Continuation Part 2 - Discussion of the Amanda Knox case

[tsig]

Amanda didn't accuse Patrick, the cops convinced her she must have been there when Patrick did it. It looks like they came to almost an immediate assumption someone staged the break-in, that became Amanda because they thought some of her behavior 'suspicious.' So they put the screws to her until they got what they wanted, which actually wasn't much of anything as far as a 'confession' goes and even less as an 'accusation.'

Instead of dismissing references to the Scazzi case as unworthy of disrupting your reading of this thread, perhaps you should have paid more attention to them. This is an environment where the police can come up with just about any idiot-ass theory they want, force 'confessions' in backrooms, arrest someone and tell the press a ridiculous tale which they don't question but then help look for more 'evidence' to convict them. It then goes to the courts where if the police and prosecutor think something happened odds are they can get it through the first trial at the very least.

If I could read Italian I'd try to find out how many 'unique' examples of 'criminal' behavior had 'occurred' in Italy in recent years. These are ghost stories, Tsig, crimes so bizarre on such scant evidence they require a suspension of disbelief to even entertain, and a desire to maintain. On some level people have to want to believe them, and it appears in Italy these days that's not uncommon. It also seems they might be appealing to prejudice, in these two cases against women.

What makes you want to believe Amanda, Raffaele and Rudy raped and murdered Meredith Kercher and then 'staged' a break in, when the sequence of events and actual evidence along with the fact Rudy was a break-in artist reveal there's a far higher probability Rudy did it himself?

My wants are mine and I'll ask you to leave them alone. Imputing some sort of evil motivation to others seems underhanded and speaks to the lack of real argumentation in your post.

 

[tsig]

Actually, platonov was the one who disagreed with a trial by jury when he wrote:

Actually, platonov was the one who disagreed with a trial by jury when he wrote:

Quote:
Originally Posted by platonov:

Alt+F4 means well and that may be good advice but it's not strictly necessary.

There is a less time consuming method

If you can find a number of normally intelligent people on a a website who state that the conviction is unsafe/ridiculous/ a conspiracy that's all you need. Primary documentation is apparently for parrots and buffoons.

Remember that's how the holohoax and the faked moon landings etc were exposed.




And you, tsig, agreed with him.

And you didn't notice his tongue firmly planted in his cheek?

 

[Chris_Halkides]

TMB versus luminol

TMB is not more selective than luminol, it is the reverse that is true. It is also not true that 250 household items react to luminol. Maybe 250 items but not all those are at all likely to be found in your house. Most cleaners tested in the many studies indicate no reaction, other than pure or diluted bleach itself. I can link you to several studies indicating no reaction, try the following:

http://www.redwop.com/download/hemaglow.pdf
http://www.bluestar-forensic.com/pdf/en/false_positives_2008_study.pdf

Danceme,

Let me take this opportunity to clarify a misapprehension I have seen elsewhere. Both TMB and luminol are presumptive tests. Therefore, if every time luminol came up positive and TMB negative was the result of luminol's being more sensitive than TMB, then there would be no reason whatsoever to follow a luminol-based test with a TMB test at all. Lower sensitivity would explain a negative result with TMB, and no new real information would be generated when one obtained a positive result with TMB. For that reason alone I would question whether TMB is less selective than luminol. Can you clarify why you said this? Also, your first link does include some household products that give false positives.
EDT
The confirmatory tests with which I am most familiar are tests to form crystals out of heme or its derivatives and immunological tests involving antibodies that are specific for some biological macromolecule. There are also some new tests involving messenger RNA, but I am less familiar with these. I don't think that what Kaosium wrote about microscopes applies in many, perhaps most, cases.

 

[JREF2010]

Kaosium, I still have questions about the bloody footprints, especially the bloody bathmat print. Why is the bathroom floor devoid of blood yet the bathmat has numerous blood splotches and blood stains even to the very edge of the mat? and the virtually blood covered foot which made the print left no heel mark anywhere on the floor? Was the mat always in the bathroom? Or was it brought to Meredith's room and used there somehow before being laid back in front of the sink? Look closely at the mat blowups and you'll see the edge with blood directly to it. I find it curious no blood at all was found on the bathroom floor.
As far as the bare footprints revealed by luminol go, I think they were made with blood. Where that blood came from, not sure, maybe the bathmat, maybe from stepping in the bloody shoe prints. maybe from the murder room even!
I did a lot of reading on luminol and TMB and luminol is the more sensitive test so a negative TMB doesn't necessarily convince me they were not made with blood. The level of dilution versus the level of glow doesn't explain how luminol manages to detect bloodstains scrubbed clean, even years past.

This is the explanation I've seen here, which I find immensely more convincing than Massei's assumption that the footprint was directly trekked into the bathroom and his implication that the intermediate prints must therefore have been cleaned up. Apart from anything else, the other prints in blood are all shoeprints, not bare footprints.

The killer got some blood on one leg of his trousers, and realised that if he went on his way without doing something about it, it would be a rather obvious indication of his deed.

The footprint, in blood/water mix, is from him rinsing this blood away in the bathroom. The rear part of the print is not from the outer side of the foot, but from the hem of the trouser leg after doing so, when he placed his bare foot on the mat with the heel raised - although the position of this "tail" of the print suggests the outer edge of the foot, when you look closely, it has an irregular outline which is unlike a normal footprint.

I think the assumptions made by the prosecution, the Massei court, and the pro-guilt supporters about this footprint illustrate the superficial nature of the "investigation" and the court verdict.

That is interesting, in addition to Rudy stating he went to the bathroom, near Merediths room, for towels twice.
How can there be no foot prints?

Which leads me wonder, on the morning of Nov 2, with everyone unknowingly walking the hallway and bathroom, they were stepping on any blood residual in the hallway. It's amazing everyone, from the Nov 2 morning, didn't have some blood traces on the soul of their shoes.

Anyway, interesting question Danceme ...

 

[Kaosium]

My wants are mine and I'll ask you to leave them alone. Imputing some sort of evil motivation to others seems underhanded and speaks to the lack of real argumentation in your post.

I think perhaps you missed the point.

 

[Rolfe]

But a faith-based assertion of judicial infallibility is no more reasonable than a faith-based assertion of papal infallibility.

You just had to throw that rock, didn't you.

Of course when I tell you that the faked break-in and Amanda's lying to the police make me doubt her innocence I will get accused of other crimes against rationality.

What's "rock" about that statement? It's simple logic. Belief that the fallible human beings who make up the justice system cannot get it wrong is no more rational than belief that the fallible human being who happened to get elected as Pope cannot get it wrong. We know erroneous verdicts have been arrived at in the past. The very existence of appeal courts is testimony to that. Frankly, any argument that says, the court arrived at a guilty verdict and that alone is sufficient reason to believe in actual guilt irrespective of any incongruities or irrationalities in the evidence and/or logic, is simply ridiculous.

Amanda's lying to the police makes me think, bizarre behaviour, what was she smoking? - oh, wait....

Nobody has yet convinced me that the break-in was faked, but feel free to try.

What I have become pretty well convinced of is that Meredith was killed somewhere close to 9pm. Any theory of faked break-ins and Amanda's culpability has to deal with that one.

Rolfe.

 

[Chris_Halkides]

The Blob

Which leads me wonder, on the morning of Nov 2, with everyone unknowingly walking the hallway and bathroom, they were stepping on any blood residual in the hallway. It's amazing everyone, from the Nov 2 morning, didn't have some blood traces on the soul of their shoes.

The other thing I wonder about is whether some blood might have gotten transferred in some way into Filomena's room sometime in November or early December. There was a luminol-positive blob found in her room, but the luminol was not used until December 18th, if I am not mistaken, meaning it was applied after the flat had been rummaged. This could also be a false positive (cleaning fluid?) created at any time.

 

[tsig]

What's "rock" about that statement? It's simple logic. Belief that the fallible human beings who make up the justice system cannot get it wrong is no more rational than belief that the fallible human being who happened to get elected as Pope cannot get it wrong. We know erroneous verdicts have been arrived at in the past. The very existence of appeal courts is testimony to that. Frankly, any argument that says, the court arrived at a guilty verdict and that alone is sufficient reason to believe in actual guilt irrespective of any incongruities or irrationalities in the evidence and/or logic, is simply ridiculous.

Amanda's lying to the police makes me think, bizarre behaviour, what was she smoking? - oh, wait....

Nobody has yet convinced me that the break-in was faked, but feel free to try.

What I have become pretty well convinced of is that Meredith was killed somewhere close to 9pm. Any theory of faked break-ins and Amanda's culpability has to deal with that one.

Rolfe.

Of course I never said that judges are infallible just that that the judgment was a factor that had to be taken into consideration.

 

[Dan O.]

I remember long ago looking at the blood stains on Meredith's trousers and thinking someone with bloody hands was searching the pockets for something. I just came across this snippet in the Micheli Report:

Based on the evidence gathered, it appears that M. had the habit of keeping at least one of the phones in a trouser pocket​

 

[Danceme]

Secondly, Bluestar and Hemaglow do indeed use the base luminol chemical in their composition,

I'm satisfied with that.

 

[platonov]

What exactly is 'special pleading' & the recurring effect of really good weed.

<snip>

Amanda's lying to the police makes me think, bizarre behaviour, what was she smoking? - oh, wait....
Nobody has yet convinced me that the break-in was faked, but feel free to try.

What I have become pretty well convinced of is that Meredith was killed somewhere close to 9pm. Any theory of faked break-ins and Amanda's culpability has to deal with that one.

Rolfe.

So - the story is.

On the 2nd AK & RS found at crime scene with body locked in bedroom.

On the night of the 5th RS 'admits' his earlier alibi story [which he says was AK's idea ] was 'a load of BS' and now claims that AK was out between 9pm and 1 am* on the night of the murder but he was at (his) home.

This leads the cops to strongly query AK's alibi/story - calling her a liar/waterboarding her (delete as appropriate) - which leads to her accusing PL.
An accusation repeated twice more - once embellished, once hedged (in the unsolicited handwritten gift).
An accusation then not withdrawn in a further unsolicited prison 'memo' of the 7th or an appearance before a Judge on the 8th (she invoked her right to silence).
An accusation that, when she is pressed for an explanation of it by a PM (magistrate) on Dec 17 leads to her becoming 'confused' / 'stoned' again and she/her lawyer promptly terminates the interview.

And the explanation is - 'What was he/she smoking'
I suspect the other suspect RG (the black guy) would not get such an easy ride under the circumstances, his involvement in a murder not being such an extraordinary event.

The '9.00 watershed' which doesn't vary regardless of meal start time or any other 'details' is easier to understand in light of this.

You will forgive me if I give this one a miss


* Note - not that he wasn't sure if she went out after he fell asleep as London John and others have claimed ~ 46 times despite being corrected several times.

 

[Danceme]

Lastly, Bluestar and Hemaglow are both significantly more expensive than traditional luminol. And we all know what kind of budgetary pressures the police have been under, don't we....

I'm not so sure that's true either, a quick search turned up this site selling both products and the cost difference is nominal. This is the distributor for Canada (proof in second link)

http://www.crimesciences.com/apps/StoreBox3.5/search.ami

http://www.bluestar-forensic.com/gb/distributors/canada.php

 

[Kaosium]

Danceme,
The confirmatory tests with which I am most familiar are tests to form crystals out of heme or its derivatives and immunological tests involving antibodies that are specific for some biological macromolecule. There are also some new tests involving messenger RNA, but I am less familiar with these. I don't think that what Kaosium wrote about microscopes applies in many, perhaps most, cases.

Wait a minute, is that crystal test one they do by putting the blood in a petri dish, adding something, and then wait and see if it 'fuzzes up?'

If that is so, then with Stefanoni being on scene they wouldn't have to take it back to a lab, you'd think she could do it right there.

 

[Chris_Halkides]

what is luminol

Secondly, Bluestar and Hemaglow do indeed use the base luminol chemical in their composition, but they are (as you say) bound with different reagents, so the chemical composition of the actual product is different than what would be termed "traditional luminol".

LondonJohn and others,

I am not trying to be pedantic, but luminol is both an acid and a base, and so there are at least three forms, one of which is the hydrochloride salt, and one of which is the sodium salt. If I react 5-Amino-2,3-Dihydro-1,4-Phthalazinedione (C8H7N3O2) with one equivalent of sodium hydroxide, I will obtain the sodium salt, the conjugate base of the original compound. The hydrochloride salt could be made by reacting one equivalent of HCl to he original compound. Each salt form is assigned its own chemical abstracts service (CAS) registry number (See Barni et al., Talanta 72 (2007) 896-913), although all three compounds are closely related.

A materials safety data sheet (MSDS) refers to one preparation of this compound as "luminol reagent," which includes sodium carbonate and sodium perborate. I think some people capitalize the L in this formulation, making it Luminol, but I am not sure about this. BTW, the sodium carbonate is also a base and would remove one proton from C8H7N3O2.

 

[Chris_Halkides]

when an antigen meets an antibody comin' through the rye

Wait a minute, is that crystal test one they do by putting the blood in a petri dish, adding something, and then wait and see if it 'fuzzes up?'

If that is so, then with Stefanoni being on scene they wouldn't have to take it back to a lab, you'd think she could do it right there.

Kaosium,

According to Virkler and Lednev's review article (Forensic Science International, vol. 188 (2009) pp. 1-17), microscope identification can be used in some instances (it sounds as if the cells have to be intact). The two crystal tests are the Teichman and the Takayama tests, and both make small crystals, and crystals typically have sharp edges. The fuzzing up you describe sounds like type of immunochemistry test known as Ouchterlony analysis. The fuzziness you are thinking of sounds like precipitation, which occurs when an antigen (the substance you are trying to detect) meets an antibody (also known as an immunoglobulin). Antigens and the antibodies that are specific for them can be thought of as binding together as in this yin yang symbol.

 

[LondonJohn]

You are wrong, your original post yesterday

Bluestar is a mixture of Sodium Hydroxide and Luminol (Section 3.2), and separate oxidising agent Hydrogen Peroxide. Luminol still retains its exact chemical composition in a mixture, the same luminol chemical is mixed in a solution in the Grodsky, and Weber methods.

Massei makes reference to testimony during the trial, as for chemiluminescence/luminol terms and what you think, take it up with all the scientists and experts who have published articles on luminol testing.

The forensics department of Rome may have different budgets to the police department of Perugia.

Anyway the extra cost may outweigh the benefits of using a brand name, why buy Nurofen when a cheaper ibuprofen generic will do the same job, it should also be in the defendants advantage if there was a large difference in performance.

Firstly, fair enough: I did use the word "brand name" in my original post earlier, and I was wrong to have done so in that context . But I didn't mean brand name in the sense of a licensed trade mark name - I suspect that it was originally a trade mark, but has long since passed into generic usage. In the same way, "Aspirin" was initially a licensed trademark of the Beyer company, but has long since become an unlicensed brand name for acetylsalicylic acid (incidentally, "Heroin" was also once a Beyer licensed brand name....).

Regarding all the rest, I am perfectly willing to concede that the only way to know for sure which test was used is to directly ask the people who conducted the test. But, given that the newer, more advanced tests such as Bluestar and Hemaglow are better and more selective than what is usually termed "traditional luminol" tests, I would be surprised if the investigators would not be keen to testify that they were using the better product. I therefore still believe that "traditional luminol" was what was used by the team examining the cottage in Perugia.

 

[pilot padron]

LondonJohn and others,

I am not trying to be pedantic, but luminol is both an acid and a base, and so there are at least three forms, one of which is the hydrochloride salt, and one of which is the sodium salt. If I react 5-Amino-2,3-Dihydro-1,4-Phthalazinedionea with one equivalent of sodium hydroxide, I will obtain the sodium salt, the conjugate base of the original compound. The hydrochloride salt could be made by reacting one equivalent of HCl to he original compound. Each salt form is assigned its own chemical abstracts service (CAS) registry number (See Barni et al, 2007), although all three compounds are closely related.

A materials safety data sheet (MSDS) refers to one preparation of this compound as "luminol reagent," which includes sodium carbonate and sodium perborate. I think some people capitalize the L in this formulation, making it Luminol.

In the interest of minimizing the ensuing 50,000++ Luminol or luminol spins

Wouldn't it make a lot more sense and a be a lot more considerate on fellow followers here if L J simply admitted:

1) he has absolutely no formal training nor expertise in this area
2) his Google/Library Card/You Tube research was sufficiently superficial to lead him to argue erroneous conclusions that have been repeatedly rightfully refuted by several eminently more qualified observers

End of story for 50,001.

ETA
Oh dear, yes; let us indeed now seize on (quickly) and move mercifully from the obvious but impossible to concede luminol error to the game changing topic of Judge Massei's use of capitalization (to make 51,000+)

 

[LondonJohn]

LondonJohn and others,

I am not trying to be pedantic, but luminol is both an acid and a base, and so there are at least three forms, one of which is the hydrochloride salt, and one of which is the sodium salt. If I react 5-Amino-2,3-Dihydro-1,4-Phthalazinedione (C8H7N3O2) with one equivalent of sodium hydroxide, I will obtain the sodium salt, the conjugate base of the original compound. The hydrochloride salt could be made by reacting one equivalent of HCl to he original compound. Each salt form is assigned its own chemical abstracts service (CAS) registry number (See Barni et al., Talanta 72 (2007) 896-913), although all three compounds are closely related.

A materials safety data sheet (MSDS) refers to one preparation of this compound as "luminol reagent," which includes sodium carbonate and sodium perborate. I think some people capitalize the L in this formulation, making it Luminol, but I am not sure about this. BTW, the sodium carbonate is also a base and would remove one proton from C8H7N3O2.

Yes, I follow what you're saying here. It seems to me that the term "luminol" (and "Luminol") has a certain amount of ambiguity surrounding it. I still maintain that the "luminol" that is most well-known and common is so-called "traditional luminol" preparation - which is different from the newer products which use different reagents.

It's also interesting, in the light of what you wrote about capitalisation, that Massei refers to "Luminol" pretty much throughout...

 

[LondonJohn]

I'm not so sure that's true either, a quick search turned up this site selling both products and the cost difference is nominal. This is the distributor for Canada (proof in second link)

http://www.crimesciences.com/apps/StoreBox3.5/search.ami

http://www.bluestar-forensic.com/gb/distributors/canada.php

But if you look at that site, the most comparable products (as far as I can tell) are the 500ml Bluestar Liquid Kit, and the 472ml Nite-Site Luminol Spray. The Bluestar costs $93.00 and the Nite-Site Luminol costs $28.75.

 

[Kaosium]

So - the story is.

On the 2nd AK & RS found at crime scene with body locked in bedroom.

On the night of the 5th RS 'admits' his earlier alibi story [which he says was AK's idea ] was 'a load of BS' and now claims that AK was out between 9pm and 1 am* on the night of the murder but he was at (his) home.

Did he? There's a couple different translations of that, I do know some were pretending he said she told her to, however I saw more compelling arguments that in fact it meant he was saying it was more along the lines that he was confused by her poor Italian or that he just went along with what she said as he was stoned and didn't think about the 'inconsistencies.'

This leads the cops to strongly query AK's alibi/story - calling her a liar/waterboarding her (delete as appropriate) - which leads to her accusing PL.
An accusation repeated twice more - once embellished, once hedged (in the unsolicited handwritten gift).
An accusation then not withdrawn in a further unsolicited prison 'memo' of the 7th or an appearance before a Judge on the 8th (she invoked her right to silence).

When you look at those three statements what is it about them that causes you to think they are an 'accusation' rather than confusedly repeating a tenuously connected sequence of 'events?' There's the one line about being afraid, but that would follow if the police had convinced her Patrick was the murderer. The police certainly were convinced that Patrick was the murderer, what with the arrest of Patrick and the ten car screaming-siren 'parade' through Perugia.

I suspect the other suspect RG (the black guy) would not get such an easy ride under the circumstances, his involvement in a murder not being such an extraordinary event.

Did you ever notice that all three of the people arrested wrongfully in this debacle were outsiders to Perugians? Amanda the offbeat girl from the West Coast of the US, Raffaele the kid from the impoverished heel of Italy where they talk funny, and Patrick the guy from the Congo.

The '9.00 watershed' which doesn't vary regardless of meal start time or any other 'details' is easier to understand in light of this.

You will forgive me if I give that one a miss

* Note - not that he wasn't sure if she went out after he fell asleep as London John and others have claimed ~ 46 times despite being corrected several times.

Being as during that time the ones (perhaps not you personally dun recall) were trying to base it on a poor translation of a portion of his diary and the Michaeli Report, and using it to pretend he never recanted his 'load of crap,' perhaps that he also said he couldn't be sure if she went out when he was sleeping made more sense to most people.