Meredith Kercher murdered - Amanda Knox convicted, now appeals #5

[Nova]

What I want to know is why she pointed the finger at the bar owner

Because the police knew she had received a text from him saying, "See ya later." Not recognizing it as an American idiom, the police thought the message was a literal agreement to meet later that night.

Under the pressure of questioning, AK gave in and agreed with the police assumptions and said she and PL had met at the cottage.

***

Do I know for a fact that this is the way it happened? No. But it's the most reasonable explanation. Certainly more reasonable than the prosecutor's claim that after spending hours staging a break in and cleaning her apartment, AK suddenly and randomly decided to accuse PL, while placing herself at the scene of the murder.

 

[Nova]

My understanding is that Amanda received a text from Patrick, after she left Raffaele's apartment - while she was in the square or palaza on her way to work, that she didn't have to go to work. She apparently went back to Raffaele's apartment or he met her in the square and they both turned off their phones. When the police questioned her, they focused on the text message from Patrick. I believe her first story was that she received the message while she was at Raffaele's apartment. Cell towers proved that wrong. There is some question about whether the message from Patrick was erased, and the meaning of her reply. She said "see you later", and I seem to remember her saying that she didn't remember if she erased the text. That text became a point of interest to police because Amanda gave the wrong location for receiving the text ... rather than on her way to work. Then she gave incorrect information about the evening ... placing dinner late in the evening rather than before going to work ... which appeared like an attempt to create a false alibi for much later in the evening. When police attempted to get more information about the text ... by the sounds of it ... Amanda accused Patrick of murdering Meredith. It is possible that police knew that Patrick's phone was pinging off a tower close to the basketball plaza and pressed the issue of the text message during questioning and what "see you later" meant. That seems to be the basis of Amanda accusing Patrick. Coincidentally, Patrick's phone appeared in the area around the time of the murder (a little early, actually). Why Amanda needed only 2 hours to point the finger and claim that she was afraid of Patrick, rather than stick to her "true" story that she was at Raffaele's, is a mystery ... but it appears as though she found it a convenient explanation for what happened on the night of the murder. Since she knew that he window had been broken, I have to wonder how she put that together ... but then Amanda "doesn't remember".

It did take her a couple of weeks to remember that Patrick wasn't involved.

As I understood the account in the Court Report, AK told the police she deleted the messages she received, but she didn't know how, in fact had never thought to delete the messages she sent. This is why LE had PL's "see ya later" message TO AK, but didn't have AK's message to PL.

What does AK gain by lying about where she received PL's message telling her not to come to work? Isn't it likely she was at RS' apartment, left for work, got the text saying stay home, and returned to RS' apartment? And that all that just because getting the message at the apartment in her mind?

 

[otto]

Well, let me put it another way: if they were so stoned they decided to carry a footlong kitchen knife around town with them, they were certainly too stoned to pull off the elaborate staging they are accused of doing a few hours later.

The staging is alleged to have happened later in the evening ... perhaps between midnight and 4 am, or even as late as 6:30 am. The murder occurred, footsteps were heard clanging up the metal stairs and down the street. It's possible that Raffaele disposed of the phones, as Rudy was seen running up the street towards his apartment - where he changed before showing up at the club and dancing until the morning. It's also possible that the clean up was done in the middle of the night, and also the broken window and staging of the break in ... in the middle of the night by Amanda and Raffaele ... barefoot. In the morning, Raffaele's phone and his computer were on by 6:30am. I think police found that he was playing music on the computer, and his father had phoned that early, yet he maintains that he woke up at 10 am. The question is whether Amanda returned to the cottage to kind of check things out at 10:30 (after a little nap) and make sure that everything was cleaned up ... and the only problem with the scene is that the only light for her bedroom is locked in Meredith's room ... placed on the floor ... presumably to see something on the floor a little better. She claims that she saw the broken glass, blood and open front door, but had a shower and later lunch with Raffaele instead of contacting anyone. She does not apear to have had a shower based on her hairdo ... and neither she nor Raffaele look like they slept.

If the Postal Police had not found the cell phones that morning, and headed over to the cottage, Amanda and Raffaele could have continued cuddling, and then gone on their field trip to another town. Amanda had not returned calls to Filomina, and her calls to Meredith were hardly long enough for a response.

 

[otto]

Would you like to explain to me how we know the dinner time of 11 is a lie?

I've read the Court Report, but it makes some very large and unsupported assumptions to reach the conclusion that dinner was at 8:30 pm.

Although I recommend it, people don't always cook their entire dinner and then eat it immediately (which is one thing the Court assumed).

Court transcipts ... IIRC. Raffaele's father testified that he spoke to Raffaele after they had fully cooked and finished dinner, and after the water spill on the tiled kitchen floor (which they apparently left like that for the next 16 hours) .. and that was around 8:30 pm. That makes the claim of 11 pm a lie. The information is not large and unsupported. The bottom line is that Raffaele's father phones at the most inoportune times.

 

[Nova]

So the drugs impacted her memory so much that she didn't know what she did ... but we are to believe she wasn't so messed up as to decide that if Raffaele is carrying a knife, she too will carry a knife? Raffaele had a knife strapped to him when he was arrested ... he had a lot of different knives, and often carried more than one. Given his affection for knives, I doubt he would give them out to women ... even if she had kind of moved into his apartment. If Amanda wanted a knife, I think she had to take one out of the kitchen. Drugged up people do have "crazy reasons" for doing things.

Your speculation that AK wanted to carry a knife "too" might make sense if she had picked up a switchblade, but not a footlong kitchen knife.

It is pure speculation on your part that RS wouldn't lend AK one of his knives.

If Raffaele cannot verify that Amanda was with him through the night, then she has no alibi.

Very, very, very few people have true alibis for the hours between midnight and 6 a.m. IIRC, both AK and RS have said they went to sleep together and woke up together. Later, each admitted s/he couldn't know for sure what the other had done while s/he was asleep. (Something we all have to admit if we are honest.)

Does murder ever make sense? We have familiar motives of sex and money, but we have also read about people that want to kill to see what it feels like. Does the stoned out of her mind woman seem like a good candidate for that sort of motive?

Not particularly, not with the drugs she is known to have taken. Maybe you'd have a point if she had been hopped up on crystal meth, but such was not the case.

Murder may not make reasonable sense to me. But if you're going to convict someone of committing murder, you have to believe beyond a reasonable doubt that murder made sense to him or her in the moment. Shrugging isn't good enough when the stakes are so high.

 

[otto]

As I understood the account in the Court Report, AK told the police she deleted the messages she received, but she didn't know how, in fact had never thought to delete the messages she sent. This is why LE had PL's "see ya later" message TO AK, but didn't AK's message to PL.

What does AK gain by lying about where she received PL's message telling her not to come to work? Isn't it likely she was at RS' apartment, left for work, got the text saying stay home, and returned to RS' apartment? And that all that just because getting the message at the apartment in her mind?

That's a very good question. What does Amanda gain by lying ... except that she point the finger away from herself, and she overlooked the fact that by pointing the finger she implicated herself. I suspect that she thought she would be released by accusing someone else. It was a bit like the her mixed DNA with Meredith's in the sink. She was asked if it was there before the nght that Meredith was murdered. She said that it wasn't ... so how did her DNA get mixed with Meredith's on the night of the murder?

She was foolish enough to implicate herself ... she's foolish enough to implicate an innocent man to deflect attention from herself.

Amanda's lies are a big problem for her. She was being questioned in a murder investigation ... it was important to remember what she was doing that night. Her story was that she was Raffaele's and didn't leave. That wasn't true. Her story was that she had a late dinner, accounting for the time that Meredith was murdered. That wasn't true. She was inconsistent in whether she was concerned about Meredith or not. There are so many problems with Amanda ... that I cannot see how to find her innocent.

 

[Nova]

The staging is alleged to have happened later in the evening ... perhaps between midnight and 4 am, or even as late as 6:30 am. The murder occurred, footsteps were heard clanging up the metal stairs and down the street. It's possible that Raffaele disposed of the phones, as Rudy was seen running up the street towards his apartment - where he changed before showing up at the club and dancing until the morning. It's also possible that the clean up was done in the middle of the night, and also the broken window and staging of the break in ... in the middle of the night by Amanda and Raffaele ... barefoot. In the morning, Raffaele's phone and his computer were on by 6:30am. I think police found that he was playing music on the computer, and his father had phoned that early, yet he maintains that he woke up at 10 am. The question is whether Amanda returned to the cottage to kind of check things out at 10:30 (after a little nap) and make sure that everything was cleaned up ... and the only problem with the scene is that the only light for her bedroom is locked in Meredith's room ... placed on the floor ... presumably to see something on the floor a little better. She claims that she saw the broken glass, blood and open front door, but had a shower and later lunch with Raffaele instead of contacting anyone. She does not apear to have had a shower based on her hairdo ... and neither she nor Raffaele look like they slept.

If the Postal Police had not found the cell phones that morning, and headed over to the cottage, Amanda and Raffaele could have continued cuddling, and then gone on their field trip to another town. Amanda had not returned calls to Filomina, and her calls to Meredith were hardly long enough for a response.

Thanks, but I still don't see much time between their "drug-crazed mania" and the carefully contrived staging. Particularly not if they were so stoned they were running around with a kitchen knife.

 

[Nova]

Court transcipts ... IIRC. Raffaele's father testified that he spoke to Raffaele after they had fully cooked and finished dinner, and after the water spill on the tiled kitchen floor (which they apparently left like that for the next 16 hours) .. and that was around 8:30 pm. That makes the claim of 11 pm a lie. The information is not large and unsupported. The bottom line is that Raffaele's father phones at the most inoportune times.

I read that part of the Court Report carefully and it wasn't nearly so clear. Yes, RS's father mentioned hearing about the spill and some pasta cooking at 8:30, but the Court then leapt to the conclusion that RS and AK's entire dinner was completed by that time. I could see no reason why they might not have had pasta at 8:30 and fish nearly four hours later at 11. Or why they might not have begun cooking after 8, but not begun to eat until 9 or even later, leaving them until 11 or so to finish a leisurely meal.

As I'm sure you know, pasta isn't usually an entree in Italy. It may have served as their appetizer earlier in the evening.

I honestly don't know. I just found the Court's reasoning on this subject very suspect.

 

[Nova]

That's a very good question. What does Amanda gain by lying ... except that she point the finger away from herself, and she overlooked the fact that by pointing the finger she implicated herself. I suspect that she thought she would be released by accusing someone else. It was a bit like the her mixed DNA with Meredith's in the sink. She was asked if it was there before the nght that Meredith was murdered. She said that it wasn't ... so how did her DNA get mixed with Meredith's on the night of the murder?

She was foolish enough to implicate herself ... she's foolish enough to implicate an innocent man to deflect attention from herself.

Amanda's lies are a big problem for her. She was being questioned in a murder investigation ... it was important to remember what she was doing that night. Her story was that she was Raffaele's and didn't leave. That wasn't true. Her story was that she had a late dinner, accounting for the time that Meredith was murdered. That wasn't true. She was inconsistent in whether she was concerned about Meredith or not. There are so many problems with Amanda ... that I cannot see how to find her innocent.

No, I understand why she lied about being with PL at the cottage. It was the story that in the moment seemed most likely to get the cops off her back.

My question was why would she lie about where she was when she got PL's text telling her not to come to work. At RS' or on the way to work--what's the difference?

 

[dgfred]

Exactly!

And the prosecution doesn't want additional testing because they know full well that knife wasn't used in the murder. IMHO, of course. They were lucky to get the knife into evidence and anything else found on it can only hurt them.

BUT, only if the previous testing is found to be lacking in some way. If the previous testing is found valid there is STILL AK's dna and Meredith's dna on the knife. Only finding the child killer's brother's dna would even help IMO. Not likely.

 

[dgfred]

I read that part of the Court Report carefully and it wasn't nearly so clear. Yes, RS's father mentioned hearing about the spill and some pasta cooking at 8:30, but the Court then leapt to the conclusion that RS and AK's entire dinner was completed by that time. I could see no reason why they might not have had pasta at 8:30 and fish nearly four hours later at 11. Or why they might not have begun cooking after 8, but not begun to eat until 9 or even later, leaving them until 11 or so to finish a leisurely meal.

As I'm sure you know, pasta isn't usually an entree in Italy. It may have served as their appetizer earlier in the evening.

I honestly don't know. I just found the Court's reasoning on this subject very suspect.

So you are thinking maybe they ate pasta, and had a water spill, left the water there, and ate fish AFTER telling dad they had already eaten??? :waitasec: Not to mention telling LE they ate dinner (not an appetizer) at a much later time.

Almost everything AK has told, and to some extent RS too has to be treated to this type of twisting to explain away why it is so incriminating. Some things might be possible, but not just about everything IMO.

I find their excuses (aka lies) very suspect, AND very telling.

 

[Allusonz]

This is highly unlikely if they adhere to the standard protocols around the world but this very well could be the case:

Italy is the one of the only European countries that has not signed on to the Prum Convention, which establishes protocols and certification standards for DNA testing. Italy has no labs that meet the certification requirements applied throughout the rest of western europe

Italy's inability to meet certification requirements and continuing refusal to sign on to the convention have been topics of discussion within the EU for some time

These are only 9 of noted errors specific only to the LCN DNA

nine distinct ways, Stefanoni's improv LCN DNA profiling was even worse than unproven and inadmissible LCN DNA profiling tests.
1. The DNA wasn't amplified enough; the very weak fluorescence was simply blown up.
2. The test site was not remote from other DNA tests to avoid contamination.
3. Specialized LCN-quality entry procedures to avoid contamination were not used.
4. A positive pressure environment was not maintained to exclude contamination.
5. Special LCN sterilization procedures to destroy errant DNA were not used.
6. The entire sample was consumed in a single test; no comparison of tests was possible.
7. No sample was retained for future reference. The test can never be reproduced.
8. No negative control tests were run to check for contamination.
9. No control tests to check for field contamination were performed

Only a couple of labs in the US require blind testing ... why do you expect it in Italy?

Here is the definition <modsnip>
A blind or blinded experiment is a scientific experiment where some of the persons involved are prevented from knowing certain information that might lead to conscious or unconscious bias on their part, invalidating the results

 

[Allusonz]

Only a couple of labs in the US require blind testing ... why do you expect it in Italy?

I read that part of the Court Report carefully and it wasn't nearly so clear. Yes, RS's father mentioned hearing about the spill and some pasta cooking at 8:30, but the Court then leapt to the conclusion that RS and AK's entire dinner was completed by that time. I could see no reason why they might not have had pasta at 8:30 and fish nearly four hours later at 11. Or why they might not have begun cooking after 8, but not begun to eat until 9 or even later, leaving them until 11 or so to finish a leisurely meal.

As I'm sure you know, pasta isn't usually an entree in Italy. It may have served as their appetizer earlier in the evening.

I honestly don't know. I just found the Court's reasoning on this subject very suspect.

or maybe they did start and have to stop to clean up some mess from a water leak

i know i would not want to be walking around my sink trying to cook even with something sticky on the floor let alone water thus i stop and clean it up

i also would want to know the source of where that water was coming to prevent damage
then they may of started cooking again

 

[dgfred]

or maybe they did start and have to stop to clean up some mess from a water leak

i know i would not want to be walking around my sink trying to cook even with something sticky on the floor let alone water thus i stop and clean it up

i also would want to know the source of where that water was coming to prevent damage
then they may of started cooking again

Only both claim they needed the mop from the cottage to clean it up.

Neither claimed to have had to dodge the water spill while cooking later.

Making excuses for lies seem like it is a tuff job... :innocent:

 

[Allusonz]

Only both claim they needed the mop from the cottage to clean it up.

Neither claimed to have had to dodge the water spill while cooking later.

Making excuses for lies seem like it is a tuff job... :innocent:

Then again they might just like i do

I wipe off the mess as best as i can then i wipe it up properly with a mop, actually my children do now i just supervise

Not excuses a way of life for most normal people

 

[Allusonz]

So you are thinking maybe they ate pasta, and had a water spill, left the water there, and ate fish AFTER telling dad they had already eaten??? :waitasec: Not to mention telling LE they ate dinner (not an appetizer) at a much later time.

Almost everything AK has told, and to some extent RS too has to be treated to this type of twisting to explain away why it is so incriminating. Some things might be possible, but not just about everything IMO.

I find their excuses (aka lies) very suspect, AND very telling.

As we all know the European culture is quite different from ours

They do eat in many countries normally much later than we do here, having visited many of these places i actually quite enjoyed their much more relaxed atmosphere, compared to the "eat on the fly" that so many of us do here. In the countries i have been to the approximate hour was 9:00 in my experience

Not excuses it is part of their daily lives over there

 

[Malkmus]

Hey, guys, so many posts in such little time, so I'm going to try to sum up a few things as opposed to replying to each post.

It does appear that Amanda was wrong about what time they ate. Raf's father called at 20:42 and apparently he says they had already washed the dishes, whereas Amanda states in her testimony that they ate around 9:30. What I find hard to believe is why this is considered a lie. So she was off roughly an hour about what time they ate. Is there anyone here who possibly got wrong what time they did something by an hour? I would imagine all of us are guilty of this error at some point in our lives, if not somewhat commonly.

Secondly, regarding what Raf and Amanda wrote in their diaries concerning the knife. These are again regarded as lies. Yet, there is nothing in either that can be concluded to be a lie.

Third, Amanda did not lie about where she was when she received the text from Patrick. She said she "noticed" it when she was at Raffaele's, but concedes that her phone had actually received it earlier.

Fourth, a point of clarification: The text message from Amanda to Patrick saying "Ci vediamo piu tardi" would ONLY have been interpreted by the police as a definite rendez-vous between Amanda and Patrick. In Italian the phrase does not have the same ambiguity as in English when we say "See you later". I have confirmed this with several Italian speakers on a language forum. So, the interrogation was doubly confusing for Amanda I'm sure as she knew she had not written Patrick to meet her but what she had written did imply that and the police were cemented in their belief that she met up with him due to that mis-phrasing on her part. It was their insistence that her text could only mean that which led them down the rabbit hole that night.

 

[otto]

So you are thinking maybe they ate pasta, and had a water spill, left the water there, and ate fish AFTER telling dad they had already eaten??? :waitasec: Not to mention telling LE they ate dinner (not an appetizer) at a much later time.

Almost everything AK has told, and to some extent RS too has to be treated to this type of twisting to explain away why it is so incriminating. Some things might be possible, but not just about everything IMO.

I find their excuses (aka lies) very suspect, AND very telling.

I think most people that followed this case gave Amanda and Raffaele the benefit of the doubt at the outset. This wasn't a case where one looked at the accused and assumed they were guilty. It's pretty much a situation where they dug their own grave ... and now they lie in it.

 

[Malkmus]

Only finding the child killer's brother's dna would even help IMO. Not likely.

It's not just unlikely, it's pretty much impossible. I don;t think anyone expects that.

 

[otto]

Hey, guys, so many posts in such little time, so I'm going to try to sum up a few things as opposed to replying to each post.

It does appear that Amanda was wrong about what time they ate. Raf's father called at 20:42 and apparently he says they had already washed the dishes, whereas Amanda states in her testimony that they ate around 9:30. What I find hard to believe is why this is considered a lie. So she was off roughly an hour about what time they ate. Is there anyone here who possibly got wrong what time they did something by an hour? I would imagine all of us are guilty of this error at some point in our lives, if not somewhat commonly.

Secondly, regarding what Raf and Amanda wrote in their diaries concerning the knife. These are again regarded as lies. Yet, there is nothing in either that can be concluded to be a lie.

Third, Amanda did not lie about where she was when she received the text from Patrick. She said she "noticed" it when she was at Raffaele's, but concedes that her phone had actually received it earlier.

Fourth, a point of clarification: The text message from Amanda to Patrick saying "Ci vediamo piu tardi" would ONLY have been interpreted by the police as a definite rendez-vous between Amanda and Patrick. In Italian the phrase does not have the same ambiguity as in English when we say "See you later". I have confirmed this with several Italian speakers on a language forum. So, the interrogation was doubly confusing for Amanda I'm sure as she knew she had not written Patrick to meet her but what she had written did imply that and the police were cemented in their belief that she met up with him due to that mis-phrasing on her part. It was their insistence that her text could only mean that which led them down the rabbit hole that night.

The problem with Amanda being confused and not remembering when she ate is that she ate before she prepared to go to work. It seems a little bit of a stretch to believe that she ate before she left for work, and then forgot that she ate before she left for work. Certainly she knew when she left for work ... as that is a fixed time. Why couldn't she work backwards and figure out that if she left for work around 8:45 and she ate before she left, then she had dinner around 8:20?

How many people forget that they ate before they went to work?

She left for work, got the text from Patrick about not needing to go to work, then returned to Raffaele's? and then saw the text? Why did she go back to Raffaele's if she thought she had to work and was indeed on her way to work when the text came in?