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

[Samson]

No, but I trust my own eyes. That is what is great about the bath mat prints as opposed the DNA evidence which tends to make my head spin. I can see. Nobody needs to tell me if it is a match or not. What my eyes tell me is that I can't tell....and I frankly don't believe anyone else can tell either. And it wouldn't matter if they had three doctorates in forensics.

I thought that was what the pathologist saw too with TOD and the vacant duodenum, but it does not seem to deter people. Here is what I just read on pmfdotorg,
" We know from the times provided by the tow truck driver that the attack happened after the roadway had been cleared of the broken down vehicle."
I have no doubt this has been debated at length here, but I would be interested if anyone knows the argument that effectively MIGHT counter the pathologist.

 

[acbytesla]

Are you referring to the poll on the footprint identification from 3 years ago or the description of how it was formed along with the collaborating evidence that clearly identifies who made the print posted here.

ETA: Here is another place where I discussed the print with pictures.

OK, I looked at the poll. Interesting. My guess is that it was Rudy's like the majority of people, but still there is no way in hell I'd use that print as anything remotely conclusive.

 

[JREF2010]

And every single piece of nonsense created over the years fit perfectly into the pulp fiction story created by Mignini. Not believable facts but obvious gross fiction and at each critical point there was always something. Single LTN/LCN DNA samples as evidence and yet they never come close to meeting scientific reliability. And who could have guessed (me) the samples are used up and/or destroyed!

Now 6 years later the poor Kerchers rather than sharing private memories about the loss of their dear daughter are subjected to a crazy clown show that has not gotten any closer to being anything but an absurd sick game now at the expense of two innocent persons and their families plus the Kerchers are still being tricked and lied to.

I am quite certain the Italians will wrap this up by finding the two innocent, but, also parse it so that a story of doubt about innocence can be claimed so as to relieve themselves from additional scrutiny and the wrongly accused will never be fully exonerated. They will be forced to live under the cloud of doubt and the Kerchers will never be able to understand the simple case that was solved long ago and is the reason their daughter will never be with them again.

The defendants after 6 years of abuse and financial torture are worn out and broke and so will simply be glad the case is over. And with no will to fight left, will simply fade (hopefully) into obscurity.

The Italians after a compete and what should be embarrassing and loud warning about corruption and abuse rampant inside their system will do nothing. They have successfully silenced everyone including a forgotten blogger named Frank...remember him?

If it is true that Mignini shut down his site and silenced him then why no outrage from the CPJ? This seems a clouded situation like the one I expect will cloud this exoneration. In Franks case he cast enough doubt on himself to ruin his chance of clearing the matter and yet I somehow think that Frank was silenced by our little fat friend.

I would write a book but it would have to be fiction and not regular fiction but crazy CT Bigfoot style fiction. I wonder if I could get Mignini to write the forward?

great post, I suspect Migninni has plans for a book deal, he seems to be a "glory seeker", "attention obsessed ego"... Monster of Florence, and now this case... its not by accident he creates the media confusion and theatrical lies, becoming greater than fiction.... as Raffaele calls it a "reality show nightmare"..Migninni replaces Alfred Hitchcock.

 

[Charlie Wilkes]

I thought that was what the pathologist saw too with TOD and the vacant duodenum, but it does not seem to deter people. Here is what I just read on pmfdotorg,
" We know from the times provided by the tow truck driver that the attack happened after the roadway had been cleared of the broken down vehicle."
I have no doubt this has been debated at length here, but I would be interested if anyone knows the argument that effectively MIGHT counter the pathologist.

Yes, it has been debated at length, and we have a member (Rolfe) who has some expertise in this field. She thinks the digestive evidence points decisively to a TOD before 10 pm.

The cult argument is that this can't be right, because Nara and Curatolo are infallible. Some unknown factor must have halted Meredith's digestion by two plus hours after the point where her stomach would normally have begun to empty. Stress and disease are the main possibilities cited in medical literature.

Similarly, the cell network must have used a more distant tower to relay a text message to Meredith's phone shortly after 10 pm, instead of the nearby tower that handled all the other recorded traffic. If the murder hadn't happened yet, the phone was still at the cottage.

 

[RoseMontague]

No, but I trust my own eyes. That is what is great about the bath mat prints as opposed the DNA evidence which tends to make my head spin. I can see. Nobody needs to tell me if it is a match or not. What my eyes tell me is that I can't tell....and I frankly don't believe anyone else can tell either. And it wouldn't matter if they had three doctorates in forensics.

Yep, yep. The biggest problem with Rinaldi is that he excluded Guede as a possible match. That leaves RS as the only possible match. So why did he exclude Rudy. Let's take a look shall we? I am going to attach the page of Rinaldi's report with the crucial measurements of Rudy's foot and it gives a comparison with the bathmat print. The first comparison is this one...

Lunghezza e larghezza dell’alluce:
o impronta del tappetino = 30 mm x 39 mm;
o impronta assunta a GUEDE Rudy Hermann = 43 mm x 23 mm;

Whoa! Huge difference, is it not? But wait. This is comparing apples to oranges. If you go back to the reference print we find that Rinaldi has reversed them. The actual comparison shoud read...

Lunghezza e larghezza dell’alluce:
o impronta del tappetino = 30 mm x 39 mm;
o impronta assunta a GUEDE Rudy Hermann = 23 mm x 43 mm;

OK, much closer.

The second comparison that excludes Rudy is this one....

Lunghezza e larghezza del metatarso:
o impronta del tappetino = 50 x 99 mm;
o impronta assunta a GUEDE Rudy Hermann = 66,7 mm x 96 mm.

Whoa! Another huge diffeerence, no wonder Rudy was excluded. But wait. Take a look at that 66,7mm measurement. Should not the 23mm and 46mm just about fit within that 66 one. Yeah it should. It doesn't. What we find out is that the actual measurement is about 55mm, closer to the 50mm reference print than Raffaele's. So the actual measurement should read...

Lunghezza e larghezza del metatarso:
o impronta del tappetino = 50 x 99 mm;
o impronta assunta a GUEDE Rudy Hermann = 55 mm x 96 mm.

Again, much closer. In my opinion the bathmat print is of not sufficient detail to exclude Rudy Guede.

 

[Samson]

Yes, it has been debated at length, and we have a member (Rolfe) who has some expertise in this field. She thinks the digestive evidence points decisively to a TOD before 10 pm.

The cult argument is that this can't be right, because Nara and Curatolo are infallible. Some unknown factor must have halted Meredith's digestion by two plus hours after the point where her stomach would normally have begun to empty. Stress and disease are the main possibilities cited in medical literature.

Similarly, the cell network must have used a more distant tower to relay a text message to Meredith's phone shortly after 10 pm, instead of the nearby tower that handled all the other recorded traffic. If the murder hadn't happened yet, the phone was still at the cottage.

So Lalli saw proof around TOD, but imagined multi perpetrators, and Massei convicted on what was imagined, and ignored what was seen. What a disaster.

 

[LondonJohn]

So Lalli saw proof around TOD, but imagined multi perpetrators, and Massei convicted on what was imagined, and ignored what was seen. What a disaster.

Well Lalli was equivocal on whether this was a crime committed by multiple perpetrators or a sole assailant.

In general, Lalli's work appears to have been sound, in that he doesn't appear to have performed any of the autopsy incompetently. However, one thing he didn't do - which is very hard to understand - is weigh the body. And this error ended up having unforeseen ramifications on Time of Death estimates, since it's a crucial input variable in the Henssge Nomogram - which is an algorithm that estimates ToD based on the gradual decrease in post-mortem body temperature over time.

In the Kercher case, the pathologists were starting with one hand tied behind their backs in regard to the Henssge Nomogram anyhow, since body temperature was not first taken until around 1am on the 3rd November (potentially some 28 hours after death). This was because - inexplicably - Mignini had ordered Lalli not to take body temperature at the crime scene, out of some misguided and unqualified fear that this would contaminate the crime scene (oh, the irony!).

The longer after death the body temperature is taken, the wider the range of ToD is outputted by Henssge. So even with everything else being accurate, it would have been impossible to narrow down ToD to anything less than a range of several hours in this case. But the other input variables in the Henssge are 1) ambient air temperature around the body (obviously, a dead body will cool more slowly in a hot environment than a cold one); 2) the state of dress/covering of the body (again, unclothed bodies lose heat more quickly than clothed/covered ones); and 3) the weight of the body.

Since Lalli hadn't weighed Meredith's body, he (and others) had to take a semi-educated guess at her weight. And it appears (from comparison to previous medical records and photographs) that Meredith's weight was wrongly guessed.

When Lalli plugged his variables into Henssge, it gave him a huge range of ToD - from 6.30pm* on the 1st November to 4am on the 2nd November. He pointed out that the mid-point of this range was 11pm on the 1st. And - incredibly - the court seems to have decided that this mid-point of an enormously wide spread could be taken as Time of Death!

Lalli used an estimated weight of 55kg in his calculations. However, if Meredith had weighed just 2kg more (likely, based on other sources), then this would have had a significant effect on the output ToD. In fact, putting in 57kg would have generated a ToD spread centred not on 11pm, but on 9.50pm.

In short, the Henssge Nomogram was inherently unreliable as an accurate ToD indicator in this case, mainly owing to the length of time that had elapsed before body temperature was first taken. But in this case, investigators happened to be presented with another factor which could narrow down ToD to a short window (especially when considered in conjunction with other known evidence, such as the fact that Meredith was still provably alive at 9pm, and that there was a broken-down car parked opposite the cottage from 10.30 to 11.35pm).

This factor was the condition of Meredith's stomach and small intestine. I and others have posted many times on this issue, but the summary version is this: the fact that Meredith still clearly had the entire contents of her last meal within her stomach when she died (and none had passed into her duodenum or beyond) means that she essentially had to have died within 4 hours (at the absolute top limit) of the start of that meal, with 3-3.5 hours being a far more likely top limit. Since we know with some confidence that Meredith started her last meal by 6.30pm, and since we know for certain that she was still alive at 9pm, this means that she must have died at some point between 9pm and 10.30pm, and very probably before 10pm.


* There appears to be yet another mistake in the Massei report on this start time, which is listed as 8pm, but 8pm does not correlate to "30.5 hours after body temperature was first measured". 6.30pm does.

 

[Rolfe]

Yes, it has been debated at length, and we have a member (Rolfe) who has some expertise in this field. She thinks the digestive evidence points decisively to a TOD before 10 pm.

I'm for quite significantly earlier than 10 pm. I'd go with 9.20 - wasn't that the time Rudy was hinting at?

It's mildly surprising that nothing had moved into Meredith's duodenum before she got back to the cottage. It was going to start doing that "any minute", by that time. It's pretty unlikely nothing would have happened by ten, especially if she was just sitting around for most of that time.

I think she was attacked very soon after she got home, by someone (Rudy) who was already in the house. It fits with the clothes she was wearing, the heating not being turned on, the washing machine not being unloaded and her mother not being phoned.

You can dream up some explanation for all these things individually (maybe she kept her jacket on and didn't turn on the heating to save money, and so on), but when absolutely everything points in the same direction you get to the point of simply torturing the data to try to get it to say anything else.

There's no medical explanation that would account for there being nothing in Meredith's duodenum at 11 pm, if she'd spent two hours lying on her bed doing nothing. It's ridiculous. And the body temperature thing is just ludicrous, for all the reasons LondonJohn explained.

It was reading about the digestive evidence that intrigued me into becoming interested in the case. I simply couldn't believe anyone was trying to defend such a late time of death with that evidence in front of them.

Rolfe.

 

[Strozzi]

The last ten posts posted above are really solid arguments about this case. If anyone with a bit of knowledge needs to see a recap of key issues, these should be must reads.

 

[NancyS]

The time of death argument is probably the most convincing evidence. I could just about get my head around some kind of sex game gone wrong, if the time of death had been in the early hours of the morning and there had been signs of heavy drinking. It just doesn't make sense that two young people with no history of violence, would go from relatively calm and sober to crazed murderers in 30 minutes, especially if smoking marijuana. It's incredible how this piece of evidence has become lost in the whole debate and seems to be little known outside of forum-world

 

[Grinder]

So Lalli saw proof around TOD, but imagined multi perpetrators, and Massei convicted on what was imagined, and ignored what was seen. What a disaster.

Lalli was thrown off the case by Mignini which tells one something. He didn't say it was surely multiple attackers.

It was handicapped by the PLE/Mignini in not being able to access the body for so long that TOD would be nearly impossible to narrow to a short time frame.

To be fair it turned out to be hindsight as to how important TOD would be to Amanda and Raf. TOD had little value in Rudy's obvious involvement.

Truthfully it had less to do with establishing TOD as the basic bad police work. The obvious phone activity and when she arrived home established that TOD was between 9 and 10, no temperature information could have narrowed to that hour. Another problem they had was the temperature inside the house which would affect the body temperature. Was the heat on and the door shut for hours or was the heat off and the door open the whole time until Amanda shut it?

Anyway Lalli seems to be a professional and his work on the digestive system (no food in the duodenum) showed that she hardly could have been alive past 9 or 9:30 unless she eaten later than the british girls testified. He did provide the fact that she had a full drink in her at death which might have explained a slowing of the digestive system.

ETA - how is it known that Meredith didn't turn on the heat? The clever killers could have had the heat on all night and then turned it off to throw of TOD estimates by the PLE. I'm not saying this happened but Meredith could have turned the heat up and then down after her room warmed up. I believe she was killed by 10 but not because of clothing rather the phone activity and the lack of chyme in the duodenum.

 

[Grinder]

The time of death argument is probably the most convincing evidence. I could just about get my head around some kind of sex game gone wrong, if the time of death had been in the early hours of the morning and there had been signs of heavy drinking. It just doesn't make sense that two young people with no history of violence, would go from relatively calm and sober to crazed murderers in 30 minutes, especially if smoking marijuana. It's incredible how this piece of evidence has become lost in the whole debate and seems to be little known outside of forum-world

I agree with the TOD part but hesitate to embrace the "good kids" part of it. The latter has allowed the PGP to go on with violent comics, animal porn, rape prank and other mostly bogus but good sound bite bull.

Amanda and Raf could have a horrible history but they still would not be proven guilty of this crime.

The correct TOD takes all the witnesses out of play except the woman that saw a black man running past her around 10:15 or 10:30.

Curatolo, out. Nara, out. Monica, out. Nara's friend, out.

It does leave the hugely credible Quintavalle .

ETA - If you guys discussed Rudy's interview I missed it. Did he do it? What was said?

 

[Grinder]

I see elsewhere that he just produced another letter with the same story of being there but not participating.

What I hadn't thought of before (late, I know) was that the three people needed aspect is ruined by this. So the PGP must excoriate him and demand he be held and until he admits his true involvement.

 

[Samson]

I see elsewhere that he just produced another letter with the same story of being there but not participating.

What I hadn't thought of before (late, I know) was that the three people needed aspect is ruined by this. So the PGP must excoriate him and demand he be held and until he admits his true involvement.

Someone noted that in this letter he named neither Knox nor Sollecito, I doubt if he ever will again somehow. Since he (almost) certainly acted alone, he becomes a character of unparalleled evil for ever naming these two and Mignini becomes complicit.

 

[Kaosium]

Yes they do. Many others online newspapers employ shared sources. Most online papers purchase from press agencies or other releaser journalists. They can't actually have people following all news.

OK, fair enough.

You think, rather than you know.

It could be I know more than you think...

No, absolutely not Stefanoni. The highlited "things" which you mistakenly associat to Stefanoni, have nothing to do with Stefanoni.
What Vecchiotti is asking for, is the documentation about the collectiong of the knife; documentation which she was requesting to the Perugia Flying Squad.
A different office, a different city.

I understand that, it would not surprise me that the Polizia di Stato Squadra Mobile in Perugia was also not forthcoming, but that does not exonerate the Polizia Scientifica--or at least their little lab tech known as Patrizia Stefanoni. More on that later!

The newspaper clearly reported that Vecchiotti pointed out that she received all what she had requested to the Polizia Scientifica. This report by the newspapers is unambiguous.
Also the fact that she stresses how the forensics (in Rome) had offered complete cooperation, is unambiguous.

I don't know the context of that quote, it could mean quite a few different things depending on the words around it. I am also quite curious as to how anyone could report that Vecchiotti said she'd 'received all what she requested' when in fact the negative controls were missing as I pointed out in my last post. I wonder if the person who wrote that article just took the part where Vecchiotti complained about not getting the information she did until too late as her having said she'd received all she needed?

What I do know is that not having received the negative controls is incongruous with her having said she'd received everything she needed, and as their final report would detail the former, odds are there's something wrong with the latter.

You are putting things in on your own. First of all, you should not commit the mistake of assuming as a proven fact that Vecchiotti is not cheating. For example, it is documented that she made an argument about the lack of negative control data, but there is no document proving that Vecchiotti ever requested negative control data (actually no document proving that she requested raw data was shown, since the mail exchange was not revealed: we don't know - Charlie doesn't tell - how many e-mail they exchanged, what they answered to each other after that and how they settled their demands).
The shown facts, until now, is that in the C&V report, Stefanoni is reported to have deposited data on CD supports on certain dates (May 11 the last one?). And then, when Vecchiotti appears in court, she points out the total cooperation provided by the Polizia Scientifica, and said that they obtained all the material they requested.
There is also one lettr shown, apparently only one, by Stefanoni; but we don't know what Vecchiotti asked, when, what she wrote in e-mails previously or subsequently, if and what Stefanoni ansewered: we dont know the content of their exchange.
Moreover, we know that in C&V report there is no report about any refusal to provide data; and there is actually also no report about V&C ever requesting specific things, in particular never requesting negative controls data.

We instead know that the negative controls are dealt with the first time in court, and Manuela Comodi declared that they were never requested.

Machiavelli, that's absurd!

Of course she needed the negative control data! What do you think she wanted from Stefanoni, more electropherograms that looked like they were scribbled in black crayon? I can see you've never followed the link I've posted a half-dozen times to the FBI report on Jacqueline Blake getting caught gundecking her negative controls. Usually I've posted it because the beginning contains an excellent summary of DNA analysis on pages 4-15, but now we're going to get to the meat of the report, from pages 42-43 (56-57 of the PDF):

Below we describe in detail Blake’s wrongdoing, the impact of her conduct, why she was not detected sooner, and the adequacy of the FBI’s response to the discovery that she had failed to process the negative controls in the vast majority of the cases that she handled.

II. BLAKE’S MISCONDUCT

A. Incompletely Processed Controls

Blake’s misconduct in the DNAUI resulted from her failure to process the negative controls and reagent blanks in accordance with DNAUI protocols. Although she properly prepared these two types of control samples for amplification, she failed to follow established procedures when preparing them for capillary electrophoresis. The effect of this omission has been to render nearly all of Blake’s PCR work scientifically invalid.
As required during the extraction and amplification processes, Blake added all the amplification reagents to the negative control tubes and added all the extraction and amplification reagents to the reagent blank tubes. She also amplified the negative controls and reagent blanks as required.

As explained in Chapter Two, Section I.D (Capillary Electrophoresis) of this report, after amplification is complete the protocols require the PCR Biologist to add internal size standard to tubes. Prior to capillary electrophoresis, the PCR Biologist adds an appropriate amount of one of the following to the tubes containing the internal size standard: 1) amplified DNA from reference samples, evidentiary samples, or the positive control; 2) amplified negative control or reagent blank; or 3) an allelic ladder. After performing these steps, the DNA samples, positive control, negative control, reagent blank, and allelic ladders are ready for analysis using capillary electrophoresis.

Blake performed most of these steps as required. However, she failed to add a portion of the amplified negative controls and reagent blanks to the tubes containing the internal size standard. Therefore, the negative control and reagent blank samples that were analyzed through capillary electrophoresis consisted of only the internal size standard. As a result, the negative controls and reagent blanks were useless in detecting contamination that might have been introduced during the testing process. In order for these controls to detect contamination, the amplified contents of the negative controls and reagent blanks must go through capillary electrophoresis.

This is one of the premier DNA testing and analysis sites in the world. It happened here, just like it happened in Oz (Victoria?) that Lionking posted about so long ago in the original Cartwheels thread, something similar happened with the North Carolina SBI as Halides1 has posted about repeatedly, and it's becoming pretty apparent that the Polizia Scientifica succumbed as well. Skipping the (pretty!) pictures and the description thereof, here's the part from pp. 44-45 of that report, I wouldn't want you to miss any of this or its significance so I'll bold it for you:

The consequence of Blake’s omissions is that her testing results are scientifically invalid and cannot be relied upon. Without proper processing of the negative controls and reagent blanks, a Laboratory Examiner is not able to rule out the possibility that contamination, rather than the evidence under examination, is the source of the testing results.

This report was written in 2004, what it describes is the standards in the field of DNA analysis, it's not holding Blake to any ex post facto standard, it's the same scientific standard that Stefanoni learned as well. The negative controls are vital to proving the validity and reliability of the work that Stefanoni did, her not handing them over for analysis does not mean Vecchiotti is 'cheating' but that Stefanoni (as usual!) is trying to hide something.

The 40 days extension was due to their requests to the Perugia police, keep that in mind. They requested nothing more to Stefanoni.

So says that little blurb, I've reason to be skeptical of that report.

It's ridiculous, since Stefanoni is the director of the biology laboratory section. You are desperately trying to rationalize, what you say is simply not what ws reported. Vecchiotti said she obtained all what was requested.

However her (later!) report indicates she didn't receive all that was requested, as I thoughtfully quoted and linked for you in my last post. Thus my skepticism as to the accuracy of that account.

Or maybe it was exactly what happened, and Vecchiotti is a liar, a cheater.
Don't you consider this possibility?

It is possible, but when the subject of her inquiry is hiding the requisite data for her to perform her analysis it's more likely that the real liar and cheater is Stefanoni. Her efforts to hide the data behind the electropherograms is pronounced and she didn't even turn over a version that included peak areas until Conti and Vecchiotti's commission was almost up.

Even the articles about the 'rito sessuale' attributed to Mignini were copied from the same source (as I already said). This was an irrelevant hearing from a journalist's point of view, since they knew trial was simply going to be adjourned to another date. Most articles of this kind about unimportant events just repeat things from a single source. It's normal.

Yes, I realize that. What I wonder is whether that 'reporter' got their 'version' of that story from the Polizia Scientifica or an associated 'source' and whether they indulged in a little 'approximate reporting.'

I don't think the police are able to manufacture the news! It's more simple to assume that Vecchiotti just lied, she was just playing a dirty trick (as it was proven that she did).

If you go back and read the newspapers about this case in the beginning you'll see the police regularly manufactured the news in this case. The media sourced reports to police of them having a 'clear cut' shot of Amanda on CCTV entering the cottage the night of the murder, that the sweatshirt she was wearing the night of the murder had never been found, that the Harry Potter book they found at the cottage meant she was lying about her alibi, that they had found 'bleach receipts,' that Amanda was sleeping with five men when arrested, that the bathroom was covered with blood when she took a shower, (with a pretty picture taken by a short fat perp!) that they were using the washing machine when the murder was reported as well as others that I've probably forgotten.


So, yes, we'll be needing to see that transcript and don't think that I didn't notice that you didn't address that in your reply! )) I'm pretty sure we'll be seeing some more 'approximate reporting' of that court appearance and it wouldn't surprise me at all if whoever wrote that report got that version from a police source, or someone associated with them in this case.

You can 'win' one here, Machiavelli, show me that transcript and you can dance in the streets all night long about how wrong I was. Isn't that incentive enough?

 

[acbytesla]

Yep, yep. The biggest problem with Rinaldi is that he excluded Guede as a possible match. That leaves RS as the only possible match. So why did he exclude Rudy. Let's take a look shall we? I am going to attach the page of Rinaldi's report with the crucial measurements of Rudy's foot and it gives a comparison with the bathmat print. The first comparison is this one...

Lunghezza e larghezza dell’alluce:
o impronta del tappetino = 30 mm x 39 mm;
o impronta assunta a GUEDE Rudy Hermann = 43 mm x 23 mm;

Whoa! Huge difference, is it not? But wait. This is comparing apples to oranges. If you go back to the reference print we find that Rinaldi has reversed them. The actual comparison shoud read...

Lunghezza e larghezza dell’alluce:
o impronta del tappetino = 30 mm x 39 mm;
o impronta assunta a GUEDE Rudy Hermann = 23 mm x 43 mm;

OK, much closer.

The second comparison that excludes Rudy is this one....

Lunghezza e larghezza del metatarso:
o impronta del tappetino = 50 x 99 mm;
o impronta assunta a GUEDE Rudy Hermann = 66,7 mm x 96 mm.

Whoa! Another huge diffeerence, no wonder Rudy was excluded. But wait. Take a look at that 66,7mm measurement. Should not the 23mm and 46mm just about fit within that 66 one. Yeah it should. It doesn't. What we find out is that the actual measurement is about 55mm, closer to the 50mm reference print than Raffaele's. So the actual measurement should read...

Lunghezza e larghezza del metatarso:
o impronta del tappetino = 50 x 99 mm;
o impronta assunta a GUEDE Rudy Hermann = 55 mm x 96 mm.

Again, much closer. In my opinion the bathmat print is of not sufficient detail to exclude Rudy Guede.

You know, I'm not all that good with the measurements. I superimposed the prints on to each other. Their is NO WAY that I could exclude either Rudy or Raffaele. I'd be far more inclined to exclude Raffaele than Rudy, but I wouldn't be able to do that either. Raffaele's big toe does not look right to me. Also, Raffaele's foot seems much wider at the arch and the heel. The outline, particularly around the inside of the feet seems closer to Rudy.

As I said in my earlier post, the sample prints of Rudy and Raffaele were made in a controlled environment. I'm sure that an even amount of ink was applied to their feet and they carefully stepped on an even, flat piece of paper. They probably were made to stand applying an even amount of pressure. The print made on the night of the murder however, was made on a fuzzy bathmat and the amount of blood was unlikely to be even.

While we can probably safely say that this print was not made by Amanda, Laura, or Filomena. But, could it belong to Giaccomo, or even Mignini? I certainly don't know. I have seen two sample prints and so far I can't conclusively exclude either one. That makes pose the question, out of hundred men, how many could be excluded?

 

[Dan O.]

While we can probably safely say that this print was not made by Amanda, Laura, or Filomena. But, could it belong to Giaccomo, or even Mignini? I certainly don't know. I have seen two sample prints and so far I can't conclusively exclude either one. That makes pose the question, out of hundred men, how many could be excluded?

The DNA test is quite conclusive that the print belongs to Meredith. That and the fact that Meredith's prints are found throughout the cottage, including in Amanda's room is proof that Meredith is the true killer.

 

[Grinder]

Someone noted that in this letter he named neither Knox nor Sollecito, I doubt if he ever will again somehow. Since he (almost) certainly acted alone, he becomes a character of unparalleled evil for ever naming these two and Mignini becomes complicit.

If he named them and they were acquitted, would that be calunnia?

 

[Kaosium]

I thought that most of the measurements of the footprint on the mat, like 30 of them matched up with Raff's foot, and there were big discrepancies b/t it and guede.

Why don't you take the blind test? Keep in mind the print is a partial and the surface uneven, thus you may have to adjust for that, but take a look and see which reference print you think is more likely to have produced that bathmat stain.

 

[acbytesla]

I thought that most of the measurements of the footprint on the mat, like 30 of them matched up with Raff's foot, and there were big discrepancies b/t it and guede.

I was responding to Rose's post where she rebuts Rinaldi's testimony where he says there are discrepancies. I'd say look at the prints Geoffrey with no references. My point in my post, was that unlike the DNA evidence, you don't need a doctorate to see for yourself what is, or isn't a match.

I did what Kaosium suggested and took the blind test and suggest that you do as well. I certainly cannot exclude either one. Can you? My guess is that you can't.

Originally Posted by Kaosium View Post
Why don't you take the blind test? Keep in mind the print is a partial and the surface uneven, thus you may have to adjust for that, but take a look and see which reference print you think is more likely to have produced that bathmat stain.

i don't thinking just looking at them and comparing is how you are supposed to do it. need to measure various parts of the foot and then compare.

Why? Don't you trust your own eyes??? You need someone to tell you how to think?