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

[Skind]

Suggestion 1: he couldn't get in.
Suggestion 2: he didn't think of it until he noticed Filomenas window was such a sweet access spot.
Suggestion 3: he got off on the idea of breaking in and going through their things
Suggestion 4: he didn't want to deal with 4 angry young men accussing him of burglary
Suggestion 5: he'd been in there and might not have seen anything worth taking (that is likely to sell for enough to offset the risk)
Suggestion 6: he might have thought the two foreign girls would have had a lot of typical student stuff that sells well and quickly.

Any of the above.

 

[anglolawyer]

It was next? They had bars on the windows? They didn't have make-up to steal? Their toilet was messy?

Take the easy one first. He could get in the same way the cops did. What was it that made the girls' apartment more attractive?

 

[anglolawyer]

Suggestion 1: he couldn't get in.
Suggestion 2: he didn't think of it until he noticed Filomenas window was such a sweet access spot.
Suggestion 3: he got off on the idea of breaking in and going through their things
Suggestion 4: he didn't want to deal with 4 angry young men accussing him of burglary
Suggestion 5: he'd been in there and might not have seen anything worth taking (that is likely to sell for enough to offset the risk)
Suggestion 6: he might have thought the two foreign girls would have had a lot of typical student stuff that sells well and quickly.

Any of the above.

1 smash in the door like the cops did
2 he knew the place well
3 maybe that
4 the place was in darkness and he may well have known the boys would all be away
5 maybe that - what about rent money?
6 like what? They presumably all had laptops, cameras etc.

 

[Grinder]

And that is all fine and dandy, a well executed "staging" would not leave any evidence behind. That I agree with. But I see no motive for a staging and I don't buy the one that you have proposed.

Yet that wasn't the point. You said there was no evidence of staging, but when asked what that evidence could be you finally answer that you see no motive.

That's fine, but the reason I think the police went down "the staging" road was that the burglar left valuables. That they came to the idea that it wasn't a burglary before they even discovered Meredith's body and they didn't revise that theory because they settled quickly on the idea that Amanda, Raffaele and Patrick were involved.

Is this from Follain?

I believe the police "needed" the busted window to be staged. Because without "staging" the burglary was real and they would have no suspects. The idea of Amanda, Raffaele and Patrick would be extra absurd (as if it wasn't anyway) if there is "a real burglary".

So they thought it was staged from the first minute because they "needed" it staged because otherwise they would have no suspects?

But I see the fact that valuables were left that could be traced to the murder to be more than reasonable. The murder changes the whole complexion of the burglary and that is why only Meredith's cash, credit cards and phones were taken and my guess is that Rudy rethought the credit cards and the phones later and tossed them.

Why would he take them at all. Please don't tell me that he feared Meredith could still use them as the PGP speculate. Where did he toss the credit cards? What happened to the make-up?

Thanks Ronald Reagan. LOL. I can imagine that Rudy had a date with Meredith all I want, but there is nothing leading me to that hypothesis. No evidence at that Meredith had a date with Rudy. There are no phone calls, texts etc linking them together. NONE. Meredith also never told anyone she had a date that night. Don't you think Meredith would have told somebody she had a date that night? Amanda or Sophie or Robyn or any of her other friends?

The first days the police thought it was done by someone she knew and they thought she might have met him on Halloween night. Meredith seems like the kind of person that would not blab. Funny that you are using the exact line of thought I've given to Rudi; that she would have told her friends he was coming over. By the way do we have any history of Rudi emailing or texting anyone?

I understand, I just don't see anything that leads in the direction that anyone else that is suspect did or would "stage" the crime scene. As I said, I think the staging hypothesis was just a necessity in explaining the police's absurd theory of the crime. If for example the police had found Patrick Lumumba's DNA all over Meredith, the idea of him scaling that wall is absurd and the staging theory becomes much more probable. It actually makes a little sense. However, with Rudy, a lithe. athletic basketball player that could easily dunk a basketball with a history of burglaries, I just don't buy it...at all.

So now your saying the staging theory was needed later after they had PL. Do you have evidence that Rudi could easily dunk? I think he is only 5' 9".

 

[anglolawyer]

Thanks for the effort. If that's the position of the print it is not going straight out of Meredith's room and isn't at a 90 degree angle to Meredith's door but rather is parallel to the door. When one car T-bones another it hits the other car at a 90 degree angle. That print would be coming straight out of the bathroom.

I am not questioning that you have represented the foot correctly or not.

If the PGP long standing issue with the door is as represented, it is just another crazy point of theirs. No matter what I think Rudi came back after wearing the blood off his shoes.

You need a comma after 'what' (or do you mean: no matter what I think, ...). He could also have taken the keys, walked to the door, thought about it, walked back and locked her door. This foot print is a non-point. Next.

 

[anglolawyer]

Isn't the staging rather complicated? Assuming the rock is thrown from outside (as is clearly proved by the glass spray) you have to:

1 enter F's room and mistakenly toss stuff around (otherwise no glass on clothes)
2 open the inner shutter, left-hand pane and outer shutter
3 close left-hand pane and inner shutter (nice touch with that shutter!)
4 go outside and find rock
5 hurl rock through window
6 come back inside (not worrying that the noise might have attracted anyone's attention)
7 enter F's room again
8 pluck shards of glass from pane and place on sill (another nice touch!)
9 close outer shutter (straightening the glass on the sill)
10 open window
11 exit room and house forgetting to steal anything (a fact our heroes will helpfully point out to the cops the next day, helping to reinforce the staging theory)

Possible or not, is this likely? What does it achieve apart from increasing the risk of being caught?

 

[Skind]

1 smash in the door like the cops did
2 he knew the place well
3 maybe that
4 the place was in darkness and he may well have known the boys would all be away
5 maybe that - what about rent money?
6 like what? They presumably all had laptops, cameras etc.

1. Great, but that leaves him with only one option of getting out. Not good if you're half way through and hear someone outside. A second exit option gives you a chance to exit that way if you hear someone at the door and gives you a buffer if they don't realise someone has broken in until they're in - not so if the door is obviously broken.

2. Yes, that may have been why he knew it was such a sweet spot. The opportunity may not have occurred to him until he was walking away and put two and two together.

3. Yes, it might have been an influence. Maybe not the entire motivation, but possibly an influence.

4. But the boys may well have known he was a burglar, and may have been well enough known locally to get wind if Guede 'just happened' to be fencing stuff that 'coincidentally' is the same sort of stuff that went missing from their own flat. A long shot, I know, but were trying to think the same way as Guede here. Would the boys possible connections be a risk - in his mind at least?

5. Possibly, but the girls would have rent money too and possibly more stuff to sell.

6. I was thinking along the lines of being more likely to have things that a young student is likely to want and therefore a fence in a student town is likely to need. Mobiles, mp3 devices, 'trendy' laptops, memory cards, flashdrives, etc. Things which the boys may or may not have had, but which the two girls are quite likely to have. Not to mention things like jewellery.

 

[Bill Williams]

well, I probably should read the forum rules. most comment boards don't care about cursing and I didn't even spell the words out.

My opinion only. The approach your posts take seem like you're claiming superiority. You say things as if fact, but rarely say why.

Can you comment on these things that are in the Massei Report, which are items which to me suggest innocence for the two students, but which Massei finds as factual even as his court convicted the pair.

1) no mixed blood of AK/MK at the crime scene
2) no motive for AK or RS to have been involved (Massei says that they were at the cottage by chance and got caught up in Rudy's motive)
3) there was no bad relationship between Knox and Kercher at all (meaning that Massei rejected the reason why Mignini put Filomena and the British friends on the stand)
4) there is no psychopathology found in the two students at all. (Buttresses lack of motive.)
5) there is not a single trace of Amanda Knox found in the murder room (Whereas if you'd seen the cartoon Mignini showed in court, there would have been a full forensic profile of Knox and Sollecito on their clothes and left in the murder room.
6) Massei only discusses a theoretical clean-up in the hall way, not in the murder room.
7) Massei concedes that there is nothing in science to rule out a single attacker. (Massei comes to the conclusion of multiple attackers on other grounds; but in principle, a single attacker is eminently possible.)
8) the climb in through Filomena's window is very possible, Massei rejects it on grounds other than its do-ability. But it is eminently possible, acc. to Massei.
9) There is no constant changing of stories from Amanda Knox. There are variations of minor details, but her own recounting of her alibi is consistent (acc. to Massei!)
10) Raffaele called the carabinieri before the postal police arrived
11) Rudy Guede had no contact at all with Raffaele before the murder and one or two brief encounters with Knox where basically they were in the same room.​

It would be better to stick with items of fact rather than call people names. Can you comment on these things as facts as found by Judge Massei?

 

[Chris_Halkides]

mixed DNA and its limitations

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?

There was mixed DNA in several spots in the bathroom that Amanda and Meredith shared and also in at least two places in Filomena's room. A few general comments first. DNA has no time stamp, and in fact some examples of mixed DNA in the forensic literature had to have arisen at different times. In addition, examples of mixed DNA that might be inculpatory would be finding them on the victim's body or clothing, or finding on the alleged assailants body or clothing. Mixed DNA that was collected around the house? Pretty meaningless. The prosecution could have rendered it slightly less meaningless if they had done substrate controls. Here is a link to a Q and A on mixed DNA in general and as it pertains to this case.

The other thing to remember is that the luminol work was done on 18 December, and items such as Meredith's mattress had been moved out of her room (the bra clasp was not even in the same place as it was on 2 November). As far as I am concerned every piece of evidence collected on this date or later should be taken at a deep discount to the rest of the evidence, because of the greater chances of contamination.

 

[Bill Williams]

Oh, the answer to this one is quite easy: we're not stupid. Had this happened, it would have been quite clear cut evidence that Knox knew something, and the people here would gladly accept that maybe Knox was guilty.

But it didn't happen.

What happened what that Knox phoned her mother whilst spooked- the same reason she phoned Filomena, why Raff phoned his sister and why they eventually phoned the police. No mention of any body, none. The content of the call was entirely consistent with what you'd expect - a young woman calling her mother for reassurance and advice.

And this reality of who Knox/Sollecito called, and when long the timeline they placed the calls, puts the lie to the myth that they'd returned to the cottage to complete the non-existent clean-up. Granted they were slow, but before Knox left the apartment for the second time that morning, they were alerting the world that something was amiss at the cottage.

It is always good to keep in mind that before they left the apartment, they had already alerted people that something was amiss. And incredibly, you still see postings on websites that claim that Sollecito and Knox were trying to hide something when the postal police arrive. If the postal police had caught them in the middle of a clean-up, why didn't Knox just accept Meredith's phones with a "thank you" and send the postal police on their way?

 

[Skind]

If the postal police had caught them in the middle of a clean-up, why didn't Knox just accept Meredith's phones with a "thank you" and send the postal police on their way?

Oh easy, because the postal police hadn't caught them in the middle of a clean up, but Raff and Knox thought they were the police they had just called.

 

[Bill Williams]

Oh easy, because the postal police hadn't caught them in the middle of a clean up, but Raff and Knox thought they were the police they had just called.

Ok - I'll go with that. However, guilters still maintain that Raffaele called the carabinieri AFTER the postal police arrived. Even Massei's court determined as factual that Raffaele called the carabinieri before the arrival of the postal police.

If that is true,, then, why not just accept the phones.... but it is as you say. Both AK and RS were trying to attract attention TO the cottage because of its condition. It is also worth mentioning that the postal police, once inside, basically agreed with Knox - the condition was strange, but it did not scream murder until the door was broken down.

 

[Katody Matrass]

Yet that wasn't the point. You said there was no evidence of staging, but when asked what that evidence could be you finally answer that you see no motive.

The window broken from the inside or the glass only on top of the things dropped by the stagers would make great evidence.

 

[Dan O.]

For those who may be interested, Bruce Fisher who has been mentioned a number of times recently in this thread is a member here and posted regularly in these threads before they were shut down the first or second time. He started the injustice site then so that the discussions could continue.

 

[zooterkin]

For those who may be interested, Bruce Fisher who has been mentioned a number of times recently in this thread is a member here and posted regularly in these threads before they were shut down the first or second time. He started the injustice site then so that the discussions could continue.

Thanks for the clarification; I wasn't sure, since he spells his name with a 'c' at that other site.

For DrTesla, and others who may be unaware, the implication of that is that, as a member here, Bruce Fisher is protected by the Membership Agreement from insults or personal attacks.

Posted By: zooterkin

 

[anglolawyer]

1. Great, but that leaves him with only one option of getting out. Not good if you're half way through and hear someone outside. A second exit option gives you a chance to exit that way if you hear someone at the door and gives you a buffer if they don't realise someone has broken in until they're in - not so if the door is obviously broken.

2. Yes, that may have been why he knew it was such a sweet spot. The opportunity may not have occurred to him until he was walking away and put two and two together.

3. Yes, it might have been an influence. Maybe not the entire motivation, but possibly an influence.

4. But the boys may well have known he was a burglar, and may have been well enough known locally to get wind if Guede 'just happened' to be fencing stuff that 'coincidentally' is the same sort of stuff that went missing from their own flat. A long shot, I know, but were trying to think the same way as Guede here. Would the boys possible connections be a risk - in his mind at least?

5. Possibly, but the girls would have rent money too and possibly more stuff to sell.

6. I was thinking along the lines of being more likely to have things that a young student is likely to want and therefore a fence in a student town is likely to need. Mobiles, mp3 devices, 'trendy' laptops, memory cards, flashdrives, etc. Things which the boys may or may not have had, but which the two girls are quite likely to have. Not to mention things like jewellery.

Doubt Rudy went round telling anyone he was a burglar. His name would gave come up earlier if the boys knew that. I was just wondering why choose upstairs, which is difficult to enter, than down. Like he knew something. In her book Amanda does say she had her rent money in her room. She forgot to check to see if it was still there when the cops sent her to see if anything was missing.

Didn't the boys also have to pay their rent? Why wouldn't they also have cash stuffed under their pillows? Maybe the sex of the occupants had something to do with it but in what way I don't know. It's two empty apartments, one easily accessible and one not and he chose the harder one.

 

[acbytesla]

Suggestion 1: he couldn't get in.
Suggestion 2: he didn't think of it until he noticed Filomenas window was such a sweet access spot.
Suggestion 3: he got off on the idea of breaking in and going through their things
Suggestion 4: he didn't want to deal with 4 angry young men accussing him of burglary
Suggestion 5: he'd been in there and might not have seen anything worth taking (that is likely to sell for enough to offset the risk)
Suggestion 6: he might have thought the two foreign girls would have had a lot of typical student stuff that sells well and quickly.

Any of the above.

How about Rudy was robbing upstairs first and became sidetracked by his little murder of Meredith and robbing the basement of the cottage no longer was a priority.

 

[anglolawyer]

How about Rudy was robbing upstairs first and became sidetracked by his little murder of Meredith and robbing the basement of the cottage no longer was a priority.

Why not do the easy one first?

 

[Chris_Halkides]

rye comments

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.

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:

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.

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? 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?

You probably mean shoe print, and Professor Vinci demolished this idea in his presentation for the defense. The number of contributors of DNA to the bra clasp indicates innocent DNA transfer of some kind. To Kaosium's discussion of the knife, one can add that it did not match the outline of a knife on a sheet. There was starch on the blade, which suggests to me that it was not cleaned very extensively. How one could clean a knife blade of blood but not starch is a mystery. One can also ask, why not simply dispose of this knife.

 

[Dan O.]

Why not do the easy one first?

Perhaps they had bars on all of their windows.