Continuation Part 3 - Discussion of the Amanda Knox case

[JREF2010]

Yes, it seemed bizarre to me that a group of journalists who supposedly know more than the average person about this case could still be so credulous about the "mixed blood". Not one of them had anything to say to Nadeau about it. Even Madison Paxton appeared not to have any idea that it's not actually established that it was mixed blood rather than just mixed DNA.

I'm not defending reporters, but in the beginning of the interview at the dining table, they also seemed confused, almost admitting they were bluffed and fooled because they understood the police documents as the "primary" source. But they seemed to insinuate how incorrect a lot of it was, in hindsight.

The "mixed biological traces" might be another "one of those" mistakes. As Charlie mentioned, someones interpretation of something , that benefits the prosecution...they go to print with it.

My concern is that Hellman allows enough time to review all these marginal/unclear issues.

Who knows what the LayJudges think or what newspaper they read?

At least Frank Sfarzo, hasn't been mentioning the layjudges sleeping in the Hellman court, as they slept while Massei played with his cell phone, while the Cell Tower expert puts people to sleep with his science, like the last trial.

 

[Chris_Halkides]

no such thing as mixed blood

Charlie, and anyone else up on the details...

One of the strongest guilt beliefs is the "mixed blood".
Barbie called it this in her interview in todays Dateline piece. Her response to the camera is this "mixed blood" is a big issue for the defense, and not explained. TJMK consider it the main evidence, even quoting Maresca as stating it was this mixed dna/blood that convinced the jury in the Massei trial. Barbie interviewed layjudges and they agreed the mixed blood was a large part of the verdict and the defense didnt address it enough.

As I understand it the reason they claim it is blood is the high peaks on the DNA charts. The locations are all in the bathroom with possibly one in Filomenas room, on the floor.

For most pro-defense, the bathroom swabs dont mean much of anything.
it was her bathroom, and finding someones dna in their bidet, sink, etc.etc..
These swabs seems very, very weak as evidence, if not supported by the knife or something from the bedroom where the crime happened.(Which there isnt anymore)

Any guesses why Hellman didn't want to have his experts include the luminol and mixed dna in their work?

JREF2010,

Some months ago (perhaps as long ago as January) I wrote a response to Colonel Garofano's claim that one can tell blood by the height of the peaks on a DNA electropherogram. One only has to look at DNA that did not come from blood and to note that the peaks are sometimes quite high, in order understand that his claim is fallacious. But I would like to say that (at least with respect to Filomena's room), we do not even know if the substance is blood or not. There was a luminol-positive area and it had mixed DNA. However luminol-positive areas with DNA were tested with TMB and were negative. Moreover, there was no confirmatory blood test done. If the jury believed that there was mixed blood, then the jury thought something that was erroneous, and maybe the defense needs to address this more carefully in their arguments.

 

[Antony]

Well, for one, you read the first sentence but neglected the second, "I still do but sometimes life is illogical, I accept that".

If you were curious about what i wrote why not just ask the question? instead you posted an assumption based on your own preconceived notions of what i think.
I still think Filomena's window was just about the least likely entry point for a burglar when i think of how one would suss the joint, but I did not say I don't think it happened that way, hence my second sentence. There is a difference you know.

I just don't think you were very clear on that point. I was already aware that you had modified your earlier view of Amanda and Raff's guilt in the murder, but I didn't know what details had changed your mind or to what extent.

Perhaps you agree with LJ's opinion that the kitchen window or patio door presented a greater challenge because of double paned glass but this particular argument hasn't resonated with me, coming from Canada where all windows and doors have double paned glass which regularly get broken in all kinds of break ins.
Thus, I look at the simple balcony access with an easily reached window as one which would look more appealing to a burglar, but it seems Rudy didn't. C'est la vie, perhaps it's a cultural thing

Then I'm not sure why we're even having this conversation. If you accept that Rudy broke in and entered by this route, then whether or not it's "unlikely" is neither here nor there.

Personally I've always seen the idea of a "staged" break-in for what it was: an invention by the police who needed to account for the broken window and still cling to their much-needed swift "solution" to the crime. Of course the pro-guilt faction latched onto it for the same reason, and all of this argument from incredulity as to which window a burglar would choose was never anything but post-hoc rationalisation, and a weak one at that.

 

[Chris_Halkides]

we don't know when the DNA was deposited

Clouseau: "I live in a house with three people (my two sons and my husband); I guarantee you I have never mixed blood with any of them anywhere in the house; I don't bleed where they bleed; we never bleed at the same time." Same goes for you, Barbie. You don't understand the evidence in this case. And you're also an idiot.[/I]

LondonJohn,

Don't hold back; tell us how you really feel. Someone should tell Barbie that one cannot date DNA deposits. Nor does blood, to the best of my knowledge, have a reliable forensic time stamp. So the few drops of blood on the faucet don't mean much, IMO.

 

[Fine]

JREF2010,

Some months ago (perhaps as long ago as January) I wrote a response to Colonel Garofano's claim that one can tell blood by the height of the peaks on a DNA electropherogram. One only has to look at DNA that did not come from blood and to note that the peaks are sometimes quite high, in order understand that his claim is fallacious. But I would like to say that (at least with respect to Filomena's room), we do not even know if the substance is blood or not. There was a luminol-positive area and it had mixed DNA. However luminol-positive areas with DNA were tested with TMB and were negative. Moreover, there was no confirmatory blood test done. If the jury believed that there was mixed blood, then the jury thought something that was erroneous, and maybe the defense needs to address this more carefully in their arguments.

______________________

Halides,

The so-called "mixed blood" in the bathroom was probably not blood either.
The only blood test Stefanoni used on that pink stuff was the TMB test. (A color reaction test.) Vegetable peroxidases, found in ketchup, are known to cause false positives in that test. Ketchup is a common ingredient to fake blood, the kind of "blood" known to be dripping from Meredith's chin on October 31st and November 1st.

See: Blood

///

 

[Grinder]

Does anybody know why Kokomani wasn't considered for the second attacker, if there were in fact more than one. He admits to being there that night. He had a car and knew Rudy. Rudy asked him if they could rent his car just before he threw the olives and cell phones. He went to a lawyer and then took off for Albania for a couple of months. Later he was convicted for drug dealing.

Easily could have been a supplier to Rudy and perhaps Rudy was a little behind in making payments and Rudy knew of this cottage where they grew pot and the girls' rent was due.

 

[Grinder]

Do people think that Hellman will go after more bad police work on the fifth or just allow them to rebut the C & V report.

 

[Danceme]

Danceme,

I too doubted the double glass argument and still do, but when I Googled double paned something it came up with all these UK sites talking about tempered glass that is so hard to break that firemen were talking about the danger. I have no idea if Italy has such windows nor do I know if Rudy was still carrying his little break in hammer that would work on these windows.

The window does seem unlikely, but I believe Rudy named that window on his Skype call at a time when the press reports had stated it was Meredith's window.

There is no doubt tempered glass is very strong but the problem with patio doors is with the flimsy locking mechanisms and the ability to pry the door from it's track, making it a common point of entry for thieves.

http://www.cmhc-schl.gc.ca/en/co/maho/holooucr/holooucr_006.cfm

I don't know why Rudy did not choose it, perhaps he tried but didn't have a tool on him, so decided on Filomena's single pane window which was easier to break with a rock.

Does anybody know why Kokomani wasn't considered for the second attacker, if there were in fact more than one. He admits to being there that night. He had a car and knew Rudy. Rudy asked him if they could rent his car just before he threw the olives and cell phones. He went to a lawyer and then took off for Albania for a couple of months. Later he was convicted for drug dealing.

Easily could have been a supplier to Rudy and perhaps Rudy was a little behind in making payments and Rudy knew of this cottage where they grew pot and the girls' rent was due.

This is a good question. He had rather a bizarre story which most importantly placed him at the cottage that night and in communication with rudy. Perhaps he should have been looked at more closely.

 

[Mary_H]

<snip>To me, it's extraordinary to watch this inept, self-contradictory, ignorant, low-quality display by the three "journalists" who are supposed to be at the forefront of bringing this case to the English-speaking world. They are incompetent hacks who are clearly incapable of understanding the critical nuances of this case, and who have quite clearly been manipulated by Mignini and others. Only now are Nadeau and Pisa understanding this, although Vogt still seems to be living in some dreamland of personal denial and inability to realise just how stunningly wrong she called this case.<snip>

I can't help but notice how much Vogt sounds like a practiced guilter. Have we finally uncovered the true identity of Harry Rag?

 

[Kevin_Lowe]

Does anybody know why Kokomani wasn't considered for the second attacker, if there were in fact more than one. He admits to being there that night. He had a car and knew Rudy. Rudy asked him if they could rent his car just before he threw the olives and cell phones. He went to a lawyer and then took off for Albania for a couple of months. Later he was convicted for drug dealing.

Easily could have been a supplier to Rudy and perhaps Rudy was a little behind in making payments and Rudy knew of this cottage where they grew pot and the girls' rent was due.

Without mind-reading powers we'll probably never know for sure. My take on it is that the reason the prosecution didn't go that route is that Mignini, who is not a rational actor, fixated on his "satanic ritual sex" fantasy at the outset and cast Amanda and Raffaele as his sexy satanists, and then refused to deviate from his fantasy. I don't think he had any rational reason to exclude Kokomani.

Why the guilters haven't gone that route is an equally interesting question and I think the answer is similar. From observing the rabbit hole, the pass/fail test for being allowed to post down the rabbit hole is "Do you think Amanda and Raffaele did it, yes/no?". As a community their core interest is arguing that Amanda and Raffaele did it. The fact that at this stage of the process there is more and better evidence that Curatolo and Kokomani did it than there is evidence that Knox and Sollecito did it isn't going to shift their views because their views were never evidence-driven in the first place. That and since there's clearly not proof beyond reasonable doubt that Curatolo and Kokomani did it, admitting that they are now more plausible suspects would be tantamount to admitting that Knox and Sollecito should walk, which they can't do down there.

 

[Bruce Fischer]

Any guesses why Hellman didn't want to have his experts include the luminol and mixed dna in their work?

From what I have been told, Hellmann did not rule out looking at additional evidence in the future if warranted. I think it is very important to look at what Hellmann wanted reviewed from the start. These were the issues that he felt would make or break the case. He wanted to take another look at Curatolo because he was the only prosecution witness seen as credible by the first court. Next he wanted the opinion of independent experts regarding the DNA.

If the evidence he ordered reviewed is proven unreliable (which it now has been) then the prosecution's case is demolished, no need for Hellmann to prolong the case any further by looking at other less relevant evidence.

There will no doubt be some theatrics by the prosecution when the trial resumes but it will simply delay the inevitable, freedom for Amanda and Raffaele.

 

[curi0us]

Every word has been documented. Every page has been saved.

Good job. Do you (or anyone else) know if the Friend of Peltier blog had some more controversial political entries scrubbed at some point?

 

[Bruce Fischer]

Good job. Do you (or anyone else) know if the Friend of Peltier blog had some more controversial political entries scrubbed at some point?

I certainly cannot take the credit but it is a fact that everything is being documented. Freedom for Amanda and Raffaele has always been number one on the list. Everything else will have its time and place.

I am unaware of the blog you are referring to.

 

[RandyN]

I have worked in construction in my past and can attest that breaking a sliding glass window is far more difficult than it might appear. The newer lock mechanisms are quite strong and most everyone who has a sliding glass door also knows that placing a wood strip into the door track makes it near impossible to jimmy open.

How do I know these type of windows can be difficult to break? Because we replaced one once and a few of the younger boys decided to take cracks at breaking these doors by tossing bricks at it. I don’t remember the exact number of tries but I’m certain it was greater than 5 solid hits and the brick bounced off each time before a throw finally shattered the glass. And shatter it did into thousands of tiny pieces ...no shards or pointy pieces...just tiny bits.

OTOH the single strength glass in Filomenas window is not even legal code wise in my state anyway. About the only legal use for it anymore is in picture framing.

BTW...I guess we can assume the police in Milan took Rudy's special glass breaking tool away from him when he was detained there for breaking into the kindergarten. IN his backpack was a tool often carried in emergency car kits that is designed to shatter strengthened glass such as car windows. This is a hammer like tool that is pointed and also usually has a slot inside of which is a razor designed to quickly cut a seat belt loose. One wonders why Rudy might carry such a tool seeing as he did not have a car.

 

[curi0us]

I certainly cannot take the credit but it is a fact that everything is being documented. Freedom for Amanda and Raffaele has always been number one on the list. Everything else will have its time and place.

I am unaware of the blog you are referring to.

Interesting.

Friend of Peltier is Ganong's husband. His blog has an excerpt from a militant Marxist propaganda book on it. Combined with Ganong (and Michael.net) calling Knox the "ruling class" I think there are some clues there to what the hate towards Knox is really about.

The book quoted on the FoP website is Agents of Repression: The FBI's Secret Wars Against the Black Panther Party and the American Indian Movement by Ward Churchill and Jim Vander.

Ward Churchill is such a scumbag that AIM members hate him and is he such a liar that he got fired from University of Boulder even though he was a tenured professor.
http://aimgrandgovcouncil.blogspot.com/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ward_Churchill

A lot of people here when describing the persistently disonest hate directed towards AK by PMF/TJMK have said words to the effect of, "I've never seen anything like this". I have, it is incredibly similar to the propaganda around the the Free Mumia movement. I was at one of the colleges where Mumia gave a graduation commencement speech . . . there was a standing ovation. While most people praising Mumia were mislead by false information at the core of the Free Mumia movement were people who just didn't care about the truth. They had a cause, Mumia was there symbol, details about what had actually happened the night Mumia shot Daniel Faulkner were not important to them. Churchill was one of those people.

Mumia speaking about Ward churchill:
“It is not enough for us to merely, dumbly intone that Churchill has the right to write what he does. No -- we must do more. We must insist that Churchill *is right*. And no one, not some rabid talk show parrots, nor a political whore like Gov. Bill Owens, has a right to demand what is wrong. The Cold War is over (even in Colorado). Churchill is right!”
-Mumia Abu-Jamal, 2005
http://antimove.blogspot.com/2006/05/mumia-is-still-killer-and-ward.html

Here is what genuine True Justice website looks like:
http://www.danielfaulkner.com/myths.html

 

[Dan O.]

I have worked in construction in my past and can attest that breaking a sliding glass window is far more difficult than it might appear. The newer lock mechanisms are quite strong and most everyone who has a sliding glass door also knows that placing a wood strip into the door track makes it near impossible to jimmy open.

I think there have been a couple of posts referring to sliding glass doors. In case anyone is confused, the cottage does not have sliding doors but rather a double door with conventional hinges.

LJ recently posted this photo:

 

[Mary_H]

Let them eat madeleines

Interesting.

Friend of Peltier is Ganong's husband. His blog has an excerpt from a militant Marxist propaganda book on it. Combined with Ganong (and Michael.net) calling Knox the "ruling class" I think there are some clues there to what the hate towards Knox is really about.<snip>

Oh, now Peggy is a communist? Well, I can see that; there is certainly nothing bourgeois about her.

Posted: Sun Feb 13, 2011 7:21 pm

This reminds me of Proust, who made a distinction between involuntary memory and intellectual memory. What we know is no longer ours, he wrote. But what comes to us involuntarily, let's say when we dip a madeleine into a cup of tea (to take only the most famous example in Proust), offers us genuine and thruthful access to a past that would otherwise be unrecoverable. Hence his title: à la recherche du temps perdu.
_________________
Le coeur a ses raisons que la raison ne connait point; on le sait en mille choses.

Posted: Sat Jul 25, 2009 3:11 pm

Quelle coincidence!
Once again, Catnip, thanks for your gloss on the Pascal citation. It pretty much captures the unspoken, intuitive essence of why I have always been drawn to this thinker and his Pensées.
_________________
Le coeur a ses raisons que la raison ne connait point; on le sait en mille choses.

Posted: Fri Jul 24, 2009 6:47 pm

When Virginia Woolf suffered from one of her legendary bouts of madness (some think she was bi-polar), she was convinced that the birds singing in the trees outside were speaking Latin and Greek. Not that I would ever compare a literary genius like Virginia Woolf with our local scribbler of overwrought purple prose, but Candace does have something of the madwoman in the attic about her.
_________________
Le coeur a ses raisons que la raison ne connait point; on le sait en mille choses.

 

[RoseMontague]

Preliminary hearing in the Sarah Scazzi murder case has begun:

http://translate.google.com/transla...it/cronaca/2011/08/29/news/avetrana-20992826/

 

[zeb]

I think there have been a couple of posts referring to sliding glass doors. In case anyone is confused, the cottage does not have sliding doors but rather a double door with conventional hinges.

LJ recently posted this photo:

[qimg]http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/imagehosting/thum_402374e5909c3c3f7f.jpg[/qimg]

Those doors look out of date but would still have double glazing. the only window in my parents house was a kitchen with a small upper window that can be open for air, and this was made of wood but with double glazing.
And yes They had a breaking though said window.
But lucky the inside doors are always locked from the out side, saying you have got to come through the front door, and unlock the doors as you go through the house.
What the police said that they where surprised that the people came into the house that way due to noise it would have made.

 

[LondonJohn]

I think there have been a couple of posts referring to sliding glass doors. In case anyone is confused, the cottage does not have sliding doors but rather a double door with conventional hinges.

LJ recently posted this photo:

[qimg]http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/imagehosting/thum_402374e5909c3c3f7f.jpg[/qimg]

Yes, the balcony doors open inwards on side hinges. But these doors are clearly of a modern (post-1980) design, and I am fairly sure that they would conform to all modern manufacturing codes regarding safety and security. This means that the glass in the door would almost certainly be toughened double glazing, both for reasons of safety (in case anyone fell or ran into the door), and for security (these doors are an obvious potential point of entry/exit for a burglar). And similarly, the lock mechanism would almost certainly be strong enough to resist all but a concerted professional effort to break.

I therefore feel fairly confident in asserting that if these doors were correctly closed and locked, it would be very difficult for a solo burglar to either break the glass or break the lock. My opinion is that Guede either saw this without needing to scale the balcony (if the exterior shutters were partially open), or he scaled the balcony and tried the doors for himself. The same applies to the side window to the kitchen/lounge also accessible from the balcony: if this window was locked properly, I think that its design and materials would make it difficult and time-consuming for a solo burglar to break through.

By contrast, Filomena's window was quite clearly of a very old design and manufacture - possibly even dating back to the 19th century. It was glazed with very thin single-glazing, had a poor-quality wooden frame, and only had a simple hook latch with no lock. Guede was definitely sufficiently athletic to be able to access this window, so in fact it was the easiest point of entry for him. And when you add in the fact that Filomena's window offered a far, far easier and faster escape route to the main road than the balcony, it actually becomes by some distance the most likely point for Guede to have entered the cottage.