Continuation Part 3 - Discussion of the Amanda Knox case

[RoseMontague]

Hi everyone,What is the story behind this?
A newspaper faxed the info?
How the heck does that make sense?
A newspaper gives the cops inside information about cell phone useage times?

Please tell me that this was not the same newspaper that brought forward, many months later,
the high on heroin witness Antonio Curatolo and who else - IIRC, Marco Quintavalle.
Or was it some other newspaper?

I believe it was the same one, yes. The cops rely on the reporters, they are the real investigators it seems. Not very good ones, unfortunately.

 

[katy_did]

Whoa. That is a bit I didn't know. Do you have a reference?

The earliest news reports I find are from November 12:
*2007-11-12 [http://www.corriere.it/cronache/07_novembre_12/meredith_telecamere.shtml Corrier (it)]
*ERUGIA - On the evening of November 1 Amanda Knox returned home at 20:43. His entry was recorded by the camera which is located in the parking lot in front. The images are quite sharp, capturing the details. You see the young through the door. Wear light-colored clothing, the skirt has. She is alone. [...]

Recently, we were able to locate the original CCTV image of the figure crossing the street with the official CCTV time stamp of 20:51:36.17. This proved that the prosecution had from the beginning been shifting the time backwards to 20:43 and using the forward time shift of the defense the actual time would be 21:00 to 21:05 which correlates with when Meredith would be arriving home after departing with Sophie at 20:55.

Hmmm, I'd thought it was early by exactly 10 minutes, 20:43 instead of 20:53. If the CCTV time was actually 20:51 and the early reports said 20:43, as you say, I'm a bit less convinced the reported time was a result of the police altering it, rather than just an inaccurate early leak (along the lines of the bleach receipt times, except those were completely fabricated). It seems unlikely eight minutes was the actual time difference, so they can't just have gotten the right time difference, wrong way round. Also, the headline to the linked article says 20:45 and the video says 20:53! So the time is even shifted forward slightly in the latter case.

The press never picked up if the prosecution answered the defense request for how the times were calculated. Does anyone have the trial transcripts from March 13, 2009?

IIRC Stewart Home on PMF, who was in Court at the time, said the defence "made mincemeat" of the police witness because he couldn't explain how the police had arrived at the altered time. Don't think I've seen any press reports about it, though. Seeing the transcripts sure would be nice.

 

[JREF2010]

A moving piece by an author who just visited Perugia and attended a few appeal hearings:

My Amanda Knox Obsession
Two innocent people are locked up because orgies are fun to talk about.


She did some reconnaissance on the "climb of death" window:

If only a thought, I wish there was a way to pay the owner of the cottage some money, to allow a full attempt and exercise of someone climbing through that window....even throwing a rock. What would it take 4hrs, 6hrs to video tape and simulate?

This has been kicked around so many times, but seems such an easy argument to answer one way or another. Is it possible to climb through that window?

The defense pays the man to partially climb the wall, the simulated rock being thrown the videos etc..etc.. but it fails because he doesnt even sit on the ledge, he doesnt go through the window, he didnt push open the shutters/blinds.


Micheli agreed its likely a burglar could do it.
This writer was there and seemed to be surprised how easy it might be.

Has anyone on this thread been there and have an input?

I think this non-action has allowed the prosecution to use the "impossible card" that no one could do it.

This seemed like an easier issue to put to rest than the DNA, maybe not as critical as the DNA, but if the Defense could have done a full exercise and got the man to go through the window, it would have been very helpful in answering that conflict if it was impossible or not.

Any guess's why it wasnt fully done?

 

[katy_did]

Here's what I'm wondering, Katy-did: they simply don't want the defense to be able to verify what they'll call the 'clear cut' CCTV camera footage. They can 'reconstruct' the time whatever way they want, but once someone else but them sees that footage, it's value as a confession enabler tanks. They really seemed to be putting the pressure on for the confession, hitting her with the HIV 'postive,' phantom 'bleach receipts,' the 'murder knife' along with daily lies about Argentinians washing shoes and the like. They kept the CCTV camera footage over her head for months, you'd think if that was considered evidence against her in the Matteini court the defense might get an opportunity to view it, or better yet, show it and talk to the press about it.

Yes, I agree with you that they deliberately held the 'clear-cut' footage over her head for quite a while, while withholding the actual images - they didn't use it in Court early on (or ever, as far as I know, at least with the claim it was Amanda), but they did leak news of it to the press, who would happily report the crystal clear images without ever asking to see them! I think the reason they did this was less to do with the timing issue, though, and more that the images weren't anything like crystal clear. They knew they wouldn't get anywhere presenting them in Court, but that the idea of them would play very well in the press, and definitely, as you say, they were hoping to use it to force a confession. In fact I wouldn't be surprised if it was all a bluff: they never really thought it was Amanda at all, but were just using it to exert some pressure on her.

Incidentally, it always struck me as odd that the press never questioned the police claim that the image of Amanda was crystal-clear, yet they couldn't tell if anyone was with her because they might have been wearing dark clothes! That is some selective CCTV camera.

 

[Mary_H]

If that quote from Patrick is accurate, this article is significant.

We'll know for sure when Mignini sues him for calunnia.

 

[Grinder]

So much of this case has been based on AK and RS proving that they are innocent.

The footprint on the mat definitely doesn't match RS. If it were a fingerprint and the ILE said it looked more like RS's than RG's; therefore, it proves RS was there the night of the murder no one would take it seriously, at all. Yet, people have argued forever which of the two it most looks like. Crazy.

The staging is another example. If the break-in had been staged that doesn't mean AK and RS did it or the murder, yet the argument goes on and on.

Perhaps, if they are found innocent the court will still find them guilty of crime scene staging. After all, that's the way the staging is being treated now, as a separate crime that they must prove it was a real break-in or staged by someone else.

I don't know if the break-in was feasible or not but it is a shame that it has become such a distraction for the defense.

I still can see a scenario where Rudy believed or had a date with Meredith and that after the murder he feared she mentioned to the English girls so he staged a break-in Rudy-style. It would have so easy for AK and RS just to leave the door ajar or the balcony door unlocked and ajar.

The key issue is the "confession" now that the DNA is so weak.

 

[Grinder]

I see that elsewhere people are saying that AK would not have showered in 10 degree temperature - does this mean it has been established the heat was off overnight?

That wouldn't prove that Meredith hadn't turned on the heat but it would make one think it more likely. I don't know if they ever used the heat as they were poor students but if they did this would be another indicator that Meredith was attcked immediately on entering the cottage.

 

[Draca]

Postal Police arrival pdf

Could somebody summarize the issue of the surveillance tape? The discussion assumes that everybody is up to speed on the issue and I for one am not sure what this is all about.

davefoc,

Here's a link to the Sollecito defense presentation about the arrival of the postal police. It's fantanstic. They really nailed it down. You can copy and paste into a translator to see what each portion says.


Postal Police arrival pdf
http://www.friendsofamanda.org/miscellaneous/postale.pdf

Meredith Kercher arriving home pdf
http://www.friendsofamanda.org/miscellaneous/meredith_arriving_home.ppt

Meredith Kercher arriving home CCTV video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o1I7fa6aaKI

 

[RWVBWL]

<snip>
I still can see a scenario where Rudy believed or had a date with Meredith and that after the murder he feared she mentioned to the English girls so he staged a break-in Rudy-style.
<snip>

Hi Grinder,
Every thing that I have ever read about Meredith tells me is that she was not the kind of gal who would cheat on her new boyfriend. She was a good girl...

I've also read that Amanda had given Meredith condoms before. IIRC, Meredith knew that Amanda had condoms in her toiletry bag in their shared bathroom. If she had consensually wanted to be with Rudy, all she had to do was tell him where they were or get 1 herself. That she didn't, and that Rudy did not know about these condoms or Amanda's pink vibrator toy, speaks volumes, so to say.

If I recall correctly, Amanda is supposed to have said this to Meredith, even though she had previously loaned her condoms: You are always behaving like a little saint. Now we will make you have sex".

I have read it written that Meredith disliked having that pink object in her bathroom, and showed it to her friends. But I can not understand, if the murder was a sex game gone wrong, why wasn't the only publicly known sex toy in the house not brought out of the bag, to tease, to taunt? Why didn't Rudy Guede ever mention seeing it?

Meredith Kercher did not have a consensual date with Rudy Guede.
My opinion only...
RW

 

[Grinder]

RW,

As I wrote, either he had a date or thought he had a date. I don't believe that any of the girls were bad.

Barbie went into some detail about Meredith indicating she was sexually active and experimenting. I do not think it is impossible that she would be interested in Rudy. I know that she was intimate with the boy from downstairs but I'm not aware of the seriousness of their relationship or if it was exclusive.

I would see nothing wrong with her having an interest in Rudy and if she did, but not in the way he wanted, it could explain how "things went wrong".

My main point is there are explanations that could allow for a staged break-in that didn't have anything to do with AK or RS.

 

[JREF2010]

I see that elsewhere people are saying that AK would not have showered in 10 degree temperature - does this mean it has been established the heat was off overnight?

That wouldn't prove that Meredith hadn't turned on the heat but it would make one think it more likely. I don't know if they ever used the heat as they were poor students but if they did this would be another indicator that Meredith was attcked immediately on entering the cottage.

There were others who lived in the same cottage who took showers, so all that is more "behavioral attacks". I think I read they were frugal on the heat as its expensive. Maybe why they chose to shuffle on the bathmat? I do that in the winter too, not a big deal to move a bathmat a few feet. I've done that every morning because I dont have carpet either and the floor can be cold.


I agree with your previous posts, the DNA failed so badly, the Forensic work made very very weak so the next wave of the remaining PG info is the Behavioral and Speculative Scenarios.

But then again, from whats been shown this is no small matter.

I like the cell phone data.

Example-

Prosecution claims Amanda and Raffaele are at the cottage because the cell phones have no activity to connect to a tower.

but they dont have any cell activity placing them at the cottage at the time of the murder either.

It seems idiotic, but it has worked on many forums the cells being off is behavioral proof of guilt and supports they have no alibi.

But it could be simple, that they didnt want the boss calling her to work or Raffaeles Dad interrupting some movie, sex, dope smoking evening.

Also the first call to her mom she didnt remember, COmmodi said "but nothing had happened yet!" but this is a lie, they had found the window broken and the house suspicious before the 1st call to her mom.

The cell calls on Nov 2 show that Raffaele was on the phone for some time.
329 seconds...5minutes! plus...

This proves the postal police were not there, they would have noted Raffaele on the phone for 5 minutes when they arrived, instead the Postals were with them the entire time. And is why Massei dropped the 112 call into the garbage folder.

The entire Nov 2 cottage scene was only like 20 minutes of time.
Raffaele being on the phone for 5 minutes would have been noticed. He made the calls before they came.

but then again, maybe the cell data is too boring and the courts would rather watch a animated video of a ficitonal murder using no science?

 

[RWVBWL]

RW,

As I wrote, either he had a date or thought he had a date. I don't believe that any of the girls were bad.

Barbie went into some detail about Meredith indicating she was sexually active and experimenting. I do not think it is impossible that she would be interested in Rudy. I know that she was intimate with the boy from downstairs but I'm not aware of the seriousness of their relationship or if it was exclusive.

I would see nothing wrong with her having an interest in Rudy and if she did, but not in the way he wanted, it could explain how "things went wrong".My main point is there are explanations that could allow for a staged break-in that didn't have anything to do with AK or RS.

Hi Grinder,
Good points, I'll keep them in mind. If Meredith was interested in Rudy, even if she was dating another male, well, it would have been her choice. But I don't believe that to be the case, because Rudy says that they stopped because he did not have a condom. What guy goes on a date to a young womans house, who he supposedly snuck a kiss from the night before, without a condom(s) in his pocket? He could have easily bought 1 before hand, probably around the same time he was eating that kabob, but he didn't...

Anyways, sorry if it seemed like I was nitpickin' on ya, it was not the case whatsoever.
Peace, RW

 

[Draca]

I have wondered why it took so long from the time the cottage was sealed (November 7,2007) until the time to unseal (December 18, 2007). Was this due to an agreement between the prosecution and attorneys for the defendants?

Steve Moore said that in the FBI if the bra clasp was missing everything would have haulted until it was found. There should not have been a need to go back if they processed the crime scene correctly the first week. I do not know about any agreement. As far as I know they only went back because they lost the shoe print proof against Raffaele Sollecito, proven by his cousin and Francesco Vinci, and had nothing to hold him.

I would think there was an evidence log of items collected from the cottage in November. When was the bra clasp discovered it was not at the lab to be tested - December 17, 2007? Or much earlier?

I've seen evidence collection logs before. Dan O., do you have it handy? I don't know when they discovered the bra clasp was missing.

As for Meredith's jacket and other items I wonder if these items might have been collected and tested sooner than December 18, 2007 and if there was something which prevented that from happening?

If they might have been collected the items if allowed to you mean? I don't see what could have prevented that evidence from being collected in the first few days. That was what they were there for afterall. It was their responsibility to gather this crucial evidence. The only explanation I see is incompetence and careless disregard.

 

[Chris_Halkides]

Rusty

halides1
I wonder if the phenolphthalein reacts to everyday cleaners used to wipe/clean the bath room. I think this is also used on paint lines to titrate (clean line) baths ?

GreyFox,

Kestrel is correct. However, if a cleaning product had hydrogen peroxide, it might show up as a false positive at step 4 of the process:

4. Two drops of working phenolphthalein solution (solution 2) are added to the stain.
5. After waiting to ensure that no colour develops at this stage, two or three drops of 3% Hydrogen Peroxide (solution 3) are added.
6. An intense pink colour is a positive test for peroxidase activity, indicative of haemoglobin. This is not a confirmatory test for blood.

As is also true for luminol, rust can generate false positives in a Kastle-Meyer test. I don't have a good list of other false positives on hand at the moment.

 

[RWVBWL]

I will give you my understanding of the issue. Shortly after the murder a local paper faxed some information to Mignini's office to the effect that Raffaele called the cops after they had arrived. This would indicate guilt as it would show he was trying to pretend they were calling it in because they knew the cops were already there anyway and it would look good if they had called the cops rather than them just show up and find them there with a dead body. Now the time Raffaele called is confirmed through phone records and the time the cops got there is confirmed by their logs (evidently 12:35). Now it happens that there was a CCTV camera in the garage activated by motion that showed the arrival of the cops at 12:45. The cops just assumed the clock was 10 minutes fast and actual time they got there was 12:35, which was before Raffaele called the cops. The problem with this is none of the cops saw Raffaele call these other cops (The State cops rather than the locals who had just showed up there because of the found cell phone) and he was with them as he and the Knox girl showed the cops the evidence of the break in and the blood spots in the toilet, etc.

This evidence of guilt was promoted for 2 years until the trial when the defense proved it false. The way they did this was from Amanda's phone records. Evidently Raffaele had give them her number when he called it in and they had trouble finding the place and called her back on her phone which was 1:20PM by phone records (nobody had called them to say never mind). The problem was the CCTV camera showed them arriving at 1:12PM and they would not have called Amanda for directions if they were already there. This proved the CCTV clock was actually 10 minutes slow instead of fast proving Raffaele called the State Cops before the local cops arrived (LOL). Going by memory on the times, might not be exact.

Hi everyone,
What is the story behind this?
A newspaper faxed the info?
How the heck does that make sense?
A newspaper gives the cops inside information about cell phone useage times?

Please tell me that this was not the same newspaper that brought forward, many months later, the high on heroin witness Antonio Curatolo and who else - IIRC, Marco Quintavalle. Or was it some other newspaper?

I believe it was the same one, yes. The cops rely on the reporters, they are the real investigators it seems. Not very good ones, unfortunately.

Hello everyone,
I just don't get it, there seems to be something fishy goin' on:
Why is a newspaper faxing Mignini information that Raffaele Sollecito called the cops after they had already arrived?

Why is a newspaper bringing forth a witness months later,
1 who had already spoken to the cops on the day of the murder's discovery and did not mention seeing anything wrong or suspicious, even though he had already been a witness in 2 other murder trials?

Why is a newspaper bringing forth a witness months later,
1 who contradicts his 1st statments made to the police officer that he did not see Raffaele and Amanda after the murder?

What is up with this newspaper business?
Hmmm, I wonder,
RW


PS - I just learned how to multi-quote different posters!

Here's how, for you other tech challenged individuals like myself:
When you log in, you will see the Link; Quote; " ; Reply buttons.

Click on whichever posts that you wish to quote by pressing this: " button. Do it again with a different persons post, and again if you wish.

Get to the last post you wish to quote, and click on Quote instead of " and dada, you've done it too!
Hope that helps someone.

 

[Grinder]

Hi Grinder,

Anyways, sorry if it seemed like I was nitpickin' on ya, it was not the case whatsoever.
Peace, RW

Hello everyone,

Get to the last post you wish to quote, and click on Quote instead of " and dada, you've done it too!
Hope that helps someone.

You in no way seemed to be nitpickin' me. And you did help someone - look mom multi quotes!!!

 

[RoseMontague]

Hello everyone,
I just don't get it, there seems to be something fishy goin' on:
Why is a newspaper faxing Mignini information that Raffaele Sollecito called the cops after they had already arrived?

Why is a newspaper bringing forth a witness months later,
1 who had already spoken to the cops on the day of the murder's discovery and did not mention seeing anything wrong or suspicious, even though he had already been a witness in 2 other murder trials?

Why is a newspaper bringing forth a witness months later,
1 who contradicts his 1st statments made to the police officer that he did not see Raffaele and Amanda after the murder?

What is up with this newspaper business?
Hmmm, I wonder,
RW

It there is no news make some, RW. This relationship between the papers, cops, and witnesses doesn't sound very professional to me. I wonder if not only favors but if some money was being passed along. Of course if you need to spread a story about having a drug dealer on speed dial it's nice to have local media handy that will be willing to help.

PS - I just learned how to multi-quote different posters!

Here's how, for you other tech challenged individuals like myself:
When you log in, you will see the Link; Quote; " ; Reply buttons.

Click on whichever posts that you wish to quote by pressing this: " button. Do it again with a different persons post, and again if you wish.

Get to the last post you wish to quote, and click on Quote instead of " and dada, you've done it too!
Hope that helps someone.

Does this mean more of these are coming? Just kidding, it's a nice function.

 

[Dan O.]

Wasn't there also some discussion early on in the thread about the police having left it too late to get footage from some of the CCTV cameras in the area, since by the time they checked the footage had already been deleted? IIRC you posted a picture of what was thought to be one of the cameras. Or am I confusing it with the above?

Same as above. What I recall is that the police had checked the footage and decided that there wasn't anything useful. To the police, a tiny unrecognizable blip crossing the road is useful if they can claim it is Amanda returning to the cottage in time to participate in the murder. Someone carrying a bright red mop and bucket directly under a 360º view camera late the next morning is apparently not useful in their eyes.

The camera in question is over the Tobacco/Stationary store just across the street from Amanda's university and in front of which Amanda and Raffaele would surely pass when going between the cottage and Raffaele's apartment. There is however no proof that this particular camera was operational at that time.

Court testimony of officers Maurizio Arnone and/or Mauro Barbadori talks about investigating traffic control cameras on the route that Meredith would have taken home that night and doesn't mention checking the contents of other cameras. This would be reasonable if this part of the investigation happened before Amanda and Raffaele became suspects and there was no need to verify their claims.

 

[Grinder]

There is no excuse for the ILE in not preserving all the video possible from the nearby area. They should have archived all the traffic cam recordings and acquired copies of security cams. But, if they needed 12 cops to interview every witness and couldn't afford to tape interviews perhaps they just didn't have the resources

 

[Dan O.]

I've seen evidence collection logs before. Dan O., do you have it handy? I don't know when they discovered the bra clasp was missing.

I have seen no evidence of an evidence collection log. It's something that should have been created at the time the evidence was being tagged, photographed and bagged. They may think they don't need to create the physical log since they are using the markers and photographing each piece of evidence with it's marker. Remember the "Y" on the floor with the bra clasp? Before that they also put a "W" on the bed frame before photographing and bagging the purse and they stuck an "X" on the wall before scraping the blood from the stain into a vial marked with an "X". From this we can conclude that the surrogate evidence log is the sequence of consecutively marked evidence photos. All we have to do is collect all of the photos and we'll have our log.


ETA: They first discovered that the bra clasp was missing when they picked up the bra and pointed to the severed end. The original of the first video had recorded sound. Has anyone deciphered what they were saying when the bra was picked up?