Continuation Part 3 - Discussion of the Amanda Knox case

[Kaosium]

Sorry, but this is getting absolutely hilarious.

http://perugiamurderfile.org/viewtopic.php?style=1&f=1&t=402&start=4500#p98385




I was unable to take the original advice to "search for posts by FormerFOA", because I'm not a member of that forum, have never been a member of that forum, and have no intention of ever becoming a member of that forum. And the search function seems to be restricted to members only.

London John then PMed me, on this forum, I'd have thought that was obvious, including a link to the first FormerFOA post. When I followed it, I realised I'd read it when it was originally posted. OK, obvious troll is obvious, but it was still fall-down funny.

Then komponisto posted the same link in the thread here, and I replied saying I'd already been sent the link by PM. Somehow, Ergon seemed to equate that to his having PMed FormerFOA on PMF.org. Or something. It's not very clear.

These people really aren't the brightest crayons in the box.

I see they've now gone the whole homoeopath ball of wax, which is to ban all newbies on sight as presumed trolls. When that happens on a homoeopath site, the EBMers know they've won. I've seen them ban newbies who were almost certainly legit, simply for asking something like "how do you find a reliable homoeopathic pharmacy?" When there are so many vulnerable areas in the argument, after a bit the most innocent question is seen as attacking one of these areas.

Rolfe.

Heh, I'm pretty sure I received the confirmation I sought, I won't confirm or deny whether I received a PM on the subject. There's something to be said for subtlety.

I got a little mixed up though, the one where they really made a display of themselves over an obvious fake was the Daric Ritchie debacle. Daric was a...blogger, and let us just say he had a talent for really pissing some people off. He decided to 'change his position' on the Amanda Knox case, after he said he'd read the Massei Report and realized how guilty she must be! It was later determined he must have managed this in twenty minutes or so. That's an impressive feat, is it not?

The good part starts with someone named 'Stint7' noticing a 'news report' about him by a 'former Washington Post reporter.' Of course there's no reporter, it's all Daric Ritchie, through another 'persona' at the same time he 'exposes' Bruce Fisher and other members of the 'FOA cabal.' Some of these extra 'identities' he'd maintained from his former occupation of really pissing people off, he kinda had a track record and 'assets' in place as it were. At this point in the saga he's come to PMF, had his mind changed overnight (perhaps 20 minutes) by the brilliance of Massei in his report, and has settled in to be a good little guilter. At the same time, off screen, he's annoying the living hell out of innocentisti who were just trying to talk about the case with him. The kid has a vivid imagination, as you'll probably see, Stint7's 'discovery' was the post of Wed Apr 20, 2011 11:21 am.


At any rate, after being accepted as a member of the PMF family after a...rocky start....he 'revealed' that his 'position change,' for he was an accomplished blogger with many 'followers' on twitter and such, had caused the malevolent fiends of the FOA to protest him personally! He couldn't even go to the grocery store without being rebuked in public! Of the regulars, only Stilicho and Some Alibi can hold their heads high after this debacle, some of the rest of it...oh, Fiona, the Bard, SB insisting to everyone she'd 'fully vetted' and 'done due diligence' and Daric was legit, Fast Pete talking about the sordid FOA cabal resorting to 'rent a protesters' in their desperation...oh, it was high satire whether he was doing it on purpose or not. I never did quite figure out what he was up to other than convincing some people he was...disturbed...thus considering the number of people on both sides that he managed to enrage, his surviving to twenty may be somewhat problematical.

 

[Charlie Wilkes]

My review of the test results and the dated SAL slides show a gap with a few items still not dated. As I stated before I though it was strange that one hearing ended with this nagging statement and a claim that one of the experts admitted there could be no contamination then the next hearing it is not mentioned in any news report I have read. I would love to see both transcripts.

So I don't consider it a mistake at this point. It is simply that we don't have the information to properly evaluate that part of thoughtful's post. Perhaps we should ask thoughtful for the raw data files.

I seriously doubt that C&V stipulated that an interval of a few days would eliminate the possibility of contamination in the lab, because other cases, most famously that of Jaidyn Leskie, show that DNA contamination can persist in a crime lab for weeks.

Moreover, we don't know how the knife was handled by the police. They may claim their procedures were impeccable, but the video shows this not to be the case. Might the knife have been handled by someone who had also handled other evidence, like an article of Meredith's clothing?

Finally, there is the matter of the quantification result. In her report summarizing the DNA test results, Stefanoni claimed that the quantification was positive for Rep. 36-B. During the trial, she testified that the quantity of DNA in the sample was measured at several hundred picograms. The data for the quantification tests, however, show that the sample contained either no DNA, or too little DNA to measure.

 

[Dan O.]

If the past can serve as a guideline for the future, I expect to see the usual influx of trolls from the usual places. To avoid wasting everyone's time, I plan to get rid of them right away rather than indulging their need for some attention here. Note to all "new" posters to come: if you find yourself banned but are not a troll, you can always contact me by email and explain your situation.

Achtung - everybody has been pre-banned. Ya it would be better to put this information on the registration form.

I'm looking at a similar problem. I'd like to open my kercher case wiki to a wider enrollment but don't want to spend all my time hunting down trolls, vandals and spammers. I'll probably do something like require applicants show prior use of the identity they are requesting on a major board that actively prohibits sock puppetry.

 

[Rolfe]

I don't know where Stefanoni is coming from, but it seems pretty incontrovertible that she has been lying like a trooper. Missing quantification data, missing negative controls, imaginary quarantine gap before testing the knife blade....

Surely the court has to have noticed this?

Rolfe.

 

[Kaosium]

I don't know where Stefanoni is coming from, but it seems pretty incontrovertible that she has been lying like a trooper. Missing quantification data, missing negative controls, imaginary quarantine gap before testing the knife blade....

Surely the court has to have noticed this?

Rolfe.

The problem is demonstrated in those links I've posted a few times showing just how that Byzantine system is reflected in ECHR stats. Their worst problem, which causes them to dominate the charts, is how backlogged the system is, thus it appears a mentality has taken hold where they just don't provide any oversight of the police and absolutely accept whatever is said by them as absolute truth, and if it is conclusively shown that's impossible, then they just made a 'mistake.' Add in laws passed to fight the Mafia and the Red Brigades and the police and prosecution have a wide latitude.

I guess they might just figure they don't have the assets to run that unwieldy system and convict criminals in a timely fashion, the whole thing would fall apart if they started scrutinizing the police as well. Most places the police may just be pretty honest and decent, but in others they might just realize what they can get away with if they really want to convict someone, or a prosecutor goes off the reservation...

The prosecutors in Italy are a self-selecting, self-governed elite who answer to no one. This can lead to some interesting decisions made by them to say the very least. As Lord Acton put it, 'power corrupts....'

 

[Charlie Wilkes]

It is clear from the Gogerty Marriott (only took the PG people three years to accept that Stark was gone ) site that they are doing some work on behave of Knox.

Has there ever been any proof that GM is controlling the media in the US or anywhere else?

Are there any copies of emails sent to reporters?

Amanda's family hired Marriott because they were inundated with requests from the media. They needed someone to screen them and advise them on which ones to accept. Marriott has never been a strategist. I have been involved in this case for 3-1/2 years now and I have never met Marriott or spoken to him on the phone. I have traded a couple of emails with him.

 

[Grinder]

Charlie,

The PGP (pro-guilt-people) have maintained for years that not only does GM rep Knox but that they have used their media contacts (Marriott used to be at NBC or CBS) to frame the story. They even have used the million dollars (must 10 by now) to control the US and UK media. I love that Knox/Mellas are describe as wealthy and white trash.

Anyway the point is that for 4 years the PGP have been bleating about the PR supertanker yet have never provided any significant examples or proof of their accusations. Somewhere there must be some media types that will share the methods of GM.

 

[pilot padron]

Oh Dear. Knox's PR has someone "confused" (again)

The lies deal with the PR supertanker/million dollar PR firm nonsense. Marriott's services are voluntary. I know PMF/TJMK can't figure it out but many people feel that Amanda and Raffaele are innocent and are doing what they can to help without looking for anything in return.

Amanda's family hired Marriott because they were inundated with requests from the media.

Mr Fisher just said Marriott's services are voluntary... without looking for anything in return.
Mr Wilkes/Lovering now says Amanda's Family hired Marriott

Do we need a few pages of mind readers to tell us what each of these distinguished gentlemen meant to say ? ? ?

Do we need a communications engineer to give us a full page dissertation on how people everywhere are always hired without looking for anything in return[i/]
This complete with a few Google de gooked URLs ? ? ?

Or were they just having 'false memories' or other psycho babble buzz word excuses ? ? ?

Per chance, since they did not check the PR talking point media briefing sheet, the blatant contradiction is just the 'best truth they can think of' ? ? ?

Or could some idiot (full fledged please) from another Forum maybe just conclude someone now might be 'misstating' something.
Or maybe again arguing something very dogmatically of which one of the arguers has little or no factual knowledge ? ? ?

 

[HumanityBlues]

Mr Fisher just said Marriott's services are voluntary... without looking for anything in return.
Mr Wilkes/Lovering now says Amanda's Family hired Marriott

Do we need a few pages of mind readers to tell us what each of these distinguished gentlemen meant to say ? ? ?

Do we need a communications engineer to give us a full page dissertation on how people everywhere are always hired without looking for anything in return[i/]
This complete with a few Google de gooked URLs ? ? ?

Or were they just having 'false memories' or other psycho babble buzz word excuses ? ? ?

Per chance, since they did not check the PR talking point media briefing sheet, the blatant contradiction is just the 'best truth they can think of' ? ? ?

Or could some idiot (full fledged please) from another Forum maybe just conclude someone now might be 'misstating' something.
Or maybe again arguing something very dogmatically of which one of the arguers has little or no factual knowledge ? ? ?

Honestly, it doesn't matter. In a few weeks a verdict is going to be handed down and you won't have Marriott to blame if it doesn't go your way.

So put your money where your mouth is for once. Will you accept the verdict? Yes or no?

 

[Kaosium]

Mr Fisher just said Marriott's services are voluntary... without looking for anything in return.
Mr Wilkes/Lovering now says Amanda's Family hired Marriott

Do we need a few pages of mind readers to tell us what each of these distinguished gentlemen meant to say ? ? ?

Do we need a communications engineer to give us a full page dissertation on how people everywhere are always hired without looking for anything in return[i/]
This complete with a few Google de gooked URLs ? ? ?

Or were they just having 'false memories' or other psycho babble buzz word excuses ? ? ?

Per chance, since they did not check the PR talking point media briefing sheet, the blatant contradiction is just the 'best truth they can think of' ? ? ?

Or could some idiot (full fledged please) from another Forum maybe just conclude someone now might be 'misstating' something.
Or maybe again arguing something very dogmatically of which one of the arguers has little or no factual knowledge ? ? ?

Or they both may be true, did you consider that possibility? Perhaps they went there initially for help with the media and paid for it, and long afterward he offered advice for free because during the course of his limited professional engagement he realized Amanda and Raffaele were obviously innocent and being a decent human being decided to help a little afterward as he became interested in their fate? That's just an obvious possibility that occurs to me, I don't know if it's true, but I wonder why it didn't occur to you.

There's lots of people posting or helping from all walks of life, including professionals in several fields related to the case, that's probably not a coincidence if you think on it. I will say this, I've not seen any indication whatsoever that David Marriott or Pat Gogherty has anything to do with the online debate or Free Amanda and Raffaele movement in the year I started posting on it, none whatsoever.

 

[Charlie Wilkes]

Mr Fisher just said Marriott's services are voluntary... without looking for anything in return.
Mr Wilkes/Lovering now says Amanda's Family hired Marriott

Do we need a few pages of mind readers to tell us what each of these distinguished gentlemen meant to say ? ? ?

Do we need a communications engineer to give us a full page dissertation on how people everywhere are always hired without looking for anything in return[i/]
This complete with a few Google de gooked URLs ? ? ?

Or were they just having 'false memories' or other psycho babble buzz word excuses ? ? ?

Per chance, since they did not check the PR talking point media briefing sheet, the blatant contradiction is just the 'best truth they can think of' ? ? ?

Or could some idiot (full fledged please) from another Forum maybe just conclude someone now might be 'misstating' something.
Or maybe again arguing something very dogmatically of which one of the arguers has little or no factual knowledge ? ? ?

What factual knowledge do you have on this subject?

 

[katy_did]

It also doesn't make much sense for the cops to insist on it if they didn't have good reason to believe it happened. With the break-in they're going to have to go with a 'staged' crime scene anyway, and that would have already been 'done.' Why would Raffaele want to call more police to the scene? More nasty suspicious minds poring over the crime scene, more eyeballs looking them over at what might be the most crucial and harrowing moments. They might think perhaps because his sister isCarabinieri she might have suggested someone she knew ignorant of what he'd 'done' but at the same time ought to have told him the jurisdiction procedures--it wouldn't matter in the long run. Postal Police are Polizia di Stato, they'd be taking over because of the rules if they were already there, calling the Carabinieri in hopes of getting a sympathetic officer wouldn't have worked.

I don't see them considering this likelihood no matter how paranoid and incompetent they are without a damn good reason to think so, and one of those exists--the error that is known they're going to announce to the press about a week after the arrests anyway. They might have not introduced it before Matteini because she's a buddy of Mignini anyway and they didn't need to, plus if they presented it then the defense might get a chance to see it was hardly 'clear cut.' They'd hold that damn video over Amanda's head for months, probably hoping for a confession.

I think they did have a good reason to consider the timing of the 112 call though: Battistelli's report in which (along with saying he never went into the bedroom, no sir) he claimed to have arrived at 12:35*. So the police would just have needed to make a simple comparison between the timing of the 112 call and Battistelli's statement.

It just seems more likely to me that they did that, than that they carried out quite a complicated cross-referencing between the police statement/log books, the phone records, and the CCTV footage, having already determined that the clock was slow fast. Perhaps I just have a lower opinion of their competence than you. Also, wouldn't they have brought the CCTV footage up in both interrogations if they'd reached those conclusions at such an early stage? Yet so far as I know, neither Amanda nor Raffaele mention it.

* I looked for confirmation of this in Frank's blog, as I think that's where I read it, but I can't find any of his earlier posts. Hope someone has them archived somewhere, those first posts of his are invaluable.

 

[Kaosium]

I think they did have a good reason to consider the timing of the 112 call though: Battistelli's report in which (along with saying he never went into the bedroom, no sir) he claimed to have arrived at 12:35*. So the police would just have needed to make a simple comparison between the timing of the 112 call and Battistelli's statement.

Yes, I mentioned that obliquely as well, I knew that incompetent clown had screwed up the times of his report, I just didn't realize it was that much. At any rate that would be just additional confirmation or even a reason to check that camera if they hadn't in the first place which I gotta think would have been an obvious move.

I do kinda wish they'd have hammered home the point where he claims he saw blood and a foot sticking out from beneath the covering but he didn't bother to see if the foot was attached to the girl they were looking for and might need medical attention. He just used his Perugian police 'intuitive' powers to divine that murder was the only possibility?

It just seems more likely to me that they did that, than that they carried out quite a complicated cross-referencing between the police statement/log books, the phone records, and the CCTV footage, having already determined that the clock was slow fast. Perhaps I just have a lower opinion of their competence than you. Also, wouldn't they have brought the CCTV footage up in both interrogations if they'd reached those conclusions at such an early stage? Yet so far as I know, neither Amanda nor Raffaele mention it.

Unfortunately from Raffaele basically all that's available about his interrogation is that he was 'psychologically tortured.' However I think they did mention it to Amanda, that's their 'hard evidence.' They wouldn't have to tell her the exact nature of it, but I think it more likely than not that's what it was. I'm also aware they could have just invented that as an interrogation tactic, but I think since there was something available they might think was hard evidence they'd be more likely to say that.

* I looked for confirmation of this in Frank's blog, as I think that's where I read it, but I can't find any of his earlier posts. Hope someone has them archived somewhere, those first posts of his are invaluable.

At the main discussion thread at IIP there's a poster named 'Rixx' or some such who archived the totality of Perugia Shock..amongst other sites in later posts. I haven't actually checked it, but I thought he said it was the whole thing, though I've wondered why it didn't get transferred over to his new Wordpress blog. Maybe that would have taken up too much room, I dunno.

 

[Dan O.]

Battistelli is simply a liar that says what he thinks the prosecution wants to hear. The 12:35 arrival time is what he testified to in court saying that he looked at his watch (reminiscence of toto). But has there been a contemporaneous report filed with that time written down or is he claiming to have remembered the time from 2 years earlier. It just so happens that 12:35 matches when the CCTV showed him arriving if you get the time adjustment wrong as we now know the prosecution did. Are we to believe it is just a coincidence that Battistelli's watch is off by exactly the same amount as the prosecution got the CCTV time wrong?


ETA: I archived all of Perugia Shock including user comments after it was shutdown by Google but it is in Safari web archive format which isn't easily accessible for other browsers. I didn't find anything there on Battistelli's claimed arrival time except in one of the user comments.

 

[Poppy1016]

Hi Pilot
If the knox family paid for services from Marriot, does this mean Ak and RS are guilty?
The factual evidence is what really matters.
Please try and look through the trees and you will see the forest. Ignore the molehills and look at the mountains.

 

[LondonJohn]

BTW,
An interesting discussion at websleuths (Some names you may recognize):

http://www.websleuths.com/forums/showthread.php?t=148419&page=30

Holy Moly: Fulcanelli (aka .net's Michael) is even more ignorant/uninformed of the basic science involved in this case than I thought. It doesn't stop him making crass and bombastic "arguments" about the photo of the small bathroom though.

Here are the facts:

1) The photo released to the media by either the police of the prosecutors shows the small bathroom with various large areas covered in pink colouration. Here is the photo in question (left hand side):



2) The pink colouration is almost certainly from a Kastle-Meyer test which is a presumptive test for blood. The test works like this: an area is sprayed with phenolphthalin, then with hydrogen peroxide. If blood is present, the phenolphthalin immediately oxidises to phenolphthalein, which is pink in colour. So an immediate pink colouration after applying the H2O2 over the phenolphthalin indicates the presence of blood.

3) HOWEVER, phenolphthalin + H2O2 will automatically oxidise due to the oxygen in the air within around 30 seconds, giving the same pink colouration even in the absence of any blood on the surface being tested.

4) Therefore, if the Kastle-Meyer test is positive for blood, any photos used as evidence must be taken within seconds of the H2O2 being applied to the surface being tested (which has previously been sprayed with phenolphthalin).

5) But...the sheer physical size of the cumulative areas in the photo shows conclusively that the pink colouration in the photo simply cannot be due solely to the presence of blood. For that to have been the case, the entire small bathroom would have had to have been sprayed down with H2O2 more-or-less simultaneously (perhaps by the use of some sort of large industrial sprayer), with the photo being taken within around 10 seconds of that happening.

6) This obviously didn't happen. In fact, it's more than likely that the bathroom was tested surface-by-surface using hand-held sprayers.

7) The inescapable conclusion, therefore, is that the photo of the small bathroom was taken long after each of the treated surfaces had reacted to the oxygen in the air, which oxidised the phenolphthalin to the pink phenolphthalein within 30 seconds.

8) The photo of the small bathroom can therefore be conclusively judged to be of no evidential value whatsoever. All it shows is a bathroom that has been sprayed down with phth, all of which has oxidised in air to give the huge areas of pink colouration shown in the photo. It is not indicative whatsoever of the presence of blood in the small bathroom.

9) We can only guess as to what made the police want to take a photo of the bathroom in this state. And we can only guess what motivated them (or prosecutors) to release this photo to the media. The most charitable explanations for both actions are related to incompetence and miscommunication; the least charitable explanations are related to malpractice, deception and misdirection.

 

[Rolfe]

That's a pretty interesting thread, though. And the mods there are doing a good job keeping it civil.

I just read Fulcanelli (didn't realise he was Michael of the .net monologue but it figures) on the stomach contents issue. My God he is clueless. He parrots scientific papers without any understanding at all of what is being said. Meredith's pizza might still have been in her stomach after many hours if she'd been in a coma....



He's actually quoting a paper warning about the pitfalls, and cautioning against overinterpretation. He's completely failed to get it. In particular, he's failed to realise that the authors are talking about some of the last meal still being in the stomach. Not all of it, with none in the duodenum!

There's not much you can do with blind ignorance, I'm afraid.

Rolfe.

 

[LondonJohn]

Well there's the Maserati in my garage. Bruce got a Ferrari, but that's because more people read his blog. Vroom.

Hold on: Marriott gave me a 12-year-old Skoda Fabia with 132,000 miles on the clock and a large cigarette burn on the front passenger seat. He told me I was one of his top-performing operatives, but that the global economic downturn had led to - in his words - "a re-scaling of remuneration and bonus structures". But now I think he might have been sweet-talking me...

 

[LondonJohn]

That's a pretty interesting thread, though. And the mods there are doing a good job keeping it civil.

I just read Fulcanelli (didn't realise he was Michael of the .net monologue but it figures) on the stomach contents issue. My God he is clueless. He parrots scientific papers without any understanding at all of what is being said. Meredith's pizza might still have been in her stomach after many hours if she'd been in a coma....



He's actually quoting a paper warning about the pitfalls, and cautioning against overinterpretation. He's completely failed to get it. In particular, he's failed to realise that the authors are talking about some of the last meal still being in the stomach. Not all of it, with none in the duodenum!

There's not much you can do with blind ignorance, I'm afraid.

Rolfe.

Never was the Pope quote more apposite: "A little learning is a dangerous thing". When you throw in bigotry, bias, arrogance and immense ego for good measure, it's a powerful recipe for gross idiocy.

 

[Rolfe]

That pay scale is nothing to Big Pharma....

Sorry, I'm orbiting my solid gold spaceship around Saturn wating for Cassini to arrive and I got caviar on my viewscreen which obscured the link to that 'troll' thread.

Rolfe.