The Massei/Mignini Conspiracy Theory

[stilicho]

Does special pleading figure into defining whether or not something is a conspiracy theory?

This case has practically set the world's record for special pleading.

47 days WTF?

Seriously.

 

[stilicho]

I think you could make a plausible narrative of the case that starts with the ILE realising "Oh crap, the informant we let out a week ago raped and murdered a foreign student" and from there assumes the ILE as a disorganised group take exactly whatever actions seemed most likely at the time to deflect or lessen their short-term embarrassment.

So you are a conspiracy theorist. Elaborate.

 

[PhantomWolf]

That's not much of a counter-argument. It doesn't respond to the point at all, as I'm sure you're aware. At best you are nitpicking the choice of word "destroy", possibly because you think that something which has been destroyed cannot possibly ever be repaired or rebuilt. If it makes you happier to say "destroyed vital parts of" instead of the shorter "destroy" we can make that change for you and the thrust of the argument goes through exactly as before.

So I don't have to wade through 3 rambling threads to find out, what happened to the HDDs?

From an IT point of view, if you are going to analyze the current data in a HDD, then you clone the HDD and analyse the data on the clone, you only use the original if you are looking for long deleted files and want to read the layers of oxide to see what the disks used to contain.

 

[zeb]

I thought this feed was about Amanda and Raffaele.
But it seems that it gone into a Doctor Who them.

 

[Kevin_Lowe]

So I don't have to wade through 3 rambling threads to find out, what happened to the HDDs?

At some time after it had been taken into police custody, before it was imaged, someone executed files on Raffaele's laptop including the computer files for the movie Stardust. Raffaele and Amanda's alibi was that they were at home watching that movie when the murder occurred. This action erased what might have been proof of their alibi. Oops.

Then, also before any of them were imaged, the Italian police allegedly fried all three hard drives using the wrong voltage adaptor.

One of them, the hard drive from Raffaele's laptop, was subsequently repaired and provides us with the computer records evidence showing that there was human activity on the laptop before, during and long after Meredith's time of death - regardless of when you think that is.

The defence requested that the other two hard drives be sent to the manufacturer for repair. The prosecution opposed the request and the original set of judges quashed the request on the basis that since the evidence on those hard drives might benefit the defence, or it might benefit the prosecution, there was no reason to get that evidence. The logic isn't crystal clear to me.

From an IT point of view, if you are going to analyze the current data in a HDD, then you clone the HDD and analyse the data on the clone, you only use the original if you are looking for long deleted files and want to read the layers of oxide to see what the disks used to contain.

Yes.

 

[zeb]

I find that cooking the computers hard drive very hard to follow.
Raffalel computer was set to Italian voltage, so was his sister
Amanda computer, even if brought in the USA, the computer would be set the Itailan voltage.
As I do not know the AC voltage in Italy, but I do know that the voltage in the USA is 110AC.
So to cook the computers the voltage would have to be lowerd or a transformer used to change from Italy voltage to say English voltage which is 240 AC.
Any way which you go, It would have to be done with the help of the IT expert.
This puts the prosicution in the wrong

 

[funk de fino]

I find that cooking the computers hard drive very hard to follow.
Raffalel computer was set to Italian voltage, so was his sister
Amanda computer, even if brought in the USA, the computer would be set the Itailan voltage.
As I do not know the AC voltage in Italy, but I do know that the voltage in the USA is 110AC.
So to cook the computers the voltage would have to be lowerd or a transformer used to change from Italy voltage to say English voltage which is 240 AC.
Any way which you go, It would have to be done with the help of the IT expert.
This puts the prosicution in the wrong

You are talking PC power supplies. Not the harddrive PS. We fry PC all the time in my line of work because we have PC in area where there are 110V and 220V. It only blows the supply if they are not switched over to the correct input (and only if they are not auto switching power supplies) They do not fry the HDD.

And if they were laptops then again they have a step down PS from the wall socket.

That puts you in the wrong I believe.

 

[Chris_Halkides]

knife versus clasp

This case has practically set the world's record for special pleading.

47 days WTF?

Seriously.

stilicho,

Consider this passage describing Dr. Tagliabracci's testimony from the Massei English translation, "Regarding locus D7S820, he revealed that Forensics had interpreted it, recognizing the presence of two alleles, 8 and 11; they had not taken into consideration a peak, low, but still higher than 50 RFU, corresponding to allele 10." (p. 242)

So Forensics ignored a peak at allele 10 that was higher than 50 RFU, yet they took 22 peaks that were less than 50 RFU as alleles to construct the knife profile. That is the sort of inconsistency that makes me wonder whether or not the knife profile is an example of special pleading.

Not sure what you mean by 47 days.

 

[Dan O.]

You are talking PC power supplies. Not the harddrive PS. We fry PC all the time in my line of work because we have PC in area where there are 110V and 220V. It only blows the supply if they are not switched over to the correct input (and only if they are not auto switching power supplies) They do not fry the HDD.

And if they were laptops then again they have a step down PS from the wall socket.

That puts you in the wrong I believe.

Raffaele and Meredith both had Apple laptops. All Apple laptops have auto-ranging power adaptors that accept 100 to 240 volts 50-60 Hz.

I believe that it was the power supply that came with the forensic write-block adaptor that was wired for the wrong voltage and fried the hard drives after they were removed from the laptops. A cheap step down transformer, rectifier and pass regulator without a crowbar circuit could easily fail with the regulator shorting and passing a high voltage to the the drives.

The other failure that was speculated on by the experts in Italy was that the connector was attached to Amanda's drive incorrectly due to the existence of an extra 4 pins adjacent to the main connector. This I say is bollox since I have had plenty of personal experience installing those kind of connectors incorrectly and would have been able to see the specific deformation of the other pins if the connector were incorrectly placed.

 

[Draca]

What's the deal with the downstairs apt cat blood? I haven't looked into it really. Is it true they said there was cat blood on the light switch? Doesn't it seem extremely too coincidental that there is cat blood the same night a murder happened upstairs? A lot of coincidences. A bomb threat, a broken down car, a cat fight. I sometimes wonder if there isn't a whole other story going on here that I'm completely clueless of.

 

[Draca]

This case has practically set the world's record for special pleading.

47 days WTF?

Seriously.

If only 47 days was the only issue! It was moved, shoved under a rug by the desk (If it wasn't brought back and planted), the bedroom was trashed with everything moved from one area to another, it was handled with dirty gloves and passed among several agents. Plus, how can it be said they innocently left behind this one small piece of evidence when in reality the forensic team didn't collect half of Meredith Kercher's clothes? Sloppy, unprofessional work.

 

[Kevin_Lowe]

What's the deal with the downstairs apt cat blood? I haven't looked into it really. Is it true they said there was cat blood on the light switch? Doesn't it seem extremely too coincidental that there is cat blood the same night a murder happened upstairs? A lot of coincidences. A bomb threat, a broken down car, a cat fight. I sometimes wonder if there isn't a whole other story going on here that I'm completely clueless of.

I think it's natural to want to fit every single piece of data we have into a single compelling narrative, the way it works in detective stories.

However it's almost certainly a mistake in a case we have so much data about. If every possible related incident is canvassed and only the interesting-seeming ones are reported you are bound to hit some odd coincidences.

I think the reason we might want to try to fit cat blood, breakdowns and so on into the story is the same reason why the guilters get so obsessive about trying to cram mops and lamps into the narrative somehow as evidence of Amanda and Raffaele's guilt. It's quite hard to let go of an interesting anomaly and say it's just a coincidence, but if we can't do that then we will end up fixing on ridiculous conspiracy theories every time there is a weird coincidence.

Unless more data comes in I think the leak in Raffaele's flat, the mops, the lamp, the breakdown, the cat blood and so on and on are just irrelevant coincidences. They certainly aren't grounds to revise the likelihood of Raffaele and Amanda's innocence or guilt.

 

[zeb]

I would like to go back to the stone.
What gets me is the procecution are saying that the stone weight was 9lbs.
this what gets me how can a person such as Raffaele be able chuck a rock that size through a window.
there is no way that Amanda had the power to do it.
I think Rudy had a key to the front door.
and the only people that rudy knew was the boys down stairs,
You know the ones that grow their own weed.
Also rudy would know that the boys would be out of town that weekend. he may have made a deal with the owner of the weed plants to sell some and split the money.
I think Rudy had a key to the house.
But the question is, who give him the key, as we know it was not Amanda, and it was not Meredith, due to the fact in England we lock our outside doors all the time.
And I belive that Merdith would lock her door because that room was her own space.

 

[Amazer]

I would like to go back to the stone.
What gets me is the procecution are saying that the stone weight was 9lbs.
this what gets me how can a person such as Raffaele be able chuck a rock that size through a window.
there is no way that Amanda had the power to do it.
I think Rudy had a key to the front door.
and the only people that rudy knew was the boys down stairs,
You know the ones that grow their own weed.
Also rudy would know that the boys would be out of town that weekend. he may have made a deal with the owner of the weed plants to sell some and split the money.
I think Rudy had a key to the house.
But the question is, who give him the key, as we know it was not Amanda, and it was not Meredith, due to the fact in England we lock our outside doors all the time.
And I belive that Merdith would lock her door because that room was her own space.

Separate front doors? So even if Rudy has the key to the boys downstairs house, it wouldn't help him with the house of the girls.

 

[bobc]

No, it's a conspiracy theory because it involves a conspiracy between three people to commit the murder and to lie about it afterwards. Simple as that.

Right, so without getting hung up on the word "conspiracy", the prosecution case IS indeed that the three conspired[1] to murder Meredith Kercher and lied about it afterwards. Any charge accusing more than one perpetrator of a crime is almost inevitably a "conspiracy theory" by that definition. The judge in the case agreed with the prosecution case, which he didn't have to but is highly likely given he found them guilty.

Therefore this thread adds no extra dimension to the discussion of the Knox case, and is a complete subset of the main Amanda Knox case thread, and should be merged with it.

[1] "conspire - act in unison or agreement and in secret towards a deceitful or illegal purpose"

 

[Dan O.]

I would like to go back to the stone.
What gets me is the procecution are saying that the stone weight was 9lbs.
this what gets me how can a person such as Raffaele be able chuck a rock that size through a window.
there is no way that Amanda had the power to do it.

Both Amanda and Raffaele would be able to toss a 9 lb stone that distance (9 lbs is only 4 kg, try it yourself). What they would not be able to do is have the accuracy to reliably hit the window at that distance.

The theory that Amanda and Raffaele staged the break-in itself makes no sense. For entry into the cottage through the window to work, the cottage needs to be empty. If anybody was home when that rock came crashing through the window, the police would have been called immediately. Amanda and Raffaele could not have been there before Meredith came home so there is no way for them to know that the cottage was empty for the time that the break-in was to have occurred.

I think Rudy had a key to the front door.

We know Rudy had a key to the front door. He had Meridith's keys when he walked out leaving those bloody footprints.

and the only people that rudy knew was the boys down stairs,
You know the ones that grow their own weed.
Also rudy would know that the boys would be out of town that weekend. he may have made a deal with the owner of the weed plants to sell some and split the money.
I think Rudy had a key to the house.

Rudy knew the boys downstairs because he played basketball with them. If Rudy was given the key to the boys apartment, they wouldn't have needed to give Meredith a key to come in and water the plants. The boys were only gone for the weekend. If they trusted Rudy, they could have given him enough finished product to sell over those few days.

But the question is, who give him the key, as we know it was not Amanda, and it was not Meredith, due to the fact in England we lock our outside doors all the time.

You are just speculating with no evidence to support the claim that Rudy was given a key and the facts that Merediths keys were taken and the window was broken and Rudy didn't hang around afterwards to stage the breakin counter such a claim.

And I belive that Merdith would lock her door because that room was her own space.

Meredith may or may not have locked her door. The testimony is that she would lock her door when she went back to England. Meredith is probably more modest than Amanda and it is reasonable that she would close her door at times such as when she was changing after taking a shower.

We don't have complete information as to what Amanda said about locking or closing the door. The two terms are easily confused in Italian and even Google Translate gets them mixed up. It also doesn't make any difference in terms of innocence or guilt whether Amanda said Meredith locked her door or not. It wouldn't change or even delay the outcome of eventually breaking the door down. If anything, Amanda would have been more worried finding the door locked if she knew Meredith never locked it.

 

[Katody Matrass]

Right, so without getting hung up on the word "conspiracy", the prosecution case IS indeed that the three conspired[1] to murder Meredith Kercher and lied about it afterwards. Any charge accusing more than one perpetrator of a crime is almost inevitably a "conspiracy theory" by that definition. The judge in the case agreed with the prosecution case, which he didn't have to but is highly likely given he found them guilty.

Therefore this thread adds no extra dimension to the discussion of the Knox case, and is a complete subset of the main Amanda Knox case thread, and should be merged with it.

I can't fully agree. Having another thread to discuss the more speculative aspects of the case is reasonable. The main thread is more fact centered and more concerned with current ongoing events, as the appeal is underway.
The proponents of the conspiracy theory are also a bit shy with presenting their ideas there, that's understandable.
This thread could serve a meaningful purpose as an outlet for them to flesh out the details of their theory and speculate more freely.
There are interesting aspects of the conspiracy theory that could enjoy some more exposition. For example:

What was the plan behind excluding multiple Guede's traces from the cleanup and how exactly was it done?

What was the plan behind leaving the blood traces in the bathroom?

What was the purpose of Amanda's morning visit in Quintavalle's store?

Why did AK orchestrate Lumumba's arrest? What was the plan behind it?​

I think it could be an appropriate and friendly place for the CT proponents to expound on it without being overly harassed about plausibility or constantly threatened with Occam's razor.

 

[bobc]

I can't fully agree. Having another thread to discuss the more speculative aspects of the case is reasonable. The main thread is more fact centered and more concerned with current ongoing events, as the appeal is underway.
The proponents of the conspiracy theory are also a bit shy with presenting their ideas there, that's understandable.
This thread could serve a meaningful purpose as an outlet for them to flesh out the details of their theory and speculate more freely.
There are interesting aspects of the conspiracy theory that could enjoy some more exposition. For example:

What was the plan behind excluding multiple Guede's traces from the cleanup and how exactly was it done?

What was the plan behind leaving the blood traces in the bathroom?

What was the purpose of Amanda's morning visit in Quintavalle's store?

Why did AK orchestrate Lumumba's arrest? What was the plan behind it?​

I think it could be an appropriate and friendly place for the CT proponents to expound on it without being overly harassed about plausibility or constantly threatened with Occam's razor.

I see. So it's the same discussion but with even less facts than the main thread.

 

[Katody Matrass]

I see. So it's the same discussion but with even less facts than the main thread.

Exactly !

I won't call you to support the speculation with sources, I'm just interested in the details of the theory. For starters, you believe that the cleanup was purposefully incomplete and leaving out the numerous traces was part of a devilish plan, I'd love to hear more about it, what was that plan?

 

[Dan O.]

Also, what was the devious plan behind the deception of leaving one mop and bucket outside while hiding an identical mop and bucket in the hall closet inside the cottage?