Continuation - Discussion of the Amanda Knox case

[LondonJohn]

Newsflash! Important new op-ed piece on Amanda Knox from that "go to" journalistic source on the case............ the Guyana newspaper "Kaieteur News":

http://www.kaieteurnewsonline.com/2010/09/25/do-you-know-who-amanda-knox-is-2/

PS it appears that Katy and I have conflated into the same being, for the purposes of being quoted in other places...

 

[Kevin_Lowe]

Kevin_Lowe,

In case you are still wondering about the proper translation of Raffaele's I pricked Merdith comment, in his Prison Diary, I found an ancient reference to Raffaele's "explanation" of Meredith's DNA on his kitchen knife. Apparently, in December of 2007 ---within six weeks of his son's arrest--- Doctor Sollecito himself was telling the media the same story, with no element of ambiguity as to just who got pricked.

How exactly is this proof of what Raffaele meant at the time? This is proof that Dr. Sollecito jumped to the same conclusion you did, assuming this Dexter poster has their facts straight in this case (although not in the Harry Potter talking point immediately following).

If it's stated that Dr. Sollecito got this information directly from Raffaele, I didn't see it.

 

[katy_did]

All possibilities required to explain these injuries are not "normal". They are not less unlikely or odd than to assume the use of two knifes. The two knifes scenario would even be normal if the attackers are two as you seem to consider.
Those wounds are a very unusual picture, disomogeneous on many levels. It is absolutley not normal to assume an assaulter would switch the weapon from a hand to another during the attack. This maneuver alone would require to disengage both hands, something inconsistent with the autopsy showing no defensive disengagement of the victim. And there is no reason to give the weapon to the non dominant hand in order to strike the strongest blow.
The change in the side of the neck is not normal neither. We think that something should have changed in the position of the victim or the attacker.
Moreover, in my opinion the left blow was given with an orientation of the blade only consistent with the possibility of a frontal attack or anyway the use of a right hand.
In the end, the left and the right wound appear to me utterly inconsistent with each other, in dynamic, aim and position.
[...]
The picture drawn by the wounds alone is inhomogeneous and peculiar.
But this finding is not an element in isolation in the case.

Why are any of these things not "normal"? On the contrary, we're talking about an attack in which the attacker (were he attacking alone) was continually using the hand not holding the knife for other purposes - to undress the victim and undo her jeans, to cut her bra, to roll up her clothing, to force her to the floor, to assault her. It seems to me entirely normal that some of those things would more likely be done with his dominant hand. It also seems very likely that at some moments he would've been in front of the victim, and at other times behind (almost certainly when he cut her bra, for example). In an attack in which the perpetrator acted alone, it seems to me very probable that he would have changed positions relative to the victim at various points, depending on what he was doing; and entirely possible (even probable) that he switched hands, if the actions carried out with the hand not holding the knife required more dexterity than simply holding a knife to someone's throat.

You say this would be unlikely because he would need to 'disengage both hands', and that this contradicts the lack of defence wounds on the victim; but like many others, you're ignoring the fact that the attacker had a knife, and the victim didn't, and that compliance with someone's demands is usually a wiser idea than attack in those circumstances. If the attacker was behind the victim when he was cutting her bra (and when he switched hands), how could she attack him? What if she were forced to the floor at that point?

You say the pattern of wounds is not "normal", but you haven't really given any reasons for your claim. On the contrary, I think that in a dynamic attack of this sort, in which the knife was used as a threat to force the victim into compliance rather than simply to attack, the attacker being in different positions relative to the victim at different stages during the attack, and at times needing his dominant hand to be free, seems to me perfectly consistent. In fact in the case of a single attacker, I find it very difficult to see how it could have been otherwise.

And the smaller left wound even shows even a different blade thickness.

Hmmm, if you're talking about depth of the blade here - in which the difference between knives would probably amount to less than a millimetre - I think this claim really is pushing the limits of what we can infer from the wounds...

 

[katy_did]

PS it appears that Katy and I have conflated into the same being, for the purposes of being quoted in other places...

Goddamn internet identities! I'm now convinced you're really me on account of the fact that our user names have no letters in common which is clearly a secret code indicating that we are, in fact, the same being.

ETA: Um, except 'd'.

 

[katy_did]

I have re-checked the measurements based on your linked picture (that was not the picture I used but has the same use).
These measurements are all *without* counting the mark on the left ion the total lenght.
What I see is that the minimum lenght of the blade would be at least 9,8/10 cm (however i think it is not logical to consider this as a possible lenght, because there is a second larger outline and there would be a second "handle" mark to place).
The longer outline (always without counting the left mark) is beyond 11,4 cm.

The "bruising" is simply an extension of the 1,5 cm deep wound. This wound has a very narrow angle with the skin, and shows a first "touch" of the blade, a superficial blow with an erroneous direction that could have cause the blade to slip away.
This bruise is not due to a handle, it belongs t the small wound - more properly a point injure - it is irregular and finds itself only on one margin of the main wound.

Well, the fact of the bruise only being on side of the wound can be explained by the knife not entering the skin perpendicularly. Based on those pictures (which I'm assuming is what you're using here) I'm not so sure we can rule out the possibility that the knife which made the print is also the knife which made the wound, and that the handle impacted on the skin, causing the bruise; it seems that the measurements we have here are inevitably subject to some inaccuracies both with the print on the sheet, and the wound itself. We're basically working at one remove in both situations - from a mark/wound left by the knife, rather than directly from the knife in question - which introduces a pretty significant margin of error. And as I suggested in my previous post, there seem to me to be two prints there, not one, which would further complicate any attempt to get accurate measurements.

As I said though, I'm not actually convinced the knife had to be used to its full length, nor that the bruise is from the handle mark. I am interested however in finding out whether that could have been the case, based on the knife print (at least in as much as it's possible to determine that).

 

[Charlie Wilkes]

Thank you, Fine; this does settle the question of whether Raffaele was talking about Meredith or Amanda. As we saw from Raffaele's diary, his lawyer Tiziano did suggest to him on November 16th that Amanda might have taken the knife to her cottage, and Raffaele surmised he might have cooked with it there, in Meredith's presence.

Whether Raffaele's father was lying about it is another issue. He seems to have been quoting Raffaele. Raffaele made the statement on November 18th and Dr. Sollecito apparently was interviewed before December 18th (according to the timing of Dexter's post).

If that is an accurate translation and "looking to the left" is not an idiom, I hope they're not serious about it being a sign of lying.

I think Raffaele did lie. He knew the knife never left his apartment, and there was no way Meredith ever had any contact with it. But he was told that her DNA was on the blade, so he came up with a line of BS.

 

[RoseMontague]

Why would Amanda be carrying this large kitchen knife around in the first place? Why would they clean it and return it to the kitchen drawer if it was used as a murder weapon? Why would no blood show up in the testing of the knife, and how was the blood cleaned off, leaving the phantom DNA on the blade? Why did Stefanoni proceed to test this after she got a too low reading after she had followed standards and protocols on numerous previous items by not going any further on anything that was "too low" for quantification? Why did Stefanoni withhold the "too low" information until she was forced to give that to the defense halfway through the trial? Why did the court find this untested and unproven method of testing used by Stefanoni as reliable? Why did the court refuse defense requests for additional expertise on this piece of evidence and the method of testing used by Stefanoni?

Just makes no sense to me.

 

[RoseMontague]

If that is an accurate translation and "looking to the left" is not an idiom, I hope they're not serious about it being a sign of lying.

Evidently in the study of body language it does make a difference:

Humans eyes generally move up and to left if their brain is doing visual or audio construction. They will generally move to the upper right when doing recall. Just remember: Liars go Left, the Righteous go Right.

http://blisstree.com/feel/how-to-re...&utm_medium=web&utm_campaign=b5hubs_migration

LOL,
I had guessed the origin would have been the difference of the two thieves on the cross (the good thief was on the right).

 

[katy_did]

Why would Amanda be carrying this large kitchen knife around in the first place?

C'mon Rose, this mole has been whacked a gazillion times. Amanda possessed a very large bag, and for what other reason could she have possessed such a large bag if not for the purposes of carrying a very large knife therein? I know I always steer clear of women carrying very large bags for just that reason.

 

[Machiavelli]

Or, he might have initially been in front of her, and then moved behind her. Or he might have temporarily taken the knife from her throat in order to cut the bra strap, and then held the knife with his left hand when he replaced it at her throat (or vice versa). Perhaps Guede needed his dominant hand to carry out the assault, and so held the knife in his left. Guede's 'clue' that the attacker was left-handed is quite possibly an indication that he - or the person who made the wounds - was holding it in their left hand. Perhaps this might even be one reason why some of the wounds were made, if the attacker was right-handed but holding the knife clumsily in his left. There are a lot of possibilities which would explain it.

All possibilities required to explain these injuries are not "normal". They are not more unlikely or more od than assume the use of two knifes. The two knifes scenario would even be normal if the attackers are two as you seem to consider.
Those wounds are a very unusual picture, disomogeneous on many levels. It is absolutley not normal to assume an assaulter would switch the weapon from a hand to another during the attack. This maneuver alone would require to disengage both hands, something inconsistent with the autopsy showing no defensive disengagement of the victim. And there is no reason to give the weapon to the non dominant hand in order to strike the strongest blow.
The change in the side of the nek is not normal neither. We think that something should have changed in the position of the victim or the attacker.
Moreover, in my opinion the left blow was given with an orientation of the blade only consistent with the possibility of a frontal attack or anyway the use of a right hand.
In the end, the left and the right wound appear to me utterly inconsistent with each other, in dynamic, aim and position.
And the smaller left wound even shows even a different blade thickness.

The picture drawn by the wounds alone is inhomogeneous and peculiar.
But this finding is not an element in isolation in the case.

 

[RoseMontague]

C'mon Rose, this mole has been whacked a gazillion times. Amanda possessed a very large bag, and for what other reason could she have possessed such a large bag if not for the purposes of carrying a very large knife therein? I know I always steer clear of women carrying very large bags for just that reason.

◄◄◄◄◄◄

≡ looking left Massei was.

 

[Machiavelli]

He was holding the knife in his right hand in such a way that if he held it out at arms length with the blade pointing down, the cutting edge would be facing him.

He grabbed her from behind and threw her to the floor. He inflicted two puncture wounds, one on the right side of her neck and one under her chin. He also inflicted a large slashing wound, pulling up and from left to right. After the struggle was over, but she was still gasping for breath, he rolled her onto her back. At that point, her bra was pushed up above her breasts. He then moved her to the place where her body was found.

No.
She was not stabbed while on the floor, she was standing or kneeling. The pattern of blood stains show she was standing or kneeling also when she received the second blow. Blood droplets from her lungs are at almost 1 meter of height on the closet.
Rudy or others didn’t proceed to do other things right away after the stabbing, because Nara Capezzali (who is credible, contrarily from what people claim) heard a person running out immediately after the scream.
Rudy didn’t remove her trousers after the assault, because her trousers were clean and had no significant blood stains.
He did not push up her bra because the bra has no stains from finger, and he did not manipulate her sexually because her breast is clean and his right hand was bloody.
Rudy didn’t touch any part of her body nor her cloths after the killing, because he had an injured hand and he left no blood droplets, and he had one hand dirty with her blood too.
He did not move her right after the stabbing, because the body remained near the closet for some time and was moved only after at least 10-15 minutes as the coddling of the blood stains shows.
Blood stains show the attack did not take place in one corner, but in various places in the room beginning from the entrance door.
Moreover, the perversion of sexual attraction for dying or dead people is very rare, and not likely at all (while Rudy’s psychological profile instead was quite transparent to his friend and previous girlfriends, and no clue of such fantasies is available), and not needed.
She was not punctured under her chin, she was punctured on the right side and then hit on the left side after just a first touch, as on the left side the minor wound is only millimetres from the main wound.
Moreover, Meredith had a hand grabbing her mouth for long minutes before she was stabbed, which suggests a sexual violence was carried out during this time, not after.
Moreover, she had a number of bruises (including hold bruises on her hip) suggestive of an active sexual violence, on a living and fighting person. Moreover, the bra fastener was cut with a clean knife.

Your reconstruction conflicts with an impressive array of findings.

 

[Fine]

How exactly is this proof of what Raffaele meant at the time? This is proof that Dr. Sollecito jumped to the same conclusion you did, assuming this Dexter poster has their facts straight in this case (although not in the Harry Potter talking point immediately following).

If it's stated that Dr. Sollecito got this information directly from Raffaele, I didn't see it.

____________________

Kevin,

Let's suppose Dr. Solliceto didn't get his information directly from his son, but from reading the Prison Diary. If papa found any ambiguity in the relevant passage of the Diary, don't you think papa would clarify this issue with his son during a prison visit, before he would advance this "I pricked Meredith" defense in public? So if papa is relying solely on his reading of the Prison Diary, papa saw no ambiguity at all. (But you do?)
On second thought. Even if Doctor Sollecito had got this information "directly," as you put it, from his son--- and by that I suppose you mean in verbal conversation in prison--- why would that satisfy you as to Raffaele's meaning in his Prison Diary? If papa misinterpets what Raffaele writes........so he can misinterpret what his son speaks.

There was never any ambiguity in what Raffaele wrote. It's purely an invention, intended to deflect accusations of Raffaele lying. And ---so far as I know ---Dr. Sollecito has not retracted the claim that his son had pricked Meredith.

///

 

[Machiavelli]

As I said though, I'm not actually convinced the knife had to be used to its full length, nor that the bruise is from the handle mark. I am interested however in finding out whether that could have been the case, based on the knife print (at least in as much as it's possible to determine that).

The knife whose print is on the bed sheet cannot have ben used to its full blade and is not 8 cm long. On this there is no doubt.

 

[Charlie Wilkes]

All possibilities required to explain these injuries are not "normal". They are not less unlikely or odd than to assume the use of two knifes. The two knifes scenario would even be normal if the attackers are two as you seem to consider.
Those wounds are a very unusual picture, disomogeneous on many levels. It is absolutley not normal to assume an assaulter would switch the weapon from a hand to another during the attack. This maneuver alone would require to disengage both hands, something inconsistent with the autopsy showing no defensive disengagement of the victim. And there is no reason to give the weapon to the non dominant hand in order to strike the strongest blow.
The change in the side of the neck is not normal neither. We think that something should have changed in the position of the victim or the attacker.
Moreover, in my opinion the left blow was given with an orientation of the blade only consistent with the possibility of a frontal attack or anyway the use of a right hand.
In the end, the left and the right wound appear to me utterly inconsistent with each other, in dynamic, aim and position.
And the smaller left wound even shows even a different blade thickness.

The picture drawn by the wounds alone is inhomogeneous and peculiar.
But this finding is not an element in isolation in the case.

You are free to believe what you want, but the evidence shows that Meredith was face down on the floor, and her attacker was on top of her, holding the knife in his right hand throughout the attack.

I have had the advantage of examining the photos in detail, and I have also gotten insights from experts who have done likewise. Once I understood what I was looking at, it was obvious.

 

[Machiavelli]

Why are any of these things not "normal"? On the contrary, we're talking about an attack in which the attacker (were he attacking alone) was continually using the hand not holding the knife for other purposes - to undress the victim and undo her jeans, to cut her bra, to roll up her clothing, to force her to the floor, to assault her. It seems to me entirely normal that some of those things would more likely be done with his dominant hand.

And which hand is he using to grab her arms and to cover her mouth?

 

[Charlie Wilkes]

No.
She was not stabbed while on the floor, she was standing or kneeling. The pattern of blood stains show she was standing or kneeling also when she received the second blow. Blood droplets from her lungs are at almost 1 meter of height on the closet.
Rudy or others didn’t proceed to do other things right away after the stabbing, because Nara Capezzali (who is credible, contrarily from what people claim) heard a person running out immediately after the scream.
Rudy didn’t remove her trousers after the assault, because her trousers were clean and had no significant blood stains.
He did not push up her bra because the bra has no stains from finger, and he did not manipulate her sexually because her breast is clean and his right hand was bloody.
Rudy didn’t touch any part of her body nor her cloths after the killing, because he had an injured hand and he left no blood droplets, and he had one hand dirty with her blood too.
He did not move her right after the stabbing, because the body remained near the closet for some time and was moved only after at least 10-15 minutes as the coddling of the blood stains shows.
Blood stains show the attack did not take place in one corner, but in various places in the room beginning from the entrance door.
Moreover, the perversion of sexual attraction for dying or dead people is very rare, and not likely at all (while Rudy’s psychological profile instead was quite transparent to his friend and previous girlfriends, and no clue of such fantasies is available), and not needed.
She was not punctured under her chin, she was punctured on the right side and then hit on the left side after just a first touch, as on the left side the minor wound is only millimetres from the main wound.
Moreover, Meredith had a hand grabbing her mouth for long minutes before she was stabbed, which suggests a sexual violence was carried out during this time, not after.
Moreover, she had a number of bruises (including hold bruises on her hip) suggestive of an active sexual violence, on a living and fighting person. Moreover, the bra fastener was cut with a clean knife.

Your reconstruction conflicts with an impressive array of findings.

Have you seen the crime scene photos and the autopsy photos?

 

[Kestrel]

Evidently in the study of body language it does make a difference:



http://blisstree.com/feel/how-to-re...&utm_medium=web&utm_campaign=b5hubs_migration

LOL,
I had guessed the origin would have been the difference of the two thieves on the cross (the good thief was on the right).

Yes, our culture has lots of folklore on how you can detect liars. But since this is JREF and not the Weekly World News, we have to look to science to see if these techniques are valid.

Quoting from a recent article on this subject.

Consistently, empirical research has shown that many of the behavioural cues that police are trained to use – such as gaze aversion, rigid posture, and fidgeting – are not diagnostic of truth and deception; that laypeople on average are only 54% accurate; that training produces only marginal improvement; and that police investigators, like judges, psychiatrists, customs inspectors, and other professionals who make these judgments for a living, perform only slightly better, if at all.

 

[RoseMontague]

Yes, our culture has lots of folklore on how you can detect liars. But since this is JREF and not the Weekly World News, we have to look to science to see if these techniques are valid.

Quoting from a recent article on this subject.

Good thing we have the statement analysis dude with the 8 hour on-line class to fall back on.

 

[Justinian2]

It's been asked how the experts and majority that believe that the evidence against Amanda is correct, can be proved wrong.

1.) Every watch the pictures of African zebra, water buffalo and gazelle when attacked by predators? They stick together. Man is also a herd animal.

2.) Almost all man and his experts used to believe the world was flat. They were proved wrong by sailors that circumnavigated the globe.

3.) Romans used to cheer to see people and animals die in the Roman forum. People that did not cheer could be thrown in to the arena. Was the majority right or wrong?

How does the scientific method prove something right when the majority does not understand? Basically step by agreed upon step. Assembling a string of small steps together that everybody can agree is true yields the proof.

There are several ways to prove the pathagoreum theorum (c^2=b^2+a^2) is correct. A few simple math steps that everybody knows is true are put together to proves equation. Yet the majority does not know how to do this. I think I've forgotten myself.

QED: The experts and majority can be proved wrong.