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

[yimyammer]

I know, I know. But its been brought up and it's a hobby horse.

There is no evidence the lamp was brought into the room by anybody before the door was broken down. I can't see why no one gets this simple and decisive point. The photo in post 1763 is what everyone thinks the cops saw when the door was broken in. It might be and it might not. You need evidence of that. All the photo proves is how things looked when the photo was taken. There were at least 15 minutes before anyone other than the posties were inside the apartment during which time either one of them might have borrowed the lamp to shine it around and check out what happened. That this is very likely what happened may be inferred from their and Luca Altieri's failure to give evidence that the lamp was already there (look how obvious it is!) which is how such a fact would be most easily proved. It may be inferred also from the strange way Mignini dealt with it, advancing no positive case on it and from the lack of tests.

All these things must be explained, not hand-waved away, especially by those for whom the lamp is a big point. If it really had been in the room it would be a significant clue, especially if it had Rudy's or Raffaele's prints on the plug. Maybe not so much Amanda's but even those would not be totally worthless.

Battisteli moved it most probably.

I read the link and understand the argument (I think) but I gotta say this strikes me as convoluted & a real reach. This logic could be used to undermine any crime scene photo and without testimony from witnesses to support this assertion, it just strikes me as the sort of mental gymnastics I've seen PG people get accused of.

 

[anglolawyer]

I read the link and understand the argument (I think) but I gotta say this strikes me as convoluted & a real reach. This logic could be used to undermine any crime scene photo and without testimony from witnesses to support this assertion, it just strikes me as the sort of mental gymnastics I've seen PG people get accused of.

Well, I assure you it's no reach at all. Do you really have to be a lawyer to get this? Surely not. For the most part the question whether what the photos show is what was already there is not really a problem. No one suggests the body wasn't there for example. Equally, though, we don't really need photos to prove that as we have plenty of witnesses who say it was there when the door flew open. Similarly with the bed and furniture and her clothes etc. It's not disputed that these things were there. But the lamp is disputed and a photo taken a couple of hours after the door was open proves nothing about the lamp.

My understanding is Monica Napoleone says she had to step over it when entering the room about 15 minutes after the door was open. Fine, let's believe her. That narrows it right down to those in control of the place before she arrived - the posties. Were they asked at trial whether the lamp was in the room already? Was Luca Altieri? If they were and they said it was I withdraw my claim. If they weren't asked (as I understand) it is not a reach at all but a very strong inference that it wasn't there. Why else would Mignini effectively ignore such a useful piece of evidence?

 

[Chris_Halkides]

Sollecito's computer

The story about Raffaele and a party comes from a news report from Kate Mansey that reads like a mash-up of two interviews with two people. IIRC the person being interviewed said he partied with friends, as opposed to saying he went to a party (not quite the same thing). In any case her article is not particularly accurate, and it was not any sort of court document, even if it were accurate. Raffaele only pulled her alibi on the night of the interrogations, but we have already established that both of them made false statements on that date. Raffaele backed up her alibi on 8 November in front of Judge Matteini and on every occasion since. Raffaele's appeal document discusses the screensaver log files, and the competency of the police's computer examiners (they were definitely not experts) is open to serious question on several grounds. Link here. The notion that a knife-wielding man could subdue a woman who was not a martial arts expert and who had not practiced martial arts in some time is pretty reasonable IMO. That should not be taken as a criticism of Meredith, BTW.

 

[Kaosium]

Toto: police stooge and professional liar whose evidence made no sense. Another case surfaced today of a cop using a prostitute and drug addict as a professional witness right in New York in the US of A:

You'll find the same pattern in Jim Garrison's prosecutions as well, take a look at some of the 'witnesses' he took into court against Clay Shaw.

You'll also find it was a trick employed by Mignini and Guitterra in the Monster of Florence 'case:'

In 1995 Michele Giuttari took over the MOF investigative squad and by 2002
he had joined forces in a holy war against the Order of the Red Rose (a medieval satanic sect) with Mignini and Gabriela Carlizzi, a spirit channeler.

The lawyer, the cop and the psychic concocted theory after theory featuring mentally challenged persons, tramps, addicts and prostitutes as witness/informants. They wove elaborate tales about the modern doings of the ORR, whom they claimed had infiltrated Italy’s elite. Then they laid waste to a select few as they tried to prove that Satanism was alive and well in Tuscany and Umbria.

 

[Chris_Halkides]

Nadeau's shortcomings as a reporter

If Barbie Nadeau is such a good reporter, then why did she use a double translation of Amanda's diary, instead of her exact words? The links I provided showed that the double translated diary significantly altered the meaning of her words.

Ms. Nadeau's bias is evident when she asks "2. Why were you bleeding? Your lawyers agree with the prosecution’s findings that at least one of the spots of Meredith’s blood found in the house where she was killed had your blood mixed with it." This is rubbish. Ms. Knox's ear probably bled, as is supported by a bloodspot on her pillowcase. There is also a spot of Ms. Knox's unmixed blood on the tap in the bathroom. There was no mixed blood.

"3. Once you realized your mistake in blaming Patrick Lumumba for Meredith’s murder, why didn’t you tell the authorities? You told your mother that you felt bad about it, so why didn’t you alert an official so Patrick could be set free?" More rubbish. Ms. Knox retracted the accusation in her second memoriale from 7 November, portions of which were quoted in Follain's book (on or about p. 153) and again in her letter to her lawyer on 9 November.

 

[CaptainHowdy]

I feel a need to circulate, yet again, the 2006 report written in Canada about Canadian wrongful convictions. The common element amongst all the high profile wrongful convictions is precisely the combination of lying and incompetent officers of courts and police forces - each one who grants the benefit of the doubt, sometime huge doubts, to people/agencies on their side of the fence. It's a form of confirmation bias, and the feeling that only guilty people are arrested or suspected to begin with.

It's the very reason why all the "innocent until proven guilty" safeguards are there.

Ninety-five percent of the time these biases are correct - the police indeed have arrested the perp. It's that 5%, into which I believe Sollecito and Knox have fallen, that produce tese sorts of scenarios where all the agencies circle the wagons around one another and try to ride out the storm.

What it takes is one office of some court to say what everyone else is afraid to say.

Confirmation bias is unfortunately present in all criminal justice systems. Innocent people have been jailed and even executed for crimes they didn't commit because they cracked under the pressure of interrogation (enhanced or otherwise) and provided false confessions. But when you have investigators who won't interrogate suspects in a language in which they are fluent and reporting abuse during an interrogation will lead to a conviction for slander against the police, you end up with a criminal justice system that isn't fit to judge a wet t-shirt contest, let alone a murder.

 

[yimyammer]

Well, I assure you it's no reach at all. Do you really have to be a lawyer to get this? Surely not. For the most part the question whether what the photos show is what was already there is not really a problem. No one suggests the body wasn't there for example. Equally, though, we don't really need photos to prove that as we have plenty of witnesses who say it was there when the door flew open. Similarly with the bed and furniture and her clothes etc. It's not disputed that these things were there. But the lamp is disputed and a photo taken a couple of hours after the door was open proves nothing about the lamp.

My understanding is Monica Napoleone says she had to step over it when entering the room about 15 minutes after the door was open. Fine, let's believe her. That narrows it right down to those in control of the place before she arrived - the posties. Were they asked at trial whether the lamp was in the room already? Was Luca Altieri? If they were and they said it was I withdraw my claim. If they weren't asked (as I understand) it is not a reach at all but a very strong inference that it wasn't there. Why else would Mignini effectively ignore such a useful piece of evidence?

I agree, you don't have to be a lawyer to get this and I think I do get it, so correct me if I'm wrong----super cliff notes--->...Mignini never introduced it as evidence at trial and that means he knew it wasn't a valid piece of evidence that could withstand scrutiny so he snuck it into the video to influence the jury subtly without exposing that evidence to cross examination. Therefore, it must have been brought in by LE b4 the photo was taken.

I just don't think anyone has any way to prove how or why that lamp was in that room and as such, I don't think either side can benefit or be hurt by it, so in my mind its worthless and I don't understand why both sides give such weight to it.

I also think if one of the postal police or early carabinieri was waving around this lamp within the 15 minute window you mentioned, I cant help but believe one or more of the people there would have noticed and could confirm this.

Aren't we all speculating here?

I'll join in, Meredith came home, knew she was by herself for the evening & got a little scared and nervous and like a child gets comfort from a nite-light, she felt more at ease having her room with more light so she grabbed Amanda's lamp for the evening. True? False? possible? Who knows?

I wish I had the actual transcripts, spoke Italian and had complete access to all the evidence so I could tell you whether these people were asked about it at trial, but like so many things in this case, I feel like I'm left to grope around in the dark. It would be real nice to have testimony from one of the people you mentioned explaining how they grabbed the lamp, but I haven't seen anything.

I'm sure I'm wrong on or misunderstood something, it wouldn't be the first time, so fire away amigo

 

[MDDVS]

Well, the Doc and I have theories that don't require about half of Italy being lying, incompetent, dishonest and evil just to make our theory work. Look at the people you have in that group, lawyers, judges, police, forensics personnel, hobo's, store owners and even the girls she lived with and the guys downstairs. We also don't have to sluff over facts we can't explain like the break in, Toto, Meredith's locked door, the bathmat, mixed traces of blood, false confessions, cartwheels or splits, lies and strange behaviour.

Have you ever been in Italy? Where are you from exactly? Do you know that some there is more corruption in some countries than others, right?

There is a reason why Italy is one of the worst offenders (second worst actually) of human rights in the ECHR.


I think the tables for the Freedom in World index (check wikipedia, I can't post links) also give us a clue to what's happening. Just check which countries stand out in the table for Western Europe.

 

[Grinder]

Barbie was a travel and restaurant reviewer before the Knox case. She is a housewife that writes as a hobby.

The quote I gave from 2011 in which she states that Amanda was the first to bring up sex is all that one has to know to sure she is either living in a constant altered state, is dumb as a box of rocks or is just prejudiced beyond belief.

If that interview were still available, I think the altered state comment would be clear to all.

 

[DrTesla]

Anglo while all your points are reasonable, I believe that the lamp means nothing since Amanda's room was right next to Meredith's and the only other room and lamp at that end of the house.

Whether it was the police or a perp that moved it, it is logical that Amanda's lamp would be the lamp of choice. Now if Amanda's or Raf's bloody fingerprint were on the lamp or the plug, tada!

ETA - if the lamp was from Laura's room and her room was next door to Meredith's room would anyone suggest it had any probative value? No, of course not. The lamp has no weight in the solving of the crime. Only after judging Amanda guilty can it be used as evidence.

If you are the accused in a murder case, and your lamp is found on the floor in the victim's bedroom, sure sounds like compelling evidence of guilt to me. Since Rudy got the heck out of there right after the murder, and it's not likely he put the lamp in there prior to the murder, then that leaves only Knox as the person who put it in it there, unless we go with some conspiracy theory about the police trying to frame Knox, or they used her lamp to provide lighting in their investigation of the room which is absurd. .

 

[Dan O.]

If Rudy moved it then it was in the room when the door was busted open. This is not easy to reconcile with the points I made about Mignini's case on the lamp. Care to address that?

Rudy did not need Amanda's lamp. Meredith's was working. And I don't believe Meredith would have just taken the lamp without asking nor that she needed one either. You used to argue that when you thought it was plugged in by the door, but it was plugged in behind Amanda's nightstand or bed head, meaning a hands and knees operation to retrieve it with no reason to do so.

That Battisteli (most likely) moved it explains everything, including its role in the trial and is consistent with his known curiosity which he untruthfully denied.

Do we have a forensics report on the condition of the lamps? Without that I don't know that we can claim that Meredith's lamp was working. There is also the obstacle of blood on the floor that must be avoided to reach Meredith's lamp.

If Amanda's lamp was on the floor when the door was kicked in, I don't believe the bulb would have survived. That might give us a way to distinguish between Rudy or Battisteli being the last to handle that lamp. The lamp was found pushed against the wall. Battisteli would have to had set the lamp down, unplug it, push the door all the way open and then pull the door partially closed to where it was first seen and not have and then not have also hidden the cord behind the door.

As for retrieval of the lamp from Amanda's room, this would be identical for both But the hands and knees is a good point. Rudy had blood on his pants and a bloody water mix after he cleans up. This would be very likely to leave evidence if he had to get down on the floor to unplug the lamp. If it is behind the bed, he might have brushed the bedside table with his bloody right leg trying to unplug it. Do we know exactly where that outlet is? If Meredith had borrowed the lamp, it would possibly already have been plugged in and sitting conveniently on her desk.


As for using the lamp, it almost has to be plugged into the outlet in Meredith's room. The next available outlet is the one in the bathroom. If it's plugged into the bathroom, he would be walking back into the bathroom carrying the lamp to unplug it. It then doesn't make sense for either of them to put the lamp back in Meredith's room.

Meredith's computer would have been plugged into the outlet. Unplugging the computer to plug in the lamp would have altered the state of the computer and that time stamp information should be retrievable. It would be in the power manager so the postal police would never have seen it and it would be unretrievable once the power manager is reeset. It's unfortunate that this information was lost because it would have indicated precisely when this event happened.


The scenario for Rudy using the lamp will be recorded in his footprints. After washing up in the bathroom to remove the blood from his hands and pant leg, he retrieves the lamp and plugs it into Meredith's room. Starting from somewhere further into the room, he scans the room with the help of the extra light while backing up towards the door (prints 5C & 5B). At some point, he has closed the door and set the lamp down (print 5A). He then opens the door, steps out and locks the door behind him (print 3). The action of kicking open the door slams the lamp against the wall and the door bounces back. The plug is yanked from the socket but bounces off the door so is left lying across the entry.


There are still multiple possibilities but the Rudy using the lamp scenarieo is still the best at explaining the final position that was recorded. We cannot of course rule out that Battisteli deliberately staged the scene to implicate Rudy.

 

[Sherlock Holmes]

If Barbie Nadeau is such a good reporter, then why did she use a double translation of Amanda's diary, instead of her exact words? The links I provided showed that the double translated diary significantly altered the meaning of her words.

Ms. Nadeau's bias is evident when she asks "2. Why were you bleeding? Your lawyers agree with the prosecution’s findings that at least one of the spots of Meredith’s blood found in the house where she was killed had your blood mixed with it." This is rubbish. Ms. Knox's ear probably bled, as is supported by a bloodspot on her pillowcase. There is also a spot of Ms. Knox's unmixed blood on the tap in the bathroom. There was no mixed blood.

"3. Once you realized your mistake in blaming Patrick Lumumba for Meredith’s murder, why didn’t you tell the authorities? You told your mother that you felt bad about it, so why didn’t you alert an official so Patrick could be set free?" More rubbish. Ms. Knox retracted the accusation in her second memoriale from 7 November, portions of which were quoted in Follain's book (on or about p. 153) and again in her letter to her lawyer on 9 November.

I like Barbie, she comes across as a very good reporter, she doesn't get aggravated like a lot of them do, she remains calm, cool and collected. Did anyone see the interview with her and Candice, that was great, if you didn't I don't have a link but I could try and find it.

 

[Charlie Wilkes]

I think Meredith must have borrowed the lamp for some reason, knowing that Amanda was staying at Raffaele's and wouldn't need it. It got knocked off her desk during her struggle with Guede, and it got pushed behind the door when the door was forced open.

The idea that someone used the lamp to clean up evidence is stupid. Nobody cleaned up evidence in that room.

I can't see why the first responders would have used it for anything. There was a light switch on the wall, next to the door.

 

[anglolawyer]

Do we have a forensics report on the condition of the lamps? Without that I don't know that we can claim that Meredith's lamp was working. There is also the obstacle of blood on the floor that must be avoided to reach Meredith's lamp.

No one has turned up any test results on the lamp. In the 18 Dec video you can see it on Meredith's desk. No one pays it any attention.

If Amanda's lamp was on the floor when the door was kicked in, I don't believe the bulb would have survived. That might give us a way to distinguish between Rudy or Battisteli being the last to handle that lamp. The lamp was found pushed against the wall. Battisteli would have to had set the lamp down, unplug it, push the door all the way open and then pull the door partially closed to where it was first seen and not have and then not have also hidden the cord behind the door.

If the bulb was smashed we'd surely have heard about it. There would be glass on the floor and clear evidence the lamp was already there (to add to Altieri's and the posties'). The way I see it, the room was dark because the shutter was closed (source: Dempsey - her source: trial evidence. I checked with her). Battistelli had about 15 long minutes on his own after shooing everyone out. He wants to take a look (who wouldn't and why shouldn't he anyway?) but can't switch on her light or trek across to use her lamp so as that would disturb the crime scene more than he was willing to risk. He gets Amanda's lamp and plugs it in, holding it up and shining it around and puts it down where it was shot, out of the way at the foot of the bed. He or someone else unplugs it after that.

One for the physicists: where would the plug and cable finish up if the door was slammed open, knocking over the lamp and yanking the plug out of the wall? As shown in your shot or somewhere in the initial direction of travel?

As for retrieval of the lamp from Amanda's room, this would be identical for both But the hands and knees is a good point. Rudy had blood on his pants and a bloody water mix after he cleans up. This would be very likely to leave evidence if he had to get down on the floor to unplug the lamp. If it is behind the bed, he might have brushed the bedside table with his bloody right leg trying to unplug it. Do we know exactly where that outlet is? If Meredith had borrowed the lamp, it would possibly already have been plugged in and sitting conveniently on her desk.

Not exactly but, judging by the other sockets, I guess low on the wall behind the bed or bedside table. I have been making your point about where Meredith would have left it for ages. And the further point about where A & R would not have left it - booby trapped within the arc of the opening door. They had to step over it and forget it too.

As for using the lamp, it almost has to be plugged into the outlet in Meredith's room. The next available outlet is the one in the bathroom. If it's plugged into the bathroom, he would be walking back into the bathroom carrying the lamp to unplug it. It then doesn't make sense for either of them to put the lamp back in Meredith's room.

Not sure who 'he' or 'them' are in this para.

Meredith's computer would have been plugged into the outlet. Unplugging the computer to plug in the lamp would have altered the state of the computer and that time stamp information should be retrievable. It would be in the power manager so the postal police would never have seen it and it would be unretrievable once the power manager is reeset. It's unfortunate that this information was lost because it would have indicated precisely when this event happened.

Assuming she kept her laptop plugged in the whole time.

The scenario for Rudy using the lamp will be recorded in his footprints. After washing up in the bathroom to remove the blood from his hands and pant leg, he retrieves the lamp and plugs it into Meredith's room. Starting from somewhere further into the room, he scans the room with the help of the extra light while backing up towards the door (prints 5C & 5B). At some point, he has closed the door and set the lamp down (print 5A). He then opens the door, steps out and locks the door behind him (print 3). The action of kicking open the door slams the lamp against the wall and the door bounces back. The plug is yanked from the socket but bounces off the door so is left lying across the entry.

All possible but he doesn't really need a lamp and if he did he's got one right there already. And no sign of him grovelling in Amanda's bedroom nor anything in his fake story to explain the lamp, like there is with other things like the bottle he drank from. Bulb not smashed.

There are still multiple possibilities but the Rudy using the lamp scenarieo is still the best at explaining the final position that was recorded. We cannot of course rule out that Battisteli deliberately staged the scene to implicate Rudy.

I demur. You still ignore Mignini and the way he handled the lamp in the case. This is no less strong than Rolfe's TOD opinion IMO.

 

[anglolawyer]

I think Meredith must have borrowed the lamp for some reason, knowing that Amanda was staying at Raffaele's and wouldn't need it. It got knocked off her desk during her struggle with Guede, and it got pushed behind the door when the door was forced open.

The idea that someone used the lamp to clean up evidence is stupid. Nobody cleaned up evidence in that room.

I can't see why the first responders would have used it for anything. There was a light switch on the wall, next to the door.

On which there might have been fingerprints which would have been smudged. Please explain Mignini's (non) handling of this piece of evidence.

 

[Grinder]

I like Barbie, she comes across as a very good reporter, she doesn't get aggravated like a lot of them do, she remains calm, cool and collected. Did anyone see the interview with her and Candice, that was great, if you didn't I don't have a link but I could try and find it.

I rarely have seen a reporter that gets aggravated. Barbie looks and acts spaced out when she is on TV. She has little background in journalism and you can look it up. As I said earlier she seems brain dead in those interviews.

I gave you the link to the interview done with SBS Australia Dateline and you should read her answers and pay attention to what the Italian journalist and Pisa are saying.

Vogt and Barbie are in awe of the authorities. Both of them have had direct communication with the PMF moderator and share with PG being ex-pats in Europe.

Her comments that she and her family members don't bleed together, besides falsely implying that mixed blood was found, is ridiculous. If her husband was murdered and his blood was all over the place including the bathroom they shared, it just might be the case that the CSI would find her blood (gums, cut or ?) mixed with some of his. I recently cut a finger while cutting a lilac for Mother's Day and blood was widely to be found in the bathroom and if my SO were bleeding from a severe injury it could easily be the case the bloods would mix.

Do a search for her before Nov. 2, 2007 and see what you find.

 

[RWVBWL]

If you are the accused in a murder case, and your lamp is found on the floor in the victim's bedroom, sure sounds like compelling evidence of guilt to me. Since Rudy got the heck out of there right after the murder, and it's not likely he put the lamp in there prior to the murder, then that leaves only Knox as the person who put it in it there, unless we go with some conspiracy theory about the police trying to frame Knox, or they used her lamp to provide lighting in their investigation of the room which is absurd. .

Hey Dr. Tesla,
Compelling guilt?
Right...

Where is Amanda Knox's fingerprints in Meredith Kercher's bedroom?
Where is Amanda Knox's DNA inside of Meredith Kercher's bedroom?

Where are Raffaele Sollecito's fingerprints in Meredth Kercher's bedroom?
Where is Raffaele Sollecito's DNA inside of Meredith Kercher's bedroom?


Amanda+Raff cleaned up all their own fingerprints and their DNA,
but left only Rudy Guede's???
Right...

Do you really believe that crap?


You write that "Rudy got the heck outta there".
Hang on a sec there:

Rudy Guede somehow left his DNA inside of Miss Kercher's vagina. Why?
And he left his palm print on the pillow case that was found underneath Meredith's buttocks, if I recall correctly. Why?
And his shoe print was also found.
Weren't Rudy Guede's fingerprints found somewhere else too?
Oh yes, Miss Kercher's purse??? Why?

Amanda had her front door keys.
If she was there that night,
she coulda easily have let him out of the flat thru the front door with her own keys.
So why is Guede-o's bloody fingerprint on Meredith Kercher's purse?


Come on, Dr. Tesla,
Rudy was the only 1 who left fingerprints and DNA,
that, without any doubt nor need to debate whatsoever,
shows he was there, inside Miss Meredth Kercher's bedroom as she died,
suffocating on her own blood.

And he did not even bother to call for help.
Instead, he went out dancing at a friggin' nightclub!!!

What reason did Rudy Guede have to touch Meredith Kercher's vagina?
Raffaele did not touch Meredith's vagina. Amanda did not either.

Why did Rudy Guede place a pillow under Meredith's naked body while his hand was bloody? Amanda did not. Raffaele did not. If Amanda+Raff were there, why wouldn't Rudy ask 'em to help him, "hey, grab that pillow over there, my hands are bloody?"


Why is Amanda nor Raffaele's bloody handprint or fingerprint NOT on that pillow?
Or in her vagina?
Or on her purse?


Do you really believe that Amanda+Raff watched as Rudy Guede did all this?
RW


PS-We discuss a brutal rape+murder.
What about that stain, possibly semen,
found on that pillow case underneath Miss Kercher?
I'd luv to have it tested, wouldn't you?

Hmmm, a possible semen stain, never tested, in a horrible rape+murder case.
What if it is from Rudy Guede?

 

[GWCarver]

I was just looking around to find out if/when Mignini was going to be retried for abuse of office when I ran across the following. My apologies if this has already been posted, but it is new to me. With regard to the Monster of Florence case, we have the following:

"On 22 March 2013 the Third Circuit Court of Cassation (Supreme Court of Italy) ruled that the main case related to criminal conduct "did not exist", and that Francesco Narducci died by suicide."

So, it would appear Mignini went down in flames on that one. Hopefully the Kercher case will make it two in a row. (Naturally, Mignini's MOF parallel slander charges are still hanging around.) He's reluctant to file those kind of charges, you know....

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giuliano_Mignini

 

[Kevin_Lowe]

Well, the Doc and I have theories that don't require about half of Italy being lying, incompetent, dishonest and evil just to make our theory work. Look at the people you have in that group, lawyers, judges, police, forensics personnel, hobo's, store owners and even the girls she lived with and the guys downstairs.

Are you familiar with the Norfolk Four case, or the Stefan Kiszko/Lesley Molseed case? In both cases a runaway prosecution, in one case with the aid of compliant witnesses who came forward with false statements to get in on the witch hunt, got a successful conviction against completely innocent defendants.

These things do happen from time to time. They're unusual, which is why we discuss them, but they happen.

As opposed to three-way murder pacts between strangers with no common language, involving two students with no history of violent crime, who can be in two places at once. Those haven't happened, ever.

We also don't have to sluff over facts we can't explain like the break in, Toto, Meredith's locked door, the bathmat, mixed traces of blood, false confessions, cartwheels or splits, lies and strange behaviour.

Could you nominate one or two of that slew of references as the most important ones to you, and we'll discuss those? The best of those have perfectly rational explanations, and the worst ("mixed blood"? really?) are just plain wrong.

 

[Mary_H]

If Barbie Nadeau is such a good reporter, then why did she use a double translation of Amanda's diary, instead of her exact words? The links I provided showed that the double translated diary significantly altered the meaning of her words.

Ms. Nadeau's bias is evident when she asks <snip>
"3. Once you realized your mistake in blaming Patrick Lumumba for Meredith’s murder, why didn’t you tell the authorities? You told your mother that you felt bad about it, so why didn’t you alert an official so Patrick could be set free?" More rubbish. Ms. Knox retracted the accusation in her second memoriale from 7 November, portions of which were quoted in Follain's book (on or about p. 153) and again in her letter to her lawyer on 9 November.

I had a discussion about this with Machiavelli a couple months back. Barbie and the rest of the PGP might not be too pleased to discover him not playing by the rules:

Mary_H: Even with their combined years of experience, [Amanda] was able to convince them of those falsehoods. Aren't the police themselves curious about just how she was able to pull the wool over their eyes?
Machiavelli: But there is little to be curious about: she was a false witness.
Amanda's lies lasted two days - by Nov 9. everybody had understood she was a liar and the accusation on Patrick was false, as for what you can check in the Italian press.Mary_H: Yes, I remember. By November 9th, Edda Mellas had shared with the Italian press that she had visited Amanda and that Amanda had retracted her statement about Patrick. Everyone involved in the case knew that by the 9th.
Machiavelli: By the modus operandi of Italian police and justice system, this is not enough for them to stop investigating Patrick, once the investigation was triggered.
Mary_H: The modus operandi of Italian police and justice system allows them to arrest a suspect immediately upon an accusation, without investigation, but does not allow them to release the suspect once the accusation is withdrawn, until there has been at least a two-week investigation of the suspect? Well, that helps explain why falsely accusing someone is such a serious crime.
Machiavelli: There may be something true in this.
The police are not allowed to release anyone. The prosecutor who issues the decree of arrest does not have the power to release either.
Those investigating authorities who issue orders to arrest, cannot withdraw them. They may only ask a judge to release a different order.