Meredith Kercher murdered - Amanda Knox convicted, now appeals #7

[Allusonz]

Ohhhh, they asked her to imagine Patrick there? They specifically said his name? I need to re-read the book again and go through all these posts again. I must have forgot they said his name or didn't register it. I did know about their interpretation of the text message though.

I am uncertain whether the name was actually said. There are no audio/visual recordings.

The implication though was to do with the text message between her and PL.

 

[Malkmus]

Ohhhh, they asked her to imagine Patrick there? They specifically said his name? I need to re-read the book again and go through all these posts again. I must have forgot they said his name or didn't register it. I did know about their interpretation of the text message though.

To be specific, they looked through her text messages and saw the one to Patrick saying "See you later", mistook it as a meeting with someone and asked her who the message was to. When she told them it was to her boss they became convinced that she was lying about meeting him that night which she had never mentioned before. When she repeatedly denied ever meeting him the interpreter told her she was probably traumatized and no longer remembered the incident. They told her they knew for a fact that this happened and that she was at the cottage the night of the murder. A couple of hours of this and Amanda's statement was written where she "confusedly" remembers going to the cottage and that her boss killed Meredith.
This phenomenon is referred to as an internalized false confession, and although in this case she never admitted to committing the murder itself, the same logic applies. This has been documented as happening many times before, but some have a hard time realizing it's possible, despite its not so uncommon frequency.

 

[Mama Stinker]

When she repeatedly denied ever meeting him the interpreter told her she was probably traumatized and no longer remembered the incident. They told her they knew for a fact that this happened and that she was at the cottage the night of the murder. A couple of hours of this and Amanda's statement was written where she "confusedly" remembers going to the cottage and that her boss killed Meredith.
This phenomenon is referred to as an internalized false confession, and although in this case she never admitted to committing the murder itself, the same logic applies. This has been documented as happening many times before, but some have a hard time realizing it's possible, despite its not so uncommon frequency.

I am always amazed at false confessions but so many have come to light now. Scary.
Thank you

 

[otto]

I was meaning for you personally. Do you think all 3 were involved or just RG and AK?

That's what the evidence says ... that all three were involved. The evidence certainly doesn't suggest that one person did it alone, and even Raffaele's lawyer conceded that point.

 

[otto]

The knife has very low amounts of LCN DNA which Stefanoni kept over-riding the machine limits of too low too low. This was a very minute amount of DNA on this knife

The bra was collected 47 days after and here is an interview with an expert regarding both of these. I hope it helps you

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


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-vEFPZgW9HA

Here's the knife with an inches ruler

 

[otto]

Ohhhh, they asked her to imagine Patrick there? They specifically said his name? I need to re-read the book again and go through all these posts again. I must have forgot they said his name or didn't register it. I did know about their interpretation of the text message though.

Amanda introduce Patrick's name, not police.

 

[Nova]

Read more about what Meredith's friends had to say:

"The American student accused of murdering Meredith Kercher bragged to friends about finding her body and 'didn't seem bothered' by her death, it has emerged.

The potentially damning account of Amanda Knox's behaviour on the day her 21-year-old housemate's body was discovered is given in a leaked statement to police by one of the murdered student's best friends.

Robyn Butterworth, who was on a university exchange from Leeds to the Italian town of Perugia with Miss Kercher, branded Knox "strange" and "over the top".

In a statement to police she told how after the tragedy was discovered Knox appeared curiously unfazed.

...

She told how Miss Kercher had argued with Knox because she never flushed the toilet.

Miss Butterworth's account of Knox came in a statement given to British police after she flew home from Italy.

She said: "Amanda's behaviour was always a little strange - even before Friday 2 November she seemed to be the extravagant type.

"I remember the first time we met we were in a restaurant having something to eat when all of a sudden she got up and started singing at the top of her voice – it was very strange and out of place."

She said Miss Kercher had told her she had "discussions" with Knox about the American's habit of bringing men back to their home.

http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/news/...-didnt-seem-bothered-about-merediths-death.do

The article quotes Ms. Butterworth repeatedly on how AK's behavior was "strange" and "unusual." One can only wonder what Butterworth's qualifications are that enable her to determine what is "normal" and "usual" behavior when one finds one's roommate has been stabbed to death.

Frankly, I think almost everyone's opinion on the subject comes from TV and movies, since most of us have no experience with actual movie victims. But i don't know Butterworth (and I'm not questioning her integrity) and I don't know who she formed her conclusions.

As for whether MK had had discussions with AK about the men AK brought home and about flushing the toilet, this is all hearsay, of course. I think hearsay is and should be allowed here, as this is a discussion, not an actual trial; but that doesn't mean we shouldn't consider the context from which hearsay arises.

By the time Butterworth gave that interview, AK had been arrested. It does not impugn Miss Butterworth's honesty, IMHO, to say the arrest may have influenced her memory of what MK had told her.

 

[otto]

Tuesday Nov 6th, 2007

1:45 AM

Amanda accuses Patrick Lumumba of murder. All questioning is stopped, and Knox's status is changed from "witness" to "suspect". Amanda signs a declaration accusing Patrick. This statement was not included in the trial proceedings.

3:30 AM

Amanda asks to be heard and gives a spontaneous statement. The prosecutor was called in to hear this statement because she did not have a lawyer. She repeats her accusations against Patrick.

5:45 AM

Amanda signs her second declaration and is formally arrested. She is then fed. This statement was not used in the trial proceedings.


Patrick is arrested in the morning and jailed for two weeks.

Later in the day, Amanda asked for pen and paper, and wrote a two page statement confirming her previous declarations. This statement was admissible during trial.

 

[otto]

The article quotes Ms. Butterworth repeatedly on how AK's behavior was "strange" and "unusual." One can only wonder what Butterworth's qualifications are that enable her to determine what is "normal" and "usual" behavior when one finds one's roommate has been stabbed to death.

Frankly, I think almost everyone's opinion on the subject comes from TV and movies, since most of us have no experience with actual movie victims. But i don't know Butterworth (and I'm not questioning her integrity) and I don't know who she formed her conclusions.

As for whether MK had had discussions with AK about the men AK brought home and about flushing the toilet, this is all hearsay, of course. I think hearsay is and should be allowed here, as this is a discussion, not an actual trial; but that doesn't mean we shouldn't consider the context from which hearsay arises.

By the time Butterworth gave that interview, AK had been arrested. It does not impugn Miss Butterworth's honesty, IMHO, to say the arrest may have influenced her memory of what MK had told her.

After accusing the prosecutor of having it in for Amanda, the Italians of being anti-american, the forensic analyst of being sloppy and contaminating samples, the police of not doing their jobs ... we now have to strip down Meredith's friends because they repeat what Meredith said about Knox, because they thought it was abnormal that Knox stood up to sing at a restaurant, and because they consider Knox's remarks to have been highly inappropriate?

 

[otto]

To be specific, they looked through her text messages and saw the one to Patrick saying "See you later", mistook it as a meeting with someone and asked her who the message was to. When she told them it was to her boss they became convinced that she was lying about meeting him that night which she had never mentioned before. When she repeatedly denied ever meeting him the interpreter told her she was probably traumatized and no longer remembered the incident. They told her they knew for a fact that this happened and that she was at the cottage the night of the murder. A couple of hours of this and Amanda's statement was written where she "confusedly" remembers going to the cottage and that her boss killed Meredith.
This phenomenon is referred to as an internalized false confession, and although in this case she never admitted to committing the murder itself, the same logic applies. This has been documented as happening many times before, but some have a hard time realizing it's possible, despite its not so uncommon frequency.

If this were the case (no longer the coercion theory, but the false memory theory), why did Knox request two more opportunities to repeat the accusations against Patrick?

 

[Malkmus]

Tuesday Nov 6th, 2007

1:45 AM

Amanda accuses Patrick Lumumba of murder. All questioning is stopped, and Knox's status is changed from "witness" to "suspect". Amanda signs a declaration accusing Patrick. This statement was not included in the trial proceedings.

3:30 AM

Amanda asks to be heard and gives a spontaneous statement. The prosecutor was called in to hear this statement because she did not have a lawyer. She repeats her accusations against Patrick.

5:45 AM

Amanda signs her second declaration and is formally arrested. She is then fed. This statement was not used in the trial proceedings.


Patrick is arrested in the morning and jailed for two weeks.

Later in the day, Amanda asked for pen and paper, and wrote a two page statement confirming her previous declarations. This statement was admissible during trial.

Otto, where are you getting this idea that Amanda asked for Mignini to come in so she could repeat her statement? I think we need to get to the bottom of this and settle it for good, as I’ve seen this repeated again and again and again, but never cited. I have three sources I can cite which state the contrary. They had to get her to repeat the statement because they knew the first one, taken as a witness, couldn't be used against her or Patrick:

When Knox initially said she been at the scene of the crime, Ficarra said the questioning on that evening was suspended as is prescribed by Italian law and the prosecutor was called.
- Andrea Vogt
http://www.seattlepi.com/local/401876_Knoxvogt01.html

“Patrick and Meredith were in Meredith’s bedroom while I must have stayed in the kitchen,” she told the interrogators, who at 3:30 AM called prosecutor Giuliano Mignini, fifty-seven.

- Barbie Nadeau
From ”Angel Face”

Having been informed by phone that Amanda had “broken”, the bearlike, pipe- smoking Mignini drove immediately to the questura and entered her interrogation room, where he found the American girl sobbing uncontrollably.

- Candace Dempsey
From “Murder In Italy”

 

[otto]

Otto, where are you getting this idea that Amanda asked for Mignini to come in so she could repeat her statement? I think we need to get to the bottom of this and settle it for good, as I’ve seen this repeated again and again and again, but never cited. I have three sources I can cite which state the contrary. They had to get her to repeat the statement because they knew the first one, taken as a witness, couldn't be used against her or Patrick:

If the prosecutor wanted Amanda to give another statement, couldn't he would have waited until morning rather than get out of bed at 3 in the morning and drive to the station to talk with Knox? Neither of the statements taken in the midde of the night were admissable, and the prosecutor would have known that, so it seems unlikely that he would have decided to obtain a second statement that was pretty much the same as the first.

Amanda's 1:45 statement could be used against others because she was a "witness", her 5:45 statement could not be used against her or others because she was a "suspect" and did not have a lawyer. There was no up side for the prosecutor to get the second statement, as the first was enough to arrest Patrick.

What page are you quoting from in Angel Face?

 

[Malkmus]

If the prosecutor wanted Amanda to give another statement, couldn't he would have waited until morning rather than get out of bed at 3 in the morning and drive to the station to talk with Knox? Neither of the statements taken in the midde of the night were admissable, and the prosecutor would have known that, so it seems unlikely that he would have decided to obtain a second statement that was pretty much the same as the first.

Amanda's 1:45 statement could be used against others because she was a "witness", her 5:45 statement could not be used against her or others because she was a "suspect" and did not have a lawyer. There was no up side for the prosecutor to get the second statement, as the first was enough to arrest Patrick.

What page are you quoting from in Angel Face?

I use the Kindle for the book and there are no page numbers, but I googled it for you and apparently it's page 70 in the paperback. You can speculate as much as you'd like about Mignini's decision to come in when he did, but it's at odds with the facts I just cited. Again, where are you reading that she called him in? Unless you can cite one credible source this issue is moot and it's pointless to debate it any further.

 

[otto]

I use the Kindle for the book and there are no page numbers, but I googled it for you and apparently it's page 70 in the paperback. You can speculate as much as you'd like about Mignini's decision to come in when he did, but it's at odds with the facts I just cited. Again, where are you reading that she called him in? Unless you can cite one credible source this issue is moot and it's pointless to debate it any further.

I will continue to believe the information I have, and will not run to get a link for something that happened 4 years ago ... but when I come across it again, I'll post it. Since you have the book in front of you, as do I, we both know that Knox repeated her accusations against Patrick to the prosecutor, and added that she heard Meredith screaming. She claimed that she was afraid of Patrick. She also claimed that she was drunk and passed out, and more.

You suggested that the prosecutor needed the second statement in order to arrest Patrick. That isn't true. The first statement was enough to arrest Patrick, and the second statement could not be used against Knox or Patrick.

 

[Nova]

It is not a word game. Knox confessed to bringing a man into the cottage and doing nothing while that man had sex with her roommate and then killed her. I am not able to view this confession in isolation, and cannot ignore the facts surrounding the murder such as the locked bedroom door, the staged break-in, etc.

Fair enough.

Since we all know the most important element of her statement (that PL killed MK) was untrue, I don't understand how one cherry-picks other elements from the same statement and takes them as gospel. But I know your beliefs on the subject.

What is not fair is your previous statement that "AK confessed to the murder." She did not. She may have made statements that lead you to the conclusion that she committed a murder, but such statements are not confessions, they are merely inculpatory statements, or statements against penal interest (in the U.S. terminology), etc.

Italy does have a "duty to rescue" or "Good Samaritan" law which requires a bystander to call for help for an injured party.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duty_to_rescue#Criminal_law


So assuming AK's statement met the requirements of Italy's law, it would be fair to say that AK "confessed" to violating Italy's "duty to rescue." But prosecutions are rare for that and, in any event, it's a long way from there to murder.

This matters because the distinction between a confession of murder and a statement against interest is enormous to many people and claiming AK "confessed" is grossly (though unintentionally on your part, I'm sure) misleading.

 

[Nova]

Meredith was not murdered because she rented a room at the cottage, she was murdered because she met Knox.

There's really no evidence of that as far as I can see. AK told lies under pressure and I understand that you suspect her because of that, but there's no credible evidence she murdered MK. There isn't even much of a theory.

However, that doesn't change my statement that we can all agree MK would have been better off if she hadn't rented a room in that cottage. (If that sounded as if I were blaming MK for her own murder, I assure you I was not. I was merely stating a fact: if she'd rented a room elsewhere, everything that followed would have been different. This in no way makes the murder MK's "fault." I've never known a poster here to blame MK in any way.)

 

[Nova]

Forgive my back to back posts, but I am trying to understand the debate. AK made these statements and PL was locked up but ultimately freed. Because he wasnt there at all.

So instead of PL, we are supposed to insert a suspect *here* and be outraged that she didnt do anything about a murder she witnessed or knew about...I am not being argumentative or flip...just trying to wrap my head around the debate.

Essentially, the chief investigator invented a theory of the murder with Patrick Lumumba as the central perpetrator. AK was badgered into claiming she brought PL to the apartment and then heard MK scream. That was enough for ILE to lock up Lumumba, even though none of the forensic evidence test results were back yet.

When the test results came back, lo and behold there was no DNA from Lumumba, but plenty from Rudy Guede. So rather than rethinking their theory, the investigator and prosecutor simply put in Guede in place of Lumumba.

So, yes, AK gave the police vague statements (in which she repeatedly casts doubt on her own testimony) that she brought Patrick Lumumba to the cottage where he killed Meredith Kercher.

All of it was proved to be a lie EXCEPT for the question of whether AK was ever at the cottage. On that, we're supposed to take AK's word, even though everything else she said was a lie. :shrug:

 

[Nova]

Otto, I understand you believe AK is guilty but I don't but am open to looking at evidence with new eyes. My question to you is, what is the biggest indisputable piece of evidence that points to AK for you? Like I have stated, this case baffles me. Hope you aren't offended.

I am not authorized to speak for otto, he doesn't need my help and I am NOT speaking for him here.

But in general, my impression from reading various posters (and from a time not too long ago when I too thought AK was probably guilty), I'd say the most compelling piece of evidence is that the break-in was mere staging. The argument goes that AK had the most to gain from a phony break in.

Now mind you, this argument doesn't seem as strong when one looks at it closely. AK might benefit most, but she's not the only possible one to benefit from the break in. The evidence of the break in is supported largely by the memory of one of the roommates, rather than by actual forenstic investigation. (I am NOT suggesting the roommate would lie, only that she was testifying about how she left the room on a day when she had no way to know that info would be important.)

 

[Malkmus]

I will continue to believe the information I have, and will not run to get a link for something that happened 4 years ago ... but when I come across it again, I'll post it.

You know what's funny, I also debate often on another site (JREF) and when the same question was asked of the moderator of Perugiamurderfile.org he couldn't produce a link either. The guy has been following the case since it began and is, IMO, responsible for propagating this rumor. I discovered that what it stems from is Mignini's claim that once he arrived at the station, Amanda gave the 5:45 statement without any prompting from him. This somehow turned into Amanda "demanding" that Mignini be dragged out of bed so he could be spoken to. This is the source of the rumor. I wouldn't bother searching for any links, Otto, it just doesn't exist.

Since you have the book in front of you, as do I, we both know that Knox repeated her accusations against Patrick to the prosecutor, and added that she heard Meredith screaming. She claimed that she was afraid of Patrick. She also claimed that she was drunk and passed out, and more.

Yes, I'm aware that once Mignini showed up she apparently made the same statement to him. So, in your book, what was the point of her insisting to give the same statement over again? You don't think it had anything to do with the need to arrest Amanda once she was a suspect? What exactly would she have gained by making the same statement twice?

You suggested that the prosecutor needed the second statement in order to arrest Patrick. That isn't true. The first statement was enough to arrest Patrick, and the second statement could not be used against Knox or Patrick.

Yes, I believe you're correct on this and I misspoke. Sorry.


Let me add just one point to this whole notion of Amanda "insisting" on making a second statement. When she made the 1:45 statement she was a witness and the statement couldn't be used to arrest her. So.... why didn't she just go home? You think she hung around the station for another 2 hours twiddling her thumbs until 3:30 AM then ran up to an officer and said "Bring Mignini in here, I want to say the same thing again to him!"

Logic, and multiple credible sources tell us that once she made the incriminating statement as a witness, Mignini was called in by ILE so she could be arrested after she repeated the statement as a suspect. This scenario doesn't involve any mental gymnastics, ignoring of multiple news reports, or belief in imaginary links that no one can produce.

 

[Nova]

Amanda introduce Patrick's name, not police.

How do you know this? It is far more logical to assume the police brought up PL's name because they were reading the text message.

You seem to ignore the fact that if AK really intended to accuse PL, she put very little effort into it. She offered few to no details, when she could have told ILE all sorts of things about PL and his "obsession" with MK, and what she saw him do that night.