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

[Bill Williams]

Mignini referred to Rudy in court as "poor Rudy." Does that mean Mignini really believes Rudy was led and manipulated by dynamic Amanda to participate in a murder? Or does Mignini know better? That Rudy is his own man, engaged in his own career as a repeat burglar.

Rudy is up for possible limited release next year. I think Rudy needs a successful mature man to guide him in his rehabilitation. Do you think Mignini might take in "poor Rudy"? Offer him a room at the Mignini house? I understand Mignini has several daughters. Offering Rudy a place to stay should work out well. When Mr. and Mrs. Mignini go out to dinner, poor Rudy can watch the girls for them.

This comment of Mignini's, that he's to be referred to as "poor Rudy", needs to be paired with the very last (of many) theories Mignini jad as to how this happened.

The last of four (or was it 5?) theories was that Amanda was in the hall goading on the boys to commit the murder.

So this is an entry point into Mr. Mignini's mind (eh, Machiavelli?) This "poor Rudy" wielded a knife at Meredith at the very least - esp. if you're still trying to maintain a "multiple attacker" scenario, with Knox out in the hall.

It's incredible how Mignini's theories fall apart, simply by trying to put his own details together.....

 

[kwill]

Poor Rudy.

My younger daughter is 23 right now. If I heard the person who cut her throat and ejaculated over her body referred in terms of sympathy, I don't think I could be held responsible for what I might say or do to someone who thought that language was appropriate.

 

[Machiavelli]

No, in fact the literature and the protocol clearly demonstrates that it TESTED NEGATIVE FOR BLOOD, TESTED NEGATIVE FOR BLOOD, TESTED NEGATIVE FOR BLOOD, TESTED NEGATIVE FOR BLOOD. TESTED NEGATIVE FOR BLOOD, TESTED NEGATIVE FOR BLOOD, TESTED NEGATIVE FOR BLOOD, TESTED NEGATIVE FOR BLOOD.

In fact, it is only bull speculation that the TMB provided a false negative. There is nothing to prove that. NOTHING.

In fact, there is something partly true in your last statement: the TMB negative test proves nothing.

The TMB test is actually expected to provide false negatives on latent stains. It doesn't work well on diluted stain, this is what textbooks say.

 

[codyjuneau]

I never thought I'd be glad Machiavelli is back!
..

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Hey Bill, maybe Goeffrey would like to join you and Machi for lunch.
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[xinonix]

We seem to be arguing about minor details of the evidence ,or lack thereof, The important issue is Mignini. Most of the pro-Amanda people think he is crazy.
There is no smoking gun in the evidence and it seems like Mignini based his case on things from his imagination.
There is also a popular belief that Mignini got invoved in the monster of Florence case because a psychic told him that a body found near Perugia was a man involved in those murders. And so he had the body dug up and attempted to prosecute a bunch of people he thought were involved.
If Machiavelli wants to gain any ground in this debate, what he really has to prove is Mignini is not crazy.

 

[acbytesla]

In fact, there is something partly true in your last statement: the TMB negative test proves nothing.

The TMB test is actually expected to provide false negatives on latent stains. It doesn't work well on diluted stain, this is what textbooks say.

Boy am I dumb...I thought that scientific tests were performed for a reason!!!!

Let's see, Dr.Karl Reich,who holds a degree in molecuar biology
from the University of California, LosAngeles and Harvard
University, stated that TMB is the most sensitive presumptive blood test available; and that a negative TMB test strongly suggests that there is no blood in the area tested.

Damn, things are absurd when people obfuscate...I mean lie.

 

[Bill Williams]

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Hey Bill, maybe Goeffrey would like to join you and Machi for lunch.
.

First of all, it was dinner.... second, Machiavelli brings the wine..... third, Goeffry would bring the animal crackers.

 

[kwill]

Where it was not found...



And what if the video (and the testimonies) show they didn't?

The clasp is irrelevant. It has no evidentiary value no matter whose DNA is on it, because during the 6+ weeks that it was lost, it moved.

The difference between evidence and garbage is chain of custody. There is no chain of custody whatsoever for those six + weeks, so the clasp is garbage.

Raffaele never set foot in that room.

 

[Bill Williams]

In fact, there is something partly true in your last statement: the TMB negative test proves nothing.

The TMB test is actually expected to provide false negatives on latent stains. It doesn't work well on diluted stain, this is what textbooks say.

This is simply an imbecilic comment. Everyone: read it through a few times. I will give a prize to anyone who can make this make sense - meaning, why would police use a forensic procedure that is "expected" to give false negatives on ANYTHING?

Think about what Machiavelli is claiming here. Then consider why he is saying it - he's in full bore defence of Mr. Mignini and Andrea Vogt. So much so he'll say things like this.

 

[Strozzi]

First of all, it was dinner.... second, Machiavelli brings the wine..... third, Goeffry would bring the animal crackers.

If you will wait a year, Rudy can join you.

 

[Bill Williams]

Where it was not found...



And what if the video (and the testimonies) show they didn't?

The clasp is irrelevant. It has no evidentiary value no matter whose DNA is on it, because during the 6+ weeks that it was lost, it moved.

The difference between evidence and garbage is chain of custody. There is no chain of custody whatsoever for those six + weeks, so the clasp is garbage.

Raffaele never set foot in that room.

At least we cannot pin the imbecility of the notion about the bra-clasp on Machiavelli....

..... only to add to your point - the chain of custody alone means that no court in the world should (or would) enter that clasp into evidence.

Then on top of this at trial, Stefanoni is shown her own Scientific Polices' video of the collection, where she is obviously wearing a dirty glove. In the video she (incredibly!) picks up the clasp and turns it around using fingers from each hand. Unfortunately, when the clasp part looks like she may be handling it directly, the angle of the video will not conclusively prove she touched it, even though it looks like it.

So she's asked: "Did you touch it."

At trial she could neither confirm nor deny, she'd touched it. At trial. She admitted it.

That Massei didn't put a stop to it right then and there is part of the travesty of justice in this trial..... that that clasp-hook was used to convict Sollecito is beyond words....

.... and, add as you say, the chain of evidence issue.

That this made it through the first trial.... and that this (as a matter of law) escaped the notice of the Italian Supreme Court, tells you all you need to know about justice in Italy.

 

[Strozzi]

At least we cannot pin the imbecility of the notion about the bra-clasp on Machiavelli....

..... only to add to your point - the chain of custody alone means that no court in the world should (or would) enter that clasp into evidence.

Then on top of this at trial, Stefanoni is shown her own Scientific Polices' video of the collection, where she is obviously wearing a dirty glove. In the video she (incredibly!) picks up the clasp and turns it around using fingers from each hand. Unfortunately, when the clasp part looks like she may be handling it directly, the angle of the video will not conclusively prove she touched it, even though it looks like it.

So she's asked: "Did you touch it."

At trial she could neither confirm nor deny, she'd touched it. At trial. She admitted it.

That Massei didn't put a stop to it right then and there is part of the travesty of justice in this trial..... that that clasp-hook was used to convict Sollecito is beyond words....

.... and, add as you say, the chain of evidence issue.

That this made it through the first trial.... and that this (as a matter of law) escaped the notice of the Italian Supreme Court, tells you all you need to know about justice in Italy.

I've seen the video of the white-suited official collecting and handling the bra clasp. That was Stefanoni? Incredible ! I didn't realize that. I just assumed it was a poorly-trained assistant. Perhaps a lab tech.

 

[codyjuneau]

I've seen the video of the white-suited official collecting and handling the bra clasp. That was Stefanoni? Incredible ! I didn't realize that. I just assumed it was a poorly-trained assistant. Perhaps a lab tech.

.
I suspect a food server trained and employed by McDonalds would have a better understanding of how to prevent contamination than Stefanoni displays in that video clip.
.

 

[Strozzi]

How did she know what to collect that day? Did she go there specifically to collect the bra clasp? How did she find it - I thought it was under a rug? Doesn's she know to use sterile tweezers to pick up and handle an item you want to test for DNA?

Did she know beforehand she was going to be videotaped? If so, you'd think she would wear clean gloves and carry a pair of sterile tweezers.

 

[kwill]

How did she know what to collect that day? Did she go there specifically to collect the bra clasp? How did she find it - I thought it was under a rug? Doesn's she know to use sterile tweezers to pick up and handle an item you want to test for DNA?

Did she know beforehand she was going to be videotaped? If so, you'd think she would wear clean gloves and carry a pair of sterile tweezers.

It's the weirdest story, isn't it? Raffaele's family had figured out that the prosecutors were mistaken about his shoe being the one that left a print in Meredith's room. He and Rudy happened to own the same brand, but Rudy's foot was a different size, so the print left in Meredith's blood could be shown definitively not to belong to a shoe that fit Raffaele.

That print was the ostensible reason they were holding him . . . and so when Raffaele's father went public with the information about the mismatched prints, there needed to be another rationale.

IMO, the real reason they needed some kind of evidence against him was that they believed 100% he would roll on Amanda if they pressured him viciously enough, and that meant keeping him in prison.

And keeping him in prison required some kind of physical tie to the crime scene. And that's why, more than six weeks after he'd been arrested, Steffanoni led her team back to the crime scene, video crew along for the ride, to document the miraculous finding of the magical moving bra clasp . . . more than a yard from where it had been photographed during the initial investigation, now under a rug instead of out in the open.

Where it had been in the interim is not known, which is why it can't be used as evidence against Raffaele, ever. (In a just universe, I mean.)

 

[Poppy1016]

What has happened to the thread?

 

[Strozzi]

It's the weirdest story, isn't it? Raffaele's family had figured out that the prosecutors were mistaken about his shoe being the one that left a print in Meredith's room. He and Rudy happened to own the same brand, but Rudy's foot was a different size, so the print left in Meredith's blood could be shown definitively not to belong to a shoe that fit Raffaele.

That print was the ostensible reason they were holding him . . . and so when Raffaele's father went public with the information about the mismatched prints, there needed to be another rationale.

IMO, the real reason they needed some kind of evidence against him was that they believed 100% he would roll on Amanda if they pressured him viciously enough, and that meant keeping him in prison.

And keeping him in prison required some kind of physical tie to the crime scene. And that's why, more than six weeks after he'd been arrested, Steffanoni led her team back to the crime scene, video crew along for the ride, to document the miraculous finding of the magical moving bra clasp . . . more than a yard from where it had been photographed during the initial investigation, now under a rug instead of out in the open.

Where it had been in the interim is not known, which is why it can't be used as evidence against Raffaele, ever. (In a just universe, I mean.)

Machiavelli, is this correct? Is it true that there is a connection between the police or prosecutor realizing that Raffaele''s shoe as evidence is false and their decision to return to the crime scene to find something else to use against Raffaelle?

So it wasn't good police work after all? The police had a motive to find something? Is that called suspect-centric evidence collection?

Now I must ask the obvious question. Since the police or presecutor were about to face ridicule for claiming falsely that Raffaele's shoes matched the bloody shoeprints, did the police tamper with the evidence? On this return visit 6 weeks after the murder did the police really find the bra clasp under the rug? Or did police officers bring it back to the house to plant it there so Steffanoni could be videotaped "finding" it?

Kind of reminds me of the police officer opening Raffaele's cutlery drawer and pulling out the first big knife on top and asking his partner "Will this knife do?" and being told "Yes, yes, it's great".

 

[Poppy1016]

Machiavelli, is this correct? Is it true that there is a connection between the police or prosecutor realizing that Raffaele''s shoe as evidence is false and their decision to return to the crime scene to find something else to use against Raffaelle?

So it wasn't good police work after all? The police had a motive to find something? Is that called suspect-centric evidence collection?

Now I must ask the obvious question. Since the police or presecutor were about to face ridicule for claiming falsely that Raffaele's shoes matched the bloody shoeprints, did the police tamper with the evidence? On this return visit 6 weeks after the murder did the police really find the bra clasp under the rug? Or did police officers bring it back to the house to plant it there so Steffanoni could be videotaped "finding" it?

Kind of reminds me of the police officer opening Raffaele's cutlery drawer and pulling out the first big knife on top and asking his partner "Will this knife do?" and being told "Yes, yes, it's great".

How And why was either the bra clasp or the knife permitted as evidence? I have yet to hear a reasonable theory as to how a court in a supposed civilized country allowed these items in as evidence.

 

[davefoc]

In other news Goeffrey has been banned as a sock puppet of DrTesla.

Wow. I don't think anybody saw that coming!

I have mixed feelings here. If he was a sock puppet then the rules require banning and I understand that. If he was serious (I wasn't sure of that) then I didn't see anything else that he did that required banning . Allowing people to post here that have contrary positions to the JREF standardized poster seems kind of like the point of the place to me.

LondonJohn posted a great answer to one of his posts that seems moot now that he has left us, but I thought I'd cut and paste it anyway for one more play. It didn't seem likely that Goefrey was going to make his way all the way through it though. LJ failed to mention buying panties or anything at all about Knox's sex life so I didn't expect Goefrey to jump on it right away.

As an aside, I notice that Goefrey as we knew him has been wiped from the face of the earth. Wow, when they ban you now they're serious. All that remains of Geofry is in the posts where people have quoted him.

well you have not laid out a logical reason why people in Italy would be out to frame this obscure 20 year old college girl.

I think the problem lies with your use of the term "frame".

The contention of many pro-acquittal/pro-innocence commentators (including me) is that no "framing" whatsoever took place - if "framing" is defined as "pursuing a suspect despite knowing that (s)he is innocent, on the basis of some sort of prior prejudice".

Instead, the contention is as follows: in the immediate aftermath of the murder, the local police and prosecutors were incredibly keen to be competent and speedy - and to be SEEN to be competent and speedy - in solving this international-profile grisly murder. They were keen for three main reasons: 1) personal pride and reputation enhancement; 2) they knew the world was watching them, and were desperately keen to show that Perugia could sort this thing out quickly and efficiently; 3) they had bungled very badly in a very similar - but much lower-profile - murder almost exactly a year earlier, and were therefore desperate to show that they had "learned their lesson".

With all this in mind, the police and prosecutors quickly snatched at theory of the crime, based seemingly on Knox's "unorthodox" behaviour after the murder, and the indisputable fact that Knox and Sollecito had, by their own admissions, been in and around the cottage on their own on the morning after the murder. I believe that by the 3rd November, they had decided amongst themselves that they had "solved the crime". I think they decided that Knox definitely knew far more than she was telling them, and that she was very probably involved at some level. I think they thought that Sollecito was covering for her out of a misguided sense of loyalty, but that he possibly wasn't directly involved himself.

And when they found that Knox had exchanged text messages with someone on the night of the murder, this fed straight into their theory. Why hadn't Knox told them about these text messages? To the police/PM, this could only mean one thing: the text messages were linked to the murder. Were they part of the planning or arrangement?

I think that the police and PM had a definite plan for the night of the 5th/6th of November, by which time I believe they were certain in their own minds that they had figured the big picture out perfectly. I think they planned to get Sollecito in on his own at first, and pressurise him until he finally admitted that he was only covering for Knox. I think this would have been the cue for the "lights and sirens" squad to arrest Knox at Sollecito's apartment (they had high surveillance on Knox and Sollecito, so they'd have known where she was), with some handy media there to record the event.

As it happened, Knox came to the police HQ with Sollecito, so they were denied the spectacle of arresting Knox in public. However, the other part of their scheme went - somewhat - to plan. Sollecito equivocated under pressure that he couldn't be sure whether Knox might have left his apartment that night. Bingo!

The police brought Knox in and confronted her with this "abandonment" of her by Sollecito. Bear in mind that they truly thought they were only uncovering the truth here. When they saw the contents of Knox's sent text from the night of the murder - a clumsily-translated "see you later", they took this as further confirmation of their theory: Knox had clearly set a meeting with the recipient of the test message for later that same night.

But who WAS the recipient? Knox could furnish them with the answer to that: Lumumba. Aha! The police surveillance had seen Knox talking with Lumumba outside the university only that very afternoon (the 5th). IN the police's minds this clearly had to have been a covert meeting between the two to check up on the state of the police investigation, and to remind each other not to say or do anything incriminating.

All the pieces of the puzzle had now fallen into place, in the minds of the police and PM: Knox had clearly arranged to meet with Lumumba on the night of the murder. She had indeed left Sollecito's apartment, met with Lumumba, and taken him to the cottage, whereupon Lumumba had sexually assaulted and killed Meredith. Lumumba was the killer; Knox was guilty of assisting the killer and lying to the police; Sollecito was guilty of lying to the police to protect Knox. Case closed!

They went back in to the interrogation room and told Knox they knew exactly what had happened. Knox, they said, had better tell them everything now, in order to protect herself against both Lumumba and the prospect of a far heavier prison sentence. She MUST REMEMBER now what happened, and tell the police and PM everything. Knox said she couldn't remember anything - that all she remembered was being at Sollecito's all night. "NONSENSE!", the police responded. "We KNOW you were there, and we know Lumumba killed Meredith. Tell us the truth!"

And after half an hour or so of this, Knox broke down and told them that perhaps, yes, she could imagine having met with Lumumba and gone with him to the cottage, where he killed Meredith as she cowered in the kitchen covering her ears.

Cue mutual back-slapping thoughout the police HQ. Call in the PM! We've confirmed our theory! They've all confessed! Case closed! All within five days of the murder! Our reputations are assured!

And the rest, as they say, is history. The police and PM called an extraordinary triumphalist press conference the following morning (the 6th) at which they announced to the watching world that they had indeed "solved the case". Incredibly, Perugia Police Chief Artur De Felice inadvertently confirmed exactly what had happened the previous night, when he stated that Knox had initially given a version of events that the police "knew to be incorrect", but that then she finally "bucked" and gave an account of events that "the police knew to be correct".

As soon as that press conference was over, the police and PM were always going to find it extremely hard to change their theory: they had, after all, "solved the crime" - how could they now say "Um, that first time we said we'd solved the crime wasn't quite correct - we've got a new theory, and NOW we've solved the crime!" But three things made it essentially impossible for the theory to be changed:

First, Lumumba was ruled out of the crime. This would have been a huge blow to the police and PM who had so confidently announced "case closed" to the world's media just days earlier. Oops.

Second, forensic results came back, and clearly implicated an entirely different man - Guede - who had not featured at all in the "case closed" triumphalism.

Thirdly, the PM was (and is) a stubborn, arrogant, hubris-filled man. He wasn't going to admit to having got things so badly wrong on the 6th November, if he could avoid it.

So an easy get-out was constructed: why not just substitute Guede for Lumumba in our theory of the crime? That way, we get to preserve the theory in many ways, and we can just blame Knox for misdirecting us to Lumumba.

And that, in a very large nutshell(!), is how and why - in my belief - the police and PM became fixated on pursuing the prosecution of Knox and Sollecito, long after it became obvious that one man (Guede) acting alone had committed the crime.

 

[Bill Williams]

First of all, it was dinner.... second, Machiavelli brings the wine..... third, Goeffry would bring the animal crackers.

If you will wait a year, Rudy can join you.

Brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr....... <shiver>

This may be one thing Machiavelli and I agree on...... Rudy is not welcome.