Continuation - Discussion of the Amanda Knox case

[treehorn]

You have no clue?

Okay. I guess you missed the many, many times we have posted links to relevant documents regarding the phenomenon of internalised false statements. If you had read them you would have a clue...

You've read them, Kevin?

How, then, has it escaped your attention that the phenomenon occurs in 2 kinds of subjects:

1) the mentally challenged (eg. an IQ under 70); &

2) "extreme" introverts.

Into which category are you placing Amanda Knox?

 

[truethat]

You have no clue?

Okay. I guess you missed the many, many times we have posted links to relevant documents regarding the phenomenon of internalised false statements. If you had read them you would have a clue.

If you browbeat someone for hours, particularly a naive person who trusts authority and doesn't think that innocent people need to shut the hell up and wait for their mother and lawyers to arrive, tell them that they have repressed memories, tell them that they need to recover those memories to help the police catch the bad guy, coach them on exactly what you claim really happened and keep the pressure on all night while they are sleep-deprived you get exactly what we got: A confused, incoherent statement saying exactly what the police told her and no more, fitting with the police theory at the time and incompatible with the facts as we now know them, fingering the person the police told her to say was the killer, and which she expressed grave doubts about the truth of as soon as she had some downtime to get her head together.

As I have said many times before, either Amanda knew exactly what an internalised false statement was meant to look like and faked one perfectly, or she was the victim of an internalised false statement. Her statement makes absolutely no sense either as a deliberate lie or as a real confession.

There has never been a satisfactory answer from any guilter as to this point. They'e tried denying that Amanda's statement has the qualities of an internalised false statement but that is so absurd as to not be worth responding to. They've tried spinning her statement as an evil attempt to throw the police off the scent by fingering Lumumba, but that is an irrelevant response because it does not explain why her statement has the characteristics of an internalised false confession. It's not exactly common knowledge what such a statement should look like - most guilters had no idea until we told them about them that such things even existed.

That's one of the benefits of hanging around the JREF forums. You learn all sorts of interesting things.

I am well aware of this phenomenom but I don't get the same sense in this case. I know all about eliciting false confessions.

However, she lied in her statements.

See it's one thing to say she just started making things up to "give them what they wanted to hear" in order to get out of a room, it's another thing to start changing your story right off the bat.

I'm a novice to all this and don't really take a position one way or the other, but I don't think her "coerced" statement is similar to other cases of coerced statements.

She started off with a lie. I watch a lot of 48 hours Mystery online, and the pattern of her behavior is very similar to the criminals that they have caught that actually did it. She starts off lying. Once they can tell her story is not adding up, (or for some experienced interrogators) then they begin to apply pressure.

One thing that is interesting to me is that she started off with a lot of different versions and stories. So then to say she made up the confession doesn't make a lot of sense.

Again I don't know too much about this case so forgive me if this has been debunked. I just found an article here that lists the lies. I'll paste it so you can take a look.

But the one lie that stood out to me is that she said she wasn't home when she was. Also that the police showed up because Kercher's cell phones had been retrieved and also why she didn't call the police immediately when she saw a break in and blood in the apartment?

http://www.zimbio.com/Meredith+Kerc...Murder+Suspect+Amanda+Knox+Raffaele+Sollecito

 

[truethat]

truethat, you just lost you skeptic hat on that one. The "murderer rapist that tried to take all the credit for what went down" just happened to be the donor of the only DNA evidence found at the scene. Except for the confessions, there was no evidence that any of the others were involved at all.

Prosecutors are always sure of themselves. How often do you see a prosecutor admit they were wrong after they loose a case? Sometimes justice comes around though. In the Tim Masters case, after the conviction was overturned, the county settled for somewhere around $10 Million and the two prosecutors (who had since become judges) were ousted by a significant majority of the voters.

Um, they confessed. ALL four of them. Now that's just ridiculous in my opinion. But it could be true. However DNA evidence is not the only thing that links people. Several of the eight had alibis. So they couldn't be charged. You can't just say that it was only the confession that made them suspects. It wasn't JUST a confession, it was a confession AND an identification by someone else who also made a confession for every other guy except the first guy.

And as I said, (skeptics try to read accurate mate) I don't think they raped and murdered the woman, but I think they were somehow involved. I'm picturing a bunch of guys hanging out with the neighbors in the parking lot, in the apartment just goofing off not really doing anything naughty but then watching the guy rape her.

The way the defense made it seem is that they presented scenario was all of them walked in and jumped her and raped her and they stood around watching her in a circle.

But use your noodle. If you are hanging out at someone's house and it's low key you can just be hanging out. Half the time you might not even remember what exactly happened and when.


Anyway but this case is pointless because these guys defended themselves from the get go. Although I do have to say I like how they act like because they said "I didn't do it" fifteen times this is evidence they lied, not typical criminal behavior, but I digress.

AK started off lying.

here's another interesting interpretation of her statement to the court

http://blog.eyesforlies.com/2009/04/amanda-knox-statement.html

 

[Dan O.]

I am well aware of this phenomenom but I don't get the same sense in this case. I know all about eliciting false confessions.

However, she lied in her statements.

No.

After hours of interrogation, after the police told her that they knew she was involved and that she may have repressed memories, after the police had dictated that she met Lumumba at the basketball court and went to the cottage, after she had been coerced into making statements that implicated here in Meredith's murder, after she had become a suspect under Italian law which requires that the interview be immediately stopped so that the suspect can be provided legal console, instead of following the law, they continued the interview, typed up the statement and had Amanda sign it. This is why the Italian supreme court ruled that the statements were inadmissible.

The statements themselves are lies produced by the illegal interrogation process.

 

[Mary_H]

I am well aware of this phenomenom but I don't get the same sense in this case. I know all about eliciting false confessions.

However, she lied in her statements.

See it's one thing to say she just started making things up to "give them what they wanted to hear" in order to get out of a room, it's another thing to start changing your story right off the bat.

I'm a novice to all this and don't really take a position one way or the other, but I don't think her "coerced" statement is similar to other cases of coerced statements.

She started off with a lie. I watch a lot of 48 hours Mystery online, and the pattern of her behavior is very similar to the criminals that they have caught that actually did it. She starts off lying. Once they can tell her story is not adding up, (or for some experienced interrogators) then they begin to apply pressure.

One thing that is interesting to me is that she started off with a lot of different versions and stories. So then to say she made up the confession doesn't make a lot of sense.

Again I don't know too much about this case so forgive me if this has been debunked. I just found an article here that lists the lies. I'll paste it so you can take a look.

But the one lie that stood out to me is that she said she wasn't home when she was. Also that the police showed up because Kercher's cell phones had been retrieved and also why she didn't call the police immediately when she saw a break in and blood in the apartment?

http://www.zimbio.com/Meredith+Kerc...Murder+Suspect+Amanda+Knox+Raffaele+Sollecito

The "lies" of Amanda

Lies 1 and 4 -- Hearsay, and simply Filomena's word against Amanda's. There is no reason to believe Filomena was more credible than Amanda.

Lies 2 and 3 -- Debunked; not presented at trial

Lie 5 -- Requires documentation to support that Amanda actually said it. Also, they were interrogated four nights later; no one would be able to remember in exact detail.

Lies 6, 7, 8, 9 -- All products of the coercive interrogation, later withdrawn

Lie 10 -- False. There is no record of Amanda turning on her phone.


The "lies" of Raffaele

Lie 1 -- Debunked; author did not interview Raffaele

Lie 2 -- Not a lie

Lie 3 -- Product of coercion

Lies 4 & 5 -- Debunked; not presented at trial

Lie 6 -- Requires documentation to support that Raffaele claimed it. Also, they were interrogated four nights later; no one would be able to remember in exact detail.

Lie 7, 8 & 9 -- Not lies

Lie 10 -- Speculation, not a lie

 

[Mary_H]

I actually just watched the video of the Norfolk Four, and you guys are going to go nuts on me, I know, but actually I think they were involved.

Now here's the thing, four different people confessed and they named people they thought they knew, like the way Joe Dick got the name wrong but knew the face. And they keep throwing all this sarcastic "can you believe they actually thought four white Navy Guys went into a parking lot and got some black guy to come help them??"

I think at least two of them were at sea during the time the crime took place. They must have had the worst lawyers ever.

 

[Mary_H]

I've seen this. And I'm aware of this phenomenon. But that doesn't completely clear her.

Doesn't there have to be evidence against someone for them to be cleared of it? All they have against Amanda are accusations.

 

[Dan O.]

Um, they confessed. ALL four of them. Now that's just ridiculous in my opinion. But it could be true. However DNA evidence is not the only thing that links people. Several of the eight had alibis. So they couldn't be charged. You can't just say that it was only the confession that made them suspects. It wasn't JUST a confession, it was a confession AND an identification by someone else who also made a confession for every other guy except the first guy.

The interrogation process used in this and the Kercher case is flawed and produces bad results. Here it produced names of people that had alibies. There is no independent verification of the information obtained.

Put yourself in the place of one of those four. You have no alibi. Your friends have already confessed and fingered you as an accomplice. You have no alibi. With the other confessions pointing a finger at you, the jury of your peers (because they are just like you) will surely convict and the prosecutor says he is going to ask for the death penalty unless you confess and finger another accomplice. What are you going to do?

 

[Mary_H]

<snip>
Can anyone shed any light on this? This looks to me like a hugely important "what did they know, and when did they know it" question which I don't recall ever being specifically discussed before.

I have read the police were aware of Rudy on the 15th, possibly the 14th.

 

[Kaosium]

There is no need for suspicion since the defense clearly stated what they had and the meaning is also quite clear. Buried in the system error log files there are time stamped entries that indicate the screensaver had activated multiple times over the night of Nov 1 up to just after 6AM. Anybody that uses a screen saver should recognize that the screensaver activation marks the end of a preset period of lack of human interaction on the computer. Thy would also recognize that deactivation of the screensaver occurs only in response to specific human interactions on the computer. Throughout the night, someone was there to touch the trackpad or press a key on the keyboard within 6 minutes of each time the screensaver activated.

The end of this period coincides precisely (after accounting for a 20 minute activation delay of the screensaver) with when Raffaele received the text message on his phone from his father.

Except for the placing exact times on the events (which Raffaele never claims to have been aware of the actual time), The activity on the computer is consistent with what Raffaele has always claimed he was doing that night. which included using his computer, receiving a message from his father which was sent around 11PM and then going to bed.

This altered timeline for Raffaele also alters the alibi that Raffaele gives Amanda. Since Raffaele only accepted that Amanda could have gone out after he went to sleep, Raffaele is giving Amanda an alibi through 6AM.

Thus there's at most a 26 minute gap, and the distance took around five minutes to travel each way?

So they lose Toto and at this point they'd have to prove pre-mediation if it works like that in Italy.

What will be the argument for this scenario by the prosecution I wonder? I wonder where the biggest gap is, it should be after ten with Naruto, right? Alibi restored with a earlier time of death?

 

[Mary_H]

It's an example of surprise.

You present your statements about this case with an awful lot of authority for someone who hasn't evened bothered to research it enough to know what happened where.

I'll have to keep this in mind as I read your posts in the future.

Keep it in mind when you read platonov's, too, since he has never read Amanda's statements from the morning of November 6th.

 

[Dan O.]

Even if they haven't got Rudy's name, they should know that the palm print doesn't match any of the known suspects by mid day on the 6'th.

 

[Katody Matrass]

That photo was chosen because it is from november 2007. The photo is simply a screenshot from a video where you can see also police cars.
Even the vegetation that you show in that picture - unknown date - is still impossible to step on it leaving no traces on it.
And remember the testimonies of people who did step around the house.

What if what you recognize as exposed ground and soil in your video still is in fact the same lush flora that in my photo? How would you estimate the chances that the photos show exactly the same vegetation?
I would give it a 99,9% chance, what do you think?

Luckily this point is rather irrelevant, because, as others pointed out, Rudy didn't have to step under that window at all. It was easier to simply step down from the porch (or from the rocks below it) directly onto the metal grating.
In fact it looks like a natural way, because if he was to get under that window, the path through the porch or over the planters is the most straightforward.

That way we don't have to worry about any unsupported testimonies anymore.

 

[Mary_H]

Let's not forget what else makes the knife dna evidence more powerful: Raffaele lying in his prison diary to explain Meredith's dna. I don't think it's 100 percent proof of anything, but its another layer of suspicion that does not look good.

It would be one thing if Raffaele had made this remark spontaneously, with no instigation. For example, it would be highly suspicious if Raffaele had spontaneously written, "By the way, if the police should happen to find a knife in my kitchen drawer with Meredith's DNA on it, it's because we cooked at her house and I pricked her with it."

It is not so suspicious, though, when his lawyer tells him the knife proves nothing because the girls could have borrowed it and used it for cooking at their house, and after mulling it over for a couple of days, the power of suggestion leads Raffaele to make some speculations, out of desperation at trying to figure out HOW on earth this knife could have Meredith's DNA on it.

Come to think of it, this brings up an interesting point about the alibis. Raffaele was aware the knife was being held as evidence against Amanda, not against himself:

"Nov 16 2007 - Last night I saw on television that the knife that I had at home (the one from the kitchen) has traces of Meredith and Amanda (latent) ... my heart jumped in my throat and I was in total panic because I thought that Amanda had killed Meredith or had helped someone in the enterprise. But today I saw Tiziano who calmed me down: he told me that the knife could not have been the murder weapon, according to the legal doctor, and has nothing to do with anything as Amanda could take it and and carry it from my house to her house because the girls didn't have knife so, they are making a smokescreen for nothing ... I live in a reality show nightmare, the 'nightmare reality show'. Unbelievable!"

If Raffaele had not wanted to provide Amanda with an alibi, as has been claimed by many, why would he go to the trouble of putting the knife in his own hand in his imagined scenario about it? Why not just stick with the alarming idea "that Amanda had killed Meredith or had helped someone in the enterprise." That would have been a logical step toward getting himself off the hook.

I think he was looking for the truth, not for any kind of strategy.

 

[Kaosium]

I'll have a go

So the the maxim A "Evidence collected after a suspect has been identified is worthless" has suddenly been dropped from the canon. That was short lived - Sic transit gloria mundi

Now its a case of 'hold the innocent guy while we decide whether to sell out our own stool pigeon'

Man, this is a very fluid and complicated situation. Is there some sort of 'black book' with all these 'plays'

Will maxim A ever returns to its former status ?
- It is a good question, and the answer should lie in whatever date that fingerprint of Guede's was collected and more importantly, identified.

We're going to find this all out eventually, isn't it kinda fun to speculate how it's all going to turn out? No 'plays' will possibly affect what will happen in this appeal, certainly not here. There will be a new prosecution and when I asked Machiavelli he said they weren't limited at all by the last trial, thus you'd think they'd develop a new theory. How would you do it, and what ToD, witnesses and DNA evidence do you think will be available?

It's out of our hands, put your guns to the ground

 

[Mary_H]

What aspects of the evidence against Guede cannot be discounted using allegations of some combination of corruption, malfeasance, incompetence, and conspiracy?

Once these sorts of claims are made part of the acceptable dialogue, darkly alluded to or outright but without any substantiation, it is quite impossible to establish the quality of any court case in a venue such as this one.

We could choose nearly any trial, and assign partisan roles to the participants in this thread at random, and develop an equally vigorous debate about guilt or innocence. It would be an interesting exercise in dialogue and rhetoric, but little more than that.

Why do you suggest we have made allegations of some combination of corruption, malfeasance, incompetence or conspiracy without substantiation? I don't know any innocentisto who started out with prejudice against the major players in this situation, except for the families, and they are not posting here. Doug Preston no doubt had his suspicions, but most of us had never heard of him until months after Amanda and Raffaele were taken into custody.

There are in fact, many of the innocentisti "persuasion" who are genuine Italophiles, who resist and discourage any hint of painting the country or its citizens with the brush reserved for the bad guys. What do you think we have accused Mignini, Giobbi, Stefanoni, the Keystone Kops and the Kangaroo Kourt of, that we have not been able to provide evidence for?

 

[Malkmus]

The "lies" of Amanda

Lies 1 and 4 -- Hearsay, and simply Filomena's word against Amanda's. There is no reason to believe Filomena was more credible than Amanda.

Lies 2 and 3 -- Debunked; not presented at trial

Lie 5 -- Requires documentation to support that Amanda actually said it. Also, they were interrogated four nights later; no one would be able to remember in exact detail.

Lies 6, 7, 8, 9 -- All products of the coercive interrogation, later withdrawn

Lie 10 -- False. There is no record of Amanda turning on her phone.


The "lies" of Raffaele

Lie 1 -- Debunked; author did not interview Raffaele

Lie 2 -- Not a lie

Lie 3 -- Product of coercion

Lies 4 & 5 -- Debunked; not presented at trial

Lie 6 -- Requires documentation to support that Raffaele claimed it. Also, they were interrogated four nights later; no one would be able to remember in exact detail.

Lie 7, 8 & 9 -- Not lies

Lie 10 -- Speculation, not a lie

Actually, Mary, I think we can change lie #1 to debunked as well. According to the Massei report, Amanda told the police that same day (Nov. 2) when she went to the station that she had made that call from Rafaelle's. Additionally, Massei never mentions this "lie" in the report, and we also know that Filomena misremembered other parts of her conversation with Amanda that day. Not to mention, this lie would have been pointless.

Lie #4 is, as you say, hearsay. But more importantly, a fruitless lie and therefore irrelevant. What did Amanda have to gain by making up such a thing? Nothing.

Lie #5 is in fact not a lie at all. Amanda told the police she stayed the night at Raf's, smoking pot, watching a movie, and eating dinner. The time of some of these events was off which she attributes to the marijuana. Personally, if you asked me the exact times I ate and watched a movie 4 nights ago I'd probably be slightly off as well. And I'm being serious when I say I don't remember what I ate for dinner Monday night.

So, basically we're left with whether you believe they were coerced during their interrogation on November 5th and whether you believe Raffaele was deliberately lying in his diary writings to himself or simply speculating about the knife DNA. But then, as I've stated, if you believe the knife was used in the murder you have to believe in a ridiculous scenario where Amanda was carrying the knife around for protection or one where Amanda decided suddenly at Raf's that she wanted to confront Meredith and grabbed a knife from the drawer before heading over there.

 

[Justinian2]

Originally Posted by Justinian2
I would have buried the knife. When trash day came, I would have put it in someone else's trash. The last thing I would have done is to take the knife home. Ha! What an absurd idea to take the knife home, kill someone in the home and leave the body in your home.

Congratulations, you would make a great murderer! Here's a cookie!

My logic is that AK and RS wouldn't have brought the knife home - yet another innuendo (it's obviously not a proof) - that they are innocent.

The 2nd innuendo that they are innocent is that I would have talked about the killing to a cellmate were I AK or RS. I mean six years collectively in a cell (AK + RS) is a long time. I would have told someone by now - as Guede apparently did on several occasions.

 

[Mary_H]

Actually, Mary, I think we can change lie #1 to debunked as well. According to the Massei report, Amanda told the police that same day (Nov. 2) when she went to the station that she had made that call from Rafaelle's. Additionally, Massei never mentions this "lie" in the report, and we also know that Filomena misremembered other parts of her conversation with Amanda that day. Not to mention, this lie would have been pointless.

Lie #4 is, as you say, hearsay. But more importantly, a fruitless lie and therefore irrelevant. What did Amanda have to gain by making up such a thing? Nothing.

Lie #5 is in fact not a lie at all. Amanda told the police she stayed the night at Raf's, smoking pot, watching a movie, and eating dinner. The time of some of these events was off which she attributes to the marijuana. Personally, if you asked me the exact times I ate and watched a movie 4 nights ago I'd probably be slightly off as well. And I'm being serious when I say I don't remember what I ate for dinner Monday night.

I can't remember what I had for dinner last night.

I have a bit of a pet peeve about the "marijuana defense." I think the lawyers should have left it well enough alone that Amanda and Raffaele just couldn't remember something four days after it happened, without suggesting it was because they were stoned. That just opened the door for people like you-know-who to make accusations about drug abuse.

 

[Justinian2]

I wouldn't have murdered Meredith, therefore she is still alive.

Who would have? That's the theory of chaos - it's not logical. Chaos is the study of the illogical.