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

[Bill Williams]

Dan I won't return the favor and call you dishonest you just don't know certain things. Any women could tell you that a blow dry and brush is used to achieve a smooth and styled finish. Bill who do you think is actually obsessed with Amanda?

Nice try, Briars. You should at least accuse me of being obsessed with Mignini!

I have just finished talking about Filomena and her boyfriend, I always note that Raffaele is an afterthought to all this, and go on and on about Rudy. I just finished taking heat for a fictitious cross-examination of Stefanoni...

Yet, Knox "doesn't smell blood" and you're all over it like a cheap suit. I guess it takes one to know one, then....

Sex on a train. I abandoned being interested in Knox when I spent an evening trying to track down this myth. It turned out the guy's name was Fredrico and there was no sex on a train. But, like the "smell blood" myth that comes out of nowhere and is suddenly imbued with all sorts of suspicious meaning, boy go guilters get a lot of mileage out of vilifying Knox's character over something that never even happened!

The moderator of .ORG cannot seem to help herself in vilifying Knox. Good for her, too.

 

[Mary_H]

Dan I won't return the favor and call you dishonest you just don't know certain things. Any women could tell you that a blow dry and brush is used to achieve a smooth and styled finish. Bill who do you think is actually obsessed with Amanda?

I never style my hair while I am blowing it dry. I have never been able to figure out how to do that. I dry it, then style it (only if I have a good reason), because it is always still a little bit damp. When I was Amanda's age, I didn't style it at all.

To me, the pictures of Amanda outside the cottage look exactly like hair that has been blown but is not yet completely dry. It is much fuller and less shiny than her hair looks in any of the courtroom pictures. She left the bathroom in a hurry, then walked to and from Raffaele's on an apparently damp day.

Most women who live in Seattle will tell you that semi-damp hair equals big hair.

 

[yimyammer]

Yimyammer

The best way to learn about relevant Italian culture would be to move to Perugia and hang outside the questura with a sign board accusing the cops of corruption. You could then learn Italian at Capanne university for free and give us the inside dope after a few years.

Not a chance, I may be a fool, but I'm not that big of a fool

 

[Sonia]

Dan I won't return the favor and call you dishonest you just don't know certain things. Any women could tell you that a blow dry and brush is used to achieve a smooth and styled finish. Bill who do you think is actually obsessed with Amanda?

But Briars, Amanda's a little hippie chick from Seattle. Girls out here blow dry their hair so it's not wet. I just graduated from UW last year. There's very little of that fussy smoothing/straightening that you see in other areas. If you do notice a girl who styles her hair that way, she's invariably from another part of the country. Not Seattle, which has a well-deserved reputation for being frumpy and unfashionable. Tevas and fleece.

I seldom even pick up a hair dryer, but when I do I dry my hair Seattle-style: blast it until it's only damp, then go.

 

[NancyS]

My hair is huge after blow drying - the only way to get it straight and smooth is to spend 30 minutes with GHDs! I really can't believe this sort of stuff is being debated though, it's ridiculous.

Nobody can tell whether someone is guilty from watching them on TV - and even less so by seeing their picture in a paper (editors will always pick out the photo, which looks most evil out of the thousands that have been taken). It's the same nonsense you get in celebrity magazines - an editor goes 'ooo look we have a picture of Jennifer Aniston looking sad, let's make up some nonsense about Angelina eating her baby'

 

[GWCarver]

My hair is huge after blow drying - the only way to get it straight and smooth is to spend 30 minutes with GHDs! I really can't believe this sort of stuff is being debated though, it's ridiculous.

Nobody can tell whether someone is guilty from watching them on TV - and even less so by seeing their picture in a paper (editors will always pick out the photo, which looks most evil out of the thousands that have been taken). It's the same nonsense you get in celebrity magazines - an editor goes 'ooo look we have a picture of Jennifer Aniston looking sad, let's make up some nonsense about Angelina eating her baby'

Italians are far superior to us mere mortals here in America when it comes to observing guilty behavior. A detective from Rome named Giobbi became convinced Amanda and Raffaele were guilty while watching them eat a pizza.

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-504083_162-20000577-504083.html

 

[naisel]

Is the Italian system REALLY this prejudicial to the defence that court appointed experts are not even allowed to talk to them, outside of the oversight of the prosecution or the court?

I tend to disbelieve you, Machiavelli. Because to believe you would be to accept that the Italian court system is corrupt, simply on this point alone.

Take 30 seconds, everyone, and think through what Machiavelli has just claimed.

They're not even allowed to call a buddy ( a fellow expert) in the middle of the night and say, "Hey Bobby, I've been laying awake wondering about LCN tests and I hear you gave some experience in this... can you fill me in on....."?

Machiavelli - are you REALLY claiming that the Italian system is this corrupt to disallow that? That calling a buddy in the middle of the night for more information is a crime?

Not only Italian law doesn't prohibit it, it openly accepts that appointed experts are free to communicate with the defendant and with whoever they wish.

 

[RandyN]

Well, you have to admit the bath mat print doesn't make a lot of sense regardless who left it. Why is the blood only on the mat, if it came from his pant legs, shouldn't there be some major drops between Meredith's room and the mat if there was that much blood. If you ask me, it would seem more likely if someone stepped in blood with a sock on and hopped to the mat where they took it off and washed it out.

Ive always thought that the print is of a misstep or falling while hopping on one foot even if just for a second. The missing drops are likely the reason Guede took the towels into the murder room...I think he was standing on these towels as he rinsed off...now he takes them into the bloody room and wipes them about to hide any potential evidence of himself on the towels.

This is why he comes up with the story of trying to save Miss Kercher...he needs to explain the towels being there...

 

[Briars]

But Briars, Amanda's a little hippie chick from Seattle. Girls out here blow dry their hair so it's not wet. I just graduated from UW last year. There's very little of that fussy smoothing/straightening that you see in other areas. If you do notice a girl who styles her hair that way, she's invariably from another part of the country. Not Seattle, which has a well-deserved reputation for being frumpy and unfashionable. Tevas and fleece.

I seldom even pick up a hair dryer, but when I do I dry my hair Seattle-style: blast it until it's only damp, then go.

Compare her hair in the Bubbles store sleek and styled.My point was really that the hair was washed and air dried. Bill before you or anyone go off and write an article for Ground Report about missing the blood smell I withdraw the comment. It was a small point which should go no further.

 

[Bill Williams]

Compare her hair in the Bubbles store sleek and styled.My point was really that the hair was washed and air dried. Bill before you or anyone go off and write an article for Ground Report about missing the blood smell I withdraw the comment. It was a small point which should go no further.

It was a non-point.

 

[Grinder]

It would be unusual for an independent expert to be allowed to have private conversations with either side. Ex-parte communication is generally restricted here.

It certainly wouldn't make a system corrupt to restrict private communications between both sides and the independent experts.

If the experts spoke with third parties not involved on either side, that would be a different issue.

 

[Supernaut]

After the 3rd, fatal knife blow (which, unlike the first two, was not a simple stab but a stab followed by a sideways slash), Meredtith collapsed from her hands and knees, and her last desperate act was to grab Guede's right shin with both arms and hold on to it tightly.

In doing so she pressed the copiously bleeding wound against it and soaked his jeans in blood.

I believe that THIS is what turned Geude on - the living warmth he could feel on his skin. In fact, I believe he stood there for some seconds enjoying this "embrace", and his jeans became practically saturated in blood.
At whatever point he went to bathroom to rinse his jeans and right shoe off, before he did so he turned or rolled up his pant leg and took off his right shoe (and sock), thus leaving no shoe or foot prints leading to the bathroom.
The print on the bathmat is a result of putting his right foot down after rinsing the pant leg out, probably while he rinsed his shoe. Part of the print is from the hem of his jeans, and obscured the arch.

I should add;

after Guede finally stepped off Meredith's prone body, Hendry's analysis indicates that she made one, final attempt to rise.

She probably then collapsed for the last time and lapsed into semi-consciousness.

However, when Guede turned her on to her back, she began breathing in and swallowing her own blood, and her choke and cough reflexes kicked in.

Guede is a human animal.

 

[RandyN]

But Stefanoni was not judge-appointed, she was a technical consultant for the prosecution, and Biondo was not an informal contact, he was a witness - he did not 'certify', he was called to testify. And he was called to testify only after Stefanoni's report was already deposited and her testimony officialized.

Budowle instead was not authorised by any judge, he did not testify, and he was not 'super partes' (neutral) but instead linked to the defence party. And C-V contacts with Budowle occured before they wrote their report and gave their testimony, not after; that means at a time where their work should have been secret.
So C-V contacts with Budowle are completely illegal and they would taint fatally both C-V and their report.

But Biondo was neutral? Or since he testified his bias is overlooked? Here in America we call that a conflict of interest. It would never be allowed in court. The defense would be able to invalidate the whole DNA investigation based on this incestuous relationship with the prosecution alone.

Is there proof that Budowle was employed by the defense or that he lied to the experts? Or does he merely confirm what all the text books and manuals clearly explain as proper handling and examination of DNA?

 

[Briars]

It was a non-point.

Well not a non point exactly. Crime scene investigators can follow the iron rich smell to locate a body. The smell would have been present , just like a butcher shop on a Monday morning. A distracted person could miss it though , that is why its a small point.

 

[GWCarver]

Not only Italian law doesn't prohibit it, it openly accepts that appointed experts are free to communicate with the defendant and with whoever they wish.

That means Machiavelli needs to offer us an explanation of his assertion to the contrary.

I think the Machiavelli of two years ago was superior to the current one.

 

[Supernaut]

I never style my hair while I am blowing it dry. I have never been able to figure out how to do that. I dry it, then style it (only if I have a good reason), because it is always still a little bit damp. When I was Amanda's age, I didn't style it at all.

To me, the pictures of Amanda outside the cottage look exactly like hair that has been blown but is not yet completely dry. It is much fuller and less shiny than her hair looks in any of the courtroom pictures. She left the bathroom in a hurry, then walked to and from Raffaele's on an apparently damp day.

Most women who live in Seattle will tell you that semi-damp hair equals big hair.

"Big hair". That always makes me giggle.

ETA >> I'm thankful that the likes of yourself are around to get me to lighten-up occasionally. Thanks, Mary_H.

 

[RandyN]

As far as simple suspicion goes... If Knox was suspected because she was a keyholder, had only her boyfriend as an alibi AND admitted to being at the scene all alone on the morning of Nov 2, then Filomena was a keyholder, had her boyfriend as her alibi AND ........ fill in the blank about the laptop and you'll get my drift.

The big difference is that Filomena was, what, 29 and worked in a law office. Knox was a naive foreigner who thought she could help.

I think the biggest difference is the fact that Filomenas boss (ahemmm a lawyer) came to the scene of the crime shortly after Filomena called him. Very shortly after the discovery of the body.

She also made Knox call police when she knew perfectly well Knoxs Italian was limited at best. And rather than call Merediths phones herself she asked Knox to do that. Why?

Nothing in evidence makes Knox a better candidate as a suspect than Filomena...nothing except for the smoke and mirrors.

 

[Supernaut]

My hair is huge after blow drying - the only way to get it straight and smooth is to spend 30 minutes with GHDs! I really can't believe this sort of stuff is being debated though, it's ridiculous.

Nobody can tell whether someone is guilty from watching them on TV - and even less so by seeing their picture in a paper (editors will always pick out the photo, which looks most evil out of the thousands that have been taken). It's the same nonsense you get in celebrity magazines - an editor goes 'ooo look we have a picture of Jennifer Aniston looking sad, let's make up some nonsense about Angelina eating her baby'

That was entertaining!

 

[RandyN]

Dempsey talks about a computer that Filomena took from her room on Nov 2. Is this the laptop?

"Filomena carried her computer out of the cottage and put it into the back of Marco’s car. At the questura, incredulous police would take it away from her, asking her what she had been thinking, removing objects from a crime scene. When she got it back, something strange had happened to the hard drive and she would be hard-pressed to recover the contents."

Dempsey, Candace (2010-04-27). Murder in Italy: Amanda Knox, Meredith Kercher, and the Murder Trial that Shocked the World (p. 77). Penguin Group US. Kindle Edition.

Yes Sonia but the point is that no pictures exist of this lap top. We have only the word of Filomena and sure we can guess this is what happened and why there is no evidence of it...but the fact that this computer was used as evidence of the staged burglary make it important. Very important.

That she was able to slip it out without the cops knowing and or caring is highly irregular...just another failure by ILE.

 

[Bill Williams]

It was a non-point.

Well not a non point exactly. Crime scene investigators can follow the iron rich smell to locate a body. The smell would have been present , just like a butcher shop on a Monday morning. A distracted person could miss it though , that is why its a small point.

It's a non-point. The reason I go on and on about this, is that you can bet someone down the line, trying to vilify Knox and Knox alone out of everyone at that scene who should have "smelled blood", is that someone down the line is going to bring this up again.

"I've been told that Knox looked in through the key hole and purposely, even though she had to have smelled the blood, purposely did not report this. Look how evil the guilty witch is...."

And I will bet you dollars to bookends that this is also included in "all the other evidence." I've chased almost ALL of this, "all the other evidence," till I am sick... and I'll be damned if this latest, "she should have smelled the blood," becomes one of them.

Why didn't Luca smell the blood? Why didn't the postal police smell the blood? My bet is that Filomena with malice aforethought purposely ignored the obvious blood smell, because she knew she had to get her incriminating computer out of the crimescene before it was trashed like all the others....

Briars, I will leave you alone about this if, and only if, you promise NEVER to bring this up again, esp. as "all the other evidence." Agreed? I'm in a ranting mode today.