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

[acbytesla]

I don't know, I think there are unfortunately a lot of people out there who think that Amanda (it's usually Amanda) knows something, even if the evidence for murder is a bit dubious. To those people, conviction for being present and staging the crime scene, but acquittal for the murder itself - based not on innocence, but on there not being enough evidence to convict - might seem like justice. Amanda's 'confession' in particular leads a lot of people to think that while she may not be guilty of murder, she was certainly there at the time.

The motive would be that they let Rudy in and so felt responsible, that they worried they might be blamed if they went to the police (because Rudy fled, leaving them at the murder scene) and perhaps that they were high and not thinking straight anyway. Once they'd committed to that course of action it was too late to back out. Plus, the court could say, maybe they were involved in the murder - we just can't prove it.

Obviously I don't think the above is what happened, I'm just considering the different ways the jury might interpret the results of the knife test. On the one hand, I don't think it can leave things unchanged - the knife most likely won't be considered the murder weapon. On the other, if you consider the rest of the evidence to be valid but disregard the knife, what are you left with? Evidence that they were in the house, but no reliable evidence that they were in the room itself. So I do wonder if they might try to craft some sort of in-between verdict based on reasonable doubt. At the moment I'd say there's maybe a 40% chance of acquittal, 40% chance of a compromise verdict, and 20% chance of conviction, although it's still really hard to be sure.

A lot of people are stupid. I mean really stupid. For years the Bush administration alluded to a connection of Iraq to 9-11 and despite an overwhelming evidence that all the hijackers were from Saudi Arabia, Yemen and Egypt more than half of US citizens were blaming Iraq.

A lot of people want to blame someone for this crime and the Italians made Amanda out to be the villain for the crime. Rudy has become this faceless forgotten creature. These people really want the villain in their mind to pay for the crime.

As for what the court is thinking...I'm done guessing. I learned my lesson with the ISC. I'm hopeful that the Florence court is sane and will make the right decision, but I don't know and speculating will only drive me crazy. But feel free to guess, I'll keep reading.

 

[Dan O.]

Cracking the knife open wouldn't be that difficult. The plastic resists cracking because it is playable. Get it cold enough and it will shatter like glass. Keep the knife cold and score it along the seam with a sharp blade. Work this seam with a sharp chisel and a crack will form splitting the handle in half.

I also agree that there is nothing of interest inside. The only thing that needs to be cracked open at this point is the heads of those that continue to insist that this knife is the murder weapon.

 

[snook1]

It's interesting. There are claims that RIS is testing today "another profile" and that it's damning for Knox and Sollecito that so far there are no leaks about the results of today's testing.

 

[LondonJohn]

It's interesting. There are claims that RIS is testing today "another profile" and that it's damning for Knox and Sollecito that so far there are no leaks about the results of today's testing.

Where do you think the "damning for Knox and Sollecito" spin is coming from...?

As I pointed out before, Vecchiotti had already identified male DNA in 36I, at minute low-template quantities (much lower than the other low-template DNA on that sample). Given that Knox is not male, it's a given that there must be at least one other DNA contributor to that sample.

However, it's clear that the biggest contributor to the sample was Knox (since that was the first profile found in testing), and that even this profile is at ultra-low-template levels. Therefore, any further profiles - even if they are identified - will be at even-more-ultra-low-template levels. At these sorts of levels, we're getting well beyond the low template standards that have been deemed admissible in various jurisdictions around the world - we're talking here about a different ballgame again: super-ultra-low-template DNA. It's unlikely that any court would accept such evidence, especially when quite obviously there's been such a massive breach of protocols and safeguards.

My guess is that Sollecito's DNA might be found at extremely low-template levels. My working assumption is that neither the DNA of Meredith nor the DNA of any other unknown person will be found on the sample.

 

[LondonJohn]

A point worth noting among all discussion around opening the knife handle is this:

Given that the prosecution believe the knife to have been used in the murder of Meredith Kercher, and that it forms one of the key planks of their argument linking Knox and Sollecito to the murder, why didn't the police/prosecutors make sure that every conceivable test could be performed on the knife?

In other words, why didn't either a) any of the policemen who saw the knife, or b) the PM who saw the knife, or c) not-a-real-doctor Stefanoni who examined and tested the knife, not take a close look at the knife and immediately see that an obvious place to test for evidence would be the crack where the blade meets the handle? I mean, wouldn't that have been just a glaringly obvious thing to do? You're looking for evidence linking this knife to the murder (and to the suspects), and yet you CHOOSE not to test a clearly-promising area for blood/genetic evidence?

That's what stuns me most about this knife handle issue. It's not what is and isn't happening now. It's what didn't happen in late 2007 and early 2008. Why wouldn't the police and PM have wanted to do everything conceivable at that time to try to garner probative evidence from the knife? Heck, the fact that Stefanoni didn't even bother to swab the area close to the blade/handle joint, let alone consider opening the handle, is a damning indictment of her ineptitude in itself.

 

[snook1]

^^
Yes, they can spin it all they want and they do. I won't be surprised if the the tiny trace can't be attributed to anyone.

 

[smkovalinksy]

It's interesting. There are claims that RIS is testing today "another profile" and that it's damning for Knox and Sollecito that so far there are no leaks about the results of today's testing.

Yes, and especially as TJMK made so much of Vogt's tweet about it on Friday; yet nothing whatsoever in Italian news today. Probably was much ado about nothing.

 

[Bill Williams]

A point worth noting among all discussion around opening the knife handle is this:

Given that the prosecution believe the knife to have been used in the murder of Meredith Kercher, and that it forms one of the key planks of their argument linking Knox and Sollecito to the murder, why didn't the police/prosecutors make sure that every conceivable test could be performed on the knife?

In other words, why didn't either a) any of the policemen who saw the knife, or b) the PM who saw the knife, or c) not-a-real-doctor Stefanoni who examined and tested the knife, not take a close look at the knife and immediately see that an obvious place to test for evidence would be the crack where the blade meets the handle? I mean, wouldn't that have been just a glaringly obvious thing to do? You're looking for evidence linking this knife to the murder (and to the suspects), and yet you CHOOSE not to test a clearly-promising area for blood/genetic evidence?

That's what stuns me most about this knife handle issue. It's not what is and isn't happening now. It's what didn't happen in late 2007 and early 2008. Why wouldn't the police and PM have wanted to do everything conceivable at that time to try to garner probative evidence from the knife? Heck, the fact that Stefanoni didn't even bother to swab the area close to the blade/handle joint, let alone consider opening the handle, is a damning indictment of her ineptitude in itself.

I can only return to my own small-minded conspiracy about this.....

The knife, at collection, was never intended to make it to trial.

Here's Raffaele's account of the knife's collection, Honor Bound, p. 64.

Then I watched them pull the place apart. In the kitchen, where I was standing, they went through the trash and sniffed through the cleaning products. When Finzi came across a drawer full of kitchen knives, he called Chiacchiera over immediately. He pulled out the first knife that came to hand, a large chapping knife with an eight-inch blade.

"Will this knife do?" Finzi asked Chiacchiera?

"Yes, yes, it's great," came the answer.

Much later, in court, Finzi made no secret of the fact that this was simply a random pick. He had no reason to select such a knife. He hadn't been given any specifics on the murder weapon from the coroner's report, or anywhere else, and had nothing to go on other than what he called his "investigative intuition."

My suspicious little mind holds that on the first day this knife was not intended to link Amanda to the crime. It was to show Raffaele in the most gaudy way possible the length they would go to link him to the crime.

And when Raffaele (eventually) did not budge from "we're both innocent", and has held that to this day, that knife then was pressed into service as courtroom evidence.

I also small-mindedly think that Stefanoni's analysis of the knife was tailored, really, so that her results could go either way. If Raffaele had ratted out Amanda, and some future mirror-universe-FOA needed to debunk Raffaele's tales of Knox's guilt; with the mirror-universe-FOA's making copious reference to that knife!.....

...... it would have been Mignini and company perhaps joining in with the mirror-universe-FOAs saying that Stefanoni's analysis really means nothing. It would have been Mignini entering evidence in court that it had been starch on the blade!

And both prosecution AND defence in that mirror-universe would have stonewalled the tests on that knife at all costs; just like at Rudy's trial in the real-universe no one contested the multiple attacker scenario - not prosecution and certainly not Rudy's lawyers!

That knife is very flexible when one considers it's value as "evidence".

Reminds me of the joke where an unemployed accountant is desperate for a job. After many interview failures, he's interviewed by a Mafia boss; who needs an accountant to both keep track of, as well as hide, his ill gotten gains.

The Mafia boss only has one question at interview to the accountant, "How much is 2 + 2?"

The accountant says, "How much do you need it to be?"

He's hired. Welcome to the role this knife plays in this miscarriage.

 

[Bill Williams]

It's interesting. There are claims that RIS is testing today "another profile" and that it's damning for Knox and Sollecito that so far there are no leaks about the results of today's testing.

Yes, and especially as TJMK made so much of Vogt's tweet about it on Friday; yet nothing whatsoever in Italian news today. Probably was much ado about nothing.

And like just about everything else from Vogt or Mad-Pete, you probably won't be hearing this again.

Is there ANY question that Andrea Vogt is part of the guilty-spin campaign which is currently threatening to collapse Twitter?

 

[snook1]

Vogt is just awful. I exchanged few emails with her couple of weeks ago and she was eager to reply until I asked why she's reporting about the case in the way that suggests she's not neutral. I was nice and polite. She never wrote me back.

 

[katy_did]

A lot of people are stupid. I mean really stupid. For years the Bush administration alluded to a connection of Iraq to 9-11 and despite an overwhelming evidence that all the hijackers were from Saudi Arabia, Yemen and Egypt more than half of US citizens were blaming Iraq.

A lot of people want to blame someone for this crime and the Italians made Amanda out to be the villain for the crime. Rudy has become this faceless forgotten creature. These people really want the villain in their mind to pay for the crime.

As for what the court is thinking...I'm done guessing. I learned my lesson with the ISC. I'm hopeful that the Florence court is sane and will make the right decision, but I don't know and speculating will only drive me crazy. But feel free to guess, I'll keep reading.

I think it's also that a lot of people just don't want to look into it too deeply, so they see "she knows something" as a reasonable half-way position to take. Probably the same wilful ignorance informing the other positions you mention, come to think of it.

You're probably wise not to speculate - pretty much nothing would surprise me at this point:

 

[Bill Williams]

Vogt is just awful. I exchanged few emails with her couple of weeks ago and she was eager to reply until I asked why she's reporting about the case in the way that suggests she's not neutral. I was nice and polite. She never wrote me back.

My opinion only, but her lack of neutrality is not bothersome, really. Everyone has, and perhaps should have their own take on the facts.

What bothers me is the way she massages the facts, always with a view to protecting the original prosecutor and his case; even when shown otherwise.

In the current guilter Twitter-PR Campaign, Vogt is Person Zero.

 

[Grinder]

A point worth noting among all discussion around opening the knife handle is this:

Given that the prosecution believe the knife to have been used in the murder of Meredith Kercher, and that it forms one of the key planks of their argument linking Knox and Sollecito to the murder, why didn't the police/prosecutors make sure that every conceivable test could be performed on the knife?

In other words, why didn't either a) any of the policemen who saw the knife, or b) the PM who saw the knife, or c) not-a-real-doctor Stefanoni who examined and tested the knife, not take a close look at the knife and immediately see that an obvious place to test for evidence would be the crack where the blade meets the handle? I mean, wouldn't that have been just a glaringly obvious thing to do? You're looking for evidence linking this knife to the murder (and to the suspects), and yet you CHOOSE not to test a clearly-promising area for blood/genetic evidence?

That's what stuns me most about this knife handle issue. It's not what is and isn't happening now. It's what didn't happen in late 2007 and early 2008. Why wouldn't the police and PM have wanted to do everything conceivable at that time to try to garner probative evidence from the knife? Heck, the fact that Stefanoni didn't even bother to swab the area close to the blade/handle joint, let alone consider opening the handle, is a damning indictment of her ineptitude in itself.

Of course that was always the question. What your write up made me think of was that it is a similar line of thinking as the semen stain. They said at some point that they didn't want to destroy the knife by opening it up. They didn't want to destroy the shoe print by testing the stain.

Maybe there is something in Italian law that eludes us vis-a-vis keeping evidence whole. If so, probably goes back to some Roman or Masonic law.

 

[acbytesla]

Cracking the knife open wouldn't be that difficult. The plastic resists cracking because it is playable. Get it cold enough and it will shatter like glass. Keep the knife cold and score it along the seam with a sharp blade. Work this seam with a sharp chisel and a crack will form splitting the handle in half.

I also agree that there is nothing of interest inside. The only thing that needs to be cracked open at this point is the heads of those that continue to insist that this knife is the murder weapon.

That makes sense. I change my mind, use liquid nitrogen and voila. Not that I have any liquid nitrogen around the house or any experience freezing molded plastic to that low a temperature.

 

[Dan O.]

Maybe there is something in Italian law that eludes us vis-a-vis keeping evidence whole. If so, probably goes back to some Roman or Masonic law.

Like the shoe prints on the tiles in Meredith's room and the hallway that were scrubbed away so thoroughly that the inspectors couldn't even find where they were on the return visit? Like the blood streaks on the wall above the night stand that were scrapped with a knife? Like the imprint of the murder weapon on the bed cover that was cut out rendering the shape unusable? Funny man this Grinder is.

 

[Grinder]

Like the shoe prints on the tiles in Meredith's room and the hallway? Like the blood streaks on the wall above the night stand that were scrapped with a knife? Like the imprint of the murder weapon on the bed cover that was cut out rendering the shape unusable? Funny man this Grinder is.

tut-tut. don't you remember that they said they didn't want to destroy the pillow case and the knife with further testing?

now why was the shape unusable? how has the knife outline been used if it is unusable?

 

[Bruce Fischer]

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,

C&V still stands until proven false. Judge Nencini appeared to give them a vote of confidence during the first hearing, stating: "There's no reason to consider the independent experts unreliable."

 

[Bruce Fischer]

Yes, and especially as TJMK made so much of Vogt's tweet about it on Friday; yet nothing whatsoever in Italian news today. Probably was much ado about nothing.

Everyone I have spoken to (including Italian sources) has told me that the testing is complete. Of course we have no confirmation from the court so we will just have to wait. It looks like Vogt was just being Vogt.

 

[Supernaut]

Cracking the knife open wouldn't be that difficult. The plastic resists cracking because it is playable. Get it cold enough and it will shatter like glass. Keep the knife cold and score it along the seam with a sharp blade. Work this seam with a sharp chisel and a crack will form splitting the handle in half.

I also agree that there is nothing of interest inside. The only thing that needs to be cracked open at this point is the heads of those that continue to insist that this knife is the murder weapon.

Interesting you mention this - some years back a friend of mine needed to remove bitumen that had been used to surface the metal walkways/mezzanine over the tanks in his electroplating workshop. Seemed impossible, it was like trying to scrape off very hard chewing gum.

I suggested getting a shed-load of 'dry-ice' (CO2) to freeze it. We did, and it worked like a charm - we were able to shatter it and remove great chunks at a time, leaviing an almost prisyine metal surface.

Speaking of chewing gum - you can freeze that (and other things, like chocolate) to get it off fabric, with, say, a can of butane (or CO2 if you can get it).

 

[acbytesla]

I can only return to my own small-minded conspiracy about this.....

The knife, at collection, was never intended to make it to trial.

Here's Raffaele's account of the knife's collection, Honor Bound, p. 64.



My suspicious little mind holds that on the first day this knife was not intended to link Amanda to the crime. It was to show Raffaele in the most gaudy way possible the length they would go to link him to the crime.

And when Raffaele (eventually) did not budge from "we're both innocent", and has held that to this day, that knife then was pressed into service as courtroom evidence.

I also small-mindedly think that Stefanoni's analysis of the knife was tailored, really, so that her results could go either way. If Raffaele had ratted out Amanda, and some future mirror-universe-FOA needed to debunk Raffaele's tales of Knox's guilt; with the mirror-universe-FOA's making copious reference to that knife!.....

...... it would have been Mignini and company perhaps joining in with the mirror-universe-FOAs saying that Stefanoni's analysis really means nothing. It would have been Mignini entering evidence in court that it had been starch on the blade!

And both prosecution AND defence in that mirror-universe would have stonewalled the tests on that knife at all costs; just like at Rudy's trial in the real-universe no one contested the multiple attacker scenario - not prosecution and certainly not Rudy's lawyers!

That knife is very flexible when one considers it's value as "evidence".

Reminds me of the joke where an unemployed accountant is desperate for a job. After many interview failures, he's interviewed by a Mafia boss; who needs an accountant to both keep track of, as well as hide, his ill gotten gains.

The Mafia boss only has one question at interview to the accountant, "How much is 2 + 2?"

The accountant says, "How much do you need it to be?"

He's hired. Welcome to the role this knife plays in this miscarriage.

I guess we both have small minds Bill, because that is exactly what I think happened.

There is a reason that the EDFs have never been provided and never will be. And that is to keep the power in the hands of the police and the prosecution. They are trying to protect the process, not necessarily get Rudy or Amanda. Their system is in desperate need of reform and they all know it. But they are naturally afraid of what changes that reform will bring and how it effects them.