Continuation - Discussion of the Amanda Knox case

[Withnail1969]

There is evidence that Raffaello was an avid user of hard drugs before meeting Amanda; there is a strong suggestion that the two were on something a lot harder thatn marijuana that night, very possibly coke.
But we will likely never know the truth.

You obviously haven't had much experience with coke. All coke does is make people talk and talk and talk about how great they are, until it wears off in about half an hour's time. In Amanda's case by the sounds of her personality probably nobody would notice she was high.

 

[LondonJohn]

There is evidence that Raffaello was an avid user of hard drugs before meeting Amanda; there is a strong suggestion that the two were on something a lot harder thatn marijuana that night, very possibly coke.
But we will likely never know the truth.

What's the evidence that Sollecito (Raffaele) was "an avid user of hard drugs before meeting Amanda"? Are there affadavits or even just quoted statements to back up this assertion?

And if there's a "strong suggestion" that Knox and Sollecito were on harder drugs on the night of the murder, what's the source of this "strong suggestion"? Because at the moment it sounds to me as if it's something like "Some bloke I met in a bar says that someone he knows reckons that people who looked like Amanda and Raffaele were acting as if they had been taking coke".

If you're going to make statements about Knox/Sollecito's cocaine use including the words "evidence" and "strong suggestion", it really is time to put up or shut up over just what exactly this "evidence" and "strong suggestion" consists of.

 

[Kevin_Lowe]

You think so, and that is a point of my radical disagreement.

Things for me are set in an order: the certain evidence comes first. Once I realize there is evidence collected of implication in the crime, given that this evidence is certain, any scenario that fits with this evidence is theoretically acceptable, and there is no dependance on a single scenario in particular.

I don't think this can be right, although your use of the word "certain" has already been established to differ from mine. I'm very sure there is no certain evidence of Amanda and Raffaele's guilt, and I get the feeling that the evidence you want to call "certain" is going to come down to armchair psychology or uninformed incredulity, both of which are profoundly uncertain.

Moreover, to me the problem of ToD is solved or non-existent. First, a hour shift of the ToD has no implication on the evidence, because Amanda and Raffaele don't have an alibi at any time, surely not after 20:40.

Ah, I see now that you are missing important parts of the puzzle.

Firstly this is not a one hour shift we are discussing. Massei needs the time of death to be 23:30, the real time of death is almost certainly 21:10 or not far off.

Secondly they have multiple alibis, depending on what evidence you believe. Even the prosecution agreed that the computer evidence placed Amanda and Raffaele at home at 21:10, and the appeal have shown that there's further evidence that they started watching a 23 minute cartoon at 21:26, which would keep them from getting to Amanda's house until 21:50 at the very earliest, long after Meredith was dead if we are right about the time of death.

However if you think that the ones and zeroes recorded on Raffaele's laptop are Friends of Amanda who are lying for him, there's our friend Curatolo that Massei finds eminently believable. Curatolo has Amanda and Raffaele hanging out where he can see them at 21:30 or thereabouts, which is similarly incompatible with them murdering Meredith at that time.

Either way, they are somewhere else when Meredith was murdered, hence they cannot have participated.

Second, the assertion that a ToD at 22:00 is unlikely has simpy insufficient basis.

That's easy to say, and many guilters have said it. However not one of them, including you, has presented a single sensible argument to back that assertion up. If you do not wish us to think that you are merely blustering then it might be a good idea to present something to back this claim up. Say, a citation to a peer-reviewed scientific paper that states that t(lag) can be five and a half hours in the case of a healthy young woman eating a small to moderate sized meal with no alcohol in a relaxed situation? That would do it.

You aren't going to find one, any more than you are going to find a peer-reviewed scientific paper saying that blue whales are a species of insect, but feel free to look.

 

[Kevin_Lowe]

I WOULD AGREE.

Amanda's utterances in regard to Meredith were psychopathic in nature, e.g. "She *********** bled to death" to Meredith's friend who was expressing her wish that Meredith hadn't suffer; "bleagh" when confronted with the gory details; her "I only knew her for under 2 months and am trying to get on in with my life", as well as her actions after the discovery of the body (shopping for one pair of lingerie while laughing about having hot sex with Raffaelo), not attending Meredith's vigil, instead opting to have a nice pizza meal.

Anyone with any traianing in human behavior would see very quickly that she possessed psychopathic chracteristics; she lacked empathy and had an overblown sense of her own importance, all hallmarks of a narcissistic personality.

This is what is irking the posters like yourself; her personality is revealed through the details of her own making.

Actually anyone with any training in human behaviour who understood their training would decline to diagnose someone with a serious pathology without doing a lot more than reading cherry-picked quotes and diary passages deliberately chosen to create the worst possible responses.

What training in human behaviour do you have, loverofzion?

 

[Chris_Halkides]

formal charge

Don't you mean "...once you are accused of murder but not yet tried or convicted in a court of law of murder..."?

LondonJohn,

I agree with the general outline of your comments. If, however, by "accused" you mean formally charged, that formal charge did not happen until October of 2008, long after the diaries were digested by millions, some of whom would be potential jurors. Of course, they were taken into custody in November of 2007, giving the police ample time to.... to do what, exactly? A logical rationale for holding them has never made sense to me. Even the weak arguments put forth to holding Amanda don't apply to Raffaele.

 

[LondonJohn]

Actually anyone with any training in human behaviour who understood their training would decline to diagnose someone with a serious pathology without doing a lot more than reading cherry-picked quotes and diary passages deliberately chosen to create the worst possible responses.

What training in human behaviour do you have, loverofzion?

What also worries me is that Machiavelli feels qualified to write the Italian Wikipedia entry on "narcissism", but then asserts that any analysis of Knox's personality issues is irrelevant because "she's a liar"........

 

[Chris C]

The diary ws not in the prosecutions custody. The diary was photocopied and seven copies included in seven different files.

So what your saying is the chain of custody was violated on evidence so they could photocopy it and hand it out to the press? Yet there is no chance that knife could have been contaminated.

 

[Kevin_Lowe]

What also worries me is that Machiavelli feels qualified to write the Italian Wikipedia entry on "narcissism", but then asserts that any analysis of Knox's personality issues is irrelevant because "she's a liar"........

Myself I'd hesitate to claim that I could diagnose narcissism or detect lies purely from this kind of second-hand, cherry-picked material.

Seeing as professional psychologists wouldn't do that, it seems highly likely that anyone doing so has an overinflated sense of their own competence or is not being completely honest.

 

[RoseMontague]

What also worries me is that Machiavelli feels qualified to write the Italian Wikipedia entry on "narcissism", but then asserts that any analysis of Knox's personality issues is irrelevant because "she's a liar"........

Machiavelli is certainly entitled to an opinion here but is obviously not an unbiased observer when attempting to judge Amanda's personality. I noted the comment about "Amanda's disgraceful story and problems" as an example of this bias. In my opinion the disgrace is the Massei report and the fact that she did not receive a fair judgment from the court. Her problems are mostly related to being in jail for a crime she did not commit.

 

[RoseMontague]

The diary ws not in the prosecutions custody. The diary was photocopied and seven copies included in seven different files.

Who has custody of these "seven different files"? Is one of them labeled fsa data files by chance? Who made the seven copies and placed them in these seven files? Which of the seven files was compromised? It sure sounds like they put a lot of importance on this diary. I do not even see it even mentioned in the Massei report unless I missed something.

 

[Charlie Wilkes]

I don't know if this reconstruction is entirely correct. I think Rudy's initiative was essential in creating the point of no-return and the problem at a certain point. I always thought the whole chain of event is a more complex picture and there is information missing.

Information is always missing when one must reconstruct a crime from circumstantial evidence. But the problem you face is that you are trying to incorporate information that has nothing to do with the crime, like the mixed DNA, and the luminol footprints. They found mixed DNA and luminol prints at Sollecito's apartment too. They would find it the same thing if they did a forensic investigation of any shared residence. Here is an article I wrote that shows where the luminol footprints were found:

http://knoxarchive.wordpress.com/2009/11/27/manuela-comodi-asks-for-common-sense/

I challenge you to create a crime scenario that results in those particular footprints in those particular spots.

No.
I think it is more likely somebody fetched the knife at a certain time. From the very cottage door to Raffaele's apartment it takes 1 minutes 45 seconds of walk without striding.

Why would someone fetch a kitchen knife from Sollecito's apartment when there were kitchen knives at hand in the cottage?

Some of the phone calls (like Abbey bank) were surely just a touch of the key. About 8:56, my interest goes more to why her mother didn't try to call her back. This implies her mother didn't answer the first call and didn't notice it. And this could be the simple reason why meredith didn't call a second time. Why disturb her again? Howevr, I don't think Meredith voluntarily chose not to call her back for two hours. So I assume something happened meanwhile. I think Meredith was alive in the next hour, but was distracted and engaged in something that was happening, this is why she didn't do any "normal" call.

Why would Meredith call in the first place if she didn't want to disturb her mother?

The facts - the relevant facts - of this case tell a clear story. Guede broke into the place and he was there, waiting to strike with lethal force, when Meredith arrived home. That's why the 8:56 call was cut off before it went through. That's why her meal was still in her stomach. And that's why Guede's bloody fingerprints were found next to her dead body.

 

[Machiavelli]

So what your saying is the chain of custody was violated on evidence so they could photocopy it and hand it out to the press? Yet there is no chance that knife could have been contaminated.

No I am not saying the chain of custody was violated (and not "on evidence", I am talking of copies of files), I am saying there was no chain of custody on the content of Amanda's diary. I recall again, in addition, that the content of her diary was not secret.

 

[Machiavelli]

Why would Meredith call in the first place if she didn't want to disturb her mother?

Charlie, try to get people live in a world of flexible events. Once you realize that mom could be asleep since she doesn't answer the call, maybe you just wait to call her again, let's say at least the next half an hour. There is a thousand reason why a person won't do a second call without being murdered, it's no implication of anything strange.

 

[RoseMontague]

I don't think this can be right, although your use of the word "certain" has already been established to differ from mine. I'm very sure there is no certain evidence of Amanda and Raffaele's guilt, and I get the feeling that the evidence you want to call "certain" is going to come down to armchair psychology or uninformed incredulity, both of which are profoundly uncertain.



Ah, I see now that you are missing important parts of the puzzle.

Firstly this is not a one hour shift we are discussing. Massei needs the time of death to be 23:30, the real time of death is almost certainly 21:10 or not far off.

Secondly they have multiple alibis, depending on what evidence you believe. Even the prosecution agreed that the computer evidence placed Amanda and Raffaele at home at 21:10, and the appeal have shown that there's further evidence that they started watching a 23 minute cartoon at 21:26, which would keep them from getting to Amanda's house until 21:50 at the very earliest, long after Meredith was dead if we are right about the time of death.

However if you think that the ones and zeroes recorded on Raffaele's laptop are Friends of Amanda who are lying for him, there's our friend Curatolo that Massei finds eminently believable. Curatolo has Amanda and Raffaele hanging out where he can see them at 21:30 or thereabouts, which is similarly incompatible with them murdering Meredith at that time.

Either way, they are somewhere else when Meredith was murdered, hence they cannot have participated.



That's easy to say, and many guilters have said it. However not one of them, including you, has presented a single sensible argument to back that assertion up. If you do not wish us to think that you are merely blustering then it might be a good idea to present something to back this claim up. Say, a citation to a peer-reviewed scientific paper that states that t(lag) can be five and a half hours in the case of a healthy young woman eating a small to moderate sized meal with no alcohol in a relaxed situation? That would do it.

You aren't going to find one, any more than you are going to find a peer-reviewed scientific paper saying that blue whales are a species of insect, but feel free to look.

The argument used to attack the TOD using stomach contents appears now to be one that if your argument is correct and you do the math it seems to place the time of death even before 9pm when Meredith got home.

 

[Machiavelli]

Who has custody of these "seven different files"? Is one of them labeled fsa data files by chance? Who made the seven copies and placed them in these seven files? Which of the seven files was compromised? It sure sounds like they put a lot of importance on this diary.

No it's quite the opposite. After the first investigation asessments they didn't put any importance on the diary at all. The building of seven (or more) files happens in more staps and is the consequence of the beaurocratic process. The diary was photocopied physically in the offices of the judicial police, one copy was for the prosecution's office, another for the chancellery of the pre-trial judge's office, other copies were taken by the judicial police. The clerks office then produced a copies of file updates containing the diary on request of Carlo Pacelli, a copy was added to Maori's file and another one given to Rudy Guede's attorney. The same office released files for Francesco Maresca.
All those copies were on paper support. No file is labelled .fsa data file.

 

[RoseMontague]

Charlie, try to get people live in a world of flexible events. Once you realize that mom could be asleep since she doesn't answer the call, maybe you just wait to call her again, let's say at least the next half an hour. There is a thousand reason why a person won't do a second call without being murdered, it's no implication of anything strange.

You have to look at this in relation to her normal habits. If it is not normal then it could be considered "strange". Was playing laying on her bed pushing random numbers part of her normal routine? Or was connecting to a cell tower that had she had not connected to previously part of that "no implication of anything strange". The appeals point out the abnormality of these things with Meredith's phone activity including the fact that she normally called her parents before she went to bed. She had already indicated to her friends that she was tired. I see her cell phone activity as important due to the fact that it does appear to be an indication of events taking place that were not normal.

 

[Dan O.]

Charlie, try to get people live in a world of flexible events. Once you realize that mom could be asleep since she doesn't answer the call, maybe you just wait to call her again, let's say at least the next half an hour. There is a thousand reason why a person won't do a second call without being murdered, it's no implication of anything strange.

Machiavelli, can you cite the source for that 8:56 phone call? It seems that you are just echoing what you heard that fits a pre conceived verdict of guilt and haven't bothered to actually research anything to find out if it's true.

 

[Machiavelli]

Either way, they are somewhere else when Meredith was murdered, hence they cannot have participated.

You are just unfolding your list again, I already know it, and I disagree. I don't want to enter a discussion on this system of points, since I have a few other topics to talk about before. I need to finish explain my ideas on Nara Capezzali and why the autopsy report and findings is a circumstantial evidence of a multiple aggresion. Peripheral topics, but worht to be defined.

 

[RoseMontague]

No it's quite the opposite. After the first investigation asessments they didn't put any importance on the diary at all. The building of seven (or more) files happens in more staps and is the consequence of the beaurocratic process. The diary was photocopied physically in the offices of the judicial police, one copy was for the prosecution's office, another for the chancellery of the pre-trial judge's office, other copies were taken by the judicial police. The clerks office then produced a copies of file updates containing the diary on request of Carlo Pacelli, a copy was added to Maori's file and another one given to Rudy Guede's attorney. The same office released files for Francesco Maresca.
All those copies were on paper support. No file is labelled .fsa data file.

That is very interesting, thanks.

 

[Machiavelli]

If it is not normal then it could be considered "strange".

No it is not enough. One thing is "unusual", one other thing is "murdered". The time of death does not depend on whether anything strange occurred before or not. I bet something "strange" was going on at around 21:00 in the cottage, independently from the 20:56 call, but I don't think this something strange was a murder. You are thinking at the murder of Meredith Kercher as a quick attack, as would be from an external intruder. You are not thinking the murder scenario as a situation which can well start since before Meredith's arrival or around 21:00, and could go on for hours.