Fourth suspect in Meredith murder identified
By Malcolm Moore in Rome
11/10/2007
A fourth suspect involved in the killing of British student Meredith Kercher has been identified by police, it emerged today.
The manhunt for another possible killer began after forensic scientists identified a fingerprint in blood on a cushion in the house that did not match any of the three current suspects.
The police now think they can identify him from the footage from three car park security cameras which overlook the house where Miss Kercher was killed.
However, he has not yet been named. Miss Kercher, 21, from Coulsdon, south London, was found semi-naked with her throat cut on Friday November 1.
She may have been killed when she refused to take part in an "extreme" sexual game instigated by her room-mate, an official report has suggested.
A 19-page court document detailed the horrific last moments of the 21-year-old’s life and revealed the hypothesis her throat was slit after she was subjected to a prolonged sex assault.
A possible reconstruction suggested that, high on drugs, Miss Kercher’s American flatmate Amanda Knox and her Italian boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito had wanted to try an "extreme experience" along with Congolese immigrant Patrick Diya Lumumba.
But when Miss Kercher refused to take part in having sex, Sollecito pulled out a three-inch flick knife he carried with him.
They allegedly put a knife to her throat and forced her into having sex against her will, according to the report.
Then one of them slit her throat but the cut failed to hit the main artery and Miss Kercher died a slow agonising death.
The revelations from the report by Judge Claudia Matteini emerged as she remanded the three suspects in jail saying there were "serious indications of guilt."
Knox, 20, from Seattle, Sollecito, 23, and Lumumba, 37, from the Congo, will be kept in prison until a trial date can be set, at which point they will be formally charged with murder and sexual assault.
However, Giuliano Mignini, the public prosecutor in charge of the case, confirmed that the investigation into the murder has not finished.
A fourth man, thought to be a "musician" from North Africa, was captured on security cameras walking hastily away from the "house of horror" on the night the murder occurred.
The police believe he is the same man who was spotted in a nearby launderette the following day at 1.30pm, in the company of a young woman.
Witnesses said the man had acted "strangely" and had bundled a large quantity of clothes and shoes into a washing machine.
Meanwhile, Edda Mellas, the mother of Knox, visited her for the first time early this morning.
Knox’s lawyer, Luciano Ghirga, said he hoped Knox’s family would "persuade her to tell the truth".
Giuseppe Sereni, a lawyer for Lumumba, said he would put the police in touch with a key witness today in order to validate his client’s alibi.
The man, a Congolese known only as "Usi" appeared on Italian television last night and said he had spent the entire evening with Lumumba.
In her reconstruction of the night of Miss Kercher’s death, Judge Matteini wrote: "Raffaele Sollecito and Amanda Knox spent the entire afternoon smoking hashish," she said, before Lumumba texted her mobile phone in order to arrange a meeting. The judge said Knox had previously agreed to help Lumumba "have an encounter with Meredith".
The three suspects returned to the house that Knox shared with Miss Kercher just after 9pm, at around the hour that Miss Kercher, of Coulsdon, Surrey, was returning, having eaten a pizza at the house of her best friend, Sophie Purton, the report said.
At the house, Sollecito "bored of the same old evening, and wanting to try an 'extreme experience'" allegedly took part with Lumumba and Knox in a sexual assault.
"[Meredith] went into her room with Patrick, after which something went badly, in the sense that, in all probability, Sollecito came in and the two started to try a swap, to which the girl refused," the report said.
"She was then menaced with a knife, a knife which Sollecito usually had with him, and with which Meredith was struck in the throat," wrote the judge.
"There was the initial desire of the three youths to try some new sensation. Above all for the boyfriend and girlfriend, while Lumumba had the desire to join carnally with a girl that he fancied and who refused him," she added.
She said the killer had probably put a knife to Miss Kercher’s throat, perhaps as a threat, but that this had turned "into something much more serious".
The blade had "penetrated deeply" but had not severed the Carotid artery, resulting in a "slow death".
The three suspects then tried to simulate a theft, wrecking the inside of the house and spraying the floor and sink in the bathroom with blood, according to the judge.
Police have accused Knox of helping to hold Miss Kercher down during the sexual assault claiming that her finger prints had been found on the British student’s face.
All three have protested their innocence, although Knox has confessed that she was in the house at the time that Miss Kercher was killed.
The judge said their testimonies were full of contradictions and lacked "logical explanations" for the discrepancies between their diverse accounts.
Sollecito’s alibi was countered by the fact that a footprint in blood matching his shoe was found underneath the duvet covering Miss Kercher’s corpse.
In addition, his three-inch flick knife, which he said he carried with him everywhere "as a habit since he was 13-years-old" has been taken in by police for forensic analysis.
Police also claimed that a man had reported receiving a text message by mistake which read "For me, tomorrow or tonight Meredith dies" which was sent two days before Miss Kercher was killed.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main
http://s2.excoboard.com/Courthouse_Steps_Mavens/122767/1724692
Is this what is meant by "look, a squirrel !"
