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

[GWCarver]

Congrats, they have an impressive team that should compete for more Super Bowls for a while, I love Russell Wilson's attitude & work ethic too

As for me, I'm 19 years into what appears to be well over 39 years before my Cowboys ever find their way back because of the horrible owner and GM.

Too bad Guede didn't break into Jerry's place (I kid...kind of)

The Cowboys and their #32 ranked defense have to play the Seahawks in Seattle this year. I'm afraid we're going to need a repeat of the 2005 draft just to be competitive.

 

[AmyStrange]

sexual frustration

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Congrats, they have an impressive team that should compete for more Super Bowls for a while, I love Russell Wilson's attitude & work ethic too

As for me, I'm 19 years into what appears to be well over 39 years before my Cowboys ever find their way back because of the horrible owner and GM.

Too bad Guede didn't break into Jerry's place (I kid...kind of)

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I've always been of the belief, that TJMK (Also known as GWAK), since they already believe he is just a victim of circumstance, should give him a monthly column ("From Rudy's Corner") and pay him a few thousand Euros a month.

But maybe you're right Yim, send him to Jerry's house.

We gotta take care of our buddy Rudy. Him and the world changing forensics of Perugia, together they GWAK, and they got the lazy thinkers to believe it.

Lots of those same people have found something to focus their hate on, and don't believe for a minute there aren't people who live for the chance to find something to focus their rage on, a rage incomprehensible to everyone else except them.

Sometimes it's from a mother and/ or son's sexual frustration through mixed or real signals. They feel guilty about their sexual desires for their mother and need to deny and prove they don't really want their mothers and one way is to attack people who act like or remind them of their mothers.

Or maybe a woman feels a sexual attraction to Amanda and she knows homosexuality is wrong and evil and uses that as a reason, in her mind, to hate her.

And as always, these are just my opinions,

d

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[Strozzi]

. . . What I want to know from Mach is why it is not theft when Rudy robbed a corpse.

Mignini could have charged Rudy with theft of the phones and also since Rudy pressed the buttons to display and initial dialing to Meredith's bank Mignini could have charged Rudy with that act of trying to electronically access her financial info. I don't now if Mignini could have won conviction of Rudy, seeing as Perugia judges don't defer much to Mignini - its not like Mignini has pals on the court who will stretch their findings to help him - but Mignini could have tried to make the 2 different phone charges stick.

 

[Dan O.]

I'm not sure if this is true Dan. There is a small hill, but I doubt it blocks the line of sight to the cottage. . Unfortunately Google Earth isn't working on my new computer so I can't check it any more.

If you familiarize yourself with the terrain you can check the line of sights from Google maps street view. Looking from both directions you can see the hill blocking the way.

These views are approximations because we don't have the exact view from Meredith's window in street view. Too bad we don't have the photos from Amanda's computer. There is one there that should be perfect

Where the phones themselves were found doesn't say much either because It is is also about ten times closer to the Piazza Lupatelli tower than the Wind tower. There are hills that block the Wind tower signal and there are walls that can block the Lupatelli signal.

In street view, I can see the hillside where the phones were found from a road near the wind tower. Haven't figured out how to save screen clips from the iPad yet or I would show you.

Yes the are tools and apps that allow you to map the signals. But the big issue in Perugia and the surrounding area is the geography and thick stone walls everywhere. You need to check for signals at the very exact spot where the phones were at the moment they calls connected and since we dont know the exact spots, it is problematic to answer these questions definitively.

The tools provide a first hand experience for how cell signals behave. Not scientific proof of where a phone was, that will always remain fuzzy.

 

[Wildhorses]

The article make sense from and International political point of view. But there is a very famous saying in politics. "All politics are local". And from that perspective there is NO WAY in HELL that they will extradite Amanda Knox.

The American public on a whole sees Amanda as INNOCENT. PERIOD. They are not going to look kindly at the idea of sending a pretty innocent girl to spend more than twenty years in prison because of a screwed up Italian legal system.

It really comes down to whether the President would rather deal with the discomfort of Italy being annoyed with the US or the American population being annoyed with him and his decision.

Huh? What article are you talking about?

Caper's article is nothing but knee-jerk Knox bashing. There's a sentence about honoring Nato Treaties, but the author mostly wants to announce Knox is guilty because:

"[Knox] pointed the finger at an entirely innocent man. But for the grace of a solid alibi, Patrick Lumumba would now be serving a life sentence. No PR offensive can quite sugar coat that one."

The author doesn't seem to realize that her second sentence, if true, is a serious indictment of the Italian legal system. Justice is supposed to hinge on more than a "vague" memory a confused young woman dredged up, reported as indistinguishable from a dream, and recanted.

So yeah, typical airtight logic: In one sentence, we're told the Italian justice system is scrupulous and fair. In the next, we're told the court would have jailed Patrick for life solely on the basis of AK's accusation.

Right.

The right wing nutjobs are all over Knox. Coulson. Hate radio/TV has it's own peculiar -- and despicable -- style rooted in the belief that every issue can -- and should -- be reduced to a sound bite. Why look at the facts in depth? It only bores and confuses the audience.

I hope it's a peculiarly American institution. It's only existed for the last fifteen years. (There used to be laws requiring "balanced" reporting on public airwaves.) It's messed up politics to no end and polarized the nation.

ETA: I should say: I don't live in Seattle and don't know John Carlson. He may not be as nutty as other hate jockeys.

 

[Samson]

Well a pointed knife is certainly a weapon under Italian jurisprudence. It is a tool if there is a context for it to be used as a tool and the object is shaped for that use. I am not interested in drawing any inference from Sollecito's carrying a weapon inside a police station, that could have been a mistake, a distraction. You forget to empty your pockets.
But I note that Sollecito is a knife carrier, always had a 8.5 centimeter pointed knife with him even whil wakling within the city, downtown on the streets, that is hardly justified as a tool.
I also note he used to be a knife fetishist, a knife collector. His knives are mostly of a military fashion and he also possessed a katana, so he had these knifes in the context of possessing weapons (katana is a weapon not a tool).
This does not mean anything in legal terms. You can possess weapons. Sollecito's father collected guns. It's not prohibited.
But I take note of that if I need to make a profile of the person.

Do you similarly take note of anything about Rudy Guede when you need to make a profile of the person?

 

[acbytesla]

Huh? What article are you talking about?

Caper's article is nothing but knee-jerk Knox bashing. There's a sentence about honoring Nato Treaties, but the author mostly wants to announce Knox is guilty because:

"[Knox] pointed the finger at an entirely innocent man. But for the grace of a solid alibi, Patrick Lumumba would now be serving a life sentence. No PR offensive can quite sugar coat that one."

The author doesn't seem to realize that her second sentence, if true, is a serious indictment of the Italian legal system. Justice is supposed to hinge on more than a "vague" memory a confused young woman dredged up, reported as indistinguishable from a dream, and recanted.

So yeah, typical airtight logic: In one sentence, we're told the Italian justice system is scrupulous and fair. In the next, we're told the court would have jailed Patrick for life solely on the basis of AK's accusation.

Right.

The right wing nutjobs are all over Knox. Coulson. Hate radio/TV has it's own peculiar -- and despicable -- style rooted in the belief that every issue can -- and should -- be reduced to a sound bite. Why look at the facts in depth? It only bores and confuses the audience.

I hope it's a peculiarly American institution. It's only existed for the last fifteen years. (There used to be laws requiring "balanced" reporting on public airwaves.) It's messed up politics to no end and polarized the nation.

I don't disagree with you WH. But the point in regards to International Relations is something to keep in mind. The President is balancing International relations with internal politics. Public perception is extremely important, but so are our relations with other countries.

I agree with you about Carlson, KVI, Nancy Grace, Fox News etc. These pundits are actually more interested in their own ratings than anything else. So they deliberately say things that are provocative and against the popular position. The ditto heads have a tendency to follow them blindly...to a point.

They are selling conflict not resolution. They are simply being contrarian for the ratings.

 

[acbytesla]

Yes he lives in Bellevue. Why weren't you at the parade?

I was on top of the Warwick Hotel parking garage - Go Hawks

I was at the parade actually pretty close to the Warwick but on the street.

 

[moodstream]

yimyammer,

The closest thing to a source that I can think of is that there was a highly inaccurate (to the point of being in fantasy-land) translation of Amanda's spontaneous statement to the court after Guede's appearance by Sky News IIRC. Abrams' tweet suggests a smug certainty in his research skills and objectivity that just isn't warranted.

If you go to 'TheMurderOfMerdithKercher.com' you can see he just copied from there literally point by point. That seems to be the extent of his research.

 

[JREF2010]

That too isn't conclusive. It all comes down to line of sight, geography, distance, power setting on the antennas and cellular traffic.

The 10:13 call connected to Wind tower 30064 which is 1720 meters away from the cottage. That cell tower is 10 times the distance as the local two towers that seems to have handled every call on record that I can find in the days before and after the murder. It seems as if more than 90 percent of the calls made at the cottage connect to the Piazza Lupatelli Tower which is 171 meters from the cottage. I have found a couple of other calls that connected to the Acquedetto tower at 193 meters. So while it seems that it is much less likely that a call connected from Meredith's bedroom, there is no way to know without a thorough site investigation from inside Meredith's bedroom and I doubt it would be conclusive as I'd bet you would be able to detect signals from all three towers including the distant tower.

Raffaele's apartment is actually served by at least 3 different cell antennas

Via Beradi, Acquedetto and the closest tower is the Piazza Lupatelli tower the same one that serves the cottage. But all are less than 250 meters away.

But as I said, distance is only one factor, another is signal strength generated by each specific antenna. In a dense urban area there are more antennas that run at a lower power setting that might provide a signal for as little as a 200 feet.

If you are at in flat farm land there are fewer towers but the power settings on the antennas are set much higher so they can cover distance of 30 miles or farther.

So while I'd say it is probably not likely that the 10:13 call was made from the cottage, it is by no means so unlikely that it isn't possible.

By the way, I have posted pictures of the cell antennas on my blog

http://perugia-injustice.blogspot.com/

But how would you make it more conclusive?

Would you take all the cell calls for the preceding days and evenings and see if any calls ever connected to the 30064?

Did the "Perugia experts" take readings from inside the cottage?

Ive only seen the call logs from that morning on Merediths phone and it was not the 30064 tower and its from inside the cottage. Rudy mentioned the murder was over by then and he was the last to leave around 10:30. Even the Guilter Judge was ok with that.

What do you think of the job the cell phone tower expert detectives did? good, poor, rotten, excellent

I always assumed the cell tower info was a better job than the Computer Hard-drive "Experts", but maybe I'm wrong again. Maybe the goofball squad didnt really do a very good job after all on the cell towers.

With your 20yrs experience, what do you think. Your website was sparse on words and opinions, great pictures...thanks.

 

[Kaosium]

yimyammer,

The closest thing to a source that I can think of is that there was a highly inaccurate (to the point of being in fantasy-land) translation of Amanda's spontaneous statement to the court after Guede's appearance by Sky News IIRC. Abrams' tweet suggests a smug certainty in his research skills and objectivity that just isn't warranted.

There are also 'translations' of Amanda's statement from very early in the case that render the part about her smoking hash as her being drunk. I think they originally ran in Italian newspapers and then were 'translated' into something almost resembling English.

 

[Mary_H]

Gosh. Good luck for sure

Thanks, Coulsdon. There was no traffic on the way there; a bit more on the way back.

Weirdest, scariest thing I saw today: a Boeing 747 flying practically under the radar over the city. I thought it was on its way down, down, down.

http://www.geekwire.com/2014/just-boeing-sets-seahawks-747-seattle-flyover-amid-victory-celebration/

 

[acbytesla]

If you familiarize yourself with the terrain you can check the line of sights from Google maps street view. Looking from both directions you can see the hill blocking the way.

I'm extremely familiar with the terrain. There are two spots on Google Street view close to the Wind Cell tower on Ponte Rio. One point is about a 100 meters below the base of the cell tower and from that Google Street View point the hill you speak of blocks the line of sight. The other point that I have found close to the tower is a winding road above the antenna which has a perfect line of sight to the entire hillside of Perugia. I can easily make out the Lupatelli and Acquedetto towers from that point. The definition of the image is not good enough to make out what's on the hillside but I'm very confident that it has a good line of sight.

IMO It makes little sense to site that antenna in that location if it only serves the area to the hill in the way.

The tools provide a first hand experience for how cell signals behave. Not scientific proof of where a phone was, that will always remain fuzzy.

True

 

[Grinder]

I was at the parade actually pretty close to the Warwick but on the street.

Come on, you were watching on TV . The parade didn't even get out of the Center by 12:42 .

We did the 12:12 shout and the parade didn't get to Lenora until after that.

If the the extradition request comes in the next year or two, Obama certainly isn't going to worry about the small percentage of the public that knows, much less cares.

My guess remains that if this all moves forward as it appears it will, the US will cut a deal whereby she serves here and gets out early. Didn't we give the brits that nanny that killed the baby? She didn't do any time.

 

[acbytesla]

But how would you make it more conclusive?

Would you take all the cell calls for the preceding days and evenings and see if any calls ever connected to the 30064?

Did the "Perugia experts" take readings from inside the cottage?

Ive only seen the call logs from that morning on Merediths phone and it was not the 30064 tower and its from inside the cottage. Rudy mentioned the murder was over by then and he was the last to leave around 10:30. Even the Guilter Judge was ok with that.

What do you think of the job the cell phone tower expert detectives did? good, poor, rotten, excellent

I always assumed the cell tower info was a better job than the Computer Hard-drive "Experts", but maybe I'm wrong again. Maybe the goofball squad didnt really do a very good job after all on the cell towers.

With your 20yrs experience, what do you think. Your website was sparse on words and opinions, great pictures...thanks.

The problem JREF is that if your not there testing signal from the precise locations of where the phones are at the time of the calls, it's always going to be inconclusive...unless it's not. The cellular experts, both from the defense and the prosecution only took signal tests from OUTSIDE the cottage. From there they all were able to detect signals from three towers including the Wind tower. This is enough for the prosecution to claim that it is possible to connect to the Wind tower. Still, you have to believe that the signals are significantly stronger from both the Lupatelli and Acquedetto tower than the distant Wind tower. Which really makes the likelihood that the calls would be routed through either of these two. My caveat as always been this. How much do the walls of that cottage obstruct the cellular signals from all the towers. Is that cottage made of stone or stucco? And if it is stucco, was metal lath used or wood lath? Metal lath in particular actually provides a significant obstruction to radio signals.

Meredith's bedroom has only one small window and that faces away from the two local towers and across the valley toward the distant Wind tower. Sitting on her bed, I think the walls obstruct the cellular signals equally from all three towers so the local towers are likely to be much stronger. But sitting at Meredith's desk, you only have a thin window obstructing the radio signal of the distant Wind tower. Does the thinner obstruction make a difference equaling out the signals? I don't know.

I'm sorry I can't give a more definitive answer. I don't think there is a chance in hell that Amanda and Raffaele had any thing to do with this. And I looked strongly at a way that the cellular info would prove their innocence. But in my opinion with the data that I have been able to uncover,the evidence doesn't prove either guilt or innocence, it is inconclusive and is likely to remain inconclusive.

 

[Mary_H]

Don't bother asking, A.L. The guilter fall back position is the even though it was R.E.M. sleep, Mignini did not actually dream because of tight budgetary reasons.<snip>

Fortunately, he has the kissing scene from outside the cottage on a perpetual loop in his head. For those fleeting moments when dreams and fantasies just don't do the trick.

 

[Grinder]

Thanks, Coulsdon. There was no traffic on the way there; a bit more on the way back.

Weirdest, scariest thing I saw today: a Boeing 747 flying practically under the radar over the city. I thought it was on its way down, down, down.

http://www.geekwire.com/2014/just-boeing-sets-seahawks-747-seattle-flyover-amid-victory-celebration/

I guess from the 50 something floor of the Seattle Muni Tower it was really frightening!

 

[Mary_H]

I don't entirely follow your assertion that the pro-innocence side in this case is "aligned with the right", though. Evidence? (Not that I'm exactly known for following political leads when making up my mind on such matters.) Rolfe.

I think we had agreed, or had it explained to us, that the magistracy running the panto over there was left wing. That makes us right wing. Simples. I have no better evidence than that.

In Britain, it's very much the right-wing media that's baying for Knox's blood, fuelled as always by nationalistic chauvinism. Whereas the liberal press, namely The Guardian and The Independent, is highly sympathetic to Knox, correctly seeing her persecution as a feminist issue. But in Italy, the left can only view the case through the prism of its anti-Americanism.

That's the way I have perceived the media coverage, too. Sergei.

Regarding the left vs. the right, we need to keep in mind what Charlie wrote: "Think Leonid Brezhnev instead of Pete Seeger."

This case seems to have something for everyone, and I don't think it falls neatly into political camps. Among the supporters there are both conservatives and liberals. The same with the PGP, I assume. Normally someone like Skeptical Bystander would not align herself with the vocal haters who are out there now.

 

[acbytesla]

Come on, you were watching on TV . The parade didn't even get out of the Center by 12:42 .

We did the 12:12 shout and the parade didn't get to Lenora until after that.

I know, I was there without my nephews alone..which made it sort of weird. I was North of the Warwick, about halfway to the center from there. I watched for a while but honestly I'm not that big of fan of the crowds and my nephews weren't with me...so I bugged out just after Marshawn and Carrol passed by. I couldn't see much anyway. Just the backs of lots of people. Sounds like you had a great spot to watch the parade.

If the the extradition request comes in the next year or two, Obama certainly isn't going to worry about the small percentage of the public that knows, much less cares.

My guess remains that if this all moves forward as it appears it will, the US will cut a deal whereby she serves here and gets out early. Didn't we give the brits that nanny that killed the baby? She didn't do any time.

I agree that Obama might not really care about the public perception, but that doesn't mean he'll care about the Italians either Grinder. The Italians might complain, but they are not likely to do a damn thing about it.

I have no idea what Obama might do. And while I don't think this follows the normal left right Democrat, Republican ideological split, but what if it is up to the next President?

 

[Doghouse Reilly]

My guess remains that if this all moves forward as it appears it will, the US will cut a deal whereby she serves here and gets out early. Didn't we give the brits that nanny that killed the baby? She didn't do any time.

That would be horrible and ridiculous. At what point does someone in a position of power stand up and say, "Enough is enough!" and put an end to this farce? It would be terrible for her to serve even one day in a US prison for a crime she didn't commit.