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

[Chris_Halkides]

What is left out of Vogt's article is more telling

As usual I offer no comment, other than interesting article.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-22351375

You are a little late; I already linked to it. The arguments are poor (Ms. Vogt's "contradictions" are nothing of the sort), and Ms. Vogt leaves out the fact that it wasn't until two months later that Ms. Knox was told that she was HIV-negative. "Both accounts also refer to the devastating but erroneous news from the prison doctor that she had tested positive for HIV, although her diary presents a more relaxed person at this point. 'First of all, the guy told me not to worry, it could be a mistake, they're going to take a second test next week.'" This is a...ahem...highly selective reading of the diary. Ms. Knox related a fear of dying elsewhere.

She discusses the letter to her lawyers, but she doesn't mention that Ms. Knox's letter on or about 9 November to her lawyer repeats her version of events, that she was not there and does not know who killed Meredith. Why am I no longer surprised by Ms. Vogt's utter lack of objectivity and professionalism?

 

[Grinder]

You misunderstand - "know" in the context of the stats in question means 'has a relationship with' - family member, friend (?), colleague, business relationship etc'.

I was under the impression that it is someone one knows or a stranger. Rudi was not a stranger.

Regardless of the technical definition of "know their victims" Rudi should have fit the profile of someone the PLE was looking for.

 

[anglolawyer]

Again from the Book:

Quote:
Raffaele held my free hand while I unlocked the door. I yelled, “Is anyone here?”At first nothing seemed amiss. The house was quiet, and the kitchen/living area was immaculate. I poked my head in Laura’s room. It looked fine, too. Then I opened Filomena’s door. I gasped. The window had been shattered and glass was everywhere. Clothes were heaped all over the bed and floor. The drawers and cabinets were open. All I could see was chaos. “Oh my God, someone broke in!” I shouted to Raffaele, who was right behind me.

Yeah, but so what? You really want him to remember whether she opened the door or went through an already open one? Maybe Raffaele was 'right behind her' having come from another part of the apartment (Amanda's bedroom, the small bathroom). Why did she shout to him if he was right behind her? Doesn't that suggest she shouted to him while he was elsewhere and he then came right away and was, as a result, 'right behind her'? She doesn't say he was right behind her when she opened the door, just when she went in and looked around. A couple of second could make all the difference to what her perceived. Looks like he went straight past F's room without noticing and then came back when she shouted and went in 'right behind' her when the door was open. He might genuinely but mistakenly recall the door as open when he went in but has since become confused by Amanda having a conflicting memory. I mean, just how detailed do you expect their recollections to be? It's ridiculous to expect total recall or anything like it. Try interviewing real witnesses to real events and you'll get an idea.

Find us the evidence of the clean up or other activity designed to destroy or alter the evidence. That might actually mean something but this stuff proves nothing. Or maybe you could get us the passage in Massei that shows it's a clincher.

 

[Supernaut]

What pray tell is interesting about the article in terms of guilt or innocence? For example is there some significance that she didn't report jail abuse to the State Department at the time but writes about it now? Let's say she has totally exaggerated the situation in her book to make it more interesting, does that make her look guilty of murder?

Vogt is the writer that referenced the moderator of PMF and the receptionist from a fashion house, Nikki, that was their DNA expert over there as experts on the case.

For all the complaining about Amanda having the audacity to write a book take a look at Vogt's pathetic list of stories she has written outside of one about Amanda. She is clearly trying to capitalize on Meredith's murder.

ETA - Vogt wrote: Other documents - including writings Knox penned in her own hand while incarcerated, case files and state department records - conjure up quite another impression of a very different Knox, one who was more sanguine about her experience.

"The prison staff are really nice," wrote Knox in her personal prison diary, which was eventually published in Italy under the title Amanda and the Others.

Did Amanda publish Amanda and Others? I don't think so. What would you write about your treatment in jail in your own hand if you knew that they had already taken those writings and leaked them to the press?

Vogt is as disingenuous and slanted as ever. Notably, she tries to make it seem that the few original pages of Amanda's journals she has access to are all anyone needs to read.

She and everyone else have access ONLY to;

- pages from those confiscated and selectively leaked by the authorities after they were confiscated from her cell.

- those published with the permission of Amanda and her family BEFORE the acquittals which - surprise, surprise - were also selective, undoubtedly with wary consideration given to further 'callunia' charges.

 

[Bill Williams]

You are a little late; I already linked to it. The arguments are poor (Ms. Vogt's "contradictions" are nothing of the sort), and Ms. Vogt leaves out the fact that it wasn't until two months later that Ms. Knox was told that she was HIV-negative. "Both accounts also refer to the devastating but erroneous news from the prison doctor that she had tested positive for HIV, although her diary presents a more relaxed person at this point. 'First of all, the guy told me not to worry, it could be a mistake, they're going to take a second test next week.'" This is a...ahem...highly selective reading of the diary. Ms. Knox related a fear of dying elsewhere.

She discusses the letter to her lawyers, but she doesn't mention that Ms. Knox's letter on or about 9 November to her lawyer repeats her version of events, that she was not there and does not know who killed Meredith. Why am I no longer surprised by Ms. Vogt's utter lack of objectivity and professionalism?

It's amazing how the remaining guilters can only now peck away at peripheral issues. Vogt's piece is case in point. Such contradictions might be important to fill in details in an otherwise watertight forensic case, or even a convincing circumstantial one.

Vogt still believes she is correct, for instance, in falsely saying that Knox (in a secret taping of her with her mother) admitted, "I was there," meaning that she re-confessed to being at the cottage. The fact was she was admitting to be at Raffaele's. The police also used this kind of misreporting to reinforce that she "kept changing her story."

She also said that Rudy Guede's court accepted as fact more than just "multiple attackers," but also that the court implicated Amanda and Raffaele. The court did no such thing, but that misreporting was never recanted by Vogt.

It was interesting reading some of the reader-comments in relation to a piece by Andrew Gumbel, co-author of Raffaele's book. At the very least those comments should apply to Vogt. She has been part of the journalistic problem from the beginning, and this newspiece is case in point. She deals in peripheral stuff when there is literally nothing pointing to either student at all.

With the new Florence trial coming up, it's not as if Vogt needs to watch herself in discussing real evidence.

 

[CoulsdonUK]

General response to various posts regarding the BBC article.

Well for me it’s not about innocence or guilt, that’s for the court to decide. If she is embellishing events then I wonder how the courts will view extracts from her book.

 

[Grinder]

This from elsewhere "This is one of the few examples I've located where a homeless heroin user is held to a higher standard than a university honours student. Curatolo had no problems knowing where he was that evening or what time it was. Knox claimed to have simply lost track of time and became "confused"."

This sums up the muddled thinking of the PGP. Curatolo had no problems other than he didn't have the night correct even nine months after the murder when he had his flashback and finally remember he had seen something.

He didn't have problems with the times except he did because he first testified that he saw them from 9:30 until just before midnight. Later it became more like 11:30 and he saw them a few times or something like that.

It is mind boggling that the PGP can possibly rely on a homeless, heroin dealing, and daily heroin taking man that didn't come forward for nine months after telling the police he saw nothing. Quintavalle told the police he nothing when asked but came out months later with his bogus memory.

The mind reels.

 

[Grinder]

Well for me it’s not about innocence or guilt, that’s for the court to decide. If she is embellishing events then I wonder how the courts will view extracts from her book.

Why not deal with the specifics?

Do you wonder how or how the courts should deal with the inconsistencies between her accounts while in prison, with no privacy, versus when safe in Seattle?

Do you really think that she could write the truth while in jail without repercussions?

 

[Dan O.]

[imgl]http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/imagehosting/thum_151444b5dba7130e74.jpg[/imgl]

What is this mythical Corso Garibaldi CCTV?

Don't think it's mythical Bolint. Somewhere upthread the particular cameras and their locations along CG were identified by DanO and acbytesla. In Honor Bound, Raffaele says, if I recall, his father offered to but the footage but was told the cops had already reviewed it and it showed nothing.

This is the camera on the corner of the tobaco/stationary store next to Amanda's school. I'm surprised that bolint could have debated here before without this coming up.

 

[bookworm]

Something like that.
She likely was not at Raffaele's place all night long.

Beginning with Lumumba's SMS. It was not received from the normal cell of that place.
However, the answer, at the time of which we know (by Popovic) that she was there, amazingly goes through the right cell.
So I think that at around 20:18 she was out.
Interestingly Raffaele also places her out at that time in his Nov 5 questioning.
I know it was before the murder, but denying it must have a reason.

You actually have a pretty good story here. What ruins it, IMO, is that if Amanda had somehow stumbled upon this murder happening and ran away, I really can't see anyone in that position returning the next morning. I think she would have just went on to Gubbio and kept her mouth shut and stayed out of it entirely.

 

[Bill Williams]

General response to various posts regarding the BBC article.

Well for me it’s not about innocence or guilt, that’s for the court to decide. If she is embellishing events then I wonder how the courts will view extracts from her book.

For me it is now not about guilt or innocence either, I'm afraid I am growing cynical. Not cynical about Italy or it's justice system in general - every country has its strengths and flaws on that - but cynical about how this case will play out.

As for the book, there is nothing in there that Knox will not enter into evidence anyways. Same goes for Raffaele's book. When all Vogt can offer is the inconsistency of what Knox did or didn't see in Meredith's room when looking through the key-hole.... well, I think you know what I will say.

Compared to this, how does one explain no Knox DNA at all in the murderroom? How does one explain one lone Y-allele of Raffaele's alleged in the murderroom which also could have been half the men in the courtroom? This, when the prosecution cartoon shows the Raffaele-avatar and the Amanda-avatar fully engaged in a life and death struggle?

I agree it's for the court to decide. We all need to wait for the SC instructions on what the SC needs decided (in fact, because the SC cannot rule on facts and so must send it back if that needs to happen.)

I will be greatly relieved if the lone fact the SC needs to have decided "in fact" is in ordering a new, third independent DNA review, one that adheres to international standards. So far, what is current now that Hellmann's decision has been quashed, we are back at Massei who basically ruled that an independent review was not necessary because, "Stefanoni would not lie." In given his reason why Stephanoni would not lie, Massei essentially says, "Why? Because I asked her and she told me that the defence had everything they needed."

As it is, Amanda Knox is not a DNA expert, and so extracts from her book are meaningless. She's passing on hearsay from what she heard from her own experts.

Truly the people who deserve an answer now that this whole thing is back in the courts at the fact-finding level are the Kerchers.

I also expect that Mignini will ramp up his calunnia-factory and file charges against Knox. Good for him. He's sued EVERYONE who has oppsed him, the most baldly blatant example was when he sued Curt and Edda, but inexplicably left out the author (Follain) and the publisher! There can be no more bald statement of what's what than that.

 

[anglolawyer]

This from elsewhere "This is one of the few examples I've located where a homeless heroin user is held to a higher standard than a university honours student. Curatolo had no problems knowing where he was that evening or what time it was. Knox claimed to have simply lost track of time and became "confused"."

This sums up the muddled thinking of the PGP. Curatolo had no problems other than he didn't have the night correct even nine months after the murder when he had his flashback and finally remember he had seen something.

He didn't have problems with the times except he did because he first testified that he saw them from 9:30 until just before midnight. Later it became more like 11:30 and he saw them a few times or something like that.

It is mind boggling that the PGP can possibly rely on a homeless, heroin dealing, and daily heroin taking man that didn't come forward for nine months after telling the police he saw nothing. Quintavalle told the police he nothing when asked but came out months later with his bogus memory.

The mind reels.

The PGPs can't tell their conclusions from their premises, if you'll pardon the expression. Thoughtful (who, as Leila Schapps in Math on Trial refers without apparent irony to the 'unfortunate coincidence' that every piece of prosecution evidence is questionable) says A & R weren't in the Piazza the whole time, only at the precise moments when he looked in their direction. So she has solved the problem that his evidence gives them an alibi by inferring, by yet another unfortunate coincidence, their absences from the Piazza coincided exactly with the turning of his head.

But Curatolo says they were there the whole time and Galati affirms his 'extraordinary accuracy'. It should be interesting to see what happens when they prop what's left of him up on the stand at trial no. 3.

 

[Kaosium]

As usual I offer no comment, other than interesting article.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-22351375

This is sad to read, like Andrea Vogt can get no better work than waspish attempts to find 'contradictions' that amount to little more than not realizing with 400 pages and freedom Amanda can write with more depth and honesty than she could scribbling in a notebook in prison.

Here she was just stupid, like she doesn't even know the case at all:

She writes that she had a flashback to the interrogation, when she felt coerced into a false accusation. "I was weak and terrified that the police would carry out their threats to put me in prison for 30 years, so I broke down and spoke the words they convinced me to say. I said: 'Patrick - it was Patrick.'"

In her memoir, she describes in detail the morning that she put that accusation in writing, and says the prison guard told her to write it down fast. Yet in a letter to her lawyers she gives no hint of being rushed or pressured. "I tried writing what I could remember for the police, because I've always been better at thinking when I was writing. They gave me time to do this. In this message I wrote about my doubts, my questions and what I knew to be true."

What Andrea missed was what Amanda is describing there is not the statements she signed but the 'gift' note! That's where she worked through her doubts, questions and what she knew to be true, not either statement which doesn't resemble that at all. She wrote that note in the questura before she was taken to Capanne prison.

Reading this reminded me of something, along with hearing about Barbie being on CNN with the same sort of dreck:

'There is a tide in the affairs of (wo)men.
Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune;
Omitted, all the voyage of their life
Is bound in shallows and in miseries.'

 

[Chris_Halkides]

Follain's take

From his recent Times article. "It was her bizarre behaviour - including yoga exercises at the police station - that helped to persuade police and prosecutors that she and Raffaele Sollecito, her boyfriend at the time, killed Kercher in a drug-fuelled sex game that Kercher refused to take part in." I know every time I see people doing yoga, I run away as quickly as I can because I know my life is in jeopardy.

 

[anglolawyer]

From his recent Times article. "It was her bizarre behaviour - including yoga exercises at the police station - that helped to persuade police and prosecutors that she and Raffaele Sollecito, her boyfriend at the time, killed Kercher in a drug-fuelled sex game that Kercher refused to take part in." I know every time I see people doing yoga, I run away as quickly as I can because I know my life is in jeopardy.

The frightening thing is, it's probably true! I was amazed at the reaction to Jodi Arias's head stand. That was the clincher for many. How could she possibly not be guilty? She even fished through the waste bin when no one was looking!

 

[CoulsdonUK]

Why not deal with the specifics?

Do you wonder how or how the courts should deal with the inconsistencies between her accounts while in prison, with no privacy, versus when safe in Seattle?

Do you really think that she could write the truth while in jail without repercussions?

I am surprised she didn’t mention her mistreatment to US consular officials during their visits or if she did why they didn’t do anything about them. Anyway, I’ll return to my hibernation until the Supreme Court motivations are translated.

 

[CoulsdonUK]

For me it is now not about guilt or innocence either, I'm afraid I am growing cynical. Not cynical about Italy or it's justice system in general - every country has its strengths and flaws on that - but cynical about how this case will play out.

As for the book, there is nothing in there that Knox will not enter into evidence anyways. Same goes for Raffaele's book. When all Vogt can offer is the inconsistency of what Knox did or didn't see in Meredith's room when looking through the key-hole.... well, I think you know what I will say.

Compared to this, how does one explain no Knox DNA at all in the murderroom? How does one explain one lone Y-allele of Raffaele's alleged in the murderroom which also could have been half the men in the courtroom? This, when the prosecution cartoon shows the Raffaele-avatar and the Amanda-avatar fully engaged in a life and death struggle?

I agree it's for the court to decide. We all need to wait for the SC instructions on what the SC needs decided (in fact, because the SC cannot rule on facts and so must send it back if that needs to happen.)

I will be greatly relieved if the lone fact the SC needs to have decided "in fact" is in ordering a new, third independent DNA review, one that adheres to international standards. So far, what is current now that Hellmann's decision has been quashed, we are back at Massei who basically ruled that an independent review was not necessary because, "Stefanoni would not lie." In given his reason why Stephanoni would not lie, Massei essentially says, "Why? Because I asked her and she told me that the defence had everything they needed."

As it is, Amanda Knox is not a DNA expert, and so extracts from her book are meaningless. She's passing on hearsay from what she heard from her own experts.

Truly the people who deserve an answer now that this whole thing is back in the courts at the fact-finding level are the Kerchers.

I also expect that Mignini will ramp up his calunnia-factory and file charges against Knox. Good for him. He's sued EVERYONE who has oppsed him, the most baldly blatant example was when he sued Curt and Edda, but inexplicably left out the author (Follain) and the publisher! There can be no more bald statement of what's what than that.

Hello Bill

We will know more about the frame work of the second level trial when the Supreme Court motivations are released, until then I’ll continue perusing websites on either side of the case.

 

[Dan O.]

It is definitely not in Massei who details all calls of the phones of Raffaele, Amanda and Meredith. Only the Italian SIM of Amanda appears in it starting with the call to Meredith.
Before that there is only the Lumumba text and reply and nothing else during the whole day of Nov 1.



You betcha.

We've been discussing the phone records on the original thread here long before Massei. (ie: here)

 

[bolint]

if Amanda had somehow stumbled upon this murder happening and ran away, I really can't see anyone in that position returning the next morning.

I think so, too. Especially not at a time when the others could drop in anytime.
Unless, for example, there is something at the scene pointing to the person, which must be removed at all cost.

I don't know if she went back to the cottage next morning. Apart from her claim what is the evidence that she really entered the cottage?

 

[anglolawyer]

I think so, too. Especially not at a time when the others could drop in anytime.
Unless, for example, there is something at the scene pointing to the person, which must be removed at all cost.

I don't know if she went back to the cottage next morning. Apart from her claim what is the evidence that she really entered the cottage?

Her clothes on the bed?