One knife or two knives
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Halides, this "information" about the kitchen knife is as common as the "information" about Amanda being fired, or demoted. So it's easy to understand why you would say that we know it.
However, here is what Massei says in the MOTIVATIONS REPORT about the compatibility of the kitchen knife with another stab wound.....
Examining the wound just below the most severe one [the most severe wound known to be compatible with the kitchen knife], Professor Cingolani had in fact noted and declared the following: "in the second lesion, the one that is 2 centimetres deep and 1.5 centimetres wide from corner to corner, the only thing that we are tempted to do, [albeit] in an absolutely amateurish/unprofessional way, because we only have photographs available, is to measure, assuming that only the tip entered, how wide the [kitchen knife] blade is [at a point] 2 centimetres from its tip: it is precisely 1.5 centimetres wide!" (pages 33 and 34, minutes of the incidente probatorio before the GIP on April 19, 2008).
See: PMF > Massei MOTIVATIONS REPORT > English Translation, page 291
It's clear that Massei concludes that the kitchen knife is compatible with this second stab wound, too. So is it suitable for you to say "we know" it is not? Massei is familiar with all the expert testimony on this matter, so maybe we should just call this a disputed subject?
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Frank Sfarzo wrote, “Professor Cingolani has been stressed by basically everyone about the relation between wounds and knife. He has been treating, even with surprising positions, all minor wounds. Until Amanda Knox's lawyer Carlo Dalla Vedova brought him to say something very clear about the main one: any single-edge knife is compatible with Meredith's larger wound.”
Frank reported on the
defense’s summation, “If you want to kill, you can hardly stick a blade in to just half of its length, as we know. But here the blade went inside three times, as all experts agree. And it's impossible to go in three times with the same partial length. Just another of the many proofs that the Marietti knife is not the murder weapon.”
Frank Sfarzo reported on Professor
Carlo Torre’s testimony, “As we figured out he buys Introna's idea that the stab wound on the right impacted against the jaw. He also agrees that the blade is no more than 8 centimeters long, since that's the depth of the larger wound. After establishing that the little blade made the larger wound as well, he pointed out that some signs left on the surface of the cut show a repeated movement of the blade in the wound.”
Frank discussed the testimony of
Walter Patumi,
“Another simple concept was that when you want to kill, you strike a blow as strong as you can. You are not going to use just half of your blade, as the theory wants for the murder of Meredith. There's absolutely no possibility that knife can be the murder weapon --Patumi explained-- it would have severed her neck completely.”
Fine,
I don’t find Massei’s reasoning convincing, based on the comments above. Why should we focus on the portion of the kitchen knife that is 2 cm from the end? Is there any independent reason to suppose that this portion of the knife was used, or should we conclude that another knife, which is 1.5 cm in width at a point 3 cm from its end, is just as compatible with the wound?
But even if I did, it would still leave us with a situation in which a smaller knife is compatible with all three wounds and the bloody outline of a knife on Meredith’s bed versus a knife which is at best compatible with two out of the three wounds and not the outline. It is parsimonious to assume one knife, unless one is forced to accept two knives, and my thoughts on the knife DNA profile are well known.
Finally, I don’t think you do yourself any favors by comparing the issues surrounding the knife with the issues surrounding Patrick’s alleged firing of Amanda. The latter is simply untrue. The former is at least in the realm of expert opinion.
