Hi Quadraginta,
I would think that if someone was to try and stage a break-in, they too would pick what would be the likeliest point of entry for a B & E thief.
So why would someone, trying to think like a thief,
then go and break the much harder to gain entry window in Filomena's bedroom to stage a break-in instead of breaking the kitchen window?
This raises an interesting point. If Knox and Sollecito
had staged the break-in, their choice of window is even more perplexing than it first seems. In their staging, their main concerns would have been, in order, a) to make it look real and convincing; and b) to avoid being observed while they carried out the staging. Now, Filomena's window meets the first criterion, but - when set against the rear kitchen - it definitely doesn't meet the second one.
And before anyone points out something along the lines of "But surely a real burglar would have had the concern about not being seen as well", I'd argue that a real burglar would have had an additional criterion that wasn't important at all to anyone staging the break-in from inside the cottage: it must be easy and quick to escape the scene if anyone inside or outside the cottage hears/sees the break-in.
I'd argue that for a real burglar, this additional criterion might make it well worth sacrificing the additional potential visibility of breaking in through Filomena's window (as opposed to the rear kitchen window), in order to have a quicker, faster escape route if disturbed. And incidentally, in this regard quadraginta was incorrect when he said that the same bottleneck problem applied to the area below Filomena's window as to the rear of the cottage:
Even if this were to be a consideration I can't understand why the cul de sac below Filomena's window would be any more attractive, not least because, aside from those woods, it leads only to the very same "narrow exit passageway".
He is incorrectly assuming that the bottleneck to which I was referring is the driveway from the main road down to the cottage's front door. In fact, I'm referring to the increasingly narrow (down to one person's width) passageway along the side of the house - past the large bathroom window and Laura's room - which has the cottage wall on one side and the retaining wall of the main road on the other. It would be impossible to pass someone on the narrow part of this passageway without coming into physical contact with them, whereas the driveway has enough width for someone fit fast (e.g. Guede....) to evade contact. Plus, of course, an escape from the rear of the house to the main road would take another 10-15 seconds longer to accomplish than an escape from below Filomena's window, owing to the extra distance involved.
In short, Filomena's window seems like a reasonable window for a real burglar to choose, considering a burglar's important criteria. However, it doesn't seem like a reasonable window for someone staging a break-in from inside the cottage to choose, considering the different criteria that apply in this case.
