<snip>So, it wasn't 'random' then, was it?
A knife that matches the fatal wound, the only knife there, apparently recently scrubbed.
By 'random' you must mean 'the most likely murder weapon'.<snip>
You are correct, proudfootz. The knife was not chosen at random. It was chosen specifically for its dramatic appearance. The fact that it was not chosen at random is what renders it scientifically much weaker as evidence than it otherwise might have been.
The proper procedure would have been for all the kitchen knives from Raffaele's apartment to be tested for Meredith's DNA -- that is the only way that particular knife could be differentiated with scientific certainty from all the knives in his drawer. The chances that you can pick the correct knife out of a drawer of twenty knives are one in twenty, but if you test all the knives and the one you picked is the only one with Meredith's DNA on it, then you can be 100%, not 5%, certain you have the correct knife.
Of course there was no DNA of Meredith on that kitchen knife -- there probably was no DNA of Amanda on it either. The police had no business looking for a murder weapon in Raffaele's kitchen, but they realized that all of the knives in Amanda and Meredith's kitchen probably would have Meredith's DNA on them, which wouldn't solve anything for them (oddly, they didn't bother to test them for blood).
Why police looked for a kitchen knife at all defies explanation. They must not have known that Mignini and Matteini were operating on the theory that Raffaele's flick knife was the murder weapon, as Matteini wrote in her report on the 9th.
Interestingly, both knives were obtained on the 6th, but I believe the DNA results on Raffaele's knife came back before the results on the kitchen knife, which were revealed on the 16th. It's odd they didn't bother to just replace Raffaele's flick knife with the kitchen knife, as they would replace Lumumba with Guede. But they thought they still had Raffaele's shoes, and they didn't have anything on Amanda -- hence the "double DNA knife" with Amanda and Meredith's DNA.
ETA: On the 11th, Raffaele wrote, "They say that on the knife there are no traces of blood, so I am much more relaxed ... I cannot wait for the scientific results from Rome." (He is talking about his own knife.)
On the 16th, he wrote, "Last night I saw on television that the knife that I had at home (the
one from the kitchen) has traces of Meredith and Amanda (latent) ...my heart jumped in my throat and I was in total panic because I thought that Amanda had killed Meredith or had helped someone in the
enterprise. But today I saw Tiziano who calmed me down: he told me that the knife could not have been the murder weapon, according to the legal doctor..."
Can't find anything else on the flick knife.
Wow - it really
was complicated!
"[Dr. Stephanoni] specified that trace B had been taken from a point on the face of the blade; she added that no biological trace was visible to the naked eye. However [she added that‚ "under considerable lighting,
a series of streaks were visible to the naked eye. These streaks ran parallel to the upper part of the blade, therefore, more or less, they were parallel to this side [of the blade] and towards the point they went downward and, therefore, they followed the shape of the point. These streaks, anomalies in the metal, were visible to the naked eye under intense lighting" (page 95 of the transcript). Still
in regard to the visibility of these streaks, she specified that they were "visible under good lighting by changing the angle at which the light hit the blade, since obviously the blade reflects light and thus creates shadows, making imperfections visible"."
The forensic scientist
held it up to the light!
Such an
unheard of method!
No one
ever used such an unprecedented technique before!
In the past it was always the practice to examine evidence in the dark?
What purpose does it serve to look at a knife under "intense lighting?" Streaks like that exist on every kitchen utensil and plate that has ever been used.
Here is something from Bill Williams' favorite reporter, Andrea Vogt:
Many outside observers believe the court should allow for such an independent review, given the number of protocol mistakes revealed in the first trial.
Defense attorneys and their expert witnesses heavily criticized the work of police biologist Patrizia Stefanoni and the Perugia and Rome forensic teams working under her direction for such missteps as not changing gloves after picking up evidence, poor collection methods and incomplete records of how evidence was handled and in what exact order during later laboratory testing.
No police labs in Italy had certification at the time since no national standards existed.
More than 100 pieces of physical evidence were introduced in the first trial, including footprints attributed to Knox and Sollecito that police say were made in the victim's blood and four spots of mixed DNA (blood from both Knox and the victim) found in an adjacent bathroom and bedroom.
But the two of the primary pieces of evidence against Knox and Sollecito are highly contested: A bra clasp originally catalogued in the first days after the murder that was picked up in a sweep of the crime scene 46 days later, and the kitchen knife with Knox's DNA found on the handle and the victim's DNA found on the blade. The bra clasp is said to contain Sollecito's DNA.
The amount of Kercher's DNA found on the blade was such a trace amount it registered with a "too low" reading when analyzed.
A top geneticist at one of Europe's top forensic labs at the University of Salzburg confirmed in an interview with seattlepi.com that it is possible to amplify such a small amount of DNA, as Stefanoni did, until DNA can be identified.
But the expert added that it would not be allowable unless the result could be reproduced, something police biologist Stefanoni said under cross-examination could not be done.
