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

[Grinder]

I agree, but I would add that this is direct evidence of who Mignini is, unfiltered by any web site or anything else.

I sense a little, I told you so, in that. I have a very low opinion of Mignini and the power given to his position to stifle the defense. I am not as upset with these charges as those made during the trial against defenders of the kids.

And although I think very little of him doesn't mean that every accusation against him is true.

I don't believe the "framing" started quite as early as others. I do believe that he used every tool he could once it got going.

Welcome back

 

[Malkmus]

Effectively she was under arrest from some point during the first interrogation. It is perfectly clear that the police don't need a certain kind of confession to arrest someone in Italy or anywhere. In Italy they arrest someone and then take them in front of a judge who doesn't have to decide then and there to charge them but can just hold them. They weren't charged with the murder until months later.

They had declared her a suspect before the 5:45 interrogation or spontaneous session. I'm sure suspects for murder can be arrested.

Fair enough.

Going back to what I said earlier, and having re-read the CNN interview. Mignini does state that Amanda wished to give another statement. A far cry from Michael's story of her waking him from his slumber so she could talk more. But I do believe this second statement was in Mignini's best interest, not hers, and his explanation of it is telling, as it describes how he was walking a tightrope basically when she gave it.

"this police interrogation had been suspended. At that point I remember that… they made me notice that Amanda, because she wanted to go on talking, I remember she had, like a need to. So I told her: “you can make statements to me; I will not ask questions, since if you make a spontaneous statement and I collect it, I will collect your statement as if I were in fact a notary”. She then repeated [her story] to the interpreter, who was Mrs. Donnino, I remember there was a police woman officer who wrote the statement down [verbalizzava], I did not ask questions. She basically repeated what she had told the police and she signed the statement. Basically I didn’t ask Amanda questions. Not before, since the police asked them and I was not there, and not after, since she made spontaneous statements. Had I been asking her questions, a defense attorney should have been there."

If you believe she volunteered the second statement then you have to reconcile that with the oddities we've been over in the past, such as:

1. Why would she re-state what she already said (instead of just trying to leave)?
2. Why the police lingo if she said it?
3. Why would she misinterpret her own text message?

I'm not meaning to rehash this stuff, but it goes against the notion that she asked to give another statement. And given Mignini's odd explanation, it follows that it was more important to the police than it was to Amanda.

 

[RandyN]

I agree, but I would add that this is direct evidence of who Mignini is, unfiltered by any web site or anything else.

We were going to keep a list at one time of all the sub-cases Mignini filed during this case. I recall him filing charges against newspapers, lawyers, defendants, parents of defendants, reporters, editors, bloggers...and he even wanted to nail Michele Moore...I recall a dozen or more and I recall him even stating at times it was his duty to file these cases...but then he seems to demure like for example when Lumumba slanders police in the DM...no charges. Someone leaks a chemical enhanced pink bathroom pic that makes it look like a butcher shop but no investigation...no charges. Odd that. And Mignini never bothered to investigate the police to see if anyone swatted Knox in the head during her interrogation...he simply filed charges against Knox...no investigation. Even when pressed his office refused to investigate...so no charges against brutal police tactics...

Huh...Mignini is revealing not just for the charges he files but it is also revealing to study the issues he ignores.

And Italy continues to allow this idiot to remain in power...dragging them all further down into the rabbit hole. Just when you think you have seen all the dumb things possible that clearly point back to just one man...Mignini acts again.

How do Italians not notice? It would be comical if it were not so wrong. Mignini can use the full resources of Italy apparently to chase any butterfly his warped mind wishes to chase...and then he brings you in and strips all the money from your pocket because you told the truth. Is it any wonder why no one brings this man into court to answer for his crimes? Who can afford that? And in Perugia it seems quite easy to lie and get 9 judges to swear to it.

What a bunch of clowns. Insults to human progress and rule of law. No wonder Italy ranks so low with the European Court of Human Rights...no free press, no free speech, no problem...look the other way...or else!

 

[anglolawyer]

I'm dumb, please tell me what is your answer to that question and how does it indicate they knew about Lumumba's message contents directly, and not from Amanda's words.

Do the rules here allow me to call you dumb when you say so yourself? Here is kompo's translation:

Perugia Police Department
Mobile Squad

Subject: Transcript of briefing [sommarie informazioni] by person informed of facts given by:
Amanda Marie KNOX, born in Washington [sic] (U.S.A.) on 7-09-87, resident in Perugia at Via della Pergola no.7;
identified via Passport N. 422687114 issued by the U.S. Government on 06-13-2007.

Date: November 6, 2007, at 1:45 am in Perugia, at the Offices of the Mobile Squad of the Perugia Police Department.
Present are the undersigned Officials of the Judicial Police, Inspector Rita FICARRA, and Officers Lorena ZUGARINI and Ivano RAFFO, in service at the office indicated above, and the named subject, who adequately understands and speaks the Italian language, assisted by English-language interpreter Anna Donnino, [and] who, regarding the death of Meredith Susanna Cara KERCHER, and following statements made previously, declares as follows:

"In addition to what has already been reported via the preceding statements rendered here at this Office, I wish to explain that I am aware of other persons whom I frequent and who have frequented (if occasionally) my residence, who have also made the acquaintance of Meredith, and whose cellular phone information [relative utenze cellulari] I [hereby] provide.

"One of these persons is Patrik, a citizen of color about 1.70-1.75 [m] tall, with pigtails, owner of the "Le Chic" pub located on Via Alessi, whom I know to live in the area near the Porta Pesa rotunda. Tel. 393387195723, a location where I am employed two times per week on Monday and Thursday, from 10:00 pm to around 2:00 am.

"Last Thursday, November 1, a day on which I normally work, while I was at the house of my boyfriend Raffaele, at around 8:30 pm, I received a message on my cellular phone from Patrik, who told me that the premises would remain closed that evening, because there were no customers, and thus I would not need to go to work.

"I responded to the message by telling him that we would see each other at once; I then left the house, telling my boyfriend that I had to go to work. In view of the fact that during the afternoon I had smoked a joint, I felt confused, since I do not frequently make use of mind-altering substances, nor of heavier substances.

"I met Patrik immediately afterward, at the basketball court on Piazza Grimana, and together we went [to my] home. I do not recall whether Meredith was there or arrived afterward. I struggle to remember those moments, but Patrik had sex with Meredith, with whom he was infatuated, but I do not recall whether Meredith had been threatened beforehand. I recall confusedly that he killed her."

The Office records that the statement was interrupted and that Amanda KNOX was placed at the disposition of the Judicial Authority for further proceedings.

Black text is neutral or formal, blue is true and red text consists of lies. Slap bang in the middle is a statement that has no place at all in the narrative. If the only source for the statement was Amanda then the cops would have persuaded her to render it the way they had it figured already, just like they did with all the other red text. If you look carefully at the statement, you can see just how much of it refers to information from her cell phone. The entire statement is built on that.

There is a funny thing I now notice for the first time. She says the message says 'the bar would remain closed ... no customers'. On my theory, this is what the message actually said and not 'don't come, no customers' (which was Patrick's recollection and which helped persuade Matteini to lock them up). At the hearing before Matteini Patrick said he opened the bar around 17.00 - 18.00 and had to struggle to explain why the first till receipt was timed at 22.29. Matteini's report says this:

It must be further added that in the moment when this judge put the contestation to the suspect, he remained in silence for a few minutes seeking to justify the "gap" by saying the receipts started not from the moment of order but when the client left the pub.

However, this justification does not hold up in as far as it does not explain how from 1800 to 2229 there were no receipts and these only started from 22.29 to closing time. More discrepancies about the closing time of the pub before its stated closing time came in the statements of one of its habitual clients, Vulcano Gerardo Pasquale, who was heard for the first time on November 7 2007, who said on the evening of the 1 November, towards 1900 that the pub was closed.

Maybe I have been little too hard on Vulcano and it turns out his evidence was true , that the bar was closed when he sent the text and Lumumba was lying to Matteini and only opened up later. After all, it seems a bit unlikely he opened at 5-6 p.m. but didn't rack up a single sale until 10.29. If so, that would be further evidence that the message itself was available at the interrogation. But I digress.

No, I agree it's not impossible they did it. I just don't think that Telegraph quote helps prove it in any way. Ah, and I'm sure if they did delete it, they didn't let Amanda know.

Agreeing it's 'not impossible' is not really agreeing much, but thanks anyway. The Telegraph quote indeed proves the cops saw Lumumba's text directly. It says they saw the text. As for your last sentence, let me put it this way - What on earth are you talking about? Who is saying they told her they were destroying evidence?

What do you mean? The whole checking the phone for messages was about it.

I meant what I asked, which was perfectly clear. If you don't understand it, I can't help you.

She was sure she remembered Lumumba messaging her to not come to work. Had they acknowledged it confirming her recollection as sound, it would be much harder for them to manipulate her and undermine her trust in her own memory.

First, she was not sure. She had forgotten the whole thing. See her testimony. Second, on the manipulation thing, you have made a good point but see how they got round it at 5.45

I met him on the evening of the first of November, after having sent him a message replying to his, with the words 'see you' ['ci vediamo', lit. "we'll see each other"].

See how they finessed their way past her, by now and thanks to reinforcement earlier in the night, clear recollection of his message? But notice too how malleable she still was in agreeing to say her message constituted an agreement to meet up even though she knew, at some level, she had done no such thing.

 

[LondonJohn]

There is a funny thing I now notice for the first time. She says the message says 'the bar would remain closed ... no customers'. On my theory, this is what the message actually said and not 'don't come, no customers' (which was Patrick's recollection and which helped persuade Matteini to lock them up). At the hearing before Matteini Patrick said he opened the bar around 17.00 - 18.00 and had to struggle to explain why the first till receipt was timed at 22.29. Matteini's report says this:

Maybe I have been little too hard on Vulcano and it turns out his evidence was true , that the bar was closed when he sent the text and Lumumba was lying to Matteini and only opened up later. After all, it seems a bit unlikely he opened at 5-6 p.m. but didn't rack up a single sale until 10.29. If so, that would be further evidence that the message itself was available at the interrogation. But I digress.

There's already been discussion of till receipt timings. There appears to be a common sales tax scam in Italy that involves delayed entry of till receipts - I don't recall right now exactly how it works, but I do recall that it's predicated on artificially delaying ringing up sales until later in the night. Maybe someone else remembers the exact mechanism at play here?

 

[acbytesla]

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

Absolutely. The way this works is that when you send a text, it is just like making a phone call. Your phone is in constant contact with the cell towers pinging back and forth as long as your phone is powered up. Your cell phone has an address much in the same way your computer has an IP address. It's called the ESN, or MEI or MEID number.

When someone sends you a text, they are dialing into a network of SMS servers. There the senders address, recipient's address and body of the text are recorded to the carrier's database. And because texts are a very small amount of data, it takes a microsecond to send and receive thousands of texts. Then the SMS server communicates to the cloud to search for the specific ESN associated with the recipient's telephone number and then commands the network to find the ESN. It will keep looking for that ESN until it finds it, then it performs a handshake sends the text, and your phone does an ack or acknowledges that it has received the text. At which point the SMS updates it's database saying message received and it stops looking for the ESN, it has completed it's duty.

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

Pretty sure your phone would record 20:18 or whatever time the sender actually sent the SMS. The time you looked at the message is kind of irrelevant. I think your phone actually lists the time the sender sent the sms. This depends on your model phone's MIB. It might record all of that although I seriously doubt it. Most people want to know when the message was sent to them. As I said, this is all manufacturer and model specific.

So when you send a text to someone, your phone, your time, your ESN, the body of the text, the recipient's phone number, their ESN, the cell phone towers and the time of receiving cell's ack are all recorded to the carrier's database.

 

[CoulsdonUK]

I agree, but I would add that this is direct evidence of who Mignini is, unfiltered by any web site or anything else.

Halides1

As soon as the MOF case against Mignini was nullified it was a no brainer that he would sue Raffaele, still its early days. I believe Raffaele may well face the legal wrath of others, no doubt you will conclude Mignini is pulling the strings in the background.

 

[acbytesla]

Halides1

As soon as the MOF case against Mignini was nullified it was a no brainer that he would sue Raffaele, still its early days. I believe Raffaele may well face the legal wrath of others, no doubt you will conclude Mignini is pulling the strings in the background.

You have to remember Couldson, that this case was filed by Mignini. It will be referred to the PM in Florence, which if history is any measure, will go nowhere as Mignini is not thought of highly in Florence.

 

[anglolawyer]

There's already been discussion of till receipt timings. There appears to be a common sales tax scam in Italy that involves delayed entry of till receipts - I don't recall right now exactly how it works, but I do recall that it's predicated on artificially delaying ringing up sales until later in the night. Maybe someone else remembers the exact mechanism at play here?

Interesting. Didn't know about that. Lumumba told Matteini he had met Usi at the bar around 8 but she was scathing about that, observing that he could give no contact details nor even the guys surname. Funny that, but whenever I have got on first name terms with bar keepers I don't recall having to give my complete family history, finger prints, DNA profile and home address as well Bar owners probably know most of their regulars only by their first names.

Does anyone have particulars of Lumumba's alibi? Did the professor say he was there from 5-6 p.m. until closing?

 

[anglolawyer]

Absolutely. The way this works is that when you send a text, it is just like making a phone call. Your phone is in constant contact with the cell towers pinging back and forth as long as your phone is powered up. Your cell phone has an address much in the same way your computer has an IP address. It's called the ESN, or MEI or MEID number.

When someone sends you a text, they are dialing into a network of SMS servers. There the senders address, recipient's address and body of the text are recorded to the carrier's database. And because texts are a very small amount of data, it takes a microsecond to send and receive thousands of texts. Then the SMS server communicates to the cloud to search for the specific ESN associated with the recipient's telephone number and then commands the network to find the ESN. It will keep looking for that ESN until it finds it, then it performs a handshake sends the text, and your phone does an ack or acknowledges that it has received the text. At which point the SMS updates it's database saying message received and it stops looking for the ESN, it has completed it's duty.


Pretty sure your phone would record 20:18 or whatever time the sender actually sent the SMS. The time you looked at the message is kind of irrelevant. I think your phone actually lists the time the sender sent the sms. This depends on your model phone's MIB. It might record all of that although I seriously doubt it. Most people want to know when the message was sent to them. As I said, this is all manufacturer and model specific.

So when you send a text to someone, your phone, your time, your ESN, the body of the text, the recipient's phone number, their ESN, the cell phone towers and the time of receiving cell's ack are all recorded to the carrier's database.

In that case the shark just bit off my hand. I still say there is something significant about her giving the time as 'around 8.30' but I have to ditch my main point (for now). It makes no difference to the overwhelming case that the cops deleted the text.

 

[acbytesla]

In that case the shark just bit off my hand. I still say there is something significant about her giving the time as 'around 8.30' but I have to ditch my main point (for now). It makes no difference to the overwhelming case that the cops deleted the text.

I''ve been wondering that maybe the police had the information regarding those texts before the interrogation. Not sure what is involve in Italy in receiving that information from the carriers. But weren't they tapping Amanda and Raffaele's phones already?

There is a part of me that thinks that one of the reasons the police were convinced of Amanda's guilt, was because of where the police believed Amanda was at the time she received that text.

I just spent a bit of time on Google Earth getting familiar with the geography of Perugia. I think the police were given some wrong data about how SMS and cell phone communications works and thought Amanda had lied about being Raffaele's because of where they thought Amanda received Patrik's SMS. text.

They didn't need to look at Amanda's phone for the texts, because they already knew what messages she had sent and received.

[QUOTE: Massei] 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 [/QUOTE]

It's amazing just how close all of these places are to each other. Which really makes me wonder how they could be so sure that the cell signal couldn't pass an SMS message to a phone at Raffaele.

It is
.12 miles or .18 Km from Raffaele to Amanda's
.24 mile from Raffaele's to Le Chic. If the cell tower is where I believe it to be, it is a .22 miles from the tower to Raffaele's easily within range of Raffaele's flat.

What I do note is that Massei was wrong when he said that when the SMS reached Amanda's phone that Amanda was walking a route that could correspond to Via U. Rocchi, (.13 miles) to Piazza Cavallotti, (.21 miles) to Piazza IV Novembre (.17 miles) on her way to Le Chic from Raffaele's which is on Via Alessi. What I think is interesting is that while they are closer than Raffaele's flat to the tower, they are in a slightly different direction. But 17 minutes later Amanda is returning the call and a different cell phone tower, the one Massei is associating with Raffaele's flat

So I"m curious about whether cell phone tower antennas are directional or omnidirectional? They could be either but I believe it is more likely that they are omnidirectional.

I can't help but think this might have been a very significant reason why they hauled them in that night. They were absolutely convinced that Amanda was near Le Chic and not at Raffaele's.

And then again, maybe not.

 

[acbytesla]

Oh one more thing anglo. The carrier has multiple databases. The SMS has a database, but that is NOT the billing database. The SMS communicates to the billing database. I seriously doubt that the billing database keeps cell phone tower records, or the body of the text. just receiving or origin phone number.

 

[anglolawyer]

Oh one more thing anglo. The carrier has multiple databases. The SMS has a database, but that is NOT the billing database. The SMS communicates to the billing database. I seriously doubt that the billing database keeps cell phone tower records, or the body of the text. just receiving or origin phone number.

Could you tell me what point you are making here? Are you saying, contrary to what Katody Mattrass said, that the billing records are not definitive as to the time at which texts are received?

I have no doubt at all that cell phone surveillance and record-checking was central to the investigation.

 

[acbytesla]

Could you tell me what point you are making here? Are you saying, contrary to what Katody Mattrass said, that the billing records are not definitive as to the time at which texts are received?

I have no doubt at all that cell phone surveillance and record-checking was central to the investigation.

Billing records are just that, just enough to say that SMS text was sent and received. When Patrick sent the text the SMS server communicated with his carrier's billing database and also communicated with Amanda's carrier billing database. Remember they could be using different carriers. You can be assured that they are either recording the time the SMS is sent or received and to or from. Just enough to issue a bill.

But here is the problem. Telephone carriers all have different procedures and equipment. They use different SMS servers and different billing servers. So what AT&T does is different than Verizon or T-Mobile or Vodafone. It also can vary from country to country and even state to state. However, they all have to communicate with each other so the structure of how this works is the same. But what each company keeps for their own records is unique to that company.

Does this make sense and answer your question.

 

[anglolawyer]

Billing records are just that, just enough to say that SMS text was sent and received. When Patrick sent the text the SMS server communicated with his carrier's billing database and also communicated with Amanda's carrier billing database. Remember they could be using different carriers. You can be assured that they are either recording the time the SMS is sent or received and to or from. Just enough to issue a bill.

But here is the problem. Telephone carriers all have different procedures and equipment. They use different SMS servers and different billing servers. So what AT&T does is different than Verizon or T-Mobile or Vodafone. It also can vary from country to country and even state to state. However, they all have to communicate with each other so the structure of how this works is the same. But what each company keeps for their own records is unique to that company.

Does this make sense and answer your question.

Er, no, but thanks. I just want to know whether we can be sure of the time Lumumba's text reached Amanda's phone. The time to the very second is given in Massei. Where did they get that precise time from and how can we be sure it's correct?

 

[Dan O.]

In the last couple of days, there has been speculation posted here that the police had erased Patrick's text on Amanda's phone durring her interrogation. They may have deleted that text. They would see it as an extreme embarrassment contradicting their entire case for which they had already imprisoned three people. But they would not delete the text on Amanda's phone. There's no justification for it. If they were going to delete the text, they would have to insure that it was deleted on both the senders and the receivers phones.

At the time of Amanda's interrogation, they had no guarantee that they would be able to acquire Patrick's phone to also erase the source text. That the text was not on Amanda's phone confirms that Amanda had erased the received text.

When they arrested Patrick, they would have searched his home to find his phone because the text on Patrick's phone would be proof of his plan to meet Amanda and therefore evidence of his guilt. But when they find the phone with the same number that matches source of the text, the text would not be on that phone. This to the police would confirm that there was a meeting and a conspiracy to erase the evidence.

If the police ever discovered the source text message, it would have been about a week after the arrests. At that time, they have already committed to their theory and taken it befor a judge. They cannot say oopsy, the suspects were telling the truth and the evidence was here all along.

The other possibility is that the police never discovered the second phone. It would have been at Patrick's bar and the police would have collected it into evidence. But at that time they would not be looking for the phone that sent the text because they already found it. This would just be another phone that doesn't fit the case. So, did Patrick erase the text after he was released?

 

[anglolawyer]

No customers don't come

Maybe Patrick lied. The perceptive and vigilant judge Matteini seems to have caught him out

The last confirmation of the closure of the locale before said time is found in the declarations of a regular customer, one Vulcano Gerado Pasquale, the which interviewed at sommarie informazioni [page 12] on the date 7 November 2007, referred to the fact that, on the night of the 1st November, he noticed, around 19.00, that the locale was closed, as well having noticed said circumstance much later on his return from the pizzeria.

And as regards the relevance of the text of the message that the investigatee [=Patrick] had sent around 20.30 to Amanda, there are discordances between what was referred to by the ragazza and what was affirmed by the aforesaid [=Patrick]; in fact, while the ragazza spoke of a message by which she was advised that the locale would have remained shut and therefore she would not have needed to go to work, Patrick makes reference to having written to her that for that night there was no need of her attendance owing to so few customers.

This may appear to be a circumstance of little value when in reality it is not, being of itself a substantial difference between the two messages; it is probable that Patrick had had the intention, effectively, of not opening the locale thinking that he might be able to spend the night with Meredith, and then, seeing how events unfolded, considered it opportune to open the pub to create an apposite alibi for himself.

For what reason Amanda would have needed to lie about the why of her not having to go to work, the closure of the locale or the presence of few patrons, there is nothing known, nor are there logical reasons for it, while a motivation much more consistent is to be found as regards the investigatee [=Patrick], the which, with the opening of the locale, created for himself an alibi for the evening.

Such disgrasie [?] raise doubts about the actual text of the message even more when this is placed against the response that Amanda sent Patrick of the tenor “meet you soon”, a reply logically in reference to a closure of the locale in order to have a free night and a succeeding appointment.

For The Theory to work Patrick's text had to say 'bar closed'. Therefore it did say 'bar closed' and therefore, most likely it was closed. Vulcano said it was closed at 7.00 p.m. and 'much later' when he returned from his pizza (a telling detail that only an honest person would furnish, clearly). How would Patrick know at 20:18 there would be insufficient custom into the late and small hours? He would know the bar was closed though. But Patrick said the bar was open from between 17:00 and 18:00 continuously until late at least 22.29 and presumably some time after that. The Theory requires this to be a lie. He had plenty of reason to lie if he had neither an alibi nor any illusions about the practises of Perugia's police. Maybe he was in the general vicinity of the apartment at 20:38 for some unrelated reason.

Is there concrete evidence of the time he opened up? I'm beginning to think he did it after all.

 

[Dan O.]

Er, no, but thanks. I just want to know whether we can be sure of the time Lumumba's text reached Amanda's phone. The time to the very second is given in Massei. Where did they get that precise time from and how can we be sure it's correct?

This information comes directly from Amanda's phone records which are derived from the cell tower records which are collected for billing. The record which the police acquired most probably on the evening of Nov. 2, was posted here way back in the original thread and is available on all of the archive sites.

 

[acbytesla]

Er, no, but thanks. I just want to know whether we can be sure of the time Lumumba's text reached Amanda's phone. The time to the very second is given in Massei. Where did they get that precise time from and how can we be sure it's correct?

I don't know anglo. Because of you I'm looking through SS7 message protocol stack and particularly at MM7 and MM8 Billing protocol specification to see what data is recorded where. I'll get back to you to see if I can nail this down for you.

 

[anglolawyer]

In the last couple of days, there has been speculation posted here that the police had erased Patrick's text on Amanda's phone durring her interrogation. They may have deleted that text. They would see it as an extreme embarrassment contradicting their entire case for which they had already imprisoned three people. But they would not delete the text on Amanda's phone. There's no justification for it. If they were going to delete the text, they would have to insure that it was deleted on both the senders and the receivers phones.

At the time of Amanda's interrogation, they had no guarantee that they would be able to acquire Patrick's phone to also erase the source text. That the text was not on Amanda's phone confirms that Amanda had erased the received text.

When they arrested Patrick, they would have searched his home to find his phone because the text on Patrick's phone would be proof of his plan to meet Amanda and therefore evidence of his guilt. But when they find the phone with the same number that matches source of the text, the text would not be on that phone. This to the police would confirm that there was a meeting and a conspiracy to erase the evidence.

If the police ever discovered the source text message, it would have been about a week after the arrests. At that time, they have already committed to their theory and taken it befor a judge. They cannot say oopsy, the suspects were telling the truth and the evidence was here all along.

The other possibility is that the police never discovered the second phone. It would have been at Patrick's bar and the police would have collected it into evidence. But at that time they would not be looking for the phone that sent the text because they already found it. This would just be another phone that doesn't fit the case. So, did Patrick erase the text after he was released?

Speculation? Speculation? Proof Dan. Proof. I bet the first thing they did was seize his phones and delete any offending material at once. I have seen it speculated here that he had his phone set to delete sent messages automatically and that has been offered as the explanation why that text never showed up. It could have been of enormous value to Amanda's defence. See how it's absence was exploited in front of Matteini.