Continuation Part 2 - Discussion of the Amanda Knox case

[LondonJohn]

My opinion has changed as the prosecutions evidence was reviewed piece by piece and overtime the inability for a motive and setup of the crime was never presented well by the prosecution.
I agree, there's not enough for a guilt vote.

However, I am curious what exactly the Judge Hellman is going to do with the knife? What is he expected to do? Will he instruct the jurors to ignore the knife? How will the results from the new experts be implemented in this trial?

An excellent example of DNA chart reading and basic threshold settings, are presented here at this link. Figure 9

http://www.bioforensics.com/articles/champion1/champion1.html

the knife dna chart- (note the range is set to 0 to 84 , nit 0 to 2000)
http://i160.photobucket.com/albums/t189/zed0101/MKKnifeDNA.jpg

The Italian criminal justice system is different from the US or UK one. Hellmann is not only the lead judge (making rulings and running the trial) - hes also a member of the judicial panel, together with one other professional judge and six lay judges (members of the public). In other words, Hellmann himself is a juror.

Regarding the knife, my view is that the independent report will say that it's unusable as evidence in and of itself: the presence of Knox's DNA on the handle is not probative, and the alleged presence of Meredith's DNA on the blade was not identified using recognised protocols for DNA of such miniscule amounts. It will also point to significant failings in the chain of custody of the knife (most notably the transfer of the knife at the police HQ from a sealed envelope into a non-sterile box that previously contained a desk diary).

I also think that the report will make the following observation concerning the bra clasp: it may find that there is evidence of Sollecito's DNA upon it, but I think that it will find that the manner in which the clasp was left in the cottage is such a serious breach of protocol that the presence of Sollecito's DNA cannot show that it was deposited there during the crime. The report will point to the other unidentified female profiles on the clasp as further evidence of contamination: this DNA could not have survived a machine wash, for example, so it had to have been deposited onto the clasp at some time after the bra was last washed. There appears to be no logical reason why unidentified females would have been touching Meredith's bra clasp before her death - the logical conclusion is that this DNA was somehow deposited on the clasp through contamination after the murder.

 

[CoulsdonUK]

In the context of earlier posts covering the possibility of prisoner transfer; does anyone actually know whether Italian judicial system permits transferring of someone who has been convicted of a capital crime?

 

[Kaosium]

I disagree with you there. If someone other than the intended recipient of the diary reads it, then you can't say that RS was lying to that person.

It appears that the diary was addressed to his father and sister, however if he actually intended for them to read it, I don't know. If so, then the only people you could actually say he lied to were them. He certainly never lied to the police or the court about it.

Have you read it yet? I got the impression he was trying to concoct a scenario wherein the DNA could be on the knife and Amanda not be involved, not really as a murderess, but as an accomplice to someone else. He'd been wondering whether it was possible she was involved, being as that's what the police told him and being as he was stoned all the time he couldn't quite rule out the possibility at the time, especially seeing (false) accounts on TV of Amanda supposedly being at a laundromat with a guy washing shoes or whatever it was.

Like most people he didn't assume contamination, but that there had to be some explainable reason for the DNA, he came up with this. I think he's trying to convince his father and sister and maybe himself a little that she couldn't have been involved. However when it came out the context was removed, and thus some spent years thinking he was making excuses for himself.

Wasn't it clever of Raffaele and Amanda to both wonder in their diaries if the other could be involved, before coming to the conclusion the other couldn't be? I wonder how they planned that out, but forgot to work on their 'story' on the way to the police station late at night?

Nov 18 2007
they are keeping me in jail because there is a kitchen knife with a
trace of Meredith's DNA. It seems like a horror movie ... Looking back
and remembering it came to mind that the night dad sent me an sms
message of goodnight to be indiscreet (knowing that I was with
Amanda), then the day after Amanda repeated to me that if she had not
been with me at this time she would be dead. Thinking and
reconstructing, it seems to me that she always remained with me, the
only thing I do not remember exactly is when she left in the early
evening for a few minutes.

I am convinced that she could not have killed Meredith and then return
home. The fact that there is Meredith's DNA on the kitchen is because
once while cooking together, I shifted myself in the house handling
the knife, I had the point on her hand, and immediately after I
apologized but she had nothing done to her. So the only real
explanation of the kitchen knife is this.

 

[Kaosium]

You bring up an excellent point, Phantom Wolf. No, there is no evidence that Raffaele ever told his story to the police or to the courts.

There is some controversy about the purpose of the diaries. All three defendants kept diaries, which is unlikely in itself, in my opinion. All three diaries focus on the situation surrounding the crime, and all provide each defendant's side of the story. To me, it has always looked as if the defendants were instructed by their lawyers to write the diaries, with the knowledge that the contents would be used to support their defense. It is entirely possible the lawyers said, "When you write in your diary, make yourself look innocent."
Sharing the diaries with the press may be a uniquely Italian strategy. There is also argument about whether it was the lawyers or prison personnel who allowed the diaries to go public.

I wonder if they told him it would be a good strategy to admit he was scoping out the babes working in the prison when incarcerated for a sex murder, as he shamelessly admits he was quite self-aware of?

I like Raffaele.

 

[platonov]

"What will they think of next"

I think this is an important point. All the available evidence suggests that Knox didn't think she was in any significant trouble with the police. [would the waterboarding not have been a clue ? - plat ] I think that she went along with the police suggestions to "remember" going to the house with Lumumba because she had been either explicitly or implicitly told by the police that it was Lumumba that they were after and not her.

I believe that when Knox "spoke" her verbal declaration, and subsequently signed the written declaration (which was, in my view, clearly written for her by the police), she thought that by doing so she was helping the police catch Lumumba - who the police had convinced her was a dangerous killer. Further evidence to support this view is the apparent reason given by the police to Knox as to why they held her in custody after she'd signed the statement: for her own protection from Lumumba, until the police arrested him.

And if I'm correct, then the psychology behind Knox's "confession/accusation" is even more complex. After all, if there was (in Knox's mind) very little element of "confession" in it, then it's even easier to understand why she would have acted as she did: the police told her that they had solid evidence placing her and Lumumba at the murder scene; Lumumba was a dangerous and unpredictable man who had killed Meredith (and the police had evidence to this effect); Knox must have blocked these memories from her mind owing to trauma, but she could help the police put Lumumba where he belonged if she could manage to remember.

If I may quote another poster "Cool story" - but it has nothing to do with the case in the real world.

However it is interesting to see that after thousands of posts pushing the "Internalized False Confession'/ waterboarding" trope this has suddenly ditched in favour of the 'False Accusation / Trying to help the police' theory.

This is equally nonsensical but it is progress of a sort.

First the 'Lone Wolf' is dropped and now this

And despite a recent surge in popularity the 'Early and Precise ToD' seems to have been abandoned although one never can tell.

Strange days indeed, most peculiar !

 

[Dan O.]

There is evidence, for Raffaele and Amanda, its on the computer hard drives.
You cannot burn out a hard drive, I am no computer expert, I did aske some one who is.
The reply that I got back, the only way you can burn a hard drive, is by melting it.
I belive that Amanda had, photos of Meredith on her computer, showing how well they, got on together.
So I am sure , Meredith would load photos of Amanda, on her computer.
I think that was the reason they burn those two computers.
This would take the heat out of the, They did not on together thing.
Raffaele computer, is the most inportent of the three, this is the one that would give, him and Amanda an alibi, that the reason, that the computers was not allowed to be examine, by the makers.
They where telling the truth all along.

You are mostly correct. But the hard drive from Raffaele's MacBook Pro was never affected in the incident that burned the other drives. The hard drive from Meredith's computer was fried but they were able to recover the data by exchanging the logic card. Supposedly, Meridith's computer only contained school work. This seems unbelievable since Meridith is known to have sent email to her family and posted photos to her Facebook page.

The postal police and the first expert called in to fix the problem tried swapping the logic card on Amanda's disk but this made the problem worse and may have erased key information on the drive that allows the data to be easily recovered. This drive was then sent to two data recovery services which failed to recover any data from the drive. As a last act of defiance, the Italian's opened the top of Amanda's drive and photographed the insides. What were they thinking?!

 

[LondonJohn]

If I may quote another poster "Cool story" - but it has nothing to do with the case in the real world.

However it is interesting to see that after thousands of posts pushing the "Internalized False Confession'/ waterboarding" trope this has suddenly ditched in favour of the 'False Accusation / Trying to help the police' theory.

This is equally nonsensical but it is progress of a sort.

First the 'Lone Wolf' is dropped and now this

And despite a recent surge in popularity the 'Early and Precise ToD' seems to have been abandoned although one never can tell.

Strange days indeed, most peculiar !

1) Knox always claimed that the "cuffs to the back of the head" were because the police were frustrated that she couldn't "remember" - not because the police were accusing her of being directly involved in the murder.

2) You still seem to be under some sort of misapprehension that those of us arguing on the side of acquittal are somehow bound together in a homogeneous group, which follows some sort of prepared script or strategy. It's not only clear that this is not the case, but also that it speaks more to your powers of reasoning and observation...

3) Where do you get the idea that the "early and precise ToD" (as you put it) has been "abandoned" (as you put it)? Meredith died before 10pm, and probably before 9.30pm. All the external evidence shows that, and the preponderance of the expert testimony from the first trial (including that of the prosecution's own experts!) shows that. I have little doubt that if the appeal trial gets that far, the defence will be able to show that to the court's satisfaction as well.

PS You don't know what the word "trope" means. Maybe you should look it up before using it next time...

 

[Kaosium]

If I may quote another poster "Cool story" - but it has nothing to do with the case in the real world.

However it is interesting to see that after thousands of posts pushing the "Internalized False Confession'/ waterboarding" trope this has suddenly ditched in favour of the 'False Accusation / Trying to help the police' theory.

This is equally nonsensical but it is progress of a sort.

First the 'Lone Wolf' is dropped and now this

And despite a recent surge in popularity the 'Early and Precise ToD' seems to have been abandoned although one never can tell.

Strange days indeed, most peculiar !

I believe the truth is a fusion of them. Good cop, bad cop. They freaked her out and got her to the 'flashes' then tried to piece together a story from them. I believe her about the flashes as it looks like they took a few 'imaginings' and tried to weave a story from them, but for the most part she didn't do much extrapolating--especially about Patrick. She 'admits' to perhaps covering her ears when they tell her about the scream, but she blanks out in the second one for the murder--she doesn't elaborate any.

She was in there for seven hours, no doubt they tried a lot of ploys, and it would certainly make sense at some point after her ordeal that she just wanted to sign some papers and go home.

 

[platonov]

"Can you dumb it down a little, doc"

<snip>

As for the bra clasp, if it means Raffaele was in that room, how about the other profiles evident on the clasp, does that mean they were there too? How come there's no corroborating evidence of Raffaele there either? Boy that worked out strangely, didn't it? Rudy Guede leaves all that mess and Raffaele and Amanda leave two items--both of which are not inherent to either the murder or the room--totaling 40 picograms? That's 4/100,000,000,000ths of a gram, which is pretty damned small to begin with.

<snip>

I don't think 30 pg of uncorroborated 'evidence' in the murder room and 10 pg of 'evidence' in Raffaele's drawer that could both have happened differently should completely change the equation, regardless if the experts pretend they have godlike powers

Kaosium.

If I understand (this part of) your argument correctly it is that DNA is very small.

Now, and I hope this doesn't come as a shock, that was always my understanding also - but apparently not.

It's only 'LCN' DNA that's tiny - the 'other stuff' is visible to the naked eye

Can we get some clarification on this.

After all the recent upheavals (see last post) we need some certainty in Cartwheel world.

 

[CoulsdonUK]

2) You still seem to be under some sort of misapprehension that those of us arguing on the side of acquittal are somehow bound together in a homogeneous group, which follows some sort of prepared script or strategy. It's not only clear that this is not the case, but also that it speaks more to your powers of reasoning and observation...

It is interesting outside of the various partisan forums either side of this case how frequently the same names appear on almost every article relating to Meredith’s murder, it’s like disparate group of people acting like a political rebuttal unit responding to anything said about their candidate.

 

[LondonJohn]

It is interesting outside of the various partisan forums either side of this case how frequently the same names appear on almost every article relating to Meredith’s murder, it’s like disparate group of people acting like a political rebuttal unit responding to anything said about their candidate.

That's irrelevant: it's no evidence whatsoever of any group acting in concert - it's merely evidence of people seeking out media reports concerning this case and making comments. And if you're talking about such behaviour, the near-ubiquitous presence of machine/harry rag on comments sections is an excellent case study.

As an aside, I personally don't comment or post about this case anywhere except JREF.

 

[shuttlt]

It's only 'LCN' DNA that's tiny - the 'other stuff' is visible to the naked eye.

I think it depends on where the DNA is coming from. DNA is tiny, but you don't need that many cells (fag packet calculations were done on white blood cells ages ago) clumped together to come within the optical resolution of the human eye.

 

[Kaosium]

Kaosium.

If I understand your argument correctly it is that DNA is very small.

Now, and I hope this doesn't come as a shock, that was always my understanding also - but apparently not.

It's only 'LCN' DNA that's tiny - the 'other stuff' is visible to the naked eye.

Can we get some clarification on this.

After all the recent upheavals (see last post) we need some certainty in Cartwheel world.

The sample from the bra clasp was 1.4 ng off the top of my head, with the majority of that being from Meredith. Thank you for pointing this out though, as I don't know why I got 30 pgs into my head for the bra clasp, because that isn't right either now that I think of it. I believe Raffaele's portion of that sample is estimated to be about 200 pgs.

Whatever was scraped off the knife was supposedly barely visible, and consumed in testing. The appeal says the DNA was 10 or less pg, and the leak from the experts said 10 pgs too, and considering the 'too lows' and the forensic scientists all freaking that makes sense.

 

[Kaosium]

It is interesting outside of the various partisan forums either side of this case how frequently the same names appear on almost every article relating to Meredith’s murder, it’s like disparate group of people acting like a political rebuttal unit responding to anything said about their candidate.

It's called 'google alert.' You sign up for 'Amanda Knox' and it sends you e-mails when an article or blog is written about the case. The ones receiving the emails then tend to go there, as do people from the websites discussing the case do likewise when links are posted to those articles.

It's a grassroots campaign, you can see a similar effect from posters in politics from Democratic Underground, Free Republic, etc.

 

[LondonJohn]

I think it depends on where the DNA is coming from. DNA is tiny, but you don't need that many cells (fag packet calculations were done on white blood cells ages ago) clumped together to come within the optical resolution of the human eye.

I don't think you're making the distinction between DNA strands and cells which contain those DNA strands. White blood cells, for example, are typically around 10 microns in diameter. This means that 10,000 white blood cells, laid in a 100 x 100 square, would form a square with sides of 0.1mm. This would be just large enough to be seen with the naked eye as a tiny speck.

But DNA strands are far smaller than the cells which contain them. A typical coiled DNA strand is around 4 nanometres long by 2 nanometres wide. That's about 2,000 times smaller than a white blood cell. So there is absolutely no way that one would see even hundreds of thousands of coiled DNA strands grouped together without a powerful microscope.

 

[platonov]

Re "Can you dumb it down a little, doc"

Whoosh

Is it possible I was too subtle ? Me

There is a first [ ? ] time for everything I suppose.

 

[platonov]

'Fr Luke Duke' responds

<snip>

2) You still seem to be under some sort of misapprehension that those of us arguing on the side of acquittal are somehow bound together in a homogeneous group, which follows some sort of prepared script or strategy. It's not only clear that this is not the case, but also that it speaks more to your powers of reasoning and observation...

3) Where do you get the idea that the "early and precise ToD" (as you put it) has been "abandoned" (as you put it)? Meredith died before 10pm, and probably before 9.30pm. All the external evidence shows that, and the preponderance of the expert testimony from the first trial (including that of the prosecution's own experts!) shows that. I have little doubt that if the appeal trial gets that far, the defence will be able to show that to the court's satisfaction as well.

PS You don't know what the word "trope" means. Maybe you should look it up before using it next time...

You appear to be under a misapprehension about my 'misapprehension'. *

No doubt the fault was mine

I don't believe the spread & repetition of various parts of the CT on this thread are due to a centralized shadowy body any more than the admittedly more popoular 'sign at Auschwitz' or 'no planes theory'.
More likely its organic - dare I use the dreaded term 'meme'.

Hence my use of the word 'trope' and sometimes 'mantra'.

ETA * Or there may be some projection involved.

 

[zeb]

You are mostly correct. But the hard drive from Raffaele's MacBook Pro was never affected in the incident that burned the other drives. The hard drive from Meredith's computer was fried but they were able to recover the data by exchanging the logic card. Supposedly, Meridith's computer only contained school work. This seems unbelievable since Meridith is known to have sent email to her family and posted photos to her Facebook page.

The postal police and the first expert called in to fix the problem tried swapping the logic card on Amanda's disk but this made the problem worse and may have erased key information on the drive that allows the data to be easily recovered. This drive was then sent to two data recovery services which failed to recover any data from the drive. As a last act of defiance, the Italian's opened the top of Amanda's drive and photographed the insides. What were they thinking?!

Thank you Dan O.
So now it is just down to just Raffaeles computer, so the data, do you think that the data on that hard drive, would still be there.
I also think the defence should also bring this up, in the appeal, the police has distroyed importent information, showing and Amanda got on well.
Also like you, why would you take a hard disk apart, and take photos of it, I did not Know that part.

 

[Mary_H]

It is interesting outside of the various partisan forums either side of this case how frequently the same names appear on almost every article relating to Meredith’s murder, it’s like disparate group of people acting like a political rebuttal unit responding to anything said about their candidate.

The name I see most often on the pro-guilt side is "Anonymous."

 

[Fine]

...blood....still dripping down her chin?

Amanda, email of November 4th: "The last time i saw meredith, 22, english, beautiful, funny, was when
i came home from spending the night at a friends house. It was the day
after halloween, thursday. I got home and she was still asleep, bu
after i had taken a shower and was fumbling around the kitchen she emerged from her room with the blood of her costume (vampire) still dripping down her chin."



Photograph of Meredith, on Halloween, in vampire costume............

I don't see no blood, fake or otherwise. What the heck was Amanda talking about?

///