Meredith Kercher murdered-Amanda Knox appeals conviction #18

[Monzoo]

Perhaps you need to read my post again? My point is, the judgment is in my view solid, despite my not agreeing with every single last argument or deduction contained therein. For example...Judge Massei theorises that Knox probably had the kitchen knife in her bag as self-protection at Sollecito's suggestion as a 'reason' for why it was brought to the cottage. I don't agree with that theory. However, that takes nothing away from the soundness of the rest of the judgement as that conclusion is not essential to it. I see it as mere detail. Only the key elements have to be proven and I feel the report fulfills that and more.

I don't know -- to me, it still sounds like you want to have your cake and eat it too.

If you want to claim that the fact that a large number of judges have ruled on one aspect or another in this case is some sort of proof or evidence, then you need to accept that rulings that don't comform to your preconcieved notions should change your mind.

Conversely, you could either admit that your ideas have no basis in logic or that you were wrong in asserting that the rulings mean anything. Your choice.

 

[Monzoo]

The empty box from a pair of Nike Outbreak 2 shoes was found in Rudy's apartment. The sole pattern of that model shoe in the size printed on that box matches precisely the prints in blood found in the murder room. Rudy admits to wearing those shoes on the night of the murder and disposing of them while he was in Germany.

I find it quite amusing that Footwarrior seems to be our shoe expert.

 

[Malkmus]

I'll ask again. Why then, is this soil iron not all over the cottage? Why is it limited to a mere 3 footprints in the hallway, a blob in Filomena's room and some footprints in Amanda's room? Why is there not more then that and why is it not anywhere else is the cottage? Are Knox and Sollecito the only ones who have stepped in that soil (barefoot apparently) that has been there for hundreds of years and if so, why? Why are there not tracks of them treading said soil into the house via the front door? How did it get there? Why does this iron from soil suddenly only appear in the depths of the house? What are the defence not trying to argue it was soil? Why did Rudy leave none of his prints from this soil, despite supposedly walking around the property in it on a damp night in order to climb up to the window?

Fulcanelli, whatever caused the Luminol to react is all over the cottage apparently:



Somehow I doubt that the tiles are all surrounded by blood and that those bright speckles everywhere are blood too.

And again, there is the problem of the toes not matching Amanda's reference prints.

 

[Sonata]

Fulcanelli, whatever caused the Luminol to react is all over the cottage apparently:



Somehow I doubt that the tiles are all surrounded by blood and that those bright speckles everywhere are blood too.

And again, there is the problem of the toes not matching Amanda's reference prints.

Or Raf's for that matter.

 

[Kaosium]

*sigh*

And I refer you back to what I have said on the subject previously, as that is all that needs to be said.

OK, then they didn't do a confirmation test so they're not blood. You need to prove guilt, not try to knit it together with sophistry. You have to prove it's blood, and they knew after the failed TMB tests they couldn't do that, but they took samples for DNA, and those failed too. Then they tried going to the land of make-believe, and that won't work, and has been thoroughly debunked. It's just a theory, Fulcanelli, one so low probability when all the factors are considered it ranks quite a bit below the theory *you* were involved in the murder.

 

[Malkmus]

In which case, Rudy's DNA should also be rejected, right?

Who needs it anyway?

 

[sherlockh]

I don't believe they did in the first trial because they were not told about the TMB test. Hence, why I was talking about failure to provide evidence. I think they learned of the negative TMB test during trial and thought they then had a simple explanation of why the evidence should be thrown out.

You had asked someone else earlier if they thought the defense was incompetent. I do think the defense team is incompetent.

The shower typically would only show evidence of blood within the drain since the shower surface is non-porous (this according to my CSI evidence collection friend). Typically a bloody footprint trail on a porous floor would dilute in strength as the residue is transferred from the foot to the floor. The prints would gradually dim as more residue is transferred, which was not shown by the photographs or claimed by the testers. Instead, the footprints retain cohesion, implying a high amount of substance on the foot. Yet there can't be a high amount of blood because the TMB test was negative.

The science isn't fitting with the theory of blood.

Now, if the prints had been wiped up, that would be something, but there are no smear marks, which means they weren't wiped up.

As for why there was no other evidence of anyone else, the roommates claimed the entire flat had been cleaned less than a week prior, that side of the house was used primarly by Amanda and Meredith, and so you should only see evidence of activity after that cleaning.

However, I do think that the footprint on the bathmat was a bloody footprint (though I don't think you can claim certainty as to who it is, especially if you are saying stomach content science is soft... footprint science is even softer) , and the only flourescing footprints I know of are Amanda's. I am not providing excuses for Sollecito's footprint showing up anywhere.

At least we agree that the luminol prints were made very recently And without any cleaning you only make it more difficult to find any alternative besides blood. There is no trail, no wiping marks. I do find the bathmat surfing theory intriguing as it would explain for the missing footprints and also explains your cohesion problems although I am not convinced that is much of an issue with only a few prints. So yes, then you have to say the defense team is incompetent. How hard could it be to find out which guy had been walking barefoot there in the last week or so? Or maybe they aren't that incompetent after all?

 

[emyr]

At least we agree that the luminol prints were made very recently And without any cleaning you only make it more difficult to find any alternative besides blood. There is no trail, no wiping marks. I do find the bathmat surfing theory intriguing as it would explain for the missing footprints and also explains your cohesion problems although I am not convinced that is much of an issue with only a few prints. So yes, then you have to say the defense team is incompetent. How hard could it be to find out which guy had been walking barefoot there in the last week or so? Or maybe they aren't that incompetent after all?

I personally think the footprint is most likely Amanda's, though possibly Merediths or maybe even Rudys since the measurements might not be accurate. Because no profile of Meredith showed up in the footprints in Amanda's room, I think the footprints were not made from blood. If they were made from Meredith's blood, and the testing was done for DNA in order to maximize the chances of coming up with a profile, then her profile should have shown up, shouldn't it? How could Amanda's show up, but not Meredith's if the reason we can see the footprint is because Meredith's blood is there? How can Amanda have Meredith's profile on the bottom of her foot in the hall and Filomena's room but not in her own room?

The footprints could have been made on Halloween night. If they are Meredith's they might be a result of the Halloween makeup she was using, and the repetitive washing she engaged in to get the makeup off. She might have gone into Amanda's room to see if she could find something to help her wash it off, and then to Filomena's for the same reason. All sheer supposition.

 

[Allusonz]

I don't believe they did in the first trial because they were not told about the TMB test. Hence, why I was talking about failure to provide evidence. I think they learned of the negative TMB test during trial and thought they then had a simple explanation of why the evidence should be thrown out.

You had asked someone else earlier if they thought the defense was incompetent. I do think the defense team is incompetent.

The shower typically would only show evidence of blood within the drain since the shower surface is non-porous (this according to my CSI evidence collection friend). Typically a bloody footprint trail on a porous floor would dilute in strength as the residue is transferred from the foot to the floor. The prints would gradually dim as more residue is transferred, which was not shown by the photographs or claimed by the testers. Instead, the footprints retain cohesion, implying a high amount of substance on the foot. Yet there can't be a high amount of blood because the TMB test was negative.

The science isn't fitting with the theory of blood.

Now, if the prints had been wiped up, that would be something, but there are no smear marks, which means they weren't wiped up.

As for why there was no other evidence of anyone else, the roommates claimed the entire flat had been cleaned less than a week prior, that side of the house was used primarly by Amanda and Meredith, and so you should only see evidence of activity after that cleaning.

However, I do think that the footprint on the bathmat was a bloody footprint (though I don't think you can claim certainty as to who it is, especially if you are saying stomach content science is soft... footprint science is even softer) , and the only flourescing footprints I know of are Amanda's. I am not providing excuses for Sollecito's footprint showing up anywhere.

IIRC it was during Stephanoni's testimony that is was apparent that there had been additional testing done. That is when it came out that she had in fact tested with TMB. It was right before the summer break and up to that point the defense still did not know this had happened

It truly does make it very difficult to put on a defense when information that had been requested formally by the defense repeatedly is not turned over

The stomach content is very credible specifically for one reason. The duodeum showed that no slippage had occurred (this is critical and the reason TOD can be more accurate), thus that enables the pathologist to narrow the time. It was also confirmed that Dr. Lalli had indeed tied this off properly as shown by the video of the autopsy and pins down a time frame especially considering that there was no abnormal pathology noted

The footprints evidence as you state is very weak

 

[Kaosium]

At least we agree that the luminol prints were made very recently And without any cleaning you only make it more difficult to find any alternative besides blood. There is no trail, no wiping marks. I do find the bathmat surfing theory intriguing as it would explain for the missing footprints and also explains your cohesion problems although I am not convinced that is much of an issue with only a few prints. So yes, then you have to say the defense team is incompetent. How hard could it be to find out which guy had been walking barefoot there in the last week or so? Or maybe they aren't that incompetent after all?

The negative TMB test makes it extremely difficult to find any alternative besides they weren't blood. You can't ignore that falsifier, I can just about guarantee you Hellmann won't. That overrides just about everything, because nothing else has had such a definitive test disqualifying it. Stefanoni's fantasy that Massei accepted due to the guilty verdict has since been debunked as well. In fact, the photos of the footprints themselves disprove it, have you seen (page89) graphic representations of luminol based products diluted to below 1:10k? That's an awfully generous sensitivity threshold for TMB too, under lab conditions it can detect blood diluted down to 1:1M. (million) Also note that picture is for Bluestar, which you can see from the rest of the paper has added ingredients designed to improve it's performance as a forensic tool, at 1:8k dilution its luminosity is greater than that of blood, a characteristic that continues to emerge down to 1:80k dilution in which it is about double that of standard luminol, as you can see from the chart Rose posted, which I link again here for convenience.

Point taken on the age, I'd forgotten the cottage had been recently cleaned.

 

[sherlockh]

I personally think the footprint is most likely Amanda's, though possibly Merediths or maybe even Rudys since the measurements might not be accurate. Because no profile of Meredith showed up in the footprints in Amanda's room, I think the footprints were not made from blood. If they were made from Meredith's blood, and the testing was done for DNA in order to maximize the chances of coming up with a profile, then her profile should have shown up, shouldn't it? How could Amanda's show up, but not Meredith's if the reason we can see the footprint is because Meredith's blood is there? How can Amanda have Meredith's profile on the bottom of her foot in the hall and Filomena's room but not in her own room?

The footprints could have been made on Halloween night. If they are Meredith's they might be a result of the Halloween makeup she was using, and the repetitive washing she engaged in to get the makeup off. She might have gone into Amanda's room to see if she could find something to help her wash it off, and then to Filomena's for the same reason. All sheer supposition.

Which footprint? The bathmat print could be Amanda's or Meredith's? I have never heard that one before

That no DNA was found in several of those footprints already tells you that there was very little blood to begin with. So it isn't so strange that the TMB test was negative as well. We are dealing with extremely small traces of blood. The DNA that was found was LCN which also indicates how small the traces were. As you can see in the bathroom Amanda mixed her own DNA (some even claim her own blood) with that of Meredith's so it all depends on how much DNA there was of Meredith and how much of Amanda to make any claims about whose DNA you expect. Besides it was Amanda's own foot. I am not convinced that the traces found in Filomena's room came from Amanda's foot by the way.

The scenario of Meredith putting makeup on her feet, somehow mixing her DNA with Amanda's DNA in there then hops into the hallway with some mystery guy who has yet to come forward, then goes off to Amanda's room, sounds all a bit too fantastic to me. The footprints have been given opinions of probable identity for both Amanda and Raffaele. That is about as close you can get to perfect matches when it comes to footprints. Denying all the experts and making up 'funny' alternative scenarios about draino or makeup or whatever on ones foot is all great but these things never made it to trial for a reason. It simply doesn't make any sense. JMO.

 

[OldSteve]

Is the verdict still expected Sept 23rd?

 

[Kaosium]

Which footprint? The bathmat print could be Amanda's or Meredith's? I have never heard that one before

Heh, Massei alludes to the possibility the bathmat print could have been left by Amanda, without ever directly saying so, of course, 'cuz that would be silly. Here it is:

Furthermore, the sky-blue bathmat with the print of a bare foot in blood, blood which also was shown to be from the victim, indicates that whoever went into this bathroom was barefoot, and must therefore also have been barefoot in Meredith’s room where she had been repeatedly struck, a room which had great blotches of blood, and in one of these whoever transferred the blood to the bathroom and the sky-blue bathmat must have placed his or her foot, and thus must have been moving about that room with bare feet. The above observation leads to the deduction that whoever went into the bathroom at that point (after the stabbing of Meredith) must have had to do so to clean him/herself of Meredith’s blood with which he/she was staining the various things he/she touched or leaned against: the door, the light switch, the mat.

And it is probable - not necessary, but probable - that during the following act of scrubbing the hands to remove the blood, he/she left the mixed trace consisting of Meredith’s blood and of cells which had been removed by rubbing during the act of washing. An entirely probable outcome given the likelihood of the act of scrubbing, yet not a necessary one, since the running water which was used in the shower stall or in the bidet or in the sink, or in several of these sanitary fittings, might well have rinsed away the washed-up blood and the cells which had been lost during this washing.

At this point, one may turn for the resulting evaluations to the trace specimens found in the sink, in the bidet, on the cotton-bud box, traces which tested positive for human blood and which were attributed to Meredith and to Amanda.

One of Massei's 'finer moments' as he 'hypothesizes' that whoever left the traces in the bathroom probably left the one on the mat, and the ones in the sink, cotton box and bidet, at the some time trying to tie it to Amanda, but leaving open the possibility it was Raffaele...or Rudy. Rather entertaining way he did it, in my opinion. He can't make sense of it all regarding either of the the people he's supposed to be trying to write a Motivations Report for, because obviously the traces in the sink are Amanda's, and the bathmat print is not, but logically it makes sense it was the same person...but that person might not have left anything just washing up, and he knows this, and he knows the traces in the sink could have been left anytime, but has to pretend they didn't. It's possible for those who tried to put together a guilt argument for Raffaele and Amanda like I did to occasionally have sympathy for Giancarlo Massei.

That no DNA was found in several of those footprints already tells you that there was very little blood to begin with. So it isn't so strange that the TMB test was negative as well. We are dealing with extremely small traces of blood.

How do you account for highly diluted blood at the crime scene that couldn't have been made inadvertently by Amanda walking around after her shower? Either the 'bathmat shuffle,' before or afterward? If you expect that she can be murdering barefoot, she can surely be walking around her own home barefoot without murdering anyone. Blood that highly diluted might well be unrelated to the murder, menstrual blood that at some point got on the floor of the bathroom and pooled in water and tracked around, earring blood the same thing happened to, blood picked up from Rudy's shoeprints which are all over the hall and then introduced to a wet floor and spread. This 'blood' if it defies all falsifiers, is highly likely not evidence from someone being in the murder room anyway, and could be any number of things.

Remember the burden of proof here is on the prosecution and they just lost the 'witness' that broke the alibi, they had their forensic acumen humiliated, and the DNA declared scientifically invalid by the judge's own independent experts. They're not likely to get much leeway for highly improbable scenarios when so many other more plausible ones exist for it not even being blood, and even if it is, not evidence of murder.

The DNA that was found was LCN which also indicates how small the traces were. As you can see in the bathroom Amanda mixed her own DNA (some even claim her own blood) with that of Meredith's so it all depends on how much DNA there was of Meredith and how much of Amanda to make any claims about whose DNA you expect. Besides it was Amanda's own foot. I am not convinced that the traces found in Filomena's room came from Amanda's foot by the way.

Actually the most plausible scenario for the bathroom is that Rudy washed up there and got Meredith's blood in the sink, and the way the photographer who collected the samples did so he pretty much made sure that Amanda's DNA was going to be in it. Amanda's DNA is much more likely to be there from the vast number of times before the murder that she washed up, brushed her teeth, and whatever else females do in front of the sink that takes that damn long. Amanda had no wounds, Massei makes a special point of that, and that they made a thorough inspection of her body in captivity, thus it isn't Amanda's blood, and if they wanted to prove that all they had to do was run the proper test. That they didn't suggests yet another time they tried to manufacture 'evidence' with sophistry instead of forensics.

The scenario of Meredith putting makeup on her feet, somehow mixing her DNA with Amanda's DNA in there then hops into the hallway with some mystery guy who has yet to come forward, then goes off to Amanda's room, sounds all a bit too fantastic to me. The footprints have been given opinions of probable identity for both Amanda and Raffaele. That is about as close you can get to perfect matches when it comes to footprints. Denying all the experts and making up 'funny' alternative scenarios about draino or makeup or whatever on ones foot is all great but these things never made it to trial for a reason. It simply doesn't make any sense. JMO.

Sherlock, certainly you've seen pictures of some of these footprints and shoeprints they 'attributed' to people, haven't you? 'Compatible' only means 'possible' in Italian legal parlance, something Machiavelli, Frank Sfarzo and Mario Spezi all confirm. It's a joke to pretend that means some sort of definitive match like it was a fingerprint or a DNA profile, it's just a possibility--not actual evidence in and of itself. They're saying 'if Raffaele and Amanda are guilty, the marks were made by them.' NOT, 'Raffaele and Amanda are guilty because these marks were made by them.' See how that works? By themselves they're evidence of nothing.

 

[Fulcanelli]

I don't believe they did in the first trial because they were not told about the TMB test. Hence, why I was talking about failure to provide evidence. I think they learned of the negative TMB test during trial and thought they then had a simple explanation of why the evidence should be thrown out.

You had asked someone else earlier if they thought the defense was incompetent. I do think the defense team is incompetent.

The shower typically would only show evidence of blood within the drain since the shower surface is non-porous (this according to my CSI evidence collection friend). Typically a bloody footprint trail on a porous floor would dilute in strength as the residue is transferred from the foot to the floor. The prints would gradually dim as more residue is transferred, which was not shown by the photographs or claimed by the testers. Instead, the footprints retain cohesion, implying a high amount of substance on the foot. Yet there can't be a high amount of blood because the TMB test was negative.

The science isn't fitting with the theory of blood.

Now, if the prints had been wiped up, that would be something, but there are no smear marks, which means they weren't wiped up.

As for why there was no other evidence of anyone else, the roommates claimed the entire flat had been cleaned less than a week prior, that side of the house was used primarly by Amanda and Meredith, and so you should only see evidence of activity after that cleaning.

However, I do think that the footprint on the bathmat was a bloody footprint (though I don't think you can claim certainty as to who it is, especially if you are saying stomach content science is soft... footprint science is even softer) , and the only flourescing footprints I know of are Amanda's. I am not providing excuses for Sollecito's footprint showing up anywhere.

The addition of the TMB test is irrelevant in terms of the defence raising the 'flourescing' argument were it a valid one. With or without the TMB test, they were still denying that the footprints were in blood, so that argument if it were valid, would have been just as valid had there been no TMB test simply because only a luminol test and no confirmatory test had been performed. Yet, they or their experts made no such argument. In any case, they knew about the TMB test during the trial and by the appeal, yet still no offering of that argument.

The 'flourescing' argument doesn't carry weight because it is not the cellular material luminol reacts with, but the iron contained within it. The cells on contact with the physical environment, transfer iron particles to it. It is difficult to remove this iron but surface depending, it is very easy to wash away the blood itself. This is why luminol is so useful. It can detect not only blood traces in extremely tiny amounts but also blood that has been 'cleaned'. In this case, Amanda had just rinsed off her foot. Nearly of the blood had been washed away from her foot, but the iron hadn't and it was mainly this iron she was transfering when walking. This was why there was suitable iron in the prints to cause a highly visible flourescing, but not enough actual blood cells themselves for the sensitivity of the TMB test. Fortunately, there were enough in some cases, to render a Low Copy Number DNA profile.

In the trial, the visible print on the mat was absolutely ruled out as being Guede's and was matched to Sollecito.

 

[Fulcanelli]

The empty box from a pair of Nike Outbreak 2 shoes was found in Rudy's apartment. The sole pattern of that model shoe in the size printed on that box matches precisely the prints in blood found in the murder room. Rudy admits to wearing those shoes on the night of the murder and disposing of them while he was in Germany.

You still need the original shoes to make a full positive identification. Owning an empty shoe box doesn't prove someone actually owned the shoes. Moreover, many thousands of people could potentially own the same make, model and size of shoe, especially if it's a popular brand (as Nike is). Shoe soles can work like fingerprints, in that they can have their own distinctive patterns of wear, levels of superficial damage and marks on the soles that are unique to that pair. Since his shoes were never recovered, no positive match could be made, it can only be deduced that 'in all probability' many of the prints are his. It certainly cannot be claimed to be a 'proven fact'. However, some of the very partial/smeared prints having come from Sollecito cannot be absolutely ruled out...especially since Raffaele had the same brand of shoe and the tread pattern is very similar to that of the shoes Guede was alleged to have had and in the cases where the print is so damaged, it can't be positively matched or excluded with pretty much any training shoe, much less those that are extremely similar.

 

[Fulcanelli]

Fulcanelli, whatever caused the Luminol to react is all over the cottage apparently:



Somehow I doubt that the tiles are all surrounded by blood and that those bright speckles everywhere are blood too.

And again, there is the problem of the toes not matching Amanda's reference prints.

But that's not 'all over the cottage'. Where are all the other footprints? Where are the luminol hits in Laura's room? In the living room? In the kitchen? In the laundry room? In the large bathroom? All that picture shows is luminol spots right near the footprint...in other words, in the small area right where the murderers were walking to and fro after the murder. It's not surprising that there'd be numerous blood hits in that immediate area for spots and dots and specs.

 

[Fulcanelli]

Is the verdict still expected Sept 23rd?

No, the 23rd is the beginning of closing arguments which will continue for several days, after which there will be the rebuttals. There may also be a day for 'unfinished business', then comes the verdict. You're looking at the end of September/beginning of October for the verdict.

 

[Fulcanelli]

The negative TMB test makes it extremely difficult to find any alternative besides they weren't blood. You can't ignore that falsifier, I can just about guarantee you Hellmann won't. That overrides just about everything, because nothing else has had such a definitive test disqualifying it. Stefanoni's fantasy that Massei accepted due to the guilty verdict has since been debunked as well. In fact, the photos of the footprints themselves disprove it, have you seen (page89) graphic representations of luminol based products diluted to below 1:10k? That's an awfully generous sensitivity threshold for TMB too, under lab conditions it can detect blood diluted down to 1:1M. (million) Also note that picture is for Bluestar, which you can see from the rest of the paper has added ingredients designed to improve it's performance as a forensic tool, at 1:8k dilution its luminosity is greater than that of blood, a characteristic that continues to emerge down to 1:80k dilution in which it is about double that of standard luminol, as you can see from the chart Rose posted, which I link again here for convenience.

Point taken on the age, I'd forgotten the cottage had been recently cleaned.

You can ignore it, because a TMB test is a presumptive blood test only and cannot be used to rule out the presence of blood, especially when blood is indicated by another presumptive blood test. You cannot ignore the large difference in sensitivity between the two products, as you keep doing.

 

[Fulcanelli]

Who needs it anyway?

Funny. We've been saying exactly the same thing about the bra clasp and knife.

 

[Fulcanelli]

OK, then they didn't do a confirmation test so they're not blood. You need to prove guilt, not try to knit it together with sophistry. You have to prove it's blood, and they knew after the failed TMB tests they couldn't do that, but they took samples for DNA, and those failed too. Then they tried going to the land of make-believe, and that won't work, and has been thoroughly debunked. It's just a theory, Fulcanelli, one so low probability when all the factors are considered it ranks quite a bit below the theory *you* were involved in the murder.

Yes, prove 'guilt' and it's the weight of all the evidence combined that does that. One does not need to absolutely prove each and every individual clue or piece of evidence. It is a fact, that with any individual piece of evidence in any crime, one can always construct all sorts of arguments and off all sorts of 'possibilities' yo wave it away. That's why with individual pieces of evidence, a court has yo weigh it on probabilities.