Continuation Part 2 - Discussion of the Amanda Knox case

[LondonJohn]

Excellent research. This is a photo that has been hard to come by and that is a mystery in itself. The evidence regarding Meredith's call home along with the food digestion evidence led me to believe that Meredith was attacked at the time she made the call. This new information goes further to prove that Meredith was attacked in that same time frame but simply a few minutes later.

It changes nothing with regard to the attack. It makes more sense to me because I always thought if the phone call home was interrupted by the attack the call would have gone through and some one would have heard the attack on the other end. This time frame suggests that Meredith may have had a bad signal on the initial call but never had the opportunity to attempt another call because she was attacked.

Firstly, my added thanks to Draca for locating this evidence (where did you find it?!)

But second, if the real time is 9.01-9.03pm, I don't think the figure can be Meredith. Sophie Purton was definitely back at her home by 9pm (and I believe she altered her view after having given testimony in Massei's court, to the effect that she was home by around 8.55pm). And this implies that unless Meredith decided to make some sort of detour/delay in the final 200 yards or so of her journey home after parting with Sophie, then I can't see how she arrived at the cottage any later than around 8.57pm - some 4-6 minutes before the figure on the CCTV.

I therefore still believe that Meredith arrived home at around 8.55pm, and placed the call to her mother while she was inside the cottage (with subsequent interruption, call termination, and confrontation/attack). I think therefore that the figure in the video is most likely an unidentified person. There's a possibility of course that the figure is Knox - but not only do I believe this not to be the case, it's also obvious that this would never be good enough to be used as evidence in court.

I don't believe that the police made any significant door-to-door inquiries in this case. As such, I very much doubt whether they made any reasonable attempt to establish whether the figure in the CCTV was a person unconnected to the case. Such a person could have been heading towards the iron staircase up the side of the car park (a common short-cut up to the lower part of the walled city), or heading down to the outskirts of town (less likely, in my opinion, but still possible).

 

[LondonJohn]

This just in from a highly-respected(!) member of the pro-guilt community:

"Why have the Groupies™ suddenly changed their minds? Why were those electronic files crucial to freeing Knox and Sollecito two months ago yet now they're claiming success without them?"

Do you think this is sheer ignorance, or willful distortion? I'm going for the latter. Either way, the source data files are absolutely key to the very core of the independent report. They show what was actually found on the knife and the bra clasp, and provide all the necessary context for examining not only Stefanoni's interpretation methodology (bogus) but also the possibility of contamination (high). The source data files are therefore the bedrock of the whole argument that the knife/clasp were improperly handled, collected, stored, tested and interpreted.

The very suggestion that pro-acquittal commentators are "claiming success without (the source data files)" is therefore totally, utterly wrong. And, by the way, this is not about "claiming success" (other than for Knox/Sollecito themselves and their families). It's about seeing some vindication of arguments, and (more importantly) seeing justice starting to be done. The word "success" is a distasteful and inappropriate one to be bandying around in this case - in which there are no real "winners" - there's only people who have suffered to a greater or lesser extent, and people who have been in dereliction of their duties and responsibilities.

 

[Katody Matrass]

Bolint,

Charlie uploaded the presentation onto FOA, it's at the bottom of my post.

http://www.friendsofamanda.org/miscellaneous/meredith_arriving_home.ppt

Thanks, the images are much clearer. It's someone wearing a brighter top and dark bottom, with a large bag of some kind, walking across the road and then along the left side of it. By the looks no way to say who is it, anyway. By the timestamp it could be Meredith, although it's a little bit late for her. Someone completely unrelated is as good explanation as everything else, too.

 

[LondonJohn]

Thanks, the images are much clearer. It's someone wearing a brighter top and dark bottom, with a large bag of some kind, walking across the road and then along the left side of it. By the looks no way to say who is it, anyway. By the timestamp it could be Meredith, although it's a little bit late for her. Someone completely unrelated is as good explanation as everything else, too.

And, as I've said before, the images are too blurred - and the context too imprecise - for the CCTV to be of any probative value anyhow.

If the cottage had been in the middle of nowhere, along a driveway that had a CCTV camera, then an image capture - however blurry - would be of some value. The prosecution could then argue that the person seen in the image would almost certainly have been involved in some way with the cottage, and would therefore be of value to the investigation.

But this camera captured a person walking along an urban road (albeit one on the outskirts of town). This fact, coupled with the extremely poor quality of the image, means that it has almost no real evidential value. And this would be the same whether this CCTV were of potential help to the defence or the prosecution.

The other factor is that I believe this CCTV camera was motion-triggered (by motion close to the camera) as opposed to constantly operating. If it were in constant operation, the police would have been able to examine its footage from the entire period between 8.45pm and 12.00am, and could have documented all human movements down that part of Via Della Pergola. But since that's not the case, it lends even more credence to the argument that the CCTV is of next to no real value.

 

[Kaosium]

I've gotten ahold of a time stamped shot from the likely Meredith Kercher arriving home video.

The timestamp is 20:51.

Thank you! Now I get to go through all this polarity difference crap again!

All my research had told me 8:41 p.m. was correct. It seems the cops did adjust the time to be 10 minutes fast in the Mar 13, 2009 court date. I was wrong. Taking into account the slow clock from the postal Police demonstration, Meredith Kercher arrived home 9:01 - 9:03 p.m.


Some questions from this:

1. Why did all the times given in media from the Nov 11-12, 2007 press leak say either 8:41 or 8:43 p.m.? Did the cops adjust the time they leaked even that early in the investigation?

That would make sense, suggesting when they brought Raffaele into the questura they were thinking he must have called the carabinieri after the Postal police arrived, and then lied about it. This makes him look suspicious which is another reason to put the hammer down on him, yet it also begs the question of why they didn't seem to think him involved in the rape part just yet, being as if he's 'lying' about the phone call, and that Amanda wasn't with him, that makes him an even more obvious suspect.

My guess is they were tunneling in on Patrick at that point, so they just wanted an admission Amanda wasn't with him and that she'd convinced him to 'lie' about whether she went out, and then about calling the caribinieri. Since Raffaele definitely did call the carabinieri first they must have had to have put pressure on him to 'admit' anything else, and being as that contention is counter-intuitive you'd think it would take 'hard evidence' to give them the idea in the first place.

If anyone's curious about why I think the police weren't thinking of Raffaele as a suspect for the actual rape-murder at that point, it's because they get his statement at 10:40 and he just sits there while they go after Amanda about someone else. There's almost nothing mentioned about Raffaele in her statements, I can't recall reading anything about Amanda testifying they pressed her for info on him. Nor for that matter does he make an appearance in the cupcakes and tea fairy-tale told by the cops in court.

Being as he's the obvious choice to be participating with Amanda in a rape-murder there must be a reason these cops who had Amanda and Raffaele in separate rooms with twelve cops available to interrogate weren't giving it to both of them at the same time, and in fact let Raffaele off with just those erroneous 'admissions.' They didn't have to arrest him until they were done with him, and being as he was stoned and spilling his guts if they thought he was actually complicit in the rape-murder at that point I just have trouble seeing how they'd would stop interrogating him until they had a confession about that as well. My guess is they thought him uninvolved until they made the idiot error with his shoe pattern, and at that point he was no longer stoned and pissed off and not talking anymore.

2. Why did they think it was 10 minutes fast?

I think Dan-O probably hit it on the head, someone wrote it down wrong or just got mixed up as to what the time difference would mean.

3. Why on Mar 13, 2009 did they adjust it to 8:41 p.m. and still say they thought it was Meredith Kercher? If it WAS that time it could not have been her because she hadn't even left her friends place yet. They knew that because the girlfriends had already testified.

They didn't want anyone remembering they once thought it was Amanda Knox? They didn't want anyone thinking it could have been anyone else who might have been involved in the murder, being as at this point they know she has a definite alibi for then and they've moved the time of death forward almost three hours? They didn't bother to stop and figure it all out, or 'it's close enough for government work?'

4. The 8:56 p.m. call? Did Meredith attempt to call after parting with Sophie and it didn't connect? Perhaps she decided to wait until she got home to call and never got a chance.

Did I read it right, that call never actually connected to a tower? If that's the case, is it possible the clock on Meredith's phone might have been off by about five minutes? Would the internal clock on her phone be automatically updated? Even if so, is that an option that might have to be turned on, or could be turned off?

 

[bolint]

At the time of the the trial when the CCTV police witness (Barbadori) testified I asked stewarthome, who was at the trial, about these things:

(From PMF)
Posted: Fri Mar 13, 2009 10:31 pm Post subject: cctv


bolint wrote:
Hi Stewart,

great reporting, thanks.

What was with the CCTV witness?
What was told about the timing of the postal police arrival, the white lady, etc.. ?

The witness was there to testify about the CCTV images stating that it was only possible to make out that there was a person and it could not really be used for identification unless it was a very clear image. The argument was over the system that caused the CCTV to start filming. If a person walks by on the street or a car passes by the road, the CCTV is not activated, but if they come in the garage whether it be a car or person, the CCTV begins recording and continues at least 30 seconds AFTER the car or person has left the "radar" area. Hence you will see scenes of people walking on the street and ars going by only if a car or person set the CCTV off and then left the field of vision.

There was testimony that a person with a white or light colored jacket (lt. blue for example) was captured by the CCTV and believed to be Meredith...but that could not be verified. How could they say it was Meredith?..it was agreed identity could not be confirmed. The carabinieri stated that the time on the CCTV was actually 10 minutes late..hence an image captured at 8:50pm was really captured t 8:40pm.

Buongiorno used slides of the CCTV taken on Nov 2nd at 1:55pm where there was a carabinieri caught walking and shortly afterwards a carabinieri car (you could see the strip on the pant leg and the name carabinieri on the car) hence trying to show that they came much later to the crime scene then previously stated. The CCTV was triggered by a black fiat punto that stopped in from of the entrance and moved on...the carabinieri were then seen in the footage... but it proved little. They could have been there well beforehand.

It really did not go anywhere... she did make mincemeat out of the witness as he did not have all the answers as to how he knew it was 10 min late, how it worked, where it was located etc. She also complained that there were people captured by the CCTV that night that the carabinieri did not thorougly check out. She used the images with supposedly Rudy in the CCTV around 8:40pm. This was actually the first testimony of the day.

It looked like it was gonn be a good day for the defense, but then went downhill from there.

 

[Rolfe]

Suppose the time of death we're discussing is correct, and (as I believe) Meredith was killed quite soon after she walked in that door.

Can you still argue for Knox/Sollecito to be guilty? Is this a reasonable approach? Is there still evidence that insists they were involved, so that any alibi they have for that time has to be breakable?

Rolfe.

 

[bolint]

Suppose the time of death we're discussing is correct, and (as I believe) Meredith was killed quite soon after she walked in that door.

Can you still argue for Knox/Sollecito to be guilty? Is this a reasonable approach? Is there still evidence that insists they were involved, so that any alibi they have for that time has to be breakable?

Rolfe.

Yes, I still think Amanda was there at the time of the murder.
As for Sollecito, his role was always a problem for me.
If he had had a chief role in the murder I don't think he would have said anything against Knox.

 

[Katody Matrass]

At the time of the the trial when the CCTV police witness (Barbadori) testified I asked stewarthome, who was at the trial, about these things:

Buongiorno used slides of the CCTV taken on Nov 2nd at 1:55pm where there was a carabinieri caught walking and shortly afterwards a carabinieri car (you could see the strip on the pant leg and the name carabinieri on the car) hence trying to show that they came much later to the crime scene then previously stated. The CCTV was triggered by a black fiat punto that stopped in from of the entrance and moved on...the carabinieri were then seen in the footage... but it proved little. They could have been there well beforehand.

stewarthome got hopelessly confused or couldn't hear Bongiorno's explanation. I've got Bongiorno's presentation and it's very clear just from the slides. The black fiat was postale driving around and then finally finding the cottage - timestamp of it is 12:36-12:48. Arrival of Carabinieri has timestamp 13:22 and has nothing to do with any black fiat. The proof was in the phone records that contained long phone call with Carabinieri, which ended just as they arrived and enabled precise correction of the timestamps discrepancy.

It well exemplifies how much easier it is to seed doubt and cast accusations than dispel them, especially in front of an audience that has already made up their mind.

 

[bolint]

stewarthome got hopelessly confused or couldn't hear Bongiorno's explanation. I've got Bongiorno's presentation and it's very clear just from the slides. The black fiat was postale driving around and then finally finding the cottage - timestamp of it is 12:36-12:48. Arrival of Carabinieri has timestamp 13:22 and has nothing to do with any black fiat. The proof was in the phone records that contained long phone call with Carabinieri, which ended just as they arrived and enabled precise correction of the timestamps discrepancy.

It well exemplifies how much easier it is to seed doubt and cast accusations than dispel them, especially in front of an audience that has already made up their mind.

Or Bongiorno's presentation was confused.
Nobody seemed to understand it, no newspapers, not even Frank and other pro defence forces.
It had no effect, although it should have had to.

 

[Kaosium]

Firstly, my added thanks to Draca for locating this evidence (where did you find it?!)

But second, if the real time is 9.01-9.03pm, I don't think the figure can be Meredith. Sophie Purton was definitely back at her home by 9pm (and I believe she altered her view after having given testimony in Massei's court, to the effect that she was home by around 8.55pm).

That's pretty close though, by the time Sophie is giving testimony it's about eighteen months after the murder, a five or so minute difference is kinda negligible. Also, as I recall she did her remembering by the fact she was home by the time her show started, I recall that years back Italian TV didn't split their commercials up during the show, but would run them all at once between programs. Does anyone know if it's still like that? If they run from the ending to the beginning of the hour, or start the hour off with them, then she could be home slightly after 9:00 and still not miss the beginning of her program. It's also possible if she was watching a show where the credits run first she missed them but not any or much of the show.

And this implies that unless Meredith decided to make some sort of detour/delay in the final 200 yards or so of her journey home after parting with Sophie, then I can't see how she arrived at the cottage any later than around 8.57pm - some 4-6 minutes before the figure on the CCTV.

Which could have happened if she stopped to try to make a call, didn't get a connection and started playing with her phone a little bit. That road doesn't strike me as the sort of place where one would want to be walking on that side of the street headed into the curve like that. It also doesn't seem like there's much reason to be going on that side of the street unless they were headed to the cottage.

I could also see how a girl whose friend was brutally murdered might tell everyone she walked her all the way home the last night of her life, instead of maybe halfway or something. That might look callous and strange...

I therefore still believe that Meredith arrived home at around 8.55pm, and placed the call to her mother while she was inside the cottage (with subsequent interruption, call termination, and confrontation/attack). I think therefore that the figure in the video is most likely an unidentified person. There's a possibility of course that the figure is Knox - but not only do I believe this not to be the case, it's also obvious that this would never be good enough to be used as evidence in court.

It could be an unidentified person, I just think it more likely it's Meredith, especially as the description Katody, who knows how to play with these picture programs, posted seems to match with what Meredith had on, including holding a bag, doesn't it?

I don't believe that the police made any significant door-to-door inquiries in this case. As such, I very much doubt whether they made any reasonable attempt to establish whether the figure in the CCTV was a person unconnected to the case. Such a person could have been heading towards the iron staircase up the side of the car park (a common short-cut up to the lower part of the walled city), or heading down to the outskirts of town (less likely, in my opinion, but still possible).

Paul Ciolino said when he talked to the people around Nara's apartments none of them had been canvassed, so you're likely right about that.

 

[Katody Matrass]

Or Bongiorno's presentation was confused.
Nobody seemed to understand it, no newspapers, not even Frank and other pro defence forces.
It had no effect, although it should have had to.

Nothing funny. That's the tragedy of all this. It's easy to grasp for me or for you, but for the majority it was much easier to grasp and remember "liar, whore, witch, she-devil" then complicated debunking and explanations.

 

[Katody Matrass]

Did I read it right, that call never actually connected to a tower? If that's the case, is it possible the clock on Meredith's phone might have been off by about five minutes?

It definitely possible. If you look at the strange phone activities around 22:00

there are two recorded only in memory: 21:58, 22:00
And one recorded only by the network: 22:13

the 20:56 call attempt left trace only in memory. Timing of it is definitely not 100% reliable.

 

[PhantomWolf]

That would make sense, suggesting when they brought Raffaele into the questura they were thinking he must have called the carabinieri after the Postal police arrived, and then lied about it. This makes him look suspicious which is another reason to put the hammer down on him, yet it also begs the question of why they didn't seem to think him involved in the rape part just yet, being as if he's 'lying' about the phone call, and that Amanda wasn't with him, that makes him an even more obvious suspect.

They may have considered him an acomplice after the fact. If they believed that the CCTV footage was Amanda then they would have figure that she was alone and going to meet Patrick outside the cottage, then after the murder she had gotten Raffele to return and help clean up.

 

[Katody Matrass]

One thing came to my mind regarding the DNA report. The experts confirmed basically all the objections that the defence raised in the first trial. They also added some of their own.

Hellmann at the beginning of the appeal reserved himself the right to green-light further defence's requests. I wonder if there's a chance he would order independent testing of the hard disk data by the end of July. There's definitely a lot there that defence argues against Massei findings.

 

[Rolfe]

I'm trying to figure out what is left that is in fact positively incriminating to Knox and/or Sollecito. Lack of an alibi is not by itself incriminating of course.

Is there anything left that says, "yes it still looks like they were involved," even if the murder happened shortly after nine?

Rolfe.

 

[RoseMontague]

Thanks, the images are much clearer. It's someone wearing a brighter top and dark bottom, with a large bag of some kind, walking across the road and then along the left side of it. By the looks no way to say who is it, anyway. By the timestamp it could be Meredith, although it's a little bit late for her. Someone completely unrelated is as good explanation as everything else, too.

I think the odds that this is a picture of Meredith just went down considerably. We all looked for confirmation that it was someone involved with the case. Everybody has been chasing shadows on this one, in my opinion. Thanks Draca for finding this.

 

[PhantomWolf]

Yes, I still think Amanda was there at the time of the murder.

I have to wonder why. The only "evidence" of her being there are two highly confused statments from the police interviews where they told her to imagine what happened on the premise she was there and had repressed the memory of it.

If you base your belief on that, it's a wee bit shakey I would have thought.

 

[RoseMontague]

I'm trying to figure out what is left that is in fact positively incriminating to Knox and/or Sollecito. Lack of an alibi is not by itself incriminating of course.

Is there anything left that says, "yes it still looks like they were involved," even if the murder happened shortly after nine?

Rolfe.

The only remaining but disputed piece of evidence that could place Raffaele at the scene is the bathmat footprint which in a shortly after 9PM murder would mean he came later and was only involved in a clean up and staging. The Knox girl still has more baloney to discredit.

 

[shuttlt]

The DNA stuff is exciting, but the time of death looks more important to me. If they got off it would be better and kinder all round if it was absolutely clear that they didn't do it. If the case collapsed based on this DNA news many of the people who are suspicious of Knox will continue to suspect her.

Looking back, it was feeling that Knox wasn't honest in or about her interrogation that has made it relatively easy for me to believe other negative things. I still don't buy the "best truth she can remember" thing, but thinking she was/is lying is quite a few jumps removed from being sure she was involved in a murder.

For all the "we don't need to prove innocence" arguments, it would be a whole lot better all round if that got established in court.

[By the way, I've been meaning to say congrats to Halkides. I've spent a long while saying to him that I would hold off taking his objections to the case seriously until they were argued in court.... This now seems to have happened. Hopefully we'll get some extended version of Stefanoni's response. For all I know she may have some arguments worth hearing. Regardless of what she says, kudos to you!]