Continuation - Discussion of the Amanda Knox case

[Kevin_Lowe]

You could object the bra clasp and the bathmat print each one indepentently on grounds which I don't subscribe with, but you should not lable mine as circular reasoning, because it is not: my assessment on the lies hampering the investigation is based, just like the other points, on independend grounds.

You claim that this is not circular reasoning, but then you cite reasons you think Amanda is guilty as reasons to believe she was lying to hamper the investigation. This is still circular.

I don't dismiss the chance that Amanda's confession could be internalized confession because I already think she is guilty, I dismiss this option instead only on the the basis of the analysis of Amanda's declaration itself.

Curious, seeing as it has the hallmarks of an internalised false statement (vagueness, questions as to its reality, immediate retraction, total failure to demonstrate any knowledge of the crime beyond what she had been fed by police) and was produced under conditions conducive to internalised false statements.

As I have said before, either it was an internalised false statement or Amanda knew exactly what one was supposed to be like and faked it. Given that this would be areally dumb thing to do and in addition that there is absolutely no evidence Amanda knew about internalised false statements, I think this is not a strong hypothesis.

Just like DNA analysis and footprint measurements.

Haven't we spent the last few pages whacking those moles again?

Moreover, my assessment is that there is evidence that the footprints in tha hallway are in blood

...and that one... (They tested negative, although the prosecution tried to conceal this).

and that there is evidence of a cleanup.

...and that one... (There is no hard evidence of a cleanup, and Massei's arguments for a cleanup are unfounded speculation passed off as logic).

There is also the relevant factor of the absence of an alternative lone-perpetrator scenario to explain the physical findings (especially related to the bloody bathmat print).

...and that one... (The footprint is compatible with Rudy's and he admitted going in to the bathroom).

I also think there is evidence of a staged burglary in Filomena's room, particularly because of accumupation of phisical findings: the unopened drawers, the position of the stone and the broken bag on top of clothes scattered around, the absence of soil and grass inside, the reported absence of prints outside and of soil/grass marks on the wall, the presence of a total number of four stones, the presence of crumble of white paint from the shutter (not white plaster powder) on top of clothes, the testimony of Filomena about glasses on top of items, the presence of unknown shoeprints on paper sheets that were also found (identical shoe) in Meredith's room, the presence of two spots with luminol enhanced stains yielding a mixed profile Amanda/Meredith and zero DNA of Rudy in the room or in tha bathroom...

Since Filomena also testified that there was glass under her clothes (guilter amnesia seems to suppress that memory) that's a grand total of zero points of hard evidence supporting a staged break-in. The rest is just completely unfounded speculation about what you think it would "really" look like if Rudy broke in by throwing a rock through the window.

 

[Machiavelli]

Machiavelli, I want to thank you (sincerely) for clarifying the literal meaning of Amanda's text message. "ci vediamo piu tardi" does equate to the English saying of "see you soon" with the intention of seeing that person the same day. However, since we know Amanda did not and could not have meant it to mean this and that LE did take it to mean she was going to meet someone that night, it reinforces my belief that the interrogation was led down a certain path by the police, not by Amanda as some would have us believe. I would like to know what you believe the scenario was that night, how Amanda went from stating she wasn't at the cottage that night to reversing that and saying she was there with Patrick.

By the way, funny about how we see the rock in the bag. I feel like it is the most obvious reason the break-in was not staged. Why would they leave the rock concealed in the bag when the most obvious thing to do with it would have been to place it closer to the opposite wall from the window to look like it had been launched across the room as they supposedly did with the glass? Why leave it hidden?

The rock in the bag is not concealed at all, it is very visible. It is in fact rather on the bag, as if it had fallen or bowled on it. I don't think anyone ever tired to conceal it. The point that makes it looked like staged is that the bag has fallen over a sweater that was tossed on the floor by the "burglar", and is in that position since the stone had fallen. I think it shows how the bag and the stone fell over the clothes strewn on the floor.
This, togethr with the position of the rock - too close to the wall - is an indication that the rock was moved subsequently from its original area of impact, or maybe that the window was broken after the strewing of cloths.

For how I see the scenario, the main thing to say is that by Amanda's "declaration" I do not mean her interrogation. I mean, above all, the series of her statements subsequent to the 05:45 spontaneous statement (the hand written note, the Dec 18. 2007 interrogation, the pre-trial 2008 spontaneus statement and her court 2009 statement).

The content of the 01:45 interrogation has sure a strong relation with the sms message. The main background for Amanda's interogation an main event is the communication that Raffaele was no longer supporting her alibi, this would causes suspicion on her to grow stronger and she realizes the police definitively won't believe her at all any more. But the sms police interpretation mistake is a luck, is a false path that offers Amanda an opportunity for an alternative story to desperatly try gain back some scintilla of credibility as a witness ans steer investigation away from her towards muddy waters and on a moot point. So she states of a "confused memory" of Patrick killing Meredith, something that would prevent the police from getting to Guede. However, the 05:45 statement was different, it was certainly not led by the phone message finding and has no direct relation with this.
The 05:45 statement is a story she has to make up as a consequence of what she said in the interrogation and the new situation that was created. She is now not facing an interrogation any more, she is now before a magistrate. She is gambling her credibility (new attempt of credibility as a witness) as the magistrate asks her whehter she wants to help the investigation against Patrick by releasing a statement that would allow them to arrest him: he is at flight risk and they need to arrest him immediately, before he would know of her testimony. If she declines the request she will appear obviously as protecting Patrick again. O the other hand, telling a more detailed story about Patrick would be her only chance to bolster her new position as a witness with a "confused memory". This is why she starts her story saying "I am very afraid of Patrick".
However things get even more complicate a few hours later, since Patrick is innocent and her position is contradictory, she needs to put caveats and improvements to her position, namely to "justify" her contradiction, hence the hand written note which is, even taken alone, a main incriminating item. The hand written note contains new, different, false accusations, contains some proven lies, and states the important position by which her truth is she doesn't know what the true is.
Her subsequent statements make clear further aspects of her position and constitute her "declaration" on the issue of Patrick's false accusation. She mad various statements explaining the police interrogation night on various levels, she involved witnesses, she made new statements regarding factually false elements in her hand written note and she developed two defense (contradictory) claims to explain her false accusation, and finally she proposed an aliby where she perfectly remembers details contradicing the basic claim of "false memory" developed by the defence line.

 

[act1roson]

Yet the Italian authorities indicted two others who were then later found guilty. Why do you think that happened?

"Perugia's mayor, Renato Locchi, claimed the lack of interest was a measure of his citizens' maturity. "After hearing about the murder for more than a year, they can't take any more," he said. "They can't wait for justice to be done and the whole thing to be over. And in this respect I feel fully in harmony with them."

From an article by Peter Popham "Italians have already passed judgment on Foxy Knoxy" January 18, 2009

 

[Mary_H]

http://in.reuters.com/article/idINIndia-48629020100519

Magister, you're too modest. This deserves to be shared:

Italy convicts senior police for G8 Genoa violence

ROME | Wed May 19, 2010 8:31pm IST

ROME (Reuters) - An Italian appeals court, overturning a previous verdict, sentenced several senior police officers to up to 5 years in prison for assaults on protesters during the 2001 G8 summit in Genoa and a subsequent cover-up.

The court in the northern Italian port city imposed a total of 85 years in prison on 25 officers late on Tuesday for a bloody late-night attack on anti-globalisation protesters at a high school that left 63 people in need of hospital treatment.

Police said at the time the protesters had attacked security forces shortly before the raid and that weapons had been found at the Armando Diaz school. Subsequent investigations, however, showed many of the protesters were sleeping when police broke into the school, were defenceless and did not react violently.

An initial trial two years ago handed down 13 convictions to low-ranking police, but exonerated more senior officers for the raid, which one key witness described as a "butchery".

The court found that police planted Molotov cocktails at the school to incriminate the protesters and staged a knife attack......

 

[Kevin_Lowe]

I addressed this subject yesterday, when I wrote "Mark Waterbury thinks the police knew that Rudy was the killer, and that is why they went looking for a large kitchen knife instead of one of the knives from Raffaele's collection (which would make more sense). Remember, Rudy was caught with a large kitchen knife at one of his previous break-ins."

It's a very interesting issue, especially since the only alternative theory I have seen to the theory that the police were deliberately seeking to frame Raffaele and Amanda is the risible official story that "policeman's intuition" led them directly to the murder weapon and led them to scrutinise it past the tolerances of their lab equipment to prove it was the murder weapon. It's a very strange way for an investigation to proceed, and looks a lot like they knew what the result was going to be in advance.

 

[Machiavelli]

You claim that this is not circular reasoning, but then you cite reasons you think Amanda is guilty as reasons to believe she was lying to hamper the investigation. This is still circular.

No. I said "I don't dismiss the chance that Amanda's confession could be internalized confession because I already think she is guilty, I dismiss this option instead only on the the basis of the analysis of Amanda's declaration itself".

I think it's clear.
Maybe I express myself in an insufficient English that allows interpretation under the personal spin of the reader. I mean to say that the analysis of Amanda's declaration is a topic in itself, something that can be analyzed and measured and assessed by itself, just like a footprint or a DNA result are analyzed by themselfìves, not on the basis that you think the person is guilty.

Amanda's declarations are not an internalized confession because they do not look like an internalized confession. They only look like hampring the investigation, they are a hampering of the investigation even if she is innocent.

 

[Mary_H]

<snip>
ETA: I don't mind being Abbadoned or even called flaky, but calling somebody "incredibly stupid" and preventing them from responding to a direct insult like that is cowardly, in my opinion.

I agree.

 

[Kevin_Lowe]

The rock in the bag is not concealed at all, it is very visible. It is in fact rather on the bag, as if it had fallen or bowled on it. I don't think anyone ever tired to conceal it. The point that makes it looked like staged is that the bag has fallen over a sweater that was tossed on the floor by the "burglar", and is in that position since the stone had fallen. I think it shows how the bag and the stone fell over the clothes strewn on the floor.
This, togethr with the position of the rock - too close to the wall - is an indication that the rock was moved subsequently from its original area of impact, or maybe that the window was broken after the strewing of cloths.

On what basis do you claim it was "too close to the wall"? What's your evidence for the claim that the bag fell over a sweater tossed on the floor by Rudy?

For how I see the scenario, the main thing to say is that by Amanda's "declaration" I do not mean her interrogation. I mean, above all, the series of her statements subsequent to the 05:45 spontaneous statement (the hand written note, the Dec 18. 2007 interrogation, the pre-trial 2008 spontaneus statement and her court 2009 statement).

The content of the 01:45 interrogation has sure a strong relation with the sms message. The main background for Amanda's interogation an main event is the communication that Raffaele was no longer supporting her alibi, this would causes suspicion on her to grow stronger and she realizes the police definitively won't believe her at all any more. But the sms police interpretation mistake is a luck, is a false path that offers Amanda an opportunity for an alternative story to desperatly try gain back some scintilla of credibility as a witness ans steer investigation away from her towards muddy waters and on a moot point. So she states of a "confused memory" of Patrick killing Meredith, something that would prevent the police from getting to Guede. However, the 05:45 statement was different, it was certainly not led by the phone message finding and has no direct relation with this.
The 05:45 statement is a story she has to make up as a consequence of what she said in the interrogation and the new situation that was created. She is now not facing an interrogation any more, she is now before a magistrate. She is gambling her credibility (new attempt of credibility as a witness) as the magistrate asks her whehter she wants to help the investigation against Patrick by releasing a statement that would allow them to arrest him: he is at flight risk and they need to arrest him immediately, before he would know of her testimony. If she declines the request she will appear obviously as protecting Patrick again. O the other hand, telling a more detailed story about Patrick would be her only chance to bolster her new position as a witness with a "confused memory". This is why she starts her story saying "I am very afraid of Patrick".
However things get even more complicate a few hours later, since Patrick is innocent and her position is contradictory, she needs to put caveats and improvements to her position, namely to "justify" her contradiction, hence the hand written note which is, even taken alone, a main incriminating item. The hand written note contains new, different, false accusations, contains some proven lies, and states the important position by which her truth is she doesn't know what the true is.
Her subsequent statements make clear further aspects of her position and constitute her "declaration" on the issue of Patrick's false accusation. She mad various statements explaining the police interrogation night on various levels, she involved witnesses, she made new statements regarding factually false elements in her hand written note and she developed two defense (contradictory) claims to explain her false accusation, and finally she proposed an aliby where she perfectly remembers details contradicing the basic claim of "false memory" developed by the defence line.

That's a whole lot of supposition to get to a series of statements that look exactly like an internalised false statement, isn't it? Shouldn't Occam's Razor come in here and incline us to favour the much simpler explanation that doesn't require all these armchair psychoanalytic gymnastics? Sometimes an internalised false statement is just an internalised false statement: Or at least, it's not anything else beyond reasonable doubt.

 

[act1roson]

Amanda's declarations are not an internalized confession because they do not look like an internalized confession. They only look like hampring the investigation, they are a hampering of the investigation even if she is innocent.

If in the future Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito are found innocent based on new evidence, which is not unheard of in Mignini cases, could it be said that the police actually hampered the investigation by focusing incorrectly on Amanda Knox, causing the internalized false confession?

 

[Machiavelli]

Haven't we spent the last few pages whacking those moles again?

No

Quote:
Moreover, my assessment is that there is evidence that the footprints in tha hallway are in blood
...and that one... (They tested negative, although the prosecution tried to conceal this)

.

The evidence they are in blood is based on good reasons. The TMB test is no definitive response and is not expected to give the answer, nor in case of positive neither in case of negative result. This can be checked in literature.
Response on the blood content lies elsewere.

Quote:
and that there is evidence of a cleanup.
...and that one... (There is no hard evidence of a cleanup, and Massei's arguments for a cleanup are unfounded speculation passed off as logic).

The category of "hard evidence" doesn't exist in law, nor in logic. Either there is evidence, with no adjectives, or there isn't.
Massei's arguments are sound, sufficient and satisfactory, moreover I can come to the same conclusion without his help.

Quote:
There is also the relevant factor of the absence of an alternative lone-perpetrator scenario to explain the physical findings (especially related to the bloody bathmat print).
...and that one... (The footprint is compatible with Rudy's and he admitted going in to the bathroom).

Rudy is not credible and there is no trace of him in the bathroom, difficult to explain since he had fresh cuts on his hand. The print is not compatible with his foot, it is incredibily compatible with Sollecito's footprint and also looks coincident with it at first sglance, moreover it is not even compatible Rudy's dinamic during the murder, because Rudy was weraing shoes.

 

[Mary_H]

Well Mary, since you're such a Steve Moore fan then can I assume you agree with him when he said that, "no one could have left that room [Meredith's] without blood on their shoes"?

<snip>

As for the footprint on the bathmat, ok, let's assume it is Rudy's. How did he get blood on the bottom of his naked foot to begin with? It's been suggested that he stepped on a bloody towel that was on top of the bathmat. Well if that was the case the footprint would have been even more pronounced on the bloody towel. Was a bloody footprint found on any of the towels?

My post about Steve Moore was to refute loverofzion's claim that Steve Moore is not qualified to comment on the case, not to say I am a fan of Steve Moore. However, I am a fan of Steve Moore, and will try to answer your question.

My answer is that I don't know what to make of the bloody footprint on the bathmat. Charlie Wilkes and others have offered sensible explanations several times, if you want to look for those here on JREF. I have postulated in the past that it is Amanda's footprint on the bathmat, from blood she picked up walking around in her bare feet on the steamy floor before her shower, and then she cleaned up any residue when she scooted the bathmat across the floor after he shower. I read something recently that showed me I was wrong about that, but now I can't remember what it was.

I guess we have to accept that Rudy was in the bathroom, because of the droplets of Meredith's blood that were left there and shown to the police by Amanda.

I don't like to spend a lot of time on trying to figure out what Rudy may or may not have done; that's why I stay out of the conversations about the break-in, for the most part.

 

[Machiavelli]

That's a whole lot of supposition to get to a series of statements that look exactly like an internalised false statement, isn't it?

I will take this as an acknowledgment by you that the explanation fits the factual data.

 

[Machiavelli]

That's a whole lot of supposition to get to a series of statements that look exactly like an internalised false statement,

I just point out, by the way, that something like her hand written note is a text, not a supposition. A testimony by an interpreter is a testimony. A claim she had a false memory is a defensive claim. Ant there is nothing psychoanalitic in all this, unless you have no idea of what psychoanalysis is.

 

[Mary_H]

If you bravely venture over to PMF today you will see that the forensic expert Stefanoni was an independent expert; the results were reviewed in 2008 by Dr. Biondo; the Kerchers' expert Dr. Torricelli and RG's lawyer Dr. Barbero.

Stefanoni was not independent. She was supervised by Giuliano Mignini, who headed the investigation. They both work for the same employer.

All agreed there was no transferral of DNA; that the knife held the biological profiles of both AK and MK and furthermore the defense were notified of the time and place the tests were performed and CHOSE NOT TO SHOW UP as part of their defense strategy.

All they could do was agree, since Stefanoni used all the sample so that it couldn't be retested, which is the only way to validate the results. As we have seen, it is not customary in the Perugian system to strongly challenge or defy the Prosecution in the first trial.

 

[Mary_H]

How are you qualified?
Do you want us to accept your statements because you say you are.
I never claimed to be a scientific expert with a scientific mind as you have repeatedly.

Cite?

 

[Kevin_Lowe]

I will take this as an acknowledgment by you that the explanation fits the factual data.

But of course.

However it is not nearly enough to justify a prosecution that the prosecution's explanation fit the data! That would be exactly backwards in fact. The prosecution's explanation must be proven to be true beyond reasonable doubt. If they can't do that, a conviction is not justified.

Whereas all the defence needs to do is provide an explanation that fits the factual data. If they can do that, then again a conviction is not justified.

The evidence they are in blood is based on good reasons. The TMB test is no definitive response and is not expected to give the answer, nor in case of positive neither in case of negative result. This can be checked in literature.
Response on the blood content lies elsewere.

Good luck in getting to proof beyond reasonable doubt there, seeing as the tests still came back negative.

The category of "hard evidence" doesn't exist in law, nor in logic. Either there is evidence, with no adjectives, or there isn't.
Massei's arguments are sound, sufficient and satisfactory, moreover I can come to the same conclusion without his help.

We've discussed them in detail and they are ludicrous... unless you are merely shooting for "consistent with the facts" as opposed to "true beyond reasonable doubt". That is the only sense in which a rational person could describe them as sound, sufficient or satisfactory, and since their job is to be proof beyond reasonable doubt it is not a relevant sense.

Bear in mind that the staged break-in is absolutely vital to the Massei narrative. Without it, the whole story falls apart into nonsense. If you have reasonable doubt regarding a vital plank in the structure then the whole edifice falls over.

Rudy is not credible and there is no trace of him in the bathroom,

Once again you are employing circular reasoning: It's not Rudy's footprint on the bathmat because there is no trace of him in the bathroom, and there is no trace of him in the bathroom because it's not his footprint on the bathmat.

I do find it very curious that Massei guilters manage to completely ignore Rudy's initial statement to police where he claimed very clearly to have been there from 20:30, to have left a little after 22:00 and to have mucked about in the bathroom. Massei gives no sensible grounds for ignoring it either, and it seems manifest to me that he does so solely in order to construct a fantasy where the bathmat print and other evidence in the bathroom must have come from Amanda and Raffaele.

difficult to explain since he had fresh cuts on his hand. The print is not compatible with his foot, it is incredibily compatible with Sollecito's footprint and also looks coincident with it at first sglance, moreover it is not even compatible Rudy's dinamic during the murder, because Rudy was weraing shoes.

We've already whacked these moles - do shoes not come off in your world? This nonsense struggles to reach the very low bar of "compatible with the facts" (and ignores many important ones). It's not even close to being proof of guilt beyond reasonable doubt.

 

[Chris_Halkides]

was DNA on the knife

There appears to be some confused thinking at another discussion forum about the DNA profile associated with the knife. Let me try to summarize the debate. Dr. Elizabeth Johnson said as reported by ABC’s Ann Wise on 1 December 2009, “if someone had a knife covered in blood and they tried to clean it very well, they would remove their ability to detect the DNA before they removed the ability to detect the chemical traces of blood.” Note that this statement is made about DNA, not DNA from any one particular cell type. If it is true, it rules out the possibility that the DNA arose from the murder.

The profile that Dr. Stefanoni conjured up is an imperfect but good representation of Meredith’s DNA profile. We are left with four possibilities as to how it arose. 1. Secondary transfer, as discussed by Dr. Kekule, for example. 2. Contamination when it was being taken into evidence. 3a. Contamination in the lab due to handling of the knife. 3b. Contamination in the lab due to DNA in the reagents or in the electrophoresis apparatus. 4. Evidence tampering. The only one of these possibilities in which there is never DNA on the knife is 3b. However, possibilities 2, 3a, and 4 mean that there was no DNA on the knife until ILE handled it. The distinction between “never” and “only after ILE has custody” may be important in some discussions and unimportant in others. The large amount of Meredith’s DNA in the lab could have been deposited on the knife directly (3a) or found its way into the reagents or apparatus (3b).

With respect to the bra clasp profile, The Machine at Perugia Murder File wrote, “Sollecito's DNA on Meredith's bra clasp was LCN DNA despite the fact that the lowest RFU peak was 30% higher than that the 50 RFU test widely used for minimum reliability and the highest RFU peak was more than 200% higher.” I find it interesting that The Machine would place so much stock in the 50 RFU threshold. 22 of 29 peaks in the knife profile fall below this value. The Machine should explain why this threshold is important for the bra clasp but can be ignored for the knife.

Finally, The Machine quoted Mr. Maresca (attorney for the Kercher's) as saying that the tests are indisputable, “All tests are not disputable, since all attorneys and their consultants were notified on the time and date of these non-repetitive tests”. This is problematic on at least two fronts. The first is that Mr. Maresca and Mr. Mignini were essentially on the same team, as I documented upthread. The second is that Mr. Maresca is ignoring the fact that LCN testing needs to be done at least twice, preferably more, and preferably with enough sample left over for the defense. This is the same anonymous commenter who could not find a single case of credible forensic DNA contamination, despite the wide availability of information on this subject.

 

[Mary_H]

It's a very interesting issue, especially since the only alternative theory I have seen to the theory that the police were deliberately seeking to frame Raffaele and Amanda is the risible official story that "policeman's intuition" led them directly to the murder weapon and led them to scrutinise it past the tolerances of their lab equipment to prove it was the murder weapon. It's a very strange way for an investigation to proceed, and looks a lot like they knew what the result was going to be in advance.

Particularly when you consider that they already had a perfectly good, untested knife in their custody.

 

[Kevin_Lowe]

Particularly when you consider that they already had a perfectly good, untested knife in their custody.

While I certainly don't regard Steve Moore as infallible, he makes the excellent point that in a properly conducted investigation everything in Amanda and Meredith's house that could inflict a stabbing injury would have been tagged and bagged for testing the day the body was discovered because at the time you just can't tell from the injuries what sort of weapon inflicted them.

Yet the prosecution failed to do so and instead homed in on a kitchen knife at Raffaele's place and tested the hell out of it.

At that stage they certainly couldn't be sure that the killer hadn't cleaned the murder weapon and left it in the murder house. Yet as I understand it they didn't even properly look at the potential weapons in the murder house. Once again it looks a lot like someone decided in advance that the murder weapon was going to be found at Raffaele's place.

There is definitely a pattern here of the prosecution, even in their own narrative, knowing things before they should know them. How did Mignini know on Day One it was a three-way murder? It wasn't on the basis of any evidence we know of that stands up to any scrutiny, yet he was miraculously correct. How did the police know that the murder weapon was not to be found at Amanda's house but would be a kitchen knife found at Raffaele's house, so that they didn't even need to bother collecting all the potential weapons in the murder house? It wasn't on the basis of any evidence we know of, but once again they were miraculously correct.

 

[moodstream]

It makes little sense that he was trying to clean up at all. Why clean up then go back into the blood-soaked room?

The front door is locked from the inside. He needed the key to get out. Meredith's purse held the key. The step in blood was due to haste.