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

[acbytesla]

Did you know Amanda had a full set of knives stored under her bed?

Such a bloody joke. Here, lets take this knife from Raffaele's Could they get any more transparent? And out of the blue, this knife tests positive for Meredith's DNA on the blade? Seriously?

OK, there goes "the Raffaele made Amanda take his knife because he liked to cook and wanted to make sure there was a good knife at the cottage" meme. There also goes any theory of premeditation....as if there was a reason for that one!!!!

The last of course is the protection theory. And that goes out the window with Raffaele's pocket knives...not that I think they would have been concerned with protection.

 

[codyjuneau]

Such a bloody joke. Here, lets take this knife from Raffaele's Could they get any more transparent? And out of the blue, this knife tests positive for Meredith's DNA on the blade? Seriously?
OK, there goes "the Raffaele made Amanda take his knife because he liked to cook and wanted to make sure there was a good knife at the cottage" meme. There also goes any theory of premeditation....as if there was a reason for that one!!!!

The last of course is the protection theory. And that goes out the window with Raffaele's pocket knives...not that I think they would have been concerned with protection.

.
I am pretty sure the cops believed the murder was premeditated when they divined the knife at Raffaele's apartment in order to comply with Mignini's theory of a delayed sacrificial sexual 'riti' planned for all Saints day (but NOT a Satanic ritual).

Judge Massei did not buy the premeditated part, so in order to somehow place that knife at the cottage for a non premeditated murder, he had to invent an equally ridiculous scenario where Amanda carries that monster knife in her purse for protection, happens to bump into Rudy and invites him over, then makes a 'choice for evil' (what does that even mean), and helps Rudy kill her friend and roommate Meredith. Yeah sure judge.

Me thinks the prosecutor and the judge crossed over into ...... the Twilight Zone .
.

 

[acbytesla]

.
I am pretty sure the cops believed the murder was premeditated when they divined the knife at Raffaele's apartment in order to comply with Mignini's theory of a delayed sacrificial sexual 'riti' planned for all Saints day (but NOT a Satanic ritual).

Judge Massei did not buy the premeditated part, so in order to somehow place that knife at the cottage for a non premeditated murder, he had to invent an equally ridiculous scenario where Amanda carries that monster knife in her purse for protection, happens to bump into Rudy and invites him over, then makes a 'choice for evil' (what does that even mean), and helps Rudy kill her friend and roommate Meredith. Yeah sure judge.

Me thinks the prosecutor and the judge crossed over into ...... the Twilight Zone .
.

Really?? You think these guys are this stupid??
The only explanation for them to take this knife is premeditation. But taking this knife makes zero sense given the dozen knives at the cottage. NOTHING ABOUT this knife makes sense and I really can't believe these cops thought it made sense either.

I'm sorry, I hate the idea of conspiracy and a deliberate frame up, but I'm back thinking that has to be the answer. I find it hard to believe that these cops are stupid enough to come up with this scenario.

OTOH, this is a pretty horrible frame job.

 

[RWVBWL]

Too Low

Really?? You think these guys are this stupid??
The only explanation for them to take this knife is premeditation. But taking this knife makes zero sense given the dozen knives at the cottage. NOTHING ABOUT this knife makes sense and I really can't believe these cops thought it made sense either.

I'm sorry, I hate the idea of conspiracy and a deliberate frame up, but I'm back thinking that has to be the answer. I find it hard to believe that these cops are stupid enough to come up with this scenario.

OTOH, this is a pretty horrible frame job.

Hi acbytesla,
That kitchen knife photo that I posted above earlier tonight,
(err make that last night RW!)
with the lil spots on it,
well it was tested for DNA, as you mighta heard.

But when it came up empty, so to say,
err, make that "Too Low"
it was tested again, and again, and again:


Why?
Were any other items also tested again,
+ again, + again, + again, + again, + again, + again, + again, + again, + again, and again?

Or just this 1 sample?

If not,
why not?

Just wonderin' over here in Santa Monica, California...
RW


Link here:
http://web.archive.org/web/20100806235709/http://perugia-shock.blogspot.com/2009/09/too-low.html

 

[codyjuneau]

Really?? You think these guys are this stupid??
The only explanation for them to take this knife is premeditation. But taking this knife makes zero sense given the dozen knives at the cottage. NOTHING ABOUT this knife makes sense and I really can't believe these cops thought it made sense either.

I'm sorry, I hate the idea of conspiracy and a deliberate frame up, but I'm back thinking that has to be the answer. I find it hard to believe that these cops are stupid enough to come up with this scenario.

OTOH, this is a pretty horrible frame job.

.
Of course, but finding Meredith's DNA on a knife at the cottage would not be incriminating. It had to be one from Raffaele's place.

The bra clasp is similar. Raffaele had visited the cottage, Amanda lived there, so six weeks after the crime, what item still at the cottage could incriminate Raffaele if his DNA was found on it. The supposedly 'lost' bra clasp was the perfect item.

Coincidences?
.

 

[acbytesla]

.
Of course, but finding Meredith's DNA on a knife at the cottage would not be incriminating. It had to be one from Raffaele's place.

The bra clasp is similar. Raffaele had visited the cottage, Amanda lived there, so six weeks after the crime, what item still at the cottage could incriminate Raffaele if his DNA was found on it. The supposedly 'lost' bra clasp was the perfect item.

Coincidences?
.

I don't believe in coincidences. As I said earlier. Transparent. I'd like to say you can't make this crap up. But apparently you can. Or at least try.

 

[Mary_H]

Really?? You think these guys are this stupid??
The only explanation for them to take this knife is premeditation. But taking this knife makes zero sense given the dozen knives at the cottage. NOTHING ABOUT this knife makes sense and I really can't believe these cops thought it made sense either.<snip>

I agree, ac. I am not sure the cops knew what they were doing when they collected the knife, except for what someone here has suggested -- that it was a warning to Raffaele, who was with them at the time.

They confiscated the knife on the 6th, but did not reveal the forensics until the 16th, which, coincidentally, was around the same time they got wind of Rudy. They couldn't use Raffaele's knife, they couldn't use Patrick, they had nothing on Amanda -- that was when they trotted out the kitchen knife.

 

[acbytesla]

I agree, ac. I am not sure the cops knew what they were doing when they collected the knife, except for what someone here has suggested -- that it was a warning to Raffaele, who was with them at the time.

They confiscated the knife on the 6th, but did not reveal the forensics until the 16th, which, coincidentally, was around the same time they got wind of Rudy. They couldn't use Raffaele's knife, they couldn't use Patrick, they had nothing on Amanda -- that was when they trotted out the kitchen knife.

One of my favorite movies is LA Confidential with Russell Crowe, Guy Pearce, James Cromwell, Kevin Spacey, Danny Devito, Kim Basinger

There is a scene at the beginning of the movie Where James Cromwell (Dudley Smith) is trying to talk Guy Pierce (Ed Exley) out of becoming a detective. This farce reminds me of that.

Captain Dudley Smith: Edmund, you're a political animal. You have the eye for human weakness, but not the stomach.
Ed Exley: You're wrong, sir.
Captain Dudley Smith: Would you be willing to plant corroborative evidence on a suspect you knew to be guilty, in order to ensure an indictment?
Ed Exley: Dudley, we've been over this.
Captain Dudley Smith: Yes or no, Edmund?
Ed Exley: No!
Captain Dudley Smith: Would you be willing to beat a confession out of a suspect you knew to be guilty?
Ed Exley: No.
Captain Dudley Smith: Would you be willing to shoot a hardened criminal in the back, in order to offset the chance that some... lawyer...
Ed Exley: No.
Captain Dudley Smith: Then, for the love of God, don't be a detective. Stick to assignments where you don't have...
Ed Exley: Dudley, I know you mean well, but I don't need to do it the way you did. Or my father.

What's insane about the whole thing, is it is clear that they didn't know what they were doing before they did it. The knife surely wasn't meant to be this critical piece of evidence. It was designed to scare Raffaele. Make sure he knew that they would do whatever was necessary to get Amanda so he'd better start talking. That's why they pulled the knife from his apartment. But then when the case started falling apart it must have been necessary to find some reason to hold him and Amanda, so they used the knife, but did it in such a way that they could back out of it.

But the morons didn't back out of it.

 

[davefoc]

I don't believe in coincidences. As I said earlier. Transparent. I'd like to say you can't make this crap up. But apparently you can. Or at least try.

I'm OK with coincidences but the bra clasp and the knife results look very unlikely to be explained as a coincidence. There has been a lot of talk about contamination as an explanation here, but if contamination means exposure to random DNA, lying around the two places in question, that caused a DNA result that matches Kercher or that matches Sollecito I don't think it happened.

Contamination by accidental exposure to Kercher DNA during the knife collection/testing or Sollecito DNA during the clasp testing seems a bit more likely to me, but it still seems unlikely. There were a lot of DNA samples floating around that lab and there were a lot of different people in that lab, what are the chances that some Sollecito DNA made it on to the clasp or some Kercher DNA made it on to the knife by accident? Which happened to be the perfect results for the prosecution.

If your view is that AK and RS are guilty then the answer is easy I suppose, the knife was really exposed to Kercher and Sollecito really touched the bra clasp. But I wouldn't feel too good about those explanations if I believed in AK/RS guilt. There is the lack of cellular material, the lack of test repeatability, the strange collection stories associated with each item, in the case of the clasp the lack of an explanation as to why RS DNA would be on the hook and no where else, in the case of the knife there is the transport issue and the fact that it doesn't match the wounds or the stain on the sheet.

There are also the innocent explanations like that before the crime a tiny amount of Sollecito's DNA made it on to the clasp by incidental transfer from something Knox had touched and there are similar innocent explanations for the Kercher DNA on the knife. But these don't strike me as particularly likely either.

I am still very much in the I don't know what happened camp, but it is hard to rule out intentional evidence tampering.

 

[acbytesla]

I'm OK with coincidences but the bra clasp and the knife results look very unlikely to be explained as a coincidence. There has been a lot of talk about contamination as an explanation here, but if contamination means exposure to random DNA, lying around the two places in question, that caused a DNA result that matches Kercher or that matches Sollecito I don't think it happened.

Contamination by accidental exposure to Kercher DNA during the knife collection/testing or Sollecito DNA during the clasp testing seems a bit more likely to me, but it still seems unlikely. There were a lot of DNA samples floating around that lab and there were a lot of different people in that lab, what are the chances that some Sollecito DNA made it on to the clasp or some Kercher DNA made it on to the knife by accident? Which happened to be the perfect results for the prosecution.

If your view is that AK and RS are guilty then the answer is easy I suppose, the knife was really exposed to Kercher and Sollecito really touched the bra clasp. But I wouldn't feel too good about those explanations if I believed in AK/RS guilt. There is the lack of cellular material, the lack of test repeatability, the strange collection stories associated with each item, in the case of the clasp the lack of an explanation as to why RS DNA would be on the hook and no where else, in the case of the knife there is the transport issue and the fact that it doesn't match the wounds or the stain on the sheet.

There are also the innocent explanations like that before the crime a tiny amount of Sollecito's DNA made it on to the clasp by incidental transfer from something Knox had touched and there are similar innocent explanations for the Kercher DNA on the knife. But these don't strike me as particularly likely either.

I am still very much in the I don't know what happened camp, but it is hard to rule out intentional evidence tampering.

Some coincidences are just too much. They strain belief. Trashing 4 computer hard drives? I work in the computer industry and have swapped out thousands of computer hard drives. I've never seen anything as absurd as the prosecution frying 4 hard drives.

This knife selected from Raffaele's apartment, it's bizarre. The bra clasp. Their case was falling apart. The tennis shoes didn't match, so they go back to the cottage 46 days later and miraculously, they come up with the bra clasp?

Sorry, when something stinks, there usually is a reason.

 

[katy_did]

You would think that with all these kitchen knives found in Meredith's own kitchen, that the investigators would have tried to see if 1 was better suited to match that bloody outline on Meredith's bed and then test the darn thing to see if it was the murder weapon!

All the more so when you think that when Rudy broke into the nursery school, he took a knife from the kitchen for "protection". Could he have done the same here? Admittedly it's not all that likely he replaced the knife in the drawer afterwards, rather than dispose of it - no one would be that stupid - but he might well have picked up a couple of other knives before settling on the one he finally used.

The problem was, as codyjuneau says, that finding Meredith's, Amanda's, or Raffaele's DNA on a knife from the cottage wouldn't be at all incriminating. So there was no point in testing them.

 

[xinonix]

They are making Barbie Nadeau's book into a movie. If there will be a movie that tells the guilter's side of the story, there should also be a movie that tells the other side.
This could be done by modifying the movie that was made for the lifetime network where Hayden Paniettire plays Amanda.
This movie was only aired once and then it was put away, mostly because it contained a scene where Meredith is murdered. This made it a snuff movie, so there were too many complaints to air it again.
So I would throw that scene out, and add a scene where Mignini and his psychic are in Meridith's room and the psychic goes into a trance and has a vision. Meridith was killed in a satanic rite by 3 people, one of whom was Black.
The psychic's performance convinced Mignini that Meridith was killed by 3 people.
The psychic could not specify who these people are.
According to the DNA that was found, the last 4 people who were in the house were Meridith and Amanda and her boyfriend, plus an unidentified person. They found a pubic hair from a Black man. What the psychic had said proved to be true.
When they found the text message where Amanda said "see you later" to Patrick on Nov 1, they knew who the Black man was.
n.b. I said "in the house" not in Meredith's room.The rest of this post is down there in an edited copy

 

[Samson]

I'm OK with coincidences but the bra clasp and the knife results look very unlikely to be explained as a coincidence. There has been a lot of talk about contamination as an explanation here, but if contamination means exposure to random DNA, lying around the two places in question, that caused a DNA result that matches Kercher or that matches Sollecito I don't think it happened.

Contamination by accidental exposure to Kercher DNA during the knife collection/testing or Sollecito DNA during the clasp testing seems a bit more likely to me, but it still seems unlikely. There were a lot of DNA samples floating around that lab and there were a lot of different people in that lab, what are the chances that some Sollecito DNA made it on to the clasp or some Kercher DNA made it on to the knife by accident? Which happened to be the perfect results for the prosecution.

If your view is that AK and RS are guilty then the answer is easy I suppose, the knife was really exposed to Kercher and Sollecito really touched the bra clasp. But I wouldn't feel too good about those explanations if I believed in AK/RS guilt. There is the lack of cellular material, the lack of test repeatability, the strange collection stories associated with each item, in the case of the clasp the lack of an explanation as to why RS DNA would be on the hook and no where else, in the case of the knife there is the transport issue and the fact that it doesn't match the wounds or the stain on the sheet.

There are also the innocent explanations like that before the crime a tiny amount of Sollecito's DNA made it on to the clasp by incidental transfer from something Knox had touched and there are similar innocent explanations for the Kercher DNA on the knife. But these don't strike me as particularly likely either.

I am still very much in the I don't know what happened camp, but it is hard to rule out intentional evidence tampering.

"I am still very much in the I don't know what happened camp, but it is hard to rule out intentional evidence tampering. "

I don't know how to highlight, so I do quotes.
I know these "kids" had nothing to do with the crime, so I follow your questions with complete understanding, as I have all the same problems. I start with the premise they are innocent, simply because the converse is statistically implausible, and or unprecedented. Therefore I wait for a smoking gun to prove the crime. Essentially the knife or bra clasp are the plausible candidates. If there is doubt sensibly ascribed, and there is, then we revert to clause one, statistical implausibility. Having watched this thread, I can see that corruption sits uneasily in your world view, and you are loath to subscribe. As am I. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle was better than just a writer of fiction, he would appear to have been a very important criminologist.
'It is a capital mistake to theorize before one has data. Insensibly one begins to twist facts to suit theories, instead of theories to suit facts.'

 

[xinonix]

Katy, the knife believed to be the murder weapon was from Raffaele's kitchen. Raffaele was a knife collector, so the prosecution assumed that Raffy grabbed a knife from his kitchen drawer just before he left. after Rudy was done stabbing her with his pocket knife, Raffi took another stab with the kitchen knife. He was taking advantage of this opportunity to add a knife that had been used in a murder to his collection. He thought he removed all the DNA from the knife when he cleaned it, but he was wrong.

 

[Machiavelli]

Some coincidences are just too much. They strain belief. Trashing 4 computer hard drives? I work in the computer industry and have swapped out thousands of computer hard drives. I've never seen anything as absurd as the prosecution frying 4 hard drives. (...)

Of the three damaged hard drives (Sollecito's, Knox's, Meredith's), two were recovered. Don't forget that.

 

[Matthew Best]

Of the three damaged hard drives (Sollecito's, Knox's, Meredith's), two were recovered. Don't forget that.

I fail to see the relevance. The fact that they were damaged in the first place is embarrassing on its own.

 

[Diocletus]

Hi acbytesla,
That kitchen knife photo that I posted above earlier tonight,
(err make that last night RW!)
with the lil spots on it,
well it was tested for DNA, as you mighta heard.

But when it came up empty, so to say,
err, make that "Too Low"
it was tested again, and again, and again:
[qimg]http://imageshack.us/a/img13/1158/vcdb.jpg[/qimg]

Why?
Were any other items also tested again,
+ again, + again, + again, + again, + again, + again, + again, + again, + again, and again?

Or just this 1 sample?

If not,
why not?

Just wonderin' over here in Santa Monica, California...
RW


Link here:
http://web.archive.org/web/20100806235709/http://perugia-shock.blogspot.com/2009/09/too-low.html

That picture is interesting. It is a page of Qubit records that is not included in the Quantificazione document.

Does anyone have an image of the whole document? I'm think that these measurements do not relate to Exh. 36. Rather, these appear to me to be the Qubit records for exhibits 32-34. I would like to know the date of these tests.

 

[xinonix]

They are making Barbie Nadeau's book into a movie. If there will be a movie that tells the guilter's side of the story, there should also be a movie that tells the other side.
This could be done by modifying the movie that was made for the lifetime network where Hayden Paniettire plays Amanda.
This movie was only aired once and then it was put away, mostly because it contained a scene where Meredith is murdered. This made it a snuff movie, so there were too many complaints to air it again.
So I would throw that scene out, and add a scene where Mignini and his psychic are in Meridith's room and the psychic goes into a trance and has a vision. Meridith was killed in a satanic rite by 3 people, one of whom was Black.
The psychic's performance convinced Mignini that Meridith was killed by 3 people.
The psychic could not specify who these people are.
According to the DNA that was found, the last 4 people who were in the house were Meridith and Amanda and her boyfriend, plus an unidentified person. They found a pubic hair from a Black man. What the psychic had said proved to be true.
When they found the text message where Amanda said "see you later" to Patrick on Nov 1, they knew who the Black man was.
n.b. I said "in the house" not in Meredith's room.
So, back to the movie,
You have to take into account that Mignini was 100% certain that it was a satanic ritual, therefore if these 3 people were on the streets they may have done another human sacrifice, He had to get them behind bars, and the end justified the means.
When they found Rudy they found out he was the Black man, so they let Patrick go home to the white woman he married.
Since he got the information from a psychic, Mignini would have to find some evidence it was satanic. The jury might not believe in ESP so he had to substitute the motive with something else, I guess the sex game was all Mignini could come up with.
Anyway after sending samples of DNA to various laboratories they finally found the knife and the bra clasp.
Now that we have a plot rolling we can just use the rest of the Lifetime movie.

 

[katy_did]

Katy, the knife believed to be the murder weapon was from Raffaele's kitchen. Raffaele was a knife collector, so the prosecution assumed that Raffy grabbed a knife from his kitchen drawer just before he left. after Rudy was done stabbing her with his pocket knife, Raffi took another stab with the kitchen knife. He was taking advantage of this opportunity to add a knife that had been used in a murder to his collection. He thought he removed all the DNA from the knife when he cleaned it, but he was wrong.

Ah. When you put it like that, it all makes sense.

Or not. Definitely one of the two.

 

[xinonix]

"Of the three damaged hard drives (Sollecito's, Knox's, Meredith's), two were recovered. Don't forget that. "
OK, so the evidence that Raffi was online at the time of the murder was on the drive that was not recovered.