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Continuation Part 4: Discussion of the Amanda Knox/Raffaele Sollecito case

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Rudy could have staged the break-in to cover because he had a date with Meredith and feared she had told people. Or he thought he had a date with her. Or knowing that he had to have left evidence behind (not possessing the Hoover Select-O-Matic DNA Vacuum) needed a cover story for who killed her, the burglar. He would use a technique for breaking-in that he knew, not thinking it would be used to connect him since he had no record.

Personally I think he had thrown the stone and was watching to see if anybody came when Meredith returned and talked his way in and it ended up as it did.

The kids would not have picked the hardest to enter window even if they did want to stage.

To be fair Rudy didn't carry a knife all the time as the knife in Milan was stolen from the kitchen of the day care place.
 
The story is simply this. Sunce neither Knox nor Sollecito had to capacity to actually break in, and once Lumumba came into suspicion on the 6th as another with no ability to break-in, I don't think they actually investigated or closely examined Romanelli's room, to rule out a real break in. The photo evidence is not conclusive at all on the issue of glass only on top of scattered clothes, or glass on the sill. People continue to argue what's what in that - a sign that the primary evidence is not really there.

However, once Lumumba is replaced by Guede - aught-owe, not only is a real break-in eminately possible and perhaps probable, there is no need really to have Knox at the scene at all! Whereas perhaps it had to have been Knox's key to let in Lumumba, Guede had a proven track record of getting access whenever he needed.

No need for Knox and Sollecito at all. The need for a key disappears. The need for a knife from Sollecito's disappears, Guede was always packing his own. No need to completely invent a story of transporting a cooking knife just in case one was attacked by a salad on the street! Massei "probably" number 25.
Apologies for quoting myself - this may very well have been something that long time posters consider obvious. But after only 3 months on this, the point above about this case not needing Knox or Sollecito after Guede is discovered now for me is the Rosetta Stone for understanding what went wrong for four years.

Once the obviousness of Guede's involvement is apparent - there's no need to hypothesize about:

- a faked break in. Guede was eminently able to do it as shown
- a crime-scene clean which removes the forensic trace of Knox and Sollecito. The reason there is no forensic trace, other than the one created when Dr. Stefanoni made a large sweep of a swap on the bidet(!) is that they weren't there
- what the timing of the telephone calls mean
- what the hip swivels, cartwheels, crying uncontrolably, eating pizza or kissing outside the crimescene mean.
- what "see you later" means in America as opposed to Italy
- the number of sexual partners a young woman has had in her life - that's no one's business to begin with

Note that by keeping Knox and Sollecito in the loop, all that happens is the explanations get weirder and weirder, and the allegations of what's criminally interesting get wilder and wilder. Everything diverges until four years later there's a huge blogosphere war amongst a few rabid posters on each side.

This thing could have stopped in its tracks if the police had said upon the discovery of Guede - "Oooooops."

There would have been no need to construct a Knox-myth, and Nadeau, Vogt and Pisa would not have such a black mark on their journalistic careers as over-the-top smear-artists. No one would ever have heard of Peggy Ganong, unless you were interested in learning French in Seattle, or Peter Quennell, unless you were a pretty woman looking to start a website.

This is simple. Occam's Razor is there for a reason. All because they didn't realize that once they didn't need a key to the front door, they didn't need Knox in their sights.
 
Somealibi posted some info on Sollecito's knives at PMF but the most useful pictures no longer load:
http://perugiamurderfile.org/viewtopic.php?p=84567

^A quick summary is that Sollecito owned one military replica combat knife that was mounted on his bedroom wall and two ~3 inch blade folding knives. One of the folding knives he usually carried and had on him when the police arrested him. As your questions suggest Sollecito owning a few knives that would have made very appropriate self-defense or murder weapons just made Massei's kitchen knife in the handbag for protection rationalization even more preposterous.

Someone posted an article on TJMK about this alleged combat knife. It would be interesting to know where they got this information. I have tried without success to find out if this knife really exists. If it does exist, it apparently was not tested or recorded on the list of forensic evidence. The police did test two folding pocket knives from Raffaele's apartment (Rep. 33 and Rep. 35) in addition to the famous kitchen knife (Rep. 36).
 
"This is overthinking this. That's not what burglars do. They don't think, they 'do'." He said that by the time you'd take in loading the powerpoint, someone like Guede - prior history is the key here - would be in and out of Filomena's window.
.
Yeah. I could do a whole powerpoint presentation that would explain how it is impossible to drywall, tape, mud and sand the walls of a room. But for some weird reason there are people that can do it effortlessly.:boggled:
 
Someone posted an article on TJMK about this alleged combat knife. It would be interesting to know where they got this information. I have tried without success to find out if this knife really exists. If it does exist, it apparently was not tested or recorded on the list of forensic evidence. The police did test two folding pocket knives from Raffaele's apartment (Rep. 33 and Rep. 35) in addition to the famous kitchen knife (Rep. 36).

One folding knife was in Raffaele's pocket the night he was arrested (Massei [99]). Is there any reference to which Rep was assigned to that knife? Massei also only mentions "Two knives seized" and "two knives tested".
 
Question: I've been reading elsewhere that the driver of the old dark colored car in the driveway is a Carmela Occhipinti. I had never seen that car's owner identified and have seen it debated on every forum. Is it in fact the case that the owner has been known the whole time?

Hi Grinder. I would also like to get more information on the driveway car. According to rrob in this forum post Bob Graham reported that it was Kokomani 's car:

http://crimeshots.com/forums/showthread.php?t=11942&page=4

"In the weeks that followed the murder, Kokomani fled to Albania claiming that while he was in Italy his life was in danger.
Last week he confirmed in a phone interview he had parked his black Golf in front of the house Meredith and Amanda shared — which had been empty."
 
Yes, I (and others) have suggested many times previously that it's highly possible that Filomena left her room in more of a dishevelled state that she subsequently testified to, and that she very possibly barely pulled the exterior shutters closed at all. I think this may be the case partly because Filomena may have been embarrassed about the state of her room (but this is probably of minor significance). The more significant potential factor at play here is whether Filomena was consciously or subconsciously led towards a bias against Knox. This is a fairly well-known (and demonstrable) phenomenon, whereby people "re-remember" factual evidence when a) they become convinced of the guilt (or innocence) of an individual, and where an altered version of events corresponds more closely with this belief.

In this case, I think it's highly possible that Filomena - who seemingly (let's not forget) was not suspicious of Knox at all in the direct aftermath of the murder - came to believe strongly that Knox was indeed directly involved in the murder. This belief most likely came about through a combination of police interviews, slanted media reports, and the very fact that Knox/Sollecito were arrested and subsequently charged.

I think that Filomena's belief in Knox's (and Sollecito's) guilt may have subconsciously induced her to alter reality in relation to the evidence in her room. I think she may have convinced herself that her room was tidy when she left it on the day of the murder, and also that she pulled the exterior shutters in tight before leaving. By doing so, this gave the observed post-murder evidence in her room a far stronger tie to Knox's guilt - a position which Filomena would have been consciously and unconsciously willing to support by early 2008 onwards.

Note, however, that I am in no way accusing Filomena of actively distorting her testimony or actively lying in order to "frame" Knox. What I'm suggesting is far more subtle and pernicious, and is very often something the subject him/herself isn't even aware is happening. It's a form of confirmation bias, manifesting itself in a "re-remembering" of events or other facts to fit with a prior belief.
Candace Dempsey records in her book (p.41) that Filomena had complained to the landlord only a week before the crime about the front door and about the fact that her shutters were so faulty that they blew open in the wind. My pet theory is that Rudy, with the eye of a burglar, saw the shutters open, perhaps on his earlier visit (is he not picked up on CCTV twice that evening?) and decided to return at a time when he could be more sure no one would be home (9.00 p.m. would be a good time - if the lights are all out then people are out socialising). He would not have expected to access the building via locked shutters with only a knife or a stick and this theory explains the choice of window. Filomena's complaint (assuming Dempsey has this right) also undermines any suggestion she was making that the shutters could not have been open because she had made a point of closing them.
 
Someone posted an article on TJMK about this alleged combat knife. It would be interesting to know where they got this information. I have tried without success to find out if this knife really exists. If it does exist, it apparently was not tested or recorded on the list of forensic evidence. The police did test two folding pocket knives from Raffaele's apartment (Rep. 33 and Rep. 35) in addition to the famous kitchen knife (Rep. 36).
_________________

Charlie,

Well, I exists. Here's a photo of the item as it was presented in court, HERE.

SomeAlibi called it a "replica combat knife." It probably wasn't tested because it wasn't a knife, instead, a "replica" to be displayed on a wall. It doesn't appear to be made of steel. Maybe cast iron, or perhaps it's made of plastic. (Too large to have come as a free gift in a box of breakfast cereal.)

///
 
And there I was, believing (and mentioning in conversation) that Rafaelle "collected knives", and assuming he had a significant number of the things. A folding pocket knife, a spare, and a non-knife decoration that might even be plastic, wasn't what I was imagining.

(A carry a small Swiss Army Knife in my own pocket, because it's so useful for everything from a quick manicure to opening a parcel to pruning a house plant, all without having to go find a tool. Aircraft hijackings to order.... :rolleyes: )

Rolfe.
 
_________________

Charlie,

Well, I exists. Here's a photo of the item as it was presented in court, HERE.

SomeAlibi called it a "replica combat knife." It probably wasn't tested because it wasn't a knife, instead, a "replica" to be displayed on a wall. It doesn't appear to be made of steel. Maybe cast iron, or perhaps it's made of plastic. (Too large to have come as a free gift in a box of breakfast cereal.)

///


Well, I happen to think it's entirely possible that Sollecito did indeed own a collection of real, functional hunting/combat knives. It appears that this was not a particularly unusual hobby in his neck of the woods, and it also appears that his father had engaged in the same hobby. So I wouldn't be at all surprised if the knife in question here was a proper, very sharp combat knife.

However, of course this issue is only of any relevance whatsoever to Sollecito's guilt if one (or more) of three things could be proven: a) if Sollecito habitually used these knives in violence (or threats of violence) against people (or even if he used them to wound or slaughter animals); b) if one of these knives were to be confirmed as the murder weapon; or c) if one of the knives could be proven to have been in Sollecito's possession shortly prior to the date of the murder, but was missing thereafter. None of these things could ever be even suggested, let alone proven. And when you couple that with the seeming fact that knife collecting of this type was far from unusual, and that Sollecito was also mirroring his father's hobby, it becomes totally irrelevant from an evidential standpoint.

By the way, a short note of clarification on Halloween. It's of course massively germane to the credibility/reliability of Curatolo's testimony that he could not even get the date of Halloween right, given that he conclusively linked his sighting of Knox/Sollecito to events which demonstrably occurred on Halloween night - i.e. the night before the actual murder.

For clarity, Halloween always falls on October 31st, everywhere in the World. It has nothing whatsoever to do with All Souls Day (sometimes known as the "Day of the Dead"), which falls on 2nd November: it's not only ignorant to think that Halloween and the Day of the Dead might be in any way synonymous, but it's an embarrassing failure to note the etymology of the very word "Halloween" itself. "Halloween" of course means "the evening before All Hallows Day". All Hallows Day (otherwise know as All Saints Day) always falls on November 1st. Therefore Halloween, by definition, always falls on the evening of October 31st. Always.
 
Rudy could have staged the break-in to cover because he had a date with Meredith and feared she had told people. Or he thought he had a date with her. Or knowing that he had to have left evidence behind (not possessing the Hoover Select-O-Matic DNA Vacuum) needed a cover story for who killed her, the burglar. He would use a technique for breaking-in that he knew, not thinking it would be used to connect him since he had no record.

Personally I think he had thrown the stone and was watching to see if anybody came when Meredith returned and talked his way in and it ended up as it did.

The kids would not have picked the hardest to enter window even if they did want to stage.

To be fair Rudy didn't carry a knife all the time as the knife in Milan was stolen from the kitchen of the day care place.
Yes, I have always thought it quite possible that Rudy would stage the break-in, using his own MO to do so. I also often had the sense, from reading his own words in the past, that he may well have thought he had a date with MK - may have misinterpreted her natural friendliness, and may have been hanging about the area, waiting for her return. She might even have let him in, being young and friendly and knowing Guede knew her new boyfriend Giocomo.
 
And there I was, believing (and mentioning in conversation) that Rafaelle "collected knives", and assuming he had a significant number of the things. A folding pocket knife, a spare, and a non-knife decoration that might even be plastic, wasn't what I was imagining.

(A carry a small Swiss Army Knife in my own pocket, because it's so useful for everything from a quick manicure to opening a parcel to pruning a house plant, all without having to go find a tool. Aircraft hijackings to order.... :rolleyes: )

Rolfe.
Right: The knife collection was greatly exaggerated. (BTW, Rolfe, there is now a websleuth thread on Hellmann's MOT report, in case you are interested (which you are probably not:p )
http://websleuths.com/forums/showthread.php?t=159603
 
_________________

Charlie,

Well, I exists. Here's a photo of the item as it was presented in court, HERE.

SomeAlibi called it a "replica combat knife." It probably wasn't tested because it wasn't a knife, instead, a "replica" to be displayed on a wall. It doesn't appear to be made of steel. Maybe cast iron, or perhaps it's made of plastic. (Too large to have come as a free gift in a box of breakfast cereal.)

///


If that knife was presented in court then it must have been assigned a Ref number. It needs to have an evidence number assigned from the moment it was seized otherwise there will be no way to track the chain of custody. The only way that knife could be presented in court without an evidence number is if the prosecutor brought it in from his own collection as a prop.

PS: Some combat knives of that variety are made of carbon fiber which would have a similar appearance.
 
And there I was, believing (and mentioning in conversation) that Rafaelle "collected knives", and assuming he had a significant number of the things. A folding pocket knife, a spare, and a non-knife decoration that might even be plastic, wasn't what I was imagining.

(A carry a small Swiss Army Knife in my own pocket, because it's so useful for everything from a quick manicure to opening a parcel to pruning a house plant, all without having to go find a tool. Aircraft hijackings to order.... :rolleyes: )

Rolfe.

And that's exactly what happens when a person reads at PMF. And that's exactly the reason why they do not want any dissenters there.
 
Well, I happen to think it's entirely possible that Sollecito did indeed own a collection of real, functional hunting/combat knives. It appears that this was not a particularly unusual hobby in his neck of the woods, and it also appears that his father had engaged in the same hobby. So I wouldn't be at all surprised if the knife in question here was a proper, very sharp combat knife.

____________________

John,

Raffaele's father doesn't collect knives. He collects firearms. I wouldn't be surprised to learn that the "combat knife" in question is a letter opener. See: HERE.

///
 
Bill Williams said:
"This is overthinking this. That's not what burglars do. They don't think, they 'do'." He said that by the time you'd take in loading the powerpoint, someone like Guede - prior history is the key here - would be in and out of Filomena's window.
Yeah. I could do a whole powerpoint presentation that would explain how it is impossible to drywall, tape, mud and sand the walls of a room. But for some weird reason there are people that can do it effortlessly.:boggled:
Not to say that I'm seriously obsessed......
this morning a fellow came by our house to check on our new roof, and some problems we may have been having - which we weren't.

How do we know? He said he'd have to get up on the roof to inspect, I said, "I'll go get a ladder." He paid no attention to my offer and simply went up the side of our wall - about 4 meters, using footholds and fingerholds that were definitely NOT obvious to me.

In the time it would have taken me to go get the ladder, he was up, inspected a high part of the roof, and was back down the same way he'd come.

I didn't dare tell him why I asked, lest he think me a nutter. I asked why he didn't wait for a ladder, or why he hadn't gone up "over there", "over there" being the place I would have gone up because it looked easier.

He didn't answer, probably though, "whatever." He just launched into what the problem could have been, given that there's nothing wrong visually with our roof.

This is what Kermit doesn't "get" with his powerpoint on the TJMK page. This is what Massei doesn't "get" when Massei admits that the climb was easy, but it was the shutters which were the barrier - and Guede would have never gone up twice or even three times for differing tasks, "because it was too much effort."

To this guy at my house, the "effort" for him to go up and down was not worth a ladder, and it was the equivalent to the effort I'd expend in walking down the sidewalk.

Oh yeah, when the guy was gone I inspected our wall for marks. It's a wet day and he walked through a soggy garden to get to the wall. Did I mention, "not a mark"? I purposely waited until he was gone before doing that lest he quip, "Say, aren't you that nutter who posts to JREF about the climb that murderer made into that Italian cottage? What's the big deal?"
 
Well, I happen to think it's entirely possible that Sollecito did indeed own a collection of real, functional hunting/combat knives. It appears that this was not a particularly unusual hobby in his neck of the woods, and it also appears that his father had engaged in the same hobby. So I wouldn't be at all surprised if the knife in question here was a proper, very sharp combat knife.

However, of course this issue is only of any relevance whatsoever to Sollecito's guilt if one (or more) of three things could be proven: a) if Sollecito habitually used these knives in violence (or threats of violence) against people (or even if he used them to wound or slaughter animals); b) if one of these knives were to be confirmed as the murder weapon; or c) if one of the knives could be proven to have been in Sollecito's possession shortly prior to the date of the murder, but was missing thereafter. None of these things could ever be even suggested, let alone proven. And when you couple that with the seeming fact that knife collecting of this type was far from unusual, and that Sollecito was also mirroring his father's hobby, it becomes totally irrelevant from an evidential standpoint.

By the way, a short note of clarification on Halloween. It's of course massively germane to the credibility/reliability of Curatolo's testimony that he could not even get the date of Halloween right, given that he conclusively linked his sighting of Knox/Sollecito to events which demonstrably occurred on Halloween night - i.e. the night before the actual murder.

For clarity, Halloween always falls on October 31st, everywhere in the World. It has nothing whatsoever to do with All Souls Day (sometimes known as the "Day of the Dead"), which falls on 2nd November: it's not only ignorant to think that Halloween and the Day of the Dead might be in any way synonymous, but it's an embarrassing failure to note the etymology of the very word "Halloween" itself. "Halloween" of course means "the evening before All Hallows Day". All Hallows Day (otherwise know as All Saints Day) always falls on November 1st. Therefore Halloween, by definition, always falls on the evening of October 31st. Always.
Yes, we had always been taught in school that 'Halloween' meant literally ' All Hallows Eve' and thus was the last night in October, before All Hallows Day.
 
And there I was, believing (and mentioning in conversation) that Rafaelle "collected knives", and assuming he had a significant number of the things. A folding pocket knife, a spare, and a non-knife decoration that might even be plastic, wasn't what I was imagining.

(A carry a small Swiss Army Knife in my own pocket, because it's so useful for everything from a quick manicure to opening a parcel to pruning a house plant, all without having to go find a tool. Aircraft hijackings to order.... :rolleyes: )

Rolfe.

The pro-guilt community are quite good at spinning factoids that way.

The more sophisticated guilters aren't technically lying when they say things like "Raffaele collected knives and violent pornography including bestiality" or "Amanda had a history of trouble with the police", they are just making the most misleading statements possible given the facts.

Then when more sensible people point out the deception they can say "You FOAKers are always trying to spin every little thing to make the little angels look innocent, well it won't work!". :rolleyes:
 
Yes the game for the PGP is misdirection and then a little more misdirection.

They have always been freaked out by the TOD being too early. As it has been clear from well before Massei that the BIG question is how did Rudy get together with the kids and foment the murder. It's a big question with any TOD, but with one that has her attacked by 9:30, it becomes huge. The time of attack being 9:30 means that the computer activity must be challenged for even 9:10. It takes away any casual meetup and murder scenario, but there is no evidence that they ever communicated. How, how could they be home alone at 9:26 or even at 9:10 or really at 8:45 and have time to organize the kill, find Rudy, get to the cottage (unnoticed even by a standby witness) and murder Meredith.

The masters of misdirection want to talk about micro details of when phone calls were made to the police or exactly how much strength it would take to throw a rock or whether a water color abstract of a foot looks more like one reference print or another.

Whether or not the burglary was staged doesn't really prove anything. What exactly Raffaele told the police doesn't prove anything. What level of relative Annie is to him means nothing but that's what they've got.
 
A small note on the Missouri State Highway patrol Forensic Science Laboratory:

As many will know, the above body was quoted as a reference source in Conti/Vecchiotti's report for Hellmann's court. Predictably, this institution was seized upon by those with a certain agenda as an archetypical example of a tiny, "Hicksville USA" forensics unit which has no place being any sort of quotable authority in the field of forensic science. Some have even gone so far as to suggest that the Missouri State Highway Patrol doesn't even have a forensic science lab unit.

Well, predictably, the truth is rather different. In fact, the Missouri State Highway Patrol not only has a large and nationally-significant forensic science lab, but it also provides forensic science lab services to all state law enforcement institutions, and maintains close ties with the FBI labs:

http://www.mshp.dps.missouri.gov/MSHPWeb/PatrolDivisions/index2.html

By happenstance, the MSHP was one of the very first law enforcement bodies in the USA to set up a forensic science lab service, in 1936:

http://www.mshp.dps.missouri.gov/MSHPWeb/DevelopersPages/CLD/laboratoriesIndex.html

Since them, the MSHP has grown and maintained a (somewhat incongruous, admittedly) depth and breadth of expertise in forensic laboratory analysis that is nationally recognised. The unit handled over 19,000 pieces of evidence analysis in 2005, and had 83 employees, most of whom are civilian scientists, spread between an HQ laboratory and four satellite labs.

http://www.scribd.com/doc/43303422/HistoryofCLD
 
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