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

[anglolawyer]

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.

Didn't one of the posties say something like: this is no burglary - before the body was discovered?

 

[anglolawyer]

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.

I have hitherto dismissed as irrelevant all the stuff about oopla and other supposedly odd behaviour, until seeing folks' reaction to Jodi Arias's handstand and fishing through the bin. Both are equally irrelevant but it's very disconcerting how strongly people latch onto such things.

 

[RandyN]

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?

I don't hear anyone claiming that PLE worked to make a false case against AK and RS from day 1...It was more like from day 6 or 7. And even then they just wanted to get them both in jail so that AK mom wouldn't take her away.

If I may remind...no charges were brought for a year or nearly so. BTW one of the most common violations the Italian judicial system is found guilty of by the ECOHR. Right to a speedy trial. Also right to a fair trial.

As for your second point...I don't think the idea of staging was seriously considered much at all...especially in the beginning...it was just something they thought about. In fact one would expect a far more careful examination of that evidence if they in fact actually considered a staged break-in. Maybe a careful computer photographic exam of the outer wall, perhaps a screening for glass under the window (even though the basic physics work against glass falling outside...just think about it?) But sure ...scuff marks, trampled grass...although if I walk across my grass tonight and then look for my tracks tomorrow afternoon....well I don't expect I would find anything.

This idea is simply what Mignini used over time to develop his theory...and beside you I think most agree that the argument for staging is weak and unlikely...not impossible but improbable since nothing about it fits.

There is a clue about it in Rudys diary...or perhaps it is his tapped conversation with his "Pal" Giacomo. From out of the :blue" RG talks about the broken window. He states it is not broken...which is convenient if you examine all his statements about this window. In particular examine that the press were mostly reporting about a broken MK window....not a broken FR window.

RS statement that "nothing was taken". I cant conclude anything about this statement....I feel pretty certain he said that....I recall hearing it somewhere...but was this RS translating what AK was telling him in one ear in English and him telling police his version of that in Italian...did he mean nothing appears to have been taken? How could he know the inventory of the cottage after a week ....most of which time was spent at his place?

Im all for making these two guilty...it is how I have approached this case from day one....and I would gladly change positions if some proof ....some evidence happens to arise that shows this is something besides a fit up.

Trust me...we have tried to make these two guilty on this very thread...we put our collective heads together and tried to make points that could have or may have shown they could be involved...nothing fits.

If the Italian defense took any amount of time demanding that the prosecution present evidence rather than speculation, theory and even salacious lies (unless you think there is proof that Knox is an actual real witch) then this case would be long over...Imagine going into a prelim with nothing and plus the fact you have denied the defendants rights under Italian law... rights to lawyers and translators and embassy notification...

Laughed out of court or tossed out is likely what would happen to you in a normal court. Sure injustices happen everywhere but I cant imagine a more baseless case being put forth by so many.

So to give your idea that it may have been a staged break-in or even at least was or could be is not valid. It might be if this was the single irregularity...heck if this was just one of ten odd missing presentments put forth by this prosecution...then OK maybe...but we both know better.

Do we remove the burned hard drives, the non-existent bleach receipts, the forgotten recording of the interrogation (hint we have three people AK,RS and PL all stating similar police treatment) Toto and disco buses, Quintinvale, Nara, the fired pathologist, the missing quantification data, the missing control sample data sheets, the mis-measured Guede footprint, the fact that a return is made to the crime scene 6 weeks and one day after RS shoe print evidence goes to hell...???stop me when you get bored cuz I can do this for hours...

If this case was close. If this case was even reasonable. But it is ludicrous and we all know that. It stinks so bad that it smells like a dead skunk that crawled out of another dead skunks behind...its suppose to be *** but you know we cant use colorful metaphors on this site....not that I would anyway...

What is apparent is that the Italians have no shame and are willing to make fools of themselves at any cost. This in spite of overwhelming evidence that Italian courts are corrupt and willing to violate any human right...they have the record and now we see clearly why and that they certainly deserve that low standing.

 

[RandyN]

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.

Similar wrong conclusions about the most famous of all break-ins... the kidnapping of the Lindbergh baby. To this day the CT think Lindbergh himself was behind this because the baby was "not perfect" ...no proof or evidence of even that but whack jobs still claim it. This in spite of the found ladder built from the missing floor boards that match the real guys attic floor boards...just enough of them missing to make say .....a ladder.

 

[RandyN]

Didn't one of the posties say something like: this is no burglary - before the body was discovered?

It was even worse than that but I wont find the cite....something to the effect that this is no burglary... look under the table for a dead body...I swear I'm not dreaming that.

 

[Dan O.]

Didn't one of the posties say something like: this is no burglary - before the body was discovered?

Was anyone recording their comments before the body was discovered?

 

[Dan O.]

It was even worse than that but I wont find the cite....something to the effect that this is no burglary... look under the table for a dead body...I swear I'm not dreaming that.

Wake up Randy.

The only place I am finding the "this is no burglary" quote is here and IA. And those only attribute it to follian's book. Perhaps searching the original Italian would be more constructive but the Google translated search seems to have gone away.

Eta: Folian p67

 

[Mary_H]

It was even worse than that but I wont find the cite....something to the effect that this is no burglary... look under the table for a dead body...I swear I'm not dreaming that.

My recollection from the earliest reports in the London Times was that the police thought it was an everyday, run-of-the-mill burglary, and that the idea of a staging was not an immediate thought.

 

[Antony]

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.

... which is more likely than that the killer would leave DNA on the metal hook. The crazy thing is that the alleged DNA on the clasp wouldn't be evidence of participation in the murder, even if it was genuine - which it isn't.

The same is true of the DNA on the other piece of "evidence" produced by a conjuring trick: the double-DNA knife.

 

[Antony]

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.

Very much so.

Grinder, I've been reading your fixation with the crime-scene being staged by Guede with mounting frustration. Can't you see that there's no need to speculate on whether the staging would implicate Amanda and Raff, because it wasn't staged!

Or are you trying to second-guess their defence strategy, by telling us that a hypothetical staged break-in wouldn't be evidence against them?

 

[bri1]

Interesting article over at the Guardian.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-22310186
Is the author right that the knife should have been retested at appeal because 2 unreliable tests provide better data than one?!

 

[anglolawyer]

Interesting article over at the Guardian.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-22310186
Is the author right that the knife should have been retested at appeal because 2 unreliable tests provide better data than one?!

Good grief! This idea, which is the subject of a chapter in 'Maths on Trial' is such nonsense. We have been discussing it at length at IIP with one of the authors. It turns out she has either not read or not understood Conti-Vechiotti. C-V were instructed to conduct a second test but reported that

Taking note that no DNA suitable for further laboratory investigations (amplification, electrophoresis) was present either on the swabs [tamponature] (A-B-C-D-E-F-G-H-I) taken from Exhibit 36 (knife) or on those (L-M) taken from Exhibit 165B (hooks of the bra), the experts verbally informed the consultants of the parties that they would proceed to a detailed examination of the Technical Report drawn up by the Scientific Police, as according to the task formulated during the assignment hearing ...

- The quantification of the extracts obtained from the samples obtained from item 36 (knife) and item 165B (bra clasps), conducted via Real Time PCR, did not reveal the presence of DNA.

- In view of the absence of DNA in the extracts that we obtained, with the agreement of the consultants for the parties, we did not proceed to the subsequent amplification step.

 

[Charlie Wilkes]

Interesting article over at the Guardian.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-22310186
Is the author right that the knife should have been retested at appeal because 2 unreliable tests provide better data than one?!

This is a mother-daughter writing team, and the BBC interviewed the daughter. The mother has been over at Bruce Fischer's forum (Injustice Anywhere) discussing her work and attempting to defend her conclusions.

It has been a mind-boggling discussion. This woman does not seem to know about the DNA quantification issue that is central to C&V's technical report. She definitely does not understand the implications of this issue or why it matters. She has no awareness of the problems that have beset PCR labs ever since the technology has been in widespread use, and she dismisses guidelines for sound analysis as "meaningless rules."

 

[Kevin_Lowe]

It is specious. There doesn't need to evidence of staging just like there need not be proof of contamination.

I think you're equating apples and oranges here. It's the job of the forensic technicians and the lab to rule out contamination. It's not the job of the defence to rule out a staged break-in.

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?

I'm not a mind-reader. I'm certainly open to the possibility that elements within the PLE knew this was likely the work of the recently-released Rudy Guede from day one, and were determined to find a non-Perugian fall guy or gal for his crime if at all possible from day one.

I've remarked before that it's interesting that, as far as we can tell, absolutely nobody in the PLE ever thought "You know, this looks exactly like the MO of our pal Rudy that we just released, and it happened in a place he had been known to visit, I wonder where Rudy is?". He was known to the police, as they say, for very similar activities, and very recently too.

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

Once again you're throwing around false equivalences in lieu of a proper argument.

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?

You don't seem to have grasped my point at all. If it's an unfalsifiable theory it's an uninteresting theory, unless it's necessary to some larger explanation which has more explanatory power than the versions without the staged break-in.

So if you're going somewhere with the theory that Rudy threw the rock for some bizarre reason, you need to present some larger explanation for why he did that, which has some explanatory advantage over other narratives.

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

I didn't say anything like that. It would help if you didn't make up bizarre things.

 

[anglolawyer]

From Math on Trial with my comments inserted:

According to her testimony, Dr. Stefanoni began by unpacking the knife from its wrappings and examining it under a strong light. She perceived a few streaks on the blade, perhaps indicative of vigorous scrubbing. She took swabs along these streaks, managed to obtain an infinitesimal quantity of biological material— human cells, in fact, but precious few of them

This may have been her testimony but it is untrue (a significant cause for alarm, one might think). As Conti-Vechiotti point out:

It must be emphasized that no laboratory tests were performed to detect biological material of a non-haematic nature on any of the samples analyzed.

It is considered that it would have been necessary to proceed to morphological tests to identify cells which might have been present, by means of colouration with one of the reagents commonly employed in histology (hematoxylin). Such a test, quick and easy to carry out, would have required a minimum quantity of material and would not in any way have compromised further laboratory testing, but could have clarified the nature of the material removed from the item under examination.

Despite the negative result of the blood identification test and the failure to carry out cell identification tests (and therefore the failure to identify the material removed from Exhibit 36) the Technical Consultant hypothesized the presence of “presumed exfoliated cells” on the material sampled from the knife handle (traces A-D-F) and of “presumed biological material” of another nature (presumably blood, considering the tests aimed at the detection of haematic peroxidases) on the material sampled from the blade (samples B-C-E-G).

— and proceeded to perform two analyses on it: one to determine whether or not the cells were blood cells, and the other to obtain a DNA identi- fication.

Also incorrect. She performed a blood test - negative, a species specific test - negative and DNA quantification, falsely recorded as positive but in fact negative.


She also swabbed the handle of the knife. The DNA on the handle turned out to be Amanda’s, but this was not considered incriminating, as she had used the knife while cooking at Raffaele’s house. The DNA on the blade, however, was a different story. The first test could not establish whether or not the cells were from blood. They were human cells, but they might have been from skin or tissue.

Incorrect. No human cells were detected in sample 36B.

For the second test, Stefanoni’s machine was set up to work with a minimal quantity of biologi- cal material that was significantly greater than what she had at her disposal. At first this machine simply output “too low,” indicating that using the standard settings it was not able to analyze such a tiny quantity. Many forensic geneticists would have followed the accepted rules and stopped the analysis at this point. But Stefanoni elected to continue, modifying the settings and pushing the machine beyond the limits recommended in the manufacturer’s guidelines. By doing this she managed to obtain a DNA profile for the cells on the knife.

Incorrect. The Qubit fluorometer yielded one result only - too low - as it did for sample C which Stefanoni ceased to process further. Schapps thinks the Qubit fluorometer is itself used for generating DNA profiles, ignoring altogether amplification and electrophoresis in which it plays no par at all. She has over-simplified and elided crucial steps in the process to such an extent as to render her opinion worthless. She finds no room to mention the significant falsehoods retailed by Stefanoni when giving evidence and in her records. These are not matters for mathematics but for forensics.

 

[Charlie Wilkes]

She obviously does not understand the process at all, even at the high level one gets in a short overview of two or three paragraphs. I wonder if any of the science people at her university will read this.

 

[Supernaut]

Interesting article over at the Guardian.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-22310186
Is the author right that the knife should have been retested at appeal because 2 unreliable tests provide better data than one?!

This young woman is, quite simply, writing and talking utter crap.

The issue with the single piece of so-called DNA evidence against Amanda Knox (speciifically, Raff's kitched knife) has nothing to do with "probabilties" being "mis-understood" but the ignoring by the police lab of fundmental scientific methods of investigation and validation, which should be and usually are applied particularly rigorously in DNA labs.

Two of the most important are the use of controls and of repeatability.

What's all the more furstrating about this woman's assertions that a "second test" should have been performed is that it WAS, by Conti and Verchiotti. What they discovered was ..... nothing, as in, there was nothing to test.

Her mother, who co-wrote the book in question, is also hawking their specious "reasoning" around the media, recently having an essay published in the New York Times..

What's even worse is that she hides the fact that she has been a prolific contributor to an exclusively (as in, if you don't evince belief in the guilt of AK and RS you are excluded) pro-guilt website for years.

 

[Supernaut]

"Control" means "control experiment/test". In a DNA lab they consist of runs though the equipment of known quantites of DNA (positve) or none (negative), which hence produce a result which is known in advance.

Negative controls in particular are really REALLY important when dealing with low-copy-number DNA amplification, and are ALWAYS run before and after each separate sample tested. EVERY SINGLE ONE. ALWAYS

They are not excercises in 'house keeping", they are INTEGRAL with the procedure.

Stefanoni has no data from negative-controls in her knife-blade results (which were extremely low peaks, typical of contamination), hence she didn't run any.

 

[Bill Williams]

My recollection from the earliest reports in the London Times was that the police thought it was an everyday, run-of-the-mill burglary, and that the idea of a staging was not an immediate thought.

Perhaps this is a problem with relying on books, even Candace Demspey (paperback p. 62-63) has Battistelli's words ("I immediately though this was an attempt to make it look like a break-in," are the words Dempsey quotes, obvious a backward reflection on Battistelli's part), which are words used many months later. Dempsey makes a bigger deal, though, than Follain that Battistelli's observation that the glass was on top of the clothes (thus indicating a ransacking, THEN the breaking of the window). Dempsey offers as a counter observation that the placement of glass on top is not supported by the crimescene photos.

Then again, Dempsey makes a bigger deal out of Filomena being allowed to "rummage" through her room than Follain - although both use the same word in their narratives. Perhaps this is each's confirmation bias showing, and of course, I go with Dempsey(!).

Still, other than Battistelli's and Romanelli's original observation that everyone seems agreed upon, (This is no burglary, with Battistelli's months' later words about the glass) - Filomena's room becomes useless forensically on the "rummaging" issue alone.

I now tend to agree... the issue of "staging" of a break-in only became important anyway as time went on.

Initially, I think it was used only as a focus point of investigation, just in case it had been staged. Meaning, that this is one thing the cops did NOT bungle. Quickly, only two possibilities emerged, and the cops DID follow both leads.

Meaning, at this point who really cares if it is staged, just follow the key holder (and if the key-holder in question had something to do with this, then we can revisit the forensics, say the cops), or see who's in town who could have actually done a burglary like this.

Within 4 days, the cops had settled on No. 1 as their case closed, and none of the Nov 6 case closed perps had the facility to actually have done a break in. By Nov 6 the forensics in Filomena's room were ruined, but hey!, none of the three of Lumumba, Knox, or Sollecito could have done it anyway, so who needs stinking forensics?

Who knows - this may have been one of the reasons why the cops and Mignini could not let go of the two students once Guede WAS on the scene. "Ooopla!, they said, we blew the forensics on the room... we'd better keep the staging theory intact and for heavens' sake someone get to Battistelli to say the glass was on top of the clothes. Pay no attention to the photos!

 

[Grinder]

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 eary reports talked of a sex game gone wrong which doesn't fit with a break-in. They would need to take a picture of things that weren't there. pictures of a wall that don't show something are not necessary.

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.

From Massei - Certainly, he could have seen the computer and the photo camera; in the room of Romanelli but there could well be valuables that only the owner [l’interessata] [80] could have known about, and only the owner could have verified whether they were still there or not. Only the owner could have therefore excluded the burglary once the bedroom had been checked and verified the presence of all things belonging to her; rather than it could be excluded by those who, as pointed by Raffaele Sollecito, knew that the broken glass had been staged as well as the [room] disarray and so could affirm to the Carabinieri that there had been no theft.

While Marsi was accompanied by Amanda to see the traces of blood in the smaller bathroom (page 123, hearing of February 6, 2009), Battistelli was taken to Romanelli’s bedroom and expressed perplexity about the burglary (page 65) because he noticed the presence of the computer and digital camera. In addition, when Raffaele Sollecito was showing Romanelli’s room to Fabio Marsi, he said: "very strange, nothing has been taken, there’s still a portable computer and a digital camera‛ (page 124).