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

[anglolawyer]

Meredith had almost certainly locked the door when she left to have dinner with his friends. For Rudy had checked the door to see if he could get out, he would have to leave Filomena's room to do so. And if he found it locked, he would know he had to leave via the window. Even if he planned to steal Filomena's laptop and climbing out via the window, why not pick it up on the way out of the apartment?

Because then he would encumber himself with something that could be traced back to him and thence to the murder.

 

[GreyFox]

Broken glass

I know as kids we broke alot of windows playing baseball in our back yard. The entire glass was never broken out enough for someone to climb thru? The amount of glass or hole that was put in it was different every time. I can remember half the glass being out one time and just 1/4 the next time etc.

So for me ,Rudy has to knock in the rest of the glass inward (with his back pack or whatever) while standing on top of the other window before climing thru. A rock/baseball only does so much.

From pictures that I have seen, I believe from the defense, the guy they had standing on the window would not have to use his toes on the wall. A person just needs to get high enough to lock your forearms in and push yourself up.

Filomenia doesnt want to admit (to the whole world) that she left the room a mess.

Just cant see why the glass on the inside gives people a problem. It should be there during a normal break in ! Am I missing something here?

 

[anglolawyer]

Dear Anglo, he could have drilled a hole in his knee and planted carrots as well.

There was no reason to check the door because doors open from the inside without a key. This door as Dan O pointed out was different because someone had altered it.

It has never occurred to me to check a door to see if I could get out of the house. Granted I have never been in Rudi's alleged situation.
A burglar breaks in and quickly assesses the situation in the room and perhaps other rooms. Perhaps Meredith comes in just then. But I see no reason that if she didn't, that he wouldn't start putting things into a pillow case or better a suitcase.

Ah, well there's the thing. Means of egress are crucial. You don't want to waste time going round getting all the heavy stuff together only to find you can't get out. Some people double lock the door when leaving property empty. Again, all Rudi had to do, if a visual check was not enough, was to deviate a couple of feet and pull at the door to see if he could open it.

Actually, I can't even remember what hangs on this anymore but I think it rather less likely that he would have drilled a hole in his knee, to be perfectly frank.

 

[Grinder]

Ah, well there's the thing. Means of egress are crucial. You don't want to waste time going round getting all the heavy stuff together only to find you can't get out. Some people double lock the door when leaving property empty. Again, all Rudi had to do, if a visual check was not enough, was to deviate a couple of feet and pull at the door to see if he could open it.

Actually, I can't even remember what hangs on this anymore but I think it rather less likely that he would have drilled a hole in his knee, to be perfectly frank.

What hangs on it is whether it was odd that all of Filomena's stuff was left untouched in her room. From the Book of Grinder: Filomena said " what a joke of a burglar not to take any of my cool stuff".

 

[RWVBWL]

An open front door, all night long?

When I recall the front door,
i seem to remember it being found wide open when Amanda came home the next morning.

Hmmm,
an open door all night long.
Drug users right up the street,
Guede-o says he saw a drug dealer he recognized when he 1st came over
Gotsta keep that in mind when trying to put all the pieces of the puzzle together, no?

Weren't there some 13, 14 to 17 un-attributed fingerprints found in the girls flat? Whose were they?
Who stole Filomena's make-up?
Who got the cat's blood on the lightswitch downstairs in the guys flat?
What about the blood found on the handkerchief near a railing,
as mentioned in Grinder's post?

From an Italian (Google translation) - The squad of Perugia - directed by Marco Chiacchera - and the forensic police have started investigations. It appears that traces of blood have been found on the broken window and on a handkerchief near a railing which delimits the overlying road, as well as in the chamber of the victim. No sign of forced entry was evident instead identified on the front door.
<snip>

Weird...

 

[anglolawyer]

What hangs on it is whether it was odd that all of Filomena's stuff was left untouched in her room. From the Book of Grinder: Filomena said " what a joke of a burglar not to take any of my cool stuff".

Ah, thanks. Well I still think it a matter of immediate moment to burglars generally how they will be getting out once they're in. I think when this came up at IIP folks went away and made enquiry of their burglar friends and confirmed it. They tend to assume they will go out the same way they came in, as a rule of thumb.

 

[Dan O.]

The cottage door has a key lock on the inside (picture is shown above). When it is not desired that a key be required to unlock the door from the inside, a thumb turn is used instead of the key lock.

Rudy had not been inside the upstairs apartment. But he had been in the downstairs apartment and it can be a reasonable assumption that the two would be similarily equipped. We know that the downstairs door required a key to unlock it from the inside because there is a video of ILE kicking in the glass on the door and reaching through but failing to unlatch the door.

 

[Dan O.]

Bill, Filomena knew about the phones before she checked her room.

Have you got a source for that?

A report of Filomena's testimony from http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/feb/08/kercher-trial-knox

She said that, knowing by then that the window of her bedroom had been smashed, her first instinct on returning to the flat had been to go to her room. What she saw was "a disaster". Her clothes were on the floor and her cupboard was open. But none of her jewellery was missing, nor her designer sunglasses and handbags. Her laptop was among the clothes. She said there was glass on top of the pile of clothes: "I remember that in lifting the computer I realised that I was picking up bits of glass because there were bits of glass on top and it was all covered with glass."​

 

[bookworm]

I am confused about the highlighted sentence - do you mean Rudy in jail rather than Lumumba? Or does your Italian friend think that Lumumba is still in prison? Lumumba was in jail for a time due to Amanda's declaration.

I am of the opinion that the case will not be decided by Italian public opinion. I think when it has reached the SC a lot is ruled on by the law presented and argued by both representations (defense and prosecution). Perhaps I am naive in this opinion but so far, this case has done the opposite of what many in the public has said or thought it would do.

As an aside, I have enjoyed the topic of your and your wife's travels. Your photos are wonderful as they give happy memories of times past (and present). I also hope your health is much improved.

I've run into this quite a few times. Alot of people mistakenly believe that the innocent black man that Amanda supposedly accused is in prison because of her and they have no idea that Rudy is guilty of killing Meredith. Yep. I know who I blame for that. Meredith's killer getting off pretty much scot-free.

 

[Dan O.]

Just cant see why the glass on the inside gives people a problem. It should be there during a normal break in ! Am I missing something here?

The issue here is the order of events. For a breakin, the order is: break the window, climb in, strew things about. If the order is instead: strew things about then break the window, it looks like staging. The prosecution tried to make the case for the latter because there was glass on top of some of the cloths.

The problem is that there is no record of where those cloths were prior to that night. The evidence is compatible with Filomena leaving cloths stacked on the floor beneath the window, a rock thrown through the window. Rudy entering through the window and steping on the cloths, scattering some of them.

There is also the possibility that additional glass fell out of that window later that night as the window is blowing open and shut.

 

[Supernaut]

You nailed it. This is a PIP doing what the PGP do all the time. The PGP always want AK and RS to remember the night of the murder as if they knew a murder was being committed. Over and over the PGP are amazed that one thing or another happened while Meredith was being attacked or lay dead.

In this case the PP were returning two phones. The kids showed them what they had found, the blood spots and broken window and oh my god, the poo.

Filomena comes and sees the broken window etc. and is asked whether anything is missing. She goes to look which isn't strange for the circumstances. Note she wasn't so freaked out that she screamed at the PP "screw my stuff break down the door." (Anglo that missing quote is pointed out in the Book of Grinder).

It was after it was determined that nothing was missing, not the laptop, not the camera and not her jewelry, that she became exercised and had the door broken down.

It was after the body was discovered that F and the PP began to suspect the burglary was staged. And that is when they should have.

Talk about "over-thinking"!

 

[RWVBWL]

<snip>
In this case the PP were returning two phones. The kids showed them what they had found, the blood spots and broken window and oh my god, the poo.<snip>

Wasn't there some bloody tissue or paper towels, beside that supposed handkerchief, also found outside Grinder?
How did Amanda+Raf miss them? It seems everyone else did too, Filomena, Marco, the postal police, etc.
Where were they found in relation to the driveway, the house?
I don't think that I'ver ever seen a mock-up Google style map showing where this evidence was found...
Anyone know?

 

[acbytesla]

Frankly, I'm sick of the discussion of the burglary being staged. I don't buy it. I do agree with Grinder that the police's early theories focused on key holders and some kind of date turning into sex crime murder. There is NO proof that the break in was staged. There was testimony that they found glass on top of the clothes and they didn't find glass outside.

First, I don't think even if both of these things were true would prove that the break in was staged. Filomena's room was a mess and there is no way to determine how it got to be that much of a mess. The police believed it wasn't a burglary even before discovering Meredith's body, because of the camera and the computer. Filomena rummaged through the room (not sure what that actually means) The police said they didn't find glass outside the window...and my answer to that is SO???

I certainly don't buy that Rudy staged the break in. Could he have? ...sure...would he have? For the life of me, I can think of any logical reason why he would.

 

[Kevin_Lowe]

I have a friend on Facebook that speaks out about injustice in the US and even has a website and group protesting several US cases of injustice, most of which I agree are injustices. It turns out she is from Perugia, knows Mignini personally, and refuses to discuss the evidence. She is attending school in the US and has no problem finding fault with our system, but for the Kercher case it is a matter of being Italian.

I'm confused.

I thought that the official pro-guilt position was that the JREF forum discussion of the case was meaningless and irrelevant, and only the Italian court decisions mattered.

But now we're such a powerful influence on public opinion that we need to be careful what we say, lest we determine the court's verdict! I hope we wield this awesome power responsibly. The power to convict people on the other side of the planet by posting mean things on the internet is nothing to be sneezed at.

(Although... doesn't that mean that the more rabid pro-guilt posters on other forums should be rubbishing Italy, so as to provoke the Italians into convicting Sollecito? Lionking better go tell them that they are doing it all wrong, and that if they keep praising the Italian legal system it will paradoxically lead to Knox and Sollecito going free).

 

[Charlie Wilkes]

Yes, I can see this. One of our tour guides spoke of the case as we were going through Florence, and said words to the effect that the SC will find the murderer - Rudy seems to have been erased from the picture in Italy. I was talking to another Italian last night ("we know she's guilty" was his opening comment) and spoke about Rudy's conviction. This guy's very intelligent, but was convinced that Lumumba was in jail due Amanda's false evidence. I tried to tell him he was wrong, but he wanted none of it. He did admit that the whole case was now one of national pride.

So, getting back to the point of my earlier post, given the depth of feeling, and the strong likelihood that the case will be decided in the Italian court of public opinion, it simply doesn't seem to be a good idea to relentlessly criticise the Italian prosecutorial and justice system.

There is something very Italian about this whole mess.

They got themselves all whipped up, but they couldn't really cut loose, because they had a distraught girl in custody and her unhappy family camped out in Italy. It was unseemly. So they brought in a rational judge who let her go. Now she's safely out of reach, and they can unleash their fury.

"Amanda ruined Lumumba's life." "Amanda danced on Meredith's grave." "Amanda fled from justice."

I say, let them. I'm not going to refrain from what I consider rational discussion in order to placate people who can't bother to inform themselves of basic facts.

They did this to Callas back in the 50s and 60s. Now they love her again. They even had a silly reconciliation ceremony on the 50th anniversary of the performance where she "walked out" on the president of Italy.

http://www.callas.it/news/english/multimedia.html

I predict that Amanda's rehabilitation will take place in her lifetime. But it won't happen until everyone has done their absolute worst, and it may well end in an extradition proceeding, which will not be decided by the court of Italian public opinion.

 

[Kaosium]

I would think if the initial responders had thought the burglary was staged they would not have let Filomena into to disturb evidence of any staging. The police photographer would have been told to take pictures of the glass on clothes and pictures of the search for glass under the window. That extensive article I posted at JREF from the very early days of the case seems to imply there were two lines of investigation (something that Kaosium has theorized), one focused as a burglary gone bad, the other on Amanda's involvement. Once they announced case closed the other line of investigation (burglary gone bad) pretty much shut down.

Yes, a while back in a discussion with Anglo I went through many of the initial reports here from before the arrests that suggest most investigators weren't looking for a burglar. Initially investigators assumed that Meredith had invited her killer back to her place, but that was dropped and forgotten by most now, perhaps in response to her father objecting to it publicly.

 

[billyryan]

It is now 30/4/2013 where I live, today is the day that Amanda Knox finally gets her chance to answer the lies told by a criminally corrupt prosecutor Mignini,evidence tampering police and lying forensic scientist,I have little doubt that these people are somewhere, very apprehensive about what Amanda will have to say in her book,as it is now time for me to hit the sack I will do so truly hoping that Amanda has found a way to nail these perjurers in as public a way as possible

 

[Bill Williams]

It is now 30/4/2013 where I live, today is the day that Amanda Knox finally gets her chance to answer the lies told by a criminally corrupt prosecutor Mignini,evidence tampering police and lying forensic scientist,I have little doubt that these people are somewhere, very apprehensive about what Amanda will have to say in her book,as it is now time for me to hit the sack I will do so truly hoping that Amanda has found a way to nail these perjurers in as public a way as possible

Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito just may singlehandedly sink Mignini. And all they have done is tell the truth.

I'm up to Nov 10, 2007 in Knox's book. So far it is a complete....

I had fooled myself into thinking I knew what this case was about. Then I read about how both Raffaele and Amanda, in their own words, went into Judge Mattieni's court thinking that all they had to do was explain. That their innocence would be obvious.

THEN! They are told they will be in jail for up to a year while the case is investigated. "But we have not done anything?", and no one up until then had made them understand that they were in the fight for their lives. And in 5 1/2 years no one has shown how they could have even done it, even if their books were all lies - they simply could not have done the thing.

These two books are cautionary takes of being 20 and 24, somewhat gormless to the ways of the world, and thinking that a PM is the mayor of the town; and that wrong assumption is not cleared up until after the jail door clinks behind you.

I thought I knew what this case was about. It seems I have completely underestimated their innocence, and underestimated the lengths the Perugian authorities would go to frame innocents. The absolute best one can say about the Perugians is that in their own fatigue, and in their own "fish out of water'edness", they themselves were in over their heads and rushed to judgement.

Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito needed lawyers.

What they got were death threats and blows to the back of the head at interrogation. Oh yes, two of them. By "Police Officer Rita Ficarra." It's right there in black and white.

Shame on Britain for disallowing sales of this book, and granting safe haven to liars from Perugia. Shame.

 

[Chris_Halkides]

This was not their finest hour

Shame on Britain for disallowing sales of this book, and granting safe haven to liars from Perugia. Shame.

"A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to get its pants on."

 

[JREF2010]

I've run into this quite a few times. Alot of people mistakenly believe that the innocent black man that Amanda supposedly accused is in prison because of her and they have no idea that Rudy is guilty of killing Meredith. Yep. I know who I blame for that. Meredith's killer getting off pretty much scot-free.

Thats a sad and pathetic truth to all this mess.
Rudy has Migninni and Maresca siding with him, he seems to have benefited by supporting the two prosecutors...but Curatolo-Toto did that too.
Rudy can not be free to talk, and even if he doesnt talk, the ones who are trying to save face know he could. Like Toto it isnt good to have someone able to upset the ones in power in Perugia.

Rudy knows where the keys were tossed and the bloody knife is hidden. He could probably answer all the mysterys to this and the prosecution knows he alone could make them all look like fools. Which isnt good for Rudy with a prosecutor like Migninni, Edgardo Giobbi, Stefonani, Matteini, Massei..all benefitting with the guilty-verdict. The small system goes into Rome, for those who need to protect their credibility.

Rudy is a huge liability, imo..