Continuation - Discussion of the Amanda Knox case

[katy_did]

So was it the last call that Filomena asked Amanda to call the police, which Amanda (or Raffaele) did shortly after and Filomena then made her way to the cottage?

I think Filomena said in Court that it was during the first call, but her friend Paola said it was during the last call.

According to page 315 of the motivations there is a 12:43 p.m. call mentioned which is not attributed to anyone. It is possible this is an error in translation. If not an error this could be the call from Filomena. The motivations does state Filomena made a call to Meredith's phone on November 2 but does not give the time the call was made.

Massei has certainly made some kind of error here, because he says "as noted earlier" Filomena called Meredith, yet nothing is mentioned earlier about Filomena calling Meredith. She definitely didn't call her Italian phone, because Massei lists the calls to that and Filomena's number isn't among them.

I'm a bit dubious about the claim that Filomena called Meredith's English phone because I would've thought the call would have been mentioned somewhere, especially since it would have happened during that critical period before the body was found. We know all the calls she made to Amanda's phone, for example, even the ones which weren't answered. I wonder if Massei is mixing up the phone calls between Amanda/Filomena and Meredith.

 

[shuttlt]

Yes - a mother who does not report her two-year-old child missing to the police for a month is not doing herself many favours at all. It's simply not something that a mother would do (or fail to do) if she was entirely innocent of anything related to the death of that child. Any jury anywhere in the world would have no problem recognising that.

Maybe she'd read on the Internet that studies have shown police are psychologically no different to violent criminals, routinely force a confessions out of the first available suspect and had therefore developed a terror of the authorities?

 

[LondonJohn]

I think Filomena said in Court that it was during the first call, but her friend Paola said it was during the last call.



Massei has certainly made some kind of error here, because he says "as noted earlier" Filomena called Meredith, yet nothing is mentioned earlier about Filomena calling Meredith. She definitely didn't call her Italian phone, because Massei lists the calls to that and Filomena's number isn't among them.

I'm a bit dubious about the claim that Filomena called Meredith's English phone because I would've thought the call would've mentioned somewhere, especially since it would've happened during that critical period before the body was found. We know all the calls she made to Amanda's phone, for example, even the ones which weren't answered. I wonder if Massei is mixing up the phone calls between Amanda/Filomena and Meredith.

It would only be if the Massei report listed outgoing calls made by Filomena's phone that we could know properly what calls (and call attempts) she might or might not have made. The listed phone traffic of Meredith's Italian phone wouldn't have shown any record of incoming call attempts, since it was switched off.

Incidentally, I just came across something in Massei that I hadn't noticed before (a new nugget of excellence!). He's "reasoning" why Meredith's 9.58pm call on 1st November to her UK voicemail service was terminated before the connection was made:

The call to the answering service for listening to recorded messages was, in the end, interrupted before incurring any costs: all this was in line with the frugal habits of Meredith, who used the mobile phone during the [354] less expensive times and days, as was highlighted by the reconstruction of her habits concerning the use of the telephone.

(Massei report, p331, English translation)

So he "reasons" that Meredith dialled her UK voicemail service (deliberately, presumably), then hung up before even finding out if she had any messages, because she was "frugal"! Notwithstanding the additional fact that 10pm would have been a cheap time for mobile usage anyhow, it clearly makes no sense that she'd dial the number in the first place if she intended to disconnect the call before it was even made.

Oh, and incidentally, Massei - courtesy of "Engineer Pellero" - makes an interesting observation on when a call billing record starts. According to this, the welcome message part of Meredith's UK voicemail service would not have "counted" - and that charges would only start to accrue once the welcome message had finished:

The call at 21.58 hours to the answering service "voicemail 901" did not produce any telephone traffic - to the point that it had not left any trace on the Wind [phone record] printout - in view of the fact that the caller had hung up before the welcome message of the answer service ended, at which point the charge for the relevant costs would have become due.

(p 330)

Quite how he and this engineer figured this, I don't know. But I'm pretty sure it's not true - I believe that call records and billable charges would have initiated as soon as the connection to the UK voicemail service was made. But even under this scenario, he's suggesting that Meredith never stayed on the line long enough to find out if she had any messages or not. But I'd go further and suggest that the call was terminated before any connection whatsoever had been made. And Massei's "reasoning" makes no sense under either scenario.

 

[Chris_Halkides]

chutes and ladders

I've often seen it written, by legal authorities, that every layman has the right to express an opinion about the law. It has also been written, many times, that findings of fact are the province of jurors, not lawyers. In the exercise of my lay prerogatives, I have found that neither the prosecution nor the defense has offered an explanation for Amanda's "confessions" that makes any sense.

It has been suggested that the police knew about the telephonic contacts between Amanda and Lumumba before the final round of questioning. In her trial testimony, however, Amanda says that the police began "leaning" on her only when she surrendered her cell phone, and the exchange with Lumumba was discovered. Her first "confession" came at 1:45. Her last, hours after the questioning had ended, and she had been transferred to prison. We can't attribute the latest statements to brute intimidation, because they muddied the waters by qualifying, and partially retracting, the statement which gave the police (or so they thought) a basis on which to arrest Lumumba. So why did not Amanda, as soon as she had had an interval in which to recover her composure, flatly and unequivocally recant her earlier "confessions"? Enter IFMS (Internalized False Memory Syndrome)--an odd, misshapen creature, if you ask me. How long did the police have to conjure it into existence? Which is to say, how much time elapsed between the discovery of the message to Lumumba and the first "confession," reduced to writing by 1:45? An hour and a half, maybe? Believe it who will. And as for the suggestion that Amanda arrived at the station in a demoralized, exhausted, submissive state, let's not forget the late dinner, the cartwheels, and the fact that she was accustomed to working until 2:00 am.

nopoirot,

Whether she was accustomed to working late or not, Laura's and her teacher's words both point to Amanda's being worn out. The alleged cartwheels were probably yoga poses, done because she was tired at 11 PM. The high oressure tactics may not have begun with the supposed discovery of the message to Lumumba. The 1:45 statement contains two errors of which I am aware, and I wonder whether Amanda would have made them. Its style of writing does not suggest Amanda had much imput into the word choices. Amanda's own account of the interrogation is that the police would ask her about something, she would say that it did not happen, and then they would say something like, "That's OK, just let us put it in, and you will remember it later," according to Murder in Italy. I therefore surmise that the 1:45 statement was not exactly what Amanda would have produced on her own at that time.

Next we have four more hours without an objective record of what happened, but Frank Sfarzo said words to the effect that it was not Lady Windermere's tea. I have previously speculated that they probably were not playing chutes and ladders.

I realize that Amanda did not disavow her statement lock, stock, and barrel the next morning, but my interpretation is that she sounded extremely confused, in one case saying two contradictory things in the same sentence. I am not clear as to why you find this difficult to credit. Can you explain?

 

[colonelhall]

"Why?

You can't figure a way out of the hole you're in?"

Watch out Kev! There be moles down there.

 

[LondonJohn]

Maybe she'd read on the Internet that studies have shown police are psychologically no different to violent criminals, routinely force a confessions out of the first available suspect and had therefore developed a terror of the authorities?

And that terror would be greater in the mind of an innocent mother than the terror of her two-year-old daughter having been missing for a month? I appreciate you might be trying to play devil's advocate, but that's simply ludicrous.

 

[shuttlt]

Yes - a mother who does not report her two-year-old child missing to the police for a month is not doing herself many favours at all. It's simply not something that a mother would do (or fail to do) if she was entirely innocent of anything related to the death of that child. Any jury anywhere in the world would have no problem recognising that.

Could be some milage in this case. The defence claim that the area that the body was found in was searched by a couple of hundred people. 30 searches came within 200 yards. The claim is that this strongly suggests the remains weren't there at that time and hence were placed there by another, as the mother was in jail at this time.

Here's a blog defending her:
http://auntdeedee.wordpress.com/2010/02/23/casey-anthony-is-innocent-and-this-is-why/

Some leads have never been checked out by the police.

The parents are standing by her from what I can see.

Thousands of pages of documents relating to the case are available.

I don't mean to suggest I think she's innocent, but I think given a committed family friend like Charlie and some half decent PR, one could construct some kind of defence out of this.

 

[shuttlt]

And that terror would be greater in the mind of an innocent mother than the terror of her two-year-old daughter having been missing for a month? I appreciate you might be trying to play devil's advocate, but that's simply ludicrous.

There is a little bit of confusion about how long she was actually missing. The grandparents seem to have gotten it wrong. Anyway, my initial post was not altogether serious.

 

[Kestrel]

nopoirot,

Whether she was accustomed to working late or not, Laura's and her teacher's words both point to Amanda's being worn out. The alleged cartwheels were probably yoga poses, done because she was tired at 11 PM. The high oressure tactics may not have begun with the supposed discovery of the message to Lumumba. The 1:45 statement contains two errors of which I am aware, and I wonder whether Amanda would have made them. Its style of writing does not suggest Amanda had much imput into the word choices. Amanda's own account of the interrogation is that the police would ask her about something, she would say that it did not happen, and then they would say something like, "That's OK, just let us put it in, and you will remember it later," according to Murder in Italy. I therefore surmise that the 1:45 statement was not exactly what Amanda would have produced on her own at that time.

Next we have four more hours without an objective record of what happened, but Frank Sfarzo said words to the effect that it was not Lady Windermere's tea. I have previously speculated that they probably were not playing chutes and ladders.

I realize that Amanda did not disavow her statement lock, stock, and barrel the next morning, but my interpretation is that she sounded extremely confused, in one case saying two contradictory things in the same sentence. I am not clear as to why you find this difficult to credit. Can you explain?

Amanda attended at least one class the morning of Nov. 5th. So we know she didn't get a chance to sleep in. She arrived at the police station with Raffaele a bit after 10 pm, then spent all night being interrogated. The statement she wrote out by hand was done in the late morning or early afternoon of Nov. 6th. At that point, Amanda had not slept in over 30 hours with the possible exception of a few minutes napping in a chair.

Considering the circumstances, I don't find her confusion hard to understand.

 

[katy_did]

It would only be if the Massei report listed outgoing calls made by Filomena's phone that we could know properly what calls (and call attempts) she might or might not have made. The listed phone traffic of Meredith's Italian phone wouldn't have shown any record of incoming call attempts, since it was switched off.

IIRC, Massei does list some calls to Meredith's Italian phone that happened after Amanda's; one I think was from a U.K. number, from one of Meredith's friends. So somehow or other they must have been able to tell who had called her, even if the phone was switched off.

[OK, I just checked the report: one call was at 13:17, and another at 15:13]

Incidentally, I just came across something in Massei that I hadn't noticed before (a new nugget of excellence!). He's "reasoning" why Meredith's 9.58pm call on 1st November to her UK voicemail service was terminated before the connection was made:

(Massei report, p331, English translation)

So he "reasons" that Meredith dialled her UK voicemail service (deliberately, presumably), then hung up before even finding out if she had any messages, because she was "frugal"! Notwithstanding the additional fact that 10pm would have been a cheap time for mobile usage anyhow, it clearly makes no sense that she'd dial the number in the first place if she intended to disconnect the call before it was even made.

Another poster also made the very good point that Meredith would have received a notification if she had a Voicemail message - she had no need to randomly ring the Voicemail number just to check. So it makes even less sense that she would just decide for no particular reason to call Voicemail.

Oh, and incidentally, Massei - courtesy of "Engineer Pellero" - makes an interesting observation on when a call billing record starts. According to this, the welcome message part of Meredith's UK voicemail service would not have "counted" - and that charges would only start to accrue once the welcome message had finished:

(p 330)

Quite how he and this engineer figured this, I don't know. But I'm pretty sure it's not true - I believe that call records and billable charges would have initiated as soon as the connection to the UK voicemail service was made. But even under this scenario, he's suggesting that Meredith never stayed on the line long enough to find out if she had any messages or not. But I'd go further and suggest that the call was terminated before any connection whatsoever had been made. And Massei's "reasoning" makes no sense under either scenario.

You're right, that sounds a bit odd. I don't know the details but I'd always assumed you were charged from the start of a Voicemail message...

 

[Chris C]

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.

Knox wasn't a convicted criminal at the time. So she does have rights.

 

[quadraginta]

"Often a single and unintentional mistake is amplified by incessant repetition simply because those reporters don't question their own sources with any greater diligence than their viewers question them."

Yes. I would assign the role of the viewers to the followers of TJMK and PMF.

Of course you would.



No mirrors around here. Just lots of transparent silica walled domiciles.

 

[TomM43]

TomM43,

I discussed this yesterday in comment 24038. Luca said that they cut her throat to Raffaele in front of Amanda in the car.

You can find the dialog on pp. 77-78 of Murder in Italy. I do not have the original Frank Sfarzo reference (he based his account on witness reports), but maybe someone else can dig it up.

I was thinking of something more in the nature of at least an actual witness statement, if not trial testimony. I cannot imagine why someone who has an actual witness statement would need to "reconstruct" it.

In any event, if it were the case that that in the car Luca told AK that Meredith's throat had been cut, then I am at a loss to understand why Ghirga, her own attorney, would ask her how she learned about it when he put her on the stand. We do know that Luca did testify at the trial, and a competent lawyer, which Ghirga is said to be, would have established that on cross-examination, making it a non-issue. There would be no reason to ask AK about it. Reading her testimony it is apparent that she was called to do two things--assert her innocence and to contradict witnesses in the prosecution's case.

 

[RoseMontague]

Okay, two or three times, fair enough.

Actually the quote from treehorn is taken out of context. Rudy was not talking to Amanda and Meredith in that quote and "seeing them there" is not much of a knowing, in my opinion.

 

[SomeAlibi]

You still have not explained what "hard disk event logs" you could possibly be referring to, leading me to suspect you may be making things up as you go, but regardless demanding answers to manifestly irrelevant questions is not going to make the elephant in the room go away. I'm not playing your game.

Nothing you have brought forward casts doubt on the fact that throughout the entire period in which Meredith could possibly have been murdered, someone was making regular use of that computer.

The ball's in your court. What's the new theory of the crime, consistent with this fact?

You keep trying to play the man ("leading me to suspect your may be making things up as you go") and you have failed to address the issue. For the second and last time, will you please stop the former and deal with the latter.

You have been unwilling to offer any evidence the computer was in use throughout the entire time. You simply assert that it is. That is a complete fail on this board, as you know.

1.The defence say they have evidence the computer was in use between 9pm and 6am.

2. You say this is supported by "ones and zeros"

3. I ask you what those ones and zeros (i.e. computer activity which must be recorded on hard disk since they are examining hard disks) actually are and what applications caused their creation. Because otherwise this is a meaningless assertion. How do I know it's caused by human interaction and isn't just Operating System event logs caused by a power-on but unused laptop?

4. I underline we are examining a defence line of questioning which you must substantiate before you get to turn it back and say "prove what I say is not correct". The point is you have offered no evidence at all to support YOUR claims.


Since this is a defence argument which you can't substantiate, you should simply say "I don't know".

I contend that if the defence actually had something material then the appeals would say "showing consistent computer activity between 9pm and 6am" caused by the XYZ application(s)". I think that omission is likely highly telling and this line of argument is going to undermine their credibility.

 

[quadraginta]

Yes - a mother who does not report her two-year-old child missing to the police for a month is not doing herself many favours at all. It's simply not something that a mother would do (or fail to do) if she was entirely innocent of anything related to the death of that child. Any jury anywhere in the world would have no problem recognising that.

Maybe she'd read on the Internet that studies have shown police are psychologically no different to violent criminals, routinely force a confessions out of the first available suspect and had therefore developed a terror of the authorities?

No, that's not it. The poor girl was under duress. The kidnapper had threatened to harm her daughter if she went to the cops. She spent that month vigorously trying to find them, but she had to do it without telling anyone.

The parties she went to during that period were, of course, merely to maintain a facade of normalcy.

 

[christianahannah]

Massei has certainly made some kind of error here, because he says "as noted earlier" Filomena called Meredith, yet nothing is mentioned earlier about Filomena calling Meredith. She definitely didn't call her Italian phone, because Massei lists the calls to that and Filomena's number isn't among them.

I'm a bit dubious about the claim that Filomena called Meredith's English phone because I would've thought the call would have been mentioned somewhere, especially since it would have happened during that critical period before the body was found. We know all the calls she made to Amanda's phone, for example, even the ones which weren't answered. I wonder if Massei is mixing up the phone calls between Amanda/Filomena and Meredith.

Well actually, according to the English motivations Massei states "as has been noted" rather than "as noted earlier" but it would be good to compare the English with the Italian to have the precise meaning. "As has been noted" could pertain to Filomena's court testimony (which is included throughout the motivations). Usually there is a cite given by Massei when this is done and I don't recall seeing one elsewhere in the motivations.

Massei includes both Meredith and Amanda by name so I don't know if he is mixing up the phone calls. The paragraph is on page 316:

The Police investigators proceeded to analyse the printouts of the phone traffic of the mobile phones in use by the defendants, by the victim, by Romanelli Filomena who, as has been noted, late in the morning of 2.11.07 contacted the mobile phones both of Meredith Kercher and of Amanda Knox, and finally to the father of Raffaele, Dr Francesco Sollecito.

We don't have the printout of Filomena's phone records and I don't think what is included in the motivations is the entire printout of anyone's phone records but rather a summary of the most important.

 

[katy_did]

Have you not read the Court's judgment?!

Page 41:

"Visiting the house...[Marco Marzan]...had seen Rudy there two or three times and on these occasions Amanda and Meredith were also there, Rudy was talking to both of them and on one occasion he confided in them that he liked Amanda."

PS Since you haven't read the judgment carefully, a little FYI: Marco is one of "the boys from the cottage below" (as you put it).

PPS How embarrassing.

In my world, you do THAT in front of a jury and you're out of a job, Kevin.

I think you've misread the quote from Massei. The person visiting the house isn't Marco Marzan (obviously, since he lived there) but one of Rudy's friends from basketball, Giorgio Cocciaretto.

Also, I think there may be a translation error in the sentence you quoted:

Frequentando la casa di Via della Pergola 7 vi aveva visto Rudi due o tre volte e in una di queste occasioni c'erano anche Amanda e Meredith

Visiting the house in Via della Pergola, [Giorgio] had seen Rudy there two or three times, and on one of these occasions Amanda and Meredith were also there

So Giorgio only saw Amanda, Meredith and Rudy at the boys' house once, during the party. This matches both what Amanda said in her testimony, and the testimonies from the boys downstairs.

 

[RWVBWL]

2 times...

Rudy and Amanda smoked dope together on several occasions

If anyone really wants to know, this claim most likely derives from the following passage of the Massei report (p. 27 of the original, translation mine):

All of them [the young men who lived on the lower floor of Via Della Pergola 7] also smoked joints together. He [Stefano Bonassi, one of the residents of the lower floor] did not recall whether Meredith was present for this; Amanda, Filomena, and Laura Mezzetti, however, were.

Note that Rudy is not specifically included here (!), although since he was a regular visitor to the lower floor we can infer that he and Amanda MAY possibly at some point have been in the same room, along with a number of other people, while spinelli were being made use of.

Treehorn's claim is thus a highly misleading stretch of the record. (Surprise, surprise.)

Hi Komponisto and Treehorn,
From what I have read, Rudy Guede was never in the Amanda and Meredith's apartment before the murder.
So where was Amanda smoking dope with Rudy on numerous occasions? Downstairs with the boyz?

One of the guys who lived downstairs, Stefano Bonassi, had told investigators that Rudy Guede had been to the guys apartment 2 times.

But yet I read of folks saying that Rudy was a regular visitor at the guys downstairs apartment. 2 visits does not sound like a regular visitor to me!
Does anyone else have any further information, such as 1 of the other guys, Giacomo, Riccardo, or Marco saying otherwise, that Rudy Guede came over all the time?

Thanks for any answers!
RWVBWL

ADD-IN: I apologize,
for it appears there has been a bit of discussion on this matter over the last 5 pages which I am going to read which might have already answered my question!
RW

 

[katy_did]

Well actually, according to the English motivations Massei states "as has been noted" rather than "as noted earlier" but it would be good to compare the English with the Italian to have the precise meaning. "As has been noted" could pertain to Filomena's court testimony (which is included throughout the motivations). Usually there is a cite given by Massei when this is done and I don't recall seeing one elsewhere in the motivations.

Massei includes both Meredith and Amanda by name so I don't know if he is mixing up the phone calls. The paragraph is on page 316:

I would personally assume that 'as has been noted' would refer to something Massei himself had noted, not an unspecified other source (otherwise I think he would have stated the source). Obviously you might see it differently, though. For that matter, it could just be sloppy writing on his part.

We don't have the printout of Filomena's phone records and I don't think what is included in the motivations is the entire printout of anyone's phone records but rather a summary of the most important.

In the case of the Italian phone, I think Massei lists all the calls: "For the day of 2.11.07, when Meredith was already dead, the traffic registered for the Vodafone number was shown to be the following...". To me, that sounds like a complete list; it isn't as if the later calls he lists are particularly important ones (he doesn't even specify who made them). With the English phone, I agree, it's just a summary so it's difficult to know for certain who made the calls.