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

[RandyN]

Thank you.

Perhaps a better way to ask it is, is there ANYTHING at this point which gives you (being someone who seems quite knowledgeable about the case) pause or doubt about their innocence?

I understand you are asking Kaosium but Id like to pipe up and them Im outa here...no one including the prosecution or any pro guilty person has provided a time line that shows guilt and fits the facts. NO ONE!

After 5 going on six years and with such strong defenders of guilt such as Yummi/Mach (who btw refuses to state his theory of this time line either) no one has presented the time line of events that includes the defendants in any type of involvement at all.

One would expect that if the case is so definitive that this should be a quite easy task...I know several time lines that fit all facts and show Guede as the lone wolf burglar, rapist, killer and fit all the evidence perfectly. No loose ends. No unanswered questions...

What you will get from the PGP are the same old long disproved arguments...the movable TOD, the ever changing motive, the lies, the false accusation, the changing alibi...but when held up to the light of reason none of it comes close to proving anything about the wrongly accused defendants but rather it tells us everything we need to know about the misguided prosecution and the handful of nut jobs posting on the PG sites...you know one of them claims to be God right? He is a member here but since he makes the claim publicly on his own web site I suppose it is OK to mention his alias...Ergon.

 

[Skeptic Tank]

I understand you are asking Kaosium but Id like to pipe up and them Im outa here...no one including the prosecution or any pro guilty person has provided a time line that shows guilt and fits the facts. NO ONE!

After 5 going on six years and with such strong defenders of guilt such as Yummi/Mach (who btw refuses to state his theory of this time line either) no one has presented the time line of events that includes the defendants in any type of involvement at all.

One would expect that if the case is so definitive that this should be a quite easy task...I know several time lines that fit all facts and show Guede as the lone wolf burglar, rapist, killer and fit all the evidence perfectly. No loose ends. No unanswered questions...

What you will get from the PGP are the same old long disproved arguments...the movable TOD, the ever changing motive, the lies, the false accusation, the changing alibi...but when held up to the light of reason none of it comes close to proving anything about the wrongly accused defendants but rather it tells us everything we need to know about the misguided prosecution and the handful of nut jobs posting on the PG sites...you know one of them claims to be God right? He is a member here but since he makes the claim publicly on his own web site I suppose it is OK to mention his alias...Ergon.

Thank you. I appreciate that sort of overarching commentary on it.

Watching the Lifetime movie (which I just finished) was part of why I was looking for something like that. Predictably, they played it for the drama and thus tried to make it seem like "well maybe, maybe not!" - I am going to return to listening to Knox's audiobook, too. Even with my limited knowledge, I noticed some errors in the movie. Then again, those types of movies tend to condense things and take creative license... for those reasons and the desire for drama, watching it was probably a bad idea. I was curious

So is the basic story here that the cops were desperate to solve it, and before the real perp was revealed (Guede, mate) they latched onto Knox because she is one of those people (they're not that rare actually) who behaves a bit oddly under pressure and stress... and then they couldn't admit they'd been wrong, so they dug their heels in?

 

[Kaosium]

Thank you.

Perhaps a better way to ask it is, is there ANYTHING at this point which gives you (being someone who seems quite knowledgeable about the case) pause or doubt about their innocence?

No, not really, I did at first though, in fact I didn't actually decide they were probably innocent until I tried (hard!) to put together an evidence based case that could survive scrutiny, I failed in that endeavor! The evidence is all garbage, even still I tried until I realized something:


The thing is this isn't like some cases where there's a mystery to how the victim died, Rudy Guede killed Meredith Kercher, went out dancing, (to 'establish an alibi') then fled to Germany a couple days later. What's needed here is clear and compelling evidence that two people he'd barely met that had been part of the mistaken first arrest were still somehow involved even though everything they arrested them on turned out to be mistaken or coincidence.

No gang influence, no cult associations, no terrorist sympathies, no evidence whatsoever of any other person controlling their actions (or them conspiring with each other) thus it must have been either a perfectly hidden plot by two people who barely conversed with the other--and none of whom could possibly have known each other long--or a spontaneous conspiracy by these three people who had an introduction and a few chance sightings, six days of snuggling and...that's it...Raffaele never even met Rudy Guede, he would have had to of met him the night they all decided on a heady spot of rape-murder.

There's never been a murder quite like that in known criminal history, if you could find one that met those parameters you'd be the first. The only way it was 'cracked' was because the police mistakenly arrested three people on coincidental or bogus evidence and the two they later decided were still 'involved' would never have been caught at all had they just gotten a lawyer or for that matter just made sure they had their story straight on exactly what they did the night of the murder on the way to the questura that fateful fifth of November....

I'd need good evidence and a goddamn explanation for numerous portions of the case where they'd have had to pull off something incredible or done something mind-bogglingly idiotic if they were actually guilty of anything other than smoking some pungent pharmaceuticals and indulgent cuddling that night. They'd also have to be monsters, not only for what they did (or were 'involved in') but that they took their families down as well, Mignini has had charges filed on both of Amanda's parents and five of Raffaele's family and both families have been forced to spend millions on their defense.

 

[davefoc]

Thanks Kaosium for the thoughtful reply on the DNA questions. I have suspected (without an informed basis) for awhile that the DNA test results on the bra clasp were due to over fitting. It sounds like that I was probably wrong.

It sounds like a small but significant amount of RS DNA was on the clasp. I understood, I think, the point you made about how DNA derived from a specific biological source (skin, blood, etc.) was more useful for determining the significance of a positive result than DNA from an unknown cell origin. Still a possibly reliable result that the second biggest contributor to the DNA on the clasp was RS is a surprising result.

It seems unlikely that RS DNA could have gotten there by random contamination if he was the second largest source of DNA on the clasp. If one just sampled the floor in Kercher's bedroom randomly how likely would it be that one would detect RS DNA? If DNA lies all over the floor willy nilly I would expect the DNA from other individuals to completely swamp out a small contribution from RS.

I don't have a feel at all what random DNA sampling on a floor is likely to detect. If one sampled my bedroom floor would one find my DNA in every or almost every sample?

Perhaps the idea isn't that the clasp was contaminated when it was lying on the floor? Is the most likely source of contamination the function of police or forensic investigator mishandling?

Is there other testing that might have been done to either rule out or rule in the RS DNA on the clasp as evidence that RS touched the bra clasp? If RS DNA was on the clasp because he actually touched it as part of the crime against Kercher would one expect to find his finger prints on the clasp? Or perhaps one would expect to find much more of his DNA on the cloth part of the bra which would have been expected to scrape off some of skin cells?

I'm sure all this was discussed in great detail previously and I appreciate the patience of anybody who can perhaps rehash a bit of what as gone before on this.

 

[codyjuneau]

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?

.
If you remember way back to when the cop randomly picked a single knife from the cutlery drawer at Raffaele's apartment. Well, if someone was trying to protect Rudy, what better way than to plant some of Rudy's DNA on that knife. Then Rudy's story about having a date with Meredith, and getting cut while fighting off a stranger, becomes believable, and Raffaele becomes the stranger.

Just saying, there could still be a rat in play.
.

 

[Skeptic Tank]

No, not really, I did at first though, in fact I didn't actually decide they were probably innocent until I tried (hard!) to put together an evidence based case that could survive scrutiny, I failed in that endeavor! The evidence is all garbage, even still I tried until I realized something:


The thing is this isn't like some cases where there's a mystery to how the victim died, Rudy Guede killed Meredith Kercher, went out dancing, (to 'establish an alibi') then fled to Germany a couple days later. What's needed here is clear and compelling evidence that two people he'd barely met that had been part of the mistaken first arrest were still somehow involved even though everything they arrested them on turned out to be mistaken or coincidence.

No gang influence, no cult associations, no terrorist sympathies, no evidence whatsoever of any other person controlling their actions (or them conspiring with each other) thus it must have been either a perfectly hidden plot by two people who barely conversed with the other--and none of whom could possibly have known each other long--or a spontaneous conspiracy by these three people who had an introduction and a few chance sightings, six days of snuggling and...that's it...Raffaele never even met Rudy Guede, he would have had to of met him the night they all decided on a heady spot of rape-murder.

There's never been a murder quite like that in known criminal history, if you could find one that met those parameters you'd be the first. The only way it was 'cracked' was because the police mistakenly arrested three people on coincidental or bogus evidence and the two they later decided were still 'involved' would never have been caught at all had they just gotten a lawyer or for that matter just made sure they had their story straight on exactly what they did the night of the murder on the way to the questura that fateful fifth of November....

I'd need good evidence and a goddamn explanation for numerous portions of the case where they'd have had to pull off something incredible or done something mind-bogglingly idiotic if they were actually guilty of anything other than smoking some pungent pharmaceuticals and indulgent cuddling that night. They'd also have to be monsters, not only for what they did (or were 'involved in') but that they took their families down as well, Mignini has had charges filed on both of Amanda's parents and five of Raffaele's family and both families have been forced to spend millions on their defense.

Thank you for that summary and I'd already been having my (much less informed) own version of very similar thoughts.

Particularly about the "okay so they've known each other a few days and engage in a horrific murder together, really?" angle.

This and the West Memphis Three are really good examples of just how easy it can be to get false confessions, or create an environment where people will basically say or agree to anything just to make it stop.

Other good examples of that are The Confessions of the Norfolk Four, and that link is to a PBS Frontline episode on it. Well worth watching.

and A Rip in Heaven a book about a horrific crime in the early 90's, where a young man was put through hell first by the criminals who killed his cousins and tried to kill him, and then by the police who kept him awake well beyond the point of exhaustion and got him to eventually say something like "you want me to tell you I did it? I could tell you that, but it would be a lie" but that was good enough. They also gave him a lie detector test which they never disclosed the results of (which means he passed it.)

He would have been completely screwed, and was in fact already charged with the murder of his own cousins, when mercifully, the actual killers were found out due to their own inability to refrain from bragging to their friends.

Then there's the Zimmerman case which is an interesting example of how you can be completely open with the police, all the evidence including the only real eyewitness, ballistics, you name it... all can support your account completely, but you can still end up charged with murder if the political winds are blowing the right way. If there's an angle the media latches onto, etc.

These are all absolutely terrifying examples of how flawed our justice systems are even in the first world.

I feel like there should be some process by which an official, say for instance any US senator, if they become concerned that a fiasco witch hunt trial like one of these is unfolding, can anonymously trigger a special sort of investigation tailored specifically to put the brakes on such instances. Force a complete blank slate reevaluation of all evidence, and potentially a complete change of venue, etc.

 

[Kaosium]

Thanks Kaosium for the thoughtful reply on the DNA questions. I have suspected (without an informed basis) for awhile that the DNA test results on the bra clasp were due to over fitting. It sounds like that I was probably wrong.

It sounds like a small but significant amount of RS DNA was on the clasp. I understood, I think, the point you made about how DNA derived from a specific biological source (skin, blood, etc.) was more useful for determining the significance of a positive result than DNA from an unknown cell origin. Still a possibly reliable result that the second biggest contributor to the DNA on the clasp was RS is a surprising result.

It seems unlikely that RS DNA could have gotten there by random contamination if he was the second largest source of DNA on the clasp.

Why? Meredith's contribution was 7-10 times that of Raffaele's, what makes the fact his was three times (or so) larger than the other minor contributors all that significant? He was at the discovery, he exerted himself mere feet away from where the bra clasp was moving around. The door being broken in might have flung any traces on it into the room--and onto the floor where the bra clasp traversed somehow during the interim between the bra being collected and the return trip. DNA degrades with time, depending on the substance and the conditions. Bone DNA that's frozen might last centuries (or more!) however other DNA is not as sturdy, for example in this case the bloody towels had degraded during that six week period, the rest of the bra clasp sample would also degrade eventually due to storage. Being as we don't know what the sample is, whatever it was of Raffaele's may not have been any larger, just something that degraded slower than whatever it was that the one male who had the one allele which was higher than Raffaele's at one locus but overall lower, it could be the rest of the string had degraded, that's one sign of it.

If one just sampled the floor in Kercher's bedroom randomly how likely would it be that one would detect RS DNA? If DNA lies all over the floor willy nilly I would expect the DNA from other individuals to completely swamp out a small contribution from RS.

We'd have to see the EDFs to make that determination, that's one of the (likely) reasons they'll never be made public. Note if you go by Stefanoni's 100 RFU threshold on most every other sample tested you can't put together a profile of Raffaele on the bra clasp either.

I am bemused as the government shutdown has apparently 'degraded' some (but not all) government links, but I did find one paper on the effects of degradation on tissue samples that includes this quote:

Our overall conclusions are that
1) Environmental damage to DNA in tissue samples occurs rapidly to the point that DNA becomes nearly unrecoverable. The template in such samples breaks down to very small pieces in as little as 3 weeks.

Added to that is the fact that kerentinized skin cells don't have DNA but the ones with sweat, say from exerting oneself or being in a panicky situation are more likely to:

The average human sheds roughly 400,000 skin cells per day (Wickenheiser, 2002); however, since it is known that the top-most layers of skin are basically “dead”, being keratinized and having lost their nuclei (Kita, et al 2007), where does the touch DNA come from? Kita, et al, performed experiments which showed that small amounts of fragmented DNA is present on the surface of the skin and they theorized that these fragments of DNA may be constantly sloughed off the keratinized cornified layer of skin and that sweat may also contain fragmented DNA. Later research by Quinones and Daniel (2011) verified that the presence of sweat helps to contribute to the DNA profile obtained from touch DNA samples.

These researchers showed that cell free nucleic acids, or CNAs, (basically free-floating DNA fragments not encapsulated in the cell nucleus) contribute greatly to the total amount of DNA present in a sample with CNAs being detected in the sweat of 80% of healthy individuals tested. They also found that, along with CNAs, nucleated cells were present in sweat samples taken from volunteers.

If you're looking for a good primer on the subject of touch DNA (it has tables and charts too--very cool!) that's a good paper to peruse and it's only about eight pages long and written in English and not bio-speak.

I don't have a feel at all what random DNA sampling on a floor is likely to detect. If one sampled my bedroom floor would one find my DNA in every or almost every sample?

Not necessarily, but to find it odds are you'd have to go looking for low template DNA, if you just maintained a 100 RFU threshold with typical sample sizes it would probably be rare, but if you lower that....

As for finding Raffaele's specifically, let me try this analogy. If I were to stand at that doorway and fling a dozen grains of salt into that room and you were to close your eyes, take a few steps forward and put your finger down at any one location odds are damned slim you'd contact one of those salt granules. However were you to move your finger three feet in one direction (the very minimum the bra clasp moved) odds are significantly better you'd contact some salt. Were you to move your finger about around and around, simulating the possibility the bra clasp was blown or kicked around it would get even better. Now if I'd dropped another dozen or so grains on the ground in front of the door and went in and out of the room several times you'd be even more likely to find some salt on your finger as you were moving it around a few feet in front of that door.

Perhaps the idea isn't that the clasp was contaminated when it was lying on the floor? Is the most likely source of contamination the function of police or forensic investigator mishandling?

That's a big one too, especially with the dirty gloves. I'm just specifically posting on this possibility as it's not as unlikely as I've seen others suggest and you seemed to be implying.

Keep in mind the bra clasp was not the only thing they collected during the second trip, nor was it the only DNA testing they did. If someone leaves a minute amount of DNA just by being somewhere (and doing nothing involved in the murder) the best way to find it is test as many things as possible. Now if the sample was something actually damning it would be something else entirely, but what I'm saying is that finding trace DNA from someone at a site they'd been at, from an item that had 'been around' and had at the minimum have moved around on the floor several feet is not particularly indicative of that item having actually been touched by that person, and the lack of other indications of his presence on or around the body where they tested extensively (the bra clasp was not originally found on the body itself) makes it rather anomalous in regards to suggesting he was involved in the murder.

Is there other testing that might have been done to either rule out or rule in the RS DNA on the clasp as evidence that RS touched the bra clasp? If RS DNA was on the clasp because he actually touched it as part of the crime against Kercher would one expect to find his finger prints on the clasp? Or perhaps one would expect to find much more of his DNA on the cloth part of the bra which would have been expected to scrape off some of skin cells?

Fingerprints, no. Those don't actually adhere very well and finding a usable one on the bra clasp would have been practically impossible considering its tiny size. Incidentally you've probably never heard one bad word from innocentisti regarding ILE's fingerprint work because they did outstanding work there, they didn't produce dubious partials that could be misinterpreted and when identifying Rudy Guede from the handprint they nailed it.

It would be more likely that his DNA would have been found on the cloth covering if he'd tried to remove the bra clasp, but considering that the bra was (likely) ripped off from the front bending the clasp and tearing the fabric to the point it would probably have been hanging from a thread given it was found near the bra but came detached shortly after, odds are no one outside Meredith actually touched that clasp, Rudy Guede and her boyfriend were excluded according to one of the experts, Tagliabracci if I recall correctly.

Incidentally that touch DNA study mentions another FBI study that Halides1 has linked regarding the prevalence of transfer DNA on someone's underwear. If Meredith had a habit of adjusting the clasp as it would twist and become uncomfortable or something, she might well have transferred DNA of people around her to the clasp and that's where that DNA came from.

I'm sure all this was discussed in great detail previously and I appreciate the patience of anybody who can perhaps rehash a bit of what as gone before on this.

No problem, you're more fun to post to than Dr. Tesla was! I don't mean to damn with faint praise either, even though it might have come across that way, it was merely ironic understatement.

 

[Kaosium]

Davefoc, re-reading my recent posts to you I noticed in the first big one I brain-farted and wrote 'EDFs' where I meant to write 'electropherograms.' I also was trying to break up my last post to make it more readable and I now see I moved some answers away from the questions you had asked, but I do think I covered somehow each question but may have moved it to a different part of the post! I might have moved yours too, nothing untoward was intended by that, simply an attempt at greater readability. I find if properly formatted I can read a lot faster and walls of text are not particularly inviting.

 

[Kaosium]

Thank you for that summary and I'd already been having my (much less informed) own version of very similar thoughts.

Particularly about the "okay so they've known each other a few days and engage in a horrific murder together, really?" angle.

This and the West Memphis Three are really good examples of just how easy it can be to get false confessions, or create an environment where people will basically say or agree to anything just to make it stop.

Other good examples of that are The Confessions of the Norfolk Four, and that link is to a PBS Frontline episode on it. Well worth watching.

and A Rip in Heaven a book about a horrific crime in the early 90's, where a young man was put through hell first by the criminals who killed his cousins and tried to kill him, and then by the police who kept him awake well beyond the point of exhaustion and got him to eventually say something like "you want me to tell you I did it? I could tell you that, but it would be a lie" but that was good enough. They also gave him a lie detector test which they never disclosed the results of (which means he passed it.)

He would have been completely screwed, and was in fact already charged with the murder of his own cousins, when mercifully, the actual killers were found out due to their own inability to refrain from bragging to their friends.

It's a good thing he didn't have a deranged prosecutor that would have insisted he was still involved and must have conspired with them!

As for the false 'confession' it was even easier in Amanda's case. All they had to do was convince her they 'knew' she'd been at the cottage (but didn't remember it due to the 'trauma') as they 'hard evidence' she'd been there and Raffaele had 'dropped' her alibi and said she'd gone out, and all they needed from her was to 'stop protecting' whoever sent that text message and agree to the 'facts they (we) knew to be correct.'

I've posted this a half-dozen or so times, it's from a law enforcement site on evaluating confessions and how to avoid/detect false ones. The most compelling passage (from an entire chapter worth reading):

Putting the faulty memory syndrome into perspective, as it relates to criminal interrogation, there are three important prerequisites to consider when dealing with the claim of a coerced internalized confession. The first is that the suspect must believe, at some level, that it is possible for him to have committed the crime. To illustrate this concept the reader may ask himself,

“Is it possible that last night I killed my next door neighbor but have no memory of it?”

The vast majority of readers would reject this possibility. In the true case of a coerced internalized confessor, this inclination for self-doubt suggests some underlying psychopathology that goes beyond a simple lack of self-confidence or esteem through introspection the suspect must believe that he is capable of committing the act. As a second prerequisite, the reader must account for his memory loss. This may involve alcoholic or drug-induced blackouts, multiple personality disorder, or amnesic episodes resulting from a neurological disorder such as epilepsy. As the final prerequisite, during the interrogation an investigator must have laid the foundation for the suspect to ultimately accept responsibility for a crime that he does not remember committing.

Considering these prerequisites in order, certainly some innocent suspects may have a motive, and others even a propensity, to commit the crime under investigation. Second, some individuals do suffer from mental or physical health problems that produce periods of amnesia. The likelihood of both of these conditions existing within the same suspect is, at best, rare but not implausible. Under this circumstance, the investigator must be certain not to add the third prerequisite, which is to suggest that the suspect committed the crime but has no recollection of doing so.

While this concept has been addressed frequently in this text, it is worth repeating again at no time should an investigator attempt to persuade a suspect that he is guilty of a crime he claims he does not remember committing. It is one thing to express high confidence in a suspect’s guilt (which will not cause an innocent person to confess), but it is quite another to make statements designed to convince a suspect, who claims to have no recollection of committing the crime, that he must be guilty of the offense.
(emphasis mine)

If you read through that whole chapter you'll see ILE broke every rule in the book and 'laid the foundation' perfectly for generating an internalized false statement which is a little easier to generate than convincing someone they committed a (violent) act, as evidence of this just think of what the crimes 'discovered' through 'recovered memory syndrome' amounted to.

Here they just had to get her to 'admit' she'd witnessed something she didn't remember, 'laid the foundation' for her memory loss with the hash and anger about her not being able to remember, then again with the line about her forgetting due to the 'trauma.' They said they had 'hard evidence' she was there, they 'knew' who she was 'protecting' was guilty and all they had her doing (or she imagined she might have been) was covering her ears terrified in the kitchen, never actually seeing the murder part (or for that matter anything to do with the crime)!

When she finally got a chance to sleep she wrote them a note saying she didn't think any of it actually happened, she was so confused and couldn't be used as 'testimone' and they needed to look for the REAL murder (sic). The next day she was definite about it and wrote the same to her lawyers the day following that.

Then there's the Zimmerman case which is an interesting example of how you can be completely open with the police, all the evidence including the only real eyewitness, ballistics, you name it... all can support your account completely, but you can still end up charged with murder if the political winds are blowing the right way. If there's an angle the media latches onto, etc.

These are all absolutely terrifying examples of how flawed our justice systems are even in the first world.

I feel like there should be some process by which an official, say for instance any US senator, if they become concerned that a fiasco witch hunt trial like one of these is unfolding, can anonymously trigger a special sort of investigation tailored specifically to put the brakes on such instances. Force a complete blank slate reevaluation of all evidence, and potentially a complete change of venue, etc.

I've considered something like that myself as a matter of fact, some group or individual with authority who could listen to (some of) those who watchdog witch-hunt cases and make a determination if it appears to be going off the rails. I wouldn't suggest an elected official though, they are just as prone to which way the wind blows sometimes. In fact I've wondered if having prosecutors elected in some areas contributes to the overcharging and just outright silliness occurs in cases like the Duke Lacrosse fiasco. They get all wound up and figure they're doing the will of the people, who might be nice enough as individuals but when the angry mob that lurks in the heart of just about every group of humans gets outraged then it appears rationality goes out the window and it often doesn't end well.

 

[Kaosium]

Yes, that is it. See: http://thefreelancedesk.com/front_featured/amanda-knox-appeal-2/

Look not far down in her post where she recommends that link for getting an understanding of the case. Precisely my point. Deliberate misrepresentation. So she is completely outside the realm of a reasonable reporter. At least say words to the effect that "some people assert" or some other CYA. But that material is beyond the pale. Now, whether CD can be compared for her writings... well, I don't think so, but will stand corrected. If she repeats "talking points" and those talking points are blatant misstatements then I will look at her differently.

With regard to the right to take a position on evidence and what it means, I remember some years ago - my how time flies - when I first got interested in this case, and I had a brief exchange on line with H Rag or machine, I am not sure, and I pointed out to him (since I was at that time truly new to the case) that if he wanted to make a better argument for her guilt, it would be better to not push all of the half truths which translated into falsehoods to me. I, at that time sincerely meant it as instructional to him since he was obviously with an agenda to promote the guilt of AK and RS. Silly me, he quickly signed me off as "one of Bruce Fisher's disciples" or something similar. So then I had to look him up too...

So, when Vogt refers people to such sites it becomes beyond patent that she is not a serious writer. And for those people new to the case it may also have the same effect on them as me - the best way to convince of innocence is to read the guilters' sites, as long as they have just a little bit of time.

I think in the final analysis any site that doesn't allow people to contest the views of the predominant majority is a damned poor place to get factual information. Unless he's changed his policy, which I doubt, Bruce Fisher allows just about anyone to post at his site regardless of their views, and from what I've seen does more moderating of the restless natives than the 'guilters.'

Incidentally, regarding HR...heh....my first post on this case was almost a post somewhere else to him when I realized he was posting lies, it had been pointed out to him but he was still doing it.

 

[Grinder]

Thanks! I hope Dave isn't non-plussed at the length, he asked a few simple questions and I just intended to answer them but got carried away. I even forgot completely to answer one question and went on to something else and didn't notice until after I posted it.

As always stellar work. I doubt that Dave was perplexed by the length. I'm late so he may have responded

That post comes really close to my request to you for a summary. I would really love a PP for YT on the subject. People should be educated on this as they are confused about the sea change between identifying people from residue found at the scene that is clearly something to do with the crime and DNA found that can't be definitively tied to the crime. The entire discussion of Amanda's DNA found in the bathroom is laughable in that light.

Thanks again.

 

[Grinder]

PMF has had an extensive relationship with Andrea Vogt, she's quoted their posters as 'experts' (even though they weren't), been photographed with PMF up on her screen, written stories generated from their 'take' on the case and the moderator has admitted to a regular e-mail relationship. I don't recall anything specific about what you asked, I'll leave it to him to answer if he so chooses.

And pictures of PG and AV together? I think not

 

[Grinder]

A note of comparison: Vogt linked in her writings the URL to the wiki whatever page that is full bore propaganda by full on guilters. That is by any stretch of the imagination not objective reporting, and it is not disclosed as monumentally biased as a resource. I would be interested to see if a near-comparable can be found for Candace Dempsey. On the surface she doesn't strike me as being as off kilter as Vogt seems, and while being on the innocent side of the aisle Candace does not seem as bothersome.

I'm not going back to read her blogs from the beginning to prove this and I;m not exactly sure what would be proof but she helped organize a pro innocence forum and was the lead speaker at it. It was before the appeal was finished and at Seattle University (not the UW).

She early early on took a PIP position and her writing could hardly be called balanced. I don't really care but was pointing out what I thought was bit hypocritical.

 

[bri1]

Article 192

Art. 192 does not set any pre-requirement of a standard on pieces of circumstantial evidence in order to have them considered.
Moreover, the set of circumstantial evidence in this case exists and it is solid.
QUOTE]

Hmmm.
Here's what the Galati-Costagliola Appeal to the Supreme Court of Cassation says about Article 192:

"The evaluation of circumstantial proof, according to the latest pronouncement of the Full Court of Cassation, does not exhaust itself in a mere summary of the circumstantial evidence and cannot therefore disregard the precautionary assessment of each single piece of circumstantial evidence, each one in its own qualitative import and sufficiently precise and grave, to be then evaluated, in a global and unified perspective."
(My emphasis)

Mach, this seems to be very clearly saying that before any piece of circumstantial evidence is considered in relation to forensic evidence or in conjunction with any other piece of circumstantial evidence, it first needs to be evaluated on it's own terms, and assessed as to whether it is serious, precise, and consistent with known facts.

Can you name ANY piece of circumstantial evidence in this case that adheres to these standards, or are you sticking with 'these standards don't exist'?

 

[Grinder]

1. Clearly the most damning evidence, if valid, is the knife.
2. Next is the bra clasp but only for Raf.
3. The mixture blob of Meredith's blood and Amanda's DNA in Filomena's room.
4. The foot prints shown by luminol would be more significant had they tested positive for blood with TMB and had the prints actually matched Amanda and not just be compatible, which they might have been with other in the cottage now or in the past.
5. Same thing for the bath mat print regarding Raf.

The "witnesses" have no probative value and the quality of the investigation undermined and chance for a beyond a reasonable doubt conviction.

Amanda and Raf have admitted that they could have done better with the police at the beginning. They did a lousy job of recounting their evening, which at the time was just another evening.

Their emails, diaries, phone calls and current communications give nothing towards a guilty verdict, notwithstanding the PGP's fascination with them.

I would recommend that anyone looking at the case actually look at the supposed foot prints and the detail of anything the PGP point to.

 

[Chris_Halkides]

disinformation site; Lifetime's work of fiction

Are you talking about themurderofmeredithkercher.com? She actually linked that page as a resource?

kaosium,

Yes, I linked to her story where she provided a link to that disinformation site upthread. That particular pseudo-wiki site looks deliberately deceptive to me. ETA: I see someone else already posted the link. "Meredith's body was discovered in a position and location different from that in which she died, judging by the lividity reported by the medical examiner and an indentation in her shoulder of a bra strap (with a corresponding impression on the floor)." That someone is trying the livor mortis argument this late in the game is mind-boggling. From p. 121 of the Massei report, "He dismissed the possibility of interpreting these ecchymotic areas in terms of hypostasis [death lividity], noting that ‚ such peripheral areas are ... typical of scratches and small haemorrhages and small abrasions" (page 16, transcripts)." "He" refers to Dr. Lalli, IIUC.

Skeptic Tank,
I had a hard time writing down every error I saw in the Lifetime movie. That's how many there were.

 

[Dan O.]

Added to that is the fact that kerentinized skin cells don't have DNA ...

Is that a fact? There are some tadpoles that might want to dispute it.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/1102625

 

[Chris_Halkides]

quick thoughts on the bra clasp DNA

Thanks Kaosium for the thoughtful reply on the DNA questions. I have suspected (without an informed basis) for awhile that the DNA test results on the bra clasp were due to over fitting. It sounds like that I was probably wrong.

It sounds like a small but significant amount of RS DNA was on the clasp. I understood, I think, the point you made about how DNA derived from a specific biological source (skin, blood, etc.) was more useful for determining the significance of a positive result than DNA from an unknown cell origin. Still a possibly reliable result that the second biggest contributor to the DNA on the clasp was RS is a surprising result.

It seems unlikely that RS DNA could have gotten there by random contamination if he was the second largest source of DNA on the clasp. If one just sampled the floor in Kercher's bedroom randomly how likely would it be that one would detect RS DNA? If DNA lies all over the floor willy nilly I would expect the DNA from other individuals to completely swamp out a small contribution from RS.

I don't have a feel at all what random DNA sampling on a floor is likely to detect. If one sampled my bedroom floor would one find my DNA in every or almost every sample?

Perhaps the idea isn't that the clasp was contaminated when it was lying on the floor? Is the most likely source of contamination the function of police or forensic investigator mishandling?

Is there other testing that might have been done to either rule out or rule in the RS DNA on the clasp as evidence that RS touched the bra clasp? If RS DNA was on the clasp because he actually touched it as part of the crime against Kercher would one expect to find his finger prints on the clasp? Or perhaps one would expect to find much more of his DNA on the cloth part of the bra which would have been expected to scrape off some of skin cells?

I'm sure all this was discussed in great detail previously and I appreciate the patience of anybody who can perhaps rehash a bit of what as gone before on this.

One, the police should have done a substrate control, meaning that they should have sampled in the vicinity of the clasp. That might have helped to clarify the sources of DNA on the clasp itself. A long time ago I pointed out that household dust contains DNA, but that idea got willfully misinterpreted by the PG commenters. Two, it is almost an axiom that the presence of DNA gives little to no information about the time or manner of its deposition. I think it is fair to say that with smaller amounts of DNA, one is more likely to observe unintended transfer, but that is as far as I am willing to go in terms of making inferences based on the amount of DNA in a particular sample. Three, some have argued that it would be at best difficult to touch the clasp without touching the bra itself.

Four, I happen to think that there are other routes besides dust that are more likely. Guede brought towels into the room, and Raffaele might have previously used a towel to wash his hands (he had cooked at the flat once IIRC). Raf's fingerprints were on Meredith's door, and if a gloved hand touched those areas then touched the clasp, one could imagine transfer taking place that way.

However, the biggest problem with the clasp is that there are so many other contributors to it. The second biggest is the lateness with which it was collected, coupled with the poor quality of the actual collection itself. Finally, with the recent information from Vecchiotti's article that the clasp was stored in the presence of extraction buffer, the odds that the clasp was initially tampered with rose in my estimation.

 

[Dan O.]

I'm sure all this was discussed in great detail previously and I appreciate the patience of anybody who can perhaps rehash a bit of what as gone before on this.

Dave, I don't give any credence to what was found on the clasp because the way the bra was removed makes it unlikely that the clasp was ever touched durring Meredith's murder.

The first clue is that contrary to the prosecutions claim that the clasp was cut off with a knife, it is visibly apparent in the original crime scene photos that the bra was ripped apart at the stitches. We find copious DNA from Rudy Guede at the point on the band where a strong pull would cause the bra to tear apart the way it did. This in conjunction with the blood on the inside handle to Meredith's door indicates that Rudy was alone with Meredith when he killed her and ripped off the bra so Raffaele's DNA could not get on the clasp durring the murder.

Rudy's bloody palm print and his shoe prints on the pillow found under the pelvis of Meredith's naked body says that it was Rudy that moved Meredith onto the pillow.

The bra clasp was found under the pillow so there is no chance for Raffaele's DNA to get onto the clasp after Meredith's murder.

 

[Chris_Halkides]

Forensic Magazine on touch DNA

"Contamination is the unintentional introduction of outside DNA into a crime scene or laboratory sample. Contaminant DNA may appear as background DNA, the major or minor profile within a mixture, a single source DNA profile, or all of the above. When can this occur? Before the commission of the crime, after the crime and before the crime scene is discovered/secured, during the crime scene investigation, and within the crime laboratory or DNA laboratory. (Figure 1) In today’s world of touch DNA, a crime scene has to be approached in a way to minimize contamination since one cannot see or test for touch DNA." link.