Continuation Part 3 - Discussion of the Amanda Knox case

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Fine said:
Does anyone believe that Stephanie Kercher could have written this piece of gobbledygook English....

"How can only a small amount of DNA evidence be deemed countless, when the independent review team have no answer for exactly how much should be counted?"

It's got GoogleTranslate fingerprints all over it.

I noticed in "her" letter that "she" expresses gratitude for the work of the cops, prosecutors, and court officials for putting the lovebirds where they belong. But one--- and only one--- illustrious person is singled out by name. Guess who?

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To be honest, I don't see anything wrong with that sentence, syntactically speaking. Granted, I have no idea what she is trying to convey semantically.
 
Fine said:
Does anyone believe that Stephanie Kercher could have written this piece of gobbledygook English....

"How can only a small amount of DNA evidence be deemed countless, when the independent review team have no answer for exactly how much should be counted?"

It's got GoogleTranslate fingerprints all over it.

I noticed in "her" letter that "she" expresses gratitude for the work of the cops, prosecutors, and court officials for putting the lovebirds where they belong. But one--- and only one--- illustrious person is singled out by name. Guess who?

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That's a good point, Fine. In scanning the letter looking for the name, though, I notice she also mentions "Filomena's room." I think it's odd that Stephanie Kercher would mention Filomena in her letter, at least without including her last name. We on the internet are used to calling these people by their first names and knowing who they all are, but if I were in Stephanie's position, and I thought my letter might be shared with the general public, i.e., "everyone all over the world who still thinks of us and Mez," I think I would refer to "mixed traces spread throughout the bathroom, corridor and one of the bedrooms."

For that matter, why would she even feel the need to argue the prosecution's case in a letter to her attorney?

And since when is she called "Stephy?" That strikes me as an attempt by whoever wrote this letter to melodramatically tug at the old heart strings.
 
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We have not forgotten her, and we will continue our struggle in order that justice be done with the continuing support of our lawyer Francesco Maresca and of his colleagues, the Police, the Public Prosecutor, the prosecution and all those taking part in this in Italy and also all those who in all the world still think of us and of Mez.

We would like to have the possibilty of working with Universty of Perugia on a project which would offer an annual place to a student in memory of Meredith. Meredith loved Italy and its people and wanted to immerse herself in Italian culture. We are well aware of the impact that all this has had on the city and we think that this is an appropriate way to commemorate Meredith in the beautiful place for which she left us to come and study. Please do not let it be that Meredith died in vain, her courage and her strength continue to struggle and we shall look for justice so that she may rest in peace. She did not stop struggling that November 1st, and we shall not stop now.

Stephy Kercher
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If i wanted to be really cynical, I would question whether this part of the letter is intended to imply some quid pro quo.....
 
Fine said:
Does anyone believe that Stephanie Kercher could have written this piece of gobbledygook English....

"How can only a small amount of DNA evidence be deemed countless, when the independent review team have no answer for exactly how much should be counted?"

It's got Maresca's GoogleTranslate fingerprints all over it.
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It is interesting to note that the Italian version on TGCOM is much better than the above "original".

Still, I'd hesitate to toss around the accusation of forgery, even in the case of someone as shameless as Maresca; just as likely, perhaps, is that the above is not actually the original, but a re-translation of an Italian translation.
 
Mary_H said:
And since when is she called "Stephy?" That strikes me as an attempt by whoever wrote this letter to melodramatically tug at the old heart strings.
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Well, it probably won't work around here, where "Steffi" refers to another individual connected with the case who hardly commands affection. :)
 
komponisto said:
Well, it probably won't work around here, where "Steffi" refers to another individual connected with the case who hardly commands affection. :)
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Ms. Steffi, Miss Stephy, meet Sir Cecil Thistlethwaite, the celebrated theological statistician. I slit the sheet, the sheet I slit, and on the slitted sheet I sit.
 
Fine said:
Does anyone believe that Stephanie Kercher could have written this piece of gobbledygook English....

"How can only a small amount of DNA evidence be deemed countless, when the independent review team have no answer for exactly how much should be counted?"

It's got Maresca's GoogleTranslate fingerprints all over it.

I noticed in "her" letter that "she" expresses gratitude for the work of the cops, prosecutors, and court officials for putting the lovebirds where they belong. But one--- and only one--- illustrious person is singled out by name. Guess who?

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The Jackal himself! :)

I noticed that too, thought it might have been in reference to some criticism he reportedly received for seeking vengeance rather than the truth. I agree that sentence looks weird, however are there better explanations than Maresca forging it when it's damned likely to come back to her if he is? Unless she's vacationing in Tibet, she might just be paying attention to the case, being with the appeal winding down and all. If he actually did that without her permission, that seems a lot of downside for a fairly minor upside, considering John Kercher has already written four things publicly about the case and he could probably solicit one from him.

Perhaps I misunderstood what you meant, were you suggesting she approved him writing something in her name? Thus she wouldn't protest, but it was him actually writing it? I could see that possibility, but would it matter that much? I've a suspicion that might have happened with Guede's letter, but unless they expose it themselves, how could anyone prove it? What would it really mean even if they had done this? It's an appeal to emotion and attempt to rehabilitate in the minds of potential jurors the DNA 'evidence' and suggest the other 'evidence' is just as damning. It's for an Italian audience, so she might well just sign off on an outline and let him write it in Italian.

It's rather cleverly written in my opinion, I found myself kind of liking who wrote it from an entirely objective position, meaning I bet it is relatively effective with a neutral audience. Let us hope it is not widely distributed, what paper did this appear in, or will it be read in court?
 
komponisto said:
It is interesting to note that the Italian version on TGCOM is much better than the above "original".

Still, I'd hesitate to toss around the accusation of forgery, even in the case of someone as shameless as Maresca; just as likely, perhaps, is that the above is not actually the original, but a re-translation of an Italian translation.
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Are you sure it isn't equally likely that a translator might have taken some liberty to fix the poor style and make the letter more presentable in Italian? There's no rule that translators must take something poorly written in one language and give it an equivalently clumsy translation in another. The translator would have had a bit more leeway than the copy-editor of the English version, who I suspect threw his hands up at the prospect of having to nearly re-write the entire piece. (And he may have thought, besides, that the jumbled prose imparted an air of authenticity and impassionedness to it.) But Stephanie doesn't read Italian, so tidying up the letter in translation would be considerably less likely to offend.
 
Kaosium said:
The Jackal himself! :)

I noticed that too, thought it might have been in reference to some criticism he reportedly received for seeking vengeance rather than the truth. I agree that sentence looks weird, however are there better explanations than Maresca forging it when it's damned likely to come back to her if he is? Unless she's vacationing in Tibet, she might just be paying attention to the case, being with the appeal winding down and all. If he actually did that without her permission, that seems a lot of downside for a fairly minor upside, considering John Kercher has already written four things publicly about the case and he could probably solicit one from him.

Perhaps I misunderstood what you meant, were you suggesting she approved him writing something in her name? Thus she wouldn't protest, but it was him actually writing it? I could see that possibility, but would it matter that much? I've a suspicion that might have happened with Guede's letter, but unless they expose it themselves, how could anyone prove it? What would it really mean even if they had done this? It's an appeal to emotion and attempt to rehabilitate in the minds of potential jurors the DNA 'evidence' and suggest the other 'evidence' is just as damning. It's for an Italian audience, so she might well just sign off on an outline and let him write it in Italian.

It's rather cleverly written in my opinion, I found myself kind of liking who wrote it from an entirely objective position, meaning I bet it is relatively effective with a neutral audience. Let us hope it is not widely distributed, what paper did this appear in, or will it be read in court?
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Kaosium,

Here's what I think happened. It wasn't a forgery exactly. Maresca had a letter from Stephanie, written in fluent English, and he "improved" it by incorporating statements---statements that strengthened the argument on the eve of the next hearing--- and some of those statements written by Maresca were mumbo-jumbo English. It's unlikely that she would have approved of his "improvements" had she seen them. (Don't expect Stephanie to protest publicly the "improvement" of her letter, however much the English language was tortured.)

Komponisto's conjecture that the mumbo-jumbo resulted from double retro-translation is unlikely. In the TGcom video the letter in English is displayed and called "La lettera della sorella" (The sister's letter). If the letter as displayed had suffered double retro-translation there'd be a lot more mumbo-jumbo. Instead, most of the statements in English are fluent standard English. The reason why the Italian text is preferable to the English text---where the mumb-jumbo statements are translated---is because Maresca provided both the English text and the Italian "translation" of the text. Maresca knew what he wanted to say in the mumbo-jumbo English, so, of course, the Italian "translation" would be unambiguous. Just further evidence of mischief, in my opinion.

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Fine said:
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Kaosium,

Here's what I think happened. It wasn't a forgery exactly. Maresca had a letter from Stephanie, written in fluent English, and he "improved" it by incorporating statements---statements that strengthened the argument on the eve of the next hearing--- and some of those statements written by Maresca were mumbo-jumbo English.
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You have evidence for this?

Didn't think so. I think I'll just add this to the string of conspiracy theories I've been collecting from this thread.
 
CT or no CT, the vocabulary and sentence structure of the highlighted passage are most peculiar.

Rolfe.
 
Matthew Best said:
Oh. It seems odd that you would exclude that CT from your list, but I imagine you have your reasons. :D
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I have more than enough involving Italian police, forensic scientists and prosecutors thanks very much.

I take it you have no evidence that this letter is a forgery involving Maresca I assume.
 
"exactly". Pedantry rules.

Fine says Maresca "improved" it. That's not a forgery?
 
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Lionking, do you deny people the right to speculate? Of course Fine has no concrete evidence. That's why s/he said, here's what I think happened.

You may think this is an unreasonable suggestion. You may think it is tenuous or even groundless. But if that is your opinion, then please, address the suggestion in the spirit it was made. As a suggestion, a theory, a hypothesis.

If you avoid any such discussion in favour of a bald demand for "evidence" of something nobody has claimed to have any evidence for, then why, some of us might conclude that you're only here to snipe and belittle, and have no substantive arguments to contribute.

Rolfe.
 
Rolfe,

I've read nearly a page of groundless speculation about this letter, yet I'm the only one to point out it is groundless. :rolleyes:
 
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