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

[Grinder]

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.

Email Frank or CD or have you already and just not sharing. Mignini/Vogt = BW/ Candace

 

[Grinder]

Why hasn't some Italian prosecutor gone after PQ et al. for their remarks about Hellmann?

 

[Supernaut]

Email Frank or CD or have you already and just not sharing. Mignini/Vogt = BW/ Candace

While B.W. liaises with these "biased sources", how about you get busy doing the same with the completely neutral Follain, Vogt, Nadeau and Pisa?

 

[Supernaut]

Why hasn't some Italian prosecutor gone after PQ et al. for their remarks about Hellmann?

Yeh - I wonder?

(is the <sarcasm> html tag really needed here?)

 

[yimyammer]

You avoided the topic of how he managed to pick the glass out of the shutter casement. Old swollen shutters that had layers of paint making glass removal difficult. It's not just the climb but all the other activities that went with it. Activities that would take time and increased the likelihood of being spotted. Maybe he needed the light from the car park see what he was doing and that helped him to arrange the glass so neatly?

It wouldn't be necessary to remove the glass if he simply reached through the hole in the broken glass and unlatched the window and pushed it open nor would he have had to if the force of the rock pushed the window open as it hit the interior shutter.

The stacked glass was likely the glass that had already fallen out or was easily removed after the rock broke the window pane & before he reached his hand through the broken glass.

I've worked on many old homes and old paint has effectively glued windows to the point where they no longer operate but I've never needed to use pliers to remove broken glass when a pane is broken. Hardened putty that originally was used to keep old glass panes in the frame can make it difficult to get some pieces out, but in my 20 years of working on houses, I've never encountered paint keeping glass affixed to a frame. People obviously try to keep paint off of the glass and will scrape it off as soon as the paint dries.

Perhaps they use other methods in Italy I'm not aware of.

 

[Supernaut]

Grinder;

Can I ask;

do you still adhere to your "philosophy" that "the truth" is to be found in some "grey area" between the assertions made by opposing factions?

Really?

Does it make you feel superior?

 

[yimyammer]

How would you know? I've glazed lots of windows. If a window is broke, it is usually very easy to pull the glass out. But unless you are doing it on that particular window, there is no way to know. The paint on the surface of the window makes little difference. Old swollen windows that have gone through many seasons expanding and contracting with the heat and cold are very often the easiest kind of window to pull the glass out.

But as I said before, there is no way to know unless you were doing it on that particular window at that moment. You are just speculating.... Which is nonsense.

bingo

 

[yimyammer]

Have you ever replaced a broken pane of glass? Can you comment on the challenging factors of old paint that holds like glue and exposed swollen wood?

I have, its easy and I've never had to use pliers to remove broken pieces of glass still held by the putty that kept it attached to the frame, I just pulled them to by hand. Its especially easy when dealing with old windows that are heavily worn and have been deteriorated by the weather.

The hardened putty on the other hand can be a real chore to get out but this would never pose an obstacle to entering or reaching a hand through the window frame.

 

[yimyammer]

How do you really know that there wasn't any glass below? Are there inch by inch photos of the area below? No. Tiny pieces of glass can easily go unnoticed in that environment. The area is grass and there is still no reason to think that 95 plus percentage of the glass falling into the room is strange. I've seen the work that Ron Hendry as well as channel 5 and both found nothing strange about the glass being inside the room.

This is the first case I've ever encountered where the lack of glass on the exterior of the structure is proof of staging. In every other case the perp screwed up by breaking the glass from the inside (forcing the glass to the outside) making it obvious to investigators the scene was staged.

 

[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.

Email Frank or CD or have you already and just not sharing. Mignini/Vogt = BW/ Candace

Grinder - you're playing the man again.... maybe it's YOU who's got the info and is using this to avoid the issue. Aside from not dealing with what I asked, this does afford the opportunity to bump it downthread a bit in the Quote window....

 

[LondonJohn]

Yes you've made that abundantly clear.



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.



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.



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.




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.

Phew! See what I mean?!

 

[LondonJohn]

This is the first case I've ever encountered where the lack of glass on the exterior of the structure is proof of staging. In every other case the perp screwed up by breaking the glass from the inside (forcing the glass to the outside) making it obvious to investigators the scene was staged.

Exactly. And it's one of many classic examples of the Perugia police/PMs twisting evidence to fit a pre-ordained theory.

In the case of the break-in (and in every other area), one is supposed to look at the available evidence with a neutral, objective eye, and to let the evidence guide you towards a theory. Here, all the evidence points to a real break-in: the glass pattern is in line with a real-break-in; the damage to the window and shutters is in line with a real break-in; the feasible route of ascent is in line with a real break-in; the position and condition of the rock is in line with a real break-in; the feasible position for the throwing of the rock from the outside is in line with a real break-in.

In other words, the actual evidence leads to a tentative theory that there was indeed a real break-in. That should be the kicking off point. If authorities find other evidence that suggests a staging (and exclusively a staging), then they are entitled to modify their theory. But they didn't.

Instead, what they did was this: they decided "intuitively" a) that Knox and Sollecito were involved in the murder and a subsequent clean-up; and b) that the break-in had been staged. They then went looking for "evidence" to support their pre-determined "staging" theory. They made every piece of evidence "fit" the theory, rather than the other way round. No glass on the ground outside? Aha! That's because the cunning Knox and Sollecito "must" have held the window open at 90 degrees and smashed through the outer pane, thus ensuring that no glass broke to the outside! And worse than that for Knox and Sollecito: no glass on the ground outside even proves that this was a staging, since a real rock thrown from outside would have caused some of the broken glass to project backwards!! Ahaaa!! (Oh, what's that? We didn't actually check properly for very small pieces of glass in the scrubby grass below the window, and nor did we photograph the ground? Oh well, no matter: we have the anecdotal evidence of a police officer - that should suffice, yeah?!)

 

[moodstream]

I have a pretty stupid question that must have a good ( viable) answer. I just haven't heard it.

There is a lot of glass spread all over Filomena's room. If the break in was staged, how was the glass spread? Not by hand without a scratch. Gloves? Any real evidence that this even could be?

 

[davefoc]

It wouldn't be necessary to remove the glass if he simply reached through the hole in the broken glass and unlatched the window and pushed it open nor would he have had to if the force of the rock pushed the window open as it hit the interior shutter.

The stacked glass was likely the glass that had already fallen out or was easily removed after the rock broke the window pane & before he reached his hand through the broken glass.

I've worked on many old homes and old paint has effectively glued windows to the point where they no longer operate but I've never needed to use pliers to remove broken glass when a pane is broken. Hardened putty that originally was used to keep old glass panes in the frame can make it difficult to get some pieces out, but in my 20 years of working on houses, I've never encountered paint keeping glass affixed to a frame. People obviously try to keep paint off of the glass and will scrape it off as soon as the paint dries.

Perhaps they use other methods in Italy I'm not aware of.

I took a good look at the pictures of the window posted by Grinder. It appears the glass was just held in place by wood molding and not putty. The paint was old and it wasn't on the glass. It looks like some of the glass just fell completely free of the frame after it was broken and it would have been an easy task to just remove a bit more to gain access to the latch and open the window as you suggest. Theories never seem to die completely in this thread but if there was ever any theory that should die completely and never be resurrected it is the it-would-have-been-hard-to-remove-the-glass-because-it-was-held-in-place-by-paint theory

 

[Bill Williams]

I have a pretty stupid question that must have a good ( viable) answer. I just haven't heard it.

There is a lot of glass spread all over Filomena's room. If the break in was staged, how was the glass spread? Not by hand without a scratch. Gloves? Any real evidence that this even could be?

Good point. What is obvious is that aside from declaring early that the break-in had been staged, there was no real investigation of this factoid.

 

[yimyammer]

I took a good look at the pictures of the window posted by Grinder. It appears the glass was just held in place by wood molding and not putty. The paint was old and it wasn't on the glass. It looks like some of the glass just fell completely free of the frame after it was broken and it would have been an easy task to just remove a bit more to gain access to the latch and open the window as you suggest. Theories never seem to die completely in this thread but if there was ever any theory that should die completely and never be resurrected it is the it-would-have-been-hard-to-remove-the-glass-because-it-was-held-in-place-by-paint theory

no doubt!

 

[moodstream]

Good point. What is obvious is that aside from declaring early that the break-in had been staged, there was no real investigation of this factoid.

Maybe they asked Curatalo if they could use a section of his newspaper.

 

[Samson]

Exactly. And it's one of many classic examples of the Perugia police/PMs twisting evidence to fit a pre-ordained theory.

In the case of the break-in (and in every other area), one is supposed to look at the available evidence with a neutral, objective eye, and to let the evidence guide you towards a theory. Here, all the evidence points to a real break-in: the glass pattern is in line with a real-break-in; the damage to the window and shutters is in line with a real break-in; the feasible route of ascent is in line with a real break-in; the position and condition of the rock is in line with a real break-in; the feasible position for the throwing of the rock from the outside is in line with a real break-in.

In other words, the actual evidence leads to a tentative theory that there was indeed a real break-in. That should be the kicking off point. If authorities find other evidence that suggests a staging (and exclusively a staging), then they are entitled to modify their theory. But they didn't.

Instead, what they did was this: they decided "intuitively" a) that Knox and Sollecito were involved in the murder and a subsequent clean-up; and b) that the break-in had been staged. They then went looking for "evidence" to support their pre-determined "staging" theory. They made every piece of evidence "fit" the theory, rather than the other way round. No glass on the ground outside? Aha! That's because the cunning Knox and Sollecito "must" have held the window open at 90 degrees and smashed through the outer pane, thus ensuring that no glass broke to the outside! And worse than that for Knox and Sollecito: no glass on the ground outside even proves that this was a staging, since a real rock thrown from outside would have caused some of the broken glass to project backwards!! Ahaaa!! (Oh, what's that? We didn't actually check properly for very small pieces of glass in the scrubby grass below the window, and nor did we photograph the ground? Oh well, no matter: we have the anecdotal evidence of a police officer - that should suffice, yeah?!)

I read this on PMF the other day, and just retrieved it.

"When you know Ms. Kercher was attacked by multiple attackers, the break-in becomes staged almost by definition."

This is from an ardent writer of scenarios.
Clearly the logic can be reversed to eliminate the multiple attackers. The defence must hammer the staged nonsense to put this case to rest, the prosecution have been given a leave pass with the staging for six long years, and it is by far the easiest thing to eliminate from their case.
No staged break in equals real break in equals lone wolf.

 

[Machiavelli]

(...)

Had Mignini asked for what Frank assumed, and appealed Rudy's mitigations,

You are mistaken.
Guede was not granted any mitigation at his first instance judgement.

And he got life.
However, life was discounted to 30 years because of his fast track option.

and prosecuted him for the theft charge

He was charged with theft, but is no evidence he comitted a theft.

and prosecuted him for his previous theft of at least the lawyer's office in Perugia,

Impossible within that trial. And anyway that would be totally uninfluential on his sentencing in the Kercher case. A theft in another apartment on som other time cannot be an aggravation for a murder charge. We are talking about two different events.

Instead he didn't appeal any of the three mitigations he could, never even attempted to bring charges against him for the previous burglaries which had happened shortly before the murder,

Rudy did not get "three mitigations".
He actually got NO mitigation at all on his first instance trial.

Then, at his own appeal, he got just "generic mitigation" - that is only one mitigation, even if it depends on three conditions -that mitigation was considered very important though, since it brought penalty down from life to 24 years.

Which means 16 years becasue of the fast track option.

Mignini was no longer the prosecutor on that appeal.
Nor Mignini nor Comodi were formally in charge for his prosecution on appeal; that was up to the Prosecution General to decide what to do next, if they were unsatisfied. Nor Mignini nor Comodi had any authority to file recourses against the 16 year sentencing.
Why the Prosecutor General didn't file a recourse at the SC against Guede's sentencing reduction? I don't know. But I guess that was because the Prosecution General thought they would have likely lost it at the Cassazione.

In contrast he asked for the lives of Raffaele and Amanda, appealed their mitigations and added on the theft charge as well as one for supposedly staging the break-in and the slander for Amanda.

Knox and Solelcito got generic mitigation at their first instance trial. They got their sentencing reduced from life to 24 years. They obtained this benefit on their first instance, while Guede managed to obtain this only on his appeal.
And the mitigation awardd to Knox and Sollecito was basically the reason why Guede got it on his appeal.

 

[RWVBWL]

<snip>
Briars insistence that no way would they break in through that window because it is too exposed is another. Massei's claim that Rudy would have had to go up and down 3 times is of course more of the same. Not only wouldn't it be necessary, but the idea that 3 up and downs is a deal breaker is absurd.
<snip>

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.

Hi Briars,
You have visited the area of the murder, haven't you?
I've never been to Italy, but I've heard that in certain places pickpocketing, ya know,
subtly stealing a persons wallet or belongings right from them, is a known problem.

Were you ever worried about being pickpocketed while there?
I'd speculate that those kinda crimes usually happen where the thief is very visible and the location,
well it's usually out in the open where people can see the thief...

A little logic tells me that thieves are bold.
Would you agree?

Hmmmm:
https://www.google.com/#q=pickpocket+crime+in+italy&undefined=undefined


I'd say that Rudy Guede was bold.
I mean heck, I know a lotta bold crazy dudes,
BUT I don't know anyone that was ever found inside a nursery school,
(ya know, a place where parents drop their little children off to learn their A,B,C's),
with a huge knife on him!

Rudy didn't seem to be too worried about being caught inside the nursery school.
If he was, he woulda hid or split somehow, someway...

I don't think that Rudy Guede was too worried about getting caught breaking into Meredith Kercher's flat when he threw that rock at Filomena's window and quickly climbed that wall...