Continuation Part 5: Discussion of the Amanda Knox/Raffaele Sollecito case

[Bill Williams]

Just on glass on the ground, which Grinder mentioned, isn't it a much stronger indicator, to a point of virtual certainty, that the splash of glass far into the room proves the rock was thrown from outside?

The straightened glass on the sill results from Rudy closing the shutter behind him. The shutter organised the glass in a straight line.

For my money it's a certainty that a stager would leave the shutters open, and a certainty that a real burglar would close them.

 

[Grinder]

For my money it's a certainty that a stager would leave the shutters open, and a certainty that a real burglar would close them.

That's a probably if I ever saw one. Proof. Evidence. Photos.

So I see God has been proven not to exist.

 

[Chris_Halkides]

preliminary thoughts

R U suggesting that the above would explain the number of profiles on Meredith's bra clasp? Perhaps (sorry Bill substitute certainly) she had Raf's DNA on her hands when she put it on or took it off.

Admittedly, a clasp might be atypical, but I think that this study is worth considering when evaluating the profiles on the bra clasp. I was unaware of this study until today.

 

[Grinder]

Admittedly, a clasp might be atypical, but I think that this study is worth considering when evaluating the profiles on the bra clasp. I was unaware of this study until today.

Nice find.

 

[Charlie Wilkes]

That's a probably if I ever saw one. Proof. Evidence. Photos.

So I see God has been proven not to exist.

What is your opinion about this, exactly?

You have noted (correctly) that someone could stage a break-in that is indistinguishable from a real break-in. The obvious implication is that a real break-in is indistinguishable from one that has been properly staged.

So there will never be absolute proof one way or the other. The best anyone can do is establish that the evidence is consistent with someone who pitched a rock through the window and used it as an access point, and it was in fact a viable access point for an athletic man. IMO that has been established, and it fits with a broader scenario that is supported by all of the reliable evidence from this investigation.

 

[Bill Williams]

What is your opinion about this, exactly?

You have noted (correctly) that someone could stage a break-in that is indistinguishable from a real break-in. The obvious implication is that a real break-in is indistinguishable from one that has been properly staged.

So there will never be absolute proof one way or the other. The best anyone can do is establish that the evidence is consistent with someone who pitched a rock through the window and used it as an access point, and it was in fact a viable access point for an athletic man. IMO that has been established, and it fits with a broader scenario that is supported by all of the reliable evidence from this investigation.

You beat me to it, Charlie! On the other matter, I was going to post a picture of God, but Ergon would have sued for copyright infringement.

But it is exactly the point.

 

[Charlie Wilkes]

John Follain will be writing in an English paper tomorrow that an "anonymous Italian prosecutor" has said that it is a mistake for both Knox and Sollecito to be writing books, when a new trial is forthcoming - albeit an appeal's trial, yet with the marching orders assigned to it by the SC.

This "anonymous prosecutor" says that the new prosecutors will be looking for contradictions in the two books to use at trial.

Why is it that I am cynical. If thet find no contradictions, the prosecutors will call it collusion.

Whatever happened to the prosecution's role, first, to demonstrate through evidence that the two students actually did something criminal.

This, friends, is the state of this case five years later. The Kerchers deserve better than this.

This sounds like more opportunistic sniping, in which anything and everything Amanda does is judged after the fact to be the wrong choice.

It also reflects a certain resentment. Follain is one of several reporters who have portrayed Amanda in a way that is inaccurate, malicious, and explicitly dishonest. Now she is stepping forward to define herself, and there's not a damn thing these people can do to stop her.

 

[Supernaut]

John Follain will be writing in an English paper tomorrow that an "anonymous Italian prosecutor" has said that it is a mistake for both Knox and Sollecito to be writing books, when a new trial is forthcoming - albeit an appeal's trial, yet with the marching orders assigned to it by the SC.

This "anonymous prosecutor" says that the new prosecutors will be looking for contradictions in the two books to use at trial.

Why is it that I am cynical. If thet find no contradictions, the prosecutors will call it collusion.

Whatever happened to the prosecution's role, first, to demonstrate through evidence that the two students actually did something criminal.

This, friends, is the state of this case five years later. The Kerchers deserve better than this.

Of course Follain would "report" hear-say like this - he lives in hope, and this cheers him up, in as much as a reptile like him can feel "cheer".

 

[Grinder]

What is your opinion about this, exactly?

You have noted (correctly) that someone could stage a break-in that is indistinguishable from a real break-in. The obvious implication is that a real break-in is indistinguishable from one that has been properly staged.

So there will never be absolute proof one way or the other. The best anyone can do is establish that the evidence is consistent with someone who pitched a rock through the window and used it as an access point, and it was in fact a viable access point for an athletic man. IMO that has been established, and it fits with a broader scenario that is supported by all of the reliable evidence from this investigation.

My main point was/is that it is not lunacy or impossible that it was staged. This is part and parcel of the PIP meme that the police made up the staged idea to frame the kids. They say that there was absolutely nothing that should have had them consider staging. I don't agree. I've made a case that the most likely stager would have been Rudi himself if in fact it was staged. Why? Because the MO was similar to his and the kids could have just left the balcony door unlocked or the front door open.

I also believe that a rock was thrown from outside. It could have been by Rudi before or after the murder. He could have thrown the rock and then entered with Meredith as she showed up during his "waiting" period.

The refrain that there was no evidence of staging of course is specious because as you noted a staged break-in would not need to be detectable. I would say Raf's response that nothing was taken, which proved to be true was highly suspicious.

 

[Bill Williams]

This sounds like more opportunistic sniping, in which anything and everything Amanda does is judged after the fact to be the wrong choice.

It also reflects a certain resentment. Follain is one of several reporters who have portrayed Amanda in a way that is inaccurate, malicious, and explicitly dishonest. Now she is stepping forward to define herself, and there's not a damn thing these people can do to stop her.

She's also admitted to making childish mistakes, which is a lot more than others twice her age have done.

I'm thinking of Follain here - who insists on leading with the "Ooopla" thing as if it is somehow revealing in solving the crime. The Kerchers themselves deserve better than this.

 

[Grinder]

Seems reasonable points to me:

As Knox waits for the retrial due in Florence this autumn — her family say she will not attend but she can be tried in absentia — her memoir is likely to be scrutinised by prosecutors. “If I were a Florence prosecutor, I would take Knox’s book and Sollecito’s book [Honour Bound] and look for contradictions,” one Italian prosecutor said, declining to be named.

“Both Knox and Sollecito are shooting themselves in the foot with these books. It’s a disaster as far as the new trial is concerned. The idea that someone like Knox can write a book and earn money for it, after she’s been definitively convicted of slandering an innocent man and when there’s a new murder trial due — that won’t go down well,” the prosecutor predicted.

I think the prosecutor is Yummi.

BTW Bill Charlie agreed with me that the staging didn't need evidence as a staged break-in could look exactly like a real one.

Charlie believes that a Rudi break-in fits with the rest of the "facts" and therefore he believes (as you do) that it was a real break-in.

No answer. No God. She'd never let you take a picture anyway.

 

[Grinder]

Guess who is exploiting the death of Meredith. If one were very thoughtful it would be clear. In order to promote her book she somehow appears in a BBC story about maths in trials - here

Sadly she is wrong with her analysis as LCN DNA isn't the same thing as a biased coin. The nature of the LCN test being unreliable isn't just because of the reading of the results or the number of amplifications but the gathering, transport and lab protocol.

If the test might be unreliable, because of contamination or secondary transfer then a second test is just as unreliable.

The coin example is stupid.

 

[Kevin_Lowe]

My main point was/is that it is not lunacy or impossible that it was staged.

"Lunacy" and "Impossible" are two different things.

Nobody has argued it would be "impossible" to stage a burglary, and even if it were impossible I'm not sure how you would prove it to be impossible.

On the other hand something can be possible, yet it could still be lunacy to believe it. 9/11 could have been staged by the CIA, just as the break-in associated with the murder of Meredith Kercher could have been staged by Amanda and Raffaele.

Evaluating such hypotheses is a matter of estimating how hard it would have been for them to stage it, how likely it is they would have staged it if they could, and how likely alternative hypotheses are.

This is part and parcel of the PIP meme that the police made up the staged idea to frame the kids. They say that there was absolutely nothing that should have had them consider staging. I don't agree. I've made a case that the most likely stager would have been Rudi himself if in fact it was staged. Why? Because the MO was similar to his and the kids could have just left the balcony door unlocked or the front door open.

I also believe that a rock was thrown from outside. It could have been by Rudi before or after the murder. He could have thrown the rock and then entered with Meredith as she showed up during his "waiting" period.

People under stress do weird things. However as has already been pointed out, the cost/benefit analysis of throwing a rock at a window before a burglary to check for occupants or nosy neighbours when you are in a position to run away, is totally different from the cost/benefit analysis of throwing a rock at a window after you have murdered someone inside the building and want that to remain undiscovered for as long as possible.

However I think we're still getting ahead of ourselves because we've still got no positive reason to think the burglary was staged. Sure, it's a theoretical possibility, but there are an infinite number of theoretical possibilities we don't bother to explore because there's no reason to believe them. Why are we focusing on this one?

The refrain that there was no evidence of staging of course is specious because as you noted a staged break-in would not need to be detectable. I would say Raf's response that nothing was taken, which proved to be true was highly suspicious.

It's not specious at all.

The police claim that there was evidence of staging. They make this claim as part of a network of claims that implicate and Amanda and Raffaele. Pro-guilt posters repeat these claims.

Repeating that there was no evidence of staging cannot be specious unless and until people stop claiming that there was evidence of staging.

Also, since an undetectable staging effort is highly improbable, it's only got a legitimate reason for existing as part of this conversation if and only if it is a necessary part of a larger, compelling narrative. Show me a narrative of the crime that explains everything much better than the generally accepted pro-innocence narrative and which requires an undetectably staged break-in and I'll be interested. Until then, we might as well postulate a narrative where undetectable leprechauns did it.

 

[Mary_H]

What is your opinion about this, exactly?

You have noted (correctly) that someone could stage a break-in that is indistinguishable from a real break-in. The obvious implication is that a real break-in is indistinguishable from one that has been properly staged.

So there will never be absolute proof one way or the other. The best anyone can do is establish that the evidence is consistent with someone who pitched a rock through the window and used it as an access point, and it was in fact a viable access point for an athletic man. IMO that has been established, and it fits with a broader scenario that is supported by all of the reliable evidence from this investigation.

This is true of so many aspects of the "evidence." The facts don't support the case against the defendants, and that should be enough. The ongoing discussion of evidence risks becoming a distraction from the essential problem, which is the people who started the case and who want to prolong it. They have shown repeatedly that facts, science and logic mean nothing to them.

 

[Grinder]

It is specious. There doesn't need to evidence of staging just like there need not be proof of contamination. The PLE believed in staging from the very beginning or very shortly thereafter. Are you suggesting that the PLE worked to frame them from day one?

You use leprechauns and the PGP say DNA was flown around by trained flies.

Please give proof it wasn't staged and not that it doesn't fit with your grand narrative. I include Rudi tossing the rock but not entering through the window - not technically staging but consistent with his not entering through the window.

The use of lunacy in this context was in fact meaning impossible.

Why would an undetectable staging be improbable? What would the evidence of staging be? No dirt or mud on the wall? No glass found under the window? Glass on top of clothes? Someone supposedly not involved in the break-in knowing nothing was missing? A difficult to reach window selected?

So the only reason the PLE thought of staging was because they had a larger narrative?

 

[Charlie Wilkes]

My main point was/is that it is not lunacy or impossible that it was staged. This is part and parcel of the PIP meme that the police made up the staged idea to frame the kids. They say that there was absolutely nothing that should have had them consider staging. I don't agree. I've made a case that the most likely stager would have been Rudi himself if in fact it was staged. Why? Because the MO was similar to his and the kids could have just left the balcony door unlocked or the front door open.

I also believe that a rock was thrown from outside. It could have been by Rudi before or after the murder. He could have thrown the rock and then entered with Meredith as she showed up during his "waiting" period.

The refrain that there was no evidence of staging of course is specious because as you noted a staged break-in would not need to be detectable. I would say Raf's response that nothing was taken, which proved to be true was highly suspicious.

OK, we're in agreement about what the facts do and do not prove, but we diverge with regard to inferences. I don't agree that Guede would have been likely to stage the break-in himself. It wouldn't benefit him even if he was thinking ahead, which I don't believe he was. He didn't even think to go back and flush the toilet he used before he killed Meredith.

I agree that the police might sincerely have thought the break-in was staged. I know of other cases where investigators have been led astray because they started with that premise, and it turned out to be wrong.

 

[Charlie Wilkes]

Guess who is exploiting the death of Meredith. If one were very thoughtful it would be clear. In order to promote her book she somehow appears in a BBC story about maths in trials - here

Sadly she is wrong with her analysis as LCN DNA isn't the same thing as a biased coin. The nature of the LCN test being unreliable isn't just because of the reading of the results or the number of amplifications but the gathering, transport and lab protocol.

If the test might be unreliable, because of contamination or secondary transfer then a second test is just as unreliable.

The coin example is stupid.

There is a discussion raging about this on Bruce's site. The other day she revealed that she is unaware of the DNA quantification results on the knife blade samples, which shows she has not read C&V's report or examined Stefanoni's lab notes. But she has written a book opining on the quality of the DNA evidence.

She also dismisses guidelines for evaluating DNA evidence as "meaningless rules" and says they were devised by people who don't understand the subject. She is a real piece of work.

 

[Charlie Wilkes]

It is specious. There doesn't need to evidence of staging just like there need not be proof of contamination. The PLE believed in staging from the very beginning or very shortly thereafter. Are you suggesting that the PLE worked to frame them from day one?

You use leprechauns and the PGP say DNA was flown around by trained flies.

Please give proof it wasn't staged and not that it doesn't fit with your grand narrative. I include Rudi tossing the rock but not entering through the window - not technically staging but consistent with his not entering through the window.

The use of lunacy in this context was in fact meaning impossible.

Why would an undetectable staging be improbable? What would the evidence of staging be? No dirt or mud on the wall? No glass found under the window? Glass on top of clothes? Someone supposedly not involved in the break-in knowing nothing was missing? A difficult to reach window selected?

So the only reason the PLE thought of staging was because they had a larger narrative?

They were looking at the fact that a lot of valuables had been left untouched, they may have thought it would be difficult to get through the window, and there was another access point that looked easier.

I don't think they started out with the idea of framing someone. They were misled by hunches that were poorly supported and turned out to be wrong. The "staged break-in" was the first of these hunches - "aha! It was an inside job." Amanda's "see you later" text message formed the basis of the second hunch - "aha! She met Lumumba, went back to the cottage with him, they killed Meredith, and she broke the window to make it look like an intruder did it."

So they browbeat Amanda until she signed a statement that vaguely lined up with their hunches, they made some arrests, and they held a press conference.

THAT was when the frame-up really started.

Compare it with the Stephanie Crowe investigation. They didn't set out to frame Stephanie's brother. They looked at the crime scene and judged that no one could have broken in without waking up the entire family, so it had to be someone in the family, and the brother seemed most likely.

But, they were wrong. It turned out that an intruder had broken in and killed Stephanie without waking anyone up.

 

[Dan O.]

The PLE believed in staging from the very beginning or very shortly thereafter.

No they didn't. But they lie and say they did.

If the PLE believed that the breakin had been staged they would have collected the supporting evidence to document that belief. As proof of the staging, they presented testimony that there was no glass outside below the window. So where is the photograph of that ground beneath the window that shows no glass? The only picture of the ground beneath the window is from the Spheron video and all it shows is PLE using that area as a break room, smoking cigarettes and chatting on their cell phine. They also say there were no marks on the outside wall. PLE didn't take any contemporous detailed pictures of that wall. The best photo was taken by the defense almost 10 months later and lo, there are scuffs.

The only evidence presented in court of a staged breakin was the oral testimonies over a year later. Did they remember not seeing evidence of a climb or did they not remember seeing evidence of a climb and over time this morphed into what Mignini wanted them to remember. I believe the lack of tangible evidence shows it's the latter.

 

[anglolawyer]

Does the rock being thrown from the outside prove anything as to whether or not the break-in was staged.

The glass being organized by the shutter doesn't point one way or the other.

No, I agree. I can't see why the stager has to smash the window from inside, but this is one PGP argument and IIRC you have queried why no glass was found outside on the ground. That question is directly linked to the direction of the throw. Then there is the 11" gap thing. If it's accepted the rock was thrown from outside then it's no longer a suspicious circumstance that no glass was found on the ground. It just means the physics of smashing windows is not what some might think. That just leaves lack of scuff marks, choice of window and nothing was stolen as indicators of staging.

I'm just narrowing the issues

ETA

you seem very confused. This is not a court of law. We are discussing the case and various specifics. I listed a number of things that I would expect to have existed - dirt on the wall, leaves or dirt on the grate, glass on the ground, signs of shoes under the lower window ...

You're the one who is confused.