Continuation - Discussion of the Amanda Knox case

[Chris_Halkides]

What did Finzi see

From an article by Andrea Vogt:

Armando Finzi, an assistant in the Perugia police department's organized crimes unit, first discovered the knife in Sollecito's kitchen drawer. He said the first thing he noticed upon entering the place was a "strong smell of bleach." He opened the drawer and saw "very shiny and clean" knife lying on top of the silverware tray.

"It was the first knife I saw," he said. When pressed on cross-examination, said his "investigative intuition" led him to believe it was the murder weapon because it was compatible with the wound as it had been described to him. With gloved hands, he placed the knife in a new police envelope, taped it shut with Scotch tape, then placed it inside a folder, he said. There were smaller and bigger knives in the drawer, but no others were taken into evidence from the kitchen, he said. A small knife was taken into evidence from Sollecito's bedroom, along with other items.
[end quote]

Do we know when the photo of the drawer was taken?

 

[Fulcanelli]

Fulcanelli,

You are disregarding at least three things with respect to the DNA forensic evidence. One, the evidence helped to make Guede a suspect. The evidence was only analyzed (and in some cases even collected) after Sollecito and Knox were already in custody. Therefore, the risk of investigator bias is real for AK and RS but not for RG. Two, I have not seen the DNA evidence against Guede directly. If it is as problematic as the evidence against Knox and Sollecito and if his lawyers did not challenge it, then they were doing a less-than-stellar job. Three, if we toss out all of the DNA evidence against all three, other evidence still puts Guede in Meredith’s room. Nothing puts Sollecito there, and there was no DNA evidence to put Knox there in the first place.

But my response wasn't to a claim of investigator bias, but to contamination and the point still stands. If Amanda's and Raffaele's evidence was all contaminated, why wasn't Rudy's also?

You've also yet to prove investigator bias. Moreover, the basis of your claim isn't fully correct in any case. A large amount of Rudy's evidence wasn't processed until after his arrest...it took them over three months to process all the forensic evidence from the case.

I also fail to see why just because they had Amanda in custody, that means evidence collected or examined would be done with bias. And as far as I'm aware, Dr Stefanoni hadn't even met Amanda or Raffaele. She didn't care whether they were innocent or guilty. Her sole job was to analyse the data.

I also can't see 'how' bias can come into play. It's either Amanda's DNA on the knife handle and Meredith's DNA on the blade, or it isn't. Even the defence don't dispute it isn't. It's either Raffaele's DNA on the clasp or it isn't. The footprints are either a match fro Amanda, Raffaele and Rduy or they are not. It's either Amanda's DNA mixed with Meredith's blood or it isn't...and so on.

 

[Fulcanelli]

Are you sure? What were the knives still doing in the cottage on November 4th?

"...She had returned to the house on November 4, 2007 with personnel from the Police Headquarters. Laura and Filomena were already at the site; she had a crying fit thinking of what had happened and she was also afraid of approaching; moreover, they had asked her to look at all the knives and this had really affected her..." (page 71)

Waiting for the housemates to check through them to see if any were missing. They couldn't do that if they were in the lab in Rome.

 

[RoseMontague]

What's convincing about it?

Moreover, he hides his true source for the theory. He claims it was Bob Graham, when in fact Bob Graham made it clear his source was, drumroll.....Chris Mellas!

'nuff said.

I thought it was interesting (in contrast to amusing) that the Massei report actual gives credence to several of these crimes attributed to Rudy. I am interested to see what the others may be and if they have a basis in fact as well.

 

[Fulcanelli]

Nobody staged a break in, it was simply a break in.

Not according to the overwhelming and clear-cut evidence to the contrary.

 

[LiamG.]

He already had blood on his clothes, it is when he took his pants off that he did not want to get blood on himself. I don't think Meredith was in any position to scream at that point after 3 large woulds to the neck. This is a theory, the fact that both you and Fulcanelli believe that Rudy was "aiding" Meredith is another. I don't find that theory even remotely possible. I will try to avoid saying Wow or quite amusing, however, Oops.

How do you know he took off his pants?
More important; where did he place the towel and how could it get that much blood soaked?
Did Nara C. study scream theory?

 

[Fulcanelli]

thirdly, where do you get "naked"?! are you sure? i read they just took his shoes (presumably for a preliminary comparison to crime scene shoe prints)

What she's actually trying to say, with no small amount of hyperbole, is that he was strip searched just like all persons under arrest are.

 

[Fulcanelli]

Did Stefanoni conduct DNA tests on all the knives from the girls' apartment?

All the knives were examined. I don't know if it was done by Dr Stefanoni or not.

 

[Fulcanelli]

She did not go to the shop. Quintavalle's testimony has been completely discredited. The only slightly decent argument that is worthy of discussion regarding the remote possibility that Quitavalle is telling the truth is the one put forward by thoughtful at PMF.

Hardly. The court considered his testimony to be completely valid.

 

[RoseMontague]

I also can't see 'how' bias can come into play. It's either Amanda's DNA on the knife handle and Meredith's DNA on the blade, or it isn't. Even the defence don't dispute it isn't. It's either Raffaele's DNA on the clasp or it isn't. The footprints are either a match fro Amanda, Raffaele and Rduy or they are not. It's either Amanda's DNA mixed with Meredith's blood or it isn't...and so on.

The defense does dispute that there was any DNA on the knife blade. These quotes are from Amanda's appeal:

Only after the execution of genetic investigations, the alleged discovery
profile of Meredith Kercher on the blade of the knife, led the prosecutor to
locate right in finding the murder weapon 36.

Track B allegedly found on the blade of the find proved 36 <<too
Low>> (low - too low) and also turned out not to be blood.

The literal meaning of the reported about the track B is not
leaves room for doubt on the basis of information provided by machinery
used for quantification at trace B of finding 36
there was no DNA or other DNA found was not sufficient for a
subsequent amplification.

R - I think that should stop the investigation, analysis ....Because if
quantity is too low in this still could be microliter
zero, too low means that below 10 picograms could
DNA also does not exist>> (September 14, 2009 hearing transcript, p..
46).

I also provide several quotes from Frank in regards to his report on court testimony which makes this very clear as well.

From Perugia Shock:

Quote:
Patumi showed the judges the instructions of the sequencer. They say Don't go below 50 RFU. The scientists didn't think about bringing in this little document, and it looked like a rumor that a user shouldn't go below that value. Thanks to doctor Patumi now the judges know that if you go below 50 the machine can read pieces of DNA that are not from the sample: a lab contamination may occur.
And he recalled a mysterious contamination happened to him. A machine had been reading sheep blood instead of human blood for six months. They kept cleaning and cleaning everything, but every sample kept resulting: sheep blood. They didn't know were the sheep blood was, only the machine knew, and the machine doesn't speak.
Stefanoni's sequencer as well is never going to tell us where that shred of Meredith's DNA was from, if on the knife or in the machine itself.
http://perugia-shock.blogspot.com/20...or-amanda.html

Quote:
Due the low values and due the fact that it was an invisible trace, as she also defined it, she thinks we are allowed to assume that it resulted from a contamination from the machine. Concepts always expressed here. The electroforetic run should have been done on the substrate too. How not to agree? (She means it should have be run without the sample on the substrate. The substrate is a gel on which the electric field is applied and, in case of a stronger-than-recommended electric field, if pieces of DNA from a previous test are around, the machine may read them, as it probably happened in this case).
http://perugia-shock.blogspot.com/20...o-accuses.html
Quote:
It's normal to find blood on a kitchen knife. Chicken blood, fish blood. But here the blood test was negative. No problem, we can at least look at the picture taken with the steromicroscope , Gino explained, which will tell us the color. If it's red-brawn we could at least assume that the substance is blood, even if we don't know if is human.
But no pictures from steromicroscope have been taken, so we haven't seen the substance. And we haven't seen not even the groove.
We don't know absolutely nothing, Gino said, We don't even know if there was biological matter

Here is the picture Frank hosted showing the "DNA" location on the knife blade. Yep, that's it. Resistant to cleaning with bleach? Seen only by Stefanoni.

http://perugia-shock.blogspot.com/20...o-accuses.html

 

[Fulcanelli]

Giobbi was proud that they "solved" the case prior to much of the testing or completion of the investigation. It was simply Amanda's behavior.

So? Police are allowed to think you're guilty. And in any case, he didn't say he believed her to be guilty because of her 'behaviour", but because of how she acted and what she said under questioning on the night of the 5th.

 

[RoseMontague]

So? Police are allowed to think you're guilty. And in any case, he didn't say he believed her to be guilty because of her 'behaviour", but because of how she acted and what she said under questioning on the night of the 5th.

Giobbi told 48 Hours he was proud that Knox and Sollecito were arrested before fingerprints, blood, footprints, or DNA were analyzed by his office. Instead, Giobbi explained, the case was solved simply by observing Amanda Knox's behavior.

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-504083_162-20000577-504083.html

 

[Fulcanelli]

It certainly was. Odd, then, that Finzi would say that one of the reasons he chose the kitchen knife was because it fit the wound as it had been described to him. Do you think that by the 6th, Lalli told the investigators that the autopsy showed that they needed a great, big, gigantic knife in addition to the smaller knife that Matteini would write about in her report of the 9th?

Yes, of course he had. The police need to know the cause of death and have a description of the myrder weapon as soon as possible. They may may even have been present while he carried it out, they often are.

Are you accusing yet another policeman of lying on the stand?

 

[Fulcanelli]

My opinion is that the pillow was under her for the purpose of the sexual assault (might help if that pesky semen stain was tested), the towels were used because he did not want to get any more blood on himself during the assault.

I see, so now he was holding a knife, a towel, both Meredith's arms and sexually assaulting her all at the same time. The man's an octopus!

 

[RoseMontague]

I see, so now he was holding a knife, a towel, both Meredith's arms and sexually assaulting her all at the same time. The man's an octopus!

My opinion is at the time she was sexually assaulted she was in no condition to resist.

 

[Fulcanelli]

It was hinted that more would be coming out before the appeal about Rudy's alleged ties to the cops. I was not convinced by the theory and even posted a satire about the lack of supporting anecdotal evidence.

The people that have a theory that the DNA was "planted" can speak for themselves. As I have stated previously regarding the alleged DNA on the knife blade (Amanda's appeal uses alleged as well in reference to this "DNA" sample) is that it did not exist on the knife blade at all. The bra clasp I have not decided on but that video of the collection of that item raises doubts in my mind at least. As for the mixed DNA sample in the bathroom, I don't give that one any importance at all even though Mignini thinks it is important.

And your evidence for this claim is?

 

[RoseMontague]

And your evidence for this claim is?

See my post on this page giving you the quotes.

 

[moodstream]

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.

At that time, the police fully expected to find evidence of Knox, Sollecito, and Lumumba inside of Meredth's room. There was plenty of evidence in that room, but none of it, not one bit of it, was pointing in their direction. No evidence at all. In fact, it was all pointing towards a completely different person! Moreover, Lumumba was providing a first class alibi and would soon have to be released.

As for the quotes from Sollecito and Knox, were they made to the police or before the court? Because otherwise you seem to be stripping them of their right to speak and write privately as they please.

It seems to me that the problem for both of them is that they trusted the authorities too much. They trusted that if they were told a knife existed that had DNA evidence of both Meredith and Knox on it, they believed it. Being innocent, the question for them to explain was how could that be? Sollecito offered he thought maybe Meredith had cooked with it at his house.

 

[Fulcanelli]

Fulcanelli,

You will find this discussed on page 142 of Raffaele's appeal document. This is a good time to remind people that Dr. Stefanoni's testimony about the amount of DNA on the clasp was one indication that she had not provided all information to the defense as of the Summer of 2009, more that 18 months into the investigation.

This is one of the many questionable acts she committed. Failure to disclose the results of negative TMB tests is another. For this reason I think that Kevin_Lowe is correct. When someone fails to do his or her job correctly, it trumps other discussion of his or her qualifications.

Then it's not a source. Until and unless the defence claims are argued and tested in court they mean squat. People can say whatever they like in an appeal document, it doesn't have to be correct or true. It's meaningless.

 

[Fulcanelli]

So you don't even believe that Rudy stabbed Meredith? I wonder if this is also the opinion of the majority of those that believe in the guilt of Amanda and Raffaele. My opinion is that Rudy acted alone and that Amanda and Raffaele had nothing to do with it. Maybe I need to revise my opinion on those that believe otherwise because in some of the discussions I have had with others on the guilty side, this opinion is not generally shared. It is possible then that there are many areas of difference on the guilty side just as there are on the innocent side.

No, I don't.

As for those who believe in guilt, we are not a hive mind. We have our own opinions and ideas. Although, on most things, from what I've seen there does appear to be a consensus.