Continuation Part 3 - Discussion of the Amanda Knox case

[LondonJohn]

Well, as I said, I'm a clinical pathologist who also does gross pathology. Most of my work these days is with farm animals, though I do also have a proportion of companion animal work. And today's highlight was European beavers, for God's sake.

Rolfe.

For some reason, Leslie Nielsen as Frank Drebin in "Naked Gun 2 1/2" comes to mind......

Joking apart, your qualifications, experience and knowledge mean that your opinion on most of the important medical matters pertaining to this case is very valuable and credible. You are, of course, utterly correct in your views on ToD - it's good to see that pretty much exactly the same ToD arguments as you, I, Kevin and others have been examining here have been articulated by defence lawyers in closing arguments. I am glad that the judicial panel will be properly informed (if they weren't already) about the real significance of the ToD issue, and the very clear way in which it can be shown that Meredith was almost certainly dead before 9.30pm. And I hope that Hellmann will mention it fairly prominently in his motivations report after the acquittals.

 

[LondonJohn]

I see the pesky lamp has come up again. My issue with this is the problems with them "forgetting" the lamp after the non-clean up. First they would have to step over the lamp cord and then they would have to close the door over the lamp cord. It seems rather obvious it would be difficult to forget this. It also appears that the door has rubbed the cord against the floor in a couple of photos. I just don't see it.

Ah but according to one supersleuth, Knox's lamp was placed in the perfect position, in conjunction with Meredith's own lamp next to her bed, to provide the ideal "crime scene lighting" arcs-of-light situation for Knox's/Sollecito's post-murder clean-up. That was before someone pointed out that Meredith's lamp was actually found pointing in the opposite direction from the area in which the murder had taken place.....

And of course, in order to buy into this "Knox's lamp used for by Knox/Sollecito for clean-up in Meredith's room" nonsense, one has to suppose the following: either Knox or Sollecito made the conscious decision to move Knox's lamp from Knox's room into Meredith's room; then Knox/Sollecito used the light from this lamp to help them conduct some sort of extremely complicated and selective clean-up in Meredith's room - which was so devillishly cunning and skillful that they left no indication that any clean-up had even been done in the room; then Knox and Sollecito took off their "evil genius" hats and put on their "blundering dunderhead" hats in order to lock the room shut without removing Knox's lamp - which, as you say, they would actually have had to step over when leaving the room!

I'd say that by far the most likely explanation for the presence of Knox's lamp in Meredith's room is that Meredith herself borrowed it, either on the 31st or the 1st. She might have wanted to use it to apply her Halloween makeup in front of her own mirror, or she might have wanted to use it to read a book at her desk instead of moving her own lamp from her bedside. Meredith knew that Knox was spending very little time in her own (Knox's) room, so probably reasoned - correctly - that Knox would not mind if Meredith borrowed her lamp.

 

[misteratunta]

Ah but according to one supersleuth, Knox's lamp was placed in the perfect position, in conjunction with Meredith's own lamp next to her bed, to provide the ideal "crime scene lighting" arcs-of-light situation for Knox's/Sollecito's post-murder clean-up. That was before someone pointed out that Meredith's lamp was actually found pointing in the opposite direction from the area in which the murder had taken place.....

And of course, in order to buy into this "Knox's lamp used for by Knox/Sollecito for clean-up in Meredith's room" nonsense, one has to suppose the following: either Knox or Sollecito made the conscious decision to move Knox's lamp from Knox's room into Meredith's room; then Knox/Sollecito used the light from this lamp to help them conduct some sort of extremely complicated and selective clean-up in Meredith's room - which was so devillishly cunning and skillful that they left no indication that any clean-up had even been done in the room; then Knox and Sollecito took off their "evil genius" hats and put on their "blundering dunderhead" hats in order to lock the room shut without removing Knox's lamp - which, as you say, they would actually have had to step over when leaving the room!

I'd say that by far the most likely explanation for the presence of Knox's lamp in Meredith's room is that Meredith herself borrowed it, either on the 31st or the 1st. She might have wanted to use it to apply her Halloween makeup in front of her own mirror, or she might have wanted to use it to read a book at her desk instead of moving her own lamp from her bedside. Meredith knew that Knox was spending very little time in her own (Knox's) room, so probably reasoned - correctly - that Knox would not mind if Meredith borrowed her lamp.

Has anyone ever suggested the cops put it there? Are there any reasons not to suppose this?

 

[Rolfe]

This just seems to be a really simple case complicated beyond all reason. And the result of these complications is that two completely innocent bystanders have lost four years of their young lives and been irrevocably altered by the experience.

Rudy Guede, a habitual cat-burglar, decided to rob the flat where Meredith lived. He knew there were a couple of foreign students there, and may have anticipated good pickings. While he was in the flat, Meredith returned home. Some sort of confrontation ensued, which escalated to sexual assault and murder. Not necessarily in that order. Rudy fled with some small, easily-portable items and cash, but when one of the mobile phones started to ring he realised this might not have been such a good idea. He accidentally initiated calls to stored numbers (the first on the list being "Abbey") while trying to turn the phone off. Panicking, he ditched them. High as a kite, he went dancing after he'd cleaned up, possibly thinking he might establish an alibi. He later fled the country.

Amanda spent the night with Raffaele, in his flat, doing whatever new lovers with some cannabis do in that situation. Amanda got a message saying she didn't have to go to work, and she turned her phone off to prevent any message reversing that decision from getting through. The next morning she returned home to shower and collect some things she wanted for the planned trip, and began to realise all was not well. In a foreign country, and not speaking the language very well, she returned to seek Raffaele's advice. He was unsure what to do for the best, and hesitated to apply serious force to Meredith's door. He called his sister, who told him to call 112.

And the rest is just a bunch of incompetent and arrogant cops jumping to wildly premature conclusions, then digging themselves even deeper as evidence emerged to contradict these conclusions, in a CYA scenario of escalating dishonesty and lies.

The Norfolk Four case is an extremely close parallel. Why do some people find this so hard to understand?

Rolfe.

 

[LondonJohn]

Does anyone know if Knox's spontaneous declaration will be made tomorrow or on Friday (or even Saturday)? And does Sollecito have any stated plans to make a spontaneous declaration too? And I wonder who will lead on Knox's closing argument. Will it be Dalla Vedova or Ghirga? What do you reckon, pilot?

And..... I see the insults and unpleasant (and obscene) name-calling are coming my way thick and fast from the usual suspects. Aside from pointing out the enormity of the irony inherent in these individuals' posts, I can't help thinking of a drowning (wo)man lashing out at anything and everything in his/her reach.

I sincerely hope that these people won't have a complete melt-down when Knox and Sollecito are acquitted on either Saturday or Monday. I suspect that there will be a short-term explosion of bitter, unpleasant, vitriolic anger and hatred, but I hope that most of these strange, sad individuals will soon see fit to pack up their tents and slink off into obscurity.

PS: What is it with this ridiculous attempt to claim not to read JREF, but to "be informed" about posts here by third parties? It's pathetically untrue, ad I can't see what purpose it purports to serve to these people. Can anyone enlighten me as to why people would piously pretend they don't read here?

 

[LondonJohn]

Has anyone ever suggested the cops put it there? Are there any reasons not to suppose this?

Well, I believe the "crack" crime scene operatives may have denied having done so. But that's scant reason to believe that they didn't actually do so, judging by their track record of truth and openness.......

 

[misteratunta]

Well, I believe the "crack" crime scene operatives may have denied having done so. But that's scant reason to believe that they didn't actually do so, judging by their track record of truth and openness.......

Seems like the simplest option to me - and it wouldn't even have to have been done with intent - lamp moved in to provide extra light by one cop, another cop sees lamp and finds it suspicious, cop who moved it deliberately doesn't correct him.

It fits with the guilters' assumption that there wasn't enough light in there to carry out "forensic" levels of work...

Sorted.

 

[Rolfe]

That, or Meredith simply borrowed the thing, knowing that Amanda was spending most of her time at Raffaele's place and would be unlikely to miss it - or mind if she did.

Rolfe.

 

[LondonJohn]

This just seems to be a really simple case complicated beyond all reason. And the result of these complications is that two completely innocent bystanders have lost four years of their young lives and been irrevocably altered by the experience.

Rudy Guede, a habitual cat-burglar, decided to rob the flat where Meredith lived. He knew there were a couple of foreign students there, and may have anticipated good pickings. While he was in the flat, Meredith returned home. Some sort of confrontation ensued, which escalated to sexual assault and murder. Not necessarily in that order. Rudy fled with some small, easily-portable items and cash, but when one of the mobile phones started to ring he realised this might not have been such a good idea. He accidentally initiated calls to stored numbers (the first on the list being "Abbey") while trying to turn the phone off. Panicking, he ditched them. High as a kite, he went dancing after he'd cleaned up, possibly thinking he might establish an alibi. He later fled the country.

Amanda spent the night with Raffaele, in his flat, doing whatever new lovers with some cannabis do in that situation. Amanda got a message saying she didn't have to go to work, and she turned her phone off to prevent any message reversing that decision from getting through. The next morning she returned home to shower and collect some things she wanted for the planned trip, and began to realise all was not well. In a foreign country, and not speaking the language very well, she returned to seek Raffaele's advice. He was unsure what to do for the best, and hesitated to apply serious force to Meredith's door. He called his sister, who told him to call 112.

And the rest is just a bunch of incompetent and arrogant cops jumping to wildly premature conclusions, then digging themselves even deeper as evidence emerged to contradict these conclusions, in a CYA scenario of escalating dishonesty and lies.

The Norfolk Four case is an extremely close parallel. Why do some people find this so hard to understand?

Rolfe.

Exactly so. But I would modify the scenario a little bit regarding the phones. I think that Guede was still inside the cottage at 10pm when he turned of Meredith's Italian phone successfully but had difficulty in turning off her UK phone. I think he fled the cottage shortly after this point, carrying the two phones: one turned on and one turned off. I think that he walked along the road outside the city walls (Via Buliagio and Via Andrea Da Perugia) so as to take a quiet unlit route back towards his apartment. I think that at 10.13pm he was startled by the alert on the UK phone for the incoming GPRS photomessage. The cell site data clearly suggests that the phone was somewhere along this route when it started to receive this message. I think that Guede pushed the "end call" button to stop the audio/visual alert, which also had the effect of cancelling the download of the photomessage.

I think it was at this point that Guede realised that the phones posed too great a risk for him to hold on to them any longer. I think he decided to go a little further along the road (to where it turned into Via Sperandio), where he hurled both phones away into what he presumed was a dark, steep ravine. But unknown to him, he had thrown the phones into the front garden of a private house.

All the timings, phone memories and cell site data suggest that Guede left the cottage shortly after 10pm, that he was en route to his apartment via the unlit roads outside the city walls when the GPRS message was received at 10.13pm, and that he probably dumped the phones in Sig.ra Lana's garden at some time shortly after that - around 10.20-10.25pm.

 

[Grinder]

The arrival of the postal police changed things dramatically. not only were law enforcement officers now present in the cottage, but they had also brought Meredith's Italian phone with them. Knox and Sollecito (and the others by now present) now knew that one of Meredith's phones had been found lying in the garden of a woman on the outskirts of Perugia. The clear implication of that had to be that something extremely strange - and very probably harmful - must have happened to Meredith. There was now a much more clear imperative to get into Meredith's room, whatever the cost to the fixtures and fittings in the rental cottage. And not only that, but two police officers were there to validate and condone such action - even if they were hesitant to do it themselves for procedural reasons, they were in agreement that it ought to be done.

So it seems to me that this issue has a perfectly logical and reasonable explanation that is entirely consistent with Knox's/Sollecito's innocence. As someone else said: we have to hope this is the sort of thing the jury (sic) are thinking through.

I'm pretty sure it was Filomena that said break the door down - the police didn't do it before she arrived. Indicating they were not sure of what to do.

 

[Grinder]

The one and only reason that Amanda's lamp was used is that it was the closest.

Who knows why it was used. Maybe it had a special shade patented by Stefanoni that made LCN DNA light up to enhance the clean-up.

 

[RoseMontague]

Well, I believe the "crack" crime scene operatives may have denied having done so. But that's scant reason to believe that they didn't actually do so, judging by their track record of truth and openness.......

Hard to say, some say Rudy, some say Meredith, some say the cops did it. The AK and RS version makes the least amount of sense to me. Frank said something along the lines of keep believing the lamp story, Perugia.

The lamp represents no evidence of guilt that I can see. Just one of those unexplained things. A mystery still.

 

[billyryan]

This just seems to be a really simple case complicated beyond all reason. And the result of these complications is that two completely innocent bystanders have lost four years of their young lives and been irrevocably altered by the experience.

Rudy Guede, a habitual cat-burglar, decided to rob the flat where Meredith lived. He knew there were a couple of foreign students there, and may have anticipated good pickings. While he was in the flat, Meredith returned home. Some sort of confrontation ensued, which escalated to sexual assault and murder. Not necessarily in that order. Rudy fled with some small, easily-portable items and cash, but when one of the mobile phones started to ring he realised this might not have been such a good idea. He accidentally initiated calls to stored numbers (the first on the list being "Abbey") while trying to turn the phone off. Panicking, he ditched them. High as a kite, he went dancing after he'd cleaned up, possibly thinking he might establish an alibi. He later fled the country.

Amanda spent the night with Raffaele, in his flat, doing whatever new lovers with some cannabis do in that situation. Amanda got a message saying she didn't have to go to work, and she turned her phone off to prevent any message reversing that decision from getting through. The next morning she returned home to shower and collect some things she wanted for the planned trip, and began to realise all was not well. In a foreign country, and not speaking the language very well, she returned to seek Raffaele's advice. He was unsure what to do for the best, and hesitated to apply serious force to Meredith's door. He called his sister, who told him to call 112.

And the rest is just a bunch of incompetent and arrogant cops jumping to wildly premature conclusions, then digging themselves even deeper as evidence emerged to contradict these conclusions, in a CYA scenario of escalating dishonesty and lies.

The Norfolk Four case is an extremely close parallel. Why do some people find this so hard to understand?

Rolfe.

Its as simple and as tragic as that Rolfe,I can't help wondering what the consequences will be for the lying cops,and the seventeen idiots who ruled on this case so far.

At some stage,and I believe very early on Mignini and the cops and Stefanoni must have realised both of these young people were innocent,but they had started the publicity by releasing lies to the press,and instead of withdrawing charges they started hiding evidence of innocence and worst of all planting evidence

 

[Rolfe]

I see that Zorba over at dot net has tracked down details of the earlier case where some people are alleging Vecchiotti made a mistake. It's unclear whether she did make a mistake in fact - she's said to have identified a body which actually belonged to a close relative of the person she said it was. That person was said to have been later sighted alive, but that bit was all fairly vague. It seems as if the court didn't accept her findings in the matter though.

This could be a little embarrassing for all those people carrying on about Vecchiotti not having practical experience of forensic molecular biology, including those making strange analogies to wedding receptions - as Vecchiotti is quite clearly engaged in forensic molecular biology in that case.

Rolfe.

 

[Rolfe]

Its as simple and as tragic as that Rolfe,I can't help wondering what the consequences will be for the lying cops,and the seventeen idiots who ruled on this case so far.

At some stage,and I believe very early on Mignini and the cops and Stefanoni must have realised both of these young people were innocent,but they had started the publicity by releasing lies to the press,and instead of withdrawing charges they started hiding evidence of innocence and worst of all planting evidence

It's a helluva compelling story though, once it's viewed right way up. The nightmare of the two students caught up in this surreal charade, and finding that everything they say and everything they do is picked up and twisted so as to imply guilt.

I'm seriously tempted to agree that Mignini and Stefanoni must have realised they were innocent, but I'm not so sure. There is a mindset that seems to grow in certain people in the criminal justice system that says they are the arbiters of fact, and if they decide something happened then by golly it did happen. I've come across a lot of it while examining the Lockerbie affair, from both the Scottish police and judiciary, and the FBI. These people are mostly not consciously dishonest or deliberately framing someone. You see they know they're right, and everything flows from that.

Oh, and there will be no consequences for judges or jury members who made an incorrect ruling, and it would be deplorable if there were, assuming that no corruption can be proven.

Rolfe.

ETA: Thinking about the Monster of Florence affair, there's no way Mignini realises that anyone is innocent. Mignini lives in his own little fantasy world of satanic rituals and she-devils, and that's the only reality for him.

 

[AmyStrange]

No, those were the cops solely involved in the interrogation, there were something like thirty-something cops at the Questura all told. The positions of the twelve are revealed in the second link.

Now, according to the phone records, Amanda is on the phone with Filomena when she cuts them off as the cops are approaching to talk to her, that called ended at 10:39 She also says elsewhere it was shortly after she arrived, she was still on her first page of homework. Raffaele and Amanda walked in there at 10:15, by 10:40 the stoned Raffaele is signing his statement that he and Amanda split up at the town square the night of the murder around 9PM and he went home, and also that he'd called the carabinieri after the Postal police arrived. That suggests to me that Amanda's interrogation began right around 10:40, with those 'admissions' from Raffaele they'd want to have a conversation with her posthaste.

The first statement was signed at 1:45 AM, that's about three hours from the likely beginning of the festivities. 5-10 cops at a time. If they weren't available for the interrogation, they wouldn't be eligible for the calunnia charge. I don't know what information you're operating under, but it sounds like it's pre-calunnia filing, as that changed the whole ballgame. It is no longer possible to argue that there were only a handful of cops there, ILE themselves has proven that incorrect.

-

Thank you for the correction K,

it probably won't mean much to those who will never admit that Amanda never really accused Patrick of anything. He went in the other room with Meredith, she heard Meredith scream, and says Patrick killed Meredith without seeing it happen or explains how she knows for a fact he is the one who killed her or if anyone was even in the other room before Patrick and Meredith go in there. She doesn't say what happens next. It just ends there. It's vague like a dream. Using words like confusedly and spontaneously is just weird. Worse confession I have ever read in my life and I have read plenty.

Then almost immediately arresting Patrick and the case closed comments later that day.

It's so obviously false and coerced, it is actually downright painful to read anyone argue that it isn't. Like watching someone stutter.

So sad really.

But once again, thank you,

Dave

 

[AmyStrange]

This just seems to be a really simple case complicated beyond all reason. And the result of these complications is that two completely innocent bystanders have lost four years of their young lives and been irrevocably altered by the experience.

Rudy Guede, a habitual cat-burglar, decided to rob the flat where Meredith lived. He knew there were a couple of foreign students there, and may have anticipated good pickings. While he was in the flat, Meredith returned home. Some sort of confrontation ensued, which escalated to sexual assault and murder. Not necessarily in that order. Rudy fled with some small, easily-portable items and cash, but when one of the mobile phones started to ring he realised this might not have been such a good idea. He accidentally initiated calls to stored numbers (the first on the list being "Abbey") while trying to turn the phone off. Panicking, he ditched them. High as a kite, he went dancing after he'd cleaned up, possibly thinking he might establish an alibi. He later fled the country.

Amanda spent the night with Raffaele, in his flat, doing whatever new lovers with some cannabis do in that situation. Amanda got a message saying she didn't have to go to work, and she turned her phone off to prevent any message reversing that decision from getting through. The next morning she returned home to shower and collect some things she wanted for the planned trip, and began to realise all was not well. In a foreign country, and not speaking the language very well, she returned to seek Raffaele's advice. He was unsure what to do for the best, and hesitated to apply serious force to Meredith's door. He called his sister, who told him to call 112.

And the rest is just a bunch of incompetent and arrogant cops jumping to wildly premature conclusions, then digging themselves even deeper as evidence emerged to contradict these conclusions, in a CYA scenario of escalating dishonesty and lies.

The Norfolk Four case is an extremely close parallel. Why do some people find this so hard to understand?

Rolfe.

Rolfe,

I quoted your whole arguement because it's brilliant as usual, but the last two sentences are what I wanted to focus on, because it is the perfect example of how you don't really need more than one interrogator to get a false confession.

The reason I bring this up is because some people seem to think that because they don't see any evidence (a false premise as Kaosium already proved) that more than two or three people interrogated Amanda, she couldn't have been coerced into vaguely and weirdly "accusing" Patrick of murder.

Hopefully, if I have incorrectly paraphrased that posters arguement, they will come forward and correct me,

Dave

 

[Caper]

Just to let everyone know the True murder podcast with dan Zupansky will be featuring an interview with the author of a "The Fatal Gift of Beauty"..... a book about the Amanda Knox case. I think they take callers and there are alot of knowledgeable people on here.

http://www.blogtalkradio.com/dan-zu...atal-gift-of-beauty-the-trials-of-amanda-knox

starts in about 30 mins.

 

[AmyStrange]

From a position a long way from Perugia, so not really able to know if it's feasible or not, I also have wondered if there are other murders that might have Rudy's figurative fingerprints all over them.

Dare I say it, these murders need not be officially "unsolved".

On the other hand, he was pretty easy to track from this one, so maybe not.

Rolfe.

-

Hi again Rolfe,

I have heard rumours that Curatolo was a superwitness to two other murders (besides this one) and have wondered aloud here a couple times as to where Rudy was during those murders,

Dave

 

[Rolfe]

Rudy left his spoor all over Meredith's body and environment, and even Stefanoni wasn't so incompetent as to miss it. They'd have got him, quite easily, and with very little fuss if only someone hadn't indulged in some absolutely tragic gun-jumping in the mean time. Which makes me think maybe this was his first murder, as his DNA doesn't seem to have been linked to any others.

Rolfe.