Amanda Knox garnered public attention after being convicted and acquitted in the murder of Meredith Kercher in 2007. Originally from Seattle, Washington, she headed for a university in Perguia, Italy, where she planned on spending a year as a foreign student in; for this, she had worked several part-time jobs to earn the necessary funds. Once there, the 20-year-old Knox was paired up with fellow exchange student, Meredith Kercher, who also happened to be studying linguistics abroad. Little did she know at the time that she would soon get caught in what would be an elaborate crime scene scandal. On November 1, 2007, Knox and her boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito headed back to her dorm after she was sent home from work. To their horror, what greeted them at home were broken windows and blood smears in the bathroom. Immediately calling police, the two stood and waited until the authorities arrived.
Soon after their arrival, Kercher’s body was located on the floor of her bedroom, soaked in blood. As they were the ones to discover the crime scene, both Knox and Sollecito were taken to the station, where they were interrogated for five days. Unfortunately, a language barrier between them and the officers made answering questions difficult; it was later revealed that she was beat up while in custody. Long story short, Knox was eventually sentenced to serve 26 years behind bars in the winter of 2009, despite the fact that forensic evidence proved that there was a third party involved in the murder. Covered on television worldwide, the case quickly became front-cover news in the United States. In spite of her sentencing, many continued to believe in her innocence; throughout her trial, she garnered millions of supporters, mostly from the US- many also took the time to criticize the flaws of Italy’s legal system.
A couple of years after the initial trial, the convictions again Knox were overturned, much to her and her family’s relief; she eventually headed home to Washington. In early 2014, the Italian courts sent shock waves around the world once again after changing their minds and concluding that she was in fact, guilty of murder. As a result of this conviction, Knox was sentenced to 28.5 years in prison. After a year of struggling to cleanse her name, the convictions were ultimately overturned by Italy’s Supreme Court in the spring of 2015. Since returning home for a second time, Knox has shared much of her journey in her memoir, Waiting to be Heard: A Memoir, which has since become a best-seller.
What has the former exchange student been up to since then? What has she dedicated her life to now that she’s a free woman? What has she been working on nowadays? Has she made any public appearances in the past months? What happened to Amanda Knox? Where is she now in 2018?
Amanda Knox’s Early Life and Eventual Student Life in Italy
Following her high school graduation, Knox enrolled at the University of Washington where she studied linguistics. A top student, she easily made the dean’s list while studying at the institution. Described as a gentle and kind individual by her friends, the Seattle-native eventually started to work several part-time jobs in order to fund her dream of studying abroad in Italy. Despite her step-father’s reservations, Knox eventually set off to an university aimed toward foreign exchange students in Perugia in early 2007; her plan was to spend a year studying Linguistics abroad in the Italian city.
After arriving in Italy, Knox was paired up with fellow Linguistics exchange student, Meredith Kercher from London in her dorm. Quickly befriending each other, the two eventually went to a classical music concert together, during which the Seattle-native met her eventual boyfriend, Raffaele Sollecito- a computer engineering student.
The Murder of Meredith Kercher
On the night of November 1, 2007, Knox and Sollecito headed back home after being told she wasn’t needed at work. Upon returning to her dorm the next afternoon however, the pair were horrified to discover that the window was broken, the front door was open, and that blood smears covered the bathroom tiles. In a state of panic, she immediately called her roommate on her cellphone but there was no answer. Finally, the two chose to call police.
Upon arrival of the officers, Kercher’s body was found inside her bedroom, soaked in blood. Seeing as they were the ones to discover the scene, both Knox and Sollecito were taken to the police station where they were interrogated for five days. Although her parents urged her to come home, Knox decided to stay; she later revealed that she had been beaten and bullied while in custody.
Eventually during the interrogation, Knox signed a confession that stated that she returned back to her dorm on the night of November 1, 2007, while Sollecito was sleeping in his apartment. According to her, Diya Patrick Lumumba, a Congolese bar owner had stabbed Kercher to death in her room. However, police soon ruled him out as a suspect due to an airtight alibi. Possibly due to the inconsistencies with her statement, Knox and Sollecito were arrested for murder on November 6, 2007 by Italian authorities.
Forensic Evidence from the Crime Scene
A couple of weeks later, an examination of DNA evidence left in the crime scene revealed that neither Knox nor Sollecito were the likely perpetrators that they were looking for- but that instead a third party, Rudy Guede- a friend of the girls’ neighbor was involved. According to reports, Guede had a criminal history and had been accused of several counts of burglary in the past, although he had never been convicted. Quickly apprehended in Germany, he admitted that he was present at the scene, but that he did not kill the London exchange student. Additionally, he also stated that Knox and her boyfriend were not involved.
Conviction, Acquittal, and Conviction
A surprise to everyone, it led many of her family members and supporters to protest against the sentencing. Before long, the case had become front-page news around the world. Not only did millions come together to support Knox, but many also pointed out the flaws with the Italian legal system, some even claiming that it discriminated against Knox as she was an attractive, American woman.
Three years later in October of 2011, the murder convictions were overturned after a legal organization called the Idaho Innocence project helped to prove Knox and her boyfriend’s innocence via DNA testing. After what seemed like an eternity, she returned home to Seattle, Washington.
From there, Knox continued her studies at the University of Washington where she majored in creative writing. Her days as a student didn’t last long however, as she was soon ordered back to the Italian court for the murder of Kercher. To everyone’s dismay, the final court of appeal had overturned the previous acquittal. Following the overturn of the acquittal, a new trial started in late September of 2013.
In February of 2014, the Italian court once again sent shock waves around the world after finding both Knox and Sollecito guilty again of murder. Allegedly, a new piece of evidence was found on a kitchen knife, which was believed to be the murder weapon- one that contained a minuscule amount of Knox’s DNA on the handle. As a result, she got 28.5 years in prison, while Sollecito got 25 years.
By now, many were starting to have doubts about the Italian legal system. How can someone be found guilty of murder after just being acquitted from the crime not too long ago? Especially when there was a significant lack of evidence?
The Final Decision by the Supreme Court of Italy
In an interesting turn of events, Italy’s Supreme Court once again overturned the previous convictions in March of 2015. Fortunately, this time the ruling was the final decision; details on the verdict were later made available in June.
Extremely grateful and relieved at the court’s decision, Knox issued an emotional statement following her release.
What’s Amanda Knox Doing Now in 2018 – Recent Updates
Since being free, Knox has returned home (for a third time) to finish her degree in creative writing at the University of Washington; initially, she often found herself tailed by the paparazzi. Eventually becoming a freelance journalist, she released a memoir called Waiting to be Heard: A Memoir, a book outlining her experiences which quickly became a best-seller. According to reports, most of the proceeds from the title went toward playing the legal fees of her Italian lawyers.
Currently, Knox works as an occasional freelance writer for the West Seattle Herald, a local weekly newspaper. In addition drawing from her own experiences, she is also determined to become an advocate for those who are wrongfully convicted. To date, she has attended a number of Innocence Project events- the same organization that helped prove her innocence once before.
Just last year, a documentary about her case was released on Netflix called Amanda Knox– one that quickly gained the attention of viewers online. Speaking of said documentaries, the whole conviction process has also been chronicled in several other films such as A Long Way from Home, Amanda Knox: Murder on Trial in Italy, and Murder Mystery: Amanda Knox Speaks. Most of said titles have received positive reviews from viewers.
Most recently, headlines about President Trump being “very upset” with Knox surfaced on various news tabloids. According to reports, he had fully supported her innocence and had even donated a large sum of money to her defense fund; allegedly, he had even tweeted in support of her during her trial. However, it was soon revealed that Knox had gone ahead and voted for Hillary Clinton in the recent election. An associate for Trump has since stated that the president is upset with the Seattle-native.
If you’d like to stay connected with the 29-year-old brunette, you can do so by following her on social media- you can find her on Twitter at @amamaknox.
What’s Amanda Knox doing now …… ?
She would do better to let history forget about her. She was convicted twice for murder and if you read the Court Documents you will know why. But instead she’s still on her “People look at me, poor me, I’m innocent – PR – Tour”. No Court on earth declared her innocent.
Let’s wait what Rudy Guede has to say in 2018.
Guede has already tried to blame Amanda and Raffaele. The case against Amanda and Raffaele was lies and gossip. The DNA evidence proved nothing against them. Courts do not declare anyone innocent since they are already innocent until proven guilty which the Italian courts did not do. You don’t have to like that Amanda is advocating against false convictions, but you cannot expect others to share your bias against justice.
Ah, Hello BV my Dear !
Look …..,
first I think Amanda is not predestined to “advocate against false convictions”. She is a (legally binding) convicted slanderer (she willingly and knowingly blamed a complete innocent man to be a rapist and murderer) and she did her time for this. So it’s really like “to set the fox to keep the geese”. Don’t you agree ?! BTW: I think in the end and in reality it’s not about “advocating others”. It’s only about h e r all the time. She has to deal with these issues (following an inner compulsion I think) due to the heavy burden on her conscience.
Second: Italian law knows two different kinds of an acquittal. First the (real innocence) acquittal which is a decision on Art. 530 I Italian CCP. Second the acquittal due to insufficient evidence which is Art. 530 II Italian CCP. Amanda Knoxes acquittal is based on Art. 530 II Italian CCP as you know.
Third: I think there are only two possibilities for Ms Knox:
A late confession or – on the other hand – a further life accompanied by the reasonable doubts of other people all around the world.
What does predestination have to do with your criticism of Amanda advocating against false convictions? Nothing.
So now you’re talking about the slander conviction? You were talking about murder convictions which were vacated. But remember that the U.S. doesn’t have a crime for slander. Lawsuits may be brought against slander, but not criminal cases.
Also remember that a conviction in Italy doesn’t become final until confirmed by their Supreme Court. Regardless of the regulation the 5th Chamber cited, they did not confirm those murder convictions. You may continue to reason your suspicions all you want to, but I have no doubt of her innocence as do many other people. Most people could care less what you say anyhow.
“no doubt of her innocence” but the only thing you have to base this on is blind faith. There is not a single thing that anyone can produce to show that innocence is without doubt. I cannot be sure she is guilty, but I can point to evidence beyond blind faith to support it. Show me what you have beyond blind faith in the word of a convicted liar? Just one physical or item on record that supports this……
Why do you doubt Amanda’s innocence? Your suspicions are not reasonable. She never acted like she was guilty. She remained in Perugia even though she could have gone back to the U.S. making things difficult for Perugian police to extradite her. She agreed to talk to the police without a lawyer present, and she tried to answer their questions in spite of how brutal the interrogations were. Even after being arrested, Amanda kept trying to tell police she was innocent even though it was obvious the police were just looking for things to hold against her. She simply did not act guilty.
Because there is nothing to support anything she said, or any alibi she produced or any corroboration to any events she related as happening before, during and after the murder. There is to the contrary.
You know very well but chose to ignore it that Amanda Knox was informed the day after discovery of the murder that she could not leave.
With this claim of “agreed to talk to police without a lawyer present”, I hope you will now desist from making your other ludicrous and basically false claims that she was talking to them illegally. There is no evidence of “brutal interrogation” (singular or multiple) as you now try to promote.
Do you believe that other murderers might keep claiming to police that “they were innocent” while investigations were ongoing.
How someone acts is only an indicator and does not constitute evidence. This is another claim of yours that because of the way she acted she was a suspect before the questioning of the 5th to the 6th November but this is not grounds or probable cause for arrest. You obviously believe that if they were suspicious of her they should have arrested her earlier even without probable cause. Do you think that should be the way all police forces work, arrest without cause?
I also know that other witnesses did leave the country. Unless Amanda was a suspect, the police could not make her stay. Of course you would insist she was not a suspect until she signed the 1:45 statement, but since the police would not admit she was a suspect before that, she could have left the country regardless of what the police might have told her.
The police did arrest her without sufficient probable cause. They arrested her because they knew her mother was arriving and would insist she come home, and the police would be unable to detain her. I have no idea what law you think I may claim Amanda broke by talking to the police, but since the police did consider her a suspect before Nov. 5th, it was illegal for them to talk to her without her lawyer present.
So either the police violated the law because she was already a suspect, or the police didn’t have authority to keep her in the country because she wasn’t a suspect. You cannot have it both ways.
Also, you cannot tell me what I can or cannot believe of what Amanda says. She was abused in that last interrogation and the statements they coerced her into signing mean nothing.
Show me where they were told they couldn’t leave. Some were allowed as they had limited information and strong alibis.
Do you really think that anyone who is told to “make yourself available” in a murder investigation, or any crime, would run away.
Seriously! You are now being stupid. Do you honestly believe that when someone places themselves at a murder they are told to go home! LOL
It is not illegal for police to talk to anyone without a lawyer or for anyone to talk to police for that matter. If you read back up you have already said “she agreed to talk to police without a lawyer present”, so you don;t even follow your own claims. You are actually a dunce and your comments make that apparent to anyone who reads your comments.
The police didn’t have the authority to keep her in the country, but if she attempted to leave when asked to make herself available could have given rise to “probable cause” for arrest. This would depend on the investigation and the priority that would be given to important witnesses.
You are right, I cannot tell you what to believe of what Amanda says. I can just laugh at your gullibility safe in the knowledge that I can prove her lies.
Seriously! If Amanda had gone home when her mother had first suggested it, the police would not have had the opportunity to coerce her into placing herself at the murder. You still have the problem that the police had no authority to keep her in the country if they were not willing to call her a suspect, or the police broke the law by not having a lawyer for her during interrogation since she was already a suspect. Which is it?
And maybe you think going home would be probable cause for arrest, but I doubt the police could convince a judge of that.
So when did Edda suggest she leave the country and why did she book a flight if she thought Amanda could leave.
She didn’t leave or try to leave so your statement has no merit. Without that attempt my statement above stands that it “could have given” grounds for probable cause for arrest but we will never know. She stayed, no law was broken and again (try to take this in this time) YOU also said she agreed to talk to police with a lawyer. Everyone agrees with that except sometimes you disagree with yourself !!!
Edited to add:- I’m not bothered wasting any more time talking to an imbecile. If you have any comments, just read up on my responses here and your previous fallacies. There is nothing I can add to make you look worse than your own statements.
Edda suggested she leave the night of Nov. 2nd. You can stand by your assertion all you want. Either the police could not keep her in Italy because they wouldn’t admit she was a suspect, or the police by law were obligated to have a lawyer for Amanda while interrogating her since she was a suspect already.
As for disagreeing with myself, the police didn’t call Amanda a suspect when they told her to be available for questions. So Amanda could have left. But it is obvious from the police records that they did consider her a suspect before the Nov. 5th-6th interrogation. So they violated the law by not having a lawyer for Amanda while they interrogated her.
Since you are satisfied with your nonsense, I see no reason for you to bother me with more idiotic questions either.
I only asked you two questions, neither of which you answered:-
1/ Show me what you have beyond blind faith in the word of a convicted liar?
2/ You obviously believe that if they were suspicious of her they should have arrested her earlier even without probable cause. Do you think that should be the way all police forces work, arrest without cause?
I see you also neglected to read back up on your & my comments.
If you call recognizing Amanda was innocent all along since there was no credible reason to suspect he guilt blind faith, that’s your problem and not mine. I don’t recognize Amanda’s responsibility for the lies used to convict her of slander. The police convinced her those lies were truth and coerced her into signing the accusations against Patrick Lumumba.
I see you have also neglected to read what I actually wrote when you replied to what i didn’t say. I didn’t say the police should have arrested Amanda if they were suspicious of her even though they had no probable cause. I said:
“The police did arrest her without sufficient probable cause. They
arrested her because they knew her mother was arriving and would insist
she come home, and the police would be unable to detain her.”
I did not say they should have done this. I also said:
” Unless Amanda was a suspect, the police could not make her stay.”
Keeping her from leaving the country is not arresting Amanda. So your assertion that I think the police should have arrested Amanda earlier without probable cause is ridiculous.
I still ask you if the police had the authority to keep Amanda in Italy without acknowledging she was a suspect, or whether the police were required by law to provide her a lawyer during the interrogation because she was already a suspect?
I still think that the police could not claim authority to keep Amanda in Italy since the police would not admit she was already a suspect, and that since she was already a suspect, they were required to provide her a lawyer during interrogation.
As I said before, you have expressed your satisfaction with your nonsense, and you have also expressed it is unnecessary for you to respond any further to anything I say. I also see no point in any further response from you.
If someone places themselves at a crime scene whether under duress or not, there is no other option but to place them under arrest. If you don’t believe me, the next time you fly, just say jokingly to the check-in desk that your mate has a bomb. I’m 100% sure you will find that it is sufficient and probable cause to be placed under arrest. Making a claim that they arrested her because her mother was arriving is something a 10th grader might come up with but maybe you forget that she wasn’t even called in to the Police station that night.
I have already addressed your claim about “authority” and in the absence of something happening it is a non-entity and irrelevant. You seriously cannot understand those simple logical processes. Can you even understand that a request to a person who could have relevant information about a murder to show up at the police station is simply a request, however, that same person who then flees or attempts to flee, can raise their status to garner either a subpoena to appear or to a legal suspect.
Again, how can you possibly recognise that Amanda was “innocent all along”. You still have nothing to support it, not a single thing, zero, nadda. It is just blind faith in someone that can easily be proven to be untrustworthy and a liar. How embarrassing that must be for you, really. Do you trust all those Nigerian Princes too that the USA left the 24 million dollars to! Its exactly the same thing. Unless you can produce anything to support your belief you are nothing but a duped fool. How can you not be?
So you’re saying it’s Amanda’s fault the police who had to have known they manipulated her into a false confession would have to arrest her because they got her to say she was at the murder? I don’t see it that way. It’s still a false arrest, and the police have no way of proving she signed those statements voluntarily because they didn’t video-record the interrogation. They have nothing to support it, not a single thing, zero, nadda.
Going home is not fleeing anything. The police knew about Edda coming to Italy, and the police had recorded Edda asking Amanda if she wanted help getting home. The police knew they didn’t have the authority to keep Amanda in Italy when Edda convinced Amanda to come home. It may be your opinion that Amanda would have been fleeing, but as a witness that would not have changed he status to suspect. So unless the police were willing to admit she was a suspect which they were not, they could not have gotten a subpoena to keep her from leaving the country. And even with a subpoena, they could not since witness are not required to stay any more than the British friends of Meredith’s were when they left Italy the day after the murder.
I’ve already told you that if you consider my reasons for seeing Amanda’s innocence all along as blind faith, that’s your problem. There never was any probable cause to suspect Amanda, but the police did from before November 5th. So since they really did consider her a suspect even though they didn’t admit it at the time, they were obligated to provide her with a lawyer even though she cooperated with them as a witness not having a lawyer present while they perpetrated an abusive interrogation of her.
Another reason I accept Amanda’s innocence is because the police and guilters like you insist on the most ridiculous things as evidence of her guilt. If you have to lie so much, why wouldn’t I believe Amanda instead?
Point out any lie.
Do you understand the difference between having suspicions about someone and the probably cause required to make them an official suspect? I don’t believe that you do as you continually argue on a false premise.
When did Amanda try to leave Italy? If you cannot show that she tried to leave then anything else you say or claim is only “your” ideas on what should or could happen and are not FACT. Do you know what something that is not fact is called ??
” ……The police convinced her those lies were truth and coerced her into signing the accusations against Patrick Lumumba.” …
It’s not my intention to argue. Really. Time is too precious. But please allow me one word:
You consider Amanda Knox as a normal person. Physically healthy; mentally normal and healthy. Now and then, back in 2007 at her age of 20 years ?!
OK. Let’s start from this premise and have a look at your above quoted assertions then. Hey, you can guess the nonsense ?! It’s unbearable. You’re insulting the intelligence of all other human beings.
Quite apart from the fact that the police doesn’t persuade her of anything or “coerced” her to sign prefabricated declarations at the expense of third parties I do not know one single healthy, powerful young person at his / her age of 20 years who “can be convinced” of something he / she knows positively isn’t the truth except that young powerful person is completely drunken, completely stoned or perhaps both of this. What we saw in reality was a free declaration of Amanda Knox intended to protect herself made at a certain point when she had learned that her companion Raffaele Sollecito dropped her alibi. The alleged “pressure” / brain washing” and “police told me what to think and say” simply was a later invention.
Normal young & powerful people regularly know (very well of course !) what they did the last 24 hours. Also they know where they have been the days and hours before and in no case – not even when slapped over or at the head – they put themselves to a crime scene and (knowingly) blame an innocent other person to be a rapist and murderer when it’s not true and “this story” is made up by the police only to bring things to an end.
No way ! Really not. She was there (inside that cottage when the murder took place) and she felt the need to confess this due to the behavior of Sollecito but the same time she saw the need to distract attention away from her person. So she did the trick and put the blame on Patrick Lumumba – a black man like Rudy Guede – spontaneously.
Every normal and healthy young adult with a clear mind & a clear conscience would say: “Preach what you want officer. I wasn’t there, period ! And if you claim my boss Patrick was a murderer that’s not true.”
So BV, please don’t annoy us any longer with those nonsense – stories like: “Police – pressure”, “Police coerced her”, “Police told her what to think, what to say and / or what to sign” and stuff like that.
The police were not harassing Amanda Knox about what happened on 24 hours before. They were questioning her in detail about events that were at least five days earlier. You talk about a 20-year old as though she were completely in control of her faculties. People do not completely mature until 25. And you talk about normal people being able to endure contradiction from people they naively trust. That’s not true. Only a psychopath is able to avoid such manipulation simply because a psychopath doesn’t care what anyone else says. Normal people are burdened with herd mentality. Amanda was trying to cooperate with the police. The police took advantage of that to convince her that her boss was guilty of murder. Amanda only felt the need to agree with those she trusted to tell the truth which the police did not.
The police lied that they had hard evidence that she was at the cottage during the murder. The police lied that he text message to Patrick Lumumba had to mean they were meeting that night. The police lied that she knew who the killer was. They lied that she couldn’t remember because of the trauma of witnessing the murder. You lie that I must agree with you.
Enough with your lies. Amanda always behaved as an innocent person, and the police and the guilters like you have always lied. Why does it bother you so much that I don’t drink your Koolaid?
Lying repeatedly to the police and making false and malicious allegations against an innocent man are not the actions of an innocent person.
Those were the lies the police brainwashed Amanda into believing. The police were telling her to quit lying when she denied meeting with Patrick Lumumba and denied going to the cottage during the murder. The police lied that they had hard evidence proving that she was at the cottage during the murder. They lied to her that her text message “See you later” had to mean she was meeting Patrick Lumumba that very night. They lied to her that Raffaele had withdrawn his alibi for her when Raffaele didn’t realize that wording had been put into the statements they had him sign. The police lied to her that she knew who the killer was. They lied to her that the trauma of the murder had made her forget what happened. They lied to her that it would all come back to her.
The truth did start to come back to her when she wrote her First Memorandum warning the police that the story of being with Patick Lumumba at the murder was unreal and unreliable compared to the vivid memories she had of being with Raffaele at his apartment. She wrote that First Memorandum just hours after being forced to sign the 5:45 AM statement, but the police still arrested Patrick Lumumba because they didn’t want to jeopardize the self-incrimantion they had extracted from Amanda. That First Memorandum describes the abusive interrogation techniques the police used on Amanda. That was from the very start. Amanda returned to her returning memories the day after he arrest by writing her Second Memorandum. She goes into detail about what happened to her.
The coerced statements are not Amanda’s fault, and are the fault of the police who conjured false memories in an innocent witness. Since they suspected her from the day Meredith’s body was discovered, they should have had a lawyer for her to protect her from this abusive treatment and to counsel her against being forced to sign the police statements.
They are the police who were not innocent. They deliberately avoided video-taping the interrogation to avoid evidence of their abusive behavior. They recorded the questioning of other witnesses. So it wasn’t that the police claimed she wasn’t a suspect that prevented them from recording their interrogation of Amanda.
You weren’t present when Amanda Knox was questioned, so you’re not in a position to provide an eyewitness account of her questioning.
The computer and telephone records provide irrefutable proof that Amanda Knox’s accounts of what she did on 1 and 2 November 2007 are false. She claimed she was at Sollecito’s apartment when she received the text message from Diya Lumumba. Her mobile phone records showed that this wasn’t true and that she was in the vicinity of Piazza Grimana. She claimed she slept until 10:00am on 2 November. The computer records show that someone was playing music from 5:32am for about half hour. Knox told her Italian housemate Filomena that she was at the cottage on Via della Pergola and that she would go back to Sollecito’s apartment to tell him about the strange things discovered in the cottage. Her mobile phone records show she was already at Sollecito’s apartment.
Did the police have sufficient evidence to make an official suspect on 5 November 2007? A simple yes or no will suffice.
The nearest tower is not necessarily the one that handled the text messages from and to Patrick Lumumba. It’s controlled both by traffic and signal strength. The nearest tower does not have to have the strongest signal even. Quirks in the weather can change that even on a clear day. Wind affects the reception signals in strange ways. Sometimes interference from other radio wave sources can also.
Just because Amanda may have awakened earlier doesn’t mean she didn’t go back to sleep. She only meant that she didn’t get up until 10:00 AM.
I never questioned that the police considered Amanda a suspect by November 5th. That’s why the police were obligated by law to have a lawyer for her. Are you saying that having enough evidence for her to be a suspect is warrant for them to use abusive interrogation techniques to extract an involuntary confession from Amanda Knox? She was an eyewitness, and I believe her account.
You haven’t answered my question.
Did the police have sufficient evidence to make Amanda Knox an official suspect on 5 November 2007? A simple yes or no will suffice.
A police officer having a hunch that Amanda Knox may have been involved in Meredith’s murder is not sufficient evidence to make her an official suspect.
Are you referring to an Italian law specifying how the police officially establish someone’s status as a suspect? I can’t imagine how such a law would be worded. It seems to me that if there is enough evidence to prove someone is a defendant, that person would be arrested as a defendant. It takes probable cause to ask for a warrant to look for evidence on a person.
As I already said, I don’t doubt that the police suspected Amanda before November 5th. So they should have had a lawyer for her during interrogation. Giobbi’s probable cause made her a suspect.
All the police would need for probable cause would be the apparent facts that would lead a reasonably intelligent and prudent person to believe a crime had been committed. I don’t think the police had that in suspecting Amanda and Raffaele, but the police certainly did believe it.
Read what you wrote and apply some logic to it. You have in the space of a sentence, claimed polar opposites to the reasoning that you are trying to convey. To paraphrase your claim>>> “The Police had no reason to believe a crime had been committed but they believed it and therefore they should have appointed a lawyer but they are neither prudent or reasonably intelligent so they didn’t appoint one even though they didn’t have supporting facts that required them to do so” !!! This is comedy genius….or maybe I’m just laughing at your misfortune to be, shall we say, “blessed”.
Of course what I think is the polar opposite of what the police thought. Yes, I do question whether the police had probable cause, but the police didn’t think so. So because the police decided they had probable cause and suspected Amanda, the law required them to provide her a lawyer. What I think about their probable cause has nothing to do with what the law obligated them to do.
No.
That explains why Amanda Knox was questioned as a witness – not as a suspect.
But, her status as a bystander still does NOT explain why the police suspected Lumumba and then coerced Amanda into naming him. After all, the ‘negro hairs found in Meredith’s hand” turned out to be “sweater fibers,” so the police lost focus and made terrible mistakes in the very beginning. Many innocent people paid a dear price. The Kerchers have NEVER had justice and two innocent people were wrongly incarcerated because the police did not wait for evidence to lead them in a proper direction.
How do you know Amanda Knox was coerced into naming Diya Lumumba when you weren’t present when she was being questioned on 5 November,ber 2007?
How do you know hairs belonging to a black person were found in Meredith’s hand? You haven’t substantiated this claim.
Thanks in advance.
It’s interesting that you like to point out that this or that person “was not there” so “how do you know” what happened. Is there something you haven’t been telling us all these years? That you are actually an Italian cop? That you were there during the interrogations?
Anyway, by Googling Meredith Kercher and African or wool-like hair, dozens of comments pop up about this subject, including much commentary by you, my dear Harry. SO, you were “there” and you know exactly what I referred to. How disingenuous of you. For the folks new to this information this story goes like this….The police found wool-like fibers under Meredith’s fingernails and a few strands of long hair in her hand. They began looking for a black man that was specially called “North African” in the early news articles prior to the arrests. That led many to speculate that this is why Diya “Patrick” Lumumba was accused of the murder and why the police focused on him as the killer during Amanda’s interrogation. He was, indeed, a convenient black man and was obviously racially profiled by the Perugian police. He’s incredibly lucky to have had an alibi that could not be ignored and that Guede was later identified, or he may still be in prison today.
These wool-like or African hairs were finally ID’d during forensic analysis as acrylic fibers from, most likely, a sweater. That sweater (or whatever) was never found/identified. The fibers were entered into evidence and are part of the court record.
BUT it is because of the identification of these fibers as being hair that it appears a black man became a likely suspect. The time frame for Google searches, for those of you wanting to see for yourselves, is Nov 3-5, just prior to the interrogations where the news articles lay out the entire prosecution theory.
In other words, you’re not able to substantiate your claim. Thanks for confirming that.
Massei Report 2010:
Pg 110: Also, her (Meredith) hands were bloodstained and were protected with plastic bags in order to allow sample collection, as SOME HAIRLIKE FIBRES could be seen.
Pg 190: Dr. Stefanoni: “As for what appeared to be hairlike filaments found on the victim’s body, when examined under a microscope they appeared to be strands of wool and gave no results.”
Pg 190: In listing the objects found in the victim’s room, she (Stefanoni) mentioned …..and a hairlike filament.
The “hairlike fibres” are what the police initially observed on Meredith’s hand (and subsequently bagged her hands to protect the evidence) and apparently mistook for “African hair.” It appears this is most likely what sent the police on a wild goose chase that resulted in Diya “Patrick” Lumumba being accused of the murder.
On Nov 5, 2007 this appeared in La Repubblica (now archived behind a paywall):
““There are suspicions about a North African cook, one who works in one
of the pubs frequented by the English students in Perugia, Meredith and
her friends. “It’s the kind of cut throat” that makes investigators
suspect Islam.”
Between Nov 3 and 5th, 2007:
A review about what is being said about the Murder in both the British Independent and the Italian La Repubblica:
In
three days the police have hypothesized that Meredith 1) Knew her
killer 2) It could be someone she met at a Halloween party and had “made
a date” with 3) There is more than one killers 4) She was forced to
have sex or raped 5) She was held down 6) She was stabbed with a smooth
blade knife 6) She struggled with her killers 7) Police are focused on a
small group of friends 8) Some one must have lent out the keys to the
apartment 9) Police were looking for a black man who frequented pubs 10) Prosecutor Guiliano Mignini is at the helm of the investigation and it is he who told reporters that “sex was forced.”
What you are seeing is the perfect example of the police fitting innocent people into a scenario that they have created. At this point, they have NO IDEA what anyone will confess to, but as we saw with the interrogations, that didn’t matter. Come heck or high water they would get something, anything, to use against the students, no matter how ridiculous or illegal.
The Perugians also know (from wire tapping Amanda’s phone on the afternoon of Nov 2 that:
1) Amanda’s mother was due to arrive on Nov 6.
2) Amanda’s cousin in Germany was asking her to come to Germany 3) Raffaele’s sister was Carabinieri
4) Raffaele’s father was asking him to come home.
5) That Amanda’s employer was a black club owner named Patrick Lumumba.
As for coercion, Amanda, Raffaele and Inspector Giobbi all testified that Amanda screamed when she was hit because she didn’t produce the answers the cops wanted. That is the definition of coercion, forcing someone to say what you want. Amanda’s first-person testimony is valid, since none of us was there (unless, of course, Harry is really a Perugian cop) and must be considered. All of their testimonies are in the court record and easily available through several sources.
Please substantiate your claim that Giobbi testified that Amanda Knox screamed when she was hit because she didn’t produce the answers the police wanted with a verbatim quote from him. We both know you won’t be able to do this. I just want to expose you for the fraud that you are. You should stick to cutting hair in your shack.
You didn’t read the comment correctly.
“Enough with your lies.” Basta !
I can understand in a way that you refuse to agree with me.
Truth is often a “bitter pill”.
Go on with you. Your blarney is self-evident. The truth is that you lie, the police lied, the prosecutors lied, and the judges lied. The whole case against Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito is nothing but lies masquerading as evidence.
You haven’t substantiated any of your claims.
I’m quite content with my claims. Your problem in understanding what I think is not my problem.
In other words, you can’t substantiate any of your claims. Thanks for confirming that.
No, I’m just admitting that nothing would substantiate what I think to you. That’s all I confirm.
Why don’t you just admit that you can’t substantiate any of these claims?
I have substantiated my claims to myself. I don’t care that you don’t accept how I substantiated them to myself. I don’t need your agreement on it.
Waaaahaaaahaaaa !!! OMG that is the funniest post ever. I’m snipping this. This might actually surpass my last pinned tweet.
Please do give me the free publicity. You have lost in the legal courts, and you have done nothing that substantiates your claims of guilt in the court of public opinion. Whether you like it or not, it is you who have to substantiate your claims that Amanda and Raffaele are innocent, and I don’t have to prove anything to you.
Ah ok. LOL. I do believe that’s checkmate.
You think justice is just a game? No matter how you try to re-frame the discussion, you have not convinced me that there ever was any real question about Amanda’s or Raffaele’s innocence. The court case against them has ended with acquittal with no referral to re-trial. You can claim they are still guilty in the court of public opinion, but you only represent a small portion of that court, and you lost. They are living their lives without any interference from you.
“I have substantiated my claims to myself … I don’t need your agreement ..”
Like Baron Münchhausen who pulled himself out of the swamp by his own hair ……
You are not reality. You are not a law of nature. I don’t need to convince you to come to my own conclusions any more than I need to know your German legends.
The stories about “Baron Munchausen” are attributed to Hieronymus Carl Friedrich Freiherr von Münchhausen.
Thought you know them …. sorry. But do it. Worth reading.
You got your butt handed to you on a silver platter. Now you may eat your own something.
I don’t bother with your redefining the issues any more than I do with harryrag’s doing it.
Which of the following lawyers, judges and justices failed to manage to refrain from asserting, erroneously, that “certainty” was required to convict someone BARD:
a) Hellmann
b) Zanetti
c) Bongiorno
d) Bruno
e) None of the above
Reasonable doubt is the right of the juror. Whatever the juror reasons is doubt of guilt is a valid argument for acquittal. The law cannot dictate what is reasonable doubt, and that is a certainty. The jury is an older institution than the law or the Constitution.
Answer the question correctly or stfu.
Your question is not relevant to anything. I’ve already stated that.
It’s relevant to the entire case. Now answer it little bltch or gtfo!
Why is it relevant to the wrongful case against Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito? Why is it relevant to anything?
Which of the following lawyers, judges and justices failed to manage to refrain from asserting, erroneously, that “certainty” was required to convict someone BARD:
a) Hellmann
b) Zanetti
c) Bongiorno
d) Bruno
e) None of the above
The Italian Supreme Court contravened articles 617 & 628 of their own judicial code to illegally acquit Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito.
Why don’t you sue for damages? You are the aggrieved party.
We don’t need a legal conviction to know the truth that Knox and Sollecito got away with murder and rape. Supreme Court never wrote that they didn’t do it, in fact, they wrote that had the police not botched the investigation, a framework of guilt would have been established. So, in other words, they knew that they were guilty but they let them get away with it from political and media pressure. That’s OK we don’t need the convictions to know that Knox and Sollecito are murderers and rapists who got away with their crimes. Everyone commonly knows that and there is no place for them in our world society. Oh, also Knox is a convicted felon. Deal with it.
As I said, you seem to be the only aggrieved part in what you claim is the 5th Chamber violating Italian law to acquit Amanda and Raffaele. Why don’t you sue for damages?
“The truth is that you lie, the police lied, the prosecutors lied, and the judges lied”
According to this the only one who doesn’t lie obviously is Ms. Amanda Knox. Is that your point of view ? Think yes but do you notice anything ?
Amanda Knox is the ghost – driver, not all the others ….
I’ve never heard of Amanda Knox driving on the wrong side of the road in Germany. I just said there were a lot of lies making up the case against Amanda and Raffaele.
You said: “The truth is that you lie, the police lied, the prosecutore lied, and the judges lied.”
Conversely, this means the only person that does not lie in this case is … not surprisingly …. Ms. Amanda Knox (…. and – of course – the inner circle of her supporters).
This reminded me of a “wrong – way – driver” who thinks not himself but all others are on the wrong side of the street. I’ve used it only as “a picture” you know.
Of course I don’t know wether she actually once took the wrong side of a street in Germany. You have to ask her German relatives (his name was: Uncle Uwe ?) .
But one thing is for sure in my mind:
On her Italy – Trip Ms. Knox definitely took the wrong way ! This unfortunately not only metaphorically but in fact.
What did Amanda do wrong? She was living her own life when she came home to find evidence of an intruder. When she found that that intruder had killed her roommate, she stayed in Perugia trying to help the police find the killer. Amanda trusted the police even though they grilled her with irrelevant questions about her personal life. It didn’t occur to her that they suspected her of murder, or she would have lawyered up like her other roommates did. Even when the interrogation was so abusive that she became confused about what really happened, it didn’t occur to Amanda that the police weren’t following any evidence to find the killer and were instead trying to trick her into incriminating herself.
It was Guede who killed Meredith Kercher. It was the police who were looking for a black man since they had mistaken threads found in Meredith’s hand for hair from a black man. It was the police who had investigated all of Amanda’s associates who should have known that Patrick Lumumba would not have left his business to go see Meredith. It was the police who already knew Patrick Lumumba had texted Amanda and who were the ones asking her about that text Amanda had deleted. It was the police who found the text she sent in answer to Patrick Lumumba and insisted she met him. It was the police who lied that they had hard evidence that she was at the murder and insisted that she knew who the killer was. It was the police who insisted that the trauma of the murder had caused Amanda to forget what happened and that what they were asking her would come back to her. It was the police who typed up the statements in Italian for her to sign even though the interpreter testified Amanda could not understand them. It was the police who decided Amanda was lying when she wrote her First Memorandum expressing that the stories in the 1:45 AM and 5:45 AM statements were unreal and unreliable, but they arrested Patrick Lumumba anyhow because they didn’t want to jeopardize the self-incrimination they got from Amanda even though Patrick Lumumba was innocent. It is the guilters who criticize Amanda for not declaring Patrick Lumumba innocent even though Amanda was neither at the murder nor with Patick Lumumba to know what he did or didn’t do that night.
Wow, impressive discourse !
Unfortunately not compatible with objective facts, evidence, logic and common sense.
So note:
“Dirt that we tread isn’t hardened, but spread.”
(J.W. v. Goethe)
I think your quote tells you what to do with you assertion of objective facts, evidence, logic and common sense. It all has to do with one of the definitions of dirt.
Seems there are fundamentally different views on participation in that crime, on evidence & its evaluation respectively the conclusions to be drawn. Furthermore a different understanding of logic and common sense can be stated.
In short: Our views & thoughts obviously are diametrically opposed.
I accept that. I accept your different attitude.
But I think we both can & do agree that the case can’t be seen as “solved” or “closed”. Maybe legally (there will be not re – trial against Knox & Sollecito) but not de facto. As far as the acquittal of Knox & Sollecito is to be considered as imperative the same applies to the ISC – Decision that Guede is “not the actual killer” but “only an accomplice to others”.
Let’s look forward …. until 2018 for the first place.
Maybe we will hear a (late) confession of Rudy Guede then that he indeed acted alone. But it’s perfectly possible that finally other things come to surface.
So, my recommendation here and now: Let’s wait and see !
I don’t have to wait and see if Guede confesses to committing his crimes against Meredith alone. I don’t have to accept the court ruling that he had accomplices. His trial did not prove he acted with accomplices. The judges only ruled on speculation without proof that he had accomplices, but in any case, there was no proof that Amanda and Raffaele were accomplices to Guede’s crimes against Meredith. So believe what you will about Guede having accomplices, but I don’t have to agree with you.
….. that Amanda and Raffaele were accomplices to Guede’s crimes …
Exactly: That’s the question.
There was and is enough proof in my eyes (and in the eyes of a majority of people around the globe). It wasn’t enough for the ISC. They acquitted due to “insufficient” evidence. But I’m sure there will be enough proof in the so called “Court of Public” some day in the future when all puzzle – pieces are on the table. So, as I said: Let’s wait and see the future developments.
The 5th Chamber said they acquitted Amanda and Raffaele for not having committed the crime. They also said that no further evidence was expected to be found. You can wait all you want, but there is no puzzle to me. Guede committed his crimes by himself, and Amanda and Raffaele were not accomplices to anything.
What a load of rubbish!
Now Amanda Knox is doing the rounds of Innocence Projects and Law Luncheons where she is peddling her appeal document, which contains numerous errors in established fact, as “her” story. A cursory cross check against the physical evidence, Court transcripts, statements and phone intercepts & logs show that she is just peddling lies.
If she is questioned on this, her reasons are “because that’s what they told me happened”. It can be proven that no long and arduous interrogation took place, hours awaiting at the Police Station are not hours of “detention” or “interrogation” and her statement at 1:45am on the morning of the 6th November 2017 is a historical time stamp after only one hour and 15 minutes of questioning. No interrogation, no reason not to know the truth and there is only one obvious reason why she needs to repeat a story she is well aware is false….
This is to the detriment of actual innocent people who are getting tainted by what amounts to innocence fraud. The simple question is “Why will the truth not suffice to promote Amanda Knox’s innocence? ” Innocence Projects appear to be happy ignoring due diligence if inviting Amanda Knox as a guest speaker puts money in their funds, where they can then proceed to perpetrate more innocence fraud to gain multi-million payouts from State.
It should be noted that Amanda Knox was acquitted for “insufficient or contradictory evidence” and as such was released. This is not a statement of “exoneration” or “innocence” and indeed the Italian Supreme Court strongly indicated that she was likely culpable of the crime.
Everyone shoud give to the Innocence Project. Earl Washington and Anthony Yarbough and many, many others spent years in prison for crimes that they obviously couldn’t possibly have committed. Sometimes mistakes are made and sometimes it’s just absurd. These two cases were absurd.
Todd Willingham was executed by Texas in 2004. He was innocent. And it was obvious. Testing showed clearly that he not committed arson. His case should never even have gone to trial. And we (our democracy) killed him.
The Knox case of course goes far beyond the typical miscarriage of justice in its sheer wild irrationality. It’s so extreme it’s hard to believe it could have happened. If someone told me my house was going to be hit by a hurricane, a tornado, an earthquake, a forest fire, and a meteor strike simultaneously I wouldn’t believe it. But the absurd can and does happen. If you want the details, go to Hardthinking and read “They Didn’t Even Bother to Frame Her.”
I don’t disagree that there are truly innocent people in prison. I absolutely disagree with selling tickets to hear Amanda Knox lying to your face and see Lawyers and Law Students being duped into believing that she is speaking the truth when it is so easily disproved. They are perpetrating and promoting fraud and they show no regard for victims of crime, or families of victims of crime, while they chase funding and State payouts. They are working purely on Judicial truth as being the only truth, and yet this is the very ideal that they challenge with their Innocence Projects. Two faced leeches would not even be an adequate description as they suck blood money from both ends.
My message to the “Palm Beach County Bar Association” ….
Dear Ladies and Gentlemen,
and ….. you have slept on it for a night ….. what do you feel now.
Are you satisfied now ?
Did you take the opportunity ? Did you answer critical questions or did you bow to her and her PR – Machine ?
I’ve read idolizing tweets of some people (lawyers / law – students ?)
published by Ms. Knox on her Twitter – account; people obviously
mesmerized by Arabian Tales.
If this is representative …. it means the downturn of justness,
morality & professional ethics !
Yours
What do you base your “irrationality” on? It cannot be the Court documents, testimony, physical evidence, phone intercepts, alibis, scientific evidence, statements, phone logs or other presented facts in the case. I can only assume, like all the others that “believe” she is innocent that is is blind faith in Amanda Knox’s word that she didn’t do it. Ignoring of course that she has a conviction for lying and the only thing that she has said that matched evidence is “I was there and I heard her scream”. Tell me whats irrational, belief in guilt with supported facts or blind faith in innocence?
I’m not sure what to tell you exactly. Given that the Knox case is perhaps the most bizarre criminal prosecution in history pretty much at the level of a Monty Python skit, it seems unlikely that anything I say would have any impact on you at all.
Still, you (or other readers) could start with the book written by Dr. Peter Gill about miscarriages of justice caused by misuse of DNA evidence. Dr. Gill, as I’m sure you know, is one of the inventors of modern forensic genetics and is arguably the foremost forensic geneticist in the world (or one of the top people anyway). He is a British citizen and works at a university in Oslo if I’m not mistaken.
Gill’s book is a little technical (I’m a scientist myself but it was still fairly technical even for me). However, he makes several things quite clear. The other four cases he examines all read as unfortunate, but perhaps unavoidable, mistakes. His treatment of the Kercher case shows that it is in a different category. I don’t think he would call it “Monty Python” as I do as he is quite careful not to go over the top with his language. But even Dr. Gill suddenly starts using some strong language when he talks about the use of DNA evidence in the Kercher case because it was so outrageous, there’s just no way to discuss it without referencing the incredible departure from anything remotely close to rationality or science.
As I said, Dr. Gill’s thorough analysis will (I am reasonably certain) have no impact on you (when the DNA evidence is demolished, guilters typically just switch to other, equally nonsensical “evidence” to hang their hats on, when that is demolished, they go back to the DNA and it goes on forever), but other readers might be interested in knowing just how extreme the case is compared to other, similar cases.
Actually, the DNA evidence is quite meaningful. It shows clearly that the police forensics people knew Knox and Sollecito were innocent. They went out of their way to alter the evidence and did it in an extremely obvious way. For example, they simply changed a “negative” result to “positive” because of an “oversight.” I don’t know if there is enough evidence to convict the forensics people of misconduct, but there is certainly enough to warrant an investigation (which will never happen).
Dr Peter Gill was asked to support his stance on the Amanda Knox case, and his response was, paraphrased “I present my view but it is up to the Judge and Jury to make what they will of it”. You do not appear to know that nobody, not defence, independent experts, state experts, nobody disputed the DNA matches to the people they were matched to.
If as you say there was a “negative” changes to a “positive” then why wasn’t this brought up in Court? All the independent experts produced was “anything is possible” and were slated for it by the Italian Supreme Court as being unscientific. They also ruled out contamination in the lab by admitting that a week between tests ruled out that possibility. Notwithstanding that the defence were represented at all the DNA testing and had no problems with it.
Dr. Peter Gill makes a nice sideline as a defence expert and he has exposed his bias towards this end on several occasions but is not on record as playing any part in this case in Court. He is free to make any claims he likes outside of this as are we all, but I question his motive.
If you wanted an investigation in this case, maybe it should be on why an experienced criminal judge was pulled at the last minute and a civil judge, Hellman, was installed to hear the appeal. Why were the independent experts that he appointed seen greeting the Solliceto’s in Court. Maybe the answer lies in why the Hellman ruling was annulled in the most extreme fashion by the Italian Supreme Court who were probably aware of behind the scenes manoeuvres.
The knife blade tested negative for DNA (Q-bit fluorimeter) negative for blood (TMB) and negative for human residue of any kind (“species specific”). That’s according to the scientific police. It was a triple negative knife according to the police lab’s own data.
Then the knife was called “positive” when it was really “negative” (I know about it because it was part of the case and appears in the court documents, the judge himself called it “an understandable oversight”). The negative-but-let’s-call-it-positive-just-for-kicks knife sample was then subjected to PCR amplification.
The result was indeed a match to Kercher. However, as Dr. Gill, the biased world-renowned forensic geneticist, notes in his book, the peaks were all tiny, with some below 50 RFU and some slightly above. RFU stands for “relative fluorescent units.” In general, I believe about 1000 is considered a decent signal but you can check that. In any case, the tiny signal they got that did indeed match Kercher as you point out was, as Gill notes, exactly what you’d expect if the lab had been contaminated by the dozens of amplifications done on Kercher samples.
This was evidently the plan from the beginning: amplify a negative sample from a knife that was too big to have been the murder weapon and hope for the best.
Tiny amounts of concentrated residue of Kercher’s DNA could easily have migrated to the knife or anywhere else in the lab at any time during the testing phase and ultimately produced the tiny signal on the triple negative knife sample. It happens all the time. That’s why labs use negative controls as a matter of routine.
On the other hand, maybe it was a real signal. Maybe the alleged six day gap that you noted between testing really was sufficient to rule out contamination. Except it wasn’t. We know it wasn’t because Stefanoni admitted in court it wasn’t. We know because of the negative controls. Here’s what Stefanoni said in court (basically blowing up the whole case):
“Allora, i dati grezzi non sono disponibili nel fascicolo, perche non sono mai stati, diciamo, consegnati. — So, the raw data is not available in the case file, because they were never, let us say, handed over.”
Negative controls would have confirmed that the lab was clean or at least strongly bolstered the case that the lab was clean. The court repeatedly asked that they be “handed over.” But they weren’t. Stefanoni refused a court order and the negative controls were never released. That’s the end of the prosecution’s case.
It’s fine to claim a clean lab. But if you refuse to release the negative controls, you’re done.
We have a triple negative knife sample (no DNA, no blood, no human residue) that is called “positive” when it is really “negative.” It is then amplified by PCR and shows an electropherogram that matches the murder victim. But the signal is barely readable and looks exactly like contamination. Then the lab refuses repeated orders from a judge to release the results of the negative controls that would show whether or not the lab was clean.
This is not complicated.
You don’t need to be the top forensic geneticist in the world to throw out the knife “evidence.” The knife couldn’t possibly have been the murder weapon (the fatal wound was 8 cm deep and couldn’t have been made by stabbing with a 17 cm knife; the wound was made when Rudy Guede buried his pocketknife to its hlit). Not surprisingly, it had no DNA, no blood, no human residue and the tiny signal it produced after being amplified anyway could not even be backed up by a routine negative control even after repeated court orders.
It doesn’t get worse than that. Not even Monty Python is that absurd.
The minute Stefanoni testified that she simply wasn’t going to show anyone the negative controls (she also wrote a long letter to the judge saying that she wasn’t going to accede to his order) it was over. Stefanoni’s stark refusal was the end of the case even for someone who believes Knox is some kind of yoga-addicted lunatic who was probably guilty.
I have to admit, given the absurdity of suspecting Knox and Sollecito at all, even if Stefanoni had released the negative controls and even if they were perfectly clean, I still probably wouldn’t believe it. But I wouldn’t be able to claim certainty. It would just be my opinion. Even a small signal with clean controls would have to be considered as a possible indication of murder.
As it stands, given that even the scientific police won’t support their own data when ordered to by a judge, I do have absolute certainty.
But this will mean nothing to you. Dr. Gill is irrelevant, the independent experts are irrelevant, three negative tests are irrelevant, and, I’m sure, even the refusal of Stefanoni herself to back up her own 50-RFU electropherogram, that’s irrrelevant too.
There is a good comeback for you: Stefanoni could have released the negative controls per the judge’s order and immeasurably strengthened her case but didn’t because . . . drum roll . . . she was under pressure because the Italians were being pressured by the Americans to let Knox go. So Stefanoni deliberately sabotaged the prosecution’s case and the dastardly Knox wins again because everyone on earth is part of her “PR team.”
Actually, typically the way these discussions go, once the DNA evidence has been set aside, even more absurd “evidence” is brought up until such time as the triple negative knife can come back to haunt not only us but the Kercher family who are victims of this Monty Python trial just as much as Knox, Sollecito, and even you and I.
I’m afraid I’m no more conviceable than you are at this point. If the prosecution won’t back up its own case, there is no case as far as I’m concerned. Once the prosecution itself walks, that’s it.
I would have to look back over this as its been a long while since I did….but “raw data” does not mean “negative controls” and all files that were requested were in fact handed over. I will have to check this.
The independent experts were very clearly asked in Court if they had everything they needed and they said they had. They then proceeded to ignore the directive of the Court to re-test the sample that gave the match to Meredith or failing that to re-examine the data for the positive match to Meredith. They ignored both of these directives and instead made the unscientific announcement that “anything is possible” and tested a spot on the knife that they were not asked to! Claiming that this resembled starch and ruled out that the knife was cleaned is another ludicrous claim as if you check your own knife drawer, and in the absence of an automatic dishwasher, I’m sure you will find residue at that location on a knife.
There is no indication that blood would have to have even reached that part of the knife as if that was the murder weapon it could not have been plunged in that far as seen from the wounds. In fact there is an overlay video showing how that knife bereft of blood near or on the handle, or blood on the hand that placed it, could have made the bloody imprint on the bed. Even the movement of this knife on the bed and the smudged stains match the visible distortion of the bedsheet where weight was placed either by sitting or leaning on the bed.
I admit that mistakes were made by the police and by the forensics and the Italian Supreme Court acknowledged that if these didn’t occur there would be a very clear outline to convict on the murder charge. The acquittal was based on insufficient or contradictory evidence and not because there was definitive proof presented to show they might not be culpable.
On the bra clasp the quantity and quality of Raffaele’s DNA was such as derived from “abrasive contact” with the bent clasp and was a 15 loci match which appears to rule out secondary transfer. For this to be a contamination, it is proposing a tertiary transfer. There was no source detected for this as the only other match to Raffaele was a mixed sample on a cigarette butt. As the Court says, “he who makes the claim has the onus to support it” and yet they didn’t present a contamination source for his DNA. Note that in the 28 samples taken and tested from his own car, none tested positive for his DNA. The only clear sample of Raffaele’s DNA in found on the torn undergarments of a murder victim who was found inside a locked room…..that is worth pausing over, don’t you think.
Stop repeating falsehoods. There was enough DNA to amplify traces 36 A and B, and not the others, but you conflate them all for “The Knife”. The defense expert had to admit it was Meredith Kercher’s DNA in the same court, and they had to eliminate contamination as well after Stefanoni’s testimony. But yes, I agree Gill was “biased”. You said it.
And before you edit it away, you wrote “as Dr. Gill, the biased world-renowned forensic geneticist, notes in his book”
soletrader4u called Gill biased. I am willing to accept that assessment for the sake of argument (everyone has biases, after all).
As for the DNA on the knife, this discussion is now going where typical Knox discussions go — into a debate about whether or not objective reality even exists.
The blade of the knife had no visible residue but a trace or swab was taken from it anyway and analyzed in several steps. First it tested as negative-negative-negative (Q-bit fluorimeter, TMB, species specific). Then a PCR amplification was performed on this negative sample and a match to Kercher was found at the extreme limit of detectability (approx 50 RFU).
You seem to like the numeric labels applied to the samples. We are talking here about trace 36 B which, like the trace 36 C, tested negative for DNA using the Q-bit fluorimeter. Inexplicably, even though trace 36 C was set aside because of the negative result, trace 36 B was accidentally mis-labeled “positive.” The judge kindly said this was probably due to an “understandable oversight” on Stefanoni’s part. I would call it perjury and obstruction of justice, but who am I to argue with the judge? Stefanoni just made (another) mistake. Oops.
Next, Stefanoni testified about the negative controls which the judge had ordered her to release to the court-appointed scientists. I quoted her in the original Italian above, but here is my paraphrase of her testimony:
“Let us say — diciamo — we’re not giving them to you. Ask all you want — moscerini insignifcanti. Amanda Knox may get out of prison, but as for the negative controls — non vedranno mai la luce — they will never see the light of day.”
The negative=positive part of this case has always intrigued me. It’s the very definition of shameless. Knox once said, in response to people who called her “beautiful,” that she was not Helen of Troy. And yet from a certain point of view she has Helen soundly beat. Helen of Troy launched 1000 ships, but Knox of Seattle turned negative into positive.
This discussion is yet another indication of the amazing power of Knox of Seattle.
The negative controls were released but misplaced in another court file. After review, no laboratory contamination was found. The fact still remains Meredith’s DNA was found on trace B. If you want to suggest more DNA would have been found on trace C, be my guest.
More in the “there is no objective reality” department. The independent investigators repeatedly asked for the negative controls and never got them. Their report and all the court documents and Stefanoni’s testimony indicate missing negative controls. There was no “review” that ruled out contamination. In fact, we can now be certain of contamination because the negative controls, which would have bolstered the prosecution’s case, were not released despite repeated requests from the judge himself and from the independent investigators.
We have a knife that was nowhere close to the pocketknife-sized weapon that was used in the murder. The blade (36 B) had no DNA, no blood, and no human residue of any kind. We have a tiny signal from a negative sample (36B) that was amplified despite being negative and the signal matches Kercher. But then we get the outright refusal to release the crucial negative controls and the report from the independent investigators stating that the refusal to supply negative controls invalidates the sample 36B.
Why didn’t Stefanoni release them? I assume they showed contamination. But maybe they were clean. In that case, releasing them might have kept Knox and Sollecito in jail. Why not release them? Is Stefanoni part of Knox’s “PR team”? (You didn’t mention the PR thing but I’ve heard it often enough.)
You are probably correct that more DNA would be “found” on trace C. Given the way the lab operates with negative samples producing positive electropherograms, I’m sure they’d get DNA on trace C and on a spoon taken from my kitchen.
But that just means the scientific police are incompetent and unethical and perhaps criminal, it does not mean that my spoon was a murder weapon.
Proof that Meredith Kercher was murdered with a “pocket sized knife”? No assertions please, just proof. The trial and appeal courts held Meredith was murdered with the kitchen knife.
Since the kitchen knife had no DNA, no blood, and no human residue and Stefanoni refused to release the negative controls, we can say with certainty that the kitchen knife was not the murder weapon.
Noting that is was too long to have made an 8-cm-deep wound with no exit wound is really just to indicate the utter ridiculousness of a case for which the main piece of evidence is a triple negative kitchen knife that isn’t even in the ballpark of the right size. It’s like some kind of sick joke.
Technically, two of the wounds on Kercher’s neck had to have been made by a small knife. That was not disputed. The third wound could, theoretically, have been made by any sharp object, but most likely was made by the same pocketknife that caused the first two wounds.
Here’s another “assertion” for you. If Perugia police had investigated when Christian Tramontano called them to report a confrontation with a man in his home with a pocketknife (it was Guede), Meredith Kercher would still be alive. That one fact is a million times more important than arguing about a laboratory that won’t back up its own work even after being repeatedly asked.
– So, no proof that the fatal wound was NOT made with the Kitchen Knife,
– Likely the shallow knife wounds were inflicted with Sollecito’s pocket knife. The incisions are pretty close to the width of its blade and that was found with Knox and Sollecito’s DNA on the handle.
– Tramontano didn’t file a police report.
Your knowledge of the case is emotional and not fact based, so I really am not interested in further ‘debate’.
The kitchen knife blade tested negative and the amplification was not backed up. So it is not evidence. All three wounds are compatible with a pocketknife, probably the one Guede threatened Tramontano with. But this cannot be proven either, however, unlike wild speculation, it is reasonable.
Tramontano confronted Guede, who was armed with a knife, in his house. Had Guede been arrested then, or if he had been jailed after being caught in Milan breaking into a nursery school with loot from two previous burglaries on his person, Meredith would be alive today. (That’s an “assertion.”)
It’s “speculation”. Now toddle off.
I see you are getting personal now. I’m sorry I got involved in a discussion that you regard as personally threatening. I will desist.
You flatter yourself if you think I find a rando on the net “personally threatening”. Bye bye.
You’ve had your fat butt handed to you on a silver plate. Now you may begin to eat your own something.
Once Reverend “Bill Williams” recommends Thor’s blog “One of the best summaries of this case you’ll ever
read, from an author I’ve never heard of” you know it’s an author not unadjacent to his own ###.
It’s an indisputable fact that Meredith Kercher and Amanda Knox’s DNA was found on Raffaele Sollecito’s kitchen knife.
A number of independent forensic experts – Dr. Patrizia Stefanoni, Dr. Renato Biondo, Professor Giuesppe Novelli, Professor Francesca Torricelli, Luciano Garofano, Elizabeth Johnson, Greg Hampikian and Bruce Budowle – have all confirmed that Meredith’s DNA was on the blade. Sollecito knew that Meredith’s DNA was on the blade which is why he lied about accidentally pricking her hand whilst cooking.
There is no reason to conclude that the DNA from 36B was actually on the blade. The profile was generated from a very small amount of DNA, and this requires special handling and procedures.
Rigorous washing can remove the red blood cells that react to TMB, and the cell material was too low to register as human specific. It still was Meredith’s DNA, and the experts agreed it was, or did you miss that part?
As Professor Gill pointed out, the prosecution should have shown experimentally that it is possible to clean a knife of blood but not of DNA.
The negative controls weren’t NOT released. And when found, proved nothing to indicate malfeasance. Meredith Kercher’s DNA was found on the murder knife, and all your hand waving is just to distract from that fact.
Sorry, the report of the indendent investigators repeatedly mentioned the lack of negative controls. You don’t get to make up your own facts.
They complained at first, then the files were found. Your knowledge of the case is extremely shallow, and hasn’t gone past the discredited Conti-Vecchiotti report.
The files were not found, were not presented, are not part of the case file. You are making these “files” up. They don’t exist.
Vecchiotti confirmed she had received them. That’s why she squirmed when forced to admit in court it was Meredith’s DNA.
Gill was a paid defense consultant for Sollecito and his error laden book was illegally inserted into his final appeal. Since he never testified in court or was cross examined he got away with it, and has been dodging questions ever since.
For the record, he stated (p. 140) “this is the kind of profile I would expect to observe, IF it had originated from a contamination event”. Except contamination was never proved, only assumed. He also went on to say (p. 154) “the knife had been transported in a shoe box (and it is not known what it previously contained)”- a lie. He told the BBC it was a shoe box belonging to Meredith Kercher and the editors were forced to retract when it was proved to be not true.
As are your many assertions.
Wow. Gill was paid by Sollecito. That’s a good one. Haven’t heard it before. Just when you think you’ve heard everything . . .
Yep, he flew to Italy and appeared with Francesco on Porta A Porta on his own dime.
“Vecchiotti confirmed she had received them.” Can you produce this testimony?
Yes, but why bother. Gill already confirmed the negative controls were received, and “the judge in the Nencini motivation made the critical error of believing that the observation of clean negative controls was evidence that it had not occurred”.
Now, with all due apologies, I read your amateurish blog about the case. Once you claim “the files don’t exist”, you prove yourself to be not worth the time. Do your own research. Goodbye.
You said you edited a wiki. Are the negative controls posted there?
I just posted a link but don’t know if the Gazette will publish or not. It’s in the Meredith Kercher Wiki under File Library: Reports. Stefanoni also gave a slide presentation in court. Now, with all due apologies, I read your amateurish blog about the case. Once you claim “the files don’t exist”, you prove yourself to be not worth the time. Do your own research. Goodbye.
I only found one negative control there, but there should be more than that.
I politely recommend reading the official court reports.
“…since all the negative controls to exclude it [contamination] had been done by Dr Stefanoni…” (Judge Chieffi’s Supreme Court report, page 93).
At the moment, you’re speaking from a position of ignorance.
Stefanoni’s lab did the negative controls. She just repeatedly refused to release them.
Thank you for the polite recommendation. I read the part of the Chieffi report that you refer to and found it most illuminating. Thank you again for the reference. I agree with Chieffi entirely (how could I fail to agree since he is stating facts).
The rest of the quote on page 93 (I appreciate your specificity) reads as follows
. . . controls which the court‐appointed experts, a bit too superficially, considered to be lacking, simply because they were not attached to the consultancy report.
So everyone agrees that the negative controls were not part of the case file. They are not now and never were and never will be. Vecchiotti didn’t see them. Conti didn’t see them. Judges Hellmann, Nencini, and Chieffi didn’t see them or even claim to have seen them. You have not seen them and I haven’t seen them and we won’t see them, ever.
I’m sure they exist. I agree with you and Chieffi and Stefanoni completely. I’m sure Stefanoni did run the negative controls just as she said she did. I’m sure Judge Chieffi is 100% right and that Stefanoni could have obeyed Judge Hellmann’s repeated requests for the negative controls and I’m sure she could have handed them over had she chosen to.
She didn’t, unfortunately.
Instead, she said (in court on 6 September 2011), “Allora, i dati grezzi non sono disponibili nel fascicolo, perche non sono mai stati, diciamo, consegnati.”
Translation: “So, the raw data are not available in the case file, because they were never, let us say, handed over.”
Since you and I and all the judges agree on all of the pertinent facts, all that remains is to wonder why Stefanoni didn’t accede to Judge Hellmann’s repeated written requests and turn over the negative controls that would have solidified the extremely low-level (many peaks in the 50 RFU range) electropherogram that matched Kercher. When the signal is so tiny, the negative controls are of supreme importance which is why the independent consultants asked for them so stridently (there is of course a paper trail for this of which you are no doubt aware).
So why not soldify the case and turn over the negative controls showing clean equipment thereby hugely increasing the court’s confidence in the low-level electropherogram that matched Kercher? It would have been easy. It’s just a file that shows the negative control went through the correct number of amplification cycles (40 I believe is the standard) without showing any DNA. That’s it. That’s all it would have taken.
Except she didn’t release the file. I have no idea why Stefanoni would sabotage the prosecution’s entire case. It’s hard to imagine any piece of data more important than the negative controls run on the presumed murder weapon which had tested negative three times (Qubit, TMB, species specific) and which then showed a low-level electropherogram that matched the victim. With the negative controls you may have two murderers doing long sentences. Without the negative controls you have nothing at all (from a scientific standpoint).
Given your posting history on this case, I have no doubt you will continue to believe that the negative controls were done and were clean. Maybe you will say they are out there or that Vecchiotti and Hellmann didn’t actually ask for them or maybe you will agree that they are not part of the case file but say we should take Stefanoni’s word for it or perhaps you will say they are not really important or maybe you will find a typo and say my discussion is therefore invalid. But you know as well as I do that the negative controls were purposely suppressed for some unknown reason. Maybe it was to give us something to argue about.
In any case, I am certain I will not be able to convince you regardless of what the facts are. But I can say I agree with you and Chieffi regarding the negative controls: they were more than likely done by Stefanoni herself or by a lab tech. The file may even exist somewhere, but I’ll never see it.
And you can type away, I see, but thanks, I’m here to point out the errors in this copy pasted article. And I’d rather write a book than debate with you folk, with all due respect.
You’re making the same mistake as Peter Gill i.e. erroneously assuming that the case against Knox and Sollecito hinged just on the DNA evidence. You haven’t addressed let alone refuted any of the many pieces of evidence against Knox and Sollecito.
You’re also adopting a piecemeal approach to DNA the evidence against Knox and Sollecito. You have analysed each piece of DNA evidence in isolation from the other pieces of evidence. All the pieces of evidence have to be considered wholly – not separately, piece by piece. You have to put all the pieces of evidence together to see whether a picture of guilt emerges.
According to the Supreme Court of Canada in Stewart v. The Queen, [1977] 2 SCR 748:
“It may be, and such is often the case, that the facts proven by the Crown, examined separately have not a very strong probative value; but all the facts put in evidence have to be considered each one in relation to the whole, and it is all of them taken together, that may constitute a proper basis for a conviction.”
Amanda Knox voluntarily and repeatedly admitted she was at the cottage when Meredith was killed after she had been informed Sollecito was no longer providing her with an alibi.
She tried to divert attention away from herself and Sollecito by falsely and maliciously accusing Diya Lumumba of murder. Knox didn’t withdraw her false allegation the whole time he was in prison despite the fact she knew he was innocent.
She clearly knew specific details about the crime e.g. Meredith had been sexually assaulted, she had screamed loudly and multiple attackers had cut her throat.
Her bare bloody footprints in the hallway were revealed by Luminol. You could argue that the Luminol was responding to rust or turnip juice, but you would just come across as a creepy obsessive who puts forward the most far-fetched and ridiculous excuses in order to defend Amanda Knox. Judge Nencini pointed out that it’s utterly inconceivable that the Luminol revealed anything other than blood, given the undisputed presence of a lot of blood at the cottage.
The computer and telephone records provide irrefutable proof that Knox lied repeatedly about what she was doing and where she what she was on the night of the murder and the following day. Rudy Guede clearly didn’t stage the break-in in Filomena’s room or track Meredith’s blood into the small bathroom. The mixed samples of Amanda Knox’s DNA and Meredith’s blood indicate it was Amanda Knox.
An abundant amount of Raffaele Sollecito’s DNA was found on Meredith’s bra clasp. His DNA was identified by two separate DNA tests. Of the 17 loci tested in the sample, Sollecito’s profile matched 17 out of 17. Professor Novelli pointed out there’s more likelihood of meteorite striking the courtroom in Perguia than there is of the bra clasp being contaminated by dust. Professor Torricelli testified that it was unlikely the clasp was contaminated because there was a significant amount of Sollecito’s DNA on it. David Balding, a Professor of Statistical Genetics at University College London, analysed the DNA evidence against Sollecito and concluded it was strong.
When you put the bra clasp evidence into the wider context of the evidence against Sollecito – the numerous lies, the three alibis which all turned out to be false, the bloody footprint which matched the precise characteristics of his foot, but couldn’t possibly belong to Rudy Guede, his bare bloody footprint in the hallway which was revealed by Luminol and the fact the murder weapon was found at his apartment – it’s a very damning piece of evidence.
I’ve heard countless absurd counter arguments from middle-aged white knights like yourself who want to marry Amanda Knox e.g. Sollecito’s DNA floated on a speck of dust under Meredith’s door and landed by some miracle on the exact part of her bra clasp that had been bent out of shape during the attack on her.
This is a ridiculously far-fetched scenario and it’s on a par with the following preposterous claims: Sollecito’s cat accidentally turned on his mobile phone at 6:02am on 2 November 2007; Meredith’s DNA was suspended in the air in Dr Stefanoni’s laboratory and deposited itself in a microscopic grove on the blade of Sollecito’s kitchen knife and there was huge sinister conspiracy involving several prosecutors, different police departments in Perugia and Rome and dozens of judges, including judges from the Supreme Court to frame Amanda Knox because she was American or Mignini didn’t approve of her sexual morals.
There is no justification for your absolute certainty that Knox and Sollecito are innocent. There is no exculpatory evidence whatsoever e.g. verified alibis or CCTV footage that proves Amanda Knox and Sollecito were not at the cottage at the time of the murder. Unless Knox and Sollecito were with you on the night of the murder – and they weren’t – you don’t know they’re innocent.
Only a gullible simpleton would unquestioningly believe anything Knox and Sollecito say given the fact they are self-confessed and compulsive liars. It’s completely illogical for anyone to trust them and yet you do. How utterly embarrassing.
You’re making the same mistake as Peter Gill i.e. erroneously assuming that the case against Knox and Sollecito hinged just on the DNA evidence. You haven’t addressed let alone refuted any of the many pieces of evidence against Knox and Sollecito.
You’re also adopting a piecemeal approach to DNA the evidence against Knox and Sollecito. You have analysed each piece of DNA evidence in isolation from the other pieces of evidence. All the pieces of evidence have to be considered wholly – not separately, piece by piece. You have to put all the pieces of evidence together to see whether a picture of guilt emerges.
According to the Supreme Court of Canada in Stewart v. The Queen, [1977] 2 SCR 748:
“It may be, and such is often the case, that the facts proven by the Crown, examined separately have not a very strong probative value; but all the facts put in evidence have to be considered each one in relation to the whole, and it is all of them taken together, that may constitute a proper basis for a conviction.”
Amanda Knox voluntarily and repeatedly admitted she was at the cottage when Meredith was killed after she had been informed Sollecito was no longer providing her with an alibi.
She tried to divert attention away from herself and Sollecito by falsely and maliciously accusing Diya Lumumba of murder. Knox didn’t withdraw her false allegation the whole time he was in prison despite the fact she knew he was innocent.
She clearly knew specific details about the crime e.g. Meredith had been sexually assaulted, she had screamed loudly and multiple attackers had cut her throat.
Her bare bloody footprints in the hallway were revealed by Luminol. You could argue that the Luminol was responding to rust or turnip juice, but you would just come across as a creepy obsessive who puts forward the most far-fetched and ridiculous excuses in order to defend Amanda Knox. Judge Nencini pointed out that it’s utterly inconceivable that the Luminol revealed anything other than blood, given the undisputed presence of a lot of blood at the cottage.
The computer and telephone records provide irrefutable proof that Knox lied repeatedly about what she was doing and where she what she was on the night of the murder and the following day. Rudy Guede clearly didn’t stage the break-in in Filomena’s room or track Meredith’s blood into the small bathroom. The mixed samples of Amanda Knox’s DNA and Meredith’s blood indicate it was Amanda Knox.
There is no justification for your absolute certainty that Knox and Sollecito are innocent. There is no exculpatory evidence whatsoever e.g. verified alibis or CCTV footage that proves Amanda Knox and Sollecito were not at the cottage at the time of the murder. Unless Knox and Sollecito were with you on the night of the murder – and they weren’t – you don’t know they’re innocent.
Only a gullible simpleton would unquestioningly believe anything Knox and Sollecito say given the fact they are self-confessed and compulsive liars. It’s completely illogical for anyone to trust them and yet you do. How utterly embarrassing.
You’re repeating a defense allegation relating to the SAL cards (I believe)which was already disproven in court. The Meredith Kercher wiki has the source files to prove my point (disclosure: I’m an editor). It’s funny that as a ‘scientist’ you’re posting an allegation of misconduct you admit there may not evidence to support and before an investigation is held. Right, goodbye to you.
Person A: I think that the person who left a bloody handprint is guilty. Person B: No, I think it is the person who left bloody shoe prints. Person C: I think it actually was whoever left DNA on Meredith’s clothing and body. Person D: I think it was really the person who left the country soon afterward. Person E: I bet it was the person with cuts on their hand. Which person is right?
As they are all just proposing or “betting” on a single thought, then they are failing to evaluate all the evidence in a coherent and complete synopsis. All of the above would make very good advocates for Amanda Knox’s innocence as they appear to be unable to employ logical reasoning or apply equal weight to various alternative and possible scenarios.
It’s the fiat meaning ruled on the facts that are irrational. The police had already decided Amanda and Raffaele were guilty, and the police made up stuff about the facts to fit their purposes. Amanda only told her mother that she was there at Raffaele’s apartment. The police forced her to say she heard the scream, but the same statement also has Amanda saying she doesn’t remember hearing the scream. There was nobody else who could claim hearing Meredith screaming. So what evidence was Amanda supposedly matching?
Accuse us of blind faith if you wish, but at least we don’t have your blind bias.
Errors, and in just the first paragraph.:
1: It’s spelled Perugia.
2. Knox and Kercher shared a flat, not “paired together”.
3. Knox went to a different University on her own to study Italian, not “linguistics”.
4. Kercher was in Europe on a scholarship through the Erasmus program.
5. Knox wasn’t “sent home from work” on November 1, she went to the cottage with Sollecito after ‘spending the night with him’. (He withdrew her alibi, saying she went out for a while. This caused her to freak out and accuse an innocent man, her boss. She may have been motivated by anger; he’d demoted her to handing out flyers and offered Kercher her job in the bar).
6. They didn’t “immediately call police” but called another room mate to try bring her home so they could allegedly discover the body together. The police arrived unexpectedly because they had found Meredith’s phones. Knox then tried to distract them saying Meredith always locked her door while Sollecito called the police.
This was a pattern of lying by the defendants throughout the case.
More errors, and this is just the second paragraph.
1. No thanks to Knox who tried to prevent the police from opening the door, but it was the other roommate who insisted on breaking down the door.
2. All the flatmates and Meredith’s friends were interrogated.
3. Knox was interrogated for 3 days for a period of 13-18 hours. Her lawyer alleged it was 53.5 hours but this included time in the station waiting to be called while she called people, texted etc. Even there, the lawyer’s own figures added up to 40 hours, but he double counted, LOL.
4. She wasn’t “beat up” in custody which means something else in America, BTW. Knox alleges she got an Italianate slap up side the head and was “yelled at”. If you watch NCIS you know McGee’s slaps aren’t ‘being beaten up’.
5. Forensic evidence showed other people were involved but by then they were all put on trial, though in separate venues.
6. “Millions of supporters” may be an exaggeration. Barely 5000 ever signed petitions on her behalf.
7. Americans may have taken the time to criticize Italy’s legal system. If she’d have been tried in the US, she would be found guilty, and no guaranteed right of appeal. Though, it might be unlikely she’d be on death row, white person murdering mixed race person being what it is. Some might say the case would never go to trail, but that’s the emotive special pleading done by people who identify with her.
Please correct your thinking, if you can’t correct the errors here, thanks.
John Butler is the author of a textbook on DNA profiling. In the forward to Peter Gill’s book he wrote, “In my opinion, over the past three decades no one has done more to advance forensic DNA analysis and interpretation than Peter Gill.”
Appeal to authority doesn’t negate that Gill only reviewed the reports and didn’t conduct the tests. Therefore he can only express an opinion, not statement of fact which is why he never presented in court. He also stated it MIGHT be contamination, not that it WAS. And the absence of noise indicated 36B was a clean sample. Another thing to note is that Professor Novelli of Italy is also an expert who reviewed the files and confirmed Stefanoni’s results.
When scientists disagree the courts have the final say. The Trial and Appeals courts concluded guilt based on the evidence, the Supreme Court exceeded its remit by ruling on Gill’s late filed report, and not, the law. Hence its absurd fiction that Knox’s presence WAS confirmed but she might have just have washed Meredith’s blood off her hands. In any other court but a politically motivated one it would be seen as guilt.
Not all appeals to authority are fallacious. When evidence is properly documented, experts can review it. As for 36B, I looked at it whilst I was looking for negative controls, and it had a couple of extraneous signals.
Was that presented to the court under oath and cross examined? Otherwise it’s your comments that are “extraneous signals”.
Besides what I saw, Simon Ford and Dan Krane have looked at 36B and have seen additional problems: “There are striking and potentially important differences between the two test results from this single sample. For instance, in the first test result, low-level peaks are labeled 10 and 14 at the D16S539 locus, but in the second test result only a 9 and 10 peak are seen. The 9 peak in the second test result could be a stutter artifact associated with the 10 peak. But, either allelic dropout (of the 14 during the second analysis) or drop-in (of the 14 during the first analysis) must have occurred.”
You seem to have a low opinion of case reviews, but I cannot say that I share it. Simon Ford and Dan Krane wrote, “In our experience, examination of the underlying laboratory data frequently reveals limitations or problems that would not be apparent from the laboratory report, such as inconsistencies between purportedly “matching” profiles, evidence of additional unreported contributors to evidentiary samples, errors in statistical computations, opportunities for subjective/biased interpretation, indications of cross-contamination between key samples, and unreported problems with experimental controls that raise doubts about the validity of the results.”
It’s now legally certain that Knox and Raffaele were both “there” at the crime scene at the time of the murder, and proven that Guede assaulted Meredith and helped kill her with accomplices, are we now to assume that the lying Knox and Sollecito were not the accomplices, but that one or two other criminals were also on the premises at the same time and were helping Guede kill Meredith? That stretches credibility. This ruling is unfathomable. I can only imagine the reaction of the Kerchers and of their Attorney Maresca. This ruling defies common sense. It seems to imply that Rudy committed the killing but that Knox and Raffaele were too afraid of him to tell the police, and instead helped him hide the crime at the risk of themselves being prosecuted for it?
That fear alone was the inducement to run an eight year long charade of lies and dissimulation, not to mention years of prison? When Raf’s father is connected to important people and when Knox’s family could afford a PR campaign to reach television? Yet Knox is so afraid of Guede counter-accusing her and of Guede being believed, that she has denied everything and even covered for Guede? Preposterous. Does Cassation think that Rudy set up the false burglary for his cover story, but then Knox and Raf lied to police about it for him? If Knox and Raf weren’t complicit in the crime but were there during its commission, what were they doing during the murder? Playing guitar and smoking weed? Knox and Raf overlooked Guede tracking blood around the cottage, heard Meredith’s scream but did nothing to aid her, too afraid to aid her and later ashamed of their cowardice? Were they threatened by Guede with the same fate? Or if they were hurting her along with Guede so that she did scream, they are still innocent? And why would Knox be washing Meredith’s blood off her hands into the bidet and washing up blood from the murder scene rather than call police and denounce Guede as the killer? Knox could have begged for police protection She had the USA to flee to. Raf’s father could protect him, his sister was Carabinieri! No. If Knox was washing Meredith’s blood off her hands, Knox was hiding her part in the murder. This ruling contradicts its own reasoning. It has proved the greater yet says it can’t prove the lesser.
No matter how many times you repeat the same assertions of fiat rulings, the legal stage of the trial is over. Amanda and Raffaele were acquitted with no referral to re-trial. Your claims of legal facts mean nothing in the court of public opinion without facts to prove them. Whether you like it or not, the acquittal is the 5th Chamber’s rejection of those things you think they confirmed.
Even if Guede really did have accomplices, there are no reliable facts proving that Amanda and Raffaele were those alleged accomplices.
There is no proof of the alleged staged break-in. There is no proof of the alleged clean-up. There is no proof that Guede had accomplices. The statements Raffaele and Amanda signed the night of Nov. 5th-6th were coerced and cannot be relied on as actual fact. The 1:45 AM statement Amanda was forced to sign doesn’t even mention the scream while the 5:45 AM statement she was forced to sign has her both saying that she heard the scream and that she doesn’t remember hearing.
Amanda wrote her First Memorandum within hours of being forced to sign the 5:45 AM statement and compared the vague memories of being with Patrick Lumumba at the murder to the vivid memories of being with Raffaele at his apartment during the same period of time, and tried to warn the police those statements were unreal and unreliable.
There is no proof that Amanda or Raffaele even knew Guede to have conspired with him about anything. Raffaele had no contact with Guede at all, and Amanda was only present when Guede was once visiting the guys downstairs and when he was a customer at the bar where Amanda worked.
The police brought up Patrick Lumumba’s name and had to show Amanda the text message where she replied to his text message not to come to work. The police seemed to already know about that text message from Patrick Lumumba even though Amanda had arrased it. How was that Amanda blaming Patrick Lumumba to protect Guede whom she didn’t even know by name or country of origin?
There is proof that Amanda ever had Meredith’s blood on her hands when she washed her hands in her bathroom. All that is known is that her DNA would have gotten there from her washing her hands, but there’s no proof when that hand-washing occurred.
Since the 5th Chamber did acquit, there is no way that it confirmed those things guilters claim it confirmed. They were acknowledging lower courts rulings which they rejected with the acquittal.
The Italian Supreme Court contravened articles 617 & 628 of their own judicial code to illegally acquit Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito.
So who is impeaching them for what you claim? Amanda’s and Raffaele’s acquittal is still a legal fact.
Thank you for admitting that the acquittal of Knox & Sollecito was illegal.
They are only guilters claiming the acquittal was illegal. Thank you for admitting what you claim is a moot point.
Answer my question or gtfo trailer trash bltch!
Your vulgarity identifies you.
Thanks a lot for reading. I was really hoping that you would. Please continue the best is yet to come.
P.S. Eat shlt.
You have already identified your vulgar social status. This rude remark just reinforces it.
The Italian Supreme Court contravened articles 617 & 628 of their own judicial code to illegally acquit Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito..
Who do you think in Italy cares about your judicial opinion?
We don’t need a legal conviction to know the truth that Knox and Sollecito got away with murder and rape. Supreme Court never wrote that they didn’t do it, in fact, they wrote that had the police not botched the investigation, a framework of guilt would have been established. So, in other words, they knew that they were guilty but they let them get away with it from political and media pressure. That’s OK we don’t need the convictions to know that Knox and Sollecito are murderers and rapists who got away with their crimes. Everyone commonly knows that and there is no place for them in our world society. Oh, also Knox is a convicted felon. Deal with it. .
As I said, nobody in Italy cares about your judicial opinion that the 5th Chamber broke Italian law to acquit Amanda and Raffaele. Nobody seems to be doing anything about your judicial opinion of this.
@ <– That's the world's smallest record player playing the world's saddest song. Too bad with your grievance.
We don’t need a legal conviction to know the truth that Knox and Sollecito got away with murder and rape. Supreme Court never wrote that they didn’t do it, in fact, they wrote that had the police not botched the investigation, a framework of guilt would have been established. So, in other words, they knew that they were guilty but they let them get away with it from political and media pressure. That’s OK we don’t need the convictions to know that Knox and Sollecito are murderers and rapists who got away with their crimes. Everyone commonly knows that and there is no place for them in our world society. Oh, also Knox is a convicted felon. Deal with it.
What the 5th Chamber wrote is:
“An objectively wavering process, the oscillations of which are the result of glaring failures or
investigative ‘amnesias’ and of culpable omissions in [24] investigating activities, which, had
they been carried out, would have, probably, allowed from the start the outline a framework, if
not of certainty, at least of reassuring reliability, in direction of either the guilt or the
non-involvement of the current appellants. Such scenario, intrinsically contradictory, constitutes
a first, eloquent, representation of an evidential set of anything but ‘beyond reasonable doubt’.”
“In direct of guilt or the non-involvement of the current appellants” is not the 5th Chamber knowing Amanda and Raffaele were guilty. The 5th Chamber was only saying that the current state of confusion would be more definite in whichever verdict would have been reached.
In the United States, Amanda is not a felon convicted of any crime we recognize. When the ECHR rules in her favor, the conviction will become a moot point whether or not Italy acts on that that ruling as Italian law requires.
The #Italian Supreme Court ruled #AmandaKnox was present when #MeredithKercher was murdered and told many lies to protect #RudyGuede
Amanda Knox is rightfully viewed as an exonoreee on the United States. The nonsensical posts by some on this article reinforce the fact wrongful convictions cause irreparable damage.