Continuation Part 3 - Discussion of the Amanda Knox case

[Chris_Halkides]

bleach and luminol

Gosh....

Is that right ?

I think I'll leave it up to you.

TheRealBob,

I may have been a little cryptic. Bleach in a bottle does not decompose that quickly, something that we all know from the experience of buying a bottle of bleach and using it weeks or months later. Yet there was a paper which looked at bleach and its interference with the luminol reaction. The authors of this paper ("Attempted cleaning of bloodstains and its effect
on the forensic luminol test") noticed that the interference went away after a 8-16 hours. Perhaps something on the surface catalyzed the decomposition of bleach or the evaporation process itself sped up the decomposition.

 

[Kaosium]

It's confusing because some of the samples have different codes for different purposes. Here's a summary of what the luminol photos show, as best I can make out:

144 - footprint in Amanda's room
145 - two right footprints in corridor outside Amanda's room
146 - same as 145
147 - same as 145
149 - shoe print in corridor
150 - footprint outside Meredith's room
151 - not sure

Here's a composite photo that clarifies some of these results:

http://www.friendsofamanda.org/miscellaneous/police_crime_scene_composite.jpg

You all must have much better monitors than I have on my laptop here. With ill will to none and charity to all, here's what I see:


144 - A right footprint without a long enough toe to be Amanda's going by the other picture previously posted.

145 - The one on the left kinda looks like a smudged right footprint pointing towards the bottom of the screen. The one on the right looks like a mermaid.

146 - Now the one on the left looks like a disembodied toe emerging from the Milky Way, the one on the right still looks like a mermaid. Kinda hot one too, betcha she's 'slippery when wet.'

147 - They're real interested in the measurements on that mermaid, aren't they?

148 - I see a floor--my mermaid's gone!

149 - This one kinda looks like my avatar on drugs

150 - The Mutari Nebula

151 - Looks to me like someone might have been 'overserved' and blew chunks all over the floor. The gift that keep on giving revealed with luminol!

I've seen Katody play with the picture programs and define these better, and I guess if I got on my desktop with the neato monitor it would be easier to determine, but I cannot for the life of me see how any of these could be considered definite evidence in a murder trial, let alone positively 'attribute' them to anyone.

 

[Dan O.]

151 - not sure

Given the square tiles and the piece of glass in the center, I'm going to say this is Filomena's room and that looks like a couple of electric cords so it would be between the night stand and the door.

ETA: I see at least 7 larger pieces of glass in that photo and that's just where it is lit up.

 

[Charlie Wilkes]

Given the square tiles and the piece of glass in the center, I'm going to say this is Filomena's room and that looks like a couple of electric cords so it would be between the night stand and the door.

ETA: I see at least 7 larger pieces of glass in that photo and that's just where it is lit up.

I don't think it's Filomena's room, Dan. The flooring in Filomena's room consists of square linoleum tiles, but the tiles in photo 151 are rectangular, like the terra cotta flooring in the rest of the cottage.

 

[RandyN]

Garafano actually calls Stefanonis work sloppy when describing the luminol traces. Who would have thought?

Luminol is meant to be "misted" over an area. Over application is incorrect technique according to the standards. Also most CSI toss or ignore luminol samples that test negative with TMB...which in this case would eliminate all luminol findings as having no meaning. Of course Stefanoni could have taken the drastic action to examine these areas and the swabs taken from there as well as swabs taken from neutral areas with the normal everyday microscope. As a former histologist I could have suggested several excellent stains that make red blood cells "leap out" at you. But she chose to do nothing because now she can pretend that maybe they are from blood or from turnip juice…you decide. Of course we all know this was the prosecution trick they pulled on the judges and jury…and they fell for it. Meaningless blobs and ill-defined footprints that come from and lead to nowhere. Footprints that are as likely to belong to the murder victim but we will never know that because the investigators failed to take reference footprint samples from MK, Filomena or Laura..or any of the possible visitors to the cottage…just samples from AK, RS, and RG. Cost cutting and all that I suppose.


Speaking of prosecution tricks…what does everyone think of Comodis little excursion at trying to insert control data sheets in the last hearing? I personally think this issue exploded in the prosecutions face! The judge took an hour break to try and find this data and came up empty-handed but never fear Comodi just happens to have a copy up her sleeve…too bad one of the independent experts noticed the file numbers did NOT match. I understand from someone in attendance that there was a huge pregnant pause with silence and a look of actual shock on Comodis face when Hellmann refused her demand to have this data entered into the record. Further he told her that no matter if this data was entered that at this point it can’t rule out contamination. Maybe its just me but that seems to be a strong indication of the judges feelings about the prosecutions main DNA evidence against the defendants. Plus while he calls the prosecution less than forthcoming what he really means is that its time to stop setting their pants on fire.

BTW Lionking…any links to that Jesus toast sighting yet? Was it in Kentucky? I hear a guy is actually building a real ark there.

Finally, yesterday as I worked at my computer I felt my house shake…strong wind I says to myself but then the house shakes harder and my computer screen is sliding back and forth. Now, I realize its not windy….so I wrote down the following…today 8/23/2011 @ 1:53 PM I felt my first ever earthquake. Since I live in the mountains of PA this was quite strange…the whole affair lasted 15 seconds maybe…turns out it was a 5.9 centered about 325 miles southeast of here.

Back to the luminal…it would seem that over applying the solution and overexposing the photos would be exponential rather than proportional …so three times normal exposure may yield a result a hundred times stronger. I’m guessing here but I got to thinking of that when I was reading that the Japan earthquake was 9.0 but hundreds of times stronger than our 5.9.

Here’s my damage…feel free to send relief cases of liquid refreshments so I can relax after the cleanup.

 

[Kaosium]

Speaking of prosecution tricks…what does everyone think of Comodis little excursion at trying to insert control data sheets in the last hearing? I personally think this issue exploded in the prosecutions face! The judge took an hour break to try and find this data and came up empty-handed but never fear Comodi just happens to have a copy up her sleeve…too bad one of the independent experts noticed the file numbers did NOT match. I understand from someone in attendance that there was a huge pregnant pause with silence and a look of actual shock on Comodis face when Hellmann refused her demand to have this data entered into the record. Further he told her that no matter if this data was entered that at this point it can’t rule out contamination. Maybe its just me but that seems to be a strong indication of the judges feelings about the prosecutions main DNA evidence against the defendants. Plus while he calls the prosecution less than forthcoming what he really means is that its time to stop setting their pants on fire.

Great post, Randy, snipping solely for aesthetic reasons.

I think this was quite telling, and hopefully a sign of things to come. Hellmann is no fool, he judged the overturning of a case that had gotten through the Italian Supreme Court, he ought to know what he's dealing with. He's from the North, I've always heard there's a little...rivalry going on between the North of Italy which is very much like the rest of the EU, and the South starting right about where Rome is, that...isn't. Massei, Mignini, Matteini, Comodi, they all have to live with each other and make that rotting, festering Byzantine system work, they don't have the resources or gumption to be properly overseeing the police, they kinda have to trust them--and each other. After all, it's never going to hurt them.

There was a line that came out of Hellmann's mouth that might well have been just caustic, but could also be prescient. When Raffaele rose to speak after Mignini read Guede's letter, apparently Raffaele said something like 'I'm not used to...' regarding speaking in court and Hellmann supposedly interjected something like 'Oh, you'll get used to...' which some thought a put-down regarding Raffaele's reticence. I wonder though, to start the trial with 'all we know is Meredith Kercher is dead' and then to single out what should be the most important parts of the case for review, the 'witness' breaking the alibi, the 'murder weapon' (escorted into the Massei Court like the Crown Jewels) and the only item actually 'found' of either of them in the murder room, and to see them so thoroughly discredited he might well have done so with a purpose. Thus what sounded cynical to some was just his wry acknowledgment Raffaele might well have to do a lot of public speaking in the future, at the expense of his Court System as he knows how this one is gonna go? I mean, he knows better than anyone else possibly could what the absurdities of the Massei Report actually suggest....

He has to follow procedure and ensure the prosecution won't have legitimate grounds for appeal to the Supreme Court, and he probably doesn't want to upset too many spaghetti plates, but I think his shooting down of Comodi was just another indication from the beginning that he read the Massei Report and knew what it meant just like we did, and might well have contempt for Mignini as an embarrassment to his system.

Mere speculation, of course.

 

[Fine]

It's the only one with anything resembling a second toe

Amanda's second toe is longer then the big toe. In the print it is clearly shorter.

___________________

Katody,

That can be easily explained, once you understand the criminal mind. The "bloody footprints" were left on November 1st, 2007. And by December 18, 2007, the footprints had been detected, and Amanda damn well knew it! The inked impressions of Amanda's feet were not taken til May 12, 2008, while she was in prison. (Another serious blunder by the cops.) A full six months had elapsed since the date of the murder. By that time, May 12, her second toe had become longer than her big toe. Hmm. Conclusion: Amanda stretched her toe in prison.

///

 

[Katody Matrass]

Given the square tiles and the piece of glass in the center, I'm going to say this is Filomena's room and that looks like a couple of electric cords so it would be between the night stand and the door.

ETA: I see at least 7 larger pieces of glass in that photo and that's just where it is lit up.

I'm not sure. Filomena's floor had no grout gaps. Tiles in the photo are rectangular just like in the corridor, with deep grout grooves.

 

[Katody Matrass]

___________________

Katody,

That can be easily explained, once you understand the criminal mind. The "bloody footprints" were left on November 1st, 2007. And by December 18, 2007, the footprints had been detected, and Amanda damn well knew it! The inked impressions of Amanda's feet were not taken til May 12, 2008, while she was in prison. (Another serious blunder by the cops.) A full six months had elapsed since the date of the murder. By that time, May 12, her second toe had become longer than her big toe. Hmm. Conclusion: Amanda stretched her toe in prison.

///

Brilliant, and fits well the cunning and evil character of that witch

 

[LondonJohn]

Is this linear? In other words with roughly three times the exposure, (I get how you calculated that) would that translate into the pictures appearing roughly three times as bright?

Essentially the answer is yes: the brightness is directly (linearly) proportional to the exposure.

The exception would be if either total light saturation or total colour saturation has been reached (i.e. you can't get any more light than pure white, and the same is applicable to any of the individual colour elements of a colour film). However, it's clear that this is not the case with these photos. So they are indeed around three times as apparently bright as they would have been under the standard exposure recommendations for Luminol photos.

 

[PhantomWolf]

150 - The Mutari Nebula

This is the one that Sherlock claims is absolute proof that Amanda locked Meredith's door. Somehow I still don't see it...

 

[RoseMontague]

You all must have much better monitors than I have on my laptop here. With ill will to none and charity to all, here's what I see:


144 - A right footprint without a long enough toe to be Amanda's going by the other picture previously posted.

145 - The one on the left kinda looks like a smudged right footprint pointing towards the bottom of the screen. The one on the right looks like a mermaid.

146 - Now the one on the left looks like a disembodied toe emerging from the Milky Way, the one on the right still looks like a mermaid. Kinda hot one too, betcha she's 'slippery when wet.'

147 - They're real interested in the measurements on that mermaid, aren't they?

148 - I see a floor--my mermaid's gone!

149 - This one kinda looks like my avatar on drugs

150 - The Mutari Nebula

151 - Looks to me like someone might have been 'overserved' and blew chunks all over the floor. The gift that keep on giving revealed with luminol!

I've seen Katody play with the picture programs and define these better, and I guess if I got on my desktop with the neato monitor it would be easier to determine, but I cannot for the life of me see how any of these could be considered definite evidence in a murder trial, let alone positively 'attribute' them to anyone.

I love it. I will have to take some time and go back to Rinaldi again but my initial impression is that your analysis is spot on.

 

[Supernaut]

As a continuation, it appears that the owner of the girls' cottage has had ongoing problems in renting the property, owing to its gruesome association with Meredith's murder. I'm sure the owner is therefore somewhat less than happy to find crime tourists casing the cottage to take multiple photographs (even trespassing onto - and inside - the property to snoop around) and placing memorials on the gate. That must help enormously......

Thanks for the reminder - SA and his fake white roses. Says it all, really.

Some people are literally shameless.

 

[pilot padron]

Answers to a sane solicitation and some benighted fun

.
A query for you, as I know you won't bother to acknowledge anything I wrote regardless, one thing I'm most curious about however, perhaps in the spirit of noblesse oblige you'll deign to enlighten this benighted 'groupie' with the answer to a couple simple questions:

What do you think are the odds are that Raffaele and Amanda will be found guilty again?

What will be your explanation if they are not found guilty?

As a courtesy to your reasoned rebuttal, which was as is your custom, very well written, but understandably after 65,000+/- in an identical vein, not noticeably 'new'.
(please note this as "acknowledgement")

1) Until I hear "the other side of the story" about the C and V Report, I am not considering that at all in 'odds making'.
Obviously it as so far only superficially examined favors the Defense or the Defense would not have prematurely leaked it
The only other significant event since the last verdict was the ridiculous and extremely self damning 'day of the deceivers'.
This when the defense requested and condoned Jailbird *fully* convicted horrendous child killer and sundry known liars making absolute fools of themselves and showing how utterly sorrowfully desperate the Defense really was in putting on that farce for all to sit through... and see through.

Sorry to disappoint, but my 'odds' with the above in mind are almost the same as after the first trial's evidence ended....strongly and without an iota of *reasonable* doubt...guilty as charged.

Needless to say, in recognition of opposing "odds", I would again characterize a popular mantra here immediately after the C and V leak that "Its Over", "Truth has set them free", "They will be released at any hour" as pretty much little more than ill informed childish cheering rather than reasonable "bookmaking"

2) Since day one I have repeatedly suggested others can and have argued this stuff from a guilty point of much better than I.
(e.g my error about blood in Amanda's room, albeit Dan O makes similar room error today)
Therefore I would not attempt to offer an "explanation" for your fanatically desired not guilty verdict.
This no more than I would proffer an "explanation" why OJ and Casey received this same verdict that you so strongly and steadfastly seek.

PS:
1) Since your "benighted" adjective sounds so much like like "be-knighted" it understandably calls to mind what many use to explain some FOAKers' feverish fervor and frequency of activity on behalf of Knox, their "fair maiden" in distress.
That is deep in their hearts, and strongly prompting their defense of Knox some FOAKer Groupies are really just "White Knight" wannabes.
This similar to the phenomenon and the many strange 'pop up protectors' of "Run Bambi Run" Lawrencia Bembenek, the former Playboy Club waitress turned police officer turned famed escaped-convict-on-the-loose.

2) Interesting, though the complete communications engineered acceptable definition of "benighted" (I unashamedly love such words)
I include it because it does not IMHO in any way describe you or your many arguments and thoughts here favoring innocence.
However, since you brought it up, it may very well describe many of the other *arguments* of others here.
(although most certainly I hasten to add, not in any way of course *arguers* here)

be·night·ed Adjective/biˈnītid/
1. In a state of pitiful or contemptible intellectual or moral ignorance, typically owing to a lack of opportunity.
2. Overtaken by darkness.

 

[snook1]

The appeal's verdict is getting closer with each day. With each day also, we can observe the guilters and increasing paranoia in their (very little) camp.

They fail to answer simple questions, they refuse to talk about evidence, they're blind when it comes to the sloppy police work but they have the best eyes when they see an occasion to smear Knox even more.

The C&V report will stand. There's no other side of the argument here, pilot pardon. The prosecution, with no doubt, will try their tricks to one last time deceive the court, but they will fail.

 

[pilot padron]

Where does this 'fit in'

Thanks for the reminder - SA and his fake white roses. Says it all, really.
Some people are literally shameless.

May I respectfully ask ....
Is this the best on topic, non ad hominem, ever so repeatedly requested and desired here 'argument'... *discussing only case events, please*...that you can offer for this distinguished group today ???

What is your ToD??

PS:
FYI, as discussed, previously in great length here, since all flower vendors were closed at that time, the most reverently intended memorial you find so necessary to so slur now, were white linen, and were the best available at any price anywhere that day.

 

[LondonJohn]

The appeal's verdict is getting closer with each day. With each day also, we can observe the guilters and increasing paranoia in their (very little) camp.

They fail to answer simple questions, they refuse to talk about evidence, they're blind when it comes to the sloppy police work but they have the best eyes when they see an occasion to smear Knox even more.

The C&V report will stand. There's no other side of the argument here, pilot pardon. The prosecution, with no doubt, will try their tricks to one last time deceive the court, but they will fail.

You're correct. The Conti/Vecchiotti report is essentially unimpeachable in its conclusions. The "crack" forensics team in the cottage completely and egregiously botched the entire evidence-gathering exercise, and engaged in the most blatant breaches of basic crime scene protocol. The evidence specimens were then mishandled, mis-stored and subjected to totally unnecessary periods when they were highly susceptible to contamination. And to cap it all off, Ms Stefanoni then disregarded pretty much every protocol essential for low-template DNA testing, and willfully misinterpreted results in a suspect-centric episode of confirmation bias.

Of course, some may attempt to argue otherwise in a simpleton farming kind of way - hampered by agricultural ignorance, total lack of any academic qualifications or rigour, and a straw-chewing inability to make logical deductions. But this kind of unintellectual agrarian argument does not carry any water to anyone armed with intelligence and logic. The Conti/Vecchiotti report is correct, robust and entirely defensible - and it is one of many nails in the prosecution coffin in this case. Knox and Sollecito will almost certainly be acquitted by Hellmann's court within the next couple of months. And this will be the correct and just outcome of this sad case.

 

[LondonJohn]

May I respectfully ask ....
Is this the best on topic, non ad hominem, ever so repeatedly requested and desired here 'argument'... *discussing only case events, please*...that you can offer for this distinguished group today ???

What is your ToD??

PS:
FYI, as discussed, previously in great length here, since all flower vendors were closed at that time, the most reverently intended memorial you find so necessary to so slur now, were white linen, and were the best available at any price anywhere that day.

Do you think the owner of the cottage was particularly happy that a random crime tourist (not even a resident of Perugia nor anyone remotely associated with the victim) saw fit to place a "memorial" at the gate of his/her property - an act that was bound to remind people (including potential tenants) of the brutal murder of a young woman within his/her property?

Do you think that the owner of the property was/is particularly happy to have random crime tourists sticking cameras through trees and under railings to take long-lens photographs of his/her property, and even to trespass upon the property in a ghoulish desire to get close to the scene of a murder?

Do you think the residents and authorities of Perugia think it's normal or appropriate for random crime tourists to engage in "weekend crime tours" of Perugia, making timed walks between various areas connected with the crime or the defendants?

 

[Dan O.]

Luminol photo 151

I'm not sure. Filomena's floor had no grout gaps. Tiles in the photo are rectangular just like in the corridor, with deep grout grooves.

I looked again with a larger monitor and higher magnification and confirm you and Charlie are right. This is the tile pattern in the new part of the cottage.

The streak on the right side may be just a streak but the dark semi-circle in the top right is overlaying a luminol enhanced stain on the tile. When I get a chance to review the video of that day I'll see if I can match the size and shape of that object.

What I thought were glass fragments may have also been monitor artifacts because I don't see them on the larger monitor either. (ETA: What I was seeing looked like transmittance of the luminol emissions through fragments of glass. But this cannot be unless someone dropped the glass there after spraying the area with luminol. Otherwise the luminol would be on top of the glass and wouldn't interact with the stain underneath.)

 

[LondonJohn]

I love it. I will have to take some time and go back to Rinaldi again but my initial impression is that your analysis is spot on.

I agree, and I think this virtually wraps things up in regard to the prosecution physical "evidence" against Knox and Sollecito.

1) The knife and bra clasp will be thrown out for sure

2) The "mixed DNA" from the sink swabs will almost certainly be ruled to have been improperly collected, and therefore it's more than likely that any Knox DNA on the swabs was present on the sink surface prior to the dilute drops of Meredith's blood being deposited

3) The bathmat partial print must be thrown out as any kind of incriminating evidence against Sollecito (and Rinaldi exposed as a biased pseudoscientist in the process)

4) The Luminol evidence can all be thrown out as utterly irrelevant: none of it can be matched to Knox, and it's actually more than likely that the luminescent blobs in the hallway have nothing at all to do with the murder.

All that is needed now is for Quintavalle to correctly be exposed as either a) an honestly-mistaken and unreliable witness, or b) an out-and-out liar. Throw in the powerful argument on ToD, and a proper assessment of the break-in, and it's clear that there is nowhere near sufficient proof of Knox's/Sollecito's guilt. They will be justly acquitted.