Category: The Knox lamp
Knox v Knox 8: How She Herself Provides Proofs Of Lies #70 To #90
(Click here to go straight to Comments. Long post.)
1. The Full Series And What It Proves
And so we conclude this expose of yet another 90 Knox lies.
This series demonstrates how Knox, testifying for two days on the stand in 2009, was blatantly contradicted by Knox herself 90 times in her 2013 book.
The extended-version 2015 paperback corrected NOT A SINGLE LIE despite the numerous obvious defamations. Italy still has another several years to charge Knox, just as Sollecito was charged and put on trial in a Florence court.
In that Florence court Sollecito of course lost. He himself conceded he had maliciously made things up. He could really offer no defense.
Knox's book is much, much worse. Her malicious stalking knows no bounds.
1. Click for Post: How Knox Herself Provides Proofs Of Lies OVERVIEW
2. Click for Post: How Knox Herself Provides Proofs Of Lies #1 To #16
3. Click for Post: How Knox Herself Provides Proofs Of Lies #17 To #26
2. Telling Contradictions 70 To 90
70 Trial Versus Book
Knox At Trial In 2009
FM: You underwent pressure, as you said, from the police who were asking you for information. Was that also true in your interrogations of the 2nd, the 3rd and the 4th, or only for the one from the 6th?
AK: The police repeated their questions and wanted, above all, for me to tell them who could have done this, but I didn't know how to respond. I told them about all the people that I knew. The most intense pressure was in the Questura between Nov 5 and 6, because I never lived through anything like that. Before that, they would ask me and then say "Okay, fine." They wouldn't say, for example, "Maybe you don't remember well" or "Maybe you're a liar", for example. The didn't say those things.
GCM: So, there was a difference. All right. Go ahead.
FM: So the other statements were made in a more natural, a lighter way.
AK: Lighter, yes. But still always repeating.
FM: Who was present, the same policemen or different ones?
AK: There were so many policemen…
FM: When you say "so many", what do you mean? Five, ten, fifteen, twenty?
AK: Well…
FM: For you, "so many" means how many?
AK: In the sense that I didn't recognize the policemen from one time to another. There were some who were always there, for example, like the person who led the interrogation on the 5th. That was a person who was already there the first days that I was there. But in the sense that one person said they were from Rome, one was from Perugia, one from Cabria that was going to arrive, so it was difficult to know them all.
Knox In Her Book 2013-15
[Comments] AK in one sense seems to be backtracking on the number who were actually there. Of course, no explanation as to why they would all be there to spring this trap on AK. Remember, she showed up: (a) uninvited; (b) unannounced; and (c) refused to leave
FM: In your room in via della Pergola, was there a central light?
AK: There was one but it didn't work, so I used the little bedside lamp.
FM: The lamp.
AK: The little lamp, yes.
FM: And you previously stated that you didn't look for the lamp either; you only looked for your computer when you went into your room. You didn't look for your money, you didn't look for your lamp.
AK: So, I saw the window only the second time that I entered the house. The first time I went into the house I didn't even think of looking to see if anything was missing, because I saw going into the living room, it really looked like someone had just gone out of the house, everything was in order, just as I had left it. But the second time, I didn't even think of looking for the lamp: the computer was the important thing for me. All my documents were in it.
FM: But the first time, when you took your shower and then you returned to your room, first you undressed and then you dressed, all this, you did it without any light?
AK: It was the middle of the morning, there was already light.
FM: Did you open your shutters or were they already open?
AK: I don't remember.
FM: To get to your room, to get to the window, you walked in the dark?
AK: But it wasn't dark in my room. Often—
FM: I don't know, I wasn't there.
AK: All right. Usually I only turned on that little lamp at night. Really at night, or in the evening, when I wanted to…So I didn't even think of turning it on. It really wasn't dark in my room when I went in.
GCM: It wasn't dark, but where was the light coming from? Natural light?
AK: Natural.
[Comments] No mention of any of this. The missing lamp is only a red flag, and despite repeated questioning, AK dances around it
FM: You mentioned to your friends in the Questura that according to you, Meredith died slowly.
AK: They said…
FM: How did you come to say that?
AK: I heard that her throat was cut, and from what I saw in CSI [Crime Scene Investigation] of these things, these things are neither quick nor pleasant. So when they said "We hope she died quickly," like I don't know, in some other way, I said "But what are you saying, her throat was cut, good Lord, bleargh." I had remained at that point, that brutality, this death that was really blechh, that made a horrible impression. That was what really struck me, that fact of having your throat cut. It seemed so gross, and I imagined that it was a very slow and terrifying death. So when they said "We hope it was like this," I said "No, I think it was really gross, disgusting."
FM: And do you know if, when Meredith was murdered, she screamed or shrieked?
AK: I don't know.
FM: Did someone tell you?
[Comments] This also is missing from the book. Aside from being cold, there is no innocent way Knox could actually have known.
AK: Tell me? No, uh, no. No, I didn't know if she screamed or not.
FM: Did you talk about it with someone immediately after?
FM: Did you talk about it with someone immediately after, when you were there at the house, about whether she screamed or shrieked?
AK: Not about that, no.
FM: And did the police talk to you about the scream or not, when they interrogated you on the 2nd, the 3rd or the 4th. Did they talk to you about the fact that she screamed?
FM: Why did you say yesterday that they did? If I'm not mistaken.
GCM: Not on the 4th.
AK: The 2nd, 3rd and 4th…..On the 5th and 6th, they asked me if I heard the scream.
FM: So on the 5th and the 6th, the police told you that she screamed.
AK: They asked me if I had heard her scream. I said no. They said, but how is it possible that you didn't hear her scream, if she was killed so near you? I said, "I don't know, maybe I had my ears covered."
[Comments] Text missing on this topic
FM: On November 4, at 3:24 in the morning, you wrote a very long e-mail to 25 people. Okay?
AK: Yes.
FM: All right, but why did you write it at 3 in the morning, after having been in the Questura, where you said you were very tired, nervous, stressed and so forth. I mean, how did you come to write such a long e-mail instead of going to bed. This is the question.
AK: Precisely because I was stressed and felt exhausted because of the police, I had to somehow let off steam, because the whole situation was so heavy that I couldn't even sleep. So I needed to write. I needed to let off steam by writing, especially to the people who were worrying about me. So I addressed it to all the people whose e-mail addresses I had in my e-mail. I wrote down everything and sent it to them. Then I felt better.
[WTBH, Chapter 8, Page 96] As many answers as the police had demanded of me, they weren't giving up much information. Then I wrote a long e-mail, which I sent to
everyone at home, explaining what had happened since I'd gone back to the villa on Friday morning. I wrote it quickly, without a lot of thought, and sent it at 3:45 A.M.
It was another night of fretful sleep.
[Comments] Knox does admit to sending a long email, but doesn't include it in her book. Read for yourself
http://www.truejustice.org/ee/index.php?/tjmk/comments/scientific_statement_analysis_analysis_of_amanda_knoxs_email/
FM: You told your mother that you were very worried.
AK: I didn't understand why there would be Meredith's blood on a knife that was found in Raffaele's house. Because [tense laugh] for me that was impossible.
GCM: Excuse me, but with respect to the knife, which knife did they talk about? I saw that it remained a little general.
FM: Because she—oh, no, sorry, Presidente.
GCM: Yes? Which knife did they talk about?
AK: We were talking about a knife that had Meredith's blood…on this knife. And for me, I couldn't understand it because it was impossible.
GCM: So, with reference to that knife. Please go ahead, avvocato.
FM: Why did you say to your mother "I'm worried because there is a knife of Raffaele's."
AK: Well, I was worried because to me that was impossible. I didn't understand how that could be.
[Comment] This is omitted from the book
AK: Yes, he came into my bar once, for example, but there was always this fact that I had to work there, he came in, I don't think I even gave him a drink, because—I don't remember the situation that well, but I think he came in and then went out. I don't remember. But really, I didn't know him at all.
GB: Did you exchange telephone numbers? Did you call each other?
AK: No.
GB: Listen. A witness came here, whose name was Kokomani.
AK: [Tiny snigger]
[WTBH] No mention of Bongiorno at all in the book questioning AK at all
[Comments] Nothing says professionalism like snickering at someone's name.
GB: Were you wearing that suit that we saw that the police was wearing? With the shoe covers, the gloves?
AK: No, no, I was still wearing my own clothes. They gave me those—things that you put on your shoes.
GB: The shoe covers. And gloves?
AK: They gave me gloves when I went upstairs to look through the knives.
GB: Yes, but excuse me. The day you went downstairs with the police and entered into the apartment downstairs, you went in together with the police and you didn't have gloves?
AK: No, I didn't have gloves.
GB: Did you see, during all these police operations every time you went there—but in the end, how many times did you go to the house? The day of the 2nd, of the finding, and on the 4th?
AK: Mhm.
GB: On those occasions, did you see whether the police all had on these shoe-covers, gloves, suits all the time?
AK: I saw that the people I was with had things on their feet. I don't know if they all had gloves.
[WTBH, Chapter 25, Page 304/305]
When she answered Prosecutor Mignini's questions, she was clear, straightforward, and self-serving. She was smarter than her fellow officers. She knew the court was looking for police slipups. "We did our jobs perfectly, all the time," she testified. "We didn't hit Amanda." "We're the good guys."
When the defense questioned her, Napoleoni's manner switched from professional""albeit dishonest""to exasperated, incredulous, and condescending. For instance, when Raffaele's lawyer Giulia Bongiorno asked if the gloves police used at the crime scene were sterilized or one-use gloves, Napoleoni took a snarky tone, saying, "It's the same thing."
"By one-use gloves you mean that they are gloves that can be used only once, right?" Bongiorno asked.
"Obviously, yes," Napoleoni said haughtily.
"Therefore it means that every time you touched an object you changed gloves?"
"No, it means that I put them on when I enter before I touch objects, and that's what I did.
"But therefore with the same gloves, without changing gloves, you touched the various objects in the room in the course of the search?" Bongiorno asked.
"It's obvious, yes."
I knew it was the police's job to analyze the scene of a crime, gather dues, and determine who did it. But here in Perugia the police and the prosecutor seemed to be coming at Meredith's murder from the opposite direction. The investigation was sospettocentrico"""suspect-oriented" - they decided almost instantly that Raffaele and I were guilty and then made the clues fit their theory. Instead of impartiality, the prosecution's forensic experts were relentless in their drive to incriminate us. Their campaign was astonishing for its brashness and its singleness of purpose.
[Comments] While AK doesn't directly mentioning being questioned in the book, it appears that Bongirono is attempting to lay the groundwork for a contamination claim. Funny… in spite of not meeting any "international standards" when investigating AK/RS, the Italian CSI still did a great job against Guede. Odd…..
GB: Listen, it has been asked by the lawyer for the civil plaintiff if you had ever before experienced strange episodes with your imagination, or superimposing of memories. So, I wanted to complete that. Has it ever happened in your life before this to be interrogated with the methods that you have described?
AK: Absolutely not.
GB: So you connect this episode of your imagination with those methods?
AK: Certainly.
GB: When you refer to the fact that this famous interpreter told you an episode about her personal life, to solicit a memory from you, I wanted to understand: this interpreter, was she an interpreter that was speaking aloud and everyone was listening, or was it between just the two of you? And in what language did all this happen?
AK: Oh no, it was really just between the two of us. She was right here, and she was really talking right into my ear the whole time, saying "Come on, stop it," because I was saying the truth because I wanted to go home, "come on, maybe you just don't remember", it was like this the whole time. It wasn't like she was translating what I saw saying to them. Well yes, she also did that, but she was talking in my ear the whole time.
GB: So, it is correct to say that during the interrogation, this interpreter was having a conversation with you that could not be heard by third parties.
[WTBH] Text missing here
[Comments] Bongiorno is attempting the baseless and dishonest suggestion that Anna Doninno (Knox's interpreter on November 5/6) was actually deliberately misrepresenting what AK was tell the police, and also what the police were telling AK.
AK: No. They wrote; they asked me: "Okay, what do you imagine?" And I said "Maybe I imagine this," and they said "Okay, let's write this, and then you tell us if it's all right or not. So they were writing, saying "Okay, you met Patrick at Piazza Grimana, for example, you saw this, you covered your ears." "Okay, fine, fine."
GB: Okay. But when they made you sign the statement, you didn't explicitly ask to reread it or to change anything?
AK: They gave it to me to read, but…well, I did like this and then I just signed.
GB: Did you ever have any judicial experiences when you were in America?
GB: From the telephone call we heard about yesterday, you had a friend who was consulting a lawyer. You never thought in those days, seeing that you were constantly called to the Questura, about calling a lawyer?
[Comments] It is still never explained: the police have all this very abundant evidence (according to AK/RS), and it proves guilt against Guede is rocksolid. However, the police have to ask AK to imagine what happened, and they apparently "selectively contaminate" the crime scene.
GB: When you, on the morning of the finding of the body, when before that you went to take a shower, you said: "I got out of the shower and didn't have any shoes, so I jumped on the bathmat."
GB: This bathmat that we're talking about is the bathmat that you saw projected here in court in a video?
GB: Do you remember how you slid with the bathmat? When you took it from the bathroom to your room, did you have both bare feet on it or just one foot.
AK: Sometimes I…heh heh…by mistake, I put my foot on the floor like this, but I tried—I slid along trying to kind of make little jumps with the bathmat, but I didn't quite succeed.
GB: But it can be said that you were pressing on the bathmat with your foot?
[Comments] Bongirono is lobbing softballs, but AK still doesn't make sense
LM: Just a couple of details. Luca Maori, Raffaele Sollecito's defense. Referring to the moment in which you found yourselves, you and Raffaele, in front of the house in via della Pergola, at the moment in which you discovered that there were some problems, and then Raffaele called his sister. Did you hear Raffaele's telephone conversation with his sister?
AK: No, they were talking between themselves on the telephone, and I was nearby, but I wasn't listening.
LM: And do you know what Raffaele's sister advised him to do?
AK: I didn't hear her words, but she advised him to call the police or—as I understood it, to call the police.
LM: Then, did you hear Raffaele's next telephone call, to the police or carabinieri? Did you hear it?
AK: Yes, Raffaele called the police, yes. I was there, nearby.
LM: Okay. What did Raffaele say? Do you remember?
AK: Mm…it was in Italian.
[Comment] No mention that Lucas Maori asked AK any questions either
CP: They, who they? Sorry, but could you give names or titles? You were giving your statement to the PM.
AK: The PM and the policemen who were there. But when I made that declaration, also the PM was one of the people who said to me, "So, you did this, you followed this person, you heard this, but why?" That's how it was.
CP: So it was the pubblico ministero who put the words "I heard thuds" into your mouth?
AK: He wanted to know how come I hadn't—
CP: I asked you a question.
[Comment] Carlo Pacelli (Lumumba lawyer) asks AK about yet another incriminating comment—that she admitted to hearing "thuds", but that doesn't appear in the book
CP: She won't answer me, Presidente. Ahh. You said that you had good relations with Patrick.
CP: Then why, in your statement of Nov 6 2007 at 5:45, did you say you were very frightened of Patrick.
AK: Because, imagining him as being capable of murdering someone, at that moment I was scared.
CP: Did someone suggest this to you? The PM?
AK: They asked me what Patrick was like? Was he violent? I said no, he's not violent. But are you scared of him? And I said yes, because thinking that he was the person who killed her, I was scared. Also because in those days I was thinking generally that there was a murderer, and I was frightened.
CP: Why didn't you say this to the police in the statement of 1:45?
AK: Say what?
CP: That you were afraid of Patrick.
AK: Because they hadn't asked me yet.
[Comments] More B.S. on the witness stand. Perhaps AK means "(If) I imagine PL as the killer (it will get me off the hook)"
CP: When you gave your declaration to the examining tribunal, you confirmed the memorandum of Nov 6. Why didn't you exonerate Patrick?
AK: I wrote in the memorandum that I was trying to express my doubts. So I was confirming the fact that I wrote those things to say that what I had said before was an error. Including what I had said about Patrick.
CP: Listen, in your memorandum of November 6, you explicitly say—you were writing in English?
CP: And you wrote it freely, yes?
CP: You say "I stand by my statements that I made last night about events that could have taken place in my home with Patrick."
AK: In my memorandum, I recognized the fact that I had made those declarations, but that I had a lot of doubts as to the facts that were in my declaration.
CP: Do you know what the word "confirm" means in Italian?
AK: I wrote in English.
[Comment] Pacelli again trying to get a straight answer from AK as to why she didn't retract the false accusation
AK: Okay.
CDV: I read on page 6 that you said in that conversation: "Yes, when I was in the room with him, I said something," between parentheses 'laughs', "and then when I went back into the room, I was crying. I was very, very worried about this thing with the knife, because there's a knife from Raffaele's…" First question: this was on November 17. What knife were you talking about, and how could you know about this knife at this date?
AK: I heard for the first time about the knife from a police inspector while I was in prison. He showed me an internet article which said that there was blood on a knife that they had found in Raffaele's house. And I said that for me, I was worried because for me, that was just impossible. I didn't understand how such a thing could be.
CDV: So, when you're talking about there being a knife from Raffaele's, you meant this knife that you had heard about in this way, from Raffaele's house.
[Comments] Carlo Dalla Vedova is trying to get Knox to explain away get another incriminating remark: that she knew the knife came from Sollecito's home
AK: They're very—
INT:—very agitated.
AK: Yes. Raffaele also. I am angry. First I was scared. Then I was sad. Then I was confused. Then I was angry, and now I don't know. I can't [murmurs in English to interpreter: "I can't really wrap my mind". Interpreter helps her.] really wrap my mind around this. I didn't see her body. I didn't see her blood. It's almost as though it hadn't happened. But it did happen, in the room right next to mine. There was blood in the bathroom where I took a shower today. The door of the house was open to the wind and now I am without a house and forever, without a person who was a part of my life. And I don't know what to do or think.
CDV: Perfect. I request the acquisition of this document for the dossier.
GCM: All right. Do you have any other questions, avvocato?
CDV: There is another document extracted from the same diary, I'll call it that. Also this one, if I could ask you to confirm it and to read it? And in between, I'll ask this question. When you were in the Questura, you were writing this?
[Comments] Again, nothing of this in AK's book, but here AK is trying to dial back the callous remarks she keeps making
AK: Yes I said "hit", which means hit (punched).
CDV: No, you had clearer ideas compared with other times? When you wrote, you felt less confused?
AK: Yes, I felt less confused.
IVTO: (inaudible)
GCM: Please. The defence has asked you, when you wrote, if you found yourself in a calm situation, composed, attentive, alert basically?
AK: I did this precisely to calm myself.
CDV: So, when you say: "I have clearer ideas than before, but I'm still lacking some details and I know this isn't helpful to me", what did you mean exactly? That you felt more sure at that moment about what had happened?
I felt that the truth of the situation wasn't that which had happened in the questura. So I felt it necessary to write these things because for me that was the truth.
[Comments] F my life. Are we going to start with the "best truths" again?
GCM: You have said that you meant to go to Gubbio the day after, at what time had you planned to leave?
AK: Only for a day, we'd thought of "¦
GCM: Yes, but in the morning, after lunch? [156]
AK: When we woke up, we'd go there and usually "¦
GCM: Go where?
AK: To Gubbio.
GCM: As soon as you woke up you would have gone to Gubbio.
AK: Yes, it was very relaxed this "¦
GCM: How would you have gone there?
AK: He has a car.
GCM: And so you would have left for Gubbio as soon as you had woken up, is that right?
AK: Yes, get ready, then leave "¦
GCM: However, you have said that as soon as you woke up you went to the house in via della Pergola.
GCM: You didn't leave immediately for Gubbio why this change of plan?
AK: It wasn't really a change of plan, he was still asleep, so I thought I'd take a shower before leaving because I also wanted to change my clothes
[Comments] In the book—at least in parts of it—AK claims she wasn't alarmed by what she saw. So why not just: (a) flush; (b) wipe up the blood; (c) close and lock the door; and (d) head out to Gubbio?
GCM: Were you at Raffaele's house?
AK: Yes, I think I was "¦
GCM: What?
AK: Yes, I had returned to Raffaele's house, I asked him what I should do and he said ring my flatmates. So I called her when I was in Raffaele's apartment. But then I think she called me again while we were walking to the house, my house.
GCM: So, you called Romanelli when you were at Raffaele's house?
GCM: That's how it was?
AK: Yes. [163]
GCM: The first call was mde from Raffele's house.
AK: From Raffaele's, yes.
GCM: I put it to you that, at least from Romanelli's statements, it happened differently.
GCM: "She told me that she had taken a shower, that it seemed to her that there was blood, and that she was going to Raffaele's".
[Comments] Judge Massei picks up on a serious discrepancy. AK claims in court to have made the call from Sollecito's house. Yet, Filomena told the Court that AK told her she was heading to Sollecito's house. Very observant of the Judge.
AK: What happened is that we were "¦ he had called the police. While he was talking to them we were there and then we went out of the house and immediately the police arrived, the two of them together.
GCM: Now, I'd also like to ask you, it has emerged that, when they searched Raffaele Sollecito's house, perhaps on November 6, but I don't want to err, there was strong smell of bleach. We also have the testimony of the lady who cleaned the apartment of Raffaele Sollecito, who says that bleach was never used.
AK: I never used bleach in Raffaele's house.
GCM: Did you ever see Raffaele use it?
GCM: How do you explain the presence of the smell, which is a smell "¦
AK: I have never smelled bleach in Raffaele's house
[Comments] Again, missing from the book, but AK is asked about the smell of bleach.
Posted by Chimera on 07/01 at 12:00 AM • Permalink for this post • Archived in Evidence & Witnesses, The Knox lamp • Comments here (7)
Open Questions: An Experienced Trial Lawyer Recommends How To Zero In On the Truth
Posted by SomeAlibi
If you've come to this website because of the Lifetime movie of Meredith Kercher and Amanda Knox, then welcome.
Like all of us who come to this case, you have one key question: did they do it? The movie you've just watched is equivocal on that matter and perhaps didn't help you at all.
On the internet, you will find people who are passionate in their defence of Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito and you will find people who are passionate in their support of the prosecution.
My own arrival
Placing my own cards on the table here: as a twenty-plus year practising trial lawyer, I am firmly a part of that latter camp. But it wasn't always that way.
It was information "" evidence "" that changed my views. What became very clear to me, early on, was that very few people in the English-speaking world are aware of anywhere near all of the evidence in this case.
I had thought I had grasped the core of the case, but I did not. The case is deep and complex and like many criminal cases, the complete facts behind it have been only sketchily reported in the media. The movie you may have just watched only skirts the real reasons the jury convicted.
The unanimous jury
I am sure that we all agree that no jury, in any murder case, given the awesome responsibility of adjudicating on (young) people's lives for a multi-decade period of imprisonment, condemns people lightly.
It should be a matter of logic that the evidence presented against the accused must have been deep and satisfied the 6 lay jurors and 2 judges on the case for them to pronounce that huge judgement. That doesn't mean that there couldn't be the possibility of a mistrial, but clearly the evidence presented must have been substantial.
In this, we've already hit the first problem. Some supporters of Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito will tell you there's no evidence against them.
This is patently silly. No jury ever convicts people and sends them to prison for 24 plus years without being quite convinced of the case against them. Miscarriages of justice do happen, but the idea that there is "no evidence" can be summarily dismissed.
The only question is whether the evidence is sufficient, true and accurate.
The voluminous evidence
So is the evidence enough to convict beyond a reasonable doubt? The six lay jurors and two professional judges thought so, clearly. What you realise, when you come to the facts of the case, is that the evidence is based not around a single key event but on multiple points.
It can be astonishing to realise that the case is based not only on DNA evidence but also on cellphone evidence and computer records and further yet on multiple conflicting and contradicting versions of what happened that night from the mouths of the accused, not to mention falsely accusing an innocent man of responsibility for murder causing his incarceration.
The wealth of evidence is actually extremely unusual. It goes way beyond the quite similar Scott Peterson case.
The Massei Sentencing Report
What is absolutely new to the English speaking legal world is that the reasoning for the conviction can be read in an extremely detailed 440+ page report online. Bilingual posters at the Perugia Murder File Forum many of whom who are also key posters at TJMK translated the entire document into English over several months last year.
It was my privilege to play an extremely small part in that work. People from four different continents with backgrounds in forensic science, law, academia and a host of other disciplines participated.
You can read an effective executive summary by clicking on the Massei Report link at top here and reading the conclusions from page 388 onwards:
The Knox PR campaign
If you are new to this case, you will likely be shocked how much evidence there is against the convicted parties. Amanda Knox's family have spent over $1m and involved a professional PR agency called Gogerty Marriot to suggest otherwise in the English-speaking media.
You might wonder why an innocent person needs a million dollar PR campaign on their part. Make yourself a coffee and read the conclusions of the judge's report. It will take you about 15 minutes. Up until you read this report, almost everything you watch, hear and read is PR spin and is quite deliberately positioned to make you believe there is no case.
When you complete it, I believe you will have a very different take. That 15 minutes could change your ideas about everything you thought you knew about the murder of Meredith Kercher.
Now for a quick tour of the evidence.
Some of the points of evidence
Consider as you read it what is your own possible explanation for each of the following:
the DNA of Raffaele Sollecito on Meredith's bra-clasp in her locked bedroom;
the almost-entire naked footprint of Raffaele on a bathmat that in *no way* fits that of the other male in this case "" Rudy Guede;
the fact that Raffaele's own father blew their alibi that they were together in Raffaele's flat at the time of the killing with indisputable telephone records;
the DNA of Meredith Kercher on the knife in Raffaele's flat which Raffaele himself sought to explain as having been from accidentally "pricking" Meredith's hand in his written diary despite the fact Meredith had never been to his flat (confirmed by Amanda Knox);
the correlation of where Meredith's phones were found to the location of Raffaele Sollecito and Rudy Guedes's flats;
the computer records which show that no-one was at Raffaele's computer during the time of the murder despite him claiming he was using that computer;
Amanda's DNA mixed with Meredith Kercher's in five different places just feet from Meredith's body;
the utterly inexplicable computer records the morning after the murder starting at 5.32 am and including multiple file creations and interactions thereafter all during a time that Raffaele and Amanda insist they were asleep until 10.30am;
the separate witnesses who testified on oath that Amanda and Raffaele were at the square 40 metres from the girls' cottage on the evening of the murder and the fact that Amanda was seen at a convenience store at 7.45am the next morning, again while she said she was in bed;
the accusation of a completely innocent man by Amanda Knox;
the fact that when Amanda Knox rang Meredith's mobile telephones, ostensibly to check on the "missing" Meredith, she did so for just three seconds - registering the call but making no effort to allow the phone to be answered in the real world
the knife-fetish of Raffaele Sollecito and his formal disciplinary punishment for watching animal porn at his university "" so far from the wholesome image portrayed;
the fact that claimed multi-year kick-boxer Raffaele apparently couldn't break down a flimsy door to Meredith's room when he and Amanda were at the flat the morning after the murder but the first people in the flat with the police who weren't martial artists could;
the extensive hard drug use of Sollecito as told on by Amanda Knox;
the fact that Amanda knew details of the body and the wounds despite not being in line of sight of the body when it was discovered;
the lies of Knox on the witness stand in July 2009 about how their drug intake that night ("one joint") is totally contradicted by Sollecito's own contemporaneous diary;
the fact that after a late evening's questioning, Knox wrote a 2,900 word email home which painstakingly details what she said happened that evening and the morning after that looks *highly* like someone committing to memory, at 3.30 in the morning, an extensive alibi;
the fact that both Amanda and Raffaele both said they would give up smoking dope for life in their prison diaries despite having apparently nothing to regret;
the fact that when Rudy Guede was arrested, Raffaele Sollecito didn't celebrate the "true" perpetrator being arrested (which surely would have seen him released) but worried in his diary that a man whom he said he didn't know would "make up strange things" about him despite him just being one person in a city of over 160,000 people;
the fact that both an occupant of the cottage and the police instantly recognised the cottage had not been burgled but had been the subject of a staged break-in where glass was *on top* of apparently disturbed clothes;
that Knox and Sollecito both suggested each other might have committed the crime and Sollecito TO THIS DATE does not agree Knox stayed in his flat all the night in question;
the bizarre behaviour of both of them for days after the crime;
the fact that cellphone records show Knox did not stay in Sollecito's flat but had left the flat at a time which is completely coincidental with Guede's corroborated presence near the girl's flat earlier in the evening;
the fact that Amanda Knox's table lamp was found in the locked room of Meredith Kercher in a position that suggested it had been used to examine for fine details of the murder scene in a clean up;
the unbelievable series of changing stories made up by the defendants after their versions became challenged; Knox's inexplicable reaction to being shown the knife drawer at the girl's cottage where she ended up physically shaking and hitting her head.
This list is not exhaustive. It goes"¦ on"¦ and on"¦ and on"¦ And yet, those supporting Knox will tell you that's all made up, all coincidental.
Really? Does the weight of all that evidence sound made up to you?
If so, it must be the most over-rigged criminal case in the history of crime. Unlikely beyond all and any reasonable doubt.
The judge's report explains why the jury found the defendants guilty. I truly expect you will be astonished at the amount of evidence if all you've done is watched a film or read a few press reports.
For any questions thereafter, please join us and post them on truejustice.org or perugiamuderfile.org . You'll find here a host of good people who are all working on a totally volunteer basis in memory of the only victim of this crime.
Meredith Susanna Cara Kercher. RIP.
Posted by SomeAlibi on 02/22 at 01:44 AM • Permalink for this post • Archived in Crime hypotheses, Still-open questions, Evidence & Witnesses, Questionings, Real locations, Real timelines, Real crimescene, Staged breakin, The pack attack, Pat Lumumba, Other witnesses, The Knox lamp, The two knives, DNA and luminol, Computer activity, Cellphone activity, Other physical, Trials 2008 & 2009, The Massei Report, Hoaxes Knox & team, 14 AK/RS got-on hoax, 15 Single alibi hoax, 16 Interrogation hoax, 18 Use of drugs hoax, Hoaxes Sollecito etc, 26 RS/AK got-on hoax, 27 Single alibi hoax, Hoaxers from 2007, Amanda Knox 1.0, Raff Sollecito 1.0 • Comments here (37)
How The Media Should Approach The Case If Justice Is To Be Done And SEEN To Be Done
Posted by Hellodalai
The American media are really playing with fire here.
This is one of the most seriously misreported cases in recent history, and a line really needs to be drawn.
Much of the media are doing no digging, consulting no Italians, repeatedly recycling discredited sources and those with a vested interest in the outcome, stating facts that are not facts, ignoring other facts that really are facts, revealing no understanding of how the Italian judicial process works, and often depicting the Italian professionals with contempt.
And so far no-one is really calling them on it.
From this perspective, I have been reading all the articles and information on this case for the past few days. I too was very disappointed in the NY Time pieces by Egan. Rather than attempt to discuss the facts and evidence that are known so far, he painted "broad brush" strokes to argue that this trial is unfair.
The TIME magazine report just below - where the reporter basically allowed a Knox advocate to state her position unchallenged - is equally mediocre in terms of investigative and reporting quality. It was one of dozens that have done that.
Here is my own analysis of the case which I advance as the appropriate depth that EVERY reporter and print and TV analyst should aim to achieve before they start telling the rest of us what to think.
Egan points out that Amanda Knox had no motive to kill or participate in killing Meredith Kercher.
I agree that there seems to be little evidence on this issue. One roommate testified as to tensions between Amanda and Meredith. Roommate tensions are common, though, and rarely lead to murder.
Neither Rudy Guede, who has been convicted already, nor Raffaele Sollecito, who was Amanda's boyfriend of less than two weeks, seemingly had motives, either.
All three were young adults who liked alcohol, music, marijuana, and sex (although Rudy has been described as a petty thief and small time drug dealer; other reports state he had no criminal convictions). None seemed likely to erupt into a murderous rage.
One of the downstairs male students testified that Guede expressed some interest in Amanda and said that Meredith was beautiful. Sollecito wrote in a newspaper column that he was a 23 year old virgin when he met Amanda.
So Sollecito was vulnerable to Amanda's influence. Guede may have wanted to gain Amanda's favor. Add alcohol and drugs and group dynamics and - the threesome may have spun out of control.
Since the murder, Amanda's behavior could certainly be questioned. Who does cartwheels at a police station during an investigation of their murdered roommate? What defendant wears a shirt to their murder trial that says "All you need is love" when the prosecution is trying to portray them as someone with out-of-control sexual behavior?
If this case rested solely on whether Amanda had a motive to kill Meredith, I would agree with Egan's stance that the trial is unfair. Egan seems to stop at that issue, however, and seems unwilling to examine all the evidence objectively.
One of the better reports on the case included this statement:
"But perhaps more damning even than the knife was Stefanoni's testimony that a mix of Knox's DNA and Kercher's blood was found on the floor in the bedroom of a third roommate, Filomena Romanelli. While it might not be noteworthy to find mixed genetic traces of residents of the same house, Romanelli's room is critical in this crime.
Her window was broken with a large rock that prosecutors believe was used to stage a break-in. The mixed Knox-Kercher trace was found after investigators used luminol, a substance used in forensic science to bring out blood that had been cleaned up.
In addition, Stefanoni testified that a mixture of Knox's DNA and Kercher's blood was found on the drain of the bidet, on the bathroom sink, and on a Q-Tip box in the girls' bathroom."
That is FOUR different blood samples with mixed Knox-Kercher DNA. Yes, it does seem that the investigative methods were sloppy and not all samples may be reliable (I acknowledge that there are some problems with the prosecution's case).
But I have yet to read even one article where a reputable DNA expert can explain why sloppy police procedures would result in four separate mixed blood samples. I did read one explanation that Amanda bled from a pierced ear—thus providing some explanation, although weak, for why her blood may have been in the bathroom. That doesn't explain why her blood was in the bedroom of Filomena Romanelli (another of her roommates) or why her blood was found mixed with Meredith's - or why her blood would be recoverable from an area that had been cleaned after the murder to eliminate evidence.
Similarly, the DNA evidence from Sollecito, found on Meredith's bra clasp is not explained away by scientific reasoning. True, the police left the clasp in Meredith's room (which was sealed) for weeks and did not retrieve it, but DNA is not transferred by "flying DNA"; there is no "innocent" scientific explanation why Sollecito's DNA (not sloughed dead cells, which do not contain DNA) would affix itself to a bra clasp worn by the murder victim after the clasp had been torn from her body.
As to the DNA evidence found on the knife located in Sollecito's apartment, the DNA sample from Meredith was very tiny, according to reports, and the DNA from Amanda could be explained by her using the knife at Sollecito's apartment. (Sollecito explained Meredith's DNA by stating she had come to his apartment for dinner with Amanda and that he had accidentally pricked her. But no witnesses have been found who remember Meredith ever talking about going to Sollecito's apartment)
True, the knife is not the same size as most wounds on Meredith, but it is the same size as one wound. The knife showed evidence of bleach cleaning and some scratches (Sollecito's apartment showed a lot of evidence of bleach cleaning, even though his maid did not use bleach to clean).
Clean up motives and evidence
I have yet to see a careful review of the testimony and possible conclusions that may be drawn from the known facts and circumstantial evidence, including the clean up after the murder—which, to me, are very compelling.
The neighbor has testified that she heard a very loud, long scream that night (presumably Meredith's last), followed not long thereafter by the sounds of two to three different people running from the area (it was unusual to hear people running at that time of night). The neighbor was 69 and could not remember exactly the date she heard the screaming, but she was firm that it was the night before Meredith's murder was discovered.
It is not a stretch to link the screaming to Meredith, given that loud, long piercing screams are uncommon. Also, a murderer or murderers would realize that Meredith's scream may bring the police at any moment—so running from the crime would be expected.
The uncontradicted testimony is that there was a fair amount of effort to "clean up" the crime scene (the defense merely claims that Knox and Sollecito were not involved). It also appears that whoever came back for the "clean up" also broke a window in Filomena's bedroom (as mentioned, one of the two other roommates living upstairs; there were also four male students living downstairs in a separate unit), in an attempt to throw the investigating police off the scent.
Filomena testifed that she found clothes strewn around her room the next day and that she had left the room tidy. She testified that glass from the window broken in her bedroom was on top of those strewn clothes. If the window was broken by someone entering the home who was intent on rape and/or robbery, then the glass would not be on top of the clothes as those clothes would not have been under the window then (Filomena also testified that she had valuables in plain view in her bedroom and that none were taken).
The evidence suggests that someone placed these clothes around the room and THEN broke the window to "stage a scene" (as there is no explanation for why anyone would have any motive to randomly take clothes and throw them around a room).
Let's start with Guede first and the assumption that he came back to the home that night - either by himself - or with someone other than Amanda and Sollecito.
Guede's motivation to come back to the crime scene would be to clean up the most incriminating evidence against him and to stage this crime scene to lead the police in a direction away from him.
Guede left DNA inside Meredith, bled on Meredith's body, and left a bloody hand print on the pillow underneath Meredith's head. He also left feces in the bathroom toilet (the bathroom near Filomena's bedroom - -not the "bloody" bathroom between Meredith and Amanda's bedrooms). He would know that if he came back to clean. He would know that that evidence would be the strongest against him.
During this "clean up phase," the DNA inside Meredith, Guede's blood on Meredith's body, the bloody hand print, and Guede's feces in the bathroom toilet were all left untouched.
The "clean up phase" spent a lot of time in the bathroom next to Meredith's bedroom (it was also next to Amanda's bedroom), the hallway, and Filomena's bedroom, where the "break-in" was staged (it is possible at least part of this crime occurred in the bathroom, as Meredith's blood was found on the bathroom light switch when it was in an up position - meaning it was touched when the light was on. The bathroom had numerous droplets of her blood, some of which were commingled with Amanda's blood.)
Despite the cleanup in Filomena's bedroom, the police were still able to obtain DNA samples. Guede's DNA was not found in either the bathroom or Filomena's bedroom.
Six bloody footprints from bare feet were identified. One was visible to the naked eye in the bathroom and five were visible only after the police used luminol, which allows blood evidence cleaned by bleach to become visible under a special light. The luminol did reveal five bloody footprints that had been cleaned up (one shoe print was also found under Meredith's pillow - the print is consistent with the size of Amanda's shoe).
None of the six bloody footprints are consistent with the size of Guede's feet. All six of these footprints are consistent with the size of Amanda and/or Sollecito's feet.
Why would Guede concentrate his clean-up efforts on areas where there is little to no evidence from him and ignore the areas where there is substantial evidence of his involvement? Wouldn't he at least flush the toilet?
As to the staged "break-in," would Guede be motivated to set this up? If the police believed a "break-in" had occurred, would they then be led away from investigating Guede as a suspect?
If the police believed that a break-in had occurred, then they would focus on looking for someone who was either a complete stranger to Meredith or someone she would not readily admit to her home late in the evening if they knocked on her door unanounced. Guede was not a complete stranger. One of the four male students who lived in the separate unit downstairs testified that Guede sometimes came to the apartment of the four male students and met and talked to Amanda and Meredith there (the testimony is that Meredith dated one of those four male students).
The evidence suggests that Guede only slightly knew Meredith. So, Guede was not someone who could knock unannounced on Meredith's door late at night (at least 9:30—after Meredith talked to her mother) and be readily admitted.
Guede had no motivation to stage a "break-in" because a break-in would in no way lead the police away from his scent. Plus, there is no evidence that Guede was ever in Filomena's bedroom where the "break-in" was staged. If he had participated in this staging, a footprint consistent with the size of his feet should have been illuminated by the police's luminol.
It wasn't.
Conclusions that jurors would normally draw from facts and the circumstantial evidence relating to the "clean up" and "break-in" point to someone OTHER than Guede participating in the "clean-up" and "staged break-in."
Let's now look at the assumption that Amanda and her boyfriend, Rafaelle Sollecito, were the ones who came back for the "clean up" and "staged break-in."
If Amanda and Sollecito were with Guede when the murder occurred (accounting for the extra footsteps running away shortly after the last scream of Meredith) and then came back to get rid of evidence of their guilt, their motivation would be to clean up their blood and DNA evidence and lead police away from their scent.
As for whether Amanda bled that night, another roommate of Amanda's and Meredith's, Laura, testified that she saw a a mark under Amanda's chin the day after the murder that was not there the day before the murder; Laura testified the mark was not a hickey as a hickey would have been purple and more round.
I have read two different comments on this issue from Amanda's father. One stated that the mark was merely a hickey and is evidence she spent the night with her boyfriend. Another was that a physician examining Amanda on Nov. 6th - -the murder occurred the evening of Nov. 1st - did not note a mark under the chin. (Interestingly, the police interrogating Amanda the next day did not report such a mark, either).
I then found a photo that was posted online taken of Amanda the day after the murder. It clearly shows a mark under her chin—and would account for her blood being found at the apartment.
[click for larger image]
If Amanda and Sollecito did the "clean up," they would be motivated to leave evidence of Guede's guilt and point the police in his direction.
Forensics don't show either way whether bleach was used to clean up Meredith and Amanda's apartment, though it was used in Sollecito's apartment AND on the knife found in his apartment containing the DNA of Meredith and Amanda.
The Conad store owner reported the presence of Amanda in the household cleaners part of his store early on the morning after the murder (when Amanda and Sollecito contend they were asleep) although rumored receipts for bleach were not presented at trial.
Meredith's body, which contained Guede's DNA and his blood (mixed with hers) was not cleaned and Guede's feces was not flushed from the toilet.
The bathroom, which even after the cleaning, contained Amanda's blood mixed with Meredith's and a bloody footprint which is consistent with the size of Sollecito's foot (trial testimony was that it was "likely" Sollecito's footprint), had a lot of cleaning activity.
The hallway and Filomena's bedroom, which even after the bleaching contained Amanda's blood mixed with Meredith's and bloody footprints, was the site of a lot of cleaning activity (these footprints were all consistent with the size of the feet of Amanda and Sollecito, but not consistent with the size of Guede's feet) .
The "cleaning" evidence, and conclusions which may be drawn from it, point to Amanda and Sollecito as participants.
Would Amanda and Sollecito have a motive to stage a break-in? Amanda obviously had a key to the unit and did not have to break into her own apartment. If there was no sign of a break-in, police would probably focus on people who had a key to the apartment or friends of Meredith she would readily admit to her apartment at 9:30 at night. If there was no sign of a break-in, police would question Amanda and Sollecito at length - and they would obviously know that.
Amanda and Sollecito had a strong motive to stage a break-in to focus police on looking for a stranger, or someone like Guede who only knew Meredith very casually.
What about the next morning? Let's first assume Amanda was innocent and she is being truthful when she testified that she did not come home until around 11:30 the next morning.
Amanda testified that when she came home around 11:30 a.m. that the apartment door was open, that there was visible blood in the bathroom (which would have been numerous scattered blood drops, a ten inch smear on the bathroom door, and a bloody footprint on the floor) and that there was feces in a toilet. Amanda says that she called out for Meredith and no one answered.
She then took a shower and went to Filomena's bathroom and used her dryer to dry her hair (this is the bathroom with Guede's feces; this toilet is different than American toilets in that it had a large flat area so that the standing water in the toilet did not submerge the feces) and returned to her boyfriend's apartment.
If Amanda were truly innocent when she arrived that morning, wouldn't she also try to open the door to Meredith's bedroom after Meredith did not answer, even when she banged on her door more than once? Amanda's fingerprints were not found on the door knob and she has never testified that she tried to open the door. Sollecito testified that when he arrived later with Amanda that he tried to open the door - and his fingerprints are on the door knob.
If Amanda were innocent, wouldn't she text Meredith, as she did several times two days before? Wouldn't she call both of Meredith's cell phones and let them ring to see if they were in her bedroom? (Phone records show she called each phone one time; one for three seconds and the other for four seconds, despite Amanda telling Filomena that day that she had called Meredith's cell phones and that the phones just kept ringing)
If Amanda were innocent, wouldn't she also call out for Filomena and Laura - because she would not know for sure if they might have returned that morning (she knew Filomena had spent the night in town and that Laura was in a nearby town)? Wouldn't she look into their bedrooms (Filomena's door was closed that morning, according to Amanda; Sollecito says it was open) and have noticed that Filomena's bedroom window was broken and her clothes were strewn about? (When Amanda first called Filomena she did not mention that Filomena's bedroom had been broken into).
If Amanda were innocent, wouldn't she have just flushed the exposed feces down the toilet?
If Amanda were innocent and truthful, wouldn't her hair three hours later look like it had been washed and blow dried that day? Look again at the photo posted above. It was taken about three hours after the alleged washing and blow drying. Is that the hair of a woman who washed and blow dried her hair three hours earlier?
Wouldn't Amanda have noticed that the lamp in her bedroom, which was the only source of light for that room, was missing? (Police later found it in Meredith's room). Wouldn't she have immediately noticed the missing lamp when she first entered her bedroom that morning so that she would have immediately either left the apartment without taking a shower or called the police to come over? (Police and phone records show that Sollecito didnt call them until 12:54, even though the Postal and Communications Police had been at the apartment with Sollecito and Amanda since 12:26 - the Postal Police unexpectedly showed up at the apartment because Meredith's cell phones had been found.)
People react differently to unexpected happenings and Amanda may not have done all of those things, but surely she would have done at least one of them.
If Amanda were truthful about showering and drying her hair, wouldn't her fingerprints be in both bathrooms? (Since these activities would have occurred AFTER the clean up). The police only found one of her fingerprints in her residence - on a glass in her kitchen.
As to this time frame, what about the recent trial testimony of Amanda's mother that Amanda told her in their first phone call that day that she thought someone was in her apartment? Cell phone records place that call at 12:47, some 21 minutes after the Postal Police arrived. (A nearby video camera documents that time, as does Postal Police log records; the defense has tried to argue that the Postal Police did not arrive until after 1:00 p.m., but do not have evidence for that position. In fact, Filomena testified that she arrived back at her apartment before 1:00 and that the Postal Police were already there.)
Postal Police testified that both Amanda and Sollecito were in Amanda's bedroom with the door closed at 12:47 - the bedroom with no lamp or overhead light (neither Amanda nor Sollecito mentioned to the Postal Police or Filomena when they emerged from that bedroom after many minutes that the only lamp in the room was missing).
Let's keep assuming Amanda was innocent. Would she have come back to her apartment with Sollecito, still not having called police, and then start a load of washing of Meredith's clothes? (The Postal Police said the washing machine was running when they entered; Filomena, who arrived a little later, said that the washing machine was still warm and contained Meredith's clothes.)
Amanda has testified that she got out a mop and bucket the first time she went to her apartment that day and took it back to Sollecito's because there was water on his apartment floor from water used in cooking pasta the night before (Sollecito said, however, that the water was from a broken pipe; Sollecito's diary written in prison talks of a dinner of stir fry mushrooms and vegetables).
Who has water spills from cooking pasta so large that the next day it is still puddled to the degree it needs to be mopped? Who voluntarily carries a mop and bucket several blocks to clean up water from cooking pasta the night before? (Especially a person who has been labeled in trial testimony as messy and unkempt in their cleaning habits).
If Amanda were innocent, wouldn't she and Sollecito have called the police after Sollecito tried to open Meredith's locked bedroom door and couldn't open it?
Instead of calling the police, Amanda and Raffaele went outside and stood next to the mop and bucket. Why didn't they just put the mop and bucket back up in the apartment when they first arrived? Why leave it outside the apartment? Why then go back out and stand next to the mop?
If Amanda and Sollecito were innocent, that means that Guede (and perhaps one or two accomplices) murdered Meredith, then ran away, and then came back at some point and cleaned up the crime scene PARTIALLY (but ignoring and leaving the most damning evidence against him) and THEN GUEDE CAME BACK that morning after Amanda had showered and left - so that GUEDE could do a LOAD OF WASHING of Meredith's clothes - presumably blood stained, all the while ignoring his feces in the toilet and his bloody hand print on the pillow under Meredith's body - only for GUEDE to then leave again right before Amanda and Sollecito arrived (so the washing machine would still be running when the Postal Police arrived a short while later).
What type of person or persons would come back to a crime scene to clean it up?
The most likely person to return to a crime scene for a clean up is someone who knows that they can do a clean up with little chance of being caught.
Guede might have known that the four male students downstairs were all away due to his occasional appearances there. But how would Guede know that Filomena and Laura, the other two upstairs roommates, would not come back either that night or in the morning?
Amanda and Sollecito, on the other hand, would know that everyone who lived in the house would be gone and that they could do a clean up that would take some time and have a good chance of not being caught in the act. Only the unexpected appearance of the Postal and Communications Police interrupted the mopping and cleaning (as there was still a ten inch blood smear on the bathroom door near Meredith's bedroom and numerous visible blood droplets).
No one else other than Amanda and Sollecito, and who may have been involved, had such knowledge.
The facts, testimony, and conclusions that may reasonably be drawn from the evidence, including circumstantial evidence (that is what juries do all the time), lead me to believe that Amanda will be found guilty.
Let any reporter or analyst run the case through their minds at this depth and then make sure that at a minimum, they keep their cool and don't misrepresent.
When I read an article or blog in the New York Times or Time magazine, I expect thorough, well-reasoned, well-researched, investigative journalism. Judicial cases DEMAND it.
Instead, here I have found articles that IGNORED the evidence and some very mediocre journalism. What happened to journalistic standards? Where is the public outcry against the U.S. media's handling of this case?
For the sake of true justice, a line now needs to be drawn.
Posted by Hellodalai on 06/21 at 03:36 PM • Permalink for this post • Archived in Crime hypotheses, Various scenarios, Defense omissions, Still-open questions, Evidence & Witnesses, Real locations, Real timelines, Real crimescene, The pack attack, Other witnesses, The Knox lamp, The two knives, DNA and luminol, Computer activity, Cellphone activity, Other physical, Hoaxes against Italy, 3 No evidence hoax, Hoaxes Knox & team, 15 Single alibi hoax, Hoaxes Sollecito etc, 27 Single alibi hoax, News media & movies, Great reporting, The wider contexts, N America context • Comments here (70)
Trial: Highlights Of The Testimony On 6 February And 7 February
These seem to have been the most significant and dramatic happenings in the courtroom on Friday and Saturday.
This was the first part of the prosecution's case to be presented, and so the first of the prosecution witnesses were testifying and were being cross-examined by the defense lawyers.
In the defense part of the trial coming up, the defense counsel will present their own witnesses to try to rebut this testimony, and then the prosecutors will cross-examine their witnesses.
So none of this can be considered cast in stone, then. But it looks quite a tough case so far. The defenses seem to have their work cut out for them.
Reports in the Italian media were considerably more detailed than in the UK media, though coverage there was good too. It looked in both countries to be pretty objective.
Americans are as usual the most ill-informed or mis-informed on this tragic case. With one or two fine exceptions, the US media continues to fall short.
Translations here from Italian to English are mostly by our own team.
Judge Massei admitted into evidence the uncoerced written admission of Amanda Knox that she was present at the scene during the murder of Meredith.
In a surprise statement to the court, Sollecito claimed that "I barely knew Meredith, I didn't know Guede at all" and that he began a close relationship with Knox only on 24 October, days before the murder.
The communication police testified on the lines of the Micheli report on how Meredith's two mobile phones were found in Signora Lana's garden and retained at the police station.
Mr Bartolozzi, whose agency oversees internet activity in Italy, said an examination of Sollecito's computer had indicated that contrary to his claim there had been no activity on it between 9.10pm and 5.32am.
The communication police seem to have found Knox and Sollecito embarrassed and surprised when they arrived, and they were apparently encountered with a bucket and a mop.
Sollecito's claim to have already called the Carabinieri to come to the house when the communication police officers arrived seems to have been misleading.
The communication police noticed that there was a washing machine in operation and they could hear the noise of the centrifuge. Soon after, the mobile-squad police found that the machine had finished its work a few minutes earlier, and the clothes were still warm.
Filomena testified that the washing machine was still warm when she returned to the cottage and that it contained some of Meredith's clothes.
Filomena said of Knox "She told me: 'It's very odd. I've just come back to the house and the door is open. I had a shower but there's blood everywhere. I'm going to get Raff. Meredith is nowhere to be seen. Oh God, maybe something's happened to her, something tragic'."
Filomena said she replied "But Amanda. I don't understand. Explain to me, because there's something odd. The door's open. You take a shower. There's blood. But where's Meredith?... The door's open. I go in. There's blood. I take a shower? I don't know about you, but I really don't think that that's normal."
To the communication police, the break-in via Filomena's bedroom window appeared to have been faked, as there was window glass on top of some disarrayed clothes, valuable items had been left in the room, and luminol had revealed Knox-sized and Sollecito-sized footprints on the floor.
Filomena testified that her first instinct on returning to the apartment had been to go to her room. Her clothes were on the floor and her cupboard was open, but none of her jewellery was missing, nor were her designer sunglasses and handbags.
Filomena said there was glass on top of the pile of clothes. Her laptop was among the clothes."I remember that in lifting the computer I realised that I was picking up bits of glass because there were bits of glass on top and it was all covered with glass."
Filomena testified that the relationship between Amanda and Meredith started off well and they bonded immediately. "They were of the same age, they had interests in common, and both spoke English." Then the relationship seemed to deteriorate.
Filomena said that Kercher was involved with a "very kind" young man, Giacomo Silenzi, who lived in an apartment downstairs and who she said "courted her very sweetly…. Meredith never brought men home "" the only people who came to the house were two of her English girlfriends."
Filomena contradicted Knox on whether Meredith was in the habit of locking herself in her bedroom, according to Filomena, Meredith never did, whether inside or outside.
Filomena testified that Knox and Sollecito just cuddled at the scene while everyone else was in tears and she said she was bewildered by Knox's behavior. Another witness testified that Knox may have cried.
Filomena examined the knife found in Sollecito's apartment and said she had never seen that knife in Via della Pergola. She was unaware of any dinner or lunch that Meredith had attended at Sollecito's apartment which could explain her DNA on that knife.
Filomena said she saw Raffaele Sollecito and Amanda Knox exchanging a note at the police station.
Luca Altieri said "With the police we decided to break into the room - I don't know exactly where Amanda and Raffaele were at that time, but I can tell you, they were not in a position to see inside the room."
Inspector Bastianelli described having made everyone exit the house after the door to Meredith's room had been opened. And of then having stood for about half a minute at the door of the room, facing into the room without entering it, and concluding that Meredith was already dead.
But according to Luca Altieri, Inspector Bastianelli seemed to enter into Meredith's room a little and incline toward Meredith on the floor [this has been modified, as Italian reports say he did not claim the inspector touched the duvet.]
Paola Grande confirmed not having seen the inspector entering the room, but hearing him subsequently confirm that the person under the bedcover was dead, that there was a lot of blood, and that the victim had struggled because there were bloodied prints on the wall.
The police were curious as to why Knox's lamp was in Meredith's room, especially as there was no other light source in Knox's room.
This next Friday, Meredith's English friends will be heard in court. And Meredith's former boyfriend Giacomo Silenzi is expected to tell the court about his relationship with Meredith.
And now rescheduled for next Saturday are Giacomo Silenzi, Stefano Bonassi and Daniele Ceppitelli.
Posted by Peter Quennell on 02/09 at 03:57 PM • Permalink for this post • Archived in The officially involved, Police and CSI, Evidence & Witnesses, Real timelines, Real crimescene, The pack attack, Other witnesses, The Knox lamp, Other physical, Trials 2008 & 2009, Massei prosecution, Hoaxes against Italy, 3 No evidence hoax, 6 No staging hoax, 7 No witnesses hoax, Hoaxes Knox & team, 15 Single alibi hoax • Comments here (4)