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

[Bill Williams]

I'm not clear what your understanding of sound is but it is clear you haven't understood what I've said . Dogs can be heard barking in the distance, well below the cottage from the upper parking lot. The cottage window faced the bowl shaped valley with Nara on one side.The scream was not sent out to sea. The new tenants can be heard speaking at normal levels on the cottage patio all the way to the upper parking lot near Nara's. I hear sirens through closed windows several streets away sometimes half a mile in distance in any direction.

Briars. I am completely missing something here. You theory is wavering on important points and I cannot really keep track. Truly I say this as a criticism of me, not you. I don't get it.

The latest bit of information you provide is, "The new tenants can be heard speaking at normal levels on the cottage patio all the way to the upper parking lot near Nara's." Then you say something about what YOU can hear in YOUR context!

But voices on an open deck, that you're not even sure reach Nara's apartment, behind a closed window! become an example to "rebut" everything we've said? And this is BEFORE saying that for some reason you're missing the point of what an amateur sound technician is also claiming.... the origin of an alleged scream, which Nara may or may not have heard, is in a closed room in the cottage NOT on the open deck..... and NOT on the open deck which even you claim could probably be heard in the parking lot, NOT behind Nara's closed window.

What am I missing here?

 

[acbytesla]

I'm not clear what your understanding of sound is but it is clear you haven't understood what I've said . Dogs can be heard barking in the distance, well below the cottage from the upper parking lot. The cottage window faced the bowl shaped valley with Nara on one side.The scream was not sent out to sea. The new tenants can be heard speaking at normal levels on the cottage patio all the way to the upper parking lot near Nara's. I hear sirens through closed windows several streets away sometimes half a mile in distance in any direction.

You are comparing apples and oranges Briars. None of those examples compares. The dog barking or a siren which is substantially louder than any human can scream is also far different. The most significant difference is that both are outside. My neighbor has two dogs. They both bark a lot and they are very loud I can hear them easily from inside my house. But when they are barking inside their house I can hear them on my back deck but I can't hear them or I can barely hear them when they are barking when inside my own house.

Also, take that police siren which is extremely loud. I'm sure you could hear a siren from a mile away. But put that siren behind a 20 x 20 foot solid concrete wall and the sound wouldn't travel even half that distance.

Briars I flat out guarantee you that while it might be possible to hear a scream from inside the back bedroom cottage from Nara's you would not be able to discern that it was a scream. Sound absolutely cannnot move that well through walls and windows. It would be so muffled as to make the sound unintelligible and indescirnable from other noises.


I challenge you to perform the experiments I suggested Briars. All you need is a smart phone and a recording application. Very simple to do.

 

[Briars]

You are comparing apples and oranges Briars. None of those examples compares. The dog barking or a siren which is substantially louder than any human can scream is also far different. The most significant difference is that both are outside. My neighbor has two dogs. They both bark a lot and they are very loud I can hear them easily from inside my house. But when they are barking inside their house I can hear them on my back deck but I can't hear them or I can barely hear them when they are barking when inside my own house.

Also, take that police siren which is extremely loud. I'm sure you could hear a siren from a mile away. But put that siren behind a 20 x 20 foot solid concrete wall and the sound wouldn't travel even half that distance.

Briars I flat out guarantee you that while it might be possible to hear a scream from inside the back bedroom cottage from Nara's you would not be able to discern that it was a scream. Sound absolutely cannnot move that well through walls and windows. It would be so muffled as to make the sound unintelligible and indescirnable from other noises.


I challenge you to perform the experiments I suggested Briars. All you need is a smart phone and a recording application. Very simple to do.

No need for that, though personal experience is helpful. I already shared a photo of my window facing a similar terrain in Italy. From the closed window you can hear hounds baying way up in the hills on one side of the valley, The occasional hunter's gunshot will ricochet .Goat bells tinkling from the farm can be heard way below, church bells chiming in the distances on the other side. The sounds appear distant , because they are but remain distinct because of the natural shape of the terrain that holds them. Even though the sounds in the valley are often audible the sounds in the very compact historic center adjacent to me are not The cottage on the edge of the valley is much closer to the road and Nara's then the location of the sounds near my place.

 

[Briars]

Briars. I am completely missing something here. You theory is wavering on important points and I cannot really keep track. Truly I say this as a criticism of me, not you. I don't get it.

The latest bit of information you provide is, "The new tenants can be heard speaking at normal levels on the cottage patio all the way to the upper parking lot near Nara's." Then you say something about what YOU can hear in YOUR context!

But voices on an open deck, that you're not even sure reach Nara's apartment, behind a closed window! become an example to "rebut" everything we've said? And this is BEFORE saying that for some reason you're missing the point of what an amateur sound technician is also claiming.... the origin of an alleged scream, which Nara may or may not have heard, is in a closed room in the cottage NOT on the open deck..... and NOT on the open deck which even you claim could probably be heard in the parking lot, NOT behind Nara's closed window.

What am I missing here?

What I am saying is that the sound carries well from the cottage to the parking lot near Nara's, if simple talking can be heard across the road high up in the parking lot a scream would stand out. Barking and talking as softer than a harrowing scream, so even with the glass the scream was heard by two witnesses.

 

[Mary_H]

how to attack credibility of the witnesses , say they are old , crazy, forgetful, dishonest , attention seeking... then insist on calling the twenty something defendants 'kids'

This is not a bad argument, Briars. I especially agree on the question of age. Old people are not necessarily unreliable and young people are not necessarily non-killers.

After five years, though, enough facts have been revealed that we can establish who is most credible without resorting to personal attacks. Despite any and all of the positive attributes of the various prosecution witnesses, the fact remains that none of them came forward in a timely manner; none came forward independently without urging from another, usually biased source; and none identified the defendants from line-ups of subjects -- instead, they knew them from news reports. There is so much confirmation bias inherent in their points of view that it is doubtful their testimony would have been accepted elsewhere.

And be honest about Curatolo. Come on. He was not fit to testify against anybody.

 

[RandyN]

Two witnesses hear a scream at about the same time. Antonella, a teacher leaned out the window and was concerned enough to go to the apartment downstairs to check with her parents. Nothing suggests she came forward later for attention . More than one witness, the scream happened and Meredith's voice was heard. I would imagine unless there is a gunshot screams and fighting are heard by witnesses and they aren't reported until later during the investigation of a crime. Common because people don't want to bother the police for a false alarm.

This is a new one. Please provide a citation for this or else remove the assertion.

Hint...Its false because no one ever claimed to hear Meredith...except for Rudy Guede who also describes her scream as occurring around 9:20 PM. And since it is indisputable that he was there and that the facts prove that beyond a reasonable doubt then it is entirely likely that he is correct, meanwhile the wacky neighbors who came forward months....years later are likely the nut jobs they sound like.

BTW I don't recall anyone confirming any times regarding a scream...except for Guede. Nara guessed...but she could be off by hours...the other nuts errr neighbors don't mention a scream but an argument and neither can testify to the time in any case. And certainly not one person testified that Knox was seen in conjunction with any of these presumed screams...in fact only Guede admits to being present during any scream...unless you wish to consider the "Knox written in Italian by police admission" which was ruled inadmissible by the SC? Odd that even the SC forgets that detail.

I agree that not everyone calls police immediately after a scream... from my own experience if I hear a gun shot or scream I ALWAYS note the time but have never so far called police. However if I happen to read about a local murder in the next few days I cant imagine waiting even a minute to report what I heard. Certainly not a month and it is crazy to wait a year...don't you agree?

 

[Bill Williams]

What I am saying is that the sound carries well from the cottage to the parking lot near Nara's, if simple talking can be heard across the road high up in the parking lot a scream would stand out. Barking and talking as softer than a harrowing scream, so even with the glass the scream was heard by two witnesses.

This is what I don't get. In some posts you describe it as "a harrowing scream." Yet in another post you explain that the reason why this scream went unreported for months was because the were afraid they'd be making a false report.

Apologies for saying it, Briars, but it seems that you really do want to vindicate Nara's testimony, despite all the problems with it - all for the purpose of.... what?

Casting suspicion at Amanda Knox? What part of what people have been going back and forth about is necessarily about Amanda Knox?

You also need to explain that bit about Meredith's voice being heard. Then again, maybe not. It's just that this is beginning to look like simple random typing, all with a view to using silly stuff to vindicate Nara... where are we with this if it's both a "harrowing scream" and yet something that went unreported for months because they also confused it with a "false alarm"?

And to top it all off, they could have been remembering Oct 31!!!! Wow, this is what I call a tight case!

 

[RWVBWL]

<snip>
Sound absolutely cannnot move that well through walls and windows. It would be so muffled as to make the sound unintelligible and indescirnable from other noises.
<snip>

Hi AcbyTesla,
I agree with your whole posting...

I'd add that inside sounds are muffled by furnature+personal belongings too.

Has anyone else ever moved in to a new residence or out of an old 1 and yelled loudly in the empty rooms just to hear the echo for fun?

It's then that the average person realizes the difference how furnature and personal belongings muffle sound also, which surely, in my humble opinion would have helped quiet any scream that Miss Kercher may have yelled...


I'd like to ask again,
did Nara ever call the local cops to complain about all that noise she must have heard coming from the cottage?

 

[RandyN]

On the issue of hearing a scream:

Can we be sure that Meredith wouldn't have screamed in a room other than her bedroom? Maybe she was in a room where it was more likely that one of the witnesses would have heard the scream? Maybe she just screamed when she saw an unknown male in the apartment or maybe Guede began to assault her outside the bedroom.

Yes by Guedes own admission he claims the terrible scream came at approx 9:20 PM. He claims that it came from her bedroom as SOG was attacking and killing her. IIRC he claims to have been on the crapper at this time...yea.

 

[JREF2010]

Two witnesses hear a scream at about the same time. Antonella, a teacher leaned out the window and was concerned enough to go to the apartment downstairs to check with her parents. Nothing suggests she came forward later for attention . More than one witness, the scream happened
and Meredith's voice was heard.

I would imagine unless there is a gunshot screams and fighting are heard by witnesses and they aren't reported until later during the investigation of a crime. Common because people don't want to bother the police for a false alarm.

The scream was probably from inside the apartments or by the stairs. They might have heard the loud metal stairs, they might have heard someone arguing.

But to say its Meredith with certainty, to say the footsteps are Raffaele and Amanda is pretty weak.

Everyone knows the motive for the prosecution is to push the ToD to after 11:30 using the scream.
Because if it was an attack at 8:56pm like Merediths cancelled call happened, and her cellphone being outside the cottage at 10:13pm, then the prosecution cant explain how Amanda and Raffaele were at their apartment still, and very unlikely to be talking to Popovic, then running over for a satanic sex orgy with Rudy Guede.

 

[RandyN]

Anyone else catch Vogts latest rambling? She has the evidence now as footprints attributed to Knox and RS and created by the blood of MK. This is per the "reliable experts" in the Massei court...

"including the critical testimony of the footprint experts (Lorenzo Rinaldi and Pietro Boemia) who advised the court of first instance that footprints found in the corridor and bathroom of the flat belonged to Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito and had been made in Meredith’s blood"

link here ...if you wish to sue her for pretending to be a reporter or for being a big fat liar.

http://thefreelancedesk.com/front_featured/amanda-knox-appeal-2/

 

[Bill Williams]

Anyone else catch Vogts latest rambling? She has the evidence now as footprints attributed to Knox and RS and created by the blood of MK. This is per the "reliable experts" in the Massei court...

"including the critical testimony of the footprint experts (Lorenzo Rinaldi and Pietro Boemia) who advised the court of first instance that footprints found in the corridor and bathroom of the flat belonged to Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito and had been made in Meredith’s blood"

link here ...if you wish to sue her for pretending to be a reporter or for being a big fat liar.

http://thefreelancedesk.com/front_featured/amanda-knox-appeal-2/

Another stunner is that she'd citing the Meredith Wiki as a reliable source. The origin of that Wiki is peripheral to Peggy's version of PMF.

Given that journalists take their lives and careers in their hinds if residing in Italy by taking on dishonest judges or PMs.... it's no wonder that Bogt's stuff is completely devoid of ANY analysis of ANYTHING judicial in Italy, save for simply passing on factoids.

Amanda's DNA in a footprint that was made with the victim's blood? In the very cottage which Knox lived for six weeks, with NOTHING pointing to the young woman behind a locked door?

Andrea Vogt continues to feed .ORG with factoids and cites PMF-inspired WIKIs as reliable sources.

Good for Andrea.

 

[RWVBWL]

Beatles songs...

Reading Briar's description of the valley as a natural amphitheater drives me crazy. I am not a sound engineer by trade, meaning I'm not a professional. But I am a very learned amateur as I have worked for quite a few bands as a sound engineer. I've built recording studios and done stage set ups for bands and theater groups. Mostly on a volunteer or for small pay. In drama in high school and one of my closest friends has been in rock bands. I've done this for 30 years.

I'm not clear what your understanding of sound is but it is clear you haven't understood what I've said . Dogs can be heard barking in the distance, well below the cottage from the upper parking lot. The cottage window faced the bowl shaped valley with Nara on one side.The scream was not sent out to sea. The new tenants can be heard speaking at normal levels on the cottage patio all the way to the upper parking lot near Nara's. I hear sirens through closed windows several streets away sometimes half a mile in distance in any direction.

Reading ACbyTesla's post above about doing band work got me thinking,
for IIRC, didn't Amanda Knox practice playing Beatles songs using her housemate Laura's borrowed guitar
on that same sound carrying cottage patio or terrace, whatever it's called?

Here's a quote from "Waiting to Be Heard":

When Filomena and Laura went back to work, Meredith and I would sunbathe on the terrace and talk. She read mysteries. I was teaching myself to play Beatles songs on the guitar. One day she said it reminded her of when she and her older sister used to turn their CD player way up and sing along.

If the sound echos as loud as you've suggested Briars,
I bet that must have drove Nara nuts!

 

[Dan O.]

No need for that, though personal experience is helpful. I already shared a photo of my window facing a similar terrain in Italy. From the closed window you can hear hounds baying way up in the hills on one side of the valley, The occasional hunter's gunshot will ricochet .Goat bells tinkling from the farm can be heard way below, church bells chiming in the distances on the other side. The sounds appear distant , because they are but remain distinct because of the natural shape of the terrain that holds them. Even though the sounds in the valley are often audible the sounds in the very compact historic center adjacent to me are not The cottage on the edge of the valley is much closer to the road and Nara's then the location of the sounds near my place.

Does anyone think Briars will ever figure out what the difference is?

 

[JREF2010]

If the sound echos as loud as you've suggested Briars,
I bet that must have drove Nara nuts!

I just watched that old video, from 48hrs clip that has the detective and others listening from inside the room above Naras.
The lady couldn't hear anything, and the running was close to the building, not further away in the cottage driveway. This was done live and no one could really hear anything. Which is more than the police took the time to do and a better data point than comparing to some other hillside somewhere else.

Sure it echo's, big deal. No one else, even those outside, heard any scream.
The basketball court is outside only 20 meters away, sound travels easier to the basketball court than through double pane glass I would think.

Weak evidence, I don't think it will go far in a fair court.

 

[codyjuneau]

Just remove Raffaele and Amanda

.
Remove Raffaele and Amanda from the equation, and Meredith's murder is dead nuts easy to solve. Rudy, a known cat burglar, broke in through the (duh) broken window, made himself at home per his modus operandi, Meredith came home later and surprised him, a conflict occurred, Rudy killed her with the knife that fits the imprint on the bed sheet. Dead nuts obvious. No need for a crime narrative so obscure and conflicting that the pro guilt people won't even attempt one (Briars being the exception I believe).

If it ain't obvious, it probably ain't.
.

 

[Antony]

I'm not clear what your understanding of sound is but it is clear you haven't understood what I've said . Dogs can be heard barking in the distance, well below the cottage from the upper parking lot. The cottage window faced the bowl shaped valley with Nara on one side.The scream was not sent out to sea. The new tenants can be heard speaking at normal levels on the cottage patio all the way to the upper parking lot near Nara's. I hear sirens through closed windows several streets away sometimes half a mile in distance in any direction.

Briars, you've been pushing these fallacies for what seems like weeks. A bowl-shaped valley, if it deflects sound at all, deflects it upwards - not back towards the source of the sound. An amphitheatre deflects sound so as to make voices more audible on the opposite side to where the voices originate - it doesn't make them more audible between 2 points outside itself, or at best, close together on the same edge.

Finally, a tree-lined valley does not deflect sound at all. Tesla is quite right: the valley behind the cottage would have NO effect in amplifying Meredith's scream, allegedly heard at a point on the other side of the house.

All this, for what? To support a prosecution case that needs the time of the murder to be fixed contrary to much stronger evidence that it was around 9:30pm. There is no evidence at all that what Nara heard (if she indeed heard anything at all) had anything to do with the murder. She cannot even testify what time she heard the alleged scream.

More significantly, if she testified that she heard about the murder the next morning, then that means she heard the sound(s) on the night of 2nd to 3rd November - a whole day after the murder happened. What have you to say about these points?

 

[RoseMontague]

Two witnesses hear a scream at about the same time. Antonella, a teacher leaned out the window and was concerned enough to go to the apartment downstairs to check with her parents. Nothing suggests she came forward later for attention . More than one witness, the scream happened and Meredith's voice was heard. I would imagine unless there is a gunshot screams and fighting are heard by witnesses and they aren't reported until later during the investigation of a crime. Common because people don't want to bother the police for a false alarm.

All of the ear witnesses were brought to the cops by reporters and nobody identified the voice as being Meredith. Two hear a scream, one says after 10PM and Nara between 11 PM and 1:30AM. The other only heard running on the metal stairs. The two that heard a scream describe it differently one a short scream one a long scream. Nara is not only uncertain of the time, she gets the dates confused as well. The teacher that went downstairs to check on her parents after the scream must have been concerned that the scream was connected to her parents in some way. That would make sense. Unlike Nara, she doesn't pinpoint the location as the cottage.

To tie this in with Curatolo, who places AK and RS at the basketball court until shortly before midnight gives an extremely late TOD, another thing that makes no sense at all in light of the stomach contents, the cell phone records, the fact that Meredith would have to be still dressed in her damp clothes three hours later, and completely contradicts Guede's testimony who was on his way to friends and dancing by this time.

It just makes no sense in connection with the complete picture and is one of the reasons nobody on the pro guilt side can really give a comprehensive theory of the crime that ties all this together in even a somewhat believable theory without throwing out pieces and parts of the evidence and coming up with a bunch of could have's and might be possibles.

http://abcnews.go.com/TheLaw/story?id=7189205&page=1&singlePage=true

 

[Chris_Halkides]

are they knaves or fools or both at the wiki Ms. Vogt cited

Anyone else catch Vogts latest rambling? She has the evidence now as footprints attributed to Knox and RS and created by the blood of MK. This is per the "reliable experts" in the Massei court...

"including the critical testimony of the footprint experts (Lorenzo Rinaldi and Pietro Boemia) who advised the court of first instance that footprints found in the corridor and bathroom of the flat belonged to Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito and had been made in Meredith’s blood"

link here ...if you wish to sue her for pretending to be a reporter or for being a big fat liar.

http://thefreelancedesk.com/front_featured/amanda-knox-appeal-2/

Randy, thanks for the link. I read through "Wiki-style" page she cited a few days ago, and it was remarkable how much they got wrong in such a small amount of space. For example the authors of this wiki present false arguments about lividity and when Meredith's bra was removed. Ms. Vogt wrote, "There are also a number of useful court documents and trial transcripts available in both English and Italian, for background, on the new, easily searchable wikipedia-style site: www.themurderofmeredithkercher.com. One can click here to review the impressive list of primary sources, including the critical testimony of the footprint experts (Lorenzo Rinaldi and Pietro Boemia) who advised the court of first instance that footprints found in the corridor and bathroom of the flat belonged to Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito and had been made in Meredith’s blood, as well as testimony from other key witnesses." It is a shame that Ms. Vogt does not inform her readers that Boemia and Rinaldi claimed two parallel lines were compatible Amanda's shoe print, until Professor Vinci shot that argument down.

Ms. Vogt also wrote, "On the forensic front, the Supreme Court states its belief that the footprints attributed to Knox, which contained both Knox and Kercher’s DNA, were made in blood. The court also found there was no evidence that contamination occurred." The number of female footprints which contain the DNA of both Knox and Kercher is zero. The blobs in Filomena's room don't qualify as footprints. The print in Amanda's room had her DNA only. The footprints in the hallway did not have DNA; only an unattributed shoe print did. In addition, the attribution of the prints to Amanda and Raffaele suffers from the obvious deficiency that only reference prints from Amanda, Raffaele, and Rudi were even taken. In addition the luminol was overapplied, leading to loss of detail and dilation of the images, according to a pro-guilt commenter, namely Colonel Garofano. Claiming that a print belongs to one person under these circumstances is simply not justified by the data IMO. Not even close.

With respect to the bathmat print the wiki also stated, "His defense expert presented a crudely altered footprint diagram in the Massei court, to try to prove it couldn't be his client's, but the judge ruled it was more compatible with Raffaele, and completely ruled out that it could have been Rudy's." False, and perhaps actionable. One could almost do a wiki on what is wrong with this wiki.

 

[Briars]

All of the ear witnesses were brought to the cops by reporters and nobody identified the voice as being Meredith. Two hear a scream, one says after 10PM and Nara between 11 PM and 1:30AM. The other only heard running on the metal stairs. The two that heard a scream describe it differently one a short scream one a long scream. Nara is not only uncertain of the time, she gets the dates confused as well. The teacher that went downstairs to check on her parents after the scream must have been concerned that the scream was connected to her parents in some way. That would make sense. Unlike Nara, she doesn't pinpoint the location as the cottage.

To tie this in with Curatolo, who places AK and RS at the basketball court until shortly before midnight gives an extremely late TOD, another thing that makes no sense at all in light of the stomach contents, the cell phone records, the fact that Meredith would have to be still dressed in her damp clothes three hours later, and completely contradicts Guede's testimony who was on his way to friends and dancing by this time.

It just makes no sense in connection with the complete picture and is one of the reasons nobody on the pro guilt side can really give a comprehensive theory of the crime that ties all this together in even a somewhat believable theory without throwing out pieces and parts of the evidence and coming up with a bunch of could have's and might be possibles.

http://abcnews.go.com/TheLaw/story?id=7189205&page=1&singlePage=true

It's my opinion that the scream was Meredith, Its also possible that it was Amanda. Randi is right, my opinion as to who screamed is giving weight to what Guede and Amanda said. I believe Curatolo observed the defendants before the crime and after when they returned to check if someone was coming via the gate, A heated argument and looking over the fence at this point fits. Sound does carry below the cottage the surrounding shape of trees on hills on rock creates the bowl. I'm not budging on that fact as well as the fact that sitting in Grimana you couldn't hear a dog barking below the cottage or people talking. It would be probable for Curatolo to not be able to hear the scream from his location.