Continuation - Discussion of the Amanda Knox case

[Machiavelli]

(..)

I doubt it. But piling assumptions is the only way to prevent Massei's non-scenario from falling apart, that's a fact.

Let's point out that here we are talking about Nara's credibility, not about Massei scenario.

 

[Kaosium]

Exactly my thoughts too. In their position, I think I'd feel it would be very presumptuous to contact the Kerchers directly; I wouldn't just assume they'd be OK with hearing from me, if my daughter had just been accused of murdering theirs and I had no way of knowing whether they believed it to be true or not. I'd never impose on a grieving family like that without knowing for sure they were OK with me contacting them. Quite apart from Amanda's family being in a very overwhelming situation themselves.

For all Amanda's family knew, the Kerchers might have been deeply upset by being contacted by the parents of the girl accused of their daughter's murder. Amanda's parents have stated how much sympathy they have for the Kerchers repeatedly, I don't blame them for not doing so directly.

Well said, this is what I always thought about this issue, and had trouble imagining myself in the shoes of either party expecting condolences from the Knox's. Talk about your uncomfortable scenarios!

 

[Kaosium]

Let's point out that here we are talking about Nara's credibility, not about Massei scenario.

To what extent is the prosecution in the appeal limited to what was established in the original trial?

 

[LondonJohn]

Michael on PMF has "gone postal". I think things may be getting on top of him: he's now threatening to publish "front page exposes"(!), and claiming that there's "unpublished" evidence that he knows about but which apparently nobody else (including the courts, it seems) does. It would certainly be interesting to see this evidence! It's also very clear that he really believes that he's engaged in performing some sort of service to the Kercher family. I wonder if the Kercher family know (let alone appreciate) what he and others are doing "in their name"?

Here's his already-immortal outburst:

"But I'll tell you all this, I'm not going to stand by and do nothing while people kick a grieving father as he's lying on the ground. If PMF doesn't help him in his hour of need...I see no valid reason for us actuaily being here.

So, there shall be a response. This will take form on several levels...it may be, that we shall publish some front page exposes...or publish some of the unpublished evidence about Knox...oh for example, the 'other' statement she handed to police after the memorial that has never been published, the one with drawings and the one that shows she's a complete fruit loop...and let's not get started on the (expletive deleted) on the wardrobe doors, or her April Fools prank on a room mate where she thought bursting into her room with a bunch of mates wearing ski masks to make her think she was about to raped and murdered would be funny...

That's without even getting to who some of her supporters are and what their affiliations and interests are all about."

Interesting....... "There shall be a response" hehehe

 

[Machiavelli]

(...)
By the way, please show me (and everyone else) this medical literature that you say you've read which supports your opinion. I recall that the last literature you presented here was way off the mark in that it dealt with t(1/2) rather than t(lag) - and you didn't seem to have realised the difference. I hope your next piece of documentary evidence actually addresses the correct parameters. If it's good, credible, peer-reviewed research, and it says that a study of healthy adults eating an average-sized meal shows that any more than 1% of them still had that meal entirely within their stomach after 3 hours, or that more than 0.05% of them lasted more than four hours, then I'll be both surprised and impressed. But somehow I don't think that's going to happen.

No I will not spend my time searching literature for you on the subject. I already know no expert would grant the response you expect.
I can tell you I perfectly understood the difference between lag time and half emptying time, and I also found out that lag time is a far less reliable and subject to variants thant 1/2 emptying time, and considered a unreliable parameter by part of the literature.
But the points are many in this case, and they are variants at the level of ground assumptions. Specialized literature, for example, doesn't discuss the case of meals assumed over a non continuous period of time as equivalent to meals assumed all at once. Subsequent meal entries and association of different kinds of food could have big influence on the timings of lag phase. Variants due from food composition are very significant, as well as the person's reaction to alcohol. And all literature studies base their assumptions on known and controlled conditions of the patient, while most essntial variant in this case is the unknown psycho-physical condition of the person after 21:00. Events like stress and fear can modify the course of early digestion in terms of hours.
Finally, the error intrinsic in pathologysts conclusions even in best conditions of knowledge is not useful in practice here, where we would need a precision of less than half an hour, and the time of death here is not determinant in terms of alibi. The entire meaning of the time of death seems to rest on the value given to the Naruto file, and this is rather the erroneous assumption that this only element is capable to provide the strenght of an alibi and to counter the evidence.

 

[platonov]

His coat is dusty from neglect, his whiskers are uncombed.

I think I understand your point, and perhaps where some of the confusion comes from. There's at least two levels to this case, one being what actually happened, and the other what was 'proven' in court. In the latter sense Curtatolo's testimony only actually exists in the prosecution's case, being as they're not going to produce a witness that would bely their narrative--though he nearly did so on the stand. The defense wouldn't use him as he would give lie to their alibi. If the time of death is changed to a more scientifically supportable time, then Curtatolo disappears, and the defense wouldn't call him.

Oh, I know were the confusion is coming from

Curatolo does NOT disappear based on the magically precise ToD theories which no court will accept - earlier or later ranges perhaps.
The defence have to discredit him completely. That is the only reality.

Following his recent epiphany London John may now be able to explain it to yourself and Kevin Lowe.

.

 

[Kaosium]

Michael on PMF has "gone postal". I think things may be getting on top of him: he's now threatening to publish "front page exposes"(!), and claiming that there's "unpublished" evidence that he knows about but which apparently nobody else (including the courts, it seems) does. It would certainly be interesting to see this evidence! It's also very clear that he really believes that he's engaged in performing some sort of service to the Kercher family. I wonder if the Kercher family know (let alone appreciate) what he and others are doing "in their name"?

Here's his already-immortal outburst:

"But I'll tell you all this, I'm not going to stand by and do nothing while people kick a grieving father as he's lying on the ground. If PMF doesn't help him in his hour of need...I see no valid reason for us actuaily being here.

So, there shall be a response. This will take form on several levels...it may be, that we shall publish some front page exposes...or publish some of the unpublished evidence about Knox...oh for example, the 'other' statement she handed to police after the memorial that has never been published, the one with drawings and the one that shows she's a complete fruit loop...and let's not get started on the (expletive deleted) on the wardrobe doors, or her April Fools prank on a room mate where she thought bursting into her room with a bunch of mates wearing ski masks to make her think she was about to raped and murdered would be funny...

That's without even getting to who some of her supporters are and what their affiliations and interests are all about."

Interesting....... "There shall be a response" hehehe

*sigh*

Thus it begins. All thanks to the Mail.

 

[Machiavelli]

To what extent is the prosecution in the appeal limited to what was established in the original trial?

They are not limited.

 

[Katody Matrass]

Let's point out that here we are talking about Nara's credibility, not about Massei scenario.

No problem.

By piling unsupported assumptions you won't help Nara's credibility. And you won't construct a scenario this way that would withstand Occam's razor when confronted with the single perpetrator scenario.

 

[LondonJohn]

No I will not spend my time searching literature for you on the subject. I already know no expert would grant the response you expect.
I can tell you I perfectly understood the difference between lag time and half emptying time, and I also found out that lag time is a far less reliable and subject to variants thant 1/2 emptying time, and considered a unreliable parameter by part of the literature.
But the points are many in this case, and they are variants at the level of ground assumptions. Specialized literature, for example, doesn't discuss the case of meals assumed over a non continuous period of time as equivalent to meals assumed all at once. Subsequent meal entries and association of different kinds of food could have big influence on the timings of lag phase. Variants due from food composition are very significant, as well as the person's reaction to alcohol. And all literature studies base their assumptions on known and controlled conditions of the patient, while most essntial variant in this case is the unknown psycho-physical condition of the person after 21:00. Events like stress and fear can modify the course of early digestion in terms of hours.
Finally, the error intrinsic in pathologysts conclusions even in best conditions of knowledge is not useful in practice here, where we would need a precision of less than half an hour, and the time of death here is not determinant in terms of alibi. The entire meaning of the time of death seems to rest on the value given to the Naruto file, and this is rather the erroneous assumption that this only element is capable to provide the strenght of an alibi and to counter the evidence.

Superb comeback!

You shouldn't need to be "searching literature" - you say in your previous post that you've already found literature which supports your position. I will take it that you actually don't have any literature which supports your position on this rather important issue, unless and until you present some. And I imagine that most other people will feel the same way. I (and others) have cited good literature to support a thesis that 3 hours is, for all intents, the upper limit for a solid meal to remain wholly within the stomach of an otherwise healthy adult. It seems that you can't present any good evidence to challenge this thesis. And that you're trying to backtrack on your prior claim by simply saying that you "can't be bothered" to waste your time providing cites. That doesn't wash, as far as I'm concerned.

And "I already know no expert would grant the response you expect"?? I suspect you yourself realise that completely arbitrary and unsupported statements like this do nothing but damage your credibility in this and other matters.

Oh, and are you suggesting that Meredith was subjected to mortal terror from the time she arrived home at 9pm to the "time of her death" at later than 11.30pm? That's not only simply laughable, but it also places the genesis of the crime at 9pm - thereby blowing the prosecution case apart all by itself. Or are you suggesting that Meredith was terrorised by a completely different set of people between 9pm and 11pm, or maybe that Guede spent a couple of hours torturing her on his own before Knox and Sollecito arrived to administer the coup de grace?

 

[Machiavelli]

(..)

So now we have line of sight between Nara's window and balcony floor? How sure are you about it?

The line of sight is not the path of an elastic wave.
If you lean you ear on a railway and you miht hear the sound of the incoming train several kilometres away if the train is in a straight line. If the rails go along a bend around a mountain you will hear the same sound as if it was in a straight line.
Each point of elastic mean (air) is a source of propagation of the wave with no directional preference. The elastic wave is not inertial. When it follows a straight line, this is only because of the geometrical properties of the volume of propagation mean, not because it has any preference for straight lines. Sound is not light, it does not propagate in relation to space, but only in relation to matter.

I'm talking about a sound from a most distant room inside the house, going through a half open door, a corridor, closed balcony window, half open shutters, around the corner or around the roof, then up and around the parking lot wall. And almost no reflective walls around that house. only trees, foliage, open space. Almost every wall in the vicinity would reflect it away from Nara's.

And I think much of that sound would be absorbed already inside Meredith's room. And let's not forget that every reflection means partial absorption.

I don't know why your door has to be "half open", and I don't see the parking lot as a linear obstacle (it is lower than the line to Nara apartment).

Not only but I also see there is a large stairwell right below Nara's window, opened on the void of the lower store of the parking lot, a space which is open on the side of the cottage. And I imagine this could be a good path and maybe even work as an echo box.

 

[LondonJohn]

Oh, I know were the confusion is coming from

Curatolo does NOT disappear based on the magically precise ToD theories which no court will accept - earlier or later ranges perhaps.
The defence have to discredit him completely. That is the only reality.

Following his recent epiphany London John may now be able to explain it to yourself and Kevin Lowe.

.

".....magically precise ToD theories which no court will accept"? That's a very strong assertion. Upon what grounds are you making this very definitive statement? It will be interesting to see what the defence offers in respect to the time of death, and what the court chooses to accept. Then perhaps we might need to revisit what you've written here.

With regard to my "recent epiphany", you seem to be making a speciality of twisting the posts of people to whose views you are opposed, aren't you? I will make the more generous assumption that you know exactly what you're doing, and are deliberately misrepresenting people like me in order to (I assume) try to bolster your own arguments. Of course, the alternative is that your ability to read my (and others') posts with decent critical reasoning faculties is defective, but I would very much hope that this is not the case

 

[Machiavelli]

Superb comeback!

You shouldn't need to be "searching literature" - you say in your previous post that you've already found literature which supports your position. I will take it that you actually don't have any literature which supports your position on this rather important issue, unless and until you present some. (..)

You can be presumptuous and offensive as much as you like to be, but you will always be wrong on this point. I am simply not interested in what you think, even less what you think about what I do and what I have.
I simply know that you will find an expert to testify what you wish, I am certain about this, and I just tell you I am certain. The conclusion you think to have got is not within the scope of medical science, it is not science. A determination of time of death in the terms you specified simply won't happen. It is impossible.
And it would be also irrelevant.

 

[Ampulla of Vater]

Nara's window is clearly visible from the balcony, as a picture showed.
And the large window opening on the balcony is obviously a source compatible with that window. The word compatible means possible. Distance is very short (physically actually 41 meters), there is no occlusive barrer, spund propagation - being an elastic compression wave - does not occur just along straight lines and does not depend so much on the track in the midway (it depends more, for instance, on the shape of objects close to the point of arrival).
I this case the direct path is almost entirely clear. Nara could not see a person at the balcony window. But to state she should not have heared a sound coming from that window, there is no ground to say that. The source is certainly compatible. Moreover, bear in mind there were also other window in the cottage, one could have been even open, like the window in the big bathroom (as Rudy had just been in the toilet) and this window faces Nara's window directly.[/QUOTE]

Perhaps the sound traveled through the gaping hole in Filomena's window.

 

[LondonJohn]

You can be presumptuous and offensive as much as you like to be, but you will always be wrong on this point. I am simply not interested in what you think, even less what you think about what I do and what I have.
I simply know that you will find an expert to testify what you wish, I am certain about this, and I just tell you I am certain. The conclusion you think to have got is not within the scope of medical science, it is not science. A determination of time of death in the terms you specified simply won't happen. It is impossible.
And it would be also irrelevant.

Well, an interesting point of view. Nice to know that you're not interested in what I think. And your levels of certitude are impressive in the extreme - I congratulate you further on your wisdom and prescience!

Even though I'm not seeing in your post anything concrete whatsoever to support your position, I respect your right to hold that position. I think the appeal hearings might be interesting......

ETA I suspect you meant to write "..you will not find an expert...." But Freudian slips are always noteworthy

 

[Machiavelli]

I also want to add, as a semantic specification for you, that to read literature is not the same as to search literature, especially if it is search literature to quote it and for you. For people who, in the first instance, appear unable to read themselves the scientific meaning of the literature they have searched.

 

[LondonJohn]

I also want to add, as a semantic specification for you, that to read literature is not the same as to search literature, especially if it is search literature to quote it and for you. For people who, in the first instance, appear unable to read themselves the scientific meaning of the literature they have searched.

I suppose I could do without the ongoing insults to my intelligence, to be honest. I have more than a sufficient scientific education to be able to interpret academic literature correctly. I am also extremely well-versed in the physiology of the gastro-intestinal system, having suffered from quite a severe GI inflammatory disease since my early 20s.

You see, if you claim that I (or Kevin or others) are misinterpreting the academic literature from which we've constructed our arguments, it's sort of incumbent upon you (sorry to break it to you) to demonstrate how and why we are misinterpreting the literature, in order to make your case. To simply say "you've misinterpreted it" is not generally regarded as sufficient. So if you do a quick search on this thread, you'll find the papers (there's three main ones, I think), from which we drew most of the research data. Here, I'll give you a link to one of them:

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1440-1746.2006.04449.x/abstract

I welcome (seriously) your corrections.

 

[platonov]

This cat has nine lives

".....magically precise ToD theories which no court will accept"? That's a very strong assertion. Upon what grounds are you making this very definitive statement? It will be interesting to see what the defence offers in respect to the time of death, and what the court chooses to accept. Then perhaps we might need to revisit what you've written here.

With regard to my "recent epiphany", you seem to be making a speciality of twisting the posts of people to whose views you are opposed, aren't you? I will make the more generous assumption that you know exactly what you're doing, and are deliberately misrepresenting people like me in order to (I assume) try to bolster your own arguments. Of course, the alternative is that your ability to read my (and others') posts with decent critical reasoning faculties is defective, but I would very much hope that this is not the case

2nd things first - Do you now accept or not the simple [Macavity ?] point about alibis that caused such a furore a few weeks back ???

Its a simple question.

To soften the blow - You don't even have to take my (or others) opinion on it any longer - the defence appeal docs that were posted prove the point. Not that it needed proving - it should have been obvious to anybody.

On the 'magically precise ToD theories' - I make the assertion on the grounds that your theories are simplistic nonsense.
The record from the 1st trial alone bears this out.

But lets see the translated appeal docs - ask CW or halides1 to provide them.
The 'summaries' on IIP, which admittedly are probably not trustworthy, have no such certainty on ToD.
Obviously the defence will go again for an early (perhaps earlier) ToD range but that's no guarantee it will be accepted.
And indeed without other evidence being overturned or produced it will make no difference.

.

 

[Machiavelli]

Perhaps the sound traveled through the gaping hole in Filomena's window.

Perhaps. Filomena's window however is actually on the other side of the building. This position would really weaken the source in respect to Nara's apartment. Somebody in Piazza Grimana and other apartments could have more chances to hear it in this case. But I cannot assert Nara's hearing is impossible.

I want to make clear I am not in principle against performing physical sound tests, but I am afraid an experiment would be inconclusive. Wind, temperature, humidity, background noise, and even uncertain location of Meredith in that moment, are variants that could take us back to the same obligated choice to belive or not to believe Nara. I am against an audiometric test on Nara since this would be irrelevant, Nara is obviously not deaf.

 

[LondonJohn]

2nd things first - Do you now accept or not the simple [Macavity ?] point about alibis that caused such a furore a few weeks back ???

Its a simple question.

To soften the blow - You don't even have to take my (or others) opinion on it any longer - the defence appeal docs that were posted prove the point. Not that it needed proving - it should have been obvious to anybody.

On the 'magically precise ToD theories' - I make the assertion on the grounds that your theories are simplistic nonsense.
The record from the 1st trial alone bears this out.

But lets see the translated appeal docs - ask CW or halides1 to provide them.
The 'summaries' on IIP, which admittedly are probably not trustworthy, have no such certainty on ToD.
Obviously the defence will go again for an early (perhaps earlier) ToD range but that's no guarantee it will be accepted.
And indeed without other evidence being overturned or produced it will make no difference.

.

Maybe you can point out to me how and why my theories are simplistic nonsense? A cite from an accredited medical journal, or a quote from a suitably-qualified medical/scientific professional, would suffice. Or you can even just point out how and why I (and others) have misinterpreted the literature that we've discovered. Because just saying they are simplistic nonsense isn't really sufficient, is it?

.

.

Oh, and by the way, I still don't know what you're driving at with this "Macavity" reference. Macavity was simply a criminal cat in the TS Eliot poem who was adept at evading capture. I don't know why you think his name should apply to some situation that you're trying to describe. Maybe you're misremembering the poem? Or maybe the venerable Lord Lloyd Webber ascribed further properties to Macavity in his awful musical - I wouldn't know since I've never seen it.

Maybe you can explain to me in uncoded language exactly what point you're referring to about the alibis, and then I'll be able to answer you.