Continuation Part 2 - Discussion of the Amanda Knox case

[Antony]

I can concur with this as that's exactly where I am. I'm still on the fence about if AK and RS are guilty, though I am leaning towards innocent, mostly because I can't get a straight answer from those that support the guilty side. I keep getting fobbed off to go and read the 45k of posts in these threads, or just ignored. I see other questions I'd really like answers to being asked, and again the answers are never given, or statements are made and never backed up with evidence when challenged. One of the few things I have had answered that I asked of those pushing for guilt, was answered with evidence by an innocent supporter. So yes, the way that posters like Pilot, Fuji, and Alt-F4 have been behaving in this thread (and others in the one in the CT Forum) has started to move me towards innocence almost entirely based on the fact that those pushing for innocence can actually produce a plausable and consistant narritive of what likely happened and I have yet to see the same from those pushing guilt.

Interesting comparison of the 2 sides from a neutral point of view. But to paraphrase your post, it seems that:

- the innocence side are winning all the arguments and the pro-guilt side is simply not engaging;
- the innocence side are able to say what we believe happened on Nov 1 2007, while the pro-guilt side can't.

If that's a fair paraphrase, then it begs the question: why are you still on the fence? What would it take to convince you that the Perugia police, prosecution and trial court got it completely wrong as far as Knox and Sollecito are concerned?

And I suppose for balance I should add: what development would you see as still possible that would convince you the other way?

 

[Matthew Best]

But to paraphrase your post, it seems that:

- the innocence side are winning all the arguments and the pro-guilt side is simply not engaging;
- the innocence side are able to say what we believe happened on Nov 1 2007, while the pro-guilt side can't.

If that's a fair paraphrase, then it begs the question: why are you still on the fence?

Just because nobody here is prepared to put forward any convincing arguments for guilt, that doesn't mean that there are no such convincing arguments in existence. It just means that nobody here is putting them forward.

It might well be a reflection on the arguers, rather than the argument itself.

 

[Danceme]

Danceme,

I am on the fence with respect to Nara because I respect Frank's reporting. However, the discussion about Nara evolved into criticism of Candace Dempsey for supposedly making claims about Nara that were not sourced. Ms. Dempsey made it clear that she had used the Oggi article and Paul Ciolino. The question of sourcing (brought up by Alt+F4, IIRC) was my initial interest. However, even if Nara seems mentally fine to Frank, it is possible that she has become reclusive, as Mr. Ciolino relayed. In other words, I don't think it follows that Oggi and Paul lied about that. Also, Nara could be mentally healthy and of good hearing and her testimony would still be open to question.

Frank saw Nara last week. She's an elderly woman, a widow living alone, maybe she doesn't go out too much but that doesn't mean she's reclusive.
Her testimony consisted of two things, she heard a scream, and she heard footsteps from more than one individual, pretty simple. As Frank points out, she never claimed to hear a woman's voice, or an english word. She never claims to see anyone. If she was making something up I think she would have inserted something, anything, to point to a female running away, to point to Amanda in other words. She didn't. She heard what she heard,she told the truth, and every innocenter still tries to hang her out to dry. Frank is the only one who sees her testimony as positive toward Amanda and Raffaele.
Why defend the lies of Paul and Oggi, whichever of the two started that rumour in the first place?

 

[Justinian2]

Wrong, he's doing life for murder, not receiving kickbacks.

John J. "Zip" Connolly, Jr. is a former FBI agent, currently incarcerated in a federal penitentiary for racketeering and obstruction of justice convictions stemming from his relationship with James J. "Whitey" Bulger, Steve Flemmi, and the Winter Hill Gang. He is the brother-in-law of Arthur Gianelli who is married to Mary Ann Moore, the sister of Connolly's wife Elizabeth.

State police and other federal officers had been trying to imprison Whitey Bulger for years, but somehow Bulger always avoided getting caught. As the FBI handler for Bulger and Flemmi, Connolly (who had grown up in the Old Harbor Housing Project with Bulger) had been protecting them from prosecution by feeding him information about possible attempts to catch them.

Connolly was indicted on December 22, 1999 on charges of alerting Bulger and Flemmi to investigations, falsifying FBI reports to cover their crimes, and accepting bribes. In 2000, he was charged with additional racketeering related offenses. He was convicted on the racketeering charges in 2002 and sentenced to 10 years in prison.[1]

You didn't understand, did you?

The point is, the FBI agent thought it was part of his job to get close to the bad guys via another bad guy? Did Mignini think it was part of his job to get close to the bad guys via another bad guy (Guede)?

The second point is that the FBI agent got ten years for letting his informant do too much. Mignini would be in real trouble if it were found that he let Guede go free and thus caused the murder of Kercher.

 

[Antony]

Just because nobody here is prepared to put forward any convincing arguments for guilt, that doesn't mean that there are no such convincing arguments in existence. It just means that nobody here is putting them forward.

It might well be a reflection on the arguers, rather than the argument itself.

This is true, which is why I followed with 2 more questions as to what it would take for PhantomWolf to be convinced one way or the other.

 

[PhantomWolf]

Interesting comparison of the 2 sides from a neutral point of view. But to paraphrase your post, it seems that:

- the innocence side are winning all the arguments and the pro-guilt side is simply not engaging;
- the innocence side are able to say what we believe happened on Nov 1 2007, while the pro-guilt side can't.

If that's a fair paraphrase, then it begs the question: why are you still on the fence? What would it take to convince you that the Perugia police, prosecution and trial court got it completely wrong as far as Knox and Sollecito are concerned?

And I suppose for balance I should add: what development would you see as still possible that would convince you the other way?

Matthew put it pretty well. Judging something purely on one side of the story is not a good idea, both sides need to be presented and evaluated. My problem is that what little one side has currently presented is very hard to evaluate without doing huge amounts of wading through what is often meaningless arguement.

The answer to what will convince me is evidence. The problem is that those that claim to have evidence don't seem to be inclined to share it in more than a "I said it so it's true". When I requested links to images of the area below the broken window, I was told in no uncertain terms that what I was asking for was inconsiderate to the victim's family and that I should just take the poster's word for what was in them. This I found very strange considering that there are photos of the actual murder room easily available, something I would consider to be far more distressing than photos of a bit of dirt under a window.

So I am left in a position where I have disputing positions and haven't got the evidence to determine which is true and which isn't.

Was there glass under the window? I have heard different claims on this.
Was there glass on the clothing in the room? Again different claims.
Was the room with the broken window disturbed before the police arrived?
Where there marks on the wall? Again this is in dispute.

These aren't the only questions, but often my knowledge of the case is not enough to even know the right questions to ask.

So in the end while I find the claims of innocent compelling, I have to note that there are people who I generally respect here that don't, and as such I have to wonder what I am missing that they find compelling towards guilt. The problem is trying to discover that.

 

[Kestrel]

Guede could have been an informant. But it's more likely that Perugia doesn't bother to prosecute most minor crimes because the courts are completely overloaded.

 

[capealadin]

It's one thing to quote an article. It's wrong to continue to do so, when it is disputed from someone spoke to the person, and refuted it. It's quite mind boggling, when someone from your side disputes it, and still the article is given credence.

Is it no wonder, that credibility is completely lost..when even in the face of being incorrect, people stick to their guns. I would have given credit, and bravi, for being able to understand that sometimes newspapers, magazines get things wrong.

Guilters get hammered when repeating articles not to your liking..and which are called tabloids, etc. Why doesn't this get the same?

 

[PhantomWolf]

Nobody is stupid enough to totally destroy the contents of three disk drives. Even if you accidentally format the drives, the data can be recovered. If you deliberately remove the partitioning, the data can be recovered. If the disk drive is physically destroyed, the data can be recovered. About the only way to ruin the drives is to run a specialized program or use a magnet. Those drives had to be deliberately destroyed.

Could you please source these claims? Previously I have been told that the drives were plugged into the wrong voltage, meaning that the circuit boards and possibly drive motors fried, but this would mean that the platters still contained the information, which would seem to make more sense since I seem to recall the claim being made that the defense either did, or requested that the disks be sent to the US to see if anything could be found on them.

 

[Draca]

Off the top of my head:


- Ground undisturbed under the window
Do you have a photo of this?



- No signs of shoe scuff marks on wall
This photo shows what looks like scuff marks on top of a window ledge




- Broken glass all along windowsill
This photo shows one side of the windowsill basically cleared





- Absence of broken glass under window
Do you have a photo of this?



- Absence of Guede's genetic material from Filomena's room
They only took a few samples, they didn't even find Filomena's DNA



- No signs of dirt from ground below found in Filomena's room
This photo show what looks like dust from the outside wall after someone stepped on the clothes.




- Unlikelihood as point of entry (or even as only ATTEMPTED point of entry)
We can't read RG's mind to know his reasoning



- Nothing of value taken from Filomena's room
I responded to this one here:
http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showpost.php?p=7073885&postcount=6494



- Broken glass found on top of items in Filomena's room
Do you have a photo of this?
Filomena said there was glass under the clothes also.

Some answers for Fuji, Draca

 

[Chris_Halkides]

not sure what you mean

Frank saw Nara last week. She's an elderly woman, a widow living alone, maybe she doesn't go out too much but that doesn't mean she's reclusive.
Her testimony consisted of two things, she heard a scream, and she heard footsteps from more than one individual, pretty simple. As Frank points out, she never claimed to hear a woman's voice, or an english word. She never claims to see anyone. If she was making something up I think she would have inserted something, anything, to point to a female running away, to point to Amanda in other words. She didn't. She heard what she heard,she told the truth, and every innocenter still tries to hang her out to dry. Frank is the only one who sees her testimony as positive toward Amanda and Raffaele.
Why defend the lies of Paul and Oggi, whichever of the two started that rumour in the first place?

What makes you certain that Oggi and Paul Ciolino are lying? I did not say that they did or did not, BTW. I have no dog in this fight.

 

[Dan O.]

Could you please source these claims? Previously I have been told that the drives were plugged into the wrong voltage, meaning that the circuit boards and possibly drive motors fried, but this would mean that the platters still contained the information, which would seem to make more sense since I seem to recall the claim being made that the defense either did, or requested that the disks be sent to the US to see if anything could be found on them.

Here is my latest take on the hard drives as posted on IIP:

According to Massei, the postal police used a "Write Protect" by "Logic Cube" to attempt cloning the hard drives. I presume he means WritePROtect by Logicube Forensics: <http://www.logicubeforensics.com/products/accessories/desktopwriteprotect.asp>. (They also produced a USB only version which may be discontinued: <http://www.logicubeforensics.com/support/products/products_26.asp>)

Massei says that cloning was attempted on 5 drives (two of Raffaele's, Amanda's, Meredith's and Patrick's). Raffaele's Mac and Patrick's drives were successfully cloned while the other three were destroyed. No changes were made to the setup when switching between drives.

Logicube offers their own adaptor cable for connecting to laptop drives though I couldn't find a picture to verify that it was keyed. There is also no guarantee that the official adaptor was used and not some home-brew kludge (except that this was part of a kit distributed to each field office so it is more reasonable to have been factory assembled)

A reasonable possibility for the cause of the failures would be hot plugging the drives in this adaptor. A high voltage on data lines before the drive is connected to the power and ground can potentially cause the line drivers to enter an SCR state where they act as a short across the power supply once it gets connected. This condition can quickly turn the insides of the driver chip into a molten pool of silicon and metals. The only way to avoid hot plugging is to shutdown and reboot the driving PC between drives. The defense consultant that witnessed this operation may know if the police followed the long procedure or took the short(cir)cut by hot plugging the drives.


Frying a hard drive by hot swapping is an honest mistake that any baffoone could make.

I was previously not aware that 5 drives were being tested at the time the three were fried. If the postal police had just successfully cloned one drive and then plug in the next drive and it doesn't show up, they would have no reason to suspect their own equipment. Eventually, they successfully cloned two of the drives and the others simply didn't show up on the test system. There would never be any warning flag that anything was actually wrong.

The postal police may not have even known that hot swapping was bad in this situation. They were just following instructions. If the "experts" that produced those instructions didn't make it clear that the drives could not be hot swapped, the grunts doing the work would assume that the drive can be handled like any USB, Firewire or SATA drive.
​

Two of the drives were recovered by swapping the fried logic card on the back of the drive with a good card from another similar drive. (Note that this is a risky procedure and should only be attempted at home when the contents of the drive are not valuable enough to pay for professional recovery. This is likely the first thing the pros will try but they have the experience to know how not to make the problem worse.) with Amanda's drive, they didn't have an exact replacement for the logic card so the used one that was close (but not close enough).

I've heard from one of the professionals in this field that some drives can respond to this situation by scrambling the existing data on the drive. I suspect that this would be caused by the bad block replacement algorithm.

After the Italian "experts" finished doing what the did, they then sent Amanda's drive to two different professional data recovery services (the last one was in the US). When these recovery attempts failed, the defense requested that the drive be sent back to the manufacturer. The court refused this request.

 

[Chris_Halkides]

Meredith was already dead by this time

It's one thing to quote an article. It's wrong to continue to do so, when it is disputed from someone spoke to the person, and refuted it. It's quite mind boggling, when someone from your side disputes it, and still the article is given credence.

Is it no wonder, that credibility is completely lost..when even in the face of being incorrect, people stick to their guns. I would have given credit, and bravi, for being able to understand that sometimes newspapers, magazines get things wrong.

Guilters get hammered when repeating articles not to your liking..and which are called tabloids, etc. Why doesn't this get the same?

Capealadin,

This comment appears to be addressed to me. Let’s talk about credibility for a minute. You comment at a site (now two sites) where
a) SomeAlibi and The Machine still describe Raffaele’s DNA on the clasp as “abundant,” despite SA’s having been told otherwise, with citations.
b) Jackie claims that Amanda was intimate with Daniel after she began to date Raffaele, despite having seen a portion of Daniel’s witness statement in the original Italian.
I could go on, but there is no reason to do so. Commenters at these two sites simply refuse to learn. That is why I don’t take everything that comes from these sites as the gospel truth, any more than I would take a magazine article as being gospel truth.

I think that Frank may well be correct about Nara’s hearing and her mental health. The parts about Nara’s testimony that I find most uncertain are the date and the time. However, suppose Nara heard a scream around 11:30 on November 1st. I consider this to be irrelevant to the crime in question: Meredith was already dead for at least an hour and a half at this time. It has no more connection to the crime than Ms. Bene's seeing the man at the fountain.

 

[Justinian2]

So is Amanda being framed by the Italian judiciary and the Vatican because she's a heretic? Is that your argument for bringing the Vatican into it?

My argument:

Mignini/Vatican>Stamp out Satan>Find Minions>Get Minion to help>Enlist the help of Guede>Find Vampire>Whoops, Guede killed Vampire>Find patsy>Frame patsie>Take away alibi (frame Raffaele too)>Frame Amanda>Run a witch/heretic type trial>Put Amanda in solitary>Sue Amanda's parents and supporters.

 

[capealadin]

Very very dodgy, Halides. Let's stick with the facts that I posted. We were talking about claims made by Oggi and Ms. Dempsey, which Frank disputes. My post was referring to that, as you well know.

 

[Bruce Fischer]

Very very dodgy, Halides. Let's stick with the facts that I posted. We were talking about claims made by Oggi and Ms. Dempsey, which Frank disputes. My post was referring to that, as you well know.

I don't see how you can say that the response from halides1 was dodgy. You challenged members of a group that you disagree with to correct details of an article.

halides1 points out that you are the member of a group that consistently misrepresents the truth. Why do you simply ignore those allegations?

I think you only participate in one site now right? I know there are two PMF's now but I assume you still stand by the comments made on both. I guess it's good to have two PMF's. Now you can continue to pretend to preserve the memory of Meredith in two different places.

 

[Bruce Fischer]

What cause have you assigned me to? I have never contacted anyone in the Knox or Sollecito family. I have never traveled to Italy to question people. I have not donated 1 penny to the Knox defense fund. I have not purchased one book guilter or pro innocence. Though if Bruce ever offers signed copies of his book I'd buy one. Matter of fact I'd probably buy any authors book if they signed it, including those most people consider to be guilter authors.

Thanks Chris. Signed copies of Injustice in Perugia will be made available one week from today at: www.injusticeinperugia.org.

Signed books will be the same price. I have been surprised by the requests and or suggestions for signed books. These requests have led me to set up an online store so that these books can be made available.

 

[Kevin_Lowe]

So I am left in a position where I have disputing positions and haven't got the evidence to determine which is true and which isn't.

Was there glass under the window? I have heard different claims on this.

As I understand it, the police claim there was no glass under the window but do not claim they searched the area thoroughly, and took no photographs whatsoever of the area under the window that might prove or disprove the claim.

The pro-guilt argument is that lack of glass on the ground under the window proves that the window was not broken by a slow-mving projectile launched from outside. This is not backed up either by evidence or by physics. When glass is broken by a slow-moving projectile most of the glass goes in the direction of the projectile and a moderate amount of glass falls straight down. Glass doesn't fly backwards and I'm not sure why anyone ever thought it should.

Was there glass on the clothing in the room? Again different claims.

Filomena stated that there was glass under her clothes as well as on top of them. That pretty much puts an end to the prosecution story that the break-in must have been faked because all the glass was on top of her clothes.

Was the room with the broken window disturbed before the police arrived?

I'm not quite sure what aspect of the story this question refers to so I will leave it to others.

Where there marks on the wall? Again this is in dispute.

There are definitely things on the wall that could well be marks left by a climber. Whether they are or not can reasonably be disputed, however I don't think a rational and informed participant could claim that the state of the wall is inconsistent with someone climbing in.

These aren't the only questions, but often my knowledge of the case is not enough to even know the right questions to ask.

So in the end while I find the claims of innocent compelling, I have to note that there are people who I generally respect here that don't, and as such I have to wonder what I am missing that they find compelling towards guilt. The problem is trying to discover that.

I guess the PMF community and the Knox case are a bit like our own little Milgram experiment. It's frightening what conformity and confirmation bias can do to people you thought were rationalists.

 

[capealadin]

I don't see how you can say that the response from halides1 was dodgy. You challenged members of a group that you disagree with to correct details of an article.

halides1 points out that you are the member of a group that consistently misrepresents the truth. Why do you simply ignore those allegations?

I think you only participate in one site now right? I know there are two PMF's now but I assume you still stand by the comments made on both. I guess it's good to have two PMF's. Now you can continue to pretend to preserve the memory of Meredith in two different places.

It makes no difference how many sites I post on. I am talking about allegations made by Oggi and Ms Dempsey. I fail to see what you are not able to grasp. These allegations have been refuted, nay LAUGHED at, by Frank from perugia Shock. This is not about a group. This is about certain statements made, and I have pointed out, that they are false, according to Frank.

Kindly address the point made by me.

 

[Kevin_Lowe]

Could you please source these claims? Previously I have been told that the drives were plugged into the wrong voltage, meaning that the circuit boards and possibly drive motors fried, but this would mean that the platters still contained the information, which would seem to make more sense since I seem to recall the claim being made that the defense either did, or requested that the disks be sent to the US to see if anything could be found on them.

Justinian's just plain wrong as far as I'm aware.

The platters are still fine, the original court just ruled that since the evidence on the hard drives might benefit the defence and might benefit the prosecution, that there was no reason to repair them. A curious line of reasoning from my perspective.