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

[Supernaut]

If you have any evidence that I was ever a cop or in Australia please present it because then I must have lived a more interesting life than I remember.

Implying other posters are morons. can lead to

Anyone here can IMPLY anything they want. You do it all the time.

 

[Supernaut]

If you have any evidence that I was ever a cop or in Australia please present it because then I must have lived a more interesting life than I remember.

Implying other posters are morons. can lead to

I'm trying to think of something less interesting to me than anything about yourself.

 

[RoseMontague]

Aviello told the truth? How can we conclude this if he(she?) said his (her?) brother murdered Meredith?

Is the any evidence that the brother had any connection to this crime?

Also, I've read people assert that Rafs dad bribed Aviello to lie on the stand, is there any evidence to support this assertion?

The only evidence is Aviello's testimony.

Aviello denied receiving any bribe from the defense on the stand today.

 

[yimyammer]

The only evidence is Aviello's testimony.

Aviello denied receiving any bribe from the defense on the stand today.

thx

I don't see how this testimony can be beneficial to the defendants without further investigation and questioning which I assume has not occurred?

Was his/her brother investigated?

Was she asked how she knows this? What happened, etc, etc, etc?

I'm guessing not based on the way I've seen this trial play out.

How do other countries treat witnesses like this? I would think both sides would have pummeled Aviello with questions in every other court, am I off base here?

 

[Magister]

Aviello's brother Antonio disappeared from Perugia the day Meredith's body was discovered.
In view of his brother's accusation of murder why was he not found and brought in for questioning and DNA samples and prints taken?

 

[Dan O.]

Maresca sounds like he is convinced that even without a positive result (for the prosecution) on the DNA test, the court will still convict them.

Maresca needs the conviction in order to get paid and has done everything towards that goal.

 

[Grinder]

Do you have any links you can provide to these articles?

This one has an accurate headline but the title of a video is "Judge orders new DNA test on Kercher murder weapon".

I read a paste on another site and haven't found the exact one again.

Many of the stories do say purported or alleged.

It would be nice if they would report that the only connection to the murder was discredited DNA since the knife matches nothing to do with the attack.

 

[davefoc]

...

I don't understand the amounts of material very well. At what point do we leave LCN and reach full blown DNA amounts.

Total amount of DNA, described as “abundant,” amplified from bra clasp hooks, Rep. 165b: 5.7 nanograms.

Total amount of DNA amplified so far from “bleach-cleaned” knife, Rep. 36: more than 4.8 nanograms. Plus nice deposits of inorganic food debris.

So, how did they manage to bleach-clean the knife, yet leave DNA from multiple donors in almost as much quantity as the “abundant” amounts found on the clasp, and also leave food debris?

Those two numbers are well in excess of LCN (abt 1/1000th of a nanogram, I think). Sample 36b was likely very small, if it existed at all (the amplification records that would tell us have been suppressed), but 36b is only a very small fraction of the total DNA so far taken off of that knife.

Could somebody expand on this a bit?
1. What is the smallest amount of DNA that can be used to get a reliable DNA test result?
2. Is amplification always used or just for situations where there is very little?
3. What is the mass figure a measurement of:
A. The total mass of DNA that is analyzed including all sources for the DNA in the sample including plant DNA if it is present?
B. The total mass of human DNA?
C. Something else?

My uninformed view of the DNA on the bra clasp has been that there was a very small amount that was amplified a great deal. The test results were probably equivocal because the raw data wasn't made available to the defense. The nature of the equivocal data probably was such that matching anybody's DNA to the test results would have been equivocal because there wasn't a strong signal from any individual's DNA so that there was a large subjective element to the "matching" of the test results to RS DNA.

Is this view a reasonable one? If the sample size wasn't actually small, does that make it more likely that the alleged RS DNA match was accurate? Do we know how the amplitude of the DNA signal claimed to be from RS compares with the amplitude of the DNA signal from the unknown males?

 

[Dan O.]

Aviello told the truth? How can we conclude this if he(she?) said his (her?) brother murdered Meredith?

Is the any evidence that the brother had any connection to this crime?

Aviello told a story. In his story he says that the murder knife and Meredith's keys are behind a plastered patch in a wall near his brother's house. The story had to be documented. But unless the Knife and keys are recovered, it's only an unsubstantiated story and should get no further attention. I don't understand why he was even testifying this round.

 

[snook1]

I think that before we start yet another discussion about bra clasp and the knife, it would be nice to get information whether C&V still stands in this appeal. I know Bruce provided news that the judge said something along the lines that it stands, but it would be really nice to know what is their opinion about it and if it bares relevance to this new trial.

 

[snook1]

Aviello told a story. In his story he says that the murder knife and Meredith's keys are behind a plastered patch in a wall near his brother's house. The story had to be documented. But unless the Knife and keys are recovered, it's only an unsubstantiated story and should get no further attention. I don't understand why he was even testifying this round.

Supreme Court ordered this one along with the knife.

 

[Supernaut]

I'm confused. You've just said you weren't a cop so how can suggesting that Australian cops are morons be referring to you (or any other poster)?

Heh. Read this and just took your usual wit for granted, but this bears repeating

 

[Chris_Halkides]

Barni and Berti

According to your friends over at TJMK;

I was hoping for a confirmation. If it is the same Barni and Berti I am thinking of, they are among the coauthors of a 2007 review on luminol that appeared in Talanta, volume 72, pp. 896-913.

 

[Chris_Halkides]

What about the tests that the defense requested?

I've heard Maresca saying that but then of course, he would (as he pedals backwards furiously). How can it be crucial only if the test is positive - does that mean that if it's Meredith or Guede's DNA then Amanda and Raffaele are definitely, definitely guilty, but if it's not then they're only definitely guilty? If that were the case there'd be no point doing the test at all.

I reckon these are the three ways it could go: if Meredith's DNA, the court will say it's probably the murder weapon; if Guede's, they'll say it 'clarifies their subjective positions' and that Guede probably held it, not Amanda; and if it's negative, it's probably not the murder weapon. So if there's nothing on it or it's unidentified or unclear - much the more likely outcome - that would most likely be the end of the knife.

Suppose that the test is indeterminate and yet the Florence court finds the pair guilty anyway. Then I would fail to see the justification for turning down all of the defense requests.

 

[HumanityBlues]

I was hoping for a confirmation. If it is the same Barni and Berti I am thinking of, they are among the coauthors of a 2007 review on luminol that appeared in Talanta, volume 72, pp. 896-913.

Which said?

 

[Dan O.]

In the event that they do come up with a full profile, I can't imagine that it would be Guede, and it would be very bad for the defendants if it was. I also doubt that it would be Kercher, unless its the result of the same contamination that resulted in the 36b findings.

In what scenario would Guede's DNA be on that knife? There was only one attacker in the closed room when Meredit was killed and he left DNA and prints all over the room and Meredith. The knife covered in Meredith's blood would be the murder weapon and it left an imprint on the bed which is definately not compatible with Raffaele's kitchen knife.



What if it turns out to be fish blood?

 

[billyryan]

Aviello told the truth? How can we conclude this if he(she?) said his (her?) brother murdered Meredith?

Is the any evidence that the brother had any connection to this crime?

Also, I've read people assert that Rafs dad bribed Aviello to lie on the stand, is there any evidence to support this assertion?

Aviello was brought back in the hope,1)he would give evidence that he was bribed by the Sollecito's or Bongiorno to tell the story about his brother and an accomplice killing Meredith 2)he would be willing to claim that Raffaele confessed to him about killing Meredith while in prison
His evidence today was that no such confession ever happened and he was in no way encouraged or bribed by the Sollecito's to give evidence
That to me is the truth despite what he has to loose in not helping the Italian criminal justice system prove their system is any better than that of the Taliban

As for the part about the brother and an accomplice that is a croc of .... but I was only talking about about his evidence in relation to Cassation and Mignini's efforts to save face over having held two innocent students for four years

I have read else where he made up the story about his brother and an accomplice to get the Perugia lying squad off his back who were pressurising him to get Raffaele to say something incriminating

 

[Supernaut]

Absolutely NOT apropos the intelligence of 'Strine cops, no, no .....

The Strokes - New York City Cops

 

[Chris_Halkides]

luminol and interfering substances

Which said?

"Due to the possible presence of these substances at the crime scene, the luminol test must not be considered sufficiently specific to permit an unequivocal identification of blood [15,18,51,88,89]." There is a section on plants. Photosynthetic organisms have a cluster of manganese ions that produce oxygen. Manganese is one of the metal ions that can catalyze a reaction with luminol.

 

[RandyN]

Randy, I suspect you're thinking of someone else who once said he worked with cops in Oz. Incidentally one thing he did say about cops in Oz was something regarding a bit of a stuff-up they had with their DNA lab.

Yep I actually recall this.

As for my comment...perhaps I should have included the original question from Randy...which was actually a series of questions that deserved more than a one word answer...no.

tsig may have been saying...no I was never a cop...which he has confirmed to be so (see what I did there) or that no his lab would never test the semen stain either...but we know he was not a OZ cop...so.

The OZ cop was Darth Rotor IIRC...but I doubt the veracity of my recollection which seems untrue to me somehow. Anyway this is the best truth I can recall.