Continuation - Discussion of the Amanda Knox case

[Mary_H]

Is it illegal to carry a knife for protection daily? Is that why she would need a reason to have the knife with her? Why would she ever use a cloth purse if she decided to carry the kitchen knife for protection!

These are the questions that have plagued mankind since the Massei report was released.

 

[Fine]

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. 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. Just like DNA analysis and footprint measurements.
Moreover, my assessment is that there is evidence that the footprints in tha hallway are in blood and that there is evidence of a cleanup. 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).
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...

______________________

Hmmm. Dirty shoeprints---made by the same shoe---found in both Meredith's room and Filomena's room. Guilters can easily explain this situation...one of the lovebirds left those shoeprints, and the pair of shoes was later disposed of. I'm wondering how our resident LONEWOLFERS account for this suspicious state-of-affairs.

Machiavelli: Do you know where on the floor of Meredith's room the identical shoeprints were found?

///

 

[moodstream]

That's a good point, moodstream. It is also in keeping with the suggestion that giving Amanda a false positive on her HIV test was also a way to rattle her and hopefully get her to confess.

The knife, as you point out, was one of those witch hunt traps -- if they float, they're witches and we burn them at the stake; if they sink, they're not witches, but they're dead, anyway. Whatever they said would have been held against them.

I think their ages played into their responses a lot. Kids in their 20's still explicitly trust authority figures and tend to blame themselves for reported anomalies. An older person might have been more capable of saying, "You found a murder weapon in my kitchen? That is flat out impossible."

Thank you for saying that Mary H.

Up until now assumed the results of testing on the knife were honest but very biased. I have thought that Stefanoni was honest, but loyal to her employer. If Giobbi wanted evidence, Stefanoni would do everythng in her power to find it. But she would not make stuff up.

After reading lots of posts on JREF about the knife though, I am not so sure.

For one thing, I am convinced that Stefanoni never found streaks in the knife. Why? Because no one else can. She can't point them out in any exact sense. I believe an expert hired by the court could not find them either, but I could be wrong about that.

So, if the knife was intended to be a pretext, and Stefanoni is lying about why she sampled from where on the knife, why can't she just be completely lying about the whole thing?

What proof is there that the knife was actually tested at that time?

A real concern that I have about this if it turns out that Knox and Sollecito are in jail due to faked evidence is that it does not bode well for an appeal. I have a hard time seeing the court announcing that they are freeing K + S because their police force is a bunch of liars - even if true.

 

[Draca]

Was Rudy Guede's blood from the cut on his hand identified at the crime scene?

 

[Charlie Wilkes]

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

What evidence indicates that the footprints in the hallway (other than Rudy's shoe prints) were made with blood?

 

[Kevin_Lowe]

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Hmmm. Dirty shoeprints---made by the same shoe---found in both Meredith's room and Filomena's room. Guilters can easily explain this situation...one of the lovebirds left those shoeprints, and the pair of shoes was later disposed of. I'm wondering how our resident LONEWOLFERS account for this suspicious state-of-affairs.

This is a new one to me - those footprints have never been brought up before that I am aware of.

To my knowledge the prosecution never managed to establish that any of Raffaele or Amanda's clothes had vanished, including footwear, so the hypothesis that they made the footprints and then disposed of the shoes has already been tested to some extent and not supported.

Can we rule out the investigating police as the source of the shoeprints? What if anything do we know about the size of these footprints? Any further information would be greatly appreciated.

 

[loverofzion]

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.

Where do you see that Mignini knew from Day One that it was a three way murder?

 

[treehorn]

Treehorn, I take it that you don't know what a control is with regard to DNA testing. Yes, a spoon would have been a suitable substrate control to show if Meredith's DNA was uniquely on the knife or generally in the environment of the drawer.

oh, i think i fully grock it, Dan O

by the time i was 18 (quite some time ago, i'm afraid), i'd already run gels in electrophoresis labs, done polytene crushes and been asked by my Oxford-educated genetics prof to help him explain 3 point triple cross overs to some of my less-than-quick classmates in pre med

how about you, Dan O? what's your experience in the realm of genetics?

for all i know, you may be a genetics prof at Oxford, but i think i can manage anything you have to tell me about the rather mundane notion of a 'control'

as for RS's statement (lie?) about having 'accidentally pricked' MK (or is it AK???), are you referring to the statement in RS's 'prison diary'?!

it's even worse than i thought!!!

in that particular context, he has no reasonable excuse for what appears to be a voluntary statement (in writing, no less!)

unless RS can persuade the court that, as some here have argued, he was referring to AK rather than MK, he's done

once again, i'll throw this one out there in the hope that someone can point me in the right direction:

did RS's defense argue that RS was referring to AK rather than MK when he wrote of the time they were "all cooking together"?

mmmmmmm "...all cooking together...," that's not how someone would describe a situation where they were cooking with just one other person (AK)...

 

[loverofzion]

These are the questions that have plagued mankind since the Massei report was released.

Certaian knives are certainly illegal to carry.
And of course there was never any mention of fears for her safety; she was used to walking to and from work at night without ever having mentioned feeling frightened.

 

[loverofzion]

oh, i think i fully grock it, Dan O

by the time i was 18 (quite some time ago, i'm afraid), i'd already run gels in electrophoresis labs, done polytene crushes and been asked by my Oxford-educated genetics prof to help him explain 3 point triple cross overs to some of my less-than-quick classmates in pre med

how about you, Dan O? what's your experience in the realm of genetics?

for all i know, you may be a genetics prof at Oxford, but i think i can manage anything you have to tell me about the rather mundane notion of a 'control'

as for RS's statement (lie?) about having 'accidentally pricked' MK (or is it AK???), are you referring to the statement in RS's 'prison diary'?!

it's even worse than i thought!!!

in that particular context, he has no reasonable excuse for what appears to be a voluntary statement (in writing, no less!)

unless RS can persuade the court that, as some here have argued, he was referring to AK rather than MK, he's done

once again, i'll throw this one out there in the hope that someone can point me in the right direction:

did RS's defense argue that RS was referring to AK rather than MK when he wrote of the time they were "all cooking together"?

mmmmmmm "...all cooking together...," that's not how someone would describe a situation where they were cooking with just one other person (AK)...

No of course they never argued that.

Apparently RS shot himelf in the foot with that entry.

 

[loverofzion]

What evidence indicates that the footprints in the hallway (other than Rudy's shoe prints) were made with blood?

Read up on luminol testing.

Of course it could have been turnip juice..

 

[loverofzion]

That's a good point, moodstream. It is also in keeping with the suggestion that giving Amanda a false positive on her HIV test was also a way to rattle her and hopefully get her to confess.

The knife, as you point out, was one of those witch hunt traps -- if they float, they're witches and we burn them at the stake; if they sink, they're not witches, but they're dead, anyway. Whatever they said would have been held against them.

I think their ages played into their responses a lot. Kids in their 20's still explicitly trust authority figures and tend to blame themselves for reported anomalies. An older person might have been more capable of saying, "You found a murder weapon in my kitchen? That is flat out impossible."

Young INNOCENT peope tend to blame themselves for evidence which points to their guilt of murder?

That's a stretch.

 

[loverofzion]

I have felt that the purpose of the knife was to rattle Knox and Sollecito's cages a little. The idea was to get K + S's reaction. If they denied it was the knife, of course they would be guilty. It was sort of a hail mary pass made in desperation, because the evidence was coming back and it was not pointing to Amanda and Raffaele. Magnini was hoping that in their reaction they would say something to implicate themselves.

Supporting this idea is the fact that what they did say has been used to implicate them, even though it is not implicative. Raffaele's attempt to come to terms with the inexplicable, by incorrectly thinking maybe Meredith could have cut herself, made in a phone conversation to his father, and Amanda's statement that she is worried about her situation due to the claim about the knife have been used to insinuate guilt by the court, and of course the guilters.

The prosecution intended to use A+K's reaction to the news about the knife against them before releasing the information. It was a planned trap. The trap did not work, but the prosecution took what it could from the remarks that were made, and tried to spin them to look like guilt.

Sorry moodstream again you are fabricating freely.

First,the evidence was coming back that DID implicate AK and RS.
And it IS certainly implicative of their guilt when RS writes : I might have pricked her (MK) while cooking together.
He did NOT say she pricked herself while cooking.
Either way MK had NEVER been to his apt so it is apparent he was making this up.

And Amanda was taped saying to the indefatiguable Edda that she was worried about the knife, NOT she was worried about her situation due to the claim that the knife was being used to implicate her.

So you see how when you just subtly changed a few key words you have turned things around falsely.

 

[loverofzion]

Ah. Good (speculative) explanations.

Guesss they also got "lucky" when Meredith's genetic profile was found on the blade then- something which the defense has NEVER argued was not present on the knife.

So now we have "evidence tampering" when discussing RS's abundant DNA on Meredith's bra clasp.
You guys should really dedcde- contamination? conspiracy? or just plain ol' evidence tampering.
Using all three indiscrimanately rather dilutes your case.

 

[loverofzion]

Thank you for saying that Mary H.

Up until now assumed the results of testing on the knife were honest but very biased. I have thought that Stefanoni was honest, but loyal to her employer. If Giobbi wanted evidence, Stefanoni would do everythng in her power to find it. But she would not make stuff up.

After reading lots of posts on JREF about the knife though, I am not so sure.

For one thing, I am convinced that Stefanoni never found streaks in the knife. Why? Because no one else can. She can't point them out in any exact sense. I believe an expert hired by the court could not find them either, but I could be wrong about that.

So, if the knife was intended to be a pretext, and Stefanoni is lying about why she sampled from where on the knife, why can't she just be completely lying about the whole thing?

What proof is there that the knife was actually tested at that time?

A real concern that I have about this if it turns out that Knox and Sollecito are in jail due to faked evidence is that it does not bode well for an appeal. I have a hard time seeing the court announcing that they are freeing K + S because their police force is a bunch of liars - even if true.

Well that-believing in a conspiracy involving all the police, the forensic experts and judicial professionals involved in this case- should provide some cold comfort for you when the appeals are overturned .

 

[loverofzion]

To the general extent I am familar with his story, he claims he was having a consenual relation with Ms Kercher when he had to get up to take a dump. When he got out of the bathroom, some other guy was leaving out the door. Guede went to assist Ms Kercher, but got scared and left without calling for help.

If so, a problem other than being preposterous is the key to the front door. The door locks from inside. If the killer was Sollecito, he would have his own keys, he would not have broken in through the window, and he would have left with his own keys. If so, he would leave the door unlocked, and Guede would not have needed Meredith's key to get out. If the killer was not Sollecito, he would not have a key, would have to have broken in, and would have had to return to Meredith's bedroom a second time after realizing he could not get out the front door. Guede does not account for this.

How do you know Sollecito had a key?

 

[loverofzion]

If so, why wouldn't she have mentioned her visit to the store to the police?

Because her alibi was that they slept in at RS's until about 10 the next morning.

Surely it is unnecessary by now to remind all that the computer and phone records disproved this.

 

[loverofzion]

He forgot the witnesses who heard a scream and several pairs of feet running away.

 

[loverofzion]

You forget that the bathmat print is not compatible with Guede and compatible with Sollecito.
You forget the bra clasp.
You forget the lies hamperig the investigations.

Excuse me I meant to add to Machiavellis' post.

 

[loverofzion]

I think the explanation Fulcanelli agrees is as good as any is worth to be brought up in its' entirety. It's valuable as a comic relief and also as an illustration of farcical reasoning chains riddling Massei motivation:

What exactly do you find "farcical"?