11. Knox Book Lies 447 To 476
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1. Overview Of This Series
My opinion is that this book is essentially Amanda Knox’s way of getting back at everyone in Italy she ever encountered, while falsely making her notoriously brash, sharp-elbowed, frequently drugged-up persona look endearing, naive, and squeaky-clean.
Knox includes numerous lies, smears, and stories to compromise literally dozens of others. None of them help clear up what happened to Meredith. And given how rampant the lies are, it doesn’t really clarify anything about Amanda Knox either.
One more quick post after this one, on the new Afterword, and the series will be done here. Then we will repost the final version on a new Knox Liewatch page with each of her false claim numbered, and draw the attention of the media. The ten posts before this one can all be read here.
Page numbers are those of the expanded 2015 paperback.
2. Dissection Of Pages 403 to Afterword
Chapter 31, Page 403 ] To the Kerchers, I wrote,
I’m sorry for your loss, and I’m sorry it’s taken me so long to say so. Pm not the one who killed your daughter and sister. I’m a sister, too, and I can only attempt to imagine the extent of your grief. In the relatively brief time that Meredith was part of my life, she was always kind to me. I think about her every day.
- Wow .... I was only kidding when I said Knox should send a ‘‘Sorry for your loss’’ letter.
- You can only attempt to imagine the extent of your grief? Right, you would have to care about Meredith.
- You are charged with her death, and you think of her everyday? Is that what you really meant?
[Chapter 31, Page 403] Disappointed and unsatisfied, I went back to my cell and came up with Plan B. I’d make a personal statement at the beginning of the trial. Unlike my declarations during the first trial, this one would be “spontaneous” in name only. I’d weave in Kassin’s work to explain why I’d reacted to my interrogation as I had. At the same time, I’d speak directly to Patrick and the Kerchers.I spent over a month writing drafts. Alone in my cell, I paced, muttering to myself as if I were speaking to the judges and jury.
- So, you are allowed to address the court, and you try to get ‘‘scientific’’ information in by the backdoor?
- You weren’t interrogated. I get tired of saying that.
- But at least since it is a defence appeal, prosecutors won’t be introducing any ‘‘evidence’’ in.
- You come off as fake and rehearsed. Now you admit you do rehearse.
[Chapter 31, Page 404] As I honed my statement, I decided it would be stronger to speak from my heart, without Kassin’s academic language. I’d tell the court about how I had been confused by the police and had lacked the courage to stand up to the authorities when they demanded that I name a murderer. During the first trial, I believed my innocence would be obvious. It hadn’t saved me, and I might never again have the chance to approach Patrick and the Kerchers. This time I was determined to help myself.
- Why are you honinh your statement if you are speaking from the heart?
- Do you normally include ‘‘academic language’’ when speaking from the heart?
- You’ll tell the police how you had been confused? If you were confused 3 years ago, how do you remember now?
- Which was it? They demanded you name a killer, or they wanted to know who Patrick was? It can’t be both.
- You believed your innocence would be obvious? Were you watching your trial, or someone else’s?
[Chapter 32, Page 405] 0ne must necessarily begin with the only truly certain, undisputed, objective fact: on November 2, 2007, a little after one P.M., in the house of Via dells Pergola, Number Seven, in Perugia, the body of the British student Meredith Kercher was discovered.”
Those were the opening words spoken at my appeal, by the assistant judge, Massimo Zanetti.
- Yeah, screw that mixed blood, footprints, false alibis, false accusation double DNA knife, and no alibi.
- Weren’t the closing words ‘‘the truth may be different’‘? (meaning AK and RS may not be innocent).
[Chapter 32, Page 406] Rocco and Corrado had given Laura money to buy me appropriate court clothes. She turned out to be an excellent personal shopper. My champagne-colored blouse and black pants told the judges and jury that I respected them and the law.
- Not flirting and smirking would also tell the judges and jury you respect them.
[Chapter 32, Page 406] The judge’s opening statement gave us hope that the court wanted a trial grounded in facts, not theories. Will we finally get a fair trial? Will the judges and jury finally listen to what we have to say?
- Judge Massei didn’t give you a fair trial?
- Judge Micheli didn’t give you a fair pre-trial hearing?
- Will the judges and jury listen to what you have to say? Will you agree to an unrestricted cross examination?
- Will Sollecito take the stand at all? (and no, giving speeches doesn’t count).
[Chapter 32, Page 406] I stood to deliver my declaration, the one I’d worked on for weeks. Speaking in Italian, without an interpreter, I sensed my voice quavering, my hands trembling:
- Yes, the ‘‘spontaneous declaration’’ that you spent weeks preparing ....
- You could agree to answer questions about Meredith’s death, couldn’t you
FOR A MORE DETAILED ACCOUNT OF THE STATEMENT TO THE APPEALS COURT:
[Chapter 32, Page 410] My declaration left me feeling cleansed and relieved. I didn’t expect to change minds instantly””and I didn’t. Chris, Mom, and Madison told me later that the Kerchers’ lawyer, Francesco Maresca, had left the room at my first mention of Meredith’s family. “She bores me,” the London Guardian reported him saying. “Her speech lacked substance, was designed to impress the court and was not genuine.”
- Is he wrong? You said that you rehearsed for weeks trying to impress.
[Chapter 32, Page 410] Maresca cared more about seeing me convicted than finding justice for Meredith. He always spoke of me as if I were a monster who must pay for Meredith’s death with my life.
- So, someone who cashes in on the brutal killing of a ‘‘friend’’ is just quirky?
- If you are guilty, then convicting you does mean justice for Meredith.
[Chapter 32, Page 411] Since court hearings were held only on Saturdays, an excruciatingly slow week would have to pass before we’d know Judge Hellmann’s mind. While we waited, Italy’s highest court signed the final paperwork on Rudy Guede’s verdict, approving his reduced sixteen-year sentence in the belief that he had not acted alone. Could that news influence Judge Hellmann’s decision? By pursuing our trial, he might seem to be contradicting the Supreme Court and make Italy look foolish.
- It was slow for the Kerchers too. One hearing every 2 weeks, it took almost as long as the Massei trial.
- Guede’s sentence was reduced to 16 years because he chose the ‘‘fast-track option’’ that you referenced. That means he gets 1/3 less than you for murder. 24 years - 1/3 = 16 years.
- Hellmann would indeed make the Supreme Court and Italy look foolish, but not for the reasons you are suggesting. [Chapter 32, Page 411] “I’m convinced the case is complex enough to warrant a review in the name of ‘reasonable doubt,”’ Judge Hellmann told the rapt courtroom. “If it is not possible to check the identity of the DNA, we will check on the reliability of the original tests.”
- This sounds impressive, but bringing in of independent experts is meant for the ‘‘trial’’ phase, and not for the 1st level appeal.
- Hellmann would later go on to say that he brought the experts: Stefano Conti and Carla Vecchiotti, since he didn’t understand much about DNA.
- It would later be revealed that the 2 ‘‘independent’’ experts were not really independent.
[Chapter 32, Page 411] I hadn’t wanted to admit to my lawyers or to myself how petrified I’d been. Only when the result came back did I realize how much fear I had had pent up. I brushed away tears. We might finally have a real chance to defend ourselves.
Still, I was wary. The judge in the previous trial had granted our request for data and then sided with the prosecution’s interpretation.
- You had many chances to defend yourself. You went before Judge Claudia Matteini, November 8th, 2007.
- You went before a 3 judge panel chaired by Judge Massimo Ricciarelli, November 30, 2007.
- You agreed to be questioned (with lawyers present), by Prosecutor Mignini,
- You appealed to Cassation, headed by Judge Torquato Gemeli, in April 2008.
- You attended pre-trial hearings in front of Judge Paolo Micheli in October and November 2008
- You also had the opportunity to testify at your own trial in 2009.
- You seem unhappy that the expert opinion didn’t go your way? Sollecito says the same thing in ‘‘Honor Bound’‘.
- From page 107 [page 107] “˜’... Papà was spinning like a dervish to clear my name, but not everyone he hired was as helpful as he hoped. One consultant whom he asked to monitor the Polizia Scientifica demanded eight thousand euros up front, only to prove reluctant to make overt criticisms of the police’s work, the very thing for which he’d been hired. A forensic expert who also seemed a little too close to the police charged four thousand euros for his retainer with the boast, “I’m expensive, but I’m good.” He wasn’t. A computer expert recommended by Luca Maori didn’t know anything about Macs, only PC’s.”
- Vecchiotti and Conti would claim that there is too little DNA to do additional testing. However, when the Carabinieri got the knife back, they ‘WERE’ able to do an additional test.
- Therein lies part of the problem. It is not enough to say ‘‘there might have been contamination’‘. You have to at least show ‘‘how’’ it was likely to have happened.
- Curatolo was the key witness to contradict your alibi that you were with Sollecito at his apartment?
- Sollecito (in his November 5th, 2007 statement), says he was home alone, and that you went out.
- In 2008, Sollecito wasn’t giving you an alibi
- For most of the 2008/2009 court process, Sollecito’s lawyers try to turn suspicion onto you
- In July 2014, Sollecito says you went out alone.
- In February 2015, Sollecito says you went out alone
- Your own ‘‘alibi witness’’ repeatedly says you were not with him.
- Then of course there are those ‘‘witness statements’’ you signed, saying you were at the scene.
- Let’s not forget leaving your blood mixed with Meredith’s in several places at the cottage, and those footprints in the hall.
- This is a made up passage to smear Curatolo as being disconnected from reality, and hence unreliable.
- Hellmann would go on to discredit the witness without any real basis, and would be criticized for it
- The media is really figuring it out this time? God job, Dave Marriott.
- Those broadcasts? Were they in the courtroom, or just reporting a PR line?
- Worried about the judge and jury? Don’t worry, it was already decided.
- So, you are accusing the analyst Stefanoni of committing a contempt of court (dodging court orders)?
- You are accusing her of withholding documents and sabotaging your right to a fair trial?
- Pretty serious claims to make.
- Interestingly though, these ‘‘experts’’ only chose to test 2 pieces of DNA (Sollecito’s DNA on the bra clasp, and the DNA on the big knife). What about the other DNA evidence that had been introduced? Did Judge Hellmann even know about them?
- For someone supposedly wrongfully imprisoned (in part) to junk DNA, you seem really calm about this.
- Silly question, why did you lawyers never attend the DNA testing in 2008, when they had the chances to?
- You accuse (again) Chiacchiera of randomly selecting a knife and then calling it evidence
- You accuse a dark haired woman (who you now name as Ficarra), as assaulting you
- You accuse PM Mignini of an illegal interrogation, and of pursuing this case for his own career.
- You accuse PM Mignini of trying to ‘‘discredit you’’ for filing a complaint about false claims your parents made
- You accuse the citations as being ‘‘politically motivated’‘.
- Oh right, you falsely accuse Patrick of raping and murdering Meredith.
- Amanda, has it yet sunk in that making false accusations is not a good idea?
- Which parts of your ‘‘interrogation’’ did ‘‘Mayor’’ Mignini choose if he asked no questions?
- You accuse Anna Donnino of being a police plant, and not actually trying to be an interpreter.
- No evidence of you in Meredith’s bedroom? There is plenty just outside.
- And what about your shoeprint and the DNA of your ‘‘alibi witness’‘?
- To play devil’s advocate, you did write statements that you were in the kitchen, trying not to hear Meredith’s screams.
- Yes, jailhouse snitches are always reliable witnesses.
- This is quite the revelation. I thought Guede broke in to rob the place, and Meredith interrupted him.
- Interestingly, this ‘‘other man’‘, is never identified.
- Despite Guede leaving ‘‘vast amount of himself’’ at the crime scene, this unnamed accomplice apparently left none.
- So ... if the intent ‘‘was’’ to have a 3-some, perhaps the burglary really was staged, and the police were correct.
- Still wondering: why this other man left no traces in the murder room. After all, Knox reminds us again and again and again that that is impossible.
- Alessi seems to have a stunning memory. He can recall precise details of a story he only heard.
- However, he is a little vague: did Meredith greet them at the door, or does she just expect strange men in her home?
- Alessi also remembers that Guede went to the bathroom. Of course, it happens to be when ‘‘quirky’’ Knox refused to flush the toilet.
- Also, is this a tacit admission that a ‘‘lone-wolf’’ attacker was just not possible?
- It is farfetched. Why was there no trace of this ‘‘other man’‘? You keep saying it is impossible to murder without leaving traces.
- If you weren’t there, how could you know exactly how it could or couldn’t unfold?
- What verbal attack? The courts treated you fairly. As for the media, thank Curt for that.
- Why were you trying imagine Merediith’s murder if you were trying to put it out of your mind?
- Yeah, not that prosecutors were pushing a ‘‘multiple attacker’’ theory since November 2007.
- It forced you to focus on the torture? Why exactly?
- Well, your DNA is in your bathroom. Oh, right, that only proves you lived there.
- This ‘‘unidentified’’ DNA: was it blood, or something else?
- Humour me, is an unflushed toilet part of the ‘‘crime scene’’ if it is not in the ‘‘murder room’‘?
- Signs of another person? Like DNA on the victim’s bra? Oh, right Sollecito was at his home with you.
- Signs of another person? Such as lack of defensive wounds?
- (1) Guede was there; (2) Guede lied about us; (3) Guede tried to escape responsibility. Okay, let’s try this:
- (1) You were there, your statements say you were, your blood mixed with Meredith’s.
- (2) You lied about your alibi, according to Sollecito
- (3) You tried to escape responsibility by framing Patrick.
- Actually, you desperately hoped he’d be silent.
- Forget Guede, why don’t you simply testify (without restrictions), about what you were doing that night?
- Anyone who can kill lacks a conscience? Amanda, I think we are making progress.
- His statements were compromised? Great, there isn’t any other evidence I assume.
- It would be a comfort—that your frame job worked?!
- What if they did confirm it? What good is bleach then?
- The bra clasp being contaminated how exactly?
- Again, there are many other pieces of DNA evidence to tie you to the murder. Why cherry-pick these two?
- This is a court. People are not ‘‘punished’’ for telling the truth.
- You knew the prosecutor’s DNA testing was flawed? How much research have you done on the topic?
- The bra clasp, in a sealed crime scene, was contaminated .... how?
- Once again, why only test those 2 pieces of DNA evidence? Do you not contest them? Or not want Hellmann to consider them?
- Why not get independent experts for the trial? That is how things are normally done.
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We come to the end (more or less - Chimera kindly skipped some duplicates!) of the 2013 book.
Chimera’s final two posts will be on the equally nasty 2015 Afterword and on a final overview of who was defamed by Knox and so on.
This series will be news to anyone in Italy as for cowardly reasons (Knox is nothing if not a world-class coward) the book was not released there and has still not been published in Italian.
For legal reasons though the book IS finally fully in Italian, and right now for the first time ever those defamed are reading the lies Knox made up about them.
Knox could be facing as many as 20 trials. She already in effect faces one of them.
Posted by Peter Quennell on 11/28/15 at 03:14 PM | #@Chimera, thank you for the many astute observations about Knox’s book. I may lapse into satire as the only proper response. Her unbearable cheek is so obvious.
She says, “for three and a half years I’d tried to imagine Meredith’s murder and had to push it out of my mind” but claims to be spellbound by Alessi when he discussed it on the stand. Alessi the killer’s calm recitation of the murder with details that he received secondhand from a weeping Rudy Guede in a jail yard talk, this is what suddenly clicks with Amanda.
Rudy in his despair must have turned to the elegant kidnapper and childkiller Alessi to spill all. Oh the confessional moments when Alessi suddenly learned “the truth” (don’t hurl), from Rudy’s amazing acting. The actor Rudy with manipulation, duping delight, and mask in hand puts on a great performance for the equally cunning Alessi. Then Rudy leads Alessi in acting lessons and places him as a puppet on the stand. Thank you Giulia Bongiorno, the opera awaits.
Alessi gets on the witness stand and spiels what he was spoonfed by Rudy, how oh no it wasn’t Rudy at all who did any killing, and it wasn’t Raf or Knox, either. Oh no, those two weren’t even there, that’s the flat truth, Alessi. The truth, my dear friend Alessi, is that it was my mysterious and he shall remain unnamed friend who killed Meredith by accident using an ivory handled knife. In kindness to him, my poor friend, I keep him anonymous.
This is the story Rudy pushes on Alessi:
Rudy was somewhat hiding in the bathroom a la Knox in the kitchen when he swept back into the bedroom to see a changed scene altogether (a scene worthy of la Knox staging). His mysterious unknown friend was attacking Meredith in every way. He had her on her knees and as she wrenched to get free, she killed her own self on the knife. Or rather wounded herself. The ghostly friend who continues unnamed, the mysterious friend panicked and killed her. No, it was not Knox. It was not Raffaele. It was this unknown person.
Knox says of Alessi’s graphic depiction of these events that she became spellbound, “My limbs went numb” and she felt “frozen in my chair”. Yes, Knox turned to a block of ice as she entered the danger zone wondering how far Alessi would go.
Alessi had her sweating it out second by miserable second. Knox had to wonder had Guede told Alessi clearly that it was Knox and Raf who were the mysterious friend. What had Rudy told Alessi during those jail yard talks and weepings? What true confessions? What falsehoods? Would Alessi twist even the truths that Guede had revealed? Knox had no way to gauge Alessi’s upcoming performance. She was petrified.
Knox said in book that even when the prosecutor accused HER and Raffaele of doing the killing, “it hadn’t bothered me as much as hearing Alessi give this graphic account of the violence”. She distorts her reaction, blames the fear she has for herself, fear of exposure, on horror at the violence Meredith experienced. She takes real emotion but twists and distorts it completely to a different end.
It shook her up, Alessi’s story told to the world. One reason, besides the fear factor is IMO that Knox, even when she is the only one who understands the story, while the rest are being told of her actions as being done by mysterious strangers, even in this way she likes to see herself spoken of in the third person. She likes to hear by a third party of what she has done, that she is the hero of her own novel, even a novel written by Alessi. Because it was a good novel in Knox’s eyes.
It was about her unrestrained actions, her daring to revenge, her ability for aggression (why, just think, the word of what happened to Meredith veiled in different names would eventually be all over Capanne and other Italian prisons, headlines. Yet it was her story. She was waiting to be heard).
Oh, the fearless risks she took at the Villa. Alessi made her see that.
His calm, clinical discussion of that dark night had a paralyzing effect on Knox. Here was Alessi electrifying the courtroom in the power he had to spill all the damaging truths Rudy may have whispered to him.
Rudy through Alessi was foxing the jury, thumbing his nose at them by explaining real details of the attack while holding back the most important vital point: the names of the killers. The names of the real killers.
Alessi carrying water for Guede, ran to Bongiorno with jailhouse tales. Guede used him as a tool, had Alessi changing the identities, hiding in plain sight. Knox was terrified at how far Alessi would go to reveal the facts that could hang her. No wonder she was frozen to the chair, her hands numb, an iceberg of fear and trepidation.
Knox the audacious wonder of the story was frozen with fear in the chair in a courtroom full of people, in plain sight. She couldn’t reveal one particle of facial movement or give away her reaction to the watching world. How far would Alessi go?
Then Alessi using words that perhaps Rudy had spoken to Raffaele, words he used against Knox in anger for involving him in the fatal madness, called Knox a whore who would have both him and the brilliant Sollecito both rot in prison if they didn’t finish off Meredith after the failed threesome that out of control Knox had incited.
Knox says in her book that Guede used clothes to staunch the blood. She didn’t mention towels. No doubt the clothes were removed in plastic bags to several different distant trashcans in Perugia in her overnight cleaning frenzy, and the bloody clothes were one more reason for the mop and bucket around town story.
Through puppet Alessi the wily Guede gave jailhouse snitch the doublecross. Guede leaked a story he knew would soon get back to the police and cause liars’ drama, a story to depict a lot of the truth of Meredith’s murder but that would tantalize and baffle the prosecution by withholding the key elements: names of the assassins.
It was Guede’s way of sending out a secret message that he was a dangerous man with cards yet to play, while proving to the ones perhaps paying him for his silence that he could still be trusted because he hadn’t told Alessi all he knew. Guede could still be trusted, was his message and he was willing to play an eternal game of leaking disinformation, too.
Rudy informed Curt Knox clan, Sollecito clan and Marriott of this indirectly by using puppet Alessi and putting words in his mouth.
Ah, because what did Guede’s story to Alessi stress? that Guede would send out stories that would focus on a male killer and an accidental death. Not by any means a female killer with rageful intention or purpose killing.
Yes, Guede would muddy the waters for his allies.
Since he was already convicted of murder, the Alessi story would “prove” that Guede was not the killer. He was merely at the scene trying to restrain an out of control friend. Guede himself wanted to appear in the story as a bewildered and somewhat innocent bystander who in the end tried to heal rather than harm.
Through Alessi, Guede would wave the torch of flickering light on the stage of the courtroom, threatening to point it at any dark corners where Knox and Raf’s pale faces were still hiding. Yet this time he wouldn’t reveal all. He had kept his puppet Alessi in the dark, too.
For this mercy Rudy expected many gifts on exiting prison. Gifts for his honour bound self-sacrifice of shielding the golden boy and others.
As hush money Rudy’s pockets might fill with money to impress even his rich adopted family. If not, he could change his name to Rudy Sollecito. He had many stories to sell now. He would sit at bistros and talk to people. He would go back to his old drug friends in Perugia and ask for tidbits they knew about Curatolo. He might look up a certain drug dealer that Amanda had on her speed dial. Many would welcome Rudy’s knowledge now.
Perhaps the Sollecitos would give him a job, or Raffaele employ him at Memories. He might move to Bari, allow the Sollecitos to adopt him.
He would become the son of a second Italian house, strangely born again after being buried for years to hide the crimes of the rich.
He would be resurrected not by their political manipulations and power but by the glory of the law, having paid his dues in full. But then he might haunt them forever.
The decades stretched forth full of blackmail potential. Look at him, Rudy had become once more extremely significant to three rich families, even Americans. The Caporalis would still love him. They would drive him to Rome airport (he would kiss the statues at the Court of Cassation before boarding his plane for Seattle.)
Rudy might arrive in Seattle with a message from Frank Sfarzo. He would borrow a basketball court near Colin and Amanda. At last he might become an American basketball player like The Baron.
Perhaps Amanda would invite him to Loyola in December to the lovely dinner. He could verify her innocence yet again, he could speak before the panel. If she balked, he might press her for airfare and hotel expenses lest he say something shocking to the upstanding Loyola students. He might ask Colin for a private coffee elsewhere and pour a few embarrassing words in his shell-like ear.
Posted by Hopeful on 11/28/15 at 06:51 PM | #Wow, Hopeful, you’ve really brought Guede out of the shadows for me. And AK terrified although she does like to relive the details of the murder, doesn’t she. Dangerous, dangerous people, especially RG who seems quite rootless and having paid his dues will be free to follow whatever path he chooses. I like the notion that after taking the rap he will be forever a source of anxiety to AK and RS, I just hope he’s clever enough to avoid a sudden demise.
Posted by YorkshireLass on 11/28/15 at 09:06 PM | #What struck me was Knox wanting to protect her “friend” again by turning her book of lies into a story of hardcore pornography, it’s almost as though she gets pleasure from writing it down.
Posted by Sarah Phillips on 11/29/15 at 01:05 AM | #Of course she gets pleasure from writing it down. She cannot help herself from being front and center, hence the public appearances, speech making, article writing etc. She says she is fighting to clear her name. That is simply crap She loves the attention because like all sociopaths the woman is dangerously mad pure and simple. She should be put away from the public in a tiny cell so she can tell herself stories. I wonder if she laughs to herself at four in the morning thinking she has got away with it. That is not going to happen because one way or the other the truth will eventually come out.
Posted by Grahame Rhodes on 11/29/15 at 01:42 AM | #Chapter 32, Page 415: Chimera, you’re so right. No innocent person would be so calm.
And to sell her innocent story she just weaves in phrases like “which was the film me and Raffaele watched on the night of the murder”.
Cha 32, P419: When the prosecutor had put Raffaele and me into the scene, it hadn’t bothered me nearly this much. We weren’t there, so Meredith’s murder couldn’t possibly have unfolded the way Mignini described.
No proper timeline.
Posted by DavidB on 11/29/15 at 12:11 PM | #Thank you Chimera.
We are clearly dealing here with someone who is psychologically well outside the range of normal human variability, to put it politely.
I couldn’t help thinking of Knoxious and her phone call to her mother when I read these lines:
“Narcissistic sociopaths are about as creepy and cunning as it gets: a run-of-the-mill sociopath will kill without concern - a narcissistic sociopath will do the same and then, without blinking, let it be known that they want to help the police find the murderer…”
Curt and Edda aren’t stupid (much), they’ve raised this little nightmare and were no doubt always fully aware of her innocence act whenever trouble came knocking (or phoning). Actually “act” may be a misnomer - that suggests conscious misrepresentation; maybe people like AK have no soul as we know it, maybe they are trying to get along as best they can with minimal clues from outside as to right behaviour. That might explain for instance the incongruity of killing someone and wanting to help the police find the killer; she really might not get the disconnect (granted this could be hard for the ensouled to understand).
Curt and Edda have dutifully done the parent thing so far, I suppose, but whether they can live with it for the rest of their lives is a different question. I don’t particularly blame them now (though I did when they were doing the nuclear family soap opera bit on TV at every opportunity). Maybe deep down they would also like to know what really went wrong…
Posted by Odysseus on 12/01/15 at 08:27 PM | #Theres a surprise reversal of the verdict on Oscar Pistorius in South Africa. The Supreme Court has found him guilty of the murder of his wife [correction: girlfriend] on prosecution appeal.
The trial judge had said she believed Pistorius or gave him the benefit of the doubt when he claimed he didnt know who was in the bathroom when he fired through the door.
The Supreme Court didnt say it WAS his wife and he knew it, what they said was he intended to kill, end of story, to prison he must go (he is now on house arrest).
“In these circumstances, the accused must have foreseen and, therefore, did foresee that whoever was behind the toilet door might die but reconciled himself to that event occurring and gambled with that person’s life,” said Judge Leach.
“The identity of his victim is irrelevant to his guilt.”
This is a reversal of what could have come to be a very bad precedent in a country and a world where many killers dont know their victims’ names.
Posted by Peter Quennell on 12/03/15 at 11:50 AM | #Hi Odysseus
Interesting post. SeekingUnderstanding has made a similar point to this in the past.
... maybe people like AK have no soul as we know it, maybe they are trying to get along as best they can with minimal clues from outside as to right behaviour.
Only SeekingUnderstanding saw the needed clues lacking from the inside.
When Knox finds out “from outside” she went wrong she sometime chastizes herself.
We saw this in Berlin and in her beating up on herself in the police station on 5-6 Nov 2007.
Posted by Peter Quennell on 12/03/15 at 12:02 PM | #Great penultimate post Chimera. Cracking comment from Odysseus too.
Truly marvellous news about Pistorius. I managed to catch all of that trial on TV and the trial judge was a joke. I also noted that Pistorius would give Knox a run for her money in the truly awful acting category. His lies were similarly child like and put across the way a lying child would do. Very similar character traits overall to Knox, scarily so.
Small correction Peter, it wasn’t his wife he murdered, Reeva was his girlfriend. And a very frightened one at that as it transpired in court. She had sent him messages saying she was terrified of him and his temper.
Again though, a dysfunctional relationship was portrayed by the defence as merely a normal relationship with nothing more than the regular bumps in the road that all relationships have. A particularly slow witted trial judge Thokozile Masipa swallowed it.
Yet more parallels with poor Meredith, whose unhappy relationship with Knox and her gutter morals and slovenly way of life were portrayed as just mere blips in a blossoming friendship.
I wonder if Knox will be upset by this righteous verdict, and be telling us all how bad she feels for Oscar. I think not, and she’s well aware most sentient beings think she was in the same boat as Pistorius in getting away with murder.
At least for now she has….
Posted by davidmulhern on 12/03/15 at 01:03 PM | #Pete
“Only SeekingUnderstanding saw the needed clues lacking from the inside.”
Yes, I definitely agree with that. They are lacking from the inside so she could be left having to guess what is appropriate from experience and external clues.
She may understand for example that helping the police to solve a murder would normally be considered a good and right thing to do, but somehow fails to understand that is only true in the context of not being the murderer oneself!.
This is obvious to most people, but if you’re not cooking on all burners…
Posted by Odysseus on 12/03/15 at 03:49 PM | #@Peter,
I saw the news on Oscar Pistorius case. It was not like that I wanted Oscar Pistorius to go to jail, I just wanted that some form of closure must take place.
Justice is not about baying for the blood, but about telling the perps that we do not approve what you did.
Like you quoted: “... maybe people like AK have no soul as we know it..”.
and I remembered Cathy in the East of Eden book & film. Some part of her brain is missing.
But then AK is not alone; she has a fan club following her every steps. Do I include Bruno/ Maresca in her secret admirer list?
“The identity of his victim is irrelevant…†and so is the motive. Actions and the results are both necessary and sufficient.
Hunting for the motive is is just for intellectual pleasure.
They charmed it, with smiles and soap..
Posted by chami on 12/03/15 at 08:51 PM | #Hi Odysseus and Pete, and all…
I’ve been occupied following the debate in our Parliament, which was deciding how to act in response to the terrorism threatening us. There was a ten hour debate yesterday, and I was watching it from the point of view of psychology.
I realized that a number of the MPs/speakers were failing to grasp fairly essential facts, and as they were (for the most part!) intelligent and able people, I felt that their opinions and speeches were actually being modified or sometimes formed by something else - ie fear.
So it is interesting, the affect of real and valid fear upon the brain and upon our judgement. High levels of cortisol really do affect our thinking and our memories.
It’s almost as if it’s a distorting lens to the perception of truth.
Perhaps the climate of fear and very high levels of violence and murder in South Africa have some bearing on the Pistorius case also? I agree it’s an interesting judgement, bringing a clarity.
The whole case so dreadful, just a litany of wrecked and ruined lives, ...and, like Meredith, needless destruction of great beauty and talent.
* * *
Thank you for bringing to notice again the observation about this certain kind of personality (AK) lacking the nous (as it could be called) to know how to behave appropriately.
I suddenly became aware of this with her during one of the interviews - a long one, I think, where she said ‘No’ yet nodded in affirmation.
I realized she was staring at the interviewer, but not responding naturally, spontaneously. It was as if she was really working very hard in some part of her brain to work out what she SHOULD be saying, or looking like. (“Do I smile here?” etc etc).
Apart from the complex web of not being direct with the truth (me being polite!), on top of this I realized she doesn’t know just how to be warm, kindly, ordinarily human. It just isn’t there.
She was desperately trying to ‘read’ the interviewer, because she didn’t know how to. Like when we first start to read, and stumble over the letters and words..
So I think it was even harder for her, at 20, to ‘read’ those such as Meredith, the other girls, and Patrick etc.
I think there is another element to when she was eager to ‘aid the police’ in ‘finding the murderer’ : that is, I think she likes to please people. She wants so much to be liked and approved of - this emerges time and time again. Possibly because there is a deep fear that actually she is not very likeable?
Whatever, she definitely wanted to impress the nice Italian police etc.(and several of them were particularly nice, kind, to her).
Thank you, Chimera, for all your painstaking work. I don’t say much, anymore, but all is appreciated.
Posted by SeekingUnderstanding on 12/03/15 at 10:13 PM | #@SeekingUnderstanding
Well said.
“... on top of this I realized she doesn’t know just how to be warm, kindly, ordinarily human. It just isn’t there.”
That’s it, in a nutshell (if you’ll forgive the seasonal reference!).
Yes, definitely she does want to please and be liked - most children, rightly, find comfort in that. What’s missing somehow, in my lay view, is more basic and earlier in development ( perhaps pre-natal); something around a deep, deep pre-verbal assurance that it’s safe to just “be”. This might explain her absolute existential desperation to be liked - or at least acknowledged as someone - and the hell let loose when she perceives she’s not.
It’s a sobering thought that when you’re with a group of people the possibility is always that someone will be neurotic and insecure enough to NEED attention, and lack might lead to primal rage and violence (or plans for it).
Posted by Odysseus on 12/04/15 at 06:39 PM | #@Odysseus
Yes, I think that’s right…desperately wanting to be liked, continuously, would seem to be a compensation or symptom of something deeper - more disturbing - which Melanie Klein for example suggests initiates very early on indeed.She presents it as stemming from the first breastfeeding, and in fact she says precisely this - that the infant is unable to be (sorry I would put that in italics but can’t on here!)... Thus cannot accept not having the breast precisely the moment he/she desires - there has to be instant gratification on demand.
When there isn’t, (as of course there can never be!), the infant then has no capacity for patience, no ‘just being’ even for a minute… And this is when the rage sets in. Klein says this is where the primeval Envy comes from, built out of this rage that cannot ‘be’.It does make a great deal of sense to me. And does show how this very early, pre-language or pre-verbal relationship is so very elemental, and its pattern so entrenched…and indeed, (as you intimate) so potentially dangerous if never corrected.
An infant that gradually adapts to life not being ‘perfect’, who learns that relationship is a compromise of sorts, who can pause and look at the mother, and learn to smile, and not demand constantly… They set up for themselves the beginning of relating to The Other - in a healthy way.
One cannot just ‘blame the mother’ though, if the adaptation doesn’t occur. Sometimes this relationship goes wrong in this way - and it is unrelenting tragedy.
Sorry, Odysseus, I don’t expect you wanted a mini-lecture!
Posted by SeekingUnderstanding on 12/04/15 at 08:32 PM | #PS
Regarding coming across someone in a social situation who has an excessive, neurotic need for attention/devotion (which is actually insatiable), - I don’t think one needs to be too anxious about this prospect, as long as one has a certain amount of intuitive antennae in operation!... especially perhaps around body language and facial clues. Fluidity of speech is often a clue, as well as other awkwardness. Inappropriateness.
They really do give off warning signs.
I’ve no doubt that Meredith had picked these up. And poor Reeva too.Posted by SeekingUnderstanding on 12/04/15 at 09:18 PM | #@SeekingUnderstanding
True, it should be easy to spot I guess. I’ll keep my eyes open!
P.S. If you want to italicise anything just put the letter i inside angle brackets <> (on keyboard) before the text you want in italics and at the end repeat the same brackets, but insert /i , meaning “end of italics”.
You can do the same thing with u for underline and b for bold, among other text codes.
http://www.simplehtmlguide.com/text.php
Posted by Odysseus on 12/05/15 at 01:01 PM | #@Odysseus
ThankyouPosted by SeekingUnderstanding on 12/05/15 at 01:55 PM | #Commenting is not available in this channel entry.
Where next:
Click here to return to The Top Of The Front PageOr to next entry 10. Knox Book Lies 419 To 446
Or to previous entry 12. Knox Book Lies 477 To 518
https://truejustice.org/ee/index.php?/tjmk/comments/the_knox_interrogation_hoax_10_/
https://truejustice.org/ee/index.php?/tjmk/comments/knox_tied_in_knots_by_her_own_tongue_translation_4/
https://truejustice.org/ee/index.php?/tjmk/comments/the_knox_interrogation_hoax_16/
https://truejustice.org/ee/index.php?/tjmk/comments/the_knox_interrogation_hoax_18_micheli/
https://truejustice.org/ee/index.php?/tjmk/comments/italy_shrugs_why_the_defendants_testimony_seems_to_have_been_a_real_fl/
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[Chapter 32, Page 411] After that, we were back to waiting again. The independent experts, Dr. Carla Vecchiotti and Dr. Stefano Conti, forensic medicine professors at Rome’s university, La Sapienza, were sworn in, and Judge Hellmann charged them with figuring out whether a new analysis of the DNA on the knife and bra clasp was possible. If not, he wanted to know if the original results of the prosecution’s forensic expert were reliable: Were the interpretations of the genetic profiles correct? Had there been risk of contamination? The experts were given three months from the day the prosecution turned over the evidence.
[Chapter 32, Page 411] During the first trial, Prosecutor Mignini had called the witness Antonio Curatolo, a homeless man referred to as “the stepping-stone leading us up to the murder.” Curatolo had testified that he’d seen Raffaele and me arguing on the basketball court in Piazza Grimana. It was key evidence in our conviction, because it contradicted our alibi that we’d never left Raffaele’s apartment. But it had been left unclear which night Curatolo, was describing””Halloween or November 1?
https://truejustice.org/ee/index.php?/tjmk/comments/sollecito_turns_on_knox_this_is_extraordinary/
https://truejustice.org/ee/index.php?/tjmk/comments/how_each_of_the_three_subtly_but_surely_pushed_the_other_two_1/
https://truejustice.org/ee/index.php?/tjmk/comments/how_each_of_the_three_subtly_but_surely_pushed_the_other_two_2
https://truejustice.org/ee/index.php?/tjmk/comments/how_each_of_the_three_subtly_but_surely_pushed_the_other_two_3
https://truejustice.org/ee/index.php?/tjmk/comments/how_each_of_the_three_subtly_but_surely_pushed_the_other_two_4
https://truejustice.org/ee/index.php?/tjmk/comments/Spitting_In_the_Wind_Sollecito_News_Conference/
https://truejustice.org/ee/index.php?/tjmk/comments/sollecito_on_italian_tv_seems_rs_and_ak_selling_out_one_another/
[Chapter 32, Page 413] Under the judges’ questioning, Curatolo, talked about his personal history: “I was an anarchist, then I read the Bible and became a Christian anarchist,” he said. He confirmed that he was now in prison, adding, “I haven’t quite understood why yet.” Asked if he’d used heroin in 2007, he answered, “I have always used drugs. I want to clarify that heroin is not a hallucinogen.”
[Chapter 32, Page 414] “Curatolo didn’t know what he was talking about, poor guy. If my life didn’t depend on his being wrong, I’d just feel bad for him,” I reported.
“The broadcasts here are saying that he’s a confused drug addict!” someone cried.
It was ironic that I learned from my family in Seattle what the journalists in the courtroom were thinking. “The media are really figuring it out this time,” my family reassured me. “It’s going to be okay.”
The media, yes. But what about the judges and jury? I wondered. Curatolo hadn’t been convincing in the first trial, either, but his testimony had contributed to our conviction.
[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.
[Chapter 32, Page 415] Before the court withdrew to decide whether to approve the delay, I made a statement. “I’ve spent more than three and a half years in prison as an innocent person,” I told the court. “It’s both frustrating and mentally exhausting. I don’t want to remain in prison, unjustly, for the rest of my life. I recall the beginning of this whole thing, when I was free. I think of how young I was then, how I didn’t understand anything. But nothing is more important than finding the truth after so many prejudices and mistakes. I ask the court to grant the extra time, so that the experts may complete a thorough analysis. Thank you.”
[Chapter 32, Page 416] When Luciano came to Capanne for our weekly Wednesday meeting, he told me that a special award had been given to officers in the Squadra Mobile for its work on Meredith’s murder investigation. The citation read: “To recognize elevated professional capabilities, investigative acumen, and an uncommon operative determination. They conducted a complex investigation that concluded in the arrest of the authors of the murder of the British student that had taken place in the historic center of Perugia.”
Four of the sixteen police officers receiving the Police Holiday award were named in the police’s slander charge against me.
They included Vice Superintendent Marco Chiacchiera, whose “investigative instinct” led him to randomly select Raffaele’s kitchen knife from the drawer as the murder weapon; Substitute Commissioner and Homicide Chief Monica Napoleons; and Chief Inspector Rita Ficarra.
The news infuriated me. I knew it was just another face-saving ploy. How could they commend the officer who had hit me during my interrogation and those who had done so much wrong?
But I wasn’t surprised. It was completely in line with the prosecution’s tactics to discredit my supporters and me. Mignini had charged my parents with slander for an interview they gave to a British newspaper in which they told the story of my being slapped during the interrogation. He was the one who had charged me with slandering the police.
[Chapter 32, Page 417] British journalist Bob Graham interviewed Mignini for an article in The Sun that came out on Police Holiday. Mignini confided in Graham that he chose the parts of my interrogation that suited his purposes. He also said that my interpreter at the questura that night was “more investigator than translator.” When Graham asked the prosecutor why there was no evidence of me in Meredith’s bedroom, Mignini told him, “Amanda might theoretically have instigated the murder while even staying in the other room.”
[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 ...
“In this context, on November 9, 2009, Guede told me that in the following days, and in particular on November 18, 2009, he had his appeal and he was reflecting over whether to ... tell the truth about Meredith Kercher’s murder. In particular, he asked me what the consequences could be to his position if he gave statements that reconstructed a different truth about what happened the night of the murder.
[Chapter 32, Page 418] 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.
[Chapter 32, Page 418] 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 ...
“The second part of his secret came out while we were in our respective cells ... at a certain point he and his friend changed positions, in the sense that his friend attempted to have oral sex with Meredith while Guede was behind. He specified in particular that his friend was in front of Meredith, who was on her knees, while Guede was behind Meredith, with his knee on her back. Kercher tried to wriggle out ...
“Kercher tried to get away, and at this point Guede’s friend took a knife with an ivory-colored handle out of his pocket. While Kercher tried to get away, turning around, she was wounded by the blade. At this point, seeing as she began to bleed, Guede, finding his hands covered in blood, let her go. While Guede tried to staunch the wound with clothes, his friend reprimanded him, saying,
‘Let’s finish her. If not, this whore will have us rot in prison: At this point, his friend killed her, stabbing her various times while Guede gathered clothes to staunch the wounds. Then, realizing that she wasn’t breathing anymore, he left.”
[Chapter 32, Page 419] Listening to Alessi testify, I felt frozen in my chair, my limbs numb. Alessi was a calm, direct, convincing speaker. Is this possibly what happened the night of November 1 ? Is this the horror that Meredith experienced? For three and a half years, I’d tried to imagine Meredith’s murder and had to push it out of my mind. When the prosecutor had put Raffaele and me into the scene, it hadn’t bothered me nearly this much. We weren’t there, so Meredith’s murder couldn’t possibly have unfolded the way Mignini described. His story was so far-fetched, and it was so painful to hear myself described in bloodthirsty terms, that I couldn’t help but focus on the verbal attack on me rather than the physical attack on Meredith.
[Chapter 32, Page 421] 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?
[Chapter 32, Page 421] My lawyers once told me that investigators had found unidentified DNA at the crime scene, but I’d never dwelled on it. The prosecution had never presented it. Wouldn’t there have been signs of another person in the room and on Meredith’s body? I didn’t know. This is what I was sure of: Guede was there, Guede lied about us, Guede tried to escape his responsibility for the crime. Guede would have to confess.
[Chapter 32, Page 421] I desperately hoped he’d be honest when he took the witness stand. With the Supreme Court’s seal on his conviction, his sentence couldn’t be extended no matter how he incriminated himself. Since he truly had nothing to lose, I thought he might admit his crimes””and the fact that Raffaele and I weren’t there that night.
[Chapter 32, Page 421] In the meantime, I was agitated. I had no reason to expect that Guede would admit what had happened””anyone who can kill is already lacking a conscience. Even if Guede acknowledged Raffaele’s and my innocence, it still wouldn’t be enough on its own to free us””his statements were compromised since he’d lied before and wasn’t impartial. But it would be a huge step in the right direction””and an even bigger comfort to me.
[Chapter 32, Page 423] Twenty-four hours before the court-appointed experts were to present their findings on the DNA, only two words were going through my mind. What if? What if their review somehow - impossibly - confirmed Meredith’s DNA on the knife blade? What if they found that the bra clasp couldn’t have been contaminated?
[Chapter 32, Page 423] Or what if the experts risked telling the truth and sided with the defense? I knew the prosecution’s DNA testing was flawed. But so little had gone right in this case, why would this go right?
Science was on our side. The knife blade had tested negative for blood, and there was a high likelihood that the bra clasp had been contaminated while it sat on the floor for six weeks. But I had no faith in facts anymore. They hadn’t saved me before. It was terrifying to hope””and impossible not to.
[Chapter 32, Page 423] I had to hear the words myself. I went to the TV, madly changing channels until I found the news. “Svoltaa Giudiziaria” - “Judicial Turning Point” - the headline read, behind an announcer who was talking about my case. The crawl at the bottom read: “DNA damning Knox and Sollecito deemed unreliable by court-appointed experts. New hope arises for the defendants.”