Continuation - Discussion of the Amanda Knox case

[Withnail1969]

Massei never stated she returned the knife to the bag after the murder, so this is rather a straw man. Also, his speculation that she used the bag to transport the knife is just that...speculation. It's not meant to be carved in stone.

But I thought the Massei report was carved in stone. That's what your colleague Pilot Padron keeps saying. He says it's unassailable because it was written by a highly respected 'jurist'.

 

[Withnail1969]

Filomena and Laura weren't at work the afternoon of the murder, were they?

What do you suppose, they work seven days a week fifty two weeks of the year? No weekends? No days off? No sick days? No holidays? No coming home for lunch? No having to be home to let the plumber in?

They presumably work a normal 5 day week, meaning that for most of the time they had no idea whether or not Meredith's door was locked.

 

[Fulcanelli]

The cite for the pressed for more detail has already been provided. I tried to give arrival and departure times (from the police station) to come up with a more conservative and realistic estimate of her total interrogation times with out including the total time at the police station as being interrogated. In that I used around 10PM instead of 10:15 as an arrival time. My estimate of 17 hours over 5 days is in stark contrast to some I have seen in the 50 hour range and I believe it is much closer to the reality of the situation. You are welcome to do some research and present your own findings.

I already have. I gave you the times. I suggest you read my post again if you missed them first time around..

 

[Fulcanelli]

I have never seen a cite that Filomena told them to call the police. I would like to see one if you have it.

From the Massei report:


From AK appeal:

Filomena testified ro doing so in the stand in the trial. I did make a mistake though, Filomena told them to call the police when she phoned Amanda after the discovery of the broken window, not in the earlier call.

 

[Fulcanelli]

The article I quoted earlier states that both are police interpreters. This is the same article I provided where one of them defines her role as that of a mediator.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/mar/13/kercher-knox-trial

If you have a cite that shows these interpreters were not employed by law enforcement, I would like to see it. It was my understanding that at least one of these interpreters was part of the group included in the calumnia charge against Amanda. I never got a list of those cops that were given awards/commendations for their actions in this case. Were they included in this? If someone has this list I would like to see that as well.

They are police interpreters, they are not police. You know there's a difference right? And yes, one of them is one of the plaintiffs in the calunnia charge.

Try PMF.

 

[Kevin_Lowe]

Good answer. I just honestly do not understand why if it's so basic that anyone with some knowledge in science could figure out she died earlier, why couldn't the experts? It's just one of the parts that bothers me.

I'm most comfortable staying in the realm of what I can prove, or which I can say with a high degree of confidence is reasonable.

In this case, I do find the statements of the prosecution experts as cited in the Massei report curious. It does look to me very much like they were trying to find some way of supporting a predetermined prosecution conclusion rather than stating the facts as such: I find Professor Ronchi's claim that ligatures were not made in the autopsy particularly concerning since the information we have is that ligatures were indeed used, and I find equally concerning his discussion of irrelevant measures of time until gastric emptying which make no sense in a case where the victim's stomach was not empty.

Professor Cingolani's claim that stomach contents evidence with regard to the time of death can vary by up to twelve hours is simply ridiculous as it is presented in the Massei report - t(lag) does not and never has varied by twelve hours. That is like claiming human height varies by ten metres. I charitably assume that Massei took him out of context or misunderstood him because otherwise his statement is absurd.

However I just can't say for sure why these statements appear as they do in the Massei report. I can say with confidence they do not match the facts in the literature, but the why of it is beyond my ken.

Dr Lalli pegged the time of death as 21:30 to 22:30, which is not quite the same as the range LondonJohn has calculated for us but it not far off, and rules out the Massei time of death unequivocally.

 

[Fulcanelli]

In Italy buying fresh fish or meat from the market is quite normal, isn't it?

Whether it's normal or not, it requires making an effort. You have to decide to do it, then you have to travel to the shop, you then have to pick one out, pay for it, take it all the way back home, then prepare it, cook it, serve it, eat it. People tend to remember things they've made an effort for...especially when it's something they've done for the love of their life.

 

[Withnail1969]

Professor Cingolani's claim that stomach contents evidence with regard to the time of death can vary by up to twelve hours is simply ridiculous as it is presented in the Massei report - t(lag) does not and never has varied by twelve hours. That is like claiming human height varies by ten metres.

I would argue that the human metabolism with its demanding large brain and relatively large body would be unsustainable if it took 12 hours for the stomach to empty.

 

[Withnail1969]

Whether it's normal or not, it requires making an effort. You have to decide to do it, then you have to travel to the shop, you then have to pick one out, pay for it, take it all the way back home, then prepare it, cook it, serve it, eat it. People tend to remember things they've made an effort for...especially when it's something they've done for the love of their life.

For us it might be noteworthy, but for Italians this is most likely just a routine way in which they do their shopping.

 

[Fulcanelli]

They presumably work a normal 5 day week, meaning that for most of the time they had no idea whether or not Meredith's door was locked.

But would have been home for enough days to know what the norm in their own home was.

In any case, even Amanda doesn't claim Meredith would lock her door during the daytime. Her claim was that she usually locked her door when she went for a shower. This was flatly contradicted by Filomena, with certainty.

 

[Fulcanelli]

For us it might be noteworthy, but for Italians this is most likely just a routine way in which they do their shopping.

There was nothing routine about it, we are talking about students. Most days they ate pizza. On the day of the murder they had risotto. And there's certainly nothing routine about shopping for a meal and cooking it for your sweetheart to impress her.

 

[Withnail1969]

But would have been home for enough days to know what the norm in their own home was.

No. They were out of the house for significant periods, and were not around when it was just Amanda and Meredith at home. We are talking about a very short period before Meredith's murder. There was no 'norm'.

 

[Withnail1969]

There was nothing routine about it, we are talking about students. Most days they ate pizza. On the day of the murder they had risotto. And there's certainly nothing routine about shopping for a meal and cooking it for your sweetheart to impress her.

Interesting. So in Amanda's house there is a 'norm', a routine way in which things are always done, even over a very short time period.

But elsewhere such 'norms' don't apply. Very interesting.

 

[Kaosium]

??? Have you seen any photos of the room at all? There are many blood free areas. If one were conscious of the blood and didn't wish to step in it, traversing the room without getting blood on your shoes is easy...no feats of levitation are required.

What's all this citing that Rudy did as some sort of proof of argument? Rudy stepped in blood and so that means it would have been impossible for anyone else not to? Come on! All Rudy's stepping in blood proves is that he stepped in blood...that's it!

It's easy not to step in puddles when it rains...most people manage to walk around them quite well. Some people don't and get wet feet. That analogy works well in this case.

It's a little more difficult to do that when you're participating in a violent struggle. Do you believe both Raffaele and Amanda were directly engaged in the attack?

 

[Withnail1969]

It's a little more difficult to do that when you're participating in a violent struggle. Do you believe both Raffaele and Amanda were directly engaged in the attack?

A violent struggle with someone who is spraying blood from their severed neck arteries. Yeah, I don't see why that would be messy at all.

 

[RoseMontague]

They are police interpreters, they are not police. You know there's a difference right? And yes, one of them is one of the plaintiffs in the calunnia charge.

Try PMF.

I believe you said "not a cop". You know that if they work for the cops there is a common employer, right? Is all they do all day is sit around waiting for some English speaking person to get arrested so they can actually do something?

I am assuming your invitation for me to Try PMF, actually has some meaning? If so you can reinstate me immediately.

 

[Kevin_Lowe]

Nobody knows 'what' the material on the knife was or wasn't, since there wasn't enough for a blood test and LCN DNA testing won't tell you what kind of cell the DNA came from. Therefore, speaking in absolutes as you are here is rather misguided and frankly, plain wrong.

What? Where'd you get that from? LCN DNA testing is far more sensitive then any blood test. We are talking less then ten cells here and possibly as few as one...there's no blood test that's going to detect that low number.

DNA wasn't lying around on the knife, CELLS were on the knife. DNA is inside the cells. Therefore, whatever you apply has to break down the cells first before it can get to the DNA to destroy it. If all the cells aren't completely broken down then some DNA will remain.

The test used for blood was substantially more sensitive than the test for DNA. I'm sure Halides1 can fill you in on the technical details but my understanding was that this is chiefly because most (red) blood cells do not contain DNA, so that it is easier to detect blood than to detect the DNA in blood. As I said, I will defer to Halides1 if this understanding of the science involved is incorrect.

From this we can conclude that whatever it was Stefanoni was testing, it was not blood nor was it some mixture of blood and other tissue, because such a mixture would have tested positive for blood.

We can also conclude that the material tested had not survived a cleaning with bleach as some have theorised, as picograms of material are simply not going to survive immersion in a bleach solution.

The explanation that seems most likely to me is that the police claim to have smelled bleach in Sollecito's apartment was an ill-considered verbal, that Stefanoni was testing random grot on the blade which had nothing to do with the murder, and that the positive result for Amanda's DNA was a result (inadvertent or deliberate) of cross-contamination with something else in the lab that day that held Meredith's DNA.

 

[Kaosium]

Raffaele never claimed he was psychologically tortured DURING his interrogation, this took place afterwards. The 'torture' by the way was his having to remove his clothes so they could be sent off for forensic testing. SOP. Precious boy.

Are you going from the brief bit about it in his diary?

Why did you draw that conclusion?

 

[Withnail1969]

The explanation that seems most likely to me is that the police claim to have smelled bleach in Sollecito's apartment was an ill-considered verbal

This is what I think also. The police, due to their scientific ignorance, got on a trip where they were all about bleach receipts and cleanups and things being bleached.

I think later somebody clued them in about how if there had been all this bleaching, no DNA would have been found, so it got toned down later.

 

[RoseMontague]

Filomena testified ro doing so in the stand in the trial. I did make a mistake though, Filomena told them to call the police when she phoned Amanda after the discovery of the broken window, not in the earlier call.

So were the cops called 40 minutes after she asked them or not?