Amanda Knox found guilty for the murder of Meredith Kercher in Italy #15

[sherlockh]

SMELL LIKE A FRESH SHOWER? Is that how they are seriously gathering evidence based in whether or not some detective says AK smelled like a fresh shower? What does smelling like a fresh shower smell like? Most people take a shower in the morning, then go to work. Can I sniff around people on the subway to discern who did or who did not take a fresh shower? No, It is an impossible test, you cannot discern whether or not someone took a "fresh shower" based on smell. You may able to discern whether someone washed their hair bc it is wet but just bc it is dry does not mean someone did not wash their hair.

The behavior stuff in this case just got completely out of hand....it is taken too much to the extreme, which I think jeopardizes the credibility of the whole case to many. I could see them making out a circumstantial case but it is statements like this that make the case look silly.

The case wasn't decided on any shower. It wasn't even mentioned in the judges report. If somebody stinks and says she just took a shower I would doubt her also. Her boyfriend said she did not take a shower. She claims to have had a long night sleep and just took a shower. The pictures of that morning show an exhausted Knox. I can understand why people doubt her story. JMO.

link

 

[sherlockh]

I don't know why this case is considered special requiring multiple assailants to kill poor MK. Thousands of women every year are stabbed to death by single assailants and many do not have defensive wounds. This case is not extraordinary and Mk was not a superwoman; she could have been killed by a single person. I would venture to guess that 99% of stabbing victims are killed by a single assailant; it is extremely unusual to have mutiple stabbers and lack of defensive wounds fails to cut it as to show why there just has to be multiple stabbers. As I mention in my other posts, it is some of the silly things the prosecution says and does that threaten the credibility of their whole case to many.

Sad thing is, this case is not extraordinary. It most likely was a run of the mill burglary gone wrong that poor MK got mixed up in.

Pranks are often done by multiple people. I believe Knox's previous prank also included other people. Nothing strange about that. She admitted it. The burglary gone wrong thing didn't stick for multiple reasons. We can wait for the judges report for further explanations but I am pretty sure it is close to what the first court reasoned. There was no burglary.

 

[BritsKate]

I read that Italy has been found to have more violations by the European court of human rights than any other EU nation. - over 900 instances. Yet Italy does not seem to care. I imagine this case will join the list if they are stupid enough to base their ruling on the DNA evidence.

I can't find a number like that anywhere...what I can say is that Italy has not appeared in recent publications of the World Report by the Human Rights Watch. Italy has come under fire for its treatment of migrants and asylum seekers but that's kind of like saying America's justice system is broken because of Guantanamo in my opinion. The issues are not only unrelated to Amanda Knox, but they're also extremely convoluted within the current atmosphere of the EU.

Romania, Slovenia, Hungary, Greece, Slovakia, Bulgaria and Poland outweigh Italy in human rights cases heard per ten million, according to 2011 data. FWIW, it just isn't this crooked, broken and corrupt country some want to paint it into. Many investigations are flawed (even US ones) and sometimes those investigations do lead to wrongful convictions (though this isn't one of them in my opinion admittedly) but I strongly disagree with lambasting an entire nation seemingly on the basis of discontent with the outcome of one criminal case.

MOO

 

[italianWSfan]

I have some questions and I would appreciate it if someone could answer them for me

Why is Guede not telling the truth? It cannot get any worse for him, can it?

I still dont get why Guede wanted this "fast trial" thing. It was said many times he did so because he did not want AK or RS to frame him (like AK did with her boss). Does that mean he really thought he could get away with his "sitting on the toilet listening to music"-story? Sorry, but I dont get it.

I have no doubt that AK and RS were involved, and to be honest it made me sick everytime I heard about her in the news in the recent years - Knox here and Knox there, Knox this and Knox wrote a book...
Come on, if you are reallly innocent, why dont you shut your mouth for once already and let your "friend" Meredith finally rest in peace... But instead Knox has always been craving media attention, trying to make some money with her book (as well as RS) - is there even an interview in which she says she wants Meredith murder to be fully resolved in order to get justice for her? I havent seen any. All I have heard is her complaining about how unfair she was treated, poor sweet innocent Amanda, how she was "abused" by the police and how confused she got.
In my opinion, she made the murder of her friend all about her, and she succeeded in that. Everybody knows her name - but almost nobody knows the name of the victim.
Ugh.
And yes, I think there is enough evidence to place AK and RS on the crimescene that day. I was not there, of course, but from what I have read about the case, combined with her constant lies, she must be guilty.
:jail:

 

[sherlockh]

I don't know why this case is considered special requiring multiple assailants to kill poor MK. Thousands of women every year are stabbed to death by single assailants and many do not have defensive wounds. This case is not extraordinary and Mk was not a superwoman; she could have been killed by a single person. I would venture to guess that 99% of stabbing victims are killed by a single assailant; it is extremely unusual to have mutiple stabbers and lack of defensive wounds fails to cut it as to show why there just has to be multiple stabbers. As I mention in my other posts, it is some of the silly things the prosecution says and does that threaten the credibility of their whole case to many.

Sad thing is, this case is not extraordinary. It most likely was a run of the mill burglary gone wrong that poor MK got mixed up in.

The case wasn't decided on the shower. It wasn't even mentioned in the judges report. If somebody stinks and says she just took a shower I would doubt her also. Her boyfriend even said she did not take a shower. She claims to have had a long night sleep and just took a shower. The pictures of that morning show an exhausted Knox. I can understand why people doubt her story. JMO.

 

[Amber29]

I can't find a number like that anywhere...what I can say is that Italy has not appeared in recent publications of the World Report by the Human Rights Watch. Italy has come under fire for its treatment of migrants and asylum seekers but that's kind of like saying America's justice system is broken because of Guantanamo in my opinion. The issues are not only unrelated to Amanda Knox, but they're also extremely convoluted within the current atmosphere of the EU.

Romania, Slovenia, Hungary, Greece, Slovakia, Bulgaria and Poland outweigh Italy in human rights cases heard per ten million, according to 2011 data. FWIW, it just isn't this crooked, broken and corrupt country some want to paint it into. Many investigations are flawed (even US ones) and sometimes those investigations do lead to wrongful convictions (though this isn't one of them in my opinion admittedly) but I strongly disagree with lambasting an entire nation seemingly on the basis of discontent with the outcome of one criminal case.

MOO

Thank you for this post! I think it's terrible Italy's entire system is being called "corrupt" over this one case. It's very clear Italy's system is very pro defendant as you pointed out earlier about most of Europe. Neither system is perfect but I think there are nice things about both. I just don't understand the whole idea of the US system being superior. That is simply not true.

 

[Amber29]

The case wasn't decided on the shower. It wasn't even mentioned in the judges report. If somebody stinks and says she just took a shower I would doubt her also. Her boyfriend even said she did not take a shower. She claims to have had a long night sleep and just took a shower. The pictures of that morning show an exhausted Knox. I can understand why people doubt her story. JMO.

Yes and considering she had supposedly showered with RS that night at his place, she would've had 2 showers in a short period.

 

[minazoe]

Well I think Amanda wrote the book because she bankrupted her parents. I wasn't going to buy it because after watching her interviews , I thought she was guilty and didn't want to support her.

Now it's a conundrum ! Ugh...I have to read it tho....I think they were all tripping...could someone fill me in on the prank thing? Trying to catch up...thank you in advance.
IMO

 

[aa9511]

Yes. So I find it ridiculous that people use the kitchen knife in their reasoning for why Knox and Sollecito are guilty. I find it strange that many of the people who claim they are guilty BARD never mention the incompetence of the police.

First, they were required to record Knox's interrogation but did not, so all we have to go on is their word. The investigators had tested the luminol footprints for blood and found them lacking, a truth carefully hidden from December 17, 2007 (when they were collected) until September 2009, when defense expert Sarah Gino outed the negative test during the trial that led to Knox and Sollecito’s conviction. Even now “bloody footprints” are the Knox case’s most persistent urban legend. Honestly, that is grounds to have the case thrown out and clearly corrupt.

At any rate, after going through many sources last night, I chalk this up as a witch hunt and I am even less convinced that Knox and Sollecito were complicit. I do not even think the courts really believe that they are guilty since they are not making any moves to lock Sollecito up and you think they would if they actually believed he and Knox stabbed Meredith over complaints of a messy room or a sex-game-gone-wrong.

bbm

I'm having a hard time understand what you think they did to her in interrogations. Did she get waterboarded? Was she required to be interrogated while naked? Was she deprived of food for an extended period of time....I had heard something about someone bringing her a cappucino? Was she bloody from some beatings she undertook? Did she have her head shaved? Was she thrown in a dungeon with no food and no water?

 

[aa9511]

It's really not a losing argument. There isn't any evidence that implicates AK and RS being in the hallway. At the trial, it was stated that the tests were negative. If AK cleaned the hallway and was an accomplice of RG, why would RG allow her to leave his footprints? That doesn't make any sense.

What do you mean, RG allowed her to leave his footprints? I believe that Rudy stabbed Meredith, then he walked/ran out of the door just like his footprints show. He was not involved in the clean-up, or else you are right, he would not have let them leave his footprints or his poo. It's because he didn't know what they were doing all night long. He left.

 

[Zuri]

Has RG implicated AK and RS as being present and involved? I can't remember.
Is there a possibility that AK initial comments to police were not translated properly?
There has been more info about AK, RS than MK or the other roommates it seems.
I have found AK behavior very odd to say the least. I appreciate reading all the info and opinions posted here. It will be interesting to see how this all plays out. JMV

 

[aa9511]

Respectfully snipped by me:

Considering the cops had marked RS's passport within hours of the verdict despite him leaving town, I'm guessing they have a pretty good eye on him.

As far as AK, maybe they feel that some Americans deserve to have a murderer walking their streets. JMO

bbm

Or maybe their whole mission in life and purpose is not to "nail Amanda," contrary to her supporters' entire argument in her defense. They did their job - investigated Meredith's murder, followed the results of that investigation, and held trials. Now all they can do is send the extradition request to the US. They can't come and handcuff Amanda and put her on a plane back to Italy.

As all her supporters see, she is free to walk and go and do whatever she wants to in these United States.

 

[aa9511]

Was it a lie? I don't know, but if it was, perhaps he lied because he didn't want to go to prison. Saying she was pricked before the murder sounds a lot better than saying, "I don't know how that got there."

What I do know is that his maid had cleaned his apartment and that Meredith's DNA was not found on that kitchen knife after it was repeatedly tested. I also know that knife didn't match the wounds that were inflicted upon Meredith.

It seems awfully stupid for someone who is so skilled at cleaning crime scenes to throw the murder weapon back in his kitchen drawer with all of other utensils instead of ditching it.

bbm


Why does it seem so stupid to put a knife back in a kitchen drawer, when people believe they didn't commit the murder because they put the knife back in the kitchen drawer? Are you not just proving their strategy successful?

 

[aa9511]

AK's DNA was never found on the knife and the repeat testings showed that Meredith's DNA wasn't on it either. RS's DNA was on it, but of course it would be since it was his utensil that came from his kitchen drawer in his apartment. If it was scrubbed clean, why was RS's DNA still on it?

You've never been accused of murder, so you don't know what someone would or would not do under such a stressful situation that could result in them being imprisoned for 25 years.

bbm

I can imagine that a guilty person would be very afraid of investigators finding evidence which pointed towards their guilt. So afraid that the evidence would be connected to them, that they would lie about it. That they would make up stories to explain the evidence found against them.

 

[aa9511]

MK's DNA was found on the kitchen knife in the initial test and the DNA they did find was below intl standards, but after testing it repeatedly, they found that it wasn't. They didn't find AK's DNA on the knife at all. Only RS's DNA was on it, which makes sense since it is his knife.

bbm

This is not correct. Amanda's DNA was found on it. RS's DNA was not found on it, even though it was his knife.

 

[aa9511]

If they had lunch at the apartment that AK shared with MK, why would there not be fingerprints of theirs in the kitchen? And of course DNA of AK would be there in her own kitchen. If she did a clean up, neither her fingerprints nor DNA should be there.

Exactly. There were 16 Meredith fingerprints found in Meredith's room. There were 14 Laura fingerprints found in Laura's bedroom (a couple were on her bathroom door). There were only 2 Filomena fingerpriints, found in her room. There was only 1 Amanda fingerprint found - it was in the kitchen.

There were no fingerprints at all found in the small bathroom. There were no fingerprints found on the interior of the large bathroom, even though Rudy had used that bathroom to do his poo. There were no fingerprints found in the living area or the dining area, except for 1 of Raffaelle. There was only 1 fingerprint found in the kitchen, even though Amanda and Raffaelle had eaten lunch there, and Meredith was also in the house the day before. And Amanda in her e-mail states that Meredith came over and talked to them while they were eating lunch.

There were no fingerprints found on the kitchen table.


Amanda and/or RS wiped all fingerprints from small bathroom (including door), from Filomena's room (staging room), from Amanda's room, from the living area, from the kitchen/eating area, from the interior of large bathroom, and from the front door.

 

[aa9511]

SMK ... was it you that asked a couple of months ago about the blank shape amidst the blood pool in front of the wardrobe ... where there was a blank spot?

Could the pillow have been there? That is where Meredith's head was, as that is where the blood smear can be seen with her hair making a sweep across the floor. Does anyone know where to locate that photo ... the close up of the area in front of the wardrobe?

I'm curious about whether the pillow was in that spot. The pillowcase is a piece of evidence that should have been removed from the room but wasn't. Was it forgotten with the lamp, and only remembered after the keys were thrown away?

bbm

It is very difficult to tell from the pictures that there are 2 people's footprints on that pillowcase - in other words, that one of the footprints is Amanda's b/c it is shorter.

So it is quite possible that Amanda and RS did not notice that Amanda's footprint was on the pillow. Because it was lost amongst the Rudy footprints.

And so they kept it, because they wanted to keep the Rudy aka burglar fooptprints. It supported their staging. A random person "The Burglar" came in and raped and murdered Meredith, and "The Burglar's" footprints are on the pillow to show it.

 

[Footwarrior]

bbm

Or maybe their whole mission in life and purpose is not to "nail Amanda," contrary to her supporters' entire argument in her defense. They did their job - investigated Meredith's murder, followed the results of that investigation, and held trials.

The evidence in this case pointed Rudy Guede. His handprint and shoe prints in blood next to the victim along with his DNA on and inside the victim.

The evedence also shows that Meredith died shortly arfter arriving home a few minutes after 9 pm. She was still wearing her jacket from the walk home. She had not tried calling her mother again after the failed call at 8:56 pm. She had not unloaded the clothes in the washing machine. And the meal she ate around 6:30 pm had not yet started to pass from her stomach.

Amanda and Raffaelle were a half kilometer away when Meredith died. The evidence from Raffaelle's computer shows the movie file Amalie being manually closed at 9:10 pm and a short video being started at 9:24. An internal log in his computer showed the screensaver only kicked in for short periods until 6:30 am.

The investigators mistake was picking a suspect before analyzing the evidence and then trying to force the evidence to fit that suspect.

 

[aa9511]

Irrespective of how someone feels on AK or RS, I think anything less than a life sentences for MK's killers is a disgrace. That RG is getting out as soon as next year is an embarrassment. I don't care about fast track and that nonsense; the fact that someone whose DNA is unquestionably there and who is indisputably culpable for the crime gets out in 15 years is a disgrace, fast track or not. RG loose on the streets this decade is not justice for MK, no matter how you feel about AK or RS.

Yes, I agree. I have confusion over the life sentences, though. I mean, we would have to have some theories from their defense of how it happened, other than lone-wolf. But we have none, since Rudy did fast-track, and Amanda and RS plead not-guilty.

For example, if it was 2nd degree murder, then I believe even in the United States, they would not get full life sentences. I don't know exactly how many they would get. Plus, there would be additional years for tampering with evidence, manipulating the body, manipulating the scene, etc..

I think that in this case, the evidence is that it was 2nd degree murder, because 1st degree murder would be pre-meditated.

However, I learned in the Jodi Aris case, that pre-meditation sometimes only requires that you think of your action before you do it, such as, for example, you think of stabbing her before you actually stab her, even if it is just for a second.

So if the first strike was accidental (2nd degree), but then they did further strikes for purposes of staging the body (overkill), then that might be considered 1st degree?

In this case, it would be very confusing.

I am just theorizing, obviously, that's why what category (1st, 2nd) might be given to them if this case was in the US, would depend on what prosecutors think happened and what their defense response to that is.

If it was accidental, I believe it could be 2nd degree, along with additional charges for everything else. If it was some kind of ganging-up/taunting on Meredith, then I believe that could be 1st degree, because they would have thought about their actions before putting the knife in her.

It would all depend on what the prosection's theory was.

If the prosecution went with the accidental strike theory here in the United States, then they might have gotten 2nd degree which would be less than a life sentence.

But I don't know, just guessing here.

 

[SMK]

Yes, I agree. I have confusion over the life sentences, though. I mean, we would have to have some theories from their defense of how it happened, other than lone-wolf. But we have none, since Rudy did fast-track, and Amanda and RS plead not-guilty.

For example, if it was 2nd degree murder, then I believe even in the United States, they would not get full life sentences. I don't know exactly how many they would get. Plus, there would be additional years for tampering with evidence, manipulating the body, manipulating the scene, etc..

I think that in this case, the evidence is that it was 2nd degree murder, because 1st degree murder would be pre-meditated.

However, I learned in the Jodi Aris case, that pre-meditation sometimes only requires that you think of your action before you do it, such as, for example, you think of stabbing her before you actually stab her, even if it is just for a second.

So if the first strike was accidental (2nd degree), but then they did further strikes for purposes of staging the body (overkill), then that might be considered 1st degree?

In this case, it would be very confusing.

I am just theorizing, obviously, that's why what category (1st, 2nd) might be given to them if this case was in the US, would depend on what prosecutors think happened and what their defense response to that is.

If it was accidental, I believe it could be 2nd degree, along with additional charges for everything else. If it was some kind of ganging-up/taunting on Meredith, then I believe that could be 1st degree, because they would have thought about their actions before putting the knife in her.

It would all depend on what the prosection's theory was.

If the prosecution went with the accidental strike theory here in the United States, then they might have gotten 2nd degree which would be less than a life sentence.

But I don't know, just guessing here.

Only the US has this illogical theory of premeditation: In all other civilized countries, premeditation means exactly what logical persons know it means: a lengthy amount of time spent coldly, coolly, methodically planning a murder.

I will be interested in reading the Motivations report of the Nencini court, and seeing exactly what they presupposed for the killing.