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

[yimyammer]

I'm reading an article by Barbie and in it she says:

The door to her bedroom was locked from the inside and pulled closed.

Is that accurate, I thought it had to be locked from the outside?

Article link

 

[yimyammer]

Even if it were a plane as day image, someone could still claim that you are imagining seeing the door open. You need to remove the subjective element. Using a program that allows yu to adjust the image and add annotations, make adjustments until you think you are seeing something and sketch in what you think you see where you see it. Using a photo that shows what is actually behind the door, build a 3-D model of the entryway including the visible objects. Then map your annotated photo onto the 3-D model. If your annotations line up with real objects, you have a magical gift to see through closed doors in photos and should immediately apply for Randi's million.





It's possible that she doesn't even know. It's also possible that she caught the perp inside and used that to extort greater access to the prosecutors office thus launching her debut as a crime journalist.





The court only has the word of the police that unsealed the cottage. The police may have an incentive to coverup any anomalies. Reduction of paperwork would be one consideration.





As far as I know, nobody has asked Barbie about the photo.

yowza, that looks like a lot of work to model the cottage, etc.wish I had the discipline to do it

I sent Barbie an email, I'll let you know if I get a response

 

[yimyammer]

Well I agree they had an audience but if you watch the whole tape it is notable that other items like the blood covered outer jacket, shoes, and socks and purse got no production number like this tiny insignificant bra clasp. We know now this is significant for them but how could they know it then? Perhaps it is nothing...but it looks like something. Napolini being there looks like something.

Somewhere (ROSE?) there is a better pic of the open door on Nov 14th...
And yes the lawyers were indubitably rotten IMHO. During the first trial I swear they were dogging it just to be assured of the further work for the appeal.

Neither had experience in murder trials and one was a local yolkel...nice men but far out of their depth and it was obvious. RS big name gal was actually a deterrent in the case...she had a baby in the middle of the trial and only came to court one day a week at most. Useless.

Meanwhile Mignini is pulling smoke and mirror tricks right and left...every day. He got the mornings when the jury was awake...and the defense got the hot afternoons when everybody was asleep...

And Massei...look at just his conclusions about the cottage seal. It is at least altered. And I think you are exactly correct...the additional tape was added by someone...but not by the departing CSI team on Dec 18...they left after dark.

I cant imagine what the defense lawyers were thinking. I don't recall if they even mentioned this in the appeal documents. Hellmann rightfully concluded that no matter, contamination was likely at any point since there were multiple DNA traces on the clasp (some say 3 some say four) The expert concluded she could read the egram and find the judge or even herself there as well. That's a pretty strong statement.

This case is frustrating on so many levels, all sides should be able to agree on this but of course they won't

 

[yimyammer]

Here, is this better? I can't see a damn thing on the original either, but I found a program called 'Microsoft Office Picture Manager' and I played with the buttons (don't ask, I dunno!) and now it's pretty clear the door is wide open and I can see shapes inside, and most certainly not the orange door, the edge of which is on the right side. Look at the bottom to begin with, it becomes pretty clear. I think I may see a phone as well, but I don't know enough of the program to be sure.

[qimg]http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/imagehosting/thum_4396451a057338432d.jpg[/qimg]​

thats as good as I could get it as well and it does look like the door is open but I suspect if one thinks she's guilty, they won't agree

do we know who took this photo? The LaStrada blog doesn't say who the source of the photo is (I didn't see it if it did)?

 

[Bill Williams]

Why can't you just reference the page numbers of Massei and quote it directly? (I'm not being hostile with this question, I'm just a little confused like Briars as to why a simple quote and page(s) reference wouldn't have done the trick)

No hostility taken. Neither from Briars or Grinder. They are legitimate comments.

If you're interested, load Massei's report into a word processor and search on "36B", you'll find the whole discussion of the material found on the blade.

The short answer then, a summary is - given that it was up to the prosecution to prove that it was blood-DNA on the knife blade, the prosecution failed to prove that. Yet still people cling to the claim that, "it cannot be ruled out that it WAS blood-DNA."

Strangely, Massei himself seems to support this reversal of the burden of proof, because when the evidence about 36B was presented at the 1st instance court, Massei ruled that it was the responsibility of the defence to invoke Article 160, and since they didn't, Massei assumes that the defence conceded Stefanoni's reasoning.

Yet when the defence requested a full judicial review of Stefanoni's work, Massei refused the request. I am assuming that Massei's reasoning was that they had their chance under Article 160.

It will be the height of injustice if this becomes the reason why the SC on 26 March 2013 reversed Hellmann's acquittals... on the basis that C&V should never have been done, that Massei got it right by rejecting a full review of Stefanoni's work - and if the SC invokes, too, Article 160.

 

[Bill Williams]

To make it as clear as I can - in response to the question - Is it Meredith's blood-DNA on the knife?.... Stefanoni told the 1st instance court, "With a sample that small, that barely registers (and which most other countries would say was too small and irrelevant), I had to choose between identifying who the small trace belonged to, or identifying what it was. I could not do both. So I chose to find out who it belonged to, because finding out what it was would not answer the question of who it belonged to."
In short, even if it was Mededith's, and they are still arguing that, the trace 36B on the knife blade is non-blood DNA. Stefanoni herself, in the Massei report and through testimony at the first trial, conceded as such.

There are DNA experts who say that unless it IS blood-DNA, then that knife was not involved in a murder.

All I have done is cast the data, as already recorded in Massei's report, as if it were being re-represented at the upcoming Florence trial.

I couldn't find the highlighted section in Massei.

My thing is a paraphrase of the following from page 311 of Massei:

She [Dr. Stefanoni] explained that such a choice, whereby the greatest quantity of DNA had been used to determine the biological profile rather than the nature of the specimen, provided a basis for the subsequent assessments: it is preferable to know to whom a given biological specimen is attributable, rather than ascertaining the nature of that same specimen, without any possibility of attributing it to anyone.

 

[Kaosium]

The side for innocence is getting smoked over there. Its weird to believe the opposite yet have so many people resoundingly disagree, makes me wonder what they see that I don't

That's PMF/TJMK, if they don't have it on their front page, they're doing in their facebook groups etc. I stopped paying attention to them long ago, but I recognize their styles still. It's to give the exact impression you have now, that there's something out there you must have missed if 'so many' people think she must be guilty. In reality it's the few dozen hardcore regulars plus the ones (unconnected) who've read their site or remember the tabloid accounts and little else.

 

[Bill Williams]

Please don't move the goal posts and say the crevice couldn't be found.

DNA can and does exist that isn't blood and it could be the case here regardless of who said what.

It's not me moving the goalposts. Massei had to deal with the issue that the crevises could not be found, because experts had testified at earlier hearings that they, too, had examined the knife and could not find the crevices to which Stefanoni referred:

It was thus maintained that the blade did not show any visible sign of the claimed scratches, and not even Professor Cingolani (the expert witness nominated by the GIP [preliminary hearing judge] for the incidente probatorio [taking of evidence at pretrial stage], during which, in the course of the discussion, the knife, Exhibit 36, having been made available at the request of the defence teams, was shown) has declared that he noticed such scratches.

To this, Massei said that Professor Cingolani was mistaken, because he "probably" did not look at the knife under the same light conditions, and he "probably" did not move the knife from side to side to catch the crevices in differing light.... as opposed to Stefanoni who probably did.

In this regard, however, Dr. Stefanoni’s statements should be recalled on the manner of observing the knife (under good lighting and moving the blade so that it was thoroughly illuminated) and it should be noted that it does not appear that the others have examined the blade of the knife in the same way and with the same or similar lighting. It must therefore be stated that Dr. Stefanoni, in reporting that she had seen these scratches and had taken sample B from these very scratches, has not stated a falsehood.

 

[Bill Williams]

That's PMF/TJMK, if they don't have it on their front page, they're doing in their facebook groups etc. I stopped paying attention to them long ago, but I recognize their styles still. It's to give the exact impression you have now, that there's something out there you must have missed if 'so many' people think she must be guilty. In reality it's the few dozen hardcore regulars plus the ones (unconnected) who've read their site or remember the tabloid accounts and little else.

In my opinion, Dr. Mull has resurfaced under a couple of pseudonyms. There is a continuity of the things being claimed.

 

[anglolawyer]

That's PMF/TJMK, if they don't have it on their front page, they're doing in their facebook groups etc. I stopped paying attention to them long ago, but I recognize their styles still. It's to give the exact impression you have now, that there's something out there you must have missed if 'so many' people think she must be guilty. In reality it's the few dozen hardcore regulars plus the ones (unconnected) who've read their site or remember the tabloid accounts and little else.

Using a supercomputer to process the text of all the posts and comments on this case throughout the internet and over the last 5 years, I can report there have been, in fact, no more than 15 people posting, tops.

 

[Kaosium]

It was bizarre to re-read those sections of Massei which refer to trace 36B - ostensibly about the determination of 36B's identity, who it belonged to and whether or not was blood-DNA.

(sinister deletia )

Great stuff, Bill--and you reminded me of something: here she has a knife that Finzi just plucked out of Raffaele's drawer, it doesn't match the wounds, tests negative for blood--but she has what she claimed was something she could see yet doesn't think she has enough to actually test--except that one time.

At 10k:1 you wouldn't be able to see the blood in the diluted water, which would be a positive for a TMB test amongst the most adverse conditions. Luminol is used because it picks up blood traces that cannot be seen. But her little crumb hiding in that shy striation she didn't think would produce enough material to both test the substance and do a DNA test.

But she could see it. Anyone else see what I'm getting at?

 

[billyryan]

(sinister deletia )

Great stuff, Bill--and you reminded me of something: here she has a knife that Finzi just plucked out of Raffaele's drawer, it doesn't match the wounds, tests negative for blood--but she has what she claimed was something she could see yet doesn't think she has enough to actually test--except that one time.

At 10k:1 you wouldn't be able to see the blood in the diluted water, which would be a positive for a TMB test amongst the most adverse conditions. Luminol is used because it picks up blood traces that cannot be seen. But her little crumb hiding in that shy striation she didn't think would produce enough material to both test the substance and do a DNA test.

But she could see it. Anyone else see what I'm getting at?

Loud and clear Kaosium,once you start lying like Stefanoni is there is only one thing you can do is tell more and more lies to cover up the one's you have already told,she is refusing to hand over the EDF files because they will expose more and more of her lies,as someone said before I doubt very much she is looking forward to the new trial.Monica Napoeloni is I think also charged in another case of planting evidence,these two should be targeted by the defence in Florence

 

[Kaosium]

He admitted being there when she died. Not much else is needed.

The absence of evidence proves Rudi didn't break into the cottage but the absence of evidence doesn't prove that Amanda wasn't part of the murder. This is the hypocrisy of both sides.

No, it's more complicated than that.

In the abstract, absence of evidence is not evidence of absence, but that formulation is not an absolute, it's dependent on how hard you looked. Making a determined effort to eliminate possibilities and accumulate data does amount to evidence of absence. In other words evidence of absence (looking for it hard and competently and not finding it) reduces the probability that evidence actually exists, but never becomes an absolute either, as you can't look everywhere and there may be factors beyond current understanding. For example the probability that bigfoot exists is so extraordinarily low (in part) because there's never been any remains of one found, and the human race has found copious evidence of beings that died out 65 million years ago, (dinosaurs) not to mention all the rare and difficult to find species that we have.

That lack of evidence where it should exist, and we have every reason to think we could and should find it (and people have certainly been looking!) does amount to evidence of absence. However it is still theoretically possible that they do exist, or existed, it's just highly unlikely that a being that seems to have been sighted so many times has never actually been found physically, thus obviously must reside where humans would find solid evidence and not just 'sightings' or 'tracks' that could very well be something else, and almost certainly are.

However, contrast that with the possibility that there is other intelligent life in the entire universe, however don't misunderstand and think I mean that any have actually been here. I'm talking about the entirety of the universe and the possibility that somewhere in those more than 100 billion stars (or so as a ballpark guesstimate--they vary of course) per more than a hundred billion galaxies there is another form of intelligent life. That probability is higher because we know (almost) nothing about much of the universe, we cannot and have not been able to look very hard. Allow me to again note that doesn't mean I think any have actually been here, we do know enough to realize that space is so goddamn big and the inability to travel those distances or even communicate over them means there could easily be trillions of lifeforms out there and none of them able to contact any others any more than an ant in Antarctica could ever get to the north pole.

The fact that the murder room was gone over twice and absolutely nothing found of Amanda but so many trace elements of Rudy strongly suggests they looked very hard where evidence of murder might be found, down to the picogram, and could find nothing whatsoever of who they claimed was a key contributor. That's extremely suggestive that Amanda was not involved in the (physical act) murder at all. However it is quite possible, perhaps even likely, that were the entire room gone over and every last picogram amplified and analyzed they might well find Amanda's DNA in Meredith's room, it just wouldn't mean anything because she lived there and DNA not related to the murder may well be found in such trace elements. Where evidence of murder was likely to be found, they found nothing, Raffaele's anomalous Y-haplotype on the bra clasp no more meaningful than the other three men's despite it's (technically) more robust nature due to the circumstances in which it was found and the context of the 'investigation' at that point, but also especially because that's all that was found. The idea that Raffaele and Amanda were in that room is akin to the idea that bigfoot exists.

Regarding the burglary, many indications suggest that Rudy breaking in is the most probable explanation, that his DNA wasn't found (at and nearby the window)is not surprising being as they didn't look down to the picogram there, and didn't appear too interested in looking going by the time it took them to analyze some of the results.

 

[Bill Williams]

Loud and clear Kaosium,once you start lying like Stefanoni is there is only one thing you can do is tell more and more lies to cover up the one's you have already told,she is refusing to hand over the EDF files because they will expose more and more of her lies,as someone said before I doubt very much she is looking forward to the new trial.Monica Napoeloni is I think also charged in another case of planting evidence,these two should be targeted by the defence in Florence

From the quotes above from the Massei motivations report, it is clear that Massei himself knows that Stefanoni is being accused of lying. This is particularly stark when Massei goes to great length to say that even if Professor Cingolani, someone appointed by a preliminary hearing judge!!!!!, saw no striations or crevices, that the good Professor probably did not use the same lighting source as Stefanoni and then again, probably didn't move the knife from side to side to reflect better the striations......

..... the dog ate my homework.....

But this is particularly stark because Massei seems to feel the need to say in black and white, "Stefanoni told no falsehoods." Not that she may have been mistaken, or that she was not misled by someone else....

.... but the Judge had to, in effect, rule on whether Stefanoni was a liar. (And what was at stake here was the very verdict Massei's court had come to 3 months' previous. He's BETTER clear up if Stefanoni was a liar or not! After all, she'd had a better light and remembered to move the knife from side to side....)

 

[Bill Williams]

(sinister deletia )

Great stuff, Bill--and you reminded me of something: here she has a knife that Finzi just plucked out of Raffaele's drawer, it doesn't match the wounds, tests negative for blood--but she has what she claimed was something she could see yet doesn't think she has enough to actually test--except that one time.

At 10k:1 you wouldn't be able to see the blood in the diluted water, which would be a positive for a TMB test amongst the most adverse conditions. Luminol is used because it picks up blood traces that cannot be seen. But her little crumb hiding in that shy striation she didn't think would produce enough material to both test the substance and do a DNA test.

But she could see it. Anyone else see what I'm getting at?

The only thing that I will add to this is the convoluted method by which Massei claimed Knox must have innocently brought that knife to the cottage, once Massei had ruled out Knox and Sollecito as having a sinister motive against Meredith for carrying it.

 

[Grinder]

My thing is a paraphrase of the following from page 311 of Massei:

How about you not put quote marks around paraphrases.

If the material was bone from Meredith, would that not still be damning evidence?

I don't care what some FBI guy says, it didn't have to have blood on it when examined to be the murder weapon. There is no doubt the knife was not dealt with properly to protocol, but no blood does equal not possibly the weapon.

 

[Bill Williams]

How about you not put quote marks around paraphrases.

If the material was bone from Meredith, would that not still be damning evidence?

I don't care what some FBI guy says, it didn't have to have blood on it when examined to be the murder weapon. There is no doubt the knife was not dealt with properly to protocol, but no blood does equal not possibly the weapon.

I'll split this one 50-50 with you. I'll agree not to put quote marks around paraphases if you cite ONE legitimate source of the claim that non-blood material on a knife makes it suspicious.

Can you cite ONE source which says it was bone?

 

[anglolawyer]

How about you not put quote marks around paraphrases.

If the material was bone from Meredith, would that not still be damning evidence?

I don't care what some FBI guy says, it didn't have to have blood on it when examined to be the murder weapon. There is no doubt the knife was not dealt with properly to protocol, but no blood does equal not possibly the weapon.

How about you produce some cites of your own for this bone fragment idea?

 

[Bill Williams]

I don't care what some FBI guy says, it didn't have to have blood on it when examined to be the murder weapon.

That's quite the statement. Takes Monday morning quarterbacking to a whole new level!

 

[Dan O.]

The side for innocence is getting smoked over there. *Its weird to believe the opposite yet have so many people resoundingly disagree, makes me wonder what they see that I don't*

I noticed someone pointed out that Amanda looks like she is crying during some of her recent interviews but never has any tears. *I too thought that was strange but I watched her short press conference when she first arrived back in Seattle and she was with her family and speaking to all her close supporters. *So it was an environment where you would think she would feel comfortable to be herself and she did the same thing (where it seems like she is crying but no tears come out).

I think thats just the way she is and its unfortunately contributed to folks thinking she is guilty

That page is nothing but an opinion poll of the uninformed masses. If you search the site you will find that they also conduct 1 on 1 debates and one such debate was a clear victory for innocence.*

I don't believe either format is the proper way to search for the truth. In the debate, neither side had anywhere near the depth of understanding of the evidence that we have here. Even here we spend an awful lot of energy rehashing the same things over and over. I've always believed there ought to be a better way.

Over thirty years ago I was interviewed by a young debater where somehow the topic of the role of computers in debate came up. My view then as it is today was was that it would not be the computer's artificial intelegence that would be important but the simple basics of the computers's ability to store and organize information. I envisioned then a form of truth machine where each issue could be broken down into ever finer grains until an item was so simple that the truth could be formally proven or shown through repeatable tests. When I started looking at Wikipedia I realized that the wiki software would form a suitable base for the truth machine that I envisioned.*

But the wiki only stores and organized the information it is given. It does not track down the source of the information. It does not form the arguments and counter arguments. For these tasks it still needs people. These are the tasks that we love.*


Where I'm at now (and have been for some time) is deciding how to move the wiki forward. The wiki is currently hosted on a borrowed plan which is the primary reason for not making it publicly accessible. I could acquire my own hosting but am reluctant to make such an investment if people aren't going to use it. I've looked at Google sites but their wiki is missing some key functionality.*I could piggyback on another site but the wiki should be independent of sites advocating innocence or guilt. The facts define their own side.