Continuation - Discussion of the Amanda Knox case

[Chris C]

_____________________

Speaking of monotony in the studies, this leads to a hundred more questions. For starters,... Did any of these scientific studies determine the acceleration/retardation of digestion when the subject is under the influence of cannabis? A widely used drug ---they say---among students in Perugia. Meredith included. And what about the fact that Meredith ---a couple months prior to her sad death---had traveled to a Mediterranean climate from foggy London with her tummy exposed to a different and confounding diet? (Pizza topped with Anglo-Saxon crumble cake + ice cream. How do you spell ROLAIDS?) And how many studies on digestion measured the effect of feeling "homesick"?


///

Meredith's BAC was .043 and from what I've read, she had so little drugs in her system they where unable to find any. Homesick and ROLAIDS straw man defense? How many studies on Cannabis did the prosecution enter into evidence that showed the person under the influence of Cannabis had a psychotic break? Sadly yall are still failing to see the point on stomach contents. Even Mignini understands stomach contents are reliable if you know when the person had their last meal. Instead he didn't attack the 2 to 3 hour portion of the autopsy. He attacked the Coroner's credibility. He wanted everyone to believe the coroner performed the autopsy wrong and thats why there was no food in the duodenum. Mignini very well understood that if the duodenum was empty it means the 2 to 3 hour window was correct. Massei didn't discredit the 2 to 3 hour window either. He applied it to a different time window.

 

[Kevin_Lowe]

Speaking of monotony in the studies, this leads to a hundred more questions. For starters,... Did any of these scientific studies determine the acceleration/retardation of digestion when the subject is under the influence of cannabis? A widely used drug ---they say---among students in Perugia. Meredith included. And what about the fact that Meredith ---a couple months prior to her sad death---had traveled to a Mediterranean climate from foggy London with her tummy exposed to a different and confounding diet? (Pizza topped with Anglo-Saxon crumble cake + ice cream. How do you spell ROLAIDS?) And how many studies on digestion measured the effect of feeling "homesick"?

Since when do we have the burden of proof to disprove every possible speculation you can come up with?

If you can't point to any evidence that homesickness, the phase of the moon, someone's star sign or whether they refer to showers in their emails can extend t(lag) to five hours I don't think we've got much of an obligation to prove otherwise. You could equally well speculate that the bracing Italian air and a diet heavy in tomatoes might have made Meredith grow to be four metres tall.

The prosecution's job is to prove that they did it beyond reasonable doubt. It's not the defence's job to prove that they couldn't possibly have done it beyond unreasonable doubt.

 

[Machiavelli]

We are still waiting on a study saying that a t(lag) value of 300+ minutes is plausible for a healthy young woman eating a small-to-moderate sized meal with no alcohol under relaxed conditions, which is what it would take for the Massei time of death to be correct. Ideally it would also state that identifiable cheese (possibly mozzarella) and vegetable fibres could also be present 300+ minutes after eating under such circumstances.

You have all the studies you need to conclude you don't have a solid argument, if you look for them.

 

[Machiavelli]

The prosecution's job is to prove that they did it beyond reasonable doubt. It's not the defence's job to prove that they couldn't possibly have done it beyond unreasonable doubt.

But if you bet everything on the certainity of a single argument, like the time of death set at 21:10 (which anyway won't exhonerate the defendants at all, in my opinion), you have to prove it. The defence don't have to prove innoocence. But they have to prove an argument if they want to use the certainity of that argument as their primary defensive tool.

 

[Kevin_Lowe]

Kevin, my point is whether or not the type and quantity of food would affect the rate at which digestion occurred. The studies you quoted did not duplicate Meredith's meal.

Well...since you asked, yes

Are you going to answer the question I actually asked?

What, if anything, would constitute sufficient evidence for you that Meredith died before 23:30?

 

[Chris C]

But if you bet everything on the certainity of a single argument, like the time of death set at 21:10 (which anyway won't exhonerate the defendants at all, in my opinion), you have to prove it. The defence don't have to prove innoocence. But they have to prove an argument if they want to use the certainity of that argument as their primary defensive tool.

The prosecution bet everything they had on a ToD of 2330 hrs. Without the 2330 hour ToD they lose all their witnesses. Without the 2330 hour ToD you have to start looking at the other evidence. No activity in the apartment the whole time that broken down car was there. The car that wasn't Sollecito's parked in the drive way. The eyewitness that saw Rudy running from the direction of the Apartment by himself. The testimony of Rudy that puts Meredith's ToD at 10pm or earlier. The cell phones at another location. Plus the Prosecution's ToD window is even smaller than the defenses. Its like what 5 minutes? Because meredith has to be dying right at 2330. Any later than that and you can't have the sexual assault by Rudy and dumping the phones in the garden in time for the cell tower to pick it up at that location.

 

[odeed]

odeed,

You asked, "Are you saying that Hendricks would of been found guilty, and still serving 4 life sentences (he could of been sentenced to death) if the prosecutor had a better motive?"

One cannot be certain what their reasons were because the jury does not issue a formal report in the United States. I happen to like this aspect of the Italian system, although the Massei report is far from ideal, as I have previously discussed.

These are articles I found on the Hendricks appeals

http://articles.chicagotribune.com/1988-12-22/news/8802260583_1_conviction-murders-david-hendricks

http://articles.chicagotribune.com/...four-murders-convicted-illinois-supreme-court

http://articles.chicagotribune.com/..._1_opening-arguments-murder-victims-new-trial

http://articles.chicagotribune.com/...-trial-david-hendricks-illinois-supreme-court

I also read somewhere that the forensic evidence, mainly the stomach content, was argued over for 22 days in the retrial.

and that the Judge in the original said in the last link

Circuit Judge Richard Baner, who presided over both of Hendricks` trials, noted before sentencing Hendricks after the first trial that ``based on the evidence admitted on trial against the defendant, I am not personally convinced that he has been proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.``

Baner said Friday in a radio interview that if he had been a juror in the first trial, he would have voted not guilty on the first ballot.

From the appeal in 1988,

The majority opinion said that though a variety of prosecution and defense experts testified that the victims died sometime between 8:30 p.m. Nov. 8, 1983, and 2 a.m. Nov. 9, there was ``substantial evidence`` that Hendricks left the home for a Wisconsin business trip much later than the 11 p.m. he initially told police.

So all the expert testimony on the stomach contents and there is a 6 1/2 hour window, and the prosecution experts could not convince the the jury in a second trial, or Judge Baner twice that the children were killed before 11:00 pm....

... and this case was brought up in the thread for what reason? To show that pizza takes two hours to digest?

Either you believe that pizza only takes 2 hours to digest, and Hendricks is a murderer walking free, or the contents of Kercher's stomach will not give Knox an alibi.

If it was up to some people on this thread Hendricks would have been found guilty based on a mushroom, a bell curve and numbers pulled from their duodenum, with no chance of an appeal.

 

[Kevin_Lowe]

You have all the studies you need to conclude you don't have a solid argument, if you look for them.

No you don't.

If you had such studies you would have cited them already, I am very certain of that.

But if you bet everything on the certainity of a single argument, like the time of death set at 21:10

Anything other than 23:30 destroys the Massei narrative, along with the credibility of Curatolo and Nara.

21:10 is just the icing on the cake that provides very strong evidence that they couldn't possibly have done it under any remotely plausible alternative narrative.

(which anyway won't exhonerate the defendants at all, in my opinion),

I asked you about this before and you didn't respond. Do you not acknowledge that if Meredith was not murdered at 23:30 the Massei narrative is falsified, and therefore Amanda and Raffaele were convicted based on a false theory?

How can it not exonerate you if there is no plausible way that you could have committed the crime?

you have to prove it. The defence don't have to prove innoocence. But they have to prove an argument if they want to use the certainity of that argument as their primary defensive tool.

We've proved that, I believe. You're now just reduced to claiming that because a two metre tall man was seen once, you can't rule out the possibility that a four metre tall man did it. I'm pretty comfy ruling out four metre tall men, and t(lag) times of five hours in healthy young women eating small-to-moderate sized meals with no alcohol, drugs, stress, overeating or any other relevant, known confounding factor.

Not to mention all the other reasons to put the time of death early that you keep ignoring... What about Rudy's initial statement to police that he was there from 20:30 to 22:00? Why tell that particular lie if that was not the actual time he was there?

What about the presence of identifiable cheese (possibly mozzarella) and vegetable fibre in Meredith's stomach, as explained on page 115 of the Massei report (and outright denied by guilters)?

What about the fact that Meredith's phone could not possibly have conducted the 22:13 transaction unless the killer had already left the house with it, or she was dangling it out her window at that exact moment when the message arrived?

By this stage it's not even a four metre tall man hypothesis. It's a four metre tall man who levitates and farts fairy dust. It's a choice between that and an otherwise perfectly normal two metre tall man... which do you think is more unlikely to be correct?

 

[Chris C]

These are articles I found on the Hendricks appeals

http://articles.chicagotribune.com/1988-12-22/news/8802260583_1_conviction-murders-david-hendricks

http://articles.chicagotribune.com/...four-murders-convicted-illinois-supreme-court

http://articles.chicagotribune.com/..._1_opening-arguments-murder-victims-new-trial

http://articles.chicagotribune.com/...-trial-david-hendricks-illinois-supreme-court

I also read somewhere that the forensic evidence, mainly the stomach content, was argued over for 22 days in the retrial.

and that the Judge in the original said in the last link



From the appeal in 1988,



So all the expert testimony on the stomach contents and there is a 6 1/2 hour window, and the prosecution experts could not convince the the jury in a second trial, or Judge Baner twice that the children were killed before 11:00 pm....

... and this case was brought up in the thread for what reason? To show that pizza takes two hours to digest?

Either you believe that pizza only takes 2 hours to digest, and Hendricks is a murderer walking free, or the contents of Kercher's stomach will not give Knox an alibi.

If it was up to some people on this thread Hendricks would have been found guilty based on a mushroom, a bell curve and numbers pulled from their duodenum, with no chance of an appeal.

So what your saying is you believe that someone who heard a scream and never looked to see what time it was, is more reliable than science. Of course didn't the prosecution in that case you quoted use a fake break in also and failed to identify finger prints. Hmmm. The prosecution in the knox case uses a fake break in theory, and doesn't even attempt to identify the unidentified dna samples. Nor do they bother with testing a possible semen stain in a sexual assault/murder case.

Does not refusing to test a possible semen stain raise reasonable doubt in the sexual assault part of the case.
Refusing to hand over the dna data files to show proof that the dna results are even accurate. You dont believe that is reasonable doubt. Refusing to hand over evidence means you have something to hide.

Was there food found in the victims duodenum in the case you linked? If so, then that case doesn't apply to this one. The problem with the stomach contents in the Kercher murder case is the extreme amount of time the food in Meredith's stomach remained without the stomach starting to empty. According to the prosecution for knox/sollecito to have murdered meredith. Meredith's stomach would have had to not digest pizza completely for over 5 hours and not started the stomach emptying portion of digestion. Thats an extreme number that I have yet to see a guilter post where it takes over 5 hours before the stomach starts to empty.

 

[Kevin_Lowe]

Either you believe that pizza only takes 2 hours to digest, and Hendricks is a murderer walking free, or the contents of Kercher's stomach will not give Knox an alibi.

If it was up to some people on this thread Hendricks would have been found guilty based on a mushroom, a bell curve and numbers pulled from their duodenum, with no chance of an appeal.

He could be a murderer walking free. Such things have happened, so it's not exactly as if we're speculating about the existence of a four metre man or a t(lag) of five hours in healthy young women eating small-to-moderate sized meals with no alcohol, drugs, stress, overeating or any other relevant, known confounding factor or something silly like that.

On the other hand there could be other factors we aren't aware of informing the Supreme Court's decision: As far as I can tell they concluded that the lower court failed to prove beyond reasonable doubt Hendricks did it, and that's not the same thing as failing to prove beyond reasonable doubt that the victims died before 2am or whenever. It could be that the court thinks the victims died earlier in the night and that Hendricks lied about where he was and what he was doing, but that they didn't think those two factors proved beyond reasonable doubt that he did it.

Bear in mind also that the burden of proof is much, much higher to convict than to exonerate. The defence in the Kercher should merely have to show that it's possible that Meredith died at 21:10 to secure an acquittal. We're demonstrating that it's certain she died at an earlier time because we're like that here at the JREF forums, and because it's more fun to do that than to merely establish sufficient doubt to justify overturning the conviction.

In an important sense if the guilters are forced to argue that it's just barely conceivable Meredith died at 23:30, then we've already won. Really the guilters need to show that it's true beyond reasonable doubt that she died at 23:30 if they want to sustain a case, and none of them are even trying that any more.

At this stage we've already got the ball well over the goal line. Now we're just seeing how far we can dribble it out of the oval and down the road for giggles.

Since even the PMF crowd is now at the stage where they have admitted in their own forums that even a 21:10 time of death is a stretch based on every study they have found, the ball is now well and truly over the line on their own carefully-protected playing field. When they realise that, it's going to be hilarious.

 

[Chris C]

He could be a murderer walking free. Such things have happened, so it's not exactly as if we're speculating about the existence of a four metre man or a t(lag) of five hours in healthy young women eating small-to-moderate sized meals with no alcohol, drugs, stress, overeating or any other relevant, known confounding factor or something silly like that.

On the other hand there could be other factors we aren't aware of informing the Supreme Court's decision: As far as I can tell they concluded that the lower court failed to prove beyond reasonable doubt Hendricks did it, and that's not the same thing as failing to prove beyond reasonable doubt that the victims died before 2am or whenever. It could be that the court thinks the victims died earlier in the night and that Hendricks lied about where he was and what he was doing, but that they didn't think those two factors proved beyond reasonable doubt that he did it.

Bear in mind also that the burden of proof is much, much higher to convict than to exonerate. The defence in the Kercher should merely have to show that it's possible that Meredith died at 21:10 to secure an acquittal. We're demonstrating that it's certain she died at an earlier time because we're like that here at the JREF forums, and because it's more fun to do that than to merely establish sufficient doubt to justify overturning the conviction.

In an important sense if the guilters are forced to argue that it's just barely conceivable Meredith died at 23:30, then we've already won. Really the guilters need to show that it's true beyond reasonable doubt that she died at 23:30 if they want to sustain a case, and none of them are even trying that any more.

At this stage we've already got the ball well over the goal line. Now we're just seeing how far we can dribble it out of the oval and down the road for giggles.

Since even the PMF crowd is now at the stage where they have admitted in their own forums that even a 21:10 time of death is a stretch based on every study they have found, the ball is now well through the net on their own carefully-protected playing field. When they realise that, it's going to be hilarious.

/agreed

If mignini had a case to convict Knox/Sollecito before 2330 then why didn't he. He could have very easily used, the stomach contents, the body temperature, rudy's testimony that meredith died around 2200 and he left soon after that and the window was broken after he fled, the cell phones in transit to another location, and the supposed no alibi after 21:10. The supposed double dna knife. Sollecito's suppose dna on the bra clasp. He could have used all that. Why does the Prosecution need a ToD of 2330. The only logical conclusion is there is actual evidence that proves Sollecito/Knox couldn't have done it sooner. Thus he needed to force the issue of a later ToD.
For instance the defense couldn't prove they had an alibi at 2330 so what good does it do for them to prove where they are at around 2200 hrs. However, when massei opens the door for a possible earlier death, the defense starts talking about the Naruto. Why is that? Probably because there is evidence to contradict an earlier ToD that the court doesn't know about since the whole trial was about the 2330 hrs ToD and the scream.

 

[Kevin_Lowe]

/agreed

If mignini had a case to covict Knox/Sollecito before 2330 then why didn't he. He could have very easily used, the stomach contents, the body temperature, rudy's testimony that meredith died around 2200 and he left soon after that and the window was broken after he fled, the cell phones in transit to another location, and the supposed no alibi after 21:10. The supposed double dna knife. Sollecito's suppose dna on the bra clasp. He could have used all that. Why does the Prosecution need a ToD of 2330. The only logical conclusion is there is actual evidence that proves Sollecito/Knox couldn't have done it sooner. Thus he needed to force the issue of a later ToD.

That was exactly the problem. Lacking any evidence of premeditation, and relying on the testimony of people like Nara and Curatolo to get Amanda and Raffaele out of the house in the first place, Mignini was stuck moving his "exotic sex gone wrong" fantasy back to after the witnesses around the broken-down car had pushed off so there was no one to say for certain that the house was still dark and silent.

 

[Charlie Wilkes]

But if you bet everything on the certainity of a single argument, like the time of death set at 21:10 (which anyway won't exhonerate the defendants at all, in my opinion), you have to prove it. The defence don't have to prove innoocence. But they have to prove an argument if they want to use the certainity of that argument as their primary defensive tool.

Bah. What has the prosecution proved in this case? Have they established a motive for why Amanda and Raffaele would team up with Guede to commit murder? No.

What about the knife - have they proved it is the murder weapon? No. Is there an alternative explanation that is more likely? Yes.

What about the bra fastener - have they proved Raffaele's DNA was left there in connection with the murder? No. Is there a more plausible explanation? Yes.

What about the luminol footprints? Has the prosecution proved they were made with Meredith's blood? No. Is there a more plausible explanation? Yes - they all tested negative for Meredith's DNA, and they all tested negative for blood, so they could hardly have been Meredith's blood.

The prosecution in this case has proved absolutely nothing of substance. It is all smoke and mirrors.

 

[Charlie Wilkes]

He could be a murderer walking free.

I have no doubt he did it. Who else would have done it? This is a textbook example of a type of homicide that has many precedents, including John List and Jeffrey MacDonald, who remained free for many years before he was finally convicted.

 

[Trigood]

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.

"Ha ha" indeed. I am glad discussing the despicable murder of a young girl is so amusing to you. But I will overlook that for now.

As for the abstract you linked to, one point that jumps out at me is:

Results:  The mean ± SD of half gastric emptying time (T1/2) of a fluid test meal was determined to be 80.5 ± 22.1 min and for Tlag to be 40.3 ± 10.2 min. However, the T1/2 and Tlag of solid meals did not fit to normal distribution and thus median and percentiles were determined. The median time of T1/2 for solids was 127 min (25–75% percentiles: 112.0–168.3 min) and 81.5 min for Tlag (25–75% percentiles: 65.5–102.0 min).

Yet, your whole argument is predicated on normal distribution. How do you justify that?

And as others have argued here, this was apparently a carefully controlled experiment (although it's hard to tell from just the abstract), with carefully controlled amounts and conditions of eating.

In real life, people eat more (or less) than in an experiment.

How much was eaten in this experiment? I cannot determine that just from the abstract.

Frankly, I find this subject difficult to research as a layperson with a scientific background, because I do not have easy access to more than medical abstracts. MEDline is too expensive for me to subscribe to.

So, please enlighten us with a real argument based on more than just a bare-bones abstract about one 90-person experiment (only 45 women!), eating under controlled conditions, when Meredith was a real person eating under real conditions (probably greater amount, a different type of food probably, and an extended eating period consisting of three main sub-meals: pizza, ice cream, and apple crumble, spread over 2.5 hours, and even possibly followed by another mini-meal of mushrooms and a small glass of beer or wine).

I supplied an abstract which said that you can't use stomach contents alone to determine time of death. I repeat it here:

Am J Forensic Med Pathol. 1989 Mar;10(1):37-41.
Stomach contents and the time of death. Reexamination of a persistent question.

Jaffe FA.

Forensic Pathology Branch, Department of the Solicitor General, Province of Ontario, Toronto, Canada.

Comment in:

* Am J Forensic Med Pathol. 1989 Sep;10(3):271-2.

Abstract

The inspection of the contents of the stomach must be part of every postmortem examination because it may provide qualitative information concerning the nature of the last meal and the presence of abnormal constituents. Using it as a guide to the time of death, however, is theoretically unsound and presents many practical difficulties, although it may have limited applicability in some exceptional instances. Generally, using stomach contents as a guide to time of death involves an unacceptable degree of imprecision and is thus liable to mislead the investigator and the court. [emphasis added]

PMID: 2929541 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]

Did you ever find a reference that refuted Jaffe? I can't remember.

As for the duodenum being empty, Dr. Ronchi said the following (pp 178-9 PMF English Translation of the Massei Report):

Besides this, the alimentary remnants in the small intestine must also be considered, and thus, as hypothesised by Professor Umani Ronchi, it would be possible to think that these remnants could have been found in the duodenum either because of an imperfect apposition of the ligatures, or because of an apposition of the ligatures that took place with such manner and timing as to make it impossible to avoid a sliding of material from the duodenum to the small intestine. The fact [that the] duodenum [is] empty is not [necessarily] fully reliable.

Thus, we are talking of a possible partial emptying of the stomach before time of death.

Regardless, the time of death argument is not critical to the argument for Knox/Sollecito's guilt. They have no alibi from 8:40 pm onward. The computer activity at 9:10 may not have even required human interaction. They certainly have no alibi after about 10 pm if you consider Curatolo their alibi (funny how he's considered reliable by Innocenti when it's convenient for them, and a "bum" that "lies for the police" when that's convenient for them).

Their sole alibi is the girl who wanted to go to the airport. After that, they're each other's alibis. And I don't even remember Sollecito alibi-ing Knox on the stand. Maybe I missed something.

In other words, say they killed Meredith before 10:30 (even though I still don't believe it, because of other evidence). So what. Works for me!

 

[Kevin_Lowe]

"Ha ha" indeed. I am glad discussing the despicable murder of a young girl is so amusing to you. But I will overlook that for now.

As for the abstract you linked to, one point that jumps out at me is:

Yet, your whole argument is predicated on normal distribution. How do you justify that?

This is a fair point: Unless other studies do show something resembling a normal distribution, the calculated probabilities are not precise.

And as others have argued here, this was apparently a carefully controlled experiment (although it's hard to tell from just the abstract), with carefully controlled amounts and conditions of eating.

In real life, people eat more (or less) than in an experiment.

How much was eaten in this experiment? I cannot determine that just from the abstract.

Frankly, I find this subject difficult to research as a layperson with a scientific background, because I do not have easy access to more than medical abstracts. MEDline is too expensive for me to subscribe to.

So, please enlighten us with a real argument based on more than just a bare-bones abstract about one 90-person experiment (only 45 women!), eating under controlled conditions, when Meredith was a real person eating under real conditions (probably greater amount, a different type of food probably, and an extended eating period consisting of three main sub-meals: pizza, ice cream, and apple crumble, spread over 2.5 hours, and even possibly followed by another mini-meal of mushrooms and a small glass of beer or wine).

This is akin to saying "Everyone in your study ended up being between one and two metres tall... but we know that all sorts of things affect height. I think a four metre tall guy did it".

I supplied an abstract which said that you can't use stomach contents alone to determine time of death. I repeat it here:

Did you ever find a reference that refuted Jaffe? I can't remember.

You can't remember? I'm near speechless.

Jaffe refutes Jaffe if you actually read the damned paper instead of relying on argument-by-cherry-picked-bit-of-abstract. I seem to recall someone, I can't quite put my finger on who it was, railing about the foolishness of trying to argue based only on abstracts...

I told you that when you last tried this move, as I told SherlockHolmes when he tried exactly the same move with exactly the same paper before you. Do I need to link you to the exact post?

Paragraphs seven through twelve of the discussion section specifically discuss cases where stomach contents evidence can be used to rule out times of death beyond a certain point based on whether or not stomach contents have begun moving into the duodenum and points beyond.

As for the duodenum being empty, Dr. Ronchi said the following (pp 178-9 PMF English Translation of the Massei Report):

Thus, we are talking of a possible partial emptying of the stomach before time of death.

We've already discussed this too. It would really behoove you to either do your homework, or adopt a more cautious tone because absolutely nothing you are coming up with is new.

Our information is that the autopsy videos clearly show Dr Lalli tying off the digestive system at multiple points, including the duodenum, as is standard practice. The idea that Dr Lalli somehow manually squeezed all of the matter in Meredith's duodenum to the very end of her bowel is ludicrous.

This is a Hail Mary argument from Ronchi, who is well aware that if there was nothing Meredith's duodenum then she didn't die at 23:30. It is nothing but speculation and if Massei or Ronchi had exercised due diligence it would never have made it into the Massei report (and justifying a 23:30 time of death in that document would have immediately become very difficult indeed).

Regardless, the time of death argument is not critical to the argument for Knox/Sollecito's guilt. They have no alibi from 8:40 pm onward. The computer activity at 9:10 may not have even required human interaction.

This too is pure speculation. Since this was not a premeditated crime, and there is absolutely no evidence that the computer activity from 21:10 onwards was not human activity, there is no reason at all to think this speculation is plausible.

In any case, do you think Mignini and Massei put the time of death at 23:30 for fun? No earlier time makes sense of the witness statements they relied on to justify the conviction in the first place, and the inconvenient witnesses surrounding the car breakdown.

They certainly have no alibi after about 10 pm if you consider Curatolo their alibi (funny how he's considered reliable by Innocenti when it's convenient for them, and a "bum" that "lies for the police" when that's convenient for them).

I have made it abundantly clear in the past that I think it most probable that Curatolo perjured himself on behalf of the police and that I give his evidence no credence whatsoever. This "funny" observation is completely false as you know if you have been following the thread.

The only people caught in a contradiction are people who want Curatolo to be reliable and also want Amanda and Raffaele to have murdered Meredith at 21:10.

In other words, say they killed Meredith before 10:30 (even though I still don't believe it, because of other evidence). So what. Works for me!

It works for you that they were convicted on a story that couldn't possibly be true?

That's pretty messed up right there.

 

[Fine]

Hark! Kevin's Victory Parade

He could be a murderer walking free. Such things have happened, so it's not exactly as if we're speculating about the existence of a four metre man or a t(lag) of five hours in healthy young women eating small-to-moderate sized meals with no alcohol, drugs, stress, overeating or any other relevant, known confounding factor or something silly like that.

On the other hand there could be other factors we aren't aware of informing the Supreme Court's decision: As far as I can tell they concluded that the lower court failed to prove beyond reasonable doubt Hendricks did it, and that's not the same thing as failing to prove beyond reasonable doubt that the victims died before 2am or whenever. It could be that the court thinks the victims died earlier in the night and that Hendricks lied about where he was and what he was doing, but that they didn't think those two factors proved beyond reasonable doubt that he did it.

Bear in mind also that the burden of proof is much, much higher to convict than to exonerate. The defence in the Kercher should merely have to show that it's possible that Meredith died at 21:10 to secure an acquittal. We're demonstrating that it's certain she died at an earlier time because we're like that here at the JREF forums, and because it's more fun to do that than to merely establish sufficient doubt to justify overturning the conviction.
In an important sense if the guilters are forced to argue that it's just barely conceivable Meredith died at 23:30, then we've already won. Really the guilters need to show that it's true beyond reasonable doubt that she died at 23:30 if they want to sustain a case, and none of them are even trying that any more.

At this stage we've already got the ball well over the goal line. Now we're just seeing how far we can dribble it out of the oval and down the road for giggles.

Since even the PMF crowd is now at the stage where they have admitted in their own forums that even a 21:10 time of death is a stretch based on every study they have found, the ball is now well and truly over the line on their own carefully-protected playing field. When they realise that, it's going to be hilarious.

_____________________

Kevin, your demonstration is akin to the evacuated glass jar in the laboratory---and the carnival--- where the stone and the feather both fall at the same rate. And, then, you call that a proof of how objects fall, or how the crumble crumbles. All very scientific. A triumph, won by using artificial, homogeneous, insulated studies which exclude those nasty real life factors (those which Machiavelli and I mentioned, and you find irrelevant to the discussion). Still wondering,... did they find ROLAIDS in Meredith's purse?

///

 

[Kevin_Lowe]

Kevin, your demonstration is akin to the evacuated glass jar in the laboratory---and the carnival--- where the stone and the feather both fall at the same rate. And, then, you call that a proof of how objects fall, or how the crumble crumbles. All very scientific. A triumph, won by using artificial, homogeneous, insulated studies which exclude those nasty real life factors (those which Machiavelli and I mentioned, and you find irrelevant to the discussion). Still wondering,... did they find ROLAIDS in Meredith's purse?

I'm pretty sure that's not a valid parallel.

What features of the controlled studies we have discussed seem to you to be analogous to an evacuated chamber?

If anything I think the guilters are trying to argue that because a feather can just conceivably fall at free-fall speed under very specific conditions, that it therefore might fall faster than free-fall when released in an Earth-normal atmosphere.

 

[Chris C]

_____________________

Kevin, your demonstration is akin to the evacuated glass jar in the laboratory---and the carnival--- where the stone and the feather both fall at the same rate. And, then, you call that a proof of how objects fall, or how the crumble crumbles. All very scientific. A triumph, won by using artificial, homogeneous, insulated studies which exclude those nasty real life factors (those which Machiavelli and I mentioned, and you find irrelevant to the discussion). Still wondering,... did they find ROLAIDS in Meredith's purse?

///

The fact that you are trying to use ROLAIDS as a way of increasing the time it takes for food to digest in the stomach means you have come to accept the 2 to 3 hours that the coroner determined. Your throwing BB's at a battleship hoping to sink it.

Its ok we understand. You keep reading article after article trying to find out how Meredith could have lived 5+ hours after eating and her Duodenum still be empty. After each article you get hope, maybe just maybe it was rolaids, or she had some kind of genetic defect that caused her body to digest slower than other peoples, or maybe she did so much drugs that it slowed, or maybe it was PMS, or maybe it was low humidity, or maybe it was high humidity, or maybe it was the fog. Eventually you will finally come to an understanding that Amanda deserves to be in prison because you dont like her.

 

[katy_did]

As for the duodenum being empty, Dr. Ronchi said the following (pp 178-9 PMF English Translation of the Massei Report):

Thus, we are talking of a possible partial emptying of the stomach before time of death.

No, Ronchi didn't say that; that's just a bit of distortion from Massei. What Ronchi did was to base his observations on the assumption ligatures were not made, which would (so his argument goes) have allowed food to pass from the duodenum through 5 metres of the small intestine. But Massei knew ligatures had been made, because the film of the autopsy was shown in Court. So what he does instead is to speculate about "an imperfect appositioning of the ligatures", something for which he has no evidence, and then attributes that argument falsely to Ronchi.