Continuation - Discussion of the Amanda Knox case

[katy_did]

Every indication I have is that the Kercher's lawyer left the courtroom for Amanda's statement. It is not directly stated that her statement is the reason he left.

Yes, Maresca is supposed to have left when Amanda was talking about Meredith, I think. As for Patrick, another article here suggests he wasn't there, in contrast to the other two. Perhaps they just assumed he was there since she appears to be talking to him directly. ETA: a video showing Patrick in Court (@2:16).

I am sure that Maresca left to make another statement to the press, no doubt explaining again how Italy is showing the world, and the U.S. how to do forensics. He said something very similar almost exactly one year ago, as Bob Graham reported.

Ha. Perhaps he did...

 

[Withnail1969]

Do you have a copy of the hand written statement? I'd like to see that.


Here's a link to one I found, let me know if it is wrong

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/1570225/Transcript-of-Amanda-Knoxs-note.html


Wow, I just read it. I was expecting some immature babble. This girls statement is written in a clear and organized way. For those of you who are saying she didn't "lie" right off the bat, well I can not understand why you would say that. Why didn't she remember what happened the night before? Why offer to go to a police station and offer whata help you can if you can't remember what happened? To me that is the lie, you don't remember. You don't remember if you had sex with Raffael? How can you not remember if you had sex with someone. The only explanation would be that she was on some sort of drug that is a lot stronger than pot.

Also she mentions that Raffael had blood on his hands etc. I'm sorry but this whole "I can't remember anything" to me sounds like a lie, that is what I'm sure it looked like to the police.

I don't see why it's so problematic. She clearly states that the police yelled at her, that they told her they had hard evidence she was at the murder scene, and that Raffaele had incriminated her. It's the police who should have been investigated for such dishonest tactics when she was denied a lawyer.

 

[pilot padron]

well done, Rose

It is true than there are many over estimated interrogation times coming from the innocent side some amounting to 50+ hours over a period of 5 days. However, to say a "few hours" does not really tell the story either. This is my guestimate on this:

2 Nov. We know that a group of them including Filomena and her boyfriend as well as Amanda and Raffaele were taken to the police station around 3:30PM and left about 3:00AM the following morning. I am going to guess about 4 hours of interrogation with Amanda at this time.

3 Nov. Amanda and Raffaele show up around 2PM and leave about 10PM. I'll go with about 4 hours on this one.

4 Nov. An intercepted call from Amanda indicates as she is waiting to be interviewed that she is already stressed and exhausted and that the police had already been shouting at her and in her words she felt she was being treated like a criminal. This one goes from around 3PM until 9PM and in another intercepted call she indicates she was interrogated for 5 hours.

5/6 Nov. It appears that she was interviewed starting around 10PM and gave her false accusation at 1:45AM. Let's go with 3 hours on this one. We have seen that she was pressed for more detail (due to the vagueness of her statement) and she gave an additional statement at 5:45. I am going to say just 1 hour on this one.

This puts my guess at about 17 hours total over 5 days of actual interrogation time. Google translation from Amanda's appeal:

Rose, you are to be commended for using your extensive research and well organized record keeping concerning factual elements of the case.

Although my personal estimates of *actual face time with Police* is still even somewhat less than your estimates; your well presented and exemplary ducuments based argument and reconstruction is an example for all of us here, and elsewhere.

May I expand 'elsewhere' to include Steve Moore, who to say the least, has been highly heralded here and by innocentisti elsewhere, has repeatedly stated during his PR Firm arranged many media managed monologues that Amanda was subjected to non stop, all night 12 hour, gruelling 3rd world interrogations; a gruesome process that included tag team Interrogators grilling her in shifts....all this with absolutely no food, drink, or bathroom breaks.

Steve further usually embellishes but does no documenting by adding the usual dose of self aggrandizing comments about how intimately familiar he is with third world 'waterboard' tag team methods.

Even the most agenda driven spin specialist here would have a prodigious problem reconciling Steve's 'version' with the facts and resultant estimates as you have presented them today.

 

[Chris_Halkides]

reticence

truethat,

I think it is possible to be charged with a crime roughly translated as "reticence" if you do not answer the questions the police ask you. In other words, I am not sure that Amanda could have stopped talking without any consequence. Raffaele also asked for a lawyer and also asked to stop so that he could speak with his father. Both requests were denied. I don't know much about this aspect of Italian law (reticence), so someone else may want to jump in with clarifications or corrections.

 

[Chris_Halkides]

early morning interrogation

RoseMontague,

What were they doing between 1:45 and 5:45? According to Amanda, it was more of the same. I will go with four hours here.

 

[truethat]

I don't see why it's so problematic. She clearly states that the police yelled at her, that they told her they had hard evidence she was at the murder scene, and that Raffaele had incriminated her. It's the police who should have been investigated for such dishonest tactics when she was denied a lawyer.

I'm confused. She said she couldn't remember things you would be likely to remember, like if you had sex with someone or not. I can undertand why this would look suspicious to the cops. Seems like a lot of people on here don't care to much about Meredith Kercher. How would you respond if your daughter was murdered and the person who lived with her kept telling you they couldn't really remember what they did the night prior?


Also I'm not seeing the vicious interrorgation right off the bat but I am seeing a sketchy story and lies right off the bat.

Finally I keep saying that it's strange to me that she was worried about Merredith. Something about her reaction to the state of the apartment doesn't seem to make sense..

 

[katy_did]

There's another thing that really bothers me about the Knox case, people say that she said "See you later" in the text message and that the police misunderstood it.

Well its one thing to coerce a statement out of people when they all speak the same language but it seems a little weird to suggest it would work in this case. The other man that was interrogated by the guy was in fear and thought the interrogator was crazy.

So you think statements can't be coerced if the suspect isn't a native speaker of the language in which they're being interrogated? That's an interesting perspective...

The fact that she came home and saw blood and an apparent break in and took a freaking shower and saw her friend door shut and assumed she was missing. I mean how do you guys explain that part? Is there some sort of explanation to that behavior?

She didn't see the break-in until she returned to the house with Raffaele. Initially she just saw the door open, and after she took a shower, noticed spots of blood in the bathroom and the unflushed toilet in the other room. Then she returned to Raffaele's house, telling him about these 'odd things' after she arrived. She didn't say that Meredith was 'missing' in her phone call to Filomena, just that she didn't know where she was.

If I came home to what Amanda did, I don't think I'd immediately jump to the conclusion my housemate had been brutally murdered, so I don't find it particularly odd that she didn't either. The discovery of what had happened was gradual.

 

[Chris_Halkides]

truethat,

Amanda spent every night at Raffaele's place. One presumes that on many (most?) nights that they were intimate; therefore, she might not remember exactly what happened on any particular night. I think you are discounting the effects of having a bunch of people telling you that you are wrong, you are repressing memories, you are lying, etc. I think most of us (if we were already tired and in the midst of our periods*) would be confused if this sort of thing went on for much of the night.
*assuming that we were female (I hope my comment does not offend--please forgive me if I have expressed it awkwardly)

 

[Chris_Halkides]

at sea with one of the Norfolk Four

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,

Tom Jackman (10 November 2005) reported at the Washington Post, “[Joseph] Dick's attorneys said they have found a former Navy officer who supports Dick's alibi that he was on his ship at the time of the killing. They said police never checked the alibi.”

Stunning.

 

[pilot padron]

A different Perspective

Tears

Rose, as usual your quote about Amanda's statement is completely correct.

However as I read reaction to it here, and find myself somewhat less inclined to be similarly sympathetically sobbing in my morning cereal.
May I quote another reaction to her statements more closely aligned with my own.
As an introduction, I am well versed that different perspectives promote different perceptions; so spare me any uproar about my source.

“Late and inopportune”

“Her words arrive openly after Meredith’s father, in one of his rare statements, mentioned having never having heard anyone remembering his daughter”.

“The excuses seem, to me, to be completely inopportune and intended solely for this appeal process.

"She bores me," . "Her speech lacked substance, was designed to impress the court and was not genuine."

Ms Knox's statement was also classified as "words empty of content”.


Francesco Maresca, the attorney representing the Kercher family

 

[Chris_Halkides]

Ms Knox's statement was also classified as "words empty of content”.


Francesco Maresca, the attorney representing the Kercher family

pilot padron,

I take Mr. Maresca's evaluation of Ms. Knox's statement to be every bit as insightful as his estimation of the forensics of this case. Both are worthless.

 

[pilot padron]

pilot padron,

I take Mr. Maresca's evaluation of Ms. Knox's statement to be every bit as insightful as his estimation of the forensics of this case. Both are worthless.

Please note this as just additional emphasis from another personally respected poster here on my carefully chosen words and deliberate introduction about perspectives and perceptions (and uproar).

Additionally,certainly, with your respected background and position, you are well aware of just what *priority* an attorney is *required by his profession* to accord to and pertinent to your observation, reveal publicly, any *personal* 'estimation of forensics', while executing his responsibilities to his clients.

 

[RoseMontague]

Despite the apparent drama of Amanda's statements is the real news of the day something else entirely?

And this brings a chapter complicated: according to defense experts that computer was used throughout the night. In pratica secondo la difesa, la notte in cui Meredith venne uccisa, su quel computer a casa di Sollecito ci fu attività continua. In practice, according to the defense, the night Meredith was killed, on that computer at the home of Sollecito there was continuous activity.

So, hearing what they want is that everything is reviewed again. L'accusa, ovviamente, si oppone. The accusation, of course, is opposed. Il 18 dicembre la giuria si ritirerà e prenderà la sua decisione. On 18 December, the jury will retire and will make his decision. Stabilirà, cioè, se ammettere la richiesta di nuove perizie. Establish, ie, whether to admit the need for new assessments. Di fatto stabilirà se riaprire il processo per la morte di Meredith Kercher. In fact, consider whether to reopen the trial for the death of Meredith Kercher. E quella decisione sarà importante quanto una sentenza. And that decision will be important as a sentence.

http://translate.google.com/transla...0/12/11/il-macbook-pro-di-raffaele-sollecito/

 

[truethat]

So you think statements can't be coerced if the suspect isn't a native speaker of the language in which they're being interrogated? That's an interesting perspective...


She didn't see the break-in until she returned to the house with Raffaele. Initially she just saw the door open, and after she took a shower, noticed spots of blood in the bathroom and the unflushed toilet in the other room. Then she returned to Raffaele's house, telling him about these 'odd things' after she arrived. She didn't say that Meredith was 'missing' in her phone call to Filomena, just that she didn't know where she was.

If I came home to what Amanda did, I don't think I'd immediately jump to the conclusion my housemate had been brutally murdered, so I don't find it particularly odd that she didn't either. The discovery of what had happened was gradual.

Of course you wouldn't jump to that conclusion. In fact you wouldn't jump to the conclusion so why did she start panicking?

She says

then i knocked on merediths
room.
at first i thought she was alseep so i knocked gently,
but when she
didnt respond i knocked louder and louder until i was really banging
on her door and shouting her name. no response. panicing, i ran out
onto our terrace to see if maybe i could see over the ledge into her
room from the window, but i couldnt see in. bad angle. i then went
into the bathroom where i had dried my hair and looked really quickley
into the toilet. in my panic i thought i hadnt seen anything there,
which to me meant whoever was in my house had been there when i had
been there. as it turns out the police told me later that the toilet
was full and that the **** had just fallen to the bottom of the
toilet, so i didnt see it. i ran outside and down to our neighbors
door. the lights were out but i banged ont he door anyway. i wanted to
ask them if they had heard anything the night before,

so then this is her reaction and then the police show up and she doesn't take them immediately up to Meredith's door and try to get them to break it open?


Also to the other poster who said that she often had sex with her boyfriend and might not always remember, I think that is rubbish.

It is one thing to get questioned about your actions a week or two after the date and not quite be able to remember what you did. Quite another to be questioned the next day and not be able to remember.

I'm seeing people who are saying that she didn't lie and others who interpret her behavior as suspicious.


So to me this girl had something to do with what happened. She could for all we know be completely innocent but she's not telling the story correctly. The same as the Norfolk Four. If we know that they didn't do it, you have to wonder why they would confess, we all do. The similarities in the case are very eerie.

The differences however is that most of the lies coming out of Rafaelle and AK's mouth are excuses try to exonerate themselves rather than lurid details of a murder they didn't commit. When Raffaelle says that the reason Meredith's blood is on a knife in his house because he pricked her while he was cooking what does that tell you?



I don't think Amanda Knox killed Meredith but I do think she knows more than she's let on.


And I'm quite curious why everyone is saying that Amanda was coerced into a confession but Rafaelle is not saying the same thing? In fact it's as if no one cares about Rafaelle at all.

 

[Withnail1969]

The Guardian reports that the jury was riveted by Amanda's 14 minute speech. Maresca only made himself look like a fool by walking out.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/dec/11/amanda-knox-appeal-dna-test

 

[Kaosium]

I'm confused. She said she couldn't remember things you would be likely to remember, like if you had sex with someone or not. I can undertand why this would look suspicious to the cops.

What did you do four nights ago--for sure? Or was it three nights ago you did that? What did you have for dinner, when did you go to bed? I couldn't tell you those things for sure. She's under a lot of stress at this point too, not really herself being as her roommate was just murdered in her own home, yards away from where she slept. You hear about people being uncomfortable in their homes and 'violated' after a burglary, it must be worse with murder, especially for a girl just out of her teens.

P.S. She was stoned on hash that night.

Seems like a lot of people on here don't care to much about Meredith Kercher. How would you respond if your daughter was murdered and the person who lived with her kept telling you they couldn't really remember what they did the night prior?

Meredith was killed the night of the 1st, Amanda was broken early on the 6th, about 1:45. Rudy Guede, the guy who broke in and killed Meredith leaving his physical evidence all over the crime scene including inside her has been convicted and sentenced to fifteen years in jail. That's about half the sentence meted out to Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito, whose families have also been charged for protesting the injustice overmuch in the eyes of PM Mignini, a rather curious fellow himself. That is a very strange way for the Perugian court to show justice to Meredith, and to her grieving family, and outside rectifying that injustice not much more can be done.

Also I'm not seeing the vicious interrorgation right off the bat but I am seeing a sketchy story and lies right off the bat.

She spent the better part of the week being interviewed and interrogated, culminating in a late night session with at least twelve cops. Cops who suspected her and their boss of being involved and who apparently wanted Amanda to have a 'repressed memory' of seeing Patrick at the scene.

Finally I keep saying that it's strange to me that she was worried about Merredith. Something about her reaction to the state of the apartment doesn't seem to make sense..

Meredith's door was locked, and there wasn't much evidence in the bathroom, mainly some blood on the bathmat and a little in the sink and I guess she didn't leap to the conclusion her roommate was murdered, she figured it was something mundane like menstrual issues. Eventually not being able to reach Meredith on her cell she became more concerned, and her boyfriend called the police, but another police car returning the thrown out cell phones arrived sooner and they implored them to break down the door after Raffaele was unable to.

Here's a site that will fill you in on the basics:

 

[christianahannah]

pilot padron,

I take Mr. Maresca's evaluation of Ms. Knox's statement to be every bit as insightful as his estimation of the forensics of this case. Both are worthless.

Surely not worthless.

Patrick also gives his opinion about Amanda's statement today:

http://www.agi.it/news/notizie/2010...umumba_amanda_mi_ha_fatto_pena_ma_e_strategia

Amanda's statement before the court (it is 15 minutes):

http://www.umbria24.it/video/amanda-in-lacrime-parla-nellaula-del-processo-laudio-integrale/

I think Amanda did today what needed to have been done earlier - apologize to Patrick and give sympathy for the fate of Meredith and to the Kerchers. While some may say too late it still needed to occur whatever the reason behind doing so. I don't know if it is too little too late, I will leave that for others to judge. I imagine, depending on which side one is on, will be one's opinion of her statement today.

I know that there were some who didn't agree with my posting earlier that this apology and sympathy is what should have been done during the first trial and when the family of Amanda first started speaking out on her behalf. If done in the beginning, I don't think it would have hurt Amanda. In fact, I think it would possibly have helped her in both the public's opinion and maybe, even in the court's opinion.

 

[Withnail1969]

so then this is her reaction and then the police show up and she doesn't take them immediately up to Meredith's door and try to get them to break it open?

The police refused to break the door.

 

[truethat]

truethat,

Amanda spent every night at Raffaele's place. One presumes that on many (most?) nights that they were intimate; therefore, she might not remember exactly what happened on any particular night. I think you are discounting the effects of having a bunch of people telling you that you are wrong, you are repressing memories, you are lying, etc. I think most of us (if we were already tired and in the midst of our periods*) would be confused if this sort of thing went on for much of the night.
*assuming that we were female (I hope my comment does not offend--please forgive me if I have expressed it awkwardly)

I didn't know she was in the middle of her period and that makes me even more suspicious of her.

I am a woman and I've had a few accidents while on my period getting into the shower and dripping on the carpet outside the shower and not noticing it until I got out. If she was on her period and got out of the shower and saw blood droplets on the floor, especially if she'd had sex while on her period the night before, I would think her natural conclusion would be "oh man did I start my period back up and leak."

I would toss that out to any woman on here that if you saw blood drops on the bath mat while on your period you would assume you had done it, not that your pierced ears had caused it.

And additionally if I saw blood on the sink, I'd clean it off. Why did she just leave it there?

Perhaps I would leave it there if I knew it was connected to a crime and I wouldn't want to touch it.

^^^^^ This is all speculation of course but something to think about.


Also the point I keep trying to get across is that the reason she was interrogated and Rafaelle was interrogated the way they were is because their stories didn't add up and they acted suspiciously.

If AK and R decided to be each other's alibi and then she was told Rafaelle threw her under the bus, it would make sense that she'd change her story at that moment, which is what she did.

 

[Chris_Halkides]

Raffaele

truethat,

This injustice has always been just as much about Raffaele as it is about Amanda. Actually, Raffaele tried to break the door down but just kind of dented it, IIRC. The postal police did not want to break the door down themselves; they did not want to take the responsibility.

I cannot be 100% certain that Raffaele lied, but assuming he did, my take on it is similar to RoseMontague's. Raffaele had no reason to suspect that the forensic work on the knife was, to put it charitably, slipshod. So he answered nonsense with a lie. Not a smart thing to do, but not all that surprising from someone as inexperienced with the criminal justice system as he was.

Amanda's statement about not being able to remember making love to Raffaele on the night of the 1st was made on the 6th. Her confusion is apparent in more than one place in the document you cited. Her inability to remember it at that point is not a big deal for me.