Meredith Kercher murdered-Amanda Knox appeals conviction #10

[otto]

But I guess it doesn't matter that AK is not from that culture and is not used to that kind of treatment? an Italian's idea of "passionate" might be an American's idea of mean, intimidating, and ominious. Just saying. And if the "average" italian is "passionate," I can't imagine what one who is trying to coerce a statement out of you is like.

Nothing again Italians, just saying.

No, it doesn't. If Amanda wants to go to Italy, then Amanda has to live by the laws, culture and customs of Italy. Anyone that has traveled in Italy has probably encountered the little bit more high strung, passionate, talking louder, demanding good-natured Italian culture.

Police everywhere attempt to coerce witnesses to speak the truth. That's their job.
Police everywhere are impatient with witnesses that have been proven to be liars.
If it's the Italian culture to be more demanding and raising their voices while questioning known liars about a murder investigation, then so be it. Who is Amanda Knox to expect something different? She was the liar known to police ... the woman that lied to police about what she did on the night of the murder; the woman that could not explain herself except with lies upon lies.

 

[wasnt_me]

I don't see what FR's shutters have to do with Nara hearing a scream? And how do you know what I hope? I hope for world peace :innocent:

Well, look at it like this. If you are outside and your house is closed up, windows, everything. And someone inside screams. Can you hear that? If so, how well can you hear it as opposed to if they open a window and scream, can you hear that?

Personally if my dogs are inside barking and I'm at the end of my driveway, which is a car and one half lengths long, I cannot hear them. Inside the house, they are extremely loud. If my window is open, I can hear them LOUDLY if I am outside.

sound carries when it's unobstructed. But if it's obsorbed by something, it's more muffled. So if RG broke in and FR's window and shutters were opened by that breakin, then maybe it's just a little more likely that half deaf lady heard something. I don't think she did, seeing as a roadway was between her and the cottage. Noise from that would also drown out the scream. but I'll give her a possibility, if the window was open due to the breakin. But if it wasn't open, because the breakin was staged after the murder, therefore the window was open after Mks death, then no. I can't say she heard it.

Is this more clear and understandable? Or is this, too, debatable? I'm sorry, did I portend to know what you hope for? excuse me, won't happen again.

 

[otto]

yes,I think the focus is way too much on AK.There's so little discussion about RS and RG for that matter.I like to read the three diaries each one of them wrote in prison .I think they are very telling and yes,point to RG as being guilty even though what he writes is most passionate but it reveals that he has a very troubled soul,I aso remember a video on his myspace or some other social network but I can't find it anymore where he says "I'm a vampire,I'm dracula,I want to suck your blood" which in hindsight is really haunting...there's so little about RS,he almost became AK's invisible shadow.His diary reveals a lot more compassion for MK than Amanda's as well and I appreciate how he repents his superficiality and actually uses being in prison as a learning experience.

Read Amanda's short stories ... if that isn't a troubled soul, nothing is. I especially recommend her winning short story from the prison competition. She uses the alias Marie Pace (that's her middle name with "peace" attached) ... seems to describe the murder ... in a fog, naturally.

 

[wasnt_me]

http://perugiamurderfile.org/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=49

RS prison diary

We're getting on this over the weekend, even if it's just you and me! :great:

 

[wasnt_me]

Exactly. Mignini made much of AK's seething resentment and jealousy of MK, but was AK, as you say, even tuned in enough to feel these things or to notice MK's disapproval???

I think AK was oblivious of a lot of things, which is what got her in that mess.

 

[sherlockh]

Well, look at it like this. If you are outside and your house is closed up, windows, everything. And someone inside screams. Can you hear that? If so, how well can you hear it as opposed to if they open a window and scream, can you hear that?

Personally if my dogs are inside barking and I'm at the end of my driveway, which is a car and one half lengths long, I cannot hear them. Inside the house, they are extremely loud. If my window is open, I can hear them LOUDLY if I am outside.

sound carries when it's unobstructed. But if it's obsorbed by something, it's more muffled. So if RG broke in and FR's window and shutters were opened by that breakin, then maybe it's just a little more likely that half deaf lady heard something. I don't think she did, seeing as a roadway was between her and the cottage. Noise from that would also drown out the scream. but I'll give her a possibility, if the window was open due to the breakin. But if it wasn't open, because the breakin was staged after the murder, therefore the window was open after Mks death, then no. I can't say she heard it.

Is this more clear and understandable? Or is this, too, debatable? I'm sorry, did I portend to know what you hope for? excuse me, won't happen again.

MK was killed in MK's room, not in FR's room. We don't know if an open window is a requirement for Nara to hear anything, and we don't even know if anything was open before the murder. You can make all kinds of things up about what should or should not but it is just speculations. The audio test was denied and there are good reasons for that. One of the main factors would be the wind and nobody can tell how the wind was blowing at exactly the moment Nara heard the scream. Nara's testimony was accepted because she came across as reliable and several other witnesses heard something that night just like Nara. There is no reason whatsoever to assume that she just wanted media attention.

 

[wasnt_me]

I am very ambivalent about the disparity between what is allowed from police and what is required of private citizens.

In the U.S., our Supreme Court has ruled that police may lie almost at will (with only a few exceptions). On the other hand, private citizens commit felonies if they lie to police (ask Martha Stewart).

The only solution, really, is that none of us talk to police EVER. Ask for a lawyer and shut the hell up, if you're smart. Guilt or innocence is beside the point.

Yes sir. Someone about the uniform and badge compels us to speak, but you'd better listen to Nova and shut the hell up because any and everything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law, including the harmless lies, right along with any big lies.

 

[otto]

I agree that coercions happen and any coercion is one too many, but to imply that they are common I don't agree with. Percentage wise it is a rare occurrence. Same with LE lying and covering up for each other. It happens and it shouldn't happen but fortunately it is rare. For some reason, in this case coerced statements, and LE lying under oath are all seen as totally normal.

I disagree. I think that every time investigators are sitting in a room with a witness or suspect, their sole objective is to coerce the truth from that witness or suspect. It is not meant to be a tea party. There is a table and a couple of chairs and the witness is expected to cooperate.

I suspect that guilty people probably come up with some whoppers in the first couple of hours of questioning, perhaps with a grain of truth. Amanda's first whopper was that she had a late dinner and watched a movie on the night of the murder. That got her out of the questioning session until police checked the facts (computer and Dr Sollecito evidence). I'm sure she later added the lie that she and Raffaele slept until 10 AM. That turned out to be a lie - sort of, although they may not have gone to sleep until 6 AM. Always a grain of truth with a whopper of a lie. It is true that by the time Amanda voluntarily went to the police station and offered a statement about Patrick, she had been questioned before ... but what is almost always overlooked is the fact that during each of those interviews, she lied. Amanda's grain of truth on the night she accused Patrick was that she was there, the whopper was that Patrick was a murderer.

Coercion with bopping on the head is different, but out of supposedly 10 officers in the room at the time, not one of them saw any bopping on the head at the 2 hour mark ... or at any time. There was no bopping on the head before any of the lies except the last ... the one where she screwed herself through ignorance about the law.

Police lying to a suspect during questioning is perfectly acceptable pretty much everywhere, but lying under oath? Are you suggesting that it is quite acceptable for Italian police and investigators to lie under oath?

 

[otto]

Exactly. Mignini made much of AK's seething resentment and jealousy of MK, but was AK, as you say, even tuned in enough to feel these things or to notice MK's disapproval???

Are you suggesting that Knox was sociopathic and did not have empathy for the fact that Meredith was uncomfortable with her rabbit vibrator dangling in the bathroom and the men she dragged home?

 

[otto]

I think AK was oblivious of a lot of things, which is what got her in that mess.

What was she oblivious about? Was she oblivious about her mother's second marriage? Her studies? Her job? Her foxy knoxy nickname? Her sexuality on a train, in the rain, in Berlin? What was she oblivious about?

 

[otto]

Exactly! She quickly recanted, said it had not been reliable or true, that it had seemed "unreal like a dream" and should not be trusted. She did NOT "confess".

You're right. Amanda did not confess.

She declared that she was at the murder scene at the time of the murder and that she did absolutly nothing to assist the victim even though she was aware of the murder.

 

[otto]

There have been reports that RG had a body odor problem. I don't have a link handy, but it has been linked here before.

(Don't even get me started on people who fail to flush toilets!)

Apparently that was one of the concerns that Meredith had with Amanda.

 

[wasnt_me]

This post bears repeating, I think. I'm sorry, but I've seen and/or read about too many miscarriages of justice both here in the U.S. and abroad to blindly trust ILE.

As I've said before, it's not that I think most members of LE are intentionally corrupt, just that they are people and too easily develop tunnel vision.

Coincidentally, this month's Mother Jones has an informative article on cognitive functions and how most of the time when we believe we are open-minded and thinking scientifically, we are in fact merely arguing for what we already believe. AND, YES, this is as true of those of us who question the verdicts as it is of those who support them!

That's why it's imparative to as best they can, get an impartial jury. I'll bet even an impartial one starts forming an opinion during opening statements. If not, why would opening statements be so important? Repetition is also essential. If you repeat something, even a lie so many times, people will start to use it as a base of reference. Then later, if they're told it's a lie, they don't believe it.

I'll take a really silly example and give you. That Michael Jackson song, "smooth criminal." All these years, I thought Mike was saying "Eddie, are you okay? Eddie, are you okay? Are you okay, Eddie?" So did many people that I know. Well, I was reading the lyrics off it when it was one some dance game my nieces were playing on their Wii. And he really says, "Annie, are you okay. Annie, are you okay? Are you okay, Annie?'

I didn't believe it. I had my sister look it up on the internet. There it was "Annie, are you okay?" I still didn't believe it. I was so disappointed, because it changed the WHOLE meaning of the song for me. Now I have to consider that the song is about the murder of Annie instead of about some gangster named Eddie.

OMG. I just realized this song sounds like this case. I'm so serious, I just made the connection as I was typing. I'm EVEN MORE disillusoned because this song will now forever remind me of MK.

As He Came Into The Window
It Was The Sound Of A Crescendo
He Came Into Her Apartment
He Left The Bloodstains On The Carpet
She Ran Underneath The Table
He Could See She Was Unable
So She Ran Into The Bedroom
She Was Struck Down, It Was Her Doom

Annie Are You OK?
So, Annie Are You OK
Are You OK, Annie
Annie Are You OK?
So, Annie Are You OK
Are You OK, Annie
Annie Are You OK?
So, Annie Are You OK?
Are You OK, Annie?
Annie Are You OK?
So, Annie Are You Ok, Are You Ok, Annie?

(Annie Are You OK?)
(Will You Tell Us That You're OK?)
(There's A Sign In The Window)
(That He Struck You - A Crescendo Annie)
(He Came Into Your Apartment)
(He Left The Bloodstains On The Carpet)
(Then You Ran Into The Bedroom)
(You Were Struck Down)
(It Was Your Doom)

Annie Are You OK?
So, Annie Are You OK?
Are You OK Annie?
Annie Are You OK?
So, Annie Are You OK?
Are You OK Annie?
Annie Are You OK?
So, Annie Are You OK?
Are You OK Annie?
You've Been Hit By
You've Been Hit By -v A Smooth Criminal

So They Came Into The Outway
It Was Sunday - What A Black Day
Mouth To Mouth Resus - Citation
Sounding Heartbeats - Intimidations

Annie Are You OK?
So, Annie Are You OK?
Are You OK Annie?
Annie Are You OK?
So, Annie Are You OK?
Are You OK Annie?
Annie Are You OK?
So, Annie Are You OK?
Are You OK Annie?
Annie Are You OK?
So, Annie Are You OK
Are You OK Annie?

(Annie Are You OK?)
(Will You Tell Us That You're OK?)
(There's A Sign In The Window)
(That He Struck You - A Crescendo Annie)
(He Came Into Your Apartment)
(He Left The Bloodstains On The Carpet)
(Then You Ran Into The Bedroom)
(You Were Struck Down)
(It Was Your Doom)

(Annie Are You OK?)
(So, Annie Are You OK?)
(Are You OK Annie?)
(You've Been Hit By)
(You've Been Struck By -
A Smooth Criminal)




Well, Maybe Michael Jackson was a murderer, since the reasoning earlier had been that AK writing about murder and rape meant she was into it.

In any event, do you see how changing one "Fact" in the lyrics presented here changes the whole "story" of what's really going on in the song? You my not interpret it the way I do, but still, I hope you at least see my point. We don't have to debate MJ's lyrics. I'm just making a general point.

 

[sherlockh]

I disagree. I think that every time investigators are sitting in a room with a witness or suspect, their sole objective is to coerce the truth from that witness or suspect. It is not meant to be a tea party. There is a table and a couple of chairs and the witness is expected to cooperate.

I suspect that guilty people probably come up with some whoppers in the first couple of hours of questioning, perhaps with a grain of truth. Amanda's first whopper was that she had a late dinner and watched a movie on the night of the murder. That got her out of the questioning session until police checked the facts (computer and Dr Sollecito evidence). I'm sure she later added the lie that she and Raffaele slept until 10 AM. That turned out to be a lie - sort of, although they may not have gone to sleep until 6 AM. Always a grain of truth with a whopper of a lie. It is true that by the time Amanda voluntarily went to the police station and offered a statement about Patrick, she had been questioned before ... but what is almost always overlooked is the fact that during each of those interviews, she lied. Amanda's grain of truth on the night she accused Patrick was that she was there, the whopper was that Patrick was a murderer.

Coercion with bopping on the head is different, but out of supposedly 10 officers in the room at the time, not one of them saw any bopping on the head at the 2 hour mark ... or at any time. There was no bopping on the head before any of the lies except the last ... the one where she screwed herself through ignorance about the law.

Police lying to a suspect during questioning is perfectly acceptable pretty much everywhere, but lying under oath? Are you suggesting that it is quite acceptable for Italian police and investigators to lie under oath?

There is a difference between coercing someone to a false confession/testimony and coercing someone to tell the truth. I referred to the first type of coercion. Other then that the discussion about the 'coerced confession' is primarily based on what we know AK told. Unfortunately, no recording or exact transcript has been made public. So we simply don't know exactly who said what, at what time, and how. I can imagine some pressure being put on her if RS withdrew her alibi, but I can also imagine that much more pressure was put on her after she admitted being at the crime scene during the murder. She puts her hands to her ears and the next thing she remembers is waking up at her boyfriends place? Hello, can you please tell us exactly what happened?? JMO.

ETA: I implied that lying under oath by Italian police and investigators is not normal.

 

[otto]

Exactly. Which is why, as I read somewhere else, and I think SMK knows this and brought it up before, that it was some destressing yoga she was doing without any flipping involved. I am not surprised those police can't figure out what a cartwheel is.

SMK, if I'm wrong, then hopefully whomever had mentioned the yoga thing will come in an state it again.

And if she's guilty, why voluntarily go to the police station in the first place?

You think police in Italy don't know what a cartwheel is? Do you think they're some kind of backwards medieval town where people don't have TV ... don't watch olympic sports?

Knox went to the police station because she and Raffaele murdered Meredith ... and they were attached at the hip throughout the investigation. Isn't it surprising that Raffaele, who had only known Knox for about 10 days, didn't distance himself from Knox after the murder ... isn't that what most people would do upon discovering that a foreigner they barely knew was being investigated for the murder of a roommate? Raffaele was Italian and here's this woman from Seattle that he hardly knows and she's connected with a murder ... why not clear out until the dust settles? Were they so much in love after 10 days that they couldn't separate, or were they sticking together because they were in it deep?

 

[wasnt_me]

I asked this same question a few pages back. I don't understand how a pre-programmed number would be missing the area/country code.

UNLESS (it suddenly occurs to me), MK lived in the same district as the bank and didn't have to dial the code when she was home in England. Perhaps she hadn't re-programmed the number since she moved to Italy.

(This didn't occur to me before because we have so few areas left in the U.S. where one only one area code is in use and can be omitted when dialing.)

If that's true, then I'd need to know how often she was calling that bank since she'd moved to Italy. Maybe she wasn't even using that particular bank, as it would make sense to then add the area code to her preprogrammed number. And if she wasn't using that account that much, it would make sense that she'd leave it as it was, because she awsn't really calling on it. See what I'm saying. So then it would make sense that a stranger was using the wrong area code. That doesn't rule out any of the 3 suspects, but it makes a likelier case that she was dead or dying by the time that call was attempted.

See, if we knew from her phone records that she called the bank often, then the theory might still work, because of course she knows the area code. And if she'd dialed wrong, did she try again or just decide "Nah, I don't need to check my bank anyways." Doesn't make sense. So do we show more than one attempt on that call? If we do, and it was correct, then MK did it. If we do and it's still incorrect, someone else did it.

AK could have knowledge of Mk's banks.
RG could have gotten the knowledge from her purse or if the phone number was labled "Bank."

I was also interested to know if Mk's phone had a lock on it. Mine has a code i have to swipe to make it open and work. Sometimes you can accidentally activate a number on your cell phones, but companies try to put those "locks" on them to prevent that. You know what I mean? So she could have accidentally pressed it and dialed, but I believe that's less likely what happened.

 

[wasnt_me]

There have been reports that RG had a body odor problem. I don't have a link handy, but it has been linked here before.

(Don't even get me started on people who fail to flush toilets!)

Thanks. I love it when I'm joking but it turns into some interesting new information for me! :great:

So he literally stank, huh? that must have been even more horrid for MK. I'm sure she wasn't thinking about that because she ahd more critical things going on with her body, but I've seen movies or shows where rape victims flip out because they can't get the smell of the guy off them.

 

[otto]

There is a difference between coercing someone to a false confession/testimony and coercing someone to tell the truth. I referred to the first type of coercion. Other then that the discussion about the 'coerced confession' is primarily based on what we know AK told. Unfortunately, no recording or exact transcript has been made public. So we simply don't know exactly who said what, at what time, and how. I can imagine some pressure being put on her if RS withdrew her alibi, but I can also imagine that much more pressure was put on her after she admitted being at the crime scene during the murder. She puts her hands to her ears and the next thing she remembers is waking up at her boyfriends place? Hello, can you please tell us exactly what happened?? JMO.

ETA: I implied that lying under oath by Italian police and investigators is not normal.

I agree, but I do think that the police mandate is to use tactics, anything from environmental to psychological manipulation, to get to (coerce) the truth. That is the sole objective of police interactions with the community during criminal investigation interviews ... they are interested in information and can use whatever tools/tactics they have available to get the truth.

I'm not convinced that there is no recording of Amanda's interviews. Police may have the information, but they cannot introduce it because it was ruled inadmissable in court. The defence has never requested video of the interviews. Unless the defence asks to introduce evidence that was ruled inadmissable, it cannot be mentioned by prosecution. I suspect there is a good reason why defence has not demanded vdeo of the inadmissable interviews.

I think Raffaele's alibi was blown by his father (the time of dinner), and then Amanda's quickly crumbled. Amanda probably thought that all she had to do was deflect attention and she could reconoiter with Raffaele. All he had to say was that he told a load of rubbish to protect Amanda but she wasn't with him. They both told a story that deflected attention, but neither story got them out of jail.

 

[wasnt_me]

Wasnt_Me: Look also at this:


“Amanda accompanied Raffaele to the station where he was then interrogated by Monica Napoleani, the Perugia chief of homicide. Amanda was there to support him, as he had supported her before, when she was interrogated,” said Chris Mellas. Chris Mellas is the husband of Edda Mellas, Amanda’s mother. Both live in West Seattle. “She was actually sitting alone in a separate room waiting for her boyfriend, and Napoleani said in court Friday (Feb. 27) that when she went to get some water she walked by the room where Amanda was and saw Amanda ‘doing the splits.’ She said she thought this was ‘odd behavior,’ and that Amanda should have instead appeared to be mourning the loss of Meredith. The tabloid press further sensationalized her statement by changing ‘the splits’ to ‘cartwheels,’ and the mainstream press ran with that. ” “Amanda does yoga to calm herself down and relieve stress, and she told her father and me that’s why she was doing the splits. Also, in those four days she was in mourning over Meredith, which followed her outrage. Six hours after the discovery (of the body) she was like, ‘Let’s find the who killed her.’” http://www.zimbio.com/Amanda+Knox/articles/68/Cartwheels+No+Cartwheels+Judge

Yeah, I read that somewhere myself. So I just told a "Whopper of a lie" by blaming it on you for posting it here. Now what would make me blame you? :innocent:
(I'm joking)

So this is one of those myths I'd like to discard, as all the others we've found out were lies. We can keep splits, if they insist, but no more cartwheels, please....:Banane45:


(That's the closest icon I can find to a cartwheel....)

 

[otto]

This post bears repeating, I think. I'm sorry, but I've seen and/or read about too many miscarriages of justice both here in the U.S. and abroad to blindly trust ILE.
<snip>

With the injustices that you've seen abroad, which westernized country strikes you as the biggest offender?