Continuation Part 3 - Discussion of the Amanda Knox case

[Justinian2]

It just leaves me struggling to imagine the mechanism by which somehow it's Meridith's DNA and only Meredith's DNA that makes it onto the knife. Are we talking about Meredith's DNA somehow being airborn in the lab in overwhelmingly greater amounts than any other contaminant? If DNA samples got contaminated like that, surely LCN testing would be impossible as all samples would be hopelessly contaminated long before they arrived at the lab. Do they store items relating to the case open in the lab? Was a work surface scrubbed down 7 days previously and then went unused after the last Meredith sample was placed on it. If somehow the transmission route is via the lab, and the 6 day thing is true, its like the bra clasp - how unlucky are Amanda and Raffaele that it's exactly the wrong DNA that makes it onto the knife, not DNA from an unrelated case, or a lab worker. That kind of bad luck can clearly happen, even twice on the same case I suppose. I know Halides can provide countless examples. Still the ovewhelming majority of the time it doesn't happen.

The samples came from Meredith's room and flat. Her DNA was everywhere. When a DNA profile is made the DNA is first copied 128 million times. Then it is broken into pieces. Then, correct me if I'm wrong, luminescence is added to the DNA fragments. The resulting DNA soup is then processed in such a way as to give a profile.

Meretith's DNA was copied 128 million times!

Did you get that?

Most of the samples came from her house?

Did you get that?

Also, labs that do testing on animal and insect DNA are always contaminated by human DNA that can't be entirely found and removed.

A strand of human DNA weighs about ten pico grams. Are you going to remove every piece of that DNA from the lab?

 

[Chris_Halkides]

in which room is the mattress

I have been reviewing the Oggi files of the evidence collection. In the first part within 25 second or so, some technicians are milling about the mattress (which I take to be Meredith's mattress). In which room does this take place?

 

[Dan O.]

It just leaves me struggling to imagine the mechanism by which somehow it's Meridith's DNA and only Meredith's DNA that makes it onto the knife.

It's quite simple. In any lab processing DNA evidence there is going to be a small quantity of DNA from each article processed floating around in the lab. Every once in a while a piece of that floating DNA will land on another piece of evidence or one of the tools. In the majority of these cases, these tiny peaks will be lost at the bottom of the chart. In the cases where the is no other DNA present, this will show up as low RFU peaks that can be examined by blowing up the scale on the chart. If this noise doesn't fit any of the known profiles in the case it will simply be ignored or marked "too low". But when this noise can be touted as a major break in the case it gets printed and paraded in front of the court. I believe we call this a form of confirmation bias.

 

[RWVBWL]

I was thinking about BLN yesterday and with as much ragging as she gets on this thread (some of it is deserved, I admit) I am glad she tweets as it is happening. AFAIK there isn't anyone else who is as informative as she is, in regards to live information during court proceedings.

I also had the same thoughts about who must be threatening her at this point. It is very disheartening. People need to realize how much we all depend upon journalists - of all colors - to keep us informed.

Hi PDGirolamo,
I read what you write of yesterday too. Death threats for writing about this murder case we discuss? That is just wrong...

And I also read of an alleged FoA stalker that P. Ganong writes of who supposedly was uninvited to a family funeral and then IIRC, video'd them and pestered these mourning folks. Not cool...

What I want to ask is if someone shot a photo of the person?
Surely, with the prevelance of cell phone cameras, someone must have taken at least 1 photo or video clip of the guy/gal? If so, why didn't PG post it on her website saying that this FoA person was causing problems? I'd do that in a hearbeat, oust the chump!
My thoughts only,
RW

PS-For a bit of further discussion, can someone re-post for me the photo in this link, and maybe blow it up too? Or send me a PM and let me know how to re-post it?:
http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showpost.php?p=7390673&postcount=15485

I zoomed in on the shot. Is that really a large handle of a knife drying in the back of silverware strainer next to the girls kitchen sink?

 

[AmyStrange]

It's Curatolo's...

probably in his boxer shorts he's been wearing since Monday...

I have had an epiphany: I have concluded the reason no one has tested the stain is because they all know darn well whose it is. The only reason this particular group (i.e. Perugian authorities) would test it is to prove it to be Raff's and they all know it isn't Raff's, so why bother?

This was a revelation to me because as the second evidence phase has concluded, I finally realized as extremely, inexplicably absurd as it is to not test such a pertinent piece of evidence, that level of absurdity does not exceed the level of certainty held by every stinkin' one of them that it does not belong to RS. This, my friends, is the only possible explanation for the decision(s) not to test its ownership.

-

PDiGirolamo,

at least that's my theory, if it's really a semen stain anyway, Curatolo's and (maybe) mixed with Rudy's,

Dave

 

[Grinder]

Yes, she knows who this is and should make his name public.

But it could be like the time Daric what's his name was accosted by FOA enforcers.

There will be no naming of anybody nor will there be a photo because...

 

[Grinder]

The knife - of course they didn't test the knives at the cottage because Meredith's DNA wouldn't prove anything. They had to get the knife at Raffaele's or they had nothing.

 

[AmyStrange]

Interesting...

Hi PDGirolamo,
I read what you write of yesterday too. Death threats for writing about this murder case we discuss? That is just wrong...

And I also read of an alleged FoA stalker that P. Ganong writes of who supposedly was uninvited to a family funeral and then IIRC, video'd them and pestered these mourning folks. Not cool...

What I want to ask is if someone shot a photo of the person?
Surely someone must have taken at least 1 photo or video clip of the guy/gal? f so, why didn't PG post it on her website saying that this FoA person was causing problems? I'd do that, oust the chump!
My thoughts only,
RW

-

RW,

do people even take their cameras to funerals and such. I know there are cell phones with cameras and all, but I have been to a few funerals, wakes, and receptions afterwards and can't really recall anyone taking pictures before, during, or after?

Just wondering,

Dave

 

[AmyStrange]

The knife - of course they didn't test the knives at the cottage because Meredith's DNA wouldn't prove anything. They had to get the knife at Raffaele's or they had nothing.

-

Grinder,

DNA mixed with blood would be evidence that it was the murder weapon.

Someone here theorized that the reason they didn't test the knives at the cottage was because if they found Amanda's DNA on the knife THAT wouldn't help them at all. In order to get Knox, they had to find Kercher's DNA on a knife that wasn't at the cottage she shared with Amanda. It makes sense, to me anyway,

Dave

ETA: which is basicly kind of what your saying...

 

[Fine]

Exactly. This is the point: for all we know, zooming in on the noise in the electropherograms for other samples might have shown Meredith's alleles also.

Novelli (apparently) said he looked at hundreds of other contemporaneous results from the lab, and didn't find any trace of Meredith; but how many of those results were obtained via peaks below the noise threshold?

The question, from a Bayesian perspective (if you want to call it that), is how exactly Stefanoni's result distinguishes the knife from samples which are known not to be incriminating. This why the negative controls are so important, and why it's so incredibly suspicious that she presented "zoomed in" (below 50 RFU) results for just this one sample.

_______________

Komponisto,

Hmmm. I find it interesting that Stefanoni apparently didn't zoom-in on other samples taken from Raffaele's flat. Suppose she had, and found Meredith's DNA in some (and only some) of those other samples. Would that have served, for some, to exonerate precious Amanda? Or provided extra proof, for others---as if we needed more!--- against that American murderess?

Greg Hampikian, in a radio interview, said that he wouldn't be surprised to learn that Amanda had innocently transferred Meredith's DNA to Raffaele's flat, since the two girls lived together and shared a bathroom. Today, no one knows whether Meredith's DNA should be expected to be found in Raffaele's flat, in tiny traces. In the future, with an ability to reliably read DNA profiles from, say, a single cell, finding a victim's DNA under similar living situations might be commonplace. And therefore irrelevant. Or it might be rare, and therefore incriminating. So---for all we know, today---the test results of the double DNA knife, even if reliable, may be irrelevant. And if we don't know whether a piece information is relevant or irrelevant.........is it evidence?

///

 

[RWVBWL]

-
RW,

do people even take their cameras to funerals and such. I know there are cell phones with cameras and all, but I have been to a few funerals, wakes, and receptions afterwards and can't really recall anyone taking pictures before, during, or after?

Just wondering,

Dave

Hi AmyStrange,
Here is the passage I read of,
I believe Agatha is still a member here at JREF:

Posted: Thu Sep 08, 2011 3:30 pm Post subject: Re: XXV. MAIN DISCUSSION, JULY 25 -

Agatha wrote:
I am baffled by the mentality of the people who are sending death threats to a journalist. One of the reasons I stopped posting on the JREF trainwreck MoMK threads was the way some people there took it all so personally; I still have some PMs saved from a couple of people who sent vicious and nasty messages to me simply I am a 'guilter'. I reported them, and one of the people is now banned from JREF; but that isn't really the point, it's the personalisation and polarisation of the debate which is concerning.

I want to express my appreciation to everyone keeping us up to date on the case and particularly for doing on-the-fly translations when the news is moving fast. It's invaluable, and I think the huge number of guests over the past couple of days shows that.

There seems to be a cultlike fanaticism at work. I wasn't going to mention this, but a few weeks ago I attended a memorial service for someone to whom I am related by marriage (common-law marriage but it is a union that has lasted for 25 years and I consider my common law sister-in-law as family) and was surprised to see an FOA activist in attendance. This person did not know the deceased, though he knows and works for some people she knew, and was not invited. This person sat down two tables from me and seemed to be filming the whole time with a digital camera. I did not speak to this person. I got a call from my family members later in the evening, telling me that after I left, the FOA enthusiast actually approached someone in my family, asked him if he knew about his relationship with me, and proceeded to ramble on about PMF, TJMK, Amanda Knox, etc. until my family member stopped him and said "this is neither the time nor the place for this conversation". My family member had never laid eyes on the FOA enthusiast prior to this memorial service.

Is it just me, or is there something wrong with this picture?

_________________
Le coeur a ses raisons que la raison ne connait point; on le sait en mille choses.

Now I would just like to say that if this did truly happen, that it is wrong, lame, and uncalled for. Let's try to do better.

With that said though, I, bein' a suspicious kinda guy, wonder where the photo's are of the guy? Why not out him? As far as I can recall, PG was harrassed a few years back and filed a police report, got the cops involved. Since she did this, surely her family members know of that incident, heck, even I, a complete stranger to PG, know of her harrassment and so I gotta believe that someone must have shot at least 1 photo of the person, don'tcha think?

Or is the story bogus,
like some of the evidence in this murder case we discuss?
Where's the photo? Oust him!

RW

 

[RWVBWL]

_______________

Komponisto,

Hmmm. I find it interesting that Stefanoni apparently didn't zoom-in on other samples taken from Raffaele's flat. Suppose she had, and found Meredith's DNA in some (and only some) of those other samples. Would that have served, for some, to exonerate precious Amanda? Or provided extra proof, for others---as if we needed more!--- against that American murderess?
<snip>

///

Hi Fine,
Being a guy who has always been impressed with your ability to see what others often do not, can you zoom into this photo that RoseMontague posted awhile back and tell me if you believe this to be a knife drying in the silverware strainer?

http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showpost.php?p=7390673&postcount=15485

As CapeAladin elsewhere is still wonderin' about Amanda's bank deposit, I wonder, if this was a large kitchen knife, why didn't Amanda simply use it instead of that big ol' honkin' knife she was alleged to have brought over from Raffaele's pad. If that is a knife, by not using that 1, Amanda left open a big chance that Meredith could have ran to the kitchen and grabbed it herself in her own defense, much like I saw when a guy I knew got slugged hard in the face by another guy I knew at a party that I once had a few years back. With blood pouring from his cut up face, Samoan/American Jimmy grabbed a huuuge kitchen knife and threatened Mexican/Amercian Rico, which stopped the bloody fight. Don't F with me anymore, homeboy...

If that is a knife in the strainer, why wouldn't Amanda just use that knife if the attack on Meredith was not premeditated?

 

[JREF2010]

The knife - of course they didn't test the knives at the cottage because Meredith's DNA wouldn't prove anything. They had to get the knife at Raffaele's or they had nothing.

interesting thought.

Antonio made a statement/post a long time ago that there was two ways to solve a crime...one is to gather evidence and it leads to the criminal, and the second was to choose the criminal and gather evidence against them.

your comment would support the latter.

 

[JREF2010]

The independent experts mentioned something about using a fume hood at the lab. A fume hood creates a negative pressure inside to protect the lab tech from the sample and reagents being used. What is needed for the extremely sensitive LCN testing is a positive pressure to protect the sample from contamination floating around in the lab.

Other requirements of LCN testing labs are a regiment of cleaning and sterilizing every surface, the use of ultra-violate lighting that will destroy stray DNA and separation of work areas and duties to prevent post PCR amplified results from getting back to the sample extraction area.

The cross contamination in the lab would become a major issue with LCN , I understand. Controls a common confirmation of the lab and tool.

But all the samples come from a very unclean environment, some several years old, so the gathering must become precise too I suppose?
Stringent documentation and procedures at the crime scene would be just as important to separate samples etc..etc..

but I'm having some trouble seeing how LCN alone would be so convincing if not supported with other evidence.

Maybe more of an exclusion tool, if nothing found then its excluded.

But to say there is LCN DNA on something, and then nothing else supports this, doesn't convince me fully.

For the knife, theres no blood/ no cleaning to support it, no cell tower logs of the two in the cottage, there's no pc activity to place them in the cottage during the murder.

 

[AmyStrange]

It IS lame and unconscionable...

Now I would just like to say that if this did truly happen, that it is wrong, lame, and uncalled for. Let's try to do better.

With that said though, I, bein' a suspicious kinda guy, wonder where the photo's are of the guy? Why not out him? As far as I can recall, PG was harrassed a few years back and filed a police report, got the cops involved. Since she did this, surely her family members know of that incident, heck, even I, a complete stranger to PG, know of her harrassment and so I gotta believe that someone must have shot at least 1 photo of the person, don'tcha think?

Or is the story bogus,
like some of the evidence in this murder case we discuss?
Where's the photo? Oust him!

RW

-

RW,

and inexcusable.

But what I was wondering is if anyone takes pictures (or videos) at funerals and such? Is it an accepted custom?

I don't ever recall anyone ever doing that. Has anyone here ever done that? Does anyone here have any photos or videos of any funeral they ever attended? I know I don't or haven't. It's not like it's a Wedding or Baptismal.

This might explain why there aren't any photos to out the person,

Dave

 

[AmyStrange]

That's true to a point...

interesting thought.

Antonio made a statement/post a long time ago that there was two ways to solve a crime...one is to gather evidence and it leads to the criminal, and the second was to choose the criminal and gather evidence against them.

your comment would support the latter.

-

JREF,

there is also a third option that I like to call the "elimination process". For example, since more than 60% of all murderers are known to the victim (source: FBI homicide stats - see link below), it's a safe bet (that when there is no obvious evidence to tie anyone to the crime) that if give anyone without a verifiable alibi a polygraph and then try to eliminate them (anyone who doesn't pass) as suspects, odds are in your favor that you will find someone to charge with the crime.

They do this by investigating possible motives and criminal records and other possible leads until they are satisfactorily eliminated or a accumulative amount of evidence creates a probability that no one else could be the murderer except them. This example of the "elimination process" is more common than you think.

FBI Homicide stats (2009):
http://www2.fbi.gov/ucr/cius2009/offenses/expanded_information/homicide.html

Or, they (physically or psychologically) just beat a confession out of them,

Dave

P.S. the percentage of homicides committed by someone the victim knows (if you really think about it) is really a self-fulfilling prophecy in disguise.

ETA: It is kind of like the second method you mentioned, but instead of choosing a suspect and then finding the evidence, they let the evidence eliminate the suspects until they find one that can be safely tried in court.

 

[Grinder]

Dave,

Why would there need to be blood and DNA on a knife from the cottage? They didn't need blood on the knife from Raf's. Seriously, would a test for blood necessarily link to the DNA? Could DNA be from a different source than the blood in this example?

 

[Rhea]

I have had an epiphany: I have concluded the reason no one has tested the stain is because they all know darn well whose it is. The only reason this particular group (i.e. Perugian authorities) would test it is to prove it to be Raff's and they all know it isn't Raff's, so why bother?

This was a revelation to me because as the second evidence phase has concluded, I finally realized as extremely, inexplicably absurd as it is to not test such a pertinent piece of evidence, that level of absurdity does not exceed the level of certainty held by every stinkin' one of them that it does not belong to RS. This, my friends, is the only possible explanation for the decision(s) not to test its ownership.

And why did the prosecution object to the opening of the knife and thus the possible finding of more DNA / blood of the victim?

Same question, just as absurd … they must have know there wasn't anything to be found on that knife …

 

[AmyStrange]

Good point...

Dave,

Why would there need to be blood and DNA on a knife from the cottage? They didn't need blood on the knife from Raf's. Seriously, would a test for blood necessarily link to the DNA? Could DNA be from a different source than the blood in this example?

-

Grinder,

but think about it, what are one of the things they didn't find on the knife that kind of helped to prove it wasn't the murder weapon? No blood on the knife. Merediths DNA on the knife without blood was cited by the C&V report (if I remember correctly) as one of the reasons the knife could be eliminated as the murder weapon even if Meredith's DNA had been found on it. Which was why finding starch on it and no sign of bleach residue was important also.

Correct me if I'm wrong,

Dave

 

[Kaosium]

But how did Stephanoni separate the "peaks" she attributed to Meredith from the background noise? In court, according to Frank, she gave a detailed explanation about this but I haven't been able to find any further details. In the "forensicdnaconsulting" article, the author mentioned that this information was important in determining the reliability of her results.

I don't know! That's what's bugging me, I can't figure it out myself, it's like the stochastic sea parted for her to find that profile so perfectly, especially with the materials she was using. Back on page 112 Rose ('Dr. Comfy' lol) posted a transcript of one of the days <Dr. Stefanoni testified, at about pages 12, 42 and 62 the knife comes up, but I'm not seeing where they asked the right questions or she produced those answers.