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

[Chris_Halkides]

the pizza and the movie

If they began to eat pizza before they started watching the film "The Notebook," then I do not see how the meal could start later than about 6:30. It is a two-hour film, and they stopped it once to eat dessert, IIUC.

 

[RoseMontague]

I read that part; thank you. At the end of the portion that you posted, it seemed to me that we were just getting to the issue of the newly-found controls. Is that your interpretation also?

Well, they said they were found but still not shown to the court. My reading (going by memory from earlier) is that C&V asked for them twice and never got them, they were not in the files provided to C&V or the defense, the prosecution claimed they had been given to the court so the court recessed and looked for them and could not find them. Comodi then present some "controls" that were not the ones they were looking for, then the prosecution claimed they had found them. At this point there were objections made as to if they were ever included in the court files, nothing shows that they were examined as far as I could tell to see if they really were the negative controls they were looking for and if they were somewhere else, they were not present in court.

I think Stefi's habit of withholding information bit her on the ass. I would love to know if the defense ever got hold of them but just like the raw data, I doubt it very much. Maybe the next transcript will show a further discussion of this.

 

[RoseMontague]

If they began to eat pizza before they started watching the film "The Notebook," then I do not see how the meal could start later than about 6:30. It is a two-hour film, and they stopped it once to eat dessert, IIUC.

Yes, the friends stated the meal started in the 5:30 to 6:30 range, most around 6PM, IIRC.

 

[yimyammer]

For me, it is not a matter of serving any group or purpose. I simply enjoy the process of searching for the truth. If you've been aroun other forums discussing this case, you'll find that we hold beliefs here that are not widely held outside of this forum. Some that come to mind are the fact that the clasp was not cut off of the bra, the trail of shoe prints that turn around at the front door (which I already mentioned), the photograph showing the front door open on The morning of November 14 when the crime scene was suposed to be sealed, the theory that the bathmat had been rotated (also mentioned earlier). I don't ask which side this is going to help when I research these things. In fact, the PIPs here throw up the greatest resistance to these changes to the landscape they have become comfortable with.

The pink bathroom photo double exposure was another one of those issues where there was great resistance to change. Even after I Linked to the two photos nobody could see the difference. I had to produce this side by side comparison before they could see it:

[qimg]http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/picture.php?albumid=597&pictureid=5162[/qimg][qimg]http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/picture.php?albumid=597&pictureid=5161[/qimg]

This probably means absolutely nothing as far as guilt or innocence goes. But it is a truth that I worked to expose. When I was following the shoe print trail, I didn't know where it was going to lead. But I posted my progress here each (literally) step of the way. More recently, the question about the blood drips on the steps leading to the downstairs apartment came up. I don't know if they are related to the case or not. The forensics seem to have come up negative. But I posted how they should appear if they were caused by bloody water dripping off Rudy's pant leg. This again has no barring on the guilt or innocence of Amanda or Raffaele but I will someday dig up those photos to see if this is evidence that Rudy went down those steps after the murder.

What am I supposed to notice in your side by side photos?

 

[andreajo]

Exactly. And the digestive tract evidence shows that Meredith was most certainly dead before then.

If the body temperature had been taken ASAP, and Meredith had been weighed, and they accounted for her body being covered by the duvet, I wonder what sort of time window would have come out of that? I wonder what Mignini knew at the time of the initial investigation that caused him to prevent the temperature being taken.

Probably nothing at all.

My Mignini hypothesis is 'Unskilled and Unaware of It'. I see his performance as more incompetent than deliberately duplicitous. Power + Incompetence = Collateral Damage.

Again, the digestive tract evidence together with the car break-down shows that nobody could have murdered Meredith later than the time the car broke down. It's impossible. So how can Amanda and Raffaele be shoe-horned into that?

This whole thing is so far into la-la land that it beggars credulity. I can see theses being written about it ten years down the line. It makes the other screw-up I'm spending most of my time on look like a readily understandable small slip-up.

Rolfe.

 

[acbytesla]

Where was the phone when the random calls that were probably Rudy trying to turn it off were made? Was that before the 10.15 call to the other tower?

One thing that strikes me is this. One absolutely clear reason for acquittal is a perfectly reasonable theory of the crime that accounts for all the evidence and doesn't involve the accused. It doesn't even have to be as probable or more probable than the scenario that has the accused guilty, it just has to be within reasonable grounds of probability.

The "Rudy killed Meredith not long after nine o'clock" is so damn reasonable it should have been the working hypothesis from the start. What do we have that contradicts that? Nothing but flaky stories that might not have had anything to do with the crime at all, and a couple of pieces of forensic evidence of the most exquisite unreliability.

Rolfe.

There were the two calls at 9:58 and 10:00 both outbound call from Meredith's phones. Massei basically blows it off that Meredith was just fiddling with her phone. Hellmann says that is likely someone other than her was in possession of the phone. Both of those calls were connected to the local tower Piazza Lupatelli. The third call was an inbound call, GPRS connecting to a distant tower.

I did a lot of work on the cell phone information. I'm convinced that the reason the distant tower connected to the cell phone was because of either the walls of Meredith's bedroom shielded much of the strength of the local tower so the stronger signal was from the more distant tower. (Sitting at Meredith's desk for example provides a perfect line of sight to the distant tower with only a single pane of glass as an obstruction. But sitting on Meredith's bed, the you have thick walls obstructing signals from both the close Piazza Lupatelli tower and the distant Strada Vincanale so the stronger signal is much more likely to come from the very close Piazza Lupatelli tower.)

Or the phone was close to where they were thrown away and the signal from the close Lupatelli tower was obstructed by the thick city walls.

 

[Strozzi]

I don't doubt the science at all, but I do honestly question just how accurately the timing of when she started her meal Rolfe. I know the testimony. I just have never found eyewitness testimony to be that reliable.

Meredith's British girlfriends were interviewed later on Nov 2, the day her body was found, and Nov 3. I don't have access to the interview records but would assume (dangerous word, eh?) that they gave accounts of their dinner including times when the pizza was served. Wouldn't this be quite reliable as many girls gave statements and they were interviewed the night after the dinner gathering? Is there a specific problem? The police did keep records (recordings and transcripts) and put it in the case record, didn't they?

 

[AmyStrange]

PING

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Read the attachment I just posted above, the ping thing is a myth btw. There are no ping records, just records of incoming or outgoing calls or messages and which towers handled those calls.

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I will Rose. Thank you.

When a phone connects up to a new tower, doesn't it do an electronic "handshake" with the phone (that's what I think a "ping" refers to), and then checks for text for that phone number and from that phone? Or is it that the two towers (passing off the links) are the ones doing the actual "handshaking".

Isn't any of that recorded?

Here's an interesting story about how phones connect up and how one person's text message (delivered when a signal finally found a tower) and how it saved her life when she was lost in Oregon Mountains during the winter:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Kim

http://news.cnet.com/Lessons-learned-from-Kim-tragedy/2100-1028_3-6221778.html

"Even when people aren't on their cell phones, the handsets try to communicate, or "shake hands," with nearby cell towers every 30 seconds to register their location. Companies maintain records of the handshakes, including when the contact was made and signal strength, which can help pinpoint a phone's location."

Not many people know that even if a text isn't sent right away (no tower, for example), the text isn't lost, it's saved and when it does finally hook up "handshake" with a functioning tower, your text will be sent. Something worth remembering in case you're ever lost in the Oregon mountains in the winter,

d

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[Rolfe]

If they began to eat pizza before they started watching the film "The Notebook," then I do not see how the meal could start later than about 6:30. It is a two-hour film, and they stopped it once to eat dessert, IIUC.

I think even 6.30 is too late in that case. Did the visiting girls jump up and leave the minute the film ended? I doubt it. Did they stop the film for less than 15 minutes for the crumble? I'd have thought if you're going to stop it at all, then 15 minutes is the minimum to get the crumble, dish it out, and everyone to eat their share. Did they start the film the minute the first forkfulls of pizza were en route to their mouths? If they stopped it to eat desert, then it stands to reason they wouldn't have started it until most of the pizza was eaten.

Six seems more likely, even though it takes us past the end of the usually-quoted three-hour limit for the start of gastro-duodenal transit.

I don't really see it's likely she was even still alive at ten. If there were things she obviously did that had to be fitted in, then these would have to be taken into account, but there aren't. She didn't even take her jacket off or turn on the heating. The first things people usually do when they come home. The entire scenario fits with her coming home, encountering Rudy soon afterwards, and that encounter escalating to sexual assault and murder.

What possible reason is there to argue against this? Seriously?

Rolfe.

 

[Charlie Wilkes]

I don't know why the defence haven't been making a big deal about the gastric transit time, because it is an absolute slam-dunk win for them. My only conclusion is that they have to a large extent fallen for the "unreliable" meme without really understanding the details of the issue. In particular that it isn't about gastric emptying. Also, that there are so many aspects to the case and in particular the prosecution kept changing its ground so they became snarled up in other matters.

In the other case I have been looking at, I discovered that the defence had had in their possession all along the evidence that conclusively proved their client was innocent, and they hadn't realised it. Again, it is really obvious, but it was something they simply had not considered in the middle of looking at a lot of other, less obvious matters. And interestingly, the hardest person to convince was the defence researcher who had given me the evidence. He simply couldn't get his brain round a different way of looking at the case, or the idea that he had missed something that someone else new to the case had spotted.

So really, the "why didn't the defence make a big deal of this point" isn't much of an argument. Lawyers failing to grasp something really important is actually distressingly commonplace.

Rolfe.

The digestive evidence is clear given the circumstances of this particular case, but it is possible for expert witnesses to cast doubt by citing rare anomalies and circumstances that don't apply to this case. Massei was not a fair judge. He took refuge in this pall of smoke, declaring that because the evidence seems to be uncertain, it is therefore entirely meaningless. Then he ignored the fact that Meredith's phone connected with a different cell tower at 10:13, citing the technicians who said it was possible it could still have been at the cottage. He said she was sprawled on her bed at that hour, "toying" with her phone. Then he accepted Curatolo and Nara as definitive and concluded that Meredith was killed after the people with the broken-down car were safely out of the picture. QED.

Hellmann did not review any of this. He was exclusively interested in those few bits of evidence which, if they held up to scrutiny, might really suggest the involvement of Amanda and Raffaele in the crime.

The Supreme Court, less fair-minded than Massei, dealt only with what Hellmann addressed plus whatever the prosecution deemed important.

Nencini, for his part, has structured his proceedings to avoid any serious look at the case and to afford the prosecutors an ample stage on which to blow more smoke. Their objective is to revive tabloid fables from 2008. They are not about to revisit the autopsy, because it is of no value to them.

So, the evidence regarding TOD, even though it is overwhelming, has been lost in the fog of a legal process. That gives newbs or pseudo-newbs an opening to show up here and ask, "if the digestive evidence is so important, why is it not a more important element of the legal case?"

Frustrating, isn't it?

 

[Rolfe]

Yes. I know all that of course. I have enough experience of actual courts presenting actual medical evidence to know exactly how it happens. Give your evidence as best you can then sit there listening to some idiot barrister try to twist your words to mean something you definitely didn't say. And no chance to correct him, and no clue whether the bench are believing the rubbish that he's spouting.

Rolfe.

 

[AmyStrange]

Dance Club witnesses

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Read the attachment I just posted above, the ping thing is a myth btw. There are no ping records, just records of incoming or outgoing calls or messages and which towers handled those calls.

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Thank you Rose. I did a quick look.

So the cell phones that Rudy threw away are the cell data you are talking about?

Ok, that data doesn't prove or disprove that he could have gone back to the house.

It would still be interesting to compare the cell phone times with the times the witnesses remember seeing him at the dance clubs,

d

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[Charlie Wilkes]

Yes. I am attaching the cell phone section of Raffaele's first appeal. It gives a very good argument for TOD.

Who translated this? It wasn't Google. This is very good. I have not seen it before.

 

[davefoc]

What am I supposed to notice in your side by side photos?

Thanks for asking this. I wondered about that also.

 

[Grinder]

While I agree about ten being the latest I don't think the jacket means anything and we have no way to know if the heat had been turned on or not. I'm sitting here watching the Hawks at home with the heat turned down and my jacket on. Grew up in a European household and always kept the heat low and wore more ala Jimmy C.

No reason at all but the PGP haven't all been bought up to date on the new TOD by the prosecution,

 

[Kaosium]

Thanks for asking this. I wondered about that also.

The angle is different, the picture released to the Daily Mail for the 'House of Horrors bloody bathroom pic' wasn't included in the crime scene photos.

 

[AmyStrange]

Pizza

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How was the pizza paid for? Was it deleivered. Do they even do delivery in Italy? Delivered and paid for by credit or debit card would prove when the meal started, in my opinion. Sorry, I am woefully ignorant of this evidence.

I have never seen (in my life) a freshly delivered and hot pizza just it there without everyone just diving in and waiting to start eating it. It seems to me that especially since Meredith had,'t eaten in a significant time and she would be hungry.

d

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[Grinder]

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How was the pizza paid for? Was it deleivered. Do they even do delivery in Italy? Delivered and paid for by credit or debit card would prove when the meal started, in my opinion. Sorry, I am woefully ignorant of this evidence.

I have never seen (in my life) a freshly delivered and hot pizza just it there without everyone just diving in and waiting to start eating it. It seems to me that especially since Meredith had,'t eaten in a significant time and she would be hungry.

d

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they made it themselves

 

[Kaosium]

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How was the pizza paid for? Was it deleivered. Do they even do delivery in Italy? Delivered and paid for by credit or debit card would prove when the meal started, in my opinion. Sorry, I am woefully ignorant of this evidence.

I have never seen (in my life) a freshly delivered and hot pizza just it there without everyone just diving in and waiting to start eating it. It seems to me that especially since Meredith had,'t eaten in a significant time and she would be hungry.

d

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They made the pizza themselves.

ETA: Urk! Ninja'd by Grinder!

 

[toto]

The angle is different, the picture released to the Daily Mail for the 'House of Horrors bloody bathroom pic' wasn't included in the crime scene photos.

Sorry to be dim, but what does this indicate? (Does it matter that the angle is different or not included in the crime scene photos?)