What's in a name? I can only think of one poster here that has actually met Amanda and that would only have happened after her release. So why do you insist on casting such a wide FOA brush?
As for changing minds, it was generally assumed that the bra clasp had been cut to remove the bra. That's what the prosecution was testifying to and that's what the press was reporting. I accepted it myself and even wrote a couple of scenarios where the knife is used to cut the band. But then when better evidence became available I started to reanalyze the clasp in detail. I closely examined the best resolution photographs of the clasp and the bra. I researched how bras are constructed. And all the evidence showed that nothing had been cut.
I then looked at what action would result in the bra unraveling like that. The right strap had unstitched from the back band. In order to pull these apart, the band needs to be grasped below the right shoulder and pulled out and down (relative to a person standing). This just happens to be the same direction needed to pull when Meredith is lying on her left shoulder facing the side of the wardrobe to get her to the center of the room where she was found. The DNA evidence on the bra even tells us who it was that pulled on the band to move Meredith. Rudy Guede's abundant DNA was found on the right band.
As for who else changed their mind when presented with this evidence, That would be just about every one of the regular posters here. There are of course the occasional staunch defenders of the status quo who maintain rigid irrational beliefs in the face of overwhelming evidence because that is what some authority said and the righteous authorities can never be questioned.
I'm with you Dan. I started to investigate this case assuming that the evidence of the couple's guilt would be self evident after a little reading. I spent a lot of time reading details of the murder at TJMK and PMF.
I wouldn't call me a hard core guilter or PGP, but it certainly seemed like they were guilty to me at that time. There was Raffaele calling the Carabineiri after the Postal police arrived, there was the couple supposedly cleaning up the murder, the staging, the buying of bleach at the store. There were the witnesses, there was the Luminol footprints and Raffaele's footprint on the bathmat and then there was the knife and bra clasp.
I do admit however to rejecting the interrogation statements almost immediately. First the statements were incredibly unclear and didn't fit the facts of the crime. I mean you can't just swap Rudy for Patrick because it pleases you. It was also very clear to me that Amanda never wrote that statement. As a graduate from a prestigious prep school in Seattle as well as a student studying creative writing at the UW, it was far too stilted to have been written by her. I decided that from then on I'd ignore the statements and focus on the circumstantial and physical evidence.
Then it turned out that Raffaele actually call the Carabineiri BEFORE the Postal Police arrived. Then after looking at a lot of the photos and reading more, it became clear that there was no cleanup. Then the story of the bleach turned out to be bogus. Well...ok.. I just chalked that up to the media being full of it..and repeating rumors...it doesn't mean that A and R weren't guilty.
After all, how do you explain Raffaele's bloody footprint on the bathmat? Wasn't that incriminating? I mean an expert attributed it to Raffaele...right?? Well that is true..a so called expert did. But another expert said no..it was Rudy's!!! I'd just have to look at it myself and make my own decision. I probably stared at that picture with my screen blown up to the best possible resolution for hours and what I determined is that they were both full of crap. It might be Raffaele's, it also might be Rudy's, it also might be thousands, even millions of people's footprint. While I think you could use this footprint to eliminate a suspect, it is worthless for positive attribution....Scratch the bathmat footprint.
What about the Luminol footprints in the hallway and in Amanda's room? Aren't those proof of Amanda walking around in Meredith's blood? Surely that is damning!!!! Well you would think that, but if you look at these footprints...NONE are in Meredith's room!!! So what does that tell you? Anything? Did Amanda watch or as Mignini hypothesizes, direct the murder from the hallway?? (I didn't and don't buy this) I have hypothesized that Amanda took a shower the next morning and there was dried blood on the shower floor that transferred to the bottom of Amanda's feet and this is a record of Amanda the next morning, not the previous evening.
Then I read about Luminol and I found out that it actually isn't conclusive proof of blood at all, but a presumptive test for blood. Luminol actually reacts to all kinds of substances including fruit juices, bleach, anything with Iron in it..in fact iron is the reason it reacts to blood since Luminol is reacting to the iron in the red blood cells. I then find out that the tech Stefanoni also performed another test (TMB) on the Luminol footprints to see if they were blood and that came back NEGATIVE.
Scratch the Luminol bare footprints as evidence of anything.
What about the knife? Surely the DNA on that is incriminating as hell...right?? Well, as it turns out. NO. The knife doesn't appear to have made any of the wounds and doesn't match the knife stain on the sheet. Then you add in how this knife was supposedly carried back and forth to the crime scene..which, let's be honest, is absurd. Then you read about how Stefanoni seemed to have broken every laboratory rule and protocol and then how the court appointed DNA experts tore this apart and I have to scratch the knife.
The bra clasp. I saw the video of the Lab technicians collecting this piece of evidence and passing it back and forth and making a big show about it and then putting it back on the floor. That made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. Scratch the bra clasp. In fact it was that moment that made me think of police corruption. All I could think was...why did they make a show of picking up this single piece of evidence?
The witnesses: What can you say about the witnesses? First, eyewitnesses are the worst kind of evidence. At night, in the dark, even if they saw something, is it really reasonable that they can identify any one reliably? I've seen lots of social experiment about the eyewitnesses and they are notoriously bad. Now, who saw or heard what? Curatolo? A drug addled homeless guy who can't tell Halloween from November 1st and is contradicted by the Kiosk owners. Quintavalle, the store owner who came forward a year later at the urgings of a reporter a year later who said he saw Amanda waiting the next morning to get in the store and then came in and went to the cleaning area and then left without buying anything? Never mind that contradicts what he told detectives days after the murder and never mind his own employees contradict him. Nara, who says she heard a scream and people running away in the middle of the night who says it was about 11:30 (but never looked at a clock) never mind she was three floors up and hearing through double pane windows. The guys who's car broke down across the street from the cottage who hear nothing unusual? Where do the witnesses leave you? NOWHERE!!! Scratch the witnesses.
You see Sherlock, I don't know Amanda, I don't know Raffaele. I'm not a member of FOA. But if I knew what I know now 4 years ago, I'm sure I would be one. When I first started to investigate this case I fully expected to be persuaded in Amanda's and Raffaele's guilt. It was the overwhelming lack of evidence that has persuaded me of their innocence. I've read about just every single piece of evidence that people such as yourself think to be incriminating and I've come to the conclusion that the evidence has just as likely a innocent interpretation as a guilty one and therefore it would be UNFAIR to seize upon the guilty explanation.
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