Saturday, June 01, 2013

Updating Our Scenarios And Timelines #1: The Timing Of RS Phone Events By Coordinated Universal Time

Posted by Cardiol MD




1. Updating our scenarios

TMJK’s core focus has long been upon “What happened at 7 Via della Pergola, in Perugia, on the night of November 1-2, 2007?”

Over the last 4+ years more than 20 TJMK posts, with more than 400 comments, have addressed the subject of possible scenarios and timelines for those events.

They represent a lot of thought, and many are worth reading if you haven’t come across them before.

This post is the first of several that will reappraise the more probable speculations, using the current state of our information.

Coordinated Universal Time

Our objective knowledge of the actual events is inherently limited, but the cumulative evidence is overwhelmingly large, so each post will focus on a different aspect of that evidence, starting with the most reliable, accurate, and precise facts: the UTC Telephone Traffic Records created by the telephone systems of Italy, the USA, and the UK.

UTC [Coordinated Universal Time] is used for civil timekeeping all over the Earth’s surface.

https://tinyurl.com/cskd9xu

Therefore, for example, the timings of the mobile-phone, and landline-phone calls between Sollecito, in Perugia, Sollecito’s father Francesco, in Bari, and Sollecito’s sister, in Puglia, are precisely recorded with their Start, End, and Duration timings, but not their content. The locations of phones at those times are detectable.

Coordinated timekeeping is crucial. Uncoordinated timekeeping can wrongly result in the timing of events before they have even occurred. For example there were extensive extrajudicial arguments about the precise time-of-arrival of the Postal Police. I counted over 100 refs to this in the various books about the murder.

“Normalising” on UTC as I do here is almost as if the phone-users are wearing criminal-offender ankle-monitors. There is no wiggle room. This goes for all the civil-calls relevant here, including those calls between Knox in Perugia and her mother in Seattle.

2. RS phone records for around 1 Nov

Here is the UTC-recorded telephone traffic of Raffaele Sollecito’s mobile phone beginning with the entire day of Thursday 1.11.07 [from Massei Translation beginning p. 318]:

[Thursday 1.11.07]

00:00:39 an outgoing call, just after midnight

00:57 an incoming SMS 319

14:25 an incoming call which lasted 58 seconds

16:50 an incoming call, coming from the mobile phone of the father, lasting 214 sec.

16:56 another call from the father (64 sec.)

20:42:56 call from the father (221 seconds):

This last call is the conversation which Dr. Francesco Sollecito referred to, made after the end of the film he had just seen in the cinema, which the father recommended to the son, at which point Raffaele informed his father of the problem with the water leak in the kitchen.

The whole water-leak story is based on statements from the Defendants and their familial relatives. There is no separate proof.

Open questions:  Is this story an elaborate, and so-far successful, obfuscation?  What leaked? What stopped the leak?  Is the water-leak story linked to the knife? Is it linked to the time-of-death?

More open questions:  The incriminating kitchen-knife was scrubbed-clean? Well, almost.  Where was it scrubbed? When was it scrubbed? It was assumed the knife was scrubbed in Sollecito’s sink.

Suppose (as TJMK reader Domingo recently conjectured): “they deliberately disconnected the u-bend tube to make sure that it was cleaned out and that there was no DNA residue trapped there”; and that they did have “difficulty reconnecting it properly, hence the leak.”

That would be AFTER the murder.  While trying to eliminate DNA-residue, that residue would now be all over the floor of a place where Meredith had never been.  Hence the elaborate obfuscation?

Would Father Sollecito agree to indicate that the water-leak had occurred BEFORE the murder? Of course he would. From the Massei Report with regard to the day of Friday 2.11.07

[Friday 2.11.07]

06:02:59 Sollecito Raffaele received the SMS from his father wishing him a good night; from the evidence of the mobile phone record printouts of Dr Francesco Sollecito, it was shown that the sending of the message occurred at, as has been said, 23:41:11 of 1.11.07. This was the last SMS sent from that mobile phone during the whole day of 1.11.07 [page 342]

Here is Amanda Knox, in the e-mail to Seattle dated Saturday 4 November 2007: “We did not go out.”

Soon thereafter, she and Raffaele also left and went to Raffaele’s house” to watch a movie, have dinner and spend the evening and the night at home (written re night of Thurs Nov. 1-2, 2007) [Massei p.63] “

Here, spontaneously, not under any police pressure, Knox publicises her final alibi.

[Friday 2.11.07]

09:24 AM Raffaele Sollecito received a phone call from his father lasting 248 seconds.

Open questions:  What were Raffaele and his father discussing that morning for over 4 minutes? Didn’t Raffaele know they had killed Meredith? Weren’t Meredith’s phones already dumped? Wasn’t the break-in already faked? Hadn’t the clean-up been in-progress?

In Honor Bound (Kindle Locations 400-403). Sollecito acknowledges this call, writing: 

“My father called my landline a little before nine thirty the next morning to make sure we would be ready for our day trip to Gubbio. I was too groggy to talk. I’d been up several times in the night - listening to music, answering e-mail, making love - and wanted only to go back to sleep. Amanda got out of bed and said she was going home to shower and change her clothes, so I walked her to the front door, gave her a kiss, and crawled back under the covers.”

[Friday 2.11.07]

09:29 another call was received lasting 38 seconds.

Open question:  What were Raffaele and his father discussing now?

[Friday 2.11.07]

09:30 the father called Raffaele; the call connected to the Vial Belardi sector 7 cell (the best server cell for Corso Garibaldi 30)

No apparent response - and probably not a private signal.

[Friday 2.11.07]

12:35: Raffaele’s mobile phone contacted a service centre for a phone [credit] recharge (the cell used was that of Piazza Lupattelli sector 7, which gives coverage to the little house on Via della Pergola 7. The signal in question does not reach Corso Garibaldi 30, which instead is served by the signal from Piazza Lupattelli sector 8)

12:38: Vodafone sent a message of confirmation of phone [credit] recharge (Piazza Lupattelli sector 7 cell, good for Via della Pergola 7)

12:40: incoming call from the father’s mobile phone (lasting 67 seconds; connection through Piazza Lupattelli sector 7 cell, compatible with the Sollecito’s presence near the little house)

Open question:  What were Raffaele and his father discussing now?

[Friday 2.11.07]

12:50:34 outgoing call directed at mobile phone 347-1323774 belonging to Vanessa Sollecito, sister of the defendant; duration 39 seconds. Connection to Piazza Lupattelli sector 7 cell 320

Open question:  What were Raffaele and Vanessa discussing ?

[Friday 2.11.07]

12:51:40 Raffaele Sollecito called “š112”› to inform the Carabinieri of the presumed theft in Romanelli’s room (duration 169 seconds; connection to Via dell’Aquila 5-Torre dell’Acquedotto sector 1 cell, which covers Via della Pergola 7)

12:54: a second call by Raffaele to “š112”› (57 sec.; connection to Piazza Lupattelli sector 7 cell)

13:40:12: incoming call from the father (94.; Via dell’Aquila 5-Torre dell’Acquedotto sector 1 cell)

13:50: the father called for 178 seconds (Piazza Lupattelli sector 7 cell) [343]

Open question:  What were Raffaele and his father discussing for 3 minutes now?

[Friday 2.11.07]

14:33: the father called for 21 seconds (as above)

Open question:  What were Raffaele and his father discussing now?

[Friday 2.11.07]

17:01: the father called for 164 seconds; cell used is that of Via Cappucinelli 5/A sector 2, corresponding to the location of the Perugia Police Station .

Open question:  What were Raffaele and his father discussing now?

[Friday 2.11.07]

17:42: the father called for 97 seconds (as above).

Open question:  What were Raffaele and his father discussing now?

With regard to Raffaele Sollecito’s landline home phone (No. 075-9660789)

On [Wednesday] 31.10.07

Raffaele received “a call” from the father’s fixed line (No. 080-3958602) at 22:14 for 44 seconds

[Thursday] 1.11.07

[Raffaele] called the father’s house at 00:02:41 for 262 seconds

[Saturday] 3.11.07

At 14:16 note was made of two attempted incoming calls from the father’s fixed line.

For the entire day of Thursday 1 November and then of Friday 2 November, Raffaele Sollecito’s fixed line was not affected by any calls, either incoming or outgoing.

(To be continued.)

Comments

One thing is for sure, Father Sollecito was making an awful lot of phone calls to his son, even before the finding of the body.

It would be interesting to know if he called his son several times EVERY DAY. It is perhaps more likely that an overinvolved parent would be willing to provide a false alibi on the details of the leak, but if that is the case Father Sollecito must have known from the start that his son was a suspect.

In a previous post I mentioned that I was once in a slightly analogous situation when I discovered the bodies of an employee I supervised and her husband. Apart from calling our boss, I don’t think I called anyone, certainly not my family, as I had no wish to give them distressing news that could not benefit them in any way (they did not know the people concerned). Of course I was older.

Posted by Domingo on 06/02/13 at 01:21 AM | #

I should think Father Sollecito said something like this to young Rafa:

“Son, you could be in a lot of trouble here, but you are going to have to cut Amanda loose from your alibi story, because if they find her DNA at the crime scene, but not yours, then you are going to look like a complete liar if you say she was with you every minute of the night. At least it is worth a shot.”

Posted by Domingo on 06/02/13 at 01:25 AM | #

Thanks cardiol, for the excellent post. I look for the second installment.

The son and pop are very close and I am sure pop knows everything. And please include the sis by induction.

Yes, I too think that the plastic U was pulled out to clean sediments. But I do not underestimate RS intelligence: he would have cleaned the knife in the bathroom over the toilet.

But if I remember correctly, AK does not recall whether she had sex on that night. The Judge made a very interesting comment.

Both are sick. But RS has not been investigated so thoroughly (as AK) but it would have been easier and far more rewarding, I think.

Posted by chami on 06/02/13 at 06:21 AM | #

One wonders why RS switched his phone on early (6.02 am) 2nd Nov.

Was he expecting a message (s)? Was this his usual habit?

At the very least, Father S. must have known a great deal about his son’s movements and whereabouts.

Posted by SeekingUnderstanding on 06/02/13 at 10:45 AM | #

One wonders why RS wanted/needed to phone his father, from his landline at 2 minutes past midnight on the 1st Nov. for over 4 minutes, when his father had already sent a text saying Goodnight at 11.41 pm, 20 mins before (which RS hadn’t picked up) ?

Again, a comparison to usual habits would be of interest.

Posted by SeekingUnderstanding on 06/02/13 at 11:13 AM | #

“For the entire day of 1 November and then of 2 November, Raffaele Sollecito’s fixed line was not affected by any calls, either incoming or outgoing.”

Ah, but not according to Sollecito, who says that he received two calls from his father on his landline; one at 11pm on the 1st Nov (as per his statement to the police on the 6th), and again a little before 9.30am on the 2nd (as per his book).

Posted by James Raper on 06/02/13 at 02:51 PM | #

@ James, thanks for the heads-up.

Your quote of my quote “For the entire day of 1 November and then of 2 November, Raffaele Sollecito’s fixed line was not affected by any calls, either incoming or outgoing” is correct, of course.

I should not have included it.

This Post did include “09:24 Raffaele Sollecito received a phone call from his father lasting 248 seconds”  and “My father called my landline a little before nine thirty the next morning to make sure we would be ready for our day trip to Gubbio” so readers had already been informed that the 09:24 call was a landline call.

This series has not yet reached the 6th of Nov.2007, but thanks again for the mention of one at 11pm on the 1st Nov (as per his statement to the police on the 6th.

Posted by Cardiol MD on 06/02/13 at 07:19 PM | #

@Cardiol

I seem to have got you confused. There was indeed no landline phone activity on the 1st and 2nd November (well except for a call a couple of minutes after midnight, ie, am on the 1st) so my point is that Sollecito was lying/playing games with his landline call claims. See my e-mail.

Posted by James Raper on 06/02/13 at 09:21 PM | #

@ Domingo:

“One thing is for sure, Father Sollecito was making an awful lot of phone calls to his son, even before the finding of the body.
It would be interesting to know if he called his son several times EVERY DAY.”

It would be really interesting to know Father Sollecito’s normal pattern of phone calls to his son - maybe the Florence prosecutors will reconstruct it.

How about Francisco saying:

“What!!! Say that again! [Rafaelle Sollecito says “it” again at length, with whining excuses..] Raf!, why are you such an idiot!? You and your [expletive] knives! How many times have I told you they’ll only get you into trouble?!  Now you are really in the [expletive]!!

I know you didnt mean it but it’s totally predictable!!  First get rid of that American [expletive]!! And keep your mouth shut, while I figure out how to save your skin! then I’ll get back to you! Now hang up!”


@chami & @SeekingUnderstanding; Part 2 is approaching

Posted by Cardiol MD on 06/02/13 at 11:34 PM | #

@Cordiol,

If it were somehow possible to establish that the water-leak conversation didn’t really take place on the evening of the 1st it would certainly have bearing on the story they gave for why there was a mop and bucket standing outside the cottage when the postal police arrived the next morning.

That mop and bucket are only slightly less incriminating than a bloody knife in their hands would have been if the police had arrived at some stage during the night.

Posted by SoftTone on 06/03/13 at 06:32 AM | #

@SoftTone

There is something fishy about the whole mop-and-leak story…both the timing and the amount. Was the mop tested, for bleach, for example? One doesn’t need bleach to wipe up a leak. Are there any photographs of the kitchen from that time?

Posted by SeekingUnderstanding on 06/03/13 at 10:24 AM | #

It’s the 12.40 call on November 2nd which gets me. I’ve brought this up a number of times, I’ve even asked Sollecito himself about it on his ‘liaise with the lunatic’ site but he chooses not to reply.

At 12.40 Sollecito receives a 67 second call from his father, the cell site analysis confirming he’s almost certainly inside the cottage, it’s about 8 minutes before he makes the ‘worried’ call to his sister and yet he mentions nothing to his father about the scene confronting him and Amanda? How can this possibly be?

The earlier topping up of his phone was at 12.35, taking more than 2 minutes, and again with the cell site analysis indicating he’s in the cottage at this point, is also incredibly odd and seems completely incongruous with his repeated claims to have been immediately concerned with the scene he encountered at the cottage.

Posted by Welshy on 06/03/13 at 09:49 PM | #

@ Welshy

Yes, what was discussed during the 12.40 call? Or indeed the earlier call. How come we don’t have Papa Doc on record about this? Or do we?

Frankly I would have thought that it would take longer than 67 seconds to explain to a bewildered father (Raffaele being something of a bewildering bumbler) exactly why he and Amanda were at her cottage rather than in Gubbio. Imagine it as a two way conversation in the same way as occurred in the two 112 calls which by comparison took 226 seconds.

His call to Vanessa is suspiciously brief at 39 seconds and to me it looks as if she was awaiting his call.

Posted by James Raper on 06/04/13 at 01:35 AM | #

Cardiol,  Thank You for this post as I find these “stories” about the water leak and the phone calls very interesting.

From your post above :

“The whole water-leak story is based on statements from the Defendants and their familial relatives. There is no separate proof.”

“Open questions:  Is this story an elaborate, and so-far successful, obfuscation?  What leaked? What stopped the leak?  Is the water-leak story linked to the knife? Is it linked to the time-of-death.”

- - - - -


This whole “water-leak” story still puzzles me ... So do you think it was “invented” after Knox and Sollecito were caught with the mop and bucket outside the cottage when the postal police arrived ?  Or—to deflect from the truth for something else Knox and Sollecito did ?

This is JMO, but I do not think that the 2 defendants were smart enough to be concerned about any DNA being washed down the drain, thus, taking apart the pipes, cleaning them, etc.

But I was wondering IF it was possible that Knox and Sollecito were trying to clean up an item they brought over to Raf’s from the crime scene, and while washing it in the sink, the item or a piece of the item got stuck in the drainpipe, causing problems, and they were fumbling around trying to get item out—just in case CSI decided to take a look around ...

I know—it’s probably a stretch ... but that’s the only thing I could think of—that something got stuck in the pipe ...  I just don’t think Knox and Sollecito were coherent enough—or smart enough—to think about washing away DNA ...

I hope this made sense.  Thank You again.

MizzMarple

Posted by MissMarple on 06/04/13 at 06:17 AM | #

Welshy - that indeed is pretty odd, and I agree with you, how was it possible not to say anything to Papa about worries, strange things inside the house, Amanda’s concerns about bloodstains, poop in toilet etc - and to spend only seconds on a call right when you are that supposedly concerned/frightened/trying to break down a door??

Whenever my mother calls me, I can’t get off it for a half-hour to an hour, forget about calls that last only seconds each time!  What can you say in such a brief time?

“Yes we are leaving soon for Gubbio but Amanda needed to go home to shower again even though usually she showers chez moi.  I’ll call you later after the police arrive, cuz I’m going to call them in just a few, or more minutes, after we finish our search for Meredith, and try to break down her door, and sort out who broke a window and left poop in the toilet…what Dad?  You want me to explain all that?  Forget it.  Ciao.”

It would be interesting to know what was said, but we will never find out.

Posted by believing on 06/04/13 at 07:40 AM | #

We have no proof there even was a leaking pipe.  Did anyone check to see if it was really loose or not?  Usually you can tell.

I think it was just a story to explain the mop.  It is too odd that you would carry a mop back taking 5 minutes to a house through the streets in the morning rather than just clean up water with a bath towel.

It makes no logical sense at all.  If so, why the look of surprise when the postal police arrive?  Why have it in your hand outside the door if you were just recently concerned about a break-in, and finding a roommate?  Or was that just a misconstrued story by the media?  I have no idea anymore what is reality and what is an embellishment.

Posted by believing on 06/04/13 at 07:44 AM | #

I agree Believing, one gets so tied up in knots.

Welshy, excellent point re length of calls and it does appear that the sister was expecting that call James.

Re the mop, just throwing this out there, but what if there was no leak at all and that was the smokescreen for the mop being outside with them. What purpose could the mop have served, if you say ‘there was no leak at RS’s’?

I’m with Miss Marple, it seems most unlikely that AK and RS would concern themselves with DNA in the drain and most likely that they think that the bleach could have taken care of that eventuality anyhow.

Could the mop have been bleached at RS’s? Could they have actually staged the scene using the mop and then cleaned that, along with the knife?

Someone noted on PMF (skep I think) that the lack of DNA of AK and RS on Meredith’s sleeves/arms point to those two using gloves, and this was neatly linked to the image of RS dressed up with his meat cleaver. Chilling! If gloves were involved, making RG the one restraining Meredith and AK and RS with the knives in their protected hands, then exactly how planned out was the attack? Until reading this, I tended towards thinking it was an argument between AK and Meredith that spiralled out of control. But now…

Posted by TruthWillOut on 06/04/13 at 09:02 AM | #

@ believing

“I think it was just a story to explain the mop.  It is too odd that you would carry a mop back 5 minutes to a house through the streets in the morning rather than just clean up water with a bath towel.”


I agree ... I think Knox and Raf “got caught with their pants down” when the Postal Police showed up when Knox and Sollecito were standing outside the cottage with a mop and bucket—AND—and the 2 had not even called the Police yet—AND—not long after that, Meredith was found dead in the bedroom with proof of a cleaned up and staged crime scene.


@TruthWillOut

I agree ... and I think Knox and Raf poured bleach down the drain to wash away any possible DNA evidence—which MAY expalin the “smell” of bleach by the police arrived at Raf’s apartment.

I use bleach to clean out the drainpipes regularly per the recommendations of a plumber—and the bleach does leave a “faint odor.”


@Cardiol

Looking forward to your next posts !


@TJMK

Keep up the great work !


MizzMarple

Posted by MissMarple on 06/04/13 at 04:00 PM | #

@ James, Welshy, MizzMarple,  believing, &TruthWillOut;.

Maybe we’ve been lured into futile discussion of the “Leak-that-never-was”?

Domingo explained a cause of a leak, and a fix of a leak.

The defendant’s version of the cause, from Massei:

“...water was leaking below and he looked at it; he turned off the water and then looked below the sink, and this pipe had become loose, so the water that was coming from the faucet was leaking out.‛ (page 77). It would have been around 21:30-22:00 pm. She remembered that Raffaele was very upset about that inconvenience and he told her that the pipe had recently been repaired….”

By whom was it next repaired? When? They’re silent.

This leak story might not-only have been thought-up after the murder, but could have been thought-up by a family-member, including fathers, mothers, and sisters, including Vanessa.

Posted by Cardiol MD on 06/04/13 at 11:09 PM | #

@ cardiol

“By whom was it next repaired? When? They’re silent.”


My first guess would be that Papa Sollecito took care of this “detail”—just like he takes care of everything else that Raf does which lands him “in trouble.”

And thanks, cardiol !

Posted by MissMarple on 06/05/13 at 01:01 AM | #

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