Continuation Part 3 - Discussion of the Amanda Knox case

[Charlie Wilkes]

Once again, does anybody have the communication history of Meredith?

I have a summary of her UK phone usage in the week before the murder. This comes from a book that was published in Italy. I can't remember the title or the author. Someone scanned two pages of the book and sent it to me. I typed up the Italian in a text file and ran it through Google's translator. Below are both the Italian and English versions.

ORIGINAL ITALIAN

L'analisi dei telefoni di Meredith

La ricostruzione delle difese - che sulla base dei rilievi medico legalli situano l'orario della morte di Meredith tra 21.30 e le 22.00 - combacia anche con la lettura del cellulare della vittima, svolta dal consulente ing. Pellero.

Il telefonino inglese della vittima e stato definito dalle difese "la scatola nera" della tragedia.

Meredith, quella sera, incontra le amiche, cena con loro e verso le 21 fa rientro a casa.

Alle 20.56 risulta una chiamata a casa (home) in Inghilterra. Resta un tentativo, cioe e registrata sulla memoria del cellulare, ma non sui tabulati.

L'ipotesi piu plausibile e che nessuno abbia risposto.

Meredith probabilmente voleva sentire i genitori, prima di andare a letto. Si telefonavano spesso, anche perche la giovane voleva essere informata sulle condizioni di salute piuttosto precarie della mamma.

Sebbene non riesca a parlare con i genitori, quella sera non riprova piu a chiamarli.

E un elemento singolare che si offre alla riflessione, anche se ovviamente si presta a molteplici letture. Voglio dire, Meredith potrebbe essersi dimenticata di ritelefonare oppure potrebbe aver deciso di cercarli l'indomani, perche magari le era venuto in mente che per quella sera avevano un impegno ed erano usciti. Eppure appare un aspetto interessante se associato all'insieme delle abitudini della giovane.

Dall'analisi del traffico telefonico, e emerso che era attenta a limitare le telefonate nei giorni feriali, perche la tariffa e piu alta. Anche l'invio di sms avveniva in particolare negli orari in cui costano meno: ore serali/notturne e giorni festivi. E stato elaborato uno specchietto sulle abitudini telefoniche serali di Meredith nella settimana precedente al delitto:

La ricostruzione delle abitudini telefoniche di Meredith

Questa e la statistica delle comunicazioni telefoniche e Sms effettuate da Meredith dalla propria utenza inglese 00447841131571 (quella di gran lunga usata delle due nella sua disponibilita) nell'ultima settimana precedente al delitto.

                            Telefonate                      Sms
      data            Uscenti     Entranti          Uscenti     Entranti
25/10/2007 Giovedi       2           2                 28          21
26/10/2007 Venerdi       2           1                 14           5
27/10/2007 Sabato        6           1                  9          10
28/10/2007 Domenica      8           3                  9           7
29/10/2007 Lunedi        0           0                  0           0
30/10/2007 Martedi       3           2                 27          17
31/10/2007 Mercoledi     1           1                 17          15
01/11/2007 Giovedi       2           2                  3           1
02/11/2007 Venerdi

Se si esclude il giorno 29/10/2001 in cui non si rileva alcun tipo di traffico, come si puo notare Meredith era attenta a limitare le telefonate nei giorni feriali in cui l tariffa e piu elevata sostituendo le telefonate con messaggi brevi. Tali messaggi brevi erano numerosi specialmente nelle giornate feriali e negli orari serali/notturni ma diminuiscono significativamente il primo novembre 2007. Questo potrebbe essere un indizio che Meredith ha subito un drastico cambiamento nelle sue abitudini ben prima della mezzanotte.

La sera del delitto il numero abituale di messagi spediti si riduce notevolmente, quasi che una porzione consistente della serata fosse bruciata. Elemento che si associa al fatto che non abbia piu provato a richiamare a casa e fa credere che non l'abbia fatto, perche non abbia potuto.

Le difese degli imputati sono convinte che l'aggressione avvenga proprio nell'imminenza di quella telefonata senza risposta, intorno alle 21.

Ma il cellulare della vittima ha ancora delle cose da dire.


GOOGLE TRANSLATION

The analysis of mobile Meredith

The reconstruction of the argument - that based on the medical findings Legall situate the time Meredith's death between 21:30 and 22.00 - also fits with the reading of the cell the victim, carried out by the consultant engineer. Peller.

The British mobile phone of the victim and was described by the defense "black box" of tragedy.

Meredith, that night, she meets her friends to dinner with them and the 21 is back home.

At 20:56 is a call home (home) in England. It remains an attempt, and that is recorded in the phone memory, but not on printouts.

The most plausible hypothesis is that no one has responded.

Meredith probably wanted to hear their parents before going to bed. He telephoned often, because the girl wanted to be informed about health Mother's rather precarious.

Although unable to talk to parents that evening did not try to call more. It is a singular element that is offered for reflection, but obviously lends itself to multiple readings. I mean, Meredith may have forgotten to return calls or may have decided to look for them tomorrow, maybe because it had occurred who had a commitment for that evening and were released. Yet something seems interesting if associated to all the habits of the young.

An analysis of telephone traffic, and found that he was careful to limit phone calls weekdays, because the rate is higher. Also occurred in sending sms especially in times when cost less: evening / night and holidays. It was developed a mirror on the calling habits of Meredith evening in the week prior to the crime:

The reconstruction of the calling habits of Meredith

This is the statistics of telephone calls and SMS made by the Meredith

English 00447841131571 their users (by far the two used in its availability) in the last week before the murder.

                              Call                           SMS
      data            Outgoing     Incoming          Outgoing    Incoming
25/10/2007 Thursday      2           2                 28          21
26/10/2007 Friday        2           1                 14           5
27/10/2007 Saturday      6           1                  9          10
28/10/2007 Sunday        8           3                  9           7
29/10/2007 Monday        0           0                  0           0
30/10/2007 Tuesday       3           2                 27          17
31/10/2007 Wednesday     1           1                 17          15
01/11/2007 Thursday      2           2                  3           1
02/11/2007 Friday

Except for the day 29/10/2001 you do not detect any type of traffic, as can see Meredith was careful to limit phone calls during the week in which the rate and higher by replacing calls with short messages. These short messages were especially numerous in the weekdays and during the evening / night but decreased significantly 1 November 2007. This could be a clue Meredith has undergone a dramatic change in his habits well before the midnight.

The night of the crime the usual number of messages sent is reduced significantly, almost that a substantial portion of the evening was burned. An element that is associated with the fact that you no longer tried to call home and to believe that she did not, because could not.

The defenses of the defendants are convinced that the aggression takes place in the imminence of their own missed that call, at around 21.

But the mobile phone of the victim still has things to say.

 

[Draca]

Either Stefanoni doesn't understand the question, or she has confirmed people were in the house moving things around during the 46 days the crime scene was supposedly "sealed".

Was Stefanoni there through Nov 7th? I've wondered if the Flying Squad tossed the place after she left. Could the tossing of the cottage have taken place before they sealed it? Or sealed it on Nov 7th anyway since the door was open on Nov 14th.

 

[Kaosium]

Interesting Kaosium, I might have to read Nina's book.
The assault while dying theory strikes me as strange too, from a boy not known to be prone to violence. The crime against Meredith was pretty gruesome for a newbie.

ETA, is it possible for Rudy to get more time after having already passed through the highest court in the land?

New charges like lying in court could get him more time. I don't know if you paid any attention to it, and I ignored it in a recent reply to Pilot as it's just...outré, but the whole Aviello testimony debacle was instructive on how one can acquire additional charges while in prison. As you're probably aware the mob kid Aviello testified to some fantasy about his brother doing it and hiding the knife and keys in some house. He had been charged with slander some eight times in prison for his various 'testimonies.' Someone, I don't know how many slander charges this one had and I'm afraid to inquire, said Aviello was all doing this so he could have sex change.

Then apparently Aviello 'broke' and told prosecutors he'd been approached by Raffaele's lawyer, parliamentarian Giulia Bongiorno, Raffaele's sister, along with some famous transsexual in Italy whose name escapes me (Luxxor? something like that) to lie in court for Raffaele with a sex change in reward for his 'services.' The transsexual was there to 'guarantee' the deal, as apparently the word of the Ministry of Justice official and the former (and hopefully future) carabinieri officer wasn't good enough for him. Nothing was found regarding this 'knife and keys' of course.

Then the prosecution put another guy on the stand, who'd apparently been charged with slander in prison three or four times himself, to say he'd heard Aviello say something about Alessi being involved in this travesty, which he found extraordinarily curious being as they were in separate prisons and couldn't communicate, and all he would testify to at this point was what he'd heard Aviello say while they were cellmates, and I think he was jealous of Aviello's prison job and thought there might be some conspiring going on. I got the impression this guy was being careful, he didn't want any more slander charges.

Frankly I think Aviello had a good old time getting everyone involved in his little fantasy life, or joke, or whatever it was. Maresca of course found the sex-change for worthless testimony accusation 'extremely credible' which is suggestive to me of...well...I dunno. I'm not sure I'd want my name and 'credible' involved in any sentence regarding Aviello, but I guess that's why he gets paid the big bucks. Giulia Bongiorno was apparently unamused, so there ought to be more slander charges being filed, though who the lucky recipients will be I couldn't fathom, except of course I imagine Aviello will at the top of the list, perhaps he is going for a record?

Something like that, we didn't spend much time discussing it. I suspect no one on either side wanted to have Aviello's name in their posts as much I did just there, lest slander charges be ethereally transmitted much like venereal disease follows a rock band.

 

[JREF2010]

the case of False Accusations

Clearly Amanda's and Raffaele's recounting of that night is the single greatest evidence pointing to their guilt of something.

Raf's dad's call is a point of issue for their recounting. I suppose it is possible that Raf washed before and after the dinner but...it's a weak explanation.

What's really hard to understand is why if they did it, they didn't coordinate a better story.

I think the blurry 20yr old memory cells are suspicious for many mundane routine older sober people.

But I find the missing motive, the absence of a violent past, and no proof of planning with Rudy even more powerful. The prosecution is still missing proof that kissing, forgetting when one ate dinner precisely, sex and taking the phones off the hook from the parents and bosses on a holiday, makes a college kid a murderer.

Poppa Sollecito's call.

7:30: Rudy says no ones at the cottage (this is true)

8:30-8:35pm: Rudy says no ones at the cottage (this is true)

8:40: Poppa Sollecito call is verifiable with cell tower info.
>Raffaele has no calls from 8:42pm forward.
>Amanda in her stand testimony states the leak was during the washing of dishes, after the meal.
>Poppa Sollecito saying Raffaele mentioned the leak in the 8:40 call.
> Popovic confirms Amanda is at Raffaeles 8:40pm approx.

8:50-8:55pm: Sophie Purton says she was home for her tv show.

8:56pm: Merediths cell call is tried and aborted.
**Sophie testifed she did not see Meredith text or call anyone.

9pm: Rudy says he and Meredith are together.

9:10 and/or 9:26pm: computer activity at apartment of Raffaeles.

9:58 & 10pm:unknown tower for Merediths phone activity.

10:13pm (30064)>connects to a tower outside the cottage. Murderer fled with cell phone.

10:30 pm-10:35 Rudy tells Judge Matteini he had fled, the crime was over. Rudy didnt have a watch he tells Matteini.

10:20-10:30pm: Alessandra Formicas boyfriend rudely bumped into, verified by their parking tickets.

10:30-11:40pm: the Tow Truck driver,Giampaolo Lambrotti, who was parked at the driveway exit and said no one came or left from 10:30 to 11:40pm, and no screams heard.

If they did do the crime, with Rudy, could they have gone bezerk in approx. 30 minutes and become killers?

 

[Kevin_Lowe]

yeah, pretty much.


That doesn't describe Rudy. B and E yes, but no stories of running away from home, breaking in to watch people sleeping.........
His crime was an escalation not following these usual parameters IMO, although I think he did do the crime.

He did have a history of carrying knives while breaking and entering and threatening people with them.

In any case, if we agree he did do the crime and you think it unlikely that he would have done the crime without some previous criminal activity in the sexual assault department, then it would just follow that he committed one or more sexual assaults we don't know about.

 

[Antony]

Pilot, I have found and do find this case fascinating. It is hard to make sense of it.

It is hard to make sense of the prosecution narrative against Amanda and Raffaele, for the simple reason that it is wrong. Apart from that, the case is clear-cut: a lone burglar is disturbed by a young woman with tragic consequences, and a police force out-of-their-depth takes the option of "solving" the crime the easy way.

Once the above is recognised, the only thing that remains that is difficult to make sense, is the spectacular stubbornness of the faction who won't accept that the local police and courts got it wrong.

Some people on both sides have lost sight of reason and perhaps would do well to reassess what they are doing.

On some of the other blogs, yes. The mutual abuse to be seen on the comments section of every article dealing with the case, is painful to behold. JREF remains an oasis of calm by comparison.

 

[RoseMontague]

______________

Rose,

The last November day Stefanoni had been in the cottage was November 5th. The Perugian cops had been in the cottage on November 6th and 7th.

The "46 days" is the number of days that elapsed from the date of the murder, November 1st, til the return of the cops on December 18th.......

November days that elapsed = 29
December days that elapsed = 17
____________________________
Total days that elapsed = 46

Bye this way, Sabrina and her mother, Cosima, will appear in court on Monday, answering charges of kidnapping and premeditated murder of Sarah Scazzi.

///

Thanks Fine, that clarifies the days for me.

A different set of cops then, and one that Patrizia was not in charge of? Is there any video or pictures of their trashing of the scene? Any official report of findings? What was the purpose of their visit?

Did this second set of cops wear booties and gloves? Or were they told the Sciencey police were done and then proceeded to have a party?

 

[RoseMontague]

I think the blurry 20yr old memory cells are suspicious for many mundane routine older sober people.

But I find the missing motive, the absence of a violent past, and no proof of planning with Rudy even more powerful. The prosecution is still missing proof that kissing, forgetting when one ate dinner precisely, sex and taking the phones off the hook from the parents and bosses on a holiday, makes a college kid a murderer.

Poppa Sollecito's call.

7:30: Rudy says no ones at the cottage (this is true)

8:30-8:35pm: Rudy says no ones at the cottage (this is true)

8:40: Poppa Sollecito call is verifiable with cell tower info.
>Raffaele has no calls from 8:42pm forward.
>Amanda in her stand testimony states the leak was during the washing of dishes, after the meal.
>Poppa Sollecito saying Raffaele mentioned the leak in the 8:40 call.
> Popovic confirms Amanda is at Raffaeles 8:40pm approx.

8:50-8:55pm: Sophie Purton says she was home for her tv show.

8:56pm: Merediths cell call is tried and aborted.
**Sophie testifed she did not see Meredith text or call anyone.

9pm: Rudy says he and Meredith are together.

9:10 and/or 9:26pm: computer activity at apartment of Raffaeles.

9:58 & 10pm:unknown tower for Merediths phone activity.

10:13pm (30064)>connects to a tower outside the cottage. Murderer fled with cell phone.

10:30 pm-10:35 Rudy tells Judge Matteini he had fled, the crime was over. Rudy didnt have a watch he tells Matteini.

10:20-10:30pm: Alessandra Formicas boyfriend rudely bumped into, verified by their parking tickets.

10:30-11:40pm: the Tow Truck driver,Giampaolo Lambrotti, who was parked at the driveway exit and said no one came or left from 10:30 to 11:40pm, and no screams heard.

If they did do the crime, with Rudy, could they have gone bezerk in approx. 30 minutes and become killers?

It does seem to me that the obvious is pretty obvious. Migininini has pinned his TOD to the testimony of a drug dealing heroin addicted homeless park bench bum who can't remember what night it was.

Does Massei give a reason that Lambrotti and company don't see or hear anything?

 

[RoseMontague]

You are very right RoseMontague and many kudos to you. Your gifted brain picked up on this as well, the print doesn't match Amanda but it also doesn't quite match Rudy either, he has the same long second toe.

This is why I believe the trial testimony is important, simply because I would have never bothered with this (and it seems to have gone without notice for several years) if not for the testimony I quoted of Prof Tower:

Google Translation

I ask myself, these gentlemen have made a sea of calculations , I have now read a bit 'of literature on these things but here I did not ... not a matter of reading the literature, it is clear that Amanda has this foot let's call the second index finger of the foot to make themselves more understandable than longus, the impression the second finger is shorter frankly, the impression with luminol, be Amanda's foot that its mark has inked a long second toe, with that luminol was there with shorter second toes, on this I would say that it rains there. Now I'm not a particular fingerprint expert but if there is one thing that catches your eye when we know that most people have the second longest finger of the big however, there has a good share
shorter I do not think it would be silly to take the fingerprints of other young men who frequented the house

Tower is talking common sense here, something the prosecution experts are lacking in.

Alt+F4, Christiana, and many others have been hoping the transcripts would at some point become available. I think they will be a valuable resource for people that have an interest in the case. komponisto has created a new blog for this and we hope to have this thing going in a week or so.

I have been asked a few questions that I would like to address.

Why bother with such a big project with the trial possibly over before you even get started good?

I don't think this is a good philosophy to have. Things would never get done. Even if hope becomes reality, this will be of value, in my opinion.

Why have you opened up the translation team to include posters from any boards, including those on the pro-guilt side?

For one thing, those on the side of innocence are not the only ones interested in the transcripts, for another; it will give this project a sense of balance and fairness.

Isn't a translation of the entire trial transcript too much to handle, even with 4 volunteers?

Yes. The translation of the Massei report took months even with many people working on it. That was 400 pages. I have about 1200 pages of transcripts so far and that represents less than 20% of the total.

The plan as of now is to post each day's testimony in Italian, then provide an English summary of that day's testimony along with selected important quotes translated to English. If I am able to get the rest of the transcripts the plan is to handle this chronologically beginning with day one and posted as each day is summarized and quoted.

 

[PhantomWolf]

Interesting Kaosium, I might have to read Nina's book.
The assault while dying theory strikes me as strange too, from a boy not known to be prone to violence. The crime against Meredith was pretty gruesome for a newbie.

ETA, is it possible for Rudy to get more time after having already passed through the highest court in the land?

Of course whichever way you slice it we know that Rudy was there and was involved in the murder, so something changed him from burgler into killer regardless of the theory. We do know that there is a link between burgley and rape, and a link between rape and murder, and burgerly/rape/murders are far from rare.

On the other hand we have two young people with absolutely no history of criminal activity or violence who are then claimed to have inspired and lead this brutal attack, the first of its kind in legal history. Even the court's version of how this happens makes no sense. Consider this: According to the court A and R spent from 9:30pm until 11:30pm being watched by a witness, they then went to the cottage and in a drug induce craze killed Meredith within 10 minutes and she died 10 minutes later. How could they have gotten into such a level of drug craze that they would kill within such a short time frame? They were seen taking drugs during the witness claims to have seen them, and if they were so drug crazed before leaving R's house that they were still drug crazed killers over 2 hours later, why is there no evidence of them being into such heavy drug usage? The prosecution and Court's claims make no sense whatsoever.

So in the end you have two senarios. One might be rare, but the other is impossible.

 

[Paninaro]

First off let me say that I've always considered Filomeana's window the most unlikey entrance for a burglar no matter the arguments put forth here. I still do but sometimes life is illogical, I accept that.

Are there any good pictures of the window that should have been smashed by the logical burglar? I have a vague memory I have seen it recently, but a little repetition can't hurt.

Anyone?

 

[Antony]

First off let me say that I've always considered Filomeana's window the most unlikey entrance for a burglar no matter the arguments put forth here. I still do but sometimes life is illogical, I accept that.

That means you think the break-in was staged, and Rudy got in some other way. My position is the reverse of yours: extraordinary claims - like the "staged" break-in - require extraordinary evidence, and what we see from those making this claim is an extraordinary lack of evidence.

Just one question, though: the unflushed toilet is evidence that Meredith came in while Rudy was on the john (he didn't flush so he had a chance of sneaking out of the house without making a noise); how is it accounted for in the case where the break-in was staged, after he was let in either by Amanda or Meredith?

 

[Grinder]

Charlie - thanks for the phone info. Do you know if the Italian phone could send SMS to England? Did her mother have a cell phone at the time? Any known reason she didn't use the phone at all on Monday the 29th?

If Amanda's phone had a day without use, I wonder what the PG people would make of that. Possibly, I mean probably, that she and Raf spent that day planning the murder.

It would seem an important piece of information to have more detail on times of use of both phones to see how it would fit with the use on Nov. 1.

 

[snook1]

Why does pilot pardon comes in here and complain about the way JREF boards works and then he goes to PMF and says all these nasty things, incl JLOL and calls us all kinds of names? Double standards, huh?

I just don't get it.

 

[Grinder]

Antony - to be clear I have never believed the prosecutions case as presented. Curatolo was a joke to me before the heroin use was admitted. Quintavalle and Nara weren't believable. The sex game gone bad didn't make sense.

I read the story about Amanda naming Patrick in one of the papers that carried the quote of the Chief, which caused me to doubt it immediately. The knife and bra evidence was just too convenient. Rudy's intercepted Skype call made it clear that Amanda wasn't involved but didn't exclude the possible involvement of Raffaele. The call is an excellent example of the PG people doing what they accuse FOA people of doing, excusing evidence. They say Rudy knew he was being recorded and so he made up the part about Amanda because, well this is the hard part, because he was still under her spell, maybe?

 

[LondonJohn]

Charlie - thanks for the phone info. Do you know if the Italian phone could send SMS to England? Did her mother have a cell phone at the time? Any known reason she didn't use the phone at all on Monday the 29th?

If Amanda's phone had a day without use, I wonder what the PG people would make of that. Possibly, I mean probably, that she and Raf spent that day planning the murder.

It would seem an important piece of information to have more detail on times of use of both phones to see how it would fit with the use on Nov. 1.

The Italian phone could have had its international call/SMS bar in place. In 2007, nearly all new phone contracts had the bar in place as a default - if you went abroad from the country in which the phone was contracted, you had to request the removal of the international bar. This was to help prevent fraudulent use of stolen phones.

Looking at the sheer number of texts sent/received by Meredith from her UK phone, it seems likely that she was unable to make international calls/texts from the Italian phone that Filomena had lent her. In addition, in 2007 it would have been rather expensive for Meredith to be sending and receiving calls and texts from her UK phone: every call and text - both sent and received - would have cost her money under the international roaming agreement. And this would be the case regardless of whether the calls/texts were being sent/received to/from UK phones or Italian phones.

It does seem very strange that there was absolutely zero activity on Meredith's phone on the Monday before the murder. The lack of even incoming texts or calls would perhaps suggest that this UK phone was turned off all day: perhaps Meredith left the phone somewhere by mistake. Or it could have been that her contract was suspended for a day - maybe owing to technical errors or non-payment of a bill.

There's one small point of correction to the article that deals with the aborted 8.56pm call from the UK phone to her mother: this call was either terminated manually by Meredith (or someone else) or it failed to connect to a Perugia base station. It is incorrect to propose - as that article does - that Meredith's mother's phone might have rung with no answer. If the call had made it onto the Italian Wind network (the Italian roaming partner for the UK phone), it would have generated a call record under the terms of the roaming agreement. There was no such call record. Therefore, the call never got as far as connecting to the Wind network in Perugia. And the only way in which this can have happened is if either a) the user terminated the call quickly before the network "handshake" with a local base station had taken place, or b) there was no network coverage to the handset at the moment the call attempt was made.

 

[Grinder]

Over at P**, thoughtful translated the trial testimony of Shaky. I found it interesting that he said he had seen Rudy over the years but didn't know him in any way. It may be recalled that the PG people made a big deal out of the fact that Raf and Rudy had to known each other. They point to Mudede the blogger for the Stranger who claimed to know people in Perugia after being there a week and that Rudy and Raf would have to have known each other - guess not.

The Shaky translation also gives a little more of the idea of the fact that the English girls weren't so prim and proper.

 

[JREF2010]

It does seem to me that the obvious is pretty obvious. Migininini has pinned his TOD to the testimony of a drug dealing heroin addicted homeless park bench bum who can't remember what night it was.

Does Massei give a reason that Lambrotti and company don't see or hear anything?

I always found it interesting, more attention to Lambrotti wasn't given.
Maybe he said clearly what he knew and there was no more to ask of him?

It would be great to read the witnesses testimony's someday, Lambrotti in particular.

 

[LondonJohn]

Are there any good pictures of the window that should have been smashed by the logical burglar? I have a vague memory I have seen it recently, but a little repetition can't hurt.

Anyone?

Well, most pro-guilt commentators seem to think that the double doors on the balcony were the "logical" point of entry for a "real" burglar. But there's a massive problem with that little theory: the balcony doors were clearly of a modern design, and were almost certainly therefore a) glazed with toughened double-glazing (to comply with safety and thermal efficiency regulations), b) made with a tough uPVC or aluminium frame and c) containing a secure lock (to comply with security regulations). Here's a photo of the balcony doors from the inside of the cottage:




So therefore the balcony doors would have almost certainly been very difficult and time-consuming to break open, particularly for a single perpetrator. As I've postulated already, I think it's entirely possible that Guede might have actually climbed to the balcony first, tested the doors, and found them too difficult/time-consuming as a means of entry. This might also explain why the exterior shutters were apparently partially open the following day.

The only other possible means of entry was the window into the kitchen/lounge area - also accessible via the balcony. But this window was also of a modern design, with a visible window lock, a sturdy uPVC or aluminium frame, and very likely double glazing. If this window was closed and locked, it too would have provided a very difficult means of entry to a solo perpetrator who wanted to get in quickly and easily. Here's a photo of this window:




So both possible points of entry from the balcony were in fact relatively secure and strengthened. If both the door and the window were locked shut, it would have taken Guede a fair amount of time and effort (and probably also a tool such as a jemmy) to get in via either of these points. The people who broke into the cottage some time after the murder broken in through the kitchen/lounge window - but there was more than one of them, and they knew for sure that the cottage was unoccupied. In addition, it wouldn't be entirely surprising if the police had neglected to lock this window after the examination of the cottage - IIRC there's a photo showing the window open at one stage.

And in addition to all the above, it has to be remembered that Filomena's window also had one very significant advantage for any potential burglar as opposed to either of the points of entry accessible from the balcony: it offered a far quicker and easier escape route in the event of discovery. The balcony was at the furthest point from access to the road, and any escape would have involved having to pass up and around two sides of the cottage (including the narrowing passageway between the outside of Laura's room and the wall abutting the road). By contrast, an escape from below Filomena's window would have merely entailed a dash up the wide drive to the main road.

 

[JREF2010]

Reading Thoughtfuls translation of Amandas testimony on the stand, and having the cell tower data set up for easy access....

that Commodi underhanded, or innocently incorrect, remark that Amanda had called her mom "before anything happened" was noticed.

The truth is, per cell logs and events now known, Amanda had been alarmed and even spoken to Filomena 4 times about the cottage, and the last the window broken
"BEFORE" calling her mom.

Commodi, from a lawyer trying to win at all costs, while ignoring the truth, even had Edda and Amanda confused and looking guilty in front of the courtroom.

but the phone log is :
Filomena 12:08
Filomena 12:12
Fiomena 12:20
Fiomena 12:34 (window broken noticed on 2nd trip)

Amandas first call to her Mom 12:47

Amandas next call, to her Mom, after the door was kicked in 1:34

"nothing had happened yet!".....wrong