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

[LondonJohn]

I read a story somewhere about a couple who encountered someone (or two people) running in slightly odd circumstances, and joked, if these were robbers running away from the crime, would we be able to describe them? Just for entertainment, they wrote down as exact a description of the people as they could.

Turned out that's exactly what had happened, and the meticulous, deliberate descriptions led the cops to the right people in very short order. I think that sort of occurrence must be pretty rare though.

For another identification horror show, see here. www.vetpath.co.uk/lockerbie/photoid.pdf

Rolfe.

Pfft typical you - trying to derail the thread again with your Lockerbie schtick

But yes, I'd say that such occurrences were vanishingly rare.

In addition to the two extremes of 1) pre-warning of a crime (as per the bank alarm alerting a passer-by to look out for what's happening) and 2) nothing at all out of the ordinary (the situation around Piazza Grimana on the night of the murder), there's also a middle third ground. That's the one where the witness is surprised by witnessing the commission of the crime, and where the whole event is over quickly. This is the scenario that's often used in experiments, some of which were described by others above. A group of unsuspecting people are exposed to a sudden snatch-and-grab robbery, and are then invited to recount what happened (how many assailants, what happened, identification of assailants...)

As others have noted, these sorts of experiments consistently show that people - especially when they are unprepared for the need to remember identification (and other crime-related) details - can get things significantly wrong in their recollections. And if that's the case, it's even more likely that people will falter in their recollections of events that were of no seeming significance at the time.

And that's before we even get on to the effects of long-term heroin abuse on memory and judgement. Oh, and before we even get onto the list of compelling reasons why a homeless drug addict might want to "help" the authorities in order to curry some favour with them, especially when he has "previous" in this regard........

 

[Rolfe]

Yeah, yeah, away to AAH with it all!

The fact remains though, that it's another example of cops not applying brain to the question of whether it's actually likely that the witness really did see the people or person the cops suspect of the crime.

Rolfe.

 

[LondonJohn]

Yeah, yeah, away to AAH with it all!

The fact remains though, that it's another example of cops not applying brain to the question of whether it's actually likely that the witness really did see the people or person the cops suspect of the crime.

Rolfe.

Yes. And another example of police, prosecutors and the courts according a faulty level of reliability to witness recollection: "If he says that's what/who he saw, and if there's no evidence to disprove that recollection, then we are minded to accept it at face value".

After all, as Massei so beautifully put it: why would someone say they saw something/someone if they actually hadn't seen that something/someone?

 

[Machiavelli]

It's interesting that Machiavelli supports the innocence claim of Chico Forti, who absolutely lied about a crucial fact when he was first questioned.

(Despite this, Machiavelli is almost certainly right in thinking Forti is innocent.)

I don't know for sure that Chico Forti is innocent.
What I know for sure is:
1. there is basically no evidence; the trial judge himself declared that there was no evidence against him.
2. Chico Forti declared he lied. This is a basic difference between him and Amanda Knox. Instead Amanda Knox kept lying and murking the waters again and again, refused to answer, then kept on lying and changing her versions (before interrogation, in hand written notes, in diaries, in court, etc.).
3. In the Kercher case, Knox lied not only when she was being interrogated, and not only when accusing Patrick Lumumba, but also before, in her account, in her e-mail, and not just to the police but the witnesses.
4. not only Knox lied, also Sollecito did; it's two people lying; he lied repeatedly, then refused to clarify and always refused to answer questions, he withdrew her alibi.

5. there is a last difference: I am not campaigning for the liberation of Chico Forti. He is probably innocent but I will not attempt to 'save' him.

 

[LondonJohn]

5. there is a last difference: I am not campaigning for the liberation of Chico Forti. He is probably innocent but I will not attempt to 'save' him.

I can imagine that he would be distraught to hear that.......


FREE FOXY KNOXY AND KNIFE-BOY!!!!!!!

 

[js202]

5. there is a last difference: I am not campaigning for the liberation of Chico Forti. He is probably innocent but I will not attempt to 'save' him.

Oh. I get it, now. So your bag is campaigning for innocent persons' - and their families' - persecution and imprisonment. Much more gratifying and diverting - to a certain type, I suppose - than the alternative.

 

[snook1]

I can imagine that he would be distraught to hear that.......


FREE FOXY KNOXY AND KNIFE-BOY!!!!!!!

Yes, like now!

 

[Bill Williams]

I don't know for sure that Chico Forti is innocent.
What I know for sure is:
1. there is basically no evidence; the trial judge himself declared that there was no evidence against him.
2. Chico Forti declared he lied. This is a basic difference between him and Amanda Knox. Instead Amanda Knox kept lying and murking the waters again and again, refused to answer, then kept on lying and changing her versions (before interrogation, in hand written notes, in diaries, in court, etc.).
3. In the Kercher case, Knox lied not only when she was being interrogated, and not only when accusing Patrick Lumumba, but also before, in her account, in her e-mail, and not just to the police but the witnesses.
4. not only Knox lied, also Sollecito did; it's two people lying; he lied repeatedly, then refused to clarify and always refused to answer questions, he withdrew her alibi.

5. there is a last difference: I am not campaigning for the liberation of Chico Forti. He is probably innocent but I will not attempt to 'save' him.

Your compatriot, The Machine/Harry Rag has been pushing this for 4 or 5 years now - "Knox lied". "Raffaele lied". "They kept changing their stories."

I suppose if you repeat that enough, it takes on an air of truth to the claim. The real trouble is that when one tries to find out what those lies actually are, it turns into yet another of those guilter/hater factoids.

The Machine/Harry Rag, did something, though, that guilters usually do not do.... he actually produced a list. And lo and behold this was not one of those loopy-lists like Andrea Vogt tries to push these days - as Charlie Wilkes says, this case littered with claims that mistakes, omissions, or slips of memory suddenly are interpreted as capital L "Lies" which supposedly mean something - but what? On that list of non-lie-lies are things like Knox not being able to remember a call to/from her mother, or testimony in 2009 when compared to her book on some minor point... because the flip side to that, if her information lined up 100% you'd accuse her of conspiring... you get my drift.

The hallmark of guilter reasoning is this double standard - one error or recollection, corrected later, becomes a lie... or consistent information becomes proof of conspiracy. This is SOOOO dietrological....

If I can find that list from The Machine I found, to which I augmented with 3 other "lies" some no obscure hater-blogger dreamt up, I'll post it. Central to all such lists is the "naming of Lumumba". That one is STILL going around the merry-go-round...

But there one last, lie-like claim guilters make. it's this business or accusation that they always changed their stories. Again, that was one of the earliest meme leaked to the press that the tabloids made great hay out of, I remember one, "Police are having trouble with details of the crime because accused-Amanda Knox is giving yet another version as to what was supposed to have happened," and then the Tabloid source would not tell the reader what the latest version was supposed to have been - it was important, though, early on to get it out there that she was constantly "changing her story" when in fact she was doing no such thing.

This is the way Machiavelli keeps this falsehood going....

This is a basic difference between him and Amanda Knox. Instead Amanda Knox kept lying and murking the waters again and again, refused to answer, then kept on lying and changing her versions (before interrogation, in hand written notes, in diaries, in court, etc.).

Raffaele particularly, patently did not change his story. At his interrogation, he was asked to conflate things which had happened on the previous Wednesday night (Halloween) and Thursday night, all from the perspective of an early Tuesday morning interrogation.

Of course, once we see the video of that interrogation we will know for sure!

But more important, Raffaele has had opportunity at three opportunities at trial, Massei, Hellmann, and Nencini, to repeat this claim that the prosecution has always lied about themselves - that Raffaele withdrew his alibi.

Outside of that time period of 11 pm Nov 5, 2007, to 5:45 am Nov 6, Raffaele has never withdrawn his alibi, really. Not even in that, "She told me bollocks" note, really. Most assuredly when Raffaele figured out Amanda simply could not have left his apartment without his knowing, he's remained steadfast to the truth. And he figured that one out in solitary confinement when he had lots of time to think.

Sooner or later people like Machiavelli are themselves going to have to stop lying about Knox's and Sollecito's so-called lies. As well as this meme, This is a basic difference between him and Amanda Knox. Instead Amanda Knox kept lying and murking the waters again and again, refused to answer, then kept on lying and changing her versions (before interrogation, in hand written notes, in diaries, in court, etc.). "They were always changing their stories."

Two questions:

1. Why were their "lies" not caught on interrogation tapes from the original interrogation?

2. Why have, at trial, their stories been consistent and unchanging? Through THREE trials?​

All Machiavelli has is character assassination and confirmation bias really. "Of course they are lying, I can prove it. They say they didn't kill Meredith."

 

[GreyFox]

I don't know for sure that Chico Forti is innocent.
What I know for sure is:
1. there is basically no evidence; the trial judge himself declared that there was no evidence against him.
2. Chico Forti declared he lied. This is a basic difference between him and Amanda Knox. Instead Amanda Knox kept lying and murking the waters again and again, refused to answer, then kept on lying and changing her versions (before interrogation, in hand written notes, in diaries, in court, etc.).
3. In the Kercher case, Knox lied not only when she was being interrogated, and not only when accusing Patrick Lumumba, but also before, in her account, in her e-mail, and not just to the police but the witnesses.
4. not only Knox lied, also Sollecito did; it's two people lying; he lied repeatedly, then refused to clarify and always refused to answer questions, he withdrew her alibi.

5. there is a last difference: I am not campaigning for the liberation of Chico Forti. He is probably innocent but I will not attempt to 'save' him.

No surprise here ! The rest of us secretly know she has kidnapped and has eaten at least three babies since her return . But then again who hasn't ? Oops did I say that out loud.

What we would like to know is:

1.) Why the PLE wouldn't check the cottage knives for Patrik or Rudy's DNA ? It doesn't matter what Filomenia said. They need to find the murder weapon ,so through process of elimination you would think they would test them.

2.)If these two (Guede and Lumumba ) were also suspects in the case why weren't their knives checked ?

3.)Where did the knife that Rudy took from the school go?

4.)What are your sources for toto's previous testimony in other trials ?

It could be these things were answered and I missed it. So if anyone else knows these answers I would appreciate the help getting up to speed. These were all good questions brought up before but I cant recall getting a response.
Thanks

 

[Rolfe]

Yes. And another example of police, prosecutors and the courts according a faulty level of reliability to witness recollection: "If he says that's what/who he saw, and if there's no evidence to disprove that recollection, then we are minded to accept it at face value".

After all, as Massei so beautifully put it: why would someone say they saw something/someone if they actually hadn't seen that something/someone?

That one is worse than that. The witness never claimed to be certain that it was the same person, only that there was a resemblance (which got stronger the more he realised that was what the cops wanted from him and there was a lot of money in it). The time elapsed was ridiculously long - 2 years three months before he was shown a bad photocopy of the suspect's passport photo which was such a bad likeness it was almost unrecognisable as the actual man, and over 11 years before he picked the same man out of an identity parade. And the suspect differed in many significant respects from the witness's original description of the man he saw.

You'd think that anyone with any common sense would realise you can't hang a conviction on that. That even if there was a resemblance, there was nothing approaching certainty that it was the same man. The judges saw it differently though. They reasoned that after such a long time it would have been suspicious if the witness had been sure, and that the witness's very uncertainty reinforced the conclusion that he was speaking honestly - and that therefore it was the same person.

It's not just Italy that produces judicial pronouncements of that quality. You couldn't make it up.

Rolfe.

 

[GreyFox]

Toto's not difficult to figure out. He's an heroin addict in jail . He either performs like he's supposed to or you remove his drugs and let him suffer . Bad performance....No more drugs. The stress of w-drawl was probably more than he could take. No more toto.

 

[Bill Williams]

Speaking of lies... this is an incomplo
ete list of lies told by police and prosecution about the case against Knox and Sollecito,. this list is compiled from a post by someone named "Welshman".

- Amanda HIV positive, list leaked to media to create idea that she was a sex maniac.
- Postal Police Battistelli’s statements about what time he arrived at the cottage, and whether or not he went into Meredith’s room, were both contradicted by witnesses, and eventually debunked by Massei's motivatioins report.
- The till at the shop were the bleach was supposedly purchased was checked and no record of any bleach sales were found. No bleach receipts were presented as evidence in the first trial. Michael of PMF.NET still claims to have the receipts, though.
- The prosecution leaked a photograph of the bathroom in the cottage where Amanda took a shower on the day the body of Meredith was discovered. The photograph showed a very bloody bathroom.
- The prosecution (Mignini-Comodi) lied about evidence of a clean up in Raffaele’s apartment.
- The police informed the media that Amanda and Raffaele used the washing machine to destroy evidence. According to the police the washing machine was coming to the end of its cycle when they arrived at the cottage. The washing machine contained Meredith's clothes but they were not the clothes Meredith wore at the time of the murder. At the first trial no mention was made of the washing machine running.
- Amanda claimed that she was reading a German edition of a Harry Potter book at Raffaele's apartment. The prosecution informed the media that the German Harry Potter was actually at the cottage. This was used to undermine Amanda's alibi.
- In the first trial prosecutor Manuela Comodi claimed that Amanda phoned her mother at 12.00 pm before anything had happened at the cottage to cause concern. Amanda did not make this call until 12.47 pm.
- Dr Lorenzo Rinaldi who worked for the prosecution lied about the size of Rudy's foot to give the impression that Rudy's foot was too big to make the bloody footprint on the bathmat.
- Stefanoni the forensic scientist working for the police claimed that the footprints in the hallway which according to the prosecution were made after Amanda stepped in Meredith's blood were only tested with luminol and no tests were done with TMB to confirm if the footprints were made with blood. Under pressure from the defense, it was revealed that the footprints were actually tested with TMB and were negative for blood.
- Stefanoni claimed she changed gloves every time she handled a new sample. Raffaele's defense proved she was lying.
- Judge Massei claimed that the text message from Patrick to Amanda went through a tower which did not cover Raffaele's apartment. This was used to imply that Amanda had left Raffaele's apartment. The tower did in fact cover Raffaele's apartment.​

If Massei's "probablies" are also consider "lies", using the criteria from guilters that even the most innocent mistake is an outright, blatant lie - then this list can be made a lot longer.

How about now, also, the lie that the climb in through Filomena's window was impossible?

(This is what I ran into, while trying to recover the list The Machine compiled of Knox's alleged lies.... apologies for the diversion.)

 

[Bill Williams]

This is what Machiavelli does not want you to know... Mignini is actually going to be retried in January 2014 for abuse of office.

One more piece of the puzzle - one that Machiavelli helped solve.... why is it that Mignini wants to do battle in the newspapers in 2013 with Mario Spezzi over Satanic rite theories informing murder cases.... well, he knows it's coming up again!

Yesterday (Nov 22) the GUP in the Court in Turin sent Michele Giutari and Giuliano Mignini for trial for abuse of power, and other offences, and the trial will start in Turin on January 15th 2014, five days after the Florence result in the Kercher murder trial is due. You will remember that Giutari and Mignini were found guilty in Florence, but then in November 2011 the Appeal Court in Florence ruled that it should not have been heard there in the first place, because some of the 21 people accused by Giutari and Mignini were officials in Florence.

Turin, was settled upon, for the hearings to start from square one all over again. It is only 7 weeks from the preliminary hearing until the trial, perhaps an Italian record. This perhaps means that the Italian judiciary is fed up with Giutari and Mignini.

 

[moije2]

Your compatriot, The Machine/Harry Rag has been pushing this for 4 or 5 years now - "Knox lied". "Raffaele lied". "They kept changing their stories."

I suppose if you repeat that enough, it takes on an air of truth to the claim. The real trouble is that when one tries to find out what those lies actually are, it turns into yet another of those guilter/hater factoids.

The Machine/Harry Rag, did something, though, that guilters usually do not do.... he actually produced a list. And lo and behold this was not one of those loopy-lists like Andrea Vogt tries to push these days - as Charlie Wilkes says, this case littered with claims that mistakes, omissions, or slips of memory suddenly are interpreted as capital L "Lies" which supposedly mean something - but what? On that list of non-lie-lies are things like Knox not being able to remember a call to/from her mother, or testimony in 2009 when compared to her book on some minor point... because the flip side to that, if her information lined up 100% you'd accuse her of conspiring... you get my drift.

The hallmark of guilter reasoning is this double standard - one error or recollection, corrected later, becomes a lie... or consistent information becomes proof of conspiracy. This is SOOOO dietrological....

If I can find that list from The Machine I found, to which I augmented with 3 other "lies" some no obscure hater-blogger dreamt up, I'll post it. Central to all such lists is the "naming of Lumumba". That one is STILL going around the merry-go-round...

But there one last, lie-like claim guilters make. it's this business or accusation that they always changed their stories. Again, that was one of the earliest meme leaked to the press that the tabloids made great hay out of, I remember one, "Police are having trouble with details of the crime because accused-Amanda Knox is giving yet another version as to what was supposed to have happened," and then the Tabloid source would not tell the reader what the latest version was supposed to have been - it was important, though, early on to get it out there that she was constantly "changing her story" when in fact she was doing no such thing.

This is the way Machiavelli keeps this falsehood going....



Raffaele particularly, patently did not change his story. At his interrogation, he was asked to conflate things which had happened on the previous Wednesday night (Halloween) and Thursday night, all from the perspective of an early Tuesday morning interrogation.

Of course, once we see the video of that interrogation we will know for sure!

But more important, Raffaele has had opportunity at three opportunities at trial, Massei, Hellmann, and Nencini, to repeat this claim that the prosecution has always lied about themselves - that Raffaele withdrew his alibi.

Outside of that time period of 11 pm Nov 5, 2007, to 5:45 am Nov 6, Raffaele has never withdrawn his alibi, really. Not even in that, "She told me bollocks" note, really. Most assuredly when Raffaele figured out Amanda simply could not have left his apartment without his knowing, he's remained steadfast to the truth. And he figured that one out in solitary confinement when he had lots of time to think.

Sooner or later people like Machiavelli are themselves going to have to stop lying about Knox's and Sollecito's so-called lies. As well as this meme, This is a basic difference between him and Amanda Knox. Instead Amanda Knox kept lying and murking the waters again and again, refused to answer, then kept on lying and changing her versions (before interrogation, in hand written notes, in diaries, in court, etc.). "They were always changing their stories."

Two questions:

1. Why were their "lies" not caught on interrogation tapes from the original interrogation?

2. Why have, at trial, their stories been consistent and unchanging? Through THREE trials?​

All Machiavelli has is character assassination and confirmation bias really. "Of course they are lying, I can prove it. They say they didn't kill Meredith."

Bill, your post really describes the situation very well. Lies and lying liars. If I could count the times those words have been used and abused. And Mary H's recent post was very on point too, about Amanda and the culture she grew up in, and the lack of learning to lie etc. Of course the detractors will say that the ease of detecting and nailing her "lies" is "consistent" with her being an inexperienced liar, or over her head. Oh wait, she was a conniving Luciferina... So which was it? What I find truly enjoyable is the certainty with which a certain poster states that (s)he is able to discern that she was lying about various things. All contained in a lengthy verbose word salad of ideas which transform other words into an idee fixe. Clear thinking is not revealed by long twisted ramblings. Succinctness is impossible because the fallacies would be revealed.

 

[Grinder]

Toto's not difficult to figure out. He's an heroin addict in jail . He either performs like he's supposed to or you remove his drugs and let him suffer . Bad performance....No more drugs. The stress of w-drawl was probably more than he could take. No more toto.

He wasn't put in jail until the appeal trial. When he was arraigned for the 2003 heroin dealing charge he was totally baffled and had no understanding what was happening. He had no memory of the original arrest.

They had to keep from the media.

He performed for whatever reasons. Pleasing people probably was part of it.

Watching the PGP try to back him should become an Olympic sport. That PGP who described his reading a newspaper as studying is just one recent example.

 

[Chris_Halkides]

misidentifications in rape cases

In North Carolina Jennifer Thompson identified Ronald Cotton as her assailant. There was a similar case in Wisconsin involving the misidentification of Steven Avery by Penny Beerntsen. Both of the women who made the identifications struck me as being intelligent and reasonable. DNA evidence indicated that they identified the wrong suspects (sadly Mr. Avery went on to commit murder). Curatolo's identification at night over a considerable distance would be open to question even if he had picked out Amanda and Raffaele shortly after the crime from some sort of a line-up, and if he were a respected citizen of the town.

 

[Bill Williams]

Bill, your post really describes the situation very well. Lies and lying liars. If I could count the times those words have been used and abused. And Mary H's recent post was very on point too, about Amanda and the culture she grew up in, and the lack of learning to lie etc. Of course the detractors will say that the ease of detecting and nailing her "lies" is "consistent" with her being an inexperienced liar, or over her head. Oh wait, she was a conniving Luciferina... So which was it? What I find truly enjoyable is the certainty with which a certain poster states that (s)he is able to discern that she was lying about various things. All contained in a lengthy verbose word salad of ideas which transform other words into an idee fixe. Clear thinking is not revealed by long twisted ramblings. Succinctness is impossible because the fallacies would be revealed.

This is the issue isn't it. Depending on the web the guilters are trying to spin, Knox has to be at times a world class liar (pulling the wool over seasoned interrogators) or an awkward unconvincing liar. She has to be a world class-forensic-cleanser (clean-up to the molecular level with nothing but a desk lamp as her guide) or a clumsy first-time offender who leaves a bathmat and some blood on a faucet.

The lies that have been told about that woman are legion.... including that she supposedly changed her story to adapt to what the evidence was.

All the guilters have in retrospect is the allegation that she's a liar. When I looked into this, I found the guilters had no such list of specifics, really. Just the propaganda. It's a canard if repeated enough simply becomes believed and part of the lore....

.... early on I was ridiculed by guilters here on JREF (now absent) for even asking for a list. It was for them self-evident. One guilter said that even if the DNA was debunked (which it has been) he'd still believe Knox was guilty because of all her lies.

I then assembled The Machine's list, plus three more "lies" from the obscure blogger and the strange thing about them that was, aside from the Lumumba issue at interrogation, they were all Raffaele's so called lies! The forgotten man in all this.....

It didn't seem to do any good. This one guilter was so convinced that it was "Amanda's lies" which decided this, that even when shown the list, and debunking them.... he kept saying things like, "but what about all the other lies....?" And then he'd refuse to even speculate what those might be....

It was whack-a-mole.

And as "welshman" showed, it simply is easy to list prosecution, police lies. Mignini himself had 5, maybe five differing motives for this crime. Was Mignini "lying" about the one's he gave up on? Esp. when his last scenario had Amanda standing out in the hall, egging on the boys....

.... I mean, is that a de facto admission Mignini had simply been lying with sex-game gone wrong in which Amanda wielded the knife? Using guilter standards, yes, Mignini was simply lying!!!!

Can't have it both ways.

 

[Poppy1016]

No surprise here ! The rest of us secretly know she has kidnapped and has eaten at least three babies since her return . But then again who hasn't ? Oops did I say that out loud.

What we would like to know is:

1.) Why the PLE wouldn't check the cottage knives for Patrik or Rudy's DNA ? It doesn't matter what Filomenia said. They need to find the murder weapon ,so through process of elimination you would think they would test them.

2.)If these two (Guede and Lumumba ) were also suspects in the case why weren't their knives checked ?

3.)Where did the knife that Rudy took from the school go?

4.)What are your sources for toto's previous testimony in other trials ?

It could be these things were answered and I missed it. So if anyone else knows these answers I would appreciate the help getting up to speed. These were all good questions brought up before but I cant recall getting a response.
Thanks

One question I have always had is, why was Filomena allowed into her room to retrieve anything, thus compromising a big part of the crime scene in my opinion.

 

[yimyammer]

Neil DeGrasse Tyson says that if the justice system was being designed by scientists, eyewitness testimony would not be admissible.

It sure seems susceptible to being incorrect or effected by emotions. I watched a show this week about a lady that was raped and identified her attacker in a line up twice. She was dead certain the man she identified raped her....until DNA revealed a match to a different man already in prison for raping another woman. I can't remember her name but she apologized & reconciled with him and now works with the man she identified in some charitable capacity (he was subsequently released from prison after the DNA exonerated him).

This case is interesting for a variety of reasons but one thing I find especially fascinating is how polarized both sides are, yet dead certain they've cornered the market on the truth of this case. Many on both sides seem to have extreme disdain for one another and I don't think anything could change the most extreme to ever changing their position. Many seem to truly hate each other and the venom is palpable.

As for me, I'm for the truth and wherever that leads me. If some piece or pieces of evidence came forward making their guilt unassailable, I'd simply shake my head and think, damn, I sure got that wrong.

 

[Bill Williams]

One question I have always had is, why was Filomena allowed into her room to retrieve anything, thus compromising a big part of the crime scene in my opinion.

I'm not sure it is strictly true to say she was "allowed" into her room, then behind crimes scene tape, to retrieve her computer. She, apparently, just decided to go get it and no one stopped her. That might simply be a result of the chaos of the day, and the inexperience of Napoleoni who was in charge of her first investigation with the Kercher murder.

The cops simply blew it, and Filomena risked it... but turned herself in.... and had no consequence other than the outrage of the cops!

I believe it was in Dempsey's book that the most full account of this little episode resides. But the compromising of the crime scene was not only this - through no fault of anyone's really, the postal police gave both Amanda and Filomena the run of the place (with the obvious exception of Meredith room which was still, then, behind the locked door.) Even semi-pro-guilt author John Follain said that Filomena was allowed to "rummage" thought her room, whatever that means.

But incredibly, after taking her own computer, from behind police tape, Filomena takes it with her (accompanied by her lawyer) to the Questura; where in my way of thinking the cops must have had apoplexy. If nothing else, this proves there was nothing "secure" about preserving this scene.

Fast forward a bit.... given that Massei's sole basis of conviction in 2009 is on the basis of nuances of forensic found outside the murder room it is simply stunning that the compromised crime scene did not rule out anything outside of the murder room.

The most obvious piece of "compromising" was the claim that after Battistelli and the other postal police saw a dead body in Meredith's room, under a blanket, is the claim that they did not immediately go into to check - I mean, was Meredith injured and unconscious? Did one of them track in DNA from the door-around, where two groups of people had just tried to break the thing down, one unsuccessfully?

Tragically and horribly, Meredith was not unconcious and injured ony... it was far worse. But the point is, from the door way how would you know? But that "scene" was not something a respectable court would have allowed to decide this case at all. Filomena's laptop is only one of many of the issues.