Continuation - Discussion of the Amanda Knox case

[Kevin_Lowe]

That must have been really strong weed to make him forget this important fact for almost a year.

Bearing in mind that an episode of Naruto watched from 21:26 to perhaps 21:49 is scarcely as important as you make it out to be as an alibi for a murder that Massei foolishly concluded took place at 23:30 or so...

How likely is it for a non-guilty Raffaele to forget or omit to mention this fact?
How likely is it for a guilty Raffaele to forget or omit to mention this fact?
How likely is it that the ones and zeroes recorded on Raffaele's hard drive are forgetful or omit to mention their magnetic orientation?

I've got no strong opinion on the first two. I'd call it 50/50 provisionally, but I could be talked into shifting the odds one way or the other if I had access to the exact details of what Raffaele said and when about the night.

I think the odds of the third one are very, very low indeed.

Thus I conclude that whether he is innocent or guilty, he almost certainly did start watching a Naruto file at 21:26 on the night of the murder whether he explicitly mentioned this at some other time (and I suspect he probably did and we just lack that information) or not.

 

[Chris_Halkides]

I did find an article indicating DNA being extractable from fingerprints through a method being developed in Canada. The article was dated 2003. Has the process come into use?

http://www.fdiai.org/articles/dna_extractable_from_fingerprint.htm






You giving the context is only your supposition. Not enough context has ever been given to fully say with confidence she meant Raffaele's house, unless you have that entire conversation, in which case I'd like to see it.
Also, it's highly doubtful she was trying to hide staying at Raffaele's house from her mother, she's already admitted it to over 25 people in her email.

Dancme,

The first reports of obtaining DNA from fingerprint came out circa 1997-1998. Odeed, Kermit, and I discussed this issue in the first thread. I gave some citations in comment 14636 last May 27th.

With respect to Amanda’s statement to her mother, Candace Dempsey wrote, “And in fact, when police had to produce the entire intercept in court, even Judge Paolo Micheli, no friend to Amanda, would accept that she’d meant ‘I cannot lie. I was at Raffaele’s when my roommate’s throat was slashed.’”

 

[Dan O.]

‎"This video also shows Patrizia Stefanoni wrapping a mop handle in what appears to be gift wrap from the hall cabinet. I am not sure why this was done. I just thought it was interesting. Why did they gift wrap a mop and walk it around the cottage?"

http://www.injusticeinperugia.org/contamination3.html

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ySCwcZD5Dk&feature=player_embedded


The quote and youtube link are from injusticeinperugia. Does anyone have an answer?
Why DID they gift wrap a mop and walk it around the cottage?

Standard procedure would be to place the mop in a sterile bag to protect any fingerprint or DNA evidence that might be there. Using paper from the closet only insures that you also get the DNA from the last person to use the wrapping paper. Then changing grips on the paper wrapping is to help smudge any prints that might be there.

This mop head should be covered in Raffaele's DNA since it was last used to mop his kitchen floor. If you were to use the mop as a dowsing rod, would it seek more of Raf's DNA or seek an opposite. This bit is out of my field I'm afraid.

 

[Draca]

Standard procedure would be to place the mop in a sterile bag to protect any fingerprint or DNA evidence that might be there. Using paper from the closet only insures that you also get the DNA from the last person to use the wrapping paper. Then changing grips on the paper wrapping is to help smudge any prints that might be there.

This mop head should be covered in Raffaele's DNA since it was last used to mop his kitchen floor. If you were to use the mop as a dowsing rod, would it seek more of Raf's DNA or seek an opposite. This bit is out of my field I'm afraid.

So gift wrapping the mop would not meet the standard of an internationally appoved evidence collection procedure? A bit shocking that forensic expert Patrizia Stefanoni isn't aware of this!

 

[Fine]

Originally Posted by loverofzion View Post
Yes amanda knew exactly how the body had been positioned at death, and she also knew that she "*********** bled to death", among other facts not yet publicized.She bragged in the presence of her flatmates that she had found the body first.

Can you cite this?

______________________

The cops never tried to conceal the fact that Meredith's throat had been cut. The cops revealed that information to the press the day Meredith's body was found.

A police source said: "This was a particularly nasty murder and the victim was found with a deep cut to her throat."

See Here

///

 

[Mary_H]

They found a few (before the threat of defamation suits became SOP).

I eagerly await your citations for both claims.

For example, Knox's Jewish co-worker.

The article you are referring to here was written by Charles Mudede, a Seattle resident who works at The Stranger, a Seattle newspaper. He spoke to the Jewish co-worker in a Seattle cafe a couple of months after the murder:

After catching up on things, I asked him about Knox. He used to work with her and had lots to say about her and the media frenzy that she is in the center of. Almost immediately after her arrest in Italy, reporters from around the world began hounding the small cafe. They showed up in droves and sat around waiting for something to happen. And when they were not around, they kept calling and asking about Knox, about her personality, her performance on the job, her habits—anything that was fit enough to throw into print or on the screen.

"You know," Matthew said, leaning toward me, "a lot of people are saying she is a sweet girl and they can't believe she could have done such a thing. But, to be honest, I'm not surprised she is a suspect. Really. The first time I met her, when I got the job here, she asked me if I was Jewish. I told her I was. She then screamed: 'My people killed your people,' and began laughing hysterically. I didn't know what to say. She just kept laughing about her Germans killing my Jews. After that, I did not like her. She really freaked me out."
http://www.thestranger.com/seattle/Content?oid=504236

It is curious, given what "Matthew" says about the number of reporters seeking information about Amanda, that none were able to come up with anything negative, until along came Mudede. One wonders whether, while chatting up his old friend "Matthew" in the cafe, Mudede revealed that he was there to research an article about Amanda and that the words "Matthew" shared (as he leaned confidentially toward Mudede) were going to appear in print.

 

[Mary_H]

You don't know the rationale for the 'right to silence'?

Look it up, and ask yourself why Knox tossed it away (despite the advice of her expensive counsel) by writing her 'prison diary'.

You still have not established that Amanda's lawyers advised her not to keep a prison diary.

 

[treehorn]

If we count up the number of times DNA labs have made a mistake on one hand, and the number of times two university students with absolutely no history of violence or antisocial behaviour team up with a local crook they do not know to brutally sexually assault and murder a friend of theirs for no reason, which count do you think will be higher? Which option should a rational person believe to be more probable?

This a perfect example of your penchant for over-simplification in defiance of both rationality and common sense:

1) Sollecito has, in point of fact, a documented, pre-homicide history of "antisocial behavior" per the Court's judgment (starting at page 61):

- Police Station Commander testified that Sollecito was, in 2003, found in possession of 2.67 grams of an illicit narcotic

- Sollecito had history of drug abuse including the use of cocaine and LSD (per Mignini's closing argument)

- tutors at Sollecito's college instituted "an active monitoring" on the "taciturn, shy, introverted" loner because of his interest in "hard-core" animal porn

- Sollcito, despite pleadings from his own father, insisted on collecting and wearing flick knives

2) Knox, too, has a documented, pre-homicide history of "antisocial behavior":

- Municipal Court of Seattle "finding" that Knox "committed" the civil infraction/ quasi-criminal "offense" of "residential deisturbance" in connection with a rock-throwing incident/ complaints from frightened neighbors

- Knox has admitted to using illicit narcotics (to the point of memory loss on the night of the murder)

- Knox taunted a Jewish coworker about "her people" (of German ancestry) "killing his people" (the story has never been retracted)

- Knox posted the 'stranger on a train incident' where her family could see it (to their dismay/ disgust)

3) per the Court's judgment: Amanda knew Rudy, and Rudy knew Amanda

- Looking at Knox's 6 weeks in Perugia, she knew Rudy longer than she knew Raffaele (just 8 days or so)

- Rudy let everyone in the cottage know he was interested in Amanda/ he was infatuated

- Rudy and Amanda smoked dope together on several occasions

- Indeed, ab initio Amanda began downplaying these facts using measures that included an expensive PR campaign that represented to CBS News that she'd "never laid eyes on Rudy"

- to dismiss Rudy as nothing more than a "crook" elides the fact that he moved in the same Perugian milieu as Knox did: he was a friend/ basketball pal of the boys that shared the downstairs of Knox's cottage; a repeat visitor to the cottage; and a regular in the basketball court next to the cottage




PS That some DNA labs, somewhere in the world, at some point in time, have made errors is in no way proof that this particular DNA lab made an error in this particular case.

PPS Why are you continuing to struggle with the notion that the correct application of the RD standard to the totality of the evidence is nothing more than a question of statistics and probability theory? Shall we dispense with courts and juries and replace them with statisticians?

 

[Mary_H]

‎"This video also shows Patrizia Stefanoni wrapping a mop handle in what appears to be gift wrap from the hall cabinet. I am not sure why this was done. I just thought it was interesting. Why did they gift wrap a mop and walk it around the cottage?"

http://www.injusticeinperugia.org/contamination3.html

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ySCwcZD5Dk&feature=player_embedded


The quote and youtube link are from injusticeinperugia. Does anyone have an answer?
Why DID they gift wrap a mop and walk it around the cottage?

That video is useless in any number of ways. I notice its caption is "no description available." Maybe that should be changed to "no description possible." The camera appears to have been held by a 2-year-old.

 

[RWVBWL]

That's actually taken earlier that the spheron images of the room and show a few things were moved to setup the camera. This is the view that Raffaele would have had when he first entered the cottage as Amanda went the other way to put the mop away. Laura keeps her room immaculately clean and would naturally leave the door open to show it off. The open undies drawer is totally out of place.

Hi Dan O.,
Thanks for the information!
Thanks also to Draca for posting the link to the other photograph, it does show, along with your post Dan O. an open drawer that indeed appears out of place. I'd say that someone opened it and checked it's contents. Who and when though?

Draca just posted a link to InjusticeinPerugia.com, asking why the mop was wrapped in gift wrapping and carried around the apartment.
I haven't the slightest idea why, hopefully someone chimes in, for that is kind of odd.
I did notice that the shoe covers everyone was wearing were white in the video clips shot on 11/2/2007. http://www.injusticeinperugia.org/contamination3.html

But in the photo's that Mary H and Chris C had brought to our recent attention, I noticed the protective shoe coverings were blue.
http://www.repubblica.it/2006/05/gallerie/cronaca/ragazza-perugia/4.html

I wonder what the difference is?

 

[Mary_H]

So gift wrapping the mop would not meet the standard of an internationally appoved evidence collection procedure? A bit shocking that forensic expert Patrizia Stefanoni isn't aware of this!

I like the way she rips the paper off the roll and then shows it to the camera, just in case any questions about the uneven tear are going to arise in the future.

 

[Mary_H]

.....PPS Why are you continuing to struggle with the notion that the correct application of the RD standard to the totality of the evidence is nothing more than a question of statistics and probability theory? Shall we dispense with courts and juries and replace them with statisticians?

Given that the panel of judges in the first trial seems to have reached their conclusions based solely on personal feelings, it would not be out of order in this case to use statisticians instead of evidence.

Almost all of what you wrote above is false and none of it is cited. How effective do you see yourself at arguing your case in this venue?

 

[Dan O.]

But in the photo's that Mary H and Chris C had brought to our recent attention, I noticed the protective shoe coverings were blue.
http://www.repubblica.it/2006/05/gallerie/cronaca/ragazza-perugia/4.html

I wonder what the difference is?

They were probably reminded by the fashion police that:
You Are Not Supposed To Wear White After Labor Day.

 

[treehorn]

You still have not established that Amanda's lawyers advised her not to keep a prison diary.

No self-respecting lawyer in a jurisdiction that, like Italy, affords accused the right to remain silent would advise a client to say a single word, much less put pen to paper.

There is, in any jurisdiction you can name, absolutely NO reasonable expectation of privacy in a prison cell. Diary entries can, and will, be used against you in a court of law.

This would have been made painfully clear to Knox and Sollecito.

Why do you think they threw away their right to silence?

(And, if you doubt that that right is the greatest weapon an accused has as against the state, ask yourself how much weaker the case for their guilt would have been if neither accused in this case had said a word.)

PS As I mentioned before, I am glad that the accused were arrogant enough to ignore their right to remain silent because we are much, much closer to the truth as a result.

 

[Draca]

Hi Dan O.,
I did notice that the shoe covers everyone was wearing were white in the video clips shot on 11/2/2007. http://www.injusticeinperugia.org/contamination3.html

But in the photo's that Mary H and Chris C had brought to our recent attention, I noticed the protective shoe coverings were blue.
http://www.repubblica.it/2006/05/gallerie/cronaca/ragazza-perugia/4.html

I wonder what the difference is?

Blue is to bring contamination from the outside of the cottage into it.

White is strickly for contamination between various rooms inside of the cottage.

 

[Danceme]

Does anyone have any idea of what was said in the phone call from Raffaele's father at 12:40 on the 2nd, just before he called his sister and 112? I've never seen any real commentary on this before. The call lasted 67 seconds, longer than the one to his sister at 39 seconds.

 

[treehorn]

Almost all of what you wrote above is false and none of it is cited. How effective do you see yourself at arguing your case in this venue?

That is a lie.

You've been given citations for each point listed above on many, many occasions.

That you have ignored them in the past, or forgotten them, does not give you cause to intimate that I am making a misrepresentation.

Do you think none of us have noticed that you make a game of asking for citations only to ignore them?

 

[Mary_H]

originally posted by dan o.
they were probably reminded by the fashion police that:
You are not supposed to wear white after labor day.

blue is to bring contamination from the outside of the cottage into it.

White is strickly for contamination between various rooms inside of the cottage.

Those both got a big laugh in my house.

 

[treehorn]

Given that the panel of judges in the first trial seems to have reached their conclusions based solely on personal feelings...

This is a "given" is it?

Where's YOUR "citation" for this gem?

 

[Mary_H]

No self-respecting lawyer in a jurisdiction that, like Italy, affords accused the right to remain silent would advise a client to say a single word, much less put pen to paper.

There is, in any jurisdiction you can name, absolutely NO reasonable expectation of privacy in a prison cell. Diary entries can, and will, be used against you in a court of law.

This would have been made painfully clear to Knox and Sollecito.

Why do you think they threw away their right to silence?

(And, if you doubt that that right is the greatest weapon an accused has as against the state, ask yourself how much weaker the case for their guilt would have been if neither accused in this case had said a word.)

PS As I mentioned before, I am glad that the accused were arrogant enough to ignore their right to remain silent because we are much, much closer to the truth as a result.

Apparently, it was not made painfully clear to Amanda and Raffaele, nor to Rudy, who also kept a prison diary. I know how you feel about statistics, but what do you think are the odds of that?

In Italy, there must be some reasonable expectation of privacy in a prison cell, because Amanda testified that prison personnel told her she could allow them to take items from her cell or they would obtain a search warrant for them. Is she had no reasonable expectation of privacy, why would they even ask?