The Massei/Mignini Conspiracy Theory

[Dan O.]

Thanks. Is there any way for them to have known before the interrogations began and without looking at her phone whether Amanda had deleted Lumumba's text?

While it certainly is possible to have a system that keeps texts after they had been delivered and to receive notification from the phone when the user wants a text deleted, that would be additionall overhead for the system that isn't necessary for the intended operation. It would also be tricky for the local authorities to implement since the protocol changes would need to be loaded into each phone.

Have you a source for the highlighted part?

What we know they had is the list of calls and texts sent and received. We know this because we have a copy of that list. The lists for both Amanda and Raffaele include calls up to when they were at the police station on the 2nd. Notably though, they do not include later calls that evening while still at the station. This indicates that the lists were obtained on the 2nd shortly after the last call recorded.

Gotta say Dan O there seems to be plenty of stuff out on the internet suggesting that text messages are retrievable, at last for a period of time. I am pretty useless at internet searches but if you google 'are text messages retrievable' you get plenty of results suggesting things are not so simple. Mostly, its people trying to retrieve their own texts but I imagine the security apparatus of a major western state which is fighting 'the war on terror' probably has ways and means.

Sprint says they don't keep the text due to privacy concerns. In the US that would land them in serious hot water. They do keep the call detail records for a limited time (90 days) which is the same thing that ILE was able to obtain in this case.

An interesting side note though, most of the discussion on recovering deleted texts involves recovering them from the phone's SIM card. Unless ILE has already fried it, Amanda should be able to get Patrick's text out of her phone when she gets her property back.

 

[anglolawyer]

While it certainly is possible to have a system that keeps texts after they had been delivered and to receive notification from the phone when the user wants a text deleted, that would be additionall overhead for the system that isn't necessary for the intended operation. It would also be tricky for the local authorities to implement since the protocol changes would need to be loaded into each phone.

What we know they had is the list of calls and texts sent and received. We know this because we have a copy of that list. The lists for both Amanda and Raffaele include calls up to when they were at the police station on the 2nd. Notably though, they do not include later calls that evening while still at the station. This indicates that the lists were obtained on the 2nd shortly after the last call recorded.

So the cops had plenty of time to take note that Amanda and Lumumba exchanged texts between 8 and 9 p.m. on 01 Nov. They may also have known her and Raffaele's phones were switched off and on again at what they regarded as suspicious times. It would be interesting to know when Lumumba changed his phone and when the cops first knew about that.

Sprint says they don't keep the text due to privacy concerns. In the US that would land them in serious hot water. They do keep the call detail records for a limited time (90 days) which is the same thing that ILE was able to obtain in this case.

An interesting side note though, most of the discussion on recovering deleted texts involves recovering them from the phone's SIM card. Unless ILE has already fried it, Amanda should be able to get Patrick's text out of her phone when she gets her property back.

Do you mention Sprint, as distinct from any other provider, for a reason? I agree most search results seem to throw up the fact that retrieval from the sim card is possible but I also see references to the possibility of retrieval from the carrier.

It is an intriguing thought on which much depends. If the cops could read those texts then I have no doubt at all that they did, making the performance at the questura an elaborate charade.

All the discussion I've seen suggests the whole problem was just a translation error resulting from Amanda's inappropriate use of 'see you later' to mean 'see you some time in the future'. This doesn't stack up. First, the cops are not that stupid. Second, they knew what Lumumba's message was (it's in the 'confessions'). He didn't say, 'let's meet up and go and assault Mez', but 'don't come to work tonight'. Despite knowing what his message had been (leaving aside when they first knew it) they placed a dark interpretation on it. Why? I suggest it was because they already had a theory which the exchange of messages fitted into too well.

The spin that they understood 'see you later' to mean 'see you right now' is necessary as a fig leaf to cover their embarassment at having misconstrued the entirely benign texts, in accordance with the rule: It's All Amanda's Fault We Screwed Up. If only she had spoken better Italian none of this would have happened.

I speak all the time with people whose first language is not English and make allowance for their odd grammar and incorrect idiom. I bet the cops regarded Lumumba's text as a pre-arranged signal and that they also believed Lumumba was somehow savvy enough about the techniques of surveillance to make his message seem innocent. Matteini attached significance to the fact that Lumumba and Amanda couldn't get their stories straight about whether he said Le Chic is closed or Le Chic is quiet.

Indcidentally, do we actually have the text of Lumumba's message and, if so, how? Did they locate is old phone and read it off the Sim?

 

[anglolawyer]

Anglo - in my book any claim that Ficarra's testimony rendered in English as, we did not know who Lumumba was," is at least going to have to pass the "See you later" test, something I am unqualified to do.

When what is translated says, "We did not know Lumumba," means they didn't know he existed strains credulity. Ficarra was a narcotics officer, Lumumba a bar owner.

My bet is that there should be an "of" inserted between "know" and "Lumumba" in the sentence to capture its meaning - then again I am at the mercy of Italian speakers to confirm.

We need someone to show up with the evidence transcript. Pending that, we have Ray Turner's blog which leaves no room for doubt that the evidence was clearly to the effect they had no idea who Lumumba was. He adds the little piece of colour that the evidence was received with incredulity. So, do I take it that you do not find it credible that the cops did not know who Lumumba was? If so and if the trial testimony shows that's what they said ... ????

ETA where do you get it from it was only Ficarra who gave this evidence? Turner refers to the cops in the plural, leaving less room for translation errors.

 

[Bill Williams]

We need someone to show up with the evidence transcript. Pending that, we have Ray Turner's blog which leaves no room for doubt that the evidence was clearly to the effect they had no idea who Lumumba was. He adds the little piece of colour that the evidence was received with incredulity. So, do I take it that you do not find it credible that the cops did not know who Lumumba was? If so and if the trial testimony shows that's what they said ... ????

ETA where do you get it from it was only Ficarra who gave this evidence? Turner refers to the cops in the plural, leaving less room for translation errors.

Still, for me, it will need to pass the "See you later" test.

I agree, we need to have someone show up with the evidence transcript at trial. Either that or the tapes. I asked the Strange Dave show producer if I could have access to what Strange Dave had when he challenged Peggy Ganong to quote from evidence.... the three-letter response I got was "LOL".

Still, there's another level to this.... Barbie Nadeau when reporting for CNN the day of the conviction, yes, even Barbie Nadeau, said that the prosecution case was weak, but that the defence case ws weaker. I am conspiratorially adding this comment, from a guilter, to something I read on Frank's blog, where when Mignini was suing the West Seattle Herald, Knox's parents, ie. everyone, that rumour was going around that Mignini was considering suing the defence lawyers themselves.

For me, I am wondering that if at first trial, all lawyers sensed that Massei was simply going to confirm anything Mignini/Comodi did, that it is no wonder the defence put forth an uncoordinated plan... if they thought they'd be in the slammer. My conspiratorial theory is that once Hellmann's court came on the scene, and with the comment about, "The only thing we know for sure is...." that this was a signal that the playing field was going to be even this time.

Just my latest conspiracy as I roll out of bed.

I still think that with Perugia being what it is, with the gossip mill working overtime, with hot and cold running rumours coming out the water pipes.... the thought that Ficarra, a narcotics cop, did not know Lumumba, a bar owner catering to foreign students, well... that just strains credulity...

But I think you and I are chasing phantoms here anyway, that we have nt gone very far down the archeological dig.

 

[Skind]

When what is translated says, "We did not know Lumumba," means they didn't know he existed strains credulity. Ficarra was a narcotics officer, Lumumba a bar owner.

It does seem odd that they would claim that.

One of the first things you would think they would do before releasing the witnesses on the first night is find out who they are, where they live and their contact details.

Contact details would include mobile, home phone, any phone of any address they are staying at in the interim, and any work number if they need to be contacted at work.

They would have at least known about Lumumba as Knox's employer, one of the basic things they would have asked on day one.

 

[Bill Williams]

It does seem odd that they would claim that.

One of the first things you would think they would do before releasing the witnesses on the first night is find out who they are, where they live and their contact details.

Contact details would include mobile, home phone, any phone of any address they are staying at in the interim, and any work number if they need to be contacted at work.

They would have at least known about Lumumba as Knox's employer, one of the basic things they would have asked on day one.

That`s exactly what I mean. The `We did not know Lumumba`quote makes no sense, of course they "KNEW OF" Lumumba, meaning his existence in the Perugia scene.... they just did not know of him in relation to the crime, until the disasterous "See you Later" debacle... in my view, the cops completely mismanaged that one.... if IF Knox did it for all the reasons guilters say, that is still not enough to go kicking down his door and arresting him, detaining him for two weeks.

The kicker is that Knox did whatever she did for reasons that will be revealed... and it will make the cops look very bad.

My two predictions - someone like Chiacchiera will come forward with a huge, "I told them so....", people like Ficarra and Mignini will be suddenly pointing fingers, and......

.... my prediction is that Napoleoni will be the sacrifical lamb.

Remember - you read it here first.

 

[Kaosium]

One of the larger underlying contributory factors to this whole disaster may be that Italan law accords too many rights to suspects. Cops like winning, especially when they know someone's guilty.

They'll never squeal on each other either, how could they possibly turn in a buddy on behalf of a degenerate murderess? I've also wondered if the prosecution didn't keep up the character smear against Amanda also for this reason, and especially to absolve themselves of responsibility regarding Patrick, so even if there's police who know better about the interrogation, by fixing that blame on Amanda they preserve their corrupt bottoms and 'prove' that Amanda deserves whatever happened to her because of what 'she did' to poor innocent Patrick.

This is wikipedia on suspects' rights (I have highlighted the juicy bits):



What does this bit mean? Lie detector test? Water boarding? It's not particularly relevant to our discussion but it's interesting.

I dunno, but it makes me wonder if throwing both Amanda and Raffaele in solitary and not allowing them to talk to their lawyers until they saw Mattenini would also qualify under 'methods and techniques.'

Excellent point. Another one is that he is their killer. They don't want to be going before Matteini without a good, compelling case for detention pending investigation.

Which they didn't really have against anyone but Patrick, Amanda's statement hardly implicates her in the crime, and certainly not what they 'hypothesized' her role as.

I was unaware of this time frame. You make a compelling point. Despite the apparent lack of focus on Raffaele and my previous comment another thought is forming (see below).

Raffaele and Amanda entered the Questura at 10:15, Raffaele immediately being taken for questioning. Amanda is approached at 10:33 and also ends up under interrogation, Raffaele's statement is timestamped 10:40.

From 10:40 PM until 1:45 AM the next morning the cops will go after Amanda about being involved with someone else in the murder, and not ever question Raffaele on the actual murder. This strongly suggests to me the cops had whatever reason to believe Amanda was involved in the murder with some other man outside Raffaele. It's basically inexplicable otherwise, as is rushing out to arrest Patrick without ever approaching Raffaele about it, and allowing Amanda to finish her statement not knowing if Raffaele was there.

On the first highlighted part - agreed. I still don't get this dark-skinned or African meme. Maybe it's something really crass. A video shot showing Guede marching towards the apartment (at a time when Raffaeke and Amanda have an alibi ). I don't get the second highlighted section. Can you explain your thinking?

Are you aware of the second image on the CCTV camera? (21 sec) It actually (the night of the murder) took place before the blurred images that they initially thought was Amanda but turned out was probably Meredith, but on the Youtube I linked it comes after. Some think that's more likely to be a black man, and he would have been walking there right around when Rudy said he was going to the cottage, so many think it's him. If police saw that video and also thought it more likely to be someone of African heritage, that might have caused them to rule out Raffaele as a participant in the murder (but implicated in the 'cover-up' and perhaps the 'clean-up') and think perhaps it was more likely a black man was the perpetrator. If they also found (or thought they found) a 'black man's hair' at the scene as Barbie has reported that would seem to corroborate it.

 

[Kaosium]

I'm beginning to suspect that the biggest surprise the police got - remember, I'm clinging to my own theory of no premeditation here - is that they never in 1 million years thought they were going to be, in 8 1/2 hours, kicking down Lumumba's door.... because.....

I too have contemplated theories where it was kind of a spontaneous whirlwind that swept them up and consumed them before they had a chance to work it through, but in the end all it does in my estimation is cause everything else to be less easily explained, and just makes them look stupider.

Yes, something doesn't fit.

So try this on for size.

What if the first and third domino, acc. to police premeditation at 10:30 pm, was the same. My theory was that you break Raffaele, so as to break Knox, so as to go out and get an unknown third person, whoever it is who Knox is protecting, even if unwittingly...

I think you hit the nail on the head with your analysis of the purpose of the statements--all to used against the next person in the chain.

What if at 10:30 pm they called in Raffaele with the theory that the Nike shoeprint was his.... but when Knox unannouncedly came along they shifted gears.

I think if they had the shoeprint against Raffaele when he walked in, his interrogation would have proceeded much differently. If I understand it correctly it wasn't until after Amanda had broke that they discovered the match with the shoes.

I don't think Amanda was unexpected. The man with the authority at the top of the communications chain said he ordered them to be brought in. The conditions waiting for them, a dozen cops detailed for interrogation duties in the middle of the night, suggests that, as does the fact Matteini would tell Amanda she'd been deliberately detained before her mother got there, as well as Profazio saying 'she buckled and gave an admission to the facts we knew to be correct' the next day. Also the subject matter discussed with Raffaele, who was the one called in, was in fact Amanda's alibi, not so much to do with Raffaele, but the breathtaking speed in which they got a mistaken statement about Amanda from them, without being arrested himself (until later and not because of his statement) suggests that night was going to be all about Amanda, and not Raffaele.

However, somehow on the way down the communication chain between the corrupt incompetent cop and the stoned boyfriend it must have gotten jumbled before it got to Amanda, as she did testify she didn't know she was supposed to go in. I think Giobbi had a better idea of what was going on that night, and Amanda probably the least!

Amanda may not remember, or may never have been told, but I think the circumstances suggest that Giobbi is telling the truth. For one thing it wouldn't surprise me at all that Amanda wasn't told, after all where else was she going to go? Her home was a crime scene, she was afraid to be alone, if Raffaele was going to the police station Amanda was going with him, just like she had previously when waiting for others who were being interviewed. Monica Napoleoni or even Raffaele might not even have passed the information on to her, because it wasn't even necessary. Had Raffaele tried to leave Amanda alone in that foreign city mere days after her roommate was brutally murdered yards away from where she slept, then he might have some 'splaining to do to her, but Amanda tagging after him was probably going to be the path of least resistance and he might not even have brought it up.

Instead of putting the boots initially to Raffaele, they decided that they'd first break them up as far as alibi's were concerned. Then they go into Knox's room, to confront her with Raffaele no longer supporting her.

They think the, "he's bad, he'd bad," is her assessment of Raffaele at first. Yet they have the "See you Later" as well... now the game changer for them is that to them Knox is now implicating a third person, a person connected with this SMS text.

The problem with that is if the cops are playing it straight that means the girl they suspect of being involved in the murder is giving them someone besides the one they now having 'admitted' he 'lied' about what they did that night and that she's been shamelessly cuddling in public all week. It just so happened they had that guy in a little room too, in a perfect position to play one off against the other--and they dropped the ball completely. When they make the mistake with the shoes that ought to have been more reason to think Amanda was messing with them and Raffaele had to be the man involved--but they still don't question him about the murder. They're not playing by the rules here, they'll lock Raffaele in solitary and refuse his lawyer the right to see him, but they don't play a game of prisoner's dilemma with Raffaele and Amanda when they get the chance and they have him 'admitting' that he 'lied' all week about what they were doing and his shoe treads (seem to) match tracks left at the scene?

That suggests to me the cops had a scenario that for whatever reason they had a lot of confidence in, and they had Raffaele pegged as the 'maybe helper' who also covered for her, and someone else as the instigator and rapist.

As it sits, how else to explain the cops' nonchalant attitude towards interrogating Raffaele, when they very well could have had Meredith's killer in the room next to Knox?

They had someone else in mind for the killer and didn't initially think Raffaele was involved in the actual murder. That explains a lot.

"Something doesn't fit, there's a piece of information missing that explains why they were interested in another male outside Raffaele, and why they never even questioned him about the murder."

It's because the imaginings encouraged by the cops caught the cops completely off guard.

Like I began, I can see that as a possibility too, it just complicates everything else in my mind. Their actions just don't make sense--even for corrupt incompetent clowns. What also complicates everything is that the cops lied and tried to cover up what happened with Patrick thus an effort was made to obfuscate this so it isn't apparent what occurred.

It's like putting together a puzzle, but one that's missing pieces 'cuz some bad little piggies swiped a couple so no one could ever see it put together again...

 

[Bill Williams]

Raffaele and Amanda entered the Questura at 10:15, Raffaele immediately being taken for questioning. Amanda is approached at 10:33 and also ends up under interrogation, Raffaele's statement is timestamped 10:40.

From 10:40 PM until 1:45 AM the next morning the cops will go after Amanda about being involved with someone else in the murder, and not ever question Raffaele on the actual murder. This strongly suggests to me the cops had whatever reason to believe Amanda was involved in the murder with some other man outside Raffaele. It's basically inexplicable otherwise, as is rushing out to arrest Patrick without ever approaching Raffaele about it, and allowing Amanda to finish her statement not knowing if Raffaele was there.

Kaosium - I am glad you have waded in on this.

Yet the highlighted part does not match the tempo Knox herself claims about the interrogation in her own testimony. It also does not match the cops reported tempo. The tempo acc. to each is remarkably the same.

There are two distinct parts of her first interrogation - one is aggressive questioning about the men listed in her phone, a questioning which has gone on from Nov 2 - and not just with Knox - which I take to mean those men listed in Knox's phone's address book, or (esp.) those with some record of msgs sent/received (note: a record only as in the phone, not some external record to which they have access... I do not believe that!).....

Yes. Um, the interrogation process was very long and difficult. Arriving
in the police office, I didn't expect to be interrogated at all. When I got
there, I was sitting on my own doing my homework, when a couple of police
officers came to sit with me. They began to ask me the same questions that
they had been asking me days...all these days ever since it happened. For
instance, who could I imagine could be the person who killed Meredith, and
I said I still didn't know, and so what they did is, they brought me into
another interrogation room. Once I was in there, they asked me to repeat
everything that I had said before, for instance what I did that night. They
asked me to see my phone, which I gave to them, and they were looking through
my phone, which is when they found the message. When they found the message,
they asked me if I had sent a message back, which I didn't remember doing.
That's when they started being very hard with me. They called me a stupid
liar, and they said that I was trying to protect someone. [Sigh] So I was
there, and they told me that I was trying to protect someone, but I wasn't
trying to protect anyone, and so I didn't know how to respond to them. They
said that I had left Raffaele's house, which wasn't true, which I denied,
but they continued to call me a stupid liar. They were putting this telephone
in front of my face going "Look, look, your message, you were going to
meet someone". And when I denied that, they continued to call me a stupid
liar. And then, from that point on, I was very very scared, because they
were treating me so badly and I didn't understand why. [Sigh] While I was
there, there was an interpreter who explained to me an experience of hers,
where she had gone through a traumatic experience that she could not remember at all, and she suggested that I was traumatized, and that I couldn't remember the truth. This at first seemed ridiculous to me, because I
remembered being at Raffaele's house. For sure. I remembered doing things
at Raffaele's house. I checked my e-mails before, then we watched a movie.
We had eaten dinner together, we had talked together, and during that time
I hadn't left his apartment. But they were insisting upon putting everything
into hourly segments, and since I never look at the clock, I wasn't able to
tell them what time exactly I did everything. They insisted that I had
left the apartment for a certain period of time to meet somebody, which for me I didn't remember, but the interpreter said I probably had forgotten. [Sigh]

So:

- she may have been called into the Questura, but nonetheless did not think she's called to be questioned
- once questioning begins, it was about the same stuff as always for the last 84 hours
- this first part of the first men-questioning happened first in the hall and then was moved to the interrogation room

"When they found the message, they asked me if I had sent a message back, which I didn't remember doing. That's when they started being very hard with me. They called me a stupid liar, and they said that I was trying to protect someone."

- was it Knox's faulty memory which triggered the shift? Was it the simple fact of finding the message which caused the shift? How could Knox discern which was the trigger?

The real dispute between Knox and the cops, is that the cops claim the whole sea changed for them when "Knox spontaneously named Lumumba". Knox there is a sea-change, but contrarily says the sea change happened when either:

a) the cops actually found the message; this one message
b) or, when she couldn't remember sending a response to the message

Was this because it was the only message to which, at interrogation, she had forgotten replying to?

Had Knox talked with some other cop at an earlier questioning about this message, to which she'd remembered replying, so it slipped by in that earlier interrogation?

So far, no one writing a contenporaneous account of that crucial peiod is making mention of the most obvious connection between this message and the murder - it's timestamped proximity to when Meredith is last seen. Why do the questioners then omit what seems obvious now?

If there is a content to "the stress" Knox reports, it is not so much the overall stress of the interrogation, "the stress" simply reaches a new level..... "That's when they started being very hard with me."

And Knox does not describe this special stress as arising from being questioned "yet again" about the men in Meredith's periphery.....

..... it is because, "So I was there, and they told me that I was trying to protect someone, but I wasn't trying to protect anyone, and so I didn't know how to respond to them. They said that I had left Raffaele's house, which wasn't true, which I denied, but they continued to call me a stupid liar. They were putting this telephone in front of my face going "Look, look, your message, you were going to meet someone". And when I denied that, they continued to call me a stupid liar. And then, from that point on, I was very very scared, because they were treating me so badly and I didn't understand why."

It's being told that she is trying to protect someone that causes her stress. Guilters have an answer to that, don't they? Innocentati like me think that Knox's stress is because they keep telling her she has info that will solve this case, and she, having a Seattlesque trust in the police, is doing all she can to help, now she's being called a liar...

But note, this is the very shift that proves it was not some smooth escalation from a 10:30 pm songsheet... there are TWO parts to the first interrogation, not some continual escalation from a 10:30 pm game-plan, but there's a game-changer that causes a paradigm shift.

It's not the gradual development of a theme by the cops, it was "from that point on," they started treating Knox badly based on new information orginating in the room.

Note how relatively minor in Knox's account, is the revelation that Raffaele was no longer supporting her alibi. That's obviously part of the stress, but Knox's reporting of stress is about being called a liar - being told she is actually NOT being helpful, when that is her Seattlesque intent.

To me this is an innocent not really convinced she needs an alibi. Knox's own account is not the, "she started banging her head when confronted with the SMS text, to which she replied, 'he's a bad, bad man'." Because the interrgator's perception is that THAT was the paradigm shift in the total scene.

Knox told them "I checked my e-mails, we watched a movie," is the part of Knox's statement that becomes a motive for something else - the cops trashing the computers. I think it was by 1:45 am that the cops decided the computers were also key in confirming/denying Knox's need need for an alibi - that the computers did not survive, is de facto proof that the computers DID supply Knox/Sollecito with alibis. That one is a bias, yes, but I believe a reasonable one.

My point being, that it was neither a "continual going after Knox from 10:40 onwards," nor was at an escalating series of pressures based on a 10:30 pm gameplan based on prior knowledge of the basic "evidence" the cops thought they had....

..... both cops and Knox agree: at some point well into the interrogation (probably after 1:30 am based on translator Donnino's arrival) there was a sea change to this case.

Perhaps the real question is not whether or not Knox was purposely called to the Questure, it is "why the sudden need for a translator at 1:30 am?"

That suggests that sometime after getting Knox into the room, they had only then planned to interrogate her as a potential subject (Raf's statement timestamped at 10:40 pm), and they were putting in place, after the fact, the things needs for interrogating as a suspect.

Translator, videotaping, and lawyer. Two out of three ain't bad!

 

[Bill Williams]

If there is a content to "the stress" Knox reports, it is not so much the overall stress of the interrogation, "the stress" simply reaches a new level..... "That's when they started being very hard with me."

And Knox does not describe this special stress as arising from being questioned "yet again" about the men in Meredith's periphery.....

..... it is because, "So I was there, and they told me that I was trying to protect someone, but I wasn't trying to protect anyone, and so I didn't know how to respond to them. They said that I had left Raffaele's house, which wasn't true, which I denied, but they continued to call me a stupid liar.

Knox's stress is something she identifies fairly well. It has little to do with Raf withdrawing her alibi - as someone who believes she's innocent, she's also one of those naive types who thinks innocence alone will shield her.

The trial transcript also identifies her sighing three times. There's a consistency to this sighing, which I take to be the very exasperation that caused her stress... an innocent, trying to help, but ends up being accused. To Knox that is stress, even more so than being told that Raffaele is lying.

- When they found the message, they asked me if I had sent a message back, which I didn't remember doing. That's when they started being very hard with me. They called me a stupid liar, and they said that I was trying to protect someone. [Sigh]

- And when I denied that, they continued to call me a stupid liar. And then, from that point on, I was very very scared, because they were treating me so badly and I didn't understand why. [Sigh]

- They insisted that I had left the apartment for a certain period of time to meet somebody, which for me I didn't remember, but the interpreter said I probably had forgotten. [Sigh]

 

[Kaosium]

Kaosium - I am glad you have waded in on this.

Yet the highlighted part does not match the tempo Knox herself claims about the interrogation in her own testimony. It also does not match the cops reported tempo. The tempo acc. to each is remarkably the same.

There are two distinct parts of her first interrogation - one is aggressive questioning about the men listed in her phone, a questioning which has gone on from Nov 2 - and not just with Knox - which I take to mean those men listed in Knox's phone's address book, or (esp.) those with some record of msgs sent/received (note: a record only as in the phone, not some external record to which they have access... I do not believe that!).....

I dunno for sure, what I do know is that Italy has a propensity for wire-tapping that dwarfs that seen in other nations,¹ and they get them easily and readily thus they must have some sort of cooperative relationship with the phone companies. I also know they pulled out all the stops against Amanda and Raffaele
and their families², and had Amanda and Raffaele wiretapped before they walked into the Questura that night.

They may not have known the exact content of the message, but they sure as hell ought to have been able to find out that Amanda exchanged text messages with Patrick right before Meredith was last seen alive. If they hadn't heard that already from Amanda that would be reason to be suspicious of her in the context of a murder investigation.

So:

- she may have been called into the Questura, but nonetheless did not think she's called to be questioned
- once questioning begins, it was about the same stuff as always for the last 84 hours
- this first part of the first men-questioning happened first in the hall and then was moved to the interrogation room

"When they found the message, they asked me if I had sent a message back, which I didn't remember doing. That's when they started being very hard with me. They called me a stupid liar, and they said that I was trying to protect someone."

- was it Knox's faulty memory which triggered the shift? Was it the simple fact of finding the message which caused the shift? How could Knox discern which was the trigger?

The real dispute between Knox and the cops, is that the cops claim the whole sea changed for them when "Knox spontaneously named Lumumba". Knox there is a sea-change, but contrarily says the sea change happened when either:

a) the cops actually found the message; this one message
b) or, when she couldn't remember sending a response to the message

Was this because it was the only message to which, at interrogation, she had forgotten replying to?

Had Knox talked with some other cop at an earlier questioning about this message, to which she'd remembered replying, so it slipped by in that earlier interrogation?

So far, no one writing a contemporaneous account of that crucial peiod is making mention of the most obvious connection between this message and the murder - it's timestamped proximity to when Meredith is last seen. Why do the questioners then omit what seems obvious now?

Very good question, and it probably has to do with the fact that all the police officers really wanted to discuss in court about the interrogation was Amanda and her cartwheels. That's the first day anyone heard about them by the way, the day that Napoleoni, Zugarini and Ficarra testified in court about the interrogation. The text message was also discussed, it kinda had to be, but in the context of Amanda's 'weird' behavior making them suspicious, perhaps because everything that really had made them wonder about Amanda turned out to be mistake, coincidence or outright false.

Amanda did indeed testify that they started out slow and then it picked up when the text message was 'revealed' and they started to get hard with her, like she'd also suggested happened in her e-mail regarding her interview on the 4th. What I think is a plausible explanation is that the police found out about the existence of the text message from the (bare--meaning not the content) phone records available and realized she'd never told them about it. They also have Raffaele giving the 'interview' to Kate Mansey in which he screws up what they were doing the night of the murder which also doesn't match both reality and the story they had from them, so they call them in, perhaps thinking they might have made a breakthrough on the case.

They get Raffaele in that room and as can be seen by the 10:40 timestamp they got what they wanted and quickly, even more so when one considers it would take a few minutes to type up what they had and they'd approach Amanda at 10:33 and she quickly finishes the talk with Filomena and goes with them. They decide to take her through everything again to check for inconsistencies, and also to see if this time she tells them about the text messages. They're the ones who introduced the phone, I suspect that might not have been any more 'spontaneous' than any other ploy used to get suspect to confess, like 'good cop/bad cop' for that matter.

However Amanda honestly doesn't remember the text message, thus doesn't 'admit' to it, and they have to rub her nose in it, and she still isn't remembering it, so perhaps now they think they've 'hard evidence' she's lying, perhaps to go with the CCTV camera footage they've not yet announced to the press and won't take before Matteini, but that they may well have recovered already and are deciding how to 'use' it--which would be in an attempt to make Amanda actually 'confess'--and considering the nature of the footage don't want to reveal too much about it unless they have to.

So they do indeed shift gears over the text message, but not because it was unexpected to them and thus a big surprise, but because they think they've gotten what they wanted! Amanda is 'lying' about the text message! Raffaele has signed a statement suggesting she's been lying about their activities that night all week long. That would be enough 'confirmation' of their theory, especially if it turns out they did have something on Patrick that would make it 'complete;' perhaps the CCTV footage, the 'black man's hair,' that they think his phone records reveal he wasn't at Le Chic, or they already ran into that guy who'd said his bar was closed in the course of 'investigating' but didn't get a statement from him until the seventh, as detailed in Matteini.³

If there is a content to "the stress" Knox reports, it is not so much the overall stress of the interrogation, "the stress" simply reaches a new level..... "That's when they started being very hard with me."

And Knox does not describe this special stress as arising from being questioned "yet again" about the men in Meredith's periphery.....

..... it is because, "So I was there, and they told me that I was trying to protect someone, but I wasn't trying to protect anyone, and so I didn't know how to respond to them. They said that I had left Raffaele's house, which wasn't true, which I denied, but they continued to call me a stupid liar. They were putting this telephone in front of my face going "Look, look, your message, you were going to meet someone". And when I denied that, they continued to call me a stupid liar. And then, from that point on, I was very very scared, because they were treating me so badly and I didn't understand why."

It's being told that she is trying to protect someone that causes her stress. Guilters have an answer to that, don't they? Innocentati like me think that Knox's stress is because they keep telling her she has info that will solve this case, and she, having a Seattlesque trust in the police, is doing all she can to help, now she's being called a liar...

Indeed, and now the cops are all excited, perhaps thinking they have a 'breakthrough' and perhaps to them the only explanation for those messages and Amanda not telling them about them is that she's trying to hide something, to 'protect' Patrick, so they go the distance with her and destroy her.

But note, this is the very shift that proves it was not some smooth escalation from a 10:30 pm songsheet... there are TWO parts to the first interrogation, not some continual escalation from a 10:30 pm game-plan, but there's a game-changer that causes a paradigm shift.

It's not the gradual development of a theme by the cops, it was "from that point on," they started treating Knox badly based on new information orginating in the room.

Note how relatively minor in Knox's account, is the revelation that Raffaele was no longer supporting her alibi. That's obviously part of the stress, but Knox's reporting of stress is about being called a liar - being told she is actually NOT being helpful, when that is her Seattlesque intent.

To me this is an innocent not really convinced she needs an alibi. Knox's own account is not the, "she started banging her head when confronted with the SMS text, to which she replied, 'he's a bad, bad man'." Because the interrogator's perception is that THAT was the paradigm shift in the total scene.

Knox told them "I checked my e-mails, we watched a movie," is the part of Knox's statement that becomes a motive for something else - the cops trashing the computers. I think it was by 1:45 am that the cops decided the computers were also key in confirming/denying Knox's need need for an alibi - that the computers did not survive, is de facto proof that the computers DID supply Knox/Sollecito with alibis. That one is a bias, yes, but I believe a reasonable one.

Even more interesting is that it turns out the last recorded usage of those computers, which wiped out the 'last access data' or somesuch, was either the night of the fifth or the sixth! Incidentally, there's a letter from Raffaele available only on JREF in which Raffaele (computer science graduate) tries to explain what happened to the computers. It was written to someone who published it on IIP and someone messaged me to look at it and I re-posted it here before it was decided to erase that letter lest it be used against him thus I've not mentioned that I also posted it here. It ought to be in the Third Continuation somewhere, I can dig it up if you've not read it.

My point being, that it was neither a "continual going after Knox from 10:40 onwards," nor was at an escalating series of pressures based on a 10:30 pm gameplan based on prior knowledge of the basic "evidence" the cops thought they had....

..... both cops and Knox agree: at some point well into the interrogation (probably after 1:30 am based on translator Donnino's arrival) there was a sea change to this case.

Perhaps the real question is not whether or not Knox was purposely called to the Questure, it is "why the sudden need for a translator at 1:30 am?"

You've a keen mind for this sort of thing, this right here is exactly the data that has caused me to contemplate 'spontaneous' scenarios and try to work out why all the other circumstances might have been caused by other factors: if they planned for all this, why didn't they plan to have the translator there too?

I dunno, however upon reflection I've had to discard the idea of trashing everything else in order to make sense of that, because it makes nonsense out of everything else suggesting pre-meditation: Giobbi's statement, the bizarre triumphalist procession, the simple fact they had a dozen cops on duty overnight specifically detailed to the interrogation of Raffaele and Amanda, the subject of Raffaele's interrogation and of course the fact they just let Raffaele sit there while they went after Amanda about someone else. That last one is huge if you think it through and try to fit it into a scenario where the cops are playing it straight. Amanda's supposedly telling them about someone else whilst they have Raffaele in custody and they don't even entertain the possibility she might be lying about Patrick to protect Raffaele when they have him at their convenience? They don't even ask him at least in order to play one off against another? There must have been some reason they eliminated Raffaele (at first!) as being involved with Amanda, and would accept without question that Amanda had to have been there with someone else...

What they might have possibly thought is that Amanda's Italian was 'good enough' or that one of the cops was 'good enough' in English and they didn't want to bring any 'outsiders' in for what they had 'planned.' Those translators aren't actual neutral interpreters, but neither are they 'part of the team' and they might have wanted to avoid involving one if they could manage it, but it turned out Amanda was more difficult than they were expecting and the language problems made it impossible to make enough headway.

Incidentally, the timing of Anna Domino's arrival at the Questura has always been something difficult for me to nail down. I recall reading a time of 12:30, and I also recall something about some 'notes' that don't match what she (or someone else) said about it in court...and I don't know where I read all this, as it was when I was first interested in the case and not paying much attention. I'm just curious as to what sources are available on this, which probably includes a book or two at this point that I've not read.

That suggests that sometime after getting Knox into the room, they had only then planned to interrogate her as a potential subject (Raf's statement timestamped at 10:40 pm), and they were putting in place, after the fact, the things needs for interrogating as a suspect.

Translator, videotaping, and lawyer. Two out of three ain't bad!

Another way of looking at the translator issue is this: for what they eventually did, was a translator required for them to get Amanda's signature on a piece of paper? Might they have thought that without one they might get what they wanted easier, and incidentally also afford them a dose of 'plausible deniability?' ('lost in translation!') It didn't turn out to work that way, but perhaps they had the idea that browbeating the foreign exchange student might go easier if they didn't 'slow it down' for her with a translator?

¹

Angelino Alfano, the justice minister, who drafted the bill, has said there are more than 100,000 authorised taps each year.

At the time the bill was presented, Alfano said that this compared with 20,000 people wiretapped a year in France, 5,500 in Britain and 1,700 in the United States,

"In Italy, we are all spied on. There are 150,000 telephones that are tapped and it is intolerable," Berlusconi recently said.

²

XXXIXCMLII is a Roman numeral.

No, it doesn't stand for a Superbowl in the far distant future. It represents the number of phone conversations and text messages from one family that police in Perugia, Italy eavesdropped on between November 2007 and the beginning of May 2008. 39,952. It's a big number that gives an even bigger insight into what passed for justice in the Amanda Knox case in Italy.

³

The last confirmation of the closure of the locale before said time is found in the declarations of a regular customer, one Vulcano Gerado Pasquale, the which interviewed at sommarie informazioni [page 12] on the date 7 November 2007, referred to the fact that, on the night of the 1st November, he noticed, around 19.00, that the locale was closed, as well having noticed said circumstance much later on his return from the pizzeria.

 

[Dougm]

Knox's stress is something she identifies fairly well. It has little to do with Raf withdrawing her alibi - as someone who believes she's innocent, she's also one of those naive types who thinks innocence alone will shield her.

The trial transcript also identifies her sighing three times. There's a consistency to this sighing, which I take to be the very exasperation that caused her stress... an innocent, trying to help, but ends up being accused. To Knox that is stress, even more so than being told that Raffaele is lying.

- When they found the message, they asked me if I had sent a message back, which I didn't remember doing. That's when they started being very hard with me. They called me a stupid liar, and they said that I was trying to protect someone. [Sigh]

- And when I denied that, they continued to call me a stupid liar. And then, from that point on, I was very very scared, because they were treating me so badly and I didn't understand why. [Sigh]

- They insisted that I had left the apartment for a certain period of time to meet somebody, which for me I didn't remember, but the interpreter said I probably had forgotten. [Sigh]

Bill --

If we accept Knox's testimony as truthful (which I do, but trying to be coldly analytical here), what I see is the cops having a narrative they want to present to Amanda, a challenging one that they will push hard, looking for the point where she starts to evade (i.e. lie). Kind of a "you went for a sandwich did you? What kind?" type of thing where they can try to catch her in a lie, and then

Her testimony tells me that they already knew about the text message, and who it was to. Because they ask to see the phone -- this surely was not random, they wanted to find something to use to challenge her. So they look through the phone, and they find a text message that is close to the time Meredith returned home (actually, it is a reply to the message, but the message itself has been deleted). So, the cops think they have this -- a text message to a man, other than Raffaele, within 30 minutes of Meredith returning home, and that Amanda has deleted the original message. Ah ha!, they think. She tried to hide this, but forgot to delete the reply from her "sent" box!! We've got her now!!

Then it starts. "You are lying! Why did you delete Patrick's message from your inbox and not from your sent box? (she has no idea you can delete them from your sent box, which they don't believe). I think they are not sure if Raffaele is involved or not, but for some reason they are convinced that there were multiple attackers, and they are not convinced it was Amanda and Raffaele -- they think there was someone else. It is hard to tell with the info we have available if they thought it was Patrick, or if they just thought it was someone, and Knox would cough up the name if they put the screws to her. To me, her testimony shows a pattern of them turning up the heat in a specific direction, and it doesn't make sense to me that was totally random.

 

[RoseMontague]

3

Originally Posted by Matteini Report Catnip Translation pp 11-12

The last confirmation of the closure of the locale before said time is found in the declarations of a regular customer, one Vulcano Gerado Pasquale, the which interviewed at sommarie informazioni [page 12] on the date 7 November 2007, referred to the fact that, on the night of the 1st November, he noticed, around 19.00, that the locale was closed, as well having noticed said circumstance much later on his return from the pizzeria.

Don't trust these judges to be critical of a witness. This is Curatolo and Quintavalle all over again:

the important thing was having a killer fit, so that when released the name of the Lumumba was recovered once a super-swift witness stated that the night of the murder managed by the local Zairean was closed. Il suo nome fu inserito nell'ordinanza d'arresto e lui fu cercato da tutti i giornalisti, giornalisti ai quali rilasciò questa dichiarazione: " Sì, mi pare che quella sera il locale fosse chiuso. Io verso le 19 sono uscito di casa e mi sembra che il portone del 'Le Chic' fosse chiuso. Fino a quando? Non so. Non mi ricordo cosa ho fatto quella sera ". His name was inserted in the order of arrest and he was sought by all journalists, to which journalists released this statement: "Yes, I think that that night the restaurant was closed. I pour the 19 I left home and I seems that the door of 'Le Chic' was closed. long? I do not know. I do not remember what I did tonight. " E grazie a lui tutti a giocare al " Dagli al Lumumba ", anche perché chi aveva passato quella maledetta serata nel suo locale ad ogni interrogatorio perdeva l'uso della memoria ed anticipava gli orari di uscita. And all thanks to him play "From the Lumumba", because those who had passed the damn evening at his club lost to every interrogation memory usage times and anticipated output.

LOL.

http://albatros-volandocontrovento.blogspot.com/2011/09/amanda-knox-se-la-knox-ed-il-sollecito.html

 

[RoseMontague]

Here is the applied language machine translation of the relevant passage:

His name was inserted in the order of arrest and he was sought by all journalists, journalists who released this statement: "Yes, I think that evening the local was closed. I 19 I went out to the House and it seems to me that the door of ' Chic ' was closed. Until when? I do not know. I do not remember what I did that night ".

 

[anglolawyer]

Lumumba's SMS

Bill

This is a sidebar to our ongoing difference over the interpretation of the interrogations and it concerns Patrick's SMS to Amanda. You quoted her evidence above as follows:

Yes. Um, the interrogation process was very long and difficult. Arriving
in the police office, I didn't expect to be interrogated at all. When I got
there, I was sitting on my own doing my homework, when a couple of police
officers came to sit with me. They began to ask me the same questions that
they had been asking me days...all these days ever since it happened. For
instance, who could I imagine could be the person who killed Meredith, and
I said I still didn't know, and so what they did is, they brought me into
another interrogation room. Once I was in there, they asked me to repeat
everything that I had said before, for instance what I did that night. They
asked me to see my phone, which I gave to them, and they were looking through
my phone, which is when they found the message. When they found the message, they asked me if I had sent a message back, which I didn't remember doing.
That's when they started being very hard with me. They called me a stupid
liar, and they said that I was trying to protect someone. [Sigh] So I was
there, and they told me that I was trying to protect someone, but I wasn't
trying to protect anyone, and so I didn't know how to respond to them. They
said that I had left Raffaele's house, which wasn't true, which I denied,
but they continued to call me a stupid liar. They were putting this telephone
in front of my face going "Look, look, your message, you were going to meet someone". And when I denied that, they continued to call me a stupid
liar. And then, from that point on, I was very very scared, because they
were treating me so badly and I didn't understand why. [Sigh] While I was
there, there was an interpreter who explained to me an experience of hers,
where she had gone through a traumatic experience that she could not remember at all, and she suggested that I was traumatized, and that I couldn't remember the truth. This at first seemed ridiculous to me, because I
remembered being at Raffaele's house. For sure. I remembered doing things
at Raffaele's house. I checked my e-mails before, then we watched a movie.
We had eaten dinner together, we had talked together, and during that time
I hadn't left his apartment. But they were insisting upon putting everything
into hourly segments, and since I never look at the clock, I wasn't able to
tell them what time exactly I did everything. They insisted that I had
left the apartment for a certain period of time to meet somebody, which for me I didn't remember, but the interpreter said I probably had forgotten.

I have highlighted some of that to show that, either due to confusion on her part, or taking advantage of the (ridiculous) right to lie or due to some basic misunderstanding of the case on my part, she says something wrong. She says the cops showed her Patrick's message and asked whether she replied. But elsewhere I have seen testimony where she says she had deleted Patrick's message (which she must have done before the interrogations, clearly) and before Matteini the text of Patrick's SMS was not available, seemingly. I infer this from a passage of hers I have quoted elsewhere. Oh, alright, here it is again:

And as regards the relevance of the text of the message that the investigatee [=Patrick] had sent around 20.30 to Amanda, there are discordances between what was referred to by the ragazza and what was affirmed by the aforesaid [=Patrick]; in fact, while the ragazza spoke of a message by which she was advised that the locale would have remained shut and therefore she would not have needed to go to work, Patrick makes reference to having written to her that for that night there was no need of her attendance owing to so few customers.

This may appear to be a circumstance of little value when in reality it is not, being of itself a substantial difference between the two messages; it is probable that Patrick had had the intention, effectively, of not opening the locale thinking that he might be able to spend the night with Meredith, and then, seeing how events unfolded, considered it opportune to open the pub to create an apposite alibi for himself.

For what reason Amanda would have needed to lie about the why of her not having to go to work, the closure of the locale or the presence of few patrons, there is nothing known, nor are there logical reasons for it, while a motivation much more consistent is to be found as regards the investigatee [=Patrick], the which, with the opening of the locale, created for himself an alibi for the evening.

Such disgrasie [?] raise doubts about the actual text of the message even more when this is placed against the response that Amanda sent Patrick of the tenor “meet you soon”, a reply logically in reference to a closure of the locale in order to have a free night and a succeeding appointment.

The actual message was:

'Hi Amanda, there aren’t people tonight, DON’T COME' Source: this post of Frank Sfarzo's
http://perugiashock.com/2012/01/31/part-2-amanda-raffaele-in/

How come Amanda gave that evidence? How come the cops did not have the text of the SMS before they went in front of Matteini? Could they possibly have withheld it in order to preserve the value of the slight disagreement between Amanda's and Patrick's versions of it? They surely had access to his old phone because they eventually came up with the text (I assume Frank got it from the trial and that he has quoted it accurately, in English of course).

 

[Kaosium]

How come Amanda gave that evidence? How come the cops did not have the text of the SMS before they went in front of Matteini? Could they possibly have withheld it in order to preserve the value of the slight disagreement between Amanda's and Patrick's versions of it? They surely had access to his old phone because they eventually came up with the text (I assume Frank got it from the trial and that he has quoted it accurately, in English of course).

Amanda deleted the message Patrick sent to her from her 'inbox,' she didn't delete the message she sent back from her 'sent' file. The cops 'found' the message she sent back and wanted to know who she was replying to.

Also, I think the phone itself might have kept a record that a message was received and deleted at that time, but not the content of the deleted message.

 

[anglolawyer]

Lumumba's SMS

Amanda deleted the message Patrick sent to her from her 'inbox,' she didn't delete the message she sent back from her 'sent' file. The cops 'found' the message she sent back and wanted to know who she was replying to.

Also, I think the phone itself might have kept a record that a message was received and deleted at that time, but not the content of the deleted message.

Not sure that's how the highlighted evidence puts it, but, as its seems to have been accepted on all sides that she did indeed delete the message it must be a mistake. It's still odd though. It's a pretty crucial part of the case.

What about my other point? The cops will have got hold of Lumumba's old phone as sure as anything to read off his SMS. I find it hard to believe they did not know exactly what it said when they went before Matteini.

 

[Kaosium]

Not sure that's how the highlighted evidence puts it, but, as its seems to have been accepted on all sides that she did indeed delete the message it must be a mistake. It's still odd though. It's a pretty crucial part of the case.

Not after Patrick was released, then it became an embarrassing part of the case, and they didn't want to talk too much about it for obvious reasons.

This has been gone through before and I forget exactly what the most probable cause of the confusion was here, I think it was that they were showing Amanda that she'd deleted a message in her inbox from the time Meredith was last seen alive, there's a record of that left on the phone. It's also possible Amanda got mixed up with her phrasing, and they didn't really show her the message Patrick sent but the one she did, (or she didn't actually look closely because they were yelling at her) as by the time she testified it had been at least a year since it had happened and because of subsequent events this wasn't a priority in the case by that time.

What about my other point? The cops will have got hold of Lumumba's old phone as sure as anything to read off his SMS. I find it hard to believe they did not know exactly what it said when they went before Matteini.

So do I, my suspicion is that they didn't want to reveal the paucity of their case at that juncture, they wouldn't want to 'confuse' Matteini with possible 'different interpretations.' Being as Matteini accepted their version without question suggests on a number of levels some of the things that went wrong in this case.

Incidentally, it just occurred (or re-occurred) to me what might have caused the initial confusion about the text the night of the murder. The cops were putting it in the context of Amanda going and meeting someone that she was 'protecting.' Since Amanda didn't go anywhere and wasn't protecting anyone it didn't immediately trigger any memories, (and might have just confused her further) as the text was actually about her not having to work.

 

[anglolawyer]

Lumumba's text

Not after Patrick was released, then it became an embarrassing part of the case, and they didn't want to talk too much about it for obvious reasons.

This has been gone through before and I forget exactly what the most probable cause of the confusion was here, I think it was that they were showing Amanda that she'd deleted a message in her inbox from the time Meredith was last seen alive, there's a record of that left on the phone. It's also possible Amanda got mixed up with her phrasing, and they didn't really show her the message Patrick sent but the one she did, (or she didn't actually look closely because they were yelling at her) as by the time she testified it had been at least a year since it had happened and because of subsequent events this wasn't a priority in the case by that time.



So do I, my suspicion is that they didn't want to reveal the paucity of their case at that juncture, they wouldn't want to 'confuse' Matteini with possible 'different interpretations.' Being as Matteini accepted their version without question suggests on a number of levels some of the things that went wrong in this case.

Incidentally, it just occurred (or re-occurred) to me what might have caused the initial confusion about the text the night of the murder. The cops were putting it in the context of Amanda going and meeting someone that she was 'protecting.' Since Amanda didn't go anywhere and wasn't protecting anyone it didn't immediately trigger any memories, (and might have just confused her further) as the text was actually about her not having to work.

That all makes a lot of sense, including the last paragraph.

 

[Bill Williams]

Incidentally, it just occurred (or re-occurred) to me what might have caused the initial confusion about the text the night of the murder. The cops were putting it in the context of Amanda going and meeting someone that she was 'protecting.' Since Amanda didn't go anywhere and wasn't protecting anyone it didn't immediately trigger any memories, (and might have just confused her further) as the text was actually about her not having to work.

Could you rephrase, or expand on this? Anglo says it makes a lot of sense, but as worded, it makes no sense to me. If you're on to something, I'd like to at least understand it..... what am I missing?