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Continuation - Discussion of the Amanda Knox case

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Supernaut said:
<snip>
- Wouldn't smearing be a compelling indication that it was made at the time of the murder? That is to say; if it was not only still wet, but had not soaked in to the fabric, thus allowing Guede's shoe to smear it, isn't it unlikely in the extreme that it was deposited "innocently" at some earlier time?
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Yes.

- If the stain is "vaseline" (which I gather reflects the UV a 'crimescope' uses similarly to semen), wouldn't it be rather obvious that it hadn't dried (duh) and was therefore NOT excretia of any kind, and isn't it likely the crack prosecution experts would have disclosed this long ago?
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Yes.

- Wouldn't any kind of excretia (semen, mucous, saliva, sweat, whatever) yield a DNA profile and identify the person who deposited it (unless that person was "unknown", but then ..... )?

- Given all the above, and assuming it wasn't Meredith, wouldn't it be rather difficult for this person to provide an "innocent" explanation for it, whether or not it is semen (but, of course, particularly if it is)?

- (Rhetorical) Isn't the prosecutions' reticence rather odd, when they went to such effort to find even a speck (literally) of evidence to incriminate AK or RS, settling in the end for they want us to believe were found on the bra-clasp and kitchen-knife?
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Oh yes.

One guess is that Giacomo divulged it might be his, and to spare the Kerchers the embarrassment of having Meredith's sex life all over the tabloids, the investigators agreed to keep it on the QT. Of course, it wouldn't be Giacomo's if it were wet.

It's crazy not to test it.
 
Supernaut said:
I gather AK’s and RS’s defence have requested that it be tested, and Judge Hellmann will make a decision after the review of the existing forensic so-called evidence against them.

- Did Stefanoni explicitly state that a decision was made not to test it because, she claimed, it would in some way compromise the bloody shoe-print evidence on the pillowcase (left by Guede), but without expanding any further?
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According to page 219 of the motivations this is what Stefanoni had to say concerning the pillowcase:

She stated that the pillow was found half under the pelvis of the body. Analysis was not done on the pillow because it was considered more useful to use it for print analysis, whether of shoeprints or handprints.
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Rudy's handprint was found to be on the pillowcase, there was no determination by the court as to whom the shoeprint belonged to.

As to your other questions I cannot answer. I don't know whether testing of the stain would have compromised the handprint and shoeprint evidence. Perhaps someone else has that answer.
 
So wonder why Raffaele "repeatedly" asked himself why Amanda had to use her key to open the front door? He also expresses suspicion that his examination of the toilet did not confirm what Amanda had told him. Obviously, he has thought about, and rejected the possibility that someone slipped into the cottage after Amanda left to fetch him. "The first thing I noticed was that Filomena's room had the door wide open." Don't see how you extract from this Amanda opening the door.
 
The Third Man said:
I'm fairly sure that for most non-folding handsets the on-off button is located on top of the unit and has been for some years now, I've just done a quick google on the top three Nokia, Ericsson and Motorola and all the keypad models that I checked have the button on the top. If I'm not mistaken I think even the modern screen phones do including the I-phone. Do they have different manufacturers and different phone designs in Italy? (that's a genuine question I'm not trying to be sarcastic)

As for the killer being in an agitated state of panic, fear etc., I agree entirely,
but in this state wouldn't the most urgent motivation be to get away from the crime scene as quickly as possible? Whether the mobile phones are switched on or off, I would argue, would be the last thing he would be thinking about.
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My last four mobile handsets - dating back to around 2004 - have been a Samsung and three Nokias (all UK models), none of which were folding models, and they each turn on and off by pressing and holding the "end call" (red phone symbol) button on the front keypad.

I suspect that Guede might have developed a small pre-occupation with turning off Meredith's phones either because she tried to call the police before he attacked her, or because he interrupted her call to her mother. In such a circumstance, it's not unreasonable (in my opinion) that Guede might have decided that anyone calling Meredith would be less concerned by her phones being off than by them ringing and ringing without being answered. After all, there are probably more innocent reasons why a person's phone will be off (they want privacy/sleep, their battery has run flat, they are out of signal coverage) than for it to ring without being answered (they left their phone somewhere, they were too distracted by noise or other activity to notice an incoming call alert, they saw the incoming call but consciously decided not to answer). In addition, if Guede had decided to take the phones with him, he might be afraid that they had loud ring tones, and that if one of them went off while he was trying to make his way home discreetly, this might draw unwelcome attention towards him from anyone nearby.

I think that Guede managed to turn Meredith's Italian phone off fairly quickly, and messed around trying to turn off her UK for only a couple of minutes before giving up and deciding to leave it switched on and concentrate on getting out of the cottage.
 
Supernaut said:
I gather AK’s and RS’s defence have requested that it be tested, and Judge Hellmann will make a decision after the review of the existing forensic so-called evidence against them.

- Did Stefanoni explicitly state that a decision was made not to test it because, she claimed, it would in some way compromise the bloody shoe-print evidence on the pillowcase (left by Guede), but without expanding any further?

- Is the stain partially inside, and smeared by one of the shoe-prints (hence, presumably, the pretext given above for not testing it, or claiming not to have done)?

- Wouldn't smearing be a compelling indication that it was made at the time of the murder? That is to say; if it was not only still wet, but had not soaked in to the fabric, thus allowing Guede's shoe to smear it, isn't it unlikely in the extreme that it was deposited "innocently" at some earlier time?

- If the stain is "vaseline" (which I gather reflects the UV a 'crimescope' uses similarly to semen), wouldn't it be rather obvious that it hadn't dried (duh) and was therefore NOT excretia of any kind, and isn't it likely the crack prosecution experts would have disclosed this long ago?

- Wouldn't any kind of excretia (semen, mucous, saliva, sweat, whatever) yield a DNA profile and identify the person who deposited it (unless that person was "unknown", but then ..... )?

- Given all the above, and assuming it wasn't Meredith, wouldn't it be rather difficult for this person to provide an "innocent" explanation for it, whether or not it is semen (but, of course, particularly if it is)?

- (Rhetorical) Isn't the prosecutions' reticence rather odd, when they went to such effort to find even a speck (literally) of evidence to incriminate AK or RS, settling in the end for they want us to believe were found on the bra-clasp and kitchen-knife?
Click to expand...

I think the stain does overlap one of the shoe prints, but the pillowcase has been extensively photographed and studied, and they don't have to destroy it to extract a small sample.

To balk at DNA testing of a substance that could be semen, in the context of a sex crime, is ludicrous and wholly irresponsible. It shows that the trial court had no interest in the truth and was in fact afraid of the truth. Hellman doesn't seem to want to test it either, and that makes me deeply suspicious of his intentions.
 
Charlie Wilkes said:
I think the stain does overlap one of the shoe prints, but the pillowcase has been extensively photographed and studied, and they don't have to destroy it to extract a small sample.

To balk at DNA testing of a substance that could be semen, in the context of a sex crime, is ludicrous and wholly irresponsible. It shows that the trial court had no interest in the truth and was in fact afraid of the truth. Hellman doesn't seem to want to test it either, and that makes me deeply suspicious of his intentions.
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Hasn't Hellmann also reserved judgement on testing the pillowcase stain until the results of the knife and bra clasp come back?

In any case, I suspect that any mother of a teenage boy living at home would be able to tell with one look (and one bend of the fabric) exactly what that stain might be.......
 
christianahannah said:
I don't understand why the knife would have been removed from the evidence collection bag and placed in the box and then sent to the forensics lab in Rome. What is the reason it would have been unbagged before it reached the lab?

I understand there is no completely "sterile environment" when collecting evidence and where that evidence comes from, but what is the point of removing it from the collection bag (which minimizes risk of contamination) before it would reach the confines of the lab?
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The problem is, there's no reason at all to do this: the only possible explanations are either incompetent curiosity (ooh, let's have a look at this knife!), or something considerably more sinister.
 
I'm a believer

Hi TomCH and LondonJohn,
I had a look at the directions and button layout on that phone being discussed, and I for 1 have never had a phone that turns off like that.

My opinion has been convincingly changed.
I now believe that Rudy Guede was pushing buttons trying to turn the darn thing off. He didn't succede,
hence that phone was found when Amanda Knox, concerned for Meredith Kercher's safety, called it the next day...

LondonJohn said:
Assumption can be a dangerous thing sometimes.

Have a gander at page 7 of this pdf. It's the instruction manual for Meredith's UK phone:

http://www.sonyericsson.com/cws/download/1/228/345/1193010474/K700i_UG_R2a_EN.pdf

You'll see that the on/off button is not the "call end" button - as is the case with most mobile handsets - but instead it's a small button on top of the phone. It's not unlikely that the position and usage of this button would have erased (or at least eroded) the "on/off" symbol on it. And the act of removing the battery from many mobile handsets is not immediately intuitive either. This particular model had a "click and slide" rear cover.

I suspect that someone in a heightened state of arousal and fear would have been fumbling with the phone, probably with somewhat shaky hands. It's easy to contemplate how one might turn off the phone from the comfort of one's calm armchair, but to me it's totally reasonable that Guede (if it were he) would have been panicking and pressing random buttons to try to turn off the handset.
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TomCH said:
What assumption?
The on/off button on my old Sony/Ericsson 810i is also a "small button on top of the phone", and I've had several other phones like that.
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My opinions differ from yours though, TomCH.
Maybe that is because I own cheap phones, as I bet Rudy Guede did too.
Mine is a pre-paid cheapie, very easy to find the on/off button, unlike that Sony of Meredith Kercher's.

I doubt Rudy Guede had a nice cell phone with a yearly mobile contract for service,
if you get my drift, since it also seems he was having job issues, opps, I mean lack of a job issues back in Oct/Nov '07,
even before the current global economic recession, depression, meltdown...

Take it easy,
RWVBWL
 
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christianahannah said:
According to page 219 of the motivations this is what Stefanoni had to say concerning the pillowcase:



Rudy's handprint was found to be on the pillowcase, there was no determination by the court as to whom the shoeprint belonged to.

As to your other questions I cannot answer. I don't know whether testing of the stain would have compromised the handprint and shoeprint evidence. Perhaps someone else has that answer.
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I think it depends entirely upon where the stain is in relation to the prints. If they're trying to preserve the prints' integrity and the stain is in themidst of the prints or their logical continuation, they would have to leave it alone.
 
Mary_H said:
I don't have any additional information, Rose, but I agree that a point probably would have been made of this if there was one to be made. We can't take the Telegraph's report of what Raffaele said at face value, as it was supplied by the police (and probably written by them).

As you and Kevin have implied, Raffaele was not crystal clear about what happened:

"As soon as we arrived in the house I put aside the mop in the entrance and I directed myself towards the other rooms in order to see what the devil had happened. Those moments I remember well because I was shaken and alarmed. I seem to have seen that Amanda had taken the mop bucket and it carried it in to another room. The first thing I noticed was that the room of Filomena had the door wide open. Ah, I forgot, Amanda had opened the house with the keys (that I have repeatedly asked myself inasmuch as she had said to me that she had found the entrance door wide open when she entered before). We saw that Filomena's bedroom was in completely disorder: broken glass on the floor and the room upside down, it was an absurd mess. The window was broken on the left side and was open."
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Is the common English phrase "what the devil" even a saying in Italian?
 
Mary_H said:
Who knows what Filomena would have done if she were in Amanda's circumstances. Possibly something even MORE suspicious than - gasp - a cartwheel.
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She was in the same circumstances. She told the truth.
 
nopoirot said:
So wonder why Raffaele "repeatedly" asked himself why Amanda had to use her key to open the front door? He also expresses suspicion that his examination of the toilet did not confirm what Amanda had told him. Obviously, he has thought about, and rejected the possibility that someone slipped into the cottage after Amanda left to fetch him. "The first thing I noticed was that Filomena's room had the door wide open." Don't see how you extract from this Amanda opening the door.
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It looks to me as if Sollecito is saying that he's become confused by Knox having previously told him that the door was open when she first came back to the cottage alone earlier that morning. He's therefore repeatedly questioned his memory that she used a key to open the door when they went back to the cottage together - since I suspect he's (incorrectly) supposed that the reason why the door was open in the first instance was that its catch/lock had been broken. And if it had been broken, why would Knox have needed a key to open the door when she returned with Sollecito?

The truth, of course (which Sollecito probably didn't know), was that the door wasn't broken, and that Knox had locked it behind her (as per her own testimony on the subject) when she went back to Sollecito's apartment. Therefore Sollecito is correct in remembering that Knox used her key to unlock the door when she and Sollecito returned to the cottage. He's only apparently confused because it conflicts inside his head with his faulty deduction as to why the door was open in the first place.
 
Malkmus said:
You do know that Filomena gave conflicting testimony as well, right? It's been discussed several times.
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Yeah, I don't know what to think about Filomena. Sending her boyfriend back to the cottage before bothering to go there herself. Not bothering to turn up to the vigil for Meredith. Getting legal representation on the day of discovery of the body. Willfully disturbing a crime scene, despite being a trainee lawyer herself. Spending plenty of time in the immediate aftermath of the murder discovery in worrying about how to get out of the housing contract, instead of devoting herself to grief about Meredith.

What on earth might have happened to her if she hadn't happened (by pure happenstance) to have a decent alibi, eh?
 
Malkmus said:
Is the common English phrase "what the devil" even a saying in Italian?
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Ah, actually this was from his diary, not a police report and what he said is "what the hell", to be clear. Do find it odd though that when Raf questions what Amanda told him this is still used as evidence of guilt against the two. Why would he point out inconsistencies if he's guilty?
 
Here is some information on the operation of Meredith’s Sony Ericsson cell phone, model k700i. The phone is a candy bar style which means it does not flip open or have a slide mechanism. The on/off button is on the top of the phone. Below is a photo of the front face of the phone.

sony-ericsson-k700i-g.jpg


According to the Massei report, after 21:00 on the night of the murder there were four interactions with the phone. (Page 328, English translation) the first three occurred in or around the cottage. The fourth occurred away from the cottage.

1. 21:58 - Attempt to call the phone’s voicemail. The procedure to access voicemail is to press and hold the #1 key. To disconnect from voicemail, press and hold the return key which will place you back to standby mode.
2. 22:00 – Outgoing call to Abbey Bank. There are three possible ways to make this call: (i) input the number using the numeric keypad. (ii) Select this contact from the list of contacts in the phonebook. This process is done in this manner: (a) Press the navigation key to go to the desktop; (b) Use navigation key to highlight the phonebook; (c) Press navigation key to select highlighted phonebook. (d) Use the navigation key to select contact (if Abbey Bank is first contact that entry will be already selected); (d) press selection key to initiate call. (iii) Use speed dial. If speed dial has been set up, each contact in the phonebook that has been designated for speed dial is assigned a number. If Abbey Bank was designated for speed dial, it would be given #1 (being first on the list). The process for calling the number using speed dial would be to press #1, then press the selection key.
3. 22:13 – Incoming call from internet. The call is rejected. A call can be rejected either by pressing the volume button (on the side of the phone) twice or by using the navigation key to select “No” on the viewing screen and then pressing the selection key.
4. 00:12 – WIND network pings the cell phone which is no longer in the area of the cottage.

If the phone is not in use for a period of time it automatically goes to sleep mode (all lights turn off). To get the phone back to standby mode press the navigation key.

Several observations

The process for calling and then disconnecting from voice mail is to press and hold the #1 key then press the return key which is located right above the #1 key.

The process for calling the Abbey bank using speed dial (providing the bank was on the speed dial list) would be to press the #1 key then the selection key which is located above the return key.

The first two calls could have been attempted by pressing three different keys a total of four times, all located in the same proximity of the keypad.

Rejecting the internet call would require the use of the navigation key to select “No” (“Yes” is the default) and then pressing the Selection key. Alternatively, the person would have to know that pressing the volume key twice would reject the call.
 
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