Continuation Part 20: Amanda Knox/Raffaele Sollecito

[Vixen]

Isn't it most likely that the girls simply were not accurate about the time but even so, 22:00 becomes problematic.

The pizza was likely fully digested by the time Mez was fatally attacked. Mignini produced evidence that Raff cooked a stirfry button mushroom meal that evening and one of them probably ended up in Mez' gullet still undigested, together with a glass of wine.

 

[bagels]

You have ignored the experts opinion that the attacker modified their actions in so many ways, that whilst it is always possible there was just one attacker, it was more probable there was more than one. For example, the attacker/s removed the victim's lower clothing, whilst at the same time holding one type of knife to her right neck, whilst restraining both her arms behind her back, put it down, pick up another type of knife to hold at the left neck. In addition, place hand over victims lower face, and again over the fatal stab wound, in an attempt to asphyxiate, leaving bruising. All this with hardly any disturbance to the glass of water or postcards on the victim's desk. The perp also brought the victim to her knees, which was the position she received the fatal wound. All of this, for a "burglar interrupted" is more related to premeditation than a chance attack, which you call, "Rudy lost control". The attack was actually very controlled.

I do ignore the Italian experts who believe they can reconstruct the time crime atom by atom and it just happens to coincide with the exact theory the prosecutor had. This seems to be something that only happens in Italy. I think only certain details can be put into chronological order. For example, the blood droplets inside the bra cups dates the removal of the bra to after the knife attacks. But in general, reality is very stochastic and messy, a frenzied attack more so.

If "Rudy the perp was horrified", then it is rather incongruous he left the toilet unflushed, yet was priggish enough to cover the body. It is not the action of someone "in a panic".

You're conflating the alternative theory I proposed. Rudy didn't flush the toilet because he was trying to not alert Meredith to his presence, but wasn't able to escape out the front door because of the lock, and Meredith caught him. He forgot about the toilet in the ensuing chaos. In one theory I have Rudy leaving in a panic and coming back later more clearheaded to resolve loose ends. It's not a theory I like, and your point that he forgot to flush the toilet is a good one, although it is conceivable he forgot about it since it was the other end of the cottage where nothing happened.

You said previously Rudy had a stolen cellphone, which was confiscated by Milan police. IOW Rudy as a seasoned thief, would have almost automatically removed the back and disposed of the SIM cards. He would not have thrown the two phones away wholesale. OK, even in a panic, I cannot see it, if he is the local burglar, as you claim. The phones were wiped clean of fingerprints and DNA, so could just as easily been hidden or sold on the black market in the intervening days.

My original theory was Rudy instinctively took the phones during the frenzied state of the attack, because he's a thief and it's what they do. The ~22:00 timing which suggests he grabbed the phones long after the attack, just to toss them, is more problematic I agree. Possibly he grabbed them from Meredith while she was still alive so she couldn't call for help and he didn't pay much attention to them in his pocket. Then only later after the dust settled realized the importance of the two objects in his pockets and dumped them. I don't know.

 

[acbytesla]

Here's Filomena's:

http://themurderofmeredithkercher.c...7-11-03-Log-cellphone-Vodaphone-Romanelli.pdf

Mez':

http://themurderofmeredithkercher.c...cellphone-Vodafone-KercherM-English-phone.pdf

Thanks Vixen.

Unless I'm missing something, that is 3 phone bills without a single call being routed through the Wind tower. I guess we only have 2 more phones to go. Laura's and the Mez phone that used that tower at least once.

Note that most of the calls on these bills connected to either the Lupatelli or the Aquila antennas.

 

[bagels]

BTW does anyone know where Koko lived?

 

[Bill Williams]

The pizza was likely fully digested by the time Mez was fatally attacked. Mignini produced evidence that Raff cooked a stirfry button mushroom meal that evening and one of them probably ended up in Mez' gullet still undigested, together with a glass of wine.

This is a new one, indeed a completely new theory of the crime.

"A dinner gone wrong."

If you didn't have probablies you'd have no case whatsoever. Oh wait......

 

[Vixen]

Massei is an idiot. I have 20 years selling data communications equipment. My biggest customers were cellular carriers. It is remotely possible that the phones were still at the cottage at 10:13 but only remotely possible. Not a single call of Amanda's ever connected to that distant cell tower. And why would it Vixen? Step outside the cottage and you can easily see both the Lupatelli and the Aquila cell towers which are 172 and 194 meters respectively from the cottage. The Wind Tower is 1720 meters away and not visible. Think about it.

Don't forget, it is not just WIND, you also have the Vodafone towers. IIRC Amanda's was a vodafone a/c, Mez' had two different a/c, one for each phone.

 

[Vixen]

Isn't it most likely that the girls simply were not accurate about the time but even so, 22:00 becomes problematic.

Meal preparation started circa 16:00, Mez arrived slightly late, so it's possible she had finished off her slice of pizza by 17:00.

Digestion finished by 22:00

 

[Mike1711]

This is a new one, indeed a completely new theory of the crime.

"A dinner gone wrong."

If you didn't have probablies you'd have no case whatsoever. Oh wait......

Actually, Vixen is quite probably correct.

I once cooked with button mushrooms and whilst tossing them in the pan one shot 500 metres down the road and straight down the throat of an old woman.

"**** happens".

Edited by Agatha: 

Edited to comply with rule 10

 

[acbytesla]

The pizza was likely fully digested by the time Mez was fatally attacked. Mignini produced evidence that Raff cooked a stirfry button mushroom meal that evening and one of them probably ended up in Mez' gullet still undigested, together with a glass of wine.

I'm serious Vixen. Do you think about any of this before you post it or embrace it? A lot of this is not hard to figure out. Your embracing Massei just because he's a judge when the sure weight of logic points in another direction astounds me. Did you ever challenge your teachers in school?

There is significant evidence both from the digestive evidence and the phone records that Meredith was killed before 10:00 and Rudy and the phones were gone. You're hanging on to these logical absurdities like a light pole in a hurricane.

I don't get it.

 

[acbytesla]

Don't forget, it is not just WIND, you also have the Vodafone towers. IIRC Amanda's was a vodafone a/c, Mez' had two different a/c, one for each phone.

What difference does that make Vixen? They are the same tower antenna.

 

[LondonJohn]

What difference does that make Vixen? They are the same tower antenna.

Woah there!

From some of your other recent posts, it looks like you might be confusing base station locations ("Lupatelli", "Aquila") with network operators ("Wind"). Wind is an Italian cellular network operator. Vodafone Italia is another. Telecom Italia Mobile is another. All three of these operators have entirely separate network infrastructures throughout Italy, including Perugia. If a customer has a Wind SIM (or, as in the case of Kercher's UK phone, uses an operator which has a local roaming agreement with Wind), then that phone will only ever connect via a Wind base station. Sometimes Wind, Vodafone and TIM base stations might share the same physical site (with division of certain site-related costs), but far from always.

 

[LondonJohn]

Actually, Vixen is quite probably correct.

I once cooked with button mushrooms and whilst tossing them in the pan one shot 500 metres down the road and straight down the throat of an old woman.

"**** happens".

Edited by Agatha: 

Edited to remove breach of rule 10 within quote]

Hehe

And just to knock one other nail-of-ignorance on the head:

The evidence found at autopsy proves, beyond all doubt, that Kercher's pizza and apple crumble meal from that evening was still entirely within her stomach, in a partially-digested state, at the time she was killed. The volume, composition and condition of the stomach contents at autopsy, coupled with the fact that there was no other food matter at all found anywhere from the duodenum right through to the very far end of the small intestine, makes it a FACTUAL CERTAINTY that the meal Kercher ate at her friends' house was still entirely in her stomach, with none having yet passed through to the duodenum or beyond.

As I think Grinder (correctly) pointed out, for a meal started at around 6.30pm, it would be statistically unusual for a healthy woman to still have the entire meal within her stomach at 9pm. But that's PRECISELY why the particular circumstances in this case are so uniquely useful in helping to define Time of Death. 9pm would be unusual, sure..... but 10pm would be vanishingly rare..... and 10.30pm would be to all intents impossible. So in a very real sense, we can be fortunate that the timings, and Kercher's digestive system, worked as they did*. It allows us to conclude, with high confidence, that she almost certainly must have been killed before 9.30, and that she without doubt had to have been killed long before 10.30.


* If, for example, the evidence showed that Kercher's last meal started at 8.30pm, that she was in the cottage at 9.00pm, and that all of that meal was still in her stomach when she died, it would have been effectively impossible to narrow ToD (based on stomach contents) down to anything less than 9.00pm-11.30pm. It's only the fact that we know the meal must have started at around 6.30pm, coupled with the fact that it becomes rapidly more and more rare for a meal to still sit entirely within the stomach some 2.5 hours later (i.e. at 9.00pm in our case), that allows us to know that death very likely occurred between 9.00-9.30pm, and certainly well before 10.30pm.

 

[acbytesla]

Woah there!

From some of your other recent posts, it looks like you might be confusing base station locations ("Lupatelli", "Aquila") with network operators ("Wind"). Wind is an Italian cellular network operator. Vodafone Italia is another. Telecom Italia Mobile is another. All three of these operators have entirely separate network infrastructures throughout Italy, including Perugia. If a customer has a Wind SIM (or, as in the case of Kercher's UK phone, uses an operator which has a local roaming agreement with Wind), then that phone will only ever connect via a Wind base station. Sometimes Wind, Vodafone and TIM base stations might share the same physical site (with division of certain site-related costs), but far from always.

I'm not confusing the operators with antenna/base station locations. The Wind 30064 antenna location is right off Ponte Rio road. It is my understanding that the Wind carrier was a smaller carrier that mostly used the major carrier's infrastructure. The tower antenna 30064 however remains the same. I'm looking for any kind of call pattern showing that cell antenna was used to route calls from the cottage. I keep looking for records and find none. Now maybe the other phone connected to it frequently and I'm going down a dark alley. I just am looking.

 

[LondonJohn]

I know this is not popular here but even 9 o'clock would be stretching normal digestion. For nothing to reach the duodenum it is odd after one hour. If the girls ate by 6:30 or even 7 some chyme should have been there by nine.

That's the whole point. It IS unusual for a meal started at 6.30pm to still be entirely within the stomach at 9pm, but it's unusual-to-the-point-of-impossibility for this to be the case at 10pm or beyond.

In fact, statistics suggest that for otherwise healthy adults, a meal still sitting entirely within the stomach some 2.5 hours after the start of ingestion occurs in around 2-5%* of the population. Unusual, yes, but nowhere near impossible.

And it just so happens that Kercher must have fallen into this category, since we know she cannot have died before 9pm, and since we know with pretty good confidence that she must have started her pizza & apple crumble meal by around 6.30pm. As a reminder, we know for certain that the food matter found within her stomach must have been the entirety of that last meal, since no other food matter was found anywhere else in the duodenum, jejunum or remainder of the small intestine right up to the very end of the small intestine where a very small amount of food matter was found (which would have been the product of food eaten at least 6-7 hours before death, and which almost certainly was the snack Kercher ate at the cottage before she set out for her friends' house that afternoon).

But - and this is the critical thing - for that 2-5%, if one follows the statistical curve, almost all of this group will have started transit to the duodenum within a further half an hour, and all of the remainder will have started transit to the duodenum within a further half an hour after that.

So, given that we know Kercher must have been in this 2-5% group at the "far end of the bell curve", we can also say that it's hugely likely that she died before 9.30pm, and a practical certainty that she died before 10pm.


* Different studies suggest slightly differing bell curves, but this is the margin of error, and the shapes of the curves remain constant.

 

[Desert Fox]

* If, for example, the evidence showed that Kercher's last meal started at 8.30pm, that she was in the cottage at 9.00pm, and that all of that meal was still in her stomach when she died, it would have been effectively impossible to narrow ToD (based on stomach contents) down to anything less than 9.00pm-11.30pm. It's only the fact that we know the meal must have started at around 6.30pm, coupled with the fact that it becomes rapidly more and more rare for a meal to still sit entirely within the stomach some 2.5 hours later (i.e. at 9.00pm in our case), that allows us to know that death very likely occurred between 9.00-9.30pm, and certainly well before 10.30pm.

What I am suggesting, and I think that maybe this is where grinder is going, is that maybe the meal started closer to 19:00 instead of 18:30. Still I think it extremely likely she died around the 21:00 to 21:30 time frame.

 

[Grinder]

Isn't it most likely that the girls simply were not accurate about the time but even so, 22:00 becomes problematic.

I do not wish to start another round on digestion but by one hour after commencing eating chyme begins to move in something like 90% of the time. The birds were pretty sure they ate my 6:30, 7 at the latest. 2 hours after the start of a meal is way out on tail of the bell curve.

https://www.innerbody.com/image_dige02/dige21.html After being stored and mixed with hydrochloric acid in the stomach for about 30 to 60 minutes, chyme slowly enters the duodenum through the pyloric sphincter. Next, Brunner’s glands in the mucosa of the duodenum secrete alkaline mucus containing a high concentration of bicarbonate ions to neutralize the hydrochloric acid present in the chyme. This alkaline mucus both protects the walls of the duodenum and helps the chyme to reach a pH conducive to chemical digestion in the small intestine.
​

 

[Grinder]

The pizza was likely fully digested by the time Mez was fatally attacked. Mignini produced evidence that Raff cooked a stirfry button mushroom meal that evening and one of them probably ended up in Mez' gullet still undigested, together with a glass of wine.

There was no chyme found by Lalli in the duodenum. The stomach still contained something like 500 cc of gastric contents

ETA - to me it is easily possible that some chyme was in the duodenum and Lalli ********** up. All the other known facts make it clear the murder was before 10 pm.

 

[query grind]

There was no chyme found by Lalli in the duodenum. The stomach still contained something like 500 cc of gastric contents

ETA - to me it is easily possible that some chyme was in the duodenum and Lalli ********** up. All the other known facts make it clear the murder was before 10 pm.

"She screamed so loud, Giacomo, you could hear it from the street"
http://i.imgur.com/0S9aX6S.jpg

Rudy just shaved 10-15 minutes off because the police were confused about the CCTV timing and thought it was fast.
I am more and more coming round to the view that by 21:40 Guede had completely scarpered.

 

[acbytesla]

There was no chyme found by Lalli in the duodenum. The stomach still contained something like 500 cc of gastric contents

ETA - to me it is easily possible that some chyme was in the duodenum and Lalli ********** up. All the other known facts make it clear the murder was before 10 pm.

It seems like you are contradicting youself. You seem to say there is plenty in Meredith's stomach but at the same time finding it strange that nothing was in the duodenum . While you may be right, IIRC there were multiple studies done on this and the times for stomach emptying found that 9:00 was definitely on the outer edges it was by no means definitive.

 

[Bill Williams]

"She screamed so loud, Giacomo, you could hear it from the street".

This "scream" thing is perhaps the dumbest part of "all the other evidence" which is supposed to tell something of this horrid crime.

This scream, allegedly audible from the street, was so loud and so troubling that.....

...... no one, nobody, not one single person did anything about it. One "ear-witness" had to be chased down months' later by a journalist.....

...... which says something about the police-investigation.

Any mention of screams is evidentiarily useless. Yet those who want to view this case "osmotically," not throwing out a piece of evidence, merely on the groundless that it is a baseless factoid, insist it be kept in the mix.

Substitute "synoptically" for "osmotically" and it is as Bruno/Marasca wrote. Even if you fold "all the other evidence" into this, everything the prosecution at one time claimed:

It still amounts to nothing.