Meredith Kercher murdered-Amanda Knox appeals conviction #18

[Fulcanelli]

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:



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.




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.




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.



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.

Because anything is 'possible'.

I account for the diluted blood by the murderers washing themselves after the murder and the partial clean-up performed later.

The prosecution have already fulfilled their burden of proof in the trial. Knox and Sollecito were convicted, remember? The burden is now on the defence to cast doubt on that evidence. That's how it works.

Knox DID have injuries. She had a scratch to her throat and had a damaged ear along with a missing earring. She also could just have easily have had a bleeding nose. We know she was bleeding, as Knox's blood was on the tap in the little bathroom and even Knox admits it wasn't there the afternoon of the day of the murder and was already dry when she arrived on the morning after the murder. That means, it could only have been deposited the night of the murder and that, by the way, puts her there for the murder.

Tidy washing up in the bathroom isn't plausible at all. He says he left the scene immediately following the murder (he had no reason to deny washing himself in the bathroom if he had done so) and the evidence proves he did so. His footprints show his running out of Meredith's room and straight down the corridor and looking back. His DNA backs that up as well. His DNA was found in Meredith's room and the large bathroom, but not a trace of it was found in the small bathroom. The whole Rudy 'cleaned up in the little bathroom' is complete nonsense , as much so as 'Rudy broke into the cottage via Filomena's window'.

 

[Kaosium]

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, that's what TMB does! If you don't get a positive you don't have blood! Why else would they use it, as you note it's a presumptive test. It can't confirm blood, and they already have a luminol hit, so why on earth would they use it then? Both ILE and the FBI?

<modsnip>: luminol is easy to use on wide areas and detects blood that cannot otherwise be seen. TMB is then used to verify whether it's blood, a negative and you know you're not dealing with blood, a positive and they take it back to the lab for the confirmation test.

Now explain to me why they didn't do a confirmation test if they really thought it was blood?

Anyway, if its diluted to that extent you know it isn't fresh blood from the murder scene. In that case in the extremely unlikely event it's actually blood, it then is even more likely to be blood from an earring or menstrual issue that got diluted in some water, probably in the bathroom.

All of these disqualifiers, plus the lack of a pattern related to the murder, the poor quality of the 'prints' and the lack of comparison to anyone one else in the cottage means the odds of them being accepted as evidence of murder by the Hellmann court approaches absolute zero.

 

[RoseMontague]

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

Nope. You had experts with different opinions and a biased judge going with the prosecution expert's opinion. I have no doubt that if the judge had decided to order an independent review on the Luminol evidence a truly independent expert would rule that the Luminol blobs prove absolutely nothing.

The prosecution has the burden of proof on the Luminol prints. They have to show they were made by the suspects and made with Meredith's blood. Not only have they not proven they were made with Meredith's blood they have also not proven that they were made with blood at all. Not only is footprint identification generally accepted as unreliable, as Kasoium points out this compatible business means about zero. Have you looked at the assignment given to Rinaldi? He was asked to compare these prints to three people only,
the three suspects. He did not even have the victim's footprint as a reference much less the other flatmates or the boys downstairs.

"Carry out all tests designed to compare the fingerprints found on footwear in the survey with the imprints of shoes seizure, and to compare
plantar imprints taken to suspects, in the course of inspection personnel, Knox, Sollecito and Guede with fingerprints found on the plantar pad of the bathroom adjoining the room where it is was found the corpse of Meredith Kercher, and those highlighted by the Luminol.
Find, finally, the compatibility or otherwise of fingerprints with those taken in plantar At the inspection body, and anything else necessary in the interests of justice. "

I see you continually promoting the study where they tested 250 different things for luminol reaction. Have you really looked at that list to see how many cleaning products were actually tested? Do you think the few listed there represents everything? I don't know about the rest of us but the cleaning isle in my grocery store contains hundreds of different cleaning products and the organic cleaning isle contains many containing vegetable and fruit products. I also see a lot of people limiting themselves to only those items on the list that reacted strongly to the Luminol. Yet I also see those same people claim that the reason no DNA found was because of the high dilution of the blood. Despite the obvious evidence provided showing the higher the dilution of blood the lower the reaction with luminol. There is plenty of evidence that the luminol here was over-applied and just glopped on which brings many of those other 250 items with weaker reactions into the mix, in my opinion.

The transcript I provided yesterday relates several instances of false positive luminol reactions. One from tiny footprints found that turned out to be from a child that had been in a swimming pool and another from someone who had taken a shower where either the shower cleaner or one of the soap products used caused the Luminol to react to footprints.

Reviewing the test results presented by Stefanoni in her court presentation I was struck with the fact that in almost every case where a sample was presumed blood she ran a specific test for human blood. The only exception I saw were the footprints made in Luminol. Very strange. How many scientists that get both a positive and negative test on two different presumptive tests for blood would just stop there and not make a third test to see which was the accurate one? This is just common sense.

I don't believe the judge is going to buy into the luminol arguments presented by the prosecution. The court stated at the beginning of the appeal that they did not fully share the first court's opinion on the question of reasonable doubt. The results of the additional testimony of Curatolo and the C&V report will only increase the doubt that this court had in the beginning.

 

[Malkmus]

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.

"Numerous blood hits"? Be honest, there's so many I lost count, but just guessing there's roughly a thousand little specs all over just those 8 or 9 tiles. Blood literally would have had to be spraying off their bodies as they walked down the hall to cause that. And you didn't explain what is lighting up the circumference of each tile - it obviously isn't blood whatever it is.

 

[Fulcanelli]

Fulcanelli, that's what TMB does! If you don't get a positive you don't have blood! Why else would they use it, as you note it's a presumptive test. It can't confirm blood, and they already have a luminol hit, so why on earth would they use it then? Both ILE and the FBI?

<modsnip>: luminol is easy to use on wide areas and detects blood that cannot otherwise be seen. TMB is then used to verify whether it's blood, a negative and you know you're not dealing with blood, a positive and they take it back to the lab for the confirmation test.

Now explain to me why they didn't do a confirmation test if they really thought it was blood?

Anyway, if its diluted to that extent you know it isn't fresh blood from the murder scene. In that case in the extremely unlikely event it's actually blood, it then is even more likely to be blood from an earring or menstrual issue that got diluted in some water, probably in the bathroom.

All of these disqualifiers, plus the lack of a pattern related to the murder, the poor quality of the 'prints' and the lack of comparison to anyone one else in the cottage means the odds of them being accepted as evidence of murder by the Hellmann court approaches absolute zero.

NO, NO and again NO. That is NOT what TMB does. It cannot be used to positively rule out the presence of blood. Period.

Why did they use the TMB test as well as the luminol test? My guess is, that they used it because they were not intending to perform a confirmatory blood test because they wanted to render the whole of the samples over for DNA testing in the hope of getting a valid profile. In so doing, the hope was that with two positive presumptive tests, it would rule out any requirement for the confirmatory test. A positive result with two different presumptive tests is better then a positive result with only one. It didn't work out, since there was not a high enough volume of material prsent for the sensitivity levels of the TMB test.

 

[Kaosium]

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.

They only get luminol hits where they spray luminol. Is there any evidence whatsoever that Laura's room was sprayed down on the return trip to the crime scene? The large bathroom? Why would they? They'd just been wedgied on Italian TV by the noble and valiant Sollecitos exposing their mindless error with the shoeprints, they needed evidence of Raffaele (especially) and Amanda, and to their dismay they found more of Rudy in the room, until they made that display of themselves with the bra clasp that came back to haunt them so.

<modsnip> These <modsnip> didn't do a crime scene sweep to FBI standard. They probably just caked that hall with luminol, and only photographed the ones they thought they could pretend connected to the murder. Why would they want to 'confuse' anyone by pointing out how many luminol stains (might have) been found elsewhere in the cottage? They 'didn't need that to make their case' in Comodi's immortal words of why she withheld data from the defense.

 

[Fulcanelli]

Nope. You had experts with different opinions and a biased judge going with the prosecution expert's opinion. I have no doubt that if the judge had decided to order an independent review on the Luminol evidence a truly independent expert would rule that the Luminol blobs prove absolutely nothing.

The prosecution has the burden of proof on the Luminol prints. They have to show they were made by the suspects and made with Meredith's blood. Not only have they not proven they were made with Meredith's blood they have also not proven that they were made with blood at all. Not only is footprint identification generally accepted as unreliable, as Kasoium points out this compatible business means about zero. Have you looked at the assignment given to Rinaldi? He was asked to compare these prints to three people only,
the three suspects. He did not even have the victim's footprint as a reference much less the other flatmates or the boys downstairs.



I see you continually promoting the study where they tested 250 different things for luminol reaction. Have you really looked at that list to see how many cleaning products were actually tested? Do you think the few listed there represents everything? I don't know about the rest of us but the cleaning isle in my grocery store contains hundreds of different cleaning products and the organic cleaning isle contains many containing vegetable and fruit products. I also see a lot of people limiting themselves to only those items on the list that reacted strongly to the Luminol. Yet I also see those same people claim that the reason no DNA found was because of the high dilution of the blood. Despite the obvious evidence provided showing the higher the dilution of blood the lower the reaction with luminol. There is plenty of evidence that the luminol here was over-applied and just glopped on which brings many of those other 250 items with weaker reactions into the mix, in my opinion.

The transcript I provided yesterday relates several instances of false positive luminol reactions. One from tiny footprints found that turned out to be from a child that had been in a swimming pool and another from someone who had taken a shower where either the shower cleaner or one of the soap products used caused the Luminol to react to footprints.

Reviewing the test results presented by Stefanoni in her court presentation I was struck with the fact that in almost every case where a sample was presumed blood she ran a specific test for human blood. The only exception I saw were the footprints made in Luminol. Very strange. How many scientists that get both a positive and negative test on two different presumptive tests for blood would just stop there and not make a third test to see which was the accurate one? This is just common sense.

I don't believe the judge is going to buy into the luminol arguments presented by the prosecution. The court stated at the beginning of the appeal that they did not fully share the first court's opinion on the question of reasonable doubt. The results of the additional testimony of Curatolo and the C&V report will only increase the doubt that this court had in the beginning.

Yes, and the court found them to be incorrect. Just because someone has a different opinion, it doesn't make them right. And the court judged they were wrong, whilst those arguing it was Sollecito's print were right. End of.

Some good arguments based on faith there. Moving on...

The prosecution fulfilled the burden of proof. They were able to satisfy the court that the luminol prints were in blood, not only with the luminol but using the contextual evidence. That's called, using a 'range of evidence' to demonstrate a fact. This was done to the court's satisfaction. The defence was not able to demonstrate to the court's satisfaction, that the prints were not in blood. End of.

Again...the cleaning products. WHY isn't it all over the cottage? Why is the whole floor not glowing? Are these magical cleaning products that stick only to Amanda's and Raffaele's feet and nobody else's? I do not believe in magical cleaning products. Neither does the court. And the prosecution, does not have to disprove magical cleaning products any more then they have to disprove the existence of the unicorn.

 

[Fulcanelli]

"Numerous blood hits"? Be honest, there's so many I lost count, but just guessing there's roughly a thousand little specs all over just those 8 or 9 tiles. Blood literally would have had to be spraying off their bodies as they walked down the hall to cause that. And you didn't explain what is lighting up the circumference of each tile - it obviously isn't blood whatever it is.

Yes...little specs...AROUND the print. And yes, it would have been dispersing off their bodies. Especially after they'd washed up and it was mixed with water.

 

[Kaosium]

NO, NO and again NO. That is NOT what does TMB does. It cannot be used to positively rule out the presence of blood. Period.

Heh. Then what do they use them for, Fulcanelli? The FBI agent ought to know, violent crimes unit and anti-terrorism, which for the FBI amounts to walking into a mess and trying to figure out what happened.

Plus what he says makes sense. You've still not explained why the FBI and ILE would use them if we both know they can't confirm blood, and you say they can't rule it out. Is it possible you've just dug yourself in so deep over the years you're utterly unreceptive to reason on the issue?

Fulcanelli, no one would care about that worthless DNA 'evidence' if there was actually legitimate 'bloody footprints.' Why do you think I spent so much time on them, even after I knew the DNA 'evidence' was bilge? Bloody footprints actually would be evidence of murder, but there's no rational reason to think they're bloody, and with some of them you need good drugs to even think them footprints!

Why did they use the TMB test as well as the luminol test? My guess is, that they used it because they were not intending to perform a confirmatory blood test because they wanted to render the whole of the samples over for DNA testing in the hope of getting a valid profile. In so doing, the hope was that with two positive presumptive tests, it would rule out any requirement for the confirmatory test. A positive result with two different presumptive tests is better then a positive result with only one. It didn't work out, since there was not a high enough volume of material present for the sensitivity levels of the TMB test.

That's actually a pretty good post-hoc rationalization, Massei would be pleased with your work.

There is however a problem there, just like there is with all of Massei's, would you like me to point it out or would you like to figure it out for yourself? I'll give you a hint, think of the nature of dilution and the area of the footprints...

 

[Fulcanelli]

They only get luminol hits where they spray luminol. Is there any evidence whatsoever that Laura's room was sprayed down on the return trip to the crime scene? The large bathroom? Why would they? They'd just been wedgied on Italian TV by the noble and valiant Sollecitos exposing their mindless error with the shoeprints, they needed evidence of Raffaele (especially) and Amanda, and to their dismay they found more of Rudy in the room, until they made that display of themselves with the bra clasp that came back to haunt them so.

You've been watching too much CSI! These clowns didn't do a crime scene sweep to FBI standard. They probably just caked that hall with luminol, and only photographed the ones they thought they could pretend connected to the murder. Why would they want to 'confuse' anyone by pointing out how many luminol stains (might have) been found elsewhere in the cottage? They 'didn't need that to make their case' in Comodi's immortal words of why she withheld data from the defense.

The whole crime scene would have been tested with luminol. The only exception would have been Meredith's room and possibly the little bathroom.

They didn't do things to FBI standards because they are not the FBI and they have their own standards. Amazingly, many countries seem to function quite well...without the FBI.

The rest is conspiracy theory stuff. I don't do that.

 

[Malkmus]

Yes...little specs...AROUND the print. And yes, it would have been dispersing off their bodies. Especially after they'd washed up and it was mixed with water.

So to recap:

1. No explanation for how Rafaelle's mushroom-shaped big toe left a print on the bathmat with a (more common) oval-shaped big toe.

2. No explanation for Amanda's morton's toe (second toe longer than big toe) leaving a regular length toe print in Luminol.

3. No explanation for how each perimeter of the tiles in the hallway are completely lit up by Luminol. (and also the odd assertion that they sprayed thousands of drops of blood beneath them as they walked, literally showering the hall in blood).

4. Curatolo said he saw them in the piazza from 9:30 to 11:30, but because 11:30 is inconvenient for the pair to have committed murder, we're going with the court's "alteration" of his statement that he only saw them there until 11:00. Nevermind that it makes no sense that they would be stalking Amanda's cottage from afar, when they could have just been waiting inside for Meredith.

5. Not in agreement with Massei that Amanda was toting around Raf's knife in her purse on a daily basis. So why and how exactly did that knife get to the cottage when there was a plethora of knives already there, and Raf had a personal collection of smaller, more portable ones?

There's more I'm curious about, but it's bed time. Good night...

 

[RoseMontague]

Yes, and the court found them to be incorrect. Just because someone has a different opinion, it doesn't make them right. And the court judged they were wrong, whilst those arguing it was Sollecito's print were right. End of.

Some good arguments based on faith there. Moving on...

The prosecution fulfilled the burden of proof. They were able to satisfy the court that the luminol prints were in blood, not only with the luminol but using the contextual evidence. That's called, using a 'range of evidence' to demonstrate a fact. This was done to the court's satisfaction. The defence was not able to demonstrate to the court's satisfaction, that the prints were not in blood. End of.

Again...the cleaning products. WHY isn't it all over the cottage? Why is the whole floor not glowing? Are these magical cleaning products that stick only to Amanda's and Raffaele's feet and nobody else's? I do not believe in magical cleaning products. Neither does the court. And the prosecution, does not have to disprove magical cleaning products any more then they have to disprove the existence of the unicorn.

Evidently they must stick to the tiny mice feet as well. That must be what all those tiny marks are. Probably mice that stepped in some turnip juice.

The leaps of faith here, as pointed out in Raffaele's appeal, are Massei's.

I didn't ask the prosecution to disprove anything. Again you didn't understand my post or you deliberately misrepresent it. I said the prosecution has the burden of proof to show that the Luminol prints were both made by Meredith's blood and made by the suspects. They have completely failed to prove this.

 

[Fulcanelli]

Heh. Then what do they use them for, Fulcanelli? The FBI agent ought to know, violent crimes unit and anti-terrorism, which for the FBI amounts to walking into a mess and trying to figure out what happened.

Plus what he says makes sense. You've still not explained why the FBI and ILE would use them if we both know they can't confirm blood, and you say they can't rule it out. Is it possible you've just dug yourself in so deep over the years you're utterly unreceptive to reason on the issue?

Fulcanelli, no one would care about that worthless DNA 'evidence' if there was actually legitimate 'bloody footprints.' Why do you think I spent so much time on them, even after I knew the DNA 'evidence' was bilge? Bloody footprints actually would be evidence of murder, but there's no rational reason to think they're bloody, and with some of them you need good drugs to even think them footprints!



That's actually a pretty good post-hoc rationalization, Massei would be pleased with your work.

There is however a problem there, just like there is with all of Massei's, would you like me to point it out or would you like to figure it out for yourself? I'll give you a hint, think of the nature of dilution and the area of the footprints...

Its purpose is for what I told you...as a presumptive blood test.

Which FBI agent that 'oughta know' would that be? That would be your Steve Moore, wouldn't it? This Steve Moore: http://www.truejustice.org/ee/index...us_cop_steve_moore_serially_mischar/#comments

Do you have another FBI agent? One that knows jack about the case...and is honest?

They will use a range of different indicators to look for the presence of blood. Some work better in different environments. TMB is only used in the presence of visible blood (or what appears to be visible blood). That's because it's not a spray test where you just spray it all over the place and it lights whatever up. Instead, you have to swab the sample then stick it in a receptor jar containing the TMB and it changes colour depending. Naturally, you have to see the sample you're swabbing to be able to do that and it isn't practical to crawl along swabbing a whole floor with a cotton bud looking for invisible traces. Luminol is used to detect that which you can't see, whilst TMB is used on that which you can.

 

[RoseMontague]

The whole crime scene would have been tested with luminol. The only exception would have been Meredith's room and possibly the little bathroom.

They didn't do things to FBI standards because they are not the FBI and they have their own standards. Amazingly, many countries seem to function quite well...without the FBI.

The rest is conspiracy theory stuff. I don't do that.

Well Stefanoni used just a few references in her DNA presentations in court. You must have missed this one. Note the upper left where it says US Dept of Justice, FBI.

 

[Fulcanelli]

Evidently they must stick to the tiny mice feet as well. That must be what all those tiny marks are. Probably mice that stepped in some turnip juice.

The leaps of faith here, as pointed out in Raffaele's appeal, are Massei's.

I didn't ask the prosecution to disprove anything. Again you didn't understand my post or you deliberately misrepresent it. I said the prosecution has the burden of proof to show that the Luminol prints were both made by Meredith's blood and made by the suspects. They have completely failed to prove this.

Tiny mice aren't necessary. Water sprays off of the body in tiny droplets when you shake your hands....after say, just coming out of the bathroom after just washing blood off them.

They've proved it to the court's satisfaction. And to mine.

 

[Fulcanelli]

Well Stefanoni used just a few references in her DNA presentations in court. You must have missed this one. Note the upper left where it says US Dept of Justice, FBI.

So? She can use them if she wants to demonstrate something. It doesn't therefore follow, her department is also bound by FBI methods and protocols.

 

[RoseMontague]

Tiny mice aren't necessary. Water sprays off of the body in tiny droplets when you shake your hands....after say, just coming out of the bathroom after just washing blood off them.

They've proved it to the court's satisfaction. And to mine.

No doubt.

They have not proven anything. This court stated that they were starting with the premise of only one fact, that Meredith Kercher was murdered. That is about the only thing the court of first degree has proven.

 

[Kaosium]

Because anything is 'possible'.

But that doesn't make it probable without evidence and rational argument. Let me put my bunny suit on and I'll give you a theory of how you're potentially involved in this murder. Nothing personal, I've done it for myself as well, it just illustrates what one can do with a nasty suspicious mind and being able to turn 'possibles' into 'probables' without anything more than than psychobabble and sophistry for the evidence and argument stage.

I account for the diluted blood by the murderers washing themselves after the murder and the partial clean-up performed later.

What partial clean-up? Is there a lamp in the future of this argument? How can there be a clean up when there's bloody shoeprints and invisible 'footprints' discovered with luminol in the hall, bloody shoeprints all over the murder room, and things like bloody handprints, putative seminal stains and blood all over the murder room that might well have contained DNA of anyone else being involved in the assault? I'll allow that Rudy tried some half-hearted sopping up with towels because there's evidence of that, but you don't get anywhere without evidence with me, unless you have a really good rational argument. This does not mean accounting for one improbability by inventing another implausibility!

The prosecution have already fulfilled their burden of proof in the trial. Knox and Sollecito were convicted, remember? The burden is now on the defence to cast doubt on that evidence. That's how it works.

And it was blown completely out of the water! The original case was exposed through the Massei Report, the appeals documents just wasted the rest of it away, to those of rational cognition. Think of what you're reduced to arguing? It would be easier to make a case Rudy was innocent than Amanda and Raffaele are guilty, wouldn't it?

However, the burden of proof is not reversed for the appeal, it's still innocent until proven guilty and beyond a reasonable doubt. The trial of the first instance for strategic and historical reasons often doesn't reflect this it appears.

Knox DID have injuries. She had a scratch to her throat and had a damaged ear along with a missing earring. She also could just have easily have had a bleeding nose. We know she was bleeding, as Knox's blood was on the tap in the little bathroom and even Knox admits it wasn't there the afternoon of the day of the murder and was already dry when she arrived on the morning after the murder. That means, it could only have been deposited the night of the murder and that, by the way, puts her there for the murder.

That wasn't a scratch, it was a hickey, not a bleeder. The ear wasn't bleeding anymore either, otherwise the police would have noted that when they did their examination. They take those extremely seriously in Italy, if you've followed Frank's blog you know they have records from way back and they go looking for evidence of wounds to solve other cases, and occasionally exonerate the innocent. If there's a murder, they--like Steve Moore--know that odds are there will be evidence of such on the attacker; like there is on Rudy for instance on his hand.

You've seen the crime scene photos, that bathroom looked clean by college student standards even with the mess made by Rudy. Before that you could barely see the blood on the tap. Bright lights and a close up were needed to make it apparent, and it wasn't that much anyway. It could easily be missed, and obviously was, or she didn't care that much. Don't you contend she was a slob anyway? Thus she'd have had lower standards of cleanliness than someone expecting a white-globe inspection.

Tidy washing up in the bathroom isn't plausible at all. He says he left the scene immediately following the murder (he had no reason to deny washing himself in the bathroom if he had done so) and the evidence proves he did so. His footprints show his running out of Meredith's room and straight down the corridor and looking back. His DNA backs that up as well. His DNA was found in Meredith's room and the large bathroom, but not a trace of it was found in the small bathroom. The whole Rudy 'cleaned up in the little bathroom' is complete nonsense , as much so as 'Rudy broke into the cottage via Filomena's window'.

The evidence proves at some point Rudy went from the murder room to the front door while the bloody shoeprints faded to nothingness along the way. Rudy's lack of DNA in the bathroom is interesting, but as Massei points out in the passage I quoted above to Sherlock, not improbable. He was also cleaning thus less likely to leave DNA. It's not like he was involved in a death struggle in the bathroom! I will allow there might have been a minor clean-up here, though it's not necessary.

If he didn't come in the window, then why'd he stage the break-in?

 

[RoseMontague]

So? She can use them if she wants to demonstrate something. It doesn't therefore follow, her department is also bound by FBI methods and protocols.

I didn't say they were. I was responding to what you said:

Amazingly, many countries seem to function quite well...without the FBI.

Amazingly, Stefanoni couldn't come up with a good Italian reference for her presentation, instead using the one from the FBI. I sure would love to see the Italian recommendations and protocols of evidence collection and a comparison to those put forward by the FBI. I doubt we would see much difference.

Do you think they would differ significantly?

 

[Fulcanelli]

No doubt.

They have not proven anything. This court stated that they were starting with the premise of only one fact, that Meredith Kercher was murdered. That is about the only thing the court of first degree has proven.

The last time I looked, there was a unanimous guilty verdict by 8 judges after an 11 month trial. Don't be clinging to the idea that just because there's an appeal it completely invalidates that trial and verdict and that the prosecution have to present and prove their case all over again. It is up to the defence to change the status quo and the status quo is that Knox and Sollecito stand guilty. They have to challenge what the prosecution has already presented and demonstrated. If you think what Hellman said at the start of the appeal changes that fact, you're in for a shock.