Do you really think Candace was trying to convince readers that a human DNA profile was extracted from starch? I don't. I think she assumes a degree of intelligence on the part of her readers, such that they can understand what she meant. She meant that starch, rather than human tissue, was found on the knife blade, ergo the DNA profile must have come from an extraneous contaminant.
Vogt, meanwhile, did her best to convince her readers that Amanda confessed to being at the crime scene in a secretly recorded conversation. That is a flagrant misrepresentation of what Amanda said and what she clearly meant.
If you can't see the difference, you have truly lost the plot.
She had access to the dossier of police evidence, through me, and she made extensive use of it. She and her sister pored over the DNA test results and constructed an index that I use to this day. Candace emailed me many times to discuss details shown in the crime scene photos, to resolve the timing of phone calls, etc. She was as interested in all this stuff as the people here on JREF. Very few so-called reporters had any interest whatsoever, even though I tried to interest them. They were fixated on soundbites from people outside the courtroom, scuttlebutt about Amanda's personal life, exclusive interviews with key players, etc.
When Rinaldi did his presentation and announced that Guede's foot was far too big to have made the print on the mat, Nadeau and others breathlessly reported it as fact. They didn't have the reference material, or if they did, they didn't bother to check it. They didn't notice that Rinaldi's stunning conclusion was based on a flat-out lie in his measurements. I noticed. So did Candace. We discussed it at length.
Berkley signed Candace up because they want authors who delve into the direct facts of the case, instead of interviewing the cops and lawyers and cribbing from what other reporters have written, which is what most true-crime authors do.
You understand
I meant to ask how I did on Dan O's challenge.