Continuation Part 3 - Discussion of the Amanda Knox case

[Rolfe]

You mean there was no drugs test, so their wild speculations can't be refuted? I thought Amanda had been tested for drugs and no cocaine found.

Rolfe.

 

[Dan O.]

She did not retract it, unless you call this a retraction:

And I stand by my statements that I made last night about events that could have taken place in my home with Patrik, but I want to make very clear that these events seem more unreal to me that what I said before, that I stayed at Raffaele's house

.

Sure looks like she is retracting. The last few days have been very stressful for her and this is topped off with an intense interrogation with the police throwing lies at her saying that they have proof that she was at the cottage and the interpreter offering the helpful suggestion that she has repressed the memory. And hitting her on the back of the head when she cannot remember a fact correctly. She internalized what the police already "knew to be the truth". And this was written down as her confession.

Amanda provided us with a contemporaneous account of what happened in those interrogations. Since the police through their own incompetence failed to produce a recording to support their story, there is no proof that Amanda is not telling the truth.


I searched through the Massei Report again and found no references to the contents of those interrogation statements. Can you point out where Massei uses these statements in his motivations report? And if not, can you explain why Massei would ignore such an incriminating confession? It looks to me like Massei knew the statements were invalid.

 

[Dan O.]

It has at least two weak points, anyway:
- it is nonsense that a burglar goes to the toilet to hear some music,
- Rudy could not prove that he had had an iPod at all.

There is a load of crap that says you are wrong.

 

[bolint]

Meredith walks in, locks the door and takes her books back to her room. Rudy pulls up his paints, and tries to sneak out. Meredith hears a noise and steps out to find Rudy in the hall by the balcony door.

If Rudy wants to sneak out why should he go to the corridor?
If it was so easy to come in through Filomena's window, I would think that gettiing out would be even easier.

 

[bolint]

There is a load of crap that says you are wrong.

You misunderstood.
Rudy obviously went to the toilet, but I find it nonsense that a burglar puts earphones on during a burglary. He has to listen to noises.

So Rudy was not hearing music in the toilet, either alone or with others present in the house.

 

[Katody Matrass]

Minimally, she was there at the time of the murder.

Hi bolint!

Last time we met you were working on a hypothesis of what happened inside the cottage during the crime. I know it's not easy, but how is it going? I'm starting to suspect it's an impossible task

Her own admission points to it. I know that "everybody knows that it was a false confession", but I don't buy that "explanation".

So, what explanation do you prefer instead?

 

[Katody Matrass]

The Supreme Court never said that it was a coerced statement.
They even specifically said that this statement can be used against her and against others.

You got it backwards. They said that the first statement can't be used against her and the second one can not be used against her or others.

 

[bolint]

Sure looks like she is retracting. The last few days have been very stressful for her and this is topped off with an intense interrogation with the police throwing lies at her saying that they have proof that she was at the cottage and the interpreter offering the helpful suggestion that she has repressed the memory. And hitting her on the back of the head when she cannot remember a fact correctly. She internalized what the police already "knew to be the truth". And this was written down as her confession.

I know that this is the standard myth.
But she repeated it before Mignini where there was no hitting or yelling even by her own account.
An then she "stood by it" in her next day statement prepared voulntarily, all alone and in English fully by herself.

I searched through the Massei Report again and found no references to the contents of those interrogation statements. Can you point out where Massei uses these statements in his motivations report? And if not, can you explain why Massei would ignore such an incriminating confession? It looks to me like Massei knew the statements were invalid.

???
Massei p388-389

[418] The accusation directed at Patrick Lumumba, of having committed the murder and assault against Meredith, clearly emerged as having been made by Amanda Knox between 5 and 6 November 2007.

Amanda came back to this accusation during the first conversations she had with her mother, and the regret shown in this regard (cf. audio surveillance of 10 November) constitutes confirmation of the accusation and awareness of its injustice. An awareness which, moreover, is derived from what has been presented regarding Amanda’s responsibility in the murder and assault against Meredith. Nor can it be claimed, in order to rule out the determination of the crime of calunnia, that Amanda Knox was persuaded by the investigators to accuse Diya Lumumba aka Patrick, by means of various pressing requests which she could not resist. Such a theory, also suggested in the declarations made by Amanda during the course of the present trial and which have been documented here-above, does not seem acceptable. On the one hand it can be seen that there has been no confirmation and no corroboration of the pressing requests which Amanda was seemingly subjected to in order to accuse Diya Lumumba of the crime committed to the detriment of Meredith. It must also be pointed out that Diya Lumumba was not known in any way, and no element, whether of habitually visiting the house on Via della Pergola, or of acquaintance with Meredith, could have drawn the attention of the investigators to this person in such a way as to lead themselves to ‚force‛ Amanda’s declarations.



[Amanda] herself, furthermore, in the statement of 6 November 2007 (admitted into evidence ex. articles 234 and 237 of the Criminal Procedure Code and which was mentioned above) wrote, among other things, the following: ‚I stand by my – accusatory - statements that I made last night about events that could have taken place in my home with Patrick... in these flashbacks that I'm having, I see Patrick as the murderer...‛. This statement which, as specified in the entry of 6 November 2007, 20:00 pm, by the Police Chief Inspector, Rita Ficarra, was drawn up, following the notification of the detention measure, by Amanda Knox, who ‚requested blank papers in order to produce a written statement to hand over‛ to the same Ficarra.

It must therefore be asserted that Amanda Knox freely accused Diya Lumumba of having killed Meredith, and so accused him with full knowledge of the innocence of the [419] same Lumumba.

 

[Dan O.]

You got it backwards. They said that the first statement can't be used against her and the second one can not be used against her or others.

Only the third statement that Amanda wrote herself could be used against her. Massei does use that statement in a selective way.

Though I believe the supreme court should have also excluded that statement since Amanda was not yet fully aware of the charges against her and had not been provided a lawyer.

 

[bolint]

Last time we met you were working on a hypothesis of what happened inside the cottage during the crime. I know it's not easy, but how is it going? I'm starting to suspect it's an impossible task

Surely it is immensely difficult, but excuse me my weakness when even those present could not remember in their confusion.
One of them had to fight a stranger while constantly looking at the knife the other covering her ears and not remembering if Raffaele was there or not.
Not even in her "imagined" version.

And I should reconstruct it without being there.

So, what explanation do you prefer instead?

That she was there.

 

[Chris_Halkides]

SOP

You mean there was no drugs test, so their wild speculations can't be refuted? I thought Amanda had been tested for drugs and no cocaine found.

Rolfe.

Rolfe,

I believe that a test is standard operating procedure for ILE, but I do not have a citation. Both Raffaele and Amanda were physically examined.

 

[js202]

Everything "can be explained" though some explanations are cumbersome.

Actually, we can flip this and say that all of the *prosecution's* arguments must be explained to the point of being cumbersome. There has never been anything elegant about the prosecution's case against Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito.

- They have a would-be false accusation/"confession," but -- conveniently and illegally -- it was not recorded. Or at least there is no record of any recording extant.

- They have (sometimes barely recognizable) footprints in luminol -- and footprint identification, in the first place, is not a foolproof science -- but they failed a presumptive test for blood utilizing TMB. Likewise, all but one -- which does not resemble a footprint -- revealed no trace of human DNA.

- They have a burglar with a past history of breaking and entering through windows, and yet the prosecution strains to argue that the break-in at the cottage was staged by Amanda Knoxx and Raffaele Sollecito.

- They claim that AK and RS have no alibi for the night of Kercher's murder, and yet the Perugian authorities damaged hard drives that could have provided exculpatory evidence.

- They strain known physiological science to come up with a time of death that affords time for AK and RS to have finished watching Amelie, and worked themselves up into a pranking mood, with a soupcon of homicidal frenzy.

Etcetera.

 

[Katody Matrass]

I know that this is the standard myth.
But she repeated it before Mignini where ther was no hitting or yelling even by her own account.

Well, it's a common myth, but it's not true. If you read the two statements you notice that only in the first one she recalls confusedly that Patrik killed Meredith.
In the second one there is nothing about killing, and much of "I do not recall", "I cannot recall", "I don't remember anything anymore, I am very confused in my head", "I do not recall whether Meredith was screaming" etc. and interestingly "I do remember waking up at my boyfriend's house in his bed".

An then she "stood by it" in her next day statement prepared voulntarily, all alone and in English fully by herself.

"I also know that the fact that I can't fully recall the events that I claim took place at Raffaele's home during the time that Meredith was murdered is incriminating. And I stand by my statements that I made last night about events that could have taken place in my home with Patrik, but I want to make very clear that these events seem more unreal to me that what I said before, that I stayed at Raffaele's house."

 

[Dan O.]

I know that this is the standard myth.
But she repeated it before Mignini where ther was no hitting or yelling even by her own account.
An then she "stood by it" in her next day statement prepared voulntarily, all alone and in English fully by herself.

How do we know what statements Amanda made that night? Is "I wish to relate spontaneously what happened..." really something a 20 year old kid would say? NO. These are Mignini's words, originally written in Italian. There is no recording to back up that Amanda actually said any of them. Italian law says that a lawyer must be present. WHERE WAS HER LAWYER?

???
Massei p388-389

Exactly. That is the civil trial, not the criminal trial. Can't you tell the difference?

 

[Kestrel]

We know that Patrick Lumumba was not in the cottage on the night of the murder. So we know that Amanda's statements are not entirely the truth. So why would that same statement be proof that Amanda was in the cottage on that night?

 

[Grinder]

Minimally, she was there at the time of the murder.
Her own admission points to it.
I know that "everybody knows that it was a false confession", but I don't buy that "explanation".

Good to see you Bolint. IIRC you used to post back in the early Shock days but maybe not there, anyway I have a question for you.

What do you think the police chief meant when he said that they questioned Amanda until she buckled and told them what they knew to be the truth? We know that it wasn't the truth. We know that at midnight they used a tag team of around 12 officers to question her for 2 hours before she agreed to sign a statement the police knew to be the truth.

Exactly what was the truth they knew? If that truth was that Patrick had killed Meredith, do you think it was just a coincidence that Amanda fabricated the same truth?

Thank you in advance,

The Grinder

PS: I'd suggest you reread her 2nd and 3rd statements and rethink as to whether while being held in solitary, having been told that she needed to admit to what they knew and ask yourself how absolute of a recantation you'd expect. Remembering that the police told her they had evidence, how strongly could she have written? What would you think she would think would happen if she said it was all wrong? How surprised do you think the cops were that she had the nerve to report the head slaps?

Once again thanks in advance

 

[Dan O.]

And I should reconstruct it without being there.

You should construct a plausible timeline for what happened that accounts for the evidence that has been revealed. If you cannot do that then you have no case. The prosecution argued for a timeline that was preposterous. Their case is in shambles with no witnesses, no evidence, not even a believable theory (or do you believe the 11:30 tod?). You believe they are guilty so why can't you show how it happened?

 

[Bruce Fischer]

PMF.net have decided that Amanda was high on cocaine when she killed Meredith. However, I thought I read that she had been tested for drugs and there was nothing but a trace of cannabis. Can anyone confirm this?

Rolfe.

There is absolutely no proof to suggest that Amanda or Raffaele were under the influence of any drug other than cannabis.

It was the pot and comic books that caused them to become sex crazed killers.

 

[Paninaro]

That's only Amanda's late version.
Before Matteini, however, she did not say anything like that. Rather, she was exercising her right to silence, listening to Lumumba defending himself for two hours against her "imagined accuses".

Give me a break.

bolint

What do you think about the fact that Lumumba first told reporters that the Police officers hit him and yelled at him and called him a dirty black, then for his life couldn't understand that the Police were partly to blame for the false confession of Knox - not mentioning at all that he too was put under the same kind of pressure Knox testified about -and put forward charges against Knox, but not had a bad word to say against the Police and there actions? Everything was Knox's fault.

Then, now, several years later, he tells somebody he meets for the first time that, sure, he was hit by the Police.

Has Lumumba been lying to the court?

 

[Katody Matrass]

Surely it is immensely difficult, but excuse me my weakness when even those present could not remember in their confusion.
One of them had to fight a stranger while constantly looking at the knife the other covering her ears and not remembering if Raffaele was there or not.
Not even in her "imagined" version.

And I should reconstruct it without being there.

That's all very funny but there's a thought that seems to go above your head in all that hilarity. Maybe the reason your assumptions doesn't allow you to logically connect the dots and get a coherent mental picture is that they are simply wrong?

That she was there.

That's not exactly an explanation. I guess you mean at the cottage while Guede was raping, murdering and robbing Meredith. So what did she do there, that caused her to make those two confused statements instead of telling what really happened?