I came to the same conclusion but its been so long I can't remember all the reasons, for a while I got caught up in it after watching the movie JFK but it just turned into a huge time waster
I think that's a great movie technically with brilliant performances by a plethora of fantastic actors and he really brings to life 1963, but as for its factual accuracy it leaves a lot to be desired and the theory presented is kook-city even by JFK conspiracy standards. I can separate those two, I also understand the ones who cannot.
The only thing I've seen argued is that one of the five footprints was compatible with Amanda's which seems like a real stretch considering the other four were clearly the size and type of shoe that matched Rudy, so I dont buy that argument. I've also heard pro-guilt folks make a big deal about Amandas lamp being in the room but I dont see how you can draw any conclusions from that.
Do you mean one of the shoeprints in the murder room? I haven't heard that one argued in a long time, if I recall correctly that was Monica Napoleoni's contribution to forensic science in this case, Massei basically punts, and you seem to understand why. There's no reason to think it's not Rudy's just because it's partial, and utterly no reason to think it's the only thing Amanda might have left in the murder room isolated and without context.
You're preaching to the choir for the most part although the noise from all sides, language barrier and a lack of unfettered access to all the evidence in this case causes me to scratch my head when it comes to:
I was just adding some info on a few things I'd seen over that board they were talking about and were
dead wrong. Figured it might start a discussion if you wanted to explore them.
1. DNA on the bra clasp - while it wasn't collected properly, etc., how did Rafs DNA get there (if in fact it did, I realize one sides says none, the other says there is...I get tired-head trying to follow all the back and forth from both sides as well as the terminology associated with DNA analysis, so at this juncture I cannot say whether it was or wasn't on the bra clasp). Even if it was, I personally find the actions of LE questionable enough to cause me to doubt the veracity of this evidence but I'm not real wild about that argument.
Have you read the
Conti-Vecchiotti Report? Credit to Katy-Did and Komponisto for the translation.
Short version on the clasp: The autosomic STR, which is what most are usually referring to in regards to DNA matches was so partial and vague that it could have been any one of four people in the courtroom. This is the part of the DNA string that is highly variable amongst humans so they can often narrow down the possibility of different contributors to one in billions--not in this case because there so many on it and Meredith's DNA dwarfs or
masks the minor contributors.
Thus she (Patrizia Stefanoni) did a Y-haplotype test which will only show male contributors, and Stefanoni tried to pretend there was just one, and it matched Raffaele Sollecito. As noted in the first trial by Tagliabracci, there were more Y-haplotypes on the clasp, a total of four males, one of which matched Raffaele Sollecito. Unlike the autosomic STRs, the Y-Haplotype is not as variable, in fact it is shared by one's male ancestors going back many generations. That part of the string mutates (which is why all males don't have the same one) but will stay unaltered for many generations and get passed down. There are many such Y-haplotypes, but as of 2011 Raffaele's had not yet been figured in the y-Haplotype data base as they don't have them mapped for all regions, and this heavily region dependent.
Thus in the end it probably is Raffaele's DNA, but if one is going to argue that one trace means Raffaele was in the murder-room, does that mean the other three guys were with him too and they left no trace either?
It was pretty clear from the video that steps to prevent contamination were not adhered to, thus making that pretty much worthless as forensic evidence. Again this is unidentified LCN/LT trace DNA as well, which is unlike what is usually used in American and British courts. There they identify an incriminating substance, such as blood, semen, or saliva which by the nature of the find, like in a bite wound, on or in the victims body, strongly suggests it is evidence of murder. This was found six weeks later in a house that sat with a broken window and on a bra clasp that somehow moved and ended up under the edge of a rug IIRC. Imagine if you took a piece of hard candy, put it in your mouth to get it nice and wet and then stuck it under the edge of your rug, do you suppose you'd want to be eating it in six weeks despite how clean everything might have looked when you put it there? Yummy!
I especially like how in the Massei court Stefanoni said that to store DNA items in a plastic bag will cause them to lose their usefulness (moisture), but when it came time to re-test the clasp it turned out that Stefanoni had stored it in a plastic bag where it rusted and was no longer testable. I can dig up the cites if you wish!
2. Meredith's DNA on the knife - I have trouble trusting/accepting either sides argument on this one. Is it starch or is it DNA and if its DNA, even a partial DNA, how does that partial DNA match Meredith?
That knife did not match the wounds, though it could have made the one wound that could have been made by anything sharp, including the knife that made all the other wounds and highly likely made that one too. It was tested negative for blood not just once, not just twice, but several times and
ONE negative is a falsifier. A knife that doesn't match the wounds and tested negative for blood is damned unlikely (as in this is
really silly) to have usable DNA on it from stabbing anyone. DNA one can sanitize out with a spray bottle, blood is far more difficult to remove all traces of.
That a knife was used in a murder but had plenty of Amanda's DNA on the handle and (possibly) somewhere less than 10 pgs on the blade but no trace of blood could be found makes one wonder how the DNA got on there, not that some magic cleaning fluid managed to erase all traces of hard to remove blood but left DNA that could easily be found. If that was actually Meredith's DNA it is
far more likely to be contamination or an innocent transfer as Amanda lived with Meredith and could easily get trace level DNA on her clothes and hair. Again LT/LCN DNA is
much easier to transfer and contaminate than HCN (high copy number) which is what's almost always used in court, almost exclusively in the US and UK.
Why did Raf lie and say Meredith was at his house and he cut her accidentally while they were cooking? Or did he even say that?
Raffaele didn't 'lie' to anyone. He wrote that in his diary when he was told that somehow Meredith's DNA had been found on one of his kitchen knives.
Here's what he wrote:
Raffaele's Diary 11/18/07 entry said:
Nov 18 2007
they are keeping me in jail because there is a kitchen knife with a
trace of Meredith's DNA. It seems like a horror movie ... Looking back
and remembering it came to mind that the night dad sent me an sms
message of goodnight to be indiscreet (knowing that I was with
Amanda), then the day after Amanda repeated to me that if she had not
been with me at this time she would be dead. Thinking and
reconstructing, it seems to me that she always remained with me, the
only thing I do not remember exactly is when she left in the early
evening for a few minutes.
I am convinced that she could not have killed Meredith and then return
home. The fact that there is Meredith's DNA on the kitchen is because
once while cooking together, I shifted myself in the house handling
the knife, I had the point on her hand, and immediately after I
apologized but she had nothing done to her. So the only real
explanation of the kitchen knife is this.
I am not quiet because if they have found a trace so ridiculous they
can find many so many others on the rags and so on ... What a
nightmare! They should first of all show that the knife is indeed the
weapon of the crime: knife, type of cut, the obvious traces on the
blade, etc.. Then if they want to find invisible traces of Meredith in
my house, find some in the streams of this passage!
Here's what Raffaele wrote in his book about it:
Raffaele Sollecito "Honor Bound" p. 91-2 said:
Still there was something I could not quite fathom. How did Meredith's DNA end up on my knife when she'd never visited my house? I was feeling so panicky I imagined for a moment that I had used the knife to cook lunch at Via della Pergolaand accidentally jabbed Meredith in the hand. Something like that had in fact happened in the week before the murder. My hand slipped and the knife I was using made contact with her skin for the briefest of moments. Meredith was not hurt, I apologized and that was that. But of course I wasn't using my knife at the time. There was no possible connection.
So he didn't say that in court, or to the police, he
wrote it in his diary trying to figure out the inexplicable and conflated an incident which seemed to be the only possible explanation. He had no way of knowing anyone outside himself and perhaps his father and sister would ever see it.
3. Calling the police-Did they call the police before or after the postal police arrived? I tried to follow lengthy arguments on this one but again I get tired head trying to sort it out from two sides that seem biased and not truly seeking the truth on the matter. I personally think this was the result of the language barrier and miscommunication occurring in the "fog of war" but I realize thats a pretty shaky reason and wish I had accurate evidence to support whatever happened here.
He definitely called the
Carabinieri before the postal police arrived. What happened was the clock on the camera was slow by ~11 minutes but when figuring out the time of arrival the police reversed the polarity of the difference and figured the camera was 11 minutes
fast so the actual time difference became 22 minutes and when they matched up the times it looked like Raffaele's call had come after the postal police had gotten there. I think this was an honest mistake on the part of the police, they wouldn't have invited the embarrassment of having the defense show with meticulous precision using the cell phone times and the garage camera how the postal police had definitely gotten there a few minutes after Raffaele called--just like he said. To see the pictures and an explanation with your own eyes you can go
here.
Massei only refers to it in passing while trying to find something suspicious about Raffaele's saying there was nothing stolen, but he accepted the hard evidence the defense presented and added this additional evidence noting the Postal Police never mentioned Raffaele all of a sudden disappearing or calling anyone in front of them as the calls were not brief:
Massei PMF p. 89 said:
And then, a change of version takes place and he tells the Postal Police (who it can be held that, according [81] to what is maintained by the defendants’ defence, arrived after Raffaele Sollecito’s telephone call to 112, and this by nothing other than the fact that regarding these calls to 112, the Postal Police say nothing; in the same way that they said nothing about those that preceded them, at 12:40 pm and at 12:50 pm; each of these phone calls being of a not brief duration that, therefore, would not have escaped the attention of the two police officers) that there has been a burglary. Fabio Marsi in fact testified that they two young people told him ‚they were awaiting the arrival of the Carabinieri because there had been a burglary inside the house‛ (page 122, hearing of February 6, 2009).
(emphasis, bolding and highlighting mine)
4. Mixed DNA of Amanda and Meredith- Was there mixed DNA or not, where was it & what does it mean? Its been a while since I followed this case closely but I never came away with a conclusion on this issue or a firm grasp of what the prosecution was claiming, so I admit to ignorance on this one. Seems like I remember thinking it could have happened when Amanda walked around the house barefoot after the shower and she could have stepped on glass that caused her DNA to be left on Meredith's blood tracked by Rudy but then I recall Amanda saying she used the bathmat to scoot across the house, leaving me thinking WTF?
Most of the mixed DNA amounts to Rudy cleaning up in Amanda's bathroom. They swabbed far and wide thus basically ensured anything that might have been in the sink, cotton swabs or bidet got Amanda's DNA on it too. Other 'mixed DNA' is similar, all it amounts to is Amanda and Meredith living together, and then Rudy walking around with Meredith's blood on his shoes and probably elsewhere and then Amanda, Raffaele, Filomena, the boys, and the postal police start walking all over there, then the
Polizia Scientifica do much the same, tracking around that hall and going from room to room without changing booties.
Then six weeks later after it's all had a chance to blow around what with the broken door and broken window they go back and start checking again when they cake that hallway with luminol and find the 'footprints' (that's a generous description of some--one looks like a mermaid to me!) and go looking for DNA again.
None of this means anything but that Amanda and Meredith lived together and also that someone walked around with traces of Meredith where Amanda lived. This is
trace (LT/LCN) DNA which is easily transferred, not like the samples used in almost all cases in US & UK courts (HCN or High Copy Number) where they can divine the substance and determine whether it's incriminating,
and is much less likely to spread willy-nilly. Look at it this way: Meredith and Amanda lived together for two months, they spread that kind of DNA all over the house as they shed minute skin cells, hair and other such possible sources. Naturally at some point they may end up in the same spot, perhaps walking barefoot in the same hall. If you expect these trace elements to spread in the minutes or so it took to murder Meredith and maybe an hour afterward, wouldn't you expect much more to be there from the other two months they lived together as well?
As for the bathmat boogie, look at the floorplan you've been posting. The bathroom is just a few steps from Amanda's door, so it wasn't a very long scoot through the house, yards at most.
In regard to the Forensic people saying they couldn't rule out a single attacker, this is one of those things that frustrates me about this case. I am reading a snippet you quoted from Massei and can only assume he is referencing something more complete when making these comments which makes me want to know the entire context of what they said. Because when they say a sole attacker can't be ruled out, I cant help but wonder if what was said before that was they believe the murder happened because of multiple attackers, but they cant rule out a sole attacker.
After he wrote that he goes on to list the reasons the prosecution made for it being more than one attacker, and which by nature of the verdict he has to use to try to support his contention. I didn't post it all at once as it would have been quite a wall of text, but this post is beyond help at this point, so I'll post it here and then address some of the more popular ones. If you find something I didn't refer to that you think of merit, bring it up!
Massei PMF 369-372 said:
One first such additional element is what has been said of Meredith's personality and her physical condition; one must take into account that, according to what has already been noted, Meredith, when the attack began, [395] was awake and dressed and not lying on the bed; additional elements are given by the place in which the violent action appears to have taken place, of which the file of photographic documents make it possible to determine, as they represent Meredith's room, with the various pieces of clothing and objects present there.
In fact, putting together the elements mentioned above - including, of course, the forensic observations - it is considered that the injuries and the violence were the result of an action of several people.
A first indication to be taken into account is Meredith's physical build: the photographs of her body and the data of her approximate height and weight reveal a physique with "normotrophic muscular mass and normally distributed subcutaneous fat" (cf. declarations Lalli p. 3), a slim physique which would have permitted Meredith to move with agility.
To this must be added the declarations of the parents and the sister of Meredith. Her mother, Arline Carol Mary Kercher, recalled that Meredith had practised football and karate (p. 7 hearing 6 June 2009), and her sister, Stephanie Arline Lara, stated that Meredith also did boxing, if only the once, and that "physically she was very strong" (p. 20, hearing 6 June 2009). Also her father, John Leslie Kercher, declared that his daughter was quite strong and had taken a course in karate (p. 23 hearing 6 June 2009).
It has also been noted that Meredith was not in bed and undressed when the "advances" and the attempts to subject her will commenced. Being still dressed and awake, and since it must be excluded because of what has been said above that the violent action could have taken place with Meredith lying on the bed, it is considered that she, who was sober and fully conscious since no traces indicating either the use of drugs or the abuse of alcohol were found, would have opposed a firm resistance, as she could claim a strong physique, experienced in self-defence by the lessons in karate that she had taken.
The signs of this resistance, however, consist in a scream, the scream heard by Nara Capezzali at around 23:30 and by Maria Ilaria Dramis when, having gone to bed at 22:00 pm, she awoke at a later time which she was not able to quantify; they consist also in some tiny defensive wounds: one on the palm of her [396] right hand of a length of .6cm showing a tiny amount of blood; another on the ulnar surface of the first phalange of the second finger of the left hand, also of length .6cm; another on the fingertip of the first finger with a superficial wound of .3cm, and another tiny wound corresponding to the fourth radius.
Compared with these almost nonexistent defensive wounds (cf. report of Dr Lalli, pp. 33, 34, 35 with the relevant photos), there is an injured area which is impressive by the number, distribution and diversity, specifically of the injuries (bruises and wounds) on the face and neck of Meredith.
This disproportion is all the more serious and inexplicable if one considers Meredith's physical and personality characteristics recalled above. It seems inevitable that it must be considered that the criminal action was carried out by several people acting together against Meredith, who, strongly limited in her movements, could not defend herself in any way nor shield herself with her hands in order to avoid a vital part of her body (the neck) being repeatedly struck.
Furthermore, it is impossible to imagine in what way a single person could have removed the clothes that Meredith was wearing (shoes, pants and underwear), and using the violence revealed by the vaginal swab, could have caused the resulting bruises and wounds recalled above, as well as removing her sweatshirt, pulling up her shirt, forcing the bra hooks before tearing and cutting the bra. In order to maintain such a hypothesis (action performed by a single attacker), Professor Introna suggested that Meredith was undressing, and thus when her attacker arrived, she had already removed her own shoes, pants and underwear; the attacker would have come up from behind, thus taking her by surprise.
But this reconstruction appears unrealistic, as we have seen. It must also be noted that the representation of Meredith's room with the distribution of the various furnishings and the direction of opening of the door towards the interior of the room (see in particular photos 80, 89, 94) makes it rather improbable that someone entering into that room could have surprised Meredith from behind, especially as in addition, and there seems no reason for this as already noted, [397] she would have had to be (but one cannot see where in the room her attacker would have been able to surprise her from behind) naked from the hips down.
The breaking of the bra alone, from which a small piece of material with hooks (photos 140, 119, 118 and 117) was cut off and thrown to the floor, by an act which was necessarily conducted from behind Meredith (one cannot see in what other way the bra could have been thus forced), requires the following observation: such an action would occupy both hands of the attacker, and thus Meredith would have had her hands free, and in that situation she could have attempted some action in self-defence (for example trying to run out of the room and attempt to flee, in other words reacting towards her attacker by getting away from him), whereas in fact there is no trace of such a thing, and it seems inexplicable unless it is admitted that several attackers were present, with a distribution of tasks and roles: either holding Meredith and preventing her from any significant defensive reaction, or actually performing the violent actions (and here one must recall that a biological trace of Rudy was found on one of the cuffs of Meredith's sweatshirt, which appears to be the sign of having gripped Meredith in order to prevent any reaction, any defence).
Also the diverse morphology of the injuries and their number and distribution lead one to consider that those participating in this criminal action were more than one. Many injuries appear to have been caused by an activity of restraining; others were inflicted by a pointed and cutting weapon, and are greatly diverse in dimension and harmfulness; furthermore, even when directed at the same part of the body they sometimes attained the victim from the right and sometimes from the left.
In fact, in order to maintain the hypothesis of a single attacker it would be necessary to hypothesise that the same person continually modified his own harmful conduct, first exercising a strong manual pressure on the victim, producing bruises, then deciding to seize the knife, thus changing the very nature of the attack (now armed rather than with the hands) and then striking first on the right (4cm wound) and then on the left [398] (8cm deep wound). In the first case, a single blow was apparently halted by the jawbone (4cm deep wound), and instead in the second case, the knife was held inside the victim's neck, after the same knife having been used to run over the surface of the same part of the neck, just a few centimetres below the zone on which the more serious and deeper wound was inflicted.
Furthermore, in spite of all these changes in the action of the attacker, Meredith would have remained in the same position, continuing to offer the same part of her body (the neck) to the attacker who would in the meantime have picked up a knife. Yet after the first wound, the normal and instantaneous reaction would have been to protect the wounded part (the neck, precisely, which would have moved away from the possibility of another blow) even running the risk of receiving the blow on another part of the body.
Conversely, considering the neck wounds sustained, it must be believed that Meredith remained in the same position, in a standing position, while continuously exposing her neck to the action of the person striking her now on the right and now on the left. Such a situation seems inexplicable if one does not accept the presence of more than one attacker who, holding the girl, strongly restrained her movements and struck her on the right and on the left because of the position of each of the attackers with respect to her, by which it was easier to strike her from that side. One of these attackers was Rudy and the others were those who allowed Rudy to enter the house and who were with him in the house and who, in order to lead the investigations astray, then organised the staging of the broken window and the mess in Romanelli's room: Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito, according to all that has already been shown.
(formatting mine for ease of reading)
I'm not arguing with you here or saying you're wrong as I am admittedly foggy on the details of this case so you may be able to point out the entire statement easily and show me that it was a resounding consensus by the forensics people, I am just having a hard time accepting they made no comments about multiple attackers.
Ah, perhaps I didn't make it clear, I meant the reasons for multiple attackers came after that and if you wanted to discuss them I or someone else could post them. Here they are if you want to see what they were reduced to: pretending a year or so of martial arts makes one competent against a knife-wielding attacker, and pretending one assailant would have trouble removing the clothes of a victim, one wonders how all the other single attackers rape their victims.
As for defensive wounds being minimal, there's evidence that Meredith was taken down hard and quite likely knocked silly (and perhaps unconscious momentarily) and may well have been approached from behind or Rudy soon got there. At any rate a man with a knife is quite a threatening visage and often times people do what they're told when someone holds one on them as they're afraid they might get stabbed if they don't! At some point Meredith started struggling desperately it appears, but at that point she might well have been stabbed already or realized just what Rudy was going to do, but he was either behind her, inside her guard, or had taken her down hard and knocked her senseless momentarily.
Remember, Steve Moore and John Douglas both flew to Italy after reviewing the forensics in this case. Whatever you may hear about Steve Moore being a helicopter pilot is true--but he also has extensive experience
working violent crime investigations. Both are true, he did a lot in his 25 year career. I'm sure you probably realize
John Douglas has even more extensive experience. Things like 'mixed DNA' that amounts to trace amounts
outside the murder room which was collected against someone who
lived there and trying to substitute inane reasons like those above for
actual evidence will have that effect sometimes!
) could probably tell you more what it's like now.