Continuation Part 2 - Discussion of the Amanda Knox case

[HumanityBlues]

Well, if one "side" has a liar and the other (a) murderer(s), I'll stick with the purported liar, thanks.

You don't have to choose either actually.

 

[LondonJohn]

Well, if one "side" has a liar and the other (a) murderer(s), I'll stick with the purported liar, thanks.

What about if these "murderers" get acquitted on appeal? What "side" will you be on then......?

 

[HumanityBlues]

What about if these "murderers" get acquitted on appeal? What "side" will you be on then......?

He's presenting a false dilemma. By his own words, we're somehow supposed to believe that he's faced with the choice of supporting Amanda Knox or a crazy delinquent kid with an obvious history of crazy and disgusting behavior.

If he wants to defend this crazy online menace kid, he is of course free to do it for God knows what reason. But it's a big stretch to infer that Amanda Knox supporters made him to it. He doesn't have to support either, but is going out of his way to defend a kid who has obvious and very deep psychological issues.

 

[LondonJohn]

Photo of Glass Shard in Meredith's room:


[qimg]http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/imagehosting/thum_401664db053084a959.jpg[/qimg]

To my mind, this small piece of glass could very well have been in a fold in Guede's coat (especially if he'd placed a coat over the glass on the windowsill to assist his entry), or possibly in the top of his shoe. If so, it's likely that it became dislodged during the struggle with Meredith.

To me, I can't envisage any credible scenario where someone staging a burglary would have transported this piece of glass into Meredith's room. If a rock had been thrown against the window from the inside (with the window held open), the glass would have fallen onto the floor, and it's very unlikely that a piece of that size would have fallen onto the clothing of the person doing the staging. It's very unlikely that this piece of glass was carried to the room embedded in the sole of a shoe either, since there's no reason why it would have subsequently dislodged itself in Meredith's room.

In other words, I believe that the only way that someone could have accidentally picked up a piece of glass of this size from the broken window, then deposited it in Meredith's room, is if the person were clambering over the broken glass (or had placed clothing on top of the glass). IN other words, if the break in were real, rather than staged.

Of course, this is all contingent on the piece of glass having come from Filomena's window, rather than from some other source (broken drinking glass, bottle, etc). Analysis of the glass could (and should) have been done to determine its origin. Unsurprisingly, it appears that such analysis was not carried out by the "crack" forensics team. I wonder if the piece of glass has been preserved as an exhibit? At least it would be a bit harder to destroy in storage than most of the other important evidence (towels, bra strap.....).

 

[Kaosium]

Well, if one "side" has a liar and the other (a) murderer(s), I'll stick with the purported liar, thanks.

Fuji, what you're missing is that 'side' bought into a hoax wholesale over the case, and unlike others refuse to re-evaluate their opinion as the hoax is exposed. The idea that Amanda and Raffaele are murderers is ludicrous, what's really amazing is Mignini and company got people to believe it as long as they did.

It should not come as a surprise that they are easily taken in by a BS artist like this kid, can you believe the number of stalwarts over there who actually believed he was 'protested' by FOA because he changed his 'stance' on Amanda Knox? That should be a flashing neon sign of doom of just how much their perception of the case and the debate is skewed.

 

[PhantomWolf]

Well, if one "side" has a liar and the other (a) murderer(s), I'll stick with the purported liar, thanks.

Fuji, since you are back, perhaps you can help me with a few things.

I have been reading up on digestion and the scientific consensous is that it takes between 5 and 6 hours for the stomach to pass on a meal completely, with 50% of it being passed on within 3-4 hours.

Given this, can you explain how a meal start at 6:30-7pm (which the witnesses all disagree with) and a TOD of 11:50pm can be reconsiled with a situation where none of the food had started to be moved on from the stomach?

I have read Massei's report on the matter, but he doesn't actually explain it, he just waffles on about the 5-6 hours to empty the stomach and waves it away. Perhaps you can do a better job?

If so, perhaps you can help me peice together a plausable timelime of the murder for Guilt, like I did for Innocence.

Thanks.

 

[Sherlock Holmes]

Fuji, since you are back, perhaps you can help me with a few things.

I have been reading up on digestion and the scientific consensous is that it takes between 5 and 6 hours for the stomach to pass on a meal completely, with 50% of it being passed on within 3-4 hours.

Given this, can you explain how a meal start at 6:30-7pm (which the witnesses all disagree with) and a TOD of 11:50pm can be reconsiled with a situation where none of the food had started to be moved on from the stomach?

I have read Massei's report on the matter, but he doesn't actually explain it, he just waffles on about the 5-6 hours to empty the stomach and waves it away. Perhaps you can do a better job?

If so, perhaps you can help me peice together a plausable timelime of the murder for Guilt, like I did for Innocence.

Thanks.

Maybe this will help - Foaker's keep bringing this up, the 3 - 4 hour thing and the TOD, but it is not TOD your are looking for because no one except Amanda, Rudy and RS knows how long they actually tortured poor Meredith before they killed her - digestion stops at the first point of attack, that is why anywhere from 9:00 PM to after midnight is possible.

 

[Chris C]

To my mind, this small piece of glass could very well have been in a fold in Guede's coat (especially if he'd placed a coat over the glass on the windowsill to assist his entry), or possibly in the top of his shoe. If so, it's likely that it became dislodged during the struggle with Meredith.

To me, I can't envisage any credible scenario where someone staging a burglary would have transported this piece of glass into Meredith's room. If a rock had been thrown against the window from the inside (with the window held open), the glass would have fallen onto the floor, and it's very unlikely that a piece of that size would have fallen onto the clothing of the person doing the staging. It's very unlikely that this piece of glass was carried to the room embedded in the sole of a shoe either, since there's no reason why it would have subsequently dislodged itself in Meredith's room.

In other words, I believe that the only way that someone could have accidentally picked up a piece of glass of this size from the broken window, then deposited it in Meredith's room, is if the person were clambering over the broken glass (or had placed clothing on top of the glass). IN other words, if the break in were real, rather than staged.

Of course, this is all contingent on the piece of glass having come from Filomena's window, rather than from some other source (broken drinking glass, bottle, etc). Analysis of the glass could (and should) have been done to determine its origin. Unsurprisingly, it appears that such analysis was not carried out by the "crack" forensics team. I wonder if the piece of glass has been preserved as an exhibit? At least it would be a bit harder to destroy in storage than most of the other important evidence (towels, bra strap.....).

How the piece of glass got in there IMO is more in line with in which order events would have happened.

If you are staging a crime scene, breaking the window would be the last thing you do in the order of events. You risk someone hearing or seeing the window broken and calling the police. Thus screwing up your supposed body staging and getting you caught, afterall you just committed murder. So the piece of glass shouldn't be in there because you wouldn't break the window and then start cleaning and staging the body.

Whereas breaking the window before you enter is less of a risk since there is no dead body and you can wait outside to see if anyone heard the noise.

 

[Chris C]

Maybe this will help - Foaker's keep bringing this up, the 3 - 4 hour thing and the TOD, but it is not TOD your are looking for because no one except Amanda, Rudy and RS knows how long they actually tortured poor Meredith before they killed her - digestion stops at the first point of attack, that is why anywhere from 9:00 PM to after midnight is possible.

Seriously? Torture is now you defense! So your theory is they tortured her for 3 hours. So what signs of torture does her body have? Other than bruises and some defensive wounds, she was according to the "experts" still clothed when she was stabbed. So no rape accorded till after she was stabbed. So in your opinion the only way to get around the stomach contents is to claim they sat there and looked at her for 3 hours after she was subdued. Seriously the bruises on Meredith's body aren't even localized to suggest torture. Even the prosecution believes that Meredith's bruises happened when she was attacked. Afterall they put Curatolo on the witness stand to put Knox/Sollecito at the court so they could return to the apartment and do a spree attack on Meredith.

 

[Kaosium]

Maybe this will help - Foaker's keep bringing this up, the 3 - 4 hour thing and the TOD, but it is not TOD your are looking for because no one except Amanda, Rudy and RS knows how long they actually tortured poor Meredith before they killed her - digestion stops at the first point of attack, that is why anywhere from 9:00 PM to after midnight is possible.

Hrm. I was kinda hoping if the ones who think them guilty were to wean themselves off what Mignini presented and Massei approved they might move in direction of what the evidence says. It seems you're moving in the opposite direction. How is anyone supposed to believe they tortured Meredith for hours without leaving any evidence of that either?

 

[Kaosium]

Without knowing the whole of the defence thesis on this point it's hard to say, but possibly they were trying to argue that Meredith was attacked from behind by a single assailant, as opposed to attacked from the front by three, and hence thought they needed some explanation for defensive wounds on her hands.

The obvious counter-argument is that if someone is holding you from behind and stabbing at your neck then you could perfectly well get a defensive wound trying to shield your neck with your hand.

It's a puzzle. Possibly there is no more to it than that Introna genuinely thought the wounds on her hands looked more like the injuries you get from falling on to a piece of glass than like defensive injuries?

That could be the obvious thing I missed, it's just those two don't seem 'compatible' to me and its rather eerie finding Massei plausible and the defense expert's contention dubious. I for one would like to see what Introna actually said. There's some that think that the transcripts when released will finally reveal the sooper-sekrit evidence of Raffaele and Amanda's guilt that can be parsed from every comma. I on the other hand am of the opinion that it will just reveal more evidence of the disingenuous prosecution.

The part I really want to see is the testimonies of Napoleoni, Ficarra, Domino and Zugarini (or whatever) along with Giobbi. With everything related to that damned cartwheel redacted.

 

[Kestrel]

Maybe this will help - Foaker's keep bringing this up, the 3 - 4 hour thing and the TOD, but it is not TOD your are looking for because no one except Amanda, Rudy and RS knows how long they actually tortured poor Meredith before they killed her - digestion stops at the first point of attack, that is why anywhere from 9:00 PM to after midnight is possible.

It still doesn't solve the problem of AK and RS being elsewhere at the time the torture had to start. Or do you believe that Meredith was tortured remotely using telepathy?

 

[Sherlock Holmes]

Hrm. I was kinda hoping if the ones who think them guilty were to wean themselves off what Mignini presented and Massei approved they might move in direction of what the evidence says. It seems you're moving in the opposite direction. How is anyone supposed to believe they tortured Meredith for hours without leaving any evidence of that either?

Who knows how they tortured her, perhaps they locked Rudy in her room for a while, ask Amanda and company, I don't know, and neither do any of you. This murder perhaps could have happened quickly, or it could have played out over several hours, we just don't know and if you think you do, your lying to yourselves.

If Rudy was the lone attacker, the murder was likely over fairly quickly, but if all 3 were involved, I think it dragged out over quite a longer period.

 

[Dan O.]

Sherlock, What time do you believe Amanda and Raffaele could have gotten to the cottage that night? Which pieces of defense evidence are you explicitly rejecting to make this time work and why do you feel it is permissible to reject them? What prosecution evidence to you accept that places Amanda and Raffaele at the cottage that night?

 

[Chris C]

Who knows how they tortured her, perhaps they locked Rudy in her room for a while, ask Amanda and company, I don't know, and neither do any of you. This murder perhaps could have happened quickly, or it could have played out over several hours, we just don't know and if you think you do, your lying to yourselves.

If Rudy was the lone attacker, the murder was likely over fairly quickly, but if all 3 were involved, I think it dragged out over quite a longer period.

The problem with your theory is your starting with the end result and saying it could have happened this way, with nothing to support said theory. Thats the problem with trying to convict Knox/Sollecito of this crime.

The prosecutions theory is a group rape/murder involving Sollecito/Knox/Guede. They had their theory, then they wanted to find the evidence to support it. Instead of looking at evidence and following where it led them. The end result of the prosecutions evidence against Knox/Sollecito was 1 possible trace of sollecito's dna on a bra clasp with between 2 to 4 other unidentified people, a knife that doesn't match the murder weapon, and Knox's dna in her own bathroom. Everything else in this case the prosecution tried to show as guilt is nothing more than coulda.

 

[Kaosium]

Who knows how they tortured her, perhaps they locked Rudy in her room for a while, ask Amanda and company, I don't know, and neither do any of you. This murder perhaps could have happened quickly, or it could have played out over several hours, we just don't know and if you think you do, your lying to yourselves.

If Rudy was the lone attacker, the murder was likely over fairly quickly, but if all 3 were involved, I think it dragged out over quite a longer period.

Sherlock, what makes you think Mignini didn't do it? Or Curatolo? His 'alibi' just got broken!

I'm not kidding. If you don't need evidence for anything, then anyone could have done it, and anything could have happened. In that case I'll go with probability: what are the odds two little lovebunnies with no history of violence got out of their comfy bed on a cold November evening and murdered someone for no definable reason and then went back to bed and showed up the next morning/afternoon to call police?

Have you ever thought how silly it is to include a 'staged' break-in when after they were mistakenly arrested for a crime under a theory that required (more or less) a 'staged' break-in, it turns out the one who left his spore all over the scene is a break-in artist? Maybe their original theory was wrong! Just the other day someone posted an article where it was said police didn't think there was a burglary, thus maybe they were looking for 'signs' of a 'staged' break-in and they 'found' what they were looking for?

Sherlock, if you were going to 'stage' a break-in, what would you do that would actually be different than the process required to actually break into the damned place? All they have to do is go outside and throw a rock through the window and then make sure the latch to the window comes undone. It's about a three minute process. Think about it.

 

[Sherlock Holmes]

The problem with your theory is your starting with the end result and saying it could have happened this way, with nothing to support said theory. Thats the problem with trying to convict Knox/Sollecito of this crime.

The prosecutions theory is a group rape/murder involving Sollecito/Knox/Guede. They had their theory, then they wanted to find the evidence to support it. Instead of looking at evidence and following where it led them. The end result of the prosecutions evidence against Knox/Sollecito was 1 possible trace of sollecito's dna on a bra clasp with between 2 to 4 other unidentified people, a knife that doesn't match the murder weapon, and Knox's dna in her own bathroom. Everything else in this case the prosecution tried to show as guilt is nothing more than coulda.

You want to know something, take a look at the last 10 posts or so, this is why it is almost impossible to try and carry on a decent conversation with most of you Foaker's and I'm not just singling out you Chris, you are far from alone here. You like to talk about moving the goal posts, I would love to see a better example of that than what we have here. We were only talking about why the TOD could be as late as 11:30 or even later.........

 

[Antony]

You want to know something, take a look at the last 10 posts or so, this is why it is almost impossible to try and carry on a decent conversation with most of you Foaker's and I'm not just singling out you Chris, you are far from alone here. You like to talk about moving the goal posts, I would love to see a better example of that than what we have here. We were only talking about why the TOD could be as late as 11:30 or even later.........

You're missing the point. The only reason Mignini plumped for a ToD of 11:45 is that it was impossible to work AK's and RS's presence in the cottage into the narrative at an earlier time - given that he was relying on Curatolo's testimony putting them outside the cottage until ~11:30pm.

You appear to be accepting the proof that Meredith's digestion stopped before around 9:30pm, which means the attack began at this time. There is no point in you postulating a 2-hour+ torture session (for which there is no evidence whatsoever) in order to cling to a ToD of 11:45pm, because Amanda and Raffaele could not possibly have been there at 9:30pm.

Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. What you have is an extraordinary lack of evidence - just as you have always had for any accusation that Amanda and Raffaele had any part in the murder.

 

[Sherlock Holmes]

You're missing the point. The only reason Mignini plumped for a ToD of 11:45 is that it was impossible to work AK's and RS's presence in the cottage into the narrative at an earlier time - given that he was relying on Curatolo's testimony putting them outside the cottage until ~11:30pm.

You appear to be accepting the proof that Meredith's digestion stopped before around 9:30pm, which means the attack began at this time. There is no point in you postulating a 2-hour+ torture session (for which there is no evidence whatsoever) in order to cling to a ToD of 11:45pm, because Amanda and Raffaele could not possibly have been there at 9:30pm.

Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. What you have is an extraordinary lack of evidence - just as you have always had for any accusation that Amanda and Raffaele had any part in the murder.

No, I am not the one missing the point - I don't care if you believe Rudy did this all by himself, or had help with Amanda and Raf or anybody else, you tell me how long the attack happened once it started - you do not know because if you did, your guilty too.

 

[Katody Matrass]

Sherlock Holmes, I'm happy to see you're agreeing with the "stomach contents" argument. You made an insightful observation - indeed ToD is not that important as the fact that the attack on Meredith started around 9.