Continuation Part 2 - Discussion of the Amanda Knox case

[Kaosium]

Two new posts at the SHOCK. The latest deals with the Gossip Squad, those paragons of journalistic virtue that led Curatolo to the cops and are now accusing Amanda of having a phone number.

Good stuff, it appears Frank is starting to get more optimistic, which is a good sign for the appeal. Although I'm virtually certain for various reasons they will be exonerated eventually even if it has to go to the EU, the fact Perugia was ground zero for the defamation and suspicion campaign concerns me. The fact that he reports this smear by these sleaze merchants dispassionately suggests it might not be of much note in Perugia in the final analysis.

The other deals with Sabrina Misseri. It seems her father has confirmed that the cops forced him to accuse his daughter of the murder. I am sure the prosecution is going to continue with the charges anyway, but Sabrini may go free before Amanda's appeal is done, in my opinion.

Has anyone actually seen any portion of the fifteen hours of interrogation that I read in one of Nadeau's columns was on Italian TV? Is there any youtube of it available? Being as I don't speak Italian and it would be unlikely in the extreme it has ever been dubbed into English it might seem of limited value, but I would find it interesting in a number of respects regarding some of the interrogation techniques employed that don't require knowledge of the language.

Here's an excerpt that reminded me of something I've seen zero discussion on for a long while:

What is this new report? Just like the fax that arrived on November 6, that assured that Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito called the police after the postal police arrived? (Which was revealed a lie. We pay them to lie against us).
This lie was at the base of the whole case against Amanda and Raffaele. Because if the lovebirds had called the police before the postal police arrived, which in fact they did, they couldn’t, as we shall see in details, be responsible for the murder, and the case against them couldn’t have even started. And, as we shall see, when this lie is discovered the whole case against Amanda and Raffaele, in fact, collapses.
That lie, which was initiated, coincidentally, just after the arrests -- and was believed by Mignini, Matteini, Micheli, Court of Freedom, even the Supreme Court-- was defended by them at the trial, using other lies, until the last day. That lie caused a little disaster it seems, don’t you think?

I remember reading a great deal about this a long time ago when I first started researching what happened in this case, but nothing in a long time. As I recall there was eventually a video that proved they made the call first, once it was realized the timestamp was off, but that before that it was considered one of the 'lies' and damning in the extreme. Wasn't there a postal policeman who perjured himself regarding this? Did he ever face consequences for that?

 

[Kaosium]

Many comment sections were devoted to discussions of this for several days. It was hard to figure out exactly what the issue was. The papers said "people" were against naming it Perugia Park, but it was never made clear whether they were against it because they were against Perugia or against Amanda. It was very political and mysterious.

I, for one, think if they had named it Perugia Park, very few people in Seattle would have noticed or cared at the time, and it might have softened Perugia's heart. It's possible that was even the original intention. I'm pretty sure the most vocal proponent was a supporter of Amanda.

You didn't click on the link, did you?

 

[samba]

Two new posts at the SHOCK. The latest deals with the Gossip Squad, those paragons of journalistic virtue that led Curatolo to the cops and are now accusing Amanda of having a phone number.

Quote:
From any angle we take the report: there’s nothing technical in it, there’s nothing professional. It’s just muck and mire, a modern day lynching, a pure defamation; it’s still the female hate, which is at the source of this dirty story, that keeps on feeding the transparent character assassination of a girl.

Can I have some opinions as to what is meant by the highlighted term?

 

[Dan O.]

What do you think that is circled?

I suspect it's an internal piece of the door latch hardware but can't be sure yet. I think I've seen a breakdown of that latch somewhere because I definitely identified the part that flew into the room.

The cord had to have been in the room originally before the door was broken open.

Assuming the lamp was even in the room at the time. Notice that the lamp here is not pressed against the wall. If the door was kicked open with sufficient force that one piece of the door latch landed on the center of the duvet, nothing would have stopped the door from hitting the wall. Could the lamp have bounced off the wall and gotten to the position we see it in that photo?

 

[Chris C]

Not of the lamp standing up. Only lying behind the door like the one I posted above. (Post - 1448)

Your photo of the jacket is from Dec 18th also. I cropped that one myself - it was from the follow Meredith's blue jacket post.

Here's one showing it in a larger context. It would be from the afternoon of Nov 2.
I took the close-up from this photo:

http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=185029601521519&set=a.124466634244483.15396.106344459390034

You sure? I thought all the blood was cleaned off the floor before their return in December. There appears to be flood on the floor beneath the chair.

 

[Draca]

Blood photos Dec 18th

You sure? I thought all the blood was cleaned off the floor before their return in December. There appears to be flood on the floor beneath the chair.

VERY SURE. There were a LOT of photos of the blood pattern on the floor that were taken on Dec 18th. Ron Hendry uses a lot of them in his analysis. You can tell them apart by the color of the blood (darker) and the position of other items in the room. By Dec 18th the forensic team had trashed the room. If you look at the desk you can see it is piled with junk. If you look at the Nov 2nd photos of the Desk MK had kept it rather neat.

There is a mix of photo dates in this article by Ron Hendry:
http://www.injusticeinperugia.org/RonHendry8.html

BTW Chris, they pulled that jacket OUT of that laundry hamper on Dec 18th. We're working on a 'Discovery' of Meredith's blue jacket youtube clip.

Point being - that bra clasp was NOT discovered - it was abandoned. It is no more ridiculous to say they discovered a jacket than the clasp.

 

[Draca]

Assuming the lamp was even in the room at the time. Notice that the lamp here is not pressed against the wall. If the door was kicked open with sufficient force that one piece of the door latch landed on the center of the duvet, nothing would have stopped the door from hitting the wall. Could the lamp have bounced off the wall and gotten to the position we see it in that photo?

I think it could have. I really doubt the lamp was brought into the room that day. After looking at the photos again it is easy to see that the sun provided a great deal of light and the window wasn't covered. I see no need for the police to borrow the lamp. It also looks like the numbered cards were placed pretty early on.

 

[Dan O.]

Except if we go back to the initial report of when the door was opened they say it was dark in the room. Am I misremembering this?

 

[Draca]

Except if we go back to the initial report of when the door was opened they say it was dark in the room. Am I misremembering this?

Who said it was dark in the room? More research.

They all saw the foot right away so it couldn't have been too dark. I don't know if they took down curtains to get more light or something though.

 

[Dan O.]

Who said it was dark in the room? More research.

They all saw the foot right away so it couldn't have been too dark. I don't know if they took down curtains to get more light or something though.

I think this is the what I am remembering the dark room from:

"We asked the police to open the door but they said they couldn't so we decided to do it. Luca gave the door, which had a crack (a scratch, rotten part) near the handle, about four kicks and it opened. The room was quite dark but I was just able to see (just for a second???) a foot protruding from a cover.​

The quote is reposted on several blogs but SeattlePI seems to be the first english reference. I haven't found it in any Italian texts yet.

 

[Kevin_Lowe]

Can I have some opinions as to what is meant by the highlighted term?

I'm guessing that he's claiming that part of the psychological motivation of guilters is a non-rational belief that female sexuality is dirty, dangerous, immoral, threatening or something similar, and thus that a overtly sexually active woman is either likely to be immoral or deserves punishment.

This view is attributed to some social conservatives, Catholics and whatnot by some progressives.

It's possible this is their motivation. I've certainly seen a few guilters who appear to be very threatened by and hateful towards non-standard sexuality, drugs other than alcohol and tobacco and those who enjoy them, and who seem to have the idea that this is powerful evidence of guilt rather than extraordinarily weak evidence of guilt. However I wouldn't say it's true of all of them.

 

[Mary_H]

You didn't click on the link, did you?

You're right, I didn't. I did watch the whole Dead Man's Curve video. Now that I have clicked on it, I don't get it. Help!

 

[Kaosium]

You're right, I didn't. I did watch the whole Dead Man's Curve video. Now that I have clicked on it, I don't get it. Help!

I thought to honor Perugia, Seattle should name the park after Ferrovia Centrale Umbra.

Their railroad.

It also just so happens that if you take the initials and pronounce them phonetically, the semblance of another 'tribute' arises.

F C U

 

[LondonJohn]

I remember reading a great deal about this a long time ago when I first started researching what happened in this case, but nothing in a long time. As I recall there was eventually a video that proved they made the call first, once it was realized the timestamp was off, but that before that it was considered one of the 'lies' and damning in the extreme. Wasn't there a postal policeman who perjured himself regarding this? Did he ever face consequences for that?

This issue of the phone calls between 12.00 and 1.00pm on the 2nd November is exactly what made me initially into a "firm guilter". I read as "fact" in the book "Darkness Descending" that the postal police officers were already in the cottage before Knox called her mother and Sollecito called his sister and then the police. I simply could not square such behaviour with anything other than guilt, since I didn't think it could be seen as anything else but an attempt to control the investigation. After all, why call the police when a branch of the police were already there, and why call one's mother for advice and pretend that the police were not there?

So this issue, in and of itself, made me believe that Knox and Sollecito MUST have been culpable at some level. Coupled with the seeming certitude in the reliability and accuracy of the DNA evidence on the kitchen knife and bra clasp, and of course a natural inclination to accept the verdict of a court of law (they are usually correct, after all), I initially had little doubt that Knox and Sollecito were correctly convicted.

And yet there were still some things niggling me. The whole issue of the interrogations of the 5th/6th still troubled me, and I believed from the start that there were most likely coerced false confession/accusations made. Of course, even if there had been improper coercion, Knox and Sollecito could still very well have been guilty of the murder, but nonetheless it sounded a small alarm bell in my head.

I decided (for the first time) to seek out online discussion forums, to see what debate/discussion was taking place about the case. And the rest, as they say, is history. I learned more, I learned that certain "facts" were far from true, I learned that the quality of much of the evidence that had led to the convictions of Knox and Sollecito was questionable at best, and I learned (courtesy of the translated Massei report) that the court which convicted them had made some dreadful errors in reasoning and judgement.

 

[Chris_Halkides]

variable peak heights

I just looked closely at Sollecito's DNA profile and the bra clasp for the first time. I now understand why, Sollecito's defense claims its not his profile. They mix matched high and low peaks. After comparing my DNA to that bra clasp, I can't rule out myself as a suspect. Good thing I wasn't in Italy when it happened

Chris C,

IIRC, Mr. Sollecito and Ms. Kercher share about 11 of 30 alleles across the various loci that make up the profile. This might explain the high/low effect you mention, depending upon wich peaks you mean. That having been said, I infer from the Massei report that they did a less extreme version of this in choosing which peaks to assign to the second person (after Ms. Kercher) whose DNA is on the clasp. In other words they choose a small peak instead of a larger one that would have been closer in size to the rest of Mr. Sollecito's profile in one or more instances. Even this is not necessarily fatal to their analysis, but it would almost certainly put Mr. Sollecito's profile into the low template DNA range and that suggests it should have been tested twice.

 

[CDHost]

This issue of the phone calls between 12.00 and 1.00pm on the 2nd November is exactly what made me initially into a "firm guilter". I read as "fact" in the book "Darkness Descending" that the postal police officers were already in the cottage before Knox called her mother and Sollecito called his sister and then the police. I simply could not square such behaviour with anything other than guilt, since I didn't think it could be seen as anything else but an attempt to control the investigation. After all, why call the police when a branch of the police were already there, and why call one's mother for advice and pretend that the police were not there?

I understand completely. What moved me off not caring was the slander charge against the parents. That was blatant witness tampering. That's when I decided this prosecutor needed to be stopped.

But then it just continues every day another example of something wrong with this case. The latest discovery, the disk drive opening a great example. being a simple mistake is so unlikely I have to think they were destroying evidence. I have no idea what they were trying to destroy but getting a hard drive open is not trivial, you need specialized screw drivers you have to break some seals on screws.... Its not the sort of thing you do by accident. And the moment they looked up references they would have found that approximately 100% of the references were about cannibalizing parts like the great magnets inside a hard drive, or using them for teaching.

 

[snook1]

Has anyone heard the newest theory on the "bleeding cat". I hear some people are now suggesting that the cat's wounds might have been caused by Knox in her outburst while being downstairs with Meredith, Rudy and Raffaele. How about that?

 

[Mary_H]

Anyone noticed the "bleeding cat theory" on PMF today? They're desperate:

Out of control AK injured the cat with the knife as a demonstration of power...

Right after she bopped it on the head with the mop handle.

 

[snook1]

I know, right? Kinda funny, isn't it?

 

[Mary_H]

I know, right? Kinda funny, isn't it?

It's ROFL funny.