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

[davefoc]

Do your really think that glass was saved?? Is any of the glass listed as a an exhibit? Lastly, do you think they are actually interested in following this line??

I think the answer to these questions is no, but I was interested in following up on the issue a bit.

I just realized that if the window was a casement window that opened inward, it would have been possible to break the glass in an inward direction from inside the apartment. If so then I guess the direction that the glass was broken in is moot (it could support either theory). I saw photographic evidence on one of the pro Knox sites that strongly suggests the window was broken by a rock thrown from the outside. Since I am confident of AK and RS innocence that didn't surprise me, but I was thinking that all that was necessary to make the case definitively that the window was broken from the outside was to verify that the window was broken on the outside surface of the glass.. It didn't seem like I was right about that after I made the post above.

Of course, if reasonable doubt was really the basis for deciding this case, strong evidence that the window was broken from the outside would be more than sufficient to eliminate any claims to the contrary*. Obviously, reasonable doubt has never been the criteria used for judgment in this case.

*Especially if one couples the evidence that the window was broken from the outside with the video demonstrating that climbing through the window would have been easy for a tall athletic individual. I would like to see whether a 64 year old 5'9" overweight guy could have done it. I think he might have had a shot.

 

[acbytesla]

I think the defense should be able to put forward various other possibilities without having to prove any or fully believe in them themselves.

I think that the most likely scenario is that Rudy threw the rock and waited. In the meantime Meredith came home and he was let in or he forced his way in. He made his advances and she rebuffed him and he overreacted and killed her.

I also think it is possible that he had an accomplice and they were both driven there by Koko. The accomplice could be part of the Albanian drug cartel and might have been the actual murderer. The window might have been broken before or after entering the cottage.

Btw, I doubt the shutters were ever closed so a rock heaved through would not have required climbing and opening them.

I agree and we will never know for sure. I can't imagine Rudy being actually honest about what happened.

 

[Kaosium]

Forensic analysis of the broken window.

Why hasn't the broken window glass been submitted to forensic analysis to determine the direction that it was broken from. Perhaps this technology is not common in Italy, but at least according to various descriptions on the internet it is possible to determine the direction that glass was broken from by American forensic scientists that specialize in glass analysis.

If it was proven that the glass was broken from the outside, how would that affect the case. A lot of the prosecutions case seems to hinge on the notion that Rudy was let into the apartment by his co-conspirators. If Rudy went through the window that seems like it might come close to a stand alone piece of evidence that he didn't have co-conspirators.

That wouldn't actually falsify their claim, the police had the rock hitting the outside of that glass anyway, they just contended it was done with the window and the inner shutter pulled inward at the perfect angle to bounce the glass off the outside of the inner shutter and out into the room to 'simulate' the fact the glass pattern indicates the rock came from the outside. What brilliant and fortunate 'stagers' of burglaries Amanda and Raffaele must be to do the nearly impossible on their very first attempt!

Many people don't get what Massei is trying to say in that passage, men with Phds have been humbled by it! I had the help of a smirking Platonov to drill it into my skull, not everyone is so fortunate!

The 'glass being broken from the inside' theory is actually rather ingenuous in its construction; it's also rather ridiculous to think that Amanda and Raffaele could ever think of or accomplish such a thing or would do so instead of just throwing the goddamn rock from the outside anyway.

Other 'indications' police used to suggest the window was broken from the inside was the fact there was a line of glass along the sill right where the outside shutter would be when it was closed; I think that was more likely caused by Rudy Guede closing the shutter behind him when he gained entrance, perhaps to conceal the broken window from potential passers-by.

There's also the claim by the police they didn't see any 'backspray' glass outside the window, but they 'missed' things like the scuff marks as well as the nail-hole which were on their own photographs of the scene and said there were no indications on that wall and thus 'proof' that no one had climbed it. So when they have police testify they walked around back there and didn't see tiny pieces of glass on that leaf-covered ground outside the window and that's their 'proof' of there not being any backspray glass I'm not very convinced of that nor for that matter that any glass would ever have 'backsprayed' back over that relatively wide sill in the first place.

 

[Kaosium]

I think the answer to these questions is no, but I was interested in following up on the issue a bit.

I just realized that if the window was a casement window that opened inward, it would have been possible to break the glass in an inward direction from inside the apartment.

Ah, I cross posted.

I had never seen such a window (or if I did I didn't ever see it pulled in like that and examining windows is not an interest of mine) and thus was utterly defeated by Massei trying to explain what the cops contended.

ETA
Also, this had to be perfectly (or even impossibly--no one has ever shown this could be done) angled as it requires some of the glass going back to the outer shutter (which is closed for this scenario) and the rest out into the room like it would if the glass was broken by a rock from the outside.

 

[davefoc]

[post above]

Thanks for the response, as you can tell I came to realize that the direction that the glass was broken in wouldn't be definitive evidence that the glass was broken from the outside.

As to the rest. Thank you. It seemed like a pretty concise description of the situation to me. The idea that they went outside, found an appropriate rock and decided to fake this break in seems wildly unlikely at best.

There is another issue here. If it was shown that the glass was broken in the inside surface to outside surface direction, the prosecution would have some pretty good evidence that the break in was staged. If the prosecution didn't pursue that did they really believe the break in was staged or were they just looking for plausible deniability for their theory? Kind of like the semen stain they didn't test. If they really thought Sollecito was involved with this crime or that there was really more than one person guilty of this crime would they really not have tested the semen stain?

 

[katy_did]

I'm not suggesting that any assault/rape went on for a significant period of time after the stabbing. However, I do think that it's probable that some sort of sexual contact and assault did take place after the stabbing, while Meredith lay bleeding to death.

I think that for three reasons: 1) I think it likely that Meredith would have reacted as soon as Guede made his sexual intentions clear - but before he got as far as intimate genital contact; 2) there's evidence that Meredith's jeans were removed only after she had been stabbed (she was almost certainly stabbed while she was on all fours facing the wardrobe, but her jeans were likely removed only once she was on her back); 3) there's clear evidence that Meredith's bra was removed after she had been stabbed (the aspirated blood pattern was found both on the bra cup material and on her skin underneath the area that would have been covered by the bra cup).

All of this of course comes with the caveat that only Guede really knows exactly what he did to Meredith that night, and when he did it. And it has little bearing on the judicial aspects of the case (excepting the fact that Guede should have been sentenced more severely for the sexual aspects of his crime). This is only a theory based on the known evidence, as part of a more general search for the truth of what happened in the cottage that night. It may be totally correct, partially correct, or totally incorrect.

I don't think (1) is at all certain: one very common reaction to being threatened with a knife - or just threatened by someone you have little chance of resisting - would be to comply to try to avoid getting hurt, or even to freeze and so not to be physically capable of resisting. That, of course, is why the PGP argument that lack of defence wounds means multiple attackers is so nonsensical: if someone threatens you with a knife, sometimes the best thing to do is exactly what they tell you to do. Women may even submit to being raped if they think it might save their lives. That doesn't mean to say Meredith wouldn't have resisted at a certain point, of course, just that we can't be at all certain when.

On (2), what was the evidence Meredith's jeans were removed after she had been stabbed? I think one of the most convincing things which might indicate she wasn't wearing them at that point is that there was virtually no blood on them, aside from a small amount on the back of the waistband (which fits well with Rudy going through her pockets looking for the keys) and that they were found on the opposite side of the room.

I agree on (3), the spots of blood on top of and under the bra are the one thing which do indicate the timing of the injuries (my theory is that she was stabbed in the process of her bra being removed). Also agree entirely that Rudy is the only one who knows for sure; I don't think we can be 100% certain of any one theory, since there are several ways it could have played out.

 

[katy_did]

Also, this had to be perfectly (or even impossibly--no one has ever shown this could be done) angled as it requires some of the glass going back to the outer shutter (which is closed for this scenario) and the rest out into the room like it would if the glass was broken by a rock from the outside.

That's the crazy thing: the prosecution has never had to demonstrate their unlikely theory. Instead it's the defence who've had to show that the glass pattern matches what you'd see from a rock thrown from outside, and that the window was easy to scale. The prosecution allege something and it's up to the defence to try and prove it false...

I'd like to see a demonstration of the window being broken in the way Massei says it was. My guess would be that breaking a window from such a close distance would leave the person breaking it covered in glass (and maybe cuts) and the glass pattern would be totally different to that in Filomena's room. Hard to see how Amanda and Raffaele didn't leave fragments of glass all round the cottage if they really broke the window that way.

 

[Kaosium]

Thanks for the response, as you can tell I came to realize that the direction that the glass was broken in wouldn't be definitive evidence that the glass was broken from the outside.

As to the rest. Thank you. It seemed like a pretty concise description of the situation to me. The idea that they went outside, found an appropriate rock and decided to fake this break in seems wildly unlikely at best.

Yes, even morso as they had to account for the rock-mark and glass embedded in the outside of the inner shutter, thus they couldn't just have them throw it through the glass by standing really close to the window, they'd have had to angle the inside shutter perfectly so it still absorbs the rock blow and gets the embedded glass but the glass still flies well into the room and also back at the outside shutter with the window cracked enough so someone could get their arm in there to make the throw.

There's a reason the never tried to demonstrate this!

There is another issue here. If it was shown that the glass was broken in the inside surface to outside surface direction, the prosecution would have some pretty good evidence that the break in was staged. If the prosecution didn't pursue that did they really believe the break in was staged or were they just looking for plausible deniability for their theory? Kind of like the semen stain they didn't test. If they really thought Sollecito was involved with this crime or that there was really more than one person guilty of this crime would they really not have tested the semen stain?

My guess is they had so many things they had to account for that indicate the glass was broken from the outside they came up with that theory to allow it to still have been done from the inside (but the glass broken from the outside still) which certainly sounds good when they can say 'the police produced evidence the window was broken from inside the room.'

As for the semen stain, I agree. Somehow Bunnydom United has managed to convince some people that the police not testing the stain somehow makes Raffaele look guiltier because the defense didn't make a larger fuss about it being ignored, when as you point out the real curiosity is they didn't do it as a matter of course.

 

[davefoc]

Yes, even morso as they had to account for the rock-mark and glass embedded in the outside of the inner shutter, thus they couldn't just have them throw it through the glass by standing really close to the window, they'd have had to angle the inside shutter perfectly so it still absorbs the rock blow and gets the embedded glass but the glass still flies well into the room and also back at the outside shutter with the window cracked enough so someone could get their arm in there to make the throw.

....

Are you sure they would have had to have thrown the rock? Couldn't they have just bashed the window with the rock? ETA: I know about the rock mark on the shutter, but I as a little surprised by that. I wasn't sure that a rock thrown from the outside wouldn't lose enough energy just from hitting the glass that it wouldn't leave a mark on the shutter unless the rock was thrown pretty hard.

 

[Kaosium]

That's the crazy thing: the prosecution has never had to demonstrate their unlikely theory. Instead it's the defence who've had to show that the glass pattern matches what you'd see from a rock thrown from outside, and that the window was easy to scale. The prosecution allege something and it's up to the defence to try and prove it false...

I'd like to see a demonstration of the window being broken in the way Massei says it was. My guess would be that breaking a window from such a close distance would leave the person breaking it covered in glass (and maybe cuts) and the glass pattern would be totally different to that in Filomena's room. Hard to see how Amanda and Raffaele didn't leave fragments of glass all round the cottage if they really broke the window that way.

I'd pay money to see such an event! It's revealing that Massei's 'support' for the glass pattern being possible is cherry-picking that line where the forensic expert says something about 'infinite variations,' meaning there's no way to predict with perfection where all the glass would go, Massei uses that to basically suggest anything was possible.

 

[Bill Williams]

That's the crazy thing: the prosecution has never had to demonstrate their unlikely theory. Instead it's the defence who've had to show that the glass pattern matches what you'd see from a rock thrown from outside, and that the window was easy to scale. The prosecution allege something and it's up to the defence to try and prove it false...

I'd like to see a demonstration of the window being broken in the way Massei says it was. My guess would be that breaking a window from such a close distance would leave the person breaking it covered in glass (and maybe cuts) and the glass pattern would be totally different to that in Filomena's room. Hard to see how Amanda and Raffaele didn't leave fragments of glass all round the cottage if they really broke the window that way.

Acc. to Judge Massei and the Italian Supreme Court, this reasoning seems embedded in Italian law. Maybe not written law, but most certainly about who they give the benefit of the doubt.

Judge Massei uses this very reasoning in addressing defence claims that the bra-clasp or the kitchen knife could have received their alleged forensic profiles due to contamination.

Without a word of a lie the following is Massei's rationale for believing Stefanoni that there was no contamination, not in Stefanoni's lab.... and Massei's reasoning was, "She told me."

For some reason that reasoning floats with Machiavelli, as it does with Andrea Vogt.

 

[LondonJohn]

I don't think (1) is at all certain: one very common reaction to being threatened with a knife - or just threatened by someone you have little chance of resisting - would be to comply to try to avoid getting hurt, or even to freeze and so not to be physically capable of resisting. That, of course, is why the PGP argument that lack of defence wounds means multiple attackers is so nonsensical: if someone threatens you with a knife, sometimes the best thing to do is exactly what they tell you to do. Women may even submit to being raped if they think it might save their lives. That doesn't mean to say Meredith wouldn't have resisted at a certain point, of course, just that we can't be at all certain when.

On (2), what was the evidence Meredith's jeans were removed after she had been stabbed? I think one of the most convincing things which might indicate she wasn't wearing them at that point is that there was virtually no blood on them, aside from a small amount on the back of the waistband (which fits well with Rudy going through her pockets looking for the keys) and that they were found on the opposite side of the room.

I agree on (3), the spots of blood on top of and under the bra are the one thing which do indicate the timing of the injuries (my theory is that she was stabbed in the process of her bra being removed). Also agree entirely that Rudy is the only one who knows for sure; I don't think we can be 100% certain of any one theory, since there are several ways it could have played out.

I don't think that a lack of blood on the jeans is any indication at all that they had been removed prior to the stabbing - all the blood loss would have been local to the neck area, and any projected blood from the neck would have been upward (away from the heart), and thus away from the waist and legs. I think that the most likely probability is that Meredith's jeans were only pulled down once she had been stabbed.

In any case, I defer again to the last paragraph of my previous post: all this is mere theorising, and has no relevance to the judicial case. That's why it's not really valid to compare such theorising with the flawed judicial rulings about whether or not Meredith must have been restrained. As you say, it's very common (and well-documented) for people to become passive and compliant when threatened with violence by an assailant holding a weapon, especially where the assailant is clearly more physically dominant.

The point on the restraint issue, therefore, is that it should NEVER be held as an argument for multiple attackers in a judicual context. There quite clearly exists a plausible alternative - that Meredith was controlled by a sole assailant (Guede) who used threats to force her into compliance without the need for physical restraint. Likewise, it's perfectly feasible that the entire sexual assault element was over by the time Meredith was stabbed; my theory is only that - a theory - which I think best fits the evidence and my take on what a woman in Meredith's situation might have done as the crime escalated. But my theory (or, for that matter, the theory of the pre-stab assault) should clearly never be the basis of any judicial rulings, since neither theory is provable to a sufficient degree of comfort.

In the same way, the issue of multiple attackers is one which has competing theories that are both plausible: either a) Meredith was controlled physically by multiple assailants, or b) Meredith was scared and threatened into compliance by Guede alone, without the need for physical restraint. Either could be true. The problem is that the courts (and the pro-guilt community) currently seem to believe that only the first possibility was feasible, and use that to "prove" that there must have been multiple attackers. This, in my view, is arrant nonsense and extremely poor reasoning.

 

[Kaosium]

Are you sure they would have had to have thrown the rock? Couldn't they have just bashed the window with the rock? ETA: I know about the rock mark on the shutter, but I as a little surprised by that. I wasn't sure that a rock thrown from the outside wouldn't lose enough energy just from hitting the glass that it wouldn't leave a mark on the shutter unless the rock was thrown pretty hard.

There's a video of the demonstration of it online, I can dig it up if you wish. The rock hits the inner shutter and blows it open, then drops to the floor right inside the window. The trailing glass and that picked up by the vortex is what goes into the room, the rest bouncing back towards the outside and landing on the interior part and the outside sill.

Come to think of it, Massei might have had the rock used your way and then placed on the ground, ignoring the fragments that suggest it landed there harshly. I don't recall for certain offhand, but I'm sure if Platonov is reading this he's eager to remind me!

 

[katy_did]

I'd pay money to see such an event! It's revealing that Massei's 'support' for the glass pattern being possible is cherry-picking that line where the forensic expert says something about 'infinite variations,' meaning there's no way to predict with perfection where all the glass would go, Massei uses that to basically suggest anything was possible.

Ha, yes good catch. Did the prosecution even introduce a rock-throwing expert of their own? It seems like the defence presented all the evidence, the prosecution said "No that's wrong just because we say it is so there" and then, as you say, Massei made the 'anything is possible' argument to explain why even though the evidence seems to show the rock was thrown from outside, in fact it was thrown with Raffaele standing on Amanda's shoulders while balancing on the window sill doing pirouettes, or whatever his unlikely theory was.

 

[katy_did]

Acc. to Judge Massei and the Italian Supreme Court, this reasoning seems embedded in Italian law. Maybe not written law, but most certainly about who they give the benefit of the doubt.

Judge Massei uses this very reasoning in addressing defence claims that the bra-clasp or the kitchen knife could have received their alleged forensic profiles due to contamination.

Without a word of a lie the following is Massei's rationale for believing Stefanoni that there was no contamination, not in Stefanoni's lab.... and Massei's reasoning was, "She told me."

For some reason that reasoning floats with Machiavelli, as it does with Andrea Vogt.

That sounds pretty similar to the reason he gives for finding Nara credible: if there was no scream and she didn't actually hear it, Massei can think of no reason why she would have spoken about it. So the fact of her saying she heard a scream itself constitutes evidence that she actually did hear it...

 

[Kaosium]

Ha, yes good catch. Did the prosecution even introduce a rock-throwing expert of their own? It seems like the defence presented all the evidence, the prosecution said "No that's wrong just because we say it is so there" and then, as you say, Massei made the 'anything is possible' argument to explain why even though the evidence seems to show the rock was thrown from outside, in fact it was thrown with Raffaele standing on Amanda's shoulders while balancing on the window sill doing pirouettes, or whatever his unlikely theory was.

I don't think the prosecution did introduce an expert on this facet, they just proposed their theory with the weight of their authority and advanced things like the glass lined on the sill, that they didn't find any glass outside the window, and they didn't see the marks of the wall and so forth to support it.

And of course to criticize the ballistics expert as not being specifically trained in 'stone throwing' as you probably recall. I wonder where one goes to get such esoteric credentials?

ETA: the 'wink' smilie has no meaning, I must have hit that accidentally and don't know how to remove it.

 

[Chris_Halkides]

linear versus nonlinear phase

I think that the balance of probability is that the alcohol observed was left over from the previous night. When the body has a high concentration of alcohol, the rate at which it is metabolized or excreted is approximately constant in time, which means that small decreases in the alcohol concentration do not strongly affect the rate. At low concentrations of alcohol, each incremental decrease in the concentration causes the rate at which it is oxidized to fall. In other words the rate is no longer approximately constant in time. Therefore, any model which assumes that the rate is constant will underestimate the time it will take for all of the alcohol to be oxidized or excreted.

 

[katy_did]

I don't think that a lack of blood on the jeans is any indication at all that they had been removed prior to the stabbing - all the blood loss would have been local to the neck area, and any projected blood from the neck would have been upward (away from the heart), and thus away from the waist and legs. I think that the most likely probability is that Meredith's jeans were only pulled down once she had been stabbed.

Except that in this case, we're to believe that Meredith was on her knees when she was stabbed, and that she was in that position long enough to create a pool of blood on the floor which she was then dragged through, leaving marks on the floor. In that case it seems odd that no blood transferred itself to her jeans (must admit though, I do have doubts about the significance of the 'drag marks'). In any case, if lack of blood is no indication that they were removed prior, it's certainly no indication that they were removed after, which you said there was evidence to suggest.

However, overall I do agree with you that either scenario is possible and that it really is impossible to say with certainty either way.

In any case, I defer again to the last paragraph of my previous post: all this is mere theorising, and has no relevance to the judicial case. That's why it's not really valid to compare such theorising with the flawed judicial rulings about whether or not Meredith must have been restrained. As you say, it's very common (and well-documented) for people to become passive and compliant when threatened with violence by an assailant holding a weapon, especially where the assailant is clearly more physically dominant.

The point on the restraint issue, therefore, is that it should NEVER be held as an argument for multiple attackers in a judicual context. There quite clearly exists a plausible alternative - that Meredith was controlled by a sole assailant (Guede) who used threats to force her into compliance without the need for physical restraint. Likewise, it's perfectly feasible that the entire sexual assault element was over by the time Meredith was stabbed; my theory is only that - a theory - which I think best fits the evidence and my take on what a woman in Meredith's situation might have done as the crime escalated. But my theory (or, for that matter, the theory of the pre-stab assault) should clearly never be the basis of any judicial rulings, since neither theory is provable to a sufficient degree of comfort.

In the same way, the issue of multiple attackers is one which has competing theories that are both plausible: either a) Meredith was controlled physically by multiple assailants, or b) Meredith was scared and threatened into compliance by Guede alone, without the need for physical restraint. Either could be true. The problem is that the courts (and the pro-guilt community) currently seem to believe that only the first possibility was feasible, and use that to "prove" that there must have been multiple attackers. This, in my view, is arrant nonsense and extremely poor reasoning.

Yes, completely agree with all of that. It's hard to believe anyone could be so mindbogglingly stupid as to simplistically equate limited defence wounds with multiple attackers, without considering what a person's psychological reactions might be when threatened with a knife. Hard enough to believe when it comes from internet commentators, let alone from a judge in the case. Although I suppose it does fit right in with the 'she was wearing jeans so she must have consented to sex' argument (actually it's remarkably similar reasoning, now I think about it).

One of the half-decent things about the Channel 5 show was that even though they conclude that multiple attackers would've made the murder easier to carry out (well gee, who would've thought?), they did include the counter-argument in the show itself: the expert said that people can either fight or freeze when faced with a knife. For some reason they only took the first consideration into account in the program but at least they did state the second, so that anyone not blinded by bias could see the flaws in the conclusion.

 

[Kaosium]

But in fact, Mignini never proposed any 'ritualistic' nor any 'Halloween-sect-like' scenario for the Meredith murder. There may be well erroneous sources; but none of these sources was in the courtroom, because the trial was hold behind closed doors; and in fact all these sources are British newspapers that seem to be relying on (as they interpret it) a source at La Repubblica, a journalist who himself explicitly states that he is reporting second-hand comments from Il Giornale dell'Umbria.
But when you look at the trial transcripts, there is nothing alike.

As for the Narducci case, I don't know first-hand because I've never read the documents, but I've never heard about a Satanic scenario involving that.

There has been a discussion about satanic scenarios during the MoF trials in Florence, because there were witnesses who brought that in and also in the investigation elments were found suggesting links with with Satanism, they are in the records but they plaid no role in the trials so far.
But I point out that the MoF case is not the Narducci case; Mignini had nothing to do with the MoF investigation and trials.

There was some element linking to Satanism that enetered also the Narduci case, because the Narducci case resulted from the merging of more than one case; the merge was requested by Florence, it was not Mignini's idea. One of the three original investigations (later merged into one) was a case of anonimous phone stalking against a woman in Perugia, which went on for years, by unknown people who called from telephone boxes in Tuscany mentioning Narducci's 'murder' together with 'sexual' and 'satanic' themes. Apart from this, which was obviously an original theme 'intrinsic' to the case, there has never been any 'satanic' scenario in the Narducci investigation.
A 'ritualistic' or sect-like scenario - albeit never formally proposed - is instead something much closer to what investigators hypothesized in the end. The MoF murders apparently were committed with the purpose of collecting fetishes, and such fetishes may have had some ritual or 'magical' use. Suspicions focused on Calamandrei's chemistry and his informal 'clinics', and the people who secretely revolved around those clinics; that thread was investigated independently by Florentine prosecutors. This is anyway only a background, the environment in which the Narducci murder could have developed. The Narducci case was a murder, the motive must have been typical of murders; he wasn't killed in any satanic scenario. He was killed by an accomplice just because he was about to be caught by the police.

Machiavelli, early last summer you told me this:

Now, about the 'satanic ritual', Mignini did not propose any masonic ritual neither! (It was rather Sollecito slanderous book that falsely attributed to Mignini the putting forward a 'masonic' ritual scenario - but I must say this peculiar piece of libel agaisnt Mignini is not new and actually originates from Spezi).

There were no satanic rituals nor masonic rituals in Mignini's scenario.
There was instead a rito sessuale casalingo, a sexual "home-made-rite". Where "home-made" and "rite" are an oximoron, a rethorical statement (because an actual "rite" could not stay together with casalingo ="self-made", "improvised"), and in this context - just as in legal contexts - the word rito means practice.

That was part of a much longer post that I replied to trying to clarify it and didn't get a response. I got the impression you were saying he proposed it was some sort of non-Masonic, non-Satanic but still a rite of some sort that they improvised for the Halloween/All Saint's Day/Day of the Dead/whatever holiday. There's plenty of support out there for something Mignini proposed that was ritualistic. I quoted even John Kercher, who has no reason to misrepresent Mignini, has spoken to him, and who's also a journalist and included it as one of the reasons he thinks Amanda Knox is guilty.

What caused you to change your mind from him saying it was a 'home-made rite' to now saying there was no 'ritualistic' element at all? You are welcome to change your mind, I'm just curious as to why.

 

[Grinder]

I think that the balance of probability is that the alcohol observed was left over from the previous night. When the body has a high concentration of alcohol, the rate at which it is metabolized or excreted is approximately constant in time, which means that small decreases in the alcohol concentration do not strongly affect the rate. At low concentrations of alcohol, each incremental decrease in the concentration causes the rate at which it is oxidized to fall. In other words the rate is no longer approximately constant in time. Therefore, any model which assumes that the rate is constant will underestimate the time it will take for all of the alcohol to be oxidized or excreted.

One drink 18 hours later would require so much alcohol she would have been comatose. It is curious that you are so intent to disregard the evidence or at least try to make any argument to negate the finding.

Had she been that drunk she would have needed to be aided in getting home.

Please provide a cite that indicates how much alcohol would have to be in her system at 4:30 am to still have a full drink equivalent at 9 or 10 pm.

From Brown U


Hours since first drink - Subtract this from BAC
1 .015
2 .030
3 .045
4 .060
5 .075
6 .090

linear through 6 hours but do they know?

She would have started drinking at maybe 10 or 11pm

23 hours later she would be killed. At .015 per hour (a low estimate from others I've seen) that would be .345 of processed BAC

These are the lowest numbers I've seen.

My main question is why are you are so adamant that she didn't have a drink at dinner or after? Why is it so important to you?

If she went to sleep with 5 drinks in her that would be a .217 and that would be above 0.20 where this happens Loss of motor control; must have assistance standing or walking; mental confusion; needs medical assistance.


15 hours later she would not have .43g/l left and 15 hours is only 8 pm.