Continuation - Discussion of the Amanda Knox case

[Justinian2]

I still think you guys are looking at this upside down. If the assumption is Rudy broke in, then he chose Filomena's window.

If the assumption is Amanda and Raffaele staged the burglary, all this talk about what Rudy would have done or had done in the past is meaningless. That is, which would be better and easier to stage from the inside.

Staged burglaries usually get someone in the house where they were done convicted. Thus, the only person that would have benefitted from a staged burglary would have been Guede.

 

[quadraginta]

<snip>

I also can't see how the window could be any difficulty to climb. Although I can understand that someone of more sedentary lifestyle and not accustomed to climbing (not even ladders) could feel intimidated by looking at that wall.

<snip>

Nice.

Cagey, unsubtle, passive aggressive ad hom. Anyone who disagrees with your opinion is probably a timid, sedentary sloth with no real life experience.

I can't and won't speak for anybody else, but I'm not in your exclusion group. I grew up in the mountains and spent an inordinate amount of my spare time as a youth free climbing sheer rock faces for the fun of it. I later discovered that many of them were deemed to be technically difficult and should not have been attempted without equipment. That was, however, enough years ago that people were less compulsive about the safety thing. Upon reflection I was rather lucky to have survived with as few injuries as I did.

The first decade and a half of my construction career I spent working full time as a structural and reinforcing steel ironworker. I was one of those guys you'd see climbing up and sliding down the steel "H" columns and walking I-beams a hundred feet in the air instead of using ladders. Ladders were for wimps. (Again, that safety thingy hadn't quite caught on yet.) Later duty as both a framing and form carpenter also involved quite a bit of climbing. Some of it around houses, even though most of the time I worked on very large buildings.

I would not be the least bit surprised to learn that there are others in this thread ... maybe even severaleek others ... who have managed to escape a sheltered existence of indolence and inertia that also take issue with your fondly held beliefs.

I don't see the climb through that window as being "intimidating". I see it as being stupid when there are much easier and less conspicuous alternatives.

I also don't see any substantive evidence that it was actually attempted in this particular instance, in spite of the fervent wishes and imagination, and vigorous spin put on what evidence we do have by Knox partisans.

If I had been an LE officer walking into Filomena's bedroom for the first time on the day after the murder I would have taken one look at that windowsill and alarm bells would have started ringing in my head. In fact, that is exactly what happened here in these threads. I was largely on the fence about the staged break-in question until Charlie Wilkes was kind enough to post the photographs from the scene.

It was immediately apparent that there was almost no chance whoever had left that glass on that windowsill had climbed over it, or for that matter had ever climbed through any window at all ... ever.

I have climbed through windows. I won't share intimate details about boarding school escapades and the women's college adjacent to our campus, or the girl's school across town because true gentlemen don't tell p), but suffice it to say that there were some second story windows in my past which were not intimidating enough to stifle certain youthful impulses. I didn't need to break anything, since there was always a willing accomplice on the insideblush, but if there had been broken glass (or anything else) on the sill before I started it wouldn't have still been there by the time I was through.

 

[shuttlt]

Staged burglaries usually get someone in the house where they were done convicted. Thus, the only person that would have benefitted from a staged burglary would have been Guede.

This only applies to staged burglaries that are shown to be staged burglaries, surely? Successfully staged burglaries divert attention from people with access to the location supposedly being burgled.

In fact, please back this up "Staged burglaries usually get someone in the house where they were done convicted." Or did you make it up?

 

[Justinian2]

This only applies to staged burglaries that are shown to be staged burglaries, surely? Successfully staged burglaries divert attention from people with access to the location supposedly being burgled.

How can I argue with that? Yes, a successfully staged burglary is successful.

I was watching a show about deadly women last night. Seems that every time a burglary was staged, it backfired. Of course in those cases the motive was insurance money. The motive to that story is that staging is unlikely to succeed if you have insurance money to gain.

 

[Withnail1969]

I don't see the climb through that window as being "intimidating". I see it as being stupid when there are much easier and less conspicuous alternatives.

Argument from personal incredulity.

I have climbed through windows. I won't share intimate details about boarding school escapades and the women's college adjacent to our campus, or the girl's school across town because true gentlemen don't tell p), but suffice it to say that there were some second story windows in my past which were not intimidating enough to stifle certain youthful impulses. I didn't need to break anything, since there was always a willing accomplice on the insideblush, but if there had been broken glass (or anything else) on the sill before I started it wouldn't have still been there by the time I was through.

Argument from authority. Claiming to be a 'window climbing expert'. I've seen it all now.

 

[quadraginta]

I still think you guys are looking at this upside down. If the assumption is Rudy broke in, then he chose Filomena's window.

If the assumption is Amanda and Raffaele staged the burglary, all this talk about what Rudy would have done or had done in the past is meaningless. That is, which would be better and easier to stage from the inside.

If the question is whether or not the break-in actually was staged then considerations about likely means of entry are completely relevant, and far from meaningless.

If someone decided to stage a break-in and wanted to be able to claim that they had not noticed it even after wandering around the apartment then Filomena's room would be the logical choice. It is the only room which can both be closed from view of the rest of the apartment and has an unbarred window ... other than Knox's, that is.

 

[Katody Matrass]

Well look, it's one thing to have flash and not flash and provide both but pushing the levels up in photoshop doesn't do anything for accurate debate - that's simply not what it looks like there You go - it's not what it looks like! The balcony is not notably illuminated at all - you've just pushed the levels up until it looks like it is.

Hi, SomeAlibi

I agree that adjusting that image with Photoshop is not the way to go.
But still, since you posted it yesterday, I cannot get rid of the feeling that there's something very wrong with that picture.
http://perugiamurderfile.org/gallery/image.php?album_id=13&image_id=2221
When you mentioned Photoshop, idea came to me to look at that picture's histogram and test it with the "eyedropper" tool.
The results I got made me wonder how on earth could you set up the camera to get something like this.
You posted the exif data and it makes me baffled even more.
There's no way that camera would produce that image the way it is.

 

[quadraginta]

How can I argue with that? Yes, a successfully staged burglary is successful.

I was watching a show about deadly women last night. Seems that every time a burglary was staged, it backfired. Of course in those cases the motive was insurance money. The motive to that story is that staging is unlikely to succeed if you have insurance money to gain.

Do you realize what you just said?

 

[shuttlt]

How can I argue with that? Yes, a successfully staged burglary is successful.

I was watching a show about deadly women last night. Seems that every time a burglary was staged, it backfired. Of course in those cases the motive was insurance money. The motive to that story is that staging is unlikely to succeed if you have insurance money to gain.

But again, you are taking a sample of failed staged burglaries and reasoning about the ratio of failed to successful staged burglaries based on that. This is faulty reasoning.

 

[RoseMontague]

If the question is whether or not the break-in actually was staged then considerations about likely means of entry are completely relevant, and far from meaningless.

If someone decided to stage a break-in and wanted to be able to claim that they had not noticed it even after wandering around the apartment then Filomena's room would be the logical choice. It is the only room which can both be closed from view of the rest of the apartment and has an unbarred window ... other than Knox's, that is.

Yes,
This argument is more along the lines of what I am looking for. In addition, the shutters could have been closed and the window pulled open to break from the inside and nobody would see compared to the balcony, which if we assume is visible at least from the upper rooms of the buildings across the way would be difficult to hide. I believe your assumption (bolded) is exactly the one made by the police here.

 

[Katody Matrass]

I have climbed through windows. I won't share intimate details about boarding school escapades and the women's college adjacent to our campus, or the girl's school across town because true gentlemen don't tell p), but suffice it to say that there were some second story windows in my past which were not intimidating enough to stifle certain youthful impulses.

Thanks, quadraginta!
I understand that you agree with me, that climbing the grating to the window would be easy, a fit young man could have done it if he decided to and he wouldn't perceive it as impossible.

 

[Machiavelli]

You're just lecturing people at great length on what you personally believe burglars do or should do. Rudy would not have been able to get through the balcony because he didn't have a crowbar. He picked Filomena's window because the shutters were already open. That's all there is to it. Similiar opportunist crimes happen every day.

The shutters of the windows on the balcony were open, and you are lying.

 

[Chris C]

But apparently breaking in through Filomena's window is impossible/not in the burglar handbook so Amanda and Raffaele staged it.

Of course Guede must have been using the same psychic as Mignini, because he knew which window was broken for the staged break in that happened after he left.

 

[SomeAlibi]

Sorry SomeAlibi, but your reasoning here consists purely of "burglars always do this, and I know because I'm an expert!" and doesn't address my arguments at all. Saying a burglar "always looks for lights on and always rings the doorbell at least twice" - as if there were some kind of burglar handbook - is just ridiculous. The burglar who broke into Tramontano's home while he was there, whether or not it was Rudy, clearly didn't do that.

The simple fact is that Rudy's biggest problem in breaking into the house was that he could be recognized, and it's also a fact (I take it you don't disagree on this?) that escaping from the balcony would take a lot more time than getting away from the area where Filomena's window was. Where the doors to both upstairs and downstairs flats are located would make it very difficult for Rudy to make a quick getaway from the balcony without being seen, if someone turned out to be home. He would also be oblivious to someone coming up the driveway as he was in the process of breaking in and being caught redhanded, so to speak. With Filomena's window, he could check no one was coming home right up until the moment he entered the house, and could keep a look-out afterwards. That entry point is far preferable from that perspective.

There's simply no way he could be sure no one was home, not until he'd actually broken the window. Even if he knocked on the door and there was no response, one of the residents could've been home in bed with their boyfriend/girlfriend and chosen not to answer (you've never ignored a doorbell in those circumstances...?). In a house of 8 young people, that's not exactly an unlikely possibility.

You haven't addressed any of the points I've made; saying "burglars always follow the burglar handbook" doesn't do that.

The Tramontano comparison is bogus because it's absolutely not the same sort of burglary. Tramontano's house was broken into without smashing glass with a rock and secondly it was done in the dead of night as a classic cat-burglary while the occupants were asleep. Tramontano was awoken by the noise of someone moving downstairs. This is a completely different MO from a day time or evening burglary when occupants are expected to be awake. I know a number of defendants who absolutely swear off this type of MO as it is dangerous and is an aggravating factor in prosecutions if the occupants were at home. More conservative burglars yet avoid domestic properties and only do commercial premises for the same sort of reason. There are actually styles and choices among such people which are made as active career choices!

I enjoy the fact that you think that someone who has worked on burglary cases for 20 years, describing the MO of burglaries is "ridiculous" compared to... precisely what extensive experience on your part? Ask any law enforcement officer what burglars do before committing a day time or earlier evening break-in and you'll get precisely the same answer from the vast vast majority of them. They make damn sure no-one is in precisely through the methods described. You look ridiculous making unfounded counter-assertions without experience simply because they support the raft you're clinging to. Do you see me asserting DNA judgement against Chris H or calling his position ridiculous? No, because even though I have quite a lot of experience in it, in my opinion, only expert witnesses are qualified to opine on it. I don't know what you do for a living, but you would probably view counter-views to everything you know from great experience as the way-things-work to be very silly.

We can also leave aside silly distinctions between ringing bells versus knocking on doors - come on people...

What you argue is possible - it's always possible. But you lost the jury a long time ago on plausibility. The balcony is not a little or a lot but a factor better protected from being overlooked. It is the area of the cottage Rudy was familiar with since you say he did the break-in. It is a factor easier climb which anyone can see from the pictures whether you like to pretend otherwise or not. It is a factor easier to break in (shutters like that you yank apart with your hands if they were locked, which is pure conjecture - crowbars please.). As you open the shutters you get to see inside the cottage to see if there are any lights on at all. *If* there are none *then* you break the glass with your jacketed-elbow or a small rock and reach in directly to undo the handle. Once a burglar has thoroughly assessed that there is (beyond bad chance and coincidence) no-one in a property, they are overwhelmingly concerned with ease of entry and not being seen entering. There isn't any jury in the world that is going to believe Filomena's is the better choice on these considerations. Sorry, I know you need it to be true but seriously no-one in the real world is buying not even close.

I can't emphasise this enough - just because you can invent a reason to support the way you want everything to fall, doesn't mean it's remotely convincing. If you can't distinguish good arguments from bad or strong evidence from weak, then you're not applying good judgement to understanding the nature of the case against the people you support and I think this is a consistent meme here. You argue every single last piece of evidence of impossible and that's simply not credible. You want multiple persons to be liars, frauds and manipulators from the flatmates, the police in attendance, the witnesses, the computer records, the cellphone records, the DNA collectors, the DNA testers and a host more. It's not credible that so many points of evidence should all be without basis. If you think these two are convicted without an awful lot of material that convinces normal people spending months on deliberating over the evidence, you really are living in cloud cuckoo land. There's proper problems to address and you can make good arguments on many. On this one however? No. It's totally against you. What that therefore tells you is you should look for evidence that Rudy fabricated the break-in if that's what supports your case. You're flogging a very dead horse here.

But you are not alone in this respect. The calling of the baby rapist and murderer in support of AK and RS and the ridiculous continual-computer-use-through-the-night-with-no-internet-or-application-record use are credibility destroying lines of argument that I am utterly baffled by on the part of the defence attorneys. It points to a certain sense of desperation in my opinion.


Chris C - I don't know if you're skimming this but I've shown beyond any doubt that you cannot be seen at the base of the balcony apart from one position which is bending down to about 5ft tall and effectively poking your head through the "hole" in the tree foliage that covers the small gap between the outhouse and the L-shape of the house underneath the balcony. The fact is that behind that small hole is the wall of the outside of the carpark and no-one can see through it from the flats or carpark and it's on a right angled bend in the road which no driver would be concentrating on in the tenth of a second you'd go past it in the dark. The picture is here. Will you please look at the height of the door on the ground floor and then appreciate the very small scale of the climb as a result. This really is a ridiculous line of argument.

http://perugiamurderfile.org/gallery/image.php?album_id=13&image_id=2164

 

[Machiavelli]

But again, you're assuming the lawyer conversation happened shortly before the comment that "we will protect you", when there's no evidence for that. There's no chronological sequence here, as you're assuming. I also disagree that telling her it would be worse for her if she had a lawyer because it would show she didn't want to cooperate is answering "on a line of logical conversation" - in fact, insofar as it suggests anything it indicates they hadn't started being nice to her at that stage, between the two interrogations.
(..)

No I am not (it did happen shortly before though), I am basing my conclusion on the logical value of altra and the words prima and dopo referred to the pre-"tea and cake" declaration.
It is illogical to locate this episode after the second declaration, because if you do this, that "prima" would include another accusation against Patrick that took place 3 hours before, and this would be illogical and contradictory (also unexplained by Amanda).

 

[RoseMontague]

So the plan (as put forward by the cops) of Amanda and Raffaele goes this way:
1. Filomena's room was picked for the staged burglary with the idea in mind that the Amanda would not notice it upon her first return to the cottage (giving her time for a clean up and to provide her a reason for not noticing the "break in" if somebody saw her entering the flat early that morning)
2. It points the finger towards a stranger killing Meredith rather than someone who lived there.
3. The calls to Meredith not answered and subsequent calls to Filomena provide a cover showing the surprise at finding this "new" information on the return back and Rafaele's failed attempt to break down Meredith's door was part of this perfectly choreographed plan.
4. Just in case one of the other flat mates came home at they time of the staged phone calls to Meredith's phones, the phones were taken away and disposed of and one of them left on so they could be discovered at a later time in a location away from the flat showing that the home was burglarized.
5. Filomena's room was ransacked to make it appear a burglar was looking for something but didn't find what they were looking for because nothing was taken.

 

[Machiavelli]

Of course Guede must have been using the same psychic as Mignini, because he knew which window was broken for the staged break in that happened after he left.

He didn't know anything.

 

[quadraginta]

I don't see the climb through that window as being "intimidating". I see it as being stupid when there are much easier and less conspicuous alternatives.

Argument from personal incredulity.

Yeah?

...and your point is what?

It seems that this is only a problem to the Knox partisans when it is offered by someone who disagrees with them. Most of the objections in these threads have been "arguments from incredulity", and they have not by any stretch of the imagination been limited to those posters who are unconvinced of Knox's innocence. In fact I wouldn't be a bit surprised if the vast majority were from Knox defenders.

If we went and deleted every "argument from personal incredulity" in these threads, and all of the content free, kneejerk response to them like yours, then we would probably shave the post count down to a small fraction of what it is now.

I have climbed through windows. I won't share intimate details about boarding school escapades and the women's college adjacent to our campus, or the girl's school across town because true gentlemen don't tell xtongue), but suffice it to say that there were some second story windows in my past which were not intimidating enough to stifle certain youthful impulses. I didn't need to break anything, since there was always a willing accomplice on the insideblush, but if there had been broken glass (or anything else) on the sill before I started it wouldn't have still been there by the time I was through.

Argument from authority. Claiming to be a 'window climbing expert'. I've seen it all now.

Please reread for actual content. While you're at it, highlight and quote the parts you think suggested I considered myself either "expert" or an "authority".

I merely stated that I had actually done such a thing (Perhaps you had no youthful escapades. I am saddened for you.), and the results of that limited* experience have given me cause to draw the conclusions I have drawn.

It is not clear to me exactly what experience or authority you are drawing your conclusions from. Maybe it is YouTube clips. Show me a YouTube clip of someone crawling through a ~thirty inch wide, second story window opening with a sill half covered in broken glass without disturbing any of the glass and we will have some basis to compare my personal experiences (and my incredulity) with your video authority.

Then we'll be able to talk about why on earth they would even bother doing such a thing when a single swipe of a forearm would clear the entire sill of dangerous debris.

--------------------------------------

*(Three times. Two different buildings. The second time at Stewart Hall I was nearly caught by a hall proctor and my girlfriend's buddies had to help me hide. That put a damper on the exercise.

I'm sorry if this strains your credulity as well. Perhaps it could use the exercise.

I can assure you that a town with two all-male boarding schools, one all-female boarding school, and a women's college saw more than a few such shenanigans. Quite a few, as a matter of fact. Even back in the early seventies when the veneer of propriety was was still largely un-shredded for most of society, and one of the very reasons for all-female schools such as those was a generally futile and often belated effort to preserve tender virtues.)

 

[Dan O.]

If I had been an LE officer walking into Filomena's bedroom for the first time on the day after the murder I would have taken one look at that windowsill and alarm bells would have started ringing in my head. In fact, that is exactly what happened here in these threads. I was largely on the fence about the staged break-in question until Charlie Wilkes was kind enough to post the photographs from the scene.

How would you have documented your findings to make the case in court that the scene was staged?

 

[Withnail1969]

More conservative burglars yet avoid domestic properties and only do commercial premises for the same sort of reason. There are actually styles and choices among such people which are made as active career choices!

argument from personal authority

I enjoy the fact that you think that someone who has worked on burglary cases for 20 years, describing the MO of burglaries is "ridiculous" compared to... precisely what extensive experience on your part?

argument from personal authority/belittling opponent

Ask any law enforcement officer what burglars do before committing a day time or earlier evening break-in and you'll get precisely the same answer from the vast vast majority of them. They make damn sure no-one is in precisely through the methods described. You look ridiculous making unfounded counter-assertions without experience simply because they support the raft you're clinging to.

argument from authority/belittling opponent

I don't know what you do for a living, but you would probably view counter-views to everything you know from great experience as the way-things-work to be very silly.

argument from personal authority

But you lost the jury a long time ago on plausibility.

unsubstantiated assertion

It is the area of the cottage Rudy was familiar with since you say he did the break-in. It is a factor easier climb which anyone can see from the pictures whether you like to pretend otherwise or not. It is a factor easier to break in (shutters like that you yank apart with your hands if they were locked, which is pure conjecture - crowbars please.). As you open the shutters you get to see inside the cottage to see if there are any lights on at all. *If* there are none *then* you break the glass with your jacketed-elbow or a small rock and reach in directly to undo the handle. Once a burglar has thoroughly assessed that there is (beyond bad chance and coincidence) no-one in a property, they are overwhelmingly concerned with ease of entry and not being seen entering.

Reading from the 'burglar's handbook' again.

There isn't any jury in the world that is going to believe Filomena's is the better choice on these considerations.

unsubstantiated hyperbole

Sorry, I know you need it to be true but seriously no-one in the real world is buying not even close.

unsubstantiated generalisation

I can't emphasise this enough - just because you can invent a reason to support the way you want everything to fall, doesn't mean it's remotely convincing. If you can't distinguish good arguments from bad or strong evidence from weak, then you're not applying good judgement to understanding the nature of the case against the people you support and I think this is a consistent meme here. You argue every single last piece of evidence of impossible and that's simply not credible. You want multiple persons to be liars, frauds and manipulators from the flatmates, the police in attendance, the witnesses, the computer records, the cellphone records, the DNA collectors, the DNA testers and a host more. It's not credible that so many points of evidence should all be without basis. If you think these two are convicted without an awful lot of material that convinces normal people spending months on deliberating over the evidence, you really are living in cloud cuckoo land. There's proper problems to address and you can make good arguments on many. On this one however? No. It's totally against you. What that therefore tells you is you should look for evidence that Rudy fabricated the break-in if that's what supports your case. You're flogging a very dead horse here.

Empty rhetoric.

But you are not alone in this respect. The calling of the baby rapist and murderer in support of AK and RS and the ridiculous continual-computer-use-through-the-night-with-no-internet-or-application-record use are credibility destroying lines of argument that I am utterly baffled by on the part of the defence attorneys. It points to a certain sense of desperation in my opinion.

unfounded conjecture, we don't know the details of the defence's computer argument

you cannot be seen at the base of the balcony apart from one position which is bending down to about 5ft tall and effectively poking your head through the "hole" in the tree foliage that covers the small gap between the outhouse and the L-shape of the house underneath the balcony.

So explain Katody's pictures which showed a clear view of the balcony.