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

[acbytesla]

The other thing is this: in the two-part TMB test, there are two different ways to get a negative for blood (well, the first is a true negative, and the second is an inconclusive): the first way is for both step one and step two to show negative -then you know you're looking at neither blood nor an oxidant of some sort (bleach, certain acids,etc); the other way is if you get a positive with step one - this means that oxidants are definitely present, but it's impossible to tell whether or not blood is also present.

In Stefanoni's case, however, it appears she might have used Hemastix (or equivalent) in any case - which in itself would have been the incorrect version of the TMB test to conduct following a positive Luminol test. If that's what happened, then a negative to Hemastix following a positive to Luminol would indeed imply that the Hemastix was showing a false negative due to too high a dilution of whatever product was present (whether blood, an oxidant, or a combination).

The correct thing to have done in any case would have been to do a confirmatory test for blood. She didn't.

You know, people make mistakes. But in this case, the "government" (police, prosecutors, techs, etc) screwed up at every opportunity. It started actually before the murder when they let Rudy go after being arrested in the nursery and then when Mignini prevented Lalli from getting a liver temperature. It continued with not collecting all the evidence including towels and Meredith's sweatshirt and the bra clasp. Then with "see you later", not recording the interrogations, preventing Amanda and Raffaele from having lawyers. Then the press conference declaring case closed. Arresting Patrick Lumumba without anything other than Amanda's statement despite an iron clad alibi. Then holding him for two weeks. Then keeping his bar closed until he went bankrupt. Then mis-identifying the shoe prints as Raffaele's. Then not releasing Amanda and Raffaele when they had Rudy especially considering that Rudy said they weren't there. Only testing Raffaele's knives. Then we have the collection of the bra clasp and that farce. Then the over application of Luminol, The release of the bathroom photo in pink. The police using Raffaele's DVR. The fiasco with the computer hard drives. The lack of negative controls or missing documents. The strange DNA procedures of Stefanoni. The stealing and the the release of Amanda's diary. The fake HIV test and publication of Amanda's paramours.

We could go on and on and on how either through incompetence or outright corruption how the Perugian authorities screw the pooch on this.

Really SAD

 

[katy_did]

This describes what I thought from near the beginning. I added the possibility that it was very old blood after reading about how hard blood is to remove. I think that the only fly in the ointment is that they didn't get Meredith's DNA but still a very plausible scenario.

In some ways I do wonder if the defence left an open goal for the prosecution by refusing to consider the possibility the prints were in dilute blood. It made it seem like either the prints were in blood and therefore incriminating, or made innocently in some other substance: the prosecution got to say things like "Blood or turnip juice, you decide", and to make sarcastic comments about people walking around with blood-stained feet at some time other than the murder.

Perhaps it would have taken some of the wind out of the prosecution's sails if the defence had said "You know what, we can't totally rule out that the prints were from dilute blood, but if so here's how they were made" and then showed how closely the luminol evidence matches up with Amanda's account of what she did that morning. Legally and scientifically they were absolutely right to say there was no confirmation that the prints were blood, the problem is that the jury weren't paying attention to that, they were thinking "Blood or turnip juice?"

 

[acbytesla]

In some ways I do wonder if the defence left an open goal for the prosecution by refusing to consider the possibility the prints were in dilute blood. It made it seem like either the prints were in blood and therefore incriminating, or made innocently in some other substance: the prosecution got to say things like "Blood or turnip juice, you decide", and to make sarcastic comments about people walking around with blood-stained feet at some time other than the murder.

Perhaps it would have taken some of the wind out of the prosecution's sails if the defence had said "You know what, we can't totally rule out that the prints were from dilute blood, but if so here's how they were made" and then showed how closely the luminol evidence matches up with Amanda's account of what she did that morning. Legally and scientifically they were absolutely right to say there was no confirmation that the prints were blood, the problem is that the jury weren't paying attention to that, they were thinking "Blood or turnip juice?"

There are so many things wrong with this piece of evidence that it is ridiculous. One, nobody really knows whether it is blood or not. two, we have no idea if even if it is blood, when it was deposited. The fact that it fails the TMB test makes it extremely possible that it was made 30, even 60 days before the murder. Three, we can't actually attribute the prints to any individual. Four, it would have been consistent with Rudy and the bath mat print that we KNOW doesn't belong to Amanda. It is also consistent with Amanda's story of taking a shower the next day.

How is this proof of anything??

 

[Machiavelli]

Patrizia Stefanoni is not a real doctor.

Prove it.
Those who make unsupported defamatory allegations about people, are criminals (as for the Italian penal code, art 595, § 2, 3, aggravated defamation).

 

[LondonJohn]

Here is a publication Stefanoni has contributed to. There may be more than this one and there may be other search tables which can be used to locate other publications. Since I am rather deficient in most things concerning science I will leave it up to you to search further.

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1875176811001168

Probably an interesting read if you are into that sort of thing.

Indeed she did contribute to it. It's an industry research paper, though, written and published via the auspices of the Italian State Forensic Police. It in no way implies any sort of qualification on its author(s) though.

The interesting thing about the subject of this paper is that I don't doubt that Stefanoni is very good at helping solve these sorts of "cold cases". Actually, many of these cases are an absolute slam-dunk to solve - it's nothing more than a case of the testing technology advancing in ways that enable DNA matching of samples that either pre-date DNA typing altogether, or which were too small to be matched until the technology advanced sufficiently.

The huge majority of cold case reviews involve cases where the bodily fluids of the perpetrator were left at the crime scene or on/in the victim. Sometimes this is in the formof the perp's blood, but far more commonly it's in the form of the (male) perp's semen. That's why so many of these now-solved cold cases are sex-related crimes.

If an unknown man "Perp" raped and killed a woman in 1978 (say), the police might have been able to recover a significant amount of Perp's semen; however, the best police and prosecutors could say in 1978 was to identify Perp's blood group and whether or not he was a secretor. In almost all instances, this doesn't narrow the field down to much more than 1-in-10. And if there was little or no other evidence, then the chance of the police ever catching Perp would be slim. And even if they had a suspect, "Susp", the chances of them proving "Susp" was "Perf" would fall well short of the reasonable doubt standard, even if Susp and Perp shared the same blood type and secretor type.

Fast forward to 2004, though, If the police still have a well-preserved and uncontaminated sample of Perp's semen, they can now run a DNA profile on the sample. A monkey could do this, provided he read the machine's instruction manual properly. A computer then does the hard tast of comparing the resultant DNA typing with every other person in the police's database. If it spews out a match (and since many sex criminals keep offending, especially if they are not caught early on in their "careers", it's likely that they'll eventually be caught for something and have their DNA taken), then you've just matched "Perp" to "Susp". It really is that easy. And it's putting lots of very dangerous and unpleasant people in prison for horrible crimes they committed many years ago, and thought they'd got away with. Good.

So, as I say, I would imagine that Stefanoni is very good at doing this part of the job: it's incredibly easy, and in most cases, it's very hard to misidentify or mess up in any other way: in most cases, there's more than enough genetic material to enable an extremely precise, accurate and reliable match.

But that's a whole different ball game than working with ultra-low-template DNA, let alone when you are conducting a suspect-centric identification (i.e. you have the profile of the individual(s) you're looking to try to match in front of you as you conduct the test on the sample). Unfortunately for Stefanoni, it looks like she was well out of her depth in the Kercher investigation, and/or she allowed the weight of the case - and the persuasion of the investigators, perhaps - to get to her.

 

[Machiavelli]

Add to all this what Massei faced in writing his motivations, released Spring 2010.

.......... That the knife is inextricably tied to motive.

And Massei ruled that Raffaele and Knox had no motive, they basically joined in at the last second when they heard things go wrong between Meredith and Rudy in the next bedroom.

Massei stated that Knox and Sollecito shared the same intent, motive and purpose with Rudy Guede.

So Massei, in this incredibly sloppy reconstruction which defies belief, needs to now invent an innocent reason for Knox to be carrying that kitchen knife.

Sollecito and Knox should thank him for doing that.

(...)
And if I can think it up and invent a scenario, it's plausible.

If you already have evidence of guilt, it's plausible. Indeed.

Then in Nov 2013 the RIS Carabinieri come back saying that there's actually no reason, really, to even suspect that knife went anywhere.

Not even in your dreams.
Again: not even in your dreams.

The RIS never said anything remotely connected to your wild assertion. This is just one more of the wild assertions of yours.
Of course, it's your right to dream about what you like.

 

[LondonJohn]

Prove it.
Those who make unsupported defamatory allegations about people, are criminals (as for the Italian penal code, art 595, § 2, 3, aggravated defamation).

Hahaha you're really, REALLY, going off the rails!

Quite apart from the fact that we're talking about Italian law (within which disgusting relics of Mussolini remain in sections such as these, and to which I - as a British citizen currently residing in the UK - raise my middle finger with a wide grin)....

.... apart from that, claiming someone hasn't got a particular academic qualification - when in fact they have - is an entirely different proposition from (say) falsely claiming somebody cheated in a given professional examination. And it's moot in this case anyhow, since Stefanoni doesn't have a PhD or equivalent

Again I ask: why are you so very angry about all this, and why are you so seemingly desperate to defend Stefanoni at (seemingly) all costs?

But the fact that you chose to invoke one of the more laughable and utterly-unenforceable-outside-Italy-for-very-obvious-reasons laws - presumably as some sort of threat(!) shows just what'sgoing on here. Please take a break.

 

[Skind]

Prove it.
Those who make unsupported defamatory allegations about people, are criminals (as for the Italian penal code, art 595, § 2, 3, aggravated defamation).

Sorry, scenario A is that Stefanoni is not a Dr as understood outside fo Italy.

You must know provide evidence for scenario B, that she holds a qualification that would entitle her to be called 'Dr' if she had qualified outside of Italy.

 

[Machiavelli]

Did that already. Must have been while the other sleep deprived Machiavelli was posting.

The other? Do you have other wild statements in your pipeline...?

 

[LondonJohn]

In some ways I do wonder if the defence left an open goal for the prosecution by refusing to consider the possibility the prints were in dilute blood. It made it seem like either the prints were in blood and therefore incriminating, or made innocently in some other substance: the prosecution got to say things like "Blood or turnip juice, you decide", and to make sarcastic comments about people walking around with blood-stained feet at some time other than the murder.

Perhaps it would have taken some of the wind out of the prosecution's sails if the defence had said "You know what, we can't totally rule out that the prints were from dilute blood, but if so here's how they were made" and then showed how closely the luminol evidence matches up with Amanda's account of what she did that morning. Legally and scientifically they were absolutely right to say there was no confirmation that the prints were blood, the problem is that the jury weren't paying attention to that, they were thinking "Blood or turnip juice?"

I absolutely agree. In my view, the clear best strategy for the defence would have been pretty much exactly what you say - except that they might also have added that if these prints were indeed made in Meredith's blood they could have been made at any time between the time of the murder and the time they were discovered and tested. Some of the amorphous blob prints, for example, were very likely made by the forensics goons in their booties.


ETA: I've written many times before that in my opinion the defence teams of both Knox and Sollecito made very significant errors at various times in this whole trial process,with Knox's team seeming to make more - and bigger - errors. But I don't absolve Bongiorno and her team at all either. To my mind, the failure to demolish Curatolo's testimony in the Massei trial was a huge error - especially when it was so incredibly easy to obtain an incontrovertible disproving of his testimony through only a small amount of investigation into the disco bus situation (and that's before we even get to Curatolo's demeanour and meandering "recollection"). They should also have demolished Quintavalle, and they should have nailed ToD inasmuch as showing that the stomach/duodenum evidence was totally incompatible with the prosecution's alleged ToD of 11.40+.

But in other areas, I think they should have been far more nuanced - in the way you describe above. If you go in all guns blazing, you can easily lead a jury (judicial panel) to believe that you're just trying to conduct an automatic reversal/nullification of every prosecution argument - and that, in turn, stands to lose you credibility. I think their overarching tack in the defence of Knox and Sollecito should have been along the following lines:

"Look, nobody's saying that certain pieces of evidence and testimony are not plausibly capable of pointing to my client. What I AM saying is that there are also plausible alternative explanations for every single piece of prosecution evidence and testimony - explanations that are compatible with the innocence of my client. Remember also that you must be absolutely certain that my client has been proven guilty of this crime in order to find him/her guilty. My argument to you is that there is nothing even approaching proof of guilt beyond all doubt based in reason. For that reason alone, I argue that you must acquit. But I'd argue more than that: I'd argue that there is in fact not one piece of evidence or testimony that links my client to this horrific crime, which cannot also be plausibly explained in the context of my client's innocence. Please consider my argument carefully. I hope that if you do so, you will conclude that you only have one reasonable way to vote in this case: for acquittal".

 

[Machiavelli]

... apart from that, claiming someone hasn't got a particular academic qualification - when in fact they have - is an entirely different proposition from (say) falsely claiming somebody cheated in a given professional examination. And it's moot in this case anyhow, since Stefanoni doesn't have a PhD or equivalent

Prove it, or you are a criminal. Simple.

It's easy to prove it. You make a phone call, write an e-mail...

If you do not, you are 1) a criminal, and 2) a liar.

 

[Bill Williams]

Massei stated that Knox and Sollecito shared the same intent, motive and purpose with Rudy Guede.

This is a really wild one, Machiavelli.... you usually do better.

Yes, Massei claimed that as the final act of his misrepresentation of the evidence. But Massei is also crystal clear that the motivation, motive, was Rudy's and Rudy's alone, about which (acc. to Massei) then and there the two students made a "choice for evil".

Nice try.

Sollecito and Knox should thank him for doing that.

If you already have evidence of guilt, it's plausible. Indeed.

Not even in your dreams.
Again: not even in your dreams.

The RIS never said anything remotely connected to your wild assertion. This is just one more of the wild assertions of yours. Of course, it's your right to dream about what you like.

Ah, to sleep, perchance to dream.....

Machiavelli... the force of your assertions betrays you.

You managed to avoid all together the one issue I am on about. And as a reminder, you are not accountable to me, so you would be wise NOT to answer.

Hey Machiavelli: does that now make Vogt "an approximate reporter"?

This is also now Andrea Vogt's assertion, too, she believes that about the RIS Carabinieri, that this in effect restores C&V to the Nencini court...... it is incredibly interesting that you would leave this out.

Makes me go: hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm. Is Ms. Vogt now an "approximate reporter" like Nadeau?

 

[RoseMontague]

Indeed she did contribute to it. It's an industry research paper, though, written and published via the auspices of the Italian State Forensic Police. It in no way implies any sort of qualification on its author(s) though.

The interesting thing about the subject of this paper is that I don't doubt that Stefanoni is very good at helping solve these sorts of "cold cases". Actually, many of these cases are an absolute slam-dunk to solve - it's nothing more than a case of the testing technology advancing in ways that enable DNA matching of samples that either pre-date DNA typing altogether, or which were too small to be matched until the technology advanced sufficiently.

The huge majority of cold case reviews involve cases where the bodily fluids of the perpetrator were left at the crime scene or on/in the victim. Sometimes this is in the formof the perp's blood, but far more commonly it's in the form of the (male) perp's semen. That's why so many of these now-solved cold cases are sex-related crimes.

If an unknown man "Perp" raped and killed a woman in 1978 (say), the police might have been able to recover a significant amount of Perp's semen; however, the best police and prosecutors could say in 1978 was to identify Perp's blood group and whether or not he was a secretor. In almost all instances, this doesn't narrow the field down to much more than 1-in-10. And if there was little or no other evidence, then the chance of the police ever catching Perp would be slim. And even if they had a suspect, "Susp", the chances of them proving "Susp" was "Perf" would fall well short of the reasonable doubt standard, even if Susp and Perp shared the same blood type and secretor type.

Fast forward to 2004, though, If the police still have a well-preserved and uncontaminated sample of Perp's semen, they can now run a DNA profile on the sample. A monkey could do this, provided he read the machine's instruction manual properly. A computer then does the hard tast of comparing the resultant DNA typing with every other person in the police's database. If it spews out a match (and since many sex criminals keep offending, especially if they are not caught early on in their "careers", it's likely that they'll eventually be caught for something and have their DNA taken), then you've just matched "Perp" to "Susp". It really is that easy. And it's putting lots of very dangerous and unpleasant people in prison for horrible crimes they committed many years ago, and thought they'd got away with. Good.

So, as I say, I would imagine that Stefanoni is very good at doing this part of the job: it's incredibly easy, and in most cases, it's very hard to misidentify or mess up in any other way: in most cases, there's more than enough genetic material to enable an extremely precise, accurate and reliable match.

But that's a whole different ball game than working with ultra-low-template DNA, let alone when you are conducting a suspect-centric identification (i.e. you have the profile of the individual(s) you're looking to try to match in front of you as you conduct the test on the sample). Unfortunately for Stefanoni, it looks like she was well out of her depth in the Kercher investigation, and/or she allowed the weight of the case - and the persuasion of the investigators, perhaps - to get to her.

Yes. It is more like a news piece but it is interesting. Glad they are trying to solve some cold cases this way. It does make me wonder if they have something similar to an innocence project looking at old cases that did not have the benefit of modern DNA testing

 

[acbytesla]

Prove it, or you are a criminal. Simple.

It's easy to prove it. You make a phone call, write an e-mail...

If you do not, you are 1) a criminal, and 2) a liar.

No, in fact. It does not make him a criminal. The laws in the UK and the US don't work that way. In fact it is necessary for you Machiavelli not only to prove that he is lying, but that he knew he was lying when he said it.

 

[LondonJohn]

Prove it, or you are a criminal. Simple.

It's easy to prove it. You make a phone call, write an e-mail...

If you do not, you are 1) a criminal, and 2) a liar.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

Seriously, please step back. Your arguments are becoming too hysterical and extreme to warrant any kind of response.

 

[snook1]

No, in fact. It does not make him a criminal. The laws in the UK and the US don't work that way. In fact it is necessary for you Machiavelli not only to prove that he is lying, but that he knew he was lying when he said it.

As far as I can tell, it doesn't work that way in most European countries. Thankfully.

These statements of Macchiavelli show that it's really easy to make him angry and he's becoming furious when someone is trying to undermine anyone that is on the side of the proseuction in this case.

I think we can all agree that PIP can be objective about AK's and RS's defense lawyers. We can and we do criticize them when it's due. It seems that PGP are unable to do the same thing.

 

[Strozzi]

So, When Manuela Comodi was in a meeting with Rudy, she listens to his story about how he needed to take a dump, and he put on the earphones with his iPod, because listening to soothing music helps him make, therefore he couldn't hear what was happening during the murder.
Comodi said " Cut the crap!, YOU killed her and we can prove it! You will be in prison for life. The only way you can avoid this is to get someone else to do your time.
The prosecutor has 2 other suspects he wants to convict. He is having a hard time because there is no evidence, no witness, and there is no reason why they would want to kill Ms Kercher. Testify that you and them were a trio who killed her during a sex game gone wrong.
You then will be only 1 of the 3 perpetrators, so we can get you a shorter sentence, if you do a fast track trial, and you co-opertate, you will be out on parole while you are still a young man."Rudy agrees to the deal.
The jury are people who were not smart enough to figure out a way to get out of serving jury duty, so Mignini was able to persuade them to believe this nonsense.

Xinonix, I believe creating dialogue allegedly spoken between people when you were not there is inaccurate and wrong, and conflicts with objective, critical thinking. Creating dialogue is something that Mignini and other guilters do, but they have no credibility when they do so. It goes on all the time on the guilter boards regarding this case. But it occurs very little on this JREF board. Most posters are trying to be objective, critical thinkers. .

I do believe that Guede was incredible lucky as a murderer on the run in Germany when the Perugia police and prosecutor targeted innocent people and constructed a (false) case against them. When Guede was finally arrested he could claim that he was present when the crime occurred, but uninvolved in it.

In addition to being incredibly lucky that the PLE had arrested the wrong suspects and had crowed to Italy (and the world) what savy and capable invesigators they are, Rudy was also lucky in a second way in that the prosecutor regarded Rudy as the third (minor) participant in the murder. Mignini's psychological need/desire to regard and portray Amanda as leader and manipulative dominatrix allowed Rudy to take a minor role. That of "Poor Rudy" (quoting Mignini).

I suspect that Rudy's lawyer and Magnini would have met to discuss the case and reached a tacit understand as to how the prosecutor would present Rudy, that he would have a separate fast-track trial with reduced prison sentence, that Rudy would do nothing to undermine the prosecution's case against big fish Amanda, and that Rudy would ultimately benefit from a more lenient sentence.

I would never invent dialogue because I was not there. Mignini can invent dialogue. Indeed, he invented word-for-word dialogue that he falsely attributed to Amanda and Meredith in his trial presentations and in his animation (cartoon). But we know that invented dialogue is false.

 

[Dan O.]

Not sure this is correct, although I'm not totally sure because the source is Wiki...



From this, it sounds like the intensity of the glow only shows the relative concentration of the substance, not the absolute amount: the more luminol you apply, the brighter the glow. In this case we know they over-applied the luminol, distorting the prints and further diluting whatever substance was there.

Yes, it is difficult to do quantitative chemo luminescence (QCL). The reaction is moderated by the availability of three elements and two of those elements are consumed durring the reaction. Still, for a dry stain, the luminol and peroxide concentrations are fixed so the only variable is the areal density of catalyst sites. A stronger brighter luminol reaction requires a higher density.

We can use the shoe print at Marker #2 in the hall as a calibration. Here we have a shoe print in Meredith's blood known to have been made at the time of her murder. That print was swabbed to collect the biological trace on November 3rd resulting in it being no longer visible. Also at this site is one of the Bare footprint blobs. Look at the luminol photo of that print. The blob part is actually brighter than the shoe print part known to be blood. Yet this print is the only one to show a positive result with TMB. The only legitimate conclusion is that the TMB reacted to the fainter trace of blood picked up from the shoe print and there was no blood that could be picked up from the brighter bare foot print blobs.

 

[LondonJohn]

No, in fact. It does not make him a criminal. The laws in the UK and the US don't work that way. In fact it is necessary for you Machiavelli not only to prove that he is lying, but that he knew he was lying when he said it.

Actually, I don't frankly care whether or not Machiavelli wants to prove this point (although he keeps telling me how easy it would be for me to prove it, so I can't really see why he wouldn't/couldn't do the same himself).

My assertion about Stefanoni's lack of PhD-level qualification is based on a number of circumstantial pieces of evidence: chiefly, the omission of any such qualification in any expert witness testimony she has given, nor any industry conference in which she has participated. There's also the matter of the magazine interview with her when she outlines her academic and work histories, and in which she explicitly mentions her laurea degree in Naples, but makes no reference whatsoever to PhD-level achievement.

I have therefore drawn a reasoned conclusion that Stefanoni does not hold a PhD or equivalent. I believe that it's based on sound reasoning, based on all the available evidence (and the marked absence of certain evidence).

I don't care whether or not Machiavelli wants to believe that Stefanoni really does hold a PhD-level qualification. He, in contrast, seems to care very passionately and angrily that I believe she holds no such qualification - to the point of making these ludicrous threats of criminal consequences. QED, in my book......

 

[acbytesla]

Actually, I don't frankly care whether or not Machiavelli wants to prove this point (although he keeps telling me how easy it would be for me to prove it, so I can't really see why he wouldn't/couldn't do the same himself).

My assertion about Stefanoni's lack of PhD-level qualification is based on a number of circumstantial pieces of evidence: chiefly, the omission of any such qualification in any expert witness testimony she has given, nor any industry conference in which she has participated. There's also the matter of the magazine interview with her when she outlines her academic and work histories, and in which she explicitly mentions her laurea degree in Naples, but makes no reference whatsoever to PhD-level achievement.

I have therefore drawn a reasoned conclusion that Stefanoni does not hold a PhD or equivalent. I believe that it's based on sound reasoning, based on all the available evidence (and the marked absence of certain evidence).

I don't care whether or not Machiavelli wants to believe that Stefanoni really does hold a PhD-level qualification. He, in contrast, seems to care very passionately and angrily that I believe she holds no such qualification - to the point of making these ludicrous threats of criminal consequences. QED, in my book......

From my perspective it is irrelevant if Stefanoni is a Doctor or not. The question in my mind is she incompetent or not. And that she has proven in spades.