Hello, folks. I've been lurking in this forum since I read the English translation of the Massei report back in August. A true crime buff, I've been absorbed with the story since I saw a headline about it in La Repubblica during a trip to Italy in the fall of 2008.
I'm a news junkie, too, but have little patience for "Dateline" style TV journalism. Perhaps that's why my first exposure to it happened in Italy close to a year after it happened. When I came back to the states I caught up. I'm fascinated by the Rashomon-like version differences presented in Washington state based news sites vs. UK tabloids. I've read Barbie's and Candace's books and found similar discrepancies.
My big question, on the eve of the appeal, is about drug tests. The Massei report seems to indicate that AK and RS were not subject to any blood, urine, or hair tests. Evidence of consumption of meth, coke, LSD, or PCP may have helped the prosecution's case, given that there are precedents that using these substances can lead to violent crime. Were any drug tests, even for cannabis, conducted? Given that the accused admitted to toking, did law enforcement just take their word for it?
Law enforcement accepting their admittance of drug use, without drug testing, seems lax to me, given that AK and RS lied about the break in and the clean up. They could be lying about cannabis to conceal use of much harder drugs that lead to the murder.