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

[Grinder]

I see the similarity. The watch may well have been hushed up just like the text, the segment of Amanda's text (which came out when it was too late to make any difference), the CCTV coverage of Raf's street that 'showed nothing', the EDFs and many other things besides, all of which have the one thing in common.

Did the police lift any prints at the lawyers office? Nothing about it in the testimony MichaelB linked. I bet the guy who did all those weird things left some. It's normal when investigating a theft to try to locate the owner of the supposedly stolen property. Without the loser's evidence it is pretty much impossible to prove theft. The lawyer didn't even know whether it was his colleague's laptop that showed up in Milan and the little old lady does not appear to have been shown the watch either.

Rudy is a lucky guy. So much so he might be signing on here and joining the discussion soon. If not here then surely one of the Placing Rudy First sites.

The Milan police contacted the Perugians. They reported they had found a stolen laptop and one would hope they would have at least mentioned other suspicious items, you know, like a woman's gold watch. The Perugians should have known that very shortly before a gold watch had been stolen. I would think that a burglary that ended up with a significant enough fire to kill the cat would be a fairly unusual occurrence and one the police would remember. I must say that even here in Seattle a story like that would have made the local TV news.

 

[Bill Williams]

If Marriott would rehire me I'd be ordering the troops to stop arguing with hopeless people like Heather Orth and start tweeting the good wiki site as well as putting it in comment sections even old ones that still take comments.

I'd also put together some examples of the differences between the sites showing where the dark side's has errors. I would back each and every claim with the source of the facts and quote directly from court docs wherever possible. Every claim by my team would be backed by solid proofs.

I haven't been there lately but if those comparisons are there my team would not just post links but at a minimum key sections of the differences.

I would also have everyone on the executive team start sending emails to those in the media that are still associated with the case.

I'd have the Italian team doing it in Italian and to Italian media.

I would spend no time demeaning McCall or any individuals, just the facts ma'am, just the facts.

You may be a pain in the ass, but you are also wise.

Yet it is a bit of a strawman to say that Edward McCall is being "demeaned". I'm taking my lead from a friend who did an online search about "Amanda Knox" and for the first few clicks thought the two sites were the same. He said that it was not just the layouts, but the content which made his brain click to what was going on....

So, you are all for letting each individual sort this out for themselves. Good advice.

So if it is demeaning to ask, let me ask again - who exactly IS Edward McCall? That you think it's demeaning to even ask the question says everything a lurker needs to hear, I guess.

I thought we were opponents in this? Yet every once in a while you say a wise thing.

 

[Grinder]

You may be a pain in the ass, but you are also wise.

Yet it is a bit of a strawman to say that Edward McCall is being "demeaned". I'm taking my lead from a friend who did an online search about "Amanda Knox" and for the first few clicks thought the two sites were the same. He said that it was not just the layouts, but the content which made his brain click to what was going on....

So, you are all for letting each individual sort this out for themselves. Good advice.

So if it is demeaning to ask, let me ask again - who exactly IS Edward McCall? That you think it's demeaning to even ask the question says everything a lurker needs to hear, I guess.

I thought we were opponents in this? Yet every once in a while you say a wise thing.

My point is that people won't care about McCall one way or the other and making him the focus takes away from the content.

Put translations side by side if the dark side one misleads. Journalists generally don't care who put up the information they care about the information and how it was sourced.

 

[acbytesla]

My point is that people won't care about McCall one way or the other and making him the focus takes away from the content.

Put translations side by side if the dark side one misleads. Journalists generally don't care who put up the information they care about the information and how it was sourced.

I kind of agree Grinder. Who is ACbyTesla? Who is Grinder? Who is Anglo? I personally don't like my personal information out there...but it is kind of hard stopping it.

The simple facts is that McCall's wiki is filled with false information. It might be interesting if McCall was a pseudonym for Peter Quennell, BR Mull, Harry Rag, one of the Kerchers, Peggy, Mignini, Machiavelli, but beyond that McCall doesn't matter....his wiki's connection or lack of connection with the truth does.

 

[anglolawyer]

The Milan police contacted the Perugians. They reported they had found a stolen laptop and one would hope they would have at least mentioned other suspicious items, you know, like a woman's gold watch. The Perugians should have known that very shortly before a gold watch had been stolen. I would think that a burglary that ended up with a significant enough fire to kill the cat would be a fairly unusual occurrence and one the police would remember. I must say that even here in Seattle a story like that would have made the local TV news.

And your explanation for this mystery is what? Nina Burleigh is lying?

 

[anglolawyer]

I kind of agree Grinder. Who is ACbyTesla? Who is Grinder? Who is Anglo? I personally don't like my personal information out there...but it is kind of hard stopping it.

The simple facts is that McCall's wiki is filled with false information. It might be interesting if McCall was a pseudonym for Peter Quennell, BR Mull, Harry Rag, one of the Kerchers, Peggy, Mignini, Machiavelli, but beyond that McCall doesn't matter....his wiki's connection or lack of connection with the truth does.

It's not a secret who I am.

 

[acbytesla]

It's not a secret who I am.

I can appreciate that. I know you are too. I even made the mistake of saying your name on this forum and you sort of scolded me. But that was a long time ago. I just got some nasty emails from the guilters a while back...... Almost threatening. But I think they were all bark....but you never know in this day and age.

 

[Grinder]

And your explanation for this mystery is what? Nina Burleigh is lying?

No. Don't you think a story of an older lady having her home broken into and her cat dying because of a fire caused by the burglar would make the news and be something the police would be quite aware of? The gold watch of this woman's mother was stolen and would have made the list of stolen items.

No matter how much I'm attacked I will not say that a near neighbor of Rudi having this occur just days before the murder wouldn't normally be of interest to the media, the defense and the prosecution.

 

[Bill Williams]

You may be a pain in the ass, but you are also wise.

Yet it is a bit of a strawman to say that Edward McCall is being "demeaned". I'm taking my lead from a friend who did an online search about "Amanda Knox" and for the first few clicks thought the two sites were the same. He said that it was not just the layouts, but the content which made his brain click to what was going on....

So, you are all for letting each individual sort this out for themselves. Good advice.

So if it is demeaning to ask, let me ask again - who exactly IS Edward McCall? That you think it's demeaning to even ask the question says everything a lurker needs to hear, I guess.

I thought we were opponents in this? Yet every once in a while you say a wise thing.

My point is that people won't care about McCall one way or the other and making him the focus takes away from the content.

Put translations side by side if the dark side one misleads. Journalists generally don't care who put up the information they care about the information and how it was sourced.

With all due respect, Grinder, I thought you were trying to make some other point.

So, if this is your point then there is no point. The fake-wiki, pulled together under a single pseudonym, "Edward McCall", is a go-to site for researchers on this case. It is a site endorsed by Andrea Vogt.

Let me say that again. It is a site endorsed by Andrea Vogt. Andrea Vogt just produced a stupid documentary recently aired on BBC3.

The focus of that documentary, as well as the fake wiki, is to push the Mignini/Comodi prosecution of the case. Not the Massei findings, not the findings of the ISC which reversed the Hellmann acquittals, not the case as presented by Crini in Florence, and (this is to be seen) the findings of the Nencini court. It endorsed (in content) the Mignini/Comodi failed prosecution.

"Failed"? Yes. The Crini prosecution advanced completely different stuff... making double jeopardy a concern. But don't let that stop me, but it is an issue.... how many times does Italy get to reinvent this crime before they can convict someone?

This is where I go all conspiratorial on you. So forgive me.

Edward McCall, whoever he is, is an unknown quantity, his expertise or bona fides completely unknown. No less than Andrea Vogt endorses him, as well as three hate sites: two PMFs (which don't get along) and one TJMK.

It is obvious that it is extremely important to know who he is. It should have been important to BBC3 to know the sources for the stupid BBC3 documentary they bought from Darkness Descending as well as from Vogt.

There is an agenda floating out there to rehabilitate Giuliano Mignini, who has horribly corrupted the two noteworthy cases he's ever handled in his up-country career. It is clear that the continued prosecution of Knox and Sollecito has been taken out of his up-country hands, and is being managed by others with other items of agenda in play.

But...... "Edward McCall", unknown expert with unknowable credentials, pushes the Mignini/Comodi prosecution as if it should have been the last word. I would list for you all the 13 things Massei himself implied Mignini/Comodi got wrong (wrong motive, no psychopathology, friendly relations between Kercher/Knox, etc.) but for some reason some get upset when I do that.

Hell, even Crini has reinvented the case.... no DNA evidence means that to keep Raffaele's kitchen knife in play requires a reinvention (and departure from Mignini/Comodi who never once pushed the idea) that the bedsheet stain is compatible with the kitchen knife. Six years after AK and RS's arrests, Crini had to reinvent the crime away from Mignini....

... Yet McCall, whoever the hell he is, wants Mignini to endure and survive this comedy of errors.

On the other side? Steve Moore. John Douglas. Saul Kassim. The now retired top-DNA expert from the FBI. All known quantities. That guy from the Idaho Innocence project who Vogt tried to vilify.... are we noting a theme here?

Who is Edward McCall? I duly note that you have stopped saying that it is demeaning to even ask the question. We're at least progressing on that.

 

[Chris_Halkides]

naming names

Saul Kassin, not Kassim. BTW the former FBI DNA scientist is Professor Bruce Budowle.

 

[Bill Williams]

Saul Kassin, not Kassim. BTW the former FBI DNA scientist is Professor Bruce Budowle.

Chris - thanks!

I take it you would tell us if you knew who Edward McCall was!

 

[codyjuneau]

.

I am not sure if anyone has noticed this before, but I think there is a viable source of Raffaele's DNA less than a centimeter from the bra clasp when it was found on Dec 18. That lamp cord that goes right by the bra clasp, and may well have been touching the bra clasp before the stuff on top of it was moved out of the way, is the chord from Amanda's lamp.

Now one might say what are the chances of Raf's DNA being on that cord? But then again, one might equally say, what are the chances that the bra clasp would disappear and then reappear right next to the chord of Amanda's lamp. But it did.

In the following link, look at the picture of the guy pointing at the bra clasp. That cord beside it is from Amanda's square base lamp. They just finished moving some items that were on top of the chord and the clasp.

this is the magical link I speak of
.

 

[anglolawyer]

No. Don't you think a story of an older lady having her home broken into and her cat dying because of a fire caused by the burglar would make the news and be something the police would be quite aware of? The gold watch of this woman's mother was stolen and would have made the list of stolen items.

No matter how much I'm attacked I will not say that a near neighbor of Rudi having this occur just days before the murder wouldn't normally be of interest to the media, the defense and the prosecution.

There must be an explanation but it won't turn out to be that it didn't happen. The police were aware of it btw. The old lady reported it. Acbytesla referenced that when quoting Burleigh's email.

 

[acbytesla]

There must be an explanation but it won't turn out to be that it didn't happen. The police were aware of it btw. The old lady reported it. Acbytesla referenced that when quoting Burleigh's email.

It really is amazing when you look at where all these burglaries took place. 4 out of 5 of them took place within blocks of each other and Rudy's apartment. all within 35 days. Now of course that is not evidence that should be used to convict Rudy of those crimes, but you would have to your head in the sand to say...no it was a staging as opposed to a break in.

MORONS.

 

[Sonia]

You didn't hear about sex on the train until November of 2011 but you know how the tabs covered the story , wow.

Feinstein first sold the "warden" story to "The People," one of the trashiest tabloids in the UK. There are serious factual inconsistencies in her story that have never been resolved.

Then, she posted a mock-up of the printed story to her own blog because she couldn't find an adequate link to the printed story (one with the graphics and layout intact).

She later managed to re-sell the same tired material to the tabloids on the back of the priest's more recent comments about Amanda in prison. Feinstein is a terrible excuse for a journalist who doesn't bother to fact-check anything; i.e., a typical UK tabloid journalist.

I don't understand how they can get away with printing whatever garbage somebody says without fact-checking it. They're not even a bit embarrassed to be selling lurid trash that doesn't stand up to scrutiny. You wouldn't catch Seymour Hersh trying to get away with that.

 

[Sonia]

Thanks you have increased the reliability of the account immensely.

Anglo I don't have an interest in the noise ticket per se but someone indicated that Mignini introducing it via a DM story made sense which doesn't work for me. I can't see such a story being allowed in court here without the reporter being in court.

Don't you think that the defense should have pursued the watch story much as you have followed the text deletion aspect. In a sense the PLE seem to have deleted the watch story as well. The defense should have those police reports and should have interviewed the woman.

Was there any evidence that more than one person was involved? How did he enter? What was taken besides the watch? Why would the police release the watch when it was found in a bag of stolen items?

Well all the information is there in Burleigh's chapter notes if the defense wants to pursue it.

From her notes for chapter 9:

Maria Del Prato anecdotes from my interview in Milan, December 2009. Brocchi law office anecdotes from trial testimony of Paolo Brocchi, June 26, 2009. Madu Diaz anecdote from my interview, January 2010. Items found in Guede backpack confirmed by Perugia carabiniere Francesco Zampa to me, spring 2010.

Burleigh, Nina (2011-08-02). The Fatal Gift of Beauty: The Trials of Amanda Knox (p. 324). Crown Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

Sounds like Perugia carabiniere Francesco Zampa is the go-to man for questions about the gold watch in Guede's possession.

Burleigh's painstaking research is evident in the detail of her work. Here she describes the effort she put into the research:

To research the book, I interviewed the Perugia authorities, defense lawyers, and friends and family members of the defendants. I engaged in written correspondence with Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito. I reviewed the Perugia court’s “digital archive ” of the investigation, including wiretap audio and crime-scene video. I consulted experts in Italy and the United States on Italian law, forensic and DNA science, and psychology.

I attended trial hearings beginning in June 2009, and I lived in Perugia for nine months in 2009 and 2010.

My method was journalistic in that I interviewed people, many of them on several occasions, looked at primary documents, and followed leads to geographical locations and to sources living in those locations. Besides Perugia, I visited Amanda Knox’s homes in Seattle; Raffaele Sollecito’s home, friends, and family near Bari; and Rudy Guede’s family and homes in Perugia, Lecco, and Milan.

I also used secondary documents, mainly newspaper articles and books. I had technical assistance in interpreting the crime-scene video and the crime-scene analysis carried out by the Scientific Police from several legal and forensic officials in New York who prefer to remain anonymous, and from retired NYPD homicide detective Ron Dwyer and former New York prosecutor, now in private practice, Georges G. Lederman, who shared expertise gained from working on hundreds of murder cases.

I wrote to Rudy Guede in prison, a letter that I understood that he received. If he responded, I never received it. His lawyer, Valter Biscotti, accosted me in the street after that and insisted that I refrain from contacting his client by letter. Biscotti wanted to be paid for interactions with Rudy Guede, and to my knowledge he has never granted access to any journalist.

I wrote and sent several letters each to members of the Kercher family and to the young women who were Meredith’s friends in Perugia and who testified at the trial . I also sent e-mails to those whose addresses were available. None of them ever responded, leading me reluctantly to rely solely on published material and trial testimony about Meredith Kercher’s personality and history.

Burleigh, Nina (2011-08-02). The Fatal Gift of Beauty: The Trials of Amanda Knox (pp. 319-320). Crown Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

 

[Desert Fox]

.

I am not sure if anyone has noticed this before, but I think there is a viable source of Raffaele's DNA less than a centimeter from the bra clasp when it was found on Dec 18. That lamp cord that goes right by the bra clasp, and may well have been touching the bra clasp before the stuff on top of it was moved out of the way, is the chord from Amanda's lamp.

Now one might say what are the chances of Raf's DNA being on that cord? But then again, one might equally say, what are the chances that the bra clasp would disappear and then reappear right next to the chord of Amanda's lamp. But it did.

In the following link, look at the picture of the guy pointing at the bra clasp. That cord beside it is from Amanda's square base lamp. They just finished moving some items that were on top of the chord and the clasp.

this is the magical link I speak of
.

There are so many ways that the DNA could have gotten on the clasp that I think we could speculate for years and never be sure. I am sure of one way it did not get there though, that is Raffaele touch the bra clasp.

 

[Sonia]

No. Don't you think a story of an older lady having her home broken into and her cat dying because of a fire caused by the burglar would make the news and be something the police would be quite aware of? The gold watch of this woman's mother was stolen and would have made the list of stolen items.

No matter how much I'm attacked I will not say that a near neighbor of Rudi having this occur just days before the murder wouldn't normally be of interest to the media, the defense and the prosecution.

The cat wasn't consumed by flames. It died of smoke inhalation because the intruder left the pantry door open while he fixed his "feast," and the cat couldn't get out. So the fire caused damage that was covered by insurance, per Burleigh, and took three years to repair completely, but it wasn't a blazing inferno that took the structure down.

You'd be surprised how many incidents of this kind are not covered by local papers. I'm always surprised when I know of a serious crime or death that has occurred in my local area, and there is NOT A WORD about it in the paper in the following days. There just isn't time or space or resources to cover everything.

 

[Sonia]

There are so many ways that the DNA could have gotten on the clasp that I think we could speculate for years and never be sure. I am sure of one way it did not get there though, that is Raffaele touch the bra clasp.

Good thinking about the lamp cord. He could very well have touched it.

He also cooked and ate a meal with Amanda in the kitchen on that last morning while Meredith hung out with them after she showered, but before she changed out of her dressing gown. If she touched the kitchen faucet handle after he turned it, or the handle of the kettle, or if he passed her a cup of tea or a glass of water, or a lighter, there's his DNA passing from his fingers to her fingers right there. Among the first things she touched afterward, when she returned to her room to dress, would have been her own bra clasp as she fastened it behind her back.

If Raffaele used the girls' bathroom that day or another day, he would have left his DNA on the sink taps, on the hand towels, and on the door knob. Also possibly the flush handle on the toilet.

You're right, we may never know how his DNA got there. Raffaele's DNA could have gotten on Amanda's hands, too, in several likely ways that I can think of, and she would have touched any number of objects and surfaces in her own home. So would Meredith.

 

[NancyS]

Good thinking about the lamp cord. He could very well have touched it.

He also cooked and ate a meal with Amanda in the kitchen on that last morning while Meredith hung out with them after she showered, but before she changed out of her dressing gown. If she touched the kitchen faucet handle after he turned it, or the handle of the kettle, or if he passed her a cup of tea or a glass of water, or a lighter, there's his DNA passing from his fingers to her fingers right there. Among the first things she touched afterward, when she returned to her room to dress, would have been her own bra clasp as she fastened it behind her back.

If Raffaele used the girls' bathroom that day or another day, he would have left his DNA on the sink taps, on the hand towels, and on the door knob. Also possibly the flush handle on the toilet.

You're right, we may never know how his DNA got there. Raffaele's DNA could have gotten on Amanda's hands, too, in several likely ways that I can think of, and she would have touched any number of objects and surfaces in her own home. So would Meredith.

The fact that she was in her dressing gown and before she got dressed is particularly relevant - she could have touched, hugged or kissed Raffaele to say hello/goodbye, moments before putting on her bra - she could even have been holding clothes and underwear whilst they were all in the kitchen. I don't understand why this hasn't been discussed at trial