Continuation Part 2 - Discussion of the Amanda Knox case

[quadraginta]

Here's a photo. With that much blood I would think its involved.......

http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/vbimghost.php?do=displayimg&imgid=23134http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/imagehosting/thum_401664db2d140d8673.jpg


49 seconds in.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aN25LqC08GY

Why?

For one thing, just how much blood do you think is needed to make a piece of tissue look like that? I can manage that much getting scratched while playing with the cats (and frequently do. ) A nosebleed would generate at least that much.

For another, why would the amount of blood unquestionably link it to the murder, anyway?

Some of our local experts have quite pointedly offered the very accurate observation that, unlike TV, everything is not necessarily a clue to the crime. I see no reason to disagree on this particular item, at least not in the absence of further connections.

 

[Justinian2]

I know what you mean, Coulsdon. I am alternately puzzled and impressed by the amount of work people are willing to put into studying this case. Many interested parties have compiled files of all the related documents, photographs and articles. As you suggest, very few of us as individuals will have an impact on the proceedings in Perugia, so the work we do is essentially for our own interest. If some who are interested in this case are also doing the same amount of research and study for other topics they are interested in, I am truly blown away by their scholarly dedication.

The prosecution did not prove its case in the least. Did that matter? No. The trial wasn't about forensics, details or science. The defense didn't try very hard to counter the "evidence" put forward because, in essence, they were in on the forgone conclusion that the trial was about drama, and that there were many more rewards in prolonging the process than in handling it efficiently and letting the two innocent students go about their business.

Why is there so much interest?

I have wondered for twenty years why so many people thought it necessary to support government and their every decision. One of the few generalizations I've been able to make is that those that support government get money from government either directly or indirectly. Apparently it doesn't even matter which government. Those that profit from government in the USA will support the government of Italy and their workers, whether right or wrong.

I've also wondered whether or not the government was getting directly involved in the internet propaganda. Perhaps these government CIA types have made a study of how to disrupt a formative group on the internet like the disruptive student that can keep thirty others in a high school classroom from learning. Education = teacher - disruptive students.

Perhaps the CIA disruptors even use a computer to generate disruptive replies. Certainly most of the disruptive replies I've read have no intelligence behind them; no more intelligence than an automated answering machine.

I cannot otherwise understand why Amanda is still in jail and why people support the verdict.

 

[Justinian2]

On side of the antagonists, they are actually keeping the conversation going and fulfilling their need for conversation.

The PMF and TJMK posters are part of a cult where the posters take satisfaction from belonging to a group that gets satisfaction from stoning attractive people.

Antagonists aren't bad, if you use them to your advantage.

The objective, of course, is to get Amanda and other innocents out of jail.

 

[Ampulla of Vater]

Why?

For one thing, just how much blood do you think is needed to make a piece of tissue look like that? I can manage that much getting scratched while playing with the cats (and frequently do. ) A nosebleed would generate at least that much.

For another, why would the amount of blood unquestionably link it to the murder, anyway?

Some of our local experts have quite pointedly offered the very accurate observation that, unlike TV, everything is not necessarily a clue to the crime. I see no reason to disagree on this particular item, at least not in the absence of further connections.

A nosebleed and cat scratches would not contain all those DNA profiles, I wouldn't think. For that matter if it were connected to the crime, why would it have all those 'unknown' DNA profiles? It's a strange piece of evidence of something. Who shares a bloody tissue amoungst themselves?

ETA: I see there were 5 tissues found per Draca. But isn't that still strange they have all those unknown DNA profiles on them? They cannot be connected to the crime unless it is the only evidence of there being multiple unknown attackers.

 

[quadraginta]

A nosebleed and cat scratches would not contain all those DNA profiles, I wouldn't think. For that matter if it were connected to the crime, why would it have all those 'unknown' DNA profiles? It's a strange piece of evidence of something. Who shares a bloody tissue amoungst themselves?

Perhaps the language I used was too complex for you to follow. My apologies.

Draca's comment,

" With that much blood I would think its involved.......",

referred to the quantity, not the source of the blood.

So did I.

Hope that helps.

ETA: I see there were 5 tissues found per Draca. But isn't that still strange they have all those unknown DNA profiles on them? They cannot be connected to the crime unless it is the only evidence of there being multiple unknown attackers.

You'll have to consult with Draca about that. He's the one who felt that so much blood was suspicious.

 

[Draca]

Why?

For one thing, just how much blood do you think is needed to make a piece of tissue look like that? I can manage that much getting scratched while playing with the cats (and frequently do. ) A nosebleed would generate at least that much.

For another, why would the amount of blood unquestionably link it to the murder, anyway?

Some of our local experts have quite pointedly offered the very accurate observation that, unlike TV, everything is not necessarily a clue to the crime. I see no reason to disagree on this particular item, at least not in the absence of further connections.

Yes, you're right. The tissue is not shown to be involved in anyway. It makes me wonder to see if found outside the home of a murder, but it is meaningless really. I should stop thinking out loud on here.

 

[babycondor]

The bloody tissues are at least evidence of several bleeding people in the neighborhood of the murder cottage. Is it common in Perugia to find bloody tissues lying around on the walkways? How quaint.

 

[PhantomWolf]

The bloody tissues are at least evidence of several bleeding people in the neighborhood of the murder cottage. Is it common in Perugia to find bloody tissues lying around on the walkways? How quaint.

More to the point, several bleeding people in the neighborhood of the murder cottage that the police have never tracked down so as to eliminate them from the inquiry. While I suspect that they have nothing to do with the murder, the fact that they remain unknowns shows that the police weren't interested in looking outside the immediate area. They decided that the break in was staged, and then based on pizza and a hip wiggle, determined their suspect, after that it was just a case of proving it.

 

[Ampulla of Vater]

Perhaps the language I used was too complex for you to follow. My apologies.

Draca's comment,

" With that much blood I would think its involved.......",

referred to the quantity, not the source of the blood.

So did I.

Hope that helps.

Not everything someone posts is an argument against your position. I was not refuting your position but simply adding to it.

While cat scratches and nosebleeds can cause a relatively large amount of blood what are the odds someone was standing outside with a nosebleed (or any other hemorrhagic situation) on the same day as a bloody murder? Neither could it be someone throwing them out of a car window while passing by since the cottage is set back off the main road. I am merely stating they are a curious piece of evidence of something. I agree with you it is unlikely to be connected since the DNA profiles were seemingly not related. But it is certainly a strange finding outside of a bloody murder scene.

 

[Chris_Halkides]

SomeAlibi and the pink bathroom photo

SomeAlibi wrote, “Now we get to one of the most egregious lies in the whole presentation, a huge and sustained misleading of the audience: concerning the blood spattered apartment, Moore makes a major case that Perugian police released the picture of the Phenolphthalein stained bathroom as being the *blood* stained bathroom where Amanda Knox showered. Please watch the video and see how nakedly brazen this deception is. He juxtaposes the picture of the sink as it was on November the 2nd with the post-phenolphthalein shot and says that the prosecution alleged “that’s what Amanda saw, that’s it.. that’s what was really there.” That’s when you start saying “oh my god””. WHAT?!?! He states the police did this on the basis that they knew the jury sitting in two years time would not be sequestered: “Knowing that the jurors are not sequestered… they released this and said “that’s blood”. Here's how Moore presents it:
[side by side photos of the sink and the pink sink]
The fact that the ACTUAL pictures of the scene *he himself uses on the left* were in the core evidence bundle in front of the jury as prime exhibits as any lawyer or serious law professional would immediately appreciate is ignored. It must be ignored because of course otherwise no-one could come up with such a patently incoherent line of logic. I’m losing count of the self-evidentary pieces of lack of knowledge and logic by now. How about you? 100% pure fat cavolata.”

Nowhere does Mr. Moore claim that the pink bathroom photos were shown to the jury during the trial.* He does imply that the intended target of the photo are the members of the future jury. I call upon SomeAlibi to explain why it was OK for ILE to release this photo. AK, RS, and RG were already in custody. This photo just prejudiced the public against Ms. Knox, as shown by what Judy Bachrach and others wrote about it, believing that it was blood and therefore that Ms. Knox could not possibly have showered in the bathroom without being aware of the blood. In other words the photo implied that Ms. Knox was brazenly lying. And yet ILE did not put this photo into evidence, leading to the conclusion that it had no probative value at best. I would go further and say that it implies sloppy forensic work. For SomeAlibi to avoid these aspects of the photo smacks of the very sophistry he professes to abhor. I almost don’t blame him for coming back here to defend such disingenuousness.
*Mr. Moore's discussion of the lack of jury sequestration implies exactly the opposite.

Here are some questions for SomeAlibi or anyone else who cares to defend ILE.
Was there a sound reason to release the photo of the pink bathroom?
Could it have prejudiced the community (including future jurors) against Knox?
Would it have been released had the murder happened in England?

 

[Chris_Halkides]

Pasquali

There is another site discussing Filomena's room and the glass. In my view the entire discussion is secondary to the question of whether or not Pasquali's recreation is accurate. He was able to obtain a similar distribution of glass to what was observed, IIUC. It is difficult to see how breaking the window in the way Massei imagines it would also produce a similar distribution of glass. The window would be at a different angle, and the rock would be hitting it from a different direction. Did the prosecution ever try a reconstruction to test their theory?

 

[quadraginta]

More to the point, several bleeding people in the neighborhood of the murder cottage that the police have never tracked down so as to eliminate them from the inquiry. While I suspect that they have nothing to do with the murder, the fact that they remain unknowns shows that the police weren't interested in looking outside the immediate area. They decided that the break in was staged, and then based on pizza and a hip wiggle, determined their suspect, after that it was just a case of proving it.

The fact that they found them shows me that the police did look outside the immediate area.

The fact that they remain unknowns merely tells me that the police were unable to find out who they had come from. In the absence of any other data on the subject the suggestion that it resulted from some shortcoming in the investigation is only gratuitous criticism.

There's lots of things lying around everywhere that police would be unable to trace to a particular individual. That this is adjacent to a murder site adds an appearance of singularity, but does not in any way insure it. That intuition is learned from too many detective shows. We all have to combat it. Even me.

 

[quadraginta]

Not everything someone posts is an argument against your position. I was not refuting your position but simply adding to it.

I wasn't arguing anything. I was offering an opinion based on personal experience. Having had occasion to bleed in the past (at times rather more copiously than I would have liked ) I felt qualified to offer such an opinion.

You appeared to misunderstand the point of that observation. I made an attempt to clarify it.

Not everything someone posts is even an argument in the first place. Nor is everything a "position".

The inability to grasp these simple facts leads to no end of misunderstanding in these threads. I have to think that the "us or them" false dichotomy which pervades the discussion here has a great deal to do with it.

Not everyone subscribes to it, or has chosen sides, regardless of persistent efforts and characterizations to the contrary.

While cat scratches and nosebleeds can cause a relatively large amount of blood what are the odds someone was standing outside with a nosebleed (or any other hemorrhagic situation) on the same day as a bloody murder? Neither could it be someone throwing them out of a car window while passing by since the cottage is set back off the main road. I am merely stating they are a curious piece of evidence of something. I agree with you it is unlikely to be connected since the DNA profiles were seemingly not related. But it is certainly a strange finding outside of a bloody murder scene.

Would it be less strange if it were to be outside somewhere that a murder had not occurred?

 

[Bruce Fischer]

Why?

For one thing, just how much blood do you think is needed to make a piece of tissue look like that? I can manage that much getting scratched while playing with the cats (and frequently do. ) A nosebleed would generate at least that much.

For another, why would the amount of blood unquestionably link it to the murder, anyway?

Some of our local experts have quite pointedly offered the very accurate observation that, unlike TV, everything is not necessarily a clue to the crime. I see no reason to disagree on this particular item, at least not in the absence of further connections.

If only the prosecution would have used this logic during the first trial. We now have a pretty long list of "evidence" that turned out to be nothing at all. When you cherry pick details like they did, you can build a "mountain" of evidence against anyone.

I would think bloody rags found nearby to a murder scene would be thoroughly investigated. How could anyone disagree with this? I know agreement is hard to find on JREF but this one appears to be obvious.

 

[Bruce Fischer]

SomeAlibi wrote, “Now we get to one of the most egregious lies in the whole presentation, a huge and sustained misleading of the audience: concerning the blood spattered apartment, Moore makes a major case that Perugian police released the picture of the Phenolphthalein stained bathroom as being the *blood* stained bathroom where Amanda Knox showered. Please watch the video and see how nakedly brazen this deception is. He juxtaposes the picture of the sink as it was on November the 2nd with the post-phenolphthalein shot and says that the prosecution alleged “that’s what Amanda saw, that’s it.. that’s what was really there.” That’s when you start saying “oh my god””. WHAT?!?! He states the police did this on the basis that they knew the jury sitting in two years time would not be sequestered: “Knowing that the jurors are not sequestered… they released this and said “that’s blood”. Here's how Moore presents it:
[side by side photos of the sink and the pink sink]
The fact that the ACTUAL pictures of the scene *he himself uses on the left* were in the core evidence bundle in front of the jury as prime exhibits as any lawyer or serious law professional would immediately appreciate is ignored. It must be ignored because of course otherwise no-one could come up with such a patently incoherent line of logic. I’m losing count of the self-evidentary pieces of lack of knowledge and logic by now. How about you? 100% pure fat cavolata.”

Nowhere does Mr. Moore claim that the pink bathroom photos were shown to the jury during the trial. He does imply that the intended target of the photo are the members of the future jury. I call upon SomeAlibi to explain why it was OK for ILE to release this photo. AK, RS, and RG were already in custody. This photo just prejudiced the public against Ms. Knox, as shown by what Judy Bachrach and others wrote about it, believing that it was blood and therefore that Ms. Knox could not possibly have showered in the bathroom without being aware of the blood. In other words the photo implied that Ms. Knox was brazenly lying. And yet ILE did not put this photo into evidence, leading to the conclusion that it had no probative value at best. I would go further and say that it implies sloppy forensic work. For SomeAlibi to avoid these aspects of the photo smacks of the very sophistry he professes to abhor. I almost don’t blame him for coming back here to defend such disingenuousness.

Here are some questions for SomeAlibi or anyone else who cares to defend ILE.
Was there a sound reason to release the photo of the pink bathroom?
Could it have prejudiced the community (including future jurors) against Knox?
Would it have been released had the murder happened in England?

SomeAlibi went on a manic rant suggesting that those who disagreed with him were cowards for not debating him. I find it quite humorous that a guy who hides behind a screen name could possibly call anyone a coward. I will also point out that a debate is not possible because people like myself are not allowed to post on PMF.

I actually no longer have any interest in posting on PMF. I signed up once hoping to have a conversation but I was quickly banned. PMF has escalated its hatred and I now consider it a hate site. It's impossible to debate hatred.

I will call PMF out for their lies. They seem to think that I am involved in every single event or action they disagree with. For the record, I have done nothing but ignore the teen blogger that I have been accused of harassing. I do not send trolls to their site, I have never called Peter Quennell a pedophile, and I post using my actual name. Those are just some of the lies told on PMF yesterday. I am not sure it does any good at all to debate a group like PMF, especially with a guy like SomeAlibi who is clearly to angry to see reality.

If others disagree, I have no problem posting the facts that refute SomeAlibi's rant. That's up to everyone here.

 

[Chris_Halkides]

hyperbole versus reality

Bruce Fisher,

SomeAlibi wrote, "We all know that Guede is accused of being in a school without permission for which the police didn’t even bother to prosecute, so it wasn’t a burglary. Bzzt. We all know he handled a stolen laptop but there was no suggestion of a burglary related to it, as much as one can see the hypothesis. We know that another witness said someone like Guede was in his house but he was discounted as unreliable. As everyone knows, I am a vociferous critic of Guede but one cannot take a law enforcement professional seriously who massively inflates evidence. “5 or 6 burglaries in a month”? NO-ONE in the case or on the internet has ever suggested that. Such a suggestion from a reputably credible law enforcement professional is hugely undermining."

SomeAlibi, meet Bob Graham. Mr. Graham reports on allegations of six crimes over 33 days. What's worse, however, is that SomeAlibi is willing to minimize Rudi's being found in a school with very young children in possession of a knife. Mr. Alibi should explain why this incident should not have been prosecuted. While he is at it, he should explain why the witness to whom he alludes should be deemed unreliable. Given their track record, the say-so of the Perugian authorities is not in the slightest bit convincing. Bruce, you may be correct that there is no good reason to debate with PMF, but I would not like to see SomeAlibi's hyperbole go unchallenged.

 

[Bruce Fischer]

Bruce Fisher,

SomeAlibi wrote, "We all know that Guede is accused of being in a school without permission for which the police didn’t even bother to prosecute, so it wasn’t a burglary. Bzzt. We all know he handled a stolen laptop but there was no suggestion of a burglary related to it, as much as one can see the hypothesis. We know that another witness said someone like Guede was in his house but he was discounted as unreliable. As everyone knows, I am a vociferous critic of Guede but one cannot take a law enforcement professional seriously who massively inflates evidence. “5 or 6 burglaries in a month”? NO-ONE in the case or on the internet has ever suggested that. Such a suggestion from a reputably credible law enforcement professional is hugely undermining."

SomeAlibi, meet Bob Graham. Mr. Graham reports on allegations of six crimes over 33 days. What's worse, however, is that SomeAlibi is willing to minimize Rudi's being found in a school with very young children in possession of a knife. Mr. Alibi should explain why this incident should not have been prosecuted. While he is at it, he should explain why the witness to whom he alludes should be deemed unreliable. Given their track record, the say-so of the Perugian authorities is not in the slightest bit convincing. Bruce, you may be correct that there is no good reason to debate with PMF, but I would not like to see SomeAlibi's hyperbole go unchallenged.

You make a great point. Maybe SomeAlibi would be willing to come here to discuss his beliefs. He said he would not but I wonder why his "coward" label wouldn't apply to himself in that case.

 

[LondonJohn]

I don't see why all the fuss LJ. I saw the articles as pretty impartial. Both detail the smearing of Mignini by certain American parties and contain quotes from both sides, Anne Bremner and Mignini himself, Fiorenza Sarzanini and Peter Quennell. This was definitely newsworthy at the time and he certainly wasn't the only reporter writing about it. Anne is spokesperson for FOA, Peter heads up TJMK, 50/50 on the representation I think.

Why have you pointed these out LJ? Is it your hatred of Peter Quennell? You saw his name and saw red perhaps, because that's what it appears to me when you disparage this journalist for doing a story with opinions from both sides of the issue.

No. I'm very specifically wondering why this journalist went to the trouble of becoming a member of that website. Had he become a member of, say, Injustice In Perugia, I'd have felt exactly the same way - even though there is content on IIP which is restricted to members. Hard to understand?

 

[LondonJohn]

More to the point, several bleeding people in the neighborhood of the murder cottage that the police have never tracked down so as to eliminate them from the inquiry. While I suspect that they have nothing to do with the murder, the fact that they remain unknowns shows that the police weren't interested in looking outside the immediate area. They decided that the break in was staged, and then based on pizza and a hip wiggle, determined their suspect, after that it was just a case of proving it.

I'd definitely agree with your principle here. However, I'd add that the area near the cottage was well-known as a place where heroin addicts (among others) used, so I'd have thought it was not unlikely that the tissues were discarded by addicts who used them to staunch venous blood flow after shooting up.

 

[LondonJohn]

You make a great point. Maybe SomeAlibi would be willing to come here to discuss his beliefs. He said he would not but I wonder why his "coward" label wouldn't apply to himself in that case.

I don't think we'll be hearing any more of these *ahem* calm and measured arguments from Mr Alibi after about....oooh....September of this year. Get 'em while they're hot!