Continuation Part 10: Amanda Knox/Raffaele Sollecito

[Grinder]

Haha

From Amanda's book - On the 2nd of November she was asked- "What did you and Raffaele do yesterday afternoon and LAST NIGHT'. (Capitalization mine)

Am I going to hear some variant of Stockholm Syndrome or what device will be used to deny her own words?

"It seemed like a straightforward debriefing. I was too naive to imagine that the detectives suspected the murder had been an inside job..."

ETA - She also says that Laura and Filomena were talking to their lawyers about getting their stuff out of the cottage.

 

[Bill Williams]

I've spent the early afternoon reading reviews from the TIFF screenings of "The Face of an Angel." Suffice it to say that from an artistic point of view the film is either being panned, or labelled as a well intentioned mess.

As far as the case itself is concerned - the reviews are all over the map. Some call Meredith "the American". One reviewer admits to having been a friend of Barbie Nadeau's in Rome and complains that the film goes off track when protagonist Thomas "discovers her genitals".

Others say the case has not been solved and there's no likely future candidate to pin the murder on. Others blame Knox herself for creating the media circus in the first place. There is only spotty mention at all I could find of the Frank Sfarzo character, Edoardo, who comes the closest to cracking the case in the film, citing police incompetence and brutality.

The most revealing duality in the film is Simone Ford/Edoardo. Simone (Nadeau) only wants to take the facts of the case to a level deep enough to monetize her writing about it. Edoardo actually knows why the cops screwed up so badly.

Even though I thought the film was good, and was a fitting eulogy to Meredith Kercher (in the final coda), film professionals seem to be panning it. It will be shown again in London in October. Who knows if it will make theatres.

 

[Annella]

They eventually tried to drag eight people into the rape and murder of Michelle Moore-Bosko with the Norfolk Four.

Guess what, just like this case, one person actually did it.

Retired Italian Judge Edoardo Mori has a wonderful piece on the state of Forensic Science in Italy. In fact his whole site is a revelation.

This is a translation of a case that is still dragging on 20 years after the fact.

"During the 1990's in Puglia Italy, a serial killer...Sebai Muhammad raped and murdered 15 elderly women. Seven people were arrested for these murders, all of them innocent and all convicted on evidence that for Judges is fundamental, they confessed! No matter that they retracted these confessions and stated they were forced. One of the seven committed suicide in prison, others are still not yet fully exonerated. Not one shred of scientific evidence against any of them was ever found. But there is still a Public Minister in Puglia who believes several people with the same MO committed these murders."

 

[Desert Fox]

Retired Italian Judge Edoardo Mori has a wonderful piece on the state of Forensic Science in Italy. In fact his whole site is a revelation.

This is a translation of a case that is still dragging on 20 years after the fact.

"During the 1990's in Puglia Italy, a serial killer...Sebai Muhammad raped and murdered 15 elderly women. Seven people were arrested for these murders, all of them innocent and all convicted on evidence that for Judges is fundamental, they confessed! No matter that they retracted these confessions and stated they were forced. One of the seven committed suicide in prison, others are still not yet fully exonerated. Not one shred of scientific evidence against any of them was ever found. But there is still a Public Minister in Puglia who believes several people with the same MO committed these murders."

We, as a society in general, need to learn to accept that people confess to crimes that they did not commit. I believe I remember the number at 1/3 of all exonerations are based on convictions from false confessions.

 

[RWVBWL]

Hiya Annella,
I keep this, below, in mind when I read posts like yours,
Frank Sfrazo reporting:
Tuesday, December 30, 2008
Appetite for Punishment
Approaching the trial

<snip>
And indeed, in this scenario, Amanda and Raffaele's guiltiness is a truth that only a nut could doubt. Judges like Matteini or Micheli went beyond the mere technical requirement and expressed all their contempt for such degenerate people defining them, without periphrasis, the killers of Meredith.
But the guiltiness of Mr and Mrs Manyknives is not a truth just in the court, it became a popular sentiment. Even people who don't read anything about the case and just distractedly see TV, know the details of how Amanda stabbed Meredith while Raffaele was holding her down and Rudy was raping her; politicians criticised the public appearance in a video of Amanda because a stage shouldn't be given to a murderess; someone made a sick song about Amanda Knox, the girl who cut Meredith's throat; bar keepers and experts in the talk shows speak freely of Amanda as the murderess of Meredith; readers of the case meet on the web collecting all articles and pictures and satisfy their instinct of revenge in repeating to themselves the details of how Amanda and Raffaele killed Meredith. It's just the modern way of lynching suspects, which nowadays doesn't happen in the streets anymore, it takes place on internet.

<snip>

Before even a trial starts already 14 judges have ruled against Amanda and Raffaele with the help of many sectors and labs of police, squadra mobile, scientific police, postal police, UACV, carabinieri, examiners. All these hundreds of expert professionals are certain about their guiltiness, we know exactly how things have gone, Mignini kept saying during the investigation. And we know what he meant now.


http://web.archive.org/web/20101015182529/http://perugia-shock.blogspot.com/2008_12_01_archive.html


I wonder how Raff+Amanda ever thought that the 1st Trial would set them free?

 

[anglolawyer]

Haha

From Amanda's book - On the 2nd of November she was asked- "What did you and Raffaele do yesterday afternoon and LAST NIGHT'. (Capitalization mine)

Am I going to hear some variant of Stockholm Syndrome or what device will be used to deny her own words?

"It seemed like a straightforward debriefing. I was too naive to imagine that the detectives suspected the murder had been an inside job..."

ETA - She also says that Laura and Filomena were talking to their lawyers about getting their stuff out of the cottage.

Geez! You don't get it, do you? The Q & A will have been:

Q what were you doing last night?
A we were at Raf's place

The End

Not

Q what were you doing last night?
A we were at Raf's place
Q doing what?
A hanging out
Q yes, but take us through the evening, hour by hour
A why?
Q no reason. We don't suspect you or anything. You don't need a lawyer.
A oh
Q so what did you do between 8 and 9?
A dunno, watched a film
Q what film?
A look, what the **** is this?
Q nothing, really. What film?
A Amelie. Why does it matter?
Q oh, no reason. How about between 9 and 10?
A I don't know maybe we ate
Q (makes note, mouths words) doesn't know when she ate ... Did you go out?
A No
Q are you sure?
A look, this is ridiculous, why do you want to know this ******
Q just routine. What sort of cakes do you like with chamomile tea?
A I want a lawyer
Q ****

 

[carbonjam72]

Pretty sure you can order from Amazon USA and ship it to the UK

Can't you just download to kindle from any amazon site, regardless of what country you're in? Thought you could -

 

[carbonjam72]

I don't see that this is so fundamentally different from Amanda's alibi. Mignini managed to fit the circumstances of the murder around A & R's alibis, even though it forced him to make the time of death and their journeys to and from the cottage totally implausible.

Had he gone after Filomena I'm sure he could have found a willing tramp and a woman to hear an impossible scream at whatever time suited him.

He could have just asked Curatolo to have witnessed that too. Mignini had used him in two other cases, he was a very reliable witness every time.

 

[Desert Fox]

Can't you just download to kindle from any amazon site, regardless of what country you're in? Thought you could -

Could, not sure. . . .I don't have a kindle myself although might be time to at least start using a kindle app on my laptop or netbook.

 

[kwill]

Geez! You don't get it, do you? The Q & A will have been:

Q what were you doing last night?
A we were at Raf's place

The End

Not

Q what were you doing last night?
A we were at Raf's place
Q doing what?
A hanging out
Q yes, but take us through the evening, hour by hour
A why?
Q no reason. We don't suspect you or anything. You don't need a lawyer.
A oh
Q so what did you do between 8 and 9?
A dunno, watched a film
Q what film?
A look, what the **** is this?
Q nothing, really. What film?
A Amelie. Why does it matter?
Q oh, no reason. How about between 9 and 10?
A I don't know maybe we ate
Q (makes note, mouths words) doesn't know when she ate ... Did you go out?
A No
Q are you sure?
A look, this is ridiculous, why do you want to know this ******
Q just routine. What sort of cakes do you like with chamomile tea?
A I want a lawyer
Q ****

I don't know why this is hard to understand.

Amanda was questioned all week long about Meredith. (Vaseline!) She was asked for more and more details about the people Meredith knew, men who had been to the cottage, Meredith's habits and patterns. She wasn't asked for details about what time she started and finished eating until later, in the questura, when the police were trying to trap her.

Doug Preston described the technique very clearly in an article about The Monster of Florence, published in the Atlantic Monthly in July of 2006 long before Amanda had ever heard of Perugia. If she'd read this then, she might have been better prepared for what happened to her.

Mignini was a small man of indeterminate middle age, well groomed, with a fleshy face and thinning hair. His voice was calm and pleasant and he addressed me with elaborate courtesy, bestowing the honorific of dottore, which, in Italy, denotes the highest respect. He explained that I had the right to an interpreter, but finding one might take many hours, during which time I would be unpleasantly detained. In his opinion, I spoke Italian fluently. I asked if I needed a lawyer, and he said that, although it was of course my right, it wasn’t necessary; he merely wanted to ask a few questions of a routine nature.

His questions were gentle, posed almost apologetically. The stenographer typed the questions, and my answers, into her computer. Sometimes Mignini rephrased my answers in better Italian, checking solicitously to see if that was what I had meant to say. He asked me about Spezi’s lawyer, Alessandro Traversi, and wanted to know what I could say about Spezi’s legal strategy. He named many names and asked if Spezi had ever mentioned them. Most were unfamiliar. The questions went on like this for an hour, and I was starting to feel reassured. I even had a glimmer of hope that I might get out in time to join my wife and children for lunch at a nearby restaurant, which came highly recommended in the guidebooks.

At this point the conversation turned to our visit to the villa. Why did we go? What did we do there? Where exactly did we walk? Was there talk of a gun? Of iron boxes? Was my back ever to Spezi? Did we see anyone there? Who? What was said?

I answered truthfully, trying to suppress a damnable habit of over-explanation, but I could see that Mignini was not happy. He repeated the same questions, in different forms. It began to dawn on me that the previous line of inquiry had been nothing more than a few balls lobbed in the bullpen. Now, the game had begun.

Mignini’s face flushed as his frustration mounted. He frequently instructed the stenographer to read back my earlier answers. “You said that, and now you say this. Which is true, Dottor Preston? Which is true?”

I began to stumble over my words (as I’ve noted, I am not fluent in Italian, especially legal and criminological terms). With a growing sense of dismay, I could hear from my own stammering, hesitant voice that I was sounding like a liar.

source

That's pretty much how Amanda described her own interrogation on the night of Nov 5. But it's not how she was treated in the days before that.

 

[Grinder]

Geez! You don't get it, do you? The Q & A will have been:

Q what were you doing last night?
A we were at Raf's place

The End

Not

Q what were you doing last night?
A we were at Raf's place
Q doing what?
A hanging out
Q yes, but take us through the evening, hour by hour
A why?
Q no reason. We don't suspect you or anything. You don't need a lawyer.
A oh
Q so what did you do between 8 and 9?
A dunno, watched a film
Q what film?
A look, what the **** is this?
Q nothing, really. What film?
A Amelie. Why does it matter?
Q oh, no reason. How about between 9 and 10?
A I don't know maybe we ate
Q (makes note, mouths words) doesn't know when she ate ... Did you go out?
A No
Q are you sure?
A look, this is ridiculous, why do you want to know this ******
Q just routine. What sort of cakes do you like with chamomile tea?
A I want a lawyer
Q ****

We don't know but we do know that she was quizzed for hours and it started with what were you doing the night before. I'm sure the first set of questions wasn't you're detailed ones but they slipped questions in over the days.

I don't recall saying they started with a minute by minute account but I do recall someone saying that they didn't ask at all or at best what she wrote in her email.

I wonder if she admitted smoking at Raf's after having to lie for Laura about smoking in the cottage.

They would have couched it all about solving the case and "are you sure you didn't stop by to get things? " "We're just hoping something you remember will help." "So you went to Raf's and stayed in all night."

The idea that this group of bungling Keystone Kops could keep from asking anything except were you home is laughable.

 

[Grinder]

I don't know why this is hard to understand.

Amanda was questioned all week long about Meredith. (Vaseline!) She was asked for more and more details about the people Meredith knew, men who had been to the cottage, Meredith's habits and patterns. She wasn't asked for details about what time she started and finished eating until later, in the questura, when the police were trying to trap her.

Doug Preston described the technique very clearly in an article about The Monster of Florence, published in the Atlantic Monthly in July of 2006 long before Amanda had ever heard of Perugia. If she'd read this then, she might have been better prepared for what happened to her.

source

That's pretty much how Amanda described her own interrogation on the night of Nov 5. But it's not how she was treated in the days before that.

Quicquid.

First of all she wasn't interviewed by Mignini on the 2nd, 3rd and 4th. Secondly what in the world does it matter what Preston says vis-a-vis Amanda's Q&A on those first days. Thirdly, we weren't talking about the 5th at all.

She clearly was asked what she and Raf did the evening and night. The only question is how much detail and did they explore more over time. What was Raf referring to when he said the "pack of lies" remark?

ETA - have you read her own words about the escalating harshness of the questioning of her? That's by the cops before the 5th.

 

[platonov]

It's not a difficult Q

Fan club? You need to earn some respect here dude.

Respect ? I'm not looking for respect or disapprobrium.

I'm seeking an answer to a perfectly straightforward Q.

How widespread is the circulation of images of the naked corpse of a young woman who was sexually assaulted and murdered among fans of the woman who (with others) killed her.

It's not a difficult Q. The answer seems to be an issue apparently.

 

[Bill Williams]

Respect ? I'm not looking for respect or disapprobrium.

I'm seeking an answer to a perfectly straightforward Q.

How widespread is the circulation of images of the naked corpse of a young woman who was sexually assaulted and murdered among fans of the woman who (with others) killed her.

It's not a difficult Q. The answer seems to be an issue apparently.

AFAIK not widespread at all, if "spread" at all. However, I do appreciate that folk like yourself love to make this suggestion that this is.

For me, you've poised a, "when did you stop beating your wife" question. You assume the answer to your own question because of your agenda.

 

[Grinder]

Respect ? I'm not looking for respect or disapprobrium.

I'm seeking an answer to a perfectly straightforward Q.

How widespread is the circulation of images of the naked corpse of a young woman who was sexually assaulted and murdered among fans of the woman who (with others) killed her.

It's not a difficult Q. The answer seems to be an issue apparently.

I used the fan word and do agree that supporter is a better more accurate (at least for most) term.

The pictures of Meredith were shown in closed court during the first trial and then at the appeal Francesco Maresca made them public by showing them in open court.

This is not the first time that Francesco Maresca has displayed unprofessional behavior. During the 2011 appeal (that resulted in acquittal of Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito), in an act absent of any decency or respect toward the clients that he represents, Maresca, without warning, displayed photographs of Meredith’s naked body in open court, simply for shock value. Retired FBI Agent Steve Moore was in court when the photos were presented and made these observations:

“without warning, without dignity, without any apparent concern for Meredith or her grieving family, without decency, an attorney began to display eight foot square, gruesome, lurid and obscene naked full-frontal photographs of Meredith Kercher’s blood-smeared body, lying on the floor next to her bed where she had been murdered and sexually assaulted. She lay in the very position that Rudy Guede left her after putting a pillow under her hips to assist in the sexual assault. The photos were, to say the least, explicit, and press cameras immediately began clicking, as the courtroom spectators stood and moved toward the huge screen where the large photos were being displayed. Meredith was shown from the tips of her toes all the way to her eyes, fixed in a glassy, gruesome stare above a gaping throat slash. The audience gasped. More grisly photos followed; close-ups of the deep slash to Meredith’s throat, showing the severed muscles and larynx. But still the photos continued; photos which showed graphically the sputum foam which was the result of her labored breathing as the blood from her neck drained into her lungs. The photos showed her empty eyes and her blood-caked hair.”

​

 

[RWVBWL]

The pictures of Meredith were shown in closed court during the first trial and then at the appeal Francesco Maresca made them public by showing them in open court.

This is not the first time that Francesco Maresca has displayed unprofessional behavior. During the 2011 appeal (that resulted in acquittal of Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito), in an act absent of any decency or respect toward the clients that he represents, Maresca, without warning, displayed photographs of Meredith’s naked body in open court, simply for shock value. Retired FBI Agent Steve Moore was in court when the photos were presented and made these observations:

“without warning, without dignity, without any apparent concern for Meredith or her grieving family, without decency, an attorney began to display eight foot square, gruesome, lurid and obscene naked full-frontal photographs of Meredith Kercher’s blood-smeared body, lying on the floor next to her bed where she had been murdered and sexually assaulted. She lay in the very position that Rudy Guede left her after putting a pillow under her hips to assist in the sexual assault. The photos were, to say the least, explicit, and press cameras immediately began clicking, as the courtroom spectators stood and moved toward the huge screen where the large photos were being displayed. Meredith was shown from the tips of her toes all the way to her eyes, fixed in a glassy, gruesome stare above a gaping throat slash. The audience gasped. More grisly photos followed; close-ups of the deep slash to Meredith’s throat, showing the severed muscles and larynx. But still the photos continued; photos which showed graphically the sputum foam which was the result of her labored breathing as the blood from her neck drained into her lungs. The photos showed her empty eyes and her blood-caked hair.”

​

Gotta win, baby, win!!!

 

[Matthew Best]

How widespread is the circulation of images of the naked corpse of a young woman who was sexually assaulted and murdered among fans of the woman who (with others) killed her.

Why are you so interested in seeing them?

 

[lonepinealex]

Why are you so interested in seeing them?

How is any one person supposed to answer platonov's question anyway? Does he imagine everyone pro-innocence is in some kind of club and all know each other and who has which pictures?

I've never seen any of the explicit crime scene pics, apart from the one where you can see Meredith's foot from under the duvet. I don't know where people get the ones showing the corpse and wounds.

 

[Matthew Best]

Well, if anyone knows how to see them, please pass them on to platonov. He is really keen to take a look for some reason.

 

[Bill Williams]

I used the fan word and do agree that supporter is a better more accurate (at least for most) term.

The pictures of Meredith were shown in closed court during the first trial and then at the appeal Francesco Maresca made them public by showing them in open court.

This is not the first time that Francesco Maresca has displayed unprofessional behavior. During the 2011 appeal (that resulted in acquittal of Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito), in an act absent of any decency or respect toward the clients that he represents, Maresca, without warning, displayed photographs of Meredith’s naked body in open court, simply for shock value. Retired FBI Agent Steve Moore was in court when the photos were presented and made these observations:

“without warning, without dignity, without any apparent concern for Meredith or her grieving family, without decency, an attorney began to display eight foot square, gruesome, lurid and obscene naked full-frontal photographs of Meredith Kercher’s blood-smeared body, lying on the floor next to her bed where she had been murdered and sexually assaulted. She lay in the very position that Rudy Guede left her after putting a pillow under her hips to assist in the sexual assault. The photos were, to say the least, explicit, and press cameras immediately began clicking, as the courtroom spectators stood and moved toward the huge screen where the large photos were being displayed. Meredith was shown from the tips of her toes all the way to her eyes, fixed in a glassy, gruesome stare above a gaping throat slash. The audience gasped. More grisly photos followed; close-ups of the deep slash to Meredith’s throat, showing the severed muscles and larynx. But still the photos continued; photos which showed graphically the sputum foam which was the result of her labored breathing as the blood from her neck drained into her lungs. The photos showed her empty eyes and her blood-caked hair.”

​

This.