Thursday, April 27, 2017

Multiple Attackers and the Compatibility of the Double DNA Knife (Exhibit 36)

Posted by James Raper

Our YouTube whiz DelPergola’s video of November 2010

Ed note: This evidence area is enormously compelling - but also emotionally difficult. It is why initially we did not publish our translation of the Micheli Report. And why a quarter of the trial was behind closed doors with the media excluded. That well-meaning decision has bedeviled the case ever since, because only the jury and others in court then - including the white-faced and tongue-tied accused pair - were exposed to the full power of the prosecution testimony.

Material from some of my previous posts on TJMK (link at bottom here) was incorporated into my Justice on Trial book. From Chapter 15, this is the second of several posts setting out further material.

Before looking at the forensic evidence, which is the final theme I identified earlier, it will be helpful to take into account the wounds suffered by Meredith, and whether these suggest anything as to the dynamics of the murder, and whether any of them were compatible with the knife recovered from Sollecito’s kitchen, Exhibit 36, called the Double DNA knife because the DNA of Meredith was found on the blade and the DNA of Knox on the handle.

As mentioned earlier the autopsy was carried out by Dr Lalli.

It was observed that there were no significant injuries to the chest, abdomen or lower limbs.

The significant elements in the examination were described as follows :

A fine pattern of petechiae on the internal eyelid conjunctive.

The presence of tiny areas of contusion at the level of the nose, localised around the nostrils and at the limen nasi [threshold of the nose].

Inside the mucous membranes of the lips, there were injuries compatible with a traumatic action localised in the inner surface of the lower lip and the inner surface of the upper lip, reaching up to the gum ridge.

Also found on the lower side of the jaw were some bruising injuries, and in the posterior region of the cheek as well, in proximity to the ear.

Three bruising injuries were present on the level of the lower edge of the right jaw with a roughly round shape. In the region under the jaw an area with a deep abrasion was observed, localised in the lower region of the middle part at the left of the jaw.

Once the neck had been cleaned it was possible to observe wounds that Dr Lalli attributed to the action of the point of a cutting instrument.

The main wound was located in the left lateral region of the neck. A knife would be compatible provided it had one cutting edge only which was not serrated. The wound was 8 cms in length and 8 cms deep. The width could not be measured because the edges had separated due to the elasticity of the tissues both in relation to the region and to the position of the head, which could have modified the width. The wound had a small “tail” at the posterior end. The wound penetrated into the interior structure of the neck in a slightly oblique direction, upwards and also to the right.

Underneath this large wound, another wound was visible, rather small and superficial, with not particularly clear edges, “becoming increasingly superficial until they disappeared”, in a reddish area of abrasions. The knife had penetrated both Meredith’s larynx and the cartilage of the epiglottis, and had broken her hyoid bone. A consequence of that damage is that Meredith would be unable to vocalise, let alone scream.

There was also a wound in the right lateral region of the neck, also attributed to a pointed cutting instrument. This was 4 cms deep and 1.5 cms wide (or long). It had not caused significant structural damage.

The presence of two relatively slight areas of bruising, with scarce colouring and barely noticeable, were detected in the region of the elbows.

On Meredith’s hands were small wounds showing a very slight defensive response. A small, very slight patch of colour was noticed on the “anterior inner surface of the left thigh”. Another bruise was noticed on the anterior surface, in the middle third of the right leg.

The results of the toxicological analyses revealed the absence of psychotropic drugs and a blood alcohol level of 0.43 grams per litre.

Tests of histological preparations of fragments of the organs taken during the autopsy were also performed. They revealed the presence of “pools of blood” in the lungs.

The cause of death was attributed to asphixiation and loss of blood, the former being caused by the latter.

There was nothing in the pathology which confirmed that Meredith had been raped, though we should recall that Guede’s DNA was found on the vaginal swab, though not of a spermatic nature. For Massei this was confirmation that she had been subjected to a sexual assault.


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There was argument in court as to whether Exhibit 36 was compatible with the main wound. There was no dispute amongst the experts that it could not have been responsible for the wound on the right. The knife had an overall length of 31 cms and the length of the blade from the point to the handle was 17.5 cms. The width of the blade, 4cms from the point, exceeded the width of the right hand wound. The wound on the right was more akin to a pocket knife, or perhaps a flick-knife.

I shall look at the arguments advanced by the defence as to why the knife would not be compatible in a moment, but before that there is a simple logical point as to incompatibility based on measurements.

A knife would only be incompatible if the length of the wound was greater than the length of the blade of the knife, or if the width of the wound was less than the width of the blade. Exhibit 36 was therefore a priori compatible.

On this basis I would also have to concede that a pocket or flick-knife is not a priori incompatible with the main wound, unless (though we would not know) the length of it”˜s blade did not exceed 8 cms.

It should however be recalled that the width of the left side wound was also 8 cms. That is over 5 times the width of the wound on the other side of the neck. The width of the blade on Exhibit 36, 8 cms from it’s tip - and being approximately 3.5 cms wide- was over twice the width of the blade on the “pocket knife”. This fact, and the robustness of the larger weapon, particularly with regard to the observed butchering at the base of the left-sided cut, makes Exhibit 36 a far more likely candidate, in my submission, than a “pocket knife”, and that’s without taking into account Meredith’s DNA on the blade.

We can also enter into a numbers game as regards the experts (8 of them) who opined on compatibility. Massei tells us that Dr Liviero concluded “definite compatibility”, Dr Lalli and Professors Bacci and Norelli “compatibility” whilst “non- incompatibility” came from the 3 GIP experts nominated at a preliminary hearing. The latter were Professors Aprile, Cingolani and Ronchi.

As far as I am concerned “non-incompatability” is not hard to understand. It simply means compatible.

Professors Introna, Torre, and Dr Patumi, for the defence, opined that Exhibit 36 could be ruled out. Their argument was twofold. First, the length of the blade was incompatible with the depth of the wound had the knife truly been used with homicidal intent. Indeed, if it had been thrust in up to the hilt then the point would have exited on the other side of the neck. Secondly, they said that the smaller wound or the abrasions beneath the main wound, mentioned earlier, were in fact caused by the hilt of a knife striking the surface of the neck. Obviously if that were so then the main wound was not caused by Exhibit 36.

Their argument does not consider, because we do not know, what may have been the actual dynamics of the knife strike. We cannot know what was the cause of the underlying wound or the reddish area of abrasions. As to that wound it may have been the result of the knife edge being run across the surface of the skin and the abrasions may have had a different cause in the prior struggle for which there is ample evidence. Hence their argument seems very weak. 

We cannot leave the topic without considering that there may have been more than two knives involved. This possibility arises from the evidence of Professor Vinci, for the defence. He considered blood stains that were on the bed sheet in Meredith’s room. These stains very much resembled the outline of a knife, or knives, laid to rest on the bed sheet.

It was Professor Vinci’s contention that the bloody outlines (a dual outline from the same knife he said) was left by a knife with a blade 11.3 cms long, or a knife with a blade 9.6 cms long with a congruent blooded section of handle 1.7 cms long (9.6 + 1.7 = 11.3), and having a blade width of 1.3 to 1.4 cms.

Taking these measurements as read they may seem incompatible with a pocket knife (such as Sollecito had a proclivity to carry) and they certainly are as regards Exhibit 36. It follows, he argued, that one has to infer the presence of a third knife in any hypothesis and if a pocket knife and Exhibit 36 are already accounted for by Knox and Sollecito then a reasonable inference is that the third knife would have to be Guede’s. Professor Vinci’s blade is not incompatible a priori with either of the two wounds.

The problem, and without going into detail on the matter, is that Professor Vinci’s contention and measurements are somewhat speculative depending on what one thinks one sees in the stains. It is rather like reading tea leaves. One could just as well superimpose Exhibit 36 over the stains and conclude that it was responsible for them.

Massei only briefly commented about the bloody outlines on the bed sheet. He opined that the blood stains were certainly “suggestive” but insufficient to establish any clear outlines from which reliable measurements could be established. Clearly then he did not accord any reliability to Professor Vinci’s measurements.


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We can now turn to the issue of whether Meredith’s injuries tell us anything about whether her attacker was a “lone wolf” or not.

Massei believed that Meredith’s injuries lay at the heart of the matter. It seemed inconceivable to him that she would first be stabbed twice and that she would then be strangled. The amount of blood, being very slippery, would make maintaining pressure on her throat difficult. So Meredith was forcibly restrained and throttled first. The hypothesis of a single attacker requires that he continually modify his actions, first by exercising a strong restraining pressure on her, producing significant bruising, and then for some reason switching to life threatening actions with a knife, thereby changing the very nature of the attack from that of subjugation to that of intimidation with a deadly weapon, and finally to extreme violence, striking with the knife to one side of the neck and then to the other side of the neck.

Massei described the first knife blow, landing on the right side of her neck, as being halted by the jawbone, preventing it from going any deeper than the 4 cms penetration. The court considered that this was an action to force Meredith to submit to actions against her will. The same hypothesis could also, of course, in view of the injuries to the jaw, apply as to the lack of penetration with Exhibit 36 on the other side

What surprised Massei about Meredith’s wounds was that in spite of all the changes in approach during the attack she somehow remained in the same vulnerable position, leaving her neck exposed to attack.

Massei paid particular attention to the paucity and lack of what can be regarded as defensive wounds on her hands by comparison with the number, distribution and diversity of the impressive wounds to her face and neck. He found this disproportion to be significant, particularly with regard to what was known about Meredith’s physicality and personality.

Meredith was slim and strong, possessing a physicality that would have allowed her to move around with agility. She liked sports, and practiced boxing and karate. In fact she had a medium belt in karate. She would, had she been able to, have fought with all her strength. How then would a single attacker have been able to change hands with a knife to strike to both sides of her neck, let alone switch from one knife to another? He would have had to release his grip on the victim to do that, unless she had wriggled free and changed position, in which case he would have to subdue her all over again, but this time, if not before, she would be ready.

Since the attack was also sexual in nature, at least initially, how could a single attacker have removed the clothes she was wearing (a sweater, jeans, knickers and shoes) and inflicted the sexual violence revealed by the vaginal swab, without, again releasing his grip? It might be suggested, as the defence did, that Meredith was already undressed when the attack began, but for this to be the case one of three possible alternative hypotheses has to be accepted.

The first is that Guede was already in the flat, uninvited, and un-noticed by Meredith, which can only mean that the break -in was genuine but un-noticed by her. The second is that Guede was there by invitation and that their relationship had proceeded by agreement to the contemplation of sexual intercourse when Meredith suddenly changed her mind, unleashing a violent reaction from Guede. The third is that, having been invited in Meredith then thought that he had left, although he had not.

Having looked at the staging we can surely rule out the first hypothesis. As to the second, it does not fit with what is known about Meredith’s personality and the relationship she had been developing with Giacomo. As to the third it is difficult to imagine that in a small flat Meredith would not have checked before securing the front door and preparing for bed.

Massei found it was highly unlikely that one person could have caused all the resulting bruises and wounds by doing the above, including cutting off and bending the hooks on the bra clasp. The actions on the bra clasp alone would necessitate someone standing behind her and using a knife to cut the straps, requiring the attention of both hands from her attacker, during which time Meredith would have had the opportunity to apply some self-defence. It has to be conceded though that this could have happened when she was concussed, though there is no persuasive physical evidence of a concussive blow, or during or after she had been mortally wounded.

Massei concluded that there was little evidence of defensive manoeuvers on Meredith’s part, which to him meant that several attackers were present, each with a distribution of tasks and roles: either holding her and preventing her from making any significant defensive reaction, or actually performing the violent actions. He concluded that the rest of the body of evidence, both circumstantial and forensic, came in full support of such a scenario. He concluded that two separate knives had been used and that one was from Sollecito”˜s bedsit.

Although, at the trial, the defence had attempted to explain a scenario whereby a single attacker might have been responsible for the injuries, that there had been multiple attackers was not a scenario with which any court, other than the first appeal court presided over by Hellmann, demurred.

 

Comments

Thanks, @James Raper.

It’s interesting the defence pathologist, Dr Patumi, believed the abrasion marks seen around the rim of the fatal neck wound could have been caused by the hilt of a knife, and therefore, the murder weapon identified by the police was ‘incompatible’ (as being of a longer length).

Another expert pathologist - soz, name escapes me - having noticed the discrete marks around Meredith’slower face and neck, were the same as the number of digits on a hand, leading him to believe that someone had gripped Mez’ face at these points (possibly to try to stop her from screaming).  In other words, he believed, the mark at the entry point was not a knife hilt but a digit imprint (perhaps a thumb?) consistent with the other digital imprints on the victim’s lower face, nostrils and neck.

He believed this was an attempt at strngualtion.

However, Patumi did point out that the mucous contained in shed blood, makes it a very slippery substance.

So who ever it was, IMV, was right -handed - as the fatal wound is on the left side - or left-handed, if from behind, and in a state of panic or fear to even touch it. 

Both Rudy Guede and Amanda Knox stated voluntarily in their earliest statements they witnessed a harrowing scream from Meredith.

This means that whoever it was present, most likely attempted to silence the victim.

Another thing we note, is that Knox tore out her diary pages of the days leading up to the event.

Having planned the brutal slaughter, the alarming scream had not been factored in, hence the signs of someone’s hand over the lower face.  A forensic experts said the digital bruises were small in size, originally hypothesized to be that of a woman’s. 

Unfortunately, no fingerprints could be retrieved from this region.

To recap, if this was a single attacker, not only was he constantly modifying his position, of one knife inserted from one direction, and then another, of a completely different size, thrust in from the other, the two wounds crossing over, but also at the *same time* physically restraining Meredith with her arms behind her back, which pathologists could tell from the bruising.  Detectives noted the fact of the nearby desk contents being barely disturbed, with a pile of postcards and letters on the edge of it, and a tumbler of water, which surely would have been toppled over and the stationery scattered had Mez had a chance to fight back, which surely she would have, even if only by reflex.

Thus Massei’s reconstruction of Mez forced to her knees with her arms pulled behind her back unable to move, with her head pulled back by her hair (?), leaving the other assailant/s free to stab her viciously without any physical resistance, other than an fearsome scream in his or her face, rings true.

Micheli believed Meredith was pushed backwards supine onto the floor, because of a major injury on the back of her neck, which others believe was her attacker ramming her head against the closet or wall.

Then, whoever it was, lifted her body onto a sheet - police believe to make it easier to move - and shifted the body a foot and a half away from its original position.  It is hard to believe one person on his own could do this.  Rudy did not have a car so would not be able to transport it away.  Kokomani claimed Guede had offered him cash to borrow his car, which is intriguing.  We know Raff had a car, which police found completely valeted, as there was zero trace of his own DNA in it.

Perhaps on the morning after the murder the pair planned to remove the body from the locked room and take it to Gubbio - this part of their alibi might be part-true - except the police turned up before they had a chance.

As for the bra, it may not have been cut by a knife.  It could have been torn off when the perpetrator/s try to move the body by lifting it by the back of the bra, causing the clasp to tear off cleanly at the stitching.

We know it was not pulled off from the front, as the arms of the two t-shirts Mez was wearing would have been in the way.

If the attacker was Rudy Guede alone, would he be able to lock Meredith’s door but also have access to the front door, to come back later? 

According to Amanda it was swinging open the next morning.  Maybe that happened as the perp/s fled, but doesn’t fit with taking the time to lock the murder room door.

We know Amanda Knox pottered around the cottage for an astonishing one and a half hours that morning, all the while leaving the front door off the latch, ‘in case someone had gone to take out the trash’.

Posted by KrissyG on 04/28/17 at 01:55 PM | #

@Peter Quennell, I agree that all politicians promise more than they can deliver, and that winning ideas are bigger than any one party. Interesting about legacy industries versus the wild new internet billionaires like Bezos, Zuckerberg. Systems growth, I keep learning such new ideas from comments here, and on different subjects like about Hudson River. My history channel Revolutionary War dvd about George Washington and Benedict Arnold explained Hudson is strategic waterway of America, why Arnold tried to sell out West Point to the British. Was West Point considered “Gibraltar of the north?” (or Saratoga?)on U.S. map?

But back to legacy industries. I was just thinking yesterday of how the Bed and Breakfast hotel scheme that many folks invested in, may now be devastated by the new AirBnB idea where people are allowed to rent out private rooms in humble apartments and homes all over the world, each man becoming his own hotelier. I wonder what effect this AirBnB will have on the established hotel industry? Of course AirBnB will never replace the high price tag ritzy hotels with their amenities, pools, and conference rooms, but times do change. And Uber’s effect on the taxi cab industry? Business back to the Wild Wild West if Trump deregulates and allows easier entrepreneurship for the average Joe, anything goes. Time will tell.

@James Raper, I’m just back from almost a week out of town, unpacked and regrouping, when I saw your post on the conflicting alibis of Raffaele and Amanda. My head wasn’t in the game but today I enjoyed the details on Exhibit 36 knife and the struggle, the knife speculation, and learned to appreciate the well ordered logic of good ole Massei once again.

Massei saw that it was the very lack of defensive wounds or all over body bruising that spoke of restraint by at least a second party, if not a third.

Meredith’s wounds were mostly around the head, face, and throat (sounds personal) and strangulation would have been impeded by a bleeding neck wound, so the tight hands were applied to throttle Meredith into silence or to make her shut up before she was cut.

The relatively undisturbed furniture in the room also spoke of a controlled fight, not a flailing kickboxing defense, although I hope Meredith gave at least one good kick right to Knox’s stomach before she was forced to kneel. She might have been hit on the back of head to induce wooziness to lower her resistance after they pulled her arms behind. She perhaps revived fully at the time of the first cut to make the loud scream before the hyoid was cut and the epiglottis when she would not be able to vocalize.

I just hope it was all over quickly, for her sake, and that the horrid duo left the room immediately in their cowardice so she didn’t have to see those two horrible creeps ever again. Small mercy but a real one, if Guede’s story of staying with her and trying to stanch the blood with towels is true. 

I now turn to the post on their conflicting alibis. Thank you for sharing from your book’s careful deliberations from case facts, even the names of expert witnesses and the many details that (as someone said) are so important for newcomers to TJMK to know.

Each reiteration of the case and then the comments and insights that follow tend to plow up artifacts of evidence, facts or ideas yet to be discovered that might add the final proof of what occurred in Perugia.

Posted by Hopeful on 04/28/17 at 04:56 PM | #

The FOA are still writing articles about Knox and commenting about the Double DNA knife, James. If people are interested they can look at http://gazettereview.com/2017/04/happened-amanda-knox-news-updates/ for an example of magical thinking.

Posted by Ergon on 04/29/17 at 07:09 AM | #

Thanks, KrissyG for your comment about the underlying wound. When I get the time and energy I will go searching for the expert testimony that this could have been attributable to finger pressure bruises. That seems more likely in any event. It could have been part of a scratch (the abrasions) but not a cut or nick because that would have had clear edges.

It was entirely speculative, and entirely unlikely in view of the manifest bruising to her face and neck, to suggest that this wound was as a result of the hilt of a knife striking the skin.

The order in which the manual and knife wounds occurred is fairly obvious.

The only other possibility for Guede already being in the flat, and concealed there, waiting whilst Meredith was undressing for bed, is that he had been given a key! But why? If so that would have certainly freaked Meredith out!

What I did not cover in the book was the likelihood that the sexual assault, which one can not doubt occurred, was made manifest by a further act of staging. I will consider visiting that. It was not really considered by Massei IMO.

Yes, the tumbler of water is interesting. It is indicative of the measure of restraint exercised on Meredith at all times during the attack on her, assuming that it was on the bedtable all that time. Rather surprisingly there were no fingerprints on it, nor on Knox’s lamp, both ideal surfaces for prints. I wonder if someone took a sip from the tumbler and then thought “Damn” before carefully cleaning the rim and surfaces, and then of course the lamp and other surfaces as well.

Posted by James Raper on 04/29/17 at 01:19 PM | #

Its 5.00 am thursday and TJMK is finally back online. Thanks Ergon and others for the headsups. Apologies to James for his post going AWOL.

The fix was small and easy, but our temporary administrator while I traveled was not “empowered” to handle it. The really unusual issue was a change of administration of our domain name (truejustice.org).  It is now administered by the giant registrar Tucows in Toronto, and they took it over recently from Melbourne IT in Australia, simply for business reasons.

Tucows sent us an email asking if this was okay and please to confirm current site-name ownership. But Tucows kept sending that request to an old email address, which has not been valid for years!  As they never heard back, they put the domain name on ice to force a response. Our own hoster just stepped in, and the confirmation took just a few minutes.

Prices of good domain names can be up in the stratosphere, but we were not in danger of losing ownership - the name is paid for for some years ahead, and nobody else could have purchased it.

Posted by Peter Quennell on 05/04/17 at 12:45 PM | #

Former PM Renzi resigned a few months ago after the referendum on system reforms of Italian voters went against him. Now he is halfway back again.

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/matteo-renzi-on-track-to-win-italys-democratic-party-election-2017-04-30

Not all our posters or readers like or trust him. His reforms on the legal front seem to me better than nothing. But his probable collusion in the springing of RS and AK was unhelpful.

Among the wild cards here could be (1) Trump who was for Knox before he was against her and (2) those still gunning for Hillary Clinton.

I’d say about 100% of everyone we hear from in Italy are convinced this case is not fully played out yet. The political and mafia angles may make it a Kabuki dance not providing instant gratification but even Kabuki dances can have satisfying endings.

Posted by Peter Quennell on 05/04/17 at 07:10 PM | #

Glad to see TJMK back up again, Peter!

Posted by Ergon on 05/04/17 at 09:03 PM | #

Knox again insults President Trump with a May 4, 2017 letter she wrote to the L.A. Times. Her op-ed piece is a rehash of her “This isn’t a Banana Republic” defiance and more antagonistic ingratitude to Trump for his former financial and verbal support of her innocence, which now she calls “undiplomatic” but well-intentioned.

An old photo of Knox in navy blue dress with floral pattern appears in today’s Daily Mail online, May 5, 2017. Headline says, This isn’t a Banana Republic, says Foxy: ‘Ungrateful’ Amanda Knox hits back at Trump and says she doesn’t owe the President her loyalty after voting for Hillary despite his support for her innocence campaign.

Her impudence towards Trump comes through loud and clear, despite her scornful remark of, “What do I owe Trump? A thank-you for his well-intentioned if undiplomatic support. So, for the record: Thank you, Mr. President.”

She follows that brief and loveless thanks by laying it in the shade of, “But the more important question is what do I owe my country?” Here she rattles on about owing the USA her “civic engagement, careful consideration of issues that affect my fellow citizens, support for policies that deserve support, even if it makes the president ‘very upset’”.

For emphasis she puts ‘very upset’ in quotation marks.

Well, well, well, what a lovely thank you for someone’s help and money. And now she publishes her barely hidden scorn for him emblazoned all over the L.A. Times and thus world media while she in the same breath waxes prolific about her grand ideals and principles. Ha ha ha, it is quite laughable.

Nope, she doesn’t count loyalty as very high on her list of ideals. Instead she denounces “blind loyalty” and claims it was false loyalty that caused her murder conviction.

She says she was only convicted of murder due to the blind loyalty of Italians for their prosecutors who represented to them “the Italian people and the Italian State”, as opposed to the defense attorneys who represented a foreigner.

Yep, ROFL that was the only reason she was once convicted of murder: false loyalty by biased blind bats.

Perhaps she has forgotten her blood at the scene, her Luminol footprints, her lies caught by cell phone records and other evidence not to mention several witnesses. Isn’t she a hoot?

Comments beneath the Daily Mail story include:

“I knew she was a sociopath back when she was arrested. I wish Italy had kept her.”

“Her behavior was completely out of line for an innocent person whether they could “prove” it or not.”

“She should be grateful for anyone who defends her because she is almost as unlikeable as Hillary.”

“She should just shut up and stay out of the public eye because she’s had her 15 minutes of notoriety.”

“You’ve got to be scraping the bottom of the barrel if you want her (Knox’s) support.”

“Trump thought she was innocent. He was mistaken. She’s guilty. Who cares who she voted for, she’s still guilty.”

“This chick needs to shut up, get a job, live her life and be thankful she is free.”

“She doesn’t owe Trump anything but she needs to lay off using derogatory terminology in her so-called op-eds. She may have been granted a journalism degree but she does nothing to further that profession. She cannot write one article without bringing herself up.”

“She’s a murderer and needs to keep her mouth shut.”

Posted by Hopeful on 05/05/17 at 09:38 PM | #

Nice one, Hopeful. 

The idea of Knox being on a higher moral ground than Trump (and normally that wouldn’t be difficult) had my clutching my sides laughing

All this self-righteous gump about helping the wrongfully convicted.

What a load of sanctimonious tosh!

Fake news.  We were writing about this on TJMK six months ago.

Posted by KrissyG on 05/05/17 at 10:23 PM | #

Well said Hopeful and KrissyG. 
Guilty Knox is unbearable.
No wonder Meredith complained about her so much.

From her blog 14/11/2016: “Even if Trump means well, his schemes tend to be blunt, selfish, and short-sighted, rather than nuanced, empathetic, and thought through.”

Who the heck does she think she is. 
I’ve said it before but she is out of control. Again.

Posted by DavidB on 05/06/17 at 12:37 AM | #

@KrissyG@DavidB, Knox is out of control, too right. I think I know why. A PMF member remarked on her recent West Seattle Herald piece about her sister, Deanna, so I reluctantly checked out Knox’s newspaper column. Turns out her article is all about Sibling Rivalry with Deanna, its long course which seems to be culminating now in Deanna’s upcoming nuptials seven months from now, which I think places the wedding in November. Knox did not specify the date, just “seven months” in the future.

Knox states in the WSH that Deanna called her and exhorted Knox to get pregnant, claiming Deanna wants to be an aunt and thinks Chris the current boyfriend is good for Knox. (Naturally there was no mention of Chris marrying Amanda or putting a ring on it first, or doing the right thing, not in that family.)

Knox analyzes Deanna’s strange encouragement to have a baby out of wedlock as some form of inverted kindness, so that Knox might still win out by being first in motherhood, since Deanna will be first down the aisle.

This major milestone and lifestep her younger sister is taking before her may be the reason for Knox’s current anxiety and yes she is out of control.
However, she assures Deanna that she is not expecting a baby, says she and Chris cannot afford one. She seems perplexed at Deanna’s suggestion.

So the Sibling Rivalry is in full bloom. Deanna might momentarily sweep ahead of the egomaniac Knox for one rare moment, walking the aisle first. But Knox got ahead of her by walking into court with guards on either side to face a judge not a priest, and thus onto the world stage the easy way, no accomplishments necessary, just the destruction of another life. Meredith paid for Knox’s headlines.

Now a wedding of baby sister. Will Knox attend? Will cameras cover the day, or will it be like her college graduation, top secret and hidden away?

Deanna has her turn to shine in seven months, the tables have turned and Knox if she is the Knox we know so well, may not be pleased.

Watch out, Deanna. Knox may scurry ahead of you to a Las Vegas chapel or a King County justice of the peace and get hitched and get with child ahead of you yet. 

It was probably this same merciless competition and envy for prominence that set the stage for her rage against Meredith. Deanna is actually lucky to be alive and well and able to put on a wedding dress, having been in close proximity to a human volcano for years.

Knox claims in the article that she once won a school prize for best student and that a teacher called Deanna in to assure her she needn’t try to compete with her sister’s academic achievement.

Instead of comforting Deanna the teacher’s emphasis on the possibility somehow stirred in her a deep anxiety or desire to do that very thing.

That misguided but wellmeaning teacher’s remarks were the beginning of a long miserable trend of competition between the two sisters as Knox tells it. An invisible immoveable wall was erected between them. The hostility manifested in Deanna’s coldness and meanness to Amanda seemingly for no reason. Knox felt pain and confusion as to its origin until they had a long talk and broke the ice.

In the WSH Knox shares with the world that Deanna felt sidelined by Knox’s notorious murder case, that Deanna envied the focus of Edda and the family on Knox during the trial, and she felt that she would forever be in the shadow of Knox’s world fame (or should it be world shame?)

No doubt Knox revels at this thought, the fame part, on some level.

The wedding this autumn of Deanna Knox before Miss Amanda Marie Pace Foxy Knox is a small part of redressing the sisterly imbalance.

The woes increase. In another recent Knox writing, she discusses how she and Chris had to put down his two pet rats. Knox had a tear in her eye, she said, and mentioned the emptiness of the event because it had no ceremony (what, like living in sin with Chris Robinson while Deanna takes wedding vows?) but the euthanasia of the rats was done very simply at the vet because the rats had come to the end of their natural lifespan.

Chris had used them once as a prop at one of his book signings but ended up liking the creatures and keeping them as pets.

Having plunged into the abyss of Knox writings online I also saw her description of a recent Innocence convention which Chris and Edda attended with her.

Knox sounded slightly miffed about the exhausting struggle of the whole convention (maybe this was my jaundiced interpretation, I admit) but she sounded between the lines slightly envious of Edda who was immensely enjoying the social side of the innocence gatherings and basically dancing the night away so to speak, feeling like the belle of the ball (my words) while Knox faced a little more of the stress of the event and the jampacked schedule with a lack of sleep.

She says this was Chris’s first innocence convention and Edda’s fourth.

Knox talks about the masks they made during a workshop, the theme being what mask do you wear to show the world? Knox admits to being flummoxed by the question.

Knox made a mask of a sad but smiling girl.

She recalled with irritation Edda’s efforts to keep her spirits up in prison by cheerleading her to keep smiling despite the pain of prison life. Knox was desperately sad at the time and the advice peeved her.

In this I must agree with her that her mother seems tone deaf to say the least. There is a time to “weep with them that weep” and not speak lightly to the grief of another individual.

No doubt, like Trump, as a mother Edda at the time was alarmed by her daughter’s growing despondency and meant well. She wanted to pull Knox out of an incipient depression but Knox still seems miffed about it, being forced to smile when she’s sad (or is it not sadness under the smile but anger?)

No doubt Knox wears so many masks, she could not settle on a single one for the workshop.

So Knox from these writings seems anything but the happy camper.

At least she has the masks and the charades and parades of pretenders called innocence conventions to enjoy.

At these pretender jamborees they can all breathe freely in their falseness together. Ahhh, the good life. Along with the willingly deluded parents dancing about so happy their offspring slipped under the prison cell and over the wall back to the vipers’ nest.

Must be better than Saturday Night Live tv, and meals provided.

@At KrissyG, your comment about Knox’s faux efforts to support exonerees and the wrongly convicted—yes, she’s probably greatly exaggerating her support role or any real efforts for these former jailbirds or currently incarcerated. She failed to even bother to write responses to the many people who corresponded with her in prison who gave her their affection and support at a critical time when she must have needed to be bolstered in 2007, 2008, 2009 etc. And at that time, she had lots of time on her hands with nothing in the world to do sitting in a cell.

But she will go anywhere that has a microphone and an audience, that’s her thing.

Always remember: she is a sociopath who will say anything.

She doesn’t mind embarrassing her only sister in the newspaper in the town they live in.

Check out the Sibling Rivalry article in West Seattle Herald to see the extent of her details about Deanna if you want to see real cheek.

If she had her sister’s permission, I apologize for the above conclusion.

Posted by Hopeful on 05/06/17 at 02:45 PM | #

@Hopeful

I have always felt sorry for Deanna, when it is so obvious Amanda is jealous of her.

Posted by KrissyG on 05/07/17 at 03:08 AM | #

GROUND REPORT SITE CLOSED http://perugiamurderfile.net/viewtopic.php?p=131986#p131986

Posted by Ergon on 05/14/17 at 05:37 AM | #

Excellent couple of posts from @jamesraper and the usual insightful and forensic comments from @hopeful, @krissyg et al.

I used to read Knox’s horrible, student level musings regularly but found it a depressing experience. She has a dreadful writing style and obviously remembers the portion of her lectures where they discussed how powerful metaphors can enhance a piece. Indeed there are times when her dull metaphors completely overwhelm her writing. In short she is, at best, a bog standard writer. That’s me being extremely kind.

She continues to mock Meredith and her family at every opportunity and cannot hide the fact that she is extremely covetous of others. She’s fame hungry and is just bright enough to know that she has no actual talent that would facilitate her rise in the world, hence it was probably inevitable that she would go down the infamy route at some stage. Classic psychopath behaviour. I do wonder what small animals likely suffered at the hands of Knox when she was younger.

There’s little doubt that jealousy of Meredith (better looking, more intelligent and popular where Knox was openly disliked) and her growing antipathy towards Knox drove Poxy’s already damaged psyche over the edge. Poor Meredith doubtless knew that Knox was hateful but I’m sure she wouldn’t have known the full depths of depravity that Knox was capable of plumbing.

In Knox’s continued mocking of Meredith and her family with her awful weekly column, she is utterly incapable of hiding the fact that she is a deeply disturbed, deeply unhappy human being. She overplays consistently the stuff about how in control of her life she is and how happy she is with the weird boyfriend. Someone without whom she wouldn’t even have the one gig that actually pays her any money. Good old Chris’s daddy being a major player at the WSH.

In amongst her self obsessed drivel, we can see shining out like beacons in the dark, signposts around her despair at being dumped by Madison, her exetreme jealousy of her sister and her continued and even more extreme jealousy of Meredith. Even in death, Meredith continues to outshine her; thankfully now out of each of Poxy’s murdering hands but a constant reminder to Knox of what a miserable failsure she actually is.

Before murdering poor Meredith, Knox thought thought her only path to success and popularity was to get on her back for any man who showed a passing interest. Only deeply unhappy, normally depressed people try to find love and unhappiness in this way. When the deeply unhappy person is a psychopath like Knox, the likelihood of extreme violence erupting at some point is greatly increased.

The fates conspired and a truly decent human being who did the right things and who was beautiful, inside and out, lost her life. It still makes me sick when I think about it.

As @grahamrhodes often reminds us, Knox’s time will come. It may be many more years but we’ll still be here at TJMK, keeping Meredith’s memory alive. What a celebration we will have.

I envisage a NY Central Park meeting with @peterquennell addressing those of us who have managed to fly in and then we all repair to a suitable hostelry for much joyous celebration.

True justice for Meredith Kercher will come. It simply must.

Posted by davidmulhern on 05/14/17 at 12:06 PM | #

Apologies for the spelling errors above. I normally have a quick proof read before posting but didn’t this time around. I will next time!

Posted by davidmulhern on 05/14/17 at 12:09 PM | #

An ideal Hollywood-style scenario will have a script wherein the pair really milk their crime for all it’s worth.  Raff not only runs a grave care website, he diversifies (product development) into holding seances and providing a mummifying service.

Knox founds an online magazine called ‘Exonerated’ and registers it as a charity to avoid tax.  Members of Injustice in Perugia are obliged to click on it several times an hour to make it look busy.  Clickbait is Delanney and Ashley.  Deanna has a lucky escape from Amanda’s clutches after her marriage, moving one thousand miles away to the other side of the country.  She throws her wedding bouquet over her shoulder, which hits Knox smack in the face.

She begs Party Rock to marry her so that she can try and outstage that b***h Deanna and to buy her a bigger engagement ring than Deanna.  Party Rock dayreams of planning his escape from Kox, but he is terrified she will stalk him.  So he introduces her to all his frineds, hoping she’ll get off with them instead, as she did with him, whilst Thunderstrike back was turned, but who was ecstatic to run a mile in the opposite direction, taking a cut in a ‘gagging clause’.

Knox attempts to populate her EXONERATE magazine with interviews with upcoming Seattle artists, photographers and pop stars.  She throws herself at likely-looking musicians.  She persuades one to let her strum along with him.  His failure to be the slightest impressed by her is met by a savage review online by her hand, dismissing his new album with the faintest of praise.

Photographers can get a free plug if they agree to do a load of shots of her in pretentious poses, such as balancing an apple on her head, or trying to touch her nose with her tongue or crossing her eyes to highlight her ‘goofiness’, which Party Rock encourages, being the artist that he is.

The epiphany of the film happens when Raff, desperate and in the gutter, his undertaking business in liquidation, his father bankrupt, Vanessa working as a waitress and Cassazione having given his compensation appeal the ‘bum’s rush’ decides to take the easy way out.  The Wicked One no longer hears his prayers, even when he invokes Marilyn Manson.  Sadly, he fail to top himself, too, as he forgot to sharpen his knife.  However, the policeman who finds Raff in a stupor in the road clutching a suicide note, opens the letter and reads it, his jaw-dropping.  He immediately rings Mignini.

Knox is in the middle of receiving yet another ‘award’ ‘in honor’ of her services to an Innocence Project conference with a nice beach, when in bursts the FBI to arrest her for the murder and sexual assault of Meredith Kercher.

Raff has confessed in his suicide note.  He writes, ‘I might be going, Papa, but I’m taking that b***h with me!’ 

The pair are charged again under the jurisdiction of ‘new evidence’ as they were only ever let off because of ‘insufficient evidence’.  Now they get to serve the 25 years each they deserve.

Friends and family of Mez are in court to see them go down.

Carnivals and street parties go on for days in Perugia.

Gumbel, Blackhurst and McGinn are forced to repay all the money they lined their pockets with under the Son of Sam acts.

Posted by KrissyG on 05/14/17 at 05:37 PM | #

@davidmulhern, I’ll join yall in NYC for that justice celebration. All the sweeter for the long delay.

@KrissyG, There’s so much truth in what you say. The Hollywood script of Knox and Raf’s future antics and fates—thanks for all the reminders of their tendencies, it brought back memories—so much water under the bridge. Is Lao Tzu or somebody making it run uphill? Forever?

Posted by Hopeful on 05/15/17 at 05:37 PM | #

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