Here's 9 reasons why people think they are guilty.
Thanks for this list; I'm interested in understanding the reasons people believe what they believe, even if the reasons aren't very good.
Now, I'm going to attempt to explain why I don't think these are good reasons to believe in guilt. Since you yourself seem to think they are guilty, I'll be curious to see how you respond.
Yes, many of these are circumstantial, but would who thinks Scott Peterson is innocent? After all, almost all the evidence against him is circumstantial and he has a motive.
From a
technical point of view,
evidence is not classified into categories like "circumstantial"; the only thing that matters is
how strong it is.
I'm not really familiar with the Peterson case, so all I can say is that if the evidence against him is really of the same level of strength as the evidence against Knox and Sollecito, then he should have been acquitted too.
1. Amanda’s lamp being found in Meredith’s room.
Although Amanda is presumably the single most likely person to have moved Amanda's lamp, she doesn't win this contest by very much, as moving it would have been incredibly easy for anyone to do. Keep in mind that Amanda' s room was right next to Meredith's.
If a lamp belonging to, say, Filomena had been found in Meredith's room, but otherwise everything else remained the same, how would your view of the case change?
2. Raffaele’s changing alibi:
a) Amanda and I went to a friend’s party.
b) Amanda was with me in my apartment but went out for awhile.
c) We were together the entire night, made dinner, had sex, watched a movie, went to sleep.
d) I was awake and on my computer the entire night.
(a) doesn't belong; that was never Raffaele's alibi for the night of Meredith's death, so far as I know. (b) was the result of the same sort of police interrogation that produced Amanda's statement about Lumumba. Raffaele's first and last account was (c); as for (d), it is consistent with (c) to within typical human consistency standards.
This kind of argument depends on an assumption that guilty people are significantly more likely to change their stories under police pressure than innocent people subject to similar pressure (by police who think they're guilty) -- an assumption that seems rooted in ignorance of how easy it is to manipulate people. (Ever seen an "exorcism"?)
3. Amanda’s phone calls on November 2:
a) In the 48 minutes between 12:07 – 12:55 she spent a total of 23 seconds trying to phone Meredith though she stated she was “panicked” as to her whereabouts.
b) Amanda was back at her apartment by 12:34. The Postal Police did not show up for another 21 minutes with Meredith’s phones. Why didn’t Amanda stand outside Meredith’s door, call her phones and listen for rings? (She knew the phones were no longer in Meredith's room.)
c) Both Amanda’s mother and Filomena told Amanda to call the police based on what she told them...she didn’t. Both knew her Italian was poor, but they told her to call the police anyway...she didn't.
Before getting into the nitty-gritty of these kinds of details, I'd like to make sure it's worthwhile. So let me ask you: do you really, truly think this kind of stuff raises the odds of guilt by more than a factor of, say, 1.1? This is real life, not a detective show, after all (where after the detective points something like this out, the suspect invariably either confesses or draws a weapon, thereby actually providing the strong evidence the detective didn't have). Do you honestly think that the behaviors above are so far outside of "normal" that they constitute significant evidence of homicide? Just how unlikely do you think it is that an innocent Amanda would have behaved in such a way?
4. Raffaele’s call to the police:
a) He told them that nothing was taken from Filomena’s room. He knew that because he knew there was no break in.
Have you considered the possibility that he just looked around, and it didn't look to him like anything had been taken? If not, why not? If so, why did you reject it?
b) He told the police “there is a lot of blood” when everyone at the scene agreed there was very little visible blood. He knew there was a lot of blood behind the locked door.
If you don't see this kind of "disagreement" among people every single day, you're not paying attention.
c) why would he even mention a closed door?
He and Amanda were concerned about Meredith's locked door.
5. Raffaele’s lie in his prison diary regarding the knife and pricking Meredith with it.
The consequence of his believing the knife DNA result. He should have
admitted confusion and
defied the data, but most people don't know how to do this.
6. Amanda’s behavior:
a) not flushing the toilet (who does not flush a toilet when they see feces in it?)
b) not looking in the murder room
See my response to 3. above.
7. bra clasp – it is Rafaelle’s DNA is on it.
In my opinion, this is the best evidence of guilt there is; I'd put it at 5 to 10 decibels' worth. Still overwhelmingly likely to be the result of contamination, given the unbelievably sloppy handling that has been amply documented, plus
the fact that it would so strongly imply guilt if legitimate.
8. evidence of a cleanup – FBI guy Steve Moore (who says he has seen all of the evidence) said no one could have left that room without blood on the bottom of their shoes.
Why is this incompatible with Moore's theory -- shared by virtually all innocentisti -- that Guede was the sole killer?
9. Amanda knowing that Meredith's throat was slashed despite the fact that she came into no contact with anyone who would have had that information before she made that statement.
Detective-story stuff again. She had plenty of contact with other people who would have known or would have been spreading speculative rumors based on partial information overheard from police etc.
