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

[Briars]

Briars;

Do you maintain that entry to the flat required, and was gained by climbing through the broken window-frame itself?

IT'S A SIMPLE QUESTION, GOD DAMN IT!



They are Italian windows!

They open like shutters!

Dear God!

Mods!!

WTF!!!

They open in the middle like shutters no need for mods or meds.

 

[Grinder]

Of course not they are Italian windows that open like shutters. There still should be evidence on the outside wall , sill ,and not just undisturbed glass.Glass which should have some prints or evidence if painstakenly removed by hand.Normally I don't bother with impolite posts.. So just this once.

No the rock went through the window then left a nick visible on the latched inside of the outside shutter.

No there was no damage that I've heard of or seen to the inside of the outside shutter. Remember Massei said Rudy would have had to climb three times. If there had been damage from the the rock to the inside of the outside shutter he wouldn't have had to make that case. If there was that damage, most here would agree it looked like it was thrown from the inside, but that wasn't the case.

Most people breaking a window for entry wear gloves, preferably leather.

 

[Supernaut]

No option but to go ad hom.

Briars rhymes with liars.

A coincidence? I think not!

 

[moodstream]

Latching the inside shutter contained the throw, there is a chip of paint on the inner shutter visible in one of the photos. A point of the rock hit the closed shutter 5 inch or so a way from the glass windows leaving the chip before falling on the floor.

This what I love about the guilter side. It's a lot like a mystery book, or detective game,where all the evidence points towards one person, but the intrepid detective pulls together clues proving the obvious suspect cannot be guilty and then names the actual culprit.

As a guilter, you get to play that game in a non-fictional context, using the Italian legal structure as you clue finder. You win when you put together a complete internally consistent scenario of how the crime could have occurred that does not conflict with known facts. It differs from the fictional game also in that here the actual killer is a given fact, so the question is how else could it have happened.

It's lots of fun.

The rules are:
Do not ask the actual killer what happened. ( way too easy)
Limit your suspect pool to Knox and Sollecito.
Never let the fact that you are merely exercising your imagination get in the way of your belief in the truth of whatever it is you cook up in your head.

It sounds way fun. I almost wish I was a guilter.

 

[yimyammer]

Filomena's testimony reveals that the window was old and rickety.
It didn't close properly and she said she feared that even wind may have open it.

I can imagine a possibility that the impact of stone on the inner "scuri" outright burst the window open. The same single latch was responsible for keeping the window closed and the inner shade fastened. That would be one less thing for Guede to do, allowing him to make the ascend and entrance literally in seconds.
That would of course require us to assume all the glass pieces fell out of the window frame by themselves. but that's the same assumption the prosecution makes. One less thing to argue about

Interesting fact from the testimony: Filomena petitioned the landlord to install grates in her window, like the ones Laura had.

I always felt this was the case. I've remodeled old homes for the past 20+ years and the old wood windows were very easy to open. Even if they were latched. I could just force double hung windows upward and the wood was so old the screws on the latch couldn't keep the window from being opened. The one's I couldn't open were because they were painted shut.

Its even worse with french windows that open inward and have no middle structure or throw bolts to help keep them secure. This is what I see in Filomena's window. When I encountered windows or doors with set ups like hers and no throw bolt at the top and bottom to keep one of the doors or window sashes fixed, you could simply push them open because a latch doesn't do much besides keep them closed.

I suspect when the rock broke through the glass and hit the interior closed shutter, it not only forced the interior shutter open but caused the window frame to open along with it.

Of course I'm speculating like everyone else, so there may be facts I'm unaware of that would change my opinion

 

[LondonJohn]

Why would this misdirection evidence point to the kids? It is in line with the bath mat print having to be Rudy's or Raf's. The kids left no evidence in the murder room and so could have another accomplice of Rudy.

Why would Amanda want to stage the body? She knew Rudy had fingered her and maybe more by leaving semen on the pillow.

Rudy could in his insanity returned in the middle of the night because of some afterthought. Everyone had the means since the door was open and it would have been no problem for him to get anyway.

If it were proven beyond any doubt that the scene was staged, I don't believe any PIP here would change their minds. If one will not accept the bra clasp this whole staging means nothing.

That's why I used qualifiers such as "a certain amount of...." and "easier to conceive of....". It is of course - as you kindly point out - possible that Guede, as sole assailant, might have returned to the cottage later that night to rearrange the crime scene. But I think it's obvious that if there had been any staging done hours after the murder, it would point more towards Knox (and Sollecito) than Guede - if one believed that Knox (and possibly also Sollecito) was/were involved in the murder itself.

However, in my opinion all of this is totally moot anyhow, since - as I pointed out in my previous post - there is not only no evidence of an "hours after the murder" clean-up, but there's actually evidence that Meredith was not moved at any time other than in the minutes immediately following the stabbing.

By the way, I forgot to include in my previous post one of the more risible judicial "explanations" of "evidence" pointing to a clean-up: Massei and others "reasoned" that since there was a bloody partial foot print on the bathmat, and since there was not a "corresponding" trail of bloody footprints between Meredith's room and the bathmat, this therefore "proved" that these "intermediate" foptprints must have been extant at one time and subsequently wiped away!!

Of course, what this stellar "reasoning" abjectly fails to take into account is the possibility that the blood on the bathmat was not transported into the bathroom on the sole of that foot, but that it was instead transported there on the arms or clothing of the killer (Guede), then washed down onto a flat surface (the shower pan or possibly the bidet) whereupon the killer (Guede) placed his foot into it and stepped onto the bathmat. The fact that it is quite obviously a print made in heavily-diluted blood might have been a clue, you might have thought. But no. Not for the extraordinary judicial mind of Massei (and others). But then again, this is from the judge who brought you that other stunning piece of logic and reasoning: why would Capezzali have reported hearing a bloodcurdling scream of death unless she had in reality heard such a thing?

 

[Grinder]

I always felt this was the case. I've remodeled old homes for the past 20+ years and the old wood windows were very easy to open. Even if they were latched. I could just force double hung windows upward and the wood was so old the screws on the latch couldn't keep the window from being opened. The one's I couldn't open were because they were painted shut.

Its even worse with french windows that open inward and have no middle structure or throw bolts to help keep them secure. This is what I see in Filomena's window. When I encountered windows or doors with set ups like hers and no throw bolt at the top and bottom to keep one of the doors or window sashes fixed, you could simply push them open because a latch doesn't do much besides keep them closed.

I suspect when the rock broke through the glass and hit the interior closed shutter, it not only forced the interior shutter open but caused the window frame to open along with it.

Of course I'm speculating like everyone else, so there may be facts I'm unaware of that would change my opinion

This at least explains why Filomena would feel guilty about not closing the outer shutters because with those latched shut (no one could know) that would provide a much better resistance to entry.

Those old windows would have blown open when the rock hit. It also explains the use of such a big rock.

 

[Grinder]

That's why I used qualifiers such as "a certain amount of...." and "easier to conceive of....". It is of course - as you kindly point out - possible that Guede, as sole assailant, might have returned to the cottage later that night to rearrange the crime scene. But I think it's obvious that if there had been any staging done hours after the murder, it would point more towards Knox (and Sollecito) than Guede - if one believed that Knox (and possibly also Sollecito) was/were involved in the murder itself.

Alert, alert guilter trap. Yes if they were guilty and I had to determine who did the staging an argument could be made that it was the kids or one of them. I think it is obvious that the whole assertion that the staging, if it occurred, in any way make the kids more likely to be guilty is specious.

By the way, I forgot to include in my previous post one of the more risible judicial "explanations" of "evidence" pointing to a clean-up: Massei and others "reasoned" that since there was a bloody partial foot print on the bathmat, and since there was not a "corresponding" trail of bloody footprints between Meredith's room and the bathmat, this therefore "proved" that these "intermediate" foptprints must have been extant at one time and subsequently wiped away!!

Yes maybe even Briars thinks that a clean up would have left luminol evidence.

 

[katy_did]

Of course not they are Italian windows that open like shutters. There still should be evidence on the outside wall , sill ,and not just undisturbed glass.Glass which should have some prints or evidence if painstakenly removed by hand.

Even if they tested the pieces of glass on the sill for prints - which I doubt - there would only be prints or DNA on the glass if Guede touched it with his bare hands. If he wore gloves or used his sleeve to pull out the glass, which seems like the logical thing to do, there wouldn't be any prints.

I actually want to agree with you here: if the pieces of glass on the bottom of the window frame all spontaneously jumped backwards onto the sill, that means the window could have burst open when the rock went through it, making it a lot easier for Rudy to climb in. He didn't even need to unlatch the window! It's just that it seems very unlikely no shards of glass remained caught in the bottom of the frame, especially if they're as firmly fixed there as you say. From the lack of glass on the bottom of the frame it looks as if those shards were deliberately removed by someone who did it for a purpose, to make it easier for him to reach in and unlatch the window.

If you're right - if all the glass in the bottom part of the frame could have just fallen out - then IMO that makes the case for a real break-in perhaps even stronger. Guede threw the rock, and the window and inner shutter burst open with the force of it (as katody pointed out, Filomena thought the window latch was so flimsy it could even have blown open in the wind). Guede could have climbed up and hauled himself over the windowsill in a matter of seconds, with no need to mess about with the latch at all.

 

[LondonJohn]

.
Feel free to ignore what you can't understand , no problem.

It wasn't an attempt on my behalf to belittle you. But thanks for the condescension in reply anyhow - very good!

You see, if somebody doesn't use the "quote" function correctly, and/or employs incomprehensible grammar, it makes a discussion extremely hard to follow. For example:

I always felt this was the case. I've remodeled old homes for the past 20+ years and the old wood windows were very easy to open. Even if they were latched. I could just force double hung windows upward and the wood was so old the screws on the latch couldn't keep the window from being opened. The one's I couldn't open were because they were painted shut[/]. I've had that experience with old wood windows too, particularly if they are made of pine.

Its even worse with french windows that open inward and have no middle structure or throw bolts to help keep them secure. This is what I see in Filomena's window. When I encountered windows or doors with set ups like hers and no throw bolt at the top and bottom to keep one of the doors or window sashes fixed, you could simply push them open because a latch doesn't do much besides keep them closed.

But latches can sometimes act as a barrier in a certain way, as I found out when I was fixing windows in Abyssinia in the late 1970s.

I suspect when the rock broke through the glass and hit the interior closed shutter, it not only forced the interior shutter open but caused the window frame to open along with it. And that's why the glass went inwards instead of backwards to the outside ground below the window.

Of course I'm speculating like everyone else, so there may be facts I'm unaware of that would change my opinion




Which part of the above text was yimyammer's post, and which part of it was my reply to that post? Can you tell, without going back to yimyammer's post and comparing it with the text I've written above?

As I said, please can you take a little care to format your posts in an intelligible fashion. Thank you.

 

[Bill Williams]

No there was no damage that I've heard of or seen to the inside of the outside shutter. Remember Massei said Rudy would have had to climb three times. If there had been damage from the the rock to the inside of the outside shutter he wouldn't have had to make that case. If there was that damage, most here would agree it looked like it was thrown from the inside, but that wasn't the case.

Most people breaking a window for entry wear gloves, preferably leather.

But remember.... Briars leads with, "the prosecution said.....", not what Massei said.

It's an unavoidable part of the Italian system that the motivations report comes 90 days after the verdict. In Dec 2009 guilters had 90 days to set into everyone's mind that the guilty verdict was a result of the prosecutor's theories and claims.

THEN the motivations report comes out.... and for us non-Italian speakers it takes even longer to get a sense of what Massei actually found as factual to convict.

By then the damage is done. What Briar's theories and assertions rest on is that the prosecution's claims were somewhat related to reality.

Starting with the Massei Motivations report, the prosecution's case has tumbled like a house of cards. Sheesh, now even Crini has had to abandon "sex-game-gone-wrong," as even Massei did. Crini has all by abandoned Stefanoni's DNA work, and after the RIS Carabinieri recent report to the Nencini court has had to make ludicrous, evidenceless claims about Raffaele's knife being a match for the bedsheet outline.

And it's not like Briars can point to any evidence about his shutter claims. No, it's good enough for Briars that this is something the prosecution once asserted.... in the face of Channel 5 showing that the break-in actually probably happened the way everyone else (other than those wedded uncritically to Mignini) say it did.

 

[davefoc]

Honestly, how about using a little logic. The location was a poor choice visible and illuminated somewhat from the car park. Supernaut brings up another point the glass pieces were "soldiered "on the outside ledge. You imagine Guede took the time to carefully remove and line up the glass.Nonsense if you have ever replaced a broken window you would know that old paint makes the task of removing glass from the casement difficult. People often use pliers. The prosecution believe the shutters were shut when the rock was thrown from the inside, the pieces of glass stopped by the shutter fell in a line on the outer sill. It is for this reason than none fell to the ground under the window.

I have renovated more than 50 old wood casement windows. The glass in the wood windows that I have renovated is held in place with glazing compound. My guess is that the window in question is similar to the ones I've worked on.

I would note a few things with regard to the claim "that old paint makes the task of removing glass from the casement difficult".

1. The condition of old glazing compound varies greatly. In many old wood windows some of it has already fallen out. In others it has become brittle and cracked and is easily removed. Sometimes it is in relatively good condition and it can make the the glass somewhat difficult to remove.

2. When a window is broken, the glass shard itself can act as a lever that allows the shard to be removed easily by wiggling it a bit.

When the comment was made that the glass shards were "soldiered" (I took this to mean the shards had been removed and leaned against something so that they were upright) I imagined that the person using the window as an entry point removed the shards in this way and set them down so as to not make any more noise or just because that was the way he chose to do it without thinking much about it.

But again, these arguments that Briars makes about the broken window can be used to support the notion that the break-in wasn't staged at least as well as to support the notion that the break-in was staged. If the glass shards were difficult to remove why would AK or RS mess with pulling them out by hand? They could just take the rock and bash them a bit more to clear out the opening.

The kind of arguments that are being made that the break-in was staged because of the particular window that was broken are very similar to the kinds of arguments that could be made that a break-in was staged in any of the other windows in the house. e.g. No burglar would have broken through this window because it was a double pane window, or no burglar would have broken through this window because he could have pried it open with a screwdriver, or no burglar would have broken through this window because it was too exposed to the road, or no burglar would have broken through this window because it was too big, etc. All of these kind of arguments are made based on an assumption the state of mind of a particular burglar is knowable and the assumption that the person making the argument knows more about being a burglar than the person who broke the glass. I don't see any reason to believe either of those assumptions.

And even if for some reason it was impossible to climb through the window, as has been mentioned several times, the window could have been broken as a ploy to determine if the house was empty and the burglar could have used a different method to enter the building. There is no reason to assume that AK and RS broke it as some sort of effort to stage a break-in.

 

[LondonJohn]

Alert, alert guilter trap. Yes if they were guilty and I had to determine who did the staging an argument could be made that it was the kids or one of them. I think it is obvious that the whole assertion that the staging, if it occurred, in any way make the kids more likely to be guilty is specious.

I would objective argue that if a clean-up occurred some hours after the murder (which there's no evidence to support, remember, and in fact there's some evidence to contradict), then it would be weak evidence against Knox (and possibly Sollecito), but evidence nonetheless. That's because if Guede were the sole assailant, it's difficult to imagine why he would have any incentive or motivation to return to the murder scene, unless he thought he had left something hugely self-incriminating there. He had no business being inside the girls' cottage, and surely he would only put himself at more risk returning there hours after the murder. And if it WAS Guede who returned under this hypothetical clean-up scenario, he did a pretty lousy job of removing evidence of his presence!

But, that said, I agree that it's largely a circular-reasoning issue, whereby one first has to believe that Knox and Sollecito participated in the crime, and then "reason" that the "clean-up" therefore had to have been conducted by them.

 

[acbytesla]

You still haven't addressed the fresh chip on the outside of the inside shutters.

Briars, you might be a nice woman. I wouldn't know. But this logic of yours is missing so much and is faulty. Why do you need Amanda and Raffaele to be guilty? It's clear that you are desperately trying to be right and coming up with explanations that defy the rules of physics. So again, why?

 

[Charlie Wilkes]

I have renovated more than 50 old wood casement windows. The glass in the wood windows that I have renovated is held in place with glazing compound. My guess is that the window in question is similar to the ones I've worked on.

I would note a few things with regard to the claim "that old paint makes the task of removing glass from the casement difficult".

1. The condition of old glazing compound varies greatly. In many old wood windows some of it has already fallen out. In others it has become brittle and cracked and is easily removed. Sometimes it is in relatively good condition and it can make the the glass somewhat difficult to remove.

2. When a window is broken, the glass shard itself can act as a lever that allows the shard to be removed easily by wiggling it a bit.

When the comment was made that the glass shards were "soldiered" (I took this to mean the shards had been removed and leaned against something so that they were upright) I imagined that the person using the window as an entry point removed the shards in this way and set them down so as to not make any more noise or just because that was the way he chose to do it without thinking much about it.

But again, these arguments that Briars makes about the broken window can be used to support the notion that the break-in wasn't staged at least as well as to support the notion that the break-in was staged. If the glass shards were difficult to remove why would AK or RS mess with pulling them out by hand? They could just take the rock and bash them a bit more to clear out the opening.

The kind of arguments that are being made that the break-in was staged because of the particular window that was broken are very similar to the kinds of arguments that could be made that a break-in was staged in any of the other windows in the house. e.g. No burglar would have broken through this window because it was a double pane window, or no burglar would have broken through this window because he could have pried it open with a screwdriver, or no burglar would have broken through this window because it was too exposed to the road, or no burglar would have broken through this window because it was too big, etc. All of these kind of arguments are made based on an assumption the state of mind of a particular burglar is knowable and the assumption that the person making the argument knows more about being a burglar than the person who broke the glass. I don't see any reason to believe either of those assumptions.

Of course not. Five days before Guede killed Meredith, he broke into a private school and waited around until the proprietor showed up in the morning with a maintenance man. What was he thinking then? Who knows. This guy was a dumb criminal.

 

[Grinder]

I would objective argue that if a clean-up occurred some hours after the murder (which there's no evidence to support, remember, and in fact there's some evidence to contradict), then it would be weak evidence against Knox (and possibly Sollecito), but evidence nonetheless. That's because if Guede were the sole assailant, it's difficult to imagine why he would have any incentive or motivation to return to the murder scene, unless he thought he had left something hugely self-incriminating there. He had no business being inside the girls' cottage, and surely he would only put himself at more risk returning there hours after the murder. And if it WAS Guede who returned under this hypothetical clean-up scenario, he did a pretty lousy job of removing evidence of his presence!

Ah but there was no clean-up. It isn't evidence at all pointing to the kids. You are saying that if the staging occurred at some later time that you would increase your possibility of guilt for the kids. I disagree. If it were proven tomorrow would that change your opinion of them being not guilty?

Once again we enter the arena of insanity or psychotic break. Rudy had just killed and molested a girl and god only knows what bizarre thoughts or ideas were racing through his head. The "staging" need not have been in the middle of the night but only half an hour or hour after TOD even if one believes it.

Since the murder was sexually related before or after death why would anyone need to stage it?

But, that said, I agree that it's largely a circular-reasoning issue, whereby one first has to believe that Knox and Sollecito participated in the crime, and then "reason" that the "clean-up" therefore had to have been conducted by them.[/QUOTE]

 

[Grinder]

Maybe these will help

 

[LondonJohn]

Ah but there was no clean-up. It isn't evidence at all pointing to the kids. You are saying that if the staging occurred at some later time that you would increase your possibility of guilt for the kids. I disagree. If it were proven tomorrow would that change your opinion of them being not guilty?

Once again we enter the arena of insanity or psychotic break. Rudy had just killed and molested a girl and god only knows what bizarre thoughts or ideas were racing through his head. The "staging" need not have been in the middle of the night but only half an hour or hour after TOD even if one believes it.

Since the murder was sexually related before or after death why would anyone need to stage it?

Boy oh boy, your arguments are....... interesting!

For clarity:

1) I don't think there was any staging or crime-scene clean-up that took place an hour or more (say) after the murder.

2) In fact, I think that the available evidence points firmly to no such staging or clean-up having taken place.

3) However..... IF (note the conditional!) there were evidence of a staging or clean-up taking place hours after the murder, then I think it stands to reason that it's unlikely that Guede would have been the one to revisit the cottage hours after the murder for the purpose of staging or cleaning up.

4) Therefore, IF it could ever be proved that there had been such a staging/clean-up (and that's a pure hypothetical!!), I would argue that this would be WEAK (note the qualification) evidence that Knox/Sollecito were somehow involved in the murder and the subsequent staging/clean-up.

5) In direct answer to your rather provocative question above, if such a staging/clean-up were proven tomorrow, no it would not change my view of Knox's/Sollecito's guilt. But it would certainly set the scales back a small amount in that direction (as, for example, would proof that Knox was in the Conad store at 8am the morning after the murder).


I know there was no clean-up (well, that's my opinion, based on the known evidence). I hope you can understand that. I am doing nothing more than making the hypothetical point that if one thinks one can prove a clean-up, then this tends to imply Knox/Sollecito involvement more than a Guede-only scenario. But - I repeat - even proof of a clean-up would in no way directly imply that it was definitely Knox/Sollecito who had conducted the clean-up.

 

[Bill Williams]

Heck, about now I'd even like some misinformation from Briars or Machiavelli!

Italian courts are not "open", at least not like here. It's been something to try to get a sense of what happened at Frank Sfarzo's defamation hearing last Friday, a week ago.

Does anyone have info? What I've been able to piece together is that Mignini did not really bring much of a case before the judge. Like reported in a previous post, the only item of "defamation" which seemed to survive the hearing (make it to trial for Feb 2015) was the business of Mignini feeling defamed when Sfarzo wrote that Mignini "consorted with drug dealers."

Well, in a sense, it's hard for a Public Minister NOT to consort with drug dealers? PM's have them arrested and they prosecute them, and occasionally blackmail them into being witnesses in other trials.....

What I would have loved to write here was how corrupt, and mischievous Mignini was, or how he manipulates things to his advantage. It seems that none of that happened last Friday - rank incompetence seems to have replaced it in advancing his own defamation claim against Sfarzo.

Has anyone heard different? Briars? Machiavelli?

Everyone has been so quiet since it was announced that Mignini himself is going to trial on Jan 15 (again) for abuse of office.

 

[Grinder]

Boy oh boy, your arguments are....... interesting!

For clarity:

1) I don't think there was any staging or crime-scene clean-up that took place an hour or more (say) after the murder.

2) In fact, I think that the available evidence points firmly to no such staging or clean-up having taken place.

Yes you've made that abundantly clear.

3) However..... IF (note the conditional!) there were evidence of a staging or clean-up taking place hours after the murder, then I think it stands to reason that it's unlikely that Guede would have been the one to revisit the cottage hours after the murder for the purpose of staging or cleaning up.

You've made that abundantly clear as well but we just have no basis to amke the assumption about Rudy given his likely state of mind and of course you add the "hours" later which wouldn't be required for the staging.

4) Therefore, IF it could ever be proved that there had been such a staging/clean-up (and that's a pure hypothetical!!), I would argue that this would be WEAK (note the qualification) evidence that Knox/Sollecito were somehow involved in the murder and the subsequent staging/clean-up.

The weakness of the argument likelihood has been made abundantly clear. As I said before, if they were shown to be guilty then it could be argued it more likely them than Rudy but even then not a certainty. I don't see the staging on its own as a greater sign of guilt than the kisses or cartwheel.

5) In direct answer to your rather provocative question above, if such a staging/clean-up were proven tomorrow, no it would not change my view of Knox's/Sollecito's guilt. But it would certainly set the scales back a small amount in that direction (as, for example, would proof that Knox was in the Conad store at 8am the morning after the murder).

Wow. If we were to be shown a video from Quintavalle's store showing amanda there at 7:45 waiting to enter that would move me hugely towards guilt if not all the way there. Not only would it totally mess with their recounting of the morning but the fact that when reminded by his testimony they didn't admit it would make them look even more guilty.

Mysterious staging by someone versus hard evidence that they lied or were so wasted they couldn't remember what they did is totally different.

I know there was no clean-up (well, that's my opinion, based on the known evidence). I hope you can understand that. I am doing nothing more than making the hypothetical point that if one thinks one can prove a clean-up, then this tends to imply Knox/Sollecito involvement more than a Guede-only scenario. But - I repeat - even proof of a clean-up would in no way directly imply that it was definitely Knox/Sollecito who had conducted the clean-up.

First we were talking about staging not the clean-up, but even a proven clean-up proves nothing. Any potential killer would be just as likely to clean.