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

[Chris_Halkides]

storage of the clasp

Dave, the more I watch the video of the bra clasp collection, the more I become convinced it is outright fraud. Just my opinion.

RoseMontague,

The fact that the forensic police stored it with extraction buffer may not have been accidental. It is a little like storing a cassette tape next to a strong bar magnet. It is possible that the initial profile was merely the result of contamination, but the way in which it was stored was deliberately intended to preclude retesting.

Daveofc,

I am very wary of arguments about how DNA arrived on any object that are based on the amount of DNA. I don't think that the forensic literature supports drawing strong inferences from amount of DNA on an item, with the partial exception I noted previously. There are always problems about included or excluding a donor when there is mixed DNA. However, the YSTR results also cannot exclude Raffaele as a donor. The problem for the prosecution is that a number of other men are donors.

 

[Mary_H]

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.

I<snip>CD didn't say she was doing PR for Amanda but it sure looked that way.<snip>

<snip>I very well could be off track here... I do not think I am. What I am certain of is that the comparison of Vogt with Dempsey is an invalid one. As Dempsey's writing has changed through the years (she was originally a firm guilter), she has reported what she has discovered, she's changed with what she has discovered and has never shied away from it. Whatever Dempsey's sins, she has been transparent and assessable. Her book is most certainly not "passing on the party line", it was the first book which spoke honestly of the mistakes made by Knox (at 20 years old in a foreign land, but mistakes none-the-less....) and told it like it was.

For example, Dempsey was the first to report in popular form that Knox HAD lied - albeit about the soft-drug use in the cottage, just like Sophie had lied.... similarly both Sophie and Knox downplayed Meredith's sex-life, both believing it too personal & disrespectful to Meredith to talk about. Dempsey, in short, told it like it was.<snip>

Andrea gets paid for articles that appear in the mass media. Her articles should be completely objective. Candace had/has a blog (read: opinion), unpaid; she can write whatever she likes.

All you have to do to see Candace's original position is read the first couple of columns.
http://blog.seattlepi.com/dempsey/2007/11/10/meredith-kercher-murder-in-seattles-sister-city/
http://blog.seattlepi.com/dempsey/2007/12/08/amanda-knox-whats-seattle-got-to-do-with-it/

Candace did not start out pro-innocence or pro-guilt (she never was pro-guilt, as far as I know, Bill). She started out pro-exploration with a grain of skepticism. She seems to have been influenced by a realistic view that something was fishy. Most of the commentary in response to her blog was a bunch of people trying to figure things out. Interestingly, their main connection in Italy was Yummi a/k/a Machiavelli, who explained Italian law.

If you read on (http://blog.seattlepi.com/dempsey/page/24/) you can see Candace being influenced by the insanity of the pro-guilt faction, who came in hard and heavy after her very first post about the case. As moije2 just wrote here: 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.

Within a few months, Candace had interviewed Doug Preston, whose previous experience with Mignini influenced a lot of people in the United States toward a position of innocence when they saw him talk about it on 48 Hours a year later. I don't think the FOA influenced Candace -- they were a separate group mostly associated with Judge Heavey -- but her blog very well may have influenced them.

Even when Candace was promoting her book, she never came out and said whether she thought the defendants were innocent or guilty; she seems to have tried to stick to factual reporting of the truth, which of course, looks exactly like pro-innocence.

There was no lead speaker at the Seattle U forum; all speakers were equal. And that was after Candace's book had been published.

 

[Bill Williams]

Candace did not start out pro-innocence or pro-guilt (she never was pro-guilt, as far as I know, Bill). She started out pro-exploration with a grain of skepticism. She seems to have been influenced by a realistic view that something was fishy. Most of the commentary in response to her blog was a bunch of people trying to figure things out. Interestingly, their main connection in Italy was Yummi a/k/a Machiavelli, who explained Italian law.

I am scrambling to find Dempsey's early piece where she said something akin to the Dec 2007 piece you quote above, but where Dempsey more directly deals with the extreme internet nastiness aimed her way. I may have read stuff into it (which to me suggested she was pro-guilt) and which on second thought she may have done simply to say that she still had not abandoned the possibility that the pair could be legitimately found guilty at trial.

Maybe she over emphasized (then) a legitimate possibility of guilt, simply to balance that off against her concern at the time - the abject hostility she'd received for even suggesting that everyone calm down and wait for an actual trial to take place.

Then again, maybe it was me reading it in....

There was no lead speaker at the Seattle U forum; all speakers were equal. And that was after Candace's book had been published.

I appreciate the distinction you make between Vogt as a paid journalist and Dempsey as a blogger. In this brave new world of on-line journalism, the distinction is not hard and fast - seasoned reporters are told to make the switch from columnist to blogger to engage their readership.... and journalists are expected to have opinions these days as the distinction between reporting and commentary becomes blurred...

My thing about Vogt is that she still, perhaps 3 years after even Judge Massei debinked major elements of Mignini's theories, she still goes to Mignini to fact-find about this case.

And I also believe that if she published her other beliefs - and this is just an opinion - that she would know her way around more conspiratorial stuff - like Hellmann was bought off by the Masons, and that Knox could choose not to sleep and not have any consequences of fatigue......

Maybe that's just me. But she's pretty much given her game away by pointing to McCall's Wiki.... as far as I'm concerned. That represents her opinion that "objective journalism" should simply focus on what Mignini presented at trial and nothing else.

 

[Grinder]

Andrea gets paid for articles that appear in the mass media. Her articles should be completely objective. Candace had/has a blog (read: opinion), unpaid; she can write whatever she likes.

Sorry Mary but I think that's horse pucky. Candace not being paid doesn't mean she has free reign to write anything she wants. She went to work almost immediately to make money on the coverage by a book.

All you have to do to see Candace's original position is read the first couple of columns.
http://blog.seattlepi.com/dempsey/2007/11/10/meredith-kercher-murder-in-seattles-sister-city/
http://blog.seattlepi.com/dempsey/2007/12/08/amanda-knox-whats-seattle-got-to-do-with-it/

Candace did not start out pro-innocence or pro-guilt (she never was pro-guilt, as far as I know, Bill). She started out pro-exploration with a grain of skepticism. She seems to have been influenced by a realistic view that something was fishy. Most of the commentary in response to her blog was a bunch of people trying to figure things out. Interestingly, their main connection in Italy was Yummi a/k/a Machiavelli, who explained Italian law.

She was never pro guilt and it was very shortly that she began her pro Knox crusade. You say realistic view and Vogt has PR driven view or worse. Look at the knife quote from 11-10.

If you read on (http://blog.seattlepi.com/dempsey/page/24/) you can see Candace being influenced by the insanity of the pro-guilt faction, who came in hard and heavy after her very first post about the case. As moije2 just wrote here: 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.

Why did they come in hard against a neutral blogger?

Within a few months, Candace had interviewed Doug Preston, whose previous experience with Mignini influenced a lot of people in the United States toward a position of innocence when they saw him talk about it on 48 Hours a year later. I don't think the FOA influenced Candace -- they were a separate group mostly associated with Judge Heavey -- but her blog very well may have influenced them.

Mike and Anne as well as others. She hooked with Frank early on and always seemed a mouthpiece for the FOA. I couldn't read her stuff after a while because it was so stilted and she started promoting her book.

Even when Candace was promoting her book, she never came out and said whether she thought the defendants were innocent or guilty; she seems to have tried to stick to factual reporting of the truth, which of course, looks exactly like pro-innocence.

Watch the SU forum. She has been pro innocence forever.

There was no lead speaker at the Seattle U forum; all speakers were equal. And that was after Candace's book had been published.

By lead, I meant the first speaker.

From her first post you linked - An odd remark considering Knox is the only American in the trio and nobody is claiming she pulled the knife (in fact it belonged to her Italian boyfriend). The owner doesn’t call Americans rich and spoiled, but that’s the stereotype in Italy. (Update: That knife was found not to be the murder weapon. The true weapon has still not been identified.)

I'm sorry but I think she is an idiot and on 11-10-2007 how does she know "the knife was found not to be the murder weapon" - now where would that info come from? To me she has been the mercenary of all, even Barbie.

When I search the PI with "Candace Dempsey" many of her posts are missing including some you have links for above.

How do you think she found Preston? Do you think he reached out to a food blogger?

And it really makes me sad every time this comes up because her one non Amanda post is about sweet Nick Gallo who died far too early and with no warning. RIP Nick.

 

[Grinder]

Here ya go Bill

Meanwhile, my latest writeup on the Meredith Kercher murder so inflamed readers of my PI blog that I had to shut down comments. I also deleted the worst offenders, keeping those who managed not to be revolting, off-topic or just plain bizarre. I thank the Italians for being polite.

What did I say to cause this firestorm? That it was unfair of the foreign press to link our beautiful city with the crime. Unfair to link UW student Amanda Knox (accused of helping murder her British roommate in Italy) to our “offbeat culture, to Kurt Cobain’s suicide, Ted Bundy’s murders, binge drinking, rude tourists, ill-fitting clothes, wild campus parties, YouTube postings, potheads and anything else foreigners hate about Americans.

If anything the feedback I received only reinforced my point. Some people so badly want Ms. Knox to be the killer that they will say anything.

I even found myself making a tiresome defense of rock climbing. Arms are used for balance; strength comes from the legs. We have many rock climbers in Seattle. Please email me the names of any who have killed.

I do not know if Amanda is innocent or guilty. I’ll watch with great interest to see how the Italian courts resolve the case. There, as in the U.S., she’s innocent
until proven otherwise.

So she didn't think she was guilty 12-10-07.

Here's a snip from the previous blog

Amanda Knox is a familiar type, a good student raised in pleasant circumstances in a comfortable but not pricey house in West Seattle. She could easily pass for one of the pretty college girls in pastel sweaters and jeans, riding the Bainbridge ferry into the city on a Friday night to hit the clubs downtown.

It’s hard to see how two months in Italy could have morphed a 20-year-old who entered strict Seattle Prep on a scholarship into a “cacciatrice d’uomini, insaziabile a letto.”a huntress of men, insatiable in bed,” to quote Corriere della Sera.
The same newspaper also speculates that Seattle is so full of rain that it could have inspired the “fantasies of Amanda Knox.”

What fantasies, we wonder? In whose mind are they lodged? And in what country?

Basta, foreign press. The UW has 43,000 students. We’ve produced only this one murder suspect. We didn’t do the murder. We weren’t even there.

Seattle Prep is not a strict Catholic school. Saying that it's hard to believe she could be morphed sounds like hard to believe she could be guilty.

Ah Candace, Ted Bundy comes to mind but Nevermind.

ETA - there was also the comments that have been deleted and what was said there including what CD wrote and deleted at the time.

 

[Dan O.]

The possibility of fraud seemed unlikely to me because if fraud was involved the perpetrator would not have produced such an equivocal piece of evidence.

But this kind of argument is never completely compelling. Committing fraud and getting away with it can be difficult and a more clear piece of evidence might have raised red flags so the perpetrator might have gone for a less clear but easier to get away with effort. Or maybe given the resources and opportunities of the person that committed the fraud this was the best they could do.

Did you have any theories as to who perpetrated the fraud? Could it be somebody that collected the evidence that brushed the clasp against something he knew would have RS DNA on it?

Maybe an argument for fraud is that the way the clasp materialized so long after most of the investigation was complete and it just happened to have RS DNA on it? They had done DNA testing for six weeks without a trace of RS DNA being found and it just happens that they go back to the scene and come up with this clasp out of all the other stuff that they might have tested in the room? Does anybody know what stuff they tested when they tested the clasp? If it wasn't a lot, it would be very suspicious, since given the complete failure to find RS DNA in the room previously the notion that they could just pick up a few things and find RS DNA seems very unlikely.

The DNA on the clasp cannot be dated except to say it's probably not from before the bra was last laundered. Meredith was putting laundry into the washer the morning prior to her death so this bra would have been washes sometime prior to that. The girls share a drying rack which is located in the hall outside Amanda's and Meredith's rooms. It is entirely possible that Raffaele walked past that rack and scraped a fingernail on the hook of the clasp in the week prior to the murder. This I believe is the most plausible innocent explanation.

In the interval between November 7 and December 18, the crime scene was suposed to be sealed. You can read this in Massei along with a declaration that the seals were intact when the cottage was erentered in December. On the morning of November 14, Barbie Nadeau arrived in Perugia And took a few personal photos using her bosses camera. These were posted to her bosses photo blog on the 16th. One of these photos shows the cottage door wide open and the security tape pealed down.

If someone had entered the cottage while it was supposed to be sealed, they could have found the bra clasp and scrapped it on something from Raffaele's flat to plant Raffaele's DNA on the clasp. Alternatively, they could have taken the clasp between its first discovery on November 2 and The sealing of the flat on November 7th then broke it to returned it contaminated.

 

[Grinder]

The DNA on the clasp cannot be dated except to say it's probably not from before the bra was last laundered. Meredith was putting laundry into the washer the morning prior to her death so this bra would have been washes sometime prior to that. The girls share a drying rack which is located in the hall outside Amanda's and Meredith's rooms. It is entirely possible that Raffaele walked past that rack and scraped a fingernail on the hook of the clasp in the week prior to the murder. This I believe is the most plausible innocent explanation.

I don't think he would scrape it but he sure could have picked it up off the ground particularly if he had knocked it off. Had he been aware of the bra and had he ripped it off he have been I'm stunned he didn't cover that it his diary as well as the pricking. As a young man he could have picked it up to figure out how to remove Amanda's a little soother than he had been.

One would think if the PLE had planted his DNA they would have done a better job, but they are the PLE and they knew by then that there was none of DNA on the other side of the bra.

In the interval between November 7 and December 18, the crime scene was suposed to be sealed. You can read this in Massei along with a declaration that the seals were intact when the cottage was erentered in December. On the morning of November 14, Barbie Nadeau arrived in Perugia And took a few personal photos using her bosses camera. These were posted to her bosses photo blog on the 16th. One of these photos shows the cottage door wide open and the security tape pealed down.

If someone had entered the cottage while it was supposed to be sealed, they could have found the bra clasp and scrapped it on something from Raffaele's flat to plant Raffaele's DNA on the clasp. Alternatively, they could have taken the clasp between its first discovery on November 2 and The sealing of the flat on November 7th then broke it to returned it contaminated.

It doesn't really matter about the sealing since Nappy and Bunglers went through the house after the ICSI. They kept no records of what they did and from what was found later moved the mattress and other things from the murder room. They surely didn't worry about touching the doorknob and who knows what else. It is not the case that Raf's DNA was only on the cigarette; it was only place found by the ICSI. I'm sure they didn't check the common areas closely.

 

[Machiavelli]

Oh dear...here in the real world we would call Vecchiotti a pathologist. This specialty requires 8 more years study after becoming a regular doctor. And trust me they study plenty of biology and chemistry and anatomy...but sure Stefanoni is more qualified. BTW in the real world a bachelors is 4 year and to add Masters is another 2 years...one can become a pharmacist with a 5 year degree but thats about it. I am sticking with deluxe lab tech...although going by her work example in the video I'm guessing she is only a lab tech assistant and chief mop wrapper at best.

Well Italy is in the real world. To become a 'pathologist' you need a 5-year study course (NOT 8 years). To get a II level degree you need 5 years (not 6). (We distinguish 'master degree' (which we also call 'II level degree') from 'masters', which you take after that).
For all that, a 'phatologist' like Vecchiotti is not a biologist. Not in the real world. All this makes your assertion that "Stefanoni is not a biologist", a lie.
Moreover, Vecchiotti's laboratory is not a member of ENFSI, while Stefanoni is. And Vecchiotti has no forensic training, while Stefanoni has. But hte main point is about your spreading falsehoods, not about who Stefanoni or Vecchiotti are.
You don't like how Stefanoni deals with mops. Someone might recall you how Vecchiotti deals with DNA items on cases like the Olgiata case (in the words of the victim's lawyer Marazzita, Vecchiotti's professional conduct was the "worst possible", probably in the history of DNA forensic analysis in Italy).
Or how she deals when shee needs to avoid finding a broken vertebrae in a body (she notices just the x-ray of the intact ones, like in the Cucchi case)...

 

[Bill Williams]

Sorry Mary but I think that's horse pucky. Candace not being paid doesn't mean she has free reign to write anything she wants. She went to work almost immediately to make money on the coverage by a book.

<........ sinister deletia ......>

She was never pro guilt and it was very shortly that she began her pro Knox crusade. You say realistic view and Vogt has PR driven view or worse. Look at the knife quote from 11-10.

Grinder, I think you're using inflamed language here. I don't buy it.

What the heck is the difference between a "crusade" and legitimately believing the two people as innocent? Have you read her book? She stays close to the evidence which many now regard as simply a given.

I'm afraid you've lost me with the inflated language. I'm sure you'll recover from the shock of finding this out.

For my tastes, though, Andrea Vogt is on a crusade to get Mignini's message out. Since the Tabloids stopped printing his latest lurid theory, he's not had the kind of access he once enjoyed.

Right now it's pretty much Andrea Vogt and Machiavelli. Most of the other gulters simply quote them.... meaning that I don't believe that people like Peggy Ganong or Michael or Ergon or even Peter Q. are privy to primary info from the man in question.

 

[Machiavelli]

Who was it who wrote that 'technical report?' I'm assuming she's referring to the RTIGF, which I know she wrote a great deal of at the very least, did she have...collaborators? (entendre intended! ) Who was it that testified in court regarding the work done on the luminol hits, Stefanoni was quoted extensively in that section as well, thus it would seem likely it was her as well. I've read a number of people say the person who testified in court regarding the TMB tests not being done was Stefanoni and considering the above have no reason to disbelieve that. Why should I?

So, with your reply you provided yourself a demonstration that your claim is unfounded. Basically what you have, what your assertion is based on, is the spin of a claim from a defensive reporting.

First your translation: Massei does not write "in contradiction", he writes "in contrasto" (and moreover, pleas always bear in mind that Massei here is reporting Tagliabracci’s defensive argument). So Tagliabracci asserts “in contrast” but when someone writes "in contrast" i means he just didn't find a mention about a TMB test in the technical report; while instead he find it in the SAL (and btw both these documentation spources were kindly provided to him by Stefanoni!).
Instead if you translate “contradiction” that would suggest the existence of an assertion and its opposite.
At this point, you should at least quote the page of the technical report where (interpreting what Tagliabracci suggests) you suggest you would find a difference (a "contradiction") between the report and the SAL. I guess you found that, given that you are so sure.

Regarding the TMB tests, how on earth would those attorneys know what doing a TMB test looked like?

Come on, the attorneys had their experts watching what’s going on. I am talking about Prof. Potenza who was there.

The defense didn't get the reports including the negative TMB tests until they wailed and screamed and held their breath--and after the polizia scientifica (whoever it was) had told the court they were not done and tried to fraudulently represent the luminol hits as 'blood.'

Wailed and scream? Until they asked. Do you know the words to ask? To request?
They asked to access SAL documentation. The prosecution said ‘ok’. This is in the record.

But there is NO Stefanoni’s statement saying ‘we didn’t do TMB test’ in the record!

A negative blood test is what's known as a falsifier in the forensic world, it means your hypothesis (that the hits were blood) was false.

Now you are starting with your opinions on the scientific subject. You are entitled you your opinions; as for what i found in literature instead, the question about whether TMB would actually work is… in fact a question. TMB in practical use can be 100 times less sensitive than luminol, and it is also less specific. Which puts a question mark about up to which latent traces it could actually falsify.
But this is beyond the point. The point is whether Stefanoni ever declared that she did not perform a TMB test. The truth is that she did not make such statement; an you certainly cannot prove your assertion. So you are making a false assertion.

If whoever conducted those tests had any reason (like they had to come up with when they were caught lying) to suspect they still might be blood they'd have done a confirmatory test like they did on other items, that's what's actually required to prove blood, these presumptive tests just suggest its presence by not falsifying it.

You are lying, if you assert that Stefanoni asserted something, when she never said what you make her say. Or if you suggest the defence was devoid of competent personnel for assisting the tests, while they were not.
(btw you seem to also forget Stefanoni is the one who offered the SALs to Tagliabracci when requested; apparently she did not provide false SALs; what would it be the purpose of allegedly fabricate just a false technical report and not a false SAL?).

 

[Kaosium]

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.

Heh, it took me a while to figure out what a 'PP for YT' is, or at least I think I did. Do you mean a 'Powerpoint for Youtube?' That might well be a good idea, however while I was 'trained' on PP a decade or so ago I almost never did anything outside use it occasionally and I'm a user and not a contributor to Youtube, I've never uploaded anything. But thanks!

It took me a while to get your other joke too, I'm just a little slow today I guess.

 

[Kaosium]

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.

Most everything I've seen from that site is mind-boggling. That was where Dr. Tesla was getting his information and that's about the level I expected of the average consumer of that site: entirely clueless about the case when they found it and a little weird! Also not too quick on the uptake to fail to realize if all that was true and everything represented accurately then there's no way Amanda would ever have been acquitted by an Italian court in the first place.

 

[Mary_H]

Sorry Mary but I think that's horse pucky. Candace not being paid doesn't mean she has free reign to write anything she wants. She went to work almost immediately to make money on the coverage by a book.

I may be wrong but I think her blog was online for two years before she took a break to work on the book. And I don't think she ever made much money on the book. I should have said she can write whatever she wants as long as it's true. Did she ever write anything that wasn't true that she didn't correct later?

Why did they come in hard against a neutral blogger?

I misspoke. I should have said they came in after her second post about the case; Candace reports the reaction in her third post and every post thereafter. E.g.: http://blog.seattlepi.com/dempsey/2007/12/27/amanda-knox-trial-by-trollarazzi/

They came in hard against anybody who was not vilifying Amanda, just as they continue to do now. It was much worse then -- so many people calling Amanda a bitch, a whore, a tramp, a murderer, before any of the facts were known. Read the first three posts again -- Candace does not speak in Amanda's defense in them, except theoretically.

From her first post you linked - An odd remark considering Knox is the only American in the trio and nobody is claiming she pulled the knife (in fact it belonged to her Italian boyfriend). The owner doesn’t call Americans rich and spoiled, but that’s the stereotype in Italy. (Update: That knife was found not to be the murder weapon. The true weapon has still not been identified.)

I'm sorry but I think she is an idiot and on 11-10-2007 how does she know "the knife was found not to be the murder weapon" - now where would that info come from? To me she has been the mercenary of all, even Barbie.

I wouldn't call the original paragraph pro-innocence, especially not for Raffaele. The update obviously was added later.

When I search the PI with "Candace Dempsey" many of her posts are missing including some you have links for above.

How do you think she found Preston? Do you think he reached out to a food blogger?

And it really makes me sad every time this comes up because her one non Amanda post is about sweet Nick Gallo who died far too early and with no warning. RIP Nick.

I found the links on Google, not on the P-I. Candace was never a food blogger. According to what I see on the P-I, she had three blog posts under her belt in the year before the murder and none of them was about food. There is a painting titled Young Italian Woman at a Table, by Paul Cezanne. Maybe that is where Candace got the name for her blog.

The only thing I know about Nick Gallo was what Candace wrote about him. It sounds like they were friends and that she was just as sorry about his death as you are.

 

[Kaosium]

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

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

But those are baby frogs, lower forms of life!

For crissakes if they could speak it would be in French!

Caso chiuso!

p)


It was my understanding and what that link stated that human keratinized skin cells cells were difficult to get DNA from as the nucleus had degraded and it was akin to how saliva itself doesn't (inherently) have DNA in it but will invariably have many cheek cells from the non-keratinized skin in the mouth. It's actually the sweat and the sloughed off DNA and other cells which provide the material to profile touch DNA from skin cells. The reason we're not awash in DNA everywhere due to the 400k skin cells the average person sheds a day is that most won't have recoverable DNA of those that do it will degrade relatively quickly, but of course one only needs a small percent of those to be viable for DNA analysis.'

Naturally if someone has a better understanding of it I defer to them.

 

[Mary_H]

Here ya go Bill

Meanwhile, my latest writeup on the Meredith Kercher murder so inflamed readers of my PI blog that I had to shut down comments. I also deleted the worst offenders, keeping those who managed not to be revolting, off-topic or just plain bizarre. I thank the Italians for being polite.

What did I say to cause this firestorm? That it was unfair of the foreign press to link our beautiful city with the crime. Unfair to link UW student Amanda Knox (accused of helping murder her British roommate in Italy) to our “offbeat culture, to Kurt Cobain’s suicide, Ted Bundy’s murders, binge drinking, rude tourists, ill-fitting clothes, wild campus parties, YouTube postings, potheads and anything else foreigners hate about Americans.

If anything the feedback I received only reinforced my point. Some people so badly want Ms. Knox to be the killer that they will say anything.

I even found myself making a tiresome defense of rock climbing. Arms are used for balance; strength comes from the legs. We have many rock climbers in Seattle. Please email me the names of any who have killed.

I do not know if Amanda is innocent or guilty. I’ll watch with great interest to see how the Italian courts resolve the case. There, as in the U.S., she’s innocent
until proven otherwise.

So she didn't think she was guilty 12-10-07.

Looks pretty neutral to me. Candace was defending Seattle, not Amanda.

Here's a snip from the previous blog

Amanda Knox is a familiar type, a good student raised in pleasant circumstances in a comfortable but not pricey house in West Seattle. She could easily pass for one of the pretty college girls in pastel sweaters and jeans, riding the Bainbridge ferry into the city on a Friday night to hit the clubs downtown.

It’s hard to see how two months in Italy could have morphed a 20-year-old who entered strict Seattle Prep on a scholarship into a “cacciatrice d’uomini, insaziabile a letto.”a huntress of men, insatiable in bed,” to quote Corriere della Sera.
The same newspaper also speculates that Seattle is so full of rain that it could have inspired the “fantasies of Amanda Knox.”

What fantasies, we wonder? In whose mind are they lodged? And in what country?

Basta, foreign press. The UW has 43,000 students. We’ve produced only this one murder suspect. We didn’t do the murder. We weren’t even there.

Seattle Prep is not a strict Catholic school. Saying that it's hard to believe she could be morphed sounds like hard to believe she could be guilty.

Ah Candace, Ted Bundy comes to mind but Nevermind.

ETA - there was also the comments that have been deleted and what was said there including what CD wrote and deleted at the time.

It is hard to believe Amanda could have been found guilty. It is hard to believe that someone with Amanda's profile could be a murderer. That's why the accusations raised so many questions in people's minds.

It sounds, too, as if questions were raised in Candace's mind because she could read the Italian reports and she didn't like the dietrologia she could sense in them. Maybe some of her previous experiences with Italy and Italians fed her suspicions, as they have for many skeptics about the prosecution's case.

You can't be serious about comparing Amanda and Ted Bundy.

 

[RWVBWL]

Sorry Mary but I think that's horse pucky. Candace not being paid doesn't mean she has free reign to write anything she wants. She went to work almost immediately to make money on the coverage by a book.
<snip>
She was never pro guilt and it was very shortly that she began her pro Knox crusade. <snip> She hooked with Frank early on and always seemed a mouthpiece for the FOA. I couldn't read her stuff after a while because it was so stilted and she started promoting her book. ,snip>

Look Grinder,
I too have read much of this case since waaaay back when. Read alotta the Pro guilt and the Pro innocence points of view.
Esh, aren't you the dude that does not even read any of the published books on this brutal murder we discuss?

I've also read a bunch of the early posts on whatever the heck that name of the blog was,
True Crime or whatever it was called by Steve who-ever he is or was...
Interesting stuff.

You should know this already, but for the newcomers who have been participating,
well Candace, Michael and Peggy were all friendly back then.
Heck Peggy even used to HELP Frank Sfarzo translate his Perugia Shock blog, in the early days, IIRC.
Ain't that right Grinder? Sure it is...
Can you actually believe that?!?

It was only when Candace and Frank,
like most here at The JREF, studied the evidence publicly available and realized that the evidence points out that Miss Knox + Mr. Sollecito DID NOT murder nor help participate in Miss Kercher's horrible bloody murder that Mikey the bird watcher and Peggy the translater turned against CD and FS...

Everyone needs a paycheck, Grinder,
believe what ya want, but I believe that what CD and FS have written
to help lay out the real facts and to then inform the public have been immensely important in this brutal murder case.

And it might be my opinion only,
but I feel your thoughts regarding FS and CD reportin' are,
what'd you say, oh ya, horse pucky.

My opinion only.



Pss-
TSIG,
I apologize for confusing, I believe,
you with member Lionking, for I then asked you to give a personal opinion here.
I was mistaken.
RW

 

[Grinder]

It is hard to believe Amanda could have been found guilty. It is hard to believe that someone with Amanda's profile could be a murderer. That's why the accusations raised so many questions in people's minds.

Not me. It was the police chief and buckled. It would be rare but noT unheard of

It sounds, too, as if questions were raised in Candace's mind because she could read the Italian reports and she didn't like the dietrologia she could sense in them. Maybe some of her previous experiences with Italy and Italians fed her suspicions, as they have for many skeptics about the prosecution's case.

Really she sure hasn't said much about that.

You can't be serious about comparing Amanda and Ted Bundy.

I wasn't comparing because I was responding to her stupid remark that the UW has 43000 students and only one murder suspect. I suppose she was saying that at this moment when she was writing it she thought there were no other murder suspects on campus. I thought it to mean that we had had only one murder suspect ever. I doubt Candace had any idea if there might be a second suspect for some other murder. But she's just a blogger so she write whatever.

The thing about Bundy was that he was just a nice guy, active in politics and a great student that no motive or pathology to kill young women but he did. I wasn't thinking that earlier but you made me think about it. I've always thought the motive, good kid and no pathology arguments were bogus and I think Bundy does supports that.

I think/know that the prosecution did not prove murder beyond a reasonable doubt but if they had made their case, motive, performance as a student and known history of violence wouldn't undo that case.

 

[Kaosium]

So, with your reply you provided yourself a demonstration that your claim is unfounded. Basically what you have, what your assertion is based on, is the spin of a claim from a defensive reporting.

No, I provided a source for my contention: the convicting judge who wrote the report and quoted Dr. Gino without rebuttal from the prosecution on this subject.

First your translation: Massei does not write "in contradiction", he writes "in contrasto" (and moreover, pleas always bear in mind that Massei here is reporting Tagliabracci’s defensive argument). So Tagliabracci asserts “in contrast” but when someone writes "in contrast" i means he just didn't find a mention about a TMB test in the technical report; while instead he find it in the SAL (and btw both these documentation spources were kindly provided to him by Stefanoni!).

Instead if you translate “contradiction” that would suggest the existence of an assertion and its opposite.

'In contrast' and 'in contradiction' mean basically the same thing in this context in English.

Didn't you have an opportunity to contribute to the translation process? As you're well aware I did not.

At this point, you should at least quote the page of the technical report where (interpreting what Tagliabracci suggests) you suggest you would find a difference (a "contradiction") between the report and the SAL. I guess you found that, given that you are so sure.

I have no reason to doubt Massei's take on this issue, he was there in court and he read the original technical report in Italian.

Come on, the attorneys had their experts watching what’s going on. I am talking about Prof. Potenza who was there.

On selective-view shaky-cam? Did they see every single thing the clowns in bunny suits were doing that night? Or was it more like the footage we have seen of that event where one can't really see much of anything outside what the camera is currently focused on and it isn't pointed exactly where it needed to be at all moments? Do you recall reading through (or participating in) the discussion regarding whether the bra clasp was dropped or placed back on the floor? Some couldn't tell for sure.

Wailed and scream? Until they asked. Do you know the words to ask? To request?
They asked to access SAL documentation. The prosecution said ‘ok’. This is in the record.

Thus would have been the release dated July 30 for the trial which had started the previous November or so, and with the month-long vacation in August meant the trial only had three more months to run?

Why did it take so long for the police to release those documents, which should have been provided to the defense at the outset of the trial? What possible reason could they have had not to turn over the documentation of the evidence they were using in court?

But there is NO Stefanoni’s statement saying ‘we didn’t do TMB test’ in the record!

I could really care less who actually said it, if it wasn't Stefanoni then tell me who it was and I will blame them. Her not offering that information while she was claiming to the court those footprints were blood is damning enough, that's called a lie by omission in her position at the time.

If you don't know who it was who said that would you prefer I just use the more general phrase 'Lying Pigs?'

p)

Now you are starting with your opinions on the scientific subject. You are entitled you your opinions; as for what i found in literature instead, the question about whether TMB would actually work is… in fact a question. TMB in practical use can be 100 times less sensitive than luminol, and it is also less specific.

It's one of the most common presumptive blood tests available and used world-wide. In the field luminol is not 100 times more sensitive or anything close; numerous times that has been discussed and the relevant papers linked. I do realize you can link a paper which shows luminol more selective than a specific assortment of items than TMB; however that's not a sample representative of much more than 'things luminol doesn't get false positives on that TMB does' however it's not worth arguing as it doesn't actually matter which is true.

Which puts a question mark about up to which latent traces it could actually falsify.

Selectivity is not an issue, regardless of which is more selective with false positives, that doesn't matter on a negative. It's a natural chemical reaction and if blood is present both will react; that either one might also react to other substances doesn't change that a whit.

But this is beyond the point. The point is whether Stefanoni ever declared that she did not perform a TMB test. The truth is that she did not make such statement; an you certainly cannot prove your assertion. So you are making a false assertion.

It matters not to me who said it, but that someone from ILE did both in court and in the technical report. Stefanoni not disclosing it while she was contending those hits were blood is damning enough regardless.

You are lying, if you assert that Stefanoni asserted something, when she never said what you make her say. Or if you suggest the defence was devoid of competent personnel for assisting the tests, while they were not.
(btw you seem to also forget Stefanoni is the one who offered the SALs to Tagliabracci when requested; apparently she did not provide false SALs; what would it be the purpose of allegedly fabricate just a false technical report and not a false SAL?).

No, I'm not lying, your argument is dodging the actual issue here which is that the prosecution contended those luminol hits were blood without disclosing they'd tested negative for blood with TMB, and in fact hid that result and said they'd never performed them. It wasn't until they were caught lying p) that they came up with the 'hypothesis' that the hits might have been diluted between the thresholds of TMB and luminol. If they wanted anyone to believe they weren't lying they should have started with that assertion and not hid the negative TMBs.

 

[Grinder]

Steve Huff's True Crime on haloscan

 

[Mary_H]

Not me. It was the police chief and buckled. It would be rare but noT unheard of

? What does that mean?

Really she sure hasn't said much about that.

I am surmising from the quotes she cited in her first few posts from Italian media.

I wasn't comparing because I was responding to her stupid remark that the UW has 43000 students and only one murder suspect. I suppose she was saying that at this moment when she was writing it she thought there were no other murder suspects on campus. I thought it to mean that we had had only one murder suspect ever. I doubt Candace had any idea if there might be a second suspect for some other murder. But she's just a blogger so she write whatever.

I think she was arguing with the media opinion that Seattle is a dark place where evil things are constantly happening. Of course Candace was aware of Ted Bundy -- she mentioned him herself, and Ann Rule is her favorite author.

The thing about Bundy was that he was just a nice guy, active in politics and a great student that no motive or pathology to kill young women but he did. I wasn't thinking that earlier but you made me think about it. I've always thought the motive, good kid and no pathology arguments were bogus and I think Bundy does supports that.

Actually, lots of pathology: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ted_Bundy

I think/know that the prosecution did not prove murder beyond a reasonable doubt but if they had made their case, motive, performance as a student and known history of violence wouldn't undo that case.

That is true. However, I think it was insightful of Candace to recognize there was some danger of ILE profiling Amanda as someone diametrically opposed to how American law enforcement would profile her.