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

[Bill Williams]

The reason the bath mat was left there and the reason the faucet was not cleaned is that Rudy was in a hurry to return to Meredith's room and take care of things there. The dirty bath mat Rudy left behind and the footprints he tracked have nothing to do with anyone else, in spite of the scenario-building investigators and guilters want or need it to be. No "cleaning crew" followed up behind him in any room or space in the house.

Rudy was a lone-wolf burglar who needed to steal rent money and resellable items. He would not want an accomplice because he would not want to share the loot. A former semi-pro basketball player who can bob and weave and jump and stretch with the local A team, he was fully capable of getting in a window by himself on the obscure side of the house.

What is still a lingering mystery is why there are no intervening forensic traces of Rudy between Meredith's room and that bathmat.

Massei dealt with this mystery in his motivations report. Remember, this is a motivations report to justify a guilty verdict against Knox and Sollecito.

Massei said that the mystery of the "missing forensic traces", meaning the presumed missing footprints-in-blood between Meredith's room and the bathmat.....

1) must have been the result of a clean-up
2) that clean-up must have been done by Amanda and/or Raffaele​

Massei tries to resolve a mystery, pointing to - are you ready - no evidence at all.

There is actually no evidence of a clean-up. Most certainly if there had been one, the attempt at a clean-up, particularly of blood, would have been detected with luminol.... swirls undetectable by the human eye. And what further suggests that there had been no clean-up is the very existence of the blood-stain on the faucet and the bathmat itself!!!!

This has to be repeated. What further suggests that there had been no clean-up is the very existence of the blood-stain on the faucet and the bathmat itself!!!!

So even before considering that there is no evidence at all to suggest that Amanda and/or Raffaele had actually done a clean-up, there is actually evidence that one had never been done....

..... for Massei, it was only to solve a mystery - the mystery of why no intervening footprints in blood.

And to top it all off as you Strozzi say, Channel 5's documentary shows conclusively that a moderately trained and athletic person could actually do the break-in at Filomena's window almost effortlessly.

So your own musings on this, Strozzi, are the building blocks of what guilters never provide - indeed Machiavelli says one is not needed - a comprehensive timeline which explains the crime and fits the evidence.

Knox and Sollecito are innocent.

 

[acbytesla]

Very nicely stated response on an issue that goes to the heart of one of the main divisions of belief in this case. For at least 30 years I have been aware of the power of the police to obtain false confessions. Many cases involving false confessions obtained with harsh police interrogation have been mentioned in this thread. It is also a common theme in American crime dramas. For me, it is on this issue that Machiavelli's views are the most difficult to understand.

Machiavelli functions mostly as a pure advocate for a particular point of view in this thread and as such it is difficult to know what his actual thought process is on any particular issue, but is Machiavelli, the person, really incapable of understanding the problems with deriving any conclusions about this crime from the ambiguous statement made by Knox under significant duress?

Sadly, those American crime dramas don't really help with justice. I'm a big fan of them when it comes to watching, But they are in reality incredibly unrealistic and probably lead to injustices everywhere.

The cops ALMOST ALWAYS find the killers and get them to confess all in a day or two. DNA tests are done in seconds and it's amazing how often they get matches in a National or International database. Never mind that less than 1 percent of the public has their DNA in such a database. Or fingerprints are ID'd in the field in seconds. Also, there never is the wall between the techs and the real police officers as there should be.

My best friend is a Seattle police officer and so is his sister, and his brother in law. His sister is a detective. They both joke about how unrealistic the shows are and how the public expects real police work to be like it is in the movies, when it never really is.

The one thing they almost always get wrong is how interrogations work. Cops absolutely will lie and try and trick suspects into saying something incriminating. That is why if you are arrested, the one thing you should do is "SHUT UP" and wait for a lawyer. But they are much likely to be calm and sweet talk you than threaten you like they do on TV.

 

[acbytesla]

The blood if diluted enough could light up under luminol and test negative with TMB.

Someone long before the murder night could have had a diluted water and blood mixture from the bidet or shower on their foot and walked around a little.

Blood is very hard to completely remove. Blood can be found long after a crime and even if a cleaning was attempted.

The blood source could be a cut, a nose bleed or something else.

I know you keep saying that Grinder. But in all respect, this is highly unlikely. Not unless there was something wrong with the TMB like it was 10 years old or the hydrogen peroxide was water.

The point is that TMB is a very effective presumptive test for blood. It is not a definitive test for blood and neither is Luminol. Without a confirming test form blood it is simply wrong to suggest at all that it still could have been blood.

 

[Strozzi]

Machiavelli, I was glued to your twitter site for the early tweets but then you went silent. I figured that is when you snuck out to join a stranger you never met in a sex-orgy. I asked a heroin junkie in the park and he said he saw nothing, but in 8 months he will come forward and say he saw you.

 

[kwill]

Machiavelli, I was glued to your twitter site for the early tweets but then you went silent. I figured that is when you snuck out to join a stranger you never met in a sex-orgy. I asked a heroin junkie in the park and he said he saw nothing, but in 8 months he will come forward and say he saw you.

Well played, Sir.

 

[Bill Williams]

Machiavelli, I was glued to your twitter site for the early tweets but then you went silent. I figured that is when you snuck out to join a stranger you never met in a sex-orgy. I asked a heroin junkie in the park and he said he saw nothing, but in 8 months he will come forward and say he saw you.

Well played, Sir.

LOL!!!!!

I have the bleach receipts from the clean up Machiavelli participated in....

Then there was the lady who on the day Machiavelli snuck out of the courtroom (proof: his tweets stopped) who on the 6th of Nov, 2013, actually did not hear Machiavelli scream.... but a year later, there was a report on TV quoting her as saying she'd heard a scream (could have been the 5th, but maybe the 6th), and the police rushed out to arrest Machiavelli without bothering to interview her....

See Machiavelli... just how does one defend themselves against this sort of evidenceless innuendo?

 

[Diocletus]

LOL!!!!!

I have the bleach receipts from the clean up Machiavelli participated in....

Then there was the lady who on the day Machiavelli snuck out of the courtroom (proof: his tweets stopped) who on the 6th of Nov, 2013, actually did not hear Machiavelli scream.... but a year later, there was a report on TV quoting her as saying she'd heard a scream (could have been the 5th, but maybe the 6th), and the police rushed out to arrest Machiavelli without bothering to interview her....

See Machiavelli... just how does one defend themselves against this sort of evidenceless innuendo?

This just in: Machiavelli's DNA found on his kitchen knife and in his bathroom!

And wait a minute . . . wasn't Halloween 8 days ago!

 

[davefoc]

Sadly, those American crime dramas don't really help with justice. I'm a big fan of them when it comes to watching, But they are in reality incredibly unrealistic and probably lead to injustices everywhere.

The cops ALMOST ALWAYS find the killers and get them to confess all in a day or two. DNA tests are done in seconds and it's amazing how often they get matches in a National or International database. Never mind that less than 1 percent of the public has their DNA in such a database. Or fingerprints are ID'd in the field in seconds. Also, there never is the wall between the techs and the real police officers as there should be.

My best friend is a Seattle police officer and so is his sister, and his brother in law. His sister is a detective. They both joke about how unrealistic the shows are and how the public expects real police work to be like it is in the movies, when it never really is.

The one thing they almost always get wrong is how interrogations work. Cops absolutely will lie and try and trick suspects into saying something incriminating. That is why if you are arrested, the one thing you should do is "SHUT UP" and wait for a lawyer. But they are much likely to be calm and sweet talk you than threaten you like they do on TV.

I don't disagree with any of this, but it suggests I wasn't clear enough in what I said. American crime dramas occasionally have as a plot point a false confession that has been obtained through police coercion. It also shows up occasionally on the crime reconstruction reality shows. False confessions have also been an element of a few widely publicized cases. I did not mean to imply that American police dramas are reliably informative about the American criminal justice system. I was merely looking to understand why somebody with my life experiences sees the Knox statement as the result of police coercion and I was trying to understand why Machiavelli with different life experiences doesn't.

 

[snook1]

This just in: Machiavelli's DNA found on his kitchen knife and in his bathroom!

And wait a minute . . . wasn't Halloween 8 days ago!

And his footprints were discovered in his house. They were tested with luminol, but I heard there was some trouble with confirmatory blood tests.

 

[GreyFox]

This just in: Machiavelli's DNA found on his kitchen knife and in his bathroom!

And wait a minute . . . wasn't Halloween 8 days ago!

His kitchen knife is a two foot sword that he hid up his sleeve on the way over while receiving a text from Vogt something about CYA later ???

 

[GreyFox]

Or was it CYA later Aligator...MAFIA Code for lets kill someone and eat their liver.

Wait though...Vogt stopped tweeting the same day. Hmm

 

[kwill]

I'm certain there are some enterprising journalists who could be persuaded to interview those who knew Mach back in college about the frequency of his masturbation habits. The public needs to know!

(Sorry for the ick. I just read a certain section of Barbie Nadeau's disgusting book.)

 

[NancyS]

I would like to add on to this. Did Stefanoni have a history of field testing blood only by sight? .

I now have an image of Stefanoni sniffing the footprints like Chantelle Dubois in Madagascar 3 (you might need to have young children to get this)

 

[GreyFox]

I'm certain there are some enterprising journalists who could be persuaded to interview those who knew Mach back in college about the frequency of his masturbation habits. The public needs to know!

(Sorry for the ick. I just read a certain section of Barbie Nadeau's disgusting book.)

now that's not right ! RFLMAO

 

[katy_did]

Thanks. I cannot work out a scenario where the footprints could have been made in the aftermath of the murder. 1) no clean up in the area of footprints - footprints are too clear. 2) not from direct transfer - foot prints would be visible or a literal track record of some sort would form. I can only think of diluted blood + water from clean in another place which would have to be the bathroom, but why leave the bathmat and why not clean off the faucet?

*Can* the claim be anything more than wishful thinking? Sometimes I wish reasonable guilters - such perhaps as thoughtful - would come on the board and give me their pov. ( But then, fear can be a powerful motivator, even for the geniuses among us).

Although I think that legally and scientifically the prints shouldn't be accepted as being dilute blood because of the negative TMB test, I've always thought the most obvious explanation for them is the shower Amanda took that morning.

Suppose Amanda did take a shower, as she says, and then dried off her feet on the bathmat and 'walked' the mat up the hallway to avoid soaking the floor with water. Since there were visible traces of dilute blood on the mat, wouldn't we expect to see luminol-positive areas on the floor where she stepped off it? The fact the prints are only from a right foot could either be because her left foot didn't touch the blood-stained areas of the mat, or because she only stepped off it with her right foot.

Sure, there's nothing to prove that the prints were from dilute blood and not some other substance from before the murder. But given that there was dilute blood on the bathmat, and that Amanda says she sorta 'surfed' barefoot up the corridor on it, doesn't that seem like a really obvious explanation?

 

[Grinder]

I know you keep saying that Grinder. But in all respect, this is highly unlikely. Not unless there was something wrong with the TMB like it was 10 years old or the hydrogen peroxide was water.

The point is that TMB is a very effective presumptive test for blood. It is not a definitive test for blood and neither is Luminol. Without a confirming test form blood it is simply wrong to suggest at all that it still could have been blood.

What do you think it was? Specifically.

I don't see you questioning those that propose that the foot prints could be booty prints made by the ICSI.

It is highly unlikely that any prints were left after the murder in anything but blood. If the prints were left there before the murder, which is what I suspect, then what explanation do you have for what substance made them, how did it get only on one foot and why wasn't it washed away with a simple floor wash?

 

[Grinder]

Although I think that legally and scientifically the prints shouldn't be accepted as being dilute blood because of the negative TMB test, I've always thought the most obvious explanation for them is the shower Amanda took that morning.

Suppose Amanda did take a shower, as she says, and then dried off her feet on the bathmat and 'walked' the mat up the hallway to avoid soaking the floor with water. Since there were visible traces of dilute blood on the mat, wouldn't we expect to see luminol-positive areas on the floor where she stepped off it? The fact the prints are only from a right foot could either be because her left foot didn't touch the blood-stained areas of the mat, or because she only stepped off it with her right foot.

Sure, there's nothing to prove that the prints were from dilute blood and not some other substance from before the murder. But given that there was dilute blood on the bathmat, and that Amanda says she sorta 'surfed' barefoot up the corridor on it, doesn't that seem like a really obvious explanation?

Certainly a possibility. Also, she gave that account BEFORE the prints were discovered so it can't be that she made it up to cover for them.

Some don't want to allow for the possibility of them being from blood because they want everything to be black and white. As LJ said a while back there is evidence that could be of them and writing that there is absolutely no evidence isn't accurate. The DNA found by Steffy was never shown to be starch but certain PIP think that makes the prosecution's case look more foolish so they let PI "reporting" go unchallenged.

It remains the case that the prosecution needs to prove that it was actually Amanda's foot not just compatible and that it was left the murder night in whatever substance.

 

[Grinder]

This just in: Machiavelli's DNA found on his kitchen knife and in his bathroom!

And wait a minute . . . wasn't Halloween 8 days ago!

And he is in Perugia and known to consort with Masons.

 

[Charlie Wilkes]

Thanks. I cannot work out a scenario where the footprints could have been made in the aftermath of the murder. 1) no clean up in the area of footprints - footprints are too clear. 2) not from direct transfer - foot prints would be visible or a literal track record of some sort would form. I can only think of diluted blood + water from clean in another place which would have to be the bathroom, but why leave the bathmat and why not clean off the faucet?

*Can* the claim be anything more than wishful thinking? Sometimes I wish reasonable guilters - such perhaps as thoughtful - would come on the board and give me their pov. ( But then, fear can be a powerful motivator, even for the geniuses among us).

We're staring into a void of missing information, trying to google our way out of the darkness.

What we know is that luminol revealed three bare human footprints in the corridor. One was in the area between the bathroom door and the door to Meredith's room, with the toes oriented toward Meredith's door.

The other two seem to have been made with a larger foot. They are just outside Amanda's door, side by side, with the toes oriented toward the kitchen/common area.

All are right feet.

Luminol also revealed a shoe print in the corridor.

It also revealed a bare human footprint and several partial footprints inside Amanda's room.

It revealed two shapeless blobs in Filomena's room that were not photographed.

Machiavelli tried to solve this problem. His thesis, as best I can tell, is that Amanda and Raffaele used towels to slide around on the floor after the murder, stepping off them here and there to leave the footprints. These were the towels found soaked with blood under Meredith's body.

I see this as patently absurd, a stupid, desperate bid to somehow make the luminol results relevant to the crime.

But I don't know what really did produce these results. I can only guess, along with everyone else, and my best guess would be floor-mopping at some point before the murder.

 

[Grinder]

It must be a slow day. It's not sleep issues, I assure you.... but then again, you're going to go into your own international database to see if you can hack into my sleep-pathologists mainframe to get the real skinny on that, aren't you!?

You outed yourself some time back if IIRC. I'm not interested in you at all, only your relationship to the "reporters" you defend.

My apologies to the PMers should they actually exist. I think that when the discussion is about people and their relationships with other people such as Mach and Vogt and Mignini is important to know the relationships the accuser has with the "other sides" approximate reporters.

For the record I have no such database and wouldn't waste any access time looking for your info if I did. Also, I have never had any type of communication with any of the people in question. Can you make a similar statement?