Continuation Part 2 - Discussion of the Amanda Knox case

[Chris_Halkides]

too many assumptions

Again, admittedly from one with limited experience with the complexities of vertical gardening, may I proffer a common sense question as a reply.

If a professional accredited technician removes *most* of the only batch of dna that existed,
and this small batch was *all on one small particular area* of a knife,
and then using commonly accepted scientific procedures identifies *one* person from that sample.... .

Why would a usually very knowledgeable poster
who in the past has endowed the writings of the vertical gardener with the credibility and authority comparable to the stone tablets delivered by the Almighty to Moses,
express the above suggested bewilderment as to whom *the remainder* of that small (untestable) batch belonged ?

pilot padron,

You are making a number of assumptions. I think that the laboratory in which the work was done, was not yet accredited, so your premise is already open to question. Second, whether the blade or the handle was sampled is not yet entirely clear, if I follow the discussion here and elsewhere correctly. Third, even if it were the blade that was sampled, how can anyone be certain where it was sampled? Perhaps the independent scientists chose to sample it elsewhere, a perfectly reasonable thing to do. Fourth, let us assume for the sake of argument that Meredith’s DNA arose from contamination on the first knife profile. In that case the DNA giving the present signal could belong to anyone. Fifth, true LCN DNA profiling, not just DNA profiling that happens to fall into the low template range, is always done at least twice, because of alleles dropping in and out. Why make the assumption that alleles dropping in/out will not be observed here?

Finally, there is one thing that has always bothered me about the knife. As one travels from left to right along the x-axis the peaks are at least as tall on the right hand side as on the left. This strikes me as odd if the knife were cleaned with bleach. What does your common sense tell you?

EDT
The procedure that Stefanoni used to amplify the DNA was most certainly not "commonly accepted." Whether or not Stefanoni used commonly accepted procedures subsequent to this portion of the work was disputed by Tagliabracci.

 

[Chris_Halkides]

things not said

pilot padron,

It is what Ms. Vogt did not say that I find as curious as what she did. The bra clasp is, IMO, the single strongest piece of evidence against either Knox or Sollecito. It was destroyed by improper storage, and yet Ms. Vogt does not mention it. Why not?

 

[RWVBWL]

Cocaine dealer Curatolo?

It appears Curatolo told the cops initially that he saw nothing.

"We have immediately asked the police and the police if we saw something - he said, using the plural in the name of his friends and acquaintances, visitors to the square Grimana - but we said no, we did not know anything."

http://translate.google.com/transla...tp://www.corrieredellumbria.it/news.asp?id=13
http://www.corrieredellumbria.it/news.asp?id=13

Hi RoseMontague,
Thanks for the quote above and the links!

Question for anyone:
How come Antonio Curatolo and his friends and acquintances, visitors to the square Grimana, did not hear the loud, prolonged scream that Nara Capezzali heard thru double-glazed windows? You know, the one that made her hair stand on end.

On a cold, windy night, surely Antonio must have heard this scream. Heck, the guy did not even have any windows or walls for that matter, to block out the sound of this scream, unlike Nara. And what about his friends and acquintances? Not a soul among 'em heard this scream and relayed this info to the police when 1st questioned after Meredith Kercher's body was discovered?

But strangely, there was no mention, that I am aware of, made of this during Saturdays court hearing.

Why not?

Why is the defense not playing hardball with this witness?
They did not attack him in the 1st trial, and unless I am mistaken, apparently did not do so to their full ability once again in this long awaited court hearing. What gives?

Now I come to find out Antonio Curatolo has been dealing cocaine also?
See the link that RoseMontague posted above.
Might Curatolo have been usin' it too?

Once more I have to question why have the defense not destroyed this man's testimony once and for all when given the opportunity?

 

[piktor]

It doesn't make sense to return it to the draw. The knife is still an important piece of evidence because even though it probably never left the apartment Sollecito still felt the need to lie about it.

It does make sense to return it.

The knife was not Sollecito's. It came with with the rented apartment. It was part of the inventory Sollecito signed when he rented the apartment.

 

[babycondor]

It does make sense to return it.

The knife was not Sollecito's. It came with with the rented apartment. It was part of the inventory Sollecito signed when he rented the apartment.

Surely you jest.

 

[Chris_Halkides]

common knife

It does make sense to return it.

The knife was not Sollecito's. It came with with the rented apartment. It was part of the inventory Sollecito signed when he rented the apartment.

Piktor,

It is a cheap, easily-replaceable knife, if I am not mistaken.

 

[RWVBWL]

It does make sense to return it.

The knife was not Sollecito's. It came with with the rented apartment. It was part of the inventory Sollecito signed when he rented the apartment.

Hi Piktor the photoshop wizard
I am going to try and see this from a guilter's point of view, pretending I am Raffaele:

Involved in a bloody murder with my cute American girlfriend of only 6 days, I will try to throw the cops off our trail, so to simulate a break-in, I won't steal the laptop computers and hide or throw them away.

But the knife, well the knife I had better bring back home, since my landlord might come over soon and itemize everything.

Right, Piktor, right...

Edited by kmortis: 

Removed cross-forum posting

 

[HumanityBlues]

To me , it always really reveals a lot about irrational thought processes when an argument must resort to constantly claiming conspiracy in every Italian person and their second cousins as the main reason a young American female has been unanimously convicted of a horrific murder in Perugia.

However, now we get the ultimate territorial stretch of this omnipresent conspiracy cockroach.

It has according to the latest bit of wisdom quoted above, imbedded itself so deeply in one's psychological make up that now this invisible evil veil of all encompassing voo doo conspiracy is even ridiculously prolongated to proclaim a preposterous novel prediction.

Soon, even the dreaded, derided, yet constantly carefully digested and quoted voices of reason at PMF will also eventually embrace this revered (but ever so irrational) conspiracy crutch to explain the unlikely appearance of a statistically highly improbable future outcome.

And yet it's totally plausible. That's what is so crazy about it!

 

[Draca]

It does make sense to return it.

The knife was not Sollecito's. It came with with the rented apartment. It was part of the inventory Sollecito signed when he rented the apartment.

Piktor,

You just made it into my funny guilter comments file.

? - do you really believe that? I just don't see how the risk or keeping a murder weapon vs. a landlord inventory even computes.

 

[bri1]

Have I got this right; Hellmann has so far appointed the geneticist (knife and Meredith’s bra clasp) and allowed defence witnesses who testified that “our” disco was closed and or “our” buses were not running the night Meredith was murdered, essentially to raise reasonable doubt with Mr Curatolo’s testimony and of course Mr Curatolo’s testimony on Saturday?

The appeal is adjourned until 21st May at which point the independent report will be submitted to the court?

In addition, does anyone have view regarding why Hellmann has not ruled on the rest of the evidence that is disputed in Raffaele and Amanda’s appeal submissions?

Has media (Pisa, Dempsey or Vogt for example) spoken to any members of the jury about their views of the appeal so far?

Has the media (Pisa, Dempsey or Vogt or others) spoken to either of the appeal judges?

Is the media regarded as reliable in the context of this case now?

CoulsdonUK, sorry if I'm misreading your last sentence here, but many guilters have been saying similar things recently, that we shouldn't be trusting recent news reports of leaks, and we should wait until evidence is presented in court. I agree that we should withold judgement until that time, and that we should be cautious about recent news reports. However, (and again, this isn't really aimed at you, because you've always been fairly circumspect about tabloid speculation) it is very rich coming from most guilters, who made up their minds based on a media smear campaign and haven't had it changed by the fact that the 'evidence' hasn't been presented in court!

 

[pilot padron]

pilot padron,

You are making a number of assumptions.think that the laboratory in which the work was done, was not yet accredited, so your premise is already open to question. Second, whether the blade or the handle was sampled is not yet entirely clear, if I follow the discussion here and elsewhere correctly. Third, even if it were the blade that was sampled, how can anyone be certain where it was sampled? Perhaps the independent scientists chose to sample it elsewhere, a perfectly reasonable thing to do. Fourth, let us assume for the sake of argument that Meredith’s DNA arose from contamination on the first knife profile. In that case the DNA giving the present signal could belong to anyone. Fifth, true LCN DNA profiling, not just DNA profiling that happens to fall into the low template range, is always done at least twice, because of alleles dropping in and out. Why make the assumption that alleles dropping in/out will not be observed here?

Finally, there is one thing that has always bothered me about the knife. As one travels from left to right along the x-axis the peaks are at least as tall on the right hand side as on the left. This strikes me as odd if the knife were cleaned with bleach. What does your common sense tell you?

EDT
The procedure that Stefanoni used to amplify the DNA was most certainly not "commonly accepted." Whether or not Stefanoni used commonly accepted procedures subsequent to this portion of the work was disputed by Tagliabracci.

As usual, your post is well reasoned, well researched, well documented, and causes me to re-think (but not necessarily revise) some of the points I made.

Initially, please accept that my comments about vertical gardening that you previously graciously 'noted' are intended to be light hearted, and not to be a denial that you and 'the gardener' are admittedly more technically trained than I in many of these areas.

Having said that and returning to my 'common sense' approach, may I address your salient points.

1) You previously answered a post of mine by only informing me that the term 'examine' was more encompassing than I inferred.
My reply to your attack on my assumption of 'accreditation' and 'commonly accepted' would be a mirror of what you told me in that post.
(imitation is indeed highest form of flattery)

2) I deliberately avoided stating whether my small 'batch' (common sense terminology) of dna was from handle or blade for precisely the reason you now use as rebuttal, and for that reason attach little significance to your reply.

3) 'Where' on the knife that was sampled is merely an extension of my (2) above

4) With all due respect, and admittedly again from 'authority', at this stage of available disclosures, I would not think the '*flying* dna' explanation is worthy of discussion here

5) How can something possibly ever be done *twice* if only enough raw data is in existence for only *once* ? (common sense)

6)Again, admittedly from authority, I accept that there was a strong bleach odor as well as abrasion (terminology weakness acknowledged) marks indicating cleaning, and I plead insufficient familiarity to address resultant LDN pattern

In summary:

1) Yours, as well as the gardener's, technical expertise exceeds any common sense approach for terminology, etcccc.

But I personally feel that the technical experts that are now involved (to definitely include Dr Stefanoni) are the real 'experts' with the *real first hand* exposure.
And to whom I will grant highest credibility in technical disclosures and final determinations after May 21.

2) Possibly my strongest, (and my final) *common sense* approach is that the person closest to knowledge about where this extremely over analyzed murder weapon had been...and what was present on its blade and handle ....deemed necessary to disclose........

Raffie's *spontaneous* voluntary, unsolicited absolutely absurd well documented and "not water boarded from 1500+ hours of interrogation" nor 'forced to imagine' statement, about "pricking Meredith" while cooking after he found out knife was being tested says more to me than all of the above vertical gardening musings about dna

PS:*spontaneous* statements terminology is deliberate and not to indicate 'in Court', but to remind you of yet unanswered questions (2=several ??) which you also chide others (of the opposite persuasions) of so frequently yet seem to have overlooked yourself ??

 

[pilot padron]

And yet it's totally plausible. That's what is so crazy about it!

May I respectfully re arrange your interesting observation to read....

"And yet those who consider this to be totally plausible *may* indeed be crazy"


Is it really sane to see an Anti American conspiracy *as stated in the post*....... ....
......"to include every Italian and their second cousins"

 

[Chris_Halkides]

spontaneous declarations

.....*several* ????

Really ???

May I impose on your acknowledged above average accuracy when making factual statements about the case, and please help me find more than:
the *one* made on 6feb2009,
and *one* made on 3dec2009

pilot padron,

In a story dated 3/28/2009 Nick Pisa reported that Mr. Sollecito made a spontaneous declaration about Rudi Guede. I am not sure of the exact date on which this transpired. In December 2009 he declared that he did not kill Meredith. Apparently quoting Andrea Vogt in a story from 9 May, The Machine at True Justice for Meredith Kercher on 7/22/09 noted, "'Those bare footprints cannot be mine,' said Sollecito in a spontaneous statement…." The date of this statement was not given at TJfM. On 6 February 2009 Ann Wise reported for ABC on Mr. Sollecito, ''... I have nothing to do with all of this. I am not a violent person. Anyone who knows me can tell you that I find it difficult to hurt a fly.'" There is also an Andrea Vogt story that may or may not refer to 6 Feb (it was last updated 28 Feb 2009). Hope this helps. Someone else will have to respond to your comments about DNA for now.

EDT
A second story dated Sunday 29 March 2009 also reported the comments on Guede is found here. Based on this link and Mr. Pisa's story, it appears to me that the statement Sollecito made about Guede was made on 3/28/2009.

 

[pilot padron]

pilot padron,

In a story dated 3/28/2009 Nick Pisa reported that Mr. Sollecito made a spontaneous declaration about Rudi Guede. I am not sure of the exact date on which this transpired. In December 2009 he declared that he did not kill Meredith. Apparently quoting Andrea Vogt in a story from 9 May, The Machine at True Justice for Meredith Kercher on 7/22/09 noted, "'Those bare footprints cannot be mine,' said Sollecito in a spontaneous statement…." The date of this statement was not given at TJfM. On 6 February 2009 Ann Wise reported for ABC on Mr. Sollecito, ''... I have nothing to do with all of this. I am not a violent person. Anyone who knows me can tell you that I find it difficult to hurt a fly.'" There is also an Andrea Vogt story that may or may not refer to 6 Feb (it was last updated 28 Feb 2009). Hope this helps. Someone else will have to respond to your comments about DNA for now.

EDT
A second story dated Sunday 29 March 2009 also reported the comments on Guede is found here.

Your research and documentation above concerning the relatively minor point I raised is appreciated.

However, not to belabor, but after reading what you graciously provide, it appears to me that although there have been several *reports* about Raffie's spontaneous statements, I still detect only the two (2) actual statement's themselves, made on the Court dates (not report dates) I originally cited.

You decision about the dna discussion is understood and accepted.

 

[Katody Matrass]

Your research and documentation above concerning the relatively minor point I raised is appreciated.

However, not to belabor, but after reading what you graciously provide, it appears to me that although there have been several *reports* about Raffie's spontaneous statements, I still detect only the two (2) actual statement's themselves, made on the Court dates (not report dates) I originally cited.

It's because you didn't actually read the links Chris listed for you.

 

[Chris_Halkides]

I think four declarations counts as several

Your research and documentation above concerning the relatively minor point I raised is appreciated.

However, not to belabor, but after reading what you graciously provide, it appears to me that although there have been several *reports* about Raffie's spontaneous statements, I still detect only the two (2) actual statement's themselves, made on the Court dates (not report dates) I originally cited.

You decision about the dna discussion is understood and accepted.

pilot padron,

Ann Wise reported on 9 May 2009, "When the hearing resumed after a break, Sollecito made a statement to the court, as defendants are allowed to do in Italy. Sollecito told the judges and jurors that the 'the footprints are absolutely not mine.'" This happened after Rinaldi's presentation.

In a story I previously linked, Marco Giannangeli wrote, "He claimed: 'This witness could not have seen me with Rudy Guede because as I have already said I do not know Rudy Guede and I have never met him before in my life.
'Also the day he claims to have seen us altogether is impossible as I was somewhere else and that will be proved as the trial continues.'" The story (which came out on Sunday 29 March 2009) uses the word "yesterday" at least one time. I do not see how this could refer to any other trial date besides 28 March 2009. By my reckoning, this gives a minimum of four spontaneous declarations.

 

[RoseMontague]

Hi RoseMontague,
Thanks for the quote above and the links!

Question for anyone:
How come Antonio Curatolo and his friends and acquintances, visitors to the square Grimana, did not hear the loud, prolonged scream that Nara Capezzali heard thru double-glazed windows? You know, the one that made her hair stand on end.

On a cold, windy night, surely Antonio must have heard this scream. Heck, the guy did not even have any windows or walls for that matter, to block out the sound of this scream, unlike Nara. And what about his friends and acquintances? Not a soul among 'em heard this scream and relayed this info to the police when 1st questioned after Meredith Kercher's body was discovered?

But strangely, there was no mention, that I am aware of, made of this during Saturdays court hearing.

Why not?

Why is the defense not playing hardball with this witness?
They did not attack him in the 1st trial, and unless I am mistaken, apparently did not do so to their full ability once again in this long awaited court hearing. What gives?

Now I come to find out Antonio Curatolo has been dealing cocaine also?
See the link that RoseMontague posted above.
Might Curatolo have been usin' it too?

Once more I have to question why have the defense not destroyed this man's testimony once and for all when given the opportunity?

The article states that he was using heroin and dealing cocaine, I have not seen the cocaine reference before but will keep my eyes open for confirmation.

Frank has confirmed that Curatolo said he was asked if he had seen something by the cops and said no (in the comments of his latest post). Frank also said that the prosecution tried to waive Napoleoni but the judge called her to testify anyway. That is interesting and I wonder what information the judge wants to explore.

 

[RoseMontague]

Piktor,

You just made it into my funny guilter comments file.

? - do you really believe that? I just don't see how the risk or keeping a murder weapon vs. a landlord inventory even computes.

I always thought this argument about being afraid of a landlord inventory as a reason to return the murder weapon to the drawer was amusing as well. The risk/reward is disproportionate in the extreme. I don't know if some here have seen the Captain Amanda post by a poster named steamtray at the public forum of IP, but this is a good example of that line of reasoning, in my opinion:

the Massei Court’s narrative of the case requires that we accept two entirely distinct Amandas.

The first, Captain Amanda, is the mastermind, who thinks of everything. She knows how to stage break-ins to disguise the real motive of her vicious attack. She is brutal and cunning and she thinks ahead. She plies Raphaelle with that well-known toxic combination of marijuana and comic books to get him heated and aggressive. She packs a murder weapon in her oversized bag. At the murder scene she moves glass around, takes rocks from the outside and moves them inside, lays down towels to cover footprints, even scrubs the house clean of her and Raffaele’s DNA while cleverly leaving traces of Guede everywhere. Brilliant thinking, to set up the black guy. She even has the foresight to call Meredith’s phone to make sure it had not been discovered. She simply thinks of everything, because that’s what a ringleader does. She is prepared, chillingly competent, and thorough.

But then, once the crime is discovered, she suddenly and inexplicably morphs into Hapless Amanda. This girl can’t do anything right and doesn’t have a clue how to protect herself. While everyone else is lawyering up, she hangs around trying to help. Her every move makes her look guilty. She talks when she shouldn’t, eats pizza instead of attending memorials, smiles at the wrong times and just doesn’t get it that in order to look innocent you have to grieve properly. She even does “cartwheels” right in front of the police. In fact, she’s so dumb that under questioning she forgets that she set up Guede, and implicates her boss instead. She can’t even figure out how to dress for court. Somehow, some way, the shrewd, ruthless killer who persuaded a six-day old boyfriend and a virtual stranger to join her in a complex ritual sex crime, now can’t tie her own shoes.

It’s such an incredible story because….well, because it’s such an incredible story.

I think the returning the knife to the drawer should belong in the Hapless Amanda part.

 

[Chris_Halkides]

fifth instance of a spontaneous declaration

To all,

From what I can gather here and from Ms. Vogt's article also linked above, Mr. Sollecito also made a spontaneous declaration on or about 28 February 2009 concerning his interrogation.

 

[bri1]

The article states that he was using heroin and dealing cocaine, I have not seen the cocaine reference before but will keep my eyes open for confirmation.

Frank has confirmed that Curatolo said he was asked if he had seen something by the cops and said no (in the comments of his latest post). Frank also said that the prosecution tried to waive Napoleoni but the judge called her to testify anyway. That is interesting and I wonder what information the judge wants to explore.

Rose, this is really intersting, this issue of Napoleoni not turning up to court. It gives me hope that Hellmann isn't going to let himself be pushed around by the prosecution. It's still a big leap to overturning the conviction, but encouraging, still.