Continuation Part 2 - Discussion of the Amanda Knox case

[Kaosium]

Why do you need her words when you can watch a video of her and her team? Why do you need a transcript when you have her actions with respect to item 164? This was apparently blood from Meredith's bedroom, but it was not tested further for DNA because of a negative preliminary quantification result.

I don't have all the numbers down, which one is item 164?

 

[Chris_Halkides]

Item 164

I don't have all the numbers down, which one is item 164?

Kaosium,

All I know is that it was thought to be blood, it was collected on 18 December, and it is from a bedroom wall. The problem is why did Stefanoni stop when the quantification was low for sample 164 but not stop when the knife quantification was also low.

 

[Kaosium]

Kaosium,

All I know is that it was thought to be blood, it was collected on 18 December, and it is from a bedroom wall. The problem is why did Stefanoni stop when the quantification was low for sample 164 but not stop when the knife quantification was also low.

Ah, yes I've seen it scraped from the wall, and mentioned numerous times. I think the answer to your question gets to the heart of what I've been wondering about. She went to great lengths regarding the knife that she did not do for anything else. Considering the unlikelihood of that knife ever being involved in the murder--and the fact she must have known that unless she'd never worked a murder case before--her decision to try to hear AmandaDidIt! through the static is very interesting. A number of possibilities leap to mind that get more complex the more I think on it:

1. Someone wanted that knife to show DNA as a psychological ploy to get a real confession, as per the bugged "I was there" conversation. This eventually lead to it being introduced in court, as they needed it being as they didn't have any other physical evidence in the murder room. This would be where Frank's hints about things getting wiped would come from.

1.a They intended it to be the murder weapon all along, not being able to find the real one and not caring overmuch that it wasn't, but figuring it would look better to the jury if they could pretend they had one.​

2. It was contaminated, and had some 'police intuition' it might have been the murder weapon as she was informed by someone that Amanda breaking down and the 'extremely clean' nature of it suggested it to her.

2.a Secondary transfer and the same as the above.​

3. She found Amanda's DNA on the handle and then naturally assumed that it must be the murder weapon as it was found at Raffaele's. Thus she went to greater lengths in her excitement and 'saw' what she wanted to see, but later realized she must never let anyone see those EDFs as they're ambiguous and by the time she came to her senses she was in for a penny, in for a pound.

Hrm. Why else would she have gone to such great lengths with only the knife, and especially one so unlikely to have been the murder weapon for all those various reasons I am so weary of typing out? She tested for blood first, right? The she saw the little scratch or whatever it was and dug it out, according to her 'story' which might have been fabricated?

 

[PhantomWolf]

However - the fact that the defence experts accept and seem to go for a possible meal start time as late as 7pm is (one of) the salient point which deals with your original post I replied to here.

And yet regardless of whether the defence accepted that it might have been possible, it doesn't change the fact that it simply wasn't possible. None of the witnesses put the meal start beyond 6:30pm, most of them put it between 6:00pm and 6:30pm, and if that wasn't enough we can do the math ourselves.

We know that Meredith got filmed walking back to the Cottage at 8:55pm, it would have taken her about 10 minutes to get there, which places her leaving her friends at around 8:45pm, roughly when those witnesses claim she left. We know that the movie they watched is 123 mins long and that she left as soon as it finished, so that means that the movie had to start at around 6:42pm, maybe as late as 6:45pm if she left during the credits, or they stopped the credits. Since we also know from the witnesses that they ate dinner before watching the movie, they can not have started the meal at 7pm, except perhaps in an alternative universe where 7pm comes before 6:45pm. That they had to have finished the meal before 6:45pm, would push it back to at least 6:30pm, or even 6:15pm since it was two courses (15 mins a course), either of which would strongly agree with the witness statments.

So one has to wonder, were all Meredith's friends lying about what happened that night? Because that would be the only way that a mealtime of 7pm could possibly have happened, but hey, that'd be a whole new conspriacy for you.

 

[Kaosium]

I've given my answers

Here is the list you posted on February fifth, perhaps to stimulate discussion as all of us massacred groundhogs returned to the fray. You may have updated it subsequently but I can't recall any off the top of my head.

 

[RandyN]

Not as mod:

I think it very likely that the appeals will fail.

This opinion has not, and will not, affect any moderation I have done or will do in this thread.

LOL, well we all know what they say about opinions.

 

[RandyN]

The Girlanda story is hitting a lot of big papers. Ireland, Italy, USA...etc

Perhaps its time to hit the Ambassador with a letter of concern?

 

[jhunter1163]

Again, not as mod:

I have only a passing familiarity with this case; most of what I know about it I have learned here.

In my opinion, Ms. Knox has guilty knowledge regarding the murder. Her changing statements to the police about her activities on the night of the murder and her incrimination of an innocent man are the main things that lead me to conclude this. Again, I am perfectly willing to concede that I haven't studied the case in the depth that many of you here have, so it is entirely possible that there is evidence of which I am not aware that would alter my opinion.

And thank you for your kind comments about my dog. She's a wonderful creature.

 

[snook1]

Your dog is absolutely cute!!!

Moving on - yes, it seems to me, that your knowledge about the case is lacking some depth. The events surrounding the so called incrimination are, to say at least, suspicious. Knox changed her story only once and it was during the famous interrogation. The next morning, she recanted.

 

[Mary_H]

No. It doesn't particularly interest me. Even if I was, I don't see why I would have to be committed to one particular story of the crime. The pro-innocence folks are committed to one narrative, because Amanda and Raffaele are supposed to be telling the truth. Why should I, Mignini aor any of the people who aren't convinced of innocence be committed to a narrative?

If you're not committed to a narrative, then what makes you think the defendants were involved in the crime? Mignini and Giobbi have already stated they just had a feeling Amanda committed the murder. Is that your position, too? You just think she did it?

"Maybe she did it this way" or "maybe she did it that way" (as Matteini and Massei ACTUALLY wrote), is nothing more than a witch hunt.

 

[Mary_H]

<snip>I don't think a long considered pro-guilt argument is possible on this forum. Not unless it was delivered as an essay. The case took the better part of a year (admittedly they by no means sat every day). The argument for guilt might not be easy to sum up.

A long considered pro-guilt argument is no more difficult to sum up than the pro-innocence argument, but it is not sustainable here or on any other forum for the simple reason that the facts don't support it. The strong pro-guilt debaters who spent time here all quit when they could no longer support their arguments in favor of guilt.

 

[Kaosium]

Again, not as mod:

I have only a passing familiarity with this case; most of what I know about it I have learned here.

In my opinion, Ms. Knox has guilty knowledge regarding the murder. Her changing statements to the police about her activities on the night of the murder and her incrimination of an innocent man are the main things that lead me to conclude this. Again, I am perfectly willing to concede that I haven't studied the case in the depth that many of you here have, so it is entirely possible that there is evidence of which I am not aware that would alter my opinion.

And thank you for your kind comments about my dog. She's a wonderful creature.

It is nice to see a dog avatar for a change, it seems everyone interested in this case likes to use bunnies and kittens as avatars. There's one other dog elsewhere that comes to mind but it looks more like a mop actually.

I don't want to advocate in this post as it would imperil my purpose in asking my question, however FYI those two items you mentioned will not be allowed in this court as they were not obtained in accordance with Italian Law.

 

[Mary_H]

The Girlanda story is hitting a lot of big papers. Ireland, Italy, USA...etc

Perhaps its time to hit the Ambassador with a letter of concern?

Absolutely!

 

[Kevin_Lowe]

Again, not as mod:

I have only a passing familiarity with this case; most of what I know about it I have learned here.

In my opinion, Ms. Knox has guilty knowledge regarding the murder.

Thanks for sharing your opinion: I'm very interested in what beliefs underly belief in the guilt of Knox and Sollecito in the wild, as it were.

What "guilty knowledge" do you believe Knox demonstrated, and why do you believe she demonstrated it?

Her changing statements to the police about her activities on the night of the murder and her incrimination of an innocent man are the main things that lead me to conclude this.

The technical term is "internalised false confession" (although guilters will always nitpick the word "confession" so we tend to say "internalised false statement").

It's nothing extraordinary, it's a perfectly well known and documented phenomenon that some people, if put under stress, told that they have repressed memories of something and told that the police have ironclad proof of the repressed memories, will temporarily believe it and confabulate what they are told to confabulate.

It's led to high-profile bad convictions in the past, and it probably will in the future.

A common response is "Well I'm sure I'd never do a thing like that!". As a skeptic I'm sure you can immediately see the problems with that as an argument.

Again, I am perfectly willing to concede that I haven't studied the case in the depth that many of you here have, so it is entirely possible that there is evidence of which I am not aware that would alter my opinion.

Well, the first big problem for the guilters is that Meredith Kercher couldn't possibly have died when the prosecution claim she did, and the prosecution picked the late time of death because they couldn't construct any theory of the crime that made any sense whatsoever, made Knox the murderess, and had Meredith dying any earlier.

It's worth mentioning that it's a puzzle none of the on-line guilters have even been able to make any headway on.

The second big problem is that well-adjusted young couples with absolutely no history of violent crime don't murder their housemates out of the blue with no motive. I'm not saying such things happen rarely, I'm saying nobody has ever found a single remotely similar case. As hypotheses go it's marginally better than homeopathy but not much better than Bigfoot. It doesn't break any known laws of physics but it's incredibly implausible.

So you've got a hypothesis that rational observers should think was incredibly unlikely from the outset, and no theory of the crime to go with it that is even remotely coherent.

By comparison to the official prosecution hypothesis, which is overwhelmingly improbable, the hypothesis that a lone burglar raped and murdered Meredith and then corrupt and incompetent small-town police made a complete dog's breakfast of the investigation is not particularly implausible at all.

 

[shuttlt]

If you're not committed to a narrative, then what makes you think the defendants were involved in the crime? Mignini and Giobbi have already stated they just had a feeling Amanda committed the murder. Is that your position, too? You just think she did it?

"Maybe she did it this way" or "maybe she did it that way" (as Matteini and Massei ACTUALLY wrote), is nothing more than a witch hunt.

If one can link her to the crime, why does one need to pick a narrative? If one can't, why would one want to?

 

[shuttlt]

Why do you need her words when you can watch a video of her and her team? Why do you need a transcript when you have her actions with respect to item 164? This was apparently blood from Meredith's bedroom, but it was not tested further for DNA because of a negative preliminary quantification result.

In part, completeness. In part, the testimony is what the court had to go on. In considering whether the trial was fair it's what was said in court that counts, isn't it?

 

[Fine]

Keeping America Safe From The Basque Diaspora?

I too find it absolutely shameless the way Dr. Hampikian and the Idaho Innocence Project used this case to raise their stature to international proportions! I didn't even know there was an Idaho Innocence Project before my interest in this case; there's no doubt kids in Texas that don't even know there's an Idaho!

I'm deeply suspicious, I agree there must be an ulterior motive, the old adage 'follow the money' comes to mind. Think of how exposure in such a high-profile case might cause people to donate to them, how many times has Dr. Hampikian been on national television lately hawking their wares without embarrassment?

I can do little more than cringe at the cynical way they did it too, it's like they looked out there at the landscape and found the single most obvious case for a DNA expert to exploit for their mercenary gains! Take a look at page 16 where it shows what havoc a 28 cycle Identifiler kit (as per Massei) can wreak on a 10 pg sample! With all those 'peaks' below 50 RFUs you could be dealing with little more than static! No wonder those scientists all freaked and sent that letter, but it was the IIP that got its name associated with such a cherry-picked gimme like this one.

I'm sure they salve their conscience with the idea that the additional notoriety will attract more donors and perhaps even expertise to help out any innocent potato spuds headed down the garbage disposal unjustly, but I cannot help but wail in anguish that it wasn't the Wisconsin Innocence Project that took advantage of this sure thing.

_________________

Kaosium,

Well, judging from a few minutes of Google searching, the kids in the Pentagon know there's an Idaho.

Over the last few years Greg Hampikian hasn't been shy about using Department of Defense money to further his research interests. See HERE and HERE and HERE.

_____
NOTE: The Defense Threat Reduction Agency has nothing to do with obesity. It's a part of the United States Department of Defense.

///

 

[Mary_H]

If one can link her to the crime, why does one need to pick a narrative? If one can't, why would one want to?

That certainly is the $64,000 question. Do you want to link her to the crime? If so, why?

 

[Kaosium]

_________________

Kaosium,

Well, judging from a few minutes of Google searching, the kids in the Pentagon know there's an Idaho.

Over the last few years Greg Hampikian hasn't been shy about using Department of Defense money to further his research interests. See HERE and HERE and HERE.

You sound like Proxmire!

It's a good thing to get a research grant, he's doing his job, attracting money to BSU, which right now is known to some people solely for their football team, which plays on the ugliest damn field ever conceived: blue plastic. It's like watching 300 lbs men engage in synchronized swimming!


_____

NOTE: The Defense Threat Reduction Agency has nothing to do with obesity. It's a part of the United States Department of Defense.

///

LOL! Just FYI, many research projects are funded by DoD, it was once put by someone something to the effect of 'all research has military applications.' There's some that think that its better to be spending money on scientific research than whatever else that the Pentagon could be, so they use that 'theory' to spend DoD money on just about any research. As for that second one, don't go all 'X-Files' over it: there's some things you don't want to be the second to discover...

 

[Rolfe]

I am also a physician and have read the original report. The meal was at about 6 pm and there were 500 ml in the stomach and nothing in the duodenum and I agree that time of death would have been before 10 pm. I can also add that there was some hand waving by the experts for the prosecution in the original report about factors that might influence emptying time like stress, etc., that were used by the judge to come up with the TOD of 11:30 but this reasoning is not acceptable by the medical community.

Thank you.

Rolfe.