then when the point is brought up that there are many, many murderer who had no history of violence the goalpost shifts to Amanda couldn't kill Meredith because they were such great friends.

Could someone point me to a photograph of Amanda and Meredith together? A post from either of their MySpace or Facebook accounts where they talk about how great friends they were? An email to a family or friend?

I'm not saying this proves that they hated each other but I don't understand why, if there is no evidence against Amanda, do her supporters continue this great friends line of which there is no evidence.

Alt+F4,

They only knew each other for less than two months. I don't think anyone is saying that they were great friends. However, there were alleged to be photographs of the two together at the Chocolate festival on Amanda's toasted hard drive. There is also a text message from Amanda to Meredith on Halloween night that is friendly in tone.

 

[Alt+F4]

There are pictures taken of Amanda's room in the immediately following days showing strong natural light coming from the double glass doors to the porch directly across the hall from Amanda's door.

Hi Dan, could you please post link(s) to these photographs that have timestamps. Thanks.

Amanda herself has stated that she typically leaves her door open and mentioned that the room gets lots of natural light. The exterior shutters on the cottage are louvered so it is not necessary to open them to get additional indirect light through the window.

Cite?

In addition to climbing the grate on the window below to reach Filomena's window and the high path that Charlie presented of standing on the planter and using the eve of the house for support, there is the path of standing on the edge of the porch behind the planter, using the planter for a hand hold and reaching a foot to the top of the casement of the lower window for a toe hold. Not only is this third path extremely easy, it was the abrasions evident in the photos where the feet would have contacted the edge of the porch and the top of the casement that drew my attention to it. If the broken window was anywhere else in the cottage, I would be asking why the burglar didn't take this path to enter a window that was within easy reach from the porch and where the shutter could not have been fully closed.

Are there photographs showing this part of the house up close?

The placement of the two lamp on the floor at the ends of the bed indicates to me that they were used for lighting for dramatic effect such as taking a self portrait while dressed in a vampire costume.

The placement of the two lamps on the floor at the ends of the bed indicates to me that they were used for lighting the movement of the body and the manipulation of evidence after the murder.

 

[Alt+F4]

They only knew each other for less than two months. I don't think anyone is saying that they were great friends.

Ok. On a similar thought, why are AK and RS considered "boyfriend and girlfriend" when they had known each other only 6 days?

However, there were alleged to be photographs of the two together at the Chocolate festival on Amanda's toasted hard drive. There is also a text message from Amanda to Meredith on Halloween night that is friendly in tone.

Who alleged this? Amanda? As for the text, did Meredith respond?

 

[Antony]

(msg #5080)

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 wouldn't take anything that the investigators say they believe at face value. This is the team that has mishandled evidence, misrepresented evidence, concealed evidence, destroyed evidence, abused suspects and leaked distorted information to the media - all with an apparent agenda of creating a wholly non-existent certainty about their favoured result.

A competent and honest investigating team would have taken the evidence of the break-in and traces of an intruder and began the investigation on that basis. Only if they then found unexplained facts should they have broadened their investigation.

This team put the cart before the horse: they settled on the 2 people who reported the crime in the first place and directed their entire effort into finding or manufacturing "evidence" to implicate them. That is why the physical "evidence" against Amanda and Raffaele is so spurious and contrived.

The alleged staging of the break-in was an invention of the Perugia police - as was the alleged "clean-up"; both were a fiction to explain away inconvenient facts. There is no credible evidence for either of them. There is certainly nothing to suggest at first sight that the break-in was staged, contrary to your claim ("strongly suspected the staged break-in based on what they saw").

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.

It's one thing to consider the break-in may have been staged as a possibility, it's another to ignore the break-in completely in your story to the press, right at the beginning ("early in the investigation").

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.

I will add my voice to those on the pro-innocence side who think this likely - Amanda is referred to in the same paragraph, and "her hand" makes far more sense if it's interpreted as Amanda's hand than Meredith's.

This isn't a mole to be whacked; the mole is the pro-guilt claim that Raffaele "testified" that the knife had come into contact with Meredith. It wasn't "testimony" by any description; it was a private diary entry, written at a time when he was trying to make sense of falsehoods fed to him by police.

 

[Alt+F4]

Now, how does Sollecito's explanation for the false DNA evidence implicate him and Amanda Knox in the murder? Be specific.

It doesn't implicate her at all, does it?

Why could the knife incident not have happened exactly as he described it?

Meredith was never in RS's apartment. No one is saying that she was.

Nor can we discount the possibility that he simply misremembered; false memories and confabulations are well known psychological phenomena in cases like this.

In cases like this? Please cite.

Why are none of these explanations considered possibilities by guilters but the suggestion of mendacity on Sollecito's part is not just considered a possibility but is automatically assumed to be the only possibility?

Everytime you use the term "guilters" it makes you look silly to the many lurkers that read this thread.

 

[Danceme]

I've never seen any discussion from the innocentisti on why Raffaele would say Filomena's door was wide open and he could see straight away there was a big mess in there, while Amanda says the door was closed. This is a pretty significant detail yet they say completely opposite things. Raffaele wrote "Those moments I remember well because I was shaken and alarmed" about the visit to the cottage that morning. "The first thing I noticed was that the room of Filomena (called Molli) had the door wide open. ...We saw that Filomena's bedroom was in completely disorder: broken glass on the floor and the room upside down, it was an absurd mess. The window was broken on the left side and was open."

Contrast this with Amanda's words when she arrives to take a shower, "lauras door was open which meant she wasnt home, and filomenas door was also closed." Why did she say 'also' here? Anyway if Laura's door was open meaning she wasn't home, wouldn't it stand to reason that if Filomnena's door was closed she would presume she was sleeping in there, as she did when she saw Meredith's door was closed?
Later she writes that after they came back to the cottage "filomenas room was closed, but when i opned the door her room and a mess and her window was open and completely broken"

Also, if you came home with the intent on taking a shower and you found the front door wide and thought a roommate was possibly taking out the trash or otherwise outside somewhere, then I think it would be usual to sing out to the person, maybe walk back outside to see if you can find them, because for sure it would be usual for you to want to close and lock the door while you had that shower, especially if you were a young female and the house was in a bit of a risky area. Yet Amanda supposedly stripped in her room, walked naked to the bathroom and took a shower all without locking the door or checking to see if Filomena was actually home. She presumed Meredith was sleeping, Laura was out, so who did she presume was "...taking out the trash or talking really uickley to the neighbors downstairs." Filomena??

I think it would be normal if you came home and saw these kinds of strange things and saw two roommate's doors were closed, you might knock or simply open them to see if anyone was home, if knocking got no answer, and if you did do that you would see the mess and broken window in one room right away and really be worried. She says Filomena's door was closed so how come she didn't try Filomena's door or knock on it even when she noticed the blood, feces etc? How come she didn't knock on Meredith's door this time, before going to Raffaele's? All these strange things and she leaves Meredith "sleeping" in that cottage!

Her story doesn't make sense. She thought a roommate was home, possibly taking out trash, yet who could it have been, and why didn't she try to find out before heading off to Raffaele's to tell him the story.

 

[Alt+F4]

I wouldn't take anything that the investigators say they believe at face value. This is the team that has mishandled evidence, misrepresented evidence, concealed evidence, destroyed evidence, abused suspects and leaked distorted information to the media - all with an apparent agenda of creating a wholly non-existent certainty about their favoured result.

Why would they do that? Wasn't there more than enough evidence against Rudy? As to "the team" who are you referring to specifically? The Postal Police? The Carabinieri? The Scientific Police? The prosecuter's office? Are you suggestion they were all in collusion to railroad AK and RS?

This isn't a mole to be whacked; the mole is the pro-guilt claim that Raffaele "testified" that the knife had come into contact with Meredith. It wasn't "testimony" by any description; it was a private diary entry, written at a time when he was trying to make sense of falsehoods fed to him by police.

No. There was no falshoods fed to him by the police in regard to the DNA evidence on the knife. He decided to write about it in his diary, he was not forced.

 

[Katody Matrass]

windows and what is possible

Actually Charlie, that's not correct. Amanda's window is not as tall as Filomena's but the sill is at the exact same height on the wall.

http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2009/04/25/article-1173558-0485812B000005DC-50_468x286.jpg

http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2009/07/11/article-1199111-05AA8B0F000005DC-971_634x407.jpg

If Amanda's window were equally accessible as Filomena's that would indicate that Rudy chose the latter exactly because it's shutters were open enough to allow a rock throw.
But there are other reasons Filomena's window seemed a better choice:

• Horizontal path from the planter is much easier then climbing.
• Taller window allowed him to stand on the ledge comfortably while opening it.

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.

I don't think imagining yourself will take you far. I recommend making a few simple experiments (but better at ground level ). It's really wonderful what a human body is capable of. Then you can imagine in your place a fit, tall, young man, apparently able to overcome acrophobia.

But I understand that it is a matter of personal opinion. For you it is impossible, but I know many people in my social circle who could scale that path in a few seconds.

I encourage you to review the available closeups of the window.
The ledge makes a good 10+ cm wide foothold, and the shutters are not flimsy too. They're maybe not good enough to suspend yourself from them, but when you have a foothold they make a sturdy hand holds.
You will notice also how much glass there is on the ledge and if it really is impossible to stand there without disturbing the shards (not to mention making shoe prints on them).

Finally the fact that there are other possible ways to enter doesn't prove that Rudy couldn't enter the way he did - through Filomena's window, which was my initial point.

 

[Katody Matrass]

I've never seen any discussion from the innocentisti on why Raffaele would say Filomena's door was wide open and he could see straight away there was a big mess in there, while Amanda says the door was closed.

What exactly is so strange about it? Are there really no innocent reasons you could think of?

 

[Katody Matrass]

Her story doesn't make sense. She thought a roommate was home, possibly taking out trash, yet who could it have been, and why didn't she try to find out before heading off to Raffaele's to tell him the story.

It makes sense for me. But it's just an opinion. Now, let's take the rest of the logical steps from her story as it is to her being a murderer.