Overview: This page exclusively covers the 500 or so zombie lies in Knox's English-only 2013 book. See this page for Knox's zombie lies to media and paying groups.
Category: Knox’s Tortured Logic
1. AK Tortured Logic 1 To 20
Posted by Chimera
HarperCollin’s Jonathan Burnham and Claire Wachtell who edited and published Knox’s book
1. Series Overview
Waiting to be Heard was first released in April 2013, after Cassation had confirmed AK’s false accusation of PL for rape and murder, and after it had thrown out the Hellmann/Zanetti finding of not guilty.
That successful prosecution appeal reverted their legal status back to “guilty, pending further appeals”. In light of this, the publisher, HarperCollins, seemingly thought they could avoid legal trouble if the book was pulled from the UK (on advice of their own lawyers) and Italy.
The paperback version was released on June 9, 2015, the day AK’s second calunnia trial—for making false accusations on the stand against Perugia police—was set to begin. The “new version” contained a whiny afterword, but left the previous stuff untouched.
Once again, it was released prior to Cassation actually releasing its sentencing report, in this case late in 2015, and once again it has come back to haunt AK/RS.
This is the fourth and final series of over 20 posts on the book in total, the previous series having been on (1) Knox’s 600 or so malicious and self-serving lies, (2) Knox’s 100 or so false accusations, and (3) instances of Knox being contradicted by the Supreme Court.
All the 20-plus posts can be read in sequence in our Knox book hoaxes category.
Included among around 600 smears and malicious lies, there are numerous smears about her “friends” Meredith, Laura and Filomena, about drug use while Knox with characteristic hypocrssy AK omits her own heavy drug use and her exchanges of sex for free drugs from Federico Martini.
Included among around 100 false accusations: AK accuses (1) Judge Paolo Micheli (pre-trial) and Judge Giancarlo Massei (trial) of professional misconduct; (2) Judge Claudia Matteini (preliminary hearing) of incompetence; (3) Prosecutors Mignini/Comodi of misconduct and suborning perjury; (4) Rita Ficarra of assault; (5) Ficarra, Monica Napoleoni, Marca Chiacchiera, Patrizia Stefanoni of committing perjury; and (5) translator Anna Donnino of misrepresenting herself.
(6) Knox also accuses the justice officials of trying to frame her and RS—and vilify them in the media—to save their careers and to look good. (7) She also claims that the police coerced/bullied her into making the false accusation of Patrick Lumumba. AK also accuses prison officials (8) of sexual assault; (9) of intimidation; (10) of sexual harassment; (11) of harassment; (12) of covering up police brutality; (13) of leaking confidential medical records; (14) of providing an unsafe environment for her; (15) of keeping her in isolation unnecessarily; and (16) of denying her counsel.
No complaints were ever filed, either in jail after being released, though Italian defense lawyers are REQUIRED to file complaints if their client tells them of illegalities. Publishing a book 18 months later is not at all the same thing and in fact sets up liabilities.
1. Knox’s Tortured Logic
The book just doesn’t make sense. It contradicts itself repeatedly, and makes many claims that just do not pass muster. It speaks to Knox’s extreme unreliabilty as a narrator and to her self-servingness at every posibility. Read these three posts for yourself, and see if any of this actually seems normal.
Tortured Logic #1: AK Shows What This is All About
[Chapter 2, Page 16] This was my first bona fide one-night stand.
I’d told my friends back home that I couldn’t see myself sleeping with some random guy who didn’t matter to me. Cristiano was a game changer.
We didn’t have a condom, so we didn’t actually have intercourse. But we were making out, fooling around like crazy, when, an hour later, I realized, I don’t even know this guy. I jumped up, kissed him once more, and said good-bye. I went upstairs to the tiny room Deanna and I were sharing.
She was wide awake, standing by the window. “Where have you been?” she asked. “I didn’t know where you were or if you were okay.”[Chapter 3, Page 32] “Do you want to eat at my place?” Mirko asked. “We can watch a movie.”
“Sure,” I said, and instantly felt an inner jolt. It came from the sudden certainty that we would have sex, that that’s where our flirtation had been heading all along.
We carried our pizza boxes through Piazza Grimana, by the University for Foreigners, and down an unfamiliar street, past a park. Mirko’s house was at the end of a gravel drive. “I live here with my sister,” he told me.
During dinner at his kitchen table my thoughts battled. Was I ready to speed ahead with sex like this? I still regretted Cristiano. But I’d also been thinking about what Brett and my friends at UW had said. I could picture them rolling their eyes and saying, “Hell000, Amanda. Sex is normal.” Casual sex was, for my generation, simply what you did.[Chapter 4, Page 39] The next morning I got up before he did, got dressed, and went to make myself breakfast. Bobby came into the kitchen a few minutes later. We were eating cookies when Laura came out of her bedroom. I’d never entertained a lover at the villa for breakfast, and it was awkward, despite Laura’s proclaimed sense of easy sexuality. All three of us tried to ignore the feeling away.
After breakfast Bobby left to return to Rome. 1 walked him to the door. He smiled, waved, and walked away.
I didn’t feel the same regret I’d had after sex with Mirko, but I still felt the same emptiness. I had no way of knowing what a big price I would end up paying for these liaisons.[Chapter 5, Page 57] Being with Raffaele also taught me a big lesson about my personality that I’d tried so hard””and harmfully, in Cristiano’s case””to squelch. I was beginning to own up to the fact that casual hookups like I’d had with Mirko and Bobby weren’t for me.
I like being able to express myself not just as a lover but in a loving relationship. Even from the minuscule perspective of a few days with Raffaele, I understood that, for me, detaching emotion from sex left me feeling more alone than not having sex at all””bereft, really.
Commentary: So 4 of the first 5 chapters are devoted to describing her ‘‘campaign for casual sex’‘. Is that really why she wrote the book - to prove she is sexually obsessive and voracious?
Tortured Logic #2: AK Turning Off her Phone Would Notify Patrick She was Unavailable if he Texts
[Chapter 5, Page 62] Quickly checking my phone, I saw that Patrick had sent me a text telling me I didn’t have to come in. Since it was a holiday, he thought it would be a slow night.
“Okay,” I texted back. “Ci vediamo piu tardi buona serata!”“” “See you later. Have a good evening!” Then I turned off my phone, just in case he changed his mind and wanted me to come in after all. I was so excited to have the night off that I jumped on top of Raffaele, cheering, “Woo-hoo! Woo-hoo!”
Commentary: If Patrick called then he would know she was unavailable, but texting a message would not get rejected.
Tortured Logic #3: AK Turning Off her Phone to be Alone—And This Happened to be the First and Only Time
[Chapter 5, Page 62] Then I turned off my phone, just in case he changed his mind and wanted me to come in after all. I was so excited to have the night off that I jumped on top of Raffaele, cheering, “Woo-hoo! Woo-hoo!”
Commentary: If AK did this normally, this wouldn’t raise much suspicion. But it is the first time, and both she and RS do it. If AK was really wanting private liasons, wouldn’t it make more sense to do it when she is with Cristiano (a.k.a. Federico Martini, the drug dealer she met on the train)?
Tortured Logic #4: Knox’s ‘‘Account’’ of November 6th, After she has had 6 years to think about it.
[Chapter 6, Page 65-67] 0n that cold, sunny Friday morning, I left Rafael asleep in his apartment and walked home to take a shower and get my things together, thinking about our romantic weekend in the Umbrian hills. In hindsight, it seems that arriving home to find the front door open should have rattled me more. I thought, That’s strange. But it was easily explained. The old latch didn’t catch unless we used a key. Wind must have blown it open, I thought, and walked inside the house calling out, “Filomena? Laura? Meredith? Hello? Hello? Anybody?”
Nobody. The bedroom doors were closed.
I wasn’t alarmed by two pea-size flecks of blood in the bathroom sink that Meredith and I shared. There was another smear on the faucet. Weird. I’d gotten my ears pierced. Were they bleeding? I scratched the droplets with my fingernail. They were dry. Meredith must have nicked herself. It wasn’t until I got out of the shower that I noticed a reddish-brown splotch about the size of an orange on the bathmat. More blood. Could Meredith have started her period and dripped? But then, how would it have gotten on the sink? My confusion increased. We were usually so neat. I went to my room and, while putting on a white skirt and a blue sweater, thought about what to bring along on my trip to Gubbio with Raffaele.
I went to the big bathroom to use Filomena’s blow dryer and was stashing it back against the wall when I noticed poop in the toilet. No one in the house would have left the toilet unflushed. Could there have been a stranger here? Was someone in the house when I was in the shower? I felt a lurch of panic and the prickly feeling you get when you think someone might be watching you. I quickly grabbed my purse and coat and somehow remembered the mop I said I’d bring back to Raffaele’s. I scrambled to push the key into the lock, making myself turn it before I ran up the driveway, my heart banging painfully.
By the time I was a block from home I was second-guessing myself. Maybe I was overreacting. Maybe there was a simple reason for the toilet being unflushed. I needed someone to say, “, you’re right to be scared. This isn’t normal.” And if it wasn’t okay, I wanted someone to tell me what to do. My skittering brain pulled up my mom’s mantra: when in doubt, call. Forgetting the nine-hour time difference between Perugia and Seattle, I pressed the number sequence for home. My mom did not say hello, just “, are you okay? What’s wrong?” It was in the middle of the night in Seattle, and she was worried.
“I’m on my way back to Raffaele’s,” I said, “but I just wanted to check in. I found some strange things in my house.” I explained my reasons for worrying. Then I asked, “What do you think I should do?” “Call your roommates,” she said. “Go tell Raffaele, and call me right back.”
Hearing Mom’s voice calmed me. It can’t be that bad, I thought. Im out of the house. Nothing happened. Pm safe. No one’s in danger. I called Filomena first and was relieved when she picked up. “Ciao, ,” she said. “Ciao,” I said. “I’m calling because when I came home from Raffaele’s this morning, our front door was open. I found a few drops of blood in one bathroom and shit in the other toilet. Do you know anything about it?”
Commentary: This is an excerpt, the whole passage is too long to quote it all here, but AK tries to ‘‘combine’’ every alibi and excuse she has had in here. It actually comes across as more absurd.
Tortured Logic #5: AK Takes Her Ear Piercings Out Just After Getting Them Done
[Chapter 6, Page 65] ” ... faucet. Weird. I’d gotten my ears pierced. Were they bleeding?”
Commentary: In some versions, AK describes herself as “taking them out to clean”. This is absurd, as any woman who has gotten piercings knows that lobe piercings stay in at least 6 weeks. Cartilage piercings can be 3 months or more.
Tortured Logic #6: Knox is Targeted Although ‘‘Everyone’’ From the House was Detained.
[Chapter 7, Page 89] It was early morning by the time I put my notebook away. The police weren’t stopping to sleep and didn’t seem to be allowing us to, either. Rafael and I were part of the last group to leave the questura, along with Laura, Filomena, Giacomo, and the other guys from downstairs, at 5:30 A.M.
Commentary: AK whines that she was targeted, but by her own admission everyone from the house was held at the Questura.
Tortured Logic #7: Knox’s “Friends” Don’t Mind her Publishing Embarrassing Things About Them
[Chapter 8, Page 88] ” ... Did we ever smoke marijuana at No. 7, Via dells Pergola? “No, we don’t smoke,” I lied, squirming
inwardly as I did…”[Chapter 8, Page 92] ” ... Next we went to the room that Marco and Giacomo shared. There was no blood””or contraband plants. While we stood there, the detectives started asking me pointed questions about Giacomo and Meredith. How long had they been together? Did she like anal sex? Did she use Vaseline? “For her lips,” I said. When I’d first gotten to town, Meredith and I had hunted around at different grocery stores until we found a tiny tub of Vaseline.
Giacomo and Meredith had definitely had sex, but I certainly didn’t know which positions they’d tried. Meredith didn’t talk about her sex life in detail. The most she’d done was ask me once if she could have a couple of the condoms I kept stashed with Brett’s still-unused gift, the bunny vibrator, in my see-through beauty case in the bathroom Meredith and I shared.”
Commentary: So much for being respectful as she so often praises herself for.
Tortured Logic #8: Perugia’s Micromanaging ‘‘Mayor’’ Leads Murder Investigations
[Chapter 10, Page 119] Eventually they told me the pubblico ministero would be coming in. I didn’t know this translated as prosecutor, or that this was the magistrate that Rita Ficarra had been referring to a few days earlier when she said they’d have to wait to see what he said, to see if I could go to Germany. I thought the “public minister” was the mayor or someone in a similarly high “public” position in the town and that somehow he would help me.
[Chapter 11, Page 136] My memorials changed nothing. As soon as I gave it to Ficarra, I was taken into the hall right outside the interrogation room, where a big crowd of cops gathered around me. I recognized Pubblico Ministero Giuliano Mignini, who I still believed was the mayor.
[Chapter 14, Page 164] ” ... room””Monica Napoleoni, the black-haired, taloned homicide chief; a male officer from my interrogation; and Pubblico Ministero Giuliano Mignini, the prosecutor, who I still thought was the mayor. Napoleoni was resting her chin on her hand glowering at me, studying my reaction. She seemed to be enjoying this.”
Commentary: If AK really wanted to go with the ‘‘public figure’‘, then Attorney General or Police Commissioner would have made more sense.
Tortured Logic #9: Police Tap Knox’s Phone, but Don’t Bother Pulling Her Phone Records
[Chapter 7, Page 78] ” .... Now I see that I was a mouse in a cat’s game. While I was trying to dredge up any small thing that could help them find Meredith’s killer and trying to get my head around the shock of her death, the police were deciding to bug Raffaele’s and my cell phones.”
Commentary: Setting aside that fact that MANY phones were bugged, why would the police not go the extra mile and actually pull the records of AK’s calls and text? Also, why would they not be able to find out then and there that AK actually had her phone turned off? As AK assures us that this was a police sting, it seems very half-assed.
Tortured Logic #10: Police Leak to the Press That Meredith’s Roommates are Suspected PRIOR to Making an Arrest
[Chapter 9, Page 97] Had I seen a news item that morning in The Mail on Sunday, a London tabloid, it might have shifted everything for me. The article said the Italian police were investigating the possibility that the murderer was a woman””someone whom Meredith had known well. “‘We are questioning her female housemates as well as her friends,’ a senior police detective said.” Or I might simply have thought: It’s not Laura, it’s not Filomena, it’s not me. Whom could they possibly be thinking of?
Commentary: It is not common practice—anywhere—to name a possible suspect, or drop hints, who has not been arrested, unless asking for the public’s help tracking him or her down.
Tortured Logic #11: U.S. Embassies Are Good Sources of Information for all Potential Witnesses in Murder Investigations
[Chapter 10, Page 105] ‘’ .... When my phone rang I drew in my breath, exhaling only after I realized it was Dolly. “Have you reached the American embassy?” she asked.
“No,” I said, stepping into the hall. “I haven’t had time, but I’ll try to figure it out. I’m back in class.’‘
In truth, I hadn’t even thought about calling the embassy.’‘
Commentary: Sure after one has been arrested abroad, an embassy may be helpful. But why contact them during a murder investigation? And in the next point, #12, the UW exchange office calls to check on AK, just because there happened to be a murder in Europe.
Tortured Logic #12: The University of Washington Monitors its Former Students While on Vacation
[Chapter 1, Page 10] ” .... “No, I’ll have to find my own housing, but I’m sure I can get a good apartment close to campus. I checked with the UW foreign exchange office””they say the University for Foreigners will give me a housing list when I get there. I’d really like to live with Italians so I can practice speaking the language.”
Commentary: She checked with the UW foreign exchange office? Why? She wasn’t on an exchange.
[Chapter 8, Page 86] ” .... I hated that I felt so traumatized. As my family, friends, and the UW foreign exchange office checked in one after another, they each said some version of “Oh my God, you must be so scared and alone.” I didn’t want to admit that they were right, that what I was going through was too stressful for me to handle by myself. But the last thing I wanted from my parents””even though it’s probably what I needed most””was to be treated like a child.”
Commentary: Several things: (1) AK wasn’t on any official exchange with the U of W; (2) AK wasn’t actually taking any classes at U of W at all; (3) How would UW even know where AK is at the moment, let alone care?; (4) Even if UW knew where AK was, why would they monitor global news to see what was happening in Perugia?; (5) Was UW foreign exchange office acting like a probation officer or something?; (6) Does UW monitor many students, or just AK?
Tortured Logic #13: AK is ‘‘Lured’’ to the Police Station by Police Who Tell Her to Go Home
[Chapter 10, Page 108] Did the police know Id show up, or were they purposefully separating Rafael and me? When we got there they said I couldn’t come inside, that I’d have to wait for Rafael in the car. I begged them to change their minds. I said, “I’m afraid to be by myself in the dark.”
Commentary: AK is lured to the Questura, but has to beg and plead to be let in? Some sting. What if AK, like 99% of people, had just left when told to?
Tortured Logic #14: AK is ‘‘Lured’’ Into a Sting, but no Interpreter or Video Cameras are Available
[Chapter 10, Page 108] ‘’ ... I was still clueless, still thinking I was helping the police, still unable or unwilling to recognize that I was a suspect. But as the next hours unfolded, I slowly came to understand that the police were trying to get something out of me, that they wouldn’t stop until they had it. To the unnamed police officer, I said, "Okay, but I’ve told you everything I know. I don’t knowvwhat else to say."
‘‘Why don’t you keep talking about the people who’ve been in your house””especially men?’’ he suggested.[Chapter 10, Page 110] ‘’ ... The walls were blank. I had nowhere to look but at the police. They said, “We’re going to call in an interpreter.”
While we waited for the interpreter to arrive, they said, “Tell us more about the last time you saw Meredith.”
Commentary: If what AK says is true, then she was a suspect all along. So, in 4 days, no cameras or interpreters were available for the “sting”?
Tortured Logic #15: The Police Have a Male ‘“Suspect’’ Available, but get Knox to Accuse SOMEONE ELSE
[Chapter 9, Page 99] ‘’ .... But as much as he was helping me, we were careening to a bad end together. Whether it was kissing outside the house while Meredith lay inside dead, or whispering, joking, and making faces in the questura, our behavior had aroused suspicion. I was oblivious to it, but apparently once the police thought we were guilty, it colored everything.’‘
[Chapter 10, Page 108] ‘’ .... Did the police know Id show up, or were they purposefully separating Rafael and me?’‘
I was still clueless, still thinking I was helping the police, still unable or unwilling to recognize that I was a suspect. But as the next hours unfolded, I slowly came to understand that the police were trying to get something out of me, that they wouldnt stop until they had it.[Chapter 10, Page 113] ‘’ .... Just then a cop - Monica Napoleoni, who had been so abrupt with me about the poop and the mop at the villa - opened the door. “Raffaele says you left his apartment on Thursday night,” she said almost gleefully. “He says that you asked him to lie for you. He’s taken away your alibi.”
[Chapter 10, Page 114] ‘’ .... “Where did you go? Who did you text?” Ficarra asked, sneering at me.“I don’t remember texting anyone.”
They grabbed my cell phone up off the desk and scrolled quickly through its history.
“You need to stop lying. You texted Patrick. Who’s Patrick?”
“My boss at Le Chic.”
“What about his text message? What time did you receive that?”
Commentary: Assuming (for the sake of argument) that RS ‘‘had’’ been lured to the Questura to break AK’s alibi, why have AK accuse someone else entirely? It would make far more sense to get AK to flip on RS. Remember: AK was acting weird and inappropriate “with” RS. And if you assume that because it was a sexual assault that a man did it, again, RS would be the perfect target.
Tortured Logic #16: Police Are Able to Target a Couple Who Both Incredibly have Such a Loose Grip on Reality
Eead here and here. This isn’t so much about tortured logic but the most bizarre and fortunate coincidence for the police. They couldn’t have targeted 2 better patsies.
[Chapter 9, Page 102] ” .... I was naive, in over my head, and with an innate stubborn tendency to see only what I wanted.
Above all, I was innocent. There were so many what -ifs that I never even began to contemplate. What if I hadn’t thrown the bunny vibrator in my clear makeup case for anyone to see? What if I hadn’t gone on a campaign to have casual sex? What if Rafael and I hadn’t been so immature? What if Id flown home to Seattle right after the murder, or to Hamburg? What if I’d asked my mom to come immediately to help me? What if I had taken Dolly’s advice? What if I’d gotten a lawyer?”
Commentary: So, sleeping around, being juvenile and showing off her vibrator got her arrested? I can understand the desire to flee the country or get a lawyer, but this just makes no sense.
Tortured Logic #17: Police Simultaneously Want to Know: (a) Who Patrick is; (b) Who Knox Went Off to Meet.
Seems Like They Answer Their Own Questions
[Chapter 10, Page 114] ” .... “I don’t remember texting anyone.”
They grabbed my cell phone up off the desk and scrolled quickly through its history.
“You need to stop lying. You texted Patrick. Who’s Patrick?”
“My boss at Le Chic.”
“What about his text message? What time did you receive that?”[Chapter 10, Page 116] ” ... “Who did you meet up with? Who are you protecting? Why are you lying? Who’s this person?
Who’s Patrick?”
The questions wouldn’t stop. I couldn’t think. And even when it didn’t seem possible, the pressure
kept building.
I said, “Patrick is my boss.”[Chapter 10, Page 117] ” .... People were shouting at me. “Maybe you just don’t remember what happened. Try to think. Try to
think. Who did you meet? Who did you meet? You need to help us. Tell us!”
A cop boomed, “You’re going to go to prison for thirty years if you don’t help us.”
Commentary: AK told them who Patrick was, yet the police seem to still want to know who Patrick is.
[Chapter 10, Page 117] ” .... The silver-haired police officer took both of my hands in his. He said, “I really want to help you. I want to save you, but you need to tell me who the murderer is. You need to tell me. You know who the murderer is. You know who killed Meredith.”
Commentary: AK has told them who she went to meet, and who Patrick is. Do they not put 2 and 2 together?
[Chapter 15, Page 175] “˜’ ... “I didn’t come up with those things on my own,” I said. “I told them I’d been with Raffaele all night at his apartment. But they demanded to know whom I’d left to meet, who Patrick was, if I had let him into the villa. They insisted I knew who the murderer was, that I’d be put in jail for thirty years if I didn’t cooperate.”
Commentary: See point #9, the police apparently had the foresight to tap AK’s phone, but never bothered to pull her phone records. Had she been a target all along, they could have had this information when they launched their sting (meaning not calling AK and telling her to go home when she arrived uninvited).
Tortured Logic #18: Italian Prisons and Police Stations Double as Hotel Rooms
[Chapter 11, Page 129] “We need to take you into custody,” she said. “Just for a couple of days””for bureaucratic
reasons.”
Custody? What does that mean? Are they taking me to a safe house?
The silver-haired cop had told me during my interrogation that they would protect me if I cooperated, if I told them who the murderer was. Will my mom be there with me? Can I call her? What does “bureaucratic reasons” mean? Does it mean they’re just processing my paperwork, my spontaneous declarations?
Commentary: AK is again turning on the BS machine.
Tortured Logic #19: AK, Who Speaks Limited Italian, is Able to Remember VERY LONG Quotes in Italian Years Later (With no Interpreter)
[Chapter 10, Page 110] Then they said, “Okay, minute by minute, we want you to tell us what happened.”
I still thought they were using me to find out more information about Meredith - her habits,
whom she knew, who could possibly have had a motive to kill her. I started trying to describe the
exact time I saw Meredith leave the house. I said, “I think it was around two P.M. - one or two.
I’m not sure which. I don’t wear a watch, and the time didn’t matter - it was a holiday. But I
know it was after lunch.”[Chapter 10, Page 111] ‘’ ... Then the questions shifted. They asked, “When did you leave your house?”
At first, when they started questioning me about what I did, I thought they were just trying to test whether I was telling the truth - maybe because I’d lied about our marijuana use.
I said, “Before dinner - four- ish maybe.”
They said, “Are you sure it was four- ish? Was it four o’clock or five o’clock? You didn’t see the time?”
“No. Then we went to Raffaele’s place.”
“How long it did it take you to get there?”
“I don’t know - a couple of minutes. He doesn’t live far away.”
“What happened then?”
“Nothing happened. We had dinner; we watched a movie; we smoked a joint; we had sex; we went to bed.”
“Are you positive? Nothing else?”
“Well, I got a text message from my boss telling me I didn’t have to work that night.”
“What time did that happen?”
“I think around eight P.M. - maybe. Maybe it was before then.” I was thinking, It had to be before I’d normally go to work. “Maybe seven or eight?”
That wasn’t good enough for them.
They kept asking me for exact times, and because I couldn’t remember what had happened from 7 P.M. to 8 P.M. and 8 P.M. to 9 P.M. they made it seem as if my memory were wrong. I started
second- guessing myself. Raffaele and I had done some variation of watching a movie, cooking dinner, reading Harry Potter, smoking a joint, and having sex every night for the past week.
Suddenly it all ran together so that I couldn’t remember what time we’d done what on Thursday, November 1. I kept saying, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry.”
I was afraid to say that I didn’t know the difference between 7 P.M. or 8 P.M., and I was beginning to feel panicky because they were demanding that I know. My heart was hammering,
my thoughts were scrambled, and the pressure on the sides of my head made it feel as if my skull were going to split apart. I couldn’t think. Suddenly, in trying to distinguish between this time or
that time, this sequence of events or that one, I started forgetting everything. My mind was spinning. I felt as if I were going totally blank.
“Which was it?”
I took a deep breath. “I don’t remember.”
Ficarra thrust her hand out aggressively and insisted, “Let me see your cell phone.”
I handed it to her. As they looked through it, they kept pounding me with questions. “What
movie did you watch?”
“Amélie.”
“How long is that movie?”
“I don’t know.”
“Did you watch it all the way through?”[Chapter 10, Page 112] “Well, we paused it at some point, because we noticed that the sink was leaking.”
“But you said you’d had dinner before that.”
“I guess you’re right. I think the sink leaked before we watched the movie, but then I remember pausing it.”
“Why did you pause it?”
“I don’t remember.”
“Why? Why? What time?”[Chapter 10, page 113] ‘’ ... The interpreter, a woman in her forties, arrived at about 12:30 A.M. It’s inconceivable to me now that all the questioning up to that point had been in Italian. For a couple of hours I’d done my best to hang in there, to grasp what they were saying. I kept saying, “Okay, I understand.” I was always mortified when I had to admit that my Italian wasn’t up to speed.’‘
[Chapter 12, Page 149] ‘’ ....Amanda Knox. K-n- o-x.”
“Do you have allergies, illnesses, diseases?”
“No,” I replied.
“Well, we’ll need to do blood work anyway,” he said. Just then I felt a sharp pinch from the back of my head. The nurse had snuck around me and plucked a hair from my scalp. I started to turn and glare at her, but instead asked the doctor, “Blood work? For what?”
“For diseases,“he said. “Sign this. For the tests.” He pushed a document and a pen in front of me, and I signed it.
“How do you feel?”
“Worried”, I said. “Worried and confused.”
I shrank down in my seat.
“Confused?”; he asked.
“I feel terrible about what happened at the police office. No one was listening to me,” I said.
Tears sprang to my eyes again.
“Hold up there, now,”; Argiro said.
“Wouldn’t listen to you?” the doctor asked.
“I was hit on the head, twice,” I said.
The doctor gestured to the nurse, who parted my hair and looked at my scalp.
“Not hard,” I said. “It just startled me. And scared me.”.
“I’ve heard similar things about the police from other prisoners,” the guard standing in the background said.
Commmentary: How is this possible? (a) As AK keeps pointing out, there were no cameras; (b) All of the police accounts are very different; (c) AK claims she was traumatized. Makes you suspect she made the whole thing up. This book has many such conversations, all while AK claims to have only a rudimentary knowledge of Italian.
Tortured Logic #20: Italian Police Give ‘‘Good-Bye” Hugs to Accused Sex Killers as They Drop them Off
[Chapter 11, Page 141] ‘’ .... At a wave from our driver, we entered the building, Ficarra ahead of me, the other officer behind, each gripping one of my arms. Once inside, they let go. “This is
where we leave you,” they said. One of them leaned in to give me a quick, awkward hug.
“Everything’s going to be okay. The police will take care of you.”
Commentary: Not sure what to say here.
Posted on 06/05/16 at 07:25 AM by Chimera • Click here for my past posts, via link at top left.
Archived in Knox’s Tortured Logic, Examples 1-20
Permalink for this post • Tell-a-Friend • Comments here (14)
Archived in Knox’s Tortured Logic, Examples 1-20
Permalink for this post • Tell-a-Friend • Comments here (14)
2. AK Tortured Logic 21 To 48
Posted by Chimera
1. Series Overview
This is the second in a two part series contexted at the top of the previous post.
Further context can be found in our numerous posts on the Knox psychology here. These passages go to show to what extreme lengths Knox had to go in contradicting her own self to make the big lie stick.
They are vital to all the hoaxes being pulled off.
It is deeply shameful that the book agent did not pick up on this, or the shadow writer, or the publishers, or any of the US media, or more than a very few readers - there are dozens of unquestioning 5-star reviews seething venom against Italy and the officials that handled the case.
2. Examples of Tortured Logic (Continued)
Tortured Logic #21: AK and RS go Before a Judge to Determine if They can be Released
[Chapter 14, page 164] ” ... Also in the room were three women. The one in black robes was Judge Claudia Matteini. Her secretary, seated next to her, announced, “Please stand.” In an emotionless monotone, the judge read, “You, Amanda Marie Knox, born 9 July 1987 in Seattle, Washington, U.S.A., are formally under investigation for the murder of Meredith Kercher. How do you respond? You have the right to remain silent.”
[Chapter 14, Page 166] ” .... The report continued: “It is possible to reconstruct what happened on the evening of November 1.
Sollecito Raffaele and Knox Amanda spent the entire afternoon smoking hashish.”
Judge Matteini claimed that I met Patrick at a “previously arranged” time and that Raffaele, “bored of the same old evening”“”a phrase Raffaele had once posted online about himself””came along.
She went on to say that we hadn’t called 112, the emergency number for the Carabinieri military police; that the Postal Police arrived at 12:35 P.M., and that our calls to 112 came afterward, at 12:51 P.M. and 12:54 P.M., suggesting that the police’s appearance at the house took us by surprise and our calls were an attempt at orchestrating the appearance of our innocence. It wasn’t until our trial that this accusation was proven to be erroneous.
The report said that in Raffaele’s second statement, made on November 5, he changed his story. Instead of saying that we’d stayed at his apartment all night, as he’d done originally, he told police we’d left my apartment to go downtown at around 8:30 or 9 P.M., that I went to Le Chic and he returned to his apartment. He said that I’d convinced him to
lie.
[Chapter 14, Page 168] ” ... “It’s the judge’s paperwork,” the male guard explained, his voice without inflection. “The confirmation of your arrest. It says the judge ‘applies the cautionary measure of custody in prison for the duration of one year.”’ “One year!” I cried out.
Commentary: This even though bail for such crimes does not exist and house arrest is very rare. If bail doesn’t exist, then why is she getting what amounts to a bail hearing?
Tortured Logic #22: Dalla Vedova and Ghirga Have Never Heard of a SECONDARY CRIME SCENE
[Chapter 27, Page 330] Carlo, who’d never sugarcoated my situation, said, “These are small-town detectives. They chase after local drug dealers and foreigners without visas. They don’t know how to conduct a murder investigation correctly. Plus, they’re bullies. To admit fault is to admit that they’re not good at their jobs. They suspected you because you behaved differently than the others. They stuck with it because they couldn’t afford to be wrong.”
Commentary: Just because a murder occurred in a single room, does not mean the surrounding areas are not relevant. If you consider Meredith’s room to be the primary crime scene:, then (a) Filomena’s room—the entry point; (b) the bathroom where Guede took a sh**; (c) the other bathroom where AK/Meredith’s blood was; (d) the hallway with Guede’s shoeprints and the cleaned prints of AK/RS; (e) AK’s room where the lamp was taken should all be considered secondary crime scenes.
Of course, one could also argue that the entire house is the primary crime scene, and that: (a) RS’s home (where the knife was, and the computers for his alibi); (b) the yard where Meredith’s phones were tossed; (c) RS’s car—if he transported evidence would all be considered secondary crime scenes.
Tortured Logic #23: Guede is Both a Skilled Burlgar and a Disorganized One
(Illogical) Guede breaks in through Filomena’s window, the most visible one from the street.
(Illogical) Guede “breaks in” some time between 8 and 10pm, when people are usually home and awake.
(Illogical) Guede chooses an entry point with a difficult climb.
(Organized) Guede is able to get into Filomena’s room without leaving a trace of himself.
(Brilliant) Guede breaks the window after it is open from the inside, making police suspect an insider.
(Disorganized) Guede leaves plenty of evidence (which AK assures us is strong, in Meredith’s room
(Brilliant) Guede ransacks the place, and then breaks the window, again, making it look like an insider.
(Brilliant) Guede leaves not his blood, but AK and Meredith, leaving himself a patzy.
(Illogical) Guede takes a dump in 1 bathroom, but “cleans up” in the other.
(Illogical) Guede cleans up bare footprints of AK/RS, but leaves his own shoeprints.
(Illogical) Guede’s accomplices—“Mr. X’’ and ‘‘Mr. Y’’ leave no traces of themselves at the entry point, murder scene, or elsewhere.
Commentary: Having trouble classifying Guede as an offender? Me too.
Tortured Logic #24: A Burglar or Killer’s Point of Entry is not Relevant
[Chapter 6, Page 68] ” .... Then I opened Filomena’s door. I gasped. The window had been shattered and glass was everywhere. Clothes were heaped all over the bed and floor. The drawers and cabinets were open. All I could see was chaos. “Oh my God, someone broke in!”
Commentary: Ask any police officer, and they will tell you that how a person breaks in and how they leave are very relevant to the crime investigation. However, AK downplays this for 2 reasons: (1) As shown in the last point, #23, breaking in through Filomena’s room was an illogical place, for many reasons; and (2) Guede’s blood/DNA is not in that room, but AK’s is, mixed with Meredith’s.
Tortured Logic #25: A Sh***y Bathroom is Relevant, While a Bloody Bathroom is not
[Chapter 6, Page 65] ” .... I wasn’t alarmed by two pea-size flecks of blood in the bathroom sink that Meredith and I shared.
There was another smear on the faucet. Weird. I’d gotten my ears pierced. Were they bleeding? I scratched the droplets with my fingernail. They were dry. Meredith must have nicked herself. It wasn’t until I got out of the shower that I noticed a reddish-brown splotch about the size of an orange on the bathmat. More blood. Could Meredith have started her period and dripped? But then, how would it have gotten on the sink?”
[Chapter 6, Page 66] ” .... I went to the big bathroom to use Filomena’s blow dryer and was stashing it back against the wall when I noticed poop in the toilet. No one in the house would have left the toilet unflushed. Could there have been a stranger here? Was someone in the house when I was in the shower? I felt a lurch of panic and the prickly feeling you get when you think someone might be watching you.”
[Chapter 6, Page 75] ” .... In the middle of my muddy thoughts I had one that was simple and clear: “We have to tell the police that the poop was in Filomena and Laura’s bathroom when I put the hair dryer away and was gone when we came back,” I told Raffaele. The poop must have belonged to the killer. Was he there when I took my shower? Would he have killed me, too?”
[Chapter 7, Page 77] ” ... I was the first person to come home that morning. I was anxious to explain everything I’d noticed, starting with the open front door and the droplets of blood in the sink.”
Commentary: So the killer cleans up in one bathroom, but then takes a dump in the other? I would be more concerned with the bloody bathroom. While a sh***y bathroom may indicate carelessness, or a plumbing malfunction, no one but AK would instinctively think that it belonged to the killer, and she seems to give them equal weight. And at this point it must be 12+ hours old and REALLY reek. AK never says she ever thought about flushing, as would any normal person.
Tortured Logic #26: AK and RS Walk Around With Bleach on Their Feet
[Chapter 27, Page 339] ” .... The situation was similar to the prosecution’s claim throughout the investigation, the pretrial, and now the trial that my feet were “dripping with Meredith’s blood.” My lawyers and I had spent hours trying to figure out why they thought this. We knew that investigators had uncovered otherwise invisible prints with luminol. Familiar to watchers of CSI, the spray glows blue when exposed to hemoglobin. But blood is not the only substance that sets off a luminol reaction.
Cleaning agents, bleach, human waste, urine stains, and even rust do the same. Forensic scientists therefore use a separate “confirmatory” test that detects only human blood,
Under cross-examination during the pretrial, Stefanoni was emphatic. “No,” she responded. It wasn’t until Dr. Gino read the documents Judge Massei had ordered the prosecution to share with us that she, and then the rest of my defense team, began seeing a pattern. As with the knife, it turned out that Stefanoni’s forensics team had done the TMB test and it came out negative. There were footprints. But they could have come from anything””and at any time, not necessarily after the murder. What matters is that there was no blood.
Commentary: In Honor Bound, Andrew Gumbel argues that there were measurement errors. Here, AK just says the foot prints weren’t blood. Okay, if it were just a cleaning agent, , then wouldn’t we expect to see stains from other people who may have walked through it at some times? Or was there a special cleaner used this time? Rust? The floor is not metallic. So the question is: why are AK and RS walking around with bleach or cleaning agents on their feet?
Tortured Logic #27: CDV and Ghirga Don’t Think AK Needs to Know What her Legal Options Are
[Chapter 23, Page 273] “˜’ ... The first day of the pretrial was mostly procedural. Almost immediately Guede’s lawyers requested an abbreviated trial. I had no idea the Italian justice system offered this option. Carlo later told me that it saves the government money. With an abbreviated trial, the judge’s decision is based solely on evidence; no witnesses are called. The defendant benefits from this fast-track process because, if found guilty, he has his sentence cut by a third”¦’”˜
Commentary: After 11 months in custody, AK is now just being told about this?!
Tortured Logic #28: CDV and Ghirga Fight For Knox, But DON’T Report Her Being Sexually Assaulted and Mistreated in Prison
[Chapter 11, Page 137] “˜’ ... Still, what came next shocked me. After my arrest, I was taken downstairs to a room where, in front of a male doctor, female nurse, and a few female police officers, I was told to strip naked and spread my legs. I was embarrassed because of my nudity, my period””I felt frustrated and helpless. The doctor inspected the outer lips of my vagina and then separated them with his fingers to examine the inner. He measured and photographed my intimate parts. I couldn’t understand why they were doing this. I thought, Why is this happening? What’s the purpose of this? ....’”˜
[Chapter 12, Page 149] ‘’ .... I was hit on the head, twice.” I said. The doctor gestured to the nurse, who parted my hair and looked at my scalp. Not hard,” I said. “It just startled me. And scared me.” “Ive heard similar things about the police from other prisoners,” the guard standing in the background said.
[Chapter 16, Page 191] Doctor-patient confidentiality didn’t exist in prison. A guard was ever-present, standing right behind me. This bothered me so much that, as time went on, I skipped a needed pelvic exam and didn’t seek help when I got hives or when my hair started falling out. Whatever happened in the infirmary was recycled as gossip that traveled from official to official and, sometimes, back to me.
How each visit went depended on the doctor, and I was grateful for any gesture that wasn’t aggressive or disdainful. A female physician liked to talk to me about her trouble with men. And one day, when I was being seen by an older male doctor, he asked me, “What’s your favorite animal?”
“It’s a lion,” I said. “Like The Lion King””Il Re Leone.”
The next time I saw him he handed me a picture of a lion he’d ripped out from an animal calendar. I drew him a colorful picture in return, which he taped to the infirmary wall. Later, when he found out that I liked the Beatles, one of us would hum a few bars from various songs to see if the other could name the tune.
[Chapter 16, Page 194] “˜’ ... Luciano looked revolted, and Carlo urged me, “Anytime Argirò calls you alone into an office, tell him you don’t want to speak with him. He could be talking about sex because Meredith was supposedly the victim of a sexual crime and he wants to see what you’ll say. It could be a trap.”
[Chapter 17, Page 197] “˜’ ... Vice-Comandante Argirò broke the news. Instead of his usual greeting””a lecherous smile and a kiss on both cheeks””he stayed seated behind his desk. His cigarette was trailing smoke. His face was somber. Something was wrong”¦.’
Tortured Logic #29: Accomplices Who Go ‘‘Short Form Trial’’ For the 1/3 Deductions Should Serve LONGER Jail Sentences
[Chapter 30, Page 384] ” .... That feeling was compounded when, about three weeks after Raffaele and I were convicted, the appeals court cut Rudy Guede’s sentence nearly in half, from thirty years to sixteen. Meredith’s murderer was now serving less time than I was””by ten years! How can they do this?! I raged to myself. It doesn’t make sense! The unfairness of it burned in my throat.
Guede’s fast-track conviction for murder and rape in collaboration with others had earned him the maximum. The appeals court had also found him guilty on the same count. But the prosecution’s new view””and the reason for the reduced sentence””was that Guede had not had the knife in his hand, and therefore had played only a supporting role, more responsible for Meredith’s rape than for her murder.
Here, AK answers her own questions
[Chapter 21, Page 254] “I know,” Carlo said, sighing. “But they’ve already decided that you and Raffaele faked a break-in to nail Guede.’‘
[Chapter 23, Page 273] “˜’ ... The first day of the pretrial was mostly procedural. Almost immediately Guede’s lawyers requested an abbreviated trial. I had no idea the Italian justice system offered this option. Carlo later told me that it saves the government money. With an abbreviated trial, the judge’s decision is based solely on evidence; no witnesses are called. The defendant benefits from this fast-track process because, if found guilty, he has his sentence cut by a third”¦’”˜
Commentary: While AK tries to act stunned, Guede went ‘‘short-form trial’’ for 2 reasons: (1) AK/RS tried to pin it all on him; and (2) the short-form trial offers a lesser sentence. The fast track trial ended with him getting the maximum “allowed under those rules”, which was only 30 years, AK leaves that detail out. And AK lies when she says the reduction from 30 to 16 was due to a less participatory role. AK/RS got 24 years for the murder itself—and they chose the long form trial—and 1/3 less is 16 years. Guede would have gotten more if he had staged the crime scene, transported a weapon, or falsely accused an innocent person.
Tortured Logic #30: The Hardworking CSIs Who ‘‘Nail’’ Guede, are the Same Incompetents Who ‘‘Contaminate’’ Things for AK/RS
On the evidence against Guede .....
[Chapter 10, Page 105] ‘’ .... There was a bloody handprint smeared on the wall and a bloody shoeprint on the floor. A blood-soaked handkerchief was lying in the street nearby.’‘
[Chapter 21, Page 254] “˜’ ... “Amanda, the investigators are in a conundrum,” Carlo said. “They found so much of Guede’s DNA in Meredith’s room and on and inside her body. But the only forensic evidence they have of you is outside her bedroom. Raffaele’s DNA evidence is only on the bra hook. If you and Raffaele participated in the murder, as the prosecution believes, your DNA should be as easy to find as Guede’s.” “But Carlo, no evidence doesn’t mean we cleaned up. It means we weren’t there!” “I know,” Carlo said, sighing. “But they’ve already decided that you and Raffaele faked a break-in to nail Guede. I know it doesn’t make sense. They’re just adding another link to the story. It’s the only way the prosecution can involve you and Raffaele when the evidence points to a break-in and murder by Guede.”
[Chapter 23, Page 274] “˜’ ... Guede’s lawyers must have realized that he was better off in a separate trial, since the prosecution was intent on pinning the murder on us. The evidence gathered during the investigation pointed toward his guilt. His DNA was all over Meredith’s room and her body, on her intimate clothing and her purse. He had left his handprint in her blood on her pillowcase. He had fled the country. The prosecution called Guede’s story of how he “happened” to be at the villa and yet had not participated in the murder “absurd”””though they readily believed his claims against Raffaele and me. One of the big hopes for us was that with so much evidence against Guede, the prosecution would have to realize Raffaele and I hadn’t been involved”¦.’”˜
[Chapter 23, Page 274] ... He didn’t look like a murderer. He was wearing jeans and a sweater. It was almost impossible to imagine that he had cut Meredith’s throat. But if he hadn’t, his DNA wouldn’t have been everywhere in Meredith’s room.”
[Chapter 27, Page 339] ” Copious amounts of Rudy Guede’s genetic material had been found in Meredith’s bedroom, on her body, in her purse, and in the toilet.”
[Chapter 27, Page 342] ‘’ .... Had Raffaele been in the room, his DNA would have been as abundant as Guede’s. It would be illogical to suggest that it was left on a single small hook on Meredith’s bra and nowhere else.’‘
[Chapter 28, Page 352] ‘’ ... Guede had stolen! He had killed Meredith! He had left a handprint in Meredith’s blood! He had fled! He had lied!’‘
[
Afterword, Page 464] ” .... None of my DNA was found in my friend Meredith Kercher’s bedroom, where she was killed. The only DNA found, other than Meredith’s, belonged to the man convicted of her murder, Rudy Guede. And his DNA was everywhere in the bedroom. It is, of course, impossible to selectively clean DNA, which is invisible to the naked eye. We simply DNA and left Guede’s and Meredith’s behind. Nor was any other trace of me found at the murder scene, not a single fingerprint, footprint, piece of hair, or drop of blood or saliva. My innocence and Raffaele’s was irrefutable. Like my legal team, I believed that the Corte di Cassazione would affirm the innocence finding.
And on the evidence against AK/RS ......
[Chapter 17, Page 203] “˜’ ... The knife was a game changer for my lawyers, who now feared that the prosecution was mishandling evidence and building an unsubstantiated case against me. Carlo and Luciano went from saying that the lack of evidence would prove my innocence to warning me that the prosecution was out to get me, and steeling me for a fight. “There’s no counting on them anymore,” Carlo said. “We’re up against a witch hunt. But it’s going to be okay.”
[Chapter 17, Page 203] “˜’ ... I was choked with fear. The knife was my first inkling that the investigation was not going as I’d expected. I didn’t accept the possibility that the police were biased against me. I believed that the prosecution would eventually figure out that it wasn’t the murder weapon and that I wasn’t the murderer. In retrospect I understand that the police were determined to make the evidence fit their theory of the crime, rather than the other way around, and that theory hinged on my involvement. But something in me refused to see this then”¦’
[Chapter 23, Page 276] ” ... Starting right after we were indicted, Raffaele’s and my lawyers had requested the raw data for all Stefanoni’s forensic tests. How were the samples collected? How many cotton pads had her team used to swab the bathroom sink and the bidet? How often had they changed gloves? What tests had they done - and when? Which machines had they used, at what times, and on which days? What were the original unedited results of the DNA tests?”
[Chapter 25, Page 304] “˜’ ... When the defense questioned her, Napoleoni’s manner switched from professional “”albeit dishonest””to exasperated, incredulous, and condescending. For instance, when Raffaele’s lawyer Giulia Bongiorno asked if the gloves police used at the crime scene were sterilized or one-use gloves, Napoleoni took a snarky tone, saying, “It’s the same thing.”
[Chapter 27, Page 335] “˜”˜On the witness stand, Marco Chiacchiera of the Squadra Mobile had explained that “investigative intuition” had led him to the knife. That flimsy explanation did not help me understand how the police could pull a random knife from Raffaele’s kitchen drawer and decide that it was, without the smallest doubt, the murder weapon. Or why they never analyzed knives from the villa or Rudy Guede’s apartment.’”˜
[Chapter 27, Page 338] ‘’ ....Gino said. Stefanoni had met none of the internationally accepted methods for identifying DNA. When the test results are too low to be read clearly, the protocol is to run a second test. This was impossible to do, because all the genetic material had been used up in the first test. Moreover, there was an extremely high likelihood of contamination in the lab, where billions of Meredith’s DNA strands were present.
[Chapter 32, Page 414] Before the first trial, the defense began requesting forensic data from the prosecution in the fall of 2008, but DNA analyst Patrizia Stefanoni dodged court orders from two different judges. She gave the defense some of, but never all, the information. Now it was Conti and Vecchiotti’s turn to try to get the raw data that Stefanoni had interpreted to draw conclusions about the genetic profiles on the knife and the bra clasp. Stefanoni continued to argue that the information was unnecessary. Not until May 11, under additional orders from Judge Hellmann, did she finally comply.
Commentary: Either the police got the right suspects, or they completely f***ed up the crime scene. It can’t simultaneously be both. AK/RS never argue that contamination wrongfully put Guede away.
Tortured Logic #31: Judge Paolo Micheli is the Wise Judge Who Convicted Guede, and the Moron Who Sent AK/RS to Trial
[Chapter 23, Page 276] ” .... The pretrial judge, Paolo Micheli, allowed testimony from two witnesses. The first was DNA analyst Patrizia Stefanoni for the Polizia Scientifica. Starting right after we were indicted, Raffaele’s and my lawyers had requested the raw data for all Stefanoni’s forensic tests. How were the samples collected? How many cotton pads had her team used to swab the bathroom sink and the bidet? How often had they changed gloves? What tests had they done - and when? Which machines had they used, at what times, and on which days? What were the original unedited results of the DNA tests?
Her response was “No. We can’t give you these documents you continue to ask for, because the ones you have will have to suffice.”
[Chapter 23, Page 277] ” .... The other testimony came from a witness named Hekuran Kokomani, an Albanian man the prosecution called to prove that Raffaele and I both knew Rudy Guede. Our lawyers argued that Raffaele had never met Guede. I’d said “Hi” to him once when we hung out at the apartment downstairs. My other encounter with him was taking his drink order at Le Chic.
Kokomani said he’d seen the three of us together on Halloween, the day before the murder. A massive lie. Kokomani’s testimony made the pretrial seem like a farce. According to him, after dinner on Halloween, driving along Viale Sant’Antonio, the busy thoroughfare just above our house, he came upon a black garbage bag in the middle of the road. When he got out of his car, he realized the “bag” was two people: Raffaele and me. He told the court that Raffaele punched him, and I pulled out a huge knife the length of a saber, lifting it high over my head. “Raffaele said, ‘Don’t worry about her. She’s a girl,”’ Kokomani testified. “Then I threw olives at her face.”
Commentary: Seriously? This is how your pre-trial went? Why no complaints? And why no defence that Guede may be wrongfully convicted? After all, that is your new calling in life.
Tortured Logic #32: AK is Both A Daffy, Clueless Woman, and a Careful Observer During the Trial
[Chapter 13, Page 161] ‘’ ...As I gathered this insider’s information, I felt more like an observer than a participant. I found that being watched by a guard every time I peed or showered or just lay on my bed seemed less offensive when I looked at it with an impersonal eye. 1 saw the absurdity in it and documented it in my head.’‘
Commentary: AK projects herself as being observant and following the proceedings very carefully. Yet her antics throughout the 2009 trial showed that she was very unaware (or just didn’t care), what she showed to others.
Tortured Logic #32: Pacelli (Lumumba’s Lawyer) and Prosecutors ‘‘Grill’’ AK on the Witness Stand, but Don’t Ask any Questions about the Evening Meredith was Murdered
[Chapter 23, Page 323] ” ... The first person to question me was Carlo Pacelli, Patrick’s lawyer. Lawyers technically aren’t allowed to add their own commentary at this point, only to ask questions. But he made his opinions known through pointed questions like “Did you or did you not accuse Patrick Lumumba of a murder he didn’t commit?” and “Didn’t the police officers treat you well during your interrogation?”
[Chapter 23, Page 324] ” .... Pacelli tried to insinuate that I’d come up with Patrick’s name on my own in my interrogation. “No,” I said. “They put my cell phone in front of me, and said, ‘Look, look at the messages. You were going to meet someone.’ And when I denied it they called me a ‘stupid liar.’ From then on I was so scared. They were treating me badly, and I didn’t know why.
“It was because the police misunderstood the words ‘see you later.’ In English, it’s not taken literally. It’s just another way of saying ‘good-bye.’ But the police kept asking why I’d made an appointment to meet Patrick. ‘Are you covering for Patrick?’ they demanded. ‘Who’s Patrick?”’
[Chapter 23, Page 325] ” ... I slapped my own head to demonstrate.
“One time, two times?” Luciano asked.
“Two times,” I said. “The first time I did this.”
I dropped my head down as if I’d been struck and opened my mouth wide in surprise.
“Then I turned around toward her and she gave me another.”
[Chapter 23, Page 326] ” .... Then it was Mignini’s turn. “Why did you say, ‘Patrick’s name was suggested to me, I was beaten, I was put under pressure?”’
As soon as I started to answer, Mignini interrupted with another question. He’d done the same thing to me during my interrogation at the prison. This time, I wasn’t going to let it fluster me. I was going to answer one question at a time. Showing my irritation, I said, “Can I go on?”
I described my November 5 interrogation again. “As the police shouted at me, I squeezed my brain, thinking, ‘What have I forgotten? What have I forgotten?’ The police were saying, `Come on, come on, come on. Do you remember? Do you remember? Do you remember?’ And then boom on my head.” I imitated a slap. “‘Remember!’ the policewoman shouted. And then boom again. ‘Do you remember?”’
[Chapter 23, Page 326] ” .... When the hearing ended, I got two minutes to talk to my law-yers before the guards led me out of the courtroom. “I was nervous when you first spoke,” Luciano admitted, “but by the end I was proud of you.”
Commentary: The reason AK’s 2 days on the witness stand (June 12/13, 2009) only focused on this was because of pre-arranged rules limiting the scope of questioning.. It didn’t help.
https://truejustice.org/ee/index.php?/tjmk/comments/italy_shrugs_why_the_defendants_testimony_seems_to_have_been_a_real_fl/
https://truejustice.org/ee/index.php?/tjmk/comments/this_testimony_does_not_seem_to_have_gained_much_traction_here_in_ital/
Tortured Logic #34: CDV and Ghirga Keep Trying to Put AK on Trial Again and Again
[Chapter 31, Page 397] ” .... The appeal wouldn’t be a redo of the first trial. Italy, like the United States, has three levels of justice””the lower court, the Court of Appeals, and the highest court, the Corte Suprema di Cassazione, their version of our Supreme Court. The difference is that, in Italy, someone like me is required to go through all three levels, all the way to the Cassazione, whose verdict is final.
Cases often take turns and twists that would surprise and unsettle most Americans. Even if you’re acquitted at level one, the prosecution can ask the Court of Appeals to overturn the verdict. If the appeals court finds you guilty, it can raise your sentence. Or it can decide that a second look is unnecessary and send you on to the Cassazione for the final stamp on the lower court’s decision””in Raffaele’s and my cases, to serve out our twenty-five- and twenty-six-year sentences. At each level, the verdict is official, and the sentence goes into immediate effect unless the next court overturns it.
In Italy’s lower and intermediate levels, judges and jurors decide the verdict. And instead of focusing on legal errors, as we do in the United States, the Italian appellate court will reopen the case, look at new evidence, and hear additional testimony””if they think it’s deserved.
In our appeal request, we asked the court to appoint indepen-dent experts to review the DNA on the knife and the bra clasp, and to analyze a sperm stain on the pillow found underneath Meredith’s body that the prosecution had maintained was irrelevant. In their appeal request, the prosecution complained about what they thought was a lenient sentence and demanded life in prison for Raffaele and me.
Commentary: While AK’s summary is fairly good in some ways, she neglects to mention that the DEFENCE actually filed the appeal, (the one that ended up before Hellmann/Zanetti). AK/RS were convicted at trial, and they appealed the convictions. The Prosecution CROSS-APPEALED, saying that AK/RS should actually have been given a longer sentence. This happens fairly often in Common Law Countries. AK also omits that the 3 tier system also lets convicted defendants, like herself, get 2 automatic appeals, something the Common Law does not permit—those require a higher burden. AK also leaves out that an appellate trial is not a full trial, and that calling in expert witnesses should be done at the trial level. No appellate court in the Common Law is asked to “re-try” the case.
3. The New 2015 Afterword
[Afterword, Page 465] ‘’ .... But in March 2013 the high court ordered yet another trial, directing the next appeals court to reexamine certain aspects of the case. My world was shattered””again. The court gave three primary reasons.”
Commentary: Casstion “allowed” AK/RS to refile their first level appeal, but did not “mandate” them to. The appeal that went to Judge Nencini was AK/RS’s own appeal. AK also minimizes just how thoroughly Hellmann/Zanetti had been repudiated
[Afterword, Page 463] ” .... We’d been through one lower court trial, two appellate trials, and a prior decision by the Corte di Cassazione. We had been found guilty, innocent, and guilty again. Based on this past, the best possibility my lawyers, my family, and I could imagine was that the judges would send the case back down to the appellate court for a fourth trial.
Commentary: So, at best, Cassation would allow you a 3rd attempt at your own appeal?
[Afterword, Page 466] ” .... Once again, our case had to go to the Corte di Cassazione. But my confidence had dissipated. If the Florence court could find us guilty after incontrovertible proof that we had no connection to Meredith’s murder, I didn’t know what to expect from the high court. I didn’t know how I would survive if I were made to go back to prison with no hope of an appeal.
Commentary: Without hope of appeal???? This Cassation appeal was AK/RS appeal against the Florence Appeals Court where Nencini (2014) upheld Massei (2009). It seems like AK/RS need better lawyers. These ones keep trying to put their clients on trial
(a) DEFENCE appeal—2011 (Hellman/Zanetti)
(b) PROSECUTION appeal—2013 (Cheiffi at Cassation)
(c) DEFENCE appeal—2013/2014 (Nencini)
(d) DEFENCE appeal—2015 (Bruno/Marasca at Cassation)
(e) DEFENCE appeal—2016 (hypothetical proposed by AK on page 463)
Tortured Logic #35: Prosecutors Don’t Feel the Need to Present Evidence at These ‘‘New Trials’‘
[Afterword, Page 466] ” .... The new court-ordered test on the knife revealed the source of the trace DNA. It was not Meredith’s. It was mine, likely left there when I used it to cook in Raffaele’s kitchen, as I had in the days before the murder. This reconfirmed the independent experts’ earlier finding that there was no proof that the knife was the murder weapon. I wasn’t surprised, but I was elated. This was the only new material evidence the prosecution presented and it undermined their case. Without new condemning evidence, everything was on track to clear us again and finally end this nightmare.”
Commentary: Yes, the knife was tested, but the DNA which AK refers to was found in the HANDLE, and it did strengthen the Prosecution’s case. And since when is the Prosecution expected to present more evidence when the “Defence” files an appeal? They presented their evidence in the trial stage.
Tortured Logic #36: Guede’s Prior Break in is ‘‘Relevant’‘, but AK’s ‘‘Staged Break in’’ is not
[Chapter 28, Page 352] ‘’ ....Evidence of Rudy’s crimes was everywhere, and his history of theft matched the burglary. Poor Rudy? Guede had stolen!
Commentary: Since we are getting into the character assassinations, then let’s include this one. Yes, Rudy, with his prior break in could have done it. Then again, Knox, with her prior “staged” break in could also have done it.
Tortured Logic #37: Business Judges Make Great Substitutes at Murder Appeals
Commentary: This is left out of AK’s book entirely, but Hellmann wasn’t supposed to be the lead judge at the 2011 appeal. It was a qualified judge named Chairi, who was pushed out in favour of Hellmann, who as it turns out is a business judge.
http://www.truejustice.org/ee/index.php?/tjmk/comments/umbria_attorney-general_galati_files_111-page_supreme_court_appeal_aga/#comments
http://www.truejustice.org/ee/index.php?/tjmk/comments/dissecting_the_hellmann_report_1/#comments
http://www.truejustice.org/ee/index.php?/tjmk/comments/dissecting_the_hellmann_report_2_how_judges_zanetti_and_hellman_tilted_/#comments
http://www.truejustice.org/ee/index.php?/tjmk/comments/dissecting_the_hellmann_report_3_how_zanetti_and_hellmann/#comments
http://www.truejustice.org/ee/index.php?/tjmk/comments/dissecting_the_hellmann_report_4_the_contortions/#comments
http://www.truejustice.org/ee/index.php?/tjmk/comments/dissecting_the_hellmann_report_5_their_obfuscation_of_merediths_time/#comments
http://www.truejustice.org/ee/index.php?/tjmk/comments/reasonable_doubt_in_italian_law/#comments
Tortured Logic #38: Prison Snitches Are Reliable Witnesses
[Chapter 32, Page 418] ” .... Mario Alessi was a brick mason given a life sentence for murdering an infant boy in 2006. He was in the same prison as Rudy Guede, and had written to Raffaele’s lawyers that he had information for our defense: Alessi said he went outside for exercise with other prisoners, including Rudy Guede, on November 9, 2009. “Guede told me he wanted to ask me for some confidential advice,” Alessi said in his court deposition. “There wasn’t a day that Guede and I didn’t spend time together ...
“I responded that I wasn’t a lawyer, and I didn’t know what to say, but that I believed it would be useful to tell the truth. So he confided in me, describing what happened the night of the murder.” Guede told Alessi that he and a friend had run into Meredith in a bar a few days before the murder. On the night of November 1, Alessi said, the two men surprised Meredith at the villa and, “in an explicit manner,” asked her to have a threesome.
Alessi said that Meredith “rejected the request. She even got up and ordered Guede and his friend to leave the house. At this point Guede asked where the bathroom was, and he stayed in the bathroom for a little while, ten to fifteen minutes at most. Immediately after, reentering the room, he found a scene that was completely different””that is, Kercher was lying with her back to the floor and his friend held her by the arms. Rudy straddled her and started to masturbate. While Guede told me these things, he was upset and tears came to his eyes ...
Commentary: Yeah, forget those false alibis, false accusation, turned off phones, mixed blood, bloody footprints .... I’m convinced.
Tortured Logic #39: Allegations of Bribery of Witnesses are Not Relevant
[Chapter 32, Page 420] ” ... Alessi’s story, however, sickened me when I heard it and haunted me long after. I knew it was only hearsay and that even though two of Guede’s other prisonmates corroborated it, it couldn’t be used as direct evidence. Real or not, it forced me to focus on the torture that Meredith was put through. And it opened up a question I’d never seriously considered and could barely handle: Had there been someone with Guede?
Commentary: AK leaves out the name of Luciano Aviello, how testified but alleged to have been bribed for this testimony. Some tell all book. And had someone been with Guede? Not that the prosecution was trying a “multiple-attackers” theory
Tortured Logic #40: Sending a Email Works Just as Well as Showing up to Court
[Afterword, Page 466] ” .... No legal process was issued to request my return to Italy for the September 2013 appellate trial in Florence. My lawyers presented my defense in my absence.”
Commentary: This seems like a tortuous way of saying AK didn’t show because she couldn’t be forced to. In reality, she hit the media circuit claiming to be afraid. She also claimed she couldn’t afford to go back which caused disbelief, given her book deal. But apparently was still concerned, as she sent an email to the Florence Court.
http://www.truejustice.org/ee/index.php?/tjmk/comments/questions_for_knox_how_do_you_explain/
https://truejustice.org/ee/index.php?/tjmk/comments/multiple_ways_in_which_amanda_knoxs_email/
http://www.truejustice.org/ee/index.php?/tjmk/comments/The_Nencini_Email_Why_This_May_Be/#comments
Tortured Logic #41: Cassation Learned as Much in 2 Days as the Massei Trial Court did in a Year
[Afterword, Page 478] ” .... On Wednesday, March 25, the Corte di Cassazione began hearing arguments by the prosecutors, the civil parties, and my defense attorneys. Unlike the previous high court hearing, the justices listened to all sides without interrupting the defense. The hearing took so many hours the court decided to reconvene in two days.
Commentary: Odd, how Cassation, even over 2 days, can learn as much as the 2009 trial court did. No witnesses, evidence, experts, or AK herself ever presented. And how can AK know how the 2013 and 2015 hearings differed? She attended neither. More likely, she remembers Carlo Dalla Vedova “filibustering” Mignini during her June 2009 questioning and assumes that Supreme Court appeals work the same way
Tortured Logic #42: Guede is an Accomplice to Murder, With no Actual Killer
Commentary: Guede’s Cassation appeal in 2010 confirmed he was guilty, but did not act alone. AK/RS 2013 Cassation hearing annulled the Hellmann acquittal, so those 5 judges believed that they were involved as well. AK/RS 2015 Cassation hearing clears them, but since no one else was ever charged, it leaves Guede as an accomplice with no actual killer.
Tortured Logic #43: AK was Present, RS Probably Was, but Meredith was Killed by ‘‘X’’ and ‘‘Y’‘
Commentary: Just read these fine summaries.
http://www.truejustice.org/ee/index.php?/tjmk/C856/
http://www.truejustice.org/ee/index.php?/tjmk/C855/
http://www.truejustice.org/ee/index.php?/tjmk/C853/
http://www.truejustice.org/ee/index.php?/tjmk/C854/
https://truejustice.org/ee/documents/perugia/2016-March-Draft_Bruno-Marasca-rebuttal.pdf
Tortured Logic #44: AK Still Hasn’t Learned not to Publish a Book Before the Cassation Report Comes Out
[Afterword, Page 480] ‘’ ... Minutes later Carlo Della Vedova, one of our two Italian lawyers, called.
“Does acquitted mean not enough evidence to convict?” I asked him. “Or did they find us innocent?”
“They found you innocent. Amanda!” he said. “It’s the best result possible!”;
0ne trial. Two appellate court retrials. Two Italian Supreme Court decisions. Four years in prison.
Seven and a half years of suspended life.”
Commentary: AK originally released the book after the March 2013 hearing, but before the report came out. She does the same thing here again: re-releasing in June 2015, after this ruling, but before the report was released in September 2015. Judges Bruno and Marasca stick the knife in AK/RS’s backs (how’s that for a metaphor), concluding AK was at the scene—though did not participate—and RS probably was there too.
See #43 for the summaries.
Bruno/Marasca can be explained in 1 word FINALITY
(1) B/M don’t want the ECHR reviewing the case too carefully, so they sabotage AK’s appeal for calunnia
(2) B/M don’t want AK/RS crowing about their innocence, so they write it this way to shut them up.
(3) B/M don’t want a civil suit from AK/RS, so they make it clear they don’t believe they are innocent. RS sues anyway.
(4) B/M don’t want to be investigated for corruption, so they try to make it more plausible than Hellmann/Zanetti.
(5) B/M don’t want the Kerchers going ahead, so they placate them, but stop just short of outright guilt.
Tortured Logic #45: Hellmann/Zanetti and Bruno/Marasca Must Have “Forgotten” About AK Falsely Accusing PL
[Epilogue, Page 444] ” .... “For the charges prescribed in letters A, B, C, D, and E,” Judge Hellmann continued, “La torte assolve gli imputati, per non aver commesso ifatfi7””“the defendants are acquitted by the court, for not having committed the acts.”
[Afterword, Page 480] ” .... “It’s confirmed!” I shouted. “We’re acquitted! We’re free! No more trials! It’s done!”
I jumped up from the table. Everyone started whooping and crying, hugging one another””spitting out the fear and tension of the past seven and a half years.
Minutes later Carlo Della Vedova, one of our two Italian lawyers, called. “Does ‘acquitted’ mean not enough evidence to convict?” I asked him. “Or did they find us
innocent?”
“They found you innocent. Amanda!” he said. “It’s the best result possible!”
0ne trial. Two appellate court retrials. Two Italian Supreme Court decisions. Four years in prison. Seven and a half years of suspended life.
The relief I felt was so sudden, so unexpected, so encompassing, I felt as weightless as a bubble. I feel freer than I have felt since I was twenty.
I’m as grateful for the reversal of Raffaele’s wrongful conviction as I am for my own. But I’m acutely aware that the loss of Meredith can never be reversed. This story cannot end happily. That is not possible. Nothing will bring Meredith back to her loved ones.
Commentary: For all her proclaimed mindfulness to detail, AK leaves out that Bruno/Marasca did not touch her calunnia conviction. In fact, they later sabotaged her ECHR appeal. In the original edition of the book, AK left out that Hellmann not only upheld that conviction, but raised it to 3 years. And how can it be a wrongful conviction, when she spent 3 years, 11 months in jail, but received a 3 year sentence? It is more or less “time served”.
Tortured Logic #46: AK Still Hasn’t Learned That Making False Accusations is not a Good Idea
Commentary: At the time ‘‘Waiting to be Heard’’ was released in April 2013, AK’s: (1) calunnia for falsely accusing PL of rape and murder had been confirmed, as had the 3 year sentence; (2) calunnia for falsely accusing police officers of assault, coercion and intimidation was still before the courts.
So you think any intelligent ghost writer (Linda Kulman) or publishing agent (Robert Barnett) or publisher (HarperCollins) might have had second thoughts about any of the following? Did they ever read it?
Tortured Logic #47: A Creative Writing Graduate Needs a Professional Writer for HER Story
[Acknowledgements, Page 460] ” .... I wouldn’t have been able to write this memoir without Linda Kulman. Somehow, with her Post-it Notes and questions, with her generosity, dedication, and empathy, she turned my rambling into writing, and taught me so much in the meantime. I am grateful to her family””Ralph, Sam, Julia””for sharing her with me for so long.”
Commentary: A university graduate in writing needed someone else to ghostwrite her book. I know university standards are steadily declining, but come on.
Tortured Logic #48: AK got paid $3.8 million for SOMEONE ELSE to Write This
Commentary: Originally I was just going to put “fuck my life”, but here is something more productive
AK’s take was $3.8M. It is reasonable to assume that there was a large advance, say a million upfront, with the rest based on sales. It is also reasonable to assume that Linda Kuhlman and Robert Barnett also got a significant chunk. And for easy numbers, let’s say publishing costs were $1M as well. (750,000 copies originally produced at $1.33/book is $1M).
While stores like Chapters/Coles/Indigo may sell the book for $30 retail, the publisher, HarperCollins does not get all that. Bookstores have employees and overhead, so HC may be able to get half of that, or $15 per book. Considering that nearly all books have large amounts of unsold copies, higher margins have to be factored in.
Also, keep in mind that bookstores routinely discount prices, even on relatively new books. And online options, like Kindle or Amazon, while lower overhead, sell for much, MUCH less than bookstores. If a copy is sold for $5.99, then rest assured H.C. is not getting $15/book.
A more likely scenario is HarperCollins getting about $8/book, and that is generous. Low margin sales, while they are “sales”, undermine profitability
***Scenario A: Very Few Books are Sold
AK still gets her $1M advance, and HarperCollins still has to pay $1M for publishing
RESULT: Loss of $2M
***Scenario B: 250,000 Books are Sold
AK gets $1M advance, and $1M for sales; H.C. incurs $1M for publishing. Total spent is $3M.
However, 250,000 copies sold at $8/copy is a $2M income.
RESULT: Loss of $1M
***Scenario C: 500,000 Books are Sold
AK gets $1M advance and $2M for sales. H.C. incurs $1M for publishing. Total spent is $4M.
However, 500,000 copies sold at $8/book is $4M income
RESULT: Approximate break even
***Scenario D: All 750,000 Books are Sold
AK gets all $3.8M; H.C. incurs $1M for publishing. Total spent is $4.8M.
However, 750,000 copies sold at $8/copy is a $6M income.
RESULT: Profit of $1.2M on $4.8M spent, a return of 25%
While a return of 25% is decent, it makes many assumptions: (a) That most or all books are sold; (b) That H.C. actually gets $8/book; (c) Kuhlman’s and Barnett—and anyone else’s—fees are neglible; (d) That H.C. won’t be sued by anyone or have the book forcibly pulled (see #46). Those are huge assumptions, and considering how successful HarperCollins is, this seems like a very bad business deal. Having to sell 70%+ just to break even?
So, I have to ask, did someone at HarperCollins get a bribe or a kickback to see this loss-making deal go through?
4. And So In Conclusion
This concludes the series, “Revenge of the Knox”, which was meant to expose just how completely false and malicious this “memoir” really is. It is insulting, inflammatory, literally makes hundreds of false claims, slimes many, accuses others of crimes, whitewashes AK’s history—including banging a coke dealer for drugs, greatly distorts the factual evidence, and makes very little sense, even to those who have not followed the case closely.
There is very little of this book that is not either exaggerated or outright made up. AK gets the major dates right, and most of the names, but that is about the extent of it.. This book reads like it was written by an angry 12 year old girl, detached from reality. Ironically, that part actually rings true. Pardon the cheap shot, but the quality of the writing sucks.
AK claims that she relies on court documents, but the only one she significantly references is her November ruling from Judge Matteini. She holds it up as proof that PL was framed. This is rather bitter, as she directly caused him to be wrongly arrested. She includes her 3rd statement (where she muddies the waters), but omits the 1st and 2nd where she conclusively accuses PL.
On a personal note, I actually enjoyed other research topics more. This book just gets me worked up. However it gets far higher readership. Oh well.
https://truejustice.org/ee/index.php?/tjmk/comments/probable_legal_scenario_if_the_crime_against_meredith_had_taken_place/
https://truejustice.org/ee/index.php?/tjmk/comments/justice_systems_comparisons_5_how_appeals_differ_in_italy/
Hope you’ve enjoyed the s**tshow. Don’t get any on you.
Posted on 06/04/16 at 05:35 AM by Chimera • Click here for my past posts, via link at top left.
Archived in Knox’s Tortured Logic, Examples 21-48
Permalink for this post • Tell-a-Friend • Comments here (5)
Archived in Knox’s Tortured Logic, Examples 21-48
Permalink for this post • Tell-a-Friend • Comments here (5)