Continuation - Discussion of the Amanda Knox case

[platonov]

kaosium,

The defense was severely hampered by the lack of full DNA disclosure in this case. However, the Johnson/Hampikian letter is an effective rebuttal of the proscution's case with respect to the knife and bra clasp.

Scroll down about halfway, and you will find a pdf file of this letter.

Ignoring the disclosure argument, which Machiavelli seems to have settled - the J/H letter will count for precisely ZERO unless its presented with supporting testimony or documentation in the appeal.

 

[Kevin_Lowe]

Why would such a perp carefully limit such brushing to only (and precisely) one half of the window sill, and guide such brushings into the interior with such deliberation? One swipe of a forearm across the window sill would clean nearly all the glass fragments from the entire sill. Of course, this would result in a substantial amount of framents landing outside the building, below the window.

Oh, yeah. That would be inconvenient from some perspectives, wouldn't it?

The problem with argument-by-rhetorical question is that it's just a way of trying to foist the burden of proof on someone else. In this case, it's not up to us to make up a fairy story that satisfies you.

If you have a positive argument to make that Rudy would definitely have swept glass fragments to the ground below then make it. If you have a positive argument to make that there would be a substantial amount of glass on the sill anyway, which seems counterintuitive given that glass hit by a low-velocity projectile almost all goes in the direction of impact not the opposite direction, make it. Otherwise there's no case to answer.

The large glass fragments in front of the impact spot are consistent with Rudy manually removing fragments of glass from the broken window to enlarge the hole, as is the shape of the area of missing glass. I can't see why having removed them he'd be compelled to toss them to the ground below.

 

[lionking]

The problem with argument-by-rhetorical question is that it's just a way of trying to foist the burden of proof on someone else. In this case, it's not up to us to make up a fairy story that satisfies you.

Who is this "us" you speak of? It's most irritating when you act as a self-selected spokesperson.

 

[Kaosium]

No Kaosium this argument is complete nonsense.

Here is what you posted again.....
After I pointed out your argument was 'befuddled' or 'mistaken' you posted a link from Science Spheres which I then pointed out was also complete nonsense **

You then posted the relevant section from Massei and your argument was still nonsense.

You're right, it was! That's what I thanked you for, leading me to the truth of the matter. I never quite got what that was all about, the best I could make out was the window was shut and the shutter slightly open and the rock hit the glass which caused it to ricochet back into the room at roughly a 180 degree angle off the shutters, and the rock hit the shutter and bounced outside. Something like that, I honestly couldn't figure out what it was saying and I didn't really give it much thought. It was hardly a concern of mine outside that story about the rock I thought was funny and I accepted it from Mark Waterbury. He was wrong and so was I for coming to the same conclusion.

I posted it from his site because everytime I tried to post something from that PDF file of Massei it came up with computer language for some reason. I found if I posted a little at a time it doesn't do that, or my program updated and fixed that problem, I dunno.

However, the reason I ran off at the keyboard is I could see the glass bouncing back but not sideways! I had a bit of an epiphany on this esoteric little detail, and I got a little chuffed. Now I understand what they were actually saying, because it didn't enter my mental universe that the window could open inwards and they were saying it was thrown through the window across the opening at a 90 angle with the inner shutter also open behind that. We not only don't have windows that open inwards (that I have ever seen) we don't have inner shutters and frankly any shutter that isn't pure decoration nailed in place has become increasingly rare.

After several more posts your argument is now that you had skipped over this section and that Massei or I or somebody else is at fault and write an essay length post to try and justify your arguments & again quoting this guy Waterbury who we have already established is not credible.
Nor is it esoteric that your arguments are relying on **sources that are either deliberately false or else written by someone so incredibly stupid they cant understand simple parts of the Massei report.
And that on this basis you repeatedly argue , as others here have done, that it was reading Massei that convinced you of innocence.

No, he made the same mistake I did I bet, as you claim Kestrel and Kevin Lowe did. That is a difficult passage for some to decipher, and I sure don't mind being in their company. The funny thing is here, that interpretation just made it look silly, not virtually impossible. I was just having a laugh about it sounding backwards with the rock up and down, I didn't think it was saying all that glass flew sideways, that never crossed my mind.

People making mistakes doesn't destroy their 'credibility' in my view, and I think that's all Dr. Waterbury did. Hell, I evaluate information from people I suspect who've knowingly posted false data. I figured out about three minutes into this issue that some involved are very vehement about it for reasons they think noble, and that tends to lead to impassioned arguments wherein things can get a bit murky sometimes.

We have gone as far as we can go with this - but I suspect if you keep relying on sources like Waterbury as opposed to going to the primary documentation we shall be having similar 'debates' again and with similar outcomes.

I don't mind, Platonov, I'd rather get to the truth of it all. He does have expertise I lack, and I have to take that into account. He was wrong about this, but he was wrong in the more cautious--funnier--direction, just like I and others were because we could not read that passage correctly missing the context of those windows I knew nothing about. I don't agree with his theory on Rudy Guede either, but that doesn't mean he's necessarily wrong.

I just have different ideas about that now, more benevolent regarding the Perugian police in that instance than he. I think they just didn't want to run him in and didn't think him a threat, which in part I think makes a little more sense of why they went overboard in this case. However that is subject to change with better information.

 

[treehorn]

Since the clothes Rudy wore when he committed the crime were never found, and from memory the only fingerprint identified as Rudy's was made in blood in the murder room, all we know for certain is that if he wore gloves her removed them before stabbing Meredith or shortly afterwards.

Wiping one's backside in gloves is very awkward, because there's no tactile feedback and the paper tends to slip, so it's possible he removed the gloves to wipe himself and did not put them back on when Meredith came home and caught him on the loo. Another possibility is that he found it impossible to forcibly disrobe Meredith with gloves on and removed them to facilitate sexually assaulting her.

I see no reason to assume that if he wore gloves he removed them before Meredith got home, since so far as I am aware there is no DNA or fingerprint evidence indicative of him doing things with his bare hands prior to that point.

Thank you for your enlightening dissertation on the use of gloves in this particular context. Where would we be without you?

Will you (in accord with your devotion to argument by way of citation to "peer-reviewed scientific journals") be supporting these claims in the requisite fashion?

Incidentally, why are you so content to accept that Rudy effectively disposed of HIS bloody clothes, gloves and knife while, at one and the same time, finding it preposterous that Amanda & Raffaele could have done the same with THEIR bloody clothes, gloves and knives?

 

[platonov]

The problem with argument-by-rhetorical question is that it's just a way of trying to foist the burden of proof on someone else. In this case, it's not up to us to make up a fairy story that satisfies you.
<snip>

Well if its not for 'our' satisfaction (which is good as they certainly don't satisfy ) - what is the motivation for these fairy stories.
And can we have some talking animals* please - if they are slightly world weary and pithy all the better [oh oh and with hats if possible]

* For example a goat who, despite never having even been to Germany or met anybody from that region has a particular [never adequately explained] disdain for the citizens of Wupperetal.

 

[Chris_Halkides]

glad you are back

Where would we be without you?

treehorn,

I was just asking the same question about you. In message 18860 I listed the messages you have been ignoring for a month now and asked whether you were finally willing to concede that you and Barbie Nadeau were wrong about Daniel (now that you have had a month to translate the portion of his witness statement I provided). Here are the message numbers, for a second time.

18587, page 465
16723, page 419
14896, page 373
14885, page 373
14765, page 370
14742, page 369

 

[Chris_Halkides]

two questions for lionking

Who is this "us" you speak of? It's most irritating when you act as a self-selected spokesperson.

Many of your comments imply that you think that Knox and Sollecito are guilty. Do you? What would change your mind?

 

[treehorn]

treehorn,

I was just asking the same question about you. In message 18860 I listed the messages you have been ignoring for a month now and asked whether you were finally willing to concede that you and Barbie Nadeau were wrong about Daniel (now that you have had a month to translate the portion of his witness statement I provided). Here are the message numbers, for a second time.

18587, page 465
16723, page 419
14896, page 373
14885, page 373
14765, page 370
14742, page 369

I'm not ducking you, I'm trying to make partner and raise a family.

Moreover, as I stated to you previously, I'm not impressed by your effort to refute the work of a career journalist at Newsweek with nothing more than a post citing an unnamed JREF poster who claims to have had access to trial transcripts that undermine Nadeau's assertions.

That's a waste of my time.

I'll look up these posts of yours later tonight, but if they're along the same lines as your previous efforts, I don't think we're going to have much to talk about.

I'm not interested in 'spin', and I'm not the least bit interested in anything the relatives of the accused (or their PR people) have to say on the courthouse steps. (You wouldn't be either if you'd spent so much as a day of your life representing criminal accused.)

I'm interested in what was adduced in the courtroom. Nothing less.

 

[moodstream]

... since Guede's judge decided that the murder took place by 10.30pm.

I find it pretty extraordinary in any case that the two different courts established two significantly different ToDs in their reasoning behind the respective convictions, since they were both trying to find the "truth" out about exactly the same crime, supposedly carried out by the same group of people at the same time.

I would call it more than extraordinary. Is it unique? I can't even conceive of a trial where the evidence can be modified to make it easier to convict the accused.

I say, two TOD's, two murders. Ms Kercher must have been murdered twice that night. How else could there be two TOD's.

That is insane. Is there legal precedent for this?

 

[lionking]

Many of your comments imply that you think that Knox and Sollecito are guilty. Do you? What would change your mind?

What does that have to do with my post?

 

[moodstream]

It's not my problem that you appear to have conflated the controlling statutes in respect of Sollecito's record for possession, on the one hand, and Amanda's record for Residential Disturbance, on the other hand.

Your problem? No. Your fault? Yes. The statement

"Young people with no criminal background committing murder"

is answered by you with .. AK had been convicted for "Residential Disturbance" pursuant to a police-issued citation in connection with a rock throwing incident.

You are refuting the statement 'no criminal background' with 'convicted for..'.

If you want to pretend you were doing something else, I can't stop you.

 

[quadraginta]

The problem with argument-by-rhetorical question is that it's just a way of trying to foist the burden of proof on someone else. In this case, it's not up to us to make up a fairy story that satisfies you.

I have no idea what you are talking about. I was responding to a conjecture of LJ's. I offered a comment about it. What the heck are you talking about? "... argument-by-rhetorical question ... ".

If you have problems with LJ's stories then you should broach them with the author. That's what I was doing.

If you have a positive argument to make that Rudy would definitely have swept glass fragments to the ground below then make it.

I already did that. Many, many pages ago. Do try and keep up.

I just didn't do it this time.

If you have a positive argument to make that there would be a substantial amount of glass on the sill anyway,

Um. There was a substantial amount of glass on the sill. Charlie was even kind enough to provide us with the photos.

which seems counterintuitive given that glass hit by a low-velocity projectile almost all goes in the direction of impact not the opposite direction, make it. Otherwise there's no case to answer.

Good application of 'weasel word' there, champ.

Only if you ignore all the study evidence which was offered in these threads more than once. The experienced insurance investigators which LJ mentioned in another recent post have funded studies on the subject specifically because a lack of backscatter has helped to prove staged entry in many cases, and such staging happens regularly enough that they are quite sensitive to the possibility.

I was tempted to respond to his musings as to why such experts were not employed by the defense during the trial by pointing out that their opinions may not have been beneficial to Knox and Sollecito's case, but I refrained.

The large glass fragments in front of the impact spot are consistent with Rudy manually removing fragments of glass from the broken window to enlarge the hole, as is the shape of the area of missing glass. I can't see why having removed them he'd be compelled to toss them to the ground below.

I can't see why he would bother not to. You are suggesting that he would smash a window and then carefully place the debris in a neat pile on a tiny ledge, and constrict by half the space available for him to enter through. Why on earth would he do that? It wouldn't save time. Do you suppose he thought that if he piled up the big pieces neatly then the window wouldn't look as broken? Perhaps a touch of OCD?

All of this is moot, since your objection seems to be with LJ. After all, he was the one who made the comment I responded to. I merely asked why brushing off the sill would be restricted to half of a narrow window.

Why did you find no objection to his idea that the ledge was cleaned of glass fragments, but suddenly feel overwhelmed with the need to ridicule my suggestion that cleaning off all of it would be more plausible and just as simple as cleaning off half of it?

 

[moodstream]

There's always such a possibility.


While they found some DNA and other traces in Meredith's room there was still more that could have been done. IIRC they didn't test her skin for DNA in places where the attacker would have grabbed, they didn't test her blue jacket sleeves etc.

It is quite possible that if the tests were more extensive, the disparity between amount of evidence in Meredith's room and elsewhere could have been even more apparent. But the more Rudy's traces there is the worse for the prosecution, isn't it?

Your post reminded me. The Massei report says that there is clear bruising on MK's neck where she was strangled. Which I would think would have to mean bruises where the fingers and thumb grabbed the throat.

My question is, did anyone measure the distance between the bruises from the thumb to the finger to determine whose hand it was?

Assuming the answer is Guede's, most of the experts seem to believe that the victim was strangled first, because of the bleeding. If Guede is accepted as strangling MK, why would Amanda need to stab her? What would be the point? If Guede is already killing her, why not let him finish the job. It seems superfluous.

 

[TomM43]

I would call it more than extraordinary. Is it unique? I can't even conceive of a trial where the evidence can be modified to make it easier to convict the accused.

I say, two TOD's, two murders. Ms Kercher must have been murdered twice that night. How else could there be two TOD's.

That is insane. Is there legal precedent for this?

It is not insane at all. It is simply the way legal systems work. In RG's trial, ToD was not an issue, so it was not contested. It became one in the AK/RS trial, so evidence was elicited in the the later trial that was not in the first. Justice is not some universal scale upon which all claims are consistently reconciled.

 

[moodstream]

It is not insane at all. It is simply the way legal systems work. In RG's trial, ToD was not an issue, so it was not contested. It became one in the AK/RS trial, so evidence was elicited in the the later trial that was not in the first. Justice is not some universal scale upon which all claims are consistently reconciled.

I see, so the TOD discovery occurred after the Guede trial? They had not established the TOD by that time? The issue isn't justice, the issue is facts on trial. One crime, one set of facts.

 

[Kevin_Lowe]

I
I already did that. Many, many pages ago. Do try and keep up.

I charitably assumed that maybe you'd come up with a new one that had some weight to it.

Good application of 'weasel word' there, champ.

Only if you ignore all the study evidence which was offered in these threads more than once. The experienced insurance investigators which LJ mentioned in another recent post have funded studies on the subject specifically because a lack of backscatter has helped to prove staged entry in many cases, and such staging happens regularly enough that they are quite sensitive to the possibility.

Big chunks of glass lying on the outside of the sill aren't backscatter.

I can't see why he would bother not to. You are suggesting that he would smash a window and then carefully place the debris in a neat pile on a tiny ledge, and constrict by half the space available for him to enter through. Why on earth would he do that? It wouldn't save time. Do you suppose he thought that if he piled up the big pieces neatly then the window wouldn't look as broken? Perhaps a touch of OCD?

Argument by personal incredulity again? Okay, I do not share your incredulity. Now what?

 

[quadraginta]

I charitably assumed that maybe you'd come up with a new one that had some weight to it.

Why. You couldn't lift it the first time, either.

Big chunks of glass lying on the outside of the sill aren't backscatter.

Never said they were. Nice try, though.

Argument by personal incredulity again? Okay, I do not share your incredulity. Now what?

I don't know. You started it. My question to LJ, which seems to have inspired such ire on your part, was why a perp would only clean off half of a small window sill instead of all of it. It would actually be more difficult to restrict such cleaning on such a short surface than it would be to swipe the whole thing. If that question strains your credulity then I suggest the problem is still not with me, since the core of your objection seems to concern cleaning any of it at all.

Do you need me to give you the link to LJ's post, so you can offer your objections to the right person?

 

[Kaosium]

Kaosium,

By the way, do you think the Steve Moore and Dr Waterbury thing is important. I confess I don't altogether share your opinion. Dr Waterbury certainly has a bunch of good material on his site, but he also seems to me to be invested in the case and some of his posts seem other than objective. As for Steve Moore,
it's quotes like this that make me wonder whether he isn't just going on the basis of a summary somebody has given him rather than having actually looked into the case:

I've found there's a lot of people who have knowledge of this who are invested in this case, and I don't think I could define what 'objective' is in this debate. I can't pretend to be in any middle, I just like talking about it and really want to nail down the facts because it fascinates me. Truthfully I've never seen anything like this debate. Not even situations where people are dying every day.

You bring up one of my biggest interests, the interrogation, and I found the arguments you made on another site especially helpful. This is the most important mystery of the case I believe, and I've been researching, asking and posting on it for a long time some people kid me, because I still only have a vague idea what might have happened despite all that. Where is anyone supposed to get incontestable information on this anyway, including Steve Moore? Seriously?

Amanda Knox was interrogated for 8 hours. Overnight. Without food or water. In a police station. In a foreign country. In a foreign language. By a dozen different officers. Without being allowed a lawyer.

8 hours? When? Not the night she confessed, or whatever... not unless you count all the time she was at the police station as an interrogation. Without food and water...? No... she just didn't have snack breaks in the middle of being interrogated. She can't have been hungry.

Well, from what I've been able to put together she got there sometime around 10:30 PM, the 'confession' happened at 1:45 AM or so and she officially became a Suspect and I believe Mignini was called in and she signed it at 5:45 or so. Nobody really talks about this anymore I've found, I wasn't kidding when I said I don't think it has advanced much since you stopped posting on it.

I'm a nut for getting this stuff right, and particularly with the interrogation, people just make stuff up.

I'm with you, tentatively I tend to think the forty-some hours must be the time she spent in police presence, starting with the arrival of the postal police. That she was being interviewed and then interrogated for a total of fourteen hours, culminated with the November 5th/6th event, which ended early on the latter day. That just seems to make sense, it's not really sourced. I just have problems with the idea of 40+ hours of active interrogation, I can't see what could possibly take that long to interview or break a twenty year-old girl. I suspect everything before the night of the fifth was just interviews for information, not any active interrogation.

However that's just supposition, it's not really 'fact' in any sense of the term.

Also, he says "Without being allowed a lawyer". He is taking the claims of the defendant as a fact. Strip out the claims and replace them with stuff that can actually be demonstrated and you don't have an article.
http://www.injusticeinperugia.org/FBI7.html

Here's the problem. Against that we have cold hard silence and a claim that there was nothing taped at all. I simply cannot believe you could interrogate a girl who spoke Italian poorly and get a 'confession' out of her and not have it taped. I can't believe you'd call her in that late at night with at least 12 cops, the number initially supposed to be part of the calunnia charge--four apparently dropped out though since--and not tape that interrogation. So what we have to go on is basically what she wrote and testified to, but it's not her fault that's the only record we have of this event.

I don't understand what you mean about her 'claiming' not to have a lawyer, isn't that why the Supreme Court threw out the 'confession?' I thought that was settled long before I even knew Amanda Knox or Raffaele Sollecito's name.

Perhaps you have a better example of his writing on the case, in which case I'll gladly revise my opinion.

He's not a writer. He's a retired FBI agent, and he's been talking to newspapermen and TV stations making the case. While I think it might just be overstated, I can't say for certain that it is, and his articles are not his primary purpose. Most were written long ago, he's not blogging about this case. As I noted the information available on the interrogation has gone basically nowhere in that time as far as I can gather.

What he adds in my view is more information, and the fact he actually knows something intimately about investigations and forensics. What he says about the crime scene makes sense to me. That's not an open crime site, it's a fishbowl and if Raffaele or Amanda were there some sign should have been there, I can't see how there wouldn't be.

As far as the interrogation, he worked violent crimes unit and anti-terrorism, I kinda have a feeling he might have been a part of interrogating some very dangerous people. I suspect that colored his impression of what happened in that room on November 5th/6th. I'd really rather believe that's the case, but the absolute stonewalling on the part of the police and the dubious evidence they collected is not particularly comforting. Nor is the idea that they actually might have set up an interrogation under those terms and then not taped it, and then started cuffing her. I don't think they really physically harmed her, or intended to, I think something else entirely happened, but I tell you the idea they didn't tape it is something potentially ominous in my view.

[To be fair the lawyer thing was still being hotly argued when I was last involved in a debate on this... the whole "what constitutes being an official suspect" issue. Was there ever a definitive conclusion?]

I don't even know. I get the impression she became officially a Suspect at 1:45 and they interrogated her until 5:45 when she signed that confession. None of this is 'hotly argued' anymore, it's deathly silence from the ones who think her guilty, who as far as I know believe she accused Patrick without coercion and the police arrested him and didn't release him until they got the note from Amanda Knox on the 22nd or so. Or, they got the note a few days later and it took that long to release him but it is still Amanda's fault and all she did is lie.

 

[Mary_H]

<snip>
Incidentally, why are you so content to accept that Rudy effectively disposed of HIS bloody clothes, gloves and knife while, at one and the same time, finding it preposterous that Amanda & Raffaele could have done the same with THEIR bloody clothes, gloves and knives?

Rudy had a minimum of ten days longer than Amanda and Raffaele had to dispose of any evidence. Even if he left everything in the garbage at his flat instead of taking it with him to Germany, it would have been long gone by the time the police were on to him.