Continuation Part 3 - Discussion of the Amanda Knox case

[Grinder]

Dave,

Not even arguing with you. I was trying to make fun of the fact that they had used the DNA without blood as proof of the murder weapon until now.

 

[AmyStrange]

Sorry about that...

Dave,

Not even arguing with you. I was trying to make fun of the fact that they had used the DNA without blood as proof of the murder weapon until now.

-

my bad

 

[Chris_Halkides]

Osmotic Shock

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,

I am not sure I am following you, but the problem that the Johnson/Hampikian open letter pointed out was that if you clean a knife such that no blood can be detected, it is quite unlikely that any DNA will be left behind. I have always wondered about people who argued that maybe it was flesh cells or something that gave rise to the DNA on the knife blade. My problem with that idea is that water should cause cells to break open from osmotic shock.

 

[Grinder]

Dave, really I don't think you did anything even remotely bad, I just wasn't clear.

I would like to suggest that we write a group letter to PG requesting that she let the world know who the latest "stalker" is. This is a public safety issue, who knows where he'll strike next?

 

[JREF2010]

Does anyone recall reading , if the two are released, can Rudy be charged for accusing them and get more time in prison?

 

[Grinder]

As the rabbit would say, "dear me"

Halides1, - to be clearer, I hope. I think the original knife evidence was weak/strange in that the only match contended was one speck of DNA, - no blood, not the shape of the blood print, not compatible with all the wounds, not compatible with the first police descriptions of the pen knife and no evidence of transport (not even Curatolo saw the knife, Koko did but...).

So when Dave said a knife in the cottage could provide proof of being the MW if her blood and DNA were found - then I said that they wouldn't need both because they didn't need both in the first trial.

 

[Grinder]

Charge Mignini

Does anyone recall reading , if the two are released, can Rudy be charged for accusing them and get more time in prison?

Well, Mignini read the statement in court, so if Curt and Edda could be charged for retelling Amanda's story, maybe GM can be charged for repeating Rudy's lie

 

[curi0us]

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

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

I think PG filing a police report and getting cops involved years ago was just another propaganda game on her part. Filing a police report makes it sound like a crime was committed but no one was ever charged with anything AFAIK (and they knew who the person was apparently) so no crime was committed, but PG exploited the incident and got Vogt to write an article as if PMF was being victimized by pro Knox haters. When I first read that Vogt article I felt some sympathy for PG when she said this:

"I am supposed to somehow get behind the home team. It is as simple as that," Ganong told the P-I. "But I had ongoing doubts, I continued to express that opinion, and that's when I became a target. But the fact that it has spilled over into real life, well there's something scary and terribly wrong about it."

Then While reading old posts on PMF I discovered at least 5 months before the Vogt article the Seattle PMF clan were writing nasty things about AK's younger sister that were clearly the result of their "real life" stalking of AK's family. The hypocrisy PG/PMF rationalizes is astounding.

So I don't trust PG in general and I also don't trust the funeral story in particular because I think if PG saw FOA stalking her at a funeral she'd be smart enough to get a cell phone pic. (she might not have a phone that can take a pic but at least one of her friends and/or family would.) Having said that I don't doubt there has been some "real life" Hate directed at her for the things she has written.

 

[AmyStrange]

Open Letter to...

I would like to suggest that we write a group letter to PG requesting that she let the world know who the latest "stalker" is. This is a public safety issue, who knows where he'll strike next?

-

Peggy Ganong,

please release the name or (if one is available) photo of the stalker who is bothering you, because regardless of any of our opposing opinions we are all still citizens of the world, and when someone stalks one of us, they stalk all of us.

Stalkers have been known to accelerate from passivity to violent behavior, and none of us should even remotely want to associate ourselves with such a person or such an activity, regardless of which side of this issue on which any of us stand.

This is one issue on which we should all stand united.

Thank you for your kind consideration of this matter,

Members of the JREF Forum

 

[Grinder]

So I don't trust PG in general and I also don't trust the funeral story in particular because I think if PG saw FOA stalking her at a funeral she'd be smart enough to get a cell phone pic. (she might not have a phone that can take a pic but at least one of her friends and/or family would.) Having said that I don't doubt there has been some "real life" Hate directed at her for the things she has written.

Welcome to the club. If she saw an FOA at the memorial and he didn't have a reason to be there she would have called the cops.

I reiterate - we should call on her to name this person. If her account is true, other people could need protection.

 

[Justinian2]

Dont worry: Quennell has no idea what he is talking about, and is exhibiting blind bias in an attempt to rationalise the situation and defend his near-indefensible position.

He has no idea of juicial process - either in US/UK or Italian courts. He therefore is not only ignorant of the fact that Guede's trials (including the Supreme Court ruling) have zero material effect upon Hellmann's court's ruling, but he's also ignorant of the fact that the appeal trial is a completely de novo trial. This is not about "overturning" or "upending" the verdict in the Massei court (or any of the Guede rulings for that matter). Hellmann;s court will determine its verdict in total isolation from all other rulings related to this case, and will purely use the evidence/testimony and arguments presented in the Hellmann courtroom to determine a very specific issue: whether sufficient proof was presented in Hellmann's courtroom to prove Knox's/Sollecito's guilt beyond all doubt based in human reason.

Hellmann's court therefore has nothing to do with any other ruling on this case. The only way in which there is any connection with the Massei trial is that all of the evidence/testimony introduced into Massei's court is automatically introduced into Hellmann's court. This is primarily a time- and cost-saving measure: it makes no sense to call all the same witnesses all over again just to give the same testimony and introduce the same evidence. The exception to this, of course, is if new evidence/testimony will offer a different perspective to Hellmann's court. This is exactly why the independent DNA report was ordered by Hellmann, and why Curatolo was recalled to the stand.

Quennell's stuff about the Guede Supreme Court ruling is nothing more than ignorant nonsense. If Quennell or "our Italian lawyers*" knew anything about separation of judicial processes, they would know that Knox's/Sollecito's trial process is empowered to reach verdicts entirely independent from any other trial process. It's actually one of the bedrocks of modern jurisprudence (although those idiots don't know it). In fact, evidence for this is sitting right in front of the idiots' faces: the same Supreme Court ruling on Guede ruled that the lower courts were correct in their finding of fact that the murder occurred at some time before 10.30pm, whereas Massei's court found that the murder took place between 11.30pm and 11.45pm.

I repeat: Quennell simply doesn't know what he's talking about. He's a sad, deluded individual with an agenda to pursue and protect. I'm afraid he's fiddling while Rome burns.

* I love how Quennell consistently refers to things such as "our Italian lawyers" - clearly intending to mislead readers into thinking that TJMK is some sort of organised multinational concern, with bustling offices and a group of dedicated professionals across the globe. In reality, it's one small (in intellect) man sitting in a windowless room stuffed with papers, who has some internet contact with a disparate group of misguided, intellectually-challenged individuals; together, they form a self-deluding self-supporting little group of misfits.

I think if the Hellmann court thinks as we do, it's a slam dunk; Amanda and Raffaele will be released at the end of the month.

On the other hand, if the jury has a box of crayons (to use Bruce Fisher's expression), and has been drawing pictures during the testimony, then PMF and TJMK will get their heart's desire - further suffering for the innocent. Perhaps they have been playing "hangman" like our fiends at TJMK and PMF.

The tide has turned. It will lift Amanda and Raffaele's boats and Amanda can sail home to her country and live happily ever after.

 

[Dougm]

Does anyone recall reading , if the two are released, can Rudy be charged for accusing them and get more time in prison?

I don't know, although accusing anyone of anything seems to be a HUGE deal in Italy. I have always expected that the reason Rudy was so vague in his mentions of Amanda and Raffaele at the crime scene (he saw her out the window; he did not read his own accusatory letter in court) is so he can claim he did not accuse them directly. But I don't know if he could have time added to his term for a false accusation.

 

[Mary_H]

-

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

I took pictures of both of my parents as they lay in state. The reason I did it was because I did not want to regret later on not having done it. My siblings thanked me for it, some time afterward. It used to be common to photograph members of one's family after death -- they were even dressed and posed for the pictures, in the early days of photography.

It would not be appropriate to take pictures of the mourners during the service, and I have not heard of anyone doing that. Pictures are often taken at receptions of any kind, though, just because it's a gathering of people you might not see that often. One of my favorite pictures of my siblings and me is from the gathering that took place after my father's funeral.

 

[moodstream]

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.

We'll just have to take Stefanoni's word for all this then. She used up the sample, she can't herself find where on the knife the sample came from, she ran neither positive nor negative controls, and she lied extravagantly in the first trial about her testing of the trace. Still, now she swears there can't be contamination in her handling of the materials, and that's all it takes. What alternative do I have to believing her?

 

[AmyStrange]

Interesting...

I took pictures of both of my parents as they lay in state. The reason I did it was because I did not want to regret later on not having done it. My siblings thanked me for it, some time afterward. It used to be common to photograph members of one's family after death -- they were even dressed and posed for the pictures, in the early days of photography.

It would not be appropriate to take pictures of the mourners during the service, and I have not heard of anyone doing that. Pictures are often taken at receptions of any kind, though, just because it's a gathering of people you might not see that often. One of my favorite pictures of my siblings and me is from the gathering that took place after my father's funeral.

-

and thank you for sharing Mary,

at every single funeral I have ever attended, "mourners" would be crying up in the front near the coffin, and in the back of the church they would be laughing their asses off.

So it bothers me when people say Amanda exhibited strange and bizarre behavior after Meredith's death. I have seen too many instances where people have acted strange and bizarre (smiling and joking and trying to act like nothing was wrong) and then found them in their rooms later crying uncontrollably.

Strange and bizarre behavior after someone dies is not as uncommon as some would like others to believe,

Dave

ETA: I'm one of those people who have a difficult time crying (although Casablanca gets me going every time for some reason), so if someone close to me is murdered, I'm f*cked!

 

[RandyN]

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.

So very sorry...I’m two pages behind again and this will probably already be answered four times but.....The whole idea with LCN testing is that it should be performed in a whole separate lab. And that separate lab (at a different address) should be specially designed with positive air pressure, uv sterilizers, special reagents, and proper procedures that include negative and positive control samples run at the identical amplification levels as the LCN samples.

Stefanoni violated each and every one of those requirements plus she worked in a suspect centric manner. The egram she showed you is like the empty cage hanging from the ceiling in a magic act. The cage is carefully covered and poof...the cover drops and now there is somehow a pure white tiger in there.

Take all the good arguments you have heard here and now please add the white tiger...the white tiger is Stefanoni's boss hired as prosecution consultant. In what world does this not scream out CONFLICT OF INTEREST? That too is different now....Renato Biondo is not a part of this appeal. I don’t think the new prosecutor had enough nerve to try and slip that past this judge. Who knows if any of this means anything really...but it stinks enough for me to call it bad.

 

[Malkmus]

I find this funeral story strange. I kind of believe that at the core the story is possible true... that someone at this funeral knew who PG is and talked to a family member about AK and the various sites. What I'm not really buying is the "FOA activist" angle which seems to be a a conclusion leapt to only because the person was, say, annoying. She didn't interact with this person, she just heard later that he was uninvited and rambled on about some of the sites - but nothing specifically that would make this person a "FOA activist", right? I didn't hear any "Free Amanda" type stuff in this supposed conversation.

Whatever, sounds fishy. How or why does one go about stalking someone else by showing up at a funeral, then wait for that person to leave and talk to someone else about a popular current news story that the person in question happens to run a site about? Is this maybe just a coincidence, and the guy has no idea who PG even is?

 

[RoseMontague]

I find this funeral story strange. I kind of believe that at the core the story is possible true... that someone at this funeral knew who PG is and talked to a family member about AK and the various sites. What I'm not really buying is the "FOA activist" angle which seems to be a a conclusion leapt to only because the person was, say, annoying. She didn't interact with this person, she just heard later that he was uninvited and rambled on about some of the sites - but nothing specifically that would make this person a "FOA activist", right? I didn't hear any "Free Amanda" type stuff in this supposed conversation.

Whatever, sounds fishy. How or why does one go about stalking someone else by showing up at a funeral, then wait for that person to leave and talk to someone else about a popular current news story that the person in question happens to run a site about? Is this maybe just a coincidence, and the guy has no idea who PG even is?

There may be a picogram or three of truth to the story, my guess is the rest of it is exaggeration and embellishment.

 

[RoseMontague]

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

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

The handle sure looks like a knife to me. There are some carving knives with a squarish point, which is possible, I suppose. To think they searched the apartment and didn't find any knives or other pointed/sharp objects worthy of testing seems very unlikely, if not beyond comprehension.

 

[Mary_H]

I find this funeral story strange. I kind of believe that at the core the story is possible true... that someone at this funeral knew who PG is and talked to a family member about AK and the various sites. What I'm not really buying is the "FOA activist" angle which seems to be a a conclusion leapt to only because the person was, say, annoying. She didn't interact with this person, she just heard later that he was uninvited and rambled on about some of the sites - but nothing specifically that would make this person a "FOA activist", right? I didn't hear any "Free Amanda" type stuff in this supposed conversation.

Whatever, sounds fishy. How or why does one go about stalking someone else by showing up at a funeral, then wait for that person to leave and talk to someone else about a popular current news story that the person in question happens to run a site about? Is this maybe just a coincidence, and the guy has no idea who PG even is?

Our Italian lawyers inform us the "stalker" was an invited guest who was videotaping the event for his employer, the widower. Skeptical Bystander's results may vary.