Continuation - Discussion of the Amanda Knox case

[loverofzion]

Easily dealt with.

1. Stomach content is not an accurate method for determining TOD, relying on a range of factors. As such, iy must only be used in combination with other elements, as was done in this case. TOD was after 11 pm.

2. That cell tower also covers the cottage. "never pinged the phone before"? And the records you're using go back how long?

3. A completely leading question based on your own arbitrary subjective opinion. Her interrogation matches someone telling 'lies', it is not similar to what you claim.

4. Another leading question which assumes your self imposed ROD is accepted. It is not. Meredith was murdered after 11 pm, as was established in the trial.

5. The cartoon (Nurato). You people are talking of this as though it is something 'new'. It is not. It was argued by the defence in the pre-trial under judge Micheli and rejected. Just as it was not accepted in the trial. The last human interaction on Raffaele's computer was around 21:10. Activity after that period did not require human interraction and was automated.

6. Again, a leading question which presumes your altered TOD is accepted, it is not. There are many forms of evidence of which scientific evidence is only one kind. It is not a requirement that Curatolo's testimony be supported with "scientific evidence".

7. Another leading question. See above.

8. It is not Amanda's DNA on the handle alone that us the evidence. It is her DNA on the handle combined with Meredith's DNA on the blade. Since Raffaele and Amanda were the only individuals with access to the knife (unless you want to blame the cleaning lady) and both their alibis are entwined, one of them used that knife on Meredith. The DNA on the handle indicates that person was Amanda. There is no other DNA on that handle.

9. Amanda's DNA mixed with Meredith's blood combined with the absence of anyone else's is a clear indicator of guilt.

10. No, there is also the knife and her footprints in Meredith's blood.

11. The break-in was clearly staged per the in depth evidence and reasoning cited for it in the Massei Report, which I refer you to. Some of the glass being under clothing as well as in top, IF Filomena actually did state that (which I'm not entirely convinced of), is easily explained. The stagers of the break-in would have been in the room, so their feet would have been in the room, right by the window where the floor was covered with items they'd strewn on the floor, Some of these items no doubt would have been knocked or kicked about as they moved in that area, causing some items to shift onto previously exposed parts of the floor that had glass on them.

12. No, since the police worked with a copy of the data on Raffaele's drive, not with the original drive.

13. If you think that's the 'first three way sex crime in history' there's no helping you. They found the evidence they needed because they searched the crime scene. I fail to see why conspiracy theories are required. Indeed, you could take the time to explain in such an event, why they didn't plant or fabricate strong evidence as opposed to (as you've been arguing for months) weak evidence and how that makes any kind of logical sense.

Over to you.

All readers on this board should be requiured to read and ponder Fulcanelli's true refutations of all the claims published on this thread.
If you are honest well meaning enquirers into the truth about this case, then you will certainly have your eyes opened by this master poster.

I couldn't have said it better.

 

[Chris C]

I'm not sure how this is relevant to the claim that Filomena and Laura were not credible when they both "testified the cottage was never cleaned with products containing bleach."

Because your talking about whether or not someone is a credible witness when determining whether or not that cottage was ever cleaned up with bleach. I'm pointing out regardless it wouldn't matter because there is no evidence it was ever cleaned up. With or without bleach cleaning problems.

 

[quadraginta]

I am glad you share the cleaning efforts to some degree. Bleach and similar compounds are also found in most automatic dishwashing detergents, mold and stain removers, and toilet bowl cleaners as well as the standard clorox products, some comet product lines, also a few lysol product lines as well as some teeth whiteners and who knows what other stuff we have around the house.

I can't speak to "who knows" what you have around your house. I certainly know what I have around mine, and I have no reason to question that Filomena and Laura knew what they had around theirs. What reasons do you have? Beyond personal experience, that is.

Clearly there are household cleaning products which contain bleach. The leap from this fact to the assertion that the testimony of both Filomena and Laura is somehow flawed or insincere is a rather large one.

You made a point of specifying laundry as some sort of irrefutable example. I pointed out that my own experience was quite the contrary. Now you bring up a 'laundry list' )) of other examples of cleaning products, each and every one prefaced with a qualifier which clearly demonstrates your awareness that common alternatives exist. I don't think you are defending your criticism of Filomena and Lauras' statements very well.

 

[loverofzion]

I am a little confused with Massei's reasoning on the changing times of the dinner. Massei is saying she is pushing the time of the dinner up to give her a later alibi. How would staying at Raffaele's all night or having dinner at a certain time give her anymore of an alibi if it could not even be proven she was at Raffaele's during the time of the murder much less having dinner at that time. Maybe you can explain this line of reasoning to me because I don't see any difference in saying I was watching TV or washing dishes (with water) or taking a shower (with water) or cleaning up a spill (water as well) at Raffaele's at the time of the murder or I was having dinner at Raffaele's at the time of the murder.

Well for one because Rafi's father had called much earlier in the evening while RAFI WAS WASHING THE DISHES AFTER HAVING EATEN DINNER.
So for one the pair was lying when hey tried to date the dinner to say 11 PM.

 

[Fuji]

Fuji, since you seem to believe there was a clean-up, how do you ascertain that Rafaelle knew how to differentiate between Rudy's shoe prints and his own, considering they were identical patterns (just an extra "ring"), and that it would have been much safer to simply erase any shoe prints that may have been his or Rudy's.

Perhaps because he and Amanda were barefoot, and Rudy was not?

Of course it would have been "safer" to erase Rudy's shoeprints. Having already killed Meredith, the "safest" thing to do would have been to burn down the cottage.

Second, why would Rafaelle leave his own semi-bloody footprint on the bath mat, then point it out to police on the phone before they even arrived and again once they were at the cottage?

Perhaps he thought it would not be traced to him?

And third, why would they deliberately leave evidence of Rudy's presence but then never drop any hints of his involvement to the police at any later point, especially during Amanda's interrogation where she "buckled" and implicated Patrick instead?

Perhaps because physical evidence (i.e. Rudy's traces) obviates the need for direct evidence (i.e. testifying against Rudy)?

 

[quadraginta]

I'm not sure how this is relevant to the claim that Filomena and Laura were not credible when they both "testified the cottage was never cleaned with products containing bleach."

Because your talking about whether or not someone is a credible witness when determining whether or not that cottage was ever cleaned up with bleach. I'm pointing out regardless it wouldn't matter because there is no evidence it was ever cleaned up. With or without bleach cleaning problems.

No. I wasn't. I was pointing out that the basis of RoseMontague's criticism of their competence or veracity on that one point was not founded on anything but her own opinion.

If the difference still escapes you I can go into more detail.

 

[Chris C]

All readers on this board should be requiured to read and ponder Fulcanelli's true refutations of all the claims published on this thread.
If you are honest well meaning enquirers into the truth about this case, then you will certainly have your eyes opened by this master poster.

I couldn't have said it better.

1. The range of factors are known.

2. The prosecution never entered into evidence anyones cell phone picking up that tower anywhere. Whether at the cottage or not at that cottage. The prosecution was unable to find evidence. There where 8 people living there. 4 upstairs and 4 downstairs. No evidence entered that anyones elses phone had picked up that tower on any other occasion.

3. The supreme court threw out those statements for a reason. Until someone hands out the recordings of the interrogation the supreme court of italy views that confession as coerced.

4. See answer to question 1.

5. Yeah, and they gave a medal to the computer expert that destroyed 3 harddrives.

6. The coroner believed the ToD was 2 to 3 hours after eating. He was fired by Mignini after that testimony.

7.

8. Then hand over the contamination logs and DNA data files.

9. Amanda's DNA, mixed with Meredith's, mixed with an unknown female's dna. I dont see anyone looking for the unknown female.

10. Footprints tested for blood. Came back negative. A fact that the prosecution withheld from the defense for most of the trial.

11. No evidence entered that it was a false break in.

12. Police where surfing the internet on Raf's computer before they ever started examining the evidence on the harddrive.

13. They found no evidence of a 3 way sex crime. They didn't even test the semen stain and charged 3 people with sexual assault.


Pondering the true refutations? How about pondering the evidence.

 

[Chris C]

No. I wasn't. I was pointing out that the basis of RoseMontague's criticism of their competence or veracity on that one point was not founded on anything but her own opinion.

If the difference still escapes you I can go into more detail.

You where quoting someone who was quoting someone. Any thing you say along a quoting conversation should be weighed upon the entire discussion. I made a comment about the entire conversation. You just happened to be the last quote in a list of quotes. I guess you wasn't following the whole conversation.

 

[Fuji]

The "objective criteria" we have used to determine Amanda wasn't lying is that is that it's been proven that several others involved in this case have made the same errors in remembering details of what happened the day the body was discovered.

Aside from the fact that, as far as I know, there is no objective, scientific way for a disinterested observer to determine whether a given subject is lying or telling the truth in regards to the contents of their memory in any given situation, you are still drawing an unwarranted equivalence between witness and suspect misstatements.

You haven't shown any "objective criteria" other than that for some reason when Amanda succumbs to the same fallible mistakes it makes her guilty... it seems that that "reason" is confirmation bias because you're certain she is guilty of involvement in Meredith's death.

You seemingly fail to grasp that there is an as yet unsolved problem in regards to objectively determining the contents of another's subjective experience. Perhaps in the future, neuroscience will be able to achieve this; however, in 2010, there is no one on Earth who can do this.

 

[loverofzion]

If I had read something like that, I would assume it was a joke (and I recall reading somewhere that was how Amanda intended it--sorry that I don't have a citation). It is unfortunate that one's MySpace and Facebook jokes can be seriously or even tragically misunderstood, but it has happened before.

Sory but I don't get what's funny about conjuring having sex with a strange man on a train.
Do you?
And who "seriously" or "tragically" misunderstood her story??

As for not mentioning the stranger on the train's name on her list of possible HIV carrying sex partners, well how would you know whose names were on that list?

As for drugs it is very much conjectured that there were hard drugs involved that night; her boyfriend was an avid drug taker and she was known to be just that kind of gal who liked to try everything (in her sister Deanna's words).

Whitewashing the sainted martyr is what this game is called.

 

[Kestrel]

Well for one because Rafi's father had called much earlier in the evening while RAFI WAS WASHING THE DISHES AFTER HAVING EATEN DINNER.
So for one the pair was lying when hey tried to date the dinner to say 11 PM.

That Raffaele was washing dishes is not proof they had already had dinner.

Bachelors sometimes have to wash dishes before a meal because they didn't do it after the previous meal.

 

[katy_did]

Well for one because Rafi's father had called much earlier in the evening while RAFI WAS WASHING THE DISHES AFTER HAVING EATEN DINNER.
So for one the pair was lying when hey tried to date the dinner to say 11 PM.

This is another thing that seems a bit bizarre to me in terms of Massei's reasoning. Nowhere is it said that Raffaele was washing dishes "after having eaten dinner" (or "AFTER HAVING EATEN DINNER", if you prefer). He said the pipe had leaked while he was washing dishes; he doesn't say he was washing dishes at the time his father called, nor that they had just eaten dinner. Given that Massei's reasoning in other areas has turned out to be based on less than complete information (e.g. regarding what Amanda did or didn't tell Filomena about calling Meredith, or about the call she made to her mother) that makes me suspicious of other arguments of that sort in the report.

Isn't it possible that the pipe leaked every time the sink was used, that Raffaele had been aware of it earlier (e.g. when he washed the dishes from breakfast, after Amanda had gone back to her own place for lunch and before he joined her there) but that Amanda wasn't aware of it until they washed the dishes from dinner much later on? Perhaps the earlier leak had been minor, as the fault had just started, and seems to have been a recurrence of a previous fault in the pipes; but when they washed the dishes later on it had worsened to the point that it flooded the kitchen.

The problem here is that I don't trust Massei to consider the full story when he jumps to these sorts of conclusions. His reasoning is so flawed in other, similar arguments, that I'm very cautious about believing his argument here.

 

[Malkmus]

Perhaps because he and Amanda were barefoot, and Rudy was not?

Of course it would have been "safer" to erase Rudy's shoeprints. Having already killed Meredith, the "safest" thing to do would have been to burn down the cottage.

It's a possibility they were barefoot, but unlikely if you consider that the clean-up and staging involved getting a rock from outside and a lot of broken glass. But interesting that you acknowledge they would have been better off just erasing all the shoe prints, but decide to write it off with sarcasm. Unfortunately, sarcasm doesn't make it true. It would have been easier, and makes a lot more sense for them to have just cleaned up any and all incriminating shoe/foot prints.

Perhaps he thought it would not be traced to him?

Again, pretty risky for no apparent reason. Would have been easier to just get rid of it or clean it. But by your logic he would have left all his footprints behind and just hoped for the best. The whole cleaning up some, but not all, the evidence just doesn't add up. Especially when there is no actual evidence of a clean-up. When I clean my home it smells of cleaning products for the rest of the day. I think it would have been fairly obvious to anyone upon entering the cottage that day.

Perhaps because physical evidence (i.e. Rudy's traces) obviates the need for direct evidence (i.e. testifying against Rudy)?

Which would make sense until the point that Amanda and Raf were put in a jail cell, and the police still had no idea who Rudy Guede was. If their plan was to "direct" the police toward Rudy it would have made entirely more sense at the point where Amanda "buckled" to implicate Rudy. All the evidence surrounding the testimony of the three suspects implies they were oblivious to any possible involvement of the other party.

 

[Fuji]

This analogy implies, again, willful deceit. But if Amanda stood to gain nothing from it then what makes it a lie? You lie to gain something, not just for the hell of it.

She thought she had something to gain by it. That she was wrong does not mean she wasn't also being deceptive.

And, no - you lie when you knowingly make a false statement, much as you steal when you knowingly take another's possessions without their permission.

Amanda was a witness, just like Filomena, at the time she made those statements. And what makes Filomena "disinterested"? Do you not think she took it seriously?

From Merriam-Webster:

"disinterested, adj

1 a : not having the mind or feelings engaged : not interested
<telling them in a disinterested voice - Tom Wicker> <disinterested in women - J. A. Brussel>

b : no longer interested <husband and wife become disinterested in each other - T. I. Rubin>

2 : free from selfish motive or interest : UNBIASED
<a disinterested decision> <disinterested intellectual curiosity is the lifeblood of real civilization - G. M. Trevelyan>"

 

[christianahannah]

Yummi's main argument seems to be that if the prints were made in blood and had dried, it would still have been possible to get such a clear reaction with luminol even if the prints had been cleaned. I'm pretty certain he's wrong about that: in one of the studies linked to earlier on the thread (the one in which they were testing what results you get from the TMB test after using luminol) the experiment was carried out by making a bloody handprint on a variety of surfaces, leaving it to dry (IIRC, I think it was even left overnight), cleaning it, then seeing what sort of reaction they obtained with luminol and then TMB. On every surface except concrete, the reaction with luminol was an overall glow around the area where the handprint had been, even after just washing it with soap and water. I've seen no evidence to support the idea that a dried bloody footprint would have survived cleaning to produce a luminol reaction, and Yummi doesn't provide any evidence to support his theory. I also think that if what he says were true, Massei would have used it to suggest that the prints had been cleaned up, especially given the lack of any solid evidence of a clean-up; instead, he's forced to say they were made in an 'invisible' way, without the person who made them having been aware of it.

Yummi also seems to rule out any possibility that the streaks around the prints could have been made at the same time as the prints were, which seems like an odd conclusion to me: surely, chances are the unclear smudges around the prints were made by the person making the footprints, but in those instances by moving their foot along the ground and perhaps sliding it, rather than standing still and therefore making a clear print? We even have evidence for that in Amanda's statement that she dragged her feet on the bathmat rather than simply walking back to her room. The luminol marks would support that (and she didn't know about them at the time she made that statement).

Ultimately I think the fact Massei doesn't argue the prints were cleaned up says a great deal: the prints couldn't have been cleaned, even in soap and water, or they simply wouldn't exist. Hence he was forced to argue the invisible theory.

I don't know. It could my reading is wrong, but starting at page 380 through 387 of the motivations I come away with Massei reasoning that there was an attempt at cleaning the footprints. On at least three separate occasions (there may be more) Massei states:

Page 382

Even the traces highlighted by Luminol therefore show the existence of evidence against Amanda, making [the Court] consider that she, having been barefoot in the room where Meredith was killed and having thus stained her feet, had left the traces highlighted by Luminol (which could have resisted the subsequent action of cleaning, on which more will follow) and found in the various parts of the house which she went to for the reasons shown above (her own room, the corridor, Romanelli's room).

Page 386

Nor is it held that what was presented with reference to the cleaning activity and the prints elimination is contradicted by the prints that were actually found and this with particular reference to the prints of the shoes left in the corridor. In this regard, [416] it can in fact be hypothesised that the cleaning action was not particular careful or else - and this second hypothesis is held to be more probable since the shoe prints, as has been recalled, were fairly evident - that such an omission was intentional, in the knowledge that, having been in Meredith's room, when the latter was killed, with bare feet as has already been noted, the shoe prints in blood would have constituted an exonerating element in their defence.

Page 387

With regard, then, to the traces highlighted by Luminol, it is possible that these had resisted being cleaned, and in fact they were not visible and could only be seen when the chemical reagent was sprayed.

I am unclear whether Massei is including all footprints highlighted by luminol in the attempted cleaning or only a few.

 

[Malkmus]

Aside from the fact that, as far as I know, there is no objective, scientific way for a disinterested observer to determine whether a given subject is lying or telling the truth in regards to the contents of their memory in any given situation, you are still drawing an unwarranted equivalence between witness and suspect misstatements.

You keep saying two things here:

A. There is no way of knowing if she was lying. Yet you insist you know she was lying.

B. You keep assuming that Amanda was, and knew she was, a suspect when she made those statements, when in fact she and Filomena were both witnesses at the time.

You seemingly fail to grasp that there is an as yet unsolved problem in regards to objectively determining the contents of another's subjective experience. Perhaps in the future, neuroscience will be able to achieve this; however, in 2010, there is no one on Earth who can do this.

Could you clarify your point here? "An as yet unsolved problem in regards to objectively determining the contents of another's subjective experience?" You're correct. I "fail" to grasp this. But maybe you could talk normally like the rest of us and I could understand. As of now it just sounds like obfuscation.

 

[loverofzion]

That Raffaele was washing dishes is not proof they had already had dinner.

Bachelors sometimes have to wash dishes before a meal because they didn't do it after the previous meal.

No, sorry it was quite clear he was washing up AFTER eating dinner.

Nice try though...

 

[quadraginta]

You where quoting someone who was quoting someone. Any thing you say along a quoting conversation should be weighed upon the entire discussion.

Why?

I made a comment about the entire conversation. You just happened to be the last quote in a list of quotes. I guess you wasn't following the whole conversation.

Sure I was.

However, I wasn't addressing the entire conversation. I was addressing a specific claim made by one poster in response to a part of a statement made by another poster. Neither of whom were you.

You chimed in specifically to address my comment about that. No other "entire conversation" was implicit in what I brought up. You inferred that all by yourself. That's not my problem.

 

[Malkmus]

From Merriam-Webster:

"disinterested, adj

1 a : not having the mind or feelings engaged : not interested
<telling them in a disinterested voice - Tom Wicker> <disinterested in women - J. A. Brussel>

b : no longer interested <husband and wife become disinterested in each other - T. I. Rubin>

2 : free from selfish motive or interest : UNBIASED
<a disinterested decision> <disinterested intellectual curiosity is the lifeblood of real civilization - G. M. Trevelyan>"

Thanks for clarifying. I think this sums up your position of why you think amanda was lying but others weren't despite making the same kind of mistakes. Filomena was "unbiased", but Amanda wasn't. Why? Because she you know she's guilty. In other words, confirmation bias.

 

[ForTruth]

No, sorry it was quite clear he was washing up AFTER eating dinner.

Nice try though...

Why was it so clear?