Meredith Kercher murdered in Perugia, Amanda Knox convicted #3

[otto]

At RG's appeal... upheld conviction and sentence concluding ALL THREE were involved in the murder of Meredith Kercher. Uh oh, AK and RS appeals.

So he is serving the full life sentence with the discount for fast tracking the trial.

"Saturday's hearing was held two days after Italy's highest criminal court upheld the conviction and 16-year-prison sentence of the third person charged with the murder, Rudy Hermann Guede of the Ivory Coast. Guede has admitted being at the house the night of the murder but denies killing Kercher.

He was tried separately. The high court's ruling, which cannot be appealed, is significant because it states that Guede took part in the slaying but did not act alone, prosecutors and lawyers said."

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/12/18/amanda-knox-trial-makes-d_n_798632.html

Since Rudy's appeals are finished, if he knows that Amanda and Raffaele were not involved, now would be a good time to say something. I could understand his silence in the past because stating that Amanda and Raffaele were not involved would conflict with his claims that he was there, but did not commit the murder. His sentence would be no different if he did commit the murder, so if they were not there, he has nothing to lose by saying so. He doesn't strike me as the sort of person that would let two people spend a lifetime in prison for something they didn't do ... so if they weren't there, why wouldn't he now come forward and make that clear?

 

[dgfred]

Hey guys,

Again, I haven't been following the coverage on here, but has this been posted, it's from June 2010? If so, please disregard then, & trust me, I am not suggesting that she is innocent, just something to consider.

http://articles.cnn.com/2010-06-10/...nda-knox-meredith-kercher-italian?_s=PM:CRIME

Would be quite simple to produce the knife he supposidly hid... right? :snooty:

 

[otto]

Would be quite simple to produce the knife he supposidly hid... right? :snooty:

Going from memory, but wasn't the knife thrown down a hillside? Didn't he also claim that he threw the keys away in the same spot? Still, it shouldn't be too difficult to find the knife or keys. If it were my daughter in jail and the real murder weapon was on a hillside, I would be there with a metal detector every day until I found the knife. I would be standing right where this "witness" claimed he stood and throwing spoons down the hillside. I'd start looking in the area where they landed, and search outward from there.

 

[otto]

I really don't understand why Amanda's family is happy about the review of the DNA analysis of the two items. I think the knife DNA will be reduced to a debate about whether LNC DNA analysis is valid. Similar to the initial use of fingerprint analysis, and DNA testing, there will be skeptics, but those identification methods have become widely accepted. We also know that over the last 10 years, it has become possible to test and identify increasingly smaller DNA samples, so why not LNC DNA? Furthermore, LNC DNA has been accepted by US courts since at least 2008.

I've read the report from the 5 US experts, and the thesis statement seems to be that LNC testing cannot be accurate, so it should not be used. When looking at the DNA on the knife and Meredith's DNA, it's obvious that the knife markers are not as strong as her DNA, but there's no mistake about the comparison being a match.

The trial process seems to be following a script. During the trial, the defence requested review of DNA analysis. That request was denied, and right away everyone knew that it would be a point during appeal. This judge was now able to grant defence lawyers a small portion of their requests - that which was obvious during the trial. If the DNA analysis is confirmed, the two of them are done ... game over. I don't see this as anything to be happy about.

Another point that I keep coming back to relates to the Knox family claims that there was no DNA from Amanda in Meredith's bedroom. Amanda's bedside lamp was in Meredith's bedroom, and there was absolutely no DNA from Amanda on that lamp. It seems to me that this presents evidence of a cleanup, not innocence, yet the Knox family has repeated this fact for months, suggesting that this is a reason to doubt Amanda's guilt.

 

[dgfred]

Going from memory, but wasn't the knife thrown down a hillside? Didn't he also claim that he threw the keys away in the same spot? Still, it shouldn't be too difficult to find the knife or keys. If it were my daughter in jail and the real murder weapon was on a hillside, I would be there with a metal detector every day until I found the knife. I would be standing right where this "witness" claimed he stood and throwing spoons down the hillside. I'd start looking in the area where they landed, and search outward from there.

Supposidly 'buried in a wall' is what I heard before. :waitasec:

 

[otto]

Supposidly 'buried in a wall' is what I heard before. :waitasec:

It should be no problem for the Knox family to offer to pay to rebuild the wall section after opening it up to retrieve the knife. What is stopping them? They could even split the cost with the Sollicito family. Two people are facing life in prison. The necessary evidence standing between them and life in prison is supposedly sitting in a wall ... and they're not going to do anything about it? That makes no sense, or, rather, it does, and it means that neither Knox nor Sollicito supporters truly believe the real murder weapon is in a wall.

 

[dgfred]

Righto!

 

[Nova]

All of this is just my opinion;

Italy isn't a third world nation and I'd put their justice system on par with ours. It seems they really don't have a dog in the fight that would cause them to skew things. Kercher wasn't Italian. This is a case involving two foreigners. If Kercher had been a native Italian I'd be willing to entertain a conspiracy theory more but I think there is a lot of evidence that she was involved, directly or indirectly. In fact since RS's father is a rich Italian man with influence you'd think it would work in RS's favor if the system were corrupt. All courts make mistakes but it bugs me when people view the Italian justice system as somehow a lot more incompetent than any other civilized nations.

If an Italian girl and the son of a very wealthy American killed a British girl in our country I'd be offended if the Italians portrayed our system the way some here portray theirs.

I don't believe the intent on AK or RS's part was to slaughter MK at the beginning, but something got out of hand and RS knew that he and AK would be just as culpable for the death. I'd be willing to bet my life that she was at least involved in the cleanup. Even if the two pieces of evidence are overturned there is significant evidence against them. The knife they have a shot on, but the bra clasp is clutching at straws.

Dan, I kind of, sort of, maybe agree with you.

I certainly agree with you that Italy is a modern, liberal-democratic country, and if they do some things differently than we do in the U.S., that doesn't mean they are unfair.

But I also think the previous occupant of the White House did much to create resentment against Americans around the world, in particular a sense that we have an undue sense of entitlement and don't feel we should be held to the same standards of international law as everyone else. Frankly, you can see some of these sentiments in many of the "How DARE Americans question an Italian verdict!" posts here.

THAT BEING SAID, I have trouble believing Italian judges would take all that out on one, young American college student. But was it a subconscious influence? I don't know.

As for the quality of the forensic evidence, yes, some posters seem inclined to assume Italian incompetence. But posters at WS question the forensics on U.S. cases all the time; it isn't "bias" if we question them in Perugia as well.

I am concerned by the emphasis (not by you) on supposedly conflicting statements given by AK under the pressure of interrogation. We know false testimony is produced under that sort of pressure even when the suspect is dealing in her first language; I can only imagine the confusion that might result from aggressive interrogation in a second language.

Your idea that AK and RS got caught up in something they didn't intend and then attempted a cover up makes far more sense to me than the idea that three people conspired to murder a British girl. But I've yet to read a scenario that explains the details of how that might have happened. Have you seen such a scenario and can you direct me to it?

 

[Nova]

...Plus his contradictory statements regarding his alibi and 'pricking' Meredith with the knife....

This is the sort of thing that bothers me about this case. (To be clear, I'm not bothered by dgfred's mention of it, just that such things seem to loom so large in the supposed "evidence" of guilt.)

I wasn't in the room and I don't speak Italian, but assume for the moment that RS is innocent. I'd be willing to bet the original conversation went something like this:

"Interrogator: We found Meredith's DNA on your kitchen knife. The science is irrefutable!

RS: Uh, well, if it's irrefutable, then I must have accidentally pricked her with the knife at my house."

(Remember, we're assuming RS is innocent. He knows he didn't stab MK. So either he accuses someone else (Amanda) of stealing the knife or he comes up with some other explanation, however unlikely. A smarter suspect would continue to insist the science was wrong, but then a smarter suspect wouldn't be talking at all at this point.)

Once said, however, that foolish, wild guess forever becomes evidence of RS' dishonesty and, therefore, guilt.

This case seems particularly rife with this sort of evidence, IMHO.

 

[Nova]

It should be no problem for the Knox family to offer to pay to rebuild the wall section after opening it up to retrieve the knife. What is stopping them? They could even split the cost with the Sollicito family. Two people are facing life in prison. The necessary evidence standing between them and life in prison is supposedly sitting in a wall ... and they're not going to do anything about it? That makes no sense, or, rather, it does, and it means that neither Knox nor Sollicito supporters truly believe the real murder weapon is in a wall.

I'm no scientist, but I'd think there'd be x-ray machines that could show a metal object in a cement/stone/brick wall. No?

 

[Steely Dan]

Dan, I kind of, sort of, maybe agree with you.

I certainly agree with you that Italy is a modern, liberal-democratic country, and if they do some things differently than we do in the U.S., that doesn't mean they are unfair.

But I also think the previous occupant of the White House did much to create resentment against Americans around the world, in particular a sense that we have an undue sense of entitlement and don't feel we should be held to the same standards of international law as everyone else. Frankly, you can see some of these sentiments in many of the "How DARE Americans question an Italian verdict!" posts here.

THAT BEING SAID, I have trouble believing Italian judges would take all that out on one, young American college student. But was it a subconscious influence? I don't know.

As for the quality of the forensic evidence, yes, some posters seem inclined to assume Italian incompetence. But posters at WS question the forensics on U.S. cases all the time; it isn't "bias" if we question them in Perugia as well.

I am concerned by the emphasis (not by you) on supposedly conflicting statements given by AK under the pressure of interrogation. We know false testimony is produced under that sort of pressure even when the suspect is dealing in her first language; I can only imagine the confusion that might result from aggressive interrogation in a second language.

Your idea that AK and RS got caught up in something they didn't intend and then attempted a cover up makes far more sense to me than the idea that three people conspired to murder a British girl. But I've yet to read a scenario that explains the details of how that might have happened. Have you seen such a scenario and can you direct me to it?

Way to go out on a limb Nova. :crazy:

The bolded question is very common in homicides and unanswerable. What happened to Jon Benet Ramsey? What happened to Natalie Hollaway? I don't need a motive if I have enough evidence. JMO

This is the sort of thing that bothers me about this case. (To be clear, I'm not bothered by dgfred's mention of it, just that such things seem to loom so large in the supposed "evidence" of guilt.)

I wasn't in the room and I don't speak Italian, but assume for the moment that RS is innocent. I'd be willing to bet the original conversation went something like this:

"Interrogator: We found Meredith's DNA on your kitchen knife. The science is irrefutable!

RS: Uh, well, if it's irrefutable, then I must have accidentally pricked her with the knife at my house."

(Remember, we're assuming RS is innocent. He knows he didn't stab MK. So either he accuses someone else (Amanda) of stealing the knife or he comes up with some other explanation, however unlikely. A smarter suspect would continue to insist the science was wrong, but then a smarter suspect wouldn't be talking at all at this point.)

Once said, however, that foolish, wild guess forever becomes evidence of RS' dishonesty and, therefore, guilt.

This case seems particularly rife with this sort of evidence, IMHO.

Meredith, IIRC, was never in his house.

 

[otto]

This is the sort of thing that bothers me about this case. (To be clear, I'm not bothered by dgfred's mention of it, just that such things seem to loom so large in the supposed "evidence" of guilt.)

I wasn't in the room and I don't speak Italian, but assume for the moment that RS is innocent. I'd be willing to bet the original conversation went something like this:

"Interrogator: We found Meredith's DNA on your kitchen knife. The science is irrefutable!

RS: Uh, well, if it's irrefutable, then I must have accidentally pricked her with the knife at my house."

(Remember, we're assuming RS is innocent. He knows he didn't stab MK. So either he accuses someone else (Amanda) of stealing the knife or he comes up with some other explanation, however unlikely. A smarter suspect would continue to insist the science was wrong, but then a smarter suspect wouldn't be talking at all at this point.)

Once said, however, that foolish, wild guess forever becomes evidence of RS' dishonesty and, therefore, guilt.

This case seems particularly rife with this sort of evidence, IMHO.

I don't think Raffaele's comments about pricking Meredith with a knife were made during interrogation, but instead that he wrote them as part of his jail diary. As time goes on, it's more difficult to find the links, but I did find this:

"Raffaele Sollecito has written a prison diary in which he says the DNA of Meredith Kercher was only on his knife because they had cooked together

In one entry Sollecito referred to the eight-inch black handled knife, which was found in his apartment, with DNA from Meredith on the tip and Knox's near the handle.

He wrote: "The fact there is Meredith's DNA on the kitchen knife is because once when we were all cooking together I accidentally pricked her hand. I apologised immediately and she said it was not a problem."

However police have spoken to several of Meredith's friends who have all told detectives that Meredith, from Coulsdon, Surrey, had never been to Sollecito's house.

Sollecito also wrote that he may have been framed by Knox."

http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/news/...knife-because-he-pricked-her-while-cooking.do

 

[otto]

I'm no scientist, but I'd think there'd be x-ray machines that could show a metal object in a cement/stone/brick wall. No?

I really don't know. I had heard that he claimed to have thrown the knife and the keys down a hillside. Whether the knife is supposed to be in a wall or on a hillside, if I were in Amanda's position, I would turn the world upside down to get the evidence.

 

[otto]

Like Raffaele's voluntary written statement claiming that Meredith's blood was on the knife because of a dinner that never happened, Amanda voluntarily wrote a statement confirming that she knew Patrick was involved in Meredith's murder. These statements were made without any interrogation or coercion ... they were plain and simple lies that the two told when the evidence was pointing to them.

 

[Nova]

Way to go out on a limb Nova. :crazy:

The bolded question is very common in homicides and unanswerable. What happened to Jon Benet Ramsey? What happened to Natalie Hollaway? I don't need a motive if I have enough evidence. JMO

Absolutely understood. I wasn't challenging you to produce such a scenario, I was honestly just asking if you knew of one.

Meredith, IIRC, was never in his house.

That is my recollection of the testimony as well. But faced with authorities who are telling you it is a scientific certainty that MK's blood is on your knife, I can well imagine thinking, "Gee, maybe she was there and I forgot. She must have been because I'm sure the knife didn't leave the house."

Suspects quite often forget that the police are allowed to lie. Under those circumstances, when presented with seemingly impossible claims, I think the mind quite naturally begins to question everything it "knows" to be true.

 

[Steely Dan]

Absolutely understood. I wasn't challenging you to produce such a scenario, I was honestly just asking if you knew of one.



That is my recollection of the testimony as well. But faced with authorities who are telling you it is a scientific certainty that MK's blood is on your knife, I can well imagine thinking, "Gee, maybe she was there and I forgot. She must have been because I'm sure the knife didn't leave the house."

Suspects quite often forget that the police are allowed to lie. Under those circumstances, when presented with seemingly impossible claims, I think the mind quite naturally begins to question everything it "knows" to be true.

Let's just make sure everybody reading this knows that the police telling him that is of your own imagination that you've freely admitted you don't know if they did or not. (Sometimes things here can get taken as fact when they aren't.)

That being said, so what? If that's how it went down then he made one mistake that a mountain of exculpatory evidence should overcome.

I believe it was more likely that they didn't press him as hard since he's the son of a very wealthy Italian.

 

[otto]

Nova, if you're interested in doing some serious (and sometimes very technical) reading about the case, there are two links on this page:

http://www.westseattleherald.com/2010/08/10/news/amanda-knox-motivation-document-first-english-tra

This link: http://www.westseattleherald.com/si...ttachments/MasseiReportEnglishTranslation.pdf

is a review of the court's finding during trial, and does touch on motive.

The translation was joint international effort by professional translators. Every stage of the translation was meticulously reviewed several times before publication. The translation was prepared so that English speaking people could understand the case. (no one was paid for the work)

 

[otto]

Absolutely understood. I wasn't challenging you to produce such a scenario, I was honestly just asking if you knew of one.

That is my recollection of the testimony as well. But faced with authorities who are telling you it is a scientific certainty that MK's blood is on your knife, I can well imagine thinking, "Gee, maybe she was there and I forgot. She must have been because I'm sure the knife didn't leave the house."

Suspects quite often forget that the police are allowed to lie. Under those circumstances, when presented with seemingly impossible claims, I think the mind quite naturally begins to question everything it "knows" to be true.

Raffaele and Amanda were eating pizza while everyone else was attending Meredith's memorial. I have to wonder why Amanda, who now claims to be such a good friend of Meredith, did not bother attending her memorial service. Sometime around 10:30 PM, Raffaele was contacted and asked to come in and give information as a witness. Amanda went along with him, although she was not asked to go to the police station. During their questioning as witnesses (witness statements are not normally video taped), Raffaele and Amanda provided problematic witness statements, and their status was changed to that of suspect. At that time, questioning was stopped.

Amanda accused Patrick Lumumba during questioning. After the questioning stopped and she was detained; when she was alone the following day, she asked for paper and pen and reiterated her accusations against Patrick. It's a natural conclusion that she could only accuse Patrick if she was present during the murder. She also claimed that she heard Meredith scream, and coincidentally another neighbor also claimed to hear a scream.

While they were detained, and police were looking for additional evidence, the knife was analysed. There was a news report that Meredith's DNA and Amanda's prints were found on the knife. Raffaele took it upon himself to write an explanation in his diary. Raffaele wrote quite an elaborate story in his diary, including remarks about apologizing after cutting Meredith with the knife. I find it hard to believe that he was so confused about whether she was ever at his apartment that he accidentally concocted such a detailed story. The only reason this story was exposed as a lie is because Meredith's friends knew that Meredith had never been to Raffaele's apartment.

At no time, after providing their voluntary written statements, did either of these convicted murderers retract their statements. It was the responsibility of Patrick and Meredith's friends to prove that Amanda and Raffaele were both lying.

Amanda presents a very sympathetic figure today, but looking at her statements and actions immediately after the murder, and in the courtroom during her trial, one sees a very different person.

 

[dgfred]

Absolutely understood. I wasn't challenging you to produce such a scenario, I was honestly just asking if you knew of one.



That is my recollection of the testimony as well. But faced with authorities who are telling you it is a scientific certainty that MK's blood is on your knife, I can well imagine thinking, "Gee, maybe she was there and I forgot. She must have been because I'm sure the knife didn't leave the house."

Suspects quite often forget that the police are allowed to lie. Under those circumstances, when presented with seemingly impossible claims, I think the mind quite naturally begins to question everything it "knows" to be true.

Still, I have no problem with him 'THINKING', Gee, maybe she was there and I forgot.
But, when he claims to have PRICKED her while cooking with them... then he is lying to explain evidence (whether true or not).
Doubt, or questioning one's self is quite different than making up a story to fit the evidence. :snooty:

 

[Steely Dan]

Raffaele and Amanda were eating pizza while everyone else was attending Meredith's memorial. I have to wonder why Amanda, who now claims to be such a good friend of Meredith, did not bother attending her memorial service. Sometime around 10:30 PM, Raffaele was contacted and asked to come in and give information as a witness. Amanda went along with him, although she was not asked to go to the police station. During their questioning as witnesses (witness statements are not normally video taped), Raffaele and Amanda provided problematic witness statements, and their status was changed to that of suspect. At that time, questioning was stopped.

Amanda accused Patrick Lumumba during questioning. After the questioning stopped and she was detained; when she was alone the following day, she asked for paper and pen and reiterated her accusations against Patrick. It's a natural conclusion that she could only accuse Patrick if she was present during the murder. She also claimed that she heard Meredith scream, and coincidentally another neighbor also claimed to hear a scream.

While they were detained, and police were looking for additional evidence, the knife was analysed. There was a news report that Meredith's DNA and Amanda's prints were found on the knife. Raffaele took it upon himself to write an explanation in his diary. Raffaele wrote quite an elaborate story in his diary, including remarks about apologizing after cutting Meredith with the knife. I find it hard to believe that he was so confused about whether she was ever at his apartment that he accidentally concocted such a detailed story. The only reason this story was exposed as a lie is because Meredith's friends knew that Meredith had never been to Raffaele's apartment.

At no time, after providing their voluntary written statements, did either of these convicted murderers retract their statements. It was the responsibility of Patrick and Meredith's friends to prove that Amanda and Raffaele were both lying.

Amanda presents a very sympathetic figure today, but looking at her statements and actions immediately after the murder, and in the courtroom during her trial, one sees a very different person.

IIRC, Lumumba was completely cleared. AK had made that whole thing up which is another problematic thing for them.