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

[Sherlock Holmes]

Oh for crap's sake. Your story is that Amanda has seen her friend and roommate murdered by someone she knew either barely or not at all, and instead of running to save her own life and pounding on the nearest door, or running to a phone and dialing the Italian equivalent of 911, she went to her boyfriend and said "Hmm, what should we do?" And instead of calling 911 himself -- or his sister, the POLICE OFFICER -- he said, "Hmm, I dunno, let's go take a look." Meanwhile, Guede knows that a woman WHO CAN IDENTIFY HIM -- and has absolutely no reason to protect him -- has witnessed him commit a murder, and he either allows her to leave or goes away and leaves her behind? And all this is over someone using the toilet? And during days of brutal interrogation neither Amanda nor Raffaele says a word about Guede? Does any of this comport with what we know about how human beings think and behave in the world?

I was trying to imagine a more ridiculous story. But it involves space aliens and teleportation.

Re-read, then get back to me -not worth commenting on any further.

 

[Dan O.]

She had been in Europe a while and made lots of calls would have been well aware of the 9 hour time difference!! She called her mother at 12pm / 3am middle of the night Seattle time. Understandable only if something had happened like a murder or even a staged break-in. Nothing had happened yet , so little real concern on her part that she went ahead and had breakfast.Police were called much later. Court testimony has her denying that call at 3am then admitting to only the possibility that she didn't remember. She wasn't in shock when she made the call, her mother would have been alarmed and wondered why she'd been woken up. There is no reason not to remember or deny it other than the obvious.

There is one very good reason not the remember the call you are describing... It never happened.

Why don't you go back to the actual evidence and find the times when phone calls were actually made.

 

[Dan O.]

Edited by kmortis: 

Removed previously moderated content and response to same

 

[Sherlock Holmes]

Well, for one thing, it was a Thursday night ...

Yes, but Friday was a holiday so they had 3 days off.

There are two things wrong with it. First it fails the BS test. That is, it is an inherently incredible story in which everybody behaves in a totally irrational way. Second, it depends on evidence that is unreliable. Apart from that, it's fine.

And her being innocent she behaves rationally, what ever happened to Amanda just being Amanda and you never know how you will react until it happens to you, these are right out of the FOA handbook on why kids behave irrationally. Any evidence there is fall into this theory, that's how the theory was made up.

I like the part where Amanda leaves Meredith alone and screaming (nobody heard that one, did they?) then Raf arms himself to the teeth but when he gets there he just has a quiet word and runs out again. Why not just call the police?

They did not call the police because they never thought it was a rape or murder and because Amanda did kind of start it you know. Yes Raff runs out again, we all know how good those kick boxing classes were he took. Try and remember Rudi's story, there is some truth in it. Remember, Amanda turned her phone off at Raffs and likely didn't have it with her, there is no phone at the cottage, she has to run back to Raff's and probably after having a bite to eat, told him what happened.

And then, despite being totally innocent, they embark on the staged burglary, staged sexual assault and clean up and then they spend four years in prison never fingering Rudy in all that time. Rudy, undeterred by being identified ab initio as the killer, still steals and tosses the phones and hangs around in Perugia waiting to be arrested.

How do you get totally innocent, Raff is at one point, but with his new love in trouble, he tries to help, his plan, make it look like a burglary gone bad.

How did blood get on the knife?

I thought FOA's say there is no blood, Meredith DNA gets on the knife because he takes it with him there every time they return, even in the middle of the night when they stage the breakin. Raff does go into the room, he puts the bed cover onto Meredith, maybe he does cut off the bra strap.

You're trying too hard to make the confessions work.

I've studied this case a long as anyone here, I doubt any of you guys/girls have seen or heard any evidence that I haven't. To me, she is involved, no way she is telling the truth, but I also do not believe she killed or wanted Meredith killed, so given that, this is what I came up with.

There is not just two possible theories for this murder, yet almost everyone seems to believe there is.

 

[Chris_Halkides]

daylight savings times

Daylight savings time ended on November 4th, 2007, but IIUC it ended a week earlier in Europe, on the last Sunday of October. Therefore, one should take this into account when calculating the time difference between Seattle and Perugia. It is usually 9 hours different but during the week in question, it was 8 hours.

 

[Sherlock Holmes]

Absolutely. Compare yourself. If it was Raf's, which I assume you are driving at, please explain why they wouldn't have washed it, thrown it away or left soaked in the shower. You believe in some sort or cleaning and staging yet you believe that Raf wouldn't notice the footprint on the mat. Did he clean his footsteps leading to it? How did he leave it?

Really, you're the one that needs to be giving breaks.

If she were murdered at 9:15, do you believe that Amanda then ran to the plaza before 9:30 to be spotted by Curatolo?

Do you think Nara was a drug addict?

I really don't think I should respond here, you have something really messed up. Who cares about the footprint on the mat, you seem to think it was made after the shoe prints that lead to the front door, impossible, the shoe prints do not return, even when examined under Luminal, the shoe prints are the last you see of Rudi before he leaves. The footprint on the mat has nothing to do with who locked that door, actually, anybody you like is more likely to have locked that door, than Rudi.

 

[Sherlock Holmes]

Do we need to go back on moderated status to stop the name calling? You've already gotten one yellow card. The next step will be suspensions.

Unless Amanda Knox is registered her, apparently he can call her anything he like as we all found out re the Kerchers.

 

[DrTesla]

Unless Amanda Knox is registered her, apparently he can call her anything he like as we all found out re the Kerchers.

is it considered not civil on here if you say something mean about Knox herself, like calling her a batty bimbo?

sometimes it seems like the forum is a bit overmoderated so maybe they consider this as not being civil. given Friends emotional attachment to Knox, insulting her is like insulting them as they see it.

 

[yimyammer]

I'll back up just a bit, Amanda and Raff, by 8:45 had already eaten, had the spill (water), found out she didn't have to work, and by shutting her phone off, would not be called in had it got busy, already watched the movie and Raff was now free from his midnight engagement. It was a Friday night and being students, they had the whole weekend off. Amanda went home to get that mop she talked so much about, no need to wait til morning now that was free, and I bet to change from her work cloths into her going out cloths.
She met Rudi at the basketball court on her way home, they had met before and Rudi had said he liked Amanda so I'm sure they talked. Rudi had to use a washroom and Amanda knew were one was close by. When they get there, again, not sure if Meredith was already there or came shortly after. The argument started with Meredith over Rudi being there and escalated to the point where Rudi came running out of the washroom and attacked Meredith, who ran to her room. Amanda stayed in the kitchen and had to cover her ears at one point to drown out Meredith's scream. Amanda then ran to Raff's to tell him what had happened, I'm sure she had no idea a murder and rape was taking place, likely just an assault. Amanda and Raff returned, with the biggest knife he had in his drawer, Amanda stayed outside, Raff went in and confronted Rudi in the living room, had a few words and ran out of there with Amanda that Rudi saw thru Filomena's window. They walked to the court and sat by a bench where they could keep an eye out for when Rudi left, they also saw the broken down car and waited until it left before they went back. When they returned, they found Meredith's body, Amanda screamed 'the scream' heard at 11:00 to 11:30
They go back to Raff's and decide what to do next, they should have called the police but, being stoned, being just kids and being scared to death, Amanda being somewhat involved, they plan what they will do. Lock Meredith's door, put the Dubai over the body, stage a break in and plan Saturday and how the body will be discovered.
There is a min version, what evidence does not fit into that?

Lets say you got the story right. How much time should she and Raf should serve for this?

 

[acbytesla]

I think it is somewhat similar. I do think Knox's jealousy of her more attractive and intelligent roommate Meridith was at the heart of it. Men just liked Meredith more b/c she was soft and feminine while Knox was kind of tom boyish and cold and aggressive and annoying. You know Meredith thought she was hot stuff b/c she was in a music video, and throw in the fact that she slut shamed Knox over brining strange men over the cottage every night, Knox wanted to teach this little conceited English girl a lesson.

Jealousy of Janet Chandler being a bigger hit with the men staying at the hotel is why her roommate told the guy that Janet was sleeping around with all the guards, she wanted to anger him so he would do something to her. then she and the other two jealous girls cheered on the gang rape that lead to her death.
Knox was cheering on, and in this case, actually participated much more actively in the rape than Janet Chandler's roommate did, b/c she held a knife, and then she stabbed the victim. You are right about it being different, with Knox's role being much much worse.

But here is the truth Dr. Tesla. There is NO EVIDENCE of Amanda being jealous of Meredith. NONE. No one ever testified that she was jealous of Meredith...EVER. Amanda is the one with the rich boyfriend....not Meredith. Amanda is the one with a job, not Meredith.

There is no evidence of Meredith being more intelligent either or that guys were more interested in her than Meredith. Amanda had spent years at the University of Washington where there are lots of pretty girls. Laura and Filomena were both pretty as well.

This is just one of those guilters memes based on nothing but wild speculation.

It has always been my belief that a prosecution should be based on actual facts not made up speculation.


And that is what you have been doing.... Wild speculation based on NOTHING.

 

[Bill Williams]

there's a saying that if you are having to explain everything, you are losing. I can't help but feel that is the case for our heroine Knox. really the only thing people accept without a lot of explanation from Knox is that she had sex and smoked pot that night. that's because she does that every night.

Pretty much every aspect of her story is challenged by the prosecution, there is something contradictory about it when compared to something else, or it's just flat out weird, litke the bathmat shuffle, or bragging about finding a body near a closet when she didn't see the body and it's location was't near the closet (I understand it was a small room but why not say the body was near the window, or the door, technically you can say it's near everything, so why talk about the closet, it's an odd detail to include)

I hope Knox's lawyers are getting paid well b/c she seems like the worse client to have.

This post shows the futility of the prosecution's case against Sollecito and Knox. The prosecution tried to throw everything at them to see if something stuck. At the end of the day nothing does.

This post assumes that everything the prosecution said is factual. Please let me repost the 11 things that even the convicting court did not find as factual - there was no motive, there was no psychopathology. there was a normal relationship between Meredith and Knox.

Etc. Etc.

And that was the convicting court. The only way to assume guilt these days is to return to everything that the prosecution quite randomly threw at two students to see what stuck. I mean, is anyone going to post that they now find as factual that this was a Hallowe'en-esque satanic ritual gone wrong?

I think that's next for anyone who is following the prosecution that closely... eventually you're going to have to.

And while at it, explain why there is no forensics at all of the pair in the murder room? Someone upthread had Knox and Sollecito trying to stuff the body into the closet... that would guarantee that a full set of forensics would be left of the two.... oh, I forgot. The lamp. The desk lamp used for a clean-up to the molecular level that removed two of three sets of forensics, and even masked that a clean-up had taken place.

When are people going to abandon this prosecution? What hold does Mignini have over people? That one is a head scratcher.

 

[Kaosium]

there's a saying that if you are having to explain everything, you are losing. I can't help but feel that is the case for our heroine Knox. really the only thing people accept without a lot of explanation from Knox is that she had sex and smoked pot that night. that's because she does that every night.

Pretty much every aspect of her story is challenged by the prosecution, there is something contradictory about it when compared to something else, or it's just flat out weird, litke the bathmat shuffle, or bragging about finding a body near a closet when she didn't see the body and it's location was't near the closet (I understand it was a small room but why not say the body was near the window, or the door, technically you can say it's near everything, so why talk about the closet, it's an odd detail to include)

I hope Knox's lawyers are getting paid well b/c she seems like the worse client to have.

Dr. Tesla, what you don't take into account is that the prosecution had to come up with a 'guilt narrative.' Objectively Amanda and Raffaele's actions that morning are suggestive of innocence. Amanda calling Meredith's phone, calling Filomena, Amanda calling her mother several times, pounding on and trying to break down the door, Raffaele calling his sister and Carabinieri and them inviting the Postal Police in to look when they arrived first with the phones suggest they were trying to raise the alarm about something that concerned them.

However, since the prosecution thought them guilty they had to come up with a way of finding anything that suggested they weren't just two innocents who stumbled across a murder. So they have to try to make anything they can sound suspicious.

 

[Dan O.]

Daylight savings time ended on November 4th, 2007, but IIUC it ended a week earlier in Europe, on the last Sunday of October. Therefore, one should take this into account when calculating the time difference between Seattle and Perugia. It is usually 9 hours different but during the week in question, it was 8 hours.

http://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/converted.html?iso=20071102T1245&p1=157&p2=234

 

[Grinder]

I really don't think I should respond here, you have something really messed up. Who cares about the footprint on the mat, you seem to think it was made after the shoe prints that lead to the front door, impossible, the shoe prints do not return, even when examined under Luminal, the shoe prints are the last you see of Rudi before he leaves. The footprint on the mat has nothing to do with who locked that door, actually, anybody you like is more likely to have locked that door, than Rudi.

Well now are you saying that Rudi went to the bathroom, cleaned his pants and left the bare footprint on the mat and then went back to the bedroom, stepped in blood with his left foot and then walked straight out of the cottage?

I say he stepped in the blood during the killing, walked out of the room and out of the house. He may have started out the drive or just paced for a couple of minutes and formulated a plan which included cleaning his pants, looking for cash, and putting the duvet over her. By the time he returned to the house his shoes no longer left anything behind that could be found with Luminol or anything else.

You seem to think that Luminol finds shoe steps but there needs to be something left behind. The first print with the most blood on it wasn't noticed by anyone that morning or early afternoon. It wasn't some print like a foot coming out of a pool. The prints had almost disappeared when they arrived at the front door. A few steps out there and nothing left.

Just because the position of the foot when it was left would make it very difficult to lock that time doesn't mean he didn't before or after.

 

[Charlie Wilkes]

Are you free to discuss your visit with AK? If so, how did this come about? Why were you visiting her?

Sure, I posted about it at the time.

I'm interested in crime and especially wrongful convictions. I became convinced of Amanda's innocence early in 2008. I became very interested in the case because the public largely assumed she was guilty, and I could see how wrong they were. At that time, however, I didn't know what she was like. I assumed she must be a brat to land in the soup the way she did. But she's not and never was a brat. She was just clueless.

I live in the San Juan Islands, about 100 miles north of Seattle. In August 2008, I drove down to Seattle and met Amanda's mother and stepfather as well as other supporters whose daughters went to school with Amanda. That was the genesis of FOA. I was given access to the case files, and I became an ad hoc archivist, providing information to reporters and to experts who were interested in the case, as well as people here on JREF.

I got to be friends with Amanda's stepfather. In 2010, he was living in Perugia, feeling somewhat isolated, and he invited me to come visit. So I did. I visited Amanda in prison twice.

At this point I have a pretty good sense of what she is like. She is a warm, kind-hearted person who is dearly loved by her friends and her family. She is not a party girl or a sexpot by any means. She is bookish and very intelligent, but she also enjoys light, fluffy entertainment. One night I was at her mother's house and she picked the DVD we all watched: Up.

She smoked pot when she was younger. She was experimenting with her sexuality. So what. She is someone who any parent would be proud to have as a daughter. She had nothing to do with Meredith's murder, and everything that has happened to her is beyond crazy. And yet people are still clinging to this tabloid caricature from 2007. That's part of what makes this case so interesting.

 

[acbytesla]

She had been in Europe a while and made lots of calls would have been well aware of the 9 hour time difference!! She called her mother at 12pm / 3am middle of the night Seattle time. Understandable only if something had happened like a murder or even a staged break-in. Nothing had happened yet , so little real concern on her part that she went ahead and had breakfast.Police were called much later. Court testimony has her denying that call at 3am then admitting to only the possibility that she didn't remember. She wasn't in shock when she made the call, her mother would have been alarmed and wondered why she'd been woken up. There is no reason not to remember or deny it other than the obvious.

This call drives me crazy. And the reason it drives me crazy is there is NO RECORD OF THIS CALL. Massei list all of the calls that Amanda, Meredith and Raffaele make on the October 31, November 1 and November 2 and this call is one that Amanda is asked about, Amanda says she made and yet there is NO RECORD.

That convinces me that this call NEVER happened regardless of what any of the participants say. I believe the computer records, not people's memories.

 

[Sherlock Holmes]

Well now are you saying that Rudi went to the bathroom, cleaned his pants and left the bare footprint on the mat and then went back to the bedroom, stepped in blood with his left foot and then walked straight out of the cottage?

I say he stepped in the blood during the killing, walked out of the room and out of the house. He may have started out the drive or just paced for a couple of minutes and formulated a plan which included cleaning his pants, looking for cash, and putting the duvet over her. By the time he returned to the house his shoes no longer left anything behind that could be found with Luminol or anything else.

You seem to think that Luminol finds shoe steps but there needs to be something left behind. The first print with the most blood on it wasn't noticed by anyone that morning or early afternoon. It wasn't some print like a foot coming out of a pool. The prints had almost disappeared when they arrived at the front door. A few steps out there and nothing left.

Just because the position of the foot when it was left would make it very difficult to lock that time doesn't mean he didn't before or after.

First of all, I'm not conceding the footprint is Rudi's to begin with, and secondly, I would find it far more likely he used the washroom first, then went back into the bedroom to go thru the purse, stepped in blood with his left foot and left. Why in the world would he leave the building completely, then decided to come back, you may as well just say he locked Meredith's door in the almost impossible angle but not entirely impossible, go with that, it's far more likely.

 

[Sherlock Holmes]

Lets say you got the story right. How much time should she and Raf should serve for this?

Actually, I have thought of that and decided time served. I was probably the only one who thought justice was served when they were acquitted, now I fear they may have to spend a lot more time in jail, I think they are in deep trouble.

 

[Bill Williams]

Dr. Tesla, what you don't take into account is that the prosecution had to come up with a 'guilt narrative.' Objectively Amanda and Raffaele's actions that morning are suggestive of innocence. Amanda calling Meredith's phone, calling Filomena, Amanda calling her mother several times, pounding on and trying to break down the door, Raffaele calling his sister and Carabinieri and them inviting the Postal Police in to look when they arrived first with the phones suggest they were trying to raise the alarm about something that concerned them.

However, since the prosecution thought them guilty they had to come up with a way of finding anything that suggested they weren't just two innocents who stumbled across a murder. So they have to try to make anything they can sound suspicious.

The prosecution made a mistake trying to throw too much into this narrative. It is the reason why to this day even the most convinced of the two students' guilt cannot put together a coherent one.

Note what guilters have to do. They need Knox and Sollecito coming to the cottage with a mop on the morning of the 2nd, yet ignore that btoh of them have pretty much alerted the world that something is amiss at the cottage. So undaunted, guilters say that the reason they are there is to continue a clean-up - using a mop which eventually tested as forensically worthless. All this while they had already alerted Filomena, Raffaele's police-officer sister, etc.

And somehow these signs of obvious innocence are made to sound suspicious.

Apparently they did not think Knox let Meredith's phones ring long enough. This was supposed to be a sign she didn't care about Meredith. All this ignores that all those phones include time-stamps and recognizable phone numbers - they act as a "call-back feature".

All this stuff, and more, is thrown into the mix so that something, anything can stick. In the meantime, the cops themselves, Mignini himself, orders that the liver temperature not be taken - so as to cloud forever the TOD. No matter, stomach contents tend to indicate that TOD is way, way before 10 pm.... yet this conflicted with the developing prosecution narrative which was to include late night screams heard from across the street, and heroin addicts in the square.

The prosecution suffered from too much narrative. An ever changing story, which Mignini himself eventually retreated from, pulling Amanda herself out into the hallway to explain the lack of forensics in the murder room.

Sollecito and Knox had exactly two stories - one with mutual alibis that they stuck to for all of but 48 hours in this saga, then 48 hours when they were separated and the cops/prosecution were lying to them about what the other one was saying.

And today, Raffaele himself cites his strength in God for being able to withstand this - he is asked why he will not lie about Knox - withdrawing her alibi - and he says it's because he cannot lie about it. He is her alibi, as she is his.

If this were Filomena and her boyfriend..... where would we be? If this group here contained Friends of Filomena because she'd been railroaded... maybe for taking her computer from a crime scene, or not crying at the right time, or admitting to Mignini that she "had sinned" by using soft drugs....

.... or that Filomena had so rummaged through her room (cf. John Follain) that it was now impossible to tell if the break in had been staged or not in her very bedroom....

The point is that the prosecution just when with a buckshot approach to a narrative back then, and guilters these days resist a comprehensive narrative of this crime which points to guilt for a reason.

Machiavelli is on record as saying there doesn't need to be one. There just needs to be evidence of guilt. Regardless that the evidence makes no sense.

How long will people defend the prosecution in this?

 

[billyryan]

I think that witness, the foreign guy who was a crack head, and they had a hard time understanding b/c he didn't speak Italian and he probably was embellishing some aspects of his story, was a credible witness and that he saw the three the night after the murder. He talked about stuff like the tow truck coming for the broke down car only somebody who had been there would have known about. he said he saw the three, and Knox had a knife and that Knox was just acting nuts, which would indicate she was on really laced out on some hardcore drugs. I can't see why this guy, who was some kind of drug dealer, would approach the police on his own accord if there wasn't something to his story. Drug dealers usually don't want to be involved in a murder case or deal with police anymore than they had to. I wouldn't doubt if more people saw Knox and these other two that night but the area of Perugia they were living in seems to have a lot of drug abusers and they just aren't going to voluntarily talk to the police about something.

this crack head as you called him,when he was asked how he could identify Amanda,he said it was because he had a few drinks with her and her uncle in August in some bar,which was over a month before she arrived in Perugia,and also from the gap she has in her front teeth,the judge asked Amanda to smile and when she did she displayed a perfect set of teeth both top and bottom, At that point the judge had no option but to dismiss this hired liar for the prosecution.Mignini also used another of his perjurers Curatolo in this and two other cases and he was destroyed in Hellmann's court.Kokomania disappeared as soon as he finished giving evidence but Curatolo hung around and Mignini fearing the international press offering him money to tell them the truth about why he lied for the prosecution took the steps necessary to insure he never told the international press how evidence is obtained against the innocent in Perugia