Continuation Part 2 - Discussion of the Amanda Knox case

[christianahannah]

OK thanks, keep me informed. I'm going to have reread Massei looking for anything definitive that a cleanup occurred. I'll get back. But without the cleanup, the fake break in just means anyone with access.

In the translated motivations by members at PMF Massei speaks of a cleanup pages 382-387. There are more references to a cleaning activity in the flat scattered throughout the motivations, however, these pages seem to be the main reference.

 

[LondonJohn]

CDHost,

The release of the famous picture is one of the blackest moments in the case. You mean the one where the bathroom looks red, right? The actual bathroom looked pretty normal, but it was chemically treated to produce the pink to red color.

There has been some debate here about which chemical it was. Dan O. argued for phenolphthalein produced by oxidation of phenolphthalin via the Kastle-Meyer test for blood. Frank reported that it was cyanoacryate. I did a little bit of research, and it turns out that cyanoacrylate fumes are sometimes used to detect latent fingerprints. The fingerprint visualization also requires a dye (of which I believe that there are several), and the print can look red or purple. The photo was released to the press without any explanation of which I am aware, and they were "mistaken in their minds" for doing so, IMO.

I think strongly that it's a botched application of PhTh in a Kastle-Meyer test. This test should only be performed on very small areas at a time - it looks to me as if some idiot has sprayed down the whole room in virtually one go, which would make it near-impossible to interpret the results properly.

The reason why I don't think that this photo shows the result of a cyanoacrylate test is that it's very difficult indeed to test whole rooms using this method. The room would have had to have been sealed entirely airtight before the fumes were released (cyanoacrylate is otherwise known as superglue). This type of testing is almost always carried out in a laboratory environment, where specific items are placed into a designated sealed container, or larger objects are sometimes placed in a specially sealed room within the lab.

 

[LondonJohn]

The whole litany of why the 'murder knife' is bogus is becoming onerous to iterate. I practiced the major ones on CW the other day, he probably thought I forgot who I was talking to. Let's see, off the top of my head:

The DNA was LCN, past the 'too low' setting on the machine, they refused to release the EDF files, and the unlicensed lab makes the risible claim it has never had any contamination. It didn't match the outline on the bed, at least one and probably two of the major wounds, and the last could have been made by anything from a box cutter to a broadsword. The 'DNA' was not blood and was curiously found right on the blade and nowhere else, but the knife was never opened so the cracks where it couldn't be cleaned could be checked for blood traces.

The handle somehow bore traces of Amanda's DNA but not any of Meredith's blood, that being just about impossible considering the nature of the only wound it could have definitely made. It is the only trace whatsoever of Amanda at the site, highly implausible if she was supposed to be wielding it in a vicious struggle. It was plucked from a drawer by 'police intuition' leaving other knives behind and does anyone really believe they planned to eat with it?

Is that everything? I must have missed something, like I did the SMS message when writing the summary the other day. There are just too many damned details to remember about what is wrong with every aspect of this case. It must be so much easier to believe in guilt.

I should switch sides.

Not to blow any collective trumpets, but I have a feeling that many of the points that some of us have been arguing on here during 2010-2011 will turn out to be correct.

We have long argued that the state of Meredith's stomach/intestine contents is totally incompatible with a time of death of 11.45pm (the inexplicable finding of the first court), and in fact they are only compatible with a ToD before 10.00pm. I think that the appeal court will come to the same conclusion.

We've also long argued that the DNA evidence on both the knife and the bra clasp are so dodgy/weak as to be inadmissible. I think the appeal court will come to the same conclusion.

We've also long argued that Curatolo is a completely unreliable witness, whose testimony should never have been accepted. I pretty much KNOW that the appeal court will come to the same conclusion.

We've also long argued that Quintavalle and Capezzalli are also unreliable witnesses, based upon the quality, detail and timing of their testimony. If the appeal court gets as far as to evaluate these witnesses, I think it might come to the same conclusion.

We've also long argued that the first court was erroneous in concluding that the break-in had to have been staged (and that, by extension, Knox and Sollecito had staged it). We'll have to see how the appeal court deals with that one.

 

[LondonJohn]

I get that but I thought the chemical they were detecting was blood. Are you telling me that the red stains, aren't even hidden blood stains but rather just typical body oils like you would find in any bathroom?

No. If it was a botched Kastle-Meyer test, all the area tested would have oxidised through exposure to air, producing the pink/red colour in the photo. So the pink/red colour would almost certainly merely represent where the chemicals were applied, rather than where blood was present.

The Kastle-Meyer test relies upon a very quick observation (and recording) of colour changes. It's only if the pink/red colour appears immediately upon application of PhTh and hydrogen peroxide that it counts as a positive presumptive test for blood. The chemicals will turn that same pink/red colour within about a minute in normal air, regardless of whether blood is present or not. Therefore, the timing is absolutely critical. This is why the test has to be performed on very small areas at a time.

 

[babycondor]

Everything possible is being done to suppress the truth of what actually happened to Meredith and to prejudice the defendants' appeal. The reason is the large amount of money which the prosecution stand to gain if their lies are accepted.

Withnail1969

Okay can you provide a source that supports what you are asserting?

There is no such "source," as you well know.

However, there are a lot of facts about the case that point to this conclusion. It is a matter of connecting the dots, which is a legitimate reasoning process.

One very telling "dot" is the prosecution's objection to testing the knife handle in the appeal, for example.

I sense that your question was a fallback response from someone who senses the argument is slipping away from them, after several forum pages devoted to discussion of the issue.

 

[Chris_Halkides]

cyanoacrylate

I think strongly that it's a botched application of PhTh in a Kastle-Meyer test. This test should only be performed on very small areas at a time - it looks to me as if some idiot has sprayed down the whole room in virtually one go, which would make it near-impossible to interpret the results properly.

The reason why I don't think that this photo shows the result of a cyanoacrylate test is that it's very difficult indeed to test whole rooms using this method. The room would have had to have been sealed entirely airtight before the fumes were released (cyanoacrylate is otherwise known as superglue). This type of testing is almost always carried out in a laboratory environment, where specific items are placed into a designated sealed container, or larger objects are sometimes placed in a specially sealed room within the lab.

LondonJohn,

Your points are well taken. The only reason to suspect cyanoacrylate is that Frank reported it (with a different spelling). However, in a larger sense it does not matter; the red bathroom, which may have been one of the things that gave rise to the "house of horror's" nickname for the flat, is not red because of actual or latent blood. I might have provided a citation to the fingerprint business in the previous thread.

 

[LondonJohn]

Humans shed a lot of skin about a gram a day. That usually gets eaten by mites who produce "dust" from their waste and their own body parts. That would be the predominant protein assuming there was no blood. Are the streaks that? In other words was their any blood in any meaningful quantity in the bathroom ever? It sounds like you all are saying no but I want to make sure I'm understanding the claim.

Because without the bathroom cleanup, then there isn't much evidence a cleanup ever took place which certainly provides a counter I hadn't considered on my 7 options. That's an incredibly strong counter argument.

There is no evidence whatsoever of a cleanup in any room, except that in Meredith's room there are swirling patterns consistent with blood being wiped by a towel. There's zero evidence of a clean-up in the small bathroom, hallway, Knox's room, Filomena's room or the lounge/kitchen. If blood had been wiped up in any of these rooms, a Luminol test would almost certainly have revealed tell-tale swirling/smearing marks left in blood (neat, or dilute if water was used in the clean-up) that were invisible to the naked eye.

It's practically out of the question that blood could have been cleaned up so incredibly efficiently and thoroughly by two people who would presumably have been in some sort of post-murder panic. Their efforts would have been revealed by Luminol. In addition, we'd have to accept the frankly ludicrous story that Knox/Sollecito cleaned most of the crime scene to an extraordinarily scrupulously clean degree, yet for some reason they left visible blood spots in the small bathroom*. Neither Knox nor Sollecito cleaned up (or attempted to clean up) the crime scene.

* And, in this regard, the "oh, they deliberately left some blood as part of their evil plan to build the scenario leading to the discovery of the body" explanation is nonsense and a bogus post-hoc rationalisation.

 

[christianahannah]

LondonJohn,

Your points are well taken. The only reason to suspect cyanoacrylate is that Frank reported it (with a different spelling). However, in a larger sense it does not matter; the red bathroom, which may have been one of the things that gave rise to the "house of horror's" nickname for the flat, is not red because of actual or latent blood. I might have provided a citation to the fingerprint business in the previous thread.

The photo was released in January 2008 so was that when the "house of horror's" nickname began?

The pink bathroom is mentioned in the motivations but doesn't specify what was applied to create the pink color. Perhaps someone can add more to this reference.

Page 102 (questioning of Profazio by defense):

"I did not enter the small bathroom at via della Pergola at all on November 4, and I only saw it on the 6th when it was totally pink because an appropriate substance had been used to enhance the forensic traces."

ETA: Profazio's statement doesn't sound as if what was applied to the bathroom was done in error, however, I don't know from this reference what appropriate subtance was applied to the bathroom and what forensic traces it was supposed to enhance.

 

[Justinian2]

Sometimes I feel that we are arguing with idiots and the idiots are winning (thanks to the Italian legal system) As long as this thread is, I've never seen any guilter defend the key theories.

What is the guilter time line?
Guede entered at 8:30 PM.(feel free to suggest a time)
Raffaele and Amanda were seen at their flat around 8:30 (feel free to suggest a time)
Meredith entered at 9:00 PM. (feel free to suggest a time)
Raffaele and Amanda beamed over to the murder room (feel free to suggest the transportation mode)
Raffaele and Amanda participated in BDSM event that went too far (feel free to suggest a theory - be as wild as you want, everybody else is)
Meredith was stabbed at 9:10 (feel free to suggest a time) and died at 9:30 (feel free to suggest a time)
Guede took the phones and left the country (feel free to suggest a theory - be as wild as you want, everybody else is)
Raffaele and Amanda staged a break-in, cleaned up went back to Raffaele's flat. No credible, non professional witness saw them or noticed the lights.
Raffaele and Amanda washed their clothes, went back to Raffaele's flat, cleaned up some more, disposed of the bloody clothes and shoes and were somehow able to sleep and have sex. Amanda then woke up relatively early, considering the events of the previous night, and went back to her flat with Meredith.

This conspiracy story is the most convoluted of all the conspiracy theories AND it is supported by a once respected government.

 

[Withnail1969]

Sometimes I feel that we are arguing with idiots and the idiots are winning (thanks to the Italian legal system) As long as this thread is, I've never seen any guilter defend the key theories.

They can't defend them. The Massei Report contradicts itself. Curatolo has Amanda and Raffaele under observation from 21:27 pm to around 23:30, a time period when according to the prosecution narrative they are supposed to be getting roaring drunk or smoking crack, or something. There's no time for them to party at the cottage, either. Meredith is murdered almost as soon as they enter. And where the hell is their best friend Rudy during this time?

 

[CDHost]

No. If it was a botched Kastle-Meyer test, all the area tested would have oxidised through exposure to air, producing the pink/red colour in the photo. So the pink/red colour would almost certainly merely represent where the chemicals were applied, rather than where blood was present.

The Kastle-Meyer test relies upon a very quick observation (and recording) of colour changes. It's only if the pink/red colour appears immediately upon application of PhTh and hydrogen peroxide that it counts as a positive presumptive test for blood. The chemicals will turn that same pink/red colour within about a minute in normal air, regardless of whether blood is present or not. Therefore, the timing is absolutely critical. This is why the test has to be performed on very small areas at a time.

To repeat back, your argument is that we are looking at nothing more than a picture of pink watercolors, effectively. We are just seeing where they put the chemical, nothing more.

 

[LondonJohn]

To repeat back, your argument is that we are looking at nothing more than a picture of pink watercolors, effectively. We are just seeing where they put the chemical, nothing more.

That's what I believe to be the case here, yes.

Another stunning piece of work from the "crack" forensics team.....

 

[CDHost]

There is no evidence whatsoever of a cleanup in any room, except that in Meredith's room there are swirling patterns consistent with blood being wiped by a towel.

Which interestingly is consistent with Rudy's version that he tried to stop the bleeding. I'm seeing how people move to the lone wolf theory. I may have to change my mind on the likely scenario.

 

[Draca]

Duvet

If I recall correctly, blood was soaked into the duvet indicating that the body was covered before the blood had dried. The body may have been covered after death, but the evidence doesn't fit it being done hour later.

The blood was clearly liquid when it made the butterfly marks. It also looks like the duvet had been moved twice while the neck wound was still bleeding. There is a break in between the marks. After the duvet was placed to cover MK it looks like it was adjusted at least twice. This could have happened while looking for something perhaps. The duvet may have also been placed over her neck, face during the attack. He could have grapped the duvet at the same time he grabbed the pillow to put under her hips.

 

[Withnail1969]

Which interestingly is consistent with Rudy's version that he tried to stop the bleeding. I'm seeing how people move to the lone wolf theory. I may have to change my mind on the likely scenario.

I think he used the towels to ensure the blood wasn't going to run out under Meredith's door, or maybe the blood was putting him off raping her.

 

[el buscador]

When did the shoe prints get on the pillowcase? Was the pillow on the floor and rudy stepped on it during the struggle? But, then, I've read that the bloody shoe print smeared an edge of the mysterious stain. If this is so, how did the shoe prints get on the pillow underneath Meredith after the stain?

 

[Draca]

When did the shoe prints get on the pillowcase? Was the pillow on the floor and rudy stepped on it during the struggle? But, then, I've read that the bloody shoe print smeared an edge of the mysterious stain. If this is so, how did the shoe prints get on the pillow underneath Meredith after the stain?

The pillow wouldn't have been on the floor before the attack. If the stain is smeared it would have been there before it was stepped on.

 

[Chris_Halkides]

house of horrors

The photo was released in January 2008 so was that when the "house of horror's" nickname began?

christianahannah,

The first reference to house of horrors that I can find (quick search) is in this unbiased article from the Daily Mail in November of 2007, well before the release of the photo. Of course if a policeman used the term originally, he might have had the photograph of the bathroom in mind. Just speculation. If the term were Nick Pisa's invention, then probably not.

 

[Chris_Halkides]

quick search on cyanoacrylate fuming

To all,

This article has a pink/red latent fingerprint, just to show what these can look like. I have also seen latent fingerprints look somewhat purple.

 

[el buscador]

The pillow wouldn't have been on the floor before the attack. If the stain is smeared it would have been there before it was stepped on.

But then when did the shoe prints get on the pillowcase? If rudy grabbed the pillow off the bed and put it under Meredith then how did the bloody shoe prints get on the pillowcase if the pillow is already under Meredith?