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

[Grinder]

I have never understood the thinking behind claiming a staging. Guede wouldn't stage a burglary to throw someone off his scent, because he left a trail a mile wide at the scene and then fled when no one pursueth. If he was ever in Filomena's room, it was before the murder, and there would be no thought to staging at that time.

It makes even less sense for Amanda and Raffaele to stage a burglary. According to the prosecution theory, they cleaned up all traces of themselves in Meredith's room, as well as elsewhere in the house, so why would they be worried about being caught? Moreover, why would they go to the trouble of cleaning every trace of themselves out of one end of the house only to potentially leave traces of themselves at the other end of the house? Not to mention that if they wanted to stage a burglary, it should have occurred to them to at least steal something in the process.

How did they know Rudi's MO?

Without trying to restart the conversation, the police did initially think that the sex was consensual and that she had met someone the night before at a party. That's where the sex game gone bad started.

I know everyone here can't imagine Meredith agreeing to have a date or just a meetup with Rudi but I can. If they did and Rudi expected more and it turned into rage and he killed her, he might then worry that she had mentioned this to her girl friends. He then might have thought he needed to provide another possibility and staged in the way he thought burglars all broke in, his way.

He could of course just have broken in. Or he could have heaved the rock and then Meredith let him in.

It seems so strange that the kids would pick the high window and use his MO. I really think that it is very far-fetched to think the kids worried about how Rudi entered the house since Meredith could easily have let him in.

 

[Dan O.]

Please let me know if you find more sources for this, the multiple trial testimony of Curatolo and neighbor's fire.

The only additional information I could find about Curatolo was that he was an assistant for an ambulance driver in early 2007 and that he died as a passenger in a helicopter in Milan several years before that.

 

[Dan O.]

It makes even less sense for Amanda and Raffaele to stage a burglary. According to the prosecution theory, they cleaned up all traces of themselves in Meredith's room, as well as elsewhere in the house, so why would they be worried about being caught? Moreover, why would they go to the trouble of cleaning every trace of themselves out of one end of the house only to potentially leave traces of themselves at the other end of the house? Not to mention that if they wanted to stage a burglary, it should have occurred to them to at least steal something in the process.

The police claimed that Amanda must have wiped down her entire room because the didn't find any of her prints there. If that were true then they would have to consider that the one print that was found in her room was left there afterwards.

I'm waiting for the PGP or anyone else to provide a comprehensive timeline and show how this evidence is incorporated.

 

[RWVBWL]

<snip>
Just like Patrick had no business until 10 pm on the register, I get it, but why leave thousands in the office? Do they deposit it in the bank or hide it under the mattress?

Why not?
I used to run a surfshop,
and with surfboards selling well over $300.00+,
well sometimes I'd have over 5G in cash my old office before I gotta chance to head to the bank. With yearly sales of over 1/2 a 7 figure, maybe now ya might understand a bit better why cash was still there in the nursery school...

See ya Grinder!
Peace...
RW

 

[Grinder]

The police claimed that Amanda must have wiped down her entire room because the didn't find any of her prints there. If that were true then they would have to consider that the one print that was found in her room was left there afterwards.

I'm waiting for the PGP or anyone else to provide a comprehensive timeline and show how this evidence is incorporated.

I rememeber that only one print was found and the PGP claimed that proved the cleanup until the prosecution's expert testified that wasn't odd or unusual.

Most of the PGP at least temporally understood but with time they slipped back and pointed to the lack of prints meaning something.

I only recall Massei saying there must have been a cleanup because the luminol prints made no sense unless there had been one.

 

[Mary_H]

<snip>Without trying to restart the conversation, the police did initially think that the sex was consensual and that she had met someone the night before at a party. That's where the sex game gone bad started.

I know everyone here can't imagine Meredith agreeing to have a date or just a meetup with Rudi but I can. If they did and Rudi expected more and it turned into rage and he killed her, he might then worry that she had mentioned this to her girl friends. He then might have thought he needed to provide another possibility and staged in the way he thought burglars all broke in, his way.

He could of course just have broken in. Or he could have heaved the rock and then Meredith let him in.

It seems so strange that the kids would pick the high window and use his MO. I really think that it is very far-fetched to think the kids worried about how Rudi entered the house since Meredith could easily have let him in.

In describing Massei, the ISC puts it thus:

.....where Rudy Guede (to whom the two gave access to the house) was also present, who was attracted for some time to the young British student who was on her own that night to follow her studies, and who certainly denied herself to her admirer, so as to trigger a mechanism of sexual assault characterised by sexual impulses,....

They have such a way with words. It comes as close to blaming Meredith as anyone has.

http://www.injustice-anywhere.org/CassazioneTranslationFull.pdf
page 4

 

[Mary_H]

The only additional information I could find about Curatolo was that he was an assistant for an ambulance driver in early 2007 and that he died as a passenger in a helicopter in Milan several years before that.

What?

 

[Planigale]

A little off the current topic, but I am slightly frustrated that whether one views AK as innocent or guilty the knife recovered from RS flat is still in play. A thought experiment. The knife was used in the crime. The only wound compatible is the fatal neck wound resulting in major haemorrhage. The knife would have been covered in blood. The knife is then so thoroughly cleaned that no trace of blood is left. No measurable amount of the victims DNA is left. Certainly the much smaller if any DNA from the wielder of the knife would have been cleaned away. Therefore any DNA (AK's) found on the handle cannot be from the time of the crime. Did AK have an opportunity to innocently come in to contact with the knife after the crime? The knife was recovered from her boyfriend's flat where she had been staying, some days later. Therefore it has no probative value. There is no physical evidence of AK. There are two doubtful pieces of evidence against RS, the bra and the knife.

 

[Mary_H]

A little off the current topic, but I am slightly frustrated that whether one views AK as innocent or guilty the knife recovered from RS flat is still in play. A thought experiment. The knife was used in the crime. The only wound compatible is the fatal neck wound resulting in major haemorrhage. The knife would have been covered in blood. The knife is then so thoroughly cleaned that no trace of blood is left. No measurable amount of the victims DNA is left. Certainly the much smaller if any DNA from the wielder of the knife would have been cleaned away. Therefore any DNA (AK's) found on the handle cannot be from the time of the crime. Did AK have an opportunity to innocently come in to contact with the knife after the crime? The knife was recovered from her boyfriend's flat where she had been staying, some days later. Therefore it has no probative value. There is no physical evidence of AK. There are two doubtful pieces of evidence against RS, the bra and the knife.

Welcome, Planingale. And welcome to feeling frustrated. That will become a chronic condition.

Everything you have written is true.

There was an opportunity for Amanda to have come in contact with the knife after the murder because she was staying in Raffaele's apartment. None of the prosecution's claims stand up to the kind of logic you have presented.

 

[Antony]

Now seriously. I can't understand how someone can call that window an "illogical" point of entry when:

- it takes much less than 1 min to climb
- the first floor window has bars

Of course you alsa have the balcony but I don't understand what makes the balcony a much better point of entry. They both look similar to me, and some people here take it even further, defending that the balcony is worse because of the street lights.

But at worst they're both similar, so I can't understand why it'd be called illogical. I'd understand if the first floor window didn't have bars, but not like this.

Let me help you to understand:

• the Perugia police arrested 3 people for the murder, but one of them turned out to be innocent;
• the other 2 must have been to blame for the police arresting the wrong man, because you don't get police arresting people for no reason;
• so they committed the murder along with the man whose traces are all over the murder scene;
• but there was a broken window, making it look like there had been a burglary, so they must have done that to mislead the investigation.

Simple really!

 

[RWVBWL]

Hey Machiavelli,
We both wanna get to The Truth about this brutal murder case we discuss, right?

Can you do me a favor?
Go stand at the entrance to any small Mom+Pop store in your Italian town for 15 minutes or so before they open,
and wait for the owners or sales associates to arrive.

Can you tell me if they say Good morning or Hi to you?
And if they will say that they will be open in a few minutes, would you mind waiting?

Question for ya:
What kinda conversation does Marco Q. recall having with Amanda Knox that chilly November morning that he, A YEAR LATER, says when he supposedly saw her waiting outside for him+Marina to open up his Conad store so she could buy some bleach?

Let's get to The Truth!
Awaitin' your reply on a very HOT Summer day in L.A.!
RWVBWL

 

[Grinder]

A little off the current topic, but I am slightly frustrated that whether one views AK as innocent or guilty the knife recovered from RS flat is still in play. A thought experiment. The knife was used in the crime. The only wound compatible is the fatal neck wound resulting in major haemorrhage. The knife would have been covered in blood. The knife is then so thoroughly cleaned that no trace of blood is left. No measurable amount of the victims DNA is left. Certainly the much smaller if any DNA from the wielder of the knife would have been cleaned away. Therefore any DNA (AK's) found on the handle cannot be from the time of the crime. Did AK have an opportunity to innocently come in to contact with the knife after the crime? The knife was recovered from her boyfriend's flat where she had been staying, some days later. Therefore it has no probative value. There is no physical evidence of AK. There are two doubtful pieces of evidence against RS, the bra and the knife.

Her DNA on the knife has no probative value, you are correct.

What is remarkable is that there was no DNA of Raf found on the knife either from before or after the crime.

Also the detective insists that he smelled bleach 5 days later which would indicate they cleaned something well. Half an hour of the knife in a bleach bath would have destroyed the DNA on the knife. They didn't find any evidence of a bleach cleanup at Raf's or the cottage.

I can imagine keeping the knife but I can't imagine not giving it a thorough cleaning and a bleach soak. They thought of staging a burglary but not making absolutely sure the knife had no DNA, go figure.

 

[Chris_Halkides]

ten percent bleach

Prince and Andrus, "How to Kill Unwanted DNA" (Biotechniques 1992 12 3 pp. 358-360) used 10% bleach and found that within a minute, there was no DNA that could be amplified. Even 30 seconds destroyed the majority of it. 30 minutes? That would be overkill, unless there is a porous surface, as I seem to recall from one anthropology paper dealing with bone decontamination.

 

[acbytesla]

I have never understood the thinking behind claiming a staging. Guede wouldn't stage a burglary to throw someone off his scent, because he left a trail a mile wide at the scene and then fled when no one pursueth. If he was ever in Filomena's room, it was before the murder, and there would be no thought to staging at that time.

It makes even less sense for Amanda and Raffaele to stage a burglary. According to the prosecution theory, they cleaned up all traces of themselves in Meredith's room, as well as elsewhere in the house, so why would they be worried about being caught? Moreover, why would they go to the trouble of cleaning every trace of themselves out of one end of the house only to potentially leave traces of themselves at the other end of the house? Not to mention that if they wanted to stage a burglary, it should have occurred to them to at least steal something in the process.

The idea that they tried to clean up evidence of themselves while at the same time leaving Rudy's is beyond absurd. Think about it. Are you going to look at one footprint and know quickly that this footprint is yours so you clean it and this other footprint is probably Rudy's so you leave it? Selectively cleaning a crime scene is beyond impossible. It's moronic. You either clean everything or you don't.

 

[anglolawyer]

The police claimed that Amanda must have wiped down her entire room because the didn't find any of her prints there. If that were true then they would have to consider that the one print that was found in her room was left there afterwards.

I'm waiting for the PGP or anyone else to provide a comprehensive timeline and show how this evidence is incorporated.

Did they? Did they really claim that? What would be the point in erasing her prints from her own room? Leave Raf's bloody footprint on the mat but erase prints from your own bedroom. Ummm.

 

[anglolawyer]

Her DNA on the knife has no probative value, you are correct.

What is remarkable is that there was no DNA of Raf found on the knife either from before or after the crime.

Also the detective insists that he smelled bleach 5 days later which would indicate they cleaned something well. Half an hour of the knife in a bleach bath would have destroyed the DNA on the knife. They didn't find any evidence of a bleach cleanup at Raf's or the cottage.

I can imagine keeping the knife but I can't imagine not giving it a thorough cleaning and a bleach soak. They thought of staging a burglary but not making absolutely sure the knife had no DNA, go figure.

Wait a cotton pickin' minute. If we are buying the DNA evidence, there is the victim's DNA on the blade. 'Presumed haematic substance'. Why does that have no probative value?

 

[Mary_H]

Did they? Did they really claim that? What would be the point in erasing her prints from her own room? Leave Raf's bloody footprint on the mat but erase prints from your own bedroom. Ummm.

There is a long-ago article by Barbie N. in which she alludes to asking an investigator why they found no prints in Amanda's room, e.g., not on her guitar, not on her books, etc. The investigator alleged said something like, "We decide where it is important to look."

In other words, they did not really dust her room for prints.

 

[acbytesla]

There is a long-ago article by Barbie N. in which she alludes to asking an investigator why they found no prints in Amanda's room, e.g., not on her guitar, not on her books, etc. The investigator alleged said something like, "We decide where it is important to look."

In other words, they did not really dust her room for prints.

Frankly, I don't think there is anything unusual about that. They focused on the crime scene, Meredith's bedroom. What is absurd is claiming that the absence of what you didn't look for as probative is absurd. Also, I think the idea that Amanda was the slob of the cottage is also ridiculous.

You can't look at a clean bedroom and "time stamp" when it was cleaned. I can imagine Amanda cleaning her own bedroom on the afternoon of November 1st while Raffaele and Meredith were there or after Meredith left to meet Sophie.

 

[Mary_H]

Frankly, I don't think there is anything unusual about that. They focused on the crime scene, Meredith's bedroom. What is absurd is claiming that the absence of what you didn't look for as probative is absurd. Also, I think the idea that Amanda was the slob of the cottage is also ridiculous.

You can't look at a clean bedroom and "time stamp" when it was cleaned. I can imagine Amanda cleaning her own bedroom on the afternoon of November 1st while Raffaele and Meredith were there or after Meredith left to meet Sophie.

Of course it's absurd. It's a lie they told to the press to make it look like there was a clean-up.

Here's my post about it from 2010:

....Barbie Nadeau wrote, "But the lack of fingerprints has raised eyebrows. Those who believe Knox is guilty say this points to a cleanup. Those who defend her, including her attorney Carlo dalla Vedova, say that the police weren’t doing their jobs. He asked one of the investigators why fingerprints were not taken from other objects in the house, such as her books and guitar. “It is me and the officer responsible for the inspection who decides what should be analyzed,” testified Antonino Francaviglia. “We decide based on our investigative experience."
You will recall that the police also relied on their investigative experience and intuition to recognize that Amanda was guilty of the murder, before they had collected ANY evidence. Steve Moore's discussion on injusticeinperugia provides a good description of the massive quantity of evidence the police "decided" NOT to analyze.

Original article:
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2009/04/25/amanda-knoxs-bloody-footprint.html

 

[Grinder]

Prince and Andrus, "How to Kill Unwanted DNA" (Biotechniques 1992 12 3 pp. 358-360) used 10% bleach and found that within a minute, there was no DNA that could be amplified. Even 30 seconds destroyed the majority of it. 30 minutes? That would be overkill, unless there is a porous surface, as I seem to recall from one anthropology paper dealing with bone decontamination.

Science schmience! I've heard different numbers with household bleach but on return from the "cleanup" (so cleaning was on their minds) they could have finished the washing (without leaving any DNA in the flat) and then laid the knife in a pan of bleach for hours if they wanted to. There would be no reason to worry about it being there until after Meredith was found.