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

[kwill]

If it only moved within the bedroom, any DNA that adhered to it would be just as incriminating because he should have never been in the bedroom of this young woman. There was no source of contamination. Thus, there was no contamination.

If. Exactly. You don't know that it only moved within the bedroom. For all you know, it got stuck on the bottom of someone's shoe and tracked all over the house before they noticed it and tossed it back in.

That's the point of having a chain of custody.

You also don't know whose foot kicked it to its final resting place, or how it got underneath that rug. And if you don't know those things, you can't know where the foot that kicked it had been, or for that matter who touched the rug and where their hands had been. You don't anything about how any DNA got on that clasp. It's not evidence, it's garbage.

It's a big problem for the prosecution, right? Sloppy forensics.

They can't use it to show that Raffaele was ever in that room (he wasn't), which means that he can be an alibi for Amanda, who was of course with him at his flat while Guede was murdering Meredith.

Good forensics would show the same thing: they weren't there.

 

[Desert Fox]

We don't know why the police didn't mess with it. They may have not thought it was anything useful.

The prosecution had enough evidence to ask for a conviction. The defense didn't not ask for it to be tested until last minute and the judge, not the prosecution, decided it would not be tested. I don't think there is any evidence that the prosecution had a problem with testing this trace. It actually would make more sense for them to want to test it as it could have been Raffaeles. They had nothing to lose because if it wasn't Rafffele's, that does not mean he is innocent. You still hvae to deal with all the evidence Raffaele and Knox were there.

So this is a red herring topic.

I have two items for you
1. In almost every other case, the first thing they test are semen stains or apparent semen stains. It should be second nature. That they did not (or pretend that they did not) is pretty damning
2. Is they are way that you would accept either reasonable doubt or innocent? What are your criteria? If you say that there is nothing that will persuade you, you are not a skeptic and you are not scientific.

 

[Planigale]

Ok well the Italian forensics people are not here to defend themselves. I would like to hear their defense. I have no reason to believe they did shoddy work. Loaded charges are usually baseless.

This isn't science we are talking about. It is simply data collection.

Many of us on JREf are open to Sollecito or Knox being guilty. If you can provide a coherent case for guilt then we may accept it. At the moment most believe the case is not proven beyond reasonable doubt. I became interested because the forensic science was so obviously incompetent. The poorly done forensic science does a disservice to both prosecution and defence. I am not really interested in Knox, Sollecito is kind of cute, but what I am annoyed about is the poor quality of science.

If the semen sample had been Sollecito's it would have been a slam dump. The scientific police who misidentified the shoe print as matching Solecito were just incompetent. They were the same people who identified the footprint on the bath mat as Sollecito's. If they cannot match a simple shoe print why trust them on a foot print? Stefanoni destroyed the bra hook by accident. Lots of evidence was not analysed, there were hair samples that could have been analysed with mitochondrial DNA but weren't. No fibre analysis was done. most of the material evidence left to rot.

 

[js202]

You are skeptical, but about all the wrong things...

Sollecito didn't agree with you about Amanda being at his house at one point. Nothing ever confirmed either one of them was there.

You still have not pinpointed the source of contamination. Where did it come from?

Several posters here have given you *numerous* ways in which the bra clasp could have been contaminated. 1) Sollecito had lunch with Meredith earlier in the day; before and after which, they may have kissed and/or hugged; 2) as someone who had visited the cottage several times, he had come in contact with the doors, the kitchen, the bathroom facilities, etc.; 3) before the police arrived, he attempted to open Meredith's door.

It has also been pointed out to you that, by not changing gloves or boots, the forensic police ran great risk of passing on DNA traces as they moved within the space of the cottage, and as they touched various pieces of evidence they collected.

Bottom line: in any country which purports to be modern and civilized, the benefit of the doubt(s) must be given to the defendant.

 

[Skind]

We don't know why the police didn't mess with it. They may have not thought it was anything useful.

We know exactly why the police didn't mess with it, because they said why - it would have 'spoiled' the footprint that was made in it.

Think about how stupid that is: a seemingly recent, presumed semen stain, that is directly relatable to the crime, a chance to find out the dna of at least one possible suspect and they blew it for...a footprint of which there was other examples in the room and corridor.

If they didn't think it was anything useful, then they're idiots and we should heavily question all other aspects of the case related to their findings.

At least you have an excuse as you clearly have no scientific training or expertise, the forensic police were supposed to be there so that mistakes like this didn't happen.

So this is a red herring topic.

No it isn't. YOU are the one that brought up the issue of questioning experts after they have made a mistake. This is a very, very serious mistake. By your own logic, you must seriously question the expertise of the forensic police.

You made the rules buddy, time to live by them.

 

[Samson]

Sollecito didn't agree with you about Amanda being at his house at one point. Nothing ever confirmed either one of them was there.

You still have not pinpointed the source of contamination. Where did it come from?

That one point was when he asked for a calendar at the police station, was denied it, and found himself describing Halloween night, the previous night, when he did stay home and Amanda went out. As soon as that happened the interrogators went straight to Amanda in the other holding room, and told her Raffaele had withdrawn her alibi for the night of the murder, which of course he had not.

 

[Desert Fox]

The police thought it was Patrick because Knox pinpointed him and got hysterical while doing so. It appears you are faulting the police for believing Knox while also complaining the juries didn't believe Knox in court. You can't have it both ways. Knox established early on she lies about stuff. There is no reason to believe anything she says after that point.

You need to read up on the numerous cases where innocent people have been interrogated into falsely confessing. We all have our favorites although I recommend the Norfolk Four.
I recommend this one:
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/the-confessions/

 

[js202]

I think you could teach a bright 12 year old boy how to collect the evidence and even extract the DNA profiles. I don't think he would need to be a PHD in a science.

To me, science is trying to establish laws of nature and discover why things happen within organisms, etc. Not trying to identify somebody with human markers.

I want to say that I did that in my AP biology class in high school.

I'll leave a final determination to the more experienced hands, here, but, probably so. And, if so, that bright 12 year old boy would have put to shame the techniques the Italian forensic police employed in the Kercher murder case.

Of course, one obviously does not need a PhD to do such collection; such experience and accreditation is, however, absolutely vital to interpret and unscrew the mess Stefanoni and her crew made out of the evidence collection and testing. Before their work and testimony during the Pratillo Hellmann phase of this circus, Conti & Vecchiotti were known as the best that Italy had to offer. The wackjobs on the hate sites were salivating and rubbing their figurative hands together, anticipating how these neutral experts were poised to seal AK's and RS's final doom.

But then a funny thing happened on the way to C&V demolishing the quasi-science and the arguable straight-up corruption Stefanoni practiced. To those on the wrong side of this matter, suddenly they became incompetent hacks.

 

[js202]

Ok, do you have a source for this thing that they had lunch earlier in the day? Did anybody testify to that or is that based on Sollicito and Knox's own account only? I don't believe Knox and MK were that chummy by that point. Raffaele also said he cooked with MK at one point and pricked her with his knife and that turned out to be a lie.

Saying they might have kissed and hugged isn't proof of anything. They doen't mean DNA was transferred to the victim and then the victim later transferred it to her bra clasp. "Might have" doesn't fly in court. Everything must be "This did happen and here's why and how".

He attempted to open the door or so he said. A pretty weak guy if he couldn't break the door down because another guy did. Attempting to break down the door doesn't mean his DNA ends up on the bra clasp. That is another "might have". If it might have, it might not have. So that is a useless comment.

None of these are credible objections at all, and, for me at least, prove that you are hopelessly predisposed to a backward view of this case.

 

[Bill Williams]

Your premise that they had a predetermined is only supported by your belief that is the case. You cannot read minds thus you cannot know they had a predetermined conclusion. It does not seem likely they wanted one person to be found guilty vs the person who was guilty being found guilty. They would be worried about that person killing again and I think we can all agree they didn't want another murder. So they were focused on that and not framing somebody up.

The police thought it was Patrick because Knox pinpointed him and got hysterical while doing so. It appears you are faulting the police for believing Knox while also complaining the juries didn't believe Knox in court. You can't have it both ways. Knox established early on she lies about stuff. There is no reason to believe anything she says after that point.

What a load of nonsense. Who do you think the presumed semen stain belongs to, semen or not semen? The point is no one knows, they didn't test it.

What if it was Curatolo's? What if it was one of the other boys who sometimes went to the house, Shakey for instance.

So this is your reasoning? The refusal to take body temperature (this relying on stomach contents to establish TOD) and the refusal for investigators to do the most basic of things - test a stain under the victims hips - shows they were locked into a predetermined conclusion.

This is in fact Massei's own reasoning. Why test the stain when we already know who is guilty? It will neither detract or add to their guilt. (The fact that, who knows, it might have actually been Lumumba's seems to have escaped them... or some unknown person - indeed, this "fourth perpetrator" was briefly referred to in the news that way.)

This is your reasoning?

 

[Desert Fox]

That one point was when he asked for a calendar at the police station, was denied it, and found himself describing Halloween night, the previous night, when he did stay home and Amanda went out. As soon as that happened the interrogators went straight to Amanda in the other holding room, and told her Raffaele had withdrawn her alibi for the night of the murder, which of course he had not.

I want to back you up on this with memory being a very flawed thing.
Everybody's memories are badly screwed up and you conflate events often, completely misremember things, and may not remember important things.
Expecting somebody to have total recall is just daft.

 

[Skind]

I think you could teach a bright 12 year old boy how to collect the evidence and even extract the DNA profiles. I don't think he would need to be a PHD in a science.

To me, science is trying to establish laws of nature and discover why things happen within organisms, etc. Not trying to identify somebody with human markers.

I want to say that I did that in my AP biology class in high school.

That you think forensics is within the grasp of a 12 year old should have you screaming at the mistakes made by the forensic team, but somehow doesn't. Strange that, it's almost as if you're trying to defend a pre-determined conclusion.

To the scientific world, science is exactly what Chris (an esteemed scientist with multiple qualifications, fellowships, fund awards and teaching positions at an eminent university), is trying to tell you it is: a rigorous approach to collection and interpretation.

 

[Bill Williams]

Sollecito didn't agree with you about Amanda being at his house at one point. Nothing ever confirmed either one of them was there.

You still have not pinpointed the source of contamination. Where did it come from?

That one point was when he asked for a calendar at the police station, was denied it, and found himself describing Halloween night, the previous night, when he did stay home and Amanda went out. As soon as that happened the interrogators went straight to Amanda in the other holding room, and told her Raffaele had withdrawn her alibi for the night of the murder, which of course he had not.

.... and then they had to gall to say it was Knox lying. Once again, Donnino, the translator, said that when she arrived at the interrogation it was already in chaos. So much so, that Donnino herself said that she started to act like a mediator, rather than a translator.

And why not? Knox did not have the Italian skills, and Ficarra et al. did not have the English, but Knox was being referred to as a liar already. (Knox had lied about the soft-drug use in the cottage, just as all the other residents had - Filomena for good reason as she was going for a legal career in Italy in a related area.)

Then they tell Knox that Raffaele had withdrawn himself as an alibi for her - he had done no such thing, as mentioned above.

Then they tell Knox that if she would only imagine what might have happened, and to imagine in relation to this SMS message which to Ficarra meant that Knox and Lumumba had met that night - when it said no such thing....

... led to Knox snapping. She reports in her book she started imagining what they were suggesting to her. These imaginings left her as soon as she was out of interrogation.

And.... re: pinpointing the route of contamination.... I can only repeat, that even Stefanoni herself offered fourt possible routes... and to repeat:

At trial, as recorded in the Massei report, Stefanoni goes on to identify three other possible routes for contamination.

- another investigator that day touched the braclasp, and potentially the hasps.

- Stefanoni admitted that the mere act of replacing the clasp on to the floor after handling it, is itself a possible route of contamination

- Stefanoni reveals that back on Nov 2, the 118 Medical team came into Meredith's room to investigate the body, without themselves being protectively clad.​

All this will bear repeating every time someone says that a route of contamination has never been demonstrated. Like now. That factoid simply cannot be repeated as if Stefanoni did not make these admissions at trial.

 

[Samson]

I want to back you up on this with memory being a very flawed thing.
Everybody's memories are badly screwed up and you conflate events often, completely misremember things, and may not remember important things.
Expecting somebody to have total recall is just daft.

It is where the case turned, without which mistake Amanda and Raffaele would have walked free that evening, and never been arrested. They denied him the calendar, and what followed allowed them to coerce Amanda into the false accusation. The chain of events is crystal clear. Someone may have a better understanding of this, but I see it as the tipping point.

 

[Bill Williams]

The semen stain, if it was a semen stain could only confirm Rudy was guilty, Raffaele is guilty, or another person was there at some point. Not testing it only benefited Raffaele as far as I can see. Nobody doubts Rudy was there and he was already found guilty. Another person's semen is meaningless because there was no evidence of another person there that night. It would likely have been her boyfriend if it was a 3rd person.

That is why I say this is a red herring. It doesn't resolve anything and the rest of the evidence was solid enough to get two juries to convict.

So, this is an admission for how far you can see. What if it was someone unknown to the investigation? Are the investigators not out after who killed Meredith?

Or are they out to get Raffaele and Amanda at all costs?

 

[Skind]

The semen stain, if it was a semen stain could only confirm Rudy was guilty,

Except Rudy wasn't known to be involved at the point the semen should have been rushed to the lab for testing, so it is not, can not, and never will be an excuse for why the semen wasn't tested properly. It literally cannot function as an excuse as time travel is not possible.

It might be a reason why the police didn't bother testing the stain later on, but it does not, can not, and never will explain why it wasn't tested properly in the first place. Even the excuse given is a red herring, as it could have shown the involvement of a 3rd person that Guede could have been covering for. Strange how you overlook that possibility.

Getting 'lucky' a few days later does not excuse not testing the stain. If Guede hadn't have been caught, and Knox hadn't been bullied into confessing, this stain could have been the difference between an unsolved murder with an unknown suspect and a manhunt.

That is why I say this is a red herring. It doesn't resolve anything and the rest of the evidence was solid enough to get two juries to convict.

Talking about the juries is a red herring, as there was no jury at the time, as there were no proper suspects at the time.

You keep overlooking the fact that the time the stain should have been tested was as soon as possible. Funny how you keep doing that.

 

[Desert Fox]

So, this is an admission for how far you can see. What if it was someone unknown to the investigation? Are the investigators not out after who killed Meredith?

Or are they out to get Raffaele and Amanda at all costs?

I had a thought on the semen stain. . . .Maybe the defense should have done the opposite.
Have to make sure they can intercede so games are not played but argue that they do not want it tested. Likely the prosecution woudl have wanted it tested immediately and then when it comes out negative for Raff, crash and burn for the prosecution.

 

[RWVBWL]

What about the bra cups?

Man,
I don't think that I have ever unclasped or tried to remove my luvers bra without 1st touching, caressing and fondling her bra cups...

Weird how there was no DNA on the bra cups,
just Rudy's DNA on the bra strap and 4 other peoples DNA on the bra clasp.

 

[Desert Fox]

Bill,
Does Amanda have schizophrenia? Because what you are describing sounds like hallucinating. It is my understanding that she asked to write an unsolicted letter to the police confirming her imaginings and it reads like she is trying to leave herself an escape hatch on her allegation. He might have done, but maybe not. It isn't a useful statement in that regard. So why bother making the accusation at all? If you are not sure, just keep your mouth shut until you are.

People who are interrogated long enough will often begin to think the committed the crime. She also started the whole situation from a bad point of view. She should have ran for the US embassy and waited for the #$%^storm to die.

 

[Skind]

Do you believe fingerprint evidence to be science? That is all DNA profiling is, it is fingerprints in human cells, essentially.

Let's say somebody's entire finger got chopped off at the murder scene. If the police determine that finger is somebody's finger because one of the suspects is missing the same finger, have they just conducted science? Or it is just matching one thing with another and looking to see if it is the same or different?

There is no reason to embellish the nature of what they are doing. Science isn't concerned with who killed somebody. Science is the laws of nature.

Of course fingerprint evidence uses science! You don't just go in spraying the dust about, but you carefully select areas of interest and then test those. You don't just look a guess that it might match, but apply rules for interpretation that would be repeatable, useable to the police in finding the suspect and would stand up in court. It's THE original forensic science.

What a rubbish analogy. Utterly terrible. That wouldn't even fit your description of 'matching to see if they are the same or different' - it would be inferrance. If you're going to use analogies, at least make them internally consistent otherwise you end up looking foolish. A scientific process for the finger comparison would look at matching fingerprints (using applicable standards), comparing wound lines (based on the evidence base of what wound lines look like after X or Y type of trauma) and seeing if it lines up with the probable trauma (again based on the collected evidence base) that the finger likely underwent.

You have a very juvenile understanding of what science is, which suggests, very strongly, that you are either still a juvenile with no further or higher science related education, or you're being obtuse on purpose.

Science IS concerned with who killed somebody - the field is called forensic science for a reason!

Maybe you should take this up with the user known as Machiavelli - he/she/they spent considerable amounts of energy trying to argue that Stefanoni was a fully qualified, fully paid up scientist, by law. You'll get on well with him/her/them - you've got very similar arguements and odd use of English.