Continuation Part 2 - Discussion of the Amanda Knox case

[RoseMontague]

You will need to explain why you think that the crumbled rock refutes a staged break-in.

Yes, this is definitely a Captain Amanda on the crumbled rock, it actually looks like a rock thrown through a window that clipped the bag and hit the floor. A really nice staging on that one. But a Hapless Amanda not to at least take something of Filomena's and dump it with their bloody clothes, if she is so smart with these tiny details why wouldn't she think the cops might find it odd that nothing was taken after the room was broken into? And the glass on top of the clothes, pretty dumb to think the cops might not find that strange, and then to point out to them the room looked like someone had trashed the room and nothing was taken. And if the room was trashed and the glass is on top of the clothes, then that would mean it was trashed before the room was broken into. Yes, that one is pretty stupid. It almost sounds like she has no clue how the room got that way, but maybe she just forgot she staged it.

Of course, it could be that the rock came through the window and landed exactly there and glass landed on top of stuff that was already there, but that would be too easy.

BTW, I just can't resist posting steamtray's Captain Amanda one more time.

Yes. And 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.

 

[PhantomWolf]

I agree that the location of the rock is not the primary focus of this video.

The video shows that the rock deflects to the right side of the window after hitting the internal shutter and is slowed to the point of no longer having much forward velocity at all, just as the real rock would have had to land where it apparently did. These are actions that you seem to be claiming that your experience with rocks says that a rock can't do, yet the video shows that a landing point a foot or so to the right of the window, and less than a foot from the wall is well within the bounds of the physics involved.

If you start demanding that the landing is exactly replicated then I'm going to have to list in in the same category as JFK CTs who demand that Oswell's exact shots are replicated. Demonstrating that the placement of the rock is not outside the normal bounds of the physics involved and replicating the exact throwing of the rock are way different things.

You will need to explain why you think that the crumbled rock refutes a staged break-in.

Nice side step of the burden of proof. You claimed that the rock couldn't end up where it did, I'm still waiting on your evidence for this that doesn't just rest on your appealing to your own lack of authority.

And how about while you are at it, you explain why someone staging the scene would put the rock in a paper bag to the right of the window, rather than directly in front of the window like most people would.

 

[Chris C]

The video shows that the rock deflects to the right side of the window after hitting the internal shutter and is slowed to the point of no longer having much forward velocity at all, just as the real rock would have had to land where it apparently did. These are actions that you seem to be claiming that your experience with rocks says that a rock can't do, yet the video shows that a landing point a foot or so to the right of the window, and less than a foot from the wall is well within the bounds of the physics involved.

If you start demanding that the landing is exactly replicated then I'm going to have to list in in the same category as JFK CTs who demand that Oswell's exact shots are replicated. Demonstrating that the placement of the rock is not outside the normal bounds of the physics involved and replicating the exact throwing of the rock are way different things.



Nice side step of the burden of proof. You claimed that the rock couldn't end up where it did, I'm still waiting on your evidence for this that doesn't just rest on your appealing to your own lack of authority.

And how about while you are at it, you explain why someone staging the scene would put the rock in a paper bag to the right of the window, rather than directly in front of the window like most people would.

Plus to top that off any staging from inside the room, would require the stager to pick the rock up again and put it in its final resting spot, since the stager would be in the way of the rock hitting the window and landing in the bag. Which means who ever threw the rock during the staging handled the rock more than once. How smart of whoever threw that rock to prevent their DNA from ending up on the rock after handling yet. How stupid that after they took all those precautions to keep their dna off the rock, that they would then track blood and dna back in the room.

 

[Kevin_Lowe]

Supposedly the rock landed in a paper bag which then toppled over a handbag. The paper bag was against the wall. So while this is a nice video... it fails to follow the scenario. But this was discussed to death in the first thread, the second thread and now possibly again in this one.

Are you absolutely sure you aren't drawing the target after you've fired the bullet here?

 

[Kaosium]

Agreed! They already had Knox's phone tapped and her phone records. They would have easily known that someone she messaged on the night of the murder had their card register near the home. Thus they would have also known the name of the person who it belonged too. As soon as they brought Patrick in they started questioning him about the location of his phone on the night of the murder. Which means that had his phone records prior to Knox's statement.

Thank you Chris! That was a piece of information that had eluded me/I'd forgotten. Was that part of the Daily Mail's 'soulless' article?

 

[Kaosium]

Are you absolutely sure you aren't drawing the target after you've fired the bullet here?

No, she was using a Mannlicher-Carcano with a 'defective' scope.

 

[Amazer]

The video shows that the rock deflects to the right side of the window after hitting the internal shutter and is slowed to the point of no longer having much forward velocity at all, just as the real rock would have had to land where it apparently did. These are actions that you seem to be claiming that your experience with rocks says that a rock can't do, yet the video shows that a landing point a foot or so to the right of the window, and less than a foot from the wall is well within the bounds of the physics involved.

You're almost there.... The rock has deflected, it now moves in a different direction. It lands in the bag, which according to Bruce Fisher is located against the wall . And this this is where it becomes interesting, because in order for the bag to now fall over the handbag, the rock needs to change direction again. How do you suppose it achieves that? Keep in mind that, as per Bruce Fisher, the rock still had enough forward velocity to topple the handbag and then lift the paper bag over the handbag.

If you start demanding that the landing is exactly replicated then I'm going to have to list in in the same category as JFK CTs who demand that Oswell's exact shots are replicated. Demonstrating that the placement of the rock is not outside the normal bounds of the physics involved and replicating the exact throwing of the rock are way different things.

The landing spot is the least interesting... it's the route it supposedly took which doesn't make sense.

Nice side step of the burden of proof. You claimed that the rock couldn't end up where it did, I'm still waiting on your evidence for this that doesn't just rest on your appealing to your own lack of authority

.
And I've explained it a number of times already... I can't help it that you refuse to go through the old posts.

And how about while you are at it, you explain why someone staging the scene would put the rock in a paper bag to the right of the window, rather than directly in front of the window like most people would.

I've got no idea. Perhaps the focus was on creating a point of entry and messed up on placing the rock?

 

[Kaosium]

You're almost there.... The rock has deflected, it now moves in a different direction. It lands in the bag, which according to Bruce Fisher is located against the wall . And this this is where it becomes interesting, because in order for the bag to now fall over the handbag, the rock needs to change direction again. How do you suppose it achieves that? Keep in mind that, as per Bruce Fisher, the rock still had enough forward velocity to topple the handbag and then lift the paper bag over the handbag.

I don't think so, all it had to do is shift the weight distribution in the bag enough so it would fall over. Kinda like putting a jug of milk in a half-full grocery bag and watching it topple.

 

[Dan O.]

For anyone still convinced that there will be significant blowback when a large projectile strikes a thin pane of glass, this video may be informative:

 

[Kaosium]

For anyone still convinced that there will be significant blowback when a large projectile strikes a thin pane of glass, this video may be informative:

Interesting...and absolute proof they were all on drugs in the Seventies. I half expected someone with a Scottish accent to start in with 'How can ya have any pudding if ya don't eat yer meat!!'

Looking again at those pictures on IIP Bruce Fisher just linked I gotta ask myself 'did Massei ever see those pictures?' He came up with that convoluted nonsense about the glass bouncing off the inner shutter to 'simulate' a rock being thrown from outside, when he 'hypothesized' it was in fact thrown from indoors, but just looking at those pictures it's readily apparent that's just plain silly. To get the glass all the way out to the blue rug in that pattern it wouldn't have gotten there by ricocheting, not like that.

Why on earth didn't he just say they threw the rock from outside when they were leaving? You'd think that's how anyone would have done it, so as to be able to flee if anyone heard the window break. No wonder Steve Moore still gets this mixed up, the Massei contention is mindlessly moronic.

 

[RWVBWL]

Raffaele and Amanda were out eating pizza I think, Raffaele got a call from the police asking him to come in to clear up a few points from his statement, Amanda decided to go with him. During Raffaele’s interview he changed his previous statement; in the mean time the police took advantage of the situation presented to them and started speaking to Amanda.

Hi CoulsdonUK,
From what I know, Raffaele and Amanda were at a friend of Raf's, eating dinner and trying to have a normal evening after the hectic days of questioning since Meredith had been murdered. Keep in mind that this was the same day, Monday, that Amanda had also went back to class, trying, I believe, to regain some of her former normalacy that was lost by Miss Kercher's tragic death.

This is, in my humble opinion, hardly the behavior of a brutal murderess who stabbed her roomate to death.

"Raffaele got the call around 10:00pm, according to Amanda.
We were at the apartment of a friend of his, who lived near Raffaele's, and we were having dinner with them, trying, I guess, to feel a little normal, when the police called Raffaele," she said later.

Raffaele asked for permission to finish eating before they came in, a request that didn't endear the couple to the officers, although they granted it.

Unbeknownst to Amanda, Giobbi had been suspicious of her since November 3, when police had brought her back to the cottage to lead them around. Giobbi said she 's acted strangely when he handed her protective shoe covers. Supposedly she made "la mossa", a seductive hip swivel performed by sex bombs in Italian musical comedies.

Giobbi also states that he was "mathematically sure" that he gave the order to bring both students in. "At that moment our attention was on Amanda and Raffaele. I decided we needed to hear them both together in order to study their reactions."*

I agree with Giobbi.
With 12 police officers assigned to the Meredith Kercher murder case present that night, it does appear that Giobbi's focus was on Amanda and Raffaele. Why not 1 single police officer thought it correct procedure or heck, even wise to audio and or video record this nights questioning escapes me however.

On the flip side of the coin, I also do not understand how any person guilty of even the slightest participation in a brutal, bloody murder would answer the phone call from the police late at night, or even head over there while under the influence of THC. Why not tell the police you can not come in tonight but will do so tomorrow? Surely a guilty person would have been slightly suspicious of all the questioning the police were putting Raffaele and Amanda under. But yet they did head over to the questura, and did answer questions, unrecorded, late at night, while stoned, without a lawyer present...

Of course our opinions may differ.
Cordially, RWVBWL

* - Reference: Murder in Italy, Author: Candace Dempsey, page 137

 

[PhantomWolf]

You're almost there.... The rock has deflected, it now moves in a different direction. It lands in the bag, which according to Bruce Fisher is located against the wall . And this this is where it becomes interesting, because in order for the bag to now fall over the handbag, the rock needs to change direction again. How do you suppose it achieves that? Keep in mind that, as per Bruce Fisher, the rock still had enough forward velocity to topple the handbag and then lift the paper bag over the handbag.

It obviously couldn't be that the clothing in the bag being soft and elastic was able to absorb the rock's momentum leaving it on the top of the bag, which then reacted to that strage anomolous force, gravity, by toppling over. No, couldn't be that, because otherwise you'd have thought of it too.

Care to provide the evidence that it couldn't have landed where it was found?

The landing spot is the least interesting... it's the route it supposedly took which doesn't make sense.

Really? Perhaps you just need to think about it again.

And I've explained it a number of times already... I can't help it that you refuse to go through the old posts.

You made the claim, it's not on me to read through 45k posts to locate your claim expertise when challenged on it, but once again you are shifting the burden of proof.

I've got no idea. Perhaps the focus was on creating a point of entry and messed up on placing the rock?

Ahh, the brillent version of Amanda that mansges to shatter rock particles about the rock's resting place to make it look like it landed there, but the dumb Amanda that didn't consider where to put it. Well done.

 

[LondonJohn]

You're almost there.... The rock has deflected, it now moves in a different direction. It lands in the bag, which according to Bruce Fisher is located against the wall . And this this is where it becomes interesting, because in order for the bag to now fall over the handbag, the rock needs to change direction again. How do you suppose it achieves that? Keep in mind that, as per Bruce Fisher, the rock still had enough forward velocity to topple the handbag and then lift the paper bag over the handbag.


The landing spot is the least interesting... it's the route it supposedly took which doesn't make sense.

"Back and to the left......... back and to the left........"

 

[Kaosium]

Of course our opinions may differ.
Cordially, RWVBWL

* - Reference: Murder in Italy, Author: Candace Dempsey, page 137

Thank you for finding that! I was looking for the reference to add to Halides1's post and I could not for the life of me find it, as I was looking in the trial testimony portion of the book.

 

[Chris C]

You're almost there.... The rock has deflected, it now moves in a different direction. It lands in the bag, which according to Bruce Fisher is located against the wall . And this this is where it becomes interesting, because in order for the bag to now fall over the handbag, the rock needs to change direction again. How do you suppose it achieves that? Keep in mind that, as per Bruce Fisher, the rock still had enough forward velocity to topple the handbag and then lift the paper bag over the handbag.


The landing spot is the least interesting... it's the route it supposedly took which doesn't make sense.

Well it definately wasn't thrown from inside. Yet either way the only way its going to make sense is if you actually had a video recording of that night to see every variable that happened when the rock broke the glass and struck the inside shutter.
There are so many factors to take account of. The only location of its landing that can be ruled out is towards the wall closet. Sense the inside shutter was in the way.

A list of some of the variables to take in account.
1. Velocity of Rock
2. Resistance generated against the rock by the inside shutter.
3. Angle of striking the inside shutter.
4. Rotational Speed of Rock
5. Location on the rock that struck the shutter. (different points of the rock striking the shutter would cause it to deflect differently since the rock isn't Round.
6. Weight of Rock

Thats just a few, and to top it off are we even sure the bag was in that location when the rock broke the window. For all we know that whole pile of clothes and the bag could have been pushed further to the side. It seems from Filomena's statements that she wasn't very forthcoming when it concerns her room and most of her statements could be taken both ways. Which is surprising for someone that should know exactly how her room should have looked.

 

[quadraginta]

<snip>

Thats just a few, and to top it off are we even sure the bag was in that location when the rock broke the window. For all we know that whole pile of clothes and the bag could have been pushed further to the side. It seems from Filomena's statements that she wasn't very forthcoming when it concerns her room and most of her statements could be taken both ways. Which is surprising for someone that should know exactly how her room should have looked.

Should we contrast this with the general consensus (among a certain faction) that Knox could hardly be expected to notice the only functioning lamp in her room was missing for perhaps as long as six days?

Why would we expect Filomena to possess an eidetic recollection of the placement of every item in her room while Knox cannot be expected to notice the absence of a unique furnishing which under most circumstances she would be using on a regular basis?

-------------------------------------------

"Wasn't very forthcoming" is such a loaded expression. It is usually intended to suggest that the person being described is willfully concealing something that they would rather not be revealed.

Was that your intent?

What motive do you believe would prompt Filomena to not be "forthcoming"? What do you think she was trying to conceal?

 

[babycondor]

What motive do you believe would prompt Filomena to not be "forthcoming"? What do you think she was trying to conceal?

Her lack of tidiness?

Maybe her answers are vague because she really doesn't have a photographic memory of the condition of her room each time she leaves the cottage.

 

[Kaosium]

Her lack of tidiness?

Maybe her answers are vague because she really doesn't have a photographic memory of the condition of her room each time she leaves the cottage.

Perhaps she was being pressed? Think of it for a second, what positive evidence do they actually have for their claim that the break-in was 'staged?' They have a lot of 'absence of evidence' where they didn't appear to look too hard or try to prove with pictures, such as the lack of Rudy's DNA, the unphotographed ground below they say devoid of glass, and the outside wall where they see no 'scuff marks' but when Dan-O posts that picture it sure seems like there might be one.

They don't even have a picture of the glass on the top of the clothes, which is dubious 'evidence' in and of itself, but about the best they would have. However they do have Filomena's statement that she was tidy, and her changing her mind on whether the outside shutters were closed. Incidentally, I think this is one of the few witness statements they say they didn't tape. Not that I think they took the gloves off or anything, but that perhaps were someone to view the tape, the progression of the statements and questions by the good PM might reveal just how important to him that Filomena wouldn't have left clothes piled near the window, she saw glass on top of them, and that outside shutter was closed as tight as she could manage in its condition...

 

[quadraginta]

Her lack of tidiness?

So, having made the claim of being normally fastidious she was afraid that she might be caught out in this incriminating deception by the investigators, and this prompted her to lie to them?

Had she made such a claim? Did anyone else offer any suggestions to that effect? I seem to recall that someone had.

Maybe her answers are vague because she really doesn't have a photographic memory of the condition of her room each time she leaves the cottage.

Perhaps. Did the prosecution offer the assertion that her memory was more than normally dependable concerning the state of her room when she had last left it?

Why is Chris C. suggesting that it should have been ... in almost the same sentence that he questions her honesty?

Do you disagree with his assessment of her statements to the investigators?

 

[RoseMontague]

So, having made the claim of being normally fastidious she was afraid that she might be caught out in this incriminating deception by the investigators, and this prompted her to lie to them?

Had she made such a claim? Did anyone else offer any suggestions to that effect? I seem to recall that someone had.




Perhaps. Did the prosecution offer the assertion that her memory was more than normally dependable concerning the state of her room when she had last left it?

Why is Chris C. suggesting that it should have been ... in almost the same sentence that he questions her honesty?

Do you disagree with his assessment of her statements to the investigators?

Where did Filomena make the claim that her room was nice and neat and clean when she left it?