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

[anglolawyer]

The Blob. The bathmat. The open, closed, slightly ajar door. Toto. And the reverberating valley echo. Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, Briars rests her case.

 

[Bill Williams]

The Blob. The bathmat. The open, closed, slightly ajar door. Toto. And the reverberating valley echo. Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, Briars rests her case.

What is it exactly that all this makes one guilty of?

 

[Mary_H]

That actually places it just above the middle of the pack for the U.S., sadly...
link

I can't open the link, but I believe you, and that is very sad.

 

[Mary_H]

I must have been consigned to your ignore list.

I'm on her ignore list, too, anglo. I take it as a compliment.

 

[Antony]

The Perugian authorities are just a small town police force that is incapable of performing a competent scientific investigation.

That's my reaction as well. They did what police forces often do in cases where they are out of their depth: they set out to solve the crime "the easy way", by arresting 3 innocent people essentially at random.

 

[RandyN]

NO BRIARS, Not really. I use to believe as you do and if any significant probative evidence was available, I would change my mind.

There could be a million reasons for this mixed profile at the location. Rudy could have killed Meredith and then went and looked through Filomena's room and transferred Meredith's genetic material then. We know that Amanda had gone into Meredith's room the morning after the murder. So that is when she could have left hers. This is just one possible scenario out of dozens

While finding both of their DNA in Filomena's room is a little curious, it does not prove anything. And if you're honest, you would have to agree.

I think you mean Filomena right? I dont recall Knox going into MK room after the murder.

As for the luminol revelations...they were tested with TMB and found to be negative for blood. Further testing would have been utilized if the TMB was positive. It was not therefore no further testing required. This was not a procedural error per se. In fact upon negative TMB most CSI departments would be quite satisfied that the luminol reaction was caused by something other than blood. The fact that no DNA was found in most luminol areas is also a good sign that whatever caused the reaction was not blood...and certainly not the ridiculously concocted watered down or thinned blood. That's just unscientific stupidity. Watered down blood would still have an abundant amount of DNA available. Its just Italian scientific bull crap...one more example of hundreds of deficient scientific or investigative thinking in this case.

 

[RandyN]

Chris isn't helping you out with his grain of truth bit. Dust is 80+% dried skin cells , Dust was everwhere in the cottage. Amanda's dust DNA would be in Meredith's room no doubt. That is not the kind in the blob or clasp which was a live sample. Clear the cobwebs and dust from your brains please,

No such thing as "dust DNA"

Shed skin cells can be a component of dust in a home...even a large component. These shed skin cells (dust DNA as you refer to it) would likely contain no DNA. Normal shed skin cells...not from brushing off or rubbing or what have you but shed due to the normal rejuvenation of the skin are by definition "dead" and contain no DNA or highly degraded DNA.

You wish to infer that a blob in Filomenas room contained some type of cellular material other than shed skin cells and that could be true but there is no way to conclude how it got there.

I seem to recall that the blob was not caused by blood. I don't recall and I am too lazy to look up the facts of the sample but lets say it contained MK blood and AK DNA. So perhaps this sticky blob revealed by Luminol was caused by spilled grapefruit juice found in the frig IIRC. Now RG or anyone really who walked in the hallway and stepped into RG bloody shoe prints could pick up MK blood and transfer it when they step in the dried, yet sticky GF juice spot...I recall that Filomena was a bit of a slob going by the appearance of untouched areas in her room...in, on and under her desk etc...so its easy to imagine Filomena not cleaning up a little spilled fruit juice right? AK DNA got there the same way...tracked there and deposited by booties which are actually like mini dust mops...or maybe Knox has a lisp and while in Filomenas room spit out a word and ala DNA everywhere.

Or perhaps Knox killed MK but then how did she get the two samples onto the blob? She wash her hands in Filomenas room? Trip in the sticky spot and hit her neck there? That gets two birds right? But where does MK DNA come from? Could the police have tracked it there before the scene was even "secure" ? OK that's a trick question since the scene was never secure per any nationally recognized standards.

So we have a bit of a sticky wicket. ;-) Now if it was Knoxs fingerprint in MK blood I would gladly agree there is a problem. But this spot is a non issue. Looks like it might be something and yet it is evidence of nothing. Other than sloppy police work. Random control samples MUST be taken. IIRC the police never found any Filomena or Laura DNA in the cottage at all. How is that possible? The prime suspect left an abundance of DNA evidence in their toilet so one could expect this room to be carefully tested right? So where is Filomena or Laura? Any problem with that? I have some.

ETA...I also have some problem with the fact that the two critical LCN,LTN DNA samples that are the primary evidence against the two wrongly accused are now destroyed. The knife sample that was never there and therefore too low to even test plus the bra clasp sample which was apparently not small and so should be available to run a second or third or even fifth test on is also somehow destroyed... by the lab who should be expert in preserving such a sample. That one is inexcusable! Both are highly suspicious.

 

[RWVBWL]

Letters that move...

Randy's pictures and the ensuing discussion highlight a crucial point about all these photographs. They only evidence the state of affairs at the moment the picture was taken. That will not in all cases be how things stood minutes, hours or days earlier. That is the whole point of this article about the lamp.

Good day Anglolawyer,
You are absolutely right, doing more viewing, I found this photo of the bedside table:


Notice the letters on the nightstand? They are arrainged neatly,
this while Miss Kercher is still lying deceased in the bedroom under the duvet...


In this photo though,

her body has been removed and the letters Meredith wrote have been moved also,
helping to suggest that yes indeed, it is from here where, (according to PMF.org, a guilt site),
the Halloween pumpkin candle did fall off of the bedside table corner.

The jack o'lantern candle was lit and at the corner of the bedside table when it was knocked over by whoever moved the victim. The wax is mixed with the victims hair. The candle came to rest above her right sleeve, where it left an impression in wax and blood. The candle ended up in the sink. although it is not very clear, wax and carbon are visible despite the fact that it was presumably rinsed of blood.

Question for you folks:
I had never heard of the candle theory.
Does Massei even mention this melted wax or the Halloween pumpkin candle? If not, where did .org get this info and why post the photo+story if it is false?

 

[anglolawyer]

snip
ETA...I also have some problem with the fact that the two critical LCN,LTN DNA samples that are the primary evidence against the two wrongly accused are now destroyed. The knife sample that was never there and therefore too low to even test plus the bra clasp sample which was apparently not small and so should be available to run a second or third or even fifth test on is also somehow destroyed... by the lab who should be expert in preserving such a sample. That one is inexcusable! Both are highly suspicious.

So what? We still have the EDFs. Oh wait.

Do you think they will finally accede to the request for disclosure and delegate procurement of the EDFs to thr same guys who got the Nobel prize for computer science with their ground-breaking work on the hard drives?

And we were talking only recently about a few paged rippec out of a diary. Oh, the irony.

 

[anglolawyer]

Good day Anglolawyer,
You are absolutely right, doing more viewing, I found this photo of the bedside table:
[qimg]http://imageshack.us/a/img266/8207/4nou.jpg[/qimg]

Notice the letters on the nightstand? They are arrainged neatly,
this while Miss Kercher is still lying deceased in the bedroom under the duvet...


In this photo though,
[qimg]http://imageshack.us/a/img405/761/r3qx.jpg[/qimg]
her body has been removed and the letters Meredith wrote have been moved also,
helping to suggest that yes indeed, it is from here where, (according to PMF.org, a guilt site),
the Halloween pumpkin candle did fall off of the bedside table corner.





Question for you folks:
I had never heard of the candle theory.
Does Massei even mention this melted wax or the Halloween pumpkin candle? If not, where did .org get this info and why post the photo+story if it is false?

The words 'wax' and 'candle' do not appear in Massei'.

 

[RWVBWL]

<snip>
ETA...I also have some problem with the fact that the two critical LCN,LTN DNA samples that are the primary evidence against the two wrongly accused are now destroyed. The knife sample that was never there and therefore too low to even test plus the bra clasp sample which was apparently not small and so should be available to run a second or third or even fifth test on is also somehow destroyed... by the lab who should be expert in preserving such a sample. That one is inexcusable! Both are highly suspicious.

Hi RandyN,
You know what else is inexcusable?
The police LOST an apparent hair strand found in Miss Kercher's grasp.
Here's a link to the pix:
http://www.perugiamurderfile.net/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=437

Why do I get the feeling that this hair was tested,
found not to be Amanda's nor Raffaele's and then mysteriously lost???

 

[anglolawyer]

Hi RandyN,
You know what else is inexcusable?
The police LOST an apparent hair strand fround in Miss Kercher's grasp.
Here's a link to the pix:
http://www.perugiamurderfile.net/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=437

Why do I get the feeling that this hair was tested,
found not to be Amanda's nor Raffaele's and then mysteriously lost???

Is it a nailed down fact that they lost it? Where is this recorded?

 

[RWVBWL]

Hi AnlgoLawyer,
I read the quote to the link I posted, from PMF.net, a pro-guilt site:

When I was in Perugia, I was able to confirm it was indeed a blonde hair in Meredith's hand, which the police photographed then lost later. Barbie Nadeau got it right in Angel Face.

I don't have my copy of Angel Face with me,
but I do seem to recall reading hair being lost, who knows, maybe I'm wrong?

But I did just dig up a couple quotes from this same subject that I mentioned here on The JREF a few years back when Amanda and Raffaele were still imprisoned:
On page 47 and 49 of "Angel Face", author B. Nadeau writes that a blonde hair was found during an examination of Miss Kerchers genitalia by a police officer as Patrizia Stefanoni directed the collection of evidence.

A short time later, the scientific police officer pulled another blonde hair from Miss Kercher's blood-soaked left(?) hand.
+
Since what Barbie Nadeau had written on 47 of "Angel Face" seemed to give importance to this hair found during Dr. Stefanoni's investigation, it has struck in my mind:
"An examinaion of her (genital area)* revealed a hair that the police removed and put into a plastic bag.
"It's blonde," Stefanoni said, directing the collection officer to note that the hair was not Meredith's."


Christianahanna wrote of this though:
Re: "According to a document Charlie Wilkes posted there were several hair formations found at the crime scene. They either yielded a result (I believe some to Meredith), yielded no result or were not suitable for testing.

There is listed in the document Rep. 60 (Blood-soaked green towel found beneath body) which yielded the following result: No profile obtained (3 samples); 2 hair formations were also found but were unsuitable for DNA analysis.

I think this towel is the one which is claimed to have been stored improperly but I am not sure. I also don't know if these hair samples are the same as what you have read in the Nadeau book. It would probably profit more to have access to the court transcripts and court documents as to the evidence collected, tested and the results of those tests for the most accurate information."

 

[anglolawyer]

Hi AnlgoLawyer,
I read the quote to the link I posted, from PMF.net, a pro-guilt site:



I don't have my copy of Angel Face with me,
but I do seem to recall reading hair being lost, who knows, maybe I'm wrong?

But I did just dig up a couple quotes from this same subject that I mentioned here on The JREF a few years back when Amanda and Raffaele were still imprisoned:
On page 47 and 49 of "Angel Face", author B. Nadeau writes that a blonde hair was found during an examination of Miss Kerchers genitalia by a police officer as Patrizia Stefanoni directed the collection of evidence.

A short time later, the scientific police officer pulled another blonde hair from Miss Kercher's blood-soaked left(?) hand.
+
Since what Barbie Nadeau had written on 47 of "Angel Face" seemed to give importance to this hair found during Dr. Stefanoni's investigation, it has struck in my mind:
"An examinaion of her (genital area)* revealed a hair that the police removed and put into a plastic bag.
"It's blonde," Stefanoni said, directing the collection officer to note that the hair was not Meredith's."


Christianahanna wrote of this though:
Re: "According to a document Charlie Wilkes posted there were several hair formations found at the crime scene. They either yielded a result (I believe some to Meredith), yielded no result or were not suitable for testing.

There is listed in the document Rep. 60 (Blood-soaked green towel found beneath body) which yielded the following result: No profile obtained (3 samples); 2 hair formations were also found but were unsuitable for DNA analysis.

I think this towel is the one which is claimed to have been stored improperly but I am not sure. I also don't know if these hair samples are the same as what you have read in the Nadeau book. It would probably profit more to have access to the court transcripts and court documents as to the evidence collected, tested and the results of those tests for the most accurate information."

I wonder how Ergon was 'able to confirm' the loss of this hair? Was he given access to police records? Hmm. Not sure I buy that one. I will look this up in my copy of Barbie's book later. I have also read that what is photographed in her hand is not a hair but a fibre of some kind. It really does seem astonishing that it could have been lost. How? Presumably it was tagged, numbered and bagged. What happened next? There will be a break in the chain of custody somewhere and that would isolate when, where and perhaps by whom this item was lost.

 

[Dan O.]

[quote=Briars]What are the odds?[/quote]

Up thread someone remarked that we cannot calculate the odds for finding Amanda's and Meredith's DNA on the same spot in Filomena's room. That is Poppy-Cock! Of course we can calculate the odds. It's just not very useful.

Let's take a simple case first. Say that there was only one sample taken from the floor in the room. From this sample we can calculate the odds of finding Amanda's DNA in any random sampling: there was one sample that contained Amanda's DNA and there were no samples that didn't contain Amanda's DNA. So, the odds of finding Amanda's DNA in any random sample from that room is: 1 / (1+0) = 100%.

Similarly, the odds of finding Meredith's DNA in any random sample in that room would also be 100%. So, the probability of finding both Amanda's and Meredith's DNA in the same random sample in that situation is P_A * P_M * Permutations = 100% * 100% * 1 = 100%.

(Permutations is the number of ways to choose the given sample which since there was only 1 sample is 1)


But wait! You say that there were two samples taken from Filomena's floor. Both showed Amanda's DNA and one showed Meredith's. (or was it the other way, it won't matter for the math)

In this situation we get: P_A * P_M * Permutations = 100% * 50% * 2 = 100%. Here permutations = 2 because if the results of the two samples were swapped we would still have the same finding since both samples came from Luminol spots.


So what could have been done to make the math show a better result? Chris already provided that answer: Substrate Control samples. By taking random samples from the vicinity of the luminol hits you reduce the calculated odds that the DNA would be found in a random spot. Let's go back to the single luminol spot with both Amanda's and Meredith's DNA and add 4 substrate controls that find no DNA. Now, what is the probability of finding mixed DNA in any random sample:
P_A = P_M = 1 / (1+4) = 20%.
P_A * P_M * Permutations = 20% * 20% * 1 = 4%.


This later result is certainly more usefull for showing that the mixed DNA was actually mixed and didn't just happen to be found in the same spot. So, where are the substrate controles for the floor in Filomena's room?

 

[anglolawyer]

Oh Geez! If this is Bayesian theory at work then I'm with Briars.

 

[acbytesla]

I think you mean Filomena right? I dont recall Knox going into MK room after the murder.

As for the luminol revelations...they were tested with TMB and found to be negative for blood. Further testing would have been utilized if the TMB was positive. It was not therefore no further testing required. This was not a procedural error per se. In fact upon negative TMB most CSI departments would be quite satisfied that the luminol reaction was caused by something other than blood. The fact that no DNA was found in most luminol areas is also a good sign that whatever caused the reaction was not blood...and certainly not the ridiculously concocted watered down or thinned blood. That's just unscientific stupidity. Watered down blood would still have an abundant amount of DNA available. Its just Italian scientific bull crap...one more example of hundreds of deficient scientific or investigative thinking in this case.

''You're right, I changed it. Thx.

 

[acbytesla]

So what? We still have the EDFs. Oh wait.

Do you think they will finally accede to the request for disclosure and delegate procurement of the EDFs to thr same guys who got the Nobel prize for computer science with their ground-breaking work on the hard drives?

And we were talking only recently about a few paged rippec out of a diary. Oh, the irony.

I'm not sure they were assigned to "break any ground" just to break other things.

 

[Diocletus]

34 per cent of the samples he studied included DNA from two people, while 11 per cent were three or four-person mixtures.”

Nice stats. So, if that's the case, then where are all of the mixtures that we should be seeing in this case? 90% of the samples are "pure" and almost all of the mixtures involve one of the defendants.

While we're answering that question, we can also ponder the whereabouts of all of the missing egrams, which include but are not limited to egram nos. 600-604, 617, 622, 626, 628, 631, 685-86, 688-89, 693-94, 758-60, 764-769 and 772 (this is the list for the first three weeks .

Answer: the prosecution has suppressed the mixture egrams. Why? Because they can be used to show contamination.

 

[Diocletus]

A partial or incomplete profile is one in which peaks show up in some loci (locations) but not others. Incomplete profiles mean that the DNA profiling is less discriminating. When a sample is very degraded, the result may be a partial profile. That is because the largest pieces of DNA are more likely to have been degraded

A weak profile could be defined as one in which the amount of DNA is low, leading to smaller peaks. It could also be defined as simply one in which the peaks are small. The two definitions are almost equivalent.

One cannot assume, for example, that secondary transfer always results in a partial profile. One cannot assume that the last person to touch an item will deposit the most DNA. But above all one cannot infer tissue type on the basis of peak heights.

Speaking of secondary (tertiary?) transfer, would it not be reasonable to assume that the evidence bags into which bloody items and the like were transfered could be the recipient of transfer DNA when the officer who was handling the item used her hand to handle/open the envelope? And that DNA on the envelope would be transferred onto an item of evidence when the envelope was held and opened, and the item extracted and handled in the lab?