Continuation - Discussion of the Amanda Knox case

[Mary_H]

I disagree with both of you. I think it's both parallel and serial. For example, the prosecution needs to prove that BOTH the alibi is false AND that the LCN DNA is correct to have a case. The alibi is in series with various evidences which may be in parallel with each other.

Is the staged break-in in series or parallel or both? If it was staged, then it implicates AK and RS. If it was not staged, then it suggests Guede acted alone.<snip>

A staged break-in does not implicate Amanda and Raffaele. There is no evidence of them being present at the scene during the time of the crime. Rudy could have staged a break-in.

 

[platonov]

Oh, yeah, I knew about that. I saw people making a big deal about it and I assumed it was something that he said to the cops during the interrogation, thus relevant to him 'lying' officially.

If that's all there is, then perhaps he did tell the cops that in his interrogation and he was re-iterating that, or perhaps the cops were beyond stupid. I just don't think there was an actual attempt to frame them outright, and thus offered an explanation that might make sense of why they went after that knife and made such fools of themselves.

You really have a low opinion of the Italian cops - they are 'beyond stupid'.

I heard a tale bout another couple of really bright kids who made the mistake
of thinking the very same.

Guess what happened - there both doing 20 +

.

 

[Kaosium]

.
If you want to join the Douglas Preston Club for Bashing Mignini (Satanic Subsection), go for it.

Mignini has been out of the picture for Amanda since last year. Now she (and her followers) should concentrate on other key judicial figures. Complaining about what could have been the prosecution argument won't get Amanda out of her predicament.

Isn't he involved in the appeal?

At any rate in my opinion this story is mostly about him. He's the one that developed the ridiculous theory and sold it to some, thus any discussion of what happened in this case is likely to end up scrutinizing him.

 

[RWVBWL]

Key elements of your first referenced scenario:
- drugs
- alcohol
- sexual assualt
- murder

Key persons:
- Amanda
- Rudy
- Raffaele
- the victim, Meredith

Lets start with the persons: did Amanda know Raffaele? Yes. Did Amanda know Rudy? (Yes, from before she knew Raffaele. A fact confirmed by Amanda in court, in spite of a strenuous effort by FOAK and The Entourage to deny it over the course of a year)

Now your elements: was Raffaele known to use drugs? Yes (marijuana, and insinuations of harder substances). Was Amanda known to use drugs? Yes (at least marijuana). Was Rudy known to use drugs? Yes (at least marijuana). Did Amanda smoke marijuana with Raffaele? (yes, as per her testimony) Did Amanda smoke marijuana with Rudy? (yes, as per her testimony)

Is there evidence of Rudy being at the cottage on the night of the crime? Yes (we all agree there). Is there evidence of Amanda and Raffaele being at the cottage on the night of the crime? I say yes, I imagine you say no, but it can be debated.

I'll leave out the alcohol, as all of the convicts imbibed at least a little from time to time, I assume. (Amanda's friend's Youtube video confirms that)

Was Meredith sexually assaulted? Yes, before, during and/or after her brutal murder.

Was Meredith murdered? Yes

Could Amanda (with Raffaele? without Raffaele?) have wandered down to the cottage and coincided in the basketball courts or right at the cottage with Rudy? Raffaele says she wasn't at his place for up to 4 hours on the night of the crime. It's plausible. Could Raffaele have gone with Amanda or arrived a little later? Maybe. Are there witnesses that support that situation? Yes (I know, I know, you believe Curatolo is discredited).

Could the two or three of them have been high and start to bother Meredith / or Meredith starts to get bothered by them / or Meredith discovers that her money is missing? Sure, it's a scenario.

Could a Perfect Storm of Dysfunctional Complicity have arisen where one bad and hurtful decision leads to another until there are bad and criminal decisions happening?

I can't say that it happened on those lines. But it could have worked out that way.

Hi Kermit,
I agree, IT COULD have worked that way,
BUT all of my "street smarts" say that it DID NOT...

.
I guess you don't do much rock climbing.

Since the wooden window frame is slightly inset in the window, by doing what you're suggesting, Spiderman would have had to drag his body along the wall as he improbably hauled himself up. Try it.

It's not just easier, it's natural to stand out, using your feet against the wall to remove the drag friction of your body.

That said, the Spiderman scenario is silly in any case, and even if it had occurred, Rudy would have likely cut himself and spread shards on the outside.

Kermit,
I sometimes doubt that Rudy Guede entered into the apartment thru the window.

Could Rudy Guede have just thrown a rock at the window to see if anyone was home?
YES
Did he have to enter the residence thru that window?
NO, since the front door was found wide open.

Could Rudy Guede have climbed onto someone else's shoulders and then get inside?
YES.
Did he?
POSSIBLY,
if you believe that he was involved in the break-in at the lawyers office and probably had someone more experienced help him burgalize it,
since the place had its burglar alarm shut off...

Could Rudy Guede have stumbled onto someone else, say Luciano Aviello's brother running out of the place and he then did try and "save" Meredith Kercher,
BUT panicked and split, and only afterwards, many hours later, could he have stopped by the residence to see if she was still alive and then, while possibly drunk, he sexually assaulted her body afterwards?
POSSIBLE...

Kermit, as a member of the PMF crew, I would really like to get your opinion on something I feel might be relevant to this murder case:
Who do you believe it was that went into the guys apartment downstairs and got cats blood on the light switches?
From what I have read, Stefano's room had been stripped of linens and his comforter had been shoved on top of his bed, with blood drops on it.

What was going on downstairs while the boys were outta town?
Did someone who might have had Meredith's keys, with Giacomo's key too, spend the night in Stefano's room?
Do you think that the 2 incidents are connected?
I wonder...

Thanks for your opinion and your participation,
it's good to see you here again...
RWVBWL

 

[Kaosium]

You really have a low opinion of the Italian cops - there beyond stupid.

I heard a tale bout another couple of really bright kids who made the mistake
of thinking the very same.

Guess what happened - there both doing 20 +

.

How do you think that whole knife debacle happened then? I'm just looking for alternative scenarios than 'beyond stupid.'

 

[Justinian2]

[...]

With this in mind, I wonder if Raffaele had sex with Amanda once again after she took a shower on the morning of Nov. 2, for in "Angel Face" it says this on page 56:
"police said Amanda's body odor contradicted her claim that she'd just showered: she smelled like sex. They noticed that her face was puffy, with makeup smeared under her eyes."

Is that why she looks a little tired and disheveled?
Hmmm...
RWVBWL

If Amanda Knox is freed sometime soon, who knows what good she too might accomplish with the rest of her life?

During my first week with the sexiest & prettiest girlfriend I ever had, I was a nervous wreck. The new relationship alone destroyed my tranquil existence. Add the pleasurable stress to a murder & a police investigation and my hormones would have been off the charts! I'm sure nobody would have been able to stand my BO from 100 feet away!

 

[daydreamer]

Why would you expect any traces of an intruder on the wall? the intruder stood on the top part of the grating on the window below and hauled himself through the upper window. No reason to really touch the wall at all.

I have seen a picture of smudges on the cottage wall, I think it was at IIP. And there was also a picture of what looked like a partial shoe print in white powder (similar to the white wash paint on the cottage wall) on some dark clothes on the floor of Filomena's room. I am not sure why Massei says there are no traces on the wall.

 

[Mary_H]

.
If you want to join the Douglas Preston Club for Bashing Mignini (Satanic Subsection), go for it.

Mignini has been out of the picture for Amanda since last year. Now she (and her followers) should concentrate on other key judicial figures. Complaining about what could have been the prosecution argument won't get Amanda out of her predicament.

Mignini is not out of the picture for Amanda. He is taking her to trial for calunnia; he is taking her parents to trial for slander; and he is appealing Amanda's sentence for her first conviction. I don't doubt that if Amanda is acquitted in any future proceedings, he will be appealing those acquittals.

Mignini will never be out of the picture, because that fat-faced wino pervert is almost wholly responsible for Amanda's wrongful arrest, imprisonment, conviction and the tragic loss of years of her life.

 

[Justinian2]

A staged break-in does not implicate Amanda and Raffaele. There is no evidence of them being present at the scene during the time of the crime. Rudy could have staged a break-in.

Pgaa = Probability that Guede acted alone.
Psbi = Probability of the break-in being staged
Pkdna = Probability that the knife DNA was that of MK
Pkkk = Probability that the kitchen knife killed
Pcg = Probability of collusion with Guede
Pfc = Probability of forensic competence handling LCN DNA
Pfn = Probability of forensic negligence
Paw = Probability of alibi witnesses
Pac = Probability of alibi computer logs
Ptod = Probability that Tod is before 9:30
Ps = Probability of scream having merit
Ph = Probability of homeless testimony having merit
Pp = Probability of competent prosecution
Pga =Probability of guilt of Amanda
Pgr = Probability of guilt of Raffaele
Pgg = Probability of guilt of Guede

I believe that: Pga = Psbi* Pkdna*(1-Pgaa)*Pkkk*Pcg*Pfc*Pfn*(1-Paw)*(1-Ptod)*(1-Pac)
If every probability is 50%, then the probability of Amanda’s guilt is ½^10 or 1 in 1024.
Amanda’s probability of guilt may be less than 1 in a million from the given evidence.

I may once again be subjecting myself to allegations of stupidity with this equation. It's only a ten minute calculation. Much more time would have to be spent with this. Hello MIT!

 

[Kermit]

I am the Walrus

Wrong. I've done rock climbing before. It's absolute crap to state it's impossible to get into that window while standing at the top level of the security grille on the window below. It would be easy.

You were saying that Spiderman could have hauled himself up to the window without using his feet (ie. without marking the wall above the iron grate with his shoes), and with his body dragging against the wall.

Try it. Make sure that whatever you grab onto is not right on the edge (otherwise it's like doing a pull-up) but rather slightly inset into the wall. Kick your legs backwards (otherwise they'll uselessly add to the body drag).

 

[Withnail1969]

You were saying that Spiderman could have hauled himself up to the window without using his feet (ie. without marking the wall above the iron grate with his shoes), and with his body dragging against the wall.

You don't seem to be understanding the issue. Once you're standing on the top level of the grating below the window, you're practically in there already. His body wouldn't be dragging against the wall.

We keep hearing this stuff about 'Spiderman', contortionist', etc. It's all rubbish.

Why don't we hear so much about eagle eye Curatolo, or miracle ear Nara?

 

[Kaosium]

You were saying that Spiderman could have hauled himself up to the window without using his feet (ie. without marking the wall above the iron grate with his shoes), and with his body dragging against the wall.

Try it. Make sure that whatever you grab onto is not right on the edge (otherwise it's like doing a pull-up) but rather slightly inset into the wall. Kick your legs backwards (otherwise they'll uselessly add to the body drag).

The common sense answer is that he used his feet, and the idea that he didn't make a mark is not only contested, but specious to begin with. He didn't have to make a mark on the wall or bend a nail in order to climb into that window, and absent a clear picture of what the wall looked like before he climbed in there's no way of knowing if the wall was disturbed.

 

[Kermit]

Remember, there was a murder and people convicted on evidence presented in court

He's the one that developed the ridiculous theory and sold it to some, thus any discussion of what happened in this case is likely to end up scrutinizing him.

.
This case is about a victim, Meredith Kercher, who was brutally murdered, and the three persons who have been convicted of killing her.

Instead of scrutinising some of the investigations' initial scenarios or theories, I would have thought that most people would be interested in scrutinising the actual evidence which has convicted Knox, Guede and Sollecito.

You could have replaced Mignini at any point in the trial, and still have gotten the same result, with the same people convicted, with the same reasoning presented in the Massei report.

 

[Mary_H]

How do you think that whole knife debacle happened then? I'm just looking for alternative scenarios than 'beyond stupid.'

It's mysterious, Kaosium. When the police grabbed the knife from Raffaele's kitchen drawer on November 6th, they had no reason to be looking for another knife. They had Raffaele's flick knife in custody. The fact that they claimed to have found Amanda's fingerprints on the knife, and not Raffaele's, suggests they may have been looking for ways to put murder weapons in both of their hands, the easier to charge them both with murder, rather than with just being at the scene.

Even that doesn't make sense though, because they had Patrick in custody and no murder weapon to put in his hand. Maybe they thought they could put Raffaele's flick knife in Patrick's hands. Keep in mind that at the time of his arrest, no evidence whatsoever, not even hearsay, existed against Raffaele.

The only alternative for beyond stupid that I can see is activity based on a fully-formed fantasy in Mignini's head, the early descriptions of which went a little something like this: Raffaele held Meredith's arms while Amanda pricked her in the chest with the tip of a knife, threatening her, and Patrick raped her and cut her throat, not necessarily in that order.

Or, as the Massei and Matteini reports would put it, "Maybe something else happened, we don't know."

 

[Chris_Halkides]

Did Amanda smoke with Rudy?

) Did Amanda smoke marijuana with Rudy? (yes, as per her testimony)

Citation, please.

 

[Kermit]

The common sense answer is that he used his feet, and the idea that he didn't make a mark is not only contested, but specious to begin with.

.
Whatever, I was taking Withnail to task for saying that there's "no reason to really touch the wall at all." (with the intruder's feet). Now, walruses know how to drag themselves around pretty well on horizontal planes, but even a walrus would have problems dragging himself up the vertical wall to Filomena's window because of the drag.

He didn't have to make a mark on the wall or bend a nail in order to climb into that window, and absent a clear picture of what the wall looked like before he climbed in there's no way of knowing if the wall was disturbed.

.
You're right. Under the FOAKer approved scenario, not only did Rudy not have to bend a nail, he didn't have to spread broken glass on the outside, nor rob anything, nor - deciding to take the time to wash the soles of his running shoes - wash anything else (nor having washed only the soles of his running shoes for whatever reason, promptly get them bloody again to mark his way out of the cottage), nor take more than one shot to break the window and inner shutter, nor cut himself on the way in ....

 

[Mary_H]

.
This case is about a victim, Meredith Kercher, who was brutally murdered, and the three persons who have been convicted of killing her.

No, the case of Meredith Kercher ended when Rudy Guede was convicted. The case we have been discussing is about whether Amanda and Raffaele are being persecuted, based on something other than their participation in the crime.

Instead of scrutinising some of the investigations' initial scenarios or theories, I would have thought that most people would be interested in scrutinising the actual evidence which has convicted Knox, Guede and Sollecito.

The investigation's initial scenarios and theories are the "evidence" that convicted them.

You could have replaced Mignini at any point in the trial, and still have gotten the same result, with the same people convicted, with the same reasoning presented in the Massei report.

Not quite. If Mignini had been replaced on November 4th, there would have been no trial.

 

[TomCH]

Why would you expect any traces of an intruder on the wall? the intruder stood on the top part of the grating on the window below and hauled himself through the upper window. No reason to really touch the wall at all.

And how on earth does he stand on "the top part of the grating" without touching the wall, jump? Or perhaps fly?

That was a really idiotic statement.

 

[Kermit]

Citation, please.

You can read it and listen to it.

http://perugiamurderfile.org/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=165

AK= Amanda
CP= Carlo Pacelli (Patrick's lawyer)

AK: I was in the center, near the church. It was during an evening when I met the guys that lived underneath in the apartment underneath us, and while I was mingling with them, they introduced me to Rudy.

CP: So it was on the occasion of a party at the house of the neighbors
downstairs?

AK: Yes. What we did is, they introduced me to him downtown just to say "This is Rudy, this is Amanda", and then I spent most of my time with Meredith, but we all went back to the house together.

CP: Did you also know him, or at least see him, in the pub "Le Chic", Rudy?

AK: I think I saw him there once.

CP: Listen, this party at the neighbors, it took place in the second half of
October? What period, end of October? 2007?

AK: I think it was more in the middle of October.

[An interlude in which the judge Massei asks the interpreter to not do
a simultaneous translation in which her voice is heard at the same time as
Amanda's, but to translate short phrases consecutively. Because everyone
wants to hear the answer in English, and it is being recorded. He advises
Amanda to speak in very short phrases.]

CP: On the occasion of this party, Miss, was hashish smoked?

AK: There was a spinello that was smoked, yes.

CP: At that time, in October 2007, did you use drugs?

AK: Every once in a while with friends.

CP: Which substances were they?

AK: Marijuana.

 

[odeed]

And how on earth does he stand on "the top part of the grating" without touching the wall, jump? Or perhaps fly?

That was a really idiotic statement.

Maybe mental gymnastics.