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

[Mary_H]

I agree that he probably didn't intend to kill. I doubt though that he had any misconceptions about the state she was in when he left. He did lock her door after all.

Why lock a door against a dead body? It's not as if it can't be broken down if somebody really wants to get in there. I think he feared/hoped she would get out and call for help. That's partly why he took the cell phones, too.

 

[Sherlock Holmes]

If it had happened in that way, why on Earth would Knox (in particular) and Sollecito not have alerted the authorities and told the exact truth about what had happened? What would they possibly have stood to gain by pretending they knew nothing at all about the murder? Why might they have wanted/needed to protect Guede? What crime would they themselves have been guilty of under this scenario?

(And it's "ransacked", not "ram sacked".....)

LondonJohn, it has been a very long time and I honestly do hope your doing well. One question will have to be, do you still believe them to be guilty? I highly doubt it, but I do remember what you said many years ago, your one of the reasons I changed my mind from guilty to just being an accessory to the fact.

Yes, had they alerted authorities they surely would not be in the trouble they have found themselves in, who knows, maybe drugs had something to do with their poor judgement, maybe something else, personally, I don't think at the time they believed it was as serious as it actually was, and when they did know, they believed it was too late and that Amanda was too involved. I do hope we find out. Again, long time no talk, good to see you back.

 

[RWVBWL]

School was closed that day.

And Meredith's English friend Robyn Butterworth went to class anyways...

Here's an interesting quote:

Why didn't Meredith answer her phone?
That was the question her friends and family would be asking all day.
For Robyn Butterworth, the worrying had begun at 10A.M. Meredith had not shown up for their class. Even though it had turned out to be cancelled, Robyn still waited around for her friend to appear. She didn't want to nag her about the book, but it was new and expensive and she needed it back so she could study for the exam.
"I didn't worry too much at 1st because, to be honest, Meredith was always late", she said. We texted each other, never called. But after a while I started getting nervous. I called. Then I called again. I kept calling."
Meredith never did pick up.

10:00A.M.?

Gosh,
it's too bad Robyn wasn't the 1st to sound the alarm by calling Filomena,
for maybe, well you know what I mean...
RW


PS - From Murder in Italy:
The History book that Meredith apparently borrowed was titled
Early Modern Europe, 1450-1789, in English...

 

[Bill Williams]

LondonJohn, it has been a very long time and I honestly do hope your doing well. One question will have to be, do you still believe them to be guilty? I highly doubt it, but I do remember what you said many years ago, your one of the reasons I changed my mind from guilty to just being an accessory to the fact.

Yes, had they alerted authorities they surely would not be in the trouble they have found themselves in, who knows, maybe drugs had something to do with their poor judgement, maybe something else, personally, I don't think at the time they believed it was as serious as it actually was, and when they did know, they believed it was too late and that Amanda was too involved. I do hope we find out. Again, long time no talk, good to see you back.

Huh!? Did I read that right? Amanda didn't believe it was as serious as it was?

You're kidding?

 

[Mary_H]

And Meredith's English friend Robyn Butterworth went to class anyways...

Here's an interesting quote:



10:00A.M.?

Gosh,
it's too bad Robyn wasn't the 1st to sound the alarm by calling Filomena,
for maybe, well you know what I mean...
RW


PS - From Murder in Italy:
The History book that Meredith apparently borrowed was titled
Early Modern Europe, 1450-1789, in English...

Thanks for the correction, RW. I was just thinking the same thing. How come it wasn't wrong of Robyn not to panic when she still couldn't find Meredith 3 hours later?

 

[Sherlock Holmes]

Sherlock, wouldn't it be funny if Raf made a deal to somehow throw Amanda under the bus to save himself from prison? Somehow got out of the murder charge in exchange for incriminating Amanda? The guilters would have to retract five years of describing how Knife Boy committed the crime.

That will never happen, its too late, to many lies ago, no one would believe them regardless what they say now. Raf, I believe states he was already offered such a deal but wouldn't do it, and the guilters are the same as the FOAKers, neither side will change their stance at this stage, or very few are unlikely to. I get a kick everytime I read a PIP or PGP tell someone they are 100 percent sure of their guilt or innocence, I've even heard higher......

Nice to hear from you again as well as LondonJohn, take care.

 

[RWVBWL]

Rudy an informant? Nah, it was Kokomani!

Hi LondonJohn,
It has been a long time since we too conversed here at The JREF,
and I hope that you too are doin' great!

Anyways, about this:

Personally, I think that Steve Moore is going way too far in placing any alleged "Guede-as-police-informant" theory front and centre.

While I think that it certainly cannot be ruled out as a possibility, and while it certainly fits with certain key evidence regarding how Guede was treated in the days and weeks prior to the murder, there's currently no positive evidence that Guede was a Perugia police informant.

And what's much more important is the simple fact that the "Guede-as-police-informant" theory is totally unnecessary to a cogent, coherent explanation of how/why Knox and Sollecito were wrongly charged and found guilty of the murder of Meredith Kercher. In addition, there's no evidence that the police/authorities made any effort to "protect" Guede after the murder, and there's also no evidence that they even suspected Guede of involvement at the time when they arrested Knox and Sollecito.

As many of us have outlined here and elsewhere before, there's a depressingly simple explanation to what happened to Knox and Sollecito in November 2007 and thereafter: a rush to judgement, tunnel vision, confirmation bias, groupthink, deference to senior authority figures, a group "circling of the wagons", and personal/collective hubris. None of this need have anything whatsoever to do with whether or not Guede was a police informant.

I've heard it mentioned over the years that Rudy Guede might have been a police informant.

BUT have you ever heard it written that his buddy Hekuran Kokomani
was believed to be a drug informant for the local police?

It says so on page 38 of my original copy of Angel Face,
The True Story of Student Killer Amanda Knox.

Hmmmm...
Rudy's buddy Kokomani a police informant?

I've always wondered why Super Witness Koko
was wearin' a hoodie, a hat and dark sunglasses in court!
https://www.google.com/search?q=hek...her-murder-witnesses-flop-in-court%2F;250;295


For enquirin' minds,
here's a little more about Kokomani, from JREF Poster Malkmus:
http://67.228.115.45/showpost.php?p=7704442&postcount=13935

 

[NewtonTrino]

That will never happen, its too late, to many lies ago, no one would believe them regardless what they say now. Raf, I believe states he was already offered such a deal but wouldn't do it, and the guilters are the same as the FOAKers, neither side will change their stance at this stage, or very few are unlikely to. I get a kick everytime I read a PIP or PGP tell someone they are 100 percent sure of their guilt or innocence, I've even heard higher......

Nice to hear from you again as well as LondonJohn, take care.

I'm 100% sure of innocence.

 

[Sherlock Holmes]

Huh!? Did I read that right? Amanda didn't believe it was as serious as it was?

You're kidding?

Bill, you should well know my stance by now, I am through repeating it, if you don't wish to go back and look it up the 100 times I have repeated it then just follow the evidence and you will find the truth.

 

[Strozzi]

Why lock a door against a dead body? It's not as if it can't be broken down if somebody really wants to get in there. I think he feared/hoped she would get out and call for help. That's partly why he took the cell phones, too.

Mary, you see good where it is not warranted. Meredith was gurgling through blood as she lay dying, probably even unconscious due to blood loss and asphysiciation. She was not going to get to her knees and go for help. Rudy new that. He spent time with her lower body. Rudy locked the door to delay discovery. He took the phones becuase they were at hand as he grabbed up the contents of her purse. Rudy did not want Meredity to survive, as she would identify him. He knew he was not an anonymous local stranger.

 

[Mary_H]

I don 't believe that for a second. He inflicted a huge, savage gash in her throat, which would have taken a lot of force to execute. It's not as though the knife slipped.

There is no evidence he applied the towels to her wounds, and there would be evidence had he done so. The photos show he used towels to mop up the floor. I can only guess he did this so he could rape her without getting too much blood on himself.

What makes you think he was hoping the wound he inflicted was not fatal, or that he could have had any doubt it was fatal?

To me, everything about this crime scene screams out that it was the work of someone who utterly lacks compassion or moral inhibition. Everything about Guede's behavior since his arrest tells me he is a scheming, self-serving liar without a hint of conscience, who would be happy to have Amanda/Raffaele spend their lives in prison because of his crime.

Rudy did have at least a bit of a conscience before the lawyers got to him; otherwise he would not have made a point of letting his friend know that Amanda was being wrongly suspected. I think if he were without a conscience, he would have committed more violent crimes before the murder.

I really can't see that Rudy had enough to fear from being discovered by Meredith that it would lead him to the lengths he went to, just to prevent her from telling anyone he was in the cottage. If he had broken in and were waiting in the bathroom for her to go to her room, all he had to do was climb out the window and run away. It would have been much faster than trying to go through the door.

I think he was either on some aggression-increasing drug or got into some exchange with Meredith that infuriated him. He committed the crime but was not in his right mind.

 

[JREF2010]

Rudy did not want Meredity to survive, as she would identify him. He knew he was not an anonymous local stranger.

I always would guess Rudy didnt go there to murder, but he did as you say, killed to not be identified... I think his rape was part of the intensity of his crime, it escalated the need to murder in comparison to just being a burglar caught.

I wonder if the Milan lady would have been so lucky if she didnt have those people with her? Would Rudy have raped and murdered twice in one week?

He'll be out soon, but I wonder if he'll survive long, like Toto, Rudy is a big problem for the Monica Napoleoni types.

 

[Sherlock Holmes]

Rudy did have at least a bit of a conscience before the lawyers got to him; otherwise he would not have made a point of letting his friend know that Amanda was being wrongly suspected.

Yes, but he also said he was innocent as well.

I think if he were without a conscience, he would have committed more violent crimes before the murder.

Exactly, everything seems to have escalated very quickly, small time thief - rapist - murderer.

I really can't see that Rudy had enough to fear from being discovered by Meredith that it would lead him to the lengths he went to, just to prevent her from telling anyone he was in the cottage. If he had broken in and were waiting in the bathroom for her to go to her room, all he had to do was climb out the window and run away. It would have been much faster than trying to go through the door.

He may have tried the door, made a noise that she heard and confronted him before he got to the Filomena's room. I don't believe that but a PIP likely would.

I think he was either on some aggression-increasing drug or got into some exchange with Meredith that infuriated him. He committed the crime but was not in his right mind.

That is exactly what I think happened. Well, some common ground.

 

[Bob001]

But, unfortunately, the stomach/duodenum evidence proves beyond all reasonable doubt that the ToD cannot possibly have been at 11.40pm or later. Had the defence teams understood this issue properly, they could have instantly rebutted this point - even given that the prosecution/court ToD was only switched (improperly) to this later time at the 11th hour in the Massei trial. They certainly could and should have made this argument far, far more strongly in every subsequent appeal.
....

The continuing accounts of all the things the defense didn't do leads me to ask a procedural question. In the U.S. (and elsewhere as far as I know), the prosecution presents its complete case, it rests, and then the defense responds. Before the trial each side has to tell the other about the witnesses and evidence it will present, and each side is generally free to investigate the others' witnesses, interview them, depose them etc. During the course of the trial each side can challenge and cross-examine the other side's witnesses, and when the defense gets its turn it can bring in its own witnesses, experts, evidence etc. But it sounds as if the defense in this case was often clueless. In Italy, is the defense expected to respond to each point of evidence at the time the prosecutor presents it? Does the defense know in advance that say, a drug-addicted street person might be a witness against it? Can it demonstrate that the prosecution witnesses changed their stories at various times? Or does the defense have to craft a response on the fly? To what degree were the Italian lawyers inept (as apparently they were), and to what degree were they hindered by the nature of the system? It surprised me to read a post here to the effect that the judge who jailed Amanda and Raffaele later regretted his decision. Well, was there a procedure to revisit it after a week or a month? Did their lawyers attempt to get the judge to change his mind at that time? What would the sharpest criminal defense lawyer in Italy have done -- and been able to do -- differently?

 

[lamasheen]

Why lock a door against a dead body? It's not as if it can't be broken down if somebody really wants to get in there. I think he feared/hoped she would get out and call for help. That's partly why he took the cell phones, too.

No, this is incorrect. Rudy steals MK's cash and kills her (inadvertently or not) takes off in a panic. Amanda finds her body later that night or in the early morning. Ultimately, she finds Rudy's poop and she knows that it is his. She decided that the poop is the smoking gun that will set her free from the mess that she is in (her plan to have Rudy steal MK's cash and stage a break in while she is at work with an alibi). AK locks MK's door and cleans up any visible blood in the hallway and doors. She needs to do this so that she can setup the discovery of Rudy's poop in the bathroom so that she can show it to the police as soon as they arrive. In Amanda's mind, this is THE evidence that will exculpate her. Once the police find this, she thinks she will be in the clear. How does she find it?? She comes home, needing to "take a shower". This shower in turn, leads her to the other bathroom because she needs to blowdry her hair, which leads to the discovery of Rudy's poop. This is the evidence that is finally causes her to panic and call the police. Police see the poop and in Amanda's mind, she is free and clear. She could not have been involved. The poop, for Amanda, was the most important piece of evidence and she needed to be the first to discover it before her roommates came home to flush it away. That is why she decides to take the shower and call the police. The blood in the bathroom is just enough to add to the escalating evidence of a breakin. Open door, a little blood, stranger's feces in the toilet >> call police and show them the poop. And what was her motive in planning a fake robbery with Rudy? She wanted to break her contract with the landlord so that she could move in with Raff (for free rent) who she had met just 2 weeks prior, someone with a nice apartment and money to spend on her. Motive was clearly money for both of them. A plan gone completely awry. And AK also staged the breakin and the rape scene to point everything to Rudy. Read Amanda's email home on Nov 4. Her motive is there in the last paragraph, it is very telling of her mindset. "Secondly, we are going to talk to the agency that we used to find our house and obviously request to move out." And she also says: "It kind of sucks that we have to pay the next months rent, but the owner has protection within the contract." Wow, her supposed friend just died and she is concerned with a months rent. Callous, insensitive, and selfish. Keep reading that sentence and think about how many times Amanda repeats "my friend" in her book.

 

[Charlie Wilkes]

Rudy did have at least a bit of a conscience before the lawyers got to him; otherwise he would not have made a point of letting his friend know that Amanda was being wrongly suspected. I think if he were without a conscience, he would have committed more violent crimes before the murder.

I really can't see that Rudy had enough to fear from being discovered by Meredith that it would lead him to the lengths he went to, just to prevent her from telling anyone he was in the cottage. If he had broken in and were waiting in the bathroom for her to go to her room, all he had to do was climb out the window and run away. It would have been much faster than trying to go through the door.

I think he was either on some aggression-increasing drug or got into some exchange with Meredith that infuriated him. He committed the crime but was not in his right mind.

I don't try to figure out how he thinks. I can only guess what his intent was or what if any communication passed between him and Meredith.

I'm looking purely at his actions, as demonstrated by the crime scene and in the six years that have passed since the murder.

The crime scene shows a murder that arose from circumstances and was not planned ahead of time. But at the decisive moment, he intended to kill her. He didn't rip a two-inch gash in her throat in the hope that she would be OK later.

Nor do I see any evidence from the crime scene that he instantly regretted it and tried to help her. The pillow wasn't under her head. Her head was on the hard tile floor, in a pool of blood. The pillow was under her hips, the better for him to rape her as she lay dying. The towels weren't bunched around her throat. They were under her body, with streak marks on the floor showing where he wiped up blood so he wouldn't get it on himself when he raped her.

That is the crime scene. As for what followed, I think it's possible he would never have accused Amanda/Raffaele if his lawyer hadn't told him that was his best legal strategy. I even think it's possible he regrets it. But he walked into court in 2011, when two people he knew were innocent were fighting to get out of prison for the murder he alone committed, and he played right along with the prosecutor's BS. I'm not going to give him the benefit of the doubt on anything. I don't see why anyone should.

 

[NewtonTrino]

Callous, insensitive, and selfish. Keep reading that sentence and think about how many times Amanda repeats "my friend" in her book.

I don't see it as callous, insensitive or selfish. Her living situation was toast and she quickly needed to take care of these details. The money was probably an issue for her. I don't see how this is in any way evidence of any kind of guilt at all. Life goes on, end of story.

No only is it not callous, it's not even relevant.

 

[GWCarver]

Ultimately, she finds Rudy's poop and she knows that it is his. .

This is so lame, but it is funny...

 

[RWVBWL]

That Blonde Hair...

I've heard it mentioned over the years that Rudy Guede might have been a police informant.

BUT have you ever heard it written that his buddy Hekuran Kokomani
was believed to be a drug informant for the local police?

It says so on page 38 of my original copy of Angel Face,
The True Story of Student Killer Amanda Knox.

Hmmmm...
Rudy's buddy Kokomani a police informant?

I've always wondered why Super Witness Koko
was wearin' a hoodie, a hat and dark sunglasses in court!
https://www.google.com/search?q=hek...her-murder-witnesses-flop-in-court%2F;250;295


For enquirin' minds,
here's a little more about Kokomani, from JREF Poster Malkmus:
http://67.228.115.45/showpost.php?p=7704442&postcount=13935

As I sit here tonight near the beach in Los Angeles,
I wonder about that hair strand that was found in the grasp
of Meredith Kercher's hand:


Conveniently it was lost by Italian investigators.

WTF?!?

I wonder what the ramifications would be if that strand of hair belonged to Hekuran Kokomani,
whom B. Nadeau, after reading the 10,000 page Digital Archive Crime Dossier,
writes "is also believed to be a drug informant for the local police".

What color of hair is Hekuran Kokomani hiding when he appeared in court as a Super Witness?
Did ALL of the other Super Witnesses, Antonio Curatolo, Marco Quintavalle, Nara Capezzali, Antonella Monacchia, Maria Dramis or Alessaandra Formica dress like this and hide behind hats, hoodies and dark sunglasses too?

Or only downstairs neighbor Stefano Bonassi,
seen here in this Perugia Shock link from Sept. 2008:
http://web.archive.org/web/20101015182607/http://perugia-shock.blogspot.com/2008_09_01_archive.html
just to make it appear not so obviously that ILE was hiding Koko's informant status
by covering him up, so to say?

I mean who shows up to testify in court in a murder trial wearing a baseball cap,
a hoodie pulled over his head, and dark sunglasses?
I wonder...


Here's a little more info that I, and many others,
seem to have forgotten, this from page 47 of Angel Face:
An examination of her vagina revealed a hair that the police removed and put in a plastic bag.
"It's blonde", Stefanoni said, directing the collecting officer to note that the hair was not Meredith's.

From page 48+49:
Meredith's left arm was bent, and her blood smeared hand was suspend-ed in the air near her face. The tip of her long, thin index finger was soaked in blood as if she had touched her neck. But Meredith's right hand showed not even a drop of blood except for tiny cuts on the palm of her hand - it had not been near her face or neck when she was stabbed, but the detectives determined that she had extended it in self defense. The twin bruises and identical pressure points on the insides of her elbows were consistent with her arms being held back.

"It's blonde",
the scientific police officer said as he pulled a long hair from Meredith's blood-soaked hand.

Hmmmm...

There were 2 Blonde hairs retrieved.
WERE BOTH LOST?!?

 

[kwill]

This is so lame, but it is funny...

I know. I thought that whole post was meant to be a joke, like one of Strozzi's onion-style ramblings, until the very end.

Mind, boggled again.