Continuation Part 2 - Discussion of the Amanda Knox case

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When I look at photo's of the 2 Italian gals bedroom, I am reminded of some of the many gals I've befriended and dated.

The photos of Filomena's messy bedroom and her cluttered table remind me of my good friend Rena's bedroom, always messy and cluttered, for my friend is always on the go. Be it boyz, snowboardin', surfin', or workin', she is busy and her room stays messy. We do share a laugh about it sometimes, hahaha...

The photo of Laura's neat bedroom reminded me of a gal named Arlene that I dated for many years, she being more of a clean freak, stay at home kinda gal.

Laura seems like a clean freak,
heck, on page 22 of author Candace Dempsey's book Murder in Italy, it says this:
"Laura believed in vigorous bathroom scouring and floor mopping, but wondered if she herself was perhaps to meticulous."

With both Filomena and Laura working in the same place, I had wondered why 1 room was so messy, but the other 1 so organized.*

Might it be because Filomena had a boyfriend, while Laura did not?
I've sometimes thought that maybe Filomena didn't spend as much time at home as did Laura and so she just did not care about her messy bedroom, just like my friend Rena does.

I recall reading that Filomena and the gals had been complaining about how sloppy Amanda was.

Golly gee, reading more in the book Murder in Italy, it said that according to the boyz downstairs, Filomena and Laura complained that they did more scrubbing than the 2 foreign girls combined. Meredith did a bit, but the Italian roommates said, Amanda did none. For that reason, Filomena had installed a cleaning chart only days before Halloween, and Amanda had already missed a cleaning session...

In the horrible murder we discuss,
Amanda is supposed to have meticuosly cleaned up every single trace of her own presence in Meredith Kercher's bedroom during this brutal, bloody murder. Did you see the LifeTime commercial where they created a scene where Amanda, Raffaele and Rudy were attacking Meredith? How could Amanda, as sloppy as she was said to be, have cleaned up all traces of herself, -(every single hair, fingerprint, DNA speck, everything!), but have left only traces of Rudy Guede in Meredith's bedroom on her body, her clothing, her purse?

I wonder...
RW

* - Thanks PMFer Stint7 for spell checkin' my posts.
Appreciate that, bro.
 
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Danceme said:
On the subject of the "staged" breakin, I can believe the rock was thrown from outside given the pattern of glass distribution. However there's a few things that don't completely add up for me in Hendry's explanations. For instance, can someone explain how the stack of 5 shoe boxes as well as the tv with the neatly folded piece of fabric on top didn't seem to have budged when the window blind swung open, hitting the wardrobe's open door hard enough to jostle the wardrobe and tumble most of it's contents to the floor?
The shoe boxes should be at some inclined angle, with perhaps one or two even on the floor, and that fabric should not be able to remain undisturbed either. Thoughts anyone?
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I think the so called "staged break-in" is the one issue that has dogged this case through several court hearings and remained as a foregone conclusion past several judges. No court has taken a realistic look and the defense has dropped this important ball by allowing it to still have a life after 3 1/2 years.

The original "staged" idea came from the rather small opening between the two outside (green) shutters. These shutters appear in various states of openness in the photos I have seen. The Perugia police chief inspector was the first to suggest that he thought it would be extremely hard to throw such a large rock thru the opening between these partially closed shutters...the opening is described as about 6 to 12 inches. And there was born the idea that was certainly one of the first and biggest errors. And to this day the “staged break-in” remains alive and well in the courts eyes.

This quick and wrong assumption led to the failure of documenting that very important part of the crime scene. Which now leads the investigators to the next wrong assumption...if there was a staged break-in ...why and by whom?

Eventually you get to the phone message from Patrick that is misinterpreted by a literal translation without the knowledge of idiom I guess.

And so you get to "We know you were going to meet Patrick" .

The police were certain about Patrick because his cell pinged a tower that "showed" he was near the flat. We now know that was impossible but I’m not sure it was a direct lie on the part of the police. They showed a real talent at fouling up investigation of electronic implements at critical points.

The case was based on flawed conclusion right from the beginning. When they could go right or left...they went wrong and never swayed even though nothing added up. No evidence ever really came together after that. This "staged break-in" still needs rebutted in court I believe. The defense should be renting out this house and reenacting this break-in and the video of such would end this case.

This very simple case of a robbery gone wrong by an actor with a history of break-ins.

The disagreement about the cord trip or the window crashing into the wardrobe is not critical to the crime. Although, somewhere I did see a photo that showed a dark mark on the TV cable that could be from someone tripping or stepping on it which could in turn set up the "Rube Goldberg" like explanation of the situation of shown boxes and clothes.

Personally I find the room untidy. It shows in the many undisturbed areas such as table tops and from items jammed underneath the desk, etc... It was not all that "ransacked". I think there were plenty of items lining the outer (window) wall.

I also think that a burglar after gaining entry through the window would then pull the outer (green) shutters at least somewhat closed to conceal his immediate presence in that room...it is after all a simple matter to do so through the now open window.

Being that it is Fall and November is certainly when the wind blows hardest at that latitude it would seem a logical conclusion that the shutters may have blown open and closed several times during the night so that no conclusion should have been made about the opening width when viewed some 17 hours later.

The glass pattern clearly shows a rock thrown from the low wall outside and then through the window which now hits and dents the inner shutter and then reflects at the logical angle into the black bag which is knocked over and torn and finally comes to rest under the chair where it is found. There is NO other easier conclusion! Its a simple logical chain of events...not a complicated "Goldberg" event at all.

A clear and critical mistake made very early that is as easy to explain as the mistake the police made about the meaning of "see you later"

Maybe if she would have rhymed it for them...as in “see ya later alligator???”

Finally, I saw someone mention the lack of glass on the ground under the window. Two points…

1. The ground under the window was never carefully investigated and or documented . (there may possibly have been some small pieces outside and un- noticed.)

2. Ask any young boy who has just hit a baseball through the neighbors window…he can tell you what happens to the glass… hint …one of the Big three laws of physics covers this action.

So come all guilters and nay sayers and even astrologists...show the proof of the "staged break-in".

This is a big lie by the police and prosecutor.
 
Danceme said:
On the subject of the "staged" breakin, I can believe the rock was thrown from outside given the pattern of glass distribution. However there's a few things that don't completely add up for me in Hendry's explanations. For instance, can someone explain how the stack of 5 shoe boxes as well as the tv with the neatly folded piece of fabric on top didn't seem to have budged when the window blind swung open, hitting the wardrobe's open door hard enough to jostle the wardrobe and tumble most of it's contents to the floor?
The shoe boxes should be at some inclined angle, with perhaps one or two even on the floor, and that fabric should not be able to remain undisturbed either. Thoughts anyone?
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There is no guarantee the wardrobe was open. Rudy could have opened it himself or stepping on the loose cable cord attached to the tv could have tipped it. However, I have only noticed one item on the floor that might be folded. The rest of the stuff could have already been there. However the real question is how accurate is the police/courts information when they claim the window was open when it was broke. If you now believe it was closed when broke then you have to believe they dropped the ball on the whole staged break in theory they have proposed. If they have dropped the ball on the staged break in theory, then you now have to consider the possibility it wasn't staged. If it wasn't staged then Knox/Sollecito wasn't involved. And all that without even talking about the botched ToD.
 
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RandyN said:
I think the so called "staged break-in" is the one issue that has dogged this case through several court hearings and remained as a foregone conclusion past several judges. No court has taken a realistic look and the defense has dropped this important ball by allowing it to still have a life after 3 1/2 years.....

<snip>

So come all guilters and nay sayers and even astrologists...show the proof of the "staged break-in".

This is a big lie by the police and prosecutor.
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This is something that puzzles me greatly. The "faked break-in" needs to have been proven beyond reasonable doubt, and yet rather than this, it just seems to be assumed that it occured. The courts don't seem to have a lot of detail, and getting information out of those that feel the pair are guilty is like trying to get blood from a stone. With that I can't see that the "faked break-in" has been proven beyond a reasonable doubt, the prosecution didn't even feel that they had to replicate their version of events to show that it was even possible.

Being that it is Fall and November is certainly when the wind blows hardest at that latitude it would seem a logical conclusion that the shutters may have blown open and closed several times during the night so that no conclusion should have been made about the opening width when viewed some 17 hours later.
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It seems there is some dispute as to the position of the shutters when the Postal Police arrived and whether it matches the later position of the photos. It seems that they may have been closed and the police themselves may have openned the shutters before the photos were taken. I know that is a lot of "may haves", but when the police don't do the job right and contaminated the crime scene we just don't know what actually happened.
 
PhantomWolf said:
This is something that puzzles me greatly. The "faked break-in" needs to have been proven beyond reasonable doubt, and yet rather than this, it just seems to be assumed that it occured. The courts don't seem to have a lot of detail, and getting information out of those that feel the pair are guilty is like trying to get blood from a stone. With that I can't see that the "faked break-in" has been proven beyond a reasonable doubt, the prosecution didn't even feel that they had to replicate their version of events to show that it was even possible.



It seems there is some dispute as to the position of the shutters when the Postal Police arrived and whether it matches the later position of the photos. It seems that they may have been closed and the police themselves may have openned the shutters before the photos were taken. I know that is a lot of "may haves", but when the police don't do the job right and contaminated the crime scene we just don't know what actually happened.
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And the main argument of your post is an extremely germane point. It's entirely up to the police and prosecutors to prove their case, and it's not incumbent upon the defence to either disprove it or prove an alternative case.

In the case of the window shutters, the police should have preserved the scene in Filomena's room as soon as they realised it was a potential crime scene - and they should have realised that as soon as the first postal officer looked through the door and saw the broken window. Photographs should have been taken of the room as it was discovered, and of course a fingertip examination should have been conducted of the ground outside the window (probably also with fine-sieve screening of the earth for tiny glass particles.

As others have said, it does seem (however ridiculously) that one of the main parts of the "reasoning" that the break-in was staged was that the exterior shutters were fairly close in when they were first discovered*. It doesn't seem to have occurred to either the prosecution or the court that a real burglar might well have closed the exterior shutters behind him once he had entered the property, in order to conceal the broken window from anyone outside the cottage. Truly astonishing.

* Although of course the crime scene photos taken later that day show the right exterior shutter (as seen from inside the room) opened fairly wide - the inference being that either the police or Filomena changed the position of the shutters at some point before the photos were taken.
 
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Danceme said:
Is it supposed to reconcile? Isn't this what everyone here has been saying all along, that the rock was thrown from the outside yet it doesn't necessarily mean glass would have fallen to the ground outside? I'm not sure I get your point.
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I was just interested what you think about that prosecution's argument.


Danceme said:
I can't say I agree. The boxes are still neatly stacked with none pulled toward the front or even touching the wall as I would expect had the wardrobe been jostled forward.
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Agreed than that the wardrobe wasn't jostled forward.

Though it's clear that the stack of boxes leans both towards the the wall and towards the front of the wardrobe.

Still I think wardrobe was shaken in a way that caused the garments to spill out. Position of boxes and TV are mostly result of pulling the cable that goes now tightly around the bottom box.

Danceme said:
The neatly folded cloth on the tv hasn't slipped at all and the tv still faces the bed and hasn't twisted at all.
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I can't say if it hasn't slipped at all or if it slipped a bit. We can agree that if the cloth was initially on the TV the movement wasn't violent enough to make it fall down.

Danceme said:
I don't think Rudy or anyone stepped on the cord as is suggested. I just don't, the situation in those pictures doesn't support this notion to me.
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I think it's because intuition can be misleading even when applied to simple mechanical phenomena. E.g. you expect that if the clothings fell out of the cupboard than the cloth should fell from the TV, too, but the forces involved are much different. The flat, light cloth is held in place firmly by friction while the stack of clothes has a moment of inertia that will topple it much sooner.

Danceme said:
If all those clothes on the floor supposedly came from the wardrobe they would have been jammed in there and not positioned on the very edge of the shelf as you suppose, ready to simply slip off.
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please review the pics. The clothes that were jammed are still inside. Looks like there were two rows of stacked clothing - the one on the inside is still there, the one on the edge spilled out.

Anyway that topic is quite marginal. I don't think one can seriously argue that the clothes on the floor prove staging. There are simply too many explanations that don't require any staging. It could be a result of a scenario that Hendry proposed ( and I quite like and find consistent), it could be Guede tripping over Filomena's stuff on the floor and grabbing the shelf or wardrobe door inadvertently. It could be just Filomena rummaging through her stuff while packing in a hurry.
 
Massei on Nara

Bruce Fisher said:
Does Cape still post here? I have been repeatedly called a coward yet the people calling me a coward seem to hide from conversation. I think they need to look up the definition of coward.
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Bruce Fisher,

Capealadin got angry for me for suggesting that we talk about the Massei report with respect to Nara's testimony*, and I do not recall seeing her since then. I still think that Massei's acknowledgment of problems speaks volumes, but Capealadin did not want to talk about substantive issues until the appeal is over.
EDT
I don't want anyone to misconstrue my remarks about Nara's testimony. The problems with Nara's testimony are in relating her observations to an internally consistent timeline of events and are distinct from any questions that one may have with respect to credibility. I support and admire any person who is strong enough to know when he or she needs professional help with mental health issues of any kind.
*and for my refusal to speculate with an incomplete (in my view) set of facts on Nara's mental state.
 
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giving credit where due

Barbie Nadeau described Sollecito, "He usually wears pastel colors, which criminal strategists say paints a picture of innocence." Elsewhere Catnip made a similar observation on June 8, 2010. I have previously been critical of some aspects of Barbie Nadeau's reporting in the case, especially relating to forensics. However, I must concede that of all of the reporters covering the case, she has the sharpest eye for fashion.
 
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Doesn't it boil down to the fact that there is no physical evidence that the shutters were closed and there was glass on top of the clothes in a "ransacked" filomena room is all reliant on the recall of the postal police? The same ones who said they didn't go into the victim's room when 3 witnesses saw them do it? The picture clearly shows the shutter open. Don't they have to have more evidence than just their recall? Which makes me think, weren't the "cartwheels" only witnessed by the police? Maybe they were exaggerating a stretching move or something to further caste aspersions related to character?
 
Washington Post article on Perugia-Shock

Elizabeth Flock has written an article "Amanda Knox blogger silenced by Google." Ms. Flock wrote, "Italy recently fell back into the “partly free” speech category, according to Freedom House, because of limitations by courts and libel laws, and increased intimidation of journal."
 
halides1 said:
Elizabeth Flock has written an article "Amanda Knox blogger silenced by Google." Ms. Flock wrote, "Italy recently fell back into the “partly free” speech category, according to Freedom House, because of limitations by courts and libel laws, and increased intimidation of journal."
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This is an excellent article. Includes a quote from Google explaining the court order.
 
criminal noncompliance charges

Bruce Fisher said:
This is an excellent article. Includes a quote from Google explaining the court order.
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Here is the quote from a Google spokesperson: "After receiving an Italian court order, we have been forced to take down this blog. In an effort to protect free expression, we take care to narrow all court takedown orders. Unfortunately, in this case, we would face criminal noncompliance charges if we refuse to comply." One hopes that this ends speculation elsewhere that Frank Sfarzo took down Perugia-Shock.
 
halides1 said:
Elizabeth Flock has written an article "Amanda Knox blogger silenced by Google." Ms. Flock wrote, "Italy recently fell back into the “partly free” speech category, according to Freedom House, because of limitations by courts and libel laws, and increased intimidation of journal."
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Excellent! Frank's ordeal and the way Perugian authorities try to silence criticism require all the scrutiny and attention from major media outlets.
 
halides1 said:
Here is the quote from a Google spokesperson: "After receiving an Italian court order, we have been forced to take down this blog. In an effort to protect free expression, we take care to narrow all court takedown orders. Unfortunately, in this case, we would face criminal noncompliance charges if we refuse to comply." One hopes that this ends speculation elsewhere that Frank Sfarzo took down Perugia-Shock.
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I doubt it will end such speculation from the crazies who've convinced themselves that this is all a huge, conspiratorial PR stunt (presumably managed by Gogerty Marriott's enormous resource commitment to this cause). I suspect that even if Larry Page visited their houses and told them in person exactly what happened, accompanied by original notarised court documentation, they'd still refuse to believe it.

Of course, this belligerent flying-in-the-face-of-reason attitude - as so often - tells us so much more about the characters and reasoning skills of the individuals concerned than it does about the underlying issues being debated. They seem to be employing the same "fingers in the ears" approach to the entire case: to them, it's as if there are no developments taking place whatsoever in the appeal.
 
halides1 said:
Here is the quote from a Google spokesperson: "After receiving an Italian court order, we have been forced to take down this blog. In an effort to protect free expression, we take care to narrow all court takedown orders. Unfortunately, in this case, we would face criminal noncompliance charges if we refuse to comply." One hopes that this ends speculation elsewhere that Frank Sfarzo took down Perugia-Shock.
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Woah woah woah. Are we to believe the Washington Post failed to read all of Kermit's super relevant articles, with pictures to boot? For shame! You would think all these papers would consult True Justice, the most heavily visited website of all time.
 
LondonJohn said:
.......They seem to be employing the same "fingers in the ears" approach to the entire case: ........
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Interesting.

Speaking of the "same fingers in the ears approach........"

Did these individuals learn how to 'cover their ears' per chance when they read Amanda's voluntary written 'gift' to her questioners, detailing how she 'blocked her ears' in the Kitchen as she said she heard Meredith screaming while being attacked by Patrick. in the bedroom ??
 
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