Continuation - Discussion of the Amanda Knox case

[Mary_H]

Errrr thanks for the advice. I'll take it on board. Although the word "irony" springs to mind.....

Edit: By the way - and I promise I'm being sincere here - accusing other posters of sounding condescending and rude is probably not going to go down well with those who run the JREF forums, as recent history has demonstrated. I would say that if you don't like my posting style, the best thing to do would be to send me a PM rather than posting it on the thread.

One way around it is to say, "I am experiencing your [argument, style, tone] as rude and condescending. Is that your intent?" That way it's not an attack, and it's about you, not the other poster.

Of COURSE, I am speaking hypothetically, LJ.

 

[Solange305]

Yes, the grating was there.
In the article I linked before you'll find a top down photo of the surroundings, ground included. And a discussion of possible approaches to the window.

Thanks. I just finished reading part 1, havent gotten to part 2 yet. It does sound probable that the rock was thrown from the outside, but like the author of the article stipulated, that doesn't necessarily mean it wasn't staged (meaning Amanda and Raffaele could have thrown it from the outside as part of the staging). I will continue reading the other parts

 

[Kevin_Lowe]

Thanks. I just finished reading part 1, havent gotten to part 2 yet. It does sound probable that the rock was thrown from the outside, but like the author of the article stipulated, that doesn't necessarily mean it wasn't staged (meaning Amanda and Raffaele could have thrown it from the outside as part of the staging). I will continue reading the other parts

I agree, but if it's not necessary that it was staged, then the idea that it was staged is a bit of a zebra hypothesis. Ockham's Razor would suggest that if it could equally well have been a perfectly normal break-in or a complicated staging of a break in we should figure it was just a normal break-in.

The guilter position has always been that it could not have been a real break-in, therefore it was staged, therefore Amanda and Raffaele staged it. If it could have been a real break-in the basis for that entire arm of the Massei story evaporates immediately.

 

[Solange305]

I agree, but if it's not necessary that it was staged, then the idea that it was staged is a bit of a zebra hypothesis. Ockham's Razor would suggest that if it could equally well have been a perfectly normal break-in or a complicated staging of a break in we should figure it was just a normal break-in.

The guilter position has always been that it could not have been a real break-in, therefore it was staged, therefore Amanda and Raffaele staged it. If it could have been a real break-in the basis for that entire arm of the Massei story evaporates immediately.

I still find it hard to imagine someone going through that window though, I can't quite agree with you there yet. Like I said, I would like to finish reading the other parts of that article before sticking to an opinion, but it still seems pretty improbable to me for someone to climb in through that high window the way he did unassisted. I think I could also use "Ockham's Razor" to validate some of my points to, but certainly not as eloquently as you did

 

[Mary_H]

I still find it hard to imagine someone going through that window though, I can't quite agree with you there yet. Like I said, I would like to finish reading the other parts of that article before sticking to an opinion, but it still seems pretty improbable to me for someone to climb in through that high window the way he did unassisted. I think I could also use "Ockham's Razor" to validate some of my points to, but certainly not as eloquently as you did

Solange, I think Rudy came in the front door. I don't know why anybody cares about the break-in, because it doesn't say anything about Amanda and Raffaele, one way or another, as far as I'm concerned.

 

[Darth Rotor]

http://www.newsweek.com/2010/09/15/how-amanda-knox-s-supporters-could-doom-her.html

For those of you foaming at the mouth "in support of Foxy Knoxy" I suggest the above article for an opportunity to reconsider your position.

 

[HumanityBlues]

http://www.newsweek.com/2010/09/15/how-amanda-knox-s-supporters-could-doom-her.html

For those of you foaming at the mouth "in support of Foxy Knoxy" I suggest the above article for an opportunity to reconsider your position.

OMG, that article is so formidable. What ever will a skeptic do to examine such perfection?

 

[Mary_H]

http://www.newsweek.com/2010/09/15/how-amanda-knox-s-supporters-could-doom-her.html

For those of you foaming at the mouth "in support of Foxy Knoxy" I suggest the above article for an opportunity to reconsider your position.

You mean the article that says the Perugians are vindictive, unfair, vengeful people who will retaliate against Amanda and Raffaele if the rest of us don't shut up?

We've seen it. We don't believe it.

 

[Mary_H]

This guy made a great post to that article:

Posted by pasotex:

"As a American lawyer, I find it odd that the Italians are so defensive about their legal system. Why would publicity or criticism make the appeal less fair? The process is either fair or it isn't. If it is subject to nationalism and pride, it pretty clearly is not fair. The expectation of a defendant is a fair and impartial hearing. Italy and Italians appear to be admitting that this is not the case. I also found some of the "evidence" admitted at trial and argument allowed at trial to be unbelievably improper and unfair, but this is a topic for another post."

 

[Malkmus]

I read the article expecting more. At no point did Barbie illustrate how support of Amanda is damaging her chances at a fair trial. All she did was sum up how Italians get agitated by anyone over here criticizing the handling of the case. I guess we're supposed to infer on our own that by them getting so worked up they're going to deny her appeal out of spite. Great article

So if Amanda's appeal is not successful how will we know if it was because of the evidence or because of hurt feelings?

Then I remembered this is the same woman who wrote a book about the case but included many errors such as the "blonde hairs" found on Meredith's body which were just wool fibers, and the infamous "bleach receipts" which never actually existed.

 

[Solange305]

I see what you are saying Mary, trust me, I do. And I don't think the article is aimed at people like you, so much as it is towards people like Steve Moore... But you have to remember a jury is full of human beings, and perception does matter. If you are an Italian citizen, and all you hear is how the defendant's supporters think that you are ignorant, or prejudice, third world, etc., it casts the defendant in a negative light. I would hope that people wouldn't let that consciously determine guilt or innocence, but who knows what it does subconsciously? Might it make you more prone to believe the negative evidence over the positive evidence towards to defendant? Maybe. Again, in a perfect world it wouldn't, but it is something that people like Steve Moore should at least consider.

Also, when I said jurors, I don't know how the appeals process works over there, if it's just judges or what, but even if it is just judges, what I said above still applies. And again, I am not implying anyone should not voice their opinions, just that this may not be the best time for public figure type supporters to be doing media blitzes insulting the Italians or system in general.

 

[Charlie Wilkes]

http://www.newsweek.com/2010/09/15/how-amanda-knox-s-supporters-could-doom-her.html

For those of you foaming at the mouth "in support of Foxy Knoxy" I suggest the above article for an opportunity to reconsider your position.

This comes from a reporter who has consistently sought to vilify Amanda and her family in the eyes of the public, and I am inclined to rate her advice accordingly.

 

[Dan O.]

I still find it hard to imagine someone going through that window though, I can't quite agree with you there yet. Like I said, I would like to finish reading the other parts of that article before sticking to an opinion, but it still seems pretty improbable to me for someone to climb in through that high window the way he did unassisted. I think I could also use "Ockham's Razor" to validate some of my points to, but certainly not as eloquently as you did

Welcome to JREF Solange. It's good to see someone actually considering the evidence.


I'm not sure what part of the climb through that window you find hard to imagine but I can offer some of my observations that may be of help.

The climb from below is indeed possible to do unassisted as the lawyer in full suit and dress shoes demonstrated (there are more pictures that show the intermediate positions). But that is actually the hardest way to get there. It's a single long step from the edge of the porch under the planter to the top of the grating of the lower window. Why go all the way around the house and clime up when the direct route is faster and easier.

As for reaching the latch once the shutters are opened and the window smashed, the top casement of the lower window protrudes from the wall by at least 1 cm. This would give an ample toehold for an additional step up with the inner window sill providing a good hand hold.

With both windows pushed open, there is plenty of glass free window sill to climb over. Anyone with moderate upper body strength should be able to make this climb as both hands can grasp the inner sill to pull up and in.

The prosecution pointed out the nail in the wall that was left undisturbed by the postulated climber. What they didn't point out is the nail hole close to that one where the nail was recently broken out leaving behind an unweathered chipped hole.

And finally, some posters want to claim that a real burglar would have chosen to enter through the kitchen window off the balcony as indeed real burglars did while the cottage was still a sealed crime scene. What they don't consider is the consequences of waking a resident by the act of climbing to the balcony and breaking the window and then being exposed with no easy retreat if the resident should look out that window or the balcony door.

 

[Chris C]

I still find it hard to imagine someone going through that window though, I can't quite agree with you there yet. Like I said, I would like to finish reading the other parts of that article before sticking to an opinion, but it still seems pretty improbable to me for someone to climb in through that high window the way he did unassisted. I think I could also use "Ockham's Razor" to validate some of my points to, but certainly not as eloquently as you did

I have always thought he came in through the front door. I personally think the rock was only thrown threw the window to see if anyone was home. When no one responded he entered through the front door.

 

[Dan O.]

I read the article expecting more. At no point did Barbie illustrate how support of Amanda is damaging her chances at a fair trial. All she did was sum up how Italians get agitated by anyone over here criticizing the handling of the case. I guess we're supposed to infer on our own that by them getting so worked up they're going to deny her appeal out of spite. Great article

Since Barbie is still covering this case, did she happen to mention anything about the open front door to the cottage that she took a picture of on November 14th when the cottage was supposed to be a sealed crime scene and before the critical bra clasp evidence was recovered?

 

[Sherlock Holmes]

It's a shame that the debate about "stomach/duodenum contents and time of death" seems to have gone so quiet. Surely someone who's convinced of Knox/Sollecito's guilt must have managed by now to find an academic paper in a recognised medical/scientific journal which gives clear evidence for T(lag) times in excess of 4.5 hours in healthy adults after eating moderate-sized meals? No?

Hey, whats going on, I thought this baby was put to rest already... Don't use stomach contents to determin TOD...... Simple...

 

[Antony]

(msg #5908, p148)
And it seems that you are okay that anyone can just accuse officers of inappropriate behavior, without any evidence to back up the accusations, and expect that them to get away with that without consequences, even if the subsequent investigation has not revealed any wrong doing by the police officers involved.

I haven't really got back to this. Yes, I am OK with that. The police can be expected to record all contact with the public, and if they fail to do that, then they deserve everything they get. If false accusations are an issue, then there is a simple remedy: make the recordings so that the facts can be established. There is no justification to use powers of prosecution in place of good practice.

By contrast, someone in Amanda's position has no resources whatever, and is entirely at the mercy of the police. If there is an issue of abuse by police combined with neglect/concealment of records by them, then there is no remedy other than the victim's word. If that last tenuous safeguard leads to further action against the victim, then none of us are protected against police misconduct.

It is essential that someone in this position can make complaints without fear of these kind of consequences. The fact that they cannot means that nobody can have confidence about what happens in a police station - and that includes the question about what happened during Patrick Lumumba's interrogation.

 

[Chris C]

Hey, whats going on, I thought this baby was put to rest already... Don't use stomach contents to determin TOD...... Simple...

Well considering Rudy's eye witness testimony puts Kerchers death around 2200, the stomach contents ToD must be more accurate than the scream Mignini used to determine his version of ToD after 2330

 

[Trigood]

What comes four hours after 18:30? That being the time Meredith ate the meal of pizza which was still entirely in her stomach when she died? That would be 22:30.

That's one full hour before the Massei time of death. So even if we pretend for a minute that Derrick Pounder of the University of Dundee's unreferenced lecture notes trump the peer-reviewed scientific literature, which is an utterly absurd thing to pretend, you've still just shot a massive hole in your own foot. According to your own source, there is reasonable medical certainty Meredith was dead by 22:30 at the very latest.

Therefore Massei was wrong, and no matter whether you believe Curatolo or Amanda and Raffaele about their whereabouts before 22:30, either way they are innocent.

However, an academic's lecture notes aren't peer-reviewed scientific literature. The job of such notes is to conform to the literature. If the literature says one thing and Derrick Pounder of the University of Dundee's lecture notes say something else, that doesn't mean that the peer-reviewed scientific literature is wrong. It means that the lecture notes are wrong.

If we look at the actual scientific literature we see that an entire meal remaining in Meredith's stomach even two and a half hours after she ate it is rather unlikely. Not absolutely inconceivable, but an unexpected result. We also see that the later after that point you get, the less likely it is for her meal to still be in her stomach. We can conclude that the most likely time of death is the earliest possible one consistent with the statement of the girl who walked with her part of the way home, and any time after that is less likely.

That puts the most likely time of death as shortly after 21:05, very shortly after Meredith arrived home.

This also explains the unknown person fumbling with Meredith's phones around 22:00 and Meredith's phones pinging a novel tower shortly afterwards at 22:13, both events which are entirely inexplicable under the Massei narrative and which Massei conspicuously fails to plausibly explicate.

When I made a very similar post previously, your response was to highlight the words "at best" which followed "three or four hours", in the lecture notes of Derrick Pounder of the University of Dundee, and argue that this meant that absolutely any time of death is possible. Before you repost this argument you should consider the following:

Firstly, this response completely ignores the facts I have already explained to you regarding the relative significance of one guy's lecture notes and the peer-reviewed scientific literature, and the differences in factual claims between the two.

Secondly, you are cherry-picking the one phrase out of the lecture notes that suits you and ignoring the rest, which compounds the initial error of relying on someone's lecture notes rather than the peer-reviewed scientific literature.

Thirdly, you want us to believe a completely unknown and unspecified agency slowed Meredith's digestion, but you have absolutely no evidence any such agency exists. Do you have any evidence Meredith was in a coma, suffering from a gastric disorder, under the influence of large amounts (5+ standard drinks) of alcohol, on drugs, or subject to extreme stress in the period in which she was digesting her food? If you have no evidence that this was anything other than a normal, relaxed fun night for a normal, healthy young woman (up until she was attacked) you have absolutely no reason to believe that her digestion time should be wildly abnormal.

Fourthly, you're still ignoring the apparently-infallible Massei report! Professor Ronchi was quite clear that some explanation was needed for the lack of food in Meredith's duodenum, and tried to provide one. That particular explanation turned out to be wrong, of course, but are you seriously arguing that Professor Ronchi was incompetent in thinking he needed such an explanation in the first place?

As I said before, when a guilter is suddenly arguing against the Massei report or ignoring it completely, you've got to think that just maybe they've got a problem with their story.

The "actual scientific literature" reveals that scientists do not much trust stomach contents as an accurate TOD indicator. Viz.:

Am J Forensic Med Pathol. 1989 Mar;10(1):37-41.
Stomach contents and the time of death. Reexamination of a persistent question.

Jaffe FA.

Forensic Pathology Branch, Department of the Solicitor General, Province of Ontario, Toronto, Canada.

Comment in:

* Am J Forensic Med Pathol. 1989 Sep;10(3):271-2.

Abstract

The inspection of the contents of the stomach must be part of every postmortem examination because it may provide qualitative information concerning the nature of the last meal and the presence of abnormal constituents. Using it as a guide to the time of death, however, is theoretically unsound and presents many practical difficulties, although it may have limited applicability in some exceptional instances. Generally, using stomach contents as a guide to time of death involves an unacceptable degree of imprecision and is thus liable to mislead the investigator and the court. [emphasis added]

PMID: 2929541 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]

I'm not sure what you're referring to when you mention Dr. Ronchi. As it says in the Massei Report PMF Translation, p 178, Dr. Umani Ronchi contradicts your main thesis:

Professor Umani Ronchi testified that digestion is determined by a whole series of absolutely individual conditions and that these are not constant even for the same person. Moreover, he added that the stomach may need three, four, five, or even more, hours to empty itself (hearing on September 19, 2009). Even under standard conditions he indicated that a considerable and variable period of time was necessary. In the report lodged during the pre-trial phase [incidente probatorio] there was also a table and the [reference] literature relating to gastric emptying times, from which it followed that variability is substantial, depending on the type of meal, with the opinion that the said indications were of ‚dubious value‛. In any case, it was indicated that a farinaceous meal would require 6 to 7 hours (see report of Umani Ronchi, Cingolani, April, page 45). Consequently, assuming that Meredith began to eat at around 6 pm, the gastric emptying could have occurred around midnight, or even later. The responses given by experts, on precisely this point, at the November 27, 2007 hearing before the GIP during the pre-trial phase were even more clarifying. Specifically, with reference to the pizza and thus to the foodstuffs that Meredith would have begun to eat at around 6 pm on November 1, 2007, Professor Umani Ronchi spoke of a gastric-emptying time of 6 to 7 hours (page 46 of the transcripts of the [182] statement of said hearing). With even greater expository efficiency, Professor Cingolani emphasised that the criterion of stomach contents is the most untrustworthy, the most unreliable criterion for determining the time of death, since it can result in variations that can go from 1 to 12 hours, or even more (see the hearing testimony of November 26, 2007, page 55).[emphasis added]

The report goes on to state two other issues, on this page and the next, that support the later TOD:

1) The duodenum appearing empty could have been an artefact of poor handling in autopsy. Material in duodenum could have slipped into the small intestine. Therefore, part of her meal may have been in duodenum (i.e., partially digested) at death.

2) Presence of vegetal fragment in her esophagus plus a low alcohol level in blood could indicate MK ate another small meal at home, including a mushroom (say) and beer or wine. Alcohol slows down digestion, as well as the other food she ate.

There is an "actual scientific" concept called the normal, or Gaussian, distribution. Most natural phenomena follow it. By this distribution, although most digestion times would mainly fall within the 2-sigma limit, there would be others that would fall under the long tail. This is one reason you cannot say that digestion time is absolute.

Another variable is that neither Sophie nor Robin can say at precisely what time MK ate. (See Massei PMF Translation, pp 35 and 37). They weren't taking notes, after all.

Another variable is how much MK ate. It's possible she ate heavily as she was hungry from staying up all night the night before. Again, her friends were probably not taking notes on this at the time, unaware that she would be murdered later that evening.

 

[Mary_H]

I haven't really got back to this. Yes, I am OK with that. The police can be expected to record all contact with the public, and if they fail to do that, then they deserve everything they get. If false accusations are an issue, then there is a simple remedy: make the recordings so that the facts can be established. There is no justification to use powers of prosecution in place of good practice.

By contrast, someone in Amanda's position has no resources whatever, and is entirely at the mercy of the police. If there is an issue of abuse by police combined with neglect/concealment of records by them, then there is no remedy other than the victim's word. If that last tenuous safeguard leads to further action against the victim, then none of us are protected against police misconduct.

It is essential that someone in this position can make complaints without fear of these kind of consequences. The fact that they cannot means that nobody can have confidence about what happens in a police station - and that includes the question about what happened during Patrick Lumumba's interrogation.

Very well said, Antony.