Continuation Part 3 - Discussion of the Amanda Knox case

[Dan O.]

Can you tell me details about the screensaver log evidence?

Only what the defense said in the part of the documentation I've seen. They found in the WindowServer.log file evidence that the screensaver had been active and reset several times during the night with no period of activation longer than 6 minutes. The last activation was at 06:22 which indicates activity on the computer ended just after 06:02 which just happens to be the time raffaele's phone received the SMS from his dad.

Then there is the message from Raffaele about the keyboard light log which appears to be additional confirmation of activity.

Was it discussed during the appeal?

The defense requested that an independent expert be appointed te reexamine the computer data. Hellmann apparently didn't think this was necessary. The prosecution made no response even though the had access to the same data and the documentation was explicit about what data was being discussed.

Why is it that I can't find anything about it in the appeal file distributed by RoseMontague and Bruce?

Probably because it was in the addendum.

 

[bolint]

You misunderstood. Media playback doesn't count as inactivity and it doesn't require input to prevent screensaver.

The competent computer expert of the defence, however, argues that only keyboard or mouse activity could stop the screensaver.
How could he otherwise state that there were no intervals longer than 6 minutes without keyboard or mouse activity claiming to have proved thereby that Raffaele was always on the machine.

There were a lot of movies played on the PC during the night.

Please name a few.

"although IIRC Raffaele said they didn't pay much attention to the screen"

He said that he was browsing the net. At the same time no web traffic was observed by the internet provider.

 

[AmyStrange]

I can't wait for the appeals to resume. This delay is making me crazy. I'm hopeful of aquittal, but very leery of the legal machine in Perugia.

-

Thank you for sharing Poppy,

I am hopeful too, but not holding my breath though, but the feeling I get from Hellmann is he is a critical thinker and that bodes well for Amanda and Raffaele, in my opinion.

But you know what? I am more hopeful for the Kerchers. If they are acquitted, I hope that Meredith's family can somehow, someday come to grips with this, and maybe someday get a little peace of mind, but I don't see this ever really happening, but maybe in the far-off future they can find it in their hearts to get together with Amanda and Raffaele and their families and share a hug together in memory of Meredith,

Dave

 

[bolint]

The last activation was at 06:22 which indicates activity on the computer ended just after 06:02 which just happens to be the time raffaele's phone received the SMS from his dad.

How do you conclude that? There were multiple active and inactive periods between 6:00 and 6:22.

Then there is the message from Raffaele about the keyboard light log which appears to be additional confirmation of activity.

What is that message? I can't recall anything like that.

The defense requested that an independent expert be appointed te reexamine the computer data. Hellmann apparently didn't think this was necessary. The prosecution made no response even though the had access to the same data and the documentation was explicit about what data was being discussed."

Regardless of Hellmann or the prosecution the defence has the disk.
How is it that they have not found anything after 21:26?

You all seem to expect that there will be some exculpatory findings on the computer.
But the truth is that even Raffaele did not expect it.
And he must know why.

 

[Mary_H]

Thanks RW. This cocaine thing is just completely bogus. If the evidence is so strong why do those on the side of guilt see fit to just make these things up?

To be fair (no reason, but let's), they seem to be speculating about a motive, having decided that she definitely did it.

Rolfe.

Apparently they have grudgingly accepted the reality that people like Amanda and Raffaele don't commit violent sex crimes, so there must be some explanation other than free will.

 

[bolint]

Bolint. I've had a look at multiple versions of the CCTV footage. Based on that I would have to say that you must be mistaken. Not because I can actually clearly make out what is on the footage, but simply because, for your theory to hold water there would have to be additional footage of another female shortly before or after. Which there isn't. So we can be fairly certain it was Meredith.

The recording is not continuous, it is triggered by cars or persons moving near the garage door.

 

[Draca]

If prosecution claimed the CCTV clock was 10 minutes slow when in fact it was 10 to 12 minutes fast. It may have been just a simple mistake. The technician who collected the data failed to clearly note the direction of the error.

This mistake had the side benefit of showing that the Postal Police arrived 20 minutes earlier the next day. Keeping alive the myth that Raffaele called the police after they had already arrived. The fact that they released the video of Kercher crossing the street with the time stamp clipped out of the image may indicate the prosecution was being knowingly deceptive.

Kestrel,

When the police presented the video in court they knew absolutely through the girlfriend's testimony and interviews that Meredith Kercher could not have been arriving home at 8:41 p.m.. Sophie Purton had said she arrived home about 8:55 p.m.. Why in that case did an officer say they think this is MK arriving home at 8:41 p.m.? I do find the missing time stamp in all the news articles and missing video clips suspicious. There has been a lot of incompetence in this case though, so idk. Frank Sfarzo said in his blog for that court date that the defense protested and said they thought it was the opposite; 10 minutes slow. It is more than a mistake that the police said the video was MK arriving home at a time they new it was not possible.

I wish there was a court transcript. I would like to know if the defense protested that is was impossible for the image to be MK at 8:41 p.m..

Draca

 

[bolint]

Where are those bloody clothes?

I don't know if there were bloody clothes. She got home and changed to jeans.

Now I don't get what you mean. Why wouldn't they rehearse a story?

They simply thought that Raffaele's claim that they were at his place would be enough.

Nonsense. He supported Amanda's alibi all those years.

By not remembering anything?

 

[Katody Matrass]

The competent computer expert of the defence, however, argues that only keyboard or mouse activity could stop the screensaver.

He does? I don't think so.

How could he otherwise state that there were no intervals longer than 6 minutes without keyboard or mouse activity claiming to have proved thereby that Raffaele was always on the machine.

I don't think it's what the expert claims.

Please name a few.

Amelie, Stardust, a bunch of cartoons.

He said that he was browsing the net. At the same time no web traffic was observed by the internet provider.

I think this is important for your theory. Doesn't it make you wonder? Why did he "lie" so obviously?

 

[bolint]

It also suggests they must have had other reasons to be suspicious of Patrick, another thing proven by the 'evidence' against Patrick produced before Matteini. Otherwise, if all they had was what they had from Amanda, how could they 'know' she was lying about the night of the murder? What gave them such confidence they refused to reconsider their arrest of Patrick? Do you suppose they thought cherry picking lines completely out of context actually solves this conundrum?

In the Matteini hearing the police used the following arguments against Lumumba:
- Amanda's confession
- Amanda had only two entries in her phone records, both with Lumumba and both within the hour before the murder.
- The 20:35 SMS was delivered to Lumumba's phone by the cell compatible with the house.
- Lumumba changed his phone (but not the SIM card) the next day
- The earliest bills in the bar were made after 22:30.

At the time of the confession only the first three were known.
Later all of them proved to be irrelevant as evidence for Lumumba's guilt.

Why weren't the cops talking to Raffaele about the murder? Isn't that extraordinarily odd? They're going to arrest him anyway for the murder, but once they get that signed statement from him about he and Amanda splitting up at the town square and that strange 'admission' that he called the Carabinieri after the Postal Police arrived, he just sits there while the police go after Amanda about someone else.

Did he admit that he had called the carabinieri after the postals? I never heard this.

How do you explain why the cops didn't automatically think the new boyfriend of the girl they're suspicious of was her accomplice, and instead spend hours putting the screws to her about someone else while he'd broken down and given them everything they wanted already?

Why don't you request the documents of Raffaele's questioning of Nov 2 and Nov 5?
Raffaele's defence has it and they should be helpful to provide it.
So that we could see how he was "railroaded".

Better question is, why did the cops think she'd accused Patrick? Why did they think that gibberish was credible, and didn't probe her for more details, as in anything outside the fact that Patrick was there, and she 'vaguely' remembered him killing her, or she 'confusedly didn't actually remember him killing her' and nothing about the break in, how the murder occurred, (he had a weapon on him?) or could have, (did he normally carry a knife?) whether he actually did it, as in, she's standing in this timeless void about to be teleported back to Raffaele's bed, yet the murderer never emerged from the bedroom?

If the cops version of the story is true, and she was acting strangely and all of a sudden blurted out that Patrick did it, (ever wonder why that line didn't make it into either statement?) why did they accept these two 'vague and confused' statements as fact, rush out and arrest Patrick ostentatiously without bothering to investigate at all, then refuse to accord her note any significance except of her 'lying'--yet claim that her account corroborated the facts of the crime as they knew them?

Clearly they conducted it wrongly.
They were no match for this case.
They should have grilled them until they give some objective evidence.
They thought that it would be easy to prove it later.
They had a theory and they tried to find only evidence that supports that theory. But that theory was wrong. No wonder they could not prove it.

 

[bolint]

Just searched Maasei and couldn't find any hits for white skirt - was it mentioned in Massei?

I don't think so.
The prosecution did not push it because it contradicted their version of the postal poilce arrival time. Thus they accepted the 20:43 (or 20.41) time.
That however could be neither Meredith, because at that time she was at party, nor Amanda, because Popovic's testimony and (with slightly less certainty) the 20:35 SMS places her to Raffaele's place.
So they mistakenly ignored this CCTV footage.

But actually the postals' arrival time was wrong and the CCTV time is compatible with either Meredith or Amanda being there.

 

[Antony]

it would be kind of ludicrous to suggest she was still wearing the same white skirt as the evening before if she had participated in a murder and cleanup.

... on a level with the notion that the shoes that Raff was wearing at the police station on Nov 5 were the ones that left the bloody shoeprints at the murder scene. Yet this was the "evidence" that needed to be discredited by Raff's own family.

 

[AmyStrange]

The competent computer expert of the defence, however, argues that only keyboard or mouse activity could stop the screensaver.

-

Hi bolint,

it is nice to have you join us here now and again, and I mean that in the most sincerest way. I don't agree with everything you say, but you do make some good points and make me think about this case from a different perspective and that is never bad, in my opinion.

Plus you at least seem to be trying to consider with an open mind that there is a possible probability that they might be innocent. Maybe I'm wrong, but this is because I do detect that you are a critical thinker of sorts and although you may be biased in a way, you (in my opinion) don't seem like you're married to these biases.

Anyway, I don't know about Raffaele's screensaver software coding, but I do know that when I am watching movies streamed from netflix (sometimes I will fall asleep) my screensaver doesn't come on, and I know I haven't touched the keyboard or mouse (it's a touchpad) for at least two hours and my system is set up to turn the screensaver on after 30 minutes of non-use.

Also (and even though I promised I wouldn't mention my roommate again, please forgive me this one time), her impression of some of Amanda's actions are indicative that she had seriously suspected earlier than she let on that something really bad had happened to Meredith (when she went to the cottage to take a shower), and that she really should have called the police sooner than they were called.

BUT (you knew there was a but coming didn't you hehehe) we both agree that in all practicality we can understand why she didn't.

First, it really did make more sense that Raffaele call them since he spoke better Italian than she and probably knew more about how to handle that type of situation (since he had lived in Italy longer) better than she did.

But, the second reason is more compelling, because unless you have lived with a drug dealer before (we both have), you probably wouldn't realize that you just can't call the cops at the drop of a hat for any old reason. The boys downstairs grew pot and this would have made me also think twice about calling them if my suspicions turned out to be just that, suspicions and nothing else.

So in conclusion, although she might have had stronger suspicions than she let on, she did the right thing by going to get Raffaele first and let him decide what to do. And she couldn't just explain to him what was wrong (especially considering her limited Italian) she had to show him.

This is how my roommate thinks she may be "somehow" involved, no other kind of scenario makes sense to her. The probabilities are higher that Amanda is innocent than that she is guilty.

We also both believe there is more evidence that Curatolo helped Rudy (if only as a lookout) than there is that Amanda and Raffaele had anything to do with it. He lived near the murder scene (on a park bench), admits being near there that night and has no alibi, plus he falsely accused them of being near the scene that same night, but never admitted ever seeing Guede there that night especially considering, that since Curatolo used heroin and Guede sold drugs now and again, it's quite possible they knew each other in more ways than just in passing.

And finally, since it's also interesting that he was a "super witness" for at least two other high profile crimes before this one, which makes us wonder where Rudy was during those crimes.

I personally think she and Raffaele are totally innocent, but I agree with my roommate that it makes more sense to express this in probabilities than in absolutes,

Dave

 

[bolint]

Two students hanging out during a holiday weekend smoking hash, cuddling and watching movies is pretty mundane behavior, and considering those circumstances it would be wildly improbable if their accounts matched to the minute in all details if questioned on precise times a week later.

It's lawyerish.
it was not a week later but the next day that they recalled wht they had been doing the night before.
And the later versions differed not in minute details but in four hours of absence or presence.

Have you ever considered that the prosecution and police which elicited or coerced that 'confession' didn't consider it as merely 'establishing' that she was there that night, they immediately attempted to use it to prove she was a gleeful participant in a sordid ritualistic orgy rape murder--whatever?

Yes, it was a hurried conclusion.

In other words the purpose of getting those statements, which she was never sure of going by the note or even the 'vague and confused' nature of the statements themselves, was never to simply 'establish' her presence at the scene, but as a confession to being a participant in their bizarre hypothesis made with no physical evidence to support it?

I also think that in itself the first two statements would not be enough, but the 3rd statement was not coerced by any accounts.
And there is other evidence that undermines their alibi.

 

[bolint]

So you are accepting that the prosecution lied when they said the CCTV showed Amanda crossing the street at 20:43 (or was that Meredith at 20:41).

I don't think they lied, at that time they seriously thought it was her.
Later, however, Popovic's testimony destroyed Amanda's being there at 20:43 or 20:41.

We know now of course that the image timestamp was actually 20:51:36.17 and the CCTV clock was 10-12 minutes slow making the actual time after 21:00. How so many different times got represented for the same image when the time stamp is right there on the frame is quite the mystery but it is apparent that the cops got the time correction totally wrong and continued to lie about it from the pre-trial publicity all the way through the trial.

I don't think they lied, it was self-deception.
The postal's arrival time argument was deep rooted and they insisted on it.

 

[Katody Matrass]

I don't know if there were bloody clothes. She got home and changed to jeans.

Raffaele wrote that she changed into the white skirt in the morning. Did he lie? Why? Jovana Popovic saw Amanda in the evening, if she remembered her in the white skirt it would be of some importance and immediately expose Raf's lie. I think Amanda changed clothes in the morning and wasn't wearing the white skirt the night before.

They simply thought that Raffaele's claim that they were at his place would be enough.

Hmmm... OK. I wonder why didn't Raffaele try to flesh out that alibi by browsing the web just a little bit? And when we're at it, why didn't he access the web even once while Amanda was away on her killing spree.

By not remembering anything?

Isn't it strange? Wouldn't he at least tell a story matching the easily provable facts like computer access times and phone records?

 

[Katody Matrass]

BTW bolint, you wrote recently that "there are many scenarios". Could you outline at least one of them?

 

[RoseMontague]

I don't think they lied, it was self-deception.
The postal's arrival time argument was deep rooted and they insisted on it.

I wonder what other theories they had were also the result of deception?

 

[lowriderrsa]

The recording is not continuous, it is triggered by cars or persons moving near the garage door.

Good morning eveybody. Well it is for me at least.

bolint. I apologize if due to semantics or english not being my first language you misunderstood my point I was trying to make. I am well aware that the recording is not continuous. I am also aware that the frame rate per second is also super low. I also see from the footage that it is triggered by objects of a certain size and height from anything moving across the entrance. It makes sense, I install CCTV systems myself from time to time though I'm not much of an expert. All I'm saying is that from the footage available, and taking into consideration the route Merdedith was taking and the time it has to be her.

DanO... Ditto

 

[Mary_H]

In the Matteini hearing the police used the following arguments against Lumumba:
- Amanda's confession
- Amanda had only two entries in her phone records, both with Lumumba and both within the hour before the murder.
- The 20:35 SMS was delivered to Lumumba's phone by the cell compatible with the house.
- Lumumba changed his phone (but not the SIM card) the next day
- The earliest bills in the bar were made after 22:30.

At the time of the confession only the first three were known.
Later all of them proved to be irrelevant as evidence for Lumumba's guilt.

Not that you intended to list that evidence chronologically or in order of importance, but I think placing "Amanda's confession" first lends it a certain weight that is misleading. There would have been no "confession" without the police already having knowledge of the cell phone entries.

The fact that the police asked Amanda for her cell phone during her interrogation indicates they knew the information it held. Otherwise, they would also have asked for her purse, her books, the contents of her pockets, etc. Only the cell phone was of particular interest to them.

The police knew what was on Amanda's cell phone because they had obtained her and Raffaele's phone records, having become suspicious of them a day or two earlier. While they suspected her of being involved in the crime, I agree with Kaosium that it is unlikely they would have suspected Lumumba unless they had something else on him (e.g., a black hair). Lumumba was known as a popular, friendly man, and the texts between him and Amanda are not suspicious in themselves given that he was her employer.

<snip>Why don't you request the documents of Raffaele's questioning of Nov 2 and Nov 5? Raffaele's defence has it and they should be helpful to provide it. So that we could see how he was "railroaded".

That would be nice. It would certainly settle a lot of questions about when and how the police came to suspect Raffaele and Amanda. As far as I know, there are no records of Raffaele's conversation with police from any day, whether before or after he was taken into custody.

Maybe we can order the interrogation tapes while we're at it?

Clearly they conducted it wrongly.
They were no match for this case.
<snip>
They thought that it would be easy to prove it later.
They had a theory and they tried to find only evidence that supports that theory. But that theory was wrong. No wonder they could not prove it.

All true.

It's lawyerish.
it was not a week later but the next day that they recalled wht they had been doing the night before.
And the later versions differed not in minute details but in four hours of absence or presence. <snip>

As noted above, there seem to be no records supporting these claims. No one here has any idea whether the police asked Amanda and Raffaele for their alibis for the night of the murder, until they were questioned on the 5th-6th.