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

[Strozzi]

Her general behavior was absolutely a factor in how she became accused of a crime. Call it self-absorption and social immaturity if you wish.

Edgardo Giobbi, lead investigator: We were able to establish guilt by closely observing the suspect's psychological and behavioral reaction during the investigation. We don't need to rely on other kinds of investigation.

His suspicions were initially aroused by a provocative hip swivel by Amanda when she put on protective shoe covers at the crime scene.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/oct/08/amanda-knox-facial-expressions

I am very taken by Giobbi's ability to establish guilt by observation of a 20 year old foreign girl with whom he and most other police present could barely communicate.

Giobbi knows about Italian TV game and talk show women's hip-swivel and knew THAT WAS IT when he saw Amanda "swivel her hips" just the right way when she stood up after putting on forensic booties. Amanda knew nothing about what Giobbi was referring to. I guess they didn't teach the Italian hip wiggle-move to girls at Amanda's Jesuit high school. Is it proof of a deprived American childhood or Italian major-crime investigator projecting his own cultural values to a 20 year old American suspect?

 

[Dan O.]

Thanks for this, Dan O. I hope you are keeping this and will repost it occasionally... perhaps even forward it to Nencini's court!

I'm sure the criticism cannot be hung on all guilters/haters, but the fact that most, if not all, simply refuse to put together a coherent story of how this went down says all I need to hear, and explains why I believe what I do.

There just is no way to weave AK and/or RS into those demarcation points. It's not a matter of liking them or not liking them, it's a matter that the evidence is not there.

Please keep this - it took a fair bit of work...

It was a lot of work. But I pieced it together one bit at a time with occasional binges to parse every known document for anything that resembled a date or time. I shouldn't need to keep posting it because the live version is already where most of you can read it, correct it and extend it with new information. This is an extract from my wiki page titled "Timeline 2007-11-01 to 11-02 Murder and discovery". From the title you should be able to guess that there are also other pages covering other time periods. Go there and browse, the information is there to share.

 

[Rolfe]

I don't find this rhetorical question particularly useful.

In the reading I have done, there is no shortage of the following concepts constantly repeated on both sides of the divide:

whack-a-mole, conspiracy theories, straw-man arguments, logical fallacies, cherry-picked data, scientific garbage, poor critical reasoning skills, etc., etc.

(However, the answer was interesting).

You're new here, aren't you?

It takes almost superhuman restraint to remain icily polite when faced once again with the exact same point one has conclusively countered many times before. You will get on better if you bear in mind that not everyone here is superhuman.

In fact, a confrontational, hostile approach from a newbie is something that has been seen before, and I fear shortcuts may be taken.

Rolfe.

 

[AmyStrange]

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Good luck on this one. I would propose that we post a picture of everyone of the posters to this blog, yours included, and see how many of us would survive scrutiny. I don't know why you post this. Is it tosomehow justify your opinions? Sort of like I started out thinking guilty but now see the light? (Like most of us I think.)

PS: I am not posting this to be antagonistic. I enjoy and like your posts. This superficial judgment stuff is just one of my pet peeves.

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I know you're not m. I understand your feelings about superficiality, but at least I'm honest.

Also, I know many people who I think are creepy (myself included, I have been described as creepy), but are some of my favorite friends. I love them and love who they are,

d

ETA I can get pass the creepy and see the person underneath, but it's still there and I have to constantly remind myself how stupid my perception of creepy is. That thought alone makes me feel creepy. It's just one vicious loop playing over and over and over in my head arrrrgh
-

 

[Rolfe]

Interesting information in your post.

Part of this case seems to be about the battle of the experts and whose opinion is the correct one.

From Massei:

“Thus Dr. Lalli, while affirming that gastric emptying begins as soon as one part of the stomach’s contents has become sufficiently liquid to pass through the pylorus, and that this occurs around the 3rd to 4th hour after the meal, made a point of adding that [181] many factors influence the gastric, such that any deduction of time of death based solely on this data is rather unconvincing” (pg 177)

For those who do not have the benefit of reading the Italian testimonies of Dr. Lalli, Professor Introna and Ronchi, nor the benefit of forensic expertise, the best we can do is read Massei and come to the conclusion of “inconclusive”.

As an expert forensic witness yourself, has there ever been a time when you have encountered an opposing opinion by someone with similar academic credentials who based this opinion on science as well?

That is a paraphrase. I am far too familiar with the mangled remains of medical testimony as regurgitated by lawyers with an axe to grind to be under any illusions that he actually said anything quite so inaccurate.

Rolfe.

 

[Dan O.]

I don't find this rhetorical question particularly useful.

In the reading I have done, there is no shortage of the following concepts constantly repeated on both sides of the divide:

whack-a-mole, conspiracy theories, straw-man arguments, logical fallacies, cherry-picked data, scientific garbage, poor critical reasoning skills, etc., etc.

(However, the answer was interesting).

How are you trying to present yourself here? That first impression thing is going to be hard to reverse if you get it wrong. From your earlier post you say:

The reason I posted on JREF is because my curiosity got the best of me. I wanted to know whether there were people who believed in Amanda's and Raffaele's innocence dispassionately, but who were also open to the possibility of their guilt. It appears that the answer would be, no. (But thanks Planigale – your response was at least dispassionate and genuine).

So you have already sized us up and then you cherry-pick an argument from the past as a test?!

I am hopeful that you are a free thinker with your own ideas on this case who has been bouncing from forum to forum shunned by people that don't want to think and you finally stumbled into this little corner of the online universe. My conspiratorial mind though fears that you are but a minion ordered here by the overlords of a hate site. I do hope that you can clear this up and choose to stick around. It's really a wonderful board and plenty of other discussions if you choose to wander outside of this thread.

 

[AmyStrange]

-

I have to say I find this strange. But no less strange than the amazing number or women I have heard say that they hate Anne Hathaway. I sometimes think people get feelings about others that are visceral and that they simply can't explain. Not that there is any real justification for their feeling. But just because you can't explain the the reason, doesn't mean that they don't have the feeling.

Not every feeling or intuition has to have a rationale behind it, that said, more people should be like you Amy. Cognizant, that their feelings and intuition is irrational and without basis.

-

I think I critically analyze my feelings, not only to justify them, but to also find out what exactly is causing me to feel that way. It's because of my studies in Psychology.

Sometimes anger or happiness is not really based on what you think it is. I've found that I'm not really angry at someone personally, but it's because I'm just pissed and I sometimes don't really know why, just like you said.

When I get angry, I always ask myself... why specifically am I angry? And more times than I can count, it's about some petty little thing that person did or does, and I honestly don't see why I should be really angry, but what the hell, it gives me a chance to rant and rave. Blow off some steam, so to speak.

I always stop though, take a very deep breath, and explain to the person I'm ranting to that I'm not mad at them, I'm just angry. And then, I light into them again.

And, I stop and explain this more than once while I'm ranting at them,

d

-

 

[Briars]

Oh for pete's sake. You, then, have not gone to many funerals. And if this is your sole experience of them, you indeed are very, very lucky and blessed.

But trust me on this one... there is no cookie-cutter experience of what happens to everyone at a funeral. Have you ever been to one where the police have had to be summoned to restore order, quell the fighting, and get the body back into the box?

There are as many expressions or reaction to death as there are people.

This is again part of the trouble with this whole case - prejudging people - putting them in jail in effect for having had the wrong reaction to something, not because there is actual evidence.

Amanda was not even at the memorial we are talking about her behaviour at the Questura behaviour that made Sollecito uncomfortable.

 

[acbytesla]

Amanda was not even at the memorial we are talking about her behaviour at the Questura behaviour that made Sollecito uncomfortable.

And this means what exactly Briars?

I think if you're honest you can't actually assign anything to this. From my understanding, NONE of the residents of the cottage attended this memorial. Not Laura, not Filomena, not Amanda. What does that tell you Briars? That Filomena and Laura are guilty as well?

Why can't you be fair and realize that it is unreasonable and very unfair to draw any conclusions from this?

 

[AmyStrange]

Peter Lorre

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Amanda was not even at the memorial we are talking about her behaviour at the Questura behaviour that made Sollecito uncomfortable.

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She looks and acts and writes creepy, in my opinion, but so did Alfred Hitchcock, Stephen King, Dean Koontz, Edgar Allen Poe and on and on. Murder and mayhem is what most people remember best about these people. What does THAT say about the people who like those people? There must be a whole bunch of murderers out there that we don't know about yet.

And before I finish, my number one creepiest actor of all time, Peter Lorre,

d

ETA That Dexter character (not the actor) is a kind of likable creepy guy and that whole likable-creep thing is creepy all by itself
-

 

[Bill Williams]

Her general behavior was absolutely a factor in how she became accused of a crime. Call it self-absorption and social immaturity if you wish.

Edgardo Giobbi, lead investigator: We were able to establish guilt by closely observing the suspect's psychological and behavioral reaction during the investigation. We don't need to rely on other kinds of investigation.

His suspicions were initially aroused by a provocative hip swivel by Amanda when she put on protective shoe covers at the crime scene.

I am very taken by Giobbi's ability to establish guilt by observation of a 20 year old foreign girl with whom he and most other police present could barely communicate.

Giobbi knows about Italian TV game and talk show women's hip-swivel and knew THAT WAS IT when he saw Amanda "swivel her hips" just the right way when she stood up after putting on forensic booties. Amanda knew nothing about what Giobbi was referring to. I guess they didn't teach the Italian hip wiggle-move to girls at Amanda's Jesuit high school. Is it proof of a deprived American childhood or Italian major-crime investigator projecting his own cultural values to a 20 year old American suspect?

In the last six years guilters/haters have tried to have it both ways. As the actual evidence has collapsed, the theme has always been, "well what about the behaviour?" And then when the inevitable criticism surfaces: "Behaviour? Even if it had been bad, unsympathetic, immature behaviour, where's the evidence that she'd committed a crime?", the guilters pull out the "all the other evidence," theme, based mainly on behaviour.

And around and around it goes.

It's been a cycle of making reference to the behaviour, then saying that they assess guilt only on the evidence, and then cycling back to making references to behaviour.

Ultimately the fact is this - and it is as you note, Strozzi - Giobbi's ability to ascertain a 20-year old foreigner's guilt was totally, and only based on behaviour. Evidence had nothing to do with it.

For me it's why guilters have had to ramp up the Knox-hating rhetoric... because without the rhetoric there is, well.... nothing else.

Knox in "Waiting to be Heard", has been more than forthcoming, and self-critical, about her behaviour. But one has to still ask the question, 6 years down the line, what on earth does an immature hip-swivel have to do with anything?

Do we arrest immature people for murder, simply because they've been inappropriate with crime scene booties? Essentially, this is the sum total of the case against both Amanda and Raffaele, because of course, Raffaele had to be arrested or else he'd be a legitimate alibi.

 

[LBR]

That is a paraphrase. I am far too familiar with the mangled remains of medical testimony as regurgitated by lawyers with an axe to grind to be under any illusions that he actually said anything quite so inaccurate.

Rolfe.

Yes. Massei is paraphrasing Dr. Lalli.

That's why I think it would be useful for non-experts to be able to read Dr. Lalli's testimony to see what this person actually said. People who cannot read Italian cannot do so. This is why I asked a related question when I first came to the forum.

Perhaps reading this testimony is not useful for you because of your own expertise, but for most other people, it is reasonable to read information of all of the testimonies of these experts (incuding Introna, Ronchi and Novelli) regarding TOD, prior to forming an absolute opinion.

 

[Bill Williams]

Amanda was not even at the memorial we are talking about her behaviour at the Questura behaviour that made Sollecito uncomfortable.

And this means what exactly Briars?

I think if you're honest you can't actually assign anything to this. From my understanding, NONE of the residents of the cottage attended this memorial. Not Laura, not Filomena, not Amanda. What does that tell you Briars? That Filomena and Laura are guilty as well?

Why can't you be fair and realize that it is unreasonable and very unfair to draw any conclusions from this?

Nothing says "confirmation bias" like pointing out, in isolation, the fact that Amanda did not go to the make-shift memorial.

I say "make-shift", not to degrade the effort.... but I have also heard Amanda be called insensitive because she did not go to Meredith's funeral.

Read that a few times, and put it into a comprehensive timeline, and you'll see why the criticism is unfair! You see, guilters rarely try comprehensive timelines, and I now see the reason why. Some cannot see the difference between a funeral and a memorial.

There is an obsessive fixation on Knox here, which shows why some cannot assess evidence properly. Strangely, this applies to Napoleoni and Mignini, too.

 

[Chris_Halkides]

primary literature

Perhaps reading this testimony is not useful for you because of your own expertise, but for most other people, it is reasonable to read information of all of the testimonies of these experts (incuding Introna, Ronchi and Novelli) regarding TOD, prior to forming an absolute opinion.

Novelli is an expert in certain aspects of DNA and genetics, not an expert in gastroenterology. Besides the testimonies of the people you mention, one also has access to the primary literature of the field.

 

[acbytesla]

Nothing says "confirmation bias" like pointing out, in isolation, the fact that Amanda did not go to the make-shift memorial.

I say "make-shift", not to degrade the effort.... but I have also heard Amanda be called insensitive because she did not go to Meredith's funeral.

Read that a few times, and put it into a comprehensive timeline, and you'll see why the criticism is unfair! You see, guilters rarely try comprehensive timelines, and I now see the reason why. Some cannot see the difference between a funeral and a memorial.

There is an obsessive fixation on Knox here, which shows why some cannot assess evidence properly. Strangely, this applies to Napoleoni and Mignini, too.

I have never figured out how the Guilters like Briars can go on and on about "Amanda's behavior" as if this is evidence. Never mind that Amanda's behavior is relayed to them through totally second hand and through the eyes of others.

Amanda kissed Raffaele outside the cottage. So?
Amanda cuddled with Raffaele at the Questura. So?
Amanda didn't attend the makeshift memorial held by a bunch of strangers. So?
Amanda had too much sway and may have "swiveled" her hips So?
Amanda said "ta da" after putting on booties. So?
Amanda didn't want to hug the British virgins. So?

The fact is, none of these events are actually evidence of guilt. Not one. They are seen as strange by some. So? I think people getting piercings through their chins, tongues, nipples and genitals to be strange. I feel the same way about tattoos. For me, I have always thought the human body to be beautiful and these little accessories don't enhance human beauty but detract from it.

But so what? That doesn't mean that any of these people aren't attractive or kind or intelligent. They just have a difference of opinion on what they like.

Much of Amanda's behavior can be attributed to everything from cultural to her age to her own personality and have nothing to do with anything else. I know that John Douglass, one of the worlds most renowned criminal profiler agrees that it means absolutely nothing.

So Briars... I ask you again. What does Amanda's behavior mean? Can you honestly and reliably assign any meaning to it?

 

[Rolfe]

Yes. Massei is paraphrasing Dr. Lalli.

That's why I think it would be useful for non-experts to be able to read Dr. Lalli's testimony to see what this person actually said. People who cannot read Italian cannot do so. This is why I asked a related question when I first came to the forum.

Perhaps reading this testimony is not useful for you because of your own expertise, but for most other people, it is reasonable to read information of all of the testimonies of these experts (incuding Introna, Ronchi and Novelli) regarding TOD, prior to forming an absolute opinion.

It really is perfectly simple. You don't have to be a gastroenterologist with scores of peer-reviewed papers, or a pathologist who has done hundreds of post mortems of people who ate their last meals at a known time before death. You only need to have generic medical and physiological understanding and some common sense.

Not attributes of most lawyers, I fear.

Rolfe.

 

[LBR]

How are you trying to present yourself here? That first impression thing is going to be hard to reverse if you get it wrong.

. . . . .

So you have already sized us up and then you cherry-pick an argument from the past as a test?!

I am hopeful that you are a free thinker with your own ideas on this case who has been bouncing from forum to forum shunned by people that don't want to think and you finally stumbled into this little corner of the online universe. My conspiratorial mind though fears that you are but a minion ordered here by the overlords of a hate site.

Am I on trial here?

ETA: I'm not sure I know what you think I cherry-picked. Do you mean the TOD argument?

To be completely accurate Dan O., Rolfe first made this comment:

“Explain to me how Amanda and Raffaele could have killed Meredith and left a body which still had all its early evening meal in the stomach with none of it in the duodenum.

That's the first hurdle to overcome. With that in the way, no, they cannot be guilty.”

When he/she said this, I wondered if it could really be that simple by definitively determining the TOD, then all of the other large amounts of forensic and circumstantial evidence would collapse like a house of cards.

From bouncing around, to being shunned, to being a minion – you could not be further from the truth. As far as a free thinker goes, I think we would all like to believe we are free thinkers, but philosophically speaking, I don't think this is possible because we are always influenced by so many variables.

If you want to know how I am presenting myself here, the closest 2 comments I have read that would represent this, would be the one from JREF 2010:

In a definitive way (my emphasis), “no one will know who committed the crime except for the three accused”.

The second is a quote on the bottom of the mod zooterkin's profile by Bertrand Russell: “The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, and wiser people so full of doubts.”

What I was actually wondering, is if there were people who had doubts on either side of the divide.

 

[Rolfe]

Find me some way Knox and Sollecito could have killed Kercher before about 9.30. Then find some evidence that they actually did this. Sitting here with an open mind if any of that appears.

Rolfe.

 

[MDDVS]

Am I on trial here?

From bouncing around, to being shunned, to being a minion – you could not be further from the truth. As far as a free thinker goes, I think we would all like to believe we are free thinkers, but philosophically speaking, I don't think this is possible because we are always influenced by so many variables.

If you want to know how I am presenting myself here, the closest 2 comments I have read that would represent this, would be the one from JREF 2010:

In an definitive way (my emphasis), “no one will know who committed the crime except for the three accused”.

The second is a quote on the bottom of the mod zooterkin's profile by Bertrand Russell: “The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, and wiser people so full of doubts.”

What I was actually wondering, is if there were people who had doubts on either side of the divide.

I think you don't realise that this is not a new topic and discussion. This all started many year ago. People had more than enpugh time to clear most of their doubts.

If you want to present an argument that it is possible for a meal to take more than say 4 hours to reach the duodenum I'm all ears.

 

[acbytesla]

Am I on trial here?

ETA: I'm not sure I know what you think I cherry-picked. Do you mean the TOD argument?

To be completely accurate Dan O., Rolfe first made this comment:

“Explain to me how Amanda and Raffaele could have killed Meredith and left a body which still had all its early evening meal in the stomach with none of it in the duodenum.

That's the first hurdle to overcome. With that in the way, no, they cannot be guilty.”

When he/she said this, I wondered if it could really be that simple by definitively determining the TOD, then all of the other large amounts of forensic and circumstantial evidence would collapse like a house of cards.

From bouncing around, to being shunned, to being a minion – you could not be further from the truth. As far as a free thinker goes, I think we would all like to believe we are free thinkers, but philosophically speaking, I don't think this is possible because we are always influenced by so many variables.

If you want to know how I am presenting myself here, the closest 2 comments I have read that would represent this, would be the one from JREF 2010:

In a definitive way (my emphasis), “no one will know who committed the crime except for the three accused”.

The second is a quote on the bottom of the mod zooterkin's profile by Bertrand Russell: “The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, and wiser people so full of doubts.”

What I was actually wondering, is if there were people who had doubts on either side of the divide.

It is more than reasonable to have doubts LBR. But there are some things where holding on to doubts is more about denial than about intellectual honesty. I don't doubt that at sea level water boils at 212 degrees and freezes at 32 degrees. I don't doubt the periodic table or the Pythagorean principle. One can doubt Quantum physics like Einstein did, but to do so today would be incredibly foolish since we have an entire world based on these principles.

I know as a scientific fact that Nara for example couldn't have heard Meredith scream. This is because I have a very good handle on the science of acoustics and the environment between Meredith's bedroom and Nara's apartment. Medical principles such as digestive rates are not really a mystery and are actually very dependable.

You are posting questions about digestion that have been addressed probably hundreds of times on JREF. I too have questioned Rolfe about this. That said if you go beyond what is written on sites like PMF and TJMK ore the McCall wiki, I think you can find some very persuasive evidence that 9:30 is about the outside time at most where some of Meredith's 6:00 meal could be expected to seen in the duodenum.

You should take a moment to contemplate, that you are unlikely to post any question that hasn't been addressed many times in the last 6 years.