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

[DrTesla]

Great post. The discussion goes round and round rather than forward. The lamp should not be discussed until someone properly explains why Mignini did not elicit the evidence that would have been available of its presence had it really been there. He had at least four witnesses who could give that evidence. This is an extremely simple inferential point by no means beyond the grasp of the posters on this thread.

Similarly as regards the body in the closet. If she had said she found the body under a duvet lying on a pillow that would have been incriminating. That she said it was in the closet when it never was (she certainly was not killed in the closet) proves what? Innocence, if anything, but more likely shock and incomprehension.

Everything points to Knox's innocence, according to the Friends. Ever notice that? No matter how weird. No matter if she lied. There's always an excuse...her pot use, her shock over the murder, the fact she did not speak Italian well, the police were mean to her, etc.

Why would she tell people at the station that she found the body if she didn't find the body? That, in my mind, is more disturbing then her talking about the body being found in the closet despite not being able to see into the room. But how would saying the body was found in the closet prove innocence, if the body was not found in the closet and nobody would have said that if they saw into the room?

She's telling people she FOUND the body in the closet. The English girl said Knox was BRAGGING about this, which is NUTTY. If she found the body, why would she say it was in the closet? BUt she didn't even find the body. This is so nutty. I don't know anybody with common sense can view this woman as innocent. She's clearly has some issues if she's lying about finding a body that she didn't find, and it wasn't located where she said it was.

The police would have deserved jail time for gross incompetence if they had NOT considered this batty babe a suspect.

 

[Kaosium]

I read the link above to the C&V report above and now have a head ache.

Am I reading it correctly in that its saying Raf's DNA was found but because of the procedures used and risks of contamination, it can't be concluded that Raf's DNA was not there because of contamination?

It didn't sound like they were saying it wasn't Raf's DNA or a Y-?? compatible with in 4 males like I thought I read upthread. Is this correct?

Conti and Vechiotti just say 'several.' There's no reason for them to calculate it, though it can be figured from their work, and had been already by DNA experts. There's at minimum four contributors to the clasp and likely five and possibly more, though keep in mind one of those is Meredith, who won't be shown on the y-haplotype.

thanks for any help you can provide in aiding me to wrap my head around the language and jargon of this subject matter

If you're interested, I ended up writing quite a bit, but for quick answer to your question, here's one of the things that Stefanoni was trying to hide, it's linked on the previous page which I detail a little bit below as well. If you look at that chart, on the left that's what Stefanoni turned in at the beginning of the trial regarding the y-haplotype analysis of the bra clasp. On the right is the actual alleles as assessed by Conti and Vecchiotti, the independent court experts. As this is a y-haplotype there's generally going to be just one allele in each location (loci). However as it's also a Y-haplotype there's going to be 'linkage' as some alleles kind of come together, meaning a person who has one may have another that will be the same (down the list) which will also be present with it, reducing variability. That's unlike an autosomic test, which is what most consider 'DNA testing.' Those are all individual which is why they are so varied and can produce probabilities within millions or billions. That's not the case with a y-haplotype.

There's also going to be overlap, meaning the same allele is shared by more than one person in the mixture, as you can see all contributors to the clasp have alleles at DS9389II, DYS439, DS913 and DYS392, though that can also happen through 'droppage' meaning an allele just doesn't show up. However as y-haplotypes are often heavily regionally dependent, a number having the same alleles is not unusual. As there's three loci with three alleles there's a minimum of three male contributors to the clasp. However due to 'droppage' and 'linkage' as well as the likelihood many share alleles, there's probably at least one and possibly more, there's a way of figuring it by the ones most commonly associated ('linkage') and the rarity of certain ones appearing with others. In this case it was considered most likely there was four males on the clasp.

That was the summary of her technical report, their report on that is on the previous page, here. Note that it's not saying Raffaele's DNA was found, that was impossible to determine with the autosomic test, what they say here is that Raffaele's Y-Haplotype can be put together if they take the largest of the Y-Haplotype peaks, which is no guarantee that they all came from the same person, but at least she's consistent here.

As Dan-O pointed out, this Y-Haplotype has to be pieced together, and as there's at absolute minimum three males on the clasp, to use a different analogy that's like having fifteen cards instead of five to put together a poker hand, makes it quite a bit easier, especially as the Y-Haplotype is not nearly as variable as the autosomic, which is what they use for DNA profiling to get, under the best of circumstances, a match within billions.

This is nowhere close to that level, as the Y-haplotype is not nearly as variable as the autosomic, in fact it's guaranteed that there will be others with the same, notably ones male ancestors and pretty much all their descendents going back many generations, thus it's heavily regionally dependent. However establishing the specific Y-haplotype is not an exact science and when you have several contributors a profile can be put together for someone who didn't contribute any DNA at all! However being as Stefanoni was consistent, C&V allow that the Y-haplotype profile she generated matches Raffaele's.

It's not certain as Dan-O said, and a result like this would require reproducibility because even relatively smaller contributors can have alleles with variable values, and if just ONE of those is responsible for a peak not generated by the otherwise larger one (which is not that unusual) then the Y-haplotype is not Raffaele's. Therefore it should be repeated, which was not done. When Professors Conti and Vecchiotti went to re-test this clasp they found that in a mere eighteen months it had deteriorated due to improper storage in plastic, which as I posted before she testified before Massei specifically that storing them in plastic would retard their usefulness.

However, they allow that the Y-haplotype profile generated is probably Raffaele's, because it doesn't really matter. She had something to hide, tried to hide it, and Judge Hellmann insisted she turn over her files to the Court-appointed independent experts, which she still refused to do in totality, but the good professors found they had all they needed...to rake her over the coals.

Her malfeasance was pronounced and profound, not little things, though they found those too, (and were not shy about pointing them out!) but incredibly important things starting with her not even bothering to try identify the substance on the clasp, she just 'presumed' it was skin cells and didn't even attempt a blood test, which is very strange as establishing what kind of biological material is certainly more damning that her saying she's guessing and didn't even try. If you want to learn something about this process to get an overview, read pages 4-12 of this, which is an FBI special report regarding DNA analysis, ironically enough regarding a little lab tech caught gundecking her negative controls. (Stefanoni refused to turn those over too)

However for now just turn to page 8, (22 of the pdf) and look at the flow chart for DNA analysis. As you can see the very first step is testing for a biological substance. As you can also see if the answer is 'no' that's the end of your DNA analysis, it doesn't happen. On this item Stefanoni simply chose to 'presume,' and did no tests whatsoever. One reason this is important is because the DNA amplification process in a lab will generate millions upon billions of copies of DNA, but not any biological substances. Being as her lab wasn't even certified for regular DNA work, (though it was equipped--it was awaiting certification at the time of the first trial) it most certainly wasn't qualified to be doing LT/LCN DNA work, as with that the risk of contamination and faulty analysis is far greater. A well-run lab with stringent protocols is going to get contamination, but the safeguards in place minimize the risk of error. If you don't follow those safeguards you have an entirely different situation, and if you don't even pretend to try hard (but testify in court that you do!) the risk is far greater, especially working with LCN/LT DNA.

Now, back to the Y-haplotype. Somewhere I read in passing that TJMK was pretending that a y-str haplotype test would match only one's father or somesuch. That's not even close to true, it goes back much farther than that, just how rare they are has not been determined as the database is incomplete, but there is enough data to get an idea. I checked and Raffaele's is not in the database yet but I did find an abstract for a paper regarding studies done in Italy:

The 17 Y-chromosomal short tandem repeats (STRs) included in the AmpFlSTR Yfiler Amplification Kit (AB Applied Biosystems) (DYS19, DYS389I, DYS389II, DYS390, DYS391, DYS392, DYS393, DYS385ab, DYS437, DYS438, DYS439, DYS448, DYS456, DYS458, DYS635 and GATA H4.1) were typed in 292 samples from 7 Italian regions.
Abstract: Population comparisons with other European samples were undertaken; for this purpose, 2 databases were collated from the literature: (a) 19 population samples including greater than 2,900 Yfiler profiles, and (b) 67 population samples including greater than 15,000 minimum haplotype profiles. A total of 276 different Yfiler haplotypes were observed in Italy, and only one of them was shared among 7 population samples. The overall haplotype diversity (0.9996) was comparable to other European samples. AMOVA indicates that among population variance depends on the amount of Y-STRs used, being higher when using minimal haplotypes. This is probably due to the fact that Yfiler profiles are represented by singleton haplotypes in all the population samples raising the diversity values to the maximum theoretical value. AMOVA results seems to depend even more strongly on the amount of population samples used, the among population variance in Italy ranging from 2.82 percent to 11.03 percent (using 15 and 32 Italian populations samples, respectively). Variance is not as strongly stratified geographically within Italy, although it is notorious that latitude is more important than longitude in the distribution of variance. The results also indicated that Italy is less stratified than other European samples. The present study contributes to enrich the Y-chromosome databases regarding high-resolution Y-chromosome data sets and demonstrates that extended Y-STR profiles substantially increases the discriminatory capacity in individual identification for forensic purposes.

So basically amongst a sample of 17,900 they found 276 separate haplotypes, so there's far more than just one's father and near male relatives, but still there's many of them and they've not all been mapped out, however the progression here won't be linear as odds are as more people are added, more and more will have the already mapped y-haplotypes so you can't just divide 17,900 by 276 and figure that's the likely progression, if you noted from the database there's actually only ~1600 or so in all of Europe that they've mapped, which is an indication of how the probability might progress as each haplotype added reduces the odds of adding a new one. Also this is heavily regionally dependent, so it's far more likely that Raffaele will share not only a haplotype, but also the 'numbers' generated will be similar, and thus in determining the profile there's a greater chance of overlap.

However as I noted it's probable in my mind that the Y-haplotype on the bra clasp indicates that's Raffaele's DNA, but what really matters is whether that DNA on the bra clasp means Raffaele's DNA was deposited in the process of him being involved in the murder of Meredith Kercher, and that is a resounding 'No' from Professor's Conti and Vecchiotti, as so many avenues of contamination and transfer, which we know definitely occurred due to other profiles on the clasp.

Here's there final conclusion on the clasp:

Relative to Item 165B (bra clasps), we find that the technical analysis is not reliable for the following reasons:

1. There does not exist evidence which scientifically confirms the presence of supposed flaking cells on the item;

2. There was an erroneous interpretation of the electrophoretic profile of the autosomic STRs;

3. There was an erroneous interpretation of the electrophoretic profile relative to the Y chromosome;

4. The international protocols for inspection, collection, and sampling of the item were not followed;

5. It cannot be ruled out that the results obtained derive from environmental contamination and/or contamination in some phase of the collection and/or handling of the item.

Not reliable means junk and that's true on so many levels it's actually evidence against the prosecution. In court Conti and Vecchiotti walked through a reading of the manuals and the testimony of the police on how they were supposed to, and had said they did their work, and then showed the jury the videos of how they actually did it to gales of laughter.

 

[Malkmus]

Everything points to Knox's innocence, according to the Friends. Ever notice that? No matter how weird. No matter if she lied. There's always an excuse...her pot use, her shock over the murder, the fact she did not speak Italian well, the police were mean to her, etc.

You must recognize that all the things you listed were first brought up as pro-guilt arguments. Are all those things really used to point to Knox's innocence? Or were they things used to point to her guilt? Definitely the latter. So, of course, it didn't take long for people to scrutinize such things and say hey, actually her pot use, shock, lack of Italian, and abusive cops are all things that any normal person would exhibit or deal with. It was the twisting of those things in lieu of more substantial evidence that has made them such recurring talking points.

Why would she tell people at the station that she found the body if she didn't find the body?

I think the problem here is taking it literally. She was the first of Meredith's friends to discover something amiss that then led to the discovery of the body. Was it narcissistic and immature? Perhaps. But it can be those things without pointing to guilt, just as staying quiet about it would come across as cagey and suspicious (more so than the former, IMO).

That, in my mind, is more disturbing then her talking about the body being found in the closet despite not being able to see into the room. But how would saying the body was found in the closet prove innocence, if the body was not found in the closet and nobody would have said that if they saw into the room?

She explained in testimony that she heard from others at the scene that the body was in the closet. It was not, and this runs counter to the notion that she was privy to information only the killer would know.

She's telling people she FOUND the body in the closet. The English girl said Knox was BRAGGING about this, which is NUTTY. If she found the body, why would she say it was in the closet? BUt she didn't even find the body. This is so nutty. I don't know anybody with common sense can view this woman as innocent. She's clearly has some issues if she's lying about finding a body that she didn't find, and it wasn't located where she said it was.

See above. Context helps to understand such quandaries.

The police would have deserved jail time for gross incompetence if they had NOT considered this batty babe a suspect.

Consider a suspect? Sure. But then maybe actually record the interrogations so there is transparency once you start breaking two people's alibis that they immediately revert back to.

 

[Malkmus]

the problem with them blaming rudy is that rudy could fire back at them, and he could give credible testimony that proves that all 3 of them were involved.

No he couldn't. He's tried. Rudy can't place Amanda and Raf at the scene in any credible manner and has no damning testimony to offer, otherwise he would have done so rather than imply they were there in the vaguest sense possible.

Furthermore, my reply was to someone insinuating a scenario in which AK and RS were not participants in the murder.

the body was moved sometime later after the murder, and arranged to look like a rape, and since we know Rudy was the sexual assaulter, why would he be motivated to do this and just encourage police to focus on him?

This theory was only given during the pre-trial. Once it got to Massei, it no longer existed.

the staged rape seems to make it even more likely rudy killed her after a rape, and obviously this would benefit any female who was also accused, like Knox, b/c women can't rape other women.

You seem to realize that Rudy was more likely to rape Meredith than Knox, so maybe that's what actually happened. You're making the argument against yourself here.

I think that was the idea behind Knox and Raff staging the rape. there's also no evidence that rudy stuck around after the murder, his bloody prints head straight to the door and there's no way he came back to the house later, cuz he would have at least flushed the toilet with his feces and then wiped away some of his bloody prints, one would think.

No evidence Rudy stuck around? He wrote in his diary about sticking around. His footprints only tell a limited part of his story. If the floors were made of sand we'd know much more of what he did.

so somebody else had to be there to stage the rape and again, rudy would not be motivated to undercore the fact the victim was raped if he in fact had raped her or tried to rape her and his dna is on her body.

Rudy doesn't admit to rape, and instead made up a story of foreplay for the same reason anyone else would lie about this. Pride and shame.

 

[Malkmus]

I think a lot of people believe that Knox accusing her black boss of the crime was indirectly blaming Rudy, but blaming Rudy would have seemed to implicate her as well b/c how would she know that he was at the cottage and killed meridith if she was also not there. she wanted to get the police thinking about a black killer, and maybe she hoped that somebody had seen a black guy around that day, or would find evidence of a black man at the apartment, so either blame would be put on her boss, who obviously she didn't care if he took the fall for this, or they would release him and nail rudy.

How do you reconcile this theory with the cops misinterpreting her text message to mean a rendez-vous between her and Patrick. Or the police officer who testified that she did tell Amanda that she too had been traumatized and had amnesia regarding a traumatic experience.

 

[Malkmus]

lol, I could make the same silly accusation of you. you guys don't ever explain anything, you have no rational answer for Amanda's lamp in the room on the floor,

It was the next bedroom over. So no matter who wanted to bring a lamp in there would have gotten it from Knox's room. If it was a lamp from Laura's room that would be stranger, but still point to no one in particular.

no answer for how she could have know the victim was in the closet at one point

Meredith was never "in the closet". That's your big mistake that is leading you on this goose-chase.

, no answer for how the victim's blood was on the blade of the knife found at raffe's house,

Tested negative for blood. You just have the facts wrong with most of your points.

no answer for how raffe's dna was found on the bra clasp of the victim,

The independent experts found the results unreliable. Not the defense. Independent experts.

you have no evidence that rudy came through that window which would be a most illogical entry point.

There was blood and hair found on the window that was tested too late and yielded no conclusive results. Someone came through it.

knox was challenged on almost every assertion that she made and her story consistently doesn't check out when compared to the cell phone record, other people's testimonies, physical evidence, and an understanding of human psychology.

Practically every other person in this crazy story made the same mistakes in memory that Knox did. Yet they get a free pass.

you guys are the Cult of Bryan Fischer, you parrot his dumb claims on here that any lawyer would eat up in court.

The defense made these claims and won.

 

[Malkmus]

the point is, why was Knox talking about a closet, period. The body was not found in the closet. nobody who saw into that room would have talked about the closet, period. knox loves to play up her not understanding Italian when it's convenient but it is irrelevant here, nobody talked about the closet, and it is not logical to assume the victim was killed in the closet or that her body was in the closet at any point. everybody would assume the body was just in the room, either on the bed or on the floor.

so why the heck is Knox talking about the closet? you can't run away from this.

So Knox heard Meredith was in the closet, rather than in front of it. It means nothing since Meredith was never inside the closet anyway. Look at the pictures.

 

[Malkmus]

how would Knox know one way or another how long it took Meridith to die. She said it took forever for Meridith to die from getting her throat slit. I don't see how she could say this unless she saw Meridith die.

Again, you have your facts wrong. Knox responded to one of the British girls that Meredith "******* bled to death". That is all.

Do not circumvent the autocensor.[/edit]

she referenced CSI but I can't see a tv show consistently showing victims of a slit throat slowing dying as result. in those types of show death is almost always depicted as instantaneous, and in most cases, they just cut away from the scene after the perb draws his gun or raises his knife to stab.

Please indicate where you read all this. It's the first I've heard of this.

Replying to this modbox in thread will be off topic  Posted By: kmortis

 

[DrTesla]

It was the next bedroom over. So no matter who wanted to bring a lamp in there would have gotten it from Knox's room. If it was a lamp from Laura's room that would be stranger, but still point to no one in particular.



Meredith was never "in the closet". That's your big mistake that is leading you on this goose-chase.



Tested negative for blood. You just have the facts wrong with most of your points.



The independent experts found the results unreliable. Not the defense. Independent experts.



There was blood and hair found on the window that was tested too late and yielded no conclusive results. Someone came through it.



Practically every other person in this crazy story made the same mistakes in memory that Knox did. Yet they get a free pass.



The defense made these claims and won.

the hellman acquittal was just tossed out by the supreme court. the defense has not won anything yet.

to say the DNA experts were independent in the 2nd trial is just not true. they obviously were pushing the same type of argument as the defense witnesses in the 1st trial. my opinion is Hellman had reviewed the first trial and had agreed with the defense in that trial. He went out of his way to appoint DNA experts that would push the same message as the ones in the first trial, and he called them independent and only allowed them to testify. I bet this is at the heart of the Supreme Court tossing the verdict b/c it just seems real shady.

I don't think a court is supposed to decide who is an independent witness. what is the criteria to determine this? it makes sense to allow the prosecuter to pick his own experts, and allow the defense to pick his own experts, and let the jury decide which experts made the best case. I never heard of a judge picking an expert in a trial before. it's not surprising the jury decided to acquit when the only testimony they heard was from DNA people who, at least on the surface, seemed to agree with the defense. but, if you dig in to what they said, they conceded the Y DNA pointed to Raf, or at least, Raf's dad or maybe an uncle, which wouldn't make any sense. they also only contested 4 of the loci in the auto DNA, and if the prosecuted just conceded that, it would still be strong evidence of Raff and highly unlikely to be anybody else.

your point on the lamp is silly. you claim that rudy commited this crime on his own. Why would Rudy placed Amanda's lamp on the floor in the victim's bedroom? IF he wanted to frame her, why didn't he attempt to erease his own traces including flushing his feces in the toilet and his bloody handprint and footprints? Also, since his bloody footprints head straight to the front door, it doesn't seem like he placed the lamp in her room after the murder. So why would he need her lamp in the room prior to the murder if we concede that Meridith had plenty of lighting in her room already to facilite his rape of her?

the only other possibliy that I can see is Meridith borrowed Knox's lamp but I just can't buy that considering the two were not getting along. given that Meridith was just reading or doing homework in her room, she probably had plenty of light with her own lamp, so there's no reason she would borrow Amanda's.

it seems much more probalble Amanda borrowed her own lamp after the murder and it was on the floor b/c it was used to examine the floor for bloody prints and maybe something like an ear piercing that had been stripped off in the altercation with the victim.

pointing out it's the room next door seems kind of pointless b/c you put constraints on who could have been in the house and you say it only could have been rudy and it makes no sense rudy would have borrowed the lamp, and there's no evidence he stuck around after the murder or was involved in any kind of cleanup.

 

[DrTesla]

So Knox heard Meredith was in the closet, rather than in front of it. It means nothing since Meredith was never inside the closet anyway. Look at the pictures.

who would have said Meridith was in the closet? nobody that actually saw the body. and it doesn't seem logical for anybody who didn't see the body to conclude the body was in the closet.

you seem to be missing my points on purpose b/c I've made the point several times that nobody could have told Knox that the body was seen in the closet, yet you say she heard it from others.

 

[DrTesla]

Again, you have your facts wrong. Knox responded to one of the British girls that Meredith "F*****g bled to death". That is all.



Please indicate where you read all this. It's the first I've heard of this.

i'm sure you think her callous cold statement there proves her innocence too.

FM: You mentioned to your friends in the Questura that according to you, Meredith died slowly.

AK: They said...

FM: How did you come to say that?

AK: I heard that her throat was cut, and from what I saw in CSI [Crime Scene Investigation] of these things, these things are neither quick nor pleasant. So when they said "We hope she died quickly," like I don't know, in some other way, I said "But what are you saying, her throat was cut, good Lord, bleargh." I had remained at that point, that brutality, this death that was really blechh, that made a horrible impression. That was what really struck me, that fact of having your throat cut. It seemed so gross, and I imagined that it was a very slow and terrifying death. So when they said "We hope it was like this," I said "No, I think it was really gross, disgusting."

 

[DrTesla]

So Knox heard Meredith was in the closet, rather than in front of it. It means nothing since Meredith was never inside the closet anyway. Look at the pictures.

nobody denies the body was FOUND in the room (except Knox when she told her friends she found the body in the closet, even though she didn't find the body, and it wasn't in the closet at the time). but there was evidence that indicated the victim was murdered in the closet, and later moved to the room where a staging took place to play up the rape. so talking about the pictures is silly, in this context.

 

[anglolawyer]

So Knox heard Meredith was in the closet, rather than in front of it. It means nothing since Meredith was never inside the closet anyway. Look at the pictures.

Quite. Nor is there a shred of evidence of any kind that she was murdered in the closet or brought from the closet to where she was found. It's amazing the amount of stuff people just make up. They can always be relied upon not to support it with anything resembling a cite.

 

[Kaosium]

who would have said Meridith was in the closet? nobody that actually saw the body. and it doesn't seem logical for anybody who didn't see the body to conclude the body was in the closet.

you seem to be missing my points on purpose b/c I've made the point several times that nobody could have told Knox that the body was seen in the closet, yet you say she heard it from others.

Amanda had a semester of Italian the previous spring and had been in Italy two months. When the door was opened she heard excited cries in Italian about a foot and thought they were saying something about the closet. She was mistaken.

Meredith was (basically) in the middle of the floor covered in a duvet with her foot sticking out.

Somehow this was advanced by Mignini as evidence she knew about the interior of the room she had not seen. That's the kind of mind that caused this debacle.

 

[anglolawyer]

Amanda had a semester of Italian the previous spring and had been in Italy two months. When the door was opened she heard excited cries in Italian about a foot and thought they were saying something about the closet. She was mistaken.

Meredith was (basically) in the middle of the floor covered in a duvet with her foot sticking out.

Somehow this was advanced by Mignini as evidence she knew about the interior of the room she had not seen. That's the kind of mind that caused this debacle.

Was he suggesting her detailed knowledge of the interior of Meredith's room proves she was the murderer? How could she possibly know the room next door to her own contained a closet? OMG I never thought of that!

I am sure it came up before, but where are the luminol foot prints in Meredith's room?

 

[DrTesla]

Quite. Nor is there a shred of evidence of any kind that she was murdered in the closet or brought from the closet to where she was found. It's amazing the amount of stuff people just make up. They can always be relied upon not to support it with anything resembling a cite.

why did Mignini ask her about the her claim the body was found in the closet, if he did not find this in some way incriminating? if there was no evidence the body was in the closet at some point, I can't see why he would bother with the question, although it's still insane she would claim the body was found where it was not.

 

[DrTesla]

Amanda had a semester of Italian the previous spring and had been in Italy two months. When the door was opened she heard excited cries in Italian about a foot and thought they were saying something about the closet. She was mistaken.

Meredith was (basically) in the middle of the floor covered in a duvet with her foot sticking out.

Somehow this was advanced by Mignini as evidence she knew about the interior of the room she had not seen. That's the kind of mind that caused this debacle.

sorry dude, this dog don't hunt. she was bragging about finding the body and she said the body was found in the closet. this weirded out one of the English girls she was telling it to, and she reported it to the police. you can't try to blame her lack of understanding of Italian for this.

 

[Malkmus]

the hellman acquittal was just tossed out by the supreme court. the defense has not won anything yet.

That has nothing to do with what I said in response to your point that any lawyer could win against the defense arguments. The won the judge and jury over in the appeal and could very well win again at the next round.

to say the DNA experts were independent in the 2nd trial is just not true. they obviously were pushing the same type of argument as the defense witnesses in the 1st trial. my opinion is Hellman had reviewed the first trial and had agreed with the defense in that trial. He went out of his way to appoint DNA experts that would push the same message as the ones in the first trial, and he called them independent and only allowed them to testify. I bet this is at the heart of the Supreme Court tossing the verdict b/c it just seems real shady.

So just incredulity, a conspiracy, and gut felling that they were not independent. Well, until your hopes become reality they are officially independent experts.

I don't think a court is supposed to decide who is an independent witness. what is the criteria to determine this? it makes sense to allow the prosecuter to pick his own experts, and allow the defense to pick his own experts, and let the jury decide which experts made the best case. I never heard of a judge picking an expert in a trial before.

Because the prosecution played dirty and didn't disclose pertinent information regarding how the DNA was tested. So instead of just agreeing with one side, an impartial judge appointed experts belonging to neither side. It's rather simple. Personally I think independent experts should be hired all the time. Why allow experts that are hired specifically to argue for whichever side they are being paid by?

your point on the lamp is silly. you claim that rudy commited this crime on his own. Why would Rudy placed Amanda's lamp on the floor in the victim's bedroom?

For the same reason you think Amanda or Raf did.

IF he wanted to frame her, why didn't he attempt to erease his own traces including flushing his feces in the toilet and his bloody handprint and footprints?

I never mentioned Rudy framing them via the lamp.

Also, since his bloody footprints head straight to the front door, it doesn't seem like he placed the lamp in her room after the murder. So why would he need her lamp in the room prior to the murder if we concede that Meridith had plenty of lighting in her room already to facilite his rape of her?

I've said this long ago on here before, but I'm of the opinion that Meredith had borrowed Amanda's lamp for her desk and that it fell off during the attack. Amanda was always at Raf's so I'm sure it wasn't a big deal to do so. I think if anyone needed to look under the bed they would have used a lamp already in the room.

the only other possibliy that I can see is Meridith borrowed Knox's lamp but I just can't buy that considering the two were not getting along. given that Meridith was just reading or doing homework in her room, she probably had plenty of light with her own lamp, so there's no reason she would borrow Amanda's.

Nor a good reason for someone to bring an outside lamp in just to look under the bed since there were already mobile lamps in there. I believe Meredith wanted more light on her desk for studying.

it seems much more probalble Amanda borrowed her own lamp after the murder and it was on the floor b/c it was used to examine the floor for bloody prints and maybe something like an ear piercing that had been stripped off in the altercation with the victim.

That's a possibility. But if the express purpose of the lamp was to search under the bed then that doesn't exclude Rudy.

pointing out it's the room next door seems kind of pointless b/c you put constraints on who could have been in the house and you say it only could have been rudy and it makes no sense rudy would have borrowed the lamp, and there's no evidence he stuck around after the murder or was involved in any kind of cleanup.

He writes about getting towels to staunch the blood, so he admits to sticking around. You say it doesn't make sense for Rudy to bring a lamp in but then it shouldn't make sense for Amanda either. Why would she have more reason than he considering you have no idea why it was actually there.

 

[DrTesla]

here is a summary of the Micheli report, from true justice. He's the judge who presided over the Rudy trial, and the sentencing trial that sent the Knox case to full trial:

He said that Meredith’s bra was found by investigators away from other possible blood contamination on the floor, near to her feet. Photographs of Meredith’s body show clear white areas where the bra prevented blood from falling onto Merediths body. These white areas corresponded to those areas where blood was found on her bra. This was particularly true in the area of the right shoulder strap which was soaked from the wound to Meredith’s neck.

Micheli said that evidence showed that Meredith had lain on one shoulder near the wardrobe. She lay in that position long enough for the imprint of her shoulder and bra strap to remain fixed in the pool of blood after she was moved to the position in which her body was finally found. Photographs of blood on her shoulder matched the imprint by the wardrobe and her shoulder itself also showed signs that she had remained in that position for some time.

Based on all this, Judge Micheli concluded that there could be no doubt that Meredith’s body was moved away from the wardrobe and her bra removed quite some time after her death.

Neighbor Nara Capezzali had testified that people fled from the cottage within a minute of Meredith’s final scream. There was no time for any alteration of the crime scene in those very few moments.

Judge Micheli asks in his report, who could have returned later and staged the scene which was found? Who later moved Meredith’s body and cut off her bra? He reasons it could only be someone who had an interest in changing what would become a crime scene found at the cottage. Who else but someone who lived there, and who wanted to mislead the coming investigation?

It couldn’t have been Laura, she was in Rome. It couldn’t have been Filomena, she was staying with her boyfriend. It was very unlikely that it was Rudy Guede, all proofs of his presence were left untouched.




The culprits ran from the cottage in different directions and there is no reason to believe they met up again before some or one of them returned. Judge Micheli stated that, in his opinion, this just left Knox who would seem to have an interest in arranging the scene the police would find.

Bloody footprints made visible with luminol in Filomena’s room contain Meredith’s DNA. This indicated to Judge Micheli that the scene in Filomena’s room was also staged after Meredith was killed.

In Micheli’s opinion the scene in Meredith’s room was probably staged to point the finger at Rudy Guede. All evidence related to him was left untouched, and the pillow with a partial palm print was found under Meredith’s repositioned body.

But whoever later arranged that scene in Meredith’s room also unwittingly indicated their own presence at the original sexual assault. Who else could have known that by staging an obvious rape scene, they would inevitably point the investigators towards Rudy’s DNA which they knew could be found in Meredith?

Micheli asks: Seemingly, who else could it have been but Amanda Knox? And this in part is why she was committed to trial, for her defense to contend this evidence.

 

[Kevin_Lowe]

she has a strong alibi? Her own boyfriend undercut her alibi real quickly at the station, which then led her to fasley accuse her boss. evne if her boyfriend was backing her up, he doesn't have one, b/c nothing backs him up on being home all night on the computer. if there was any truth they had strong alibis, never one of them would still be facing jail time. all the other people who the police questioned and who had strong alibis were sent on their way a long time ago.

You'd think so, wouldn't you? You'd think if there was hard evidence, in the form of time-stamped computer files from Raffaele's computer that showed that they were at home at the time the murder took place, that they'd have been home free.

It doesn't seem to work that way, though. Even in the original trial, it was acknowledged by both sides that there was computer activity on his computer at 21:10. Since Meredith was almost certainly dead by then, that means they can't have been there when it happened.

At the appeal it was shown that they started watching an episode of Naruto even later, which would have kept them busy until nearly 22:00. So Meredith was long dead by the time that was done.

The defence also claimed, although it never got shown in court because the charges were chucked out on other grounds first, that screensaver log data showed that the computer was in continuous use into the early hours of the morning. If that's correct they couldn't have done it even if the ludicrous time of death they found in the Massei conviction (23:30 or so) was correct.

So why are they still in the frame? Go figure.

Answer this, why would Knox tell one of the other girls at the station that she was the one who found the body, when we know that she and Raffe actually moved away when the bedroom door was broken down? Isn't it nuts to claim you are found a body if you didn't find the body?

That's it? That's the big gotcha that needed bold text to emphasise it?

Everyone there at the time the body was found "found the body", in a perfectly ordinary sense of the term. Even if Amanda was speaking imprecisely, heck, even if she was taking credit for it to make herself seem more important, how is that strong evidence she was involved in the killing? I don't get it.

Add on top she claims it was in the closet, when it wasn't in the closet. You yourself has said the body was NEVER in the closet, so why is she talking about the closet. Again, we are to just accept she has a bad memory and things are confused. HOw is she majoring in creative writing if she gets things so confused so easily. Seems like a writer needs to have a good memory to know if her story writing isn't contradicting itself in various points.

She was wrong. Get over it. Only in creative writing, in the form of Agatha Christie novels, is it evidence of murder if you speak imprecisely or get something wrong. If you think every university English student has a photographic memory you've never been in a university English class.

how did Rudy decide to clean up if his bloody prints head straight to the door, and there's no evidence he ever returned? Wouldn't you at least flush your crap in the toilet if you returned? Wipe away your bloody prints? Why risk coming back and then not do that? You don't even put forth a logical way this could have happened.

We just went over this a second ago. Why are we going over it again?

Rudy left the murder room and cleaned up in the bathroom, which is not irrational if you have the blood of a murder victim on you and you have to walk home. Walking home stained with blood isn't very subtle.

He returned to the murder room, took the phones and the money from Meredith's purse, and left leaving a trail of bloody footprints on his way out.

Why didn't he flush, or try to scrub off his footprints? You'd have to ask him. He forgot, he was in a hurry, I don't know. People under the effects of panic and adrenaline sometimes do weird things.

Why would Rudy go through one of the girls' clothes? At that point, if the original point was to steal stuff, it seems kidn of amazing that he took nothing but the cell phones.

Nothing amazing about it. His priorities changed from stealing enough stuff to pay the rent that fortnight, to getting away with the murder he just committed. Plus he almost certainly took money as well as the cell phones, seeing as he was broke before the murder and had money for transport afterwards.

there's no way the bra clasp was contaminated. it never left the bedroom, and even if it got contaminated while moving from point a to point b in the bedroom, that's just as incriminating, b/c the dna must have still come from the bedroom where Raff had no business being. this was a sealed off crime scene, and nother other Raff DNA was found in the house outside of some on a cig in the kitchen.

I tried to warn you. You've put your foot in it now. Contamination definitely occurred, unless Meredith was murdered by six people, which is an even dumber hypothesis than her being murdered by three. The DNA of multiple people who weren't Meredith's killer was on that clasp - got a theory as to how it got there, in a world where the bedroom was a sealed crime scene (more on that later) and in a world where contamination can only occur before the item is collected?

I bet you don't.

The thing is, there's nothing about the laws of the universe that says contamination can't occur during transportation, at the lab, or even occur because someone deliberately contaminates the sample. If it didn't occur in the bedroom, then when and where did it occur? The police had it all the time, so if it didn't get contaminated due to police action, how did it get contaminated?