Continuation Part 2 - Discussion of the Amanda Knox case

[Chris_Halkides]

bra clasp DNA

I have reviewed some passages in the English translation of the Massei report that concern the bra clasp DNA. I would like to discuss these without revealing the reference profiles of any of the individuals.

On page 202 Stefanoni discussed her glove-changing practices, and these are not a rigorous as those delineated by John Butler, which I quoted earlier today. On page 206 Stefanoni used the word “noise” in a different manner from the way a spectroscopist would use it. From page 207, “Thus, where there is an allele which has a certain height and such that the peak just before it has a much smaller height, at most 15% of the first one, then the previous peak should be considered noise, just a by-product of the analysis.” One infers that Stefanoni used the word noise to refer to stutter peaks and possibly to refer to other artifacts such as blobs. Tagliabracci also used the word noise to mean stutter on p. 241.

On page 207 we read, “The height which is considered reliable for a peak to be qualified as an allele is equal to 50RFU, the symbol RFU representing the unit of measure employed for these measurements.” This is a remarkable statement in one respect, inasmuch as if Stefanoni actually adhered to it, about 22 of about 29 peaks attributed to Meredith on the knife profile would fail to be scored. In other words, she did not respect her own minimum threshold value in at least one other experiment.

On pages 208-209, one reads some strange statements. “She was asked if she had considered that peak, number 13 [This peak is in locus D5S818 and its height is 108 RFU], as an allele or as noise. Dr Stefanoni declared that she had not considered that peak as an allele or as noise… it can't be an allele because it is too low with respect to the main peaks.” This argument does not make sense; either a peak is an artifact or it is real. It is not in the correct position to be stutter, and there is no reason why a true allele can’t be smaller than Meredith’s profile. Moreover Tagliabracci questioned Stefanoni’s interpretation of this allele (pp. 241-242), noting that in locus vWA that she had taken a peak of only 65 RFU as an allele. Stefanoni argued that each peak should be judged on a case-by-case basis (p. 209), including information such as the main peak heights. Yet the main peaks in vWA are 84% as high as the main peaks in D5S818 on average, whereas 65 RFU is only 60% of 108 RFU. In other words what objective criterion Dr. Stefanoni used to reject a peak of 108 RFU and keep a peak of 65 RFU is obscure or nonexistent. Finally, there are other peaks in vWA at 17 and 18 repeats that are not labeled yet the larger of the two is about 50 RFU. It is difficult to see why this peak was not considered an allele.

Stefanoni was asked about an alternate interpretation, one in which a minor contributor would have the alleles 12 and 13. “In response to this question-observation, Dr Stefanoni explained that in this case, it would not be possible to explain the Y chromosome, and thus reaffirmed the correctness of the interpretation she had given.” It sounds as if Stefanoni used her attribution of the Y-chromosome profile to Raffaele to then interpret the autosomal DNA as having his profile. I would very much like to see what Conti and Vecchiotti have to say about this procedure.

Locus D21S11 is problematic (pp. 241-242). Stefanoni counted as stutter a peak that is 15.6% the height of the next peak. That is higher than the 15% cutoff, which is higher than stutter with which I am familiar. But she counted as real a peak that is 17.2% of the next peak, which is not that much of a difference. This peak could constitute half of Raffaele’s profile in this locus, but the other half would fall underneath one of Meredith’s two peaks, which are roughly sixfold higher. Although it is possible that Raffaele’s other allele is present and contributes additional intensity to the second of the two large peaks belonging to Meredith, I don’t see any reason to assume that it must.

To reiterate something I said earlier today, there are peaks on the bra clasp electropherogram that are not part of Raffaele’s profile and are not stutter, the nature of which I also discussed upthread. In reviewing the bra clasp DNA, I am more convinced than I was before that Stefanoni applied a suspect-centered approach.

 

[Dan O.]

And have you seen these images of the open door of the (inner) door apparently open? Posted on a blog on the 14th of November.

front door
blog post with photo

My research revealed the following on this some time back:
If you look at this blog - I can't get any contact information, but the author does seem to name himself: CHRISTOPHER DICKEY. Looking on google - he seems to be associated with Newsweek and seems to have a few articles he's written about Italy. I think it is the same person, because he seems to know Barbie Nadeau and name her in the blog posting below - even links to her own article in Newsweek on the matter.

If the date is correct, and seems to match with his travel blog activities he posted (rome Nov 1, perugia sometime thereafter) -- perhaps he was in perugia after the crime scene was "sealed"

I mean - why is the door open!?

Did you notice the attribution under the photos: "B.N., Sony".

If you check out more of CD's blogs you will see the same format used for the attributions which is the initials of the person taking the photos and the camera used.

 

[theRealBob]

Draca and LondonJohn,

I agree that this is the tenor of some of the comments. As an argument, it fails on at least two counts. First, it should have been made months ago if the people making this argument were intellectually honest. Putting it another way, if you think that they are in some way underqualified, that evaluation can and should be made independently of what the report says. Second, Conti and Vecchiotti have both academic credentials and previous experience in criminal trials.

I feel sorry for C & V.

That 40 day, day after day wait, before they could get finally on with their work wouldn't have helped.

 

[theRealBob]

It makes me wonder whether it's really the results of the other test runs and the inconvenient negative controls outcome that she's hiding by not releasing the raw data? It could be that the files and logs show that more tests were performed.

I hope that gets clarified in court soon.

I've always believed that the cops tested the semen stains on the pillow but didn't want the results to become public.

 

[theRealBob]

At the cost of considerable eye-strain, I have looked at the printouts for the autosomal DNA of the bra clasp. The presence of other peaks (not attributable to Raffaele or to stutter) is undeniable.

I've really wanted to know where you looked at them.
Could you please supply a link ?

 

[ForTruth]

Did you notice the attribution under the photos: "B.N., Sony".

If you check out more of CD's blogs you will see the same format used for the attributions which is the initials of the person taking the photos and the camera used.

I sure did. That says to me Barbie provided him the photos.
Though unless Barbie wants to chime in and tell us when the photos were taken, I think we're left guessing, though I think London John is right, that it was before the picture where additional non-clear tape was applied. And the fact that the notice is on the door means the scene the was definitely sealed before these photos were taken.

@LondonJohn,
I am a little skeptical to the idea that the front door was an entry vector for a post sealed crime scene break in. That metal grate doesn't appear to be damaged in the later photo and there are many windows to choose to break into - as we know Rudy chose to as well (and the metal gate probably wasn't closed when he broke in...

That said - this all is so laughable - the tape and paper used to seal the crime seen. If I was a non-honest investigator with a key to the place. I could have easily walked up to the front door temporarily pealed the taped paper off the front door, went in, did I what I wanted to do, and re sealed the crime seen. I doubt anything would be detectable on the weathered already peeling back paper.
Whether or not funny business like that happened, you've got wind blowing straight in there swirling skin cells all over the place. Was Meredith's door even left closed?

It all just goes along to support the theme of what a poor job they did handling the crime scene.

 

[LondonJohn]

I sure did. That says to me Barbie provided him the photos.
Though unless Barbie wants to chime in and tell us when the photos were taken, I think we're left guessing, though I think London John is right, that it was before the picture where additional non-clear tape was applied. And the fact that the notice is on the door means the scene the was definitely sealed before these photos were taken.
@LondonJohn, I am a little skeptical to the idea that the front door was an entry vector for a post sealed crime scene break in. That metal grate doesn't appear to be damaged in the later photo and there are many windows to choose to break into - as we know Rudy chose to as well (and the metal gate probably wasn't closed when he broke in...
That said - this all is so laughable - the tape and paper used to seal the crime seen. If I was a non-honest investigator with a key to the place. I could have easily walked up to the front door temporarily pealed the taped paper off the front door, went in, did I what I wanted to do, and re sealed the crime seen. I doubt anything would be detectable on the weathered already peeling back paper.
Whether or not funny business like that happened, you've got wind blowing straight in there swirling skin cells all over the place. Was Meredith's door even left closed?

It all just goes along to support the theme of what a poor job they did handling the crime scene.

But if the gate were not secured with a padlock, all that someone would have had to do would be to peel back the woefully-inadequate "crime scene" poster (which looks like a piece of A4 printer paper secured with sellotape (= scotch tape)), and simply concertina the gate back towards the left side. There would have been no visible damage to the gate whatsoever - this was how the gate moved in normal operation, and no "forcing" whatsoever would have been needed.

If someone approached the cottage with the intention of entering it, and could see that the front door was clearly open, I think the logical next step would be to see if the metal gate in front of the door was locked shut. As I've said before, I don't think it's unreasonable to suppose that the gate was not locked: after all, it seems that the "crack" police thought (incorrectly) that the wooden front door locked shut when it was closed, and there's also no sign of a lock of any sort on the metal gate in the photos.

Remember also that Guede was faced with a very different situation. It's almost certain that the metal gate was not closed on the evening/night of November 1st 2007, but the front door would definitely have been locked shut at the time he approached. I suspect (based upon his mendacious testimony) that Guede still tried the front door as part of his casing operation: I think he probably rang the doorbell (as part of his check whether anyone was in), then tried the door itself. Having found the door locked - and it was clearly a modern, heavy door with decent locks - he would logically have decided that trying to break the door open was not the best option. He therefore went to "plan b": entry through one of the older, unsecured windows. And for that, the most logical choice was Filomena's window, since although it was visible from the road*, it offered the easiest and quickest escape route if he was caught in the act by someone either inside or outside the cottage.

* Note though that all of the ungrated windows were actually clearly visible from one direction or other on the road; none of them would have offered complete seclusion to Guede during the B&E exercise.

 

[LondonJohn]

I have reviewed some passages in the English translation of the Massei report that concern the bra clasp DNA. I would like to discuss these without revealing the reference profiles of any of the individuals.

On page 202 Stefanoni discussed her glove-changing practices, and these are not a rigorous as those delineated by John Butler, which I quoted earlier today. On page 206 Stefanoni used the word “noise” in a different manner from the way a spectroscopist would use it. From page 207, “Thus, where there is an allele which has a certain height and such that the peak just before it has a much smaller height, at most 15% of the first one, then the previous peak should be considered noise, just a by-product of the analysis.” One infers that Stefanoni used the word noise to refer to stutter peaks and possibly to refer to other artifacts such as blobs. Tagliabracci also used the word noise to mean stutter on p. 241.

On page 207 we read, “The height which is considered reliable for a peak to be qualified as an allele is equal to 50RFU, the symbol RFU representing the unit of measure employed for these measurements.” This is a remarkable statement in one respect, inasmuch as if Stefanoni actually adhered to it, about 22 of about 29 peaks attributed to Meredith on the knife profile would fail to be scored. In other words, she did not respect her own minimum threshold value in at least one other experiment.

On pages 208-209, one reads some strange statements. “She was asked if she had considered that peak, number 13 [This peak is in locus D5S818 and its height is 108 RFU], as an allele or as noise. Dr Stefanoni declared that she had not considered that peak as an allele or as noise… it can't be an allele because it is too low with respect to the main peaks.” This argument does not make sense; either a peak is an artifact or it is real. It is not in the correct position to be stutter, and there is no reason why a true allele can’t be smaller than Meredith’s profile. Moreover Tagliabracci questioned Stefanoni’s interpretation of this allele (pp. 241-242), noting that in locus vWA that she had taken a peak of only 65 RFU as an allele. Stefanoni argued that each peak should be judged on a case-by-case basis (p. 209), including information such as the main peak heights. Yet the main peaks in vWA are 84% as high as the main peaks in D5S818 on average, whereas 65 RFU is only 60% of 108 RFU. In other words what objective criterion Dr. Stefanoni used to reject a peak of 108 RFU and keep a peak of 65 RFU is obscure or nonexistent. Finally, there are other peaks in vWA at 17 and 18 repeats that are not labeled yet the larger of the two is about 50 RFU. It is difficult to see why this peak was not considered an allele.

Stefanoni was asked about an alternate interpretation, one in which a minor contributor would have the alleles 12 and 13. “In response to this question-observation, Dr Stefanoni explained that in this case, it would not be possible to explain the Y chromosome, and thus reaffirmed the correctness of the interpretation she had given.” It sounds as if Stefanoni used her attribution of the Y-chromosome profile to Raffaele to then interpret the autosomal DNA as having his profile. I would very much like to see what Conti and Vecchiotti have to say about this procedure.

Locus D21S11 is problematic (pp. 241-242). Stefanoni counted as stutter a peak that is 15.6% the height of the next peak. That is higher than the 15% cutoff, which is higher than stutter with which I am familiar. But she counted as real a peak that is 17.2% of the next peak, which is not that much of a difference. This peak could constitute half of Raffaele’s profile in this locus, but the other half would fall underneath one of Meredith’s two peaks, which are roughly sixfold higher. Although it is possible that Raffaele’s other allele is present and contributes additional intensity to the second of the two large peaks belonging to Meredith, I don’t see any reason to assume that it must.

To reiterate something I said earlier today, there are peaks on the bra clasp electropherogram that are not part of Raffaele’s profile and are not stutter, the nature of which I also discussed upthread. In reviewing the bra clasp DNA, I am more convinced than I was before that Stefanoni applied a suspect-centered approach.

A very interesting and informative analysis: thanks! It further goes to illustrate how a) Stefanoni gave misleading (at best) testimony to Massei's court; b) Massei demonstrably didn't understand DNA science well enough to make a competent ruling in this area; and c) the defence experts in Massei's court were hampered by not having the proper source data from which to make fully-informed assessments.

I repeat my confident assertion that Stefanoni is going to get comprehensively demolished in the court discussion of the DNA report at the end of the month

 

[ForTruth]

LondonJohn,
re: the metal gate/insecure crime scene
Good point... my assumption is that it was locked somehow. Had they assumed the proper inner door would have stayed shut on its own, I could see them failing to see a need to find a means to secure the metal gate.
Looking at it more closely - it does appear to require a padlock type device to secure it... and there is no padlock apparent in the photo.

 

[Katody Matrass]

LondonJohn,
re: the metal gate/insecure crime scene
Good point... my assumption is that it was locked somehow. Had they assumed the proper inner door would have stayed shut on its own, I could see them failing to see a need to find a means to secure the metal gate.
Looking at it more closely - it does appear to require a padlock type device to secure it... and there is no padlock apparent in the photo.

Most probably the padlock (or lock) is under the paper seal.

ETA:

Just took another look at the second photo. The amount of tape they put there is ginormous!
It really looks like they are using duct tape to hold that grate in place.

 

[Katody Matrass]

Recent hints coming from Mignini suggest that prosecution is going to drop the knife - after the experts not only confirmed everything defence argued but also found starch instead of blood in the space between handle and blade it's hopeless to argue about it anymore.

I think instead they will focus on the bra clasp, basically ignoring all the experts objections and rehashing the line of argument from the first trial - "if the profile is contamination then show us where did it come from?"

I wonder how effective is it going to be this time and what strategy will the defence undertake?

 

[LondonJohn]

Most probably the padlock (or lock) is under the paper seal.

ETA:

Just took another look at the second photo. The amount of tape they put there is ginormous!
It really looks like they are using duct tape to hold that grate in place.

Here's a photo of the gate in its retracted position:



Note that the gate hinges on the left side (as viewed from the outside), then concertinas across the doorway and attaches to the wall on the right side. This photo suggests that the locking point is just below half way down the height of the gate (there appears to be a flange visible on the outer edge of the gate right at the bottom of the photo).

I think that the notice was placed on the gate at that level simply because it corresponds to eye level. I also think that it's pretty likely that the notice itself (and its increasingly amateurish tape support) was also intended to serve as the seal, and that therefore the gate itself wasn't locked. I think that when the police belatedly discovered that the wooden front door had blown open, they tried to "beef up" the seal holding the gate to the surrounding wall with that ludicrous packing tape overkill - it's abundantly clear that this amount of packing tape would not be required simply to ensure that the notice remained in situ.

Having said all that, it is of course still very possible that the gate was actually locked shut. I just think that the way in which (and the chronology in which) the notice was taped between the fate and the wall tends to suggest that its purpose was far more than just a notice or even a nominal seal. I think it tends to suggest that the notice and its supporting tape (particularly that massive amount of packing tape) was the primary means of securing the gate in place. But I might well be wrong.

 

[LondonJohn]

Recent hints coming from Mignini suggest that prosecution is going to drop the knife - after the experts not only confirmed everything defence argued but also found starch instead of blood in the space between handle and blade it's hopeless to argue about it anymore.

I think instead they will focus on the bra clasp, basically ignoring all the experts objections and rehashing the line of argument from the first trial - "if the profile is contamination then show us where did it come from?"

I wonder how effective is it going to be this time and what strategy will the defence undertake?

Where are the hints from Mignini? I'm intrigued - particularly as I suspect he might by now be on a very short leash regarding pronouncements.

If the above has any truth to it, then my view is that the prosecution would get very short shrift in trying this strategy in regard to the bra clasp. It's an oft-parrotted maxim among the idiots that if one is claiming contamination, one must prove contamination before the claim has any validity. But what the idiots don't understand (or choose to ignore) is that this maxim only holds water if investigators have taken all reasonable steps to minimise the chances of contamination*.

However, in the case of the bra clasp (and the knife), so many massive breaches of standard procedures were made that it would be laughable if it wasn't so serious. These breaches introduced the very real possibility of contamination at multiple steps in the investigation process. And, since this is the case, the onus is no longer on the party claiming possible contamination to provide proof of contamination. I think that Jellmann's court will have little option but to accept that the investigators did not do their jobs properly in regard to minimising the possibility of contamination, and that consequently there is sufficient doubt regarding possible contamination as to make the DNA findings invalid.

* As the idiots also like to point out - correctly - investigators can never totally eradicate the possibility of contamination. But investigators are supposed to minimise the possibility of contamination through taking all reasonable precautions and following all reasonable procedures and protocols.

 

[Katody Matrass]

Where are the hints from Mignini? I'm intrigued - particularly as I suspect he might by now be on a very short leash regarding pronouncements.

I meant the interviews he gave to CNN and Graham, where he suddenly started hypothesizing about Amanda directing the crime from outside of the room. The knife was the only thing placing her there.

 

[LondonJohn]

I meant the interviews he gave to CNN and Graham, where he suddenly started hypothesizing about Amanda directing the crime from outside of the room. The knife was the only thing placing her there.

Ah I see! I thought you might be referring to something he'd said specifically alluding to the knife. But yes, a fair interpretation of his.... revisionist.... comments about Knox's role in the murder might be along the lines you suggest.

It will certainly be interesting to see how the police and prosecutors choose to approach the independent DNA report in the court discussions on July 25th onwards. It will also then be very interesting to see how prosecutors choose to argue these areas following the summer recess.

 

[Katody Matrass]

If the above has any truth to it, then my view is that the prosecution would get very short shrift in trying this strategy in regard to the bra clasp. It's an oft-parrotted maxim among the idiots that if one is claiming contamination, one must prove contamination before the claim has any validity. But what the idiots don't understand (or choose to ignore) is that this maxim only holds water if investigators have taken all reasonable steps to minimise the chances of contamination*.

However, in the case of the bra clasp (and the knife), so many massive breaches of standard procedures were made that it would be laughable if it wasn't so serious. These breaches introduced the very real possibility of contamination at multiple steps in the investigation process. And, since this is the case, the onus is no longer on the party claiming possible contamination to provide proof of contamination. I think that Jellmann's court will have little option but to accept that the investigators did not do their jobs properly in regard to minimising the possibility of contamination, and that consequently there is sufficient doubt regarding possible contamination as to make the DNA findings invalid.

* As the idiots also like to point out - correctly - investigators can never totally eradicate the possibility of contamination. But investigators are supposed to minimise the possibility of contamination through taking all reasonable precautions and following all reasonable procedures and protocols.

I suppose the argument will go along the lines
"right, contamination, right. But we found his DNA on the clasp! What is the chance that it got contaminated by Raffaele's DNA of all? His DNA is nowhere to be found in the cottage, how did it get there, then?"

They will try to distance the discussion from Stefanoni's criminal ineptness by opposing the simple "contamination or not, it is there" against defence's long winding explanations of various paths of contamination.

 

[Bruce Fischer]

It is Dickey's blog, and the photos were taken some time around 13th-14 November - long after the police's "crack" forensics team had left the cottage and supposedly sealed it as evidence. One can only assume that the "crack" police team didn't realise that the door needed to be locked with a key, and merely pulled it shut, whereupon it subsequently swung open after some time. There's no indication that the metal grille in front of the door (which is hinged on the left side as viewed from outside) was padlocked shut by the police: rather, it appears that the tape around the paper notice was placed to "seal" the gate to the surrounding wall:

http://i.imgur.com/ZodVV.jpg

But here's something very interesting: the above photo was quite clearly taken at a later date than the photo on Dickey's blog:

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_BZD30a25F.../s1600-h/Perugia+crime+scene+-+front+door.jpg

Note that in the blog photo, the paper notice is attached to the metal gate and the wall with a small amount of clear tape, but in the other photo the police appear to be reinforcing the attachment using copious amounts of stronger packing tape.

My inference is therefore as follows: the original (small amount of clear tape) used for "sealing" the metal gate was deemed insufficient by the police - which is precisely why it was subsequently reinforced as per the other photo. And that then suggests to me that the police had an active reason to decide to strengthen the quality of that seal: it had been broken in its previous weak incarnation.

So my proposition is this: once the "crack" forensics team had finished their work (or, more accurately, had not finished their work....), the police closed the front door without bothering to lock it (probably assuming that it was self-locking), pulled the security gate closed, and weakly taped the notice across the join of the security gate and the surrounding wall. I think that the door subsequently blew open, and that the security gate was probably also opened by someone at some point. In other words, I think there was a time between around November 6th and November 14th when literally anyone could have walked straight into a supposed "sealed crime scene" straight through the front door.

I think that the photo of the police reinforcing the seal over the metal gate with all that packing tape is a strong indicator that they were shutting the stable door after the horse had bolted. I'd be interested in seeing the courts investigate this matter further.

The photo I posted was taken December 18 when investigators arrived at the cottage to make the miraculous bra clasp discovery and to test the previously trashed cottage with luminol.

The brown tape was added to the door sometime between November 14 and December 18.

I added a few more photos below. You can see investigators removing the sign from the door. In the close up you can see the clear tape underneath.

http://i.imgur.com/ZodVV.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/OOOmh.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/RDPq8.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/Q1NiQ.jpg

 

[Kaosium]

Recent hints coming from Mignini suggest that prosecution is going to drop the knife - after the experts not only confirmed everything defence argued but also found starch instead of blood in the space between handle and blade it's hopeless to argue about it anymore.

I think instead they will focus on the bra clasp, basically ignoring all the experts objections and rehashing the line of argument from the first trial - "if the profile is contamination then show us where did it come from?"

I wonder how effective is it going to be this time and what strategy will the defence undertake?

Then you suppose the Court will reject the conclusions of the experts? Those two pieces of paper no longer say Raffaele's and Meredith's DNA were on those items. I still haven't seen something that indicates Stefanoni ever put together a legitimate profile suggesting there ever was a scientific reason to believe Raffaele and Meredith's DNA was there. If:

(bra clasp)

2. There was an erroneous interpretation of the electrophoretic profile of the autosomic STRs;

3. There was an erroneous interpretation of the electrophoretic profile relative to the Y chromosome;

and (knife)

we do not accept the conclusions regarding the certain attribution of the profile found on trace B (blade of knife) to the victim Meredith Susanna Cara Kercher, since the genetic profile, as obtained, appears unreliable insofar as it is not supported by scientifically validated analysis;

Then:

Relative to Item 165B (bra clasps), we find that the technical analysis is not reliable

and

Relative to trace B (blade of the knife) we find that the technical analyses performed are not reliable

are already fully supported, regardless of how many other reasons they had to reject her findings. There's no room for 'error' in interpreting a DNA profile, as has been noted it is like a lottery ticket, one number off and it's falsified. From what I've read so far, the experts seem to be saying she 'misread' some of those 'numbers' from someone else. Now as I understand it, that could also mean--due to the nature of low template DNA work especially--that those alleles of Raffaele's were 'dropped' and might have still been there and would have probably shown up in another test, but there were no more tests done.

Maundy Gregory is taking a more interesting tack on this than his compatriots, and appears able to read Italian, but seems to me to equivocate on Y-haplotype like he was Massei or something, and commits the fallacy where he pretends 13 of 16 is the same as 13 of 13, whatever that one's called, and perhaps no one could ever convince him differently. It's certainly a more interesting contribution than TJMK is making, though his cognition is no less motivated to a predetermined conclusion than theirs it appears.

However in the end I suspect the conclusions aren't a 'chain' where if one weak link is broken the rest of it crumbles, but instead a litany of reasons why the work is invalid, as in 'shock and awe' overkill, and the reason they included contamination possibilities is because they were told to:

2. “if it is not possible to carry out a new technical analysis, shall evaluate, on the basis of the record, the degree of reliability of the genetic analysis performed by the Scientific Police on the aforementioned items, including with respect to possible contamination.“

Having viewed enough footage of the crime scene practices of the Polizia Scientifica and what can be inferred from Stefanoni about lab conditions, I think it not impossible the experts wanted to make a statement on this issue, and others, related to LT-DNA work in the future.

Therefore I suspect the court is going to decide those pieces of paper say that Raffaele's and Meredith's DNA weren't on those items, as all they ever had in the first place was Stefanoni's conclusion, and the whole point of the review was to determine if that was a valid scientific opinion. From my reading of the conclusions, and what little I've been able to glean from the body of the report, they were about as resounding about it as sciency-types ever get.

 

[Dan O.]

I sure did. That says to me Barbie provided him the photos.
Though unless Barbie wants to chime in and tell us when the photos were taken, I think we're left guessing, though I think London John is right, that it was before the picture where additional non-clear tape was applied. And the fact that the notice is on the door means the scene the was definitely sealed before these photos were taken.

It's not necessary to guess. Before Barbie comes to Perugia she is off test driving a Maserati. I don't believe she could have pulled into Town before the cottage was sealed. She most likely arrived late on the 13th or early on the 14th.

I am a little skeptical to the idea that the front door was an entry vector for a post sealed crime scene break in. That metal grate doesn't appear to be damaged in the later photo and there are many windows to choose to break into - as we know Rudy chose to as well (and the metal gate probably wasn't closed when he broke in...

We have clear facts that the door was open and the seal on the gate was retaped. There should be an official report on this incident and not just covered up with more brown tape. The cottage door would have been locked and double checked as they were well aware of the condition of the lock from the early interview of the residents, the photographs taken of the latch and their awareness was even recorded in the testimonies reported in Massei.

That said - this all is so laughable - the tape and paper used to seal the crime seen. If I was a non-honest investigator with a key to the place. I could have easily walked up to the front door temporarily pealed the taped paper off the front door, went in, did I what I wanted to do, and re sealed the crime seen. I doubt anything would be detectable on the weathered already peeling back paper.

But when would you make such an entry? My first thought would be in the middle of the night but that would require the use of artificial light which would draw the suspicion of neighbors. Perhaps the best bet would be an early morning after the sun is already up to provide natural light, during normal business hours when most people are either working or on their way and besides, who is going to call the cops if they see an officer in uniform entering the building. As long as there aren't any nosy journalists stopping by to take pictures it would probably go unnoticed.

Whether or not funny business like that happened, you've got wind blowing straight in there swirling skin cells all over the place. Was Meredith's door even left closed?

This we should probably be able to see in the crime scene video from December.

It all just goes along to support the theme of what a poor job they did handling the crime scene.

 

[Antony]

I've always believed that the cops tested the semen stains on the pillow but didn't want the results to become public.

That's highly believable, particularly given their antics on the notorious bra-clasp collection video. This was at a time when they badly needed evidence against Raffaele, and their behaviour on the video strongly suggests that they knew the results of the DNA tests in advance. If the bra-clasp, then why not the pillow-case?

Not only that, but why would they otherwise eschew testing the pillow-case when they were specifically looking for evidence against Raff?