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

[Bill Williams]

What do you think this contradiction amounts to?

I'm assuming you aren't running the tired old game where a pro-guilt poster tries to establish that Knox or Sollecito got something wrong, and then acts as if it proves they are guilty if they did.

Given the extremely powerful evidence that those two weren't there at Meredith Kercher's time of death, no errors or even lies (assuming you can establish by some miraculous means that an error was deliberate) seem likely to lead a rational person to think they are guilty given that people make errors all the time.

Fixating on those two are this late stage just seems wilfully bizarre. Knox and Sollecito had no motive, cannot be linked to the scene of the crime and have a very solid alibi based on computer records preserved by the police themselves. There have to be literally hundreds of Perugians with no alibi who are better suspects than Knox and Sollecito, if for some bizarre reason you are convinced more than one person was involved in Meredith Kercher's murder.



I'm really not sure what point you are making here. That statement isn't wrong, just somewhat imprecise. They raised the alarm and were there when the body was discovered. People speak imprecisely all the time. But even if it were totally wrong, how could that have any implications for their guilt or innocence?

Life isn't an Agatha Christie novel, where if any character says anything which isn't precisely correct then it is a vital clue.

You beat me to it, Kevin Lowe. I, too, am not quite sure what Tronic is trying to suggest here.

At worst, Raffaele got something wrong. With a reporter. For the Daily Mail. Agreed, this was a reporting before Nov 6th, but at this late date what does it amount to?

In his book Raffaele's contention about his own interrogation is that he asked to consult a calendar, now that it was apparent to him that his memory of the two nights was important. It is at least as incriminating that the police (Chiacchiera et al.) actually did not WANT him to clear up his misremembering. Why? Because they needed something, anything, from Raffaele to use to lean on Knox.

The long and the short of it, once Raffaele himself, and for himself, realized that KNox had not gone out.... he figured this out because she'd need to ring to get back in... he added this to his own knowledge that he had not gone out on Nov 1, to know that both of them were innocent.

He's never really had any other story; other than misremembering in the intital days.

Tronic needs to answer that question - why would Raffaele stick to the story, and not turn on Knox? I mean, that's your claim isn't it, that Raffaele turned on Knox purposely at his interrogation?

Why would Raffaele maintain what he's always maintained if that was true? That they both stayed home, that they both are innocent - therefore Knox has an alibi?

 

[acbytesla]

Completely False. I was aware of Sollecitos account of Halloween where he has his face painted, Knox also dressed up. I hadn't related that myself with the night in question, the night Kate Mansey (Daily Mirror) was questioning Sollecito about. Sollecito is adamant in that interview that he was talking to Mansey about the night of the murder. He was talking about it as he was ghoulishly accounting his involvement.

Louie on .net kindly pointed out that Sollecito re-counted this in his book. I have posted Sollecitos own account of Halloween here. He'd mentioned it before in his prison diary.

Also. Why did he say in the Kate Mansey interview that it was he and Knox who discovered the body of Meredith Kercher?

Let's see tron, you referenced another guilter to provide credibility? Seriously? Have you ever thought that Mansey got it wrong? I repeat, it is clear as day to me that Raffaele thought they were talking about Halloween. You can think you have something all day long...but I 100% believe it is just a misunderstanding between two people.

But how are we to know the truth Tron? The police deliberately did not record any of their interviews, or they recorded them and destroyed them. It's one or the other. Like it or not, and this goes well beyond the Knox case, this is a serious problem with the Italian justice system.

The detectives were clearly out of line. Either they don't want the public to see how they handle interrogations and they deliberately don't record them as a standard operating procedure, or they don't like what happened during the interviews and made a strategic decision to destroy them.

I'd like to know, maybe one of the other participants can answer this. Did they have a transcriber in the room during the whole interview writing down every single word? Seriously? So instead or springing for one, $100 audio recorder or one $300 camera, they paid $100 a hour for transcribers to write every word said during 40, 70, 100 hours or more of of suspect interviews?

Please Tron, tell me what is wrong with this picture?

 

[Bill Williams]

Let's see tron, you referenced another guilter to provide credibility? Seriously? Have you ever thought that Mansey got it wrong? I repeat, it is clear as day to me that Raffaele thought they were talking about Halloween. You can think you have something all day long...but I 100% believe it is just a misunderstanding between two people.

But how we are to know the truth Tron? The police deliberately did not record any of their interviews, or they recorded them and destroyed them. It's one or the other. Like it or not, and this goes well beyond the Knox case, this is a serious problem with the Italian justice system.

The detectives were clearly out of line. Either they don't want the public to see how they handle interrogations and they deliberately don't record them as a standard operating procedure, or they don't like what happened during the interviews and made a strategic decision to destroy them.

I'd like to know, maybe one of the other participants can answer this. Did they have transcriber in the room during the whole interview writing down every single word? Seriously? So instead or springing for one, $100 audio recorder or one $300 camera, they paid $100 a hour for transcribers to write every word said during 40, 70, 100 hours or more of of suspect interviews?

Please Tron, tell me what is wrong with this picture?

..... to add to all this, Mignini himself says, in his CNN interview, that he read the applicable law about the conduct of interrogations of suspects to Ficarra et al., the ones in charge of Knox's room.

He then proceeded to violate the Italian statute... he could prove me wring by providing the video tapes..... Mignini claims, as do the guilters, that the SC did not rule this illegal. The Italian SC, in fact, did.

 

[Charlie Wilkes]

Also. Why did he say in the Kate Mansey interview that it was he and Knox who discovered the body of Meredith Kercher?

Dunno. Could be lots of things.

BTW, Tronic, does the crowd over there at PMF know about John Douglas's new book?

I got a signed copy and I'm in the index... page 359. Woot!

Douglas figured out what happened over there, of course. A beautiful young woman was slaughtered by a low-life burglar, and two innocent people went through hell because the cops screwed up the investigation.

If I can figure that out, John Douglas sure as hell can.

But not everyone can...

 

[Dan O.]

Fat finger syndrome.

Whenever they arrested him, deleting the message would be on their list of Things To Do. No biggie.

The why still eludes me. They cannot know the contents of the text before that interrogation because that would imply that the carrier had a copy and an official request for the information would generate a paper trail. Making a snap decission to erase it upon seeing it for the first time without stopping to consider all of the ramifications seems too unlikely. Amanda never gets her phone back so if the goal is to preasure Amanda by claiming the text was something different, there is no need

I like Dan O's idea that the phone knows who deletes the messages. Wot?

The phone's event log doesn't say who but would give a when or an order of events. The order of events is as good as saying who if the event happened after Amanda's last phone call.

Even if it did you can bet you can't think of a problem that a determined police force can't fix or hide away from all but the most insistent and resolute inspection and sometimes not even that would be enough.

They don't have to delete anything. They can just say they didn't see it. That's what they used for the computer time stamp evidence. A soft denial is better than creating hard evidence of tampering that might be prosecutable if they were caught.

 

[Dan O.]

Also. Why did he say in the Kate Mansey interview that it was he and Knox who discovered the body of Meredith Kercher?

Did Raffaele write that article or did Kate Mansey? Do you understand why this makes a difference?

 

[anglolawyer]

The why still eludes me. They cannot know the contents of the text before that interrogation because that would imply that the carrier had a copy and an official request for the information would generate a paper trail. Making a snap decission to erase it upon seeing it for the first time without stopping to consider all of the ramifications seems too unlikely. Amanda never gets her phone back so if the goal is to preasure Amanda by claiming the text was something different, there is no need

Leave the text to one side for a second and answer this: why does the content of the message disappear from her 5.45 version of events?

1.45
Last Thursday 1st November, day on which I usually work, while I was in the apartment of my boyfriend Raffaele, at about 20.30 I received a message from Patrick on my mobile, telling me that that evening the pub would remain closed because there were no people, therefore I didn’t have to go to work.
I replied to the message saying that we would meet immediately, therefore I went out telling my boyfriend that I had to go to work.

5.45
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”.

Notice that not only have the content of his message and the context of the exchange disappeared but so has Patrick's message itself. I assert this is because his message cut across the theory they had formed before the night began and had to go. What do you think?

The phone's event log doesn't say who but would give a when or an order of events. The order of events is as good as saying who if the event happened after Amanda's last phone call.

I'll take your word for what the event logs would show. I don't see these particular cops having any great problem with that and I am frankly surprised to be constantly confronted by such bad points. They fried the hard drives and what happened then? Nothing. They 'lost' recordings of exculpatory telephone calls and CCTV footage along Corso Garibaldi has never emerged. Bad luck? As Randy reminded us, they stored bloody towels in such a manner as to destroy evidence, same with the bra clasp. The freaking bra clasp, Dan! Come on!

On a different note, it has to be remembered that once they were in jail for a year the cops could toy with them as they pleased while they dug up more evidence. Even if it were shown the cops deleted the message they could just say it was a clumsy accident. You would never prove who did it. They could also say they handed back the phone to Amanda so she could run through the messages to refresh her memory and she must have done it.

There are many outs.

They don't have to delete anything. They can just say they didn't see it. That's what they used for the computer time stamp evidence. A soft denial is better than creating hard evidence of tampering that might be prosecutable if they were caught.

But we know they did see it. It's faithfully recorded in the 1.45 document.

Here's another one for you (and anyone else): how did Patrick's name crop up in her interrogation? Who mentioned him first and how did that happen?

 

[Bill Williams]

Completely False. I was aware of Sollecitos account of Halloween where he has his face painted, Knox also dressed up. I hadn't related that myself with the night in question, the night Kate Mansey (Daily Mirror) was questioning Sollecito about. Sollecito is adamant in that interview that he was talking to Mansey about the night of the murder. He was talking about it as he was ghoulishly accounting his involvement.

Louie on .net kindly pointed out that Sollecito re-counted this in his book. I have posted Sollecitos own account of Halloween here. He'd mentioned it before in his prison diary.

Also. Why did he say in the Kate Mansey interview that it was he and Knox who discovered the body of Meredith Kercher?

What is proven by this is that Sollecito could be very snotty with reporters when he wanted to be, even if he has his facts wrong. What this does not prove is an attempt to cover up their involvement in a crime.

Because for that to be true, you would first have to demonstrate that they'd been involved in one. There is no DNA evidence, there are no superwitnesses, there is no preexisting psychopathology, there is no bad relations between Meredith and Amanda, there is no forensic presence of Knox in the murder room, etc.

The only reason one would trot out the secondary stuff of what Sollecito told Mansey would be if you'd demonstrated otherwise.

That none of the hard forensics prove anything about Knox and Sollecito, in fact lead judges to conclude that two of the three crimes alleged against them "did not exist", the only remaining explanation for what Sollecito told Mansey is that he's a bit of a snob when it comes to arguing with reporters.

And he was wrong. So? Does being wrong in and of itself prove he did the murder, or is it the other, harder forensic stuff which when looked at objectively actually proves his innocence?

I think you do not like privileged Italian boys, so much so that you'd accuse him of a crime with no evidence to support it.

 

[Bill Williams]

Dunno. Could be lots of things.

BTW, Tronic, does the crowd over there at PMF know about John Douglas's new book?

I got a signed copy and I'm in the index... page 359. Woot!

Douglas figured out what happened over there, of course. A beautiful young woman was slaughtered by a low-life burglar, and two innocent people went through hell because the cops screwed up the investigation.

If I can figure that out, John Douglas sure as hell can.

But not everyone can...

Ya - but who are we going to believe? Douglas or Tronic? Tronic has proven that Raffaele really could not tell the difference between Wednesday and Thursday night's activities. And because Raffaele could not, the cops thought this was, in effect, depriving Knox of an alibi.

So does Tronic. So, what does this prove? That Raffaele was a murderer, or that he could be snotty with reporters, even when wrong?

 

[anglolawyer]

Ya - but who are we going to believe? Douglas or Tronic? Tronic has proven that Raffaele really could not tell the difference between Wednesday and Thursday night's activities. And because Raffaele could not, the cops thought this was, in effect, depriving Knox of an alibi.

So does Tronic. So, what does this prove? That Raffaele was a murderer, or that he could be snotty with reporters, even when wrong?

Raffaele's (apparent) confusion could prove he was a murderer or that he was confused. I prefer the latter, all things considered. It follows that his and Amanda's conduct on the NIQ cannot have been in sharp focus in the days leading up to the 5th (as Grinder believes) since otherwise he would have had a clear recall of which evening was which. I know upthread there is a quote from Amanda in which she says the cops asked her again what she did that night but this need not have descended into detail (and I think it did not). I suspect the cops were giving her opportunities to mention the exchange of texts they already knew about and becoming increasingly suspicious every time she failed to mention them. They were convinced she had gone out so, until the night of the 5th-6th, they probably just accepted one line answers ('I stayed home with Raf') and 'knew' she was lying. There would be no reason for them to go further into detail without arousing her suspicions.

After all, why would they need a minute account of her doings that night unless they didn't believe her and if they didn't believe her then she was a suspect and if she was a suspect she would need a lawyer and if ...

 

[acbytesla]

None of them want to touch whether or not Curatolo is credible and the time of death. Because if they did they would be up against biological science and electronic engineering.

They can't have it both ways. They have to declare everything science knows about digestion and the predictability of how cell phones operate wrong to come to the conclusion that the murder took place after 11:30 or they have to dump their super-witness.

I have been on a mission to prove that Meredith's cell phone could have been at the cottage at 10:13, testing everything I know about cellular communications and all I can say about Meredith's phone being there is it's not bloody likely. In fact I think the chances are infinitesimal.

So Briars, so Coulsdon, so Tronic, what's it going to be? Abandon Curatolo, old Toto? Or, says the science is bloody wrong, that Meredith's digestion is astronomically far outside the norm to be worthy of study by the New England Journal or Medicine and that Meredith had a lead shield around her phone in all directions except toward Wind cell 30064?

Please guys, I'm waiting. I've been waiting for days. Briars has said now that he thinks the murder happened at 10 PM which is outside the norm of digestion, but a hell of a lot more possible than 11:30. But he hasn't declared that Toto was now unusable since he said that Amanda and Raffaele were hanging around from 9:30 to 11:30.

What's it going to be guys? Toto the homeless heroin addict, or scientific certainty?

 

[anglolawyer]

None of them want to touch whether or not Curatolo is credible and the time of death. Because if they did they would be up against biological science and electronic engineering.

They can't have it both ways. They have to declare everything science knows about digestion and the predictability of how cell phones operate to come to the conclusion that the murder took place after 11:30 or they have to dump their super-witness.

I have been on a mission to prove that Meredith's cell phone could have been at the cottage at 10:13, testing everything I know about cellular communications and all I can say about Meredith's phone being there is it's not bloody likely. In fact I think the chances are infinitesimal.

So Briars, so Coulsdon, so Tronic, what's it going to be? Abandon Curatolo, old Toto? Or, says the science is bloody wrong, that Meredith's digestion is so far astronomically outside the norm to be worthy of study by the New England Journal or Medicine and that Meredith at a lead shield around her phone in all directions except toward Wind cell 30064?

Please guys, I'm waiting. I've been waiting for days. Briars has said now that he thinks the murder happened at 10 PM which is outside the norm of digestion, but a hell of a lot more possible than 11:30. But he hasn't declared that Toto was now unusable since he said that Amanda and Raffaele were hanging around from 9:30 to 11:30.

What's it going to be guys? Toto the homeless heroin addict, or scientific certainty?

Er, they can't chuck Toto without chucking Galati too. Just want to point that out.

 

[acbytesla]

Er, they can't chuck Toto without chucking Galati too. Just want to point that out.

They got to chuck one or the other Anglo, or run and hide.

Oh yeah...that is what they are doing.

 

[Supernaut]

This is why I don't doubt that Amanda was hit. I take every word during the interrogation with a massive dose of salt. I'm sure some of it is true. It reminds me of this scene in the movie LA Confidential.

Captain Dudley Smith: Edmund, you're a political animal. You have the eye for human weakness, but not the stomach.
Ed Exley: You're wrong, sir.
Captain Dudley Smith: Would you be willing to plant corroborative evidence on a suspect you knew to be guilty, in order to ensure an indictment?
Ed Exley: Dudley, we've been over this.
Captain Dudley Smith: Yes or no, Edmund?
Ed Exley: No!
Captain Dudley Smith: Would you be willing to beat a confession out of a suspect you knew to be guilty?
Ed Exley: No.
Captain Dudley Smith: Would you be willing to shoot a hardened criminal in the back, in order to offset the chance that some... lawyer...
Ed Exley: No.
Captain Dudley Smith: Then, for the love of God, don't be a detective. Stick to assignments where you don't have...
Ed Exley: Dudley, I know you mean well, but I don't need to do it the way you did. Or my father.

In the same film Exley performs his "masterful" interrogation of the two black suspects that Smith and his crew are trying to frame for the "Night Owl Murders".

He toggles the mike in one interrogation room on and off, allowing the the other suspect to hear an 'edit' of the convseration and make him believe he's being rolled-over on.

I was going to bring this up many times during discussion in relation to the efforts the cops' apprently made to make Raff and Amanda both believe they were turning on one and other on Nov 5th-6th '07, never got around to it.

 

[Grinder]

Tron, it would appear that L-haha got it wrong when he said Raf painted the cat on her face (we have solid proof that is not true because she had a identical cat painted on her face for Halloween when back, or was that a soccer player) so would that make guilty of major crime? I think it would.

Originally Posted by louiehaha
(in relation to this):
Sollecito claims that on the 31st he went to a graduation ceremony/celebration without Knox, and that he only saw her in the late afternoon when he painted her face like a cat for halloween,E] and she went out alone, while he stayed home and studied. Knox claims to have spent the day with Spiros, drinking coffee with him in the afternoon, and clubbing/drinking with him (Spiros) at night.

Do they really think the account Sollecito gave Mansey for November 1 sounds anything like their accounts for October 31? Throw in the fact that Sollecito (who describes himself as possessive of Knox) just found out that she had another boyfriend (DJ) and she was planning to meet him in China in December. I think from the POV of a jealous boyfriend, the accounts of the 31st and 1st are not even close.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

SOLLECITO’S ACCOUNT OF OCTOBER 31, 2007
Quote:
October 31 was the first day since our meeting that Amanda and I spent almost completely apart. In the morning I was invited to a friend’s graduation ceremony, and I went to another friend’s house for much of the afternoon. Amanda had class, then focused on her plans for Halloween, a big deal for Perugia’s foreign students, though it meant nothing to us Italians. She and I did not meet up until late afternoon, at which point she drew cat whiskers on her face in makeup and, knowing my passion for Japanese comics, scrawled an abstract design on me. I didn’t feel like going out, so I worked on my thesis while Amanda walked over to Le Chic to meet up with some of her friends there.

Being misquoted when dealing with a reporter in your own language is not unusual. probably (sorry Bill) more so when both participants don't have the same first language.

Someone sent me a link to get the original story but as of yet I haven't registered at the site. If someone has that original and would send it by PM I'd be grateful. It works as I sent a few of Follians stories to people using that method.

Did she really write about correcting him in the story? How was she so sure of everything that had happened?

 

[anglolawyer]

They got to chuck one or the other Anglo, or run and hide.

Oh yeah...that is what they are doing.

Oh, I'm right with you AC. In fact, I go further than you or anyone else. I am interested in the next phase: what happens once you start chucking away Toto and other stuff, like say the knife or the clasp (especially the former)? I'm afraid there has to be some explaining. How did this lousy evidence get into the case in the first place? Machiavelli has Mignini's back covered on this because Mignini is just a neutral according to him. He's a judge himself and if something turns up it's his duty to put it before the court, without fear or favour and no matter how obviously unreliable or incredible. Sure. The other one's got bells on.

 

[acbytesla]

In the same film Exley performs his "masterful" interrogation of the two black suspects that Smith and his crew are trying to frame for the "Night Owl Murders".

He toggles the mike in one interrogation room on and off, allowing the the other suspect to hear an 'edit' of the convseration and make him believe he's being rolled-over on.

I was going to bring this up many times during discussion in relation to the efforts the cops' apprently made to make Raff and Amanda both believe they were turning on one and other on Nov 5th-6th '07, never got around to it.

Great film. It was the first time I ever saw Russell Crowe. Both Crowe and Guy Pearce were great. Crowe had no problem beating people up.

 

[acbytesla]

Oh, I'm right with you AC. In fact, I go further than you or anyone else. I am interested in the next phase: what happens once you start chucking away Toto and other stuff, like say the knife or the clasp (especially the former)? I'm afraid there has to be some explaining. How did this lousy evidence get into the case in the first place? Machiavelli has Mignini's back covered on this because Mignini is just a neutral according to him. He's a judge himself and if something turns up it's his duty to put it before the court, without fear or favour and no matter how obviously unreliable or incredible. Sure. The other one's got bells on.

I'm with you, I don't know how they can claim this with a straight face. But OTOH, I can't say I am familiar with jurisprudence in Italy, so Machiavelli is one up on me there. It certainly seems to me that Mignini is constantly picking and choosing.

 

[Dan O.]

Leave the text to one side for a second and answer this: why does the content of the message disappear from her 5.45 version of events?

As you can clearly see, the content is still there at 5:45 recorded on paper in the earlier statement. If they were intent on getting rid of the message, leaving evidence of it in a printed statement that they typed up themselves is quite sloppy.

Notice that not only have the content of his message and the context of the exchange disappeared but so has Patrick's message itself. I assert this is because his message cut across the theory they had formed before the night began and had to go. What do you think?

I think the 5:45 statement is far too short for what was supposed to be a spontaneous statement that began at 3:30. But the, maybe Amanda was too busy sipping tea and munching on biscuits to do much talking.

They 'lost' recordings of exculpatory telephone calls and CCTV footage along Corso Garibaldi has never emerged.

Now, that is outright wrong. The police did collect the CCTV footage and reviewed it and released a statement that nothing usefull could be discovered in the footage. They of course had already erased it by the very next day when Raffaele's defense team asked for copies.

There are many outs.

They are never reluctant to use their outs which usually involve bringing in an outside expert to write up a multi page document with pictures and all explaining how these things could happen and topping it off by completing the task of destroying the evedence that the ILE started. But they didn't do that this time. We,ll see though. There is nothing preventing Amanda from disclosing the truth in her book.

But we know they did see it. It's faithfully recorded in the 1.45 document.

A statement by Amanda of what she claimed was the message does not constitute a faithfully recording. We don't even get that for her reply until the November 7th indictment.

Here's another one for you (and anyone else): how did Patrick's name crop up in her interrogation? Who mentioned him first and how did that happen?

Didn't we cover that earlier, like in the original thread? Amanda broke down crying "He's bad, he's bad" or something like that. Then Amanda explains that "he", who is much older than her, is a black boy and proceeds to give the police his full legal name, address and phone number.

 

[Grinder]

Oh, I'm right with you AC. In fact, I go further than you or anyone else. I am interested in the next phase: what happens once you start chucking away Toto and other stuff, like say the knife or the clasp (especially the former)? I'm afraid there has to be some explaining. How did this lousy evidence get into the case in the first place? Machiavelli has Mignini's back covered on this because Mignini is just a neutral according to him. He's a judge himself and if something turns up it's his duty to put it before the court, without fear or favour and no matter how obviously unreliable or incredible. Sure. The other one's got bells on.

I'm with you, I don't know how they can claim this with a straight face. But OTOH, I can't say I am familiar with jurisprudence in Italy, so Machiavelli is one up on me there. It certainly seems to me that Mignini is constantly picking and choosing.

Hellmann let those whack jobs from prison testify. Massei let Kokomani testify, but not Christian. Curatolo was not publicly known to be a herion dealer at the time of the first trial.

It would seem that the Italian system has the panel of judges deciding thing that the judge would decide here. In that the same judge sits with the panel that would allow or not allow evidence it makes some sense.