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

[codyjuneau]

Here's a snapshot for subscribers of the four major carriers' policies, each with differing lengths of time for how long they keep data:

Verizon: Keeps records of calls and cell towers used for a year; text message details are retained for up to one year, actual text message content between 3 to 5 days; Internet session information for up to a year, and Web sites visited for up to 90 days.
AT&T: Stores call records for between 5 to 7 years; cell tower records since July 2008; text message details for between 5 to 7 years; text message content is not retained; Internet session information and destinations for up to 72 hours.
Sprint: Hangs onto call records and cell tower records for between 18 and 24 months. Internet session and destination info for up to 60 days; text message details for up to 18 months, depending on the device; text message content not retained; Internet session info and destination info for up to 60 days.
T-Mobile: Retains call record details for 5 years; cell towers used, "officially, 4-6 months, really a year or more;" text message details 5 years; text message content, not kept; Internet session and destination info is not kept.

I sure hope someone checks the record for the bomb threat phone call (and Lana's subsequent phone call to the police), before the records are purged. Time is running out. There is a reason the police lied about it.

 

[anglolawyer]

@ Grinder & Katody - let's recap, shall we?

First, to increase the confusion, I am renumbering my five points (to put them in the correct order):

1 reference to the incoming text is only in the 1.45 confession not the one at 5.45
2 the reference gives the time of Lumumba's text
3 De Felice told the world on 06 Nov they found text messages on her phone from Lumumba fixing a meeting
4 Amanda told her mum on 10 Nov they found Lumumba's message
5 Amanda told the court they found Lumumba's message

Point 1

Grinder, you say she must have discussed the exchange of texts with the cops before the 5th. There are several reasons why this is unlikely to be the case:

a) she herself assigned no importance to them, as witness her email of 04 Nov which devotes only one sentence to what she and Raf. were doing (source: Burleigh)

b) all her accounts of the interrogation are to the same effect: she had to be reminded of the exchange which she had completely erased from her memory, suggesting she had not discussed it before;

c) the exchange of texts was the cops' ace in the hole, or up their sleeve or whatever which they made a pretence of 'finding' on the night - clearly they cannot have 'found' anything she had already told them about;

d) betting palace wager: I bet the cops deliberately avoided the subject of the texts they assuredly knew about for these reasons:
(i) they had to continue to preserve her status as a witness as long as possible and questions about her own movements on the night would have been difficult to square with the objective, and
(ii) I surmise they were waiting for her to mention the texts and becoming increasingly suspicious about the fact she never did, mistaking her forgetfulness of something that meant nothing to her for concealment

e) you ask what they spent 40 hours talking about - I can think of tons of stuff: the people she knew, the people Meredith knew, the events of the morning of the 1st (probably went over that a hundred times) etc

Point 2

This is very boring but I have forgotten my source for the timings of the two texts and the meeting. I will dig that up. I am sure I didn't pull that out of my ... hat. If it turns out Patrick's message was sent at 20.30 I shall be returning to the offensive.

Point 3

The Telegraph report is not from an unnamed source gossiping in a bar, but a report of a press conference at which the journalists have notebooks in which they write things down, and/or tape recorders. The Telegraph is a reputable organ, regarded as part of 'the quality press' in the UK. Grinder certainly can't have it both ways since he assigns so much importance to other stuff De Felice said on this occasion (Grinder is right to do so IMO). I maintain this is a reliable story for these reasons.

Point 4

It's either a translation error or Amanda telling her mother only 4 days after the event how it went down. I fail to see how Grinder interprets this:

‘can you show me the message that I received from Patrick?![‘] Because I don’t remember having replied to him, and so they showed me the message

as meaning they showed her her own message. And furthermore, see point 1b) above.

Point 5

Can we scroll back a little? Amanda's testimony was offered as the most serious objection to The Theory. She is supposed to have said she deleted the text. It turns out to be much less clear than that. She seems to have said both things, that she deleted it and that the cops found it. Her evidence is confused and this is all it really has to be in order no longer to be the knock-out punch it was before. We can be sure that she had no actual recollection of deleting that message. Her evidence that she did is just an inference she has drawn from the fact the message is no longer there. That this inference is in conflict with her recollection of what happened was just something she had not realised.

This would settle the point against me - if anyone asked her at trial to reconcile her evidence about deleting messages with her account in which she says the cops found Lumumba's text (corroborated by De Felice) but, another visit to the palace, I bet no one did. It's a clue that no one has spotted lying buried amid a mass of stuff .

 

[anglolawyer]

Darn - it was 20:18

20:18:12: Amanda receives the SMS sent to her by Patrick Lumumba, which let her off from having to go to work at the ‚Le Chic‛ pub on the evening of 1 November. At the time of reception the phone connected to the cell on Via dell’Aquila 5-Torre dell’Acquedotto sector 3, whose signal does not reach Raffaele Sollecito’s house. The young woman was therefore far [i.e. absent] from Corso Garibaldi 30 when the SMS reached her, as she was walking in an area which was shown to be served by the Via dell’Aquila 5-Torre dell’Acquedotto sector 3 cell. This point of her route could correspond to Via U. Rocchi, to Piazza Cavallotti, to Piazza IV Novembre, bearing in mind that Lumumba’s pub is located in Via Alessi, and that Amanda Knox would have had to travel along the above-mentioned roads and the piazza in order to reach the pub
− 20.35.48 Amanda sent an SMS in reply to Patrick, at No. 338-7195723; the message was sent when the young woman’s mobile phone was in Corso Garibaldi 30 or in the immediate neighbourhood. The cell used, in fact, was that of Via Berardi sector 7

OK, what have we here? Can someone explain the highlighted part and the passage that follows it. My understanding is that Amanda was at Raffaele's place when she received the message, not walking on her way to Le Chic. This makes me wonder whether the message was re-routed to her and received after 20:18 but I confess I am mystified. For now, I cannot claim the call was received at 8.30 (curses) but I am not chucking my hand in yet.

As for the 20:38 ping La Republica published this on 11 Nov 2007:

The yellow of the phone. But there is a but. The musician of color is not completely exonerated. A doubt remains. At 20:38 the phone Patrick was hooked on the 'cell' that is located right above Meredith's house. As if to say that the mobile phone of the musician at that time was in the vicinity of the English studentesa killed. From the post-mortem examinations the girl would die "between 21 and 23", as specified in the order confirmation still the investigating judge.

All the above comes courtesy of the indefatigable Hans at IA (thanks Hans) and thanks also Dan O. who likewise supplied the Massei reference.

So, we have pretty much nailed down when she texted him and when his phone was pinged, but there is a bit of a mystery about how and at what time she received his text. If someone could straighten that out I would appreciate it.

 

[Grinder]

On Thursday November 1 I saw Meredith the last time at my house when she left around 3 or 4 in the afternoon. Raffaele was with me at the time. We, Raffaele and I, stayed at my house for a little while longer and around 5 in the evening we left to watch the movie Amelie at his house. After the movie I received a message from Patrik [sic], for whom I work at the pub "Le Chic". He told me in this message that it wasn't necessary for me to come into work for the evening because there was no one at my work. Now I remember to have also replied with the message: "See you later. Have a good evening!" and this for me does not mean that I wanted to meet him immediately. In particular because I said: "Good evening!"

Once again from her 6th note she makes it clear that she had remembered the incoming text, after all it set her free for the night, but she was only "now" able to remember the outgoing text.

We can be sure that she had no actual recollection of deleting that message. Her evidence that she did is just an inference she has drawn from the fact the message is no longer there.

I think she made it clear that she was in the habit of saving only important texts. Ones with phone numbers, addresses or something specific would be my best guess. From her own mouth she made it clear that it would have been odd if she had kept it.

If they wanted to get rid of the text by PL from the record they should have torn up the 1:45 statement. The great Mignini seeing the issue immediately could have had the statement destroyed as illegally acquired or some such excuse.

According to most accounts she demanded to give more clarification at 5:45 and was allowed to talk and Mignini just wrote it down. The details Mignini wanted were that she was at the cottage and with PL.

I ask again what were the parts of A & R's stories that didn't fit that caused the police to keep questioning them until they buckled and told the truth? They were asked about the night and what they did. Included in this would have been not going to work and turning off their phones. She refers to understanding the police's frustration with her inability to remember what had happened that night to precise times.

 

[Grinder]

OK, what have we here? Can someone explain the highlighted part and the passage that follows it. My understanding is that Amanda was at Raffaele's place when she received the message, not walking on her way to Le Chic. This makes me wonder whether the message was re-routed to her and received after 20:18 but I confess I am mystified. For now, I cannot claim the call was received at 8.30 (curses) but I am not chucking my hand in yet.

You won't chuck in your hand until the shark bites it off. The common interpretation has been that she was out in town (PGP have her sleeping with two or three of the coke dealers on her speed dial and meeting Rudi setting up the murder if she didn't need work) and received the SMS but didn't see it until she returned to Raf's flat. She then replied, deleted the incoming message and turned off her phone to prevent PL from changing his mind.

Shortly thereafter Jovana Popovic showed up telling Amanda that Raf was no longer needed for the run to get the baggage.

 

[anglolawyer]

You won't chuck in your hand until the shark bites it off.

That's right, I won't.

The common interpretation has been that she was out in town (PGP have her sleeping with two or three of the coke dealers on her speed dial and meeting Rudi setting up the murder if she didn't need work) and received the SMS but didn't see it until she returned to Raf's flat. She then replied, deleted the incoming message and turned off her phone to prevent PL from changing his mind.

Shortly thereafter Jovana Popovic showed up telling Amanda that Raf was no longer needed for the run to get the baggage.

If she were out and about at 20:18 then fine, but if she were with Raffaele then what time did this message actually reach her? This comes from Hellman:

However, a defense consultant showed that the signal did not reach every point in the house regularly; which could explain, possibly in conjunction with other external factors (for example, the occasional presence of an obstacle), the delay in the reception of the message (not a rare occurrence, as anyone used to exchanging SMS knows well), so that it cannot be considered certain that the phone was turned off.

This is actually talking about a message sent by Raffaele's father at 23:14 and not received until 06:02 but it encourages me to keep my hand attached to my wrist a bit longer until the facts roll in, as they did eventually must. And if they don't then I shall feel sorry for God

 

[Katody Matrass]

OK, what have we here? Can someone explain the highlighted part and the passage that follows it. My understanding is that Amanda was at Raffaele's place when she received the message, not walking on her way to Le Chic.

Massei contradicts himself about the coverage of that cell. Next day few connections were made through the same tower and Massei writes she was at Raffaele's by that time.

The time of 20:18 is the time when her cellphone received the message. It comes from phone billings and is not in question.

 

[Chris_Halkides]

and Mignini was still in pajamas

According to most accounts she demanded to give more clarification at 5:45 and was allowed to talk and Mignini just wrote it down. The details Mignini wanted were that she was at the cottage and with PL.

LOL.

 

[Katody Matrass]

First, to increase the confusion, I am renumbering my five points (to put them in the correct order):

1 reference to the incoming text is only in the 1.45 confession not the one at 5.45

What if the source is Amanda's recollection, not the message itself?

2 the reference gives the time of Lumumba's text

No, it doesn't.

3 De Felice told the world on 06 Nov they found text messages on her phone from Lumumba fixing a meeting

That would mean he lied.

4 Amanda told her mum on 10 Nov they found Lumumba's message

The same source (Galati's appeal) says in following paragraphs that the message was to Lumumba, not from him. Hmmm...

5 Amanda told the court they found Lumumba's message

Amanda in her court testimony:

"I told them that I had received a message from Patrick, and they looked for it in the telephone, but they couldn't find it, but they found the one I sent to him."

Hmmm...

 

[Katody Matrass]

LOL.

+1

 

[anglolawyer]

Massei contradicts himself about the coverage of that cell. Next day few connections were made through the same tower and Massei writes she was at Raffaele's by that time.

The time of 20:18 is the time when her cellphone received the message. It comes from phone billings and is not in question.

Hmm. So the phone company has a way of knowing when a text reaches the recipient's phone and its bills are decisive evidence of this? According to Hellman (I quoted the passage) a defence expert testified that a text could be delayed due to such things as where the phones happened to be in the apartment. So, let's say Amanda's phone is in a shadow at 20:18 and she picks it up and takes it somewhere else in the apartment and it now picks up the text at 20:30. Two questions:

1 how does the phone company know this? Does the phone send a signal to the phone company to tell it it has actually received the text? and

2 what details does the phone itself record as the time when the text is received? 20:18 or 20:30?

 

[anglolawyer]

What if the source is Amanda's recollection, not the message itself?

What happened to her recollection between 1.45 and 5.45?

No, it doesn't.

You may be right.

That would mean he lied.

So what?

The same source (Galati's appeal) says in following paragraphs that the message was to Lumumba, not from him. Hmmm...

I already flagged this up. There seems to be a blind spot among all involved (including you) that Lumumba's text was not on the phone when the interrogations started despite De Felice (!) and Amanda, twice, saying it was.

Amanda in her court testimony:

"I told them that I had received a message from Patrick, and they looked for it in the telephone, but they couldn't find it, but they found the one I sent to him."

Hmmm...

Not hmmm ... her testimony is contradictory. She says both things. It is not unequivocal. Let's allow her first account to resolve it, the one she gave on 10 Nov 2007 when she had no reason to lie, no idea that anything turned on what she said, did not know she was being recorded and when her memory of the interrogation was fresh. You can read it in Galati.

 

[Katody Matrass]

Hmm. So the phone company has a way of knowing when a text reaches the recipient's phone and its bills are decisive evidence of this?

Yes. Message to Raffaele was delayed yet they knew the time he received it.

1 how does the phone company know this? Does the phone send a signal to the phone company to tell it it has actually received the text? and

Yes, it's a two way communication. It's recorded, to the point of knowing which tower and cell participated in the connection, as you can read e.g. in Massei.

2 what details does the phone itself record as the time when the text is received? 20:18 or 20:30?

You can make an easy experiment to find it out - switch your phone off and ask someone to text you.
It's irrelevant to our discussion because both the time of the connection and the tower that made the connection with Amanda's phone was recorded. You quoted that data earlier. Lumumba could have sent the text only earlier than she received it, i.e. before 20:18.

 

[Grinder]

LOL.

Do you dispute that most accounts have her requesting to speak with Mignini? Is demanding too strong a word?

 

[anglolawyer]

On Thursday November 1 I saw Meredith the last time at my house when she left around 3 or 4 in the afternoon. Raffaele was with me at the time. We, Raffaele and I, stayed at my house for a little while longer and around 5 in the evening we left to watch the movie Amelie at his house. After the movie I received a message from Patrik [sic], for whom I work at the pub "Le Chic". He told me in this message that it wasn't necessary for me to come into work for the evening because there was no one at my work. Now I remember to have also replied with the message: "See you later. Have a good evening!" and this for me does not mean that I wanted to meet him immediately. In particular because I said: "Good evening!"

Once again from her 6th note she makes it clear that she had remembered the incoming text, after all it set her free for the night, but she was only "now" able to remember the outgoing text.

You are overdoing the construction of the word 'now' as if she wrote 'only now'. And you forget she is writing this just after an all night interrogation which focused very closely on her use of her phone.

I think she made it clear that she was in the habit of saving only important texts. Ones with phone numbers, addresses or something specific would be my best guess. From her own mouth she made it clear that it would have been odd if she had kept it.

From her own mouth, she says the cops found the text on her phone. From his mouth De Felice says the same. LJ makes the good point elsewhere that, using an old-style dumb phone (as I still do) if you want to reply, you don't delete. You select the reply option, send the reply and the phone does not then re-route you back to ask whether you want to delete the incomer. The possibility that she did not delete his message is quite consistent with the general tenor of her evidence in which she does not say she ruthlessly deletes all messages.

If they wanted to get rid of the text by PL from the record they should have torn up the 1:45 statement. The great Mignini seeing the issue immediately could have had the statement destroyed as illegally acquired or some such excuse.

I believe the intention was not to use the 1.45 statement and, if this is right, the omission of all reference to Lumumba's message (and it's highly inconvenient content) would be one motivation. The other would be to include Raffaele.

We can look at this another way. Say she did delete it. Now the cops have no clue what Lumumba wrote. They have only her word. Why would they believe her story that his message only said 'don't come to work'? Since she was putty in their hands (look what else they got her to say) how come the 1.45 statement does not record the cops' preferred version of Lumumba's message rather than her claimed one? According to you Amanda must have actually said this:

'he said "don't come to work", I took that to mean 'meet me in the Piazza at once and don't tell Raffaele' and I went straight out, even though his message did not say when we were meeting or where.'

Make sense to you?

According to most accounts she demanded to give more clarification at 5:45 and was allowed to talk and Mignini just wrote it down. The details Mignini wanted were that she was at the cottage and with PL.

Poppycock.

I ask again what were the parts of A & R's stories that didn't fit that caused the police to keep questioning them until they buckled and told the truth? They were asked about the night and what they did. Included in this would have been not going to work and turning off their phones. She refers to understanding the police's frustration with her inability to remember what had happened that night to precise times.

I completely fail to understand this question. The part they didn't like was the part where they each said they stayed at home and did not murder Meredith.

 

[anglolawyer]

Yes. Message to Raffaele was delayed yet they knew the time he received it.

Maybe they knew from his phone.

Yes, it's a two way communication. It's recorded, to the point of knowing which tower and cell participated in the connection, as you can read e.g. in Massei.

Can you tell me where?

You can make an easy experiment to find it out - switch your phone off and ask someone to text you.
It's irrelevant to our discussion because both the time of the connection and the tower that made the connection with Amanda's phone was recorded. You quoted that data earlier. Lumumba could have sent the text only earlier than she received it, i.e. before 20:18.

Don't get this last bit. I am not interested in when he sent it, as that has nothing to do with why 8.30 appears in her statement as the time she received it.

 

[Katody Matrass]

What happened to her recollection between 1.45 and 5.45?

Nothing, in her handwritten memorandum she still remembers it, the same in her court testimony.

So what?

You want him to be truthful.

I already flagged this up. There seems to be a blind spot among all involved (including you) that Lumumba's text was not on the phone when the interrogations started despite De Felice (!) and Amanda, twice, saying it was.

I have little confidence in De Felice. I believe Amanda however, and she was insistent and unequivocal that they didn't find the message she told them about. You want to dismiss it by saying "she oscillates between contradictory statements". But this doesn't really explain anything. It simply makes no logical sense.

 

[Katody Matrass]

Don't get this last bit. I am not interested in when he sent it, as that has nothing to do with why 8.30 appears in her statement as the time she received it.

Because it's close enough. It's probable they already had the cellphone logs by the time of the interrogation. If not, they certainly had the outgoing text to time the exchange approximately.

 

[anglolawyer]

Nothing, in her handwritten memorandum she still remembers it, the same in her court testimony.

What do you mean? The 5.45 'confession' tells a completely different story altogether. Aren't you aware of this?

I wish to relate spontaneously what happened because these events have deeply bothered me and I am really afraid of Patrick, the African boy who owns the pub called “Le Chic” located in Via Alessi where I work periodically. I met him in the evening of November 1st 2007, after sending him a reply message saying “I will see you”.

Was she afraid of Patrick? No. Did she meet him? No. Did she mean her message to be understood as meaning 'let's meet right now'? No. You have lost track of the conversation. The question was: what happened to her recollection of Patrick's message between 1.45 and 5.45? Your answer - 'nothing' - makes no sense. His message has entirely disappeared from the 5.45 document.

You want him to be truthful.

No I don't. I want him to be unintentionally revealing, which is what he was both with respect to this and the other remark - she told us what we already knew (or perhaps you think it was good idea for him to say this?)

I have little confidence in De Felice. I believe Amanda however, and she was insistent and unequivocal that they didn't find the message she told them about.

I don't know why you are parroting this nonsense. Read Galati, listen to her testimony again. And no one is asking you to have confidence in the cops, certainly not me.

You want to dismiss it by saying "she oscillates between contradictory statements". But this doesn't really explain anything. It simply makes no logical sense.

You are over fond of the word 'logical' where it has no place. What I said is correct and borne out by the facts. We are discussing the imperfect recollections of someone we happen to have very good reason to know to be suggestible. She said one thing at one time and another at another. She never says anywhere that she specifically deleted that message. Her belief that she did is only inferential. OTOH she says, at least twice, that Lumumba's message was found by the cops.

 

[anglolawyer]

Because it's close enough. It's probable they already had the cellphone logs by the time of the interrogation. If not, they certainly had the outgoing text to time the exchange approximately.

No, now you're going wrong I think. Yes, they assuredly had the logs. The whole point of the evening's exercise was to flush out the story of the exchange of texts and the meeting they 'already knew' about. If I am wrong about both 20:18 and Lumumba's message being on the phone then they could have got 'around 8.30' by working back from the 20:35 reference point afforded by her phone. We know they used her phone as a source of information in her statement because the 1.45 version contains this:

I know that he lives in the area near the roundabout of Porta Pesa. Tel. 393387195723

So they might have asked her how long before she replied did she get his message and, assuming she said 'I dunno, maybe five minutes' then they would write down 8.30, which is against me but WTF, it just means they made one mistake fewer than I think they made, not that they didn't make any at all.