Continuation - Discussion of the Amanda Knox case

[Katody Matrass]

Personally I suspect the overwhelming majority of samples would come back either as purely Amanda, purely Raffaele, purely the cleaner, or some mixture of those three with some background noise of other people.

Consider then only a set of samples which all repeatedly return a TOO LOW result on Stefanoni's machine. And on each of them she cranks it up repeatedly beyond factory recommendations until she gets some result.

What's odd about this sample is that they aren't on it.

It was a clean blade of a knife straight from a drawer, not a door handle.

Perhaps that is the explanation. I had been under the impression that he hadn't been such a frequent visitor. Perhaps I am mistaken. Still, it seem to me that it is a surprise that it would be his DNA and not any of the other candidates who ended up on the clasp.

If there was a 5% chance of him being among the contaminant "donors" against the 95% that the set of contamination DNA would consist only of other people, would you convict?

 

[Chris C]

There is no question. Rudy has lied. However, there is no reason for him to lie about the amount of blood in the bathroom and corridor. He had already mentioned all the blood in the bedroom. Talking about all the blood, in no way exonerates him.

ETA. Unless, you need that to be a lie, as it would most certainly then prove that there was a cleanup, and that would incriminate.......who???

The bloody hallway and bathroom are attempts to deflect blame.

Rudy knows he was there, and he knows the police know he was there. So he admits to it. He admits he was there between 8:30pm and left before 10:30pm. That timeline he presented is a gift. He gives them a timeline from 9pm till 10:30pm at the latests for Meredith's murder. Rudy is convicted on that timeline of the murder. The bloody hallway and bathroom are remarks to deflect blame and accuse someone else. The autopsy and testimony of when Meredith ate confirms that Meredith died within Rudy's timeline of when he was at the house. The body temperature ToD also falls within Rudy's timeline. You have 2 seperate ToD's that fall within Rudy's admission of what time he was at the apartment.

Yet the prosecution against Knox/Sollecito chose to step outside of the given timeline. However, if they use anything from Rudy's trial against Knox/Sollecito. Then they are admitting that Rudy's trial was done correctly and all information presented at his trial and the motivation report of that trial is correct. Which in effect means Meredith was assaulted, raped, and killed before 10:30pm. If they choose to still pursue Meredith was killed after 10:30pm then the prosecution against Knox/Sollecito are saying Rudy's trial is wrong. You then have a dilema where the courts are ruling that one person was murdered twice.

 

[Chris_Halkides]

locus hocus pocus

shuttlt and RoseMontague,

From Massei, about page 243: "Regarding locus D7S820, he revealed that Forensics had interpreted it, recognizing the presence of two alleles, 8 and 11; they had not taken into consideration a peak, low, but still higher than 50 RFU, corresponding to allele 10."

Amanda is homozygous at this locus, and not for the 10 allele. To whom does it belong? One can say with 100% certainty that Amanda's complete profile is not on the bra clasp. Beyond that, it is harder to say. One might claim on the basis of some alleles that coincide with Amanda's (possibly at the D21S11 locus), that Amanda's DNA is present, but I think that would be a major mischaracterization. In locus D16S539, Dr. Tagliabracci believes that there is a peak at the 13 locus, and this also fails to match Amanda's profile. BTW, Raffaele's putative DNA on the clasp is very weak, less than 200 pg according to his appeal.

 

[LondonJohn]

WHAT?? He was locked in, so he tried rape, and then he murdered Meredith? Is this Cottage Rage...as in the meaningless Road Rage?

WHAT?? Knox and Sollecito overheard Guede coming on strong with Meredith, so they burst in to Meredith's room, and Knox's jealous rage for Meredith took over culminating in a 3-way stab-and-sexual-assault-fest? Is this Cottage Rage?

 

[shuttlt]

WHAT?? He was locked in, so he tried rape, and then he murdered Meredith? Is this Cottage Rage...as in the meaningless Road Rage?

Particularly when it would have been so easy to jump for it. It's only first story afterall:

 

[bobc]

The sound of the toilet flushing would have alerted Meredith that somebody was there. In addition, the boys downstairs mentioned he did not flush on another occasion so this would not be unusual either way.

Er, not if she was dead. If he was cleaning other evidence, why not flush, even if it was not his habit? And after all that effort, not even steal much.

I can just about see him breaking in, as a known petty burglar, although it is really daft to break into a place and run the risk of being immediately recognized, but the segue into an opportunistic rape/murder seems far-fetched.

This scenario still doesn't make any sense to me.

 

[samba]

WHAT?? He was locked in, so he tried rape, and then he murdered Meredith? Is this Cottage Rage...as in the meaningless Road Rage?

Yeah...it's much more plausible that Amanda said 'You act like such a saint, now you are going to have sex with us.'

 

[LondonJohn]

shuttlt and RoseMontague,

From Massei, about page 243: "Regarding locus D7S820, he revealed that Forensics had interpreted it, recognizing the presence of two alleles, 8 and 11; they had not taken into consideration a peak, low, but still higher than 50 RFU, corresponding to allele 10."

Amanda is homozygous at this locus, and not for the 10 allele. To whom does it belong? One can say with 100% certainty that Amanda's complete profile is not on the bra clasp. Beyond that, it is harder to say. One might claim on the basis of some alleles that coincide with Amanda's (possibly at the D21S11 locus), that Amanda's DNA is present, but I think that would be a major mischaracterization.

In locus D16S539, Dr. Tagliabracci believes that there is a peak at the 13 locus, and this also fails to match Amanda's profile. BTW, Raffaele's putative DNA on the clasp is very weak, less than 200 pg according to his appeal.

Exactly. Firstly, as you say, Sollecito's DNA (if it is Sollecito's) is only on the bra clasp in very low amounts - most assuredly not the "abundant" volumes that some would like to believe. Secondly, it's far from a definitive match to Sollecito - the mixture of DNA means that there's cross-matching at various loci, and some of Sollecito's reference loci don't correlate to what was found on the bra clasp. And thirdly, there's nowhere near a close match to Knox (and if there had have been even a sniff of a match, previous form strongly suggests that the prosecution would have trumpeted it).

I think that it's highly possible that the bra clasp DNA evidence will be thrown out when proper retesting and interpretation takes place. I also think it's virtually certain that the knife DNA evidence will be thrown out.

 

[capealadin]

The bloody hallway and bathroom are attempts to deflect blame.

Rudy knows he was there, and he knows the police know he was there. So he admits to it. He admits he was there between 8:30pm and left before 10:30pm. That timeline he presented is a gift. He gives them a timeline from 9pm till 10:30pm at the latests for Meredith's murder. Rudy is convicted on that timeline of the murder. The bloody hallway and bathroom are remarks to deflect blame and accuse someone else. The autopsy and testimony of when Meredith ate confirms that Meredith died within Rudy's timeline of when he was at the house. The body temperature ToD also falls within Rudy's timeline. You have 2 seperate ToD's that fall within Rudy's admission of what time he was at the apartment.

Yet the prosecution against Knox/Sollecito chose to step outside of the given timeline. However, if they use anything from Rudy's trial against Knox/Sollecito. Then they are admitting that Rudy's trial was done correctly and all information presented at his trial and the motivation report of that trial is correct. Which in effect means Meredith was assaulted, raped, and killed before 10:30pm. If they choose to still pursue Meredith was killed after 10:30pm then the prosecution against Knox/Sollecito are saying Rudy's trial is wrong. You then have a dilema where the courts are ruling that one person was murdered twice.

What does the time line have anything to do with * All the blood?*. How does that deflect blame on someone else? He couldn't have known at that stage, what, if any DNA, was where, and of whom.

 

[shuttlt]

Consider then only a set of samples which all repeatedly return a TOO LOW result on Stefanoni's machine. And on each of them she cranks it up repeatedly beyond factory recommendations until she gets some result.

Not relevant. If the DNA was on the knife before it entered the lab it is a huge surprise if Meredith's DNA got there innocently. It really doesn't matter how many times it was amplified.

It was a clean blade of a knife straight from a drawer, not a door handle.

Which again begs the question how a pure uncontaminated sample of Meredith got onto it, if it is through some kind of 'Amanda walks the DNA home' scenario.

If there was a 5% chance of him being among the contaminant "donors" against the 95% that the set of contamination DNA would consist only of other people, would you convict?

This kind of depends on what scenario we are talking about for contamination. He'd never been in the murder room, lots of other people had. Compared to several other people he hadn't spent much time in the flat. I'd place odds of a lot less than 5% on it, but even at 5% it would still be a surprise and, to me would still count as evidence. Lots of other evidence surely has a higher chance than 5% of being a random fluke and is allowed. You're not picking 5% because of statistical significance are you?

 

[bobc]

I am inclined to agree that Guede's intention was not to rape or kill Meredith. Guede's intention was to rob the place for cash. It was Nov 1, rent day, and rents were paid in cash. He was interrupted. My guess is he was on the can at the time. The problem was, he could not get out the front door because the front door locks from the inside with a key. Without the key he was stuck there. The only way out was through Meredith. The result was very tragic.

Forever?? Obviously, he intended to leave the way he came in. If he waited until Meredith went to her bedroom, there were several ways out not through Meredith.

And presumably Rudy had taken the precaution of turning the lights off, closing Filomena's door and closing her shutters to hide the broken glass etc to not arouse suspicion, just in case someone came in.

This scenario would be slightly more plausible if Meredith came home and discovered Rudy, either in the bathroom or rifling through drawers, and then a struggle ensued. Still doesn't explain the multiple attackers.

 

[RoseMontague]

Was it Professor Tagliabracci who defined the bra clasp results (for Raffaele) to be in the lcn range, however, the court and Stefanoni did not?

You remember correctly. Thoughtful's summary on this from Raffaele's appeal:

The Massei report rejects Tagliabracci's assertion that the DNA was LCN, claiming that this is just an erroneous hypothesis, partly due to the fact that Stefanoni considered the presence of RS's DNA on the clasp to other DNA as 1 to 6 whereas Tagliabracci stated 1 to 8 or even 1 to 10. The appeal gives the numbers: DNA proportion is 1141.picograms/microliters, 10 microliters were amplified so 1140 picograms of DNA (the appeal says 1140 microliters here, I'm no biologist but purely as a mathematician it sounds like an error in measurement units compared to the previous sentence). Anyway, whether you use the 10 to 1, 8 to 1 or 6 to 1 proportions, say the latter, you find LCN since the greatest amount of RS's DNA present would be 162.8 picograms (in the 6 to 1 case) which is less than the 200 picogram threshold of LCN.

 

[LondonJohn]

Er, not if she was dead. If he was cleaning other evidence, why not flush, even if it was not his habit? And after all that effort, not even steal much.

I can just about see him breaking in, as a known petty burglar, although it is really daft to break into a place and run the risk of being immediately recognized, but the segue into an opportunistic rape/murder seems far-fetched.

This scenario still doesn't make any sense to me.

I think he was somewhat...shall we say....panicked after raping and murdering Meredith. I think his priorities were likely restricted to the following: 1) clean any visible blood off his hands, arms and clothing, to avoid arousing suspicion on his journey home; 2) take any readily available cash; 3) Take Meredith's phones in an attempt to delay discovery of her body; 4) get the heck out of the cottage.

And regarding the second part of your post, I think there's a very logical (but tragic) progression. I think that Guede might have tried to exit the house quietly, only to find that he couldn't do so without a key. And at that point a confrontation with Meredith became almost inevitable. I think that Meredith might have initially refused to co-operate, and might have threatened to call the police. I think this would have enraged Guede, who then initiated a physical altercation with Meredith.

At this point, things need to be looked at in a slightly deeper psychological context. Nearly all rape and serious sexual assault is not about sex - it is about power and control. We know that Guede was a botherer of girls, and we also know that he had precious little success in that area. I think that once he had physical contact with Meredith, he might have been progressively overcome with a desire to dominate and control her - and in many men of Guede's persuasions this manifests itself in a sexual assault.

I think that Guede may have started a sexual assault with a knife at Meredith's throat, that Meredith may have struggled as he started to remove her jeans, and that he may have inflicted the neck wounds at that point. And I think that he was too far down the road of sexual assault to stop at that point, even though Meredith would have been choking to death on her own blood at that point.

I am sorry to be somewhat graphic, and I'm well aware that certain "communities" seem to think that I present these scenarios for my own gratification. I most certainly do not: I do, however, think that it's entirely appropriate to try to understand how an attempted burglary might have turned into a rape and murder. And in order to try to understand, it's regretfully necessary to go through all the steps in the process.

 

[LondonJohn]

Forever?? Obviously, he intended to leave the way he came in. If he waited until Meredith went to her bedroom, there were several ways out not through Meredith.

And presumably Rudy had taken the precaution of turning the lights off, closing Filomena's door and closing her shutters to hide the broken glass etc to not arouse suspicion, just in case someone came in.

This scenario would be slightly more plausible if Meredith came home and discovered Rudy, either in the bathroom or rifling through drawers, and then a struggle ensued. Still doesn't explain the multiple attackers.

But I'd suggest that Guede would have expected to be able to creep up to the door, and either open it softly and creep out, or open it with noise and sprint out. And I'd further suggest that he started pulling on the door and rattling the handle when he realised that it wouldn't open easily for him. I think that Meredith would have been alerted by the noise (she was alone in a quiet house and IIRC had no TV or audio gear in her room, and she'd just got in in any case, so the house would have been quiet). She'd have either called out or come out into the hallway to investigate. At that point she'd either have seen or heard Guede, or at least would have registered that there was an intruder in the house. It's reasonable to suggest that she then might have called out something along the lines of calling the police. And as soon as she saw Guede, he had the added complication that she could almost certainly recognise him, and he'd have known that.

And at that point, the scenario tuned into much, much more than Guede simply needing to get out of the cottage. Yes, he could have dived out of Filomena's window, but he'd have known that Meredith would call the police and report him for breaking and entering. And in addition to this, I think that Guede may have started to get psycho-sexual feelings of power/control when he clocked that he was alone in the cottage with a girl whom he found attractive, whom he had the chance to dominate.

 

[RoseMontague]

Er, not if she was dead. If he was cleaning other evidence, why not flush, even if it was not his habit? And after all that effort, not even steal much.

I can just about see him breaking in, as a known petty burglar, although it is really daft to break into a place and run the risk of being immediately recognized, but the segue into an opportunistic rape/murder seems far-fetched.

This scenario still doesn't make any sense to me.

The scenario both myself and moodstream presented had him on the toilet when she arrived home, not when she was already dead. That could be part of the problem you are having making sense of the scenario. Maybe you are having a problem with a different scenario?

 

[capealadin]

It seems rather strange.. Meredith says she's calling the cops, and that gets Rudy so sexually aroused, he rapes her.

 

[Mary_H]

As Rudy was there, I would say he is first hand. Did the news reports show lots of blood in the corridor? Photos of same?

In the infamous fake interview with Kate Mansey, Raffaele was alleged to have said, "There was blood everywhere and I couldn't take it all in." That was published on the 11th. I am sure there were plenty of news reports about an extremely bloody crime scene in the first weeks after the murder. Rudy wasn't arrested until the 20th. He would have read or heard Amanda and Raffaele's false confessions and testimony before the judge by that time.

In response to a question (http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showpost.php?p=6677063&postcount=21940) that was asked by Chris earlier today: According to the Micheli report, Rudy said that hearing a thump or noise downstairs was what prompted him to get up and leave the cottage. (That doesn't meant any noise actually occurred.)

 

[LondonJohn]

The scenario both myself and moodstream presented had him on the toilet when she arrived home, not when she was already dead. That could be part of the problem you are having making sense of the scenario. Maybe you are having a problem with a different scenario?

I think bobc's suggesting that Guede could have gone back to the bathroom and flushed the toilet after the murder. But I would retort (as I did a few posts upthread) that more pressing issues would likely be on Guede's mind in the minutes following the murder.

 

[moodstream]

blood alcohol level contamination

The non-dna forensic portion of the Massei report makes for very sad reading, and, not knowing anything about forensics, I did not want to read it out of respect for the victim. It was too personal and graphic. However, after all the discussion about TOD, I finally did read it.

Parsing out the portion on the use of the knife to make the only one large wound on the left of the neck strongly confirms to me that the kitchen knife could not possibly have been used, regardless of dna findings. That leads naturally to the question of contamination.

In that same portion of the Massei report that discusses non-dna forensics is also a brief discussion of contamination. Not of the knife, but of the alcohol blood level. The report reports:

(Prof Cingolani) then went on to detail the outcome of the alcohol level test . He recalled that the level of alcohol found in Perugia at the Institute of Forensic Medicine was 0.43 grams per litre; the [level] that had been [152] detected in the blood, however, at the headquarters of the expert report commissioned for the pre-*‐‑trial hearing [incidente probatorio] was 2.72 grams per litre.

On the basis of such contrasting results, a check was carried out on the alcohol percentage in other regions: in the gastric content and then in the liver. A value substantially of zero had been found in the gastric content and, he stressed, "in the gastric content the quantity of alcohol is frighteningly greater than in the blood" (page 106). In the liver too a very slight quantity had been detected, equal to 0.2, which was comparable from the pharmacokinetic point of view with the 0.43 verified by Dr. Lalli at the Institute of Forensic Medicine of Perugia, rather than with the value of 2.72.

He concluded on this point that that was no pharmacokinetic condition which could justify all three of these values, that is zero in the stomach, 2.72 in the blood and 0.2 in the liver. On the basis of these elements they had concluded that Meredith was not in a condition of alcoholic intoxication.

He could not indicate why the analysis of the blood had given a particularly high value, "close to ethylic coma," (page 108) other than in terms of a simple hypothesis: the exchange of samples; a contamination with the passage of alcohol to the sample, taking place when the exhibit was in the refrigerator. P152 –PMF version.

Does that seem likely to anyone? – the passage of alcohol to the sample, taking place when the exhibit was in the refrigerator.

Is there an implication in the sentence detected in the blood, however, at the headquarters of the expert report commissioned for the pre-trial hearing?

My cynical side says it was an amateurish attempt to match the alcohol level in the blood to a wild sex party / satanic ritual crime theory that simply could not get off the ground.

But how did it happen?

 

[LondonJohn]

It seems rather strange.. Meredith says she's calling the cops, and that gets Rudy so sexually aroused, he rapes her.

No, you're misinterpreting what I wrote. I'm suggesting that if Meredith threatened to call the cops, this might have elicited a reaction of rage and anger within Guede, and an urge to intimidate Meredith into compliance. Maybe there was a short struggle for the phone. I then suggest that Guede's desire for control of Meredith started to manifest itself as a sexual assault.

As I said before, this is not (in my opinion) about sexual arousal per se. It's about sex as a means of demonstrating power and control - a phenomenon which is extremely well-documented. For example, invading armies throughout history have been known to engage in the rape not only of the women (and children) of the lands they had conquered, but also of captured soldiers. It's not about sexual gratification - it's about a primeval male demonstration of power and domination.