Continuation - Discussion of the Amanda Knox case

[platonov]

And I have no reason to do extra work for you either. You refuse to engage in good faith - I can only presume that's because going off on a tangent is easier to you than addressing the debate directly. I've laid out my position as clearly as I can. What's more, it's entirely in line with the arguments set out by Sollecito's defence team in the appeal. You think you're right (or at least that I'm wrong). I think that I'm right. You refuse to show me where you believe I'm wrong. Therefore, no more need be discussed.

Very little work involved

Thats a bit much coming from somebody who posted this.

Nonsense - its not.You still haven't accepted that the defence position*and yours are diametrically opposed - in fact in complete contradiction.

According to your 'science' there is a 99.9 % probability** MK was dead before 9.20

According to the defence the ToD range is between 9.30 & 10.00 if the appeal docs are to be believed.

So I have to ask again - Do you know what it is yet ??


*Naturally they are going for the earlier part of the range - what the court accepts is a different matter obviously as the first trial showed.

** 98% to 150 mins & given this 95% between 150 & 170.

 

[Alt+F4]

Did someone just mention "hilariously silly arguments"?

You and Kevin trying to compare those experiments with Meredith's circumstances reminded me of a science experiment that one of my students once did. His hypothesis was that alcohol is damaging to humans. His experiment was giving one house plant water and the other vodka (only). The fact that the vodka plant died proved his point that alcohol is damaging to humans!

 

[Katody Matrass]

"I want my two dollars!!!"

That paperboy never got it, come to think of it. Didn't he end up going off a cliff?

Is it just a coincidence that the defense docs are more in line with the work done here on ToD?

Could it be science?

Nevermind, you forgot the P(lag)--the allowance for the difference in biology in Perugia, Italy. That's about two hours to four hours you must add or subtract so it is more convenient to convict whoever the Perugian police decide they want to throw in jail.

Here's something I came across a while back and wondered about. I'm sure it was brought up long ago, but I just want to know how long does it take to do an autopsy? Here's a story dated the 12th of December, 2007, and they still haven't decided upon a time of death and they're thinking maybe 12-2 AM so they can bust poor Patrick for it:

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,310637,00.html#ixzz17HKZr1eI

Such early reports are very valuable and show how strongly targeted the investigation was from the very beginning.

Police questioned a Swiss professor today who, together with other witnesses, said that he could back up Lumumba's claim that he was at his bar in Perugia on the evening of the murder. The professor, who has not been named, told police that he was at Lumumba's bar between 8 p.m. and 10 p.m.

Police questioned him for seven hours, but said that they had found his confirmation of Lumumba's alibi unconvincing. He was able to confirm that he had been at Lumumba's bar on the evening of the murder, but could not swear the bar owner had been present throughout. Giuseppe Sereni, Lumunba's lawyer, said he would produce 20 other witnesses to back up his client's alibi.​

If not for that Swiss professor insistence (why did they question him for 7 hours? Wasn't it a clear message "bugger off"?) they would have nailed Lumumba, too. They already had lot's of great looking clues on him. A few days more and a fine knife, perfectly cleaned "with bleach" would be found at his club or in his kitchen.

And what happened to that CCTV of Amanda going into the cottage? Wasn't it extremely incriminating, considering her version that she was all night with Sollecito? I guess it's just another piece of not-exactly-truth released by ILE.

Amanda Knox, the American student who claims that she was not even present when her British roommate, Meredith Kercher, was murdered, was caught on closed-circuit television entering the house on the evening of the crime.

The CCTV image of Knox was timed at 8.43 p.m. on the night of the killing. Forensic experts have put the time of Kercher's death at some time between 8.30 p.m. and 11 p.m. Police said Kercher was visible because she was wearing light clothing, whereas others might not have been recorded by the surveillance camera at a parking area overlooking the cottage because they were wearing darker clothes.​

BTW Kaosium, it's November the 12th, not December.

 

[LondonJohn]

Certainly. But would it? She was dead and lying flat on the floor. Perhaps the muscles of the gut keep working, perhaps they don't. Without any blood circulating it would surely have to be anaerobic?

No, the digestive system in fact slows down prior to death (other than sudden catastrophic death, obviously), as the body tries to shut off all systems that are not immediately life-supporting. Once the heart has stopped and the central nervous system has ceased functioning, no further digestion whatsoever takes place. In fact no further bodily functions take place at all. The human body immediately switches to becoming essentially a large inert piece of meat, skin, hair, internal organs and bones.

Interestingly, there's long been a myth that dead people's hair/stubble and fingernails continue to grow after death. However, this is indeed just a myth - it's an illusion caused by the shrinkage of the skin post mortem, and the consequent appearance of more of the nail surface or hair root.

 

[Kevin_Lowe]

Please tell us the exact amount of grams Meredith ate.
Please tell us the exact amount of militers of water Meredith drank.
Please tell us how many kilojoules were in Meredith last meal, total.
Please us exactly how long it took Meredith to eat the pizza and apple pie.
Please tell us about the test subjects walking in the cold after eating, the same thing Meredith did that night.

You are making a hilariously silly argument trying to compare what we know about Meredith's last meal (and the circumstances surrounding it) with a scientific experiment conducted under very specific conditions.

This is akin to saying:

"Please tell us the exact make of shoe the killer wore.
Please tell us the exact make of insole the killer wore.
Please show us a motion-captured animation of the actual killer's actual gait.
Please show us the exact hairstyle the killer wore.

If you can't do these things, then the killer could perfectly well be a four meter tall man.

You are making a hilariously silly argument trying to argue that just because the specific studies you cited showed that nobody is over 2.8m tall the killer can't be over 2.8m tall. Those studies were done under very specific conditions with very specific hairstyles, shoes and so on. If the killer wore different shoes then all bets are off - they could have been ten meters tall for all you know!".

 

[Alt+F4]

Apparently they've already finished filming. I wonder what they do if she's acquitted? Does it stay in the can forever?

It appears the movie is going to be broadcast in March and the appeal, I think, won't be decided by then.

If she's acquitted they can make part 2: "Amanda Knox, the Journey Home!"

 

[shuttlt]

Not that it seems to be being questioned, but this link seems to indicate posture has little impact on the timing:

http://www.springerlink.com/content/m6715650l6g61183/

 

[Kaosium]

<snip>
Or maybe Nick Pisa and the Daily Telegraph are just tabloid trash and not to be trusted about the quote.

Or maybe Mr Dornhelm is not privy to the scientific evidence based amateur napkin computed TOD dramatic diatribes posted here ad nauseam that makes the unanimous juror verdict completely invalid.

Or maybe---------please do not hesitate to fill in the blanks with the usual cut and paste PR provided talking points

Or maybe; please do not hesitate to tell us all (when convenient, but before you dare post anything else, of course) just why Mr Dornhelm with his impressive background and his almost unlimited research assistance would make such a statement.

Repeated for emphasis;

Mr Dornhelm said:"The film will tell the psychological journey that leads to Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito to kill Meredith Kercher"

I couldn't find this in the Telegraph, (online) which is not a tabloid. Or it least it didn't use to be, I think they call them 'broadsheets' or somesuch. I think they changed ownership though. I did find the article in the Mail, though, and linked it in my post. I suppose it might not have come up on my search of 'Amanda Knox Movie.' I only got three articles, the last from November 24th.

Which PR talking point would you like me to paste? I aim to please!

Anyway, I guess I won't have to try to figure out which of my thousand channels or so is Lifetime.

Who am I kidding? Of course I'll watch it, let us hope these reports are as accurate as the Mail's Streets of Bagdad piece....

 

[Kaosium]

Such early reports are very valuable and show how strongly targeted the investigation was from the very beginning.

Police questioned a Swiss professor today who, together with other witnesses, said that he could back up Lumumba's claim that he was at his bar in Perugia on the evening of the murder. The professor, who has not been named, told police that he was at Lumumba's bar between 8 p.m. and 10 p.m.

Police questioned him for seven hours, but said that they had found his confirmation of Lumumba's alibi unconvincing. He was able to confirm that he had been at Lumumba's bar on the evening of the murder, but could not swear the bar owner had been present throughout. Giuseppe Sereni, Lumunba's lawyer, said he would produce 20 other witnesses to back up his client's alibi.​

If not for that Swiss professor insistence (why did they question him for 7 hours? Wasn't it a clear message "bugger off"?) they would have nailed Lumumba, too. They already had lot's of great looking clues on him. A few days more and a fine knife, perfectly cleaned "with bleach" would be found at his club or in his kitchen.

And what happened to that CCTV of Amanda going into the cottage? Wasn't it extremely incriminating, considering her version that she was all night with Sollecito? I guess it's just another piece of not-exactly-truth released by ILE.

Amanda Knox, the American student who claims that she was not even present when her British roommate, Meredith Kercher, was murdered, was caught on closed-circuit television entering the house on the evening of the crime.

The CCTV image of Knox was timed at 8.43 p.m. on the night of the killing. Forensic experts have put the time of Kercher's death at some time between 8.30 p.m. and 11 p.m. Police said Kercher was visible because she was wearing light clothing, whereas others might not have been recorded by the surveillance camera at a parking area overlooking the cottage because they were wearing darker clothes.​

BTW Kaosium, it's November the 12th, not December.

Of course it is, my mistake. Does it take eleven days to do an autopsy? The body has been flown back to Britain at this point, why on earth don't they have a rational time of death? I honestly don't know how this works, I thought it was a procedure of hours, not days.

 

[Alt+F4]

This is akin to saying:

"Please tell us the exact make of shoe the killer wore.
Please tell us the exact make of insole the killer wore.
Please show us a motion-captured animation of the actual killer's actual gait.
Please show us the exact hairstyle the killer wore.

If you can't do these things, then the killer could perfectly well be a four meter tall man.

You are making a hilariously silly argument trying to argue that just because the specific studies you cited showed that nobody is over 2.8m tall the killer can't be over 2.8m tall. Those studies were done under very specific conditions with very specific hairstyles, shoes and so on. If the killer wore different shoes then all bets are off - they could have been ten meters tall for all you know!".

This incoherent mess of a post has nothing to do with the scientific (not legal) experiments John linked to and how they are of no value in regard to Meredith's stomach contents.

 

[pilot padron]

I couldn't find this in the Telegraph, .... I did find the article in the Mail, though, and linked it in my post. I suppose it might not have come up on my search of 'Amanda Knox Movie.' I only got three articles, the last from November 24th.

Article referenced was, as stated, in Telegraph today, 05dec;
evidenced based, scientific, URL below:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/wor...lay-Meredith-Kercher-in-Amanda-Knox-film.html

 

[Kestrel]

Of course it is, my mistake. Does it take eleven days to do an autopsy? The body has been flown back to Britain at this point, why on earth don't they have a rational time of death? I honestly don't know how this works, I thought it was a procedure of hours, not days.

An autopsy is a matter of hours. Complete results might take a few days assuming they sent out tissue and blood samples for analysis.

 

[Kaosium]

It appears the movie is going to be broadcast in March and the appeal, I think, won't be decided by then.

If she's acquitted they can make part 2: "Amanda Knox, the Journey Home!"

I read it should take six months, so you might be right, but then again there might not be that much of a case left...

I wonder what happens if they lose the DNA evidence, and the headlines read each day: "Discredited Witness Imperils Prosecution Case!" I wonder if they shot two endings? you'd think they'd consider it at least. Or perhaps one for Britain, and one for the States?

At any rate, I didn't find out Ruben Carter was actually probably guilty until the movie came out myself. I saw something on TV about it, and saw the evidence and why they didn't try him the third time and I'm like 'Geez, he was guilty as hell, wasn't he?'

Perhaps it will give the real story more publicity, and who watches Lifetime anyway? I don't even have a clue where it is on my system.

 

[LondonJohn]

Very little work involved

Thats a bit much coming from somebody who posted this.

Nonsense - its not.You still haven't accepted that the defence position*and yours are diametrically opposed - in fact in complete contradiction.

According to your 'science' there is a 99.9 % probability** MK was dead before 9.20

According to the defence the ToD range is between 9.30 & 10.00 if the appeal docs are to be believed.

So I have to ask again - Do you know what it is yet ??


*Naturally they are going for the earlier part of the range - what the court accepts is a different matter obviously as the first trial showed.

** 98% to 150 mins & given this 95% between 150 & 170.

As I said, I'm not interested in engaging you any longer. But I thought I'd point out your statistical error in trying to revise my probabilities.

There's only (by my calculations) around 2% probability that Meredith was still alive at 9pm (150 minutes after eating her meal). This is clearly very improbable (1 person in 50), but since we know that she was indeed alive at T(lag) = 150 min, then we clearly accept it.

To make the analogy to human height, lets use an actual study of adult male height in Australia:

http://jcem.endojournals.org/cgi/content/full/86/9/4147

In this study of 413 adult males, the mean height was 174.1cm (5ft 8.5 inches), with an SD of 7cm (2.8 inches). Now, two SDs from the mean corresponds to the 97.7% point - which is a good comparison for the 98% point for T(lag) = 150min.

So to say that Meredith had a T(lag) of over 150min is analogous to saying that an adult male is at least (174.1 + (2*7)) = 188.1cm tall (= just over 6ft2). Most of us know one or two adult friends who are this height or over, so whilst it's uncommon (1 in 50 of adult males), it's not extremely unlikely.

Now let's look at the 4 SD point on the curve. This corresponds roughly to the 99.95% mark. 174.1 + (4*7) = 202.1cm (= 6ft 7.6 inches). The data suggest that only one per 250 adult men is 6ft 7.6 or taller. And this is probably in keeping with most people's life experiences. I don't think I've ever known anyone this tall, although I've seen a few strangers.

So the question is, if we know that an adult male is at least 6ft 2 tall, what are the odds that he's between 6ft 2 and 6ft 7.6, as opposed to being taller than 6ft 7.6. This research would suggest that he's about 95% likely to be between 6ft 2 and 6ft 7.6.

And exactly the same analysis can be applied to ToD. The only relevant question is this: given that Meredith definitely had a T(lag) of greater than 150 mins, what is the probability (given the experimental data-derived curve) that her T(lag) was between 150 and 170 min. And the answer is the same - 95%. But there's still a 5% chance that T(lag) was greater than 170m. However, this 5% almost all applies to a T(lag) between 170 min and 210 min. The probability of Meredith having a T(lag) of over 210 minutes is virtually zero, for practical purposes. And this corresponds to a ToD of 10pm. And I've always put the absolute upper level of ToD at 10pm for this reason, with my associated view of a high probability that it was before 9.30pm.

 

[shuttlt]

Given that this analysis indicates that there is only a 2% chance of her being alive when we know she was in fact alive, is that perhaps a reason to wonder whether the analysis is correct? It may be of course, but 2% is small enough that it makes me wonder whether some factor hasn't been missed.

 

[Charlie Wilkes]

LondonJohn,

A very long time ago there was much excitement that Hillary Clinton would somehow get involved in the case after saying some more than somewhat pro-Knox things. We were assured that she was being kept informed. As you indicate, it would be diplomatically awkward if such a thing were ever to happen. Doubtless, if they really wanted to, Berlusconi could have been induced to make a little phonecall to the prosecutor. He's done it before.

Berlusconi and his political allies may feel their interests are well served by allowing the controversy to drag on, sapping the strength and and undermining the credibility of the judiciary.

 

[Machiavelli]

You have got to be kidding.

I noticed your latter comments are a bit short in elaboration.

 

[Kaosium]

Article referenced was, as stated, in Telegraph today, 05dec;
evidenced based, scientific, URL below:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/wor...lay-Meredith-Kercher-in-Amanda-Knox-film.html

I stand corrected, I didn't search hard enough I guess.

So do you suppose the production of a movie that looks like it might consider her guilty (in opposition to earlier reports) will give her more sympathetic exposure in all the outlets that actually count for something and people can find on their TVs?

Do you know where Lifetime is on your TV? No peeking!

 

[Charlie Wilkes]

As I said, I'm not interested in engaging you any longer. But I thought I'd point out your statistical error in trying to revise my probabilities.

There's only (by my calculations) around 2% probability that Meredith was still alive at 9pm (150 minutes after eating her meal). This is clearly very improbable (1 person in 50), but since we know that she was indeed alive at T(lag) = 150 min, then we clearly accept it.

Are you accounting for the 8 pm dessert? My understanding is that it would slow digestion, enough so her stomach could still be full at 9 pm.

 

[Kaosium]

An autopsy is a matter of hours. Complete results might take a few days assuming they sent out tissue and blood samples for analysis.

Thank you, Kestrel. There must be a story here I missed when googling about? Perhaps it was addressed earlier on this thread and I've forgotten about or missed it as it was sandwiched inside the 'impossible window to climb into' nonsense?

How long did it take to produce their time of death? Didn't anyone get suspicious?