The Massei/Mignini Conspiracy Theory

[PhantomWolf]

I overlooked that part of Platonov's post. You, as not obsessed with the case, may not be aware that the cell tower in question in fact gave no optimal reception inside the cottage, but it had the best connection in other areas of town, namely in park St. Angelo.
It is located between the cottage and Guede's place. The park is outside the city walls not far from the cottage. Importantly he could get there without going through the populated areas. Defence argued that Guede was there with the phones when the connection occurred. It is possible and in fact probable

Thanks, interesting. This would indeed point to the phone being elsewhere by 10:13pm, so either Meredith went for a walk, or she was already dead. The abundance of evidence points towards the later.

It seriously puzzles me that when the evidence points to a TOD at or before 9:30pm, that the prosecution would hold on so tightly for a TOD at 11:30pm. The only thing I can think of is because they are so fixated on AK and RS having done it that they are ignoring the physical evidence in favour of what they think happened.

Of course when the lead detective says things like that he knew she was guilty because she was eating pizza instead of being curled up in bed crying, or because of how she wiggled her hips, I guess ignoring blatantly obvious physical evidence is not surprising.

 

[platonov]

It's all relative

Thanks, interesting. This would indeed point to the phone being elsewhere by 10:13pm, so either Meredith went for a walk, or she was already dead. The abundance of evidence points towards the later.

It seriously puzzles me that when the evidence points to a TOD at or before 9:30pm, that the prosecution would hold on so tightly for a TOD at 11:30pm. The only thing I can think of is because they are so fixated on AK and RS having done it that they are ignoring the physical evidence in favour of what they think happened.

Of course when the lead detective says things like that he knew she was guilty because she was eating pizza instead of being curled up in bed crying, or because of how she wiggled her hips, I guess ignoring blatantly obvious physical evidence is not surprising.

Does it also puzzle you that (even) the defence (as I have already pointed out) went for a 21.30 - 22.30 ToD in the original trial

Perhaps not - as they seem to be in on the conspiracy !

I overlooked that part of Platonov's post. You, as not obsessed with the case, may not be aware that the cell tower in question in fact gave no optimal reception inside the cottage, but it had the best connection in other areas of town, namely in park St. Angelo.
It is located between the cottage and Guede's place. The park is outside the city walls not far from the cottage. Importantly he could get there without going through the populated areas. Defence argued that Guede was there with the phones when the connection occurred. It is possible and in fact probable

Ignoring the (repeated) suppositions inherent in your/these arguments as I usually do....

I, for one, am not obsessed with the case - merely found the treatment of it on JREF 'interesting' and as such posted on 'Cartwheels' for about 2 mths at the end of 2010.

I'd go so far as to say I know little* about the case which makes more 'interesting' the fact that I can so easily refute/dismiss the many 'misspokes' the CT's are based upon.

Perhaps its the groundhog day aspect - the arguments are not merely risible but few in number.

* 'little' is a relative term (obviously)

 

[Kevin_Lowe]

Thanks, interesting. This would indeed point to the phone being elsewhere by 10:13pm, so either Meredith went for a walk, or she was already dead. The abundance of evidence points towards the later.

It seriously puzzles me that when the evidence points to a TOD at or before 9:30pm, that the prosecution would hold on so tightly for a TOD at 11:30pm. The only thing I can think of is because they are so fixated on AK and RS having done it that they are ignoring the physical evidence in favour of what they think happened.

That's pretty much it.

They fixated on the idea that AK and RS did it before they had all the evidence in hand, and when the evidence started trickling in to show that AK and RS couldn't have done it they weren't rational enough to be able to revise their theory.

 

[Chris_Halkides]

on guard

Thanks, interesting. This would indeed point to the phone being elsewhere by 10:13pm, so either Meredith went for a walk, or she was already dead. The abundance of evidence points towards the later.

It seriously puzzles me that when the evidence points to a TOD at or before 9:30pm, that the prosecution would hold on so tightly for a TOD at 11:30pm. The only thing I can think of is because they are so fixated on AK and RS having done it that they are ignoring the physical evidence in favour of what they think happened.

PhantomWolf,

PM Mignini moved the TOD about an hour later in his closing statement. I have sometimes wondered whether the defense were caught off guard.

 

[PhantomWolf]

PhantomWolf,

PM Mignini moved the TOD about an hour later in his closing statement. I have sometimes wondered whether the defense were caught off guard.

This TOD doesn't gel with a finding of food in her stomach. Being crazy I have been checking other sources, and the general consensous is that within 5-6 hours the stomach will be all but totally empty. Even if we go with the 7pm meal, that means that by 11:50pm, Mignini's TOD, Meredith's stomach should have been all but empty, or at least well on the way. It's simply impossible.

 

[Chris_Halkides]

elective surgery

This TOD doesn't gel with a finding of food in her stomach. Being crazy I have been checking other sources, and the general consensous is that within 5-6 hours the stomach will be all but totally empty. Even if we go with the 7pm meal, that means that by 11:50pm, Mignini's TOD, Meredith's stomach should have been all but empty, or at least well on the way. It's simply impossible.

PhantomWolf,

I agree. If one looks at guidelines for how long one should fast before surgery, one sees a range, but (IIRC) I have seen a number as low as 6 hours. This presumably provides sufficient time for the stomach to empty completely. I also think a meal time of 6 or 6:30 is more likely than 7, owing to the length of the movie they watched (120-123 minutes).

 

[babycondor]

PhantomWolf,

PM Mignini moved the TOD about an hour later in his closing statement. I have sometimes wondered whether the defense were caught off guard.

Then the judge should have caught it.

 

[Chris_Halkides]

flat footed

Then the judge should have caught it.

babycondor,

My (nonexpert) understanding is that the judge has the discretion to allow PM Mignini to do it. The defense might not have been expecting it, and perhaps they would not have been able to muster the arguments on short notice.

 

[RoseMontague]

PhantomWolf,

PM Mignini moved the TOD about an hour later in his closing statement. I have sometimes wondered whether the defense were caught off guard.

Mignini was not the only one moving times around to try and fit new evidence. From the link of thoughtful's post I provided earlier:

... Manuela Comodi declared on the last day of the trial that the postal police had arrived at the cottage at 12:46 and were present when Raffaele made his 112 calls. The time cited of 12:46 was reiterated in a number of press releases, I noted it also at that time. This fact, if accepted/confirmed, would seem to indicate that Manuela Comodi has abandoned the idea previously expressed by the prosecution that the postal police arrived at 12:35 or 12:26 or the various other times frequently mentioned here, and therefore abandoned the claim that the CCTV camera showed a time that was 10 minutes later than true time.

And in a later post explains why this still does not add up.

Let's accept this for a moment and see. Battistelli and Marzi walk down the path to the garden. They never mentioned seeing Amanda phoning her mother, they said Amanda and Raffaele were standing in the garden. So maybe they arrived just as she was hanging up on her mother, so 12:48. Then, Battistelli and Marzi talked with Amanda and Raffaele for enough time to explain why they were there, hear about the blood and the locked door, and get Amanda to write a post-it with Meredith's numbers on it. (Finn even said they were taken around the house, though this is not clear.) But less than five-six minutes for this activity seems impossible. Yet at 12:51 Raffaele calls 112, and at 12:54, he not only calls 112 again but Amanda is standing behind him and her voice is heard on the recording telling him the address.

What's happening here? Either Battistelli and Marzi are standing alone while Amanda and Raffaele are hiding to do this, or Battistelli and Marzi are watching them do it, or Marco and Luca have already arrived, say at 12:50, meaning that all of the initial discussion with Amanda and Raffaele, the post-it etc. happened in two minutes.
None of this sounds possible. I can't see how it can be otherwise than: postals arrive and talk for five-six minutes minimum, Marco and Luca arrive and find them in the kitchen standing over the post-it, Filomena and her friend Paola arrive a few minutes later, and Paola then sees Amanda and Raffaele coming out of Amanda's room. But if police arrival time in the street is 12:46 and down at the cottage is 12:48 (they didn't see Amanda's phone call to her mother), one just has to add up the minutes...

Fast and loose times at Perugia High it seems. Just as Comodi's insistence that Amanda called her Mom at noon instead of 12:45 and her 3AM Seattle time (instead of 4:45AM). It is still a conspiracy of platonovic proportions involving obelisks and H G Wells.

 

[Bruce Fischer]

It's like clear and all from the English friends testimony that they like started dining around 6:00 p.m. or even earlier.

I agree with this completely. The defense has the time wrong in the appeal. The testimony along with other evidence shows that is was highly likely that Meredith was attacked as soon as she arrived home.

It's easy to be a platonov type character. They are a dime a dozen. It takes very little effort to be sarcastic. The people that actually provide credible information, now those are more difficult to come by. I find this conspiracy thread entertaining and am amazed at the patience of Rose, Draca, Halides, and others.

 

[LondonJohn]

PhantomWolf,

I agree. If one looks at guidelines for how long one should fast before surgery, one sees a range, but (IIRC) I have seen a number as low as 6 hours. This presumably provides sufficient time for the stomach to empty completely. I also think a meal time of 6 or 6:30 is more likely than 7, owing to the length of the movie they watched (120-123 minutes).

I think that the aggregation of the English girls' time recollections, activity recollections, and the running time of the film results in a likely meal start time (for the pizza) of something between 6.15pm and 6.30pm. And that's when the clock starts ticking for stomach emptying times.

There's essentially no way that Meredith Kercher could have been attacked at 11.30-11.40pm (per Mignini and Massei), and yet still have none of the pizza in her duodenum or beyond. Similarly, there's almost no way that she was attacked later than 10pm. The very high likelihood is that Meredith was attacked very shortly after arriving home just before 9pm, and that she was dead before 9.30pm.

If the trial ever gets as far as this, I expect that the defence teams will be able to call expert gastroenterologists and/or forensic pathologists with specific expertise in ToD from stomach contents, who will be able to provide unimpeachable expert testimony to this effect.

 

[LondonJohn]

So, it would appear that not only have the Italian authorities gone after Frank Sfarzo:

http://www.cpj.org/2011/04/journalists-threatened-for-reporting-on-murder-cas.php

... but also after Barbie Latza Nadeau:

http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2011-04-18/berlusconis-war-against-the-press/#

Does this sound like a free press to anyone, or does it perhaps have overtones of a police state? Answers on a postcard......

 

[Kaosium]

So, it would appear that not only have the Italian authorities gone after Frank Sfarzo:

http://www.cpj.org/2011/04/journalists-threatened-for-reporting-on-murder-cas.php

... but also after Barbie Latza Nadeau:

http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2011-04-18/berlusconis-war-against-the-press/#

Does this sound like a free press to anyone, or does it perhaps have overtones of a police state? Answers on a postcard......

I once told Withnail there was nothing fascist about Italy today, the more I read stuff like this the tougher it is to maintain that opinion.

 

[Kaosium]

Stomach Contents and Time of Death

Here's a fun game! I just finally got around to downloading the Massei Report being as my old favorite on the Seattle PI website has disappeared and I've forsaken the idea it will ever return. I figured since it has not really been seen on this particular thread, a recounting of just how science conspired against Massei and his attempt to explain it all away with a handwave should prove entertaining.

I've copied this all, so it is handy, especially for those who want to try to maintain that somehow Massei managed to convincingly refute the first paragraph, where the premise is established, with the rest of it, in which he dutifully attempts to explain how biology is somehow different in the State of Umbria.

The parameters are pretty simply established. Meredith began eating at 6:30 to 7:00 according to this recounting, (this must be what the appeal refers to--Introna's testimony) and there is no material in her duodenum when autopsied. There's no significant amount of alcohol in her system, merely the equivalent of a glass of wine or beer, probably just what was left over from the night before. Relying up his knowledge of the arcane and esoteric field of 'biology,' a discipline the Italian Courts appear to view as deeply suspicious, Professor Introna insists the attack started somewhere between 9:00-9:30 PM on November First.

Now, those who maintain that somehow Meredith died at 11:40 or thereabouts must think that somewhere in the subsequent paragraphs Massei makes a convincing argument that somehow it is perfectly permissible to extend that by more than two hours. Just where is it, because it sure as hell looks to me like he's waving away like a matador here.

Let us count the ways:

1. Digestion times are influenced by many factors.

Fine, show us the factors that would cause it to take five hours--or more than three in virtually all cases--for any material at all to pass into the duodenum.

2. Many factors again, and you can't always be sure when the last meal started.

We have numerous witnesses as to when the last meal started, and the length of the movie provides a further clue.

3. Even Professor Introna mentioned that 'many factors' influence digestion!

This is becoming a theme, but none of these factors and how they could have caused no material whatsoever to pass into the duodenum have been revealed. 'Many factors' is starting to sound like 'It's possible, indeed probable...' to me.

4.Professor Umani Ronchi testified to something that sounds suspiciously like 'many factors' influence digestion. However, he also testified it can take 3-5+ hours for the stomach to empty itself.

Finally! An actual 'factor' to consider! However an entirely irrelevant one, as the question is not when the stomach is empty, but when it begins to empty. Massei...isn't dodging this question is he?

5. He used the word 'farinaceous'

That's just cheating! No one's ever heard of that word, I bet Massei had to look it up. However, we do have another factor, the type of food. We know it was pizza she started eating. At any rate he's still talking the stomach emptying itself, and even if it's really starchy and takes 6-7 hours, we still don't have an answer on when it starts to empty.

6. Professor Umani Ronchi again mentions it takes 6-7 hours for the stomach to empty

I guess he wants to make sure we have that 6-7 hour figure firmly in mind, it's also irrelevant to the question he needs to answer.

7.Professor Cingolani says stomach contents is the most unreliable, untrustworthy, criterion for establishing time of death because it can vary from 1-12 hours.

Not in this case it can't. She ate at about 6:30, she was alive at 9:00 with nothing in her duodenum. That's the question you're dodging Massei, how can it take longer than 3 or so hours for anything to pass to the duodenum?

8.The small intestine stole it when no one was looking.

Professor Umani Ronchi does drugs! That's my 'hypothesis!' Isn't there a tape of this autopsy? Why would he be 'hypothesizing' about alien abduction scenarios when all he would have to do is point out how it happened on the tape? Would that be because he never viewed the tape? If he had, then a calunnia charge might be filed against him on behalf of Dr. Lalli? I think it's yet another travesty of the Italian Courts that the innocent small intestine can be so slandered without recourse. Not to mention the poor ligatures. 'Appositioned' indeed! What a scurrilous contention!

9. She might have had a small amount of beer or wine when she came home and maybe a mushroom.

Very interesting, but what does that have to do with the stuff that went into her stomach at 6:30 PM? You're not...dodging the question again, are you Massei?

10. It was between 20-30 hours before examination of the body at 12:50 AM, November 3rd.

At this point Massei gives up, he never addressed the actual question and figures everyone must be fooled. He claims the only piece of 'circumstantial evidence' narrowing down that range is the fact the girls saw Meredith last just before 9:00 PM. However, he never addressed the fact that outside his larcenous intestine theory, there's absolutely nothing that suggests that there's any factor which could have caused there to be no material in the duodenum at the time of the attack some 5 hours later. He just says numerous times there's 'many factors' that influence digestion, in many different ways, and hopes it isn't noticed.

It was noticed.

A first datum consists of what Dr. Lalli verified with respect to the presence of a quantity amounting to 500cc in the stomach; another element is the absence of material in the duodenum. Professor Introna therefore recalled the witness depositions of Meredith’s friends, from which it would have resulted that Meredith began eating her last meal at around 18:30 – 19:00 pm on November 1, 2007 (page 25 of the report already cited several times, and the declarations made in the court hearing of June 20, 2009). Based on these elements, and considering a time of gastric emptying of 2 to 3 hours after the commencement of the ingestion of the last meal, Professor Introna asserts that the violence suffered by Meredith, and which probably caused the cessation of the digestive process, began between 21:00 pm and 21:30 pm.


This court does not hold such a prospect to be sustainable. In the first place, we recall what has been explained by the various consultants and forensic pathology experts concerning the difficulty in establishing digestion times, these being influenced by multiple factors. Thus Dr. Lalli, while affirming that gastric emptying begins as soon as one part of the stomach’s contents has become sufficiently liquid to pass through the pylorus, and that this occurs around the 3rd to 4th hour after the meal, made a point of adding that many factors influence the gastric emptying times, such that any deduction of time of death based solely on this data is rather unconvincing (page 64 of the Lalli report).

Professor Norelli emphasised the difficulty of [using] this parameter to determine the time of death, stressing the variability of digestion times and also the possible difficulty in establishing with certainty the time that the last meal began. Furthermore, Professor Introna did not fail to emphasise the difficulty of conducting an analysis performed on gastric contents and their emptying times due to the numerous variables by which they are influenced (page 15, hearing on June 20, 2009).


However, it was the experts appointed by the GIP for the pre-trial phase [incidente probatorio] who in particular emphasised the unreliability of such a criterion.

Professor Umani Ronchi testified that digestion is determined by a whole series of absolutely individual conditions and that these are not constant even for the same person. Moreover, he added that the stomach may need three, four, five, or even more, hours to empty itself (hearing on September 19, 2009). Even under standard conditions he indicated that a considerable and variable period of time was necessary. In the report lodged during the pre-trial phase [incidente probatorio] there was also a table and the [reference] literature relating to gastric emptying times, from which it followed that variability is substantial, depending on the type of meal, with the opinion that the said indications were of ‚dubious value‛. In any case, it was indicated that a farinaceous meal would require 6 to 7 hours (see report of Umani Ronchi, Cingolani, April, page 45). Consequently, assuming that Meredith began to eat at around 6 pm, the gastric emptying could have occurred around midnight, or even later.

The responses given by experts, on precisely this point, at the November 27, 2007 hearing before the GIP during the pre-trial phase were even more clarifying. Specifically, with reference to the pizza and thus to the foodstuffs that Meredith would have begun to eat at around 6 pm on November 1, 2007, Professor Umani Ronchi spoke of a gastric-emptying time of 6 to 7 hours (page 46 of the transcripts of the statement of said hearing). With even greater expository efficiency, Professor Cingolani emphasised that the criterion of stomach contents is the most untrustworthy, the most unreliable criterion for determining the time of death, since it can result in variations that can go from 1 to 12 hours, or even more (see the hearing testimony of November 26, 2007, page 55).


Besides this, the alimentary remnants in the small intestine must also be considered, and thus, as hypothesised by Professor Umani Ronchi, it would be possible to think that these remnants could have been found in the duodenum either because of an imperfect apposition of the ligatures, or because of an apposition of the ligatures that took place with such manner and timing as to make it impossible to avoid a sliding of material from the duodenum to the small intestine. The fact [that the] duodenum [is] empty is not [necessarily] fully reliable.

The following considerations add a further element of uncertainty to using the criterion of gastric emptying: Meredith’s friends, in speaking of an afternoon meal on November 1, 2007 that was eaten with Meredith, stated that no alcoholic substances were consumed; they drank only water.

According to statements by Dr. Lalli, based on the toxicological tests, the presence of ethyl alcohol in a concentration of 0.43gram/litre was found (Lalli report page 54); Professor Cingolani declared that it was a quantity equivalent to about a glass of beer or wine. During the autopsy, Dr. Lalli discovered a vegetal fragment in the oesophagus, apparently a piece of mushroom (page 46, Lalli report). In relation to this data, it is possible that Meredith, arriving home around 21:00 pm, ate something to accompany this meal – the last one of her life – with a bit of wine or a beer. This eventuality, with regard to hypothesising based on the above-mentioned objective elements, adds a final uncertainty to the notion of using the criterion of gastric emptying to determine the time of death with any certainty.


In relation to the above, from the difficulty of restricting the range by using the criterion of gastric emptying as well as Henssge's nomogram, it is held that the time of death must be indicated by the time range for which the various experts as well as the consultants substantially agree, and that is from 20 to 30 hours before the first examination on the body took place at 00:50 am on November 3, 2007 (on this point, see also page 47 of the transcript of the November 26, 2007 hearing, in which even the Sollecito defence consultant, Professor Vinci, declared himself in agreement with this range).

Taking only the thanato-chronological data in account, the time of death can therefore be situated at between 04:50 am on November 2, 2007 back to 18:50 pm on November 2, 2007. This range can be further restricted, therefore, only on the basis of circumstantial evidence, according to which, as has been seen, Meredith was still alive at 21:00 pm and on her way back to her home at number 7, via della Pergola.

Finally, it is excluded that, when Meredith suffered the lesions and the violence that caused her death, she was in a state of alcoholic intoxication. Dr. Lalli already arrived at this conclusion, having found an alcohol level equal to 0.43gram/litre. As [we have already] seen, the GIP-appointed experts also reached the conclusion that Meredith was not alcoholically intoxicated, and that the quantity of alcohol found by Dr. Lalli corresponded to the consumption of a glass of wine or beer.

 

[Rolfe]

Good Lord, I've just got it! The point isn't that the stomach wasn't empty, it was that the duodenum was! It's not about the time it would take for the stomach to become completely empty, it's about the time it would take for food to begin passing into the duodenum.

The finding of the empty duodenum supports a time of death around 2.5 to 3 hours postprandially, far more than it supports a time two hours later than that. This is incontrovertible, and indeed compelling.

So this Massei person is intent on muddying the waters by dementing on and on about gastric emptying, which is of course completely irrelevant to the point at issue. Massei is a judge? Presumably the muddying was started by the prosecution, encouraging experts to go on and on about emptying, in the hope that everybody would become confused.

Is Massei confused, or determinedly supporting the prosecution, right or wrong?

Is this some sort of special judge school attended by the Lockerbie judges as well?

Rolfe.

 

[Antony]

Good Lord, I've just got it! The point isn't that the stomach wasn't empty, it was that the duodenum was! It's not about the time it would take for the stomach to become completely empty, it's about the time it would take for food to begin passing into the duodenum.

The finding of the empty duodenum supports a time of death around 2.5 to 3 hours postprandially, far more than it supports a time two hours later than that. This is incontrovertible, and indeed compelling.

So this Massei person is intent on muddying the waters by dementing on and on about gastric emptying, which is of course completely irrelevant to the point at issue. Massei is a judge? Presumably the muddynig was started by the prosecution, encouraging experts to go on and on about emptying, in the hope that everybody would become confused.

Is Massei confused, or determinedly supporting the prosecution, right or wrong?

Is this some sort of special judge school attended by the Lockerbie judges as well?

Rolfe.

It's not just that - there is a whole raft of indications that corroborate the early completion time of the attack, and cannot be reconciled with the ToD relied upon by Massei and Mignini:

- Meredith was in the habit of calling her mother every evening, who was unwell. There was an interrupted call from her to her mother timed at 8:56pm, but then no further attempt to place the call;
- there were irregular, interrupted calls to her voicemail and bank (without using the international call code) made from her phone, around 9:50pm. Massei explained these away by supposing that she was lying on her bed playing idly with her phone; but they are more consistent with someone unfamiliar with the phone attempting to misuse it or turn it off;
- there was a connection made to her phone around 10:13pm, via a cell tower which had never shown a connection to her phone previously while she was at the cottage. This seems to indicate that the phones were taken from the cottage before this time;
- her jacket was found near her body with the sleeves turned inside-out, and her shoes with the laces still tied. The fact that she didn't take her jacket and shoes off normally and put them away suggests that she was attacked immediately after coming home, and they were removed forcibly by her attacker.

I have also seen it pointed out that the washing machine still containing wet clothes at the end of its cycle raises the question of why she would not have unloaded it and hung the clothes to dry, if she was in the flat from 9pm and the attack took place 2 hours plus later. However, it's not clear to me whether it is excluded that she could have loaded the machine during the evening, so that it was running during the attack. Does someone have evidence of when the washing machine was originally loaded?

 

[Rolfe]

So, if Meredith was killed between 9pm and 9.30pm, does that exonerate Amanda and Rafaelle? Do they have an alibi for that time? (I was reading the timeline on the other thread and it seemed reasonable, but I don't think it said where Amanda and Rafaelle were.)

Is Amanda mentally or emotionally unstable, that she came out with that spurious confession? It seems a bizarre thing to say, for a totally innocent girl. Drugs, maybe?

However, I see the entire allegation as an "extraordinary claim", so no matter what actually happened, bizarre circumstances were in play.

Why does Fiona think Amanda and Rafaelle did it? I usually find Fiona to be very sensible, but I don't totally follow her reasoning on this one.

Rolfe.

 

[babycondor]

Is Amanda mentally or emotionally unstable, that she came out with that spurious confession? It seems a bizarre thing to say, for a totally innocent girl. Drugs, maybe?

Internalized false confession, very probably.

Contributing factors in her case include:

police tactics including lying (proven), verbal and physical abuse (alleged but unprovable)
no lawyer present
youthful naivete
exhaustion, fear, etc.

 

[Draca]

So, if Meredith was killed between 9pm and 9.30pm, does that exonerate Amanda and Raffaele? Do they have an alibi for that time? (I was reading the timeline on the other thread and it seemed reasonable, but I don't think it said where Amanda and Raffaele were.)

Rolfe.

Here is some more timeline info:

20:40 Amanda and Raffaele at RS's place.[3]
Jovana Popovic of Serbia said Sollecito had agreed to drive her to a bus station in Perugia the night of the murder. ... Popovic went to Sollecito's house at 8:40 p.m. to tell him she no longer needed to go, and Knox opened the door to take the message, the Serbian woman testified. (Did Amanda answer the door because Raffaele was on the phone?)

21:10 Last human interaction with RS's computer during this night.
Testimony of police expert Marco Trotta at trial[7]
21:10:32 last access to the file Amelie.avi - Massei Report pg 325

Raffaele's appeal :
The prosecution stated that the last time Raffaele used his computer on November 1, 2007 was 21:10. The defense argues that the prosecution did not take into account downloading activity on Raffaele's computer at 21:26.

http://www.injusticeinperugia.org/appeal4.html#anchor_170

 

[Rolfe]

Internalized false confession, very probably.

Contributing factors in her case include:

police tactics including lying (proven), verbal and physical abuse (alleged but unprovable)
no lawyer present
youthful naivete
exhaustion, fear, etc.

It does seem extraordinary. I simply can't imagine how anyone of normal intelligence could do such a thing. However, weird things do happen. Is there any expert witness report explaining how this could have happened, or even a general paper demonstrating that this behaviour is recognised in normal people subjected to that sort of treatment?

Rolfe.