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

[TomG]

Thanks for your response Davefoc! I am familiar with the numerated points you make though I am struggling to see how they have relevance to the post I made.

Let’s not kid ourselves, this case could have been over in March of last year if there hadn’t been so much to lose for the prosecution’s main players. The main argument from the prosecution regarding the DNA is that the contamination has to be proved, this argument is completely nuts of course because it’s impossible to see the exact point when an invisible entity was transferred to any given surface. This argument is important because it preserves the reputations of the likes of Steffanoni for instance.

If it is hypothesised that the DNA on the knife could have been transferred onto the surface by Amanda picking up Meredith’s DNA from the cottage by completely innocent means either by on her clothing or hands perhaps even days before Meredith was killed then it would rule out the contamination argument having to be proved since it wouldn’t exist and offer a resolution to the case. This would offer a fig-leaf for Steffanoni to creep out the back door with her reputation more or less intact.

Preservation of honor is a big thing in Italy where we don’t really have an emotional equivalent either in the US or GB without being subject to ridicule and deservedly so! (we're made of sterner stuff are we not)? The Hellman court offered the calumny as a fig-leaf but it obviously wasn’t enough, I just thought that the above compromise might have been enough to play their silly little game and let us all get on with our lives, that’s all!

Hoots!

 

[Grinder]

The reason not necessarily was to meet Rudy. May have been simply to change clothes as her job was cancelled that night.

The town was dead. No night life to speak of. Why would she need to change clothes?

I would not call it resolute at all.
Even in his diary he is still unsure.

Unsure if he was involved in a murder? If he wasn't involved, he would have made it clear he was not with her. How do you explain the clasp DNA?

How could Amanda have blamed Guede if her defense was that she never was in the cottage that night?
As for Guede, he never blamed Amanda directly, only indirectly when he wanted to give something to Mignini.

He directly accused the kids of being the murderers in his letter to the Hellmann court that Mignini read into the record.

She could have remembered that Rudy had been hanging around or something pointing to him. It is so obvious that the police wanted her to finger Patrick it is ridiculous to argue otherwise.

It has been asked hundreds of times without an answer from the PGP, but again, what did the police chief mean when he said that they questioned her until she buckled and told them what they knew to be correct? It is so obvious.

If you believe she lied at Patrick on her own there is no way to believe she wasn't part of the murder.

As far as the phone being turned off or just being in a dead zone, I'd guess the dolt never proofed his own book.

 

[Charlie Wilkes]

Subjective evaluation of facts and arguments.

Yes. It is self-contained, an inference drawn from your impression that Amanda is deceptive. It requires no evidence, and it cannot be altered by evidence.

 

[Dan O.]

The reason not necessarily was to meet Rudy. May have been simply to change clothes as her job was cancelled that night.

Maybe bolint is just making up crap to toss at the wall. But none of it is sticking because he doesn't have any supporting evidence. is that the kind of justice that bolint believes in? Justice where a prosecutor can make any claim and doesn't have to prove it. Where it is up to the defense to prove that the claim is false. Where they have to prove that all possible claims are false because the prosecution is allowed to make new claims in their closing arguments when there is no rebuttal allowed.

I would not call it resolute at all.
Even in his diary he is still unsure.

You are throwing more ******** bolint. In his diary Raffaele makes a what-if supposition. But he ends it with an absolutely clear statement that he doesn't believe it. Later he even says that Amanda could not have left because she would have needed his keys to get back in. Raffaele has always 100% backed Amanda. It is only the prosecutors that misinterpreted his statements durring the interrogation on the 5th due to their own bias.

 

[TomG]

Subjective evaluation of facts and arguments.

Or psychobabble of the cerebral cortex!

 

[bolint]

Why would she cover for Rudy bolint? Someone she has met only twice and can hardly communicate with ? It makes no sense.

It's not about covering. She cannot blame him without implicating herself.

You have her there at the cottage during the murder, but not in the murder room and then doing what? Waiting for Rudy to leave the cottage and then keep her mouth shut about the whole affair?

I think she ran away before Rudy. Rudy may even have threatened her by implicating her if she talks.

Do you believe for example that Amanda has some kind of deep hatred for Meredith and she is some kind of cheerleader for Rudy killing her roommate of 42 days?

No, it's unlikely.

 

[anglolawyer]

What you think dousing isn't reliable?

First, a caveat, I am treading in areas here where my knowledge level is poor.

When I was musing about the bra hook DNA result I was not thinking about the admissibility of the results in a trial. I think if I understood all the details associated with the testing including failures to perform adequate control testing and failures to provide raw results to the defense and failure to adequately guard against contamination during the recovery of the broken off section of the bra I would believe that the evidence should have been inadmissible and I suspect it would have been in most American courts.

The object of my musing about the DNA on the hook was to think about what the likely explanation for that result was. All explanations for the DNA on the hook seem unlikely to me, but one of them must be true. And for me the least likely explanation is that the DNA on the bra hook was left there while Sollecito cooperated in some strange way for which there is zero evidence in the murder of Kercher.

To me, the knife and the hook scream fraud. I sound like a guilter. Too many lies for them not to mean anything. Too much information suppressed. Too convenient to find DNA on just those two items and in those weird circumstances. Sometimes it really is a duck.

 

[acbytesla]

It's not about covering. She cannot blame him without implicating herself.

For doing what? You just said she wasn't in the room. How would blaming Rudy implicate her?

I think she ran away before Rudy. Rudy may even have threatened her by implicating her if she talks.

She ran away before Rudy? and Rudy let her? Seriously? Rudy doesn't know Amanda any better than he knows Meredith. Do you really think he would risk Amanda telling on him after he killed Meredith? Don't you think he would have killed her too, as opposed to just threatening her?

And why would Amanda worry about this loser implicating her if she wasn't involved in killing Meredith?

 

[bolint]

Yes. It is self-contained, an inference drawn from your impression that Amanda is deceptive.

The other way around. I find her deceptive, because her story is absurd.

It requires no evidence, and it cannot be altered by evidence.

Oh, it could have been altered very easily if they had delivered waterproof and coherent versions of that night.

Not even in their books.

 

[Kaosium]

What you think dousing isn't reliable?

Heh, only in the sense that if you point downwards most places on earth you'll run into water eventually if you dig deep enough.

Apologies, I've run out of time. It's time for me to get ready to leave for the weekend and watch rugrats at the waterpark, thus I cannot continue what I've begun.

 

[Bill Williams]

Why would she cover for Rudy bolint? Someone she has met only twice and can hardly communicate with ? It makes no sense.

It's not about covering. She cannot blame him without implicating herself.

So in place of this she blames Lumumba, which is, by the way, implicating herself? For my way of thinking, this is why guilters should avoid putting together a comprehensive theory of the crime at all costs!

You have her there at the cottage during the murder, but not in the murder room and then doing what? Waiting for Rudy to leave the cottage and then keep her mouth shut about the whole affair?

I think she ran away before Rudy. Rudy may even have threatened her by implicating her if she talks.

And for the next 6 1/2 years, Knox says nothing about this.... even after Rudy is convicted?

Ok, this is your right to "think" this. Is there a shred of evidence to support it? Or is this like the prosecution, which just makes up something when the last "something" is revealed as absurd?

Do you believe for example that Amanda has some kind of deep hatred for Meredith and she is some kind of cheerleader for Rudy killing her roommate of 42 days?

No, it's unlikely.

Ok. I agree with that one. It's unlikely.

Then again, what about the knife... the one from Raffaele's kitchen... can you describe why that knife arrived at the cottage?

 

[Bill Williams]

The other way around. I find her deceptive, because her story is absurd.



Oh, it could have been altered very easily if they had delivered waterproof and coherent versions of that night.

Not even in their books.

So, just so I understand. It is up to them to prove their innocence, rather than the prosecution to provide a case against them?

 

[Antony]

There might have been questionable procedures, there might be an innocent explanation for the DNA on the hook, but the result is harder to explain away than that Kercher's DNA was supposedly on the knife.

I don't see your reasoning. It's actually harder to explain how Raff's DNA could have got on the bra hook in the course of the murder than it is to explain how it could have got there innocently - given that he was in Meredith's home as a friend of Amanda's before the crime happened.

The PGP try to argue, absurdly, that any and all DNA from AK and RS is supposedly connected to the murder.

 

[Bill Williams]

If she does not participate directly in the murder what physical evidence would exist?
The few that existed, anyway, is explained away like for example the bleeding ear.



That simple. They could not explain what they were doing. Like he doesn't remember if she was there, if they were making love, etc. You may believe it, I don't.



At the time of the murder.
I don't know if he was not there later, as I don't know what they were doing the whole night.


No, I don't think so. But it is a problem for the judge, not for me.
I'm not interested neither in their conviction, nor in their acquittal.
I'm only interested in learning what happened that night. I don't expect it to be clear beyond reasonable doubt. But now I would bet on guilt.

So, once again to be clear, you think they are guilty because, particularly Raffaele, can't account for what they were doing that night, but you also admit that you have no clue as to what they were doing the whole night.

So when he cannot give an account, it means he's guilty.... but when you cannot do it either it means.... he's guilty.

You are honest enough, though, to say that you don't think any of your speculations are beyond a reasonable doubt anyway.

So I am assuming, that if you were a lay-judge on the Italian panel, you'd vote for acquittal?

 

[Bill Williams]

What absurd story? Can you answer why they were raising the alarm from before returning to to cottage for the second time that morning.... it seems to me that they were trying to call attention to the cottage.....

Yes, she had to. Suppose she visited the cottage and then did not call anyone and they go to Gubbio. Who would have believed her? I don't believe even her actual version. Once she went there she had to raise the alarm one way or another. Also, it was quite logical for Amanda not to call Filomena while she was still in the cottage.

What? She "had to call attention to the cottage"? Is that what you're saying? Why would she have to?

"Once she went there she had to raise the alarm one way or another." Why? The only reason anyone knows that she went there in the morning was because she told everyone. If she'd had a master plan, she'd have not mentioned that, much less started to raise the alarm.

Apologies, but this makes no sense.

And why does Knox "naming" Lumumba make you believe Rudy and she were involved?

Naming Lumumba in my interpretation was a desperate try to gain time having learnt that Raffaele does not provide her alibi anymore.

It would have made far more sense, then, to name Raffaele!

But it was not Amanda who brought Lumumba into the interrogation room. She did not simply burt out his name. She was being pressured about what "See you later" meant. It was the police who were developing a theory that Amanda had met with the recipient of that message... it had nothing to do with "buying time" for anything... in fact, the haste in which the cops went to arrest Lumumba, solely on the "see you later", shows that if this had been Amanda's strategy, it certainly did not work.

My opinion is that you need to develop a timeline for the interrogation, what was said and when. John Follain has Knox being plied with tea and chamomile cookies, and writes "Death in Italy", as if she cracks under the weight of being treated so well.

Both Amanda and Raffaele write that they were being driven into confusion by the cops' questioning, and became even more confused when the cops started accepting the last bit of confusion as key to cracking the case.

Do you accept that Knox was without an interpretor for at least the first hour of her interrogation?

Do you accept that when Anna Donnino, the interpretor, finally arrives that she sees an interrogaiton in disarray, needing (in her own words) her to "mediate" between the cops and Amanda rather than simply interpret?

Do you accept that Donnino suggested to Knox that her lack of memory was because of the trauma of this experience? And that if Amanda would just go with these imaginings for a little longer all this could be cleared up?

Do you accept that if Amanda had had a lawyer, the lawyer never would have allowed his/her client to be manipulated like that? (The precise reason why suspects are required to have lawyers in the first place?)

 

[acbytesla]

The other way around. I find her deceptive, because her story is absurd.

What part of her story do you find absurd and deceptive bolint?

Oh, it could have been altered very easily if they had delivered waterproof and coherent versions of that night.

Not even in their books.

Again, what specifically do you find not coherent and deceptive? I don't see that at all. What am I missing?

 

[davefoc]

I don't see your reasoning. It's actually harder to explain how Raff's DNA could have got on the bra hook in the course of the murder than it is to explain how it could have got there innocently - given that he was in Meredith's home as a friend of Amanda's before the crime happened.

The PGP try to argue, absurdly, that any and all DNA from AK and RS is supposedly connected to the murder.

Let me put it this way:
I think it is unlikely that the DNA got there during the course of the murder.
I think it is unlikely that the DNA got there through an innocent transfer prior to the murder.
I think it is unlikely that the DNA got there through contamination during the recovery and storage process.
I think it is unlikely that the DNA got there through contamination during the testing process.
I think it is unlikely that an error was made during the testing or analysis process and the DNA that was tested didn't have the alleles found to be there.
I think it is unlikely that the DNA test results were accurate but the DNA was not Sollecito's
I think it is unlikely that Stefanoni intentionally falsified her results.

If I made estimates for all the possibilities listed above and added them up the sum would be less than one. Yet the sum must be one unless there is some possibility that I haven't considered. Something appears to be wrong with my ideas about this but I'm not sure what it is.

ETA: I thought I'd order the list from most likely to least likely. Of course, since the probability estimates are based on my admittedly not well informed view of all this it isn't worth much.

DNA got there through contamination during the testing process.
DNA got there through contamination during the recovery and storage process.
Error was made during the testing or analysis process and the DNA that was tested didn't have the alleles found to be there.
Stefanoni intentionally falsified her results.
DNA got there through an innocent transfer prior to the murder.
DNA test results were accurate but the DNA was not Sollecito's
DNA got there during the course of the murder.

 

[Chris_Halkides]

inferences about DNA from peak heights

Davefoc,

I am very wary of arguments about how DNA arrived on an item that are based on peak height. It is much safer to say that the presence of DNA does not itself tell us when or how the DNA arrived there.

 

[davefoc]

Davefoc,

I am very wary of arguments about how DNA arrived on an item that are based on peak height. It is much safer to say that the presence of DNA does not itself tell us when or how the DNA arrived there.

My understanding is that reported results were that the height of the peaks for Sollecito were considerably higher than that of the other males. This suggested to me that Sollecito is more likely to have touched the hook than the other males whose DNA on the hook is at low levels that might be explained away as noise, or some kind of contamination that didn't necessarily include Solecito DNA.

It is this line of thought that you are wary of? Presumably DNA results that report small contributions of DNA from other individuals aren't excluded per force. I am thinking of a situation where blood from a public space is analyzed. There might be a lot of DNA from other individuals in the sample, but the blood would be judged to have come from the individual whose DNA was judged to be at the highest concentration?

 

[kwill]

What part of her story do you find absurd and deceptive bolint?

I hope bolint answers you, because that's what I want to know too.

Earlier bolint suggested that it was absurd that she would go to the cottage in the morning, or maybe that she would take a shower and change there having arrived to find the front door ajar.

After all this time, it's hard to imagine the ordinary Seattle 20-yr-old who thinks she's about to go spend a couple of days with her new boyfriend. He has his own flat (with maid service!) and his own car -- very unusual degree of comfort and privacy in a college town. He's graduating in a couple of weeks. He's clearly fun in the sack.

But they've just known each other for a week or so, and though she's been spending nights at his flat, her things are all at hers. She's been going to her shared house to clean up and get things and eat and so on all week. She did it again on the morning after Meredith was killed.

Anything absurd so far? Anything about this scenario seem too ridiculous to be believed?