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

[billyryan]

In my mind, the descriptors "proven correct in quite a few issues" and "prone to hyperbole", if applied to the same individual, would not make me particularly prone to trust his/her judgement in general...

And on this issue in particular, if (s)he is a pro-guilt commentator, I might be inclined to throw the terms "confirmation bias" and "believing what you want to believe" into the mix

Look - I don't have definitive proof on this issue. But it's abundantly clear to me that a reading of the relevant codes and procedures, coupled with a reading of the Supreme Court motivations in this case, leads to the inexorable, objective conclusion that the only thing the SC has struck out is the Hellmann Court's verdict and reasoning. The evidence/testimony from the Hellmann trial remains on the record and admissible in the new appeal.

There are myriad circumstantial(!) reasons to believe this to be the case. Among the more obvious is the fact that the SC asks for the C/V report to be, in essence, "completed" by testing Vechiotti's 36I swab for DNA. Had C/V been thrown out as evidence, then even the swabbing itself would have needed to have been redone - there would be no sample 36I to work with! Added to this is the clear fact that the SC does not dismiss the C/V report in and of itself - rather, it dismisses the way in which (as it sees it) Hellmann's court unquestioningly adopted the C/V report's conclusions.

Anyhow, until and unless there's clear evidence that the C/V report has been invalidated and ruled inadmissible in the new appeal, I will continue to insist that the only logical inference to be drawn from the available facts is that the C/V report stands in its entirety as a piece of evidence. If so, it's now up to the new appeal court to decide whether it favours the testimony of the prosecution experts (and thus accepts Stefanoni's original results as credible and reliable), or whether it accepts C/V's conclusions (and thus rejects Stefanoni's findings). And when it decides, it had better be able to justify its decision to the satisfaction of the Supreme Court

What real room does that give the new appeal court LJ,can they say we do not agree with the findings of the C & V report,we endorse the opinion of the prosecution experts that every possible protocol and safeguard to avoid contamination was observed to make the results reliable and credible,that would be a hard sell to the worlds forensic scientists
Who released the videos of the forensic contamination work to the public,have to admit little miss Stefanoni learned from her mistakes and she, so far anyway, has managed to keep the EDF's and the FSA's safely hidden despite a couple of court orders to turn them over to the defence. There might be a legal obligation to hand over a video of the forensic collection procedures to the defence just like there is to hand over a video of the interrogation and the EDF's but after the forensic videos I think it became in the national interest not to release anything else.
There is a rule in business,whenever there is a customer there will always be a supplier,someone in Perugia has a copy of the interrogations of Amanda Knox Raffaele Solecito and Patrick Lumumba,someone in Rome has copies of the EDF's and the FSA's I keep expecting these to somehow find their way into the public domain

 

[LondonJohn]

There is already a gap there, why Stefi would not open the knife or at least test there makes no sense to me. (picture attached)

It's a total mystery (and another pointer to her incompetence) that she didn't swab the area where the handle meets the blade - given that a) it's a clear gathering point for material, b) there is (as you say) a slight gap visible, and c) it's visibly slightly dirty/tarnished in that area!

It's clear to me that Vecchiotti opened this gap as wide as she could on either side of the blade, by bending the blade, and obtained her samples 36H and 36I by getting the swab in as close under the gap on each side as she could.

 

[acbytesla]

I'm not sure that it could actually be opened either. These sorts of cheap knifes either have the handle injection-moulded around the tang in one piece, or are a two-part plastic handle that is fused (usually using high-frequency sound fusion) around the tang.

My point was merely that the knife handle HAS NOT ever been opened, contrary to some "reports". And that the Carabinieri did not even have the knife in their possession last week, let alone open the handle...

Exactly, maybe if you cut the handle around the hemisphere of the molded handle...maybe, ....maybe, .... maybe.

 

[acbytesla]

There is already a gap there, why Stefi would not open the knife or at least test there makes no sense to me. (picture attached)

How do you open that handle Rose?? Seriously.. The handle is injection molded plastic. There are no screws or rivets that hold it to the blade. I have a few cooking knives like that, although the blades are much better. I'm a kind of guy who takes every almost everything apart. I like to tinker..and I would hardly no where to begin trying to "open" that handle. My personal guess is that blade is fused to that handle. That it is a plastic that was molded to the blade using pressure and heat and it really is glued on. I sure as hell doubt that it's possible to remove it in such a way that you could do it and save the DNA underneath.

Now of course I could be wrong.

 

[LondonJohn]

How do you open that handle Rose?? Seriously.. The handle is injection molded plastic. There are no screws or rivets that hold it to the blade. I have a few cooking knives like that, although the blades are much better. I'm a kind of guy who takes every almost everything apart. I like to tinker..and I would hardly no where to begin trying to "open" that handle. My personal guess is that blade is fused to that handle. That it is a plastic that was molded to the blade using pressure and heat and it really is glued on. I sure as hell doubt that it's possible to remove it in such a way that you could do it and save the DNA underneath.

Now of course I could be wrong.

You're not wrong.

But cutting away the plastic handle with a bandsaw might at least have allowed for a determination of the exact extent of those small gaps. It would have been a messy procedure at best though. And it's possible (though difficult to know with any confidence without actually examining the knife) that it's clear from mere visual inspection that the gap between the blade and the handle is not deep enough to warrant any attempt to saw the handle apart.

Who knows for sure? All we know is that fragrant not-a-real-doctor Stefanoni neglected to even look at the handle/blade join in any proper detail, and that Vecchiotti did at least partially rectify this by trying to get swabs as deep into the joint as she could. Personally, I'm all for doing everything practicably possible to check. After all, if those cracks really were deep recesses, and if they were found to contain credible amounts of Meredith's blood/DNA, then this would be massive evidence against Knox and Sollecito. Of course, I'm minded to believe that none of Meredith's blood/DNA would be found in such a place, since I don't believe the knife had anything to do with the murder. But justice should dictate that something like this ought to be tested if at all possible.

 

[acbytesla]

You're not wrong.

But cutting away the plastic handle with a bandsaw might at least have allowed for a determination of the exact extent of those small gaps. It would have been a messy procedure at best though. And it's possible (though difficult to know with any confidence without actually examining the knife) that it's clear from mere visual inspection that the gap between the blade and the handle is not deep enough to warrant any attempt to saw the handle apart.

Who knows for sure? All we know is that fragrant not-a-real-doctor Stefanoni neglected to even look at the handle/blade join in any proper detail, and that Vecchiotti did at least partially rectify this by trying to get swabs as deep into the joint as she could. Personally, I'm all for doing everything practicably possible to check. After all, if those cracks really were deep recesses, and if they were found to contain credible amounts of Meredith's blood/DNA, then this would be massive evidence against Knox and Sollecito. Of course, I'm minded to believe that none of Meredith's blood/DNA would be found in such a place, since I don't believe the knife had anything to do with the murder. But justice should dictate that something like this ought to be tested if at all possible.

Frankly LJ, it is absurd that anyone is even looking at this knife. So this is where I disagree with you...I'm not really in favor of going farther. Why check only this knife when there were other knives in the cottage? If they aren't going to check those, why would they check this one?

Excuse me for saying this, but this isn't the damn murder weapon and people are intellectually challenged to ever seriously think that it might be.

 

[Grinder]

Look - I don't have definitive proof on this issue. But it's abundantly clear to me that a reading of the relevant codes and procedures, coupled with a reading of the Supreme Court motivations in this case, leads to the inexorable, objective conclusion that the only thing the SC has struck out is the Hellmann Court's verdict and reasoning. The evidence/testimony from the Hellmann trial remains on the record and admissible in the new appeal.

As I said earlier, many here said that the ISC could only rule on legal technicalities but that didn't turn out to be the case. I agree with YY that we have no clear "evidence" that C&V will be fully considered. Since the only thing that was thrown out was not supposed to be part of their purview, I'm not counting on it being in. Since the ISC said contamination must be proven and contamination was at the heart of C&V what will that leave?

 

[Grinder]

Are you now saying that CV didn't find starch on the knife??

Tesla I'm consistently saying that no one found, said, implied, alluded to or in any said that the DNA found by Stefanoni was starch except Candace.

Of course everybody knows that starch was found on the knife.

What could possibly have you so confused?

The finding of starch was only of minor interest in that the knife had been described as very clean by Volturno or whoever grabbed the knife.

 

[acbytesla]

Tesla I'm consistently saying that no one found, said, implied, alluded to or in any said that the DNA found by Stefanoni was starch except Candace.

Of course everybody knows that starch was found on the knife.

What could possibly have you so confused?

The finding of starch was only of minor interest in that the knife had been described as very clean by Volturno or whoever grabbed the knife.

I'm not confused, but you seem to be making a mountain out of a mole hill with this game of words. I would love to meet you Grinder, because you are one stubborn old goat.

 

[Charlie Wilkes]

I don't think anyone here disputes that the DNA work done by Stefanoni on the knife in particular was not acceptable for any court in the world.

But that has nothing to do with finding starch on the knife

The claim of the defense has always been that Amanda's DNA was on the knife handle because she used it as a kitchen utensil, it was not a murder weapon that was carefully cleaned after the crime, and what showed up in Rep 36B was an artifact of sloppy lab work.

The presence of vegetable starch on the blade, and the absence of human cells, tends to confirm that.

If your inclination is to reverse the burden of proof by noting that it might have been used to prepare food after the murder, then you have missed your calling. You should be an Italian judge.

 

[LondonJohn]

As I said earlier, many here said that the ISC could only rule on legal technicalities but that didn't turn out to be the case. I agree with YY that we have no clear "evidence" that C&V will be fully considered. Since the only thing that was thrown out was not supposed to be part of their purview, I'm not counting on it being in. Since the ISC said contamination must be proven and contamination was at the heart of C&V what will that leave?

Ugghhhh....... "You wouldn't let it lie!" (for all the Vic and Bob fans out there...)

The Supreme Court ruled on HELLMANN'S COURT'S ASSESSMENT OF THE DNA EVIDENCE, not on the C/V report itself. The SC didn't say "The C/V report is rubbish and should be disregarded". The SC DID say words to the effect that "Hellmann's court erred in uncritically accepting the conclusions of the C/V report". Do you see the difference?

Let me try to give you yet another example. This one's not hypothetical. Remember Kokomani's testimony in the Massei trial? Clearly (to any rational observer), Kokomani was/is nuts, and as such is utterly unreliable.

Now, suppose that Massei had accepted Kokomani's version of events (remember the olive throwing and the "bin bags" that transmogrified into Knox, Sollecito and Guede?) and used Kokomani as his main reason to convict. The SC would almost certainly (if it had got that far) said that it was unlawful to convict on this testimony. But - and her comes the important part - that wouldn't mean that Kokomani's testimony was struck from the record for the retrial. His testimony would still stand, as indeed it has done throughout the real trial process that's currently underway. If prosecutors chose to make arguments in the new appeal based on Kokomani's testimony, they could do so.

I'll repeat, for the last time: The Supreme Court does not and cannot throw out facts, evidence or testimony (provided that those facts, evidence and testimony were lawfully obtained). The Supreme Court can only throw out judgements and motivations. The C/V report stands as evidence, and is admissible in the new appeal trial. It is one of the pieces of evidence upon which the new court will base its verdict, and will no doubt be one of the pieces of evidence that the defence refers to heavily in its arguments before the court.

 

[Grinder]

The exact mechanism of contamination has yet to be proven in the Farah Jama, Jaidyn Leskie, or Lukis Anderson cases. There was a case in England (the details escape me) where a route of contamination was at least proposed and plausible (it had to do with a particular kind of equipment being reused that should not have been). But I strongly doubt that a mechanism of contamination is determined in the majority of cases. Dr. Donald Riley wrote, “When contamination occurs there is rarely any way to confirm how it happened.” The argument that contamination must be proved suggests an analogy: that doctors should demand that the patient prove the exact moment at which he or she became infected before the doctor commences treatment.

In his 2010 report on the Farah Jama case, Former Australian Supreme Court Judge Frank Vincent wrote (p. 24), “Precisely how it [contamination] may have happened cannot be determined as the deposition of the minute quantity of material involved could have occurred in a number of ways. It is possible to speculate about the probability of transference through various mechanisms, but ultimately pointless to do so.”

I guess I don't get exactly why you responded to me with the above but I totally think that proving contamination is ass-backwards. They clearly need to show that the handling and testing at every stage reduced the chance of contamination to an acceptable level which should be very very low.

My concern is that ISC said they agreed with Novelli which to a large extent wipes out C&V. I fear that the order to test the C&V genetic material was in the hope of finding the confirmation old Thoughtless said would be as good as a second test.

Will this new court accept C&V without proof of contamination? I don't see any way that the defense can prove it.

 

[Grinder]

Ugghhhh....... "You wouldn't let it lie!" (for all the Vic and Bob fans out there...)

The Supreme Court ruled on HELLMANN'S COURT'S ASSESSMENT OF THE DNA EVIDENCE, not on the C/V report itself. The SC didn't say "The C/V report is rubbish and should be disregarded". The SC DID say words to the effect that "Hellmann's court erred in uncritically accepting the conclusions of the C/V report". Do you see the difference?

I UNDERSTAND THAT THE ISC DID SAY THAT THE C&V REPORT WAS IN ERROR BY NOT IDENTIFYING THE SOURCE OF THE CONTAMINATION> DO YOU UNDERSTAND THAT EVISCERATES THEIR CONCLUSIONS?

As much as you bluster I'm not convinced that this court must accept C&V just as Hellmann didn't accept Curatolo. So even if C&V is in the record it may be moot.

I'll repeat, for the last time: The Supreme Court does not and cannot throw out facts, evidence or testimony (provided that those facts, evidence and testimony were lawfully obtained). The Supreme Court can only throw out judgements and motivations. The C/V report stands as evidence, and is admissible in the new appeal trial. It is one of the pieces of evidence upon which the new court will base its verdict, and will no doubt be one of the pieces of evidence that the defence refers to heavily in its arguments before the court.

Really weren't you one of those saying they could only rule on legal matters versus judgment calls?

Just to be clear I never said that C&V wouldn't be in the record I only said I would like to see a source I trusted to be accurate and knowledgeable on Italian law,

 

[acbytesla]

Will this new court accept C&V without proof of contamination? I don't see any way that the defense can prove it.

That is the quandary. Wouldn't you also think that the defense would almost certainly need to have the EDF files to have even a remote possibility of accomplishing this feat?

Frankly I don't think even that would help. How and when precisely was 70 trillion of a gram of something you can't see and even if you could see it, couldn't differentiate from another person's DNA come to find itself in a particular location? You'd need superpowers.

 

[Kaosium]

This is nitpicking over nuances in Candace's reporting


Yes it is. After tons of posts by Bill complaining about Vogt and "I was there", I pointed out a recent mistake made by Candace that I couldn't be just a mistake. I think clearly if Vogt is the PR agent for Mignini that Candace is a PR agent for Knox and to a lesser extent Raf.

I can't find the "I was there" recent story but if Bill says it's there, it must be.

Vogt has been busy with all sorts of projects and may not parse the whole wiki she links to, which is unfortunate but no more evil than Dempsey's 'starch", Dr No etc. IMO.

Do you realize there's significantly more reason to believe that if there was anything on that blade where she swabbed it for the sample that it was some sort of starch as opposed to cellular material from Meredith? There is absolutely no reason to believe that electropherogram was generated from anything of Meredith's on the knife. She skipped those steps and lied about one of them in court.

There's two steps in the process necessary to determine that. The first is the Cytological Analysis. That's the first step of FBI lab process where if it doesn't register, the evidence is returned to the submitter as you can see on page 8 of that FBI special report (page 22 of the PDF) that I've linked numerous times, most recently in a post to Davefoc. Stefanoni skipped that step, or more precisely simply 'presumed' there was a "haemetic substance" there. It makes one wonder what made her 'presume' there was something there at all, especially being as I just realized I'd misremembered something, I thought she said she could see something, I mixed that up with her saying she could see the 'striation.' That was an error, on sample 36B she couldn't see anything outside that as she said in court¹.

So after getting her two negatives on blood tests, which ought to have been convincing evidence that it wasn't a 'haemetic substance,' she blithely goes on to still 'presume' that it was “exfoliated cells” and fails to attempt to identify it. Drs. Conti and Vecchiotti become excitable at this point, as you can see below:

It must be emphasized that no laboratory tests were performed to detect biological material of a non-haematic nature on any of the samples analyzed.

It is considered that it would have been necessary to proceed to morphological tests to identify cells which might have been present, by means of colouration with one of the reagents commonly employed in histology (hematoxylin). Such a test, quick and easy to carry out, would have required a minimum quantity of material and would not in any way have compromised further laboratory testing, but could have clarified the nature of the material removed from the item under examination.

Despite the negative result of the blood identification test and the failure to carry out cell identification tests (and therefore the failure to identify the material removed from Exhibit 36) the Technical Consultant hypothesized the presence of “presumed exfoliated cells” on the material sampled from the knife handle (traces A-D-F) and of “presumed biological material” of another nature (presumably blood, considering the tests aimed at the detection of haematic peroxidases) on the material sampled from the blade (samples B-C-E-G).

The hypotheses formulated by the Technical Consultant about the nature of the material analyzed are wholly arbitrary in that they are not supported by any scientifically objective confirmation.

emphasis retained

That's known as reading the riot act! She has taken two blood tests and gotten negatives but still 'presumes' it's something from the murder and never bothers to try to find out what it was. Therefore there's no reason whatsoever to assume there was anything on the knife, and two big reasons to think there was no blood traces at all.

The second way of establishing that there might be something from the knife in the sample is the quantification step. That's where she measures what's in her sample to determine the amount of DNA there might be in it.

Here the story gets even better! Stefanoni got a 'too low' reading, which is the same as a zero, but recorded a positive for this sample (36B). She did this test with a device known as a 'Qubit Fluorometer' which failed to register that there was anything in the sample she was testing. Never fear though, there's another way she could have established that, a process known as 'Real Time PCR.' Inexplicably she failed to perform Real Time PCR on sample B. She performed it on samples D-E-F-G, but not on 'A' which was the handle where Amanda's DNA was found from cooking, nor 'B' and 'C' which were the samples she took from the knife blade.

If possible, that caused the independent experts to get even more emphatic, she'd said in court she'd performed Real Time PCR and got a value of 2-300 picograms but that simply wasn't true:

From this, it can be inferred that what is reported on page 78 of the RTIGF (and confirmed in the GUP questioning, page 178, where it is claimed that quantification was performed using Real Time and that quantification of the Y [chromosome] was not carried out) is not consistent with what was performed in reality. In fact, the tables show that quantification of the DNA extracted from all the samples taken from Exhibit 36 was carried out using the 770 Sequence Detector ABI PRISM™ equipment (Applied Biosystems); in contrast, it is apparent from the attached cards that the aforementioned method was only performed on samples D-E-F-G. A different method was employed for samples A-B-C using the Qubit Fluorometer™, and not mentioned in the final Technical Report, as would have been due and correct.

Regarding the interpretation of the quantification, it should be noted that on page 78, the following is stated: “the samples testing positive to quantification (samples A and B) were subjected to amplification and subsequent capillary electrophoresis…”.

As regards the quantification of sample A (knife handle) the results obtained with the Qubit Fluorimeter™ show that the concentration of DNA in this sample was equal to 0.08 ng/μl. Taking into account that the “quantity of extract” was 50 μl (c.f. SAL), and multiplying 0.08 ng/μl x 50 μl, the total [amount] of DNA was equal to 4 ng: certainly a significant quantity, which allowed sample A to be considered positive to quantification.

On the other hand, it is not possible to comprehend the criteria adopted in the assessment of the positive quantification result for sample B and the negative result for sample C, given that the same result, “too low”, was obtained for both samples: that is, a value which must be considered not only below the sensitivity threshold of the Fluorimeter indicated by the manual (DNA concentrations equal to 0.2 ng/μl), but below 0.08 ng/μl, a value which the Fluorimeter detected for sample A.

Nor is it comprehensible, considering the negative results on sample B, what Dr. Stefanoni reported during the GUP questioning (page 178) where she stated that the DNA in sample B, quantified with Real Time PCR (it is recalled that such quantification as confirmed during the hearing was never carried out or, at least, no documentation was provided to support this claim), was “in the order of some hundreds of picograms”, a value which does not appear in any of the documents provided to us (SAL, Fluorimeter report, Real Time report, RTIGF).

emphasis retained

In other words she failed to show that there was ever anything on the knife and then failed to show there was ever anything in the sample. There is (quite literally!) no reason to think there was ever any human cellular material on the blade of the knife, or for that matter that it was in the sample itself when she tried to extract it, and definite reasons to think there was never blood on that blade when she (and they) tested it. All she ever produced was an electropherogram for which there is no connection to the sample she took which in turn has no connection to the knife if it ever had any human cellular material on it (outside Amanda's on and near the handle) in the first place, which is dubious being as they tested in the exact same spot (which she had failed to do with anything but for blood) and found no human cellular material² just 'inorganic debris.' Like dirt or something.

Therefore if Candace Dempsey (or anyone else) says in passing something about them finding starch or something they have much better reason to believe so than any assumption that there was ever anything of Meredith's actually on the knife. There actually was starch on the knife which Stefanoni might have swabbed off, there is numerous reasons to think there was never anything of Meredith's that actually came off the knife, and given the opportunity to show there was with the routine steps of the DNA analysis process she not only failed to do so she misrepresented what she had done and tried to hide it, something that continues to this day.

The actual objective position on the knife is 'there's utterly no reason to think it was ever involved in the murder and a number of very good reasons to think it wasn't and everyone should look askance at the lab and prosecution which tried to pretend it was.' Candace Dempsey saying it was rye bread (or whatever) is a whole lot closer to that than anyone who fails to acknowledge that truth and is a decent guess as to what might have been there if there was ever anything at all.

Your claim that one little line of CD's is the same as Andrea Vogt linking to a disinformation site is something people like Kevin Lowe (who remembers the names of these better than I!) might call a 'false equivalence' or Bill might start in on something about noticing 'the mote in CD's eye but missing the beam in Andrea Vogt's.'

Would you like me to go to that site she linked and see what it says about the knife? You can prove me wrong if they acknowledge that there's no reason to think Meredith's DNA was ever on the blade but there was all sorts of starch and inorganic debris on it showing yet again the knife was not subjected to any thorough cleaning, but there is reason to believe Amanda cut bread with it. Thus saying that if Stefanoni found anything it was that is better supported!




¹

(G.U.P hearing on 04.10.08, pages 17-18: “with regard to sample A, nothing was visible; however, our experience and common sense led us to collect [a sample] there…the [location] of sample B was not just chance…the sample was taken at that point because, again only from a visual inspection, that is, with no instrument…streaks were visible to the naked eye”. Court of Assizes (record of the 23.05.09 hearing, page 81): “these scratches were the only element which could, so to speak, guide me in a sample which otherwise was completely random, as happened subsequently; the other samples which were taken from the knife, therefore I’m referring to…also to C, which in fact was sampled at the same time as A and B, but also in particular those which followed, E and G, were done more or less in a random manner because there was no fact, no element which would have led me to take a sample at this point, say, rather than another”.

Court of Assizes (record of the hearing on 23.05.09), page 94): “sample B was taken at this point on the basis that no significant biological trace was visible, so to speak, to the naked eye. [Sample] A was taken at that point, naturally on the handle, as also with D and F, with the intention of possibly finding DNA from the person who had handled that weapon [arma]“.

²

B: Sample presents debris of inorganic nature. No cellular material is present.

 

[Dan O.]

Tesla I'm consistently saying that no one found, said, implied, alluded to or in any said that the DNA found by Stefanoni was starch except Candace.

Of course everybody knows that starch was found on the knife.

What could possibly have you so confused?

The finding of starch was only of minor interest in that the knife had been described as very clean by Volturno or whoever grabbed the knife.

It's show and tell time Grinder. Show us a photo of the spec that Stefanoni found and tell us what you think it looks like.

 

[acbytesla]

Do you realize there's significantly more reason to believe that if there was anything on that blade where she swabbed it for the sample that it was some sort of starch as opposed to cellular material from Meredith? There is absolutely no reason to believe that electropherogram was generated from anything of Meredith's on the knife. She skipped those steps and lied about one of them in court.

There's two steps in the process necessary to determine that. The first is the Cytological Analysis. That's the first step of FBI lab process where if it doesn't register, the evidence is returned to the submitter as you can see on page 8 of that FBI special report (page 22 of the PDF) that I've linked numerous times, most recently in a post to Davefoc. Stefanoni skipped that step, or more precisely merely did her blood tests and when she got negatives simply 'presumed' there was still a "haemetic substance" there with no evidence whatsoever that there was, and two blood tests saying there wasn't. It makes one wonder what made her 'presume' there was something there, especially being as I just realized I'd misremembered something, I thought she said she could see something, I mixed that up with her saying she could see the 'striation.' That was an error, on sample 36B she couldn't see anything outside that as she said in court¹.

So after getting her two negatives on blood tests, which ought to have been convincing evidence that it wasn't a 'haemetic substance,' she blithely goes on to still 'presume' that it was and fails to attempt to identify it. Drs. Conti and Vecchiotti become excitable at this point, as you can see below:


That's known as reading the riot act! She has taken two blood tests and gotten negatives but still 'presumes' it's blood and never bothers to try to find if it was something else. Therefore there's no reason whatsoever to assume there was anything on the knife, and two big reasons to think there was no blood traces at all.

The second way of establishing that there might be something from the knife in the sample is the quantification step. That's where she measures what's in her sample to determine the amount of DNA there might be in it.

Here the story gets even better! Stefanoni got a 'too low' reading, which is the same as a zero, but recorded a positive for this sample (36B0. She did this test with a device known as a 'Qubit Fluorometer' which failed to register that there was anything in the sample she was testing. Never fear though, there's another way she could have established that, a process known as 'Real Time PCR.' Inexplicably she failed to perform Real Time PCR on sample B. She performed it on samples D-E-F-G, but not on 'A' which was the handle where Amanda's DNA was found from cooking, nor 'B' and 'C' which were the samples she took from the knife blade.

This is what makes me want to throw Stefanoni out the proverbial window. It is also what makes me think she is a flat out liar and will say whatever is needed and requested by the prosecutors. IMO, This is why she was promoted.

Can you explain Kaosium why a DNA technician going through the process of his job, doing the same test over and over and over again on countless samples, would go off the reservation and change their process for just these two tests?

Looking for a change of pace, so she did it differently?? Does not make sense to me. Is it possible that I'm missing something??

 

[RandyN]

This is what makes me want to throw Stefanoni out the proverbial window. It is also what makes me think she is a flat out liar and will say whatever is needed and requested by the prosecutors. IMO, This is why she was promoted.

Can you explain Kaosium why a DNA technician going through the process of his job, doing the same test over and over and over again on countless samples, would go off the reservation and change their process for just these two tests?

Looking for a change of pace, so she did it differently?? Does not make sense to me. Is it possible that I'm missing something??

Stefanoni has come into several courts and has been less then forthcoming as well as outright lied about several matters. She will tell you she forgot certain facts that she clearly stated in court but that were later proved to be wrong. All the while withholding and attempts at sneaking control data sheets in the court record prop up my contention that she along with Mignini are not just average liars but a worse liar who hold a high public position that demands complete honesty and that goes to extreme measures to avoid even the appearance of an unfair conflict of interest. But I fear that Italians have no understanding of even the concept of that. Conflict of interest seems to be the norm...

Why the defendants lawyers are not bringing any matters about the malfeasance of several actors in the prosecution case is beyond me. Novelli simply does not get to declare things that clearly go against even his own words in published matters. So request a shot at Novelli. Pin him down about Stefanonis methodology.

Somehow there must be a way to show Stefanoni and the prosecution "experts" are grossly wrong especially in the fake science they are trying to sell. Its not even close...and yet it remains argued as if it is. And like Grinder I feel nothing no matter how insane is beyond any of these judges... Rule out C and V? Sure why not? Have you watched this case? Its as if everyone are morons but with a God complex.

Smoke and mirrors are one thing but they twist the story so badly with the hope everyone is distracted by these slight of hand maneuvers...then they proclaim any BS they wish and move on as if it is accepted as a fact. Crazy is the following Italian logic...you must prove contamination but we refuse to give you the data that would show contamination therefore there is no contamination but you are free to prove it...etc. And they do this with a straight face which indicates to me that someone is dishonest or crazy or both. Add in a couple of whack job reporters and you can fool the whole world.

 

[Kaosium]

This is what makes me want to throw Stefanoni out the proverbial window. It is also what makes me think she is a flat out liar and will say whatever is needed and requested by the prosecutors. IMO, This is why she was promoted.

Can you explain Kaosium why a DNA technician going through the process of his job, doing the same test over and over and over again on countless samples, would go off the reservation and change their process for just these two tests?

Looking for a change of pace, so she did it differently?? Does not make sense to me. Is it possible that I'm missing something??

I don't know, but it's damned strange, isn't it? Personally I think that Financial Times article pretty much spells out how it goes sometimes in Italy. They can pluck a knife randomly out of a drawer, claim it has the DNA of the victim on it as well as the accused and its up to the jury to decide; it's not like there's any consequences if it turns out to be an obvious case of contamination. They can go 'Oopsie! Guess we need more in the budget for processing LT/LCN DNA now, and maybe a little remedial training!'

Or they can just blame the messenger.

 

[acbytesla]

Stefanoni has come into several courts and has been less then forthcoming as well as outright lied about several matters. She will tell you she forgot certain facts that she clearly stated in court but that were later proved to be wrong. All the while withholding and attempts at sneaking control data sheets in the court record prop up my contention that she along with Mignini are not just average liars but a worse liar who hold a high public position that demands complete honesty and that goes to extreme measures to avoid even the appearance of an unfair conflict of interest. But I fear that Italians have no understanding of even the concept of that. Conflict of interest seems to be the norm...

Why the defendants lawyers are not bringing any matters about the malfeasance of several actors in the prosecution case is beyond me. Novelli simply does not get to declare things that clearly go against even his own words in published matters. So request a shot at Novelli. Pin him down about Stefanonis methodology.

Somehow there must be a way to show Stefanoni and the prosecution "experts" are grossly wrong especially in the fake science they are trying to sell. Its not even close...and yet it remains argued as if it is. And like Grinder I feel nothing no matter how insane is beyond any of these judges... Rule out C and V? Sure why not? Have you watched this case? Its as if everyone are morons but with a God complex.

Smoke and mirrors are one thing but they twist the story so badly with the hope everyone is distracted by these slight of hand maneuvers...then they proclaim any BS they wish and move on as if it is accepted as a fact. Crazy is the following Italian logic...you must prove contamination but we refuse to give you the data that would show contamination therefore there is no contamination but you are free to prove it...etc. And they do this with a straight face which indicates to me that someone is dishonest or crazy or both. Add in a couple of whack job reporters and you can fool the whole world.

Her use of the haematic without confirming tests, her refusal to turn over the EDF files, her declaration that Luminol stains with negative TMB tests were blood, the list goes on and on. I really am not sure who is worse, Mignini or her. The part of me that loves science has caused me to believe it is Stefanoni.

I'm not really sure it is a good idea to go after Stefanoni ...at least not during the trial. As much as I think Stef is a fraud, I don't think it is wise to poke the system. Amanda doesn't deserve to be a martyr for Italian judicial reform.