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Continuation - Discussion of the Amanda Knox case

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Withnail1969 said:
i'll tell you one thing, i'm sick of that stupid rabbit. I hope it gets myxamatosis.
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I like the rabbits. I guess it is a matter of personal preference. It shows the humanity of the posters there. They are people as well, and anybody that has a love for animals can't be all bad in my book.
 
Blimey, Daydreamer!

I didn't expect the Spanish Inquisition!!

"Hit them with the soft cushions, Cardinal Biggles!"
 
daydreamer said:
Does anyone have an opinion on the upcoming Knox Slander Trial?

Personally I find AKs description of the events during the interrogation very plausible and reminiscent of the way the nuns treated us in grade school. Smacks on the head, yanks on the ear, and raps on the knuckles were commonplace.
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I too don't think there is any exaggeration in Amanda's account of that interrogation. That's interesting - when I recall reading first about the case, the circumstances and contents of her "confession" followed immediately by her written "gift" retraction was what made me look deeper and find out how strong the physical evidence really is.

daydreamer said:
What I would like to see is every person that was involved in the interrogation should testify what they did, saw and heard. They should be reminded that lying under is a felony-level crime and punishable by serving prison time. Assuming they are mostly staunch Catholics, the defense team might have a priest remind them that lying under oath is a mortal sin which can result in eternal damnation. If I remember my Catechism correctly, in order for one to be forgiven for such a sin, you need to be “truly sorry” for the transgression and have a “firm purpose of amendment”. That means you need to do everything you can to correct the harm you’ve done (tell the truth) and be committed to never doing it again. Maybe the fear of having their peers tell what actually occurred would be a strong incentive to tell the true.
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I wouldn't count on them telling the truth. Law enforcement is known to rather tighten their ranks and keep quiet when it comes to ethics and rules being stretched.
 
daydreamer said:
Does anyone have an opinion on the upcoming Knox Slander Trial?

Personally I find AKs description of the events during the interrogation very plausible and reminiscent of the way the nuns treated us in grade school. Smacks on the head, yanks on the ear, and raps on the knuckles were commonplace.

What I would like to see is every person that was involved in the interrogation should testify what they did, saw and heard. They should be reminded that lying under is a felony-level crime and punishable by serving prison time. Assuming they are mostly staunch Catholics, the defense team might have a priest remind them that lying under oath is a mortal sin which can result in eternal damnation. If I remember my Catechism correctly, in order for one to be forgiven for such a sin, you need to be “truly sorry” for the transgression and have a “firm purpose of amendment”. That means you need to do everything you can to correct the harm you’ve done (tell the truth) and be committed to never doing it again. Maybe the fear of having their peers tell what actually occurred would be a strong incentive to tell the true.

Ok, enough preaching. Can I get an AMEN?

DD
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Since they are parties to the civil suit I doubt any of them will do this. It will probably be a defense based on the legal points and technicalities involved. I don't foresee anyone coming forward to back Amanda's claim.
 
Fine said:
____________________

Strong words, Kevin. I missed your proof that Meredith had consumed her meal of pizza between 18:00 (6:00 pm) and 18:30 (6:30 pm). Raffaele's defense attorneys, who heard all of the testimony from Meredith's English friends, seem to have a contrary understanding as to when she ate that meal...

"Based upon experts and medico-legal criterion, Meredith died at 2-3 or 3-4 hours after her last meal which was completed around 6:30pm to 7:00pm. This places the death (using 3 hours) at 9:30pm to 10:00pm." Raffaele's Appeal Here

Please explain.

///
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There does seem to be a worrying lack of consistency and ability to do sums in the various court documents pertaining to Meredith's last meal, doesn't there?

The best timeline I have seen put together is LondonJohn's, and it seems pretty watertight.

Sophie and Meredith left the house where they watched The Notebook at 20:45 according to their testimony, which apparently fits with Meredith getting home at 21:05 or so.

Before that they watched the movie The Notebook, which runs a little over two hours, with a break to eat apple crumble in the middle. Assuming Meredith bolted out the door the second the movie finished and that they served and ate their crumble in ten minutes, the latest they could have started the movie would be 18:35, but it was probably earlier.

The girls testified that all the pizza was finished before they started the movie.

Assuming the girls' testimony is accurate there simply isn't much wiggle room in there. I don't think Raffaele's defence attorneys can have done the math - possibly they assumed it was a 90 minute movie, not a 123 minute movie? In any case, a pizza-eating time of 18:00 to 18:30 is plausible, but 19:00 just doesn't work. You can't start watching a 123 minute movie at 19:00, watch it all, and then leave at 20:45.
 
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halides1 said:
Stilicho,

Once you are through answering my dozen or so comments directed toward you (6663), here is another question for you to chew on. Do you accept the court's reasoning in the Hendricks case with respect to stomach contents? If so, what conclusion do you draw with respect to this case?
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Was that the David Hendricks case, 1983, accused of murdering his wife and three children, claimed that he left the house at 11:00pm and they were alive, but the prosecution used the stomach contents of his children to claim that they were murdered at around 9:30pm (within 2 hours of eating pizza)?

Was he not acquitted in a retrial in 1991?
 
Katody Matrass said:
I too don't think there is any exaggeration in Amanda's account of that interrogation. That's interesting - when I recall reading first about the case, the circumstances and contents of her "confession" followed immediately by her written "gift" retraction was what made me look deeper and find out how strong the physical evidence really is.



I wouldn't count on them telling the truth. Law enforcement is known to rather tighten their ranks and keep quiet when it comes to ethics and rules being stretched.
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daydreamer said:
Looks like my "old school" roots are showing !
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Unfortunately, I think they will slap her with more time. The Judge dislikes her and has her mind made up obviously, there will be no surprise Matteini thinks Amanda is a murderer and even more so part of the "Perugia team" against the three outsiders.

I say unfortunately, because I know people personally who have gone through interrogations much like this. It does go on, but the average human can't comprehend it, and furthermore its so well hidden there's not enough time in this case to even crack the surface. The complications seem to be too great for anyone to take on this issue of the Interrogation. In addition, what is 3 or 6 yrs when faced with life in prison, or 26yrs in prison...its nothing really.

Their word against her's ...with Judge Matteini to decide..

Give me a break. Yes, I'm biased against Interrogations without lawyers present, without video taping, without even audio recorded.

I hope I'm wrong, but really, how could she win?
 
Kevin_Lowe said:
There does seem to be a worrying lack of consistency and ability to do sums in the various court documents pertaining to Meredith's last meal, doesn't there?

The best timeline I have seen put together is LondonJohns, and it seems pretty watertight.

Sophie and Meredith left the house where they watched The Notebook at 20:45 according to their testimony, which apparently fits with Meredith getting home at 21:05 or so.

Before that they watched the movie The Notebook, which runs a little over two hours, with a break to eat apple crumble in the middle. Assuming Meredith bolted out the door the second the movie finished and that they served and ate their crumble in ten minutes, the latest they could have started the movie would be 18:35, but it was probably earlier.

The girls testified that all the pizza was finished before they started the movie.

Assuming the girls' testimony is accurate there simply isn't much wiggle room in there. I don't think Raffaele's defence attorneys can have done the math - possibly they assumed it was a 90 minute movie, not a 123 minute movie? In any case, a pizza-eating time of 18:00 to 18:30 is plausible, but 19:00 just doesn't work. You can't start watching a 123 minute movie at 19:00, watch it all, and then leave at 20:45.
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Kevin,
Can you give me a cite that they did not start the movie until they finished eating? I missed that one.
 
Matthew Best said:
Michael and Fiona are both members here. If they have questions, why are they afraid to ask them in a forum where Michael can't ban people who might provide the answers?

Oh, I think I may have answered my own question. :rolleyes:
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That's my view. Fiona, Michael, Solange and Stilicho are perfectly capable of asking their questions here, if they want us to answer them. For that matter Michael's perfectly capable of inviting us back and not banning us this time.

I'm not inclined to risk a warning or a suspension just so I can play a game of cross-forum Telephone with them. They can post here any time they like, and if they choose not to it's their own business.
 
JREF2010 said:
Unfortunately, I think they will slap her with more time. The Judge dislikes her and has her mind made up obviously, there will be no surprise Matteini thinks Amanda is a murderer and even more so part of the "Perugia team" against the three outsiders.

I hope I'm wrong, but really, how could she win?
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What a terribly frustrating and depressing position to be in. It's very sad.
 
RoseMontague said:
Kevin,
Can you give me a cite that they did not start the movie until they finished eating? I missed that one.
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Credit goes again to LondonJohn for this one:

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/friends-of-murdered-girl--arrive-to-incriminate-knox-1609172.html

The article quotes Ms. Butterworth as saying:

Ms Butterworth described how she and two other friends had eaten supper together on 1 November, the night Ms Kercher died. "We invited Meredith to have dinner together and watch a film," she said. "She came to our house at about 4 pm. We cooked a pizza, ate it, then looked at photos on the computer that we had taken ... the previous night. Then we watched the film but halfway through we stopped it and made apple crumble which we ate with ice cream. Meredith went home at about 9pm. It was quite a relaxed night, we talked about boys from home."
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(I believe Ms. Purton later corrected the 9pm figure and told police that she and Meredith left slightly earlier. The 20:45 departure time is I believe the one currently accepted by both sides).

So I actually erred in leaving out some time to look at photos, which even conservatively would probably have taken five minutes as well.

Unless Ms. Butterworth is mistaken they definitely finished the meal and did some additional messing about on the computer before starting to watch the movie.
 
RoseMontague said:
Kevin,
Can you give me a cite that they did not start the movie until they finished eating? I missed that one.
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_____________

Ms Butterworth described how she and two other friends had eaten supper together on 1 November, the night Ms Kercher died. "We invited Meredith to have dinner together and watch a film," she said. "She came to our house at about 4 pm. We cooked a pizza, ate it, then looked at photos on the computer that we had taken ... the previous night. Then we watched the film but halfway through we stopped it and made apple crumble which we ate with ice cream. Meredith went home at about 9pm. It was quite a relaxed night, we talked about boys from home."
Here
 
Fine said:
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Ms Butterworth described how she and two other friends had eaten supper together on 1 November, the night Ms Kercher died. "We invited Meredith to have dinner together and watch a film," she said. "She came to our house at about 4 pm. We cooked a pizza, ate it, then looked at photos on the computer that we had taken ... the previous night. Then we watched the film but halfway through we stopped it and made apple crumble which we ate with ice cream. Meredith went home at about 9pm. It was quite a relaxed night, we talked about boys from home."
Here
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Who says we can't agree on anything? :)
 
Fine said:
Then we watched the film but halfway through we stopped it and made apple crumble which we ate with ice cream.
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So they didn't just stop halfway through the movie to eat apple crumble, they made it as well.

How long does it take to make apple crumble? You might have to add that time to the 123 minutes duration of the film (while taking off the duration of the end credits as not many people sit through those in their homes) to get the time the meal finished. That would make it even earlier than Kevin's original estimate and put the time of death earlier also.
 
Steve Moore fired from job

I'd say Steve Moore is a highly principled and brave person.


****
Deputy director of Public Safety fired for international murder investigation side project, he says

By Stan Parker

Published: Wednesday, September 29, 2010

Updated: Wednesday, September 29, 2010 02:09

Last December in Italy, Amanda Knox was sentenced to 26 years in prison for a crime FBI veteran Steve Moore believes she didn't commit. Moore, former deputy director of Public Safety at Pepperdine, had been on a public campaign to free Knox for several weeks when he was fired Tuesday after refusing to abandon his mission or resign from his post, he said.

[Read this article, published in the Graphic Thurs., Sept. 9, for a more complete look at Moore's efforts.]

Jerry Derloshon, Pepperdine's executive director of Public Relations, confirmed that Tuesday was Moore's last day at Pepperdine, but declined to further comment.

"We are restricted by law from commenting further on personnel issues," he wrote in an e-mail.

Moore said Chief Administrative Officer Phil Phillips told him to halt his investigation after he was featured Sept. 2 on ABC's "Good Morning America" and NBC's "Today," as well as in the Sept. 9 Graphic article because his endeavor endangered students in Pepperdine's Florence program. When Moore, Pepperdine's expert assessor of risk to students abroad, told administrators that there was no risk to Pepperdine students, they said it was because he was spending "too much time on it," according to Moore.

"I wasn't spending any time at work on it. It was on vacation days, weekends and after work," Moore said.

According to Moore, when he refused to stop, he was given until last Wednesday to resign. He declined. And Tuesday afternoon, Moore said Phillips dismissed him from employment at Pepperdine.
 
Matthew Best said:
So they didn't just stop halfway through the movie to eat apple crumble, they made it as well.

How long does it take to make apple crumble? You might have to add that time to the 123 minutes duration of the film (while taking off the duration of the end credits as not many people sit through those in their homes) to get the time the meal finished. That would make it even earlier than Kevin's original estimate and put the time of death earlier also.
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While this is true as far as it goes, even if Meredith finished her pizza at 18:35 and died at 21:05 that's still a t(lag) of 150 minutes which is very unusual - not unheard of, but three or four standard deviations away from the mean if I recall LondonJohn's maths correctly.

I'd venture to guess that "making" it meant microwaving it, or taking it our of the oven and serving it. It's just a guess, but you've got to balance out whether the extra t(lag) time is less improbable than the alternatives.

To clarify, a t(lag) of 150 minutes (as far as I can make out from what I've read) is very unlikely, but the fact that it's unlikely doesn't constitute proof beyond reasonable doubt that it happened for legal purposes. The figures of three hours or four hours seen quoted by figures like Dr Lalli, I believe, are the point at which the legal consensus is that you can be sure beyond reasonable doubt that if they were alive food would have started moving into the duodenum. So it's very unlikely but not impossible Meredith was alive at, say, 21:15. There's proof beyond reasonable doubt that she was dead by 21:30, or maybe 22:30 depending on what sources you read, presumably depending on how many zeroes after the decimal point you feel you need in a p value before it turns into proof beyond reasonable doubt.

Either way, the most likely time of death is the earliest one consistent with her being attacked in her home, and any later time of death is less probable than that.

Taking into account Rudy's statement that he was there at 20:30 and had left by 22:00 (why would he tell that lie in particular if he had helped murder Meredith at 23:30?), the anomalous 22:00 phone calls, the anomalous 22:13 ping and the witnesses reporting that the house was dark and silent as far as anyone could see for the rest of the night, it's pretty much a slam dunk that Massei got it wrong and Meredith was murdered more like 21:10 than 23:30.

This also fits with Dr Lalli seeing cheese (which he thought might have been mozzarella) and vegetable fibres in Meredith's stomach contents: As far as I am aware it is exceedingly improbable that such recognisable materials would be present if she had lived to 23:30. (Massei report, p115).
 
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