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

[Charlie Wilkes]

Well I think this is the heart of one of the big differences between most of the people here and Mach and Italians.

The idea that good science is really good circumstantial evidence and weak science is probable evidence is ridiculous. Really sad that one person would believe that but tragic if it is the judicial system of a country.

Whereas circumstantial evidence is the best evidence when done right this isn't circumstantial at all. It's just crap.

I rarely comment on the culture of Italy or the US regarding this case but if Mach is expressing how it really is in Italy, well...sad very sad that a society could have sunk to this level, truly backwards thinking.

His thinking is not unique to Italy. It is the working method of crackpots everywhere.

The reasoning, as it applies to this case, goes something like this:

It doesn't matter if the knife really was the murder weapon. If one can show that it might have been the murder weapon, that is enough to give it a certain weight as evidence. It can then be added to other evidence that might be incriminating, like luminol footprints and mixed DNA, to the point where the cumulative weight is deemed sufficient.

This, of course, is a perfect blueprint for how to convict someone who is in fact innocent.

It is why a skeptical investigator tests each piece of evidence by asking whether it fits into a narrative that explains what happened. Cult believers avoid this exercise, because it tends to demolish the artifacts that prop up their belief. It doesn't matter whether the subject is Meredith Kercher or JFK or 9-11. Cult believers do not have a detailed theory that holds up to scrutiny. They have a hundred reasons why the obvious theory is wrong and something else must have happened.

 

[acbytesla]

Those Italians who spread the kind of lies that you disseminate on this case are people like Spezi, Brindani, Sabina Castrelfranco, Rocco Girlanda and their friends.
These people don't deserve any kinder response than the 'foreigners' who do the same; quite the contrary, I am more enraged with little groups of Italians rather than with the mob of Knox supporters.
In fact, even Mignini responds to Spezi - he does nor respond to Dempsey or Diocletus.

No, the people lying are Mignini, Stefanoni, Commodi, Napoleoni, etc.

 

[Charlie Wilkes]

They seem to record everything except that which they are required to record.

Because "that which they are required to record" would include a recording of their own words and behavior.

These people use surveillance as a weapon, and they don't want to shoot themselves.

Have you ever seen The Conversation? Remember the very end, where the surveillance expert demolishes his own apartment?

 

[Chris_Halkides]

More from your citation

Diocletus,

In 2000 Rachel Ann Fenton wrote in the The International and Comparative Law Quarterly (Volume 49, No. 3), "The Corte di cassazione has not criticised the motivazione on the basis that X plus Y cannot equal Z, but rather has declared that X plus Y must equal W. Such a judgment calls the very nature of the role of the Corte di cassazione into question, as clearly in this case it has acted as a court of third instance rather than in fulfilment of its nomothetic function."

 

[LondonJohn]

My interpretation (and I stand to be corrected) is that the starch was found where the blade and handle join. The area that was swabbed that was subsequently reported as showing MK DNA was a discoloured area half way down the blade. The significance of the starch is not merely with regards to the knife being dirty or clean. Starch tends to adsorb substances. If the knife had been used in a murder, the starch would have become contaminated with blood, proteins and cells would have become bound to the starch. The absence of detectable human blood and DNA associated with this starch is a very positive indication that the knife was never exposed to human blood.

Starch-type cell structures were found at various points on the knife, including the actual blade itself.

As you say though, starch binds hard to many other molecules, and it's hard to imagine any pre-existing starch not doing so after coming into contact with blood or muscle proteins.

However, it is theoretically (at least) possible for the knife to have been used in the murder, for Knox or Sollecito to have then forensically cleaned it to erase all traces of the murder, and for them then to have used the knife for cooking purposes in the days between the murder and their arrest. But (in homage to Knox's thought experiment on Sollecito having left quietly on the night of the murder, committed the murder, then crept back in, rubbed Knox's fingerprints onto the knife and settled back to sleep next to her)... "I just really doubt all of that".

 

[Diocletus]

Diocletus,

In 2000 Rachel Ann Fenton wrote in the The International and Comparative Law Quarterly (Volume 49, No. 3), "The Corte di cassazione has not criticised the motivazione on the basis that X plus Y cannot equal Z, but rather has declared that X plus Y must equal W. Such a judgment calls the very nature of the role of the Corte di cassazione into question, as clearly in this case it has acted as a court of third instance rather than in fulfilment of its nomothetic function."

Very interesting. And, they appear to have a new trick now. Instead of saying "X plus Y must equal W," they say "we think X plus Y equals W, but we send this case back to the appeals court to issue a judgment consistent with what we think."

It's a little sneakier, but no less bogus.

 

[LondonJohn]

Diocletus,

In 2000 Rachel Ann Fenton wrote in the The International and Comparative Law Quarterly (Volume 49, No. 3), "The Corte di cassazione has not criticised the motivazione on the basis that X plus Y cannot equal Z, but rather has declared that X plus Y must equal W. Such a judgment calls the very nature of the role of the Corte di cassazione into question, as clearly in this case it has acted as a court of third instance rather than in fulfilment of its nomothetic function."

Indeed. My view on the way the SC has ruled in the Knox/Sollecito case is that it has absolutely exceeded its remit in law, but that it has done so in a way that can be artfully interpreted as falling within its remit.

I suspect that the SC has been creeping beyond its lawfully-prescribed scope for many years now, unencumbered as it is by oversight or accountability. Your reference above only tends to reinforce my suspicion.

 

[LondonJohn]

Violence on Meredith was committed long before she was stabbed to death.
Dead or dying people don't suffer bruises. They don't have enough blood pressure.

I missed this one earlier! Another attempt at misdirection.

First, let's examine that "long before" construction. In fact, any bruising on Meredith's body that might have been inflicted during the confrontation that led to her death (and let's not forget that there was in fact only a small number of light bruises on her body anyhow) could actually have been inflicted any time up to about a minute or so AFTER she was stabbed. Contusion only requires some amount of positive blood pressure - all that's needed is sufficient pressure and blood flow to push blood out of the burst capillaries and into the surrounding tissue.

Second, while dead people certainly cannot bruise, dying people certainly can and do. They can bruise up to the point where their blood pressure falls to something below around 30 systolic. Meredith, for example, could have sustained bruises for around a couple of minutes after she was stabbed - she would still have had sufficient blood pressure and heartbeat for contusion to have occurred within that time period.

May I refer the (dis)honourable gentleman to the answer I gave some moments ago* (regarding the requirement to understand medicine before trying to make an "argument" based on it)

* One for the fans of old-style Prime Minister's Questions there

 

[Grinder]

Bruising on the skin occurs when the blood vessels are broken by some form of hard and forceful contact with the skin, usually by a blunt object. The shape of the bruise can often reveal which direction the blow was received from and the colour of the bruise can indicate how long ago the injury occurred. As bruising heals, it goes red-purple, to brown, to green and finally to yellow. Bruising is not an accurate way of deciding how the victim met their fate, as interpreting bruising is different in every person, due to the fact that people bruise at different rates and bruising continues for a short while after death---------------------------------------------------------------------------
The extravasation of blood into the tissues after death, for whatever reason, in certain circumstances can lead to misinterpretation. I have avoided using the word bruising in relation to postmortem events because the forensic understanding of the word implies an antemortem phenomenon. The phrase “pseudo bruise” is perhaps preferable and could be applied to postmortem discolourations that resemble true bruises.

This problem is of more than academic interest and, as most forensic pathologists will confirm, the distinction between bruising and pseudo bruising can sometimes be difficult if not impossible, both at necropsy and even after routine histological and immunohistochemical examination.

At this point, it is appropriate to consider whether blunt trauma delivered after death and causing tissue disruption can result in extravasation of blood with an appearance indistinguishable from bruising produced before death. It has been reported in one study7 that the production of postmortem “bruises” required the application of considerable violence, with the resulting bruise almost always being small or wholly disproportionate to the force delivered. Interestingly, however, they found that a blow with a wooden mallet delivered after death to the occiput (moderate force was used so as not to fracture the skull) can cause blood extravasation involving the full thickness of the scalp up to one inch (2.54 cm) in diameter. Bearing in mind that the scalp is rich in blood vessels and that cadavers are stored in the supine position, this might not be an unusual phenomenon, and therefore such bruising requires careful interpretation.

 

[LondonJohn]

Bruising on the skin occurs when the blood vessels are broken by some form of hard and forceful contact with the skin, usually by a blunt object. The shape of the bruise can often reveal which direction the blow was received from and the colour of the bruise can indicate how long ago the injury occurred. As bruising heals, it goes red-purple, to brown, to green and finally to yellow. Bruising is not an accurate way of deciding how the victim met their fate, as interpreting bruising is different in every person, due to the fact that people bruise at different rates and bruising continues for a short while after death---------------------------------------------------------------------------
The extravasation of blood into the tissues after death, for whatever reason, in certain circumstances can lead to misinterpretation. I have avoided using the word bruising in relation to postmortem events because the forensic understanding of the word implies an antemortem phenomenon. The phrase “pseudo bruise” is perhaps preferable and could be applied to postmortem discolourations that resemble true bruises.

This problem is of more than academic interest and, as most forensic pathologists will confirm, the distinction between bruising and pseudo bruising can sometimes be difficult if not impossible, both at necropsy and even after routine histological and immunohistochemical examination.

At this point, it is appropriate to consider whether blunt trauma delivered after death and causing tissue disruption can result in extravasation of blood with an appearance indistinguishable from bruising produced before death. It has been reported in one study7 that the production of postmortem “bruises” required the application of considerable violence, with the resulting bruise almost always being small or wholly disproportionate to the force delivered. Interestingly, however, they found that a blow with a wooden mallet delivered after death to the occiput (moderate force was used so as not to fracture the skull) can cause blood extravasation involving the full thickness of the scalp up to one inch (2.54 cm) in diameter. Bearing in mind that the scalp is rich in blood vessels and that cadavers are stored in the supine position, this might not be an unusual phenomenon, and therefore such bruising requires careful interpretation.

Ah no, the first paragraph is referring to the fact that bruises can change in shape after death - but only where the bruise itself has actually been caused ante-mortem. It's impossible to initiate a bruise after death, but it's possible for a bruise that was caused just before death to spread out more within the tissues after death.

And the second and third paragraphs are referring to a specific phenomenon called extravasation - which is the unpressurised leakage of blood from ruptured vessels. Consider that all dead bodies (even where the victim has died of blood loss) contain residual static blood under no pressure sitting in the entire vascular system. If a part of a dead body is struck with blunt force so as to rupture capillaries or other blood vessels close to the skin, then the static blood can leak out into the surrounding tissue.

As your reference points out, though, any extravasation blood in surface tissue, while it superficially resembles true bruising, is easily distinguishable to a trained pathologist, since it requires a great deal of blunt force trauma to produce a small effect via extravasation. By contrast, true bruising of a living person produces a bigger bruise with far less trauma force, since the blood is pumping under pressure and thus is forced out into the surrounding tissue with greater volume and spread.

In short, bruises and the effects of any post-mortem extravasation are easy to distinguish, and bruises can only be caused before death.

ETA: In fact, you may (or may not...) have noticed that your reference contained the following passage (my highlighting):

I have avoided using the word bruising in relation to postmortem events because the forensic understanding of the word implies an antemortem phenomenon.

 

[Charlie Wilkes]

I missed this one earlier! Another attempt at misdirection.

First, let's examine that "long before" construction. In fact, any bruising on Meredith's body that might have been inflicted during the confrontation that led to her death (and let's not forget that there was in fact only a small number of light bruises on her body anyhow) could actually have been inflicted any time up to about a minute or so AFTER she was stabbed. Contusion only requires some amount of positive blood pressure - all that's needed is sufficient pressure and blood flow to push blood out of the burst capillaries and into the surrounding tissue.

Second, while dead people certainly cannot bruise, dying people certainly can and do. They can bruise up to the point where their blood pressure falls to something below around 30 systolic. Meredith, for example, could have sustained bruises for around a couple of minutes after she was stabbed - she would still have had sufficient blood pressure and heartbeat for contusion to have occurred within that time period.

May I refer the (dis)honourable gentleman to the answer I gave some moments ago* (regarding the requirement to understand medicine before trying to make an "argument" based on it)

* One for the fans of old-style Prime Minister's Questions there

The bruising is wholly consistent with a brief struggle with a solitary assailant. But notice the method here. No effort is made to integrate this medical claim with what was found at the crime scene, or to form it into an explanation. Machiavelli has served up an isolated, so-called fact in an effort to show that something else happened. He doesn't know or care what. As long as it's anything other than the obvious scenario, it might somehow have involved Amanda Knox, and that's enough for him.

This, as I say, is crackpot thinking. It is not aimed at understanding. Its purpose is to protect a belief, by any means necessary.

 

[Machiavelli]

Bruising on the skin occurs when the blood vessels are broken by some form of hard and forceful contact with the skin, usually by a blunt object. The shape of the bruise can often reveal which direction the blow was received from and the colour of the bruise can indicate how long ago the injury occurred. As bruising heals, it goes red-purple, to brown, to green and finally to yellow. Bruising is not an accurate way of deciding how the victim met their fate, as interpreting bruising is different in every person, due to the fact that people bruise at different rates and bruising continues for a short while after death (...)

The topic was discussed in court. In fact, even Massei has a refutation of Introna's "post mortem" theory (bruises interpreted as post-mortem blood infiltration, the most common hemostatic phenomenon, absolutely typical which generates bruises that follow somehow the force of gravity).
But while localized "hemostatic stains" consequent of the body position are very common, "pseudo-bruises", axa extravasation caused by mechanical damage on a dead body are absolutely uncommon, as your quote points out:

At this point, it is appropriate to consider whether blunt trauma delivered after death and causing tissue disruption can result in extravasation of blood with an appearance indistinguishable from bruising produced before death. It has been reported in one study7 that the production of postmortem “bruises” required the application of considerable violence, with the resulting bruise almost always being small or wholly disproportionate to the force delivered. Interestingly, however, they found that a blow with a wooden mallet delivered after death to the occiput (moderate force was used so as not to fracture the skull) can cause blood extravasation involving the full thickness of the scalp up to one inch (2.54 cm) in diameter. Bearing in mind that the scalp is rich in blood vessels and that cadavers

are stored in the supine position

, this might not be an unusual phenomenon, and therefore such bruising requires careful interpretation.

While the hemostays contribute caused by the force of gravity is significant - it helps produce a pseudo-bruise - the bruises or pseudo-bruises produced by a mechanical trauma alone, they are just the consequence of blood pressure. So, you need blood pressure; and some amount of peripheral blood to make them. Therefore, it is extremely difficult to cause a bruise in a body with minimal or zero blood pressure, because blood in peripheral areas can be zero.
This would be expecially true if the person has died of haemorragic shock (as Meredith Kercher did). When a person is wounded and the body experiences a rapid blood pressure drop - if a person bleeds to death, the pressure drop is huge and catastrophic - the immediate and first consequence is vague-nerve response and then hypovolemic shock, a mechanism which would squeeze peripheral vessels and reduce the blood amonut in peripheral areas (skin and extremities) to a minimum. This is why a person becomes white pale even if just the beginning of this mechanism is set on: shunts in peripheral vessels are are closed and blood volume close to the skin is reduced to the minimmum, as the body sequestrates the blood for lungs and heart attempting to prevent blood flowing away to peripheral areas.
Meredith bled to death. So her peripheral blood pressure was zero. And even the blood volume retrieved by the body would have been minimal, and most of it gathered or poured in the lungs.

But Meredith had 30+ bruises, including superficial bruises on the external genitalia. This picture is totally inconsistent to what you can produce on a dead body, even through a "rape". Even less if it's the body of a person who had bled to death.
This is the obvious picture of a person who was beaten and suffered a sexual violence while well alive.
And this, not only because of blood pressure, but also because of the small cut wounds on the face (you don't threat a dead or dying person with the point of a knife) on her hand (a body doesn's use hands), and the hand print on her face (you don't shut up or suffocate bodies).

 

[Machiavelli]

The bruising is wholly consistent with a brief struggle with a solitary assailant. But notice the method here. No effort is made to integrate this medical claim with what was found at the crime scene, or to form it into an explanation. Machiavelli has served up an isolated, so-called fact in an effort to show that something else happened. He doesn't know or care what. As long as it's anything other than the obvious scenario, it might somehow have involved Amanda Knox, and that's enough for him. (...)

Well, just a moment.There is nothing logically wrong in pointing out a medical finding. Which has implications on a scenario of post-mortem rape.

While I point out your method instead, as you recently explained it, when it comes to offer an explanation about what does not fit into your theory such as: the luminol footprints. Alleged contamination of items. The bathmat print or the trail of shoeprints (which are that of a person who walks out straight and are not consistent with someone who stops turns to lock the door). And several others which I don't recall now.
You said something like, you leave things like the luminol prints unexplained, deciding that they must be unrelated to the crime just because - your words - they don't fit a scenario (read: your scenario) of the crime.
This procedure is illogical. (It is biased)
Because omits to give weight to tha fact that the luminol footprints fit a Knox-Sollecito guilt scenario perfectly, while on the other hand, and above all, there is no explanation at all - even hypothetical - which could explain them as the consequence of a plausible, innocent event.

You point at the 'absence' of an expressed "scenario of guilt" which would sound plausible to you (or even "proven"). But you completely ignore the impossibility of having a plausible innocent scenario for pieces of evidence. Despite this absence of innocent explanation, yet you "declare" them unrelated to the murder.
But how can you infer a non-relation to the murder, while you don't have any plausible alternative explanation? It's illogical.
It means you say "they must have another origin", and at the same time you admit you don't have any logical explanation, you don't have alternative origins to chose among. As for the luminol prints you don't have an alternative substance and you don't have a dynamic (neither explanations for the analogies with the bathmat print, nor with the Knox-Meredith DNA luminol stain in Filomena's room).
On the other hand you have these very peculiar findings which fit with very peculiar events in the scenario. So in fact you are ignoring the a contrario evidence.
There is no logical method here, this is total bias.

 

[LondonJohn]

This would be expecially true if the person has died of haemorragic shock (as Meredith Kercher did). When a person is wounded and the body experiences a rapid blood pressure drop - if a person bleeds to death, the pressure drop is huge and catastrophic - the immediate and first consequence is vague-nerve response and then hypovolemic shock, a mechanism which would squeeze peripheral vessels and reduce the blood amonut in peripheral areas (skin and extremities) to a minimum. This is why a person becomes white pale even if just the beginning of this mechanism is set on: shunts in peripheral vessels are are closed and blood volume close to the skin is reduced to the minimmum, as the body sequestrates the blood for lungs and heart attempting to prevent blood flowing away to peripheral areas.
Meredith bled to death. So her peripheral blood pressure was zero.

Nope. Wrong. The blood wounds to her neck didn't rupture either of the carotid arteries (although they did sever some of the minor neck arteries). Therefore, while she started losing blood immediately (and started choking and inhaling blood at the same time, owing to the laceration of her larynx), she categorically did not sustain a sudden catastrophic loss of blood. Therefore, she would not have entered hypovolemic shock until (perhaps) a minute or two after she was stabbed. There would undoubtedly have been some form of vasoconstriction at the skin, but in no way enough to preclude bruising.

In short, the evidence shows that Meredith could have sustained bruising for probably around a minute or so after she was stabbed, until the blood pressure at her skin dropped (owing to blood loss and shock) sufficiently to preclude bruising.

And even the blood volume retrieved by the body would have been minimal, and most of it gathered or poured in the lungs.

Nope. Death from exsanguination (bleeding out) normally occurs at around 40% blood loss from the vascular system. That means that around 60% of blood volume remains within the vascular system post mortem (apart from a small amount of post-mortem oozing of blood from wounds). And any blood inhaled and retained in Meredith's lungs would have been in addition to this 60% in the vascular system.

In short, Meredith would still have had plenty of blood in her vascular system (and probably additional blood in her lungs) after she died.

But Meredith had 30+ bruises, including superficial bruises on the external genitals. This picture is totally inconsistent to what you can produce on a dead body, even through a "rape". Even less if it's the body of a person who had bled to death.
This is the obvious picture of a person who was beaten and suffered a sexual violence while well alive.

Nope. Just plain wrong and misleading. The "30+ bruises" canard is a deliberate attempt to mislead and misdirect - as I suspect you know well. And the evidence is in fact consistent with nothing more than a brief struggle, followed by head and face trauma and stab wounds to the neck, and possibly antemortem pressure on the genitals (although those minor bruises are also consistent with stretching/rubbing of the labia during the initial penetration in consensual sexual intercourse).

And this, not only because of blood pressure, but also because of the small cut wounds on the face (you don't threat a dead or dying person with the point of a knife) on her hand (a body doesn's use hands), and the hand print on her face (you don't shut up or suffocate bodies).

There were no small cut wounds on her face. There were a few small, superficial knife "prick" wounds on her neck, in the vicinity of the fatal stab wounds. These are entirely consistent with the assailant (Guede) holding his knife at Meredith's neck as a mechanism of control and restraint, and his knife causing a few small nicks in the process. And I thought that the prosecution theory was that both Meredith's hands/arms were being held in restraint by one of the three alleged assailants during the attack - so how did Meredith come to have defensive knife wounds on her hand?). Instead, I suggest that these wounds are consistent with Meredith either putting her hand to her neck in the earlier (pre-stab) phase of restraint, or when she raised her hand to her neck after the fatal stabs had been inflicted. Either way, it implies her hand was free to move.

 

[Samson]

Well, just a moment.There is nothing logically wrong in pointing out a medical finding. Which has implications on a scenario of post-mortem rape.

While I point out your method instead, as you recently explained it, when it comes to offer an explanation about what does not fit into your theory such as: the luminol footprints. Alleged contamination of items. The bathmat print or the trail of shoeprints (which are that of a person who walks out straight and are not consistent with someone who stops turns to lock the door). And several others which I don't recall now.
You said something like, you leave things like the luminol prints unexplained, deciding that they must be unrelated to the crime just because - your words - they don't fit a scenario (read: your scenario) of the crime.
This procedure is illogical. (It is biased)
Because omits to give weight to tha fact that the luminol footprints fit a Knox-Sollecito guilt scenario perfectly, while on the other hand, and above all, there is no explanation at all - even hypothetical - which could explain them as the consequence of a plausible, innocent event.

You point at the 'absence' of an expressed "scenario of guilt" which would sound plausible to you (or even "proven"). But you completely ignore the impossibility of having a plausible innocent scenario for pieces of evidence. Despite this absence of innocent explanation, yet you "declare" them unrelated to the murder.
But how can you infer a non-relation to the murder, while you don't have any plausible alternative explanation? It's illogical.
It means you say "they must have another origin", and at the same time you admit you don't have any logical explanation, you don't have alternative origins to chose among. As for the luminol prints you don't have an alternative substance and you don't have a dynamic (neither explanations for the analogies with the bathmat print, nor with the Knox-Meredith DNA luminol stain in Filomena's room).
On the other hand you have these very peculiar findings which fit with very peculiar events in the scenario. So in fact you are ignoring the a contrario evidence.
There is no logical method here, this is total bias.

" the trail of shoeprints (which are that of a person who walks out straight and are not consistent with someone who stops turns to lock the door)."
Someone may be able to help here. All other prosecution items have been answered fully, but this is one I am unaware of having been discussed much by the defence. Given that their is no evidence of more than one attacker, there necessarily exists an explanation for this. What is it?

 

[MDDVS]

" the trail of shoeprints (which are that of a person who walks out straight and are not consistent with someone who stops turns to lock the door)."
Someone may be able to help here. All other prosecution items have been answered fully, but this is one I am unaware of having been discussed much by the defence. Given that their is no evidence of more than one attacker, there necessarily exists an explanation for this. What is it?

Quite easy actually. The trail is not inconsistent with someone who stops and turns to lock the door. When people are leaving a place in a rush sometimes they lock the door with their backs turned partially turned to the door.

Another possibility is that Rudy left the room a first time, noticed the front door was locked, and returned to pick up the keys (his DNA was found in Meredith's purse, where the keys were), leaving for a second time but without levaing atrail of blood this time around.

I'm sure there are other possibilities.

 

[Diocletus]

I'm confused. Is it less bad if Guede raped her while she was dying or committed a sex act on her corpse?

 

[Bill Williams]

Quite easy actually. The trail is not inconsistent with someone who stops and turns to lock the door. When people are leaving a place in a rush sometimes they lock the door with their backs turned partially turned to the door.

Another possibility is that Rudy left the room a first time, noticed the front door was locked, and returned to pick up the keys (his DNA was found in Meredith's purse, where the keys were), leaving for a second time but without levaing atrail of blood this time around.

I'm sure there are other possibilities.

There was a guilter here a long time ago who based his determination of guilt solely on this. He was prepared to talk at length why to him this was definitive.

Long exchanges of posts ensued. If you can find it, it pretty much exhausted the subject - as well as me.

It seemed to be one of those issues with three or four equally probable possibilities. Unless some hidden security camera footage can be found no one will probably ever know.

 

[Grinder]

In short, bruises and the effects of any post-mortem extravasation are easy to distinguish, and bruises can only be caused before death.

This problem is of more than academic interest and, as most forensic pathologists will confirm, the distinction between bruising and pseudo bruising can sometimes be difficult if not impossible, both at necropsy and even after routine histological and immunohistochemical examination.

 

[LondonJohn]

" the trail of shoeprints (which are that of a person who walks out straight and are not consistent with someone who stops turns to lock the door)."
Someone may be able to help here. All other prosecution items have been answered fully, but this is one I am unaware of having been discussed much by the defence. Given that their is no evidence of more than one attacker, there necessarily exists an explanation for this. What is it?

There is a trail of shoeprints (one shoe only, can't offhand remember whether it was left shoe or right shoe) leading from the doorway of Meredith's room, down the hallway towards the front door. The shoeprints are very faint to start with, and fade out completely some yards before the front door (in fact, the "crack" forensic goons didn't even notice the presence of the prints for some hours, and consequently trod all over them numerous times before someone finally noticed them...).

The shoeprints belong to the shoes Guede was wearing - Nike Outbreak 2 trainers. The "crack" forensics goons initially matched the prints to Sollecito's Reebok trainers, until Sollecito's neice (IIRC) figured out that there was a different number of tread rings in the prints to those on Sollecito's Reeboks, and Sollecito's team quickly found out that the prints in fact came from Nike Outbreak 2s. Guede admitted wearing these shoes on the night of the murder, and of disposing of them on his flight to Germany (the act of an innocent bystander, anyone?).

Now, the important thing is this: the prints only prove that at some point after the murder, Guede walked out of Meredith's room, down the hallway, in the direction of the front door. They do not prove anything more than that. They certainly do not prove that he then continued out of the front door, let alone that he then continued away from the cottage for good.

It's entirely plausible (and it's my personal belief) that these prints were left when Guede stepped on (perhaps) a bloody towel in Meredith's room, then left her room and walked down the hallway (depositing the faint, fading shoeprints in the process) with the intention of leaving via the front door, but that he reached the front door to find it locked with a key*. I think he then turned around and returned to Meredith's room to retrieve the keys necessary to unlock and open the front door. Remember that there was by now no more blood on his shoe, so there would have been no bloody shoeprints leading back towards Meredith's room. I think he found Meredith's keys, and re-exited her room. This time, since he had her keys in his hand, he stopped to lock her bedroom door (probably in order to attempt to delay discovery of her body), then he headed back to the front door, unlocked it, opened it and left. Provided he hadn't re=stepped in blood the last time he re-entered Meredith's room, he would have left no further bloody shoeprints to mark his final exit down the hallway and out of the front door.

In summary, it's perfectly plausible that the bloody footprints found in the hallway were the result of Guede's penultimate trip down the hallway - the one where he found the front door locked and had to return to Meredith's room one final time to find her keys.

* The front door of the cottage would not latch shut - the only way of securing it closed was to lock it - from either inside or outside - with a key. It's therefore likely that when Meredith arrived home that night, she locked the front door behind her after she'd entered the cottage.