Continuation - Discussion of the Amanda Knox case

[Katody Matrass]

I agree that the former scenario looks a little more likely then the latter. However, the location of the rock in the room effectively rules out that the rock was thrown from outside. So what other scenario can you envision that allows the rock to land where it did?

You would have to elaborate on this to make me think about other scenarios. Where would the rock land according to you if it bounced from the inner blind?

 

[RoseMontague]

The photos are here injusticeinperugia.org/RonHendry2-----a.html

The fact that neither that traces, nor the possible scuff marks Dan found were investigated is interesting. Did the police take a single photo of the outside wall or the ground below? Apparently no, yet they testified there were no traces of a break-in. Testimony not supported by evidence is a bit too little. Especially when the break-in is the key prosecution point and police were shown to be wrong so many times in that investigation.

The traces here are what I believe to be paint dust. If you paint brick this is very common when old paint on the the bricks are scraped. The exterior wall looks like it was painted a long time ago.

 

[Katody Matrass]

It doesn't really make much difference if the glass got there as a result of the rock being thrown, or it being removed by hand, or both. The simple fact is that it was still there after someone allegedly crawled through the window.

Now I see where all the confusion comes from.

quadraginta, I don't know who alleged that Rudy crawled through that window, but I certainly agree with you that crawling is the worst possible choice of entering it. Placing a foot or two on the ledge and then stepping in makes much more sense.

 

[Kevin_Lowe]

The reasoning in the "staged break-in" theory about the rock does seem quite curious and backwards now we've examined it closely.

It seems like the reasoning must have been "We need the break-in to be staged so they can be guilty, but we need it to have been staged in a really stupid way so we can prove it was staged, so they must have thrown the rock from inside".

Quadraginta's theory that they could have leaned out the window and chucked a rock in from there, or the alternative theory that they just went outside and chucked a rock through the window, both seem a hell of a lot more like what you'd do if you were trying to stage a break-in. Amanda and Raffaele really must be criminal geniuses if in addition to their flawless clean-up job they also managed to fake a rock being thrown in, by throwing a rock out, in such an amazingly clever way that it scattered glass all over the inside of the house (because of the violence with which they threw it) and left a nice, fresh mark on the inner shutter (because of the violence with which they threw it) without leaving a similar one on the outer shutter which it impacted first (...wait, what?).

Whereas if they'd just chucked a rock in from outside, then climbed up the wall, there would never have been any evidence of a staged break-in at all... or so you might think.

 

[Katody Matrass]

Get a grip, man! By your account he just threw a damned rock through the window. Now you say he'd be worried about the sound of some falling glass?

I'll try to make the picture a bit clearer:

When Rudy throws a rock to break the window, the noise is unavoidable and even desirable - if someone was in he or she would certainly react to a broken window( to a doorbell or knocking - not so obviously).
After breaking the window he immediately assumes a position that would allow him to run away quickly. Maybe he hides in the shadow or even walks away a bit, keeping an eye on the cottage from a distance. Then he waits to see if someone noticed the noise. He waits a good few minutes, to be sure he will not get surprised inside.

But during the entering, standing on the window ledge he is (although briefly) exposed and he is no longer on a lookout, he's preparing to go in. He doesn't want to attract any more attention, because if some neighbor or passer by notices the noise now and sees him, he will get caught inside.

It's that simple (or not )

 

[RoseMontague]

The reasoning in the "staged break-in" theory about the rock does seem quite curious and backwards now we've examined it closely.

It seems like the reasoning must have been "We need the break-in to be staged so they can be guilty, but we need it to have been staged in a really stupid way so we can prove it was staged, so they must have thrown the rock from inside".

Quadraginta's theory that they could have leaned out the window and chucked a rock in from there, or the alternative theory that they just went outside and chucked a rock through the window, both seem a hell of a lot more like what you'd do if you were trying to stage a break-in. Amanda and Raffaele really must be criminal geniuses if in addition to their flawless clean-up job they also managed to fake a rock being thrown in, by throwing a rock out, in such an amazingly clever way that it scattered glass all over the inside of the house (because of the violence with which they threw it) and left a nice, fresh mark on the inner shutter (because of the violence with which they threw it) without leaving a similar one on the outer shutter which it impacted first (...wait, what?).

Whereas if they'd just chucked a rock in from outside, then climbed up the wall, there would never have been any evidence of a staged break-in at all... or so you might think.

Yes,
A lot of questions remain both if it was staged and if it was not. The theory that Hendry put forward that Rudy snagged on the cable TV cord under the window, causing the wardrobe to move and tip off some of the clothes to the floor is a good one and seems to fit as a possible explanation for that pile of clothes at the foot of the wardrobe. The nail hole and scuff marks that Dan mentioned are also good points brought forward by this expert. The fact remains that we still do not know how it was staged or how the room was entered if not staged. In my opinion, the prosecution has to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that it was staged and that Amanda/Raffaele are responsible for that staging. I have a lot of doubt and I have not seen proof.

The judge/jury puts a lot of importance on this staging and the appeals are not strong in answering this issue, in my opinion.

 

[Charlie Wilkes]

That's a good point. While he is right about the blind being unlatched or partially open I think most probably Rudy threw the rock from the elevated ground opposite the window. The resting point of the rock is easily explained by the fact that it bounced from the inner blind. (As in the video posted by Rose before)

As for the question of the "undisturbed" glass.
There are at least three probable ways to open that window:

• Reaching up while standing on the window grating below - no glass is touched.
  
• Reaching up while supported on the left elbow on the ledge - glass is still not a problem as the only pieces are on the right near the frame.
  
• Standing on the window ledge - no need to brush of the glass, plenty of place to stand or crouch.

So I don't see a reason why Rudy would need to purposefully remove the glass from the ledge.

One element that seldom gets mentioned is the glass shard in Meredith's room:

http://www.friendsofamanda.org/glass_shard.jpg

Barbie Nadeau thinks it is part of a broken liquor bottle from the previous night's drunken and homicidal orgy. I think it is more likely a sliver of window glass that was caught in the tread of Guede's shoe. I think he grabbed the roof and swung across from the planter. He squatted on the window ledge while he reached through the broken pane to unlatch the window, and then he jumped in. Hence the glass on the ledge was mostly undisturbed, but he did manage to get a small piece caught in his shoe.

I have an upstairs balcony with an overhanging roof of about the same pitch, and I experimented. There's no reason why it couldn't be done, especially with the outside shutter as a handhold.

 

[RoseMontague]

One element that seldom gets mentioned is the glass shard in Meredith's room:

http://www.friendsofamanda.org/glass_shard.jpg

Barbie Nadeau thinks it is part of a broken liquor bottle from the previous night's drunken and homicidal orgy. I think it is more likely a sliver of window glass that was caught in the tread of Guede's shoe. I think he grabbed the roof and swung across from the planter. He squatted on the window ledge while he reached through the broken pane to unlatch the window, and then he jumped in. Hence the glass on the ledge was mostly undisturbed, but he did manage to get a small piece caught in his shoe.

I have an upstairs balcony with an overhanging roof of about the same pitch, and I experimented. There's no reason why it couldn't be done, especially with the outside shutter as a handhold.

I would think a lab could tell if it was the same type of glass as that of the glass in the window. Was this shard tested?

 

[ForTruth]

One element that seldom gets mentioned is the glass shard in Meredith's room:

http://www.friendsofamanda.org/glass_shard.jpg

Barbie Nadeau thinks it is part of a broken liquor bottle from the previous night's drunken and homicidal orgy. I think it is more likely a sliver of window glass that was caught in the tread of Guede's shoe. I think he grabbed the roof and swung across from the planter. He squatted on the window ledge while he reached through the broken pane to unlatch the window, and then he jumped in. Hence the glass on the ledge was mostly undisturbed, but he did manage to get a small piece caught in his shoe.

I have an upstairs balcony with an overhanging roof of about the same pitch, and I experimented. There's no reason why it couldn't be done, especially with the outside shutter as a handhold.

If Rudy had crawled in, is there any reason to believe that Rudy didn't just simply put his thick November jacket over the glass and slide right over it. Seems like a standard trick of the entering via broken window trade.

 

[Amazer]

Could you explain your reasoning there? How was this ruled out? The Massei report translation contains nothing relevant that I could find by searching for "rock".

First a little background, I've been actively working with granite, marble, sandstone and limestone for the past 15 years, starting as a QC and working my way up to controlling the purchases of our company in India for tiles, monumental stones and various other items. As such I'm fairly well aware what rock can do and what it can't do.

Now the first thing to remember is that rocks aren't rubber balls. Which means in order to deflect their flightpath you need a shallow angle (think of skipping pebbles in pond, same principles are involved). Since we have the impact point on the inside shutter and we have the place where the stone landed in the paper bag before it fell forward, it's fairly easy to locate the general area(s) that the stone should have been thrown from if it was coming from outside. As it happens there are only two areas from where you can potentially achieve this feat, as far as I can determine.

One would be to stand towards the right and below the window. With enough velocity the rock could deflect and with a parabola land up in the spot where the paper bag is. However, if the rock was thrown from here then I'd expect to see a lot more damage to the glass plane since the rock on that trajectory would have to travel through a lot more of the glass surface before reaching its impact point.

The second spot is towards the far right of the railing that is shown in the photographs. The problem with this location however is that the outside shutter effectively blocks your line of flight. There is just this big obstacle in the way. I don't see how it could have been thrown from there.

I'm not necessarily married to the "irregular-shaped rock goes through the window, hits the inner shutter, bounces off and falls to the floor" scenario but I'm not familiar with any other one.

My guess is that someone sat on the window sill with the window and inside shutter slightly opened to the inside and the outside shutter almost fully closed. And this person subsequently dropped the stone in the paper bag.
It explains the lack of glass on the left side of the window sill, it allows for glass to 'spray' through the room.

In this case it wasn't dropped straight down. In Massei's story it was smashed sideways and out towards the shutters, and quite substantial amounts of glass would have to have flown backwards from the impact point. In the defence story, rather more reasonably, the glass is smashed sideways into the building and the scattering of glass across the room needs no explanation at all.

I happen to think that they have it both wrong.

 

[Dan O.]

Dan,
I have many of the same concerns that quad has and although the new series of articles has some new and helpful information and new theories I still don't think it answers the question of the remaining glass on the sill to my satisfaction. I don't think Rudy snapped off some of the larger pieces and then proceeded to place them in the path he would need to take over the sill.

I still believe he must have stepped into the room and not crawled in over the window sill. I had asked if anyone had some closeup pictures of the latch on the inner shutters as well as the part it connects to on the opposite inner shutter. I recalled seeing this at one time and am unable to find it now. Was there also a latch bolt on the bottom that connected to the sill of the window?

Those white speckles are paint dust in my opinion, not plaster from the wall. It could have been picked up from the old white paint on the bricks or the old white paint from the impact to the inner shutter by the rock. I do not understand why it wasn't tested or if it was why no mention of it that I could find.

My initial theory of the remaining glass on the sill was that it was secondary fallout when the window was closed after Rudy entered the room. It might be possible to trace the pieces and reconstruct the puzzle to see if they are inner edge (removed by hand to enlarge the opening to reach the latch) or outer edge (fell out on their own) pieces. If the edges are not there then neither scenario fits well.

I don't believe the inner shutter latch is important since Filomena didn't have any reason to latch it, it was not latched on discovery and the latch did not show signs of being broken.

 

[Charlie Wilkes]

I would think a lab could tell if it was the same type of glass as that of the glass in the window. Was this shard tested?

I'm not aware of any testing. I don't even know if it was collected as evidence. The only reason I know about it is because I spotted it in the video.

 

[Kevin_Lowe]

First a little background, I've been actively working with granite, marble, sandstone and limestone for the past 15 years, starting as a QC and working my way up to controlling the purchases of our company in India for tiles, monumental stones and various other items. As such I'm fairly well aware what rock can do and what it can't do.

Now the first thing to remember is that rocks aren't rubber balls. Which means in order to deflect their flightpath you need a shallow angle (think of skipping pebbles in pond, same principles are involved). Since we have the impact point on the inside shutter and we have the place where the stone landed in the paper bag before it fell forward, it's fairly easy to locate the general area(s) that the stone should have been thrown from if it was coming from outside. As it happens there are only two areas from where you can potentially achieve this feat, as far as I can determine.

You're going to have to explain this a little more for me.

It looks to me like the rock doesn't need to have hit the inside shutter at a shallow angle at all. As far as I can see it could have have hit it hard and nearly dead on, and spent most of its force knocking the shutter back. Then it just needs to fall/roll two feet into the room and one foot to the side and we're done.

The fact that it's not a spherical rock, but rather quite blocky, combined with the fact that we don't know whether it was lobbed straight or with some spin, means that I have a great deal of difficulty accepting that you or anyone else can make firm pronouncements about its exact post-impact behaviour and thus the place it was thrown from, from their armchair.

What am I missing?

 

[RoseMontague]

I'm not aware of any testing. I don't even know if it was collected as evidence. The only reason I know about it is because I spotted it in the video.

It probably got embedded in Stefanoni's shoes when they went back to set up pick up the bra clasp and came loose in the lab where it was kicked under the DNA testing machine where it rests with the dust bunnies even today.

On a more serious note, if they did miss this piece of glass in plain view how are we to think that they did not miss any pieces of glass in the grass and leaves below the broken window?

 

[RoseMontague]

My initial theory of the remaining glass on the sill was that it was secondary fallout when the window was closed after Rudy entered the room. It might be possible to trace the pieces and reconstruct the puzzle to see if they are inner edge (removed by hand to enlarge the opening to reach the latch) or outer edge (fell out on their own) pieces. If the edges are not there then neither scenario fits well.

I don't believe the inner shutter latch is important since Filomena didn't have any reason to latch it, it was not latched on discovery and the latch did not show signs of being broken.

What was latched then?

 

[Scorpion NITE]

Oh dear.

Here we go........

http://uk.news.yahoo.com/4/20100920/ten-foxy-knoxy-story-to-be-made-into-a-m-ea4616c.html

 

[Amazer]

You're going to have to explain this a little more for me.

It looks to me like the rock doesn't need to have hit the inside shutter at a shallow angle at all. As far as I can see it could have have hit it hard and nearly dead on, and spent most of its force knocking the shutter back. Then it just needs to fall/roll two feet into the room and one foot to the side and we're done.

The fact that it's not a spherical rock, but rather quite blocky, combined with the fact that we don't know whether it was lobbed straight or with some spin, means that I have a great deal of difficulty accepting that you or anyone else can make firm pronouncements about its exact post-impact behaviour and thus the place it was thrown from, from their armchair.

What am I missing?

Remember that the paper bag was against the wall before it toppled over with the stone inside? It's not simply getting the rock to fall/roll 2 feet inside and 1 foot to the side.

How does the rock get from the impact point on the shutter to bag against the wall? It means that the rock had to travel parallel to wall. That should give you another hint.

 

[Justinian2]

From: www.yorkshireeveningpost.co.uk/news/39Foxy-Knoxy39-story-to-be.6540695.jp

The story of Amanda Knox, who was convicted of murdering Leeds student Meredith Kercher, is to be made into a film starring Heroes actress Hayden Panettiere. The TV movie is to be made for a US network and is expected to be screened next year, according to respected movie blog Deadline.

Knox, who earned the nickname "Foxy Knoxy" because of her colourful sex life, was sentenced in December to 26 years in prison in Italy.

Her boyfriend and another man were also jailed for the killing of 21-year-old exchange student Miss Kercher, who was Knox's roommate in Perugia, Italy

I believe Amanda got the nickname from her soccer team back home. I KNOW it wasn't "because of her colourful sex life"

Don't the European newspapers have fact checkers?

If truth prevails, then Amanda should be cleared of all charges. Then, if she wished, she could sue everybody. Fortunately for the people that have maligned her, I think she would rather forgive and forget then spend anymore time in court (or so she indicated in her last speech in court)

 

[christianahannah]

It probably got embedded in Stefanoni's shoes when they went back to set up pick up the bra clasp and came loose in the lab where it was kicked under the DNA testing machine where it rests with the dust bunnies even today.

On a more serious note, if they did miss this piece of glass in plain view how are we to think that they did not miss any pieces of glass in the grass and leaves below the broken window?

Rose,

I don't know if the glass fragment was collected as evidence or tested. It is mentioned in the motivations on pages 160 and 381 (may be even more references - those are two I know of) included in the hypothesis of Professor Introna with regards to the small wounds on Meredith's hands. Masse alsoi gives his interpretation of the fragment.

There were over 200 items/samples collected which over 400 specimens were taken and analyzed. I would think there would be an inventory of those items listed but I don't know for certain.

 

[quadraginta]

I think the whole "scuff marks" issue is a bit of a red herring. If someone like Guede entered the house through that window, he could (in my view) quite easily use upper body strength - combined with a leg push upwards from a foothold on the grating of the window below - to get straight up onto the ledge without his feet even needing to scrape against the wall. In contrast, some seem to be suggesting that any intruder would have been scraping his feet against the wall during the ascent to the sill, and that an absence of scrape marks or mud/grass deposits from shoes on the wall surface (as well as the famous nail) show that no such ascent was made. I disagree, and believe that an intruder could scale the wall without making any significant marks or scuffs on the wall surface (or disturbing any nails).

Do you honestly believe that? I don't think that you do.

But if you do then you obviously know little or nothing about climbing of any sort, or about the capabilities of the average person. Yes, it could feasibly be done. It certainly could not "easily" be done by many people. Anyone capable of doing it "easily" would be verging on the skills and training of a world class gymnast.

I think we can be fairly confident that Guede is not. If he was he would have had no money problems. He would have been performing somewhere.

Try it yourself sometime. Find a wall with a top above your head and see how "easily" you can do it. Invite all your friends to try. Get back to us with the results. Please include video.