Continuation Part 2 - Discussion of the Amanda Knox case

[shuttlt]

They didn't look for DNA from Laura or Filomena. They directed their search right at their suspects.

Same goes for footprints. They only compared prints to their suspects. Sample footprints were not taken of Laura or Filomena.

So there are lots of unidentified samples? If I knew this once I'd forgotten it. Unknown female A's DNA found in locations X, Y, Z in Meredith's bedroom, and so forth? Is there a list of all the places and how many unidentified people? This seems like a good way of undermining the clasp if, say, Filomena's boyfriends DNA could be located on one of the samples, or somebody else who's never been in the room.

 

[Chris_Halkides]

Meredith's DNA in the lab

Halides,

Are you saying that, based on the available information, the odds of Meredith's DNA showing up on the knife, say, would be 50/50? Better than 50/50? Where as the odds of Stefanoni's DNA, or some other DNA, turning up on the LCN sample would be 10,000 to 1?

If you tell me that a sample caked in Meredith's DNA was examined by the same person, with the same equipment immediately prior to the knife, then OK, the result isn't so surprising. Until we know that, it seems to me like a surprising result.

You have seen Charlie's list of DNA samples, have you not? IIRC most of the samples showed Meredith's profile. I would say that it is more likely that Meredith's profile would show up in a contamination event than any other single person. Moreover, the second ILE person to handle the knife had just been to the flat, so contamination outside of the lab is also possible.

 

[shuttlt]

I guess we simply cannot tell that and it really doesn't matter in the long run. From Amanda's note it's clear she soon realized that what they made her remember was not real. But was she aware during the interrogation that they are lying to her and are playing the old trick of "repressed memory" and "use your imagination"? Certainly looks like she fell for it. That were countless posts here about it and how what she described and what she signed is a textbook coerced false confession. How strongly internalized we can only speculate.

BTW was she even aware what exactly she was signing in Italian during that night?

?? Has she ever claimed she wasn't. Or did she not know what she signed at 1:45am, then sign something at 5:45am saying much the same thing without understanding it. She clearly understood it the following day when she wrote he gift. Her trial testimony is a bit hard to understand if the stuff in the statement didn't get discussed during the interview/interrogation.

 

[shuttlt]

Raffaele is a computer geek, and we have all seen the letter that he sent.
the police was looking at the wrong files on his comuter.
He finds it funny, but very sad, after all these are ment to be experts, the way I read his letter, was, give me a new mach, let me conect may old hard drive to the new mach, and I will show you that I never left my flat on the night of the Murder.
So in the end his alibi will stand for him, and also for Amanda.

I haven't read his letter. He didn't remember the logs a year ago? He needs to deduct some computer nerd points right there.

 

[Alt+F4]

Mr. Stagliano seems to put much emphasis on Marriott. With more facts and less editorializing, his article might have been more useful. However, when he quotes one of Amanda's teachers, Kris Johnson as saying, "It was a pleasure to teach her," that cuts right through Mr. Stagliano's opinions.

So what? I've taught thousands of high school kids over the past 17 years and I would also say it was a pleasure to teach the vast majority of them.

 

[shuttlt]

DNA is quantized. If you reached into a mixed bag of marbles and picked out one, would you expect it to be representative of all the colors of marbles in the bag or would it come out "clean".

I was under the impression more than one marble was chosen. Also LCN magnifies fragmented DNA, so more marbles in that sense. Further, the problem was that there were very few marbles. If it had been a dirty bit of contamination there would have been more marbles and a more mixed result. It seems that a small and totally clean bit of contamination ended up on the knife.

 

[shuttlt]

Perhaps shuttit is still reflecting, as he hasn't said which couple of things he was thinking of.

Why be like this? I wanted to know whether you would accept any negative characteristic attributed to Amanda or Raffaele. To me, taking a knife to a police station is silly and taking a knife to a police station under the circumstances is stupid. It seems to me that the most you are prepared to admit is that it was a bad idea. Doubtless you were trying to be irritating, congrats.

 

[Chris_Halkides]

paying it forward

Just more spin. Always notice that those who say, "if I had a son" or "if I had a daugther" they would love to have the person in question as their child's lover-roommate-best friend when that scenario would never actually be possible.

Alt+F4,

Collin Finnerty won a leadership award at Loyola, and he and his mother played a role in helping to free Eric Volz. Reade Seligmann won an award while he was at Brown for organizing his teammates to help in fundraising for Project Innocence. That is why I predict that Amanda and Raffaele will do something similar.

 

[Chris_Halkides]

Jane Doe

So what? I've taught thousands of high school kids over the past 17 years and I would also say it was a pleasure to teach the vast majority of them.

Alt+F4,
It is a pleasure to teach. However, I would not say that it was a pleasure to teach Jane Doe specifically for the majority of Jane Does that I have taught.

 

[shuttlt]

shuttlt,

What do you mean clean? In order to accept it as Meredith's profile, one has to acknowledge that the stochastic effects are pretty strong, indicating that we are in the low template range.

Low template. yes.

If we are in the low template range, one should be testing the sample twice in a specially equipped laboratory, distant from the main DNA laboratory.

We've discussed all this before. I agree it would be nice/better to do all that stuff.

Finally there are a couple of extra alleles that do not belong to Meredith.

I had forgotten this.

Dr. Hampikian did a nice experiment involving secondary transfer, and someone recently provided a link a few pages ago.

He showed that it's possible, or that if, say I shook your hand, went for a walk, touched a few things, I would be likely to leave your DNA unmuddled up with mine on a knife I was putting away?

 

[Alt+F4]

Collin Finnerty won a leadership award at Loyola, and he and his mother played a role in helping to free Eric Volz. Reade Seligmann won an award while he was at Brown for organizing his teammates to help in fundraising for Project Innocence. That is why I predict that Amanda and Raffaele will do something similar.

How could you possibly predict what AK and RS would do if released, especially when comparing them to men who were never convicted and I think, maybe spent six months in jail?

 

[Chris_Halkides]

lemonade

How could you possibly predict what AK and RS would do if released, especially when comparing them to men who were never convicted and I think, maybe spent six months in jail?

Alt+F4,

If you are saying that spending years in prison can bring about irreparable harm, then I agree with you. I am usually an optimist, and I hope that Amanda and Raffaele find a way to make lemonade out of lemons.

 

[Katody Matrass]

?? Has she ever claimed she wasn't. Or did she not know what she signed at 1:45am, then sign something at 5:45am saying much the same thing without understanding it. She clearly understood it the following day when she wrote he gift. Her trial testimony is a bit hard to understand if the stuff in the statement didn't get discussed during the interview/interrogation.

Obviously it had been discussed, I however had something different on my mind.
The second declaration (5:45) opens with the words I wish to relate spontaneously which is a strictly legalese Italian term in the context of her being a suspect at the time. For certain reasons those declarations were not discussed in depth during the trial and I wonder if she was aware they had put those words in the beginning and what those words meant in the legal sense.

A side note: it's interesting that the declaration says
I do not remember if Meredith was screaming and if I heard some thuds too because I was upset, but I imagined what could have happened.
To me it sounds like someone answering specific questions, not relating spontaneously.

 

[Katody Matrass]

I haven't read his letter. He didn't remember the logs a year ago? He needs to deduct some computer nerd points right there.

The letter was posted in this thread a few days ago.

Being a "computer nerd" no longer means someone have an indepth knowledge of operating system inner workings. The field is vast and specialized now. I think defence got some consultants to find the data in those logs. They are right to call for a review of computer data. The analysis by the postals was obviously flawed and incomplete (not to mention destructive )

 

[shuttlt]

Obviously it had been discussed, I however had something different on my mind.
The second declaration (5:45) opens with the words I wish to relate spontaneously which is a strictly legalese Italian term in the context of her being a suspect at the time. For certain reasons those declarations were not discussed in depth during the trial and I wonder if she was aware they had put those words in the beginning and what those words meant in the legal sense.

She has never claimed this so far as I'm aware. I guess it might be the case and there were reasons why she hasn't mentioned it.

 

[Katody Matrass]

Why be like this? I wanted to know whether you would accept any negative characteristic attributed to Amanda or Raffaele. To me, taking a knife to a police station is silly and taking a knife to a police station under the circumstances is stupid. It seems to me that the most you are prepared to admit is that it was a bad idea. Doubtless you were trying to be irritating, congrats.

I think people are allergic to any characterization of AK and RS in bad light, because it played a serious role in building the case against them - the whole character assassination thing. We also had in this thread many times disputants not willing to discuss the evidence but only e.g. Amanda's noise ticket (dubbed conviction for disturbance or something like this and pushed as proof of psychopathy) or, lets say, Scientific Statement Analysis^TM of her writings . I don't think anyone likes to go this pointless and tiresome way again.

That said, I for one have no problem with acknowledging AK and RS mistakes and character flaws

 

[shuttlt]

The letter was posted in this thread a few days ago.

I know. I need to go look on IIP I think.

Being a "computer nerd" no longer means someone have an indepth knowledge of operating system inner workings. The field is vast and specialized now. I think defence got some consultants to find the data in those logs. They are right to call for a review of computer data. The analysis by the postals was obviously flawed and incomplete (not to mention destructive )

I'm a computer nerd, not of the first order, but still.... Understanding your own OS to that level isn't a specialized field. He's had all this time chewing over what happened that night. Doubtless he doesn't have much of an internet connection at the moment to Google this, but the basic logging mechanisms of your laptop are not the kind of thing only a specialist in computer forensics would know about. I'm not an Apple user, so I wouldn't know the specific log, but really, whoever looked at the laptop must be incompitent and Raffaele should be kicking himself. It's hard to believe, but I'm left wondering whether, assuming he's innocent, somehow he didn't know he was using the laptop all night.

 

[shuttlt]

I think people are allergic to any characterization of AK and RS in bad light, because it played a serious role in building the case against them - the whole character assassination thing. We also had in this thread many times disputants not willing to discuss the evidence but only e.g. Amanda's noise ticket (dubbed conviction for disturbance or something like this and pushed as proof of psychopathy) or, lets say, Scientific Statement Analysis^TM of her writings . I don't think anyone likes to go this pointless and tiresome way again.

This is kind of self fullfilling. Guilters then get pissed at you guys for never admitting the slightest negative trait or action in them and feel forced to try and prove it. And round we go.

 

[Katody Matrass]

I know. I need to go look on IIP I think.


I'm a computer nerd, not of the first order, but still.... Understanding your own OS to that level isn't a specialized field. He's had all this time chewing over what happened that night. Doubtless he doesn't have much of an internet connection at the moment to Google this, but the basic logging mechanisms of your laptop are not the kind of thing only a specialist in computer forensics would know about. I'm not an Apple user, so I wouldn't know the specific log, but really, whoever looked at the laptop must be incompitent and Raffaele should be kicking himself. It's hard to believe, but I'm left wondering whether, assuming he's innocent, somehow he didn't know he was using the laptop all night.

I'm not sure he has access to any PC not to mention Google or Internet. Lack of sources can hamper any nerd. As for what happened that night I'm afraid that PC usage consisted almost solely of media playback and torrents downloading in the background. I imagine that every time something was played there is a gap in interaction, followed by actions of selecting and opening other files, creating playlists (like the one before dawn that got recorded) etc. If there was something really explosive in those logs, the defense would be screaming about it all the time.
I think the main point defense made was refuting Massei's erroneous conclusion that there was no interaction at all throughout the night.

 

[Dan O.]

Halides,

Are you saying that, based on the available information, the odds of Meredith's DNA showing up on the knife, say, would be 50/50? Better than 50/50? Where as the odds of Stefanoni's DNA, or some other DNA, turning up on the LCN sample would be 10,000 to 1?

If you tell me that a sample caked in Meredith's DNA was examined by the same person, with the same equipment immediately prior to the knife, then OK, the result isn't so surprising. Until we know that, it seems to me like a surprising result.

I was under the impression more than one marble was chosen. Also LCN magnifies fragmented DNA, so more marbles in that sense. Further, the problem was that there were very few marbles. If it had been a dirty bit of contamination there would have been more marbles and a more mixed result. It seems that a small and totally clean bit of contamination ended up on the knife.

You are asking some of the same questions the defense has been asking since this case began. But rather than just speculate wildly, the defense requested the raw data which can be analyzed by special software that looks for statistical correlations in the noise at the bottom of the charts to estimate the rates of contamination and possibly a hint as to the cause.

We talked about marbles as a metaphor that most people can relate to but this contamination is just small clumps of not more than 10 cells or a droplet from a previous PCR amplification. This contamination is too small to be seen and floats in the air for hours.

We presume that the lab is reasonably clean and the probability of one of these clumps or droplets landing on a given sample is small. Since I don't have the actual numbers, lets say for illustration that the probability is about 1 in 10. Then, the probability two droplets landing on the same sample would be about 1 in 100 (the product of the probabilities for each). It's easy to see that unless the contamination rate is very high, the chance of getting mixed contamination is much smaller than the chance of seeing clean contamination from a single source.

You are probably now asking: if the probability of seeing contamination is small, how did we see it in that specific sample from the knife?
The answer here is that the doctor bought multiple tickets to this lottery. On the knife alone there were i believe 7 samples taken from the blade. All returned the same "too low" result initially but one apparently had a hint of noise that the doctor chose to amplify beyond the specifications for the procedure. The probabilities for each of these samples add up so using the same 1 in 10 probability for a single contamination event as above, the resulting probability of finding at least one sample or the 7 with contamination is better than 1 in 2.