Continuation - Discussion of the Amanda Knox case

[piktor]

This ledge is not a waiting room

"A foolish consistency ... etc., etc."

In the KnoxIsInnocentNoMatterWhat Universe all instances of everything are totally isolated in both time and space, and the only legitimate way to evaluate any one thing is with an adamant refusal to concede that it might somehow relate to something else.

quadraginta,

The humor and sheer descriptive power in your comment #6726 is an example of intelligent and imaginative writing. Thank you for your positive contributions.

http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showpost.php?p=6354100&postcount=6726

 

[Kevin_Lowe]

"A foolish consistency ... etc., etc."

In the KnoxIsInnocentNoMatterWhat Universe all instances of everything are totally isolated in both time and space, and the only legitimate way to evaluate any one thing is with an adamant refusal to concede that it might somehow relate to something else.

I not see this as a legitimate claim. In fact it is a straw man.

It is not rigorous thinking to manufacture incredulity by making something up and attributing it to someone else ("They said Rudy had fastidious, Swiss-watchmaker-like attention to detail as he entered the flat's first bedroom!"), then pointing out that your straw man is inconsistent with other evidence.

Since none of us ever said that in the first place, I tend to think that the KnoxIsInnocentNoMatterWhat Universe exists solely in your imagination.

I would prefer it if you stuck to responding to what people actually said, rather than elaborating and exaggerating what they said as it suits you.

If you want an example of thinking in isolated chunks without looking at the big picture, I would suggest that an excellent case is that subset of guilters who do not believe that the well-established police misconduct with regard to assaulting suspects, lying about AIDS tests, parading suspects through the streets, misrepresenting the timeline, leaking information to the media to direct public opinion and so forth exists in complete isolation from the issues where police credibility is the linchpin of certain chunks of evidence: The claim that there was a staged break-in, the claim that the tapes of Amanda's internalised false confession were eaten by the dog, the fact that the computer evidence which might have established Amanda and Raffaele's alibi for the prosecution's time of death and Curatolo's testimony was destroyed while the computers were in police custody and so on.

Or another one might be thinking that the judicial rulings that Mignini was in a "delirium" during the Monster of Florence case, abusing his powers illegally and making **** up based on nothing at all, indicate nothing whatsoever about the possibility that he might have done so in the Kercher case.

 

[Chris_Halkides]

luminol and interferences

I am the poster who writes as “Yummi” on Perugia Murder File.

Machiavelli,

In a previous comment (6198, page 155), I questioned Yummi’s conclusions with respect to luminol and interfering substances. Two of my points were that I can find no reason to exclude metal ions as a possible interference and I can find no reason to think that drying will affect peroxidase, particularly given the chemical similarity of the prosthetic groups in hemoglobin and peroxidase and the empirical demonstration that drying does not keep fruit pulps from reacting.

If you would care to discuss your professional qualifications, please do so.

 

[quadraginta]

"A foolish consistency ... etc., etc."

<snip>

<snip>

I would prefer it if you stuck to responding to what people actually said, rather than elaborating and exaggerating what they said as it suits you.

<snip>

I was responding to what piktor said. Pehaps this escaped your attention. I can provide a link if that would help.

 

[Kevin_Lowe]

I was responding to what piktor said. Pehaps this escaped your attention. I can provide a link if that would help.

My comments apply to both of you. I hope that helps.

 

[Kevin_Lowe]

Do you have anything better, or is this the extent of your case for Knox and Sollecito's guilt?

So anyway Quadraginta, there's a nice list of questions that I've reposted which you are welcome to answer. Do you have anything to say about any of them, or is your argument that nobody could possibly have climbed in the window without sweeping glass to the ground the extent of your case for Knox and Sollecito's guilt?

It seems to me that focusing on trivia like the exact make of the front door lock, or whether you personally can imagine someone pulling themselves up to a mostly glass-free, armpit-high sill, has to be seen as less important than the time of death. You are of course under no obligation to engage with these harder and more significant questions, but it's a shame that nobody so far has stepped up successfully.

 

[Fine]

* * *

If the above are the reasons the police initially suspected the break-in was staged - and if they differ so much from the reasons the prosecution eventually presented in court as evidence - then how can we really trust they realized the importance of, say, checking the ground for fallen glass? The fact they don't seem to have taken pictures of either the ground or the wall outside the window suggests they didn't think it was all that important. Is this just yet another instance where they jumped to a conclusion early on, then had to scrabble around later looking for evidence to support it?

_________________-

Well, if there were---as you suppose---fragments of glass on the ground below the broken window, then---I suppose---the fragments are still there. And yet I see no request in Amanda's APPEAL or in Raffaele's APPEAL ---as summarized on Bruce's site (InjusticeinPerugia)---for an inspection of said piece of real estate. Or has Bruce left out this request for crucial information, which, if the presence of glass fragments were confirmed, would strengthen the claim of the LONEWOLF theory, and also discredit Massei's reconstruction of the staged breakin? Or are the defense attorneys not thinkin' good?

///

 

[Kevin_Lowe]

_________________-

Well, if there were---as you suppose---fragments of glass on the ground below the broken window, then---I suppose---the fragments are still there. And yet I see no request in Amanda's APPEAL or in Raffaele's APPEAL ---as summarized on Bruce's site (InjusticeinPerugia)---for an inspection of said piece of real estate. Or has Bruce left out this request for crucial information, which, if the presence of glass fragments were confirmed, would strengthen the claim of the LONEWOLF theory, and also discredit Massei's reconstruction of the staged breakin? Or are the defense attorneys not thinkin' good?

///

It's been three years now and the house is now occupied by unrelated people whose privacy should be respected as a matter of simple human decency. I think it's just possible that the area might have been cleaned, hosed, rained on or otherwise spoiled so that you couldn't learn much from looking at it now.

However glass outside would not prove much in my view anyway: The Massei story, that the rock was thrown from the inside into the louvered outer shutters, should if anything have led to copious amounts of glass on the ground outside the window. So even if glass was found there, the Massei narrative already has a built-in explanatory mechanism for it.

 

[Danceme]

_________________________________________________________________

Hi LondonJohn,
Didn't Amanda and Raffaele show the Postal Police what they thought was odd that day?

I wonder if it is also possible that Postal Police Officer Battistelli might have tracked the glass shard from Filomena's room when he went inside Miss Kercher's room to see if she was still alive.

Or wait a sec, he said in court that he didn't go in the room to check on her well being though, didn't he? So I guess that he couldn't have done this.
Hmmm...
RWVBWL

I would think a chunk of glass embedded in the sole of someone's shoe would become obvious fairly quickly when walking on a hard ceramic tile floor, what with the scraping noise, the lack of give etc. I'm not convinced anyone had this on their shoe but I suppose it could have been.

 

[Kevin_Lowe]

I would think a chunk of glass embedded in the sole of someone's shoe would become obvious fairly quickly when walking on a hard ceramic tile floor, what with the scraping noise, the lack of give etc. I'm not convinced anyone had this on their shoe but I suppose it could have been.

I was thinking exactly the same thing, that it seems implausible that anyone walked around on a tiled floor with a chunk of glass stuck to their shoe without noticing it and removing it.

LondonJohn's suggestion that it could have been stuck on an article of Rudy's clothing that he might have laid down on the sill as a barrier against glass seems more intuitively plausible, but I'm sure there are lots of other potential ways the glass could have gotten there.

 

[Charlie Wilkes]

_________________-

Well, if there were---as you suppose---fragments of glass on the ground below the broken window, then---I suppose---the fragments are still there. And yet I see no request in Amanda's APPEAL or in Raffaele's APPEAL ---as summarized on Bruce's site (InjusticeinPerugia)---for an inspection of said piece of real estate. Or has Bruce left out this request for crucial information, which, if the presence of glass fragments were confirmed, would strengthen the claim of the LONEWOLF theory, and also discredit Massei's reconstruction of the staged breakin? Or are the defense attorneys not thinkin' good?

///

I'm not sure what the larger point of this is. Are you saying that they could have broken the window from the inside without leaving pieces of glass on the outside? My experience with breaking glass panes is that most of the glass travels in the direction of the impact.

Even if you think the break-in was staged, it is pretty obvious that the rock was pitched through the window from the outside.

 

[Fine]

It's been three years now and the house is now occupied by unrelated people whose privacy should be respected as a matter of simple human decency. I think it's just possible that the area might have been cleaned, hosed, rained on or otherwise spoiled so that you couldn't learn much from looking at it now.

However glass outside would not prove much in my view anyway: The Massei story, that the rock was thrown from the inside into the louvered outer shutters, should if anything have led to copious amounts of glass on the ground outside the window. So even if glass was found there, the Massei narrative already has a built-in explanatory mechanism for it.

___________________

Kevin, you've misunderstood Massei's reconstruction of the window breaking. You may wish to look at the photos on PMF or Bruce's site to aid in understanding the reconstruction. I've inserted one photo, below. I quote from the MOTIVATIONS report, English Translation, page 52:



"Indeed, if one supposes that the stone was thrown from the inside with the [exterior] shutters pulled closed (as they must have been according to statements cited above), but with the casement holding the pane somewhat open, with the inner shutter [or "shade"] behind it, then here is a situation analogous to that of throwing the stone from the outside (the rock would hit the window in the same place as if it came from the outside), and under the shock of the large stone, because of the resistance of the inner shutter behind the window-pane (the shield effect as one might say), the pieces of glass would necessarily fall down on the windowsill both inside and outside (considering the casement as having being only slightly open, and thus the smashed pane positioned near to the windowsill). The presence of the [exterior] shutters pulled inwards, as described by Romanelli, would have prevented the pieces of glass from falling to the ground below, as indeed they did not, but as they surely would have had the stone been thrown from the outside. As for the presence of glass in Romanelli's room, the violence of the blow, the characteristics of the glass (which was rather thin as indicated by Romanelli and Pasquali), the large rock used, and finally the shield effect caused by the inner shutter hanging half-open behind the glass pane [41] (a position of the inner shutter which corresponds to the scratch on it visible in the photos) give an adequate explanation of the distribution of the glass."



Whoever simulated this, threw the rock from inside of Filomena's room. The two exterior shutters were closed, or nearly closed. Likewise the two interior shutters--or "shades"-- behind the two glass window panes were closed, or nearly so. But the two hinged casements---the frames holding the panes of glass--- were swung open. The one on the right---as seen from within the room--- was probably completely swung open. The casement on the left, maybe just swung half open. Then the rock was thrown through the glass in the left casement, the rock striking the exterior surface of the glass pane, and then striking the exterior surface of the respective "shade," leaving a scar (as seen).Therefore the rock, in this simulation, is headed into Filomena's room, not exiting toward the louvered exterior shutters.

///

 

[Chris C]

The police claims that the window was virtually impossible to climb through are troubling for at least two important reasons:

1. They are in error. It's not impossible to climb through. Thus should the objective person be skeptical of the credibility of any police claim in this case.

2. A habitual burglar or second story man perhaps would see that window as an opportunity. But the average person not familar with the athletic feats that burglars can achieve probably wouldn't.

Therefore, that Knox and her boyfriend would have chosen it as an ostensible entry point is a very dubious proposition. And even more improbable because there seems to have been a door at the cottage that tended to became ajar on its own. That door would be the likely scapegoat if someone familiar with the cottage was trying to "stage" the scene.

There is also a window that can be climbed through without the need of scaling the outside wall, the house was broke in 2 times after the trial accessing that window.

 

[Chris C]

I not see this as a legitimate claim. In fact it is a straw man.

It is not rigorous thinking to manufacture incredulity by making something up and attributing it to someone else ("They said Rudy had fastidious, Swiss-watchmaker-like attention to detail as he entered the flat's first bedroom!"), then pointing out that your straw man is inconsistent with other evidence.

Since none of us ever said that in the first place, I tend to think that the KnoxIsInnocentNoMatterWhat Universe exists solely in your imagination.

I would prefer it if you stuck to responding to what people actually said, rather than elaborating and exaggerating what they said as it suits you.

If you want an example of thinking in isolated chunks without looking at the big picture, I would suggest that an excellent case is that subset of guilters who do not believe that the well-established police misconduct with regard to assaulting suspects, lying about AIDS tests, parading suspects through the streets, misrepresenting the timeline, leaking information to the media to direct public opinion and so forth exists in complete isolation from the issues where police credibility is the linchpin of certain chunks of evidence: The claim that there was a staged break-in, the claim that the tapes of Amanda's internalised false confession were eaten by the dog, the fact that the computer evidence which might have established Amanda and Raffaele's alibi for the prosecution's time of death and Curatolo's testimony was destroyed while the computers were in police custody and so on.

Or another one might be thinking that the judicial rulings that Mignini was in a "delirium" during the Monster of Florence case, abusing his powers illegally and making **** up based on nothing at all, indicate nothing whatsoever about the possibility that he might have done so in the Kercher case.

I have just created the KnoxIsInnocentNoMatterWhat Universe and its all mine. None of you may enter. Except for Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Dark Angel and River Tam.

 

[Charlie Wilkes]

Our "climber" left zero glass on the ground below . That is an epic feat in itself.

As FBI agent Moore is fond of saying,
our "climber" hovered over Filomena's room.

He left no fibers ,
no finger prints ,
no palm prints ,
no shoe prints ,
no DNA .

NOTHING ​

More a Flying Wallenda than seasoned raping/murdering burglar.

They didn't find Filomena's DNA in Filomena's room either. Of course, they didn't bother to get a reference sample from Filomena, but the only unidentified markers on any of the samples from Filomena's room were extremely faint.

The key to this mystery is that they didn't do much testing in that room. They only tested five samples - two from the rock, two from the floor, and one from the windowsill. In Meredith's room, however, they tested more than 80 samples.

It is also worth noting that they only found two of Filomena's fingerprints in her room. They did not find anyone else's fingerprints:

http://www.friendsofamanda.org/cottage_fingerprint_map.gif

 

[Charlie Wilkes]

___________________

Kevin, you've misunderstood Massei's reconstruction of the window breaking. You may wish to look at the photos on PMF or Bruce's site to aid in understanding the reconstruction. I quote from the MOTIVATIONS report, English Translation, page 52:



"Indeed, if one supposes that the stone was thrown from the inside with the [exterior] shutters pulled closed (as they must have been according to statements cited above), but with the casement holding the pane somewhat open, with the inner shutter behind it, then here is a situation analogous to that of throwing the stone from the outside (the rock would hit the window in the same place as if it came from the outside), and under the shock of the large stone, because of the resistance of the inner shutter behind the window-pane (the shield effect as one might say), the pieces of glass would necessarily fall down on the windowsill both inside and outside (considering the casement as having being only slightly open, and thus the smashed pane positioned near to the windowsill). The presence of the shutters pulled inwards, as described by Romanelli, would have prevented the pieces of glass from falling to the ground below, as indeed they did not, but as they surely would have had the stone been thrown from the outside. As for the presence of glass in Romanelli's room, the violence of the blow, the characteristics of the glass (which was rather thin as indicated by Romanelli and Pasquali), the large rock used, and finally the shield effect caused by the inner shutter hanging half-open behind the glass pane [41] (a position of the inner shutter which corresponds to the scratch on it visible in the photos) give an adequate explanation of the distribution of the glass."



Whoever simulated this, threw the rock from inside of Filomena's room. The two exterior shutters were closed, or nearly closed. Likewise the two interior shutters--or "shades"-- behind the two glass window panes were closed, or nearly so. But the two casements---the frames holding the panes of glass--- were open. The one on the right---as seen from within the room--- was probably completely swung open. The casement on the left, maybe just swung half open. Then the rock was thrown through the glass in the left casement, the rock striking the exterior surface of the glass pane, and then striking the exterior surface of the respective "shade," leaving a scar (as seen).Therefore the rock is headed into Filomena's room, not exiting toward the louvered exterior shutters.
[qimg]http://injusticeinperugia.com/hendry3.jpg[/qimg]

///

That is an artful thesis, at least by Massei's standards, but it fails to account for the distribution of the glass on the floor. You need to add an element to the staging - they broke the glass with the window open, the inside shutter directly behind the window, and the outside shutters closed to prevent escaping glass. Then they took some of the broken glass on the floor and arranged it on Filomena's rug to look as though the shattering impact had come from the outside.

But in carrying out this ruse, they forgot to remove pieces of glass from the clothing which they had previously strewn about the room, as documented by the memories of Filomena and the police, but not by photos.

 

[Chris C]

They didn't find Filomena's DNA in Filomena's room either. Of course, they didn't bother to get a reference sample from Filomena, but the only unidentified markers on any of the samples from Filomena's room were extremely faint.

The key to this mystery is that they didn't do much testing in that room. They only tested five samples - two from the rock, two from the floor, and one from the windowsill. In Meredith's room, however, they tested more than 80 samples.

It is also worth noting that they only found two of Filomena's fingerprints in her room. They did not find anyone else's fingerprints:

http://www.friendsofamanda.org/cottage_fingerprint_map.gif

So your saying that they only took a reference sample from 1 spot on the window?

 

[Charlie Wilkes]

xx

 

[Charlie Wilkes]

So your saying that they only took a reference sample from 1 spot on the window?

I just checked and there were two - one on a hair specimen and one on a presumed bloodstain, but both samples failed the quantification test, i.e., there was no DNA present.

 

[Brooktrout]

Perhaps someone so inclined might explain to me how Massei's reconstruction of the broken window accounts for the glass on the windowpane. If the panes were hanging open protruding into the room, with the interior shades behind them, then why wouldn't the broken glass follow the trajectory of the rock toward the closet, or straight down. Would this action really result in that much glass all over the sill?