Continuation Part 3 - Discussion of the Amanda Knox case

[Fuji]

It is absolutely beyond me that people are now arguing that it was too cold for her to have taken a shower. That is an absolutely preposterous argument. I grew up on the North Coast of Ireland and have showered in bathrooms which had icicles hanging from the INSIDE of the windows.

An absolutely, demonstrably garbage argument. The overriding implication for me is that anyone making it is probably a bit of a wuss if they would refuse to have a shower in a flat that was 10-13 degrees in temperature.

I lived through 22 winters in New Hampshire. I am well-acquainted with cold weather. In my original post at PMF which initially elicited this discussion, I also noted that I lived an entire winter in County Cork in an unheated bathroom, with open access to the outside. Never mind 10ºC - there were many mornings when the air temperature in my bathroom was closer to 5ºC.

 

[JREF2010]

"Stank of sex" What does it even mean?
Do you argue that after a bloody, gruesome murder, Amanda spent the night on "sexy time" with Raffaele, then in the morning without bothering to wash her hair or taking a shower, she decided that now is the time to call the cops. Hmmm... I'm afraid you didn't convince me.

yeah as a virtual juror/judge I'm not convinced either.

all I see is a desperate, but failed attempt, to use ...never mind...

 

[Kestrel]

I think there is something strange about it when, at your boyfriend's apartment, to which you are planning to return momentarily anyway, there is a shower in an enclosed, heated space, which you already used only a few hours previously.

After a night of steamy sex, no young woman would want to shower using her own soap and shampoo before changing into clean clothes?

 

[charlatan]

The temperature debate is silly. The refrigerator and other household appliances would have been putting out a fair amount of heat added to the ambient heat coming from the apartment below. And by mid-morning the building would have already been absorbing heat from the sun, even on an overcast day. A single open window is not going to be sufficient to equalize the indoor and outdoor temps. So the flat absolutely would have been several degrees warmer than outdoors.

At, say, 15c you wouldn't want to curl up in your pajamas and read Harry Potter but it's certainly comfortable enough to take a hot shower, grab your things and head out. Amanda and Raffaele were planning a trip that day so I see nothing suspicious about Amanda returning home to change clothes and get what she needed for the day.

 

[Katody Matrass]

Not according to Sollecito (who also said that Knox related to him that the front door was "wide open", not "slightly ajar").

No. Sollecito saw Filomena's door only after Amanda went in and opened it.

See above. As for how long the door was open, presumably between the time when the murderer(s) left and Knox arrived - several hours at least.

If, let's say, the wind opened the door that was not locked, how do you know what time exactly did it happen?

 

[Katody Matrass]

I think there is something strange about it when, at your boyfriend's apartment, to which you are planning to return momentarily anyway, there is a shower in an enclosed, heated space, which you already used only a few hours previously.

A girl wants to use her own bathroom where she has her own cosmetics and stuff. It amazes me how anyone can see anything strange in it.

There was an article on TJMK about "The Believing Brain", have you read it?
All that shower nonesense really is a perfect example of seeking patterns where none exist. You form a belief first, then you seek "strange" in every random thing to confirm that belief.

 

[Dan O.]

No. Sollecito saw Filomena's door only after Amanda went in and opened it.

He does say that the first thing he saw was Filomena's door was wide open. But in the same statement he is saying that Amanda took the mop into another part of the house which would be through the door into the hall where the mop was eventually recovered. If Raffaele is going another direction, the only door he could be going to would be Laura's. Amanda would be at Filomena's door first to open it after depositing the mop.

If, let's say, the wind opened the door that was not locked, how do you know what time exactly did it happen?

It wouldn't matter if the front door was fully open all night. Amanda's part of the cottage is like a separate building fully insulated from the old section with only the single door connecting them so there would be no draft. In addition, the double glass door to the patio and the skylight in the bath would be letting in the morning sun.

 

[LondonJohn]

Katie Crouch was contacted to confirm her story and she advised that Patrick Lumumba told her the police "HIT him". She is indeed revealing what Patrick told her directly the police had done to him during their lunch. She said he used the word HIT and not beat though.

Ah well that's an important clarification: the original article itself is clearly (in my opinion) ambiguous. And if Crouch is telling the truth about what Lumumba told her over lunch, it can only add weight to the theory that the police did indeed abuse Lumumba in November 2007, and that Lumumba subsequently chose to publicly deny the allegations to this effect that he made in the Mail interview. Whether he unilaterally decided to withdraw these allegations, or whether he was "helped" in his decision, is open to debate. I know where I'd put my money though.....

PS: I've just seen "Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy" at the cinema. I recommend it

 

[Grinder]

Given the circumstances it would be bigger news that they didn't abuse him to some extent.

 

[LondonJohn]

Agreed, re: temperature and shower. In my 3 years of University, I don't think I ever touched pre-existing heating settings (I don't think I knew how, and was happy to accept whatever temp the houses were at). Besides, with rubbish old central heating in European countries (especially in student housing, not maintained or updated regularly), you'd be lucky to heat up the house to any significant degree quickly enough for it to make a difference.

Regarding AK smelling of body odour- shock and profound emotion can often produce higher levels of sweat, so body odour would be entirely natural given the circumstances.

I agree, particularly with your last paragraph. I meant to bring this up long ago when the whole "smelly, greasy Amanda" thing* started to get brought up by pro-guilt commentators as some sort of proof that Knox was lying about having showered at the cottage. Some people seem to have overlooked the fact that if Knox showered when she said she did (at around 11am), then by the time she was photographed outside the cottage and observed at close quarters by the "crack" police team, Knox would have done the following things - all after taking the shower:

1) Become more nervous about the situation in the cottage.
2) Walked the uphill 500-600m journey back to Sollecito's apartment (possibly briskly).
3) Experienced some heightened emotions as she talked through the situation with Sollecito.
4) Walked back with Sollecito the 500-600m to the cottage, probably briskly.
5) Searched through the cottage, growing increasingly concerned.
6) Tried to find ways to get access to Meredith's room, including trying to reach across from the edge of the balcony to Meredith's window.
7) Become increasingly concerned when trying Meredith's phones without response.
8) Experienced a further heightening of emotion when calling Filomena.
9) Experienced further emotion when calling mother, and seeing Sollecito call his sister and the Carabinieri.
10) Explained the situation to the postal police and given them a tour of the cottage.
11) Experienced a huge spike in emotion and horror when Meredith's door is broken down and her body is discovered.
12) Experienced the post-trauma stress and emotional upheaval as the enormity of what has happened started to sink in.

So I would say that in the 3-4 hours between Knox's apparent shower and her observation outside the cottage, there was ample time and opportunity for her to have perspired quite heavily, and for her hair to have become somewhat disheveled. Again, I think that anyone who claims that Knox's appearance (and alleged odour) by mid-afternoon on the 2nd is somehow evidence that she didn't take a shower at around 11am is either not bothering to think the situation through properly, or is blind to the obvious because of an agenda to implicate Knox.


* I was going to use the word "trope" here, deliberately erroneously but ironically. I find it fascinating how many blog-warriors are extremely fond of the words "meme" and "trope", despite seemingly not knowing how and where they should correctly be used. I suspect that they find these two words "sexy" and sophisticated: they certainly seem to engineer opportunities to spray them around with great (and usually incorrect) abandon

 

[Bruce Fischer]

Peggy Ganong recently stated that her website was fact based. Today she said that I lived with my mother. Now that I know Peggy is always factual, I had the unpleasant job of sitting down with my wife to inform her that we live with my mother. She was furious! The kids sat there confused wondering how and when grandma became invisible.

 

[codyjuneau]

....... the Investigating Detectives recorded statements about how she stank of sex and body odor that morning after .... skepticism

But were they officially accredited members of the Perugian world renowned Special Nasal & Olfactory Taskforce otherwise known as SNOT?

 

[Chris_Halkides]

clarification

The first news report gave: "Responsible Patrizia Stefanoni, 40 years, BA in Biological Sciences and former researcher in genetics since 2000 and now in police biologist and technical director of the Section of Forensic Genetics-Scientific Rome". In an interview, we learn where and when she graduated but nothing is said about advanced degrees. There are many references to "Dr." but so far no bio and very few publications.

Dan O.,

Do you mean B.A. or B.S.?

 

[LondonJohn]

Piktor over on .org has come to the conclusion that since there are photos showing two doors in the cottage - the doors to the small bathroom and Meredith's bedroom - with blood on their interior faces and/or edges, but no blood on their exterior faces (i.e. those facing the hallway when the door is shut), this somehow proves that there was a post-crime clean-up. Furthermore, the "argument" states that the "clean-up artist" deliberately cleaned the exterior faces in order to make the doors seem normal when viewed from the hallway if they were closed.

Unfortunately, Piktor has got this argument completely wrong. His/her conclusions are the result of ignorance and a failure to look at the situation properly (or objectively). Here's why:

Both the doors in question open inwards - that is to say they open in towards the bathroom and bedroom respectively. Therefore if either door is pushed to, provided it is not latched shut, if one wanted to pass from the hallway into either room one would be pushing the door open. If the door was not latched shut, then one wouldn't even need to use hands to push the door open: a shoulder, elbow, chest or knee would easily suffice.

But conversely, if one were inside either of these rooms with the door pushed to, then in order to exit the room one would need to pull the door open. And in order to do so, one would almost always need to use hands to grasp either the interior door handle or the edge of the door, in order to get the necessary purchase to pull on the door.

So it takes no more than a basic amount of intelligence and knowledge of the layout of the cottage, coupled with objective reasoning, to figure out why there might be blood on the interior face and edge of Meredith's bedroom door, and on the edge of the small bathroom door, but no blood on the exterior face of either door. It's nothing whatsoever to do with a "clean-up". It's to do with the dynamics of the crime and basic physics.

If Guede alone stabbed and assaulted Meredith inside her bedroom (as I and many others believe), then it's highly possible that the bedroom door was pushed shut at some point in the event - either during the struggle in the relatively small room, or because Guede might have pushed the door shut after pursuing Meredith into her room. So, if that's the case, then after the murder Guede would have been confronted by a pushed-closed door, and he would have certainly had blood on his hands. Therefore, in order to exit the room (so that he could clean blood from himself and get towels), he would have had to use his bloody hands to pull the bedroom door open inwards. That's how and when blood would have been deposited on the inner face and the edge of Meredith's door. He wouldn't have bothered to pull the door shut again behind him at this stage, so no blood would have been deposited on the exterior face of the bedroom door.

Perhaps the bathroom door was pulled shut, or perhaps it was wide open. Either way, then provided it wasn't latched shut, Guede would not have needed to make any manual contact with the door in order to open it: if it were pulled to he could have used his shoulder or a blood-free knee to nudge the door open. So no blood would have been deposited on the exterior surface of the bathroom door. It's then possible that Guede either brushed against the edge of the door as he entered the small bathroom, or that he pushed the door shut by touching the edge. Either way, this would account for the blood drip on the edge of the bathroom door. Once inside the bathroom, Guede would have washed his trousers (depositing the blood-water partial print on the bathmat in the process) and his hands/arms - most likely in the shower. After washing, he would have grabbed two large towels and would have dried off his trousers, hands and arms.

From this point onwards, therefore, Guede would have had essentially no blood on his hands. He would then have left the small bathroom and returned to Meredith's room. Any handling of either door from this point on would not have resulted in any blood deposit on any surface of either door. So when Guede finally left Meredith's room and used her key to lock the door, he would have been able to pull the door shut using the handle, without any blood deposit on the door handle whatsoever. Furthermore, even if there were microscopic dilute traces of blood (that might have remained on Guede's hands) on the exterior handle of Meredith's door, this evidence would have been obliterated by the subsequent repeated handling of the door handle the following day by Knox, Sollecito and the postal police.

So this is why there was blood on the interior face and edge of Meredith's bedroom door, and the edge of the small bathroom door, yet no blood on the exterior face of either door. There was no clean-up of either door. There was no attempt to make the exterior surface of either door seem "normal" as part of some fiendish post-murder plan by Knox/Sollecito. In addition, of course, luminol tests would almost certainly have revealed any attempt to wipe down the exterior faces of either of these doors. Neither exterior face was cleaned of blood after the murder. The exterior faces of both doors were blood-free due to a combination of the likely dynamics of the murder and the direction in which both doors opened. It's really very simple indeed. Unless, of course, you employ poor reasoning, inherent bias and simple ignorance to convince yourself that this was evidence of a devious post-crime clean-up plan by Knox and Sollecito.....

 

[piktor]

Piktor over on .org has come to the conclusion that since there are photos showing two doors in the cottage - the doors to the small bathroom and Meredith's bedroom - with blood on their interior faces and/or edges, but no blood on their exterior faces (i.e. those facing the hallway when the door is shut), this somehow proves that there was a post-crime clean-up. Furthermore, the "argument" states that the "clean-up artist" deliberately cleaned the exterior faces in order to make the doors seem normal when viewed from the hallway if they were closed.

Unfortunately, Piktor has got this argument completely wrong. His/her conclusions are the result of ignorance and a failure to look at the situation properly (or objectively). Here's why:

Both the doors in question open inwards - that is to say they open in towards the bathroom and bedroom respectively. Therefore if either door is pushed to, provided it is not latched shut, if one wanted to pass from the hallway into either room one would be pushing the door open. If the door was not latched shut, then one wouldn't even need to use hands to push the door open: a shoulder, elbow, chest or knee would easily suffice.

But conversely, if one were inside either of these rooms with the door pushed to, then in order to exit the room one would need to pull the door open. And in order to do so, one would almost always need to use hands to grasp either the interior door handle or the edge of the door, in order to get the necessary purchase to pull on the door.

So it takes no more than a basic amount of intelligence and knowledge of the layout of the cottage, coupled with objective reasoning, to figure out why there might be blood on the interior face and edge of Meredith's bedroom door, and on the edge of the small bathroom door, but no blood on the exterior face of either door. It's nothing whatsoever to do with a "clean-up". It's to do with the dynamics of the crime and basic physics.

If Guede alone stabbed and assaulted Meredith inside her bedroom (as I and many others believe), then it's highly possible that the bedroom door was pushed shut at some point in the event - either during the struggle in the relatively small room, or because Guede might have pushed the door shut after pursuing Meredith into her room. So, if that's the case, then after the murder Guede would have been confronted by a pushed-closed door, and he would have certainly had blood on his hands. Therefore, in order to exit the room (so that he could clean blood from himself and get towels), he would have had to use his bloody hands to pull the bedroom door open inwards. That's how and when blood would have been deposited on the inner face and the edge of Meredith's door. He wouldn't have bothered to pull the door shut again behind him at this stage, so no blood would have been deposited on the exterior face of the bedroom door.

Perhaps the bathroom door was pulled shut, or perhaps it was wide open. Either way, then provided it wasn't latched shut, Guede would not have needed to make any manual contact with the door in order to open it: if it were pulled to he could have used his shoulder or a blood-free knee to nudge the door open. So no blood would have been deposited on the exterior surface of the bathroom door. It's then possible that Guede either brushed against the edge of the door as he entered the small bathroom, or that he pushed the door shut by touching the edge. Either way, this would account for the blood drip on the edge of the bathroom door. Once inside the bathroom, Guede would have washed his trousers (depositing the blood-water partial print on the bathmat in the process) and his hands/arms - most likely in the shower. After washing, he would have grabbed two large towels and would have dried off his trousers, hands and arms.

From this point onwards, therefore, Guede would have had essentially no blood on his hands. He would then have left the small bathroom and returned to Meredith's room. Any handling of either door from this point on would not have resulted in any blood deposit on any surface of either door. So when Guede finally left Meredith's room and used her key to lock the door, he would have been able to pull the door shut using the handle, without any blood deposit on the door handle whatsoever. Furthermore, even if there were microscopic dilute traces of blood (that might have remained on Guede's hands) on the exterior handle of Meredith's door, this evidence would have been obliterated by the subsequent repeated handling of the door handle the following day by Knox, Sollecito and the postal police.

So this is why there was blood on the interior face and edge of Meredith's bedroom door, and the edge of the small bathroom door, yet no blood on the exterior face of either door. There was no clean-up of either door. There was no attempt to make the exterior surface of either door seem "normal" as part of some fiendish post-murder plan by Knox/Sollecito. In addition, of course, luminol tests would almost certainly have revealed any attempt to wipe down the exterior faces of either of these doors. Neither exterior face was cleaned of blood after the murder. The exterior faces of both doors were blood-free due to a combination of the likely dynamics of the murder and the direction in which both doors opened. It's really very simple indeed. Unless, of course, you employ poor reasoning, inherent bias and simple ignorance to convince yourself that this was evidence of a devious post-crime clean-up plan by Knox and Sollecito.....

Do you realize the bathroom door photo was taken from the corridor?

The blood drip is on the hinge edge of the door. It is not "knee" height. The drip is shoulder height, in a place easily overlooked in a cleanup.

No one pushing/opening the bath door would place any part of the body there to get in/out of the bathroom.

Read The Bard's Itchy Brother's explanation.

http://www.perugiamurderfile.org/viewtopic.php?p=98700#p98700

 

[LondonJohn]

Dan O.,

Do you mean B.A. or B.S.?

It must be B.S. - both literally and figuratively (Although we use the term "BSc" on this side of the pond to denote a Bachelor of Science.)

Stefanoni almost certainly has no qualification to term herself as "doctor" in the way the term is used in pretty much every country in the entire civilised word except Italy. She is no more qualified to consider herself a doctor of genetics or biological sciences than a person with a history degree is entitled to call themselves an historian (or doctor of history), or a person three years into a medicine degree is entitled to call themselves a medical doctor.

 

[LondonJohn]

Do you realize the bathroom door photo was taken from the corridor?

The blood drip is on the hinge edge of the door. It is not "knee" height. The drip is shoulder height, in a place easily overlooked in a cleanup.

No one pushing/opening the bath door would place any part of the body there to get in/out of the bathroom.

Read The Bard's Itchy Brother's explanation.

http://www.perugiamurderfile.org/viewtopic.php?p=98700#p98700

The Bard's explanation? Not likely!

Ah Itchy Brother's "explanation". No good, I'm afraid. If the exterior face of the bathroom door had been wiped over with a cloth as per this "explanation", then Luminol would light up the wipe smears instantly. Didn't happen. It's most likely therefore that the bathroom door was already open and that Guede placed his right hand against the inner edge of the open door to steady himself as he entered the bathroom (it's entirely likely that the hall light was off, and Guede was unfamiliar with the position of the door).

However the blood came to be on the hinge edge of the bathroom door, it wasn't as a result of a bloody exterior surface of that door having been wiped clean. That much is certain. Unless, of course, you're alleging that the police were so dreadfully poor at their jobs that they didn't even test crucial evidence surfaces (the faces of Meredith's bedroom door and the faces of the small bathroom door) with Luminol. You're surely not suggesting that the "crack" forensics team led by Ms Stefanoni were this incompetent, are you?

And of course this one thing aside, your argument about the nature of the blood on Meredith's door, plus your overarching argument that the door evidence somehow proves that a post-crime clean-up took place, are both palpably nonsense. I guess you hadn't stopped to consider which way both these doors opened, huh?

 

[Grinder]

If someone wiped blood off the outside of a door they were locking, that hardly constitutes a cleanup. Once again, what a waste of time arguing over trivia that really doesn't matter.

If there is some minor removal of blood from a door, what does prove?

 

[LondonJohn]

If someone wiped blood off the outside of a door they were locking, that hardly constitutes a cleanup. Once again, what a waste of time arguing over trivia that really doesn't matter.

If there is some minor removal of blood from a door, what does prove?

Well of course that's true as well, and if blood was removed from any door it's as likely that Guede removed the blood using the towels he'd just retrieved from the bathroom. But as I said, any attempt to wipe the blood from the door would have left traces that would definitely have lit up under Luminol testing. Therefore, none of the door surfaces was wiped down by anyone: Guede or Knox/Sollecito.

 

[Katody Matrass]

Do you realize the bathroom door photo was taken from the corridor?

The blood drip is on the hinge edge of the door. It is not "knee" height. The drip is shoulder height, in a place easily overlooked in a cleanup.

No one pushing/opening the bath door would place any part of the body there to get in/out of the bathroom.

piktor,
first - blood on the bathroom door edge is around knee/trousers level. Look at the photo

second - it is not diluted. There is dark, heavy coagulation at the end of the streak. Another photo - Look for Rep. 9L

This disproves your cleanup/wiping theory.
Interestingly it confirms Guede's story of going to the bathroom with blood on his pants. He brushed his clothing on the edge of the open door, leaving the streak.