Continuation Part 10: Amanda Knox/Raffaele Sollecito

[Kauffer]

If I were a juror....

...I mean a real juror in a common law jurisdiction rather than a faux juror elevated to the status of a judge but diminished in every meaningful respect...I would be arguing very strongly that we all must, if we are to be intellectually honest, succeed in overcoming the burden imposed by 'Locard's exchange principle' before we trouble ourselves and over complicate matters by discussing the relative merits of luminol and TMB as efficacious or otherwise indicators of blood, or whether 'Naruto' played alone or to an audience, or even whether or not a spontaneous staging of a burglary is credible.

The prosecution and the pro-guilt lobby works it's little disingenuous socks off trying to get, theoretically, Ms Knox and Mr Sollecito to the outside of Meredith Kercher's bedroom door and wills them inside to commit the muder. Then back to Mr Sollecito's flat afterwards to enjoy the adrenaline; no shower for Ms Knox and no transfer evidence? How does that work? The hooks and knife's alleged DNA traces don't cut it - tiny traces if there at all and unrepeatable tests.

What kind of a thing is it that can make an abattoir out of a bedroom and leave nothing behind and take nothing away?

If I were a juror on this case, I couldn't in all conscience, argue my way out of the lack of evidence in the murder room and at Mr Sollecito's flat. Perhaps I am wrong. Perhaps, Niccolo will tell me why or how and with what the clean up was accomplished and what happened to those materials and all the bloody clothes.

 

[Bill Williams]

But your reasoning is wrong. The lack of a 100% confirmation does not make a piece of circumstantial evidence disappear.

In the on-going exposition about the way Machiavelli reasons......

Note the implied double negative about, and the way Machiavelli tries to rescue crap evidence so as to be considered "osmotically" with other crap evidence.

For starters - where did this "100%" come from - this is a strawman argument. No one is asking for 100% certainty, and indeed nothing under discussion in this thread about Luminol, TMB, probative tests, or confirmatory tests or anything speaks of 100% anything or even its lack....

Putting it Machiavelli's way, one could prove this.

White = not black.
Green = not black.​

And since Not black = not black.......

White = green.​

There's smoke. There're mirrors. There's Machiavelli.

Machiavelli also once called Barbie Latza Nadeau an "approximate reporter", not quite the calibre of Andrea Vogt, but close.

Now that Michael Winterbottom's film is out, what is Machiavelli's assessment of Barbie Latza Nadeau?

 

[Numbers]

...I mean a real juror in a common law jurisdiction rather than a faux juror elevated to the status of a judge but diminished in every meaningful respect...I would be arguing very strongly that we all must, if we are to be intellectually honest, succeed in overcoming the burden imposed by 'Locard's exchange principle' before we trouble ourselves and over complicate matters by discussing the relative merits of luminol and TMB as efficacious or otherwise indicators of blood, or whether 'Naruto' played alone or to an audience, or even whether or not a spontaneous staging of a burglary is credible.

The prosecution and the pro-guilt lobby works it's little disingenuous socks off trying to get, theoretically, Ms Knox and Mr Sollecito to the outside of Meredith Kercher's bedroom door and wills them inside to commit the muder. Then back to Mr Sollecito's flat afterwards to enjoy the adrenaline; no shower for Ms Knox and no transfer evidence? How does that work? The hooks and knife's alleged DNA traces don't cut it - tiny traces if there at all and unrepeatable tests.

What kind of a thing is it that can make an abattoir out of a bedroom and leave nothing behind and take nothing away?

If I were a juror on this case, I couldn't in all conscience, argue my way out of the lack of evidence in the murder room and at Mr Sollecito's flat. Perhaps I am wrong. Perhaps, Niccolo will tell me why or how and with what the clean up was accomplished and what happened to those materials and all the bloody clothes.

Your point is a strong one. AK and RS were convicted at 1st level and at the CSC-ordered 2nd level (Nencini) only by an inquisitional process where the lack of inculpatory evidence was ignored and exculpatory evidence was suppressed. The lack of inculpatory evidence alone, in a properly functioning adversarial trial, would force an acquittal.

Indeed, there was never any honest reasonable suspicion (probable cause) to arrest AK and RS - just police misconduct.

 

[Bill Williams]

...I mean a real juror in a common law jurisdiction rather than a faux juror elevated to the status of a judge but diminished in every meaningful respect...I would be arguing very strongly that we all must, if we are to be intellectually honest, succeed in overcoming the burden imposed by 'Locard's exchange principle' before we trouble ourselves and over complicate matters by discussing the relative merits of luminol and TMB as efficacious or otherwise indicators of blood, or whether 'Naruto' played alone or to an audience, or even whether or not a spontaneous staging of a burglary is credible.

The prosecution and the pro-guilt lobby works it's little disingenuous socks off trying to get, theoretically, Ms Knox and Mr Sollecito to the outside of Meredith Kercher's bedroom door and wills them inside to commit the muder. Then back to Mr Sollecito's flat afterwards to enjoy the adrenaline; no shower for Ms Knox and no transfer evidence? How does that work? The hooks and knife's alleged DNA traces don't cut it - tiny traces if there at all and unrepeatable tests.

What kind of a thing is it that can make an abattoir out of a bedroom and leave nothing behind and take nothing away?

If I were a juror on this case, I couldn't in all conscience, argue my way out of the lack of evidence in the murder room and at Mr Sollecito's flat. Perhaps I am wrong. Perhaps, Niccolo will tell me why or how and with what the clean up was accomplished and what happened to those materials and all the bloody clothes.

This.

My own "conversion" from a very soft, uninformed guilt position three years ago to being a supporter of the pair was when one ran the assumed "clean-up" through one's neural pathways.

First and foremost, a clean-up would have been detected with luminol. And what had been presumably cleaned up could have been confirmed as blood with all the confirmatory tests people are talking about. Tell-tale swirls would have been invisible to an alleged cleaner. Unless the perpetrator was also equipped with something luminol-like, they would have left evidence that a clean had happened. They'd have had no reasonable way to tell what they'd missed that luminol could later find.

Judge Massei, in his 2010 motivations report, only talks about one alleged clean-up - not in the murder room. His reconciliation of the presence of the bathmat foottrack, with no intervening foottracks from the bedroom leads him to the irresistable conclusion that the hallway had been cleaned, even though there is NO evidence in front of his court suggesting one.

The guilt-lobby implies that there must have been a clean-up in the murder room, or else their scenario does not work. Judge Massei convicts in 2009 based on no clean-up in the murder room.

Once one's neural pathways accept that there is no clean-up done by either AK or RS then the other things fall like a house of cards. Most notably, the alleged staging of a break-in.

In an exercise which would make William of Occam proud, what one is left with is the most likely "fit" for the evidence: Rudy Guede did this. Alone. (Or at the very best, with unknown confederates - but then again, these unknowns are hidden in the same way as AK and RS. Perhaps they are two of Meredith's "amica", found on the bra-clasp along with Raffaele and Maredith's boyfriend. All Y-genetic stuff to boot.)

 

[Kauffer]

Let's be nice to the prosecutor

This from John Kercher's homage to his daughter, "Meredith":

"Having met Mr Mignini on several occasions in Perugia, I felt that the accusations being thrown at him were completely unfounded. To me, he comes across as an avuncular man with a pleasant smile...."

Does anyone have Mr Mignini's phone number? I should imagine he is the perfect dinner party guest.

In the meantime, take note that Ms Knox was railroaded NOT by some lunatic, criminal, fanatical, medieval crazy man, professionally humiliated and in desperate need of reputational rehabilitation requiring the sacrifice of an innocent student and her boyfriend, but by an avuncular man with a pleasant smile.

 

[Kauffer]

This.

My own "conversion" from a very soft, uninformed guilt position three years ago to being a supporter of the pair was when one ran the assumed "clean-up" through one's neural pathways.

First and foremost, a clean-up would have been detected with luminol. And what had been presumably cleaned up could have been confirmed as blood with all the confirmatory tests people are talking about. Tell-tale swirls would have been invisible to an alleged cleaner. Unless the perpetrator was also equipped with something luminol-like, they would have left evidence that a clean had happened. They'd have had no reasonable way to tell what they'd missed that luminol could later find.

Judge Massei, in his 2010 motivations report, only talks about one alleged clean-up - not in the murder room. His reconciliation of the presence of the bathmat foottrack, with no intervening foottracks from the bedroom leads him to the irresistable conclusion that the hallway had been cleaned, even though there is NO evidence in front of his court suggesting one.

The guilt-lobby implies that there must have been a clean-up in the murder room, or else their scenario does not work. Judge Massei convicts in 2009 based on no clean-up in the murder room.

Once one's neural pathways accept that there is no clean-up done by either AK or RS then the other things fall like a house of cards. Most notably, the alleged staging of a break-in.

In an exercise which would make William of Occam proud, what one is left with is the most likely "fit" for the evidence: Rudy Guede did this. Alone. (Or at the very best, with unknown confederates - but then again, these unknowns are hidden in the same way as AK and RS. Perhaps they are two of Meredith's "amica", found on the bra-clasp along with Raffaele and Maredith's boyfriend. All Y-genetic stuff to boot.)

Yes- sound and common sense. Absent dietrologia and all the better for it. Of course, luminol was not used in the murder room but that's a small matter. We would have seen voids on the floor where the prints had been wiped out of the blood.

 

[Dan O.]

...
If I were a juror on this case, I couldn't in all conscience, argue my way out of the lack of evidence in the murder room and at Mr Sollecito's flat. Perhaps I am wrong. Perhaps, Niccolo will tell me why or how and with what the clean up was accomplished and what happened to those materials and all the bloody clothes.

You are new here so you probably are not aware of all the evidence that has been presented in these threads.

I have on prior occasions posted photographic evidence proving a case for bleach being used in the hallway outside the room where Meredith was murdered.

 

[Numbers]

You are new here so you probably are not aware of all the evidence that has been presented in these threads.

I have on prior occasions posted photographic evidence proving a case for bleach being used in the hallway outside the room where Meredith was murdered.

Could you provide more details to bring those of us who are relatively new up-to-date?

I am aware of statements that the police cleaned up a print on the floor attributed to Guede - is that what you are addressing?

 

[Kauffer]

You are new here so you probably are not aware of all the evidence that has been presented in these threads.

I have on prior occasions posted photographic evidence proving a case for bleach being used in the hallway outside the room where Meredith was murdered.

I see. Did the proof extend to demonstrating when the bleach was used and by whom? I am sure that someone at some time cleaned the hall with bleach. But was it connected to the death of Ms Kercher and was it inculpatory?

My post was of course all about the evidence or lack of it in the murder room and my contention that if the prosecution cannot demonstrate the presence of alleged perpetrators in there, given Locard (Locard's principle holds that the perpetrator of a crime will bring something into the crime scene and leave with something from it, and that both can be used as forensic evidence -qu in various sources), then they really can't leave it until or unless they do. In other words: Nothing else matters. I don't believe that either the alleged knife or bra hook DNA or both, meets the test.

 

[Numbers]

You are new here so you probably are not aware of all the evidence that has been presented in these threads.

I have on prior occasions posted photographic evidence proving a case for bleach being used in the hallway outside the room where Meredith was murdered.

Dan O.,
I went through your images saved on ISF and didn't see any photo that I could interpret as an image of a cleanup. Is the photo evidence not in that collection or am I missing something?

 

[Desert Fox]

...I mean a real juror in a common law jurisdiction rather than a faux juror elevated to the status of a judge but diminished in every meaningful respect...I would be arguing very strongly that we all must, if we are to be intellectually honest, succeed in overcoming the burden imposed by 'Locard's exchange principle' before we trouble ourselves and over complicate matters by discussing the relative merits of luminol and TMB as efficacious or otherwise indicators of blood, or whether 'Naruto' played alone or to an audience, or even whether or not a spontaneous staging of a burglary is credible.

The prosecution and the pro-guilt lobby works it's little disingenuous socks off trying to get, theoretically, Ms Knox and Mr Sollecito to the outside of Meredith Kercher's bedroom door and wills them inside to commit the muder. Then back to Mr Sollecito's flat afterwards to enjoy the adrenaline; no shower for Ms Knox and no transfer evidence? How does that work? The hooks and knife's alleged DNA traces don't cut it - tiny traces if there at all and unrepeatable tests.

What kind of a thing is it that can make an abattoir out of a bedroom and leave nothing behind and take nothing away?

If I were a juror on this case, I couldn't in all conscience, argue my way out of the lack of evidence in the murder room and at Mr Sollecito's flat. Perhaps I am wrong. Perhaps, Niccolo will tell me why or how and with what the clean up was accomplished and what happened to those materials and all the bloody clothes.

That is one of the issues I have is if a juror lay judge actually does anything in the Italian system.

 

[Dan O.]

Dan O.,
I went through your images saved on ISF and didn't see any photo that I could interpret as an image of a cleanup. Is the photo evidence not in that collection or am I missing something?

I have a lot of images in different areas so I'm not sure you saw them all. The interpretation is obvious once you see the photo. It was collected as evidence and I'm pretty sure Mignini has it in mind durring his questioning of Amanda in the trial. I'll see if I can dig up that part of the testimony.

ETA: Oops, that wasn't the prosecutor Mignini asking the question, it was Amands's own defense attorney. I'm certain the defense was not trying to draw attention to this photo. The clip I posted about 2 years ago is in one of the old albums and titled "Bleach from dsc_0118”

 

[Chris_Halkides]

Draino and Comet; overapplication of luminol

Any substance, such as Comet cleanser, that produces bleach upon addition of water is a potential false positive for luminol for reasons that I gave yesterday (see also this link). In addition, Draino produces a false positive.

Moreover even Colonel Garofano acknowledged that the luminol had been overapplied. What effect this has on false positives is difficult to judge. Yet, it may have caused the TMB test to fail. Luminol is used under basic conditions, but TMB is used under acidic conditions. If the excess of luminol threw off the pH of the TMB test, then this is another reason why TMB might not have produced a positive reaction. The fact that the luminol was overapplied should have given the courts reason to doubt the competency of the FP, just as the destruction of the bra clasp should have.

The issue of confirmatory testing is also very problematic for the prosecution. Modern confirmatory testing has a lower limit of detection that is better than the most optimistic estimate for luminol. Therefore, if it is done correctly, it is very difficult to escape the conclusion that blood is not present.

 

[Numbers]

I have a lot of images in different areas so I'm not sure you saw them all. The interpretation is obvious once you see the photo. It was collected as evidence and I'm pretty sure Mignini has it in mind durring his questioning of Amanda in the trial. I'll see if I can dig up that part of the testimony.

I found some more of your ISF stored photos in an album "Crime Scene Photos" but again no obvious (to me) image of a clean-up (such as swirls). These pictures were in visible light, not luminol CL. There were 2 photos showing Meredith's door and footprints. Am I missing something?

 

[Numbers]

Any substance, such as Comet cleanser, that produces bleach upon addition of water is a potential false positive for luminol for reasons that I gave yesterday (see also this link). In addition, Draino produces a false positive.

Moreover even Colonel Garofano acknowledged that the luminol had been overapplied. What effect this has on false positives is difficult to judge. Yet, it may have caused the TMB test to fail. Luminol is used under basic conditions, but TMB is used under acidic conditions. If the excess of luminol threw off the pH of the TMB test, then this is another reason why TMB might not have produced a positive reaction. The fact that the luminol was overapplied should have given the courts reason to doubt the competency of the FP, just as the destruction of the bra clasp should have.

The issue of confirmatory testing is also very problematic for the prosecution. Modern confirmatory testing has a lower limit of detection that is better than the most optimistic estimate for luminol. Therefore, if it is done correctly, it is very difficult to escape the conclusion that blood is not present.

What I remember about the luminol CL images attributed to AK (and I am not sure I have seen them all) is that there was NO notable decrease in the CL from one to the next in sequence. IIRC, there was a decrease in CL for those attributed to Guede. Am I correct in these recollections? If so, does this not indicate that Guede's prints were made in blood (to be verified by confirmatory test) and the concentration of RBC diminished along his path due to blood clotting or drying. Contrarily, the prints attributed to Amanda did not diminish in CL, suggesting whatever caused them was not behaving like blood - that is, not drying or clotting, but the catalyst in the print remaining at high concentration.

 

[Numbers]

I have a lot of images in different areas so I'm not sure you saw them all. The interpretation is obvious once you see the photo. It was collected as evidence and I'm pretty sure Mignini has it in mind durring his questioning of Amanda in the trial. I'll see if I can dig up that part of the testimony.

ETA: Oops, that wasn't the prosecutor Mignini asking the question, it was Amands's own defense attorney. I'm certain the defense was not trying to draw attention to this photo. The clip I posted about 2 years ago is in one of the old albums and titled "Bleach from dsc_0118”

Dan O.,
So to clarify, was there evidence the bleach was used for clean up of blood or the crime scene in any way. Or was it simply that there was evidence that the apt. had bleach in it, just as anyone's home where laundry is done?

 

[Dan O.]

Dan O.,
So to clarify, was there evidence the bleach was used for clean up of blood or the crime scene in any way. Or was it simply that there was evidence that the apt. had bleach in it, just as anyone's home where laundry is done?

Confirmation bias is always present. When interpreting photos and text, your expectation strongly influence what you see. If you think about it, using that photo to imply that the apartment had bleach in it would be ridiculous. A much better explanation is here:

 

[Dan O.]

What I remember about the luminol CL images attributed to AK (and I am not sure I have seen them all) is that there was NO notable decrease in the CL from one to the next in sequence. IIRC, there was a decrease in CL for those attributed to Guede. Am I correct in these recollections? If so, does this not indicate that Guede's prints were made in blood (to be verified by confirmatory test) and the concentration of RBC diminished along his path due to blood clotting or drying. Contrarily, the prints attributed to Amanda did not diminish in CL, suggesting whatever caused them was not behaving like blood - that is, not drying or clotting, but the catalyst in the print remaining at high concentration.

All of the luminol images were photoshopped the day after they were taken. You cannot imply anything from the relative brightness between the images.

 

[LondonJohn]

All of the luminol images were photoshopped the day after they were taken. You cannot imply anything from the relative brightness between the images.

Indeed. There's actually a double whammy going on with those Luminol photos: they were significantly overexposed on the camera to start with, then they were further digitally altered to increase contrast and brightness.

The photos fail in so many respects it would be laughable if it weren't so very serious. The luminescence shown in those photos is so radically different from what a proper crime scene investigator would expect to see from a genuine post-crime clean up: there's simply no way that any "clean up" would leave the sort of amorphous blobs seen in the photos - let alone any recognisable footprints; there was zero evidence of smearing or wiping in the hallway; the dramatically contaminated crime scene (the forensics goons and Mignini et al had been trampling right through the whole scene - including in and out of Kercher's room without changing footwear - for several days long in advance of the Luminol being applied); the clear evidence of photographic manipulation (including the rather inconvenient levels of luminescence seen on the police rulers and booties - I guess even they thought it would be a step too far to photoshop out that luminescence!).

The only reasonable conclusion to be drawn from the Luminol photos is that they are in no way evidence of a clean-up and that they in no way implicate Knox or Sollecito. In addition, it's reasonable to suggest that most of the apparent luminescence is a combination of contamination from the forensics goons and/or over-amplication of artifacts. It's hard (impossible really) to excuse the incompetence/mendacity of the police and prosecutors who presented those photos to the courts. I'm afraid it's also another indictment of the defence teams that they were not able to show the courts beyond doubt that those photos in no way constituted credible evidence against Knox or Sollecito.

 

[Numbers]

Confirmation bias is always present. When interpreting photos and text, your expectation strongly influence what you see. If you think about it, using that photo to imply that the apartment had bleach in it would be ridiculous. A much better explanation is here:

My interpretation of your information, including Loudon Wainwright's song, is that the image that shows a box of "Ace" (a brand of bleach?) should be taken to mean only that there was such a box in the apartment, and not necessarily any bleach. That seems reasonable to me. And if there were bleach in the apartment - and I am not one claiming there was - that would not be unreasonable, since the residents might employ bleach routinely to do certain laundry, or to clear away mold (if there had been any).

But you do continue to state that there is no sign of any crime scene clean-up as with bleach, to your knowledge.