The Massei/Mignini Conspiracy Theory

[Kestrel]

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.

Expert Saul Kassin explains how false confessions can happen.


Journel article by Kassin and others: Interviewing suspects: Practice, science, and future directions

ETA: The Norfolk 4 case involved multiple false confessions to a crime. Frontline: The Confessions shows how far off the deep end a case can go.

 

[Draca]

False Confessions

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.

Saul Kassin is the leading expert in false confessions. This video is really interesting.

Saul Kassin: "False Confessions"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JDRRwFfJKkw

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Here's more:
innocent people are sometimes induced to confess through the processes of police interrogation. In compliant false confessions, the innocent suspect acquiesces in order to escape from a stressful situation, avoid punishment, or gain a promised or implied reward. In these cases, basically, the confession is an act of compliance by a suspect who comes to believe that the short-term benefits of confession outweigh the long-term costs. This phenomenon was dramatically illustrated in the 1989 Central Park jogger case, where five New York City teenagers confessed after lengthy interrogations, each claiming he expected to go home afterward. All the boys were convicted and sent to prison, only to be exonerated in 2002 when the real rapist gave a confession that was confirmed by DNA evidence.

Third, internalized false confessions are those in which innocent but vulnerable suspects, exposed to highly suggestive interrogation tactics, not only confess but come to believe they committed the crime in question. The case of 14-year-old Michael Crowe, whose sister was stabbed to death, illustrates this phenomenon. After lengthy interrogations, during which time Michael was misled into thinking there was blood, hair, and other physical evidence of his guilt, he concluded that he was a killer: "I'm not sure how I did it. All I know is I did it." Eventually, he was convinced that he had a split personality—that “bad Michael” acted out of jealous rage while "good Michael" blocked the incident from consciousness. The charges against Crowe were later dropped when a drifter from the neighborhood was found with his sister’s blood on his clothing.

http://insidedateline.msnbc.msn.com...tery-in-rock-hill-a-defense-witness-weighs-in


* I think Amanda would be clasified as a compliant false confession after reading the descriptions.

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The Innocence Project :

In about 25% of DNA exoneration cases, innocent defendants made incriminating statements, delivered outright confessions or pled guilty.

From threats to torture
Sometimes law enforcement use harsh interrogation tactics with uncooperative suspects. But some police officers, convinced of a suspect’s guilt, occasionally use tactics so persuasive that an innocent person feels compelled to confess. Some suspects have confessed to avoid physical harm or discomfort.

Recording of interrogations
The Innocence Project has recommended specific changes in the practice of suspect interrogations in the U.S., including the mandatory electronic recording of interrogations, which has been shown to decrease the number of false confessions and increase the reliability of confessions as evidence.

http://www.innocenceproject.org/understand/False-Confessions.php

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Illuminating paper on Amanda's false accusation by a retired FBI agent.

The Interrogation That Never Was
by, Steve Moore

http://www.injusticeinperugia.org/FBI7.html


An interview on the subject:

Amanda Knox was bullied into confession says FBI Steve Moore - KING 5

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fCLDGTo0F6E


Transcript of Amanda Knox's handwritten statement to police on the evening of November 6, the day she was arrested:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/1570225/Transcript-of-Amanda-Knoxs-note.html

 

[Rolfe]

Thanks, I will read some of that. I am of course aware of the case of Stefan Kizsko, however he was not of normal intelligence.

Rolfe.

 

[Kaosium]

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.

You've got it.

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.

This is his 'penance' for allowing what he did in court. He was quite generous with the prosecution, allowing them just about every leeway. As a result, he was forced to cobble together an explanation, and as you note he must obfuscate here, and in a number of other places to cover up the fact the prosecution's case cannot withstand scrutiny, and his court 'accepted' many things that cannot be reconciled. It may very well be that he simply didn't realize that the prosecution's case was nothing but a house of cards, highlighting 'suspicious' activities, and he expected at some point that real evidence would be produced.

If it was minor stuff, it wouldn't have mattered, (to me at least) not everything can be wrapped up perfectly and human beings make errors. However it's major contentions of the prosecution, like time of death, whether the break-in was staged, and if the 'murder weapon' ever left Raffaele's drawer that night where he just totally had to re-imagine the laws of biology, physics and forensics in order to try to make the 'facts' 'compatible' with Amanda and Raffaele being guilty.

 

[Kaosium]

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?

Consider her situation: It's the middle of the night in the police station. The cops, who've just run over over a stoned Raffaele, start yelling at her that Raffaele has 'dropped' her alibi, that they have 'hard evidence' (untrue) she was at the scene, they think due to her reply to Patrick's text message that she said she met up with him the night of the murder around 9 PM due to her nascent Italian, that her memories are fogged because she was stoned that night, and that she was actually at the cottage and 'repressed' the memory. She has 5-10 cops at a time working on her over the course of three hours, from about 10:45-1:45AM, and then later will keep at it until 5:45 AM to try to refine her 'statement.'

She has no reason to think the cops would lie to her, or that Raffaele would lie about her, and eventually after hours of this she eventually starts to believe what she's imagined might have happened, due to their suggestions, might be real. My guess is she was in a state of high anxiety, when they started hitting her the stress caused her neurotransmitters to give her a temporary 'buzz' and in that state she thought that what her mind was coming up with to 'explain' the irreconcilable inconsistencies between what she actually remembered, and what the cops were telling her was true, were in fact 'memories' coming back to her--just like they said. You can read the statements on page five, just scroll down a little and you'll see all the gray. These are the result of her answering leading questions after she broke, not be able to resist anymore their contention that she must have been there.

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.

I don't know, she left the debate before I joined, and I wouldn't want to mischaracterize her position. However in a general sense, relying solely on fallible memory here, as I recall her and a number of other posters early in the 'Cartwheels' thread came to something of a 'consensus' that those who believed Raffaele and Amanda innocent were either the progenitors or deluded dupes of a disingenuous 'PR campaign' with xenophobic tendencies, and the 'real truth' was represented by a website that had been following the case from the beginning and had accumulated an unreal amount of information about it. I would note that website--long before she was convicted--had decided she was guilty, and had almost 240 people online 'celebrating' her conviction and that the conclusions they came to a result of the information they gathered were tainted by confirmation bias to an absurd degree.

Also, sometimes I think it might be easier if less was known about what really occurred as then it could just be said 'the cops screwed up and the court didn't catch it, that happens sometimes everywhere and more so in Italy due to the nature of their three trial system.' The cops screwed this up so badly, and so publicly--just about everything is out there--it just seems unbelievable that they would ever be stupid enough to think they could get away with it, or that the court and the press let them. That was my last line of resistance personally.

 

[Rolfe]

Consider her situation: It's the middle of the night in the police station. The cops, who've just run over over a stoned Raffaele, start yelling at her that Raffaele has 'dropped' her alibi, that they have 'hard evidence' (untrue) she was at the scene, they think due to her reply to Patrick's text message that she said she met up with him the night of the murder around 9 PM due to her nascent Italian, that her memories are fogged because she was stoned that night, and that she was actually at the cottage and 'repressed' the memory. She has 5-10 cops at a time working on her over the course of three hours, from about 10:45-1:45AM, and then later will keep at it until 5:45 AM to try to refine her 'statement.'

Would I be right in thinking this might be a major factor? If she and Rafaelle (how do you spell that anyway? Raphael?) had been doing pot, we may not be talking mentally normal.

Rolfe.

 

[LondonJohn]

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.

You have indeed got it. This "Time of Death from stomach/duodenum contents" issue has become a bit of a bete noire for many of those who are wedded to the guilt position. Most of them either obfuscate or downright mislead in order to pretend that this isn't solid scientific evidence.

The known scientific data are unequivocal in regard to gastric transit. A small/medium-sized solid meal will typically start to leave the stomach (to the duodenum) within an average of around 85 minutes after the start of the meal. There is of course some variability around this average: it can be as little as 30 minutes after the start of the meal, or as much as 180 minutes. But the data show that anything more than 180 minutes is extremely unlikely, and anything more than 240 minutes (i.e. 4 hours) is next to impossible.

The main method of attacking these statistics (hi, Stilicho!) is to say that they suggest that Meredith died at around 8pm - when she was still watching a film with her English friends. Of course, this is to show ignorance of conditional probabilities, since we know with near certainty that Meredith was still alive at just before 9pm. Now, it's true to say that this would put Meredith already at the upper limit (in around the top 2%-5%) at some 150 minutes after starting the pizza meal. But that in itself makes it far, far more likely that Meredith then died between 9pm and 9.30pm (with around 95% probability, in fact), than between 9.30pm and 10pm (around 4% probability) or later than 10pm (around 1% probability).

I have a scientific tertiary education, and I've worked with numbers and statistics ever since. I am entirely confident that I understand the scientific/medical literature on this issue, and I'm consequently highly confident that Meredith Kercher almost certainly died between 9pm and 9.30pm.

 

[LondonJohn]

Would I be right in thinking this might be a major factor? If she and Rafaelle (how do you spell that anyway? Raphael?) had been doing pot, we may not be talking mentally normal.

Rolfe.

True. I think Sollecito was more of a full-on stoner than Knox, but both readily admit to having smoked up that night. In my view, this only made Knox more susceptible to the coercive suggestion that she repressed her memory that night.

By the way, those who like to pretend that Knox essentially "blurted out" Lumumba's participation choose to overlook the part played by the police interpreter, Anna Donnino. She admitted in testimony that she played her own role (completely improperly) in trying to convince Knox that she'd suppressed/repressed her memory of the horrific events surrounding the murder, by telling her about when she (Donnino) had broken her ankle badly, but had blocked out all memory of the accident owing to trauma.

It therefore appears highly likely that the police interrogators were telling Knox that she was repressing memories - the interpreter would not have been taking the lead here, and would only have been seeking to reinforce (and validate) the interrogators' approach.

 

[Kestrel]

Would I be right in thinking this might be a major factor? If she and Rafaelle (how do you spell that anyway? Raphael?) had been doing pot, we may not be talking mentally normal.

Rolfe.

A more important reason may be sleep deprivation. Amanda and Raffaele spent long hours at the police station each day after the murder. On the night of Nov. 4, Amanda had told friends that she having real trouble sleeping, getting only a couple hours each night. Rather understandable for anyone who had a flatmate murdered. The morning of Nov. 5, she attended classes on her normal schedule. The interrogation started sometime after 10:30 pm that night.

In the Norfolk 4 case, the interrogator kept the suspects up all night to force them into sleep deprivation. On the night of Nov. 5, Amanda walked into the Perugia police station already in that state.

The Perugia interrogators then used the classic tricks. Amanda was told that clear video evidence placed her at the cottage on the night of the murder. They told her that Raffaele was now saying she had not spent the night at his place. They told her that she must have amnesia from the trauma and made her question her own sanity. Then asked her to try and imagine what may have happened.

 

[Rolfe]

I haven't followed this in detail because the main thread has always grown faster than I can read it, and anyway I'm frying other fish. However, my opinion leans to the innocence side as to fact, and most certainly it appears to me there is far far too much reasonable doubt to support a conviction.

Rolfe.

 

[Kevin_Lowe]

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.)

They've got a couple of alibis, actually.

Their story, which they stuck to apart from the one night in the police station where they cracked and said what the police wanted, was that they were at home all night watching movies and hanging out.

This should have been easy enough to confirm to a reasonable degree of certainty by looking at the time stamps on the videos they watched, but unfortunately for the defence the postal police overwrote that data by mucking about with the files, then "accidentally" fried the hard drive for good measure.

However the defence has presented logs from Raffaele's resurrected laptop that purport to show that there was constant computer activity all night until 6am. Nobody has yet poked any holes in them, although they are esoteric enough that it's not absolutely impossible that someone will.

If you happen to believe the witness Curatolo (and there are excellent grounds not to) he saw them standing around Perugia, not covered in blood or otherwise looking murdery, after the actual time of death. Since he's the only piece of evidence that breaks their alibi the prosecution more or less had to go with an official time of death around 23:30 if they wanted to have any case at all, and that then required them to do serious violence to the autopsy evidence to make it work.

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?

It just turns out, as you've already read, that you can squeeze false confessions out of perfectly normal people under the right conditions.

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.

Confirmation bias and a totally misplaced faith in her own competence to judge people based on second-hand, cherry-picked news reports of their behaviour, IMHO. Mostly confirmation bias once she got going - by the time the hard evidence from the scientific literature came along to prove that Meredith's empty duodenum proved that she died before 22:00, she just wasn't able to accept it.

 

[Kaosium]

Would I be right in thinking this might be a major factor? If she and Rafaelle (how do you spell that anyway? Raphael?) had been doing pot, we may not be talking mentally normal.

Rolfe.

Raffaele admitted he was 'smoked' on hash the night they called him and Amanda into be questioned. I strongly suspect that had a major influence on the fact within twenty-five minutes of them walking though the door that Raffaele had signed a statement that Amanda had left the night of the murder from 9 PM to 1 AM. I suspect what they did was tell him what they would tell Amanda, that they had 'hard evidence' of her being away that night, and the stoned Raffaele, who was also like Amanda smoked up the night of the murder, wasn't going to argue with them. He naturally assumed they were correct and he'd confused it with the night before (Halloween) where Amanda left him around the same times, and he'd just gone along with what Amanda said afterward and hadn't bothered to think of the contradictions. Keep in mind neither of these college kids had any idea they were suspected of being involved in the murder, it's a pretty far-fetched idea as you note previously.

It's also possible in his fogged condition he just blew them off and told them what they wanted to hear so they'd leave him alone and go bother Amanda about it. It depends on how you interpret what Raffaele said in his diary, he has a well-refined self-depreciating sense of humor I found endearing, but isn't entirely clear on what happened that night outside that he was 'psychologically tortured,' it was all his fault because he was stoned and stupid, but the cops were even stupider than he.

Amanda probably wasn't stoned the night of the interrogation, but she was in even worse mental shape in my opinion. She'd spent something like 53 hours with the police in the four days after the murder, (that figure would include this night's festivities) they'd started to get aggressive with her the night before as revealed in her e-mail. She wasn't sleeping well, her only real friend in Italy had been brutally murdered and raped yards away from where she slept, she'd been told her brand new boyfriend 'dropped' her alibi, and that they had 'hard evidence' she was at the scene.

Here's an excerpt of a short paper on the subject that includes some of the conditions present during Amanda's interrogation.

Coerced-Internalized False Confessions

The third type of false confession is coerced-internalized, that is, when suspects who are innocent, but anxious, fatigued, pressured, or confused, and then subjected to highly suggestive methods of police interrogation, actually come to believe that they committed the crime (Kassin, 1997; Kassin & Kiechel, 1996; Kassin & Sukel, 1997; Kassin & Wrightsman, 1985; Wrightsman & Kassin, 1993). What is frightening about this type of false confession is that the innocent suspects’ memory of their own actions may be altered, making its “original contents potentially irretrievable.” (p. 226, Kassin, 1997; p. 78, Kassin & Wrightsman, 1985).

There are remarkable cases involving coerced-internalized false confessions. Kassin (1997) asserts that they all have two factors in common, namely: (a) a suspect who is vulnerable--i.e., one whose memory is malleable by virtue of his/her youth, interpersonal trust, naiveté, suggestibility, lack of intelligence, stress, fatigue, alcohol, or drug use, and (b) the presentation of false evidence such as a rigged polygraph or other forensic tests (e.g., bloodstains, semen, hair, fingerprints), statements supposedly made by an accomplice, or a staged eyewitness identification as a way to convince the beleaguered suspect that he or she he is guilty. (p. 227)

Keep in mind in this case, none of this actually happened. This is all garbage, just like the statements it resembles. Patrick never raped and murdered Meredith Kercher, Rudy Guede did. Amanda wasn't ever cowering in the kitchen when Patrick did so, she was home snuggling with Raffaele, or if you believe police she was delivering the killing blow to her with her boytoys Raffaele and Rudy dancing attendance.

Police would have you believe that Amanda just blurted it out when they were just fiddling with her phone during a casual discussion, and they'd never heard of Patrick Lumumba, she just 'accused' him out of the blue. At least that was their story in court, after the arrest they said she 'buckled and made an admission of facts we knew to be correct.' The only real 'fact' that was in those statements was that Patrick Lumumba was involved, and being as they quickly 'compiled' a case of mistakes and circumstances involving him to convince a judge to allow them to make a case against him, it stands to reason they weren't completely unaware of him, and it was he they were pressing Amanda for, just like she said on the stand. They didn't say his name, they just lead her right to it. They demanded she admit she was covering for who she sent that text to, when they knew damn well who it was. They followed the letter of the interrogation protocol but destroyed its spirit.

Here's Amanda's note, you can see it includes a number of the signs indicative of an internalized false confession. She wrote this to police immediately after being arrested, it is a contemporaneous record of her state of mind directly after they were done with her. Police say they 'forgot' to record her interrogation, despite recording all her witness statements and almost all of the other witnesses as well, as is standard practice in Italy and required by law of official suspects, which Amanda wouldn't legally become until 1:45 AM, before that they couldn't record it because they claim she was just chatting it up with the policewomen when she all of a sudden said something to the effect of 'It's him...he's the murderer!' After that, for the 5:45 statement, they said they were 'too busy' to record it.

I think they're lying, this is what happened, and she didn't just 'make this up' and happen to include the classic signs of an internalized false confession by chance or design, Amanda is a very confused girl trying to sort out what's happened to her and, perversely, is still trying to help police. I think this shows she never really 'confessed' to or 'accused' anyone of anything, she was the passive partner in this travesty, reacting to the twelve angry policeman who'd gotten this inane idea into their head for reasons of misunderstanding and coincidence that she aided and abetted Patrick Lumumba in the rape and murder of Meredith Kercher. This is where it all starts:

This is very strange, I know, but really what happened is as confusing to me as it is to everyone else. I have been told there is hard evidence saying that I was at the place of the murder of my friend when it happened. This, I want to confirm, is something that to me, if asked a few days ago, would be impossible.

I know that Raffaele has placed evidence against me, saying that I was not with him on the night of Meredith's murder, but let me tell you this. In my mind there are things I remember and things that are confused. My account of this story goes as follows, despite the evidence stacked against me:

On Thursday November 1 I saw Meredith the last time at my house when she left around 3 or 4 in the afternoon. Raffaele was with me at the time. We, Raffaele and I, stayed at my house for a little while longer and around 5 in the evening we left to watch the movie Amelie at his house. After the movie I received a message from Patrik [sic], for whom I work at the pub "Le Chic". He told me in this message that it wasn't necessary for me to come into work for the evening because there was no one at my work.

Now I remember to have also replied with the message: "See you later. Have a good evening!" and this for me does not mean that I wanted to meet him immediately. In particular because I said: "Good evening!" What happened after I know does not match up with what Raffaele was saying, but this is what I remember. I told Raffaele that I didn't have to work and that I could remain at home for the evening. After that I believe we relaxed in his room together, perhaps I checked my email. Perhaps I read or studied or perhaps I made love to Raffaele. In fact, I think I did make love with him.

However, I admit that this period of time is rather strange because I am not quite sure. I smoked marijuana with him and I might even have fallen asleep. These things I am not sure about and I know they are important to the case and to help myself, but in reality, I don't think I did much. One thing I do remember is that I took a shower with Raffaele and this might explain how we passed the time. In truth, I do not remember exactly what day it was, but I do remember that we had a shower and we washed ourselves for a long time. He cleaned my ears, he dried and combed my hair.

One of the things I am sure that definitely happened the night on which Meredith was murdered was that Raffaele and I ate fairly late, I think around 11 in the evening, although I can't be sure because I didn't look at the clock. After dinner I noticed there was blood on Raffaele's hand, but I was under the impression that it was blood from the fish. After we ate Raffaele washed the dishes but the pipes under his sink broke and water flooded the floor. But because he didn't have a mop I said we could clean it up tomorrow because we (Meredith, Laura, Filomena and I) have a mop at home. I remember it was quite late because we were both very tired (though I can't say the time).

The next thing I remember was waking up the morning of Friday November 2nd around 10am and I took a plastic bag to take back my dirty cloths to go back to my house. It was then that I arrived home alone that I found the door to my house was wide open and this all began. In regards to this "confession" that I made last night, I want to make clear that I'm very doubtful of the verity of my statements because they were made under the pressures of stress, shock and extreme exhaustion. Not only was I told I would be arrested and put in jail for 30 years, but I was also hit in the head when I didn't remember a fact correctly. I understand that the police are under a lot of stress, so I understand the treatment I received.

However, it was under this pressure and after many hours of confusion that my mind came up with these answers. In my mind I saw Patrik in flashes of blurred images. I saw him near the basketball court. I saw him at my front door. I saw myself cowering in the kitchen with my hands over my ears because in my head I could hear Meredith screaming. But I've said this many times so as to make myself clear: these things seem unreal to me, like a dream, and I am unsure if they are real things that happened or are just dreams my head has made to try to answer the questions in my head and the questions I am being asked.

But the truth is, I am unsure about the truth and here's why:

1. The police have told me that they have hard evidence that places me at the house, my house, at the time of Meredith's murder. I don't know what proof they are talking about, but if this is true, it means I am very confused and my dreams must be real.

2. My boyfriend has claimed that I have said things that I know are not true. I KNOW I told him I didn't have to work that night. I remember that moment very clearly. I also NEVER asked him to lie for me. This is absolutely a lie. What I don't understand is why Raffaele, who has always been so caring and gentle with me, would lie about this. What does he have to hide? I don't think he killed Meredith, but I do think he is scared, like me. He walked into a situation that he has never had to be in, and perhaps he is trying to find a way out by disassociating himself with me.

Honestly, I understand because this is a very scary situation. I also know that the police don't believe things of me that I know I can explain, such as:

1. I know the police are confused as to why it took me so long to call someone after I found the door to my house open and blood in the bathroom. The truth is, I wasn't sure what to think, but I definitely didn't think the worst, that someone was murdered. I thought a lot of things, mainly that perhaps someone got hurt and left quickly to take care of it. I also thought that maybe one of my roommates was having menstral [sic] problems and hadn't cleaned up. Perhaps I was in shock, but at the time I didn't know what to think and that's the truth. That is why I talked to Raffaele about it in the morning, because I was worried and wanted advice.

2. I also know that the fact that I can't fully recall the events that I claim took place at Raffaele's home during the time that Meredith was murdered is incriminating. And I stand by my statements that I made last night about events that could have taken place in my home with Patrik, but I want to make very clear that these events seem more unreal to me that what I said before, that I stayed at Raffaele's house.

3. I'm very confused at this time. My head is full of contrasting ideas and I know I can be frustrating to work with for this reason. But I also want to tell the truth as best I can. Everything I have said in regards to my involvement in Meredith's death, even though it is contrasting, are the best truth that I have been able to think.

[illegible section]

I'm trying, I really am, because I'm scared for myself. I know I didn't kill Meredith. That's all I know for sure. In these flashbacks that I'm having, I see Patrik as the murderer, but the way the truth feels in my mind, there is no way for me to have known because I don't remember FOR SURE if I was at my house that night. The questions that need answering, at least for how I'm thinking are:

1. Why did Raffaele lie? (or for you) Did Raffaele lie?
2. Why did I think of Patrik?
3. Is the evidence proving my pressance [sic] at the time and place of the crime reliable? If so, what does this say about my memory? Is it reliable?
4. Is there any other evidence condemning Patrik or any other person?
3. Who is the REAL murder [sic]? This is particularly important because I don't feel I can be used as condemning testimone [sic] in this instance.

I have a clearer mind that I've had before, but I'm still missing parts, which I know is bad for me. But this is the truth and this is what I'm thinking at this time. Please don't yell at me because it only makes me more confused, which doesn't help anyone. I understand how serious this situation is, and as such, I want to give you this information as soon and as clearly as possible.

If there are still parts that don't make sense, please ask me. I'm doing the best I can, just like you are. Please believe me at least in that, although I understand if you don't. All I know is that I didn't kill Meredith, and so I have nothing but lies to be afraid of.

 

[Antony]

Also, sometimes I think it might be easier if less was known about what really occurred as then it could just be said 'the cops screwed up and the court didn't catch it, that happens sometimes everywhere and more so in Italy due to the nature of their three trial system.' The cops screwed this up so badly, and so publicly--just about everything is out there--it just seems unbelievable that they would ever be stupid enough to think they could get away with it, or that the court and the press let them. That was my last line of resistance personally.

I came through a similar stage of believing that it was an honest mistake on the part of the police and courts, helped along by a misdirected campaign on Amanda's behalf, with allegations of corruption etc in the Italian justice system. My starting point was simply that the arrest and charging of 2 people who were at the scene when the crime was discovered, was an extremely strong indicator of an injustice.

Then I found that the allegations (setting aside supposed "anti-Americanism") were largely true, and that the prosecution case was indeed so outrageous that only a completely rigged process could ever have endorsed it. That is what sets this case apart from numerous others, including in the UK and the US, that are just as ruinous to those involved.

 

[Rolfe]

Amamda sounds psychiatrically disturbed in that note. It makes me wonder just how much of what sort of illegal substances she'd been using and for how long, to be honest. I appreciate the possibilities as regards coerced confessions, but even Stefan Kizsko was never as confused as this - he always stated he'd simply begun to say what the police seemed to want him to say so that they would be nice to him, and let him go home to his mother. He specifically said he believed at the time that when they actually investigated what he had said and found it was nonsense, then he would be in the clear. And he was not the brightest crayon in the box.

Something I notice with miscarriages of justice is that either the accused has a very dodgy/suspicious background or if they haven't, the prosecution fit them up with one. Then the discourse becomes something like, but he was a weirdo stalker, that proves he did it. Uh, no it doesn't. Simply having a record doesn't prove any one individual committed any particular crime.

But then there is a tendency for those who believe the accused didn't do it to try to deny the truth of the past record or other apparently incriminating factor. I may be wrong because I'm standing by the window looking in here, but how it appears to me is that Amanda (and maybe her friends too) wasn't a nice, clean-cut, clean-living student, but doing drugs and jumping into bed with young men (OK one young man) she'd only known for a couple of days.

Her supporters are keen to distance themselves from that image, for fear it is also the image of someone who could suddenly turn into a murderess, but it seems to me that's the sort of person who could plausibly have got into the sort of state we see from that note, and incriminated herself in something she didn't do.

Rolfe.

 

[LondonJohn]

Amamda sounds psychiatrically disturbed in that note. It makes me wonder just how much of what sort of illegal substances she'd been using and for how long, to be honest. I appreciate the possibilities as regards coerced confessions, but even Stefan Kizsko was never as confused as this - he always stated he'd simply begun to say what the police seemed to want him to say so that they would be nice to him, and let him go home to his mother. He specifically said he believed at the time that when they actually investigated what he had said and found it was nonsense, then he would be in the clear. And he was not the brightest crayon in the box.

Something I notice with miscarriages of justice is that either the accused has a very dodgy/suspicious background or if they haven't, the prosecution fit them up with one. Then the discourse becomes something like, but he was a weirdo stalker, that proves he did it. Uh, no it doesn't. Simply having a record doesn't prove any one individual committed any particular crime.

But then there is a tendency for those who believe the accused didn't do it to try to deny the truth of the past record or other apparently incriminating factor. I may be wrong because I'm standing by the window looking in here, but how it appears to me is that Amanda (and maybe her friends too) wasn't a nice, clean-cut, clean-living student, but doing drugs and jumping into bed with young men (OK one young man) she'd only known for a couple of days.

Her supporters are keen to distance themselves from that image, for fear it is also the image of someone who could suddenly turn into a murderess, but it seems to me that's the sort of person who could plausibly have got into the sort of state we see from that note, and incriminated herself in something she didn't do.

Rolfe.

I would completely subscribe to the view that Knox was "quirky" to say the least, and even that she perhaps had a mild form of some identifiable personality disorder. However, she had no previous history of antisocial behaviour (no matter how much people try to bring up a student party in Seattle!).

I think that her personality, coupled with myriad other factors - cannabis use, sleep deprivation, heavy-handed police coercion (including the apparent fact that they told her they had solid evidence placing her at the murder scene), a sense of isolation being 5,000 miles from home - all fed into her confused "confession/accusation".

And, by the way, my position on this case completely correlates to the one you stated a few posts earlier: I have long been convinced that there is nowhere near enough evidence to convict beyond a reasonable doubt, and I lean towards thinking that Knox/Sollecito may have had nothing whatsoever to do with this crime (although I'm not certain on that - nor of course am I required to be in order to argue that they were wrongfully convicted).

 

[Antony]

But then there is a tendency for those who believe the accused didn't do it to try to deny the truth of the past record or other apparently incriminating factor. I may be wrong because I'm standing by the window looking in here, but how it appears to me is that Amanda (and maybe her friends too) wasn't a nice, clean-cut, clean-living student, but doing drugs and jumping into bed with young men (OK one young man) she'd only known for a couple of days.

Her supporters are keen to distance themselves from that image,

Why do you have this impression? On the contrary, I think Amanda's supporters are trying to point out that smoking pot and having lovers is perfectly normal among student-aged young women.

for fear it is also the image of someone who could suddenly turn into a murderess,

Hmm. I think that "fear" is the actuality - indeed, the media image created of Amanda, particularly, in the 2 years leading up to the trial, was one of shocking loose-living. As far as I can see, the trial verdict was based entirely on this grossly exaggerated image, and not on any credible evidence whatsoever.

Others have quoted how Massei specifically makes the leap from the use of drugs to committing murder (section 393, p. 367-8 of the PMF translation):

Therefore it may be deduced that, accustomed to the consumption of drugs and the effects of the latter, Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito participated actively in Rudy’s criminal acts aimed at overcoming Meredith’s resistance, subjugating her will and thus allowing Rudy to act out his lustful impulses; and this is considered to have happened because, for those [i.e. for people] who did not disdain the use of drugs (Amanda has stated that on that evening, before ‚making love‛, they had consumed drugs), watching films and reading comic books in which sexuality is accompanied by violence and by situations of fear, disregarding the concept of sexuality as an encounter of [two] persons moved by reciprocal and free emotion (see the comic books seized from Raffaele Sollecito and the statements on the viewing of films which had drawn the attention of the tutors of the ONAOSI College attended by Raffaele Sollecito), the prospect of helping Rudy in [his] goal of subduing Meredith in order to sexually abuse her may have seemed to be an exciting stimulant which, although unexpected, had to be tried.

but it seems to me that's the sort of person who could plausibly have got into the sort of state we see from that note, and incriminated herself in something she didn't do.

I think the point that is being made is that the tactics used by the police on 5-6 November, combined with extreme exhaustion in the suspect, will lead to the suspect saying whatever the police want them to say - and that they can do this with any normal person.

 

[Rolfe]

Why do you have this impression? On the contrary, I think Amanda's supporters are trying to point out that smoking pot and having lovers is perfectly normal among student-aged young women.

Hmm. I think that "fear" is the actuality - indeed, the media image created of Amanda, particularly, in the 2 years leading up to the trial, was one of shocking loose-living. As far as I can see, the trial verdict was based entirely on this grossly exaggerated image, and not on any credible evidence whatsoever.

Others have quoted how Massei specifically makes the leap from the use of drugs to committing murder (section 393, p. 367-8 of the PMF translation):

I don't think we're really disagreeing here. I also don't agree that smoking pot (and whatever else she might have been doing) and taking lovers means that someone may automatically be branded a murderer.

I merely observe that this characterisation of Amanda (the pot etc. I mean) makes her behaviour seem more understandable, when otherwise it's very very strange.

I have seen attempts to characterise Amanda as an entirely wholesome and upright young woman, which don't really sit as well with her behaviour after arrest.

I think the point that is being made is that the tactics used by the police on 5-6 November, combined with extreme exhaustion in the suspect, will lead to the suspect saying whatever the police want them to say - and that they can do this with any normal person.

That may be so, but it's not an easy thing to get one's head round. It's hard for me, for example, to imagine myself making the sort of statements Amanda made, even if you assure me that sufficient police brutality could do it just fine. It's a lot easier to understand when one factors the pot into the equation.

Rolfe.

 

[PhantomWolf]

That may be so, but it's not an easy thing to get one's head round. It's hard for me, for example, to imagine myself making the sort of statements Amanda made, even if you assure me that sufficient police brutality could do it just fine. It's a lot easier to understand when one factors the pot into the equation.

I think you are were I was a few weeks back, though perhaps the difference is that I did some psychology in university, specifically about how the brain works and how it effects our behaviour. My lecturers very quickly rid me of the belief that the memory and mind are strong and unable to be manipulated to the point of creating false memories even in ordinary adults. Being interested in it, I have kept an eye on further research and so when I first looked at the circumstances of her "confessions" all the alarm bells started ringing rather loudly.

Since then I have became more and more shocked at the way this case was investigated, though part of me still isn't willing to accept that it could be handled this poorly and so I want to see more evidence to see how it would work if they were guilty so I can compare both stories, compare them to the evidence and start to make some sense of the whole thing.

 

[RoseMontague]

Even Massei mentions the last human interaction on Raffaele's computer was 9:10PM and in the defense appeal documents it is pointed out that it is also shown that a Naruto file was opened at 9:26PM. The police missed this one because they had started playing with his computer before the hard drive was cloned and opened this file changing the last access time to November 6th (while it was in the hands of the police).

So at 9:26PM they were still at Raffaele's apartment.

 

[RoseMontague]

Amamda sounds psychiatrically disturbed in that note. It makes me wonder just how much of what sort of illegal substances she'd been using and for how long, to be honest. I appreciate the possibilities as regards coerced confessions, but even Stefan Kizsko was never as confused as this - he always stated he'd simply begun to say what the police seemed to want him to say so that they would be nice to him, and let him go home to his mother. He specifically said he believed at the time that when they actually investigated what he had said and found it was nonsense, then he would be in the clear. And he was not the brightest crayon in the box.

Amanda is intelligent but lacked common sense. As in the case that you relate, I believe she was presented with so called facts by police and instead of continuing to argue with them she decided to agree simply so she could go home. If you read the testimony she gave in court it seems clear to me that the police were suggesting to her that Patrick was the guilty party. She was also told that Raffaele had dropped her alibi. Her statement is a very vague (paraphrased) I met Patrick and we went over to Meredith's and I was in the kitchen and heard them arguing. When pressured to give more detail because the of the vagueness of her statement she added that she heard a thud and a scream. The testimony has the cops insisting she heard a scream so she says 'fine, I heard a scream' and they say then 'fine, let's write that down' (going by memory-IIRC). She gives no details of what happened next, no I saw the body, no Patrick had a knife, no saw a lot of blood or blood on Patrick's clothes, no clean up or staging of a break in, no memory at all of what happened next, just waking up in Raffaele's bed the next morning. It is simply the type of confession that is so lacking in any detail that should have made the cops concerned that it was not a true confession at all.