Any thoughts or comments, anyone......?
Anyone who saw
this or
this and quoted someone working in the fashion industry (who
claims a BS in biology) to
'refute' Ann Bremner because they are the
'forensics moderator' at a website dedicated to the guilt of Amanda Knox
and Raffaele Sollecito was delusional.
Andrea Vogt said:
Reviewing the police video of the scene at her Seattle office, attorney Anne Bremner didn't try to contain her criticism of officers' conduct inside the house.
The video shows police scrubbing bloody shoeprints, a no-no for investigators trying to preserve evidence. A clasp to Kercher's bra -- which prosecutors assert contained traces of Sollecito's DNA -- also appears to be in various
locations around the apartment during the video, indicating that it could have been contaminated.
"To think that this is the crime scene of the most internationally famous murder case right now ... it's astonishing to me," said Bremner, who is assisting a group of Knox supporters.
But Laura Wray, an American molecular biologist living in Milan, Italy, who works regularly with DNA samples, said she believes many of the defense claims of contamination or poor match are "groundless."
Concerns about contamination aside, investigators have definitively matched DNA found on the bra clasp to Sollecito, said Wray, who has followed the case closely.
Andrea Vogt gave PMF a voice in an article as early as May, 2008. Andrea can also be seen in a documentary posing in front of her computer browsing through Perugia Murder File as well as True Justice. One of Andrea's most concerning connections with Peggy Gonang's website relates to Andrea using PMF as a resource to seek out expert opinion. Andrea used the "expert" opinion of Laura Wray who posts as "Nicki" on PMF in her article "Slaying trial to begin for Knox, former boyfriend" in 2009. Laura Wray does not have the credentials to report as an expert. More importantly, she has shown extreme bias in this case. She had been posting for months about Amanda's guilt before Andrea decided to quote her. Using PMF as a resource to solicit expert opinion is simply bad reporting.
Here's what the forensic DNA experts had to say:
Conclusions about the bra clasp:
Handling and movement of this sample has compromised its probative value. The laboratory results for this sample cannot reliably be interpreted to show that the DNA of Raffaele Sollecito was actually on the bra clasp at the time of Meredith Kercher’s murder, and it does not establish how or when this DNA was deposited or transferred.
Here's what the Italian experts had to say:
Conte & Vecchiotti said:
Relative to Item 165B (bra clasps), we find that the technical analysis is not reliable for the following reasons:
1. There does not exist evidence which scientifically confirms the presence of supposed flaking cells on the item;
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;
4. The international protocols for inspection, collection, and sampling of the item were not followed;
5. It cannot be ruled out that the results obtained derive from environmental contamination and/or contamination in some phase of the collection and/or handling of the item.
More specifically lest 'not reliable' (scientist-speak for 'garbage') and 'cannot be ruled out' (thus must be thrown out) are not
clear enough:
This last direction must be absolutely respected, and all the protocols and procedures give specific warnings about it: as, for example, in the Physical Evidence Handbook, Department of Justice of the State of Wisconsin, (yay!
) State Criminal Laboratory (7th edition):
* …it needs to be ensured that the item is not altered or contaminated between the time of its collection and the time of its examination…
* items for DNA examination must always be packaged in paper or in a cardboard box, even if they appear dry…And again, in Understanding DNA Evidence: A Guide for Victim Service Providers, Department of Justice:
…investigators and laboratory staff must always wear disposable gloves, use clean instruments, and avoid touching other objects, including their own bodies, when handling evidence. Environmental factors, like heat and humidity, can also accelerate the degradation of DNA.
For example, wet or damp items which are packaged in plastic will create a growth environment for bacteria which can destroy DNA evidence. Consequently, biological evidence must be completely air-dried, packaged in paper, and correctly labelled. Treated in such a way, DNA can be stored for years without risk of degradation, even at room temperature…
In Guidance on the Production of Best Practice Manuals within ENFSI, ref cod. QCC-BPM-008, 01/05/2008, the following points amongst others are highlighted:
* 4.3.2 The expert must also evaluate the risk of contamination (or any other problem which could affect the integrity of the evidence) [which may have happened] before the items provided for examination are sent to the laboratory to be examined, or before the start of the analysis…
* 5.1.1 Particular emphasis must be given in the manual to procedures for avoiding contamination, and to the advice given to assist individuals in the management of specific risks associated with the analysis;
* 5.1.3 Considerations about appropriate anti-contamination precautions must be based not only on those for the analyses under discussion, but for all types of evidence which could potentially be available. If these include materials which could be required for subsequent DNA analysis, extreme caution must be taken due to the sensitivity of current DNA techniques, by means of the wearing of appropriate clothing including gloves and face masks (see Appendix 2);
* 5.4.1. All items must be packaged and sealed as soon as they are collected, using bags or containers of an appropriate size and made of material which avoids damaging the packaging or breaking the seals;
* 5.4.2 Once sealed, the containers must not be reopened outside of the laboratory environment. If in exceptional circumstances they must be reopened, complete and detailed documentation should be drawn up as to the conditions in which they were opened.
[1]
Locard’s exchange principle states that “with contact between two items, there will be an exchange” (Thornton, 1927) and is known most commonly as the idiom “every contact leaves a trace”. Essentially, Locard’s principle is applied to crime scenes in which the perpetrator(s) of a crime comes into contact with the scene, so the perpetrator(s) will both bring something into the scene and leave with something from the scene.
Now, had Andrea Vogt gone to a
real second source, like someone who knew what the hell they talking about and
confirmed Anne Bremner's contention, (science and entry-level forensics doesn't change--unless someone is
lying) like the DNA experts in the letter or the
Italian court-appointed experts who issued the above report, she might have found a
real story outside 'Foxy Knoxy and her Boytoy Must Die.' Instead she went to a website that would have almost 240 people online to 'celebrate' the conviction. Someone
obviously not qualified to offer an 'expert opinion.' There is a
massive gap between 'groundless' and 'not reliable' and the court heard
that:
Frank Sfarzo said:
The divisions didn’t move, it’s still war of position. Today Conti and Vecchiotti just explained their report, with no debate, only skirmishes.
Half of the time was dedicate to criticizing the work of the police. Criticizing is not really the right word. It was a real attack, a massacre of the whole police, scientific or not.
Stefano Conti showed the movements inside the house, from the video of November 2. He pointed out that while the biologists were collecting the evidence, any sort of non scientific people –in a sweater, in a coat– were walking around, passing from room to room. People who looked not to really have a function, a purpose, a discipline.
Conti was particularly struck by one person who was using his foot to indicate something beside the body. Or by another person who at one point said ‘it’s all absurd… disorganization beyond belief’ (and if they say that…). Or by the notorious opening of the door downstairs with kicks, ending up with the explosion of the glass.
The forensic people, then: suits half opened; evidence grabbed with the hands, even when they had tweezers in their other hand; gloves not changed; up to three stains (even if close to each other) collected with one buffer; evidence stored into plastic bags; blood traces completely removed; gloves and shoe covers not changed; a garment shacked in the air by Stefanoni. For December 18, then, even the re-appearing piece of bra, the main evidence, was collected with dirty gloves.
That's Frank Sfarzo, an Italian who started reporting on the case from the beginning and was once popular with the lynch mob...until he realized how badly the cops had botched the investigation and lied through their bad little piggie snouts and the whole case was a fraud. Then he was fitted into the conspiracy theory too! When he was arrested and charged and the
Committee to
Protect Journalists protested, they
demanded answers! The 'conspiracy' was
exposed! Like there is
anything sinister about a grassroots campaign congregating or a reporter being seen with members of the family of the case he is covering, that's just
proof of the conspiracy!
When a
gross error like that is made, and a gloating Barbie
Nadeau includes you in a conspiracy theory
developed at PMF about the Marriott/FOA PR 'machine' controlling the American media and only you two 'got it right' and you're making
delusional decisions to quote 'Forensic Moderators' for the online lynch mob I'd say you're damned lucky the Seattle PI doesn't sue you for breach of contract and
this 'tribute' is what you earned.
Barbara Nadeau said:
Very quickly, Marriott lost control of the situation. As he spoon-fed the Knox-approved message to American outlets that couldn’t afford to send correspondents to Italy, those of us on the ground in Perugia began passing his contradictory e-mails around as entertainment during the long days in the court.
(...)
Andrea Vogt, a Bologna-based freelancer stringing for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, wrote her own story about Tacopina’s behavior in Perugia, and Marriott quickly tried to shut her down. Typically, Marriott denied that my interview had even taken place, and he told Andrea that “the reporter got it wrong.” Not convinced, Andrea called me. I gave her a transcript of the interview and a copy of the tape, and we began what would be a two-year battle against the Seattle message machine, incurring personal attacks and outright threats.
Here is the conspiracy theory being spread to
Italian newspapers:
Richard Stagliano La Repubblica said:
One who definitely doesn’t tolerate it, breaking the city chain of solidarity is Peggy Ganong, a doctoral student in French at the university, a translator who has lived for 20 years in Paris, she is the spoiler who has taken up the task to dismantle the “consensus machine” on her internet forum perugiamurderfile.org. “I don’t know if the girl is guilty I only know that this rabid activity of image management to bleach her reputation is not convincing, actually, it is suspicious”
[Amanda’s] family - that between airplanes, lawyers, press offices appears to have spent more than $ 1,000 000, and claims it is deep in debts - is only partially responsible for the operation, as several local potentates whose path have crossed Amanda’s in the classrooms of the Jesuit high school have taken action to defend the future possible convict. It seems that Amanda was very fond of the daughter of judge Michael Heavy. He was the first one to write an outraged letter to the Italian magistrates and to inspire the group Friends of Amanda, together with Tom Wright, a tycoon with interests in the movies industry whose children were at Seattle Prep.
“In order to defend the reputation of an institution that prepares the local ruling class” Ganong explains, “they have organized fund raisers to pay some of the costs necessary to sell the image of the typical naive American girl which, regardless of how things went, it’s totally false”.
They just pulled that $1M figure
out of their asses! No one knows if David Marriott did more than send some e-mails and make phone calls and give
very basic instructions like don't talk to the tabloids that are trying to burn Amanda at the stake. Information anyone could have told them. They just made it all up, and those reading the website regularly lapped it up wholesale, including the Italian reporter who then gives a sinister spin to stuff anyone
with three digit IQ could have told them! Running Guilt Incorporated and pretending you're a 'neutral' that doesn't 'know' if Amanda is guilty and are just trying to fight the 'Marriott spin machine' is mendacity incarnate.
The idea that's it's all a plot to defend the reputation of Seattle Prep that 'prepares the ruling class' is
ridiculous. Just think about it! Even if it
was they could still be right, and they have legitimate status in the case and their point of view was wholly germane to the trial, PMF was just a website dedicated to a conspiracy theory, both the case itself and their
raison d'etre. Andrea Vogt and Barbara Nadeau bought into this whole absurdity and accepted 'expert opinion' on a
crucial item from this online lynch mob to 'refute'
actual expert opinion from an experienced lawyer. One who obviously knew what she was talking about, being as it was validated by real DNA experts in the US and Italy and to everyone who could just look at the
crime scene videos and see that
always "There are four lights!"
