Continuation - Discussion of the Amanda Knox case

[katy_did]

Anyway, she died when she died. Which was after 2300, according to the very credible testimony of Nara Capezzali, which was accepted by 2 professional and 6 lay judges in the very competent Perugia Court of Assizes.

You realize that, as another poster said earlier, you're using Nara Capezzali's bladder to determine time of death here? The sole reason for Massei placing 'the scream' at 23:30 is that Capezzali was taking medication which she says usually made her go to the toilet a couple of hours after she'd taken it. She didn't look at a clock; heck, maybe she was only asleep five minutes (if you wake up in the middle of the night, how accurate is your estimate of what time it is likely to be?).

And while there has been plenty of citation from research papers on gastric emptying times, I have yet to see a research paper on Nara Capezzali's bladder. But maybe one'll turn up.

 

[katy_did]

_________________

One piece of the forensic evidence for Meredith being moved after her death is this: In a pool of blood on the floor there was found an impression of Meredith's shoulder and bra strap. It was concluded that the blood must have been somewhat coagulated for said impression to form, and so Meredith had died. Meredith---and her bra---were moved some time after the impression was formed, therefore after her death.

It isn't clear to me that Massei's reconstruction of the dynamics of the assault is inconsistent with Meredith's body being moved after death. Perhaps Massei regarded the impression to be ambiguous. Maybe not.

///

Massei's reconstruction of the dynamics of the assault isn't inconsistent with the Easter bunny standing in the corner of the room, watching. Perhaps he intended to be ambiguous about it. Perhaps not.

 

[Sherlock Holmes]

Still using stomach contents to determine TOD, I see, Lo-J.

Well, I guess it's a free country.

But I guess the fact that real pathologists would never do so doesn't seem to trouble you at all? Hmm?

Fake statistics aside, who's to say (even if your calcs are correct, which is highly unlikely; for example you have cited no evidence to support your t(lag) value or anything else) that Meredith was not one of the 5 in 2000 you posit?

And no, the "probability" of her being in that group is not 5 in 2000, or 5 in 2 million.

She was who she was. She had the digestive tract she had. You cannot know anything about it from your fake statistical analyses.

Anyway, she died when she died. Which was after 2300, according to the very credible testimony of Nara Capezzali, which was accepted by 2 professional and 6 lay judges in the very competent Perugia Court of Assizes.

Yes, this baby has been put to rest many times already and only a few continue to keep bringing it up. I am fully aware that they themselves know what we say is true, they just wish to argue it over and over, they is no way in the world they have not come across it multiple times themselves....

 

[Mary_H]

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

AMEN, DD!

Unfortunately, the hierarchy of the Catholic Church are very big fans of the adage, "The end justifies the means," which roughly translates to, "We can sin as much as we want as long as we think it protects the institution of the church." I perceive that Mignini feels the same way about the institution of the legal system in Perugia and his own reputation. I'm not sure he could tell the truth even if Jesus Christ himself made the request.

 

[Justinian2]

I deleted portions of the following quote as they weren't needed for my analysis:

It seems that here and elsewhere, some people are unable to grasp the concept of normal distribution as it applies to stomach emptying. I will now attempt to help by explaining how the known research evidence relates to the known evidence from the Kercher case.

Firstly, this is a normal distribution curve:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:PR_and_NCE.gif

Now, how does this relate to T(lag) values. Well, experimental data suggest that the mean/median time for T(lag) is 82 minutes. So the 50% mark is at 82minutes.

In addition, experimental data show that the 75% mark lies at 102 minutes. In other words, 75% of the experimental subjects had a T(lag) of less than 102 minutes - or, put the other way, 25% of subjects had a T(lag) of more than 102 minutes.

If we do this, we find that the 95% mark lies at around t=130. In other words, only 5% of people have a T(lag) of greater than 130 minutes (2 hours and 10 minutes).

The clock starts when Meredith started her final pizza meal. For the sake of argument, let's say that she started that meal at 18.30.

Great curve and analysis. I think there must be a simpler way to state the results.

Assume that the stab to the neck at 9:10 stopped digestion:

T=130 (2 hrs, 10 min) 95% likely: Stabbed in neck at 9:10, meal at 7:00.
T=102 (1 hr, 42 min) 75% likely: Stabbed in neck at 9:10, meal at 7:28.
T=82 (1 hr, 22 min) 50% likely: Stabbed in neck at 9:10, meal at 7:48.

Or, assuming the meal was at 7:48
T=130 (2 hrs, 10 min) 95% likely: Meal at 7:48, Stabbed in neck before 9:58.
T=102 (1 hr, 42 min) 75% likely: Meal at 7:48, Stabbed in neck before 9:30.
T=82 (1 hr, 22 min) 50% likely: Meal at 7:48, Stabbed in neck before 9:10.

 

[Justinian2]

So prove that the meal was before the given times and the likely Tod moves closer to 9:00. AK and RS have an alibi. Couple the alibi to the lack of valid evidence, and AK and RS are certainly innocent as per data and facts given in the Massie report.

There is testimony that the meal was eaten at 6:30?

 

[katy_did]

One thing about the time of death issue, I don't think it's necessary that Meredith was killed at 21:10 or even before 21:30, because as we've seen, stress and shock can slow digestion. It's only necessary that she was attacked around that time. Personally I think that's more likely, and that the time of death was between 21:30-22:00, because I can't see why Rudy would've hung around for almost an hour after she'd died. Around 21:00 does seem a very likely time for the start of the attack, though.

It makes no difference in terms of Knox and Sollecito's guilt/innocence, since either way they couldn't have been there at that time, but the slightly later time of death seems to me to fit the facts a bit better, and not to contradict the evidence of the stomach contents.

 

[Trigood]

You realize that, as another poster said earlier, you're using Nara Capezzali's bladder to determine time of death here? The sole reason for Massei placing 'the scream' at 23:30 is that Capezzali was taking medication which she says usually made her go to the toilet a couple of hours after she'd taken it. She didn't look at a clock; heck, maybe she was only asleep five minutes (if you wake up in the middle of the night, how accurate is your estimate of what time it is likely to be?).

The court believed her testimony, including approximate time of awakening. I think most people can tell, when they wake up in the middle of the night, whether they've been asleep 5 minutes versus 1-2 hours.

She then remained up, having to drink tea to calm herself down from the fright of the scream. I think at that time, she would have realized if it was only 5 minutes after she fell asleep, and would have testified to such. She didn't.

And while there has been plenty of citation from research papers on gastric emptying times, I have yet to see a research paper on Nara Capezzali's bladder. But maybe one'll turn up.

Antonella Monacchia and witness Maria Dramis corroborated the time. Monacchia went to bed at 10 pm and woke up some time later, hearing arguing and the same scream Nara heard. Although she doesn't give a time, she says it was "late," implying it was not just 5 minutes after she fell asleep. Again, one can tell how long one has been asleep in the sense of differentiating 5-10 minutes from an hour or more (at least I can, and I think most people can).

In the cast of witness Dramis, we have a time record: the end of a movie, which she watched with her sister. She then testified she went to bed at 11:30, and heard the same running footsteps on the iron steps that Capezzali heard shortly thereafter.

The court believed these witnesses as credible. That may not be "evidence" in your book, but in most civilized societies, court decisions are honored unless strong evidence to contradict them is found. Where is yours?

 

[Trigood]

Capezzali's testimony has been pretty conclusively demolished here on this forum in recent days. Please do not attempt to argue from authority using the court's decision on this forum.

And please do not argue from this forum's authority. Point me to specific evidence, please. Or at least the "demolishing" posts.

 

[lane99]

Man I'm good!

The often-maligned google came up trumps again, and I was triumphantly proven right! He said this exact line to the saucy French guest Mrs Peignoir in the "Wedding Party" episode:

http://movie.subtitlr.com/subtitle/show/109085

Now back to using google for more pertinent scientific research........

Hey, nice work. So, "Gowen" it is, and was said. I'll keep this in my back pocket and try to use it to win a bar bet someday.

 

[odeed]

Haha OK. You continue to believe what you choose to believe, and I will believe what I (and medical science) choose to believe. Fair enough.

The studies behind T(lag) variation have been posted on here many times before. But if you can't be bothered to look for them yourself, here's one to whet your appetite:

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1440-1746.2006.04449.x/abstract

Let me know if you'd like me to point out the relevant parts to you.

You do realise that the size of the meal would have an effect on the times you quote from, for a larger meal T[1/2] would be greater as would T[lag].

Also T[1/2] is the time for half the stomach contents to empty and T[lag] is the time after T[1/2] for the stomach to completely empty, so the total time would be T[1/2]+T[lag] ~ 208 minutes (roughly 3 1/2 hours) according to that study.

But your calculations are further irrelevant without knowing how much Meredith Kercher had eaten.

 

[Chris_Halkides]

How much trust should we put into the court's reasoning

Trigood,

I have discussed the court's reasoning with respect to the six disputed loci in Raffaele's DNA profile on the bra clasp previously. I strongly doubt any forensic geneticist in the world would care to defend Massei's reasoning on one point. That does not mean that the court got everything wrong, but it does call for heightened skepticism of its other arguments, IMO.

With respect the TOD, the unexplained cell phone activity at 10 and the call to a different cell tower at 10:13 are enough to persuade me that Meredith was dead before 10, even before the stomach contents are brought into the mix. With respect to the latter, RoseMontague made an excellent comment earlier that showed that Massei is out of step with respect to the other judges.

 

[Chris_Halkides]

Hendricks' retrial

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?

Odeed,

He was acquitted. His attorney was able to exclude material relating to motive in the retrial as being prejudicial. Hmm.....

 

[lane99]

I had been assuming there was at least some potentially concrete evidence to put the time of death past 11pm. And that the tenuous ear-witness testimony was intended to be the featherweight that supposedly tipped the balance.

If something as flimsy as the elderly lady's story is intended to be the very *foundation* of the prosecution's assertion about time of death, that is simply another reason that sensible people will doubt the legitimacy of a guilty verdict in this case.

 

[Katody Matrass]

Yes, this baby has been put to rest many times already and only a few continue to keep bringing it up. I am fully aware that they themselves know what we say is true, they just wish to argue it over and over, they is no way in the world they have not come across it multiple times themselves....

And what is it that you say? Got an alternative explanation for the empty duodenum?

 

[odeed]

Odeed,

He was acquitted. His attorney was able to exclude material relating to motive in the retrial as being prejudicial. Hmm.....

And the only physical evidence against him was the stomach contents of his children, which was said to show that they died at 9:30pm which demolished his alibi in the first trial, but he was still acquited in the second. Hmm.....

 

[Antony]

(msg #8103, p203)
I think Meredith's situation is a bit more concerning, don't you?

I find it frankly disgusting that the guilty-regardless-of-facts crew should try to twist Meredith's tragedy to support their bankrupt arguments. As though it's not enough that she was raped and murdered (possibly not in that order), one of her closest friends is then wrongly accused and convicted in a crude manipulation of a trial, along with another completely innocent young person.

Then, not satisfied with ruining the lives of Amanda and Raffaele for no reason, there is this vindictive twist, clearly aimed at intimidating anyone in the future who has the misfortune of finding him or herself alone in a room, surrounded by Perugia police.

It's a complete fallacy to play off Meredith's misfortune against Amanda and Raffaele's, because their situation is tied up with hers. Doing so in an attempt to shore up empty accusations against them is simply moral blackmail.

Of course I am aware that the Kercher family have accepted the verdict of the trial and have sought damages against Amanda, but it is hard to criticise them for going along with the travesty. No doubt the details of the tragedy are too painful for them to want to seek the truth behind the flawed trial, but the guilter community have no such excuse. When the truth does come out, maybe even the Kercher family will see how badly they have been betrayed and deceived by the Perugia police and courts.

 

[Chris_Halkides]

Halides, speaking of answering questions, there are some great ones posed by Michael, Fiona, and others on page 19 over at PMF. They also pointed out some inconsistencies in some of the arguments here. I don't know who is right or wrong in those arguments, but what they said sounds reasonable. If this is against any rules here, please ignore this request, thank you

Solange305,

They use a good deal of salty language over at this site, which I find disturbing. Feel free to summarize their arguments in your own words, however (I don't see how that would run afoul of the rules here).

 

[Fuji]

I've been quite unimpressed with both the defence and the prosecution(s) in this case. Both have conspicuously failed to join some fairly obvious dots at times.

If you think about it for a moment, there's simply no way Meredith could have eaten at 19:00, then looked at photos, then watched a 123 minute movie, with a break for apple crumble, and left at 20:45, or even 21:00 as originally claimed. I mean, unless you think she had a TARDIS or something we can be pretty goddamned sure that didn't happen.

If the defence say it did, then they're just plain wrong on that point. A primary school child could do the math on that one.

I realise that it's a guilter trope to hold up both the defence and prosecution as infallible or nigh-infallible sources of truth, so that when all else fails you can shout "But the court found that she did it so she must have done it!". But really in this case I don't think you can sell it. The defence on this point just plain dropped the ball, and anyone who can do sums can prove it for themselves.

It's refreshing to see a bit of humility in this thread. As I am satisfied that the verdict reached in the first trial is the correct one, I will not be the "anyone" who illuminates the errors of the defense attorneys. However, as you are one who is demonstrably opposed to said verdict, I think that it is incumbent upon you to correct these errors. Mind you - this is not merely idle academic speculation. Knox's and Sollecito's appeal trial will be beginning in a matter of weeks. The matter of their ongoing incarceration is an uncertain affair. You should contact their legal representatives with all due haste.

Of generous mood this evening, I have done the work for you of locating their respective contact numbers:

Luciano Ghirga - (39)755732555
Giulia Bongiorno - (39)668891168

If they refuse to heed your counsel, you may have to directly prevail upon Ms. Knox and Mr. Sollecito. I do not have ready access to their contact information, but I am reasonably sure that Bruce or Charlie could provide that for you.

Please report back to us on your progress.



"The greatest way to live with honor in this world is to be what we pretend to be." - Socrates

 

[LondonJohn]

You do realise that the size of the meal would have an effect on the times you quote from, for a larger meal T[1/2] would be greater as would T[lag].

Also T[1/2] is the time for half the stomach contents to empty and T[lag] is the time after T[1/2] for the stomach to completely empty, so the total time would be T[1/2]+T[lag] ~ 208 minutes (roughly 3 1/2 hours) according to that study.

But your calculations are further irrelevant without knowing how much Meredith Kercher had eaten.

No, you don't understand what T(lag) actually is. T(lag) is actually measured medically as the time when the stomach contents are emptying at the maximum rate. This typically happens (or at least is measurable) at the very beginning of stomach emptying, and some academic studies prefer to refer to it by proxy as the time when 10% of the stomach's contents have left the stomach. This is because gastric studies typically use a number of radioactive markers mixed in with the food ingested, and T(lag) is recorded when the first radioactive marker is seen in the duodenum.

So I'm not sure where you got the idea that T(1/2) and T(lag) ought to be added together to get total stomach emptying time. And I'm then not sure why you think that total stomach emptying time has any relevance to the Kercher case anyhow: in fact quite the reverse is true, since none of Meredith's pizza meal had yet left her stomach.

Lastly, it's well established that Meredith ate only a small-to-moderate sized amount of pizza. The small amount of apple crumble which she probably consumed at around 7.45-8.15pm would have had no impact upon the T9lag) time of the earlier pizza meal, owing to the modular separation of the human stomach.

If you have any other questions that you'd like answered, I'll be happy to help if I can.