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

[proudfootz]

With all due respect, you are not being specific enough in your thinking or writing. The two smaller wounds were different, and one of them has bruising from the hilt of the knife. IIUC from the depth of this would, one can estimate the length of the blade. That is why the big kitchen knife is incompatible with the smaller wounds. The largest wound was a slash wound. Please cite some evidence which shows that the kitchen knife matches this wound or withdraw your claim.

Apparently there were at least two knives.

Another indicator of multiple assailants.

But surely you knew this?

That both Sollecito and Knox were worried about this knife indicates guilty knowledge.

 

[js202]

Apparently there were at least two knives.

Try submitting proof of this, not Nencini's idiotic "reasoning."

 

[Vibio]

Apparently there were at least two knives.

Another indicator of multiple assailants.

But surely you knew this?

That both Sollecito and Knox were worried about this knife indicates guilty knowledge.

Proudfootz: You gotta love Knife-Boy's excuse :

"The fact that there is Meredithʹs DNA on the kitchen knife is because on one occasion, while we were cooking together, I, while moving around at home [and] handling the knife, pricked her hand, and I apologized at once but she was not hurt . So the only real explanation for that kitchen knife is this one."

And funny isn't it that the Murderess Amanda Knox tries to implicate Raffy in her back-peddling note to the cops:

"After dinner I noticed there was blood on Raffaele's hand, but I was under the impression that it was blood from the fish."

WTF?

And then there is the transportation of the murder weapon.... the theory, curiously enough, was brought up by ol' Knife-Boy himself in his diary to dad. :

"But I saw Tiziano today who calmed me down: he told me that the knife could not have been the murder weapon, according to the medical examiner , and that it has nothing to do with anything because Amanda could have taken it and carried it from my house to her house since the girls didnʹt have a knife like that one, they are causing a commotion for nothing... "

 

[proudfootz]

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.

This seems odd - it would have been better to choose knives to test at random when trying to solve a murder?

Perhaps they should have run DNA tests on swabs taken from random spots around the globe - just in case!

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.

There would seem to be good reasons for experienced investigators to focus their attention on likely murder weapons instead of wasting efforts on things like butter knives and serrated bread knives.

Of course there was no DNA of Meredith on that kitchen knife -- there probably was no DNA of Amanda on it either.

Unfortunately for the perps, scientific analysis did find the victim's DNA on a knife in possession of a person with no reliable alibi who was found at the murder scene.

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).

They did have business looking for one of the murder weapons at the apartment of the suspect. It is the business of the police to solve crimes in civilized countries.

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.

So on one hand you say they shouldn't look at other knives, but earlier you write they should have. I guess no matter what they did they'd be wrong. Convenient!

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.

I suppose they were constrained by going with the evidence. But it's hard to see how the absence of Kercher's DNA on one knife 'causes' her DNA to appear on another knife.

Unless it's a diabolical conspiracy...

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.

Sollecito also wrote:

"The fact that there is Meredithʹs DNA on the kitchen knife is because on one occasion, while we were cooking together, I, while moving around at home {and} handling the knife, pricked her hand, and I apologized at once but she was not hurt {lei non si era fatta niente}. So the only real explanation for that kitchen knife is this one."

So he is quick to dream up new alibis as needed, even if they are patently false.

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.

One of the other CTs was frantically denying there were scratches on the knife, and that only by some arcane and complex means could they be found.

Glad you are here to back me up on this rather mundane fact.

 

[proudfootz]

Proudfootz: You gotta love Knife-Boy's excuse :

"The fact that there is Meredithʹs DNA on the kitchen knife is because on one occasion, while we were cooking together, I, while moving around at home [and] handling the knife, pricked her hand, and I apologized at once but she was not hurt . So the only real explanation for that kitchen knife is this one."

And funny isn't it that the Murderess Amanda Knox tries to implicate Raffy in her back-peddling note to the cops:

"After dinner I noticed there was blood on Raffaele's hand, but I was under the impression that it was blood from the fish."

WTF?

And then there is the transportation of the murder weapon.... the theory, curiously enough, was brought up by ol' Knife-Boy himself in his diary to dad. :

"But I saw Tiziano today who calmed me down: he told me that the knife could not have been the murder weapon, according to the medical examiner , and that it has nothing to do with anything because Amanda could have taken it and carried it from my house to her house since the girls didnʹt have a knife like that one, they are causing a commotion for nothing... "

It is rather curious that the two suspects turned on each other once it was obvious they were under the spotlight.

 

[Chris_Halkides]

The 2013 test on the knife

Apparently there were at least two knives.

Another indicator of multiple assailants.

But surely you knew this?

That both Sollecito and Knox were worried about this knife indicates guilty knowledge.

Your premise is false. A single, smaller knife could have made all three wounds, just not a knife that is the size of Sollecito's kitchen knife. The only thing tying Sollecito's Marietta(?) knife to the crime is the disputed 2007 DNA result. There are many reasons to question the 2007 result, but let's focus on just one.

In 2013 the Court of Supreme Cassation termed a retest of this knife "decisive," and for once, I agree. Not only did the Carabinieri fail to find Meredith's profile, but they also indicated that when working in the low template region, that at least two amplifications had to be done. The failure to find Meredith's DNA was "decisive," but the words of the scientists from the Carabinieri supported one aspect of Conti and Vecchiotti's conclusions. The Carabinieri underscored one of the many problems with the original 2007 test, namely the failure to do a replicate amplification. This one-two punch would have knocked the knife out as evidence in the reality-based community, which does not include the Nencini court.

 

[Desert Fox]

Sollecito also wrote:

"The fact that there is Meredithʹs DNA on the kitchen knife is because on one occasion, while we were cooking together, I, while moving around at home {and} handling the knife, pricked her hand, and I apologized at once but she was not hurt {lei non si era fatta niente}. So the only real explanation for that kitchen knife is this one."

So he is quick to dream up new alibis as needed, even if they are patently false.

I am going to pretend you are being honest here. . . .
Have either read anything or watched any programs on false confessions.
You are presented with a piece of "evidence" and you try to look for some reason why it might be.
At the level of the evidence, it could as easily have been that a few dna strands of Meredeth stuck on Amanda.
You do understand that we are effectively swimming in DNA floating through the air?

 

[kwill]

The victim's DNA was not found on the blade of the knife.

Unfortunately for the perpetrators, professional forensic investigators concluded otherwise.

Unless you're trying to say Meredith Kercher had a clone whose DNA profile was found on the blade of the knife in Sollecito's possession...?

You're way behind and I'm afraid you may never catch up.

The victim's DNA was not found on the blade of the knife. There was an effort on the part of the prosecution to claim that it was, but that effort failed in quite spectacular fashion, twice.

Making an unsupported claim is playground behavior & has no place in a court of law. Back to work, you.

 

[proudfootz]

Try submitting proof of this, not Nencini's idiotic "reasoning."

Not sure what kind of 'proof' you're looking for.

Knife found in possession of suspect consistent with fatal wound on victim.

Knife has DNA of victim on blade.

Knife has DNA from suspect on handle.

No innocent explanation for how this came to be, except lame and false 'cooking accident' alibi floated by suspect.

It's just another example of a couple of idiots thinking they can outsmart detectives and get away with murder.

Nothing special about this.

 

[Chris_Halkides]

the power of control experiments

This seems odd - it would have been better to choose knives to test at random when trying to solve a murder?

Perhaps they should have run DNA tests on swabs taken from random spots around the globe - just in case!



There would seem to be good reasons for experienced investigators to focus their attention on likely murder weapons instead of wasting efforts on things like butter knives and serrated bread knives.

proudfootz,

Before you comment futher, I suggest you assuage your ignorance of the concept of a substrate control in forensics. It is a powerful experiment. While you are at it, I suggest you ask yourself why the knives at the cottage were not tested, and why Patrick's knives were not tested. And to round out your quest for knowledge, I suggest reading up on negative controls and their uses and misuses (Professor William Thompson's essays are especially good IMO). Then you can come back and tell us why Stefanoni should not be pilloried for refusing to turn them over. I will be all ears.

 

[Chris_Halkides]

the statements at face value

T
They did have business looking for one of the murder weapons at the apartment of the suspect. It is the business of the police to solve crimes in civilized countries.

proudfootz,

Even taking Amanda's coerced and nonsensical statements at face value for a moment, Amanda said that she was unsure whether or not Raffaele was at the women's flat. Raffaele never said he was there. Thus the rationale for believing that he was there is slender, relative to believing Patrick was there. If the police took Amanda's coerced and nonsensical statements at face value, they should have been testing Patrick's knives. It is actually quite simple, despite your best efforts to make it needlessly complex.

 

[proudfootz]

The victim's DNA was not found on the blade of the knife.

Making an unsupported claim is playground behavior & has no place in a court of law. Back to work, you.

There was an effort on the part of the prosecution to claim that it was, but that effort failed in quite spectacular fashion, twice.

Really? According to whom?

Some amateur online detectives?

Apparently the scientific findings were good enough for courts of law.

Or by 'court of law' you mean the internet forum?

 

[proudfootz]

proudfootz,

Even taking Amanda's coerced and nonsensical statements at face value for a moment, Amanda said that she was unsure whether or not Raffaele was at the women's flat. Raffaele never said he was there. Thus the rationale for believing that he was there is quite slender, even relative to believing Patrick was there. If the police took Amanda's coerced and nonsensical statements at face value, they should have been testing Patrick's knives. It is actually quite simple, despite your best efforts to make it needlessly complex.

Actually, it's quite simple.

Sollecito was found along with Knox at the murder scene when police arrived.

Due to their odd behavior and nonsensical lies they made themselves rather obvious suspects.

No needlessly complex, idiotic, and bizarre conspiracy need be imagined to explain why police might investigate a little further.

 

[Bill Williams]

Apparently there were at least two knives.

Try submitting proof of this, not Nencini's idiotic "reasoning."

If there is proof I'd like to see it.

Frank Sfarzo was a guilter, hanging around the cottage in the early days of the investigation. The very first inkling he got, according to his early English language blog, that something was amiss with this supposed open and shut case.....

.... was when he asked someone guarding the cottage if they'd ever searched the forested area below. The answer he got was, "We already have the knife."

Frank being Frank realized this was not exactly the answer to the question as asked.

Mignini pressed "two knives" into service at the first prosecution mainly because the kitchen knife did not match the bedsheet outline... so instead of proving "two knives" his concern, really, was to explain why the outline did not match the sole knife they'd ever investigated. (With the exception of Sollecito's penknife he'd taken to the Questura on Nov 5. for interrogation! That knife matched nothing either and was forensically uninteresting.)

Then Crini at the third trial comes up with the theory that the kitchen knife WAS a match for the outline. No less than Machiavelli, a now disappeared poster to this thread, anticipated this claim by a few days last fall!!!!

What with all the criticisms aimed at the defendants for "always changing their story", I wish the same criteria would be applied to the various theories floated, then withdrawn, by the various prosecutions and convicting judges.

Amanda and Raffaele have always said the same thing, with a brief interlude from Nov 6 to 7 when they were in police custody without legal representation.

In comparison... and this is right now only about the knife (or knives! Which is it?) the prosecutions have had a veritable revolving door of possibilities, probablies and assertions.

Hell, Nencini abandoned the "she was killed over pooh in the toilet," theory the prosecutor in Florence advanced for the, "She was killed over a dispute over missing rent money," a factoid with only one source - Rudy Guede.

And the only thing that ALL sides can agree upon is that Guede is a liar. Yet Nencini believes him.

So, were there two knives? If there were it's probably in the woods below the cottage. Acc. to Frank, those woods were never searched.

Many, many thanks to proudfootz for bringing this back to memory, as he/she comes up to speed with this horrid crime commited against Meredith.

 

[Chris_Halkides]

more assuaging needed

Apparently the scientific findings were good enough for courts of law.

proudfootz,

I suggest reading the Conti-Vecchiotti report. They were independent, court-appointed experts (I provided a link to a portion of it earlier). Unlike Stefanoni the technician who was caught making false statements to the court, Vecchiotti is a researcher in the field of DNA forensics.

 

[Bill Williams]

Making an unsupported claim is playground behavior & has no place in a court of law. Back to work, you.



Really? According to whom?

Some amateur online detectives?

Apparently the scientific findings were good enough for courts of law.

Or by 'court of law' you mean the internet forum?

That is the scary part. Truly, would you want a case against you adjudicated by the standards of the Stefanoni lab and the Massei/Nencini courts?

Once again, I beg you to at least read the Massei report. He at least is honest enough to outline the criticisms you claim are not there, and he is honest enough to reveal his method of judgement. He believes Stefanoni, "just because."

Are you willing to risk 28 years of your life on such reasoning?

 

[Bill Williams]

Actually, it's quite simple.

Sollecito was found along with Knox at the murder scene when police arrived.

Due to their odd behavior and nonsensical lies they made themselves rather obvious suspects.

No needlessly complex, idiotic, and bizarre conspiracy need be imagined to explain why police might investigate a little further.

Can you please outline those lies?

I tried two years ago to find these claimed lies and could find only 13 were ever claimed by guilters. Harry Rag wrote a list of ten of them, and an obscure guilter blog (now gone) added another three.

None of the lies claimed concern the period of time when the postal police arrived (you do realize they were the postal police don't you?)

On analysis, none of the lies bear out. I can post the list if you want.

Truly, if you have any other claimed lies, we're all ears. My bet is that you will simply make the assertion/allegation, and chicken out when you realize you're just passing on the guilter propaganda.

 

[Chris_Halkides]

one plank is now in place

Sollecito was found along with Knox at the murder scene when police arrived.

Due to their odd behavior and nonsensical lies they made themselves rather obvious suspects.

No needlessly complex, idiotic, and bizarre conspiracy need be imagined to explain why police might investigate a little further.

proudfootz,

You have just tacitly acknowledged that they were suspects in fact on 2 November. According to Italian law, suspects must be provided a lawyer; they cannot refuse one. Thus the authorities failed to perform one of their central duties. Thank you for making a portion of the PI case.

 

[Vibio]

proudfootz wrote: "They did have business looking for one of the murder weapons at the apartment of the suspect."

Of course they did.

And the reason they went for the knife in Raff's kitchen is beacause Knox blurted, out of the blue, in her note to the police,

"After dinner I noticed there was blood on Raffaele's hand, but I was under the impression that it was blood from the fish."


(you know, the note where she couldn't clearly remember anything, except for this one curious fact)

Damn right they're going to go looking for a knife in Raffy's kitchen.

 

[proudfootz]

proudfootz,

Before you comment futher, I suggest you assuage your ignorance of the concept of a substrate control in forensics. It is a powerful experiment. While you are at it, I suggest you ask yourself why the knives at the cottage were not tested, and why Patrick's knives were not tested. And to round out your quest for knowledge, I suggest reading up on negative controls and their uses and misuses (Professor William Thompson's essays are especially good IMO). Then you can come back and tell us why Stefanoni should not be pilloried for refusing to turn them over. I will be all ears.

I'm merely answering the patent nonsense offered in response to my reasonable posts.

William Thompson's expert opinion was offered at which part of the trial or appeal? I'd like to read his testimony and its weight relative to the other expert testimony.