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

[Chris_Halkides]

the whole enchilada

Can you accept that he said he sent them to his Profs who he assumes deleted them. This was a clear answer he gave on ask.fm. Those emails or anything that can verify activity during the entire night of the murder would be important. Those emails if sent should be verified.

I accept (provisionally) that they were sent to his professors. I still don't see why they are probative if they occurred, for example, at 7 AM. Therefore, I don't see the need to verify them. However, I would love to see everything computer-related given to an independent expert in computer forensics. If the emails were part and parcel of examining the screensaver log files, the metadata lost on the morning of 6 November, Naruto, etc., then I would be in favor of examining the whole enchilada. How about you.

 

[Kevin_Lowe]

I think Curatolo being a street person spent a lot of time observing people. A couple who didn't act like lovers may have interested him. Anyone hanging around the court likely was there for drugs , a mutual interest. The disco buses would have been just background noise. We tend not to pay attention to accustomed noise and he may have just assumed the buses were there on Nov 1. Seeing the men in white coats the next day was more important.If he remembered seeing the defendants after 9:15 and again around 11:30 , that doesn't take away from an earlier TOD. I haven't mentioned Curatolo because due to his lifestyle he is an easy person to discredit even though he may have basically remembered seeing what he saw.

The problem with all this is that you are merely establishing is the bare possibility that Curatolo might have seen Knox and Sollecito if in fact they were out of the house.

Given that the weight of evidence currently supports the view that they were at home all night, that doesn't get you very far.

Also a recurring problem with the pro-guilt narrative is that there has never been one that made sense, and this one doesn't either. You've got Knox and Sollecito out and about at 9:15 when their computer says they opened a Naruto file at (if I recall correctly) 9:17, which means they were in two places at once. Then they supposedly murder Meredith Kercher fifteen minutes later for no reason at all, without even time for the drug-fuelled orgy some people imagine led to the killing. Presumably they spend the next hour and a half cleaning up the house in darkness and total silence, because unrelated witnesses say the house was dark and silent at that time.

Then they go out and hang around in the square for no reason, without having changed their clothes or gotten any blood on themselves or anything as far as anyone can establish.

I mean, this is a pretty damned weird story you're telling here. Compared to a known criminal conducting a perfectly ordinary burglary which turned into a rape and murder, you'd want really extraordinarily strong evidence for the weird story over the simple story.

 

[Briars]

This was gone over some time ago. Would you provide the quote?

Would you also theorize why he would at this time lie about these emails? I'm not saying he sent them but if he didn't answer emails and send them or not I don't get why he would say it.

I'll have to see if there is a screenshot of his reply's on ask. fm somewhere. He did say he sent them to his Profs which of course caused quite a stir at the time. I think maybe hes not too bright or arrogant and perhaps forgot that a sent email is something that can be verified.He must have thought it would help his story of being home all night.He included some new material in his book, the police threatening him , the door adjustment the changing story of the knife prick.His own father spoke out on TV that he didn't agree with parts of Honor Bound. We also saw him get testy with Katie Couric when it came to the bathroom. He tried to say there was just water on the mat. I fully believe that Kate ,who must have been all ears at the opportunity to interview Sollecito, reported what she heard.

 

[Briars]

The problem with all this is that you are merely establishing is the bare possibility that Curatolo might have seen Knox and Sollecito if in fact they were out of the house.

Given that the weight of evidence currently supports the view that they were at home all night, that doesn't get you very far.

Also a recurring problem with the pro-guilt narrative is that there has never been one that made sense, and this one doesn't either. You've got Knox and Sollecito out and about at 9:15 when their computer says they opened a Naruto file at (if I recall correctly) 9:17, which means they were in two places at once. Then they supposedly murder Meredith Kercher fifteen minutes later for no reason at all, without even time for the drug-fuelled orgy some people imagine led to the killing. Presumably they spend the next hour and a half cleaning up the house in darkness and total silence, because unrelated witnesses say the house was dark and silent at that time.

Then they go out and hang around in the square for no reason, without having changed their clothes or gotten any blood on themselves or anything as far as anyone can establish.

I mean, this is a pretty damned weird story you're telling here. Compared to a known criminal conducting a perfectly ordinary burglary which turned into a rape and murder, you'd want really extraordinarily strong evidence for the weird story over the simple story.

You are stretching the truth with the Naruto file as an alibi. I think they left and returned after Guede had gone. I don't believe for one minute that Guede would sexually assault a dying woman.Guede knelt by the victim and got blood on his pants , the others may have avoided much of that. Someone removed the clothing after for some reason. Someone staged the break-in for some reason

 

[Bill Williams]

You are stretching the truth with the Naruto file as an alibi. I think they left and returned after Guede had gone. I don't believe for one minute that Guede would sexually assault a dying woman.Guede knelt by the victim and got blood on his pants , the others may have avoided much of that. Someone removed the clothing after for some reason. Someone staged the break-in for some reason

Well, Guede's DNA got to a place it shouldn't have been.... and there is no evidence, really, that the break-in was staged. Also, no, it is not "stretching the truth" to consider the Naruto file as an alibi.... and you've expressed a belief in the two students' movements with not so much as a plausible timeline....

Other than this, it sounds solid to me.

 

[Kevin_Lowe]

You are stretching the truth with the Naruto file as an alibi.

Can you explain how it is "stretching truth"? Since even Mignini and Massei agree that Meredith Kercher's murder was an unpremeditated crime, they can't have planned ahead to play the file and then rush out the door while it ran. That would require them to have known in advance they would need an alibi, which nobody I'm aware of claims that they knew.

Either you're running some novel, extra-complicated narrative where they planned the murder and ran the Naruto file as an alibi, or the balance of probabilities strongly favours the hypothesis that they started the Naruto file playing after 9:15 (when you have them out and about already) and then watched it.

I think they left and returned after Guede had gone. I don't believe for one minute that Guede would sexually assault a dying woman.

I can see why you mightn't want to think that, since it's icky and since many pro-guilt posters seem to have a drive to revise history to paint Guede in a better light.

However somebody removed her bra, because she was not wearing it for some period after the fatal wound was inflicted and before she stopped breathing. That was probably the same person who put a pillow under her hips, and the same person whose DNA was found inside her person. It's not proof beyond all possible doubt Guede sexually assaulted her as she was dying, but it's sure as hell a very strong package of evidence for that hypothesis.

It's horrible but sadly it's not outside the known range of horrible things humans do.

Guede knelt by the victim and got blood on his pants , the others may have avoided much of that. Someone removed the clothing after for some reason. Someone staged the break-in for some reason

Look, this is just plain factually wrong. It's contradicted by uncontested evidence. There was aspirated blood on the parts of Meredith Kercher's body covered by her bra, which could only have come from her fatal wound, and could only have landed where it did if her bra was removed while she was still fatally injured but breathing.

Nobody "removed the clothing after". Any theory that has someone "removing the clothing after" contradicts the forensic evidence and is wrong.

 

[Briars]

Well, Guede's DNA got to a place it shouldn't have been.... and there is no evidence, really, that the break-in was staged. Also, no, it is not "stretching the truth" to consider the Naruto file as an alibi.... and you've expressed a belief in the two students' movements with not so much as a plausible timeline....

Other than this, it sounds solid to me.

The sexual attack happened while she was still alive and not undressed. The time of the confrontation began sometime after 9 and was over around 10PM. The clothing removal and clean up and staging was later. That's the timeline that fits. The motive may have been unclear , fight over money , jealousy, yes even unknown impulses. There is evidence the break in and removal of clothing happened later. Someone returned to Filomena's room and left a blob of Meredith's blood and Amanda's DNA, not mixed blood Bill, but significant in its makeup and isolation. There was no evidence of dirt from outside and the imagined scuff marks on the white wall were just red wall showing through the tough lime weather worn wash.

 

[Charlie Wilkes]

Ha ha, that's awesome! Congrats Charlie


It must be hard in the guilter camp. They're probably spinning it already as the 'supertanker', masons or mafia bought Mr. Douglas. What can they do when their 'experts' are all fake. All their pretend lawyers, a weekend course 'statement analysis' guy, misrepresented-as-a-psychologist what's her name and on top of it, running the show, a fake messiah quack who makes a living by exploiting parents of sick children...

I haven't looked at their forum(s) for a long time. I guess they had a pretty good run with Frank's serial disasters, which spilled over into IIP. I assume now they are pinning their hopes on the Italian Supreme Court, which is a complete wild card according to what I have been told. But if the SC accepts Hellmann's verdict, then what? How much longer can they keep rehashing tabloid garbage from 2007?

I guess they can gear up to hate on Amanda's book when it comes out this spring. So they have that to look forward to. But I wonder how they feel about all this. We were part of a big success story. But what do they have to show for their effort?

 

[Charlie Wilkes]

Look, this is just plain factually wrong. It's contradicted by uncontested evidence. There was aspirated blood on the parts of Meredith Kercher's body covered by her bra, which could only have come from her fatal wound, and could only have landed where it did if her bra was removed while she was still fatally injured but breathing.

Yup. This is exactly right. We have gone over it a zillion times. I don't understand why Briars insists on presenting falsehoods to a group of people who know what the facts are.

Why are you doing that Briars?

 

[Bill Williams]

The sexual attack happened while she was still alive and not undressed.

And you know this..... how? This is completely obvious and contributes nothing, really. Why did you say it?

The time of the confrontation began sometime after 9 and was over around 10PM.

You've just given the two students a solid alibi.

The clothing removal and clean up and staging was later. That's the timeline that fits.

Nope. It's already been demonstrated that the clothing removal happened during the attack. There is no evidence at all that a staging of a break-in even happened. (Note - see below, the issue of the climb in through Filomena's window is slightly different.)

The motive may have been unclear , fight over money , jealousy, yes even unknown impulses.

You've just said that Massei's findings of fact were wrong - Massei says the motive of Guede's and Guede's alone, that there was no fighting over anything - not between Knox and Kercher - and there were no "unknown impulses", whatever you mean by that.

Your "timeline" is quite unique in fact. You appear to be the only one asserting it - without much evidence other than that you believe it.

There is evidence the break in and removal of clothing happened later.

There is none. Simply repeating it without demonstrating it or pointing to one scintilla of evidence does not wash.

Someone returned to Filomena's room and left a blob of Meredith's blood and Amanda's DNA, not mixed blood Bill, but significant in its makeup and isolation.

Thanks for agreeing with Judge Massei on the mixed blood issue. I was mistaken, then, when I misunderstood your phrase "mixed blood mixed with DNA." Apologies.

Yet you need to demonstrate that Amanda's DNA anywhere in the cottage is at all forensically interesting.

There was no evidence of dirt from outside** and the imagined scuff marks on the white wall were just red wall showing through the tough lime weather worn wash.

And this is evidence of.... what? That Guede knew what he was doing when he broke in? That Guede was quite skilful at climbing a wall, where he was already up to shoulder height to Filomena's window merely by standing on the lower window's grill? You do know that Guede had a history of these sorts of break-ins?

And given that there is NO forensically interesting evidence of Amanda at all in the cottage (related to the murder) and even less for Raffaele, what does the nature of the climb in through the window have to do with their participation in a staging of a break-in, where there is no evidence of the staging to begin with - only what you claim is a difficult climb (which is a slightly separate issue)?

I think I should have stopped when you gave the students a solid alibi in point #2 above. Otherwise your method of argument-presentation seems to be merely to repeat claims rather than to address evidentiary issues.

** I thought your side often argued that absence of evidence is not necessarily evidence of absence. Why do you not apply that principle here?

 

[acbytesla]

The sexual attack happened while she was still alive and not undressed. The time of the confrontation began sometime after 9 and was over around 10PM. The clothing removal and clean up and staging was later. That's the timeline that fits. The motive may have been unclear , fight over money , jealousy, yes even unknown impulses. There is evidence the break in and removal of clothing happened later. Someone returned to Filomena's room and left a blob of Meredith's blood and Amanda's DNA, not mixed blood Bill, but significant in its makeup and isolation. There was no evidence of dirt from outside and the imagined scuff marks on the white wall were just red wall showing through the tough lime weather worn wash.

It is great to see that you have come to the conclusion that Meredith was murdered by 10:00 PM. You're half way there to coming to the conclusion that Amanda and Raffaele couldn't have been involved. You even admit that Curatolo is not really credible. But still you rely on him. Even though he has Amanda and Raffaele in the Piazza Grimana during the time of the crime. There is a reason that Mignini argues that the murder took place after 11:30. And that is that is the testimony of Curatolo which is needed to place Amanda and Raffaele at the cottage during the murder happening at 11:30. You have them going in and out of the cottage as if it was a revolving door on a cold November night. There is no logic to that.

I'm not sure how the sexual attack happened while she was still clothed? That makes no sense to me as Rudy's DNA was found in Meredith's vagina. But there is no evidence of actual rape. My guess is that Rudy murdered Meredith and stripped her clothes and after the murder, digitally penetrated Meredith for a few seconds and then left.

Still, I like how you ignore the motive not only of Amanda, but of Raffaele.

Why bother with the total lack of logic of Amanda wanting to murder Meredith? Because you have them acting with premeditation by trying to deliberately disguise their activities before the murder.

Even though, Massei and Hellman both found no violent psycho-pathology with either Amanda or Raffaele. Massei concludes the motive was entirely Rudy's. As for fighting about money, seriously? Amanda had been in Perugia for a month. She had spent thousands of dollars getting to Perugia and paying for tuition, she was just starting her second month of a year long stay, she wasn't tapped out. Amanda had thousands of dollars in the bank and here she was dating a rich Italian kid.

Jealousy? Again, what did Amanda have to be jealous of Meredith? Amanda was having the time of her life. Unknown impulses? Seriously? In other words, there wasn't a motive. You have Amanda and Meredith going in and out of the cottage like the front door was revolving. Never mind it was a cold November night.

Now we get around to Raffaele, why would he want to murder Meredith? Why would he go along with it? He had spent maybe a couple of hours with Meredith and known her for about a week.

In fact, there is no evidence that the break-in happened later, in fact there is no evidence at all proving when the break in happened. Declaring that there is evidence, is not enough, you have to provide the evidence it.

As for the cottage wall, you seem to insist that the wall had to have obvious clues such as clearly seen scuff marks. There are in fact arguments that there are visible scuff marks on the wall, but I'm not going to go over something that is in dispute that neither of us can prove. Still there is no way to demonstrate that obvious clues had to be left by the intruder. Rudy was a very athletic person. It really provided little challenge for a young man who could easily dunk a basketball.

Yes Meredith's blood was there, but you have no idea when Amanda's DNA was deposited, which could have been left at any time in the previous 40 days. The presence of Amanda's DNA in the house where she lives is not forensically significant, her DNA is expected to be found all over the house.

You only have Curatolo, who's credibility even you agree is suspect. You have no footage from any of the three cameras on Corso Garibaldi across for the Piazza Grimana that Amanda and Raffaele would have HAD to pass in front of. Add in the computer evidence that places Raffaele and Amanda in his apartment at 9:17 and 9:35. Given these facts, don't you have to conclude that all you have is extremely weak evidence and your speculation contradicts both logic and the available evidence?

 

[Dan O.]

You are stretching the truth with the Naruto file as an alibi. I think they left and returned after Guede had gone. I don't believe for one minute that Guede would sexually assault a dying woman.Guede knelt by the victim and got blood on his pants , the others may have avoided much of that. Someone removed the clothing after for some reason. Someone staged the break-in for some reason

Rudy Guede's DNA was found on the bra strap in the precise location where grabbing it would cause the seams to unravel and release the clasp end from the back band. I'd say that this is pretty damning evidence that Rudy Guede was in the room and manipulating Meredith's body after she was killed and undressed.

 

[anglolawyer]

So you think that had the message been shown to Matteini she wouldn't have held either of them?

No, I don't but it's not the right question which is: did Mignini & Co in the lead up to the critical hearing before Matteini have good reason to pile on as much as possible to ensure they got the result they wanted? Answer (obviously) = 'yes'.

The important message was Amanda's - if Patrick had sent &)*%*$)&^($# the ILE wouldn't have cared - it was "I'll meet you right away sent at the murder time".

No, what was important was the exchange of messages fixing a meeting. That was what the cops 'already knew' and expected to find. It was central to their crime theory as of 1.45 a.m. on 06 Nov. You can read about it in Amanda's trial evidence.

If they had deleted the message and it was so key, then de Felice wouldn't have blurted out that they had the messages, which IIRC isn't exactly what he said anyway.

If they were supposed to be only persons informed of the facts then he wouldn't have blurted out that they told the police what the police already knew - except he did just that and to the world's press.

Mr De Felice said: "She crumbled. She confessed. There were holes in her alibi. Her mobile phone records were crucial." He said Knox's claims that she was elsewhere had been demonstrated to be false. The police found text messages on her phone from Lumumba, fixing a meeting between them at 8.35pm on the night Miss Kercher died. When he said that they had cracked the case and they had questioned them until they got the truth he wasn't lying or slipping up, he was telling what they thought was the truth.

He wasn't lying but he was slipping up, just not in the way you mean. What he said was badly off message and you of all people should understand that.

Do you believe that they deleted text messages or just one? If not, then he misspoke by revealing the message being erased and saying there were more than one.

I think it likely he misspoke, when he referred to 'messages' rather than 'message' but it would be good to have the phone and that data record Dan O. spoke about, to see exactly what Amanda's pattern of deletion was, assuming, as Dan says, it retains a record of such things. Did she, for example, delete the text she got from Meredith on Halloween?

If there was no script then we are relying on an English speaker to have taken down notes?

Malcolm Moore is a fluent Italian speaker and, as I have said, he is positive that what he wrote is what De Felice said.

This is how I see it. They got her in and gave her the third degree, for the first time, having stored up a head of steam in the preceding week, noting the cell phone information and her (to them) studied failure to mention the key exchange. So, they ask for her phone and they find the messages. One fits but the other doesn't. Still, she becomes sufficiently compliant to go along with their theory and exhibits a willingness to sign anything they put in front of her, believing she is only imagining how things could have happened, which is what she thinks they want. They end up with the 1.45 document. What more do they need? Well, although they didn't plan it this way, their interest in his shoes and his knife and in the tactical advantages of 'arresting the alibi' leads them to decide to implicate Raffaele.

As of 1.45 he is completely in the clear - she lies to him and goes out to meet Patrick - so that has to be fixed. This is actually the major change between 1.45 and 5.45 and Mignini gets the job of getting her to agree she couldn't be sure he wasn't with them, which is simple enough since she will sign anything (as she says in her evidence) and Mignini, being a sharper operator than the cops, decides to do something about the exchange of texts. The way the 1.45 document tells the story is inadequate both because it records what Lumumba said and because it has the part about lying to Raffaele. Both of those come out. Raffaele is the major change, the deleted text is an adjunct.

Now, you say Lumumba's text was not important. So find a reason why Mignini got her to leave that part out. If it's of no importance and made no difference to Matteini then why leave it out? You have no theory which adequately explains this important detail.

As for her trial testimony, it is simply confused and contradictory. Since Katody Mattrass can't be bothered to give citations properly I can't be bothered to reply to his or her posts either, save to point out the more obvious differences between the two passages quoted in post no. 7649 which he or she thinks are the same - amazingly. On page 8-9 of the transcript she is answering Pacelli. This evidence was taken on 12th June 2009. On page 143 she replied to Massei himself (I guess - the transcript says 'the court'). This was the next day. In each case she is given free rein to just talk and to describe the interrogation. She is clearly discussing the same moment because in each segment she says they asked her for her phone and she gave it to them. There are these differences (at least):

12th June
She gave them the phone which is when they found 'the message' (meaning Patrick's message to her)

13th June
Before giving them the phone she told them she had not gone to work that night because Patrick had sent her a message.

12th June
She says she did not remember sending a message back and they called her a stupid liar saying she was protecting someone.

13th June
They already said she was protecting someone before she gave them the phone as they knew she had gone out

12th June
they put the phone in front of her face and said 'look, you were going to meet someone' - in this version they apparently don't know to whom the message was sent

13th June
they put the phone in front of her face saying it showed she had gone to meet Patrick - so in this version they do know who she sent the message to.

And so on. These are two quite different accounts of the exactly the same event given by the same person on successive days. She was not lying on either occasion IMO and, if she had been, there were no fewer than 8 lawyers questioning her who might have tripped her up had their respective briefs so required. There is nothing unusual about this at all. Her evidence is not a transcript of the interrogations and it is a great mistake to suppose otherwise. Aside from the difficulty inherent in recalling such a confusing and distressing event, the ambiguity and inconsistency of her evidence makes it unusable as a basis for rejecting the possibility that the cops deleted the message themselves.

 

[anglolawyer]

It was clever of the stagers to place the bra clasp under the pillow that had Guede's hand print on it. Obviously, it can't have been Guede who put it there since he was the one they were framing, by leaving his foot prints and such, but it was a great move. Bad luck about the lamp, though. That's the giveaway. They needed the lamp to find the clasp to stick it under the pillow and they couldn't just use Meredith's lamp er, because ... hang on, I need to think this through a little more.

 

[Grinder]

p. 22, Honor Bound [9:30 AM]. "I was too groggy to talk. I'd been up several times in the night--listening to music, answering email, making love--and wanted only to go back to sleep. If the list above is given in temporal order, then it would seem that the email business happened after 5:30. Is that not when Raffaele made a playlist for the trip to Gubbio?

Since everything is parsed until no word is left unturned, answering email doesn't mean sending emails. I write answers to important emails and keep them as a draft to reread later. He may never have sent them and they may have been ruined by the PP.

 

[Grinder]

I accept (provisionally) that they were sent to his professors. I still don't see why they are probative if they occurred, for example, at 7 AM. Therefore, I don't see the need to verify them. However, I would love to see everything computer-related given to an independent expert in computer forensics. If the emails were part and parcel of examining the screensaver log files, the metadata lost on the morning of 6 November, Naruto, etc., then I would be in favor of examining the whole enchilada. How about you.

I think the bigger issue is that he never sent them as they have never been brought out. I agree with you that emails sent after midnight don't have much value one way or the other, but it is odd that he would bring them up if he couldn't show they had actually occurred.

 

[Grinder]

I think Curatolo being a street person spent a lot of time observing people. A couple who didn't act like lovers may have interested him. Anyone hanging around the court likely was there for drugs , a mutual interest. The disco buses would have been just background noise. We tend not to pay attention to accustomed noise and he may have just assumed the buses were there on Nov 1. Seeing the men in white coats the next day was more important.If he remembered seeing the defendants after 9:15 and again around 11:30 , that doesn't take away from an earlier TOD. I haven't mentioned Curatolo because due to his lifestyle he is an easy person to discredit even though he may have basically remembered seeing what he saw. I also think the teacher who went to sleep after 9;30 awoke startled by the scream heard Meredith. That combined with the witness who was knocked by the black man running fits with that time of 10:30. The same time the car from Rome was seen broken down at the bottom of the stairs.

As I understand it the average homeless person is a witness in 1.75 capital crime trials. This is a ridiculous argument. If he were a witness to a shoplifting crimes that would be one thing but serious crimes in the plaza, please. He had an outstanding dealing charge that wasn't brought out until the appeal. Why do you think the police and Mignini didn't mention that when seeking the truth?

Curatolo's testimony was that they were there when he arrived at 9:30 and that he saw them there until just before midnight in his original recounting of the night. He was questioned and changed it to 11:30 and said that he watch them the whole time.

He was asked by the police the day after if had seen anything but didn't have anything for them.

Please tell me that if A & R had a heroin dealer who admitted he was high that night, who mixed up what buses were on the street and had told the police the day after that he hadn't seen anything came forward a year later saying that he seen them in Raf's flat from 10 to 11 through the window you would believe him? Horse pucky. All the PGP would say that Raf's dad must have paid him off, make water flow up hill, blah blah, blah.

Curatolo can not be believed. He was not a credible witness. And the PGP that went there and gave him money and looked in eyes didn't see an honest man's eyes he saw an addict's eyes.

 

[Grinder]

The sexual attack happened while she was still alive and not undressed. The time of the confrontation began sometime after 9 and was over around 10PM. The clothing removal and clean up and staging was later. That's the timeline that fits. The motive may have been unclear , fight over money , jealousy, yes even unknown impulses. There is evidence the break in and removal of clothing happened later. Someone returned to Filomena's room and left a blob of Meredith's blood and Amanda's DNA, not mixed blood Bill, but significant in its makeup and isolation. There was no evidence of dirt from outside and the imagined scuff marks on the white wall were just red wall showing through the tough lime weather worn wash.

Briars - with this timeline they have an alibi if you want to believe Curatolo. He found them in the plaza at 9:30 certainly you don't believe they killed Meredith between 9:15 and before 9:30 do you? Curatolo didn't just see them for a minute or he wouldn't have noticed them.

Please drop Curatolo and start over.

The blob could have been moved by someone that morning with the police and Filomena going into her room recovering items.

 

[anglolawyer]

Briars - with this timeline they have an alibi if you want to believe Curatolo. He found them in the plaza at 9:30 certainly you don't believe they killed Meredith between 9:15 and before 9:30 do you? Curatolo didn't just see them for a minute or he wouldn't have noticed them.

Please drop Curatolo and start over.

The blob could have been moved by someone that morning with the police and Filomena going into her room recovering items.

I guess we're dropping Capezzali too ...

ETA and section 4 of Galati (the 'extraordinarily accurate' Curatolo - if the case is remitted for re-trial the defence can use his testimony to provide an alibi and rely on Galati's description.)

 

[Bill Williams]

Briars - with this timeline they have an alibi if you want to believe Curatolo. He found them in the plaza at 9:30 certainly you don't believe they killed Meredith between 9:15 and before 9:30 do you? Curatolo didn't just see them for a minute or he wouldn't have noticed them.

Please drop Curatolo and start over.

The blob could have been moved by someone that morning with the police and Filomena going into her room recovering items.

It's strange. The timeline Briars offers gives the two students a virtual alibi. Maybe the Peruguan police need to be arresting Briars like they did Sollecito who was Amanda's alibi.

Re: the blob.... some guilters assume that the cottage was in sterile, laboratory-like condition as the assault commenced. Therefore all DNA everywhere is a result of the assault.

Similarly there seems to be the assumption that immediately after the assault and horrible murder, the place was sealed off and there was no further contamination. Follain himself, an author who seems to want to present the case for the cops and prosecution, even he includes the phrase in his book that Filomena, "rummaged through her room."

What does that mean? I am not sure. But it does suggest that Filomena was in her room immediately after she got to the cottage, to check on what might have been missing - all as one would expect given that at that point no one knew what was behind Meredith's door. Did Filomena contaminate her own room with others' blood and DNA? Who knows? The point is: would you want to take to court what Briars claimed, that Meredith's blood was found with Amanda's DNA....? I mean, this is also in the context that no one claims that Amanda's DNA was found, at all, in Meredith's room. Not even Massei....

..... which is why guilters have to conclude that Amanda's DNA found outside of Meredith's room, in a cottage in which Amanda lived for a few weeks, is somehow suspicious. Sheesh.

Candace Dempsey has an uncredited source which says that Filomena even left the cottage with her laptop - and the laptop was supposed to be forensically critical in determining if the break-in had been staged or not.

Other than that, that's all us up here in the cheap seats can know.

Briars should be offered kudos for even trying, though, to construct a timeline. Few on his/her side of the fence even try - they just vilify.

But it is instructive the impossibility of shoe-horning the two students into this crime. Briars even offers them a virtual alibi....