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

[NancyS]

I don't find her credible or particularly caring. Certainly not very caring over her role in the arrest of PL.

On digestion issue...I am not an expert.

First, there is considerable normal variability among healthy people and animals in transit times through different sections of the gatrointestinal tract. Second, the time required for material to move through the digestive tube is significantly affected by the composition of the meal. Finally, transit time is influenced by such factors as psychological stress and even gender and reproductive status.

Several techniques have been used to measure transit times in humans and animals. Not surprisingly, differing estimates have been reported depending on the technique used and the population of subjects being evaluated.

http://www.vivo.colostate.edu/hbooks/pathphys/digestion/basics/transit.html

Based on that... I'm not hanging my hat on it.

From the link you just posted - the estimate from studies of GI transit indicate

50% of stomach contents emptied in 2.5 to 3 hours

This would seem to suggest that as Meredith had a full stomach (nothing had passed to her duodenum) an early time of death is far more likely. Perhaps her meal had a highly unusual composition(even though it was pizza), perhaps she was a one-in-a-million medical wonder (although no gastric pathology was noted at autopsy) - however, the most likely time of death would be early and it becomes more and more unlikely the closer you get to 10pm - and it becomes increasingly impossible the later you consider after 10pm. This should at least suggest reasonable doubt

 

[MDDVS]

I don't find her credible or particularly caring. Certainly not very caring over her role in the arrest of PL.

On digestion issue...I am not an expert.

First, there is considerable normal variability among healthy people and animals in transit times through different sections of the gatrointestinal tract. Second, the time required for material to move through the digestive tube is significantly affected by the composition of the meal. Finally, transit time is influenced by such factors as psychological stress and even gender and reproductive status.

Several techniques have been used to measure transit times in humans and animals. Not surprisingly, differing estimates have been reported depending on the technique used and the population of subjects being evaluated.

http://www.vivo.colostate.edu/hbooks/pathphys/digestion/basics/transit.html

Based on that... I'm not hanging my hat on it.

You're confusing the time it takes for the food to transit to the small intestine with the time the food starts leaving the small intestine.

Meredith's food was completely inside her stomach when she died. It's completely impossible, barring an extreme pathology, for her deah to have happened much after 9:30.

Note how in the plot shown in your link the emptying starts 1:30 hours after the meal.

Meredith death after about 9 is already highly unlikely, it's just that we know she still alive at 9.

 

[Bob001]

Business Insider, of all places, has run a helpful short summary of the issues in this case. It's headlined "Why Amanda Knox Is Completely Innocent And The Italian Justice System Is Utterly Insane."
http://www.businessinsider.com/why-amanda-knox-is-innocent-2014-1

If there's anything here that's not correct, let's hear it.

 

[Kestrel]

A truly cunning Knox would have simply clammed up and said, "speak to my lawyer."

Great advice.

Since we have new people in the discussion, I will post this again. A law professor and a police officer explain exactly why you should never talk to the police.


The police officer in this video worked in Italy early in his career. At 28:00 into the video, he mentions that in Italy interviews often start out physically.

 

[HotNostril]

I think the point being made is that if Guede didn't leave traces in Filomena's room, then it's not certain that Amanda and Raff would leave traces in Meredith's room. Of course this ignores the different circumstances: the struggle in Meredith's room left substantial traces of Guede and would have left traces of Amanda and Raff had they been part of the struggle; there was no struggle in Filomenas' room.

Yes, thank you. That was the point I was trying to make.

Seems possible to me that RS and or Amanda wielded the knife and wasn't much involved in the struggle. I believe Rudy capable of restraining Meredith alone whilst the others tormented her.
Perhaps at some point Meredith lunged forward to break free and in doing so suffered the first significant injury to her neck.

If it were completely intentional why would Rudy make two trips to get towels?
If you believe him and his tale that he tried to help her, realized he couldn't then fled?

 

[kwill]

I don't find her credible or particularly caring.

Your findings on her personality are based on nothing at all, as far as I can tell. ALL the people who know her say the same kinds of things about her, but you saw her on television and weren't impressed. I'm not clear on how this is relevant to anything.

On digestion issue...I am not an expert.

You should hold that thought while listening to people who are. There are a few right here on this forum. They say that it's flat impossible for Meredith to have died after 9:30 pm, based on the contents of her stomach.

I posted the interview with Fr Saulo not because it's definitive or evidence or to say that a priest has more credibility than anybody else . . . it matters because he knew her extremely well and because he spoke up for her publicly and forcefully. He didn't have to do that.

 

[Kaosium]

I think she was more than happy to volunteer up her false accusations. I don't believe she was hit or tortured.

It's my opinion she believed she was smarter than everyone else and the bare bones of the story she concocted with RS would hold up. She was wrong. Their story rapidly unraveled under ordinary police interrogations.

She was not a stupid young woman but... like many before her...she overestimated her intelligence and ability to manipulate.

You'd need to be dealing with the stupidest cops in the world to get them to rush out and arrest anyone solely because of that gibberish. They had to want to believe--because it was them running the interrogation, not Amanda Knox.

Incidentally, the statements coerced from them at the Questura are false, the accounts the originally told and that they reverted to are the ones that match the computer records and eyewitness. Raffaele did not split up with Amanda at the square at 9:00 and go home alone, the computer records prove they were already at Raffaele's watching movies like they'd said. Amanda did not go out as a result of the text message, Joanna Popovic who stopped by at ~8:45 proves that as well, Patrick Lumumba didn't have anything to do with it.

If Patrick's arrest was all Amanda's doing why did it take police two weeks to figure that out after Amanda wrote them the next day none of it happened? How did they manage to find a guy to say his bar was closed to take before Matteini instead of all the ones who'd come forward to alibi him?

 

[Kestrel]

You're confusing the time it takes for the food to transit to the small intestine with the time the food starts leaving the small intestine.

Meredith's food was completely inside her stomach when she died. It's completely impossible, barring an extreme pathology, for her deah to have happened much after 9:30.

Note how in the plot shown in your link the emptying starts 1:30 hours after the meal.

Meredith death after about 9 is already highly unlikely, it's just that we know she still alive at 9.

It's not confusion, it is denial. The Pro Guilt talking point on this issue is to simply pretend we are talking about stomach contents.

They want to preserve the TOD theory from the original prosecution. A theory based on a confused witness who came forward with a story about hearing a scream months after the murder. One that ignores the fact that Meredith was still wearing her jacket when she was attacked. A theory that requires 20 year old woman to be playing with the buttons on her phone to explain the failed connections near 10 pm. One that requires the victim to be still alive at 10:30 to 11:15 but sitting in the dark to account for the witness reports from the occupants of a broken down car directly across the street.

 

[RoseMontague]

From the link you just posted - the estimate from studies of GI transit indicate

50% of stomach contents emptied in 2.5 to 3 hours

This would seem to suggest that as Meredith had a full stomach (nothing had passed to her duodenum) an early time of death is far more likely. Perhaps her meal had a highly unusual composition(even though it was pizza), perhaps she was a one-in-a-million medical wonder (although no gastric pathology was noted at autopsy) - however, the most likely time of death would be early and it becomes more and more unlikely the closer you get to 10pm - and it becomes increasingly impossible the later you consider after 10pm. This should at least suggest reasonable doubt

Yes, the link Nostril posted supports the early TOD. Later than 9:30 to 10:00PM also virtually impossible by the very link he posted. There are a lot better studies than that that support anything beyond 3-4 hours as just not happening.

 

[HotNostril]

From the link you just posted - the estimate from studies of GI transit indicate



50% of stomach contents emptied in 2.5 to 3 hours



This would seem to suggest that as Meredith had a full stomach (nothing had passed to her duodenum) an early time of death is far more likely. Perhaps her meal had a highly unusual composition(even though it was pizza), perhaps she was a one-in-a-million medical wonder (although no gastric pathology was noted at autopsy) - however, the most likely time of death would be early and it becomes more and more unlikely the closer you get to 10pm - and it becomes increasingly impossible the later you consider after 10pm. This should at least suggest reasonable doubt

As I said, I'm not an expert.

Being an expert is not a requirement for sitting on a jury nor is it one to reach an opinion.

I did have my 19 year old niece sharing my home home for a little over a year when she first started university. She had a bowel movement only once every four -5 days. This concerned me as I found it to be bizarre. Convinced there must be something wrong, I took her to a specialist. I learned she was perfectly fine and it was nothing to worry about. People are different.

 

[RoseMontague]

Seems possible to me that RS and or Amanda wielded the knife and wasn't much involved in the struggle. I believe Rudy capable of restraining Meredith alone whilst the others tormented her.
Perhaps at some point Meredith lunged forward to break free and in doing so suffered the first significant injury to her neck.

If it were completely intentional why would Rudy make two trips to get towels?
If you believe him and his tale that he tried to help her, realized he couldn't then fled?

Nobody on the pro innocent side believes Rudy tried to help Meredith (You might find a couple of souls on the side of guilt that would believe such a thing). Do you have a theory and a timeline which fits the evidence or are you just going to continue to say they are guilty because of vague feelings and fantasies you have?

 

[Kaosium]

I beg to differ. It's not common. It's actually rather rare.

I recall a case where a man falsely confessed to killing his own young daughter and her friend.

What makes you think false witness statements are rare? How would you go about evaluating the potential of a witness statement being false if you were the police? If the police take a confused account that borders on lunacy as the gospel truth, even after the person who signed it has recanted, who does that make you suspect as the impetus of that statement?

 

[HotNostril]

What makes you think false witness statements are rare? How would you go about evaluating the potential of a witness statement being false if you were the police? If the police take a confused account that borders on lunacy as the gospel truth, even after the person who signed it has recanted, who does that make you suspect as the impetus of that statement?

I didn't say false witness statements were rare.
I said false confessions were.

Claiming some other dude did it, very common.
Can't keep story straight, very common.

 

[acbytesla]

I would have to agree that is hardly a good argument.
Far better to just stick to the physical evidence and the absurdity of the case.
Granted, in a Catholic nation like Italy, the argument might hold more sway.

It alone in not a good argument. In fact it is a poor argument. On the other hand, so is the quality of all the guilt arguments. Look at all of Nostril's posts. She doesn't actually present an argument. She doesn't discuss the evidence.

She doesn't discuss the witnesses. It's all about "her beliefs". She has no desire to comb through the evidence and "think about it". I'm actually shocked that she discounts the priest because he "believes in a sky daddy:. It seems as if Nostril's "Sky daddy" is her belief in Amanda and Raffaele's guilt.

Its all, she doesn't trust A and R rubbish. It borders on the same kind of religious zealotry.

I'm a lot like Nostril. I don't believe in "sky daddies" either. Never the less I grew up living nest door to a sizable Catholic Church. In fact the rectory was less than 50 yards from my back door. Several of the priests were great friends with my parents and me. They had dinner at our table at least two dozen times over the years. I don't believe in a sky daddy, but for the most part, I believed in them. They know people and humanity.

Granted it's not evidence, but my bet is that priest knew and understood the prisoners in a way that virtually none of the guards would ever know them.

Nostril wants to believe in something concrete. I get that. But then why does she believe in this case?

 

[Kaosium]

I beg to differ. It's not common. It's actually rather rare.

I recall a case where a man falsely confessed to killing his own young daughter and her friend.

What makes you think false witness statements are rare? How would you go about evaluating the potential of a witness statement being false if you were the police? If the police take a confused account that borders on lunacy as the gospel truth, even after the person who signed it has recanted and claimed police coercion, who does that make you suspect as the impetus of that statement?

 

[Kaosium]

Every square inch wasn't tested.

I believe RS left a trace on that clasp.

Then why don't we retest it and see? Oh, wait, they tried and found the claps had been 'stored' in extraction buffer and had deteriorated into uselessness.

Why is there no trace of Rudy in the room he allegedly entered into? None on the window sill or frame.

They didn't test every square inch.

 

[acbytesla]

Too bad you weren't there to tell the cops not to smoke in and trample on the area below the broken window.

I love how the cops stood below the window and smoked and said..."I'm too fat to climb that window so nobody could do it". I love that they the looked below their trampled feet that dozens of people walked that morning and came to the conclusion that Rudy's footprints weren't among all the others.

This is what constitutes evidence in Perugia and the Italian courts.

 

[NancyS]

As I said, I'm not an expert.

Being an expert is not a requirement for sitting on a jury nor is it one to reach an opinion.

I did have my 19 year old niece sharing my home home for a little over a year when she first started university. She had a bowel movement only once every four -5 days. This concerned me as I found it to be bizarre. Convinced there must be something wrong, I took her to a specialist. I learned she was perfectly fine and it was nothing to worry about. People are different.

People are all different, but there is usually a range of differences. If you want to talk about range of bowel habits, it is usually anthing between 3 a day to 1 every theee days, which would make your niece unusual, but if otherwise healthy and no signs of constipation, I wouldn't be overly concerned.

However we're not talking about how often people poo (although poo is the latest prosecution theory), we're talking about the time it takes for chyme to enter the duodenum from the stomach - as your link showed this would usually have occurred before 3- hours and anything over 4 hours would suggest Meredith had some severe gastric pathology, which she didn't or that she was a one in a million medical anomaly. I find it more likely that she died early and that this creates at least reasonable doubt

 

[RoseMontague]

I didn't say false witness statements were rare.
I said false confessions were.

Claiming some other dude did it, very common.
Can't keep story straight, very common.

Did Amanda confess to murder? Did she confess to sexual assault? Did she confess to staging? Did she confess to theft? Did she confess to carrying the knife?

Under pressure she gave two nonsense statements placing the guy at the scene that the cops wanted her to place at the scene.

 

[Dan O.]

Business Insider, of all places, has run a helpful short summary of the issues in this case. It's headlined "Why Amanda Knox Is Completely Innocent And The Italian Justice System Is Utterly Insane."
http://www.businessinsider.com/why-amanda-knox-is-innocent-2014-1

If there's anything here that's not correct, let's hear it.

Guede found Kercher's body in the house she shared with Knox (even though he didn't live there).

His “claim”. He also claims that she was still alive when he left.

And one of his palm prints was found in a blood stain underneath Kercher's body.

Shoe prints were under the body. The palm print was on the side of the pillow.

No DNA evidence linked Knox to the crime, even though she lived in the same house as Kercher.

The only DNA of Knox that the police linked to the crime was found in the bathroom she shared with Kercher and bare footprints that tested negative for blood.

At one point, Burleigh reveals, a police official posing as a doctor informed Knox she had HIV

Has this person been identified?

and asked her to name all her previous sexual partners so they could be alerted to the risk.

This looks like a supposition.

She did falsely accuse Patrick Lumumba, a bar owner, of being involved in the crime. She was convicted of that libel and sentenced to time served (three of the four years she spent behind bars).

The accusation is disputed. The sentence was initially 1 year but raised to 3 on appeal in the same trial where she was acquitted of the other crimes.

(She served four years in prison for having a sex life, basically).

No. It was the cartwheel!​

These authors really should do their fact checking before they publish.