Category: More hoaxers

Knox PR Puppet Timothy Egan Gets A Splash Of Cold Water From A Respected Trial Lawyer

Posted by Peter Quennell

Seattle and Spokane are at opposite ends of Washington State.

Spokane is the second largest city in the state, some 280 miles to the east of Seattle, and it is nicely located and landscaped. These spectacular falls are just one block away from the downtown.

As our Seattle posters have been showing, a majority in Seattle seem to be settling now on some hometruths, such as that justice for Meredith has actually been rendered.

The “Knox framed by evil Italians” meme is looking like an imperiled species even there, where the PR campaign did its absolute darndest with the help of a large handful of Knox PR puppets.

Spokane seems to have brushed off the PR campaign almost entirely, and it has never ever seen a strong “framed” constituency emerge.

Now a highly respected Spokane lawyer, Bill Edelblute, takes on the many ill-informed claims of Seattle-based blogger Timothy Egan - claims which among others may have swayed Senator Maria Cantwell.

Unlike many of the absurdists who posted once and then clearly felt, well, absurd, Timothy Egan posted several times, increasingly strained and defensively. How his contemptuous attitude toward Italy paid off was described in our posts here and here and here.

Mr Edelblute posts eleven reality checks in response to Egan’s various claims. His article starts as follows - questioning the attempt to make Maria Cantwell, Hillary Clinton and even Barack Obama into the ultimate Knox PR puppets for the cause. 

U.S. Senator Maria Cantwell, D-WA, was “saddened” by the verdict convicting Amanda Knox of the murder of Meredith Kercher.  Her spokesman later issued another statement about the lack of a fair trial in Italy, and Cantwell appeared on television reiterating that the proceeding was unfair.  And, she was going to enlist Hillary Clinton, apparently believing fair legal proceedings mean outside influence is exercised by non-judicial authorities.

Why does an elected official in high office like Cantwell believe this, what is she going on?  One of the often cited sources for the “railroad” job are the articles by Tim Egan, a best-selling author living in Seattle, who did not attend the trial.  Is it this type of American journalism that Cantwell has swallowed, hook, line and sinker?

The proliferation of writers who casually attack the Italian justice system, and its treatment of the Kercher murder case, such as Tim Egan, also focus on the supposedly unfair press in Europe. Imitation must be the sincerest form of flattery. Egan’s articles attack the Italian news treatment of the case as being factually inaccurate and sensational. Where did they learn it, from the U.S.? Witness the O.J. Simpson case, etc. Ever watch the Nancy Grace show? Are the supermarket tabloids in the U.S. imported from Italy?

Egan is loose with the facts, and makes assumptions about an entire populace with no need for the tedious obligation to back it up with any logic or truth

Mr Egan of course is not a lawyer, and Mr Edelblute of course actually is. Here is Mr Edelblute’s entire article. It is well worth reading in full.

 

Click here for the rest

Fox News Analyst Lis Wiehl Seems to Think Meredith’s Murder Is One Terrific Great Joke

Posted by Peter Quennell

You can see the self-infatuation of the notoriously narcissistic Lis Wiehl leaking out here from her very first words.

When the rather disbelieving host, Don Imus, pulls her up for not knowing the facts, her smarmy response to him is to the effect that she knows them a lot better than he does.

Try again, Lis Wiehl.

In this six-minute segment, we did not count ONE fact you got right. Here are some corrections to your mean-spirited and wildly inaccurate claims to help you come back down to Planet Earth..

• There was no 14-hour interrogation. Ever. There were two interrogations on the night of the 6th of November (see also here) each of them under two hours. One as a witness and one as a suspect. Knox had a lawyer present for most of the second. Before he arrived she spontaneously presented the prosecutor with a scenario indicating her involvement. This was disallowed, but later she helpfully wrote it out anyway, and that was entered into evidence.
• Mr Mignin is NOT under indictment for a criminal offense. His one remaining charge which is likely to be tossed out soon relates to his seemingly guessing RIGHT in the Monster of Florence case - that there probably was a cabal, a fact which Doug Preston has suspiciously been trying hard to bury.
• No sign of a cleanup? Of fingerprints having been wiped clean? The ONLY fingerprints of Amanda Knox in the entire house were found on a glass in the kitchen. Even in her own room there was not one print.
• Amanda Knox was TOLD the day after the investigation commenced that she was not to leave Italy. As a material witness she had no choice but to stay. One of Meredith’s English friends was also told to remain in Perugia. She remained in effect trapped in Perugia for two months at her expense, and lost an entire year of study at university.
• Despite Lisa Wiehl’s ugly sneering anti-Italianism at the end there, this trial was NOT about Italy or the judges or investigators or prosecutor saving face. The case was reviewed altogether by 19 judges and the caution adopted throughout was beyond anything American courts normally see.

And by the way, there pretty well was a smoking gun in this case.

Read this post and see if you disagree.

US Overreaction: State Department (Foreign Office) Rebuts Senator Cantwell’s Claims

Posted by Peter Quennell

If Senator Cantwell or her staff come by looking for something to convince them fast please read this.

The same people who set the hapless John Q Kelly up (he has never been heard from again since that post) seem to have set Senator Cantwell up too.

Now Agence France-Presse (AFP) reports that her precipitate involvement in the case seems to be hitting a brick wall.

WASHINGTON, USA - The US government said Monday it had no signs that a court in Italy failed to follow the country’s laws when it found American Amanda Knox guilty of the murder of her British housemate.

However, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will discuss the verdict with Senator Maria Cantwell, who said it raises ‘serious questions’ about the Italian justice system, Clinton’s spokesman Ian Kelly told reporters.

‘I don’t have any indications to the contrary,’ Kelly said when asked if Knox was treated fairly under Italian law. ‘We haven’t received any indications necessarily that Italian law was not followed.’

He added: ‘I do know that our embassy in Rome was very closely involved in this. They visited Amanda Knox. They have monitored the trial.’

Kelly said he preferred to limit comment as the legal process continues, recalling that Knox has the right to appeal in 45 days.

Knox PR Puppet Dan Norder “Crime Historian” Makes A Dozen Mistakes In A Short Piece

Posted by Peter Quennell

Click above for all of Dan Norder’s offensive and wildly misleading post. Some excerpts below.

The commenters below his absurd piece pretty well nail him to the wall. He makes a couple of flustered responses that only dig him in deeper, and then he goes (hopefully forever) silent.

And so yet another knox PR puppet bites the dust. Where does Preston FIND these suckers?!

Italian investigators formed a rather unusual theory to explain the murder. Amanda Knox “” Kercher’s American roommate, who was then 20 “” and Raffaele Sollecito “” an Italian who was Knox’s 23-year-old boyfriend at the time “” were accused of being sex maniacs who wanted Kercher to participate in an orgy, raping and killing her when she refused.

Police apparently came up with this explanation because they thought it was strange that the two, while being held for routine questioning, were seen cuddling and occasionally kissing. Somehow the public displays of affection went from being considered merely inappropriate behavior under the circumstances to evidence of a lust murder.

The lead prosecutor in the case, Giuliano Mignini, at first argued that Kercher was killed by Knox and Sollecito as part of a Satanic ritual [he didn’t] involving an orgy or sacrifice, but later decided to tone things down a bit and focus solely on the idea of extreme sexual perversion.

Mignini has made similar accusations in the past [he hasn’t] most notably in the Monster of Florence case. After American author Douglas Preston and Italian reporter Mario Spezi criticized him for blaming that unsolved series of murders on a shadowy group of devil worshippers, Mignini responded by accusing them of being part of this Satanic conspiracy. Spezi was imprisoned on suspicion of murder and Preston was driven out of Italy after being threatened with prosecution.

Mignini’s preoccupation with the idea of Satanic cults [he has none] is one that is shared by a number of people in various countries over the years. For example, in the 1980s the United States legal system was full of alleged incidents of groups of people engaged in sexual molestation and murders based upon shoddy and manufactured evidence…

Unfortunately these kinds of accusations often are accepted at face value. The moral outrage at the idea of such crimes is so overwhelming that things like lack of evidence and the sheer absurdities of the claims being made never sink in. Similarly, the idea that Knox and Sollecito were perverts capable of murder was leaked by the police to the press and took on a life of its own.

When Knox was unable to obtain her clothes after the cottage became a crime scene and went to buy new underwear, the news media painted it as inappropriately rushing off to buy lingerie after the murder. Tabloid papers in England and Italy have continually referred to her as “Foxy Knoxy” and “Angel Face,” reinforcing the idea that she is a siren instead of a student. Whenever a photographer captures Knox smiling at a family member or friend who she has not yet seen during the two years she’s been incarcerated, the public just sees that she’s always smiling in court and concludes that there’s something wrong with her.

But what evidence has been presented in court that would support the idea that Knox is a homicidal sex maniac? Kercher’s friends from England testified that she resented Knox for bringing men over to the house and for having condoms and a vibrator in a bag in the bathroom.

The actual evidence points to a more simple solution [actually it does’nt] . DNA tests show that Rudy Guede, a 20-year-old acquantance of the students who lived downstairs at the time of the murder, had sex with Kercher the night she was killed. His DNA was also found in the bathroom. Bloody shoe prints matching his foot size were discovered by the body. He fled to Germany shortly after the murder. In fact, he’s even already been convicted of the crime.

But apparently Mignini couldn’t let go of his theory. Guede gave conflicting stories after his arrest, originally claiming that Kercher and he had consensual sex, that she had been killed while he was in the bathroom, and that he saw an unknown Italian man over the body. But he eventually told the police what they wanted to hear: that Knox and Sollecito were responsible for the whole thing….

Report By Bob Graham In The Daily Express Close To Breaking New Record For Inaccuracy

Posted by The Machine

Here is a short list of the competition for most misleading reporter on the case: Peter Popham, Peter Van Sant, Simon Hattenstone, Steve Shay, Timothy Egan, Linda Byron, Candace Dempsey, and Jan Goodwin.

Typically after their report they disappear, hopefully shamed into never being heard from again (Popham, Egan, Van Sant, Goodwin, and Hattenstone). And the others seem to have become more innocuous and one or two close to strange mutterings (Byron, Shay, and Dempsey).

Now another hapless reporter, one Bob Graham, has floated an ill-conceived and ill-researched report, this time in the UK’s Daily Express. There is no Bob Graham who writes regularly for that paper, so the one reporting here might be an America freelancer - if not, apologies in advance. 

False claim 1

Endless leaks of court documents, private conversations, diaries and correspondence paint a picture of Amanda as a cold-blooded killer.

There is well over 10,000 pages of evidence. There have not been many leaks and almost all of those have come from the defenses. In fact Sollecito’s father may soon be under indictment, for leaking a video showing Meredith’s body to a Bari TV station. In the course of the trial there have been many small surprises which were never leaked in advance. And Edda Mellas here is blaming the prosecution and authorities for leaking documents when Knox’s family and team seem to have done much or more.

False claim 2

Yet if the prosecutors and gossips are wrong and Amanda was, as she claims, at Sollecito’s house at the time of the murder, she has been subjected to a staggering injustice.

Amanda Knox admitted that she was at the cottage on the night in question on four separate occasions (once to police officers now in evidence, twice to interrogators but ruled inadmissible, and once to the prosecutor in a handwritten note now in evidence). Sollecito has claimed she wasn’t there at his apartment for part of the night and he has never reversed that position. It’s not only the prosecutors and gossips who think she was at the cottage - Judge Micheli, who indicted her after reading the 10,000 pages of evidence, also thought so, and so did the scientific police.

False claim 3

They claim they took part in the murder in a tiny room, that after the murder they returned, still under the influence of drink and drugs, and managed to erase every trace of their own DNA and fingerprints without removing any of Guede’s DNA or fingerprints or other DNA that has not been identified. Is that credible? Of course not.

Edda Mellas seems to have told a deliberate lie. The prosecutors have never claimed the defendants removed every trace of their own DNA. Sollecito left an abundant amount of his DNA on Meredith’s bra clasp. Knox can be placed in the murder room by way of the double DNA knife and the woman’s bloody footprint on the pillow plus footsteps in blood outside. Professor Vinci also claimed he found Knox’s DNA on Meredith’s bra.

False claim 4

The name [Foxy Knoxy] has returned to haunt her, implying something altogether less innocent.

It is well-known that Knox herself pushed that nickname out on the internet. It rarely appears in a derogatory way in any of the reporting these days, and it is hard to see how the few mentions demonize her. Amanda Knox would have been aware from the age of four that Foxy has sexual connotations, especially as she was an “A-grade student”.

False claim 5

In September 2007 Amanda, then at the University of Washington, was awarded a year-long scholarship to further her Italian studies at Perugia’s university for foreigners.

This is not true. Knox paid for her trip abroad herself by working part-time jobs in Seattle. The University of Washington in Seattle had no role in her registration for the Perugia language school, and did not agree to accredit her scores. UW did not play a larger role. Her arrangements in Perugia look to have been under-organized, under-supervised and under-funded. She seems to have been running very low on funds, and had no work permit, just when Meredith may have been under consideration to replace her as a waitress at a bar.

False claim 6

Financially, it’s been devastating, the cost already in excess of $1 million.

Curt Knox and Edda Mellas chose to hire an expensive Seattle PR firm and two expensive Italian lawyers, and to fly large family presences to Perugia. Those were their choices to make, and it is suspected that at least some of the media have made payments in kind or cash to gain exclusive access. The PR campaign has been spinning its wheels for 18 months, and seems to us to have been a huge waste of money and quite damaging to Amanda Knox’s own best interests.

False claim 7

In the first hours after she was arrested she made a statement, later retracted, suggesting she and Raffaele had been present at the murder, and wrongly implicating Congolese barman Patrick Lumumba.

The statements were in fact made at the police station on 5-6 Nov under no police pressure after Sollecito had whipped the rug out from under her first alibi. She made three statements categorically accusing Diya Lumumba and spelling out some imaginary details. She said in all that she went out on the night. And she didn’t just “suggest” that she and Raffaele were there, she categorically claimed that she was indeed there.

False claim 8

Her defence team says she was threatened into making it. Amanda claims she was slapped around the head. Curiously, a tape-recording of the initial interviews have “disappeared”.

The defense never claimed that. There were many witnesses to the interrogations at the police station, including a senior police officer from Rome, and not one has corroborated this testimony. We have seen no evidence that any tapes were made or have disappeared. One statement cannot be used against Knox not because she was banged around but because she didn’t have a lawyer at the time. She later repeated it in writing when she was certainly not being banged around - she was under no pressure to speak up at all.

False claim 9

No less bizarre is the fact that chief prosecutor Giuliano Mignini is facing criminal charges for allegedly abusing his powers to question suspects in a separate murder case. He denies the allegations.

This is not true and it is possibly libelous. There is plenty of information on TJMK here that points to Mr Mignini being a competent, popular and hard-working prosecutor, who only faces an administrative charge because he seems to have guessed right on some of the murky details of the Monster of Florence case. At issue was not “abusing his powers to question suspects” it was a taped recording approved by a judge that caught the prosecutor saying damning things.

Peter Popham, Peter Van Sant, Simon Hattenstone, Steve Shay, Timothy Egan, Linda Byron, Candace Dempsey, and Jan Goodwin? Please now welcome Bob Graham to your misleading company.

To Our Readers In Perugia: Please Help Us Identify The Person At Back?

Posted by Peter Quennell

Please .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) if the shadowy person in the rear here is known to you?

The shots were taken in Perugia during the hearings in September. We want to know who that is in the background. The Kerchers are in the foreground, seemingly completely unaware of her.

The hotel staff or the police or Mr Mignini might be able to help place her. She may of course be hotel staff, or a fellow guest in the hotel who is unrelated to the case.

But when we checked the shots with professional acquaintances in New York, they were certainly interested to know more.

They noted that the security detail of the Kerchers doesn’t seem to be anywhere in sight. In fact, nobody else seems to be anywhere in sight. They also noted she seems to be staring at the Kerchers’ backs with a very peculiar expression.

We are sure this is all above board and that there’s no cause for alarm. But we would like to confirm. Thanks in advance for a tip.

Candace Dempsey’s Grief-For-Profit Industry Is Not So Busy, Today, Perhaps…

Posted by Peter Quennell

Hard to believe the sordid money-grubbing “friends” industry is not now bothering even the defendants’ families. Hard to believe the wannabe author is today on the same terms with the Knoxes and the Mellases as two days ago.

Hard to believe the Kercher family will allow her within many miles of themselves now, if they can possibly help it. Hard to believe she will still have a free hand to roam around Perugia, and to “objectively” report on the trial.

Hard to believe any putative insider contacts will not go quiet now, and keep her at very extreme arms’ length. Hard to believe the fiasco of the book-deal is not seriously bothering Penguin, and chilling some other book deals.

Yes. Perhaps we have won one here. For Meredith. And for the Kerchers.

Malicious Candace Dempsey Fictions: How COULD You Stuart Agency? How COULD You Berkley Books?

Posted by Peter Quennell

A book by one of the worst of the PR shills. The dishonest and incompetent Candace Dempsey. Click above for the announcement. In part:

Seattle reporter Candace Dempsey’s MURDER IN ITALY: The Story Behind the Murder of Meredith Kercher, the Case Against Amanda Knox, and the Strange World of an Italian College Town, a gripping account of the notorious 2007 murder of a British exchange student in Perugia, Italy, and the American girl accused of the crime, to Shannon Jamieson Vazquez at Berkley, for publication shortly after the trial concludes, by Andrew Stuart at The Stuart Agency

We seriously doubt that this will be nice news for the much-grieving family of Meredith Kercher.

Andrew Stuart of the Stuart Agency and Leslie Gelbman of Berkley Books might like to check out this post. And this one.

Seems a sordid tale of anti-victim bias there. The Stuart Agency and Berkley Books both have very fine reputations.

We hope Andrew and Leslie are kind enough now to consult with the Kerchers.

Yet Another Smear Campaign By Candace Dempsey On Hearst’s For-Profit Defense Blog

Posted by Peter Quennell

This infamous area of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer has a long history of trashing the prosecutor and witnesses.

And seemingly intent on trashing anyone seeking justice in the Meredith Kercher case. Even trashing the victim herself.

Now it comes up with another sneering story about the Kercher-case prosecutor, Mr Mignini, in a minor scrape on a totally unrelated case.

Paid advertisements run conspicuously alongside the piece.

Giuliano Mignini is the kind of hard-driving, results-getting, really-caring prosecutor most victims would die for. That is, if they were actually still alive.

Meredith’s interests could not be served better. He just put Guede away, for a stiff 30 years.

Only a tiny minority of readers seem to go along with that callous blog writer. Most who seek fairness seem to simply get deleted.

And it seems to be doing the defendants no good at all. These were the first two comments to appear under the piece.

I honestly have no idea of what this blog article is about as regards the Kercher case.

Mignini authorised a wire-tap in that other case. The correctness of that authorisation has been called into question.

What does that have to do with the Perugia case?

I agree with [the comment above] on this one. I tend to think that the whole Monster of Florence story has been very unhelpful to the defense of Amanda Knox, because it has sidetracked many of her supporters into following a completely irrelevant story.

What would have been more useful, from Amanda’s point of view, would have been if those same supporters had spent the same time and energy looking at the evidence in the Meredith Kercher case, and in building a credible defense for Amanda Knox.

Peter Popham Of “The Independent” Has Drunk Knox PR Kool-Aid

Posted by Peter Quennell

Popham’s Bias Against Italy

Among the European papers The Independent is really standing out now for its coverage of the Kercher case.

A long list of wrong and omitted facts. And a great deal of biased editorial comment masquerading as straight reporting. All the work of Peter Popham, the Independent’s Rome reporter.

Check out some of Popham’s Rome Notebook pieces, in which he comes across as contemptuous of Italy and all things Italian.

If Popham has actually published anything sympathetic to Italy in his time there, we are unable to spot it.   The Italian police and justice system seem particular targets of his scorn.

Ignored: Mountain of Evidence

By mid-year 2008 the main accumulation of evidence was complete and extremely extensive. It had already been reviewed twice by the Supreme Court and found to be strong.

A flavor of it was available to any reporter who bothered to attend the many preliminary hearings in 2008 summarised here.  To our knowledge, the lazy, opinionated and slapdash reporter Peter Popham never did.

Popham Again Channels Knox PR

Here now is Popham’s latest garbling of the real case. We put what is obvious bias in bold.

See our corrections below.

Peter Popham: A chance to redeem Italian justice

Rome Notebook: When he gives his verdict, Judge Paolo Micheli has the opportunity to redeem the reputation of Italian justice somewhat

If the prosecutors in the Meredith Kercher murder case had wanted to give the world a demonstration of what is wrong with Italian justice, they could hardly have done a better job.

Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito have been in jail since last November….  The evidence? [only] household tiffs between Amanda and Meredith in the flat they shared. Amanda supposedly invited undesirable men back to the house. Raffaele wrote in his diary that he sought “extreme experiences” (he had apparently been a virgin till meeting Amanda a fortnight before.) Yet the girls cohabited well enough…

After allegedly killing their friend, did they flee? Not at all. Next morning they called the police, and hung around to give statements. In the absence of other suspects, prosecutors accused them of murder with an African friend. Unfortunately for the prosecutors, Patrick Lumumba had never even set foot in Mez’s flat and eventually they had to let him go.

Two weeks after the murder, scientists found bloody fingerprints on a cushion under Mez’s body which belonged to a drug dealer and serial house-breaker called Rudy Guede, who had gone on the run right after the murder. The crime, it seemed, was solved ““ but prosecutors clung to their original theorem, merely substituting one African for another.

When he gives his verdict, Judge Paolo Micheli has the opportunity to redeem the reputation of Italian justice somewhat. Though if he sends Guede to jail for life and frees the other two, the cries of “racist” and “American dupe” will doubtless be raucous.

Our corrections of Popham

1. The evidence is merely household tiffs? Really? What of the small mountain of damning witness testimony, luminol and other forensic evidence, and eyewitness accounts? Why does Popham make zero mention of that?

2. Hung around and called the police? Actually, the Postal Police turned up of their own accord and seemingly interrupted a rearrangement of the crime scene in progress.

3. Sollecito’s calls to the Perugia Central Police Station seem to have been made only in frantic catch-up mode - some minutes later.

4. The police messed up over Patrick Lumumba? Actually, he was fingered by a self-proclaimed eyewitness: Amanda Knox. Strongly. And not just once; several times. For which criminal slander, of course, both the prosecutor and Patrick Lumumba are now suing… Knox!

5. Rudy Guede is “a drug dealer and serial house-breaker”? Really? Is there ANY proof of that? Popham is happy to decry racist stereotypes and yet propagates them himself.

Still, it is interesting to know that Knox deflowered Sollecito. We can thank Popham for that mental image…

PR Shill Jan Goodwin Shows Extraordinary Bias

Posted by The Machine

[click for larger images]

I’ve just read perhaps the most shockingly biased article yet about the case.

It is by Jan Goodwin and appears in the magazine Marie Clare. Here’s the opening paragraph:

Studying abroad should have been a grand adventure. Instead, Amanda Knox has spent a year in jail, accused by a corrupt legal system of murdering her roommate.

For starters, the journalist makes the wild and unsubstantiated accusation that the Italian legal system is corrupt.

Amanda has been sitting in prison for a year now, while the Italian press dissects her past and her behavior, framing her as a sex-crazed ugly American who didn’t properly mourn the death of her roommate. Did she kill her, or is Amanda but the latest in a long line of women deemed guilty in the court of public opinion for acting in ways that subvert the script? Be it the U.K.‘s Kate McCann or Australia’s Lindy Chamberlain, both of whom were judged harshly in the disappearances of their daughters, a woman’s demeanor and the way she grieves is sometimes her greatest crime.

Have the Italian press really spent a year dissecting Amanda’s past and her behaviour? I certainly haven’t seen one reference to Amanda being an “sex-crazed ugly American” in the Italian press and I’ve been reading the Italian articles for months.

Jan Goodwin seems very confused.

Amanda is sitting in jail, not because she has been found guilty in the court of public opinion for acting in ways that subvert the script, her demeanor or the ways she grieved, and Amanda showed no grief whatsoever over Meredith’s death, but because the evidence against her is overwhelming.

The judges at the Italian Supreme Court told Amanda: “The clues against you are serious.” The judge at the preliminary hearings in the case, Claudia Metteini, also noted that there were “serious clues of guilt”.

Jan Goodwin’s article goes onto to say:

On the morning of November 2, everything changed. As she remembers it, Amanda returned home from a night at Raffaele’s and found a few drops of blood in her bathroom and the door to Meredith’s bedroom locked.

Jan Goodwin should have researched her story more carefully. If she had seen the photograph of the blue bathmat in the bathroom, she would know that it wasn’t “a few drops of blood”, but actually a bloody footprint. It’s apparent that Jan Goodwin really knows very little about the case:

They broke into Meredith’s bedroom and discovered her lying in a pool of blood, half-naked, her windpipe crushed in an attempted strangulation and her throat partially slashed.

There were three knife wounds on Meredith’s neck. Two lesser wounds, but the final one was delivered with such brutal force, it left a huge, gaping hole in Meredith’s neck. There was nothing partial about it. Whoever inflicted the fatal wound wanted to kill Meredith.

Jan Goodwin’s article seems deliberately misleading to give the impression that there isn’t much evidence against Amanda and Raffaele:

Three days after the murder, the senior police investigator on the case sought out Amanda and Raffaele to question them. When he discovered them casually eating in a pizza restaurant, he grew suspicious. Soon after, they were arrested. “That was how it started,” says Paul Ciolino, an American forensic examiner who was the primary investigative adviser for the Innocence Project, which has helped exonerate more than 215 prisoners jailed in the U.S.

No, the police were actually suspicious of Amanda and Raffaele because they both lied to the postal police from the very first time they spoke to them.

Example: they told the postal police they had phoned the police and were waiting for them. Raffaele admitted in his witness on 5 and 6 November they hadn’t actually phoned the police before the postal police turned up unexpectedly:

I tried to force the door but couldn’t, and at that point I decided to call my sister for advice because she is a Carabinieri officer. She told me to dial 112 (the Italian emergency number) but at that moment the postal police arrived.” He added: “In my former statement I told you a load of rubbish because I believed Amanda’s version of what happened and did not think about the inconsistencies.

CCTV footage shows the postal police arriving at the cottage at 12.35 on 2 November. Raffaele phoned the police at 12.51 and 12.54.

[Quoting Paul Ciolino again]  “I was stunned that this was why he suspected Amanda and her boyfriend were involved in the crime,” he says. “These two kids, never in trouble, classic middle-class college students “” it’s ludicrous that they were implicated.”

Amanda Knox was arrested for hosting a party that got seriously out of hand with students high on drink and drugs and throwing rocks into the road, forcing cars to swerve.

The students then threw rocks at the windows of neighbours who had called the police. The situation was so bad that police reinforcements had to be called. Amanda was fined $269 (£135) at the Municipal Court after the incident - Crime No: 071830624.

Amanda’s friend Madison Paxton makes the following comment: “The papers have called her a drugged-up skank, and that’s just incredibly untrue. She respects her body; she doesn’t like to party too much.”

I think Amanda’s neighbours would wholeheartedly disagree that Amanda doesn’t like to party too much. Amanda herself made the claim that she had smoked so much cannabis she (conveniently) couldn’t remember much about what happened on the night of the murder. She doesn’t sound like somebody who doesn’t like to party too much.

In grade school, Amanda’s soccer teammates nicknamed her “Foxy Knoxy” because she would crouch down like a fox on the playing field. European tabloids picked up on the name, calling her “Foxy Knoxy: a sex-mad American party girl.

European newspapers, including the quality newspapers, called Amanda by the nickname she called herself. She would have known at the age of 20 that the word “foxy” has sexual connotations. Amanda made a conscious choice to use a nickname with sexual connotations. The newspapers were simply using the nickname that she used.

After her arrest, Amanda was detained by the police and interrogated for 14 hours.

Actually, Amanda was being questioned as a witness, and the claim that her interrogation lasted 14 hours has widely been demonstrated to be untrue.

I’m struggling to find a single correct fact in this next paragraph:

Since then, the police investigation has been chaotic and bumbling. Take the alleged murder weapon, a cooking knife that belonged to Raffaele. Amanda’s DNA was found on the handle “” not surprising, since she used it for cooking “” and officials said Meredith’s DNA had been found on the blade. But new DNA evidence released shows that after 183 attempts to match the material on the knife to Meredith’s DNA, there is only a 1 percent chance that it is hers, making it unlikely that the knife is, in fact, the murder weapon.

At a recent hearing, Renato Biondo, from the forensic police, said, “We are confirming the reliability of the information collected from the scene of the crime and at the same time, the professionalism and excellence of our work.” Paolo Micheli wanted independent confirmation that the forensic scientists had followed all the correct procedures and their findings were completely accurate. Renato Biondo provided this confirmation unequivocably.

The crime scene wasn’t “violated”. The possibility of Meredith’s bra clasp being contaminated was excluded by Patrizia Stefanoni, and she also confirmed that Meredith’s DNA was on the blade and Amanda’s DNA was on handle of the knife that was hidden in a shoe box at Raffaele’s apartment.

The defence lawyers were putting on brave faces, but that hearing proved a truly disastrous day for Amanda and Raffaele. Raffaele had been placed in Meredith’s room, removing her bra, and Amanda’s DNA was on the knife that was almost certainly used to kill Meredith.

A knife that had been intentionally cleaned. A knife that was placed on Meredith’s bed sheet and that left a bloody trace on it. A knife that matches the wound on Meredith’s neck.

The claim that there is only 1 percent chance of the DNA on the blade belonging to Meredith is not surprisingly not attributed to anybody, let alone an independent forensic expert.

The following statement is outrageous and deeply offensive to the victim herself:

There is also no indication that Meredith was subjected to sexual violence..

This is a claim that has been frequently made by Amanda’s Knox supporters.

To suggest that there was consensual sexual activity between Meredith and Rudy defies belief. Meredith did not consent to any of the unspeakable horrors that were inflicted upon her that night.

Jan Goodwin follows a well-rehearsed and overused script when outlining the case for Amanda’s “innocence”:

Miraculously, Amanda did finally get a break when the Italian supreme court tossed out the results of her interrogation this past spring on the grounds that she had not been provided with a lawyer or interpreter.

Miraculously?!

What Amanda Knox’s supporters invariably forget to mention is that one of Amanda’s statements in which she admits to being at the cottage on the night of the murder was not “tossed” out by the Italian Supreme Court. Her letter to the police is almost identical in content to the statements that were not admitted as evidence. This incriminating letter was admitted as evidence.

Jan Goodwin should have written a balanced and objective article, not an anti-victim piece, and done some actual reading and research. She has instead written for MarieClaire what is essentially a free advertisement for the Free Amanda Knox Campaign.

She could have asked pertinent questions, such as why did Amanda deliberately and repeatedly lied to the police, or why did Amanda and Raffaele give not only conflicting witness statements, but also completely different accounts of where they were and what they were doing on the night of the murder.

But Jan Goodwin seemingly didn’t. And presumably MarieClaire’s editor paid her, regardless.

PR Shill Candace Dempsey Abuses The Real Victim Here

Posted by Skeptical Bystander

[Shots here are of Seattle Post-Intelligencer’s owner Hearst Media’s building in Manhattan[


When an article about a controversial subject manages to tick everyone off, this might mean the author has achieved a certain level of neutrality!

Rachel Donadio’s brief article in the NY Times recapping the main developments in the Meredith Kercher murder case, is neutral, using this yardstick.

• For people who have already decided Amanda Knox is guilty, Donadio left out important details needed to expose the case against Knox.


• And for people who have already decided on Knox’s innocence, Donadio committed the unpardonable sin of allowing Francesco Maresca, the Kercher family’s increasingly vocal legal counsel, to voice this opinion: “The important thing is they were all there,” he said. “All three are responsible.”

In at least one critical respect, the Italian criminal justice system may be better than its US counterpart. In Italy, the family of the VICTIM has the right to legal representation. This seems to perplexe many in the Knox defense camp.

But anyone who has survived the murder of a loved one will understand why it is so important. They will also understand why comments of the kind being posted on Candace Dempsey’s defense blog hosted by Heart’s Seattle Post-Intelligencer are so reprehensible, and why they must be called out as such.

Kelly13, the first poster to weigh in, notes that Maresca has been increasingly vocal about Knox’s involvement and that he recently expressed dismay at the Supreme Court’s decision to throw out Knox’s oral confession. So far, at least, Kelly13 is factual and limits his remarks to Maresca.

But then he goes to work on the Kerchers:

Despite their carefully crafted direct statements expressing a desire for justice, clearly the Kerchers have made up their minds and they don’t strike me as nice or objective people. I wonder if they have created legal liability for themselves, certainly Mr. Maresca can be sued for this unproven claim made against Amanda.

It is hard to pass judgment on “people” who have only spoken to the press twice (that I know of) and who have read brief prepared statements each time. But what struck me as really strange about this comment was how inaccurate and mean it sounded.

Then I remembered where I had read similar sentiments”¦ on the same Dempsey defense blog, about six months ago, by the same poster too. He is a self-proclaimed faith-based activist who says he lobbies for US citizens jailed abroad. Earlier, he noted blithely that the Kerchers needed to “set aside” their grief and jump on the free AK bandwagon.

A few of the few posters on Dempsey’s site tried to explain why his most recent comments were unacceptable, but with Dempsey they were wasting their time.

In reply to those who disagreed, Kelly13 said he knew

...folks who have been through even worse and they had the backbone to stand up against obvious injustice. The least the Kerchers could do is just stay silent and keep their lawyer under control. To fail to do so undermines Amanda’s right to fairness, contributes to her unjust confinement, and shifts focus away from the tragedy that is Meredith. It’s very hard, but in the interest of justice and fairness their lawyer needs to shut up, and only they can affect that.

End of subject for him. He begins his next paragraph: “Moving on”¦”

These comments were still standing today. I note this only because Candace Dempsey has gained huge notoriety mainly for her heavy thumb on the delete button for posts that go against her bias.

Maresca’s current view of the case will ultimately be proven right or wrong. The family has filed a civil suit for damages against whomever is found guilty, which means that it and its counsel now have access to the 10,000 pages of material submitted by the prosecutor. Maresca’s opinion just might reflect his deep conviction, based on an examination of the evidence.

Furthermore, the Kerchers silence might also be due to their belief that justice is taking its course. They owe nothing, not one thing, to Amanda Knox, Raffaele Sollecito or Rudy Guede.

Conversely, those with a vested interest in the outcome of this case for any of the three suspects owe it to the Kerchers to keep these thoughts to themselves. It is appalling to read on Dempsey’s blog that Kelly13 hopes the Kerchers will ultimately find themselves at the other end of a lawsuit.

It is so appalling under the circumstances that it is physically revolting. Especially considering how utterly restrained the Kerchers have been with respect to the media and how relatively restrained their lawyer has been. In fact, it is incredible to even have to say this. Kelly13, where were you when brains and hearts were being passed out?

In any case, Maresca’s words in the NY Times will have no impact on Judge Micheli, who is presiding over the pre-trial hearing. Micheli, who already knows what Maresca thinks, is also doing his job “” which is to examine the evidence, hear the challenges, and decide whether or not to press charges.

Maresca may be a thorn in the side of those who have already decided that at least two of the suspects are innocent, but he plays a vital role for the Kercher family. For just about any surviving victim of a murdered person who has been through the criminal justice process, this is a no-brainer.

The comments about the Kercher family on Hearst’s defense blog make me incredibly sad for this family which has shown remarkable restraint and dignity for almost one year.

Back in January, speaking to Meredith’s hometown paper the Croydon Guardian, Maresca noted: “Meredith’s parents continue to suffer enormously and they faithfully await news of every hearing as they are doing so today. Their objective is to reach the truth of their daughter’s murder out of respect for her memory.”

The surviving Kerchers also deserve a little respect, even in the blogosphere, where anyone can say anything. It doesn’t matter what you think about who did what and why.

Shame on you, Candace Dempsey, for this scurrilous anti-victim blog, and shame on Hearst for hosting it too.

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Your Comments

By Peter Quennell on the post 'Knox Calunnia Retrial: Prosecution Makes Strong Case For Letting 3 Year Felony Sentence Stand'.


The court has a ton of reading to do if it chooses to.

Transcripts…

By Peter Quennell on the post 'Knox Calunnia Retrial: Prosecution Makes Strong Case For Letting 3 Year Felony Sentence Stand'.


Re KrissyG’s helpful links to the “memoriale” above.

(1) With luck the court will find…

By Peter Quennell on the post 'Knox Calunnia Retrial: Prosecution Makes Strong Case For Letting 3 Year Felony Sentence Stand'.


There are several pre-trial interviews of Carlo Pacelli on YouTube. Presumably his tart comment was…

By KrissyG on the post 'Knox Calunnia Retrial: Prosecution Makes Strong Case For Letting 3 Year Felony Sentence Stand'.


For those interested in what Knox wrote in the ‘memoriaie’ now on trial there is…

By KrissyG on the post 'Nailing In Advance Amanda Knox’s Expected Lie-A-Thon At 10 April Retrial #2'.


That would account for all the AP-syndicated headlines about ‘Exonerated 9 years ago’.  AP and…

By Peter Quennell on the post 'Nailing In Advance Amanda Knox’s Expected Lie-A-Thon At 10 April Retrial #2'.


The Knox PR poodle Colleen Barry did a lot of biased reporting for the Associated…

By Peter Quennell on the post 'Nailing In Advance Amanda Knox’s Expected Lie-A-Thon At 10 April Retrial #2'.


Proceedings should have commenced in Florence. No new news yet. This is from The Guardian…

By Earthling on the post 'Nailing In Advance Amanda Knox’s Expected Lie-A-Thon At 10 April Retrial #2'.


She was such a dithery 20-year-old! Why couldn’t she remember where she was and what…

By Peter Quennell on the post 'Nailing In Advance Amanda Knox's Expected Lie-A-Thon At 10 April Retrial #1'.


Short and very sharp. James, Knox should send you a check for saving her a…

By James Raper on the post 'Nailing In Advance Amanda Knox's Expected Lie-A-Thon At 10 April Retrial #1'.


The day after Knox had been removed from the Questura to prison she wrote two…