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

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acbytesla said:
I'm really curious when this stress happened? Does Briars think it was when Meredith was with her British friends? What reason would Meredith have to have this massive digestion halting stress?

The problem with her argument besides the fact that there is no evidence supporting this idea that stress halts digestion is of course, Meredith was enjoying an evening meal with friends and watching a movie. And according to Meredith's friends, she wasn't intoxicated when they saw Meredith and they didn't drink that evening. So here we are again arguing with a guilter about speculative nonsense that isn't backed by the facts. How surprising!!!!
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According to the british girls Amanda and Meredith didn't get along.

Didn't you say the gold watch disappeared? It may have, but we really can only speculate on that and the whole story related to the watch until we have verification of Nina's account.

It seems to me a delay in digestion doesn't move the death to 11:30, 11 or even 10:30. If she ate at 6 something should have been there even earlier. Hey, maybe she returned even earlier and the british girls were inaccurate on that as well.

Btw, maybe she was stressed out those girls.
 
moije2 said:
My 2 bits.

Sunset was at about 5 pm on the beginning of November. It would have been a third quarter moon (half moon) brightest in the sky at sunrise IIUC. Thus it would have been very dark except for any lighting which someone else can illuminate :) on.

That property is clearly in a very recessed position and on the very edge of the concentration of dwellings. This conversation about visibility and thus desirability for a burglar seems fairly clear cut. Seems like an ideal choice for a break in.
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I distinctly remember hearing that an acquaintance of one of the Italian girls declared in no uncertain terms that she wouldn't feel safe in the cottage because of its relative isolation, and that she'd only live there with the company of a couple of large dogs.
 
Rolfe said:
That is complete rubbish. As others have said, any effect such as this is only slight, and it occurs mainly in the intestine, not the stomach. If Meredith still had all of her evening meal in her stomach five hours after eating it, she had serious gastric pathology, not an argument with her flat-mate. Except, she was a young, healthy woman with no medical history of gastric pathology.

What happens with severe stress is just the opposite. Intestinal hypermotility, and diarrhoea. Gastric hypermotility too - the stomach literally churns. This is part of the fight-or-flight reaction, as the body tries to get rid of as much intestinal content as possible to lighten the load, as it were. In extreme cases the person may actually vomit.

Rolfe.
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. You are the one talking rubbish. The fight or flight response delays digestion reserving energy to escape..The sympathetic nervous system is affected here. Vomit yes due to nerves.. A high fat meal including Gorgonzola pizza and buttery crumble easily could have been delayed somewhat outside of the 2 hour norm. Taking us up to a little after nine when the unpleasant arrival of the defendants occurred. Easily halting digestion to a TOD just before 10:20,
 
Rolfe said:
That is complete rubbish. As others have said, any effect such as this is only slight, and it occurs mainly in the intestine, not the stomach. If Meredith still had all of her evening meal in her stomach five hours after eating it, she had serious gastric pathology, not an argument with her flat-mate. Except, she was a young, healthy woman with no medical history of gastric pathology.

What happens with severe stress is just the opposite. Intestinal hypermotility, and diarrhoea. Gastric hypermotility too - the stomach literally churns. This is part of the fight-or-flight reaction, as the body tries to get rid of as much intestinal content as possible to lighten the load, as it were. In extreme cases the person may actually vomit.

Rolfe.
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Good to see you here. I have speculated in your absence that you place TOD at 9:05 because the length of time for the chyme to get to the duodenum is already too long at 3 hours. One would normally expect the chyme to start moving at 2 or 2 1/2 hours.

If she had consumed some alcohol before or with the meal and that delayed digestion some, that would fit better with nothing there 3 hours later. Would you agree?
 
Briars said:
. You are the one talking rubbish. The fight or flight response delays digestion reserving energy to escape..The sympathetic nervous system is affected here. Vomit yes due to nerves.. A high fat meal including Gorgonzola pizza and buttery crumble easily could have been delayed somewhat outside of the 2 hour norm. Taking us up to a little after nine when the unpleasant arrival of the defendants occurred. Easily halting digestion to a TOD just before 10:20,
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But Briars if she were killed at 10:10 for TOD at 10:20 the kids were in the plaza. You still haven't helped with a human translation of Curatolo but it seems clear he saw them when he arrived after 9:30 and they were there every time he looked up. Even if that was only when he smoked it makes it very hard to buy they were involved. By 10:30 the car was broken down and the tow truck didn't leave until after 11.

There is a reason the prosecution moved the TOD to after 11 because they had to use Curatolo and he had them there until almost midnight until Massei adjusted the time based on the (nonexistent) disco buses. Curatolo actually said they were there until "just before midnight".

Interesting that none of the PGP Italian speakers will translate Curatolo's testimony.

Drop Curatolo and rework your theory.
 
Briars said:
. You are the one talking rubbish. The fight or flight response delays digestion reserving energy to escape..The sympathetic nervous system is affected here. Vomit yes due to nerves.. A high fat meal including Gorgonzola pizza and buttery crumble easily could have been delayed somewhat outside of the 2 hour norm. Taking us up to a little after nine when the unpleasant arrival of the defendants occurred. Easily halting digestion to a TOD just before 10:20,
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So, where is the evidence of prolonged increased perspiration?
 
Briars said:
. You are the one talking rubbish. The fight or flight response delays digestion reserving energy to escape..The sympathetic nervous system is affected here. Vomit yes due to nerves.. A high fat meal including Gorgonzola pizza and buttery crumble easily could have been delayed somewhat outside of the 2 hour norm. Taking us up to a little after nine when the unpleasant arrival of the defendants occurred. Easily halting digestion to a TOD just before 10:20,
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It seems you got your physiology of digestion credentials from the same institution that Machiavelli got his sleep therapy credentials.
 
Grinder said:
Good to see you here. I have speculated in your absence that you place TOD at 9:05 because the length of time for the chyme to get to the duodenum is already too long at 3 hours. One would normally expect the chyme to start moving at 2 or 2 1/2 hours.

If she had consumed some alcohol before or with the meal and that delayed digestion some, that would fit better with nothing there 3 hours later. Would you agree?
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And she was still recovering from a hangover, having been out partying well into the morning of Nov 1st, IOW finishing only 12-15 hours before she began eating with her friends at c. 18.00.

I, too, would like to know what Rolfe knows about the effects (or lack of) on speed of digestion for the 12-24 hours after heavy drinking.
 
Grinder said:
Good to see you here. I have speculated in your absence that you place TOD at 9:05 because the length of time for the chyme to get to the duodenum is already too long at 3 hours. One would normally expect the chyme to start moving at 2 or 2 1/2 hours.

If she had consumed some alcohol before or with the meal and that delayed digestion some, that would fit better with nothing there 3 hours later. Would you agree?
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Even three hours is a bit slow, I agree, but not outside the realms of possibility. Five hours is stark staring bonkers. Briars is just making it up as he goes along.

Rolfe.
 
Supernaut said:
And she was still recovering from a hangover, having been out partying well into the morning of Nov 1st, IOW finishing only 12-15 hours before she began eating with her friends at c. 18.00.

I, too, would like to know what Rolfe knows about the effects (or lack of) on speed of digestion for the 12-24 hours after heavy drinking.
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I don't know anything about the effects of heavy drinking. My patients don't go in for that sort of thing. (Neither do I, come to that.)

I do know about the effects of fright or terror on the mammalian digestive system though. Stand well back!

Rolfe.
 
Grinder said:
According to the british girls Amanda and Meredith didn't get along. Didn't you say the gold watch disappeared? It may have, but we really can only speculate on that and the whole story related to the watch until we have verification of Nina's account.

It seems to me a delay in digestion doesn't move the death to 11:30, 11 or even 10:30. If she ate at 6 something should have been there even earlier. Hey, maybe she returned even earlier and the british girls were inaccurate on that as well.

Btw, maybe she was stressed out those girls.
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Which girls? Have you read their testimony? They didn't say that. Some of the girls had never even met Amanda or heard Meredith mention her and iirc even Sophie Purton said they were friends. Filomena and Laura said they were friends who shared many interests in common.

ETA: Can you cite page #'s in the transcript so we can take a look....thanks :)
 
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Sometimes investigators get lucky, and there is a bit of happenstance that allows something very crucial about the case to be figured out. In this case it was the lack of chyme in the duodenum. It was happenstance, and it was more likely than not that things would have been moving on from the stomach by nine or nine-twenty. And if they had been, then the evidential value of the digestive tract contents would have been fairly poor. But the duodenum was empty, which allows for a pretty precise estimate of the time of death.

And then sometimes investigators, when presented with a perfectly cromulent piece of fortuitous good luck like this, simply ignore it. Tell me about it. I just wrote a book about it.

Rolfe.
 
MichaelB said:
Have you read their testimony? They didn't say that. Some of the girls had never even met Amanda or heard Meredith mention her and iirc even Sophie Purton said they were friends. Filomena and Laura said they were friends who shared many interests in common.
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Girls can be bitchy. If Meredith said something a bit bitchy about Amanda to her English friends, that means they were a gaggle of female students. Not that Meredith and Amanda wouldn't have been as chummy as can be the next day, and certainly not that murder was about to ensue. Otherwise our colleges would be empty of young ladies, as half of them were locked up for murdering the other half.

Rolfe.
 
Grinder said:
Who were you saying called him a liar?
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No one, just that we didn't need to really argue over when that video was shot given that this is all bs. It was a dark November night. Whether Briars likes it or not, it wouldn't have been difficult or attention attracting to break in to the cottage through that window.
 
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Grinder said:
But Briars if she were killed at 10:10 for TOD at 10:20 the kids were in the plaza. You still haven't helped with a human translation of Curatolo but it seems clear he saw them when he arrived after 9:30 and they were there every time he looked up. Even if that was only when he smoked it makes it very hard to buy they were involved. By 10:30 the car was broken down and the tow truck didn't leave until after 11.

There is a reason the prosecution moved the TOD to after 11 because they had to use Curatolo and he had them there until almost midnight until Massei adjusted the time based on the (nonexistent) disco buses. Curatolo actually said they were there until "just before midnight".

Interesting that none of the PGP Italian speakers will translate Curatolo's testimony.

Drop Curatolo and rework your theory.
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Briars, not every item of evidence in this case has to be correct. It is OK for a witness to be mistaken about thinking he saw people who a persistent reporter suggests to him and confusing who they actually are, and the actual night he thinks he saw them. It is OK for the transit of chyme from the stomach to the duodenum to be delayed somewhat by alcohol or high-fat content.

Dismiss Curatolo's testimony as inaccurate. He hurts your case. Dismiss his testimony and you can then claim that A & R were in the house when you would like them to be there.

Of those items that are measured by science, I want to see scientific justification. Cite the research showing how long a delay there is for chyme transit due to alcohol. Let's see the delay effect of having one alcohol drink in the body. Cite the studies that show eating a cheesy & buttery rich meal delays chyme transit by a specific amount of time. Otherwise, you are speculating (fabricating).

Why do you think Stefanoni withheld important data generated during the processing of the "DNA" on the knife blade and "DNA" on the bra clasp?
 
Rolfe said:
Girls can be bitchy. If Meredith said something a bit bitchy about Amanda to her English friends, that means they were a gaggle of female students. Not that Meredith and Amanda wouldn't have been as chummy as can be the next day, and certainly not that murder was about to ensue. Otherwise our colleges would be empty of young ladies, as half of them were locked up for murdering the other half.

Rolfe.
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I want to point out again that Sophie Parton met Amanda once before Meredith was killed. Her views of Amanda came primarily from a few tales Meredith shared with her British girlfriends about Amanda. "Guess what my American housemate did!" Snicker, snicker, laugh, laugh . . .

Mignini played Sophie. She was his lead girl to dis Amanda.
 
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Matthew Best said:
Er, nobody obviously! He even says right there that he doesn't think it necessary to call Briars a liar, not that he or anyone else does. :confused:
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Oh please. He confused me with another poster that said it was BS and conflated that into by strong implication that I called her a liar.

I agree with you Grinder but it is not necessary to call Briars a liar has only one reasonable interpretation.

Mathew I agree with you about your wife but there is no reason to beat her.
 
MichaelB said:
Which girls? Have you read their testimony? They didn't say that. Some of the girls had never even met Amanda or heard Meredith mention her and iirc even Sophie Purton said they were friends. Filomena and Laura said they were friends who shared many interests in common.

ETA: Can you cite page #'s in the transcript so we can take a look....thanks :)
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Not just Massei but contemporaneous reporting.

Where did the housekeeping stories come from?
 
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