How With Myriad False Claims John Douglas Pushes To Forefront Of Pro-Knox Crackpots #2


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1. Post & Series Overview

In Part One I used the official courts reports and court testimonies to show how John Douglas made at least a dozen demonstrably false claims about Knox’s and Sollecito’s questioning on 5-6 November 2007.

It is extremely obvious that he did zero real investigation, zero real fact-checking, zero reading of the official court reports and court testimonies. Instead he mindlessly simply repeated the PR lies propagated in the media by Amanda Knox’s family and supporters.

In this post, I’ll analyse the ill-researched John Douglas’s claims about the personas and backgrounds of Knox and Sollecito and the evidence against them, and I’ll compare those claims to the official court reports and accurate media reports to ascertain their accuracy, veracity, and honesty.

I shall also provide a summary of how Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito were portrayed in the mainstream media to see whether John Douglas’ claims have been influenced by the PR campaign.

In the next post I will do the same for so-called “Forgotten Killer” and supposed lone-wolf Rudy Guede

2. WHY Knox And Sollecito Morphed 2007-2010

Both Knox and Sollecito have morphed considerably. Their families and PR and a very strong case were primary causes of this.

Those who missed the 2007-2009 happenings (as John Douglas and the Netflix production team did) can get fanatically sold on a fake Knox and fake Sollecito which are really only PR designer creations. This morphing was to become quite deliberate as part of the attempt to poison public opinion against the strong case.

It is well-documented (though Douglas is unaware) that Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito mostly did not get along. Same wth Curt Knox and Edda Mellas. Same with Francesco Sollecito and Raffaele Sollecito. Often each pair has been close to open war.

The nature of Curt Knox V Edda Mellas can be read about in this post and the nature of Francesco Sollecito V Raffaele Sollecito can be read about in this post. In both cases lots to hide. This was probably the decisive factor in going for hardline and dishonest public relations (which repeatedly irritated the defenses). 

The nature of Amanda Knox V Raffaele Sollecito can be read about in this post and there is much much more in both this series and this series. 

Profiler Douglas makes zero mention of all of this.

3. HOW Knox And Sollecito Morphed 2007-2010

On 1 November 2007, the night Meredith died, Knox and Sollecito were essentially low-achieving druggies with few friends and limited financial resources. Knox had a drug-dealer in tow (see False Claim 5 below.)

Knox is sold as an “exchange student” but as this post explains she was not even enrolled at the university - a very rare occurrence, one that left her supervisor-less and largely fund-less - a loose cannon with no way those around her could seek her control.

On 5-6 November 2007, as I explained in the previous post, Knox and Sollecito each broke explosively and unexpectedly under minimal pressure at the Central Police Station. On that night Sollecito blamed Knox, and so Knox blamed Patrick. 

(Thereafter for EIGHT YEARS through 2015 Sollecito never ever even once in court supported Knox’s final alibi, despite her chronic and often-obvious desperation. The nearest Sollecito ever came was this instance which of course was not in a courtroom. Knox had already aired her considerable irritation to all of Italy!

In Nov and Dec 2007, despite the ill-researched John Douglas’s claims (see False Claim 2 below), Knox and Mignini were not at loggerheads. He had been at the house three times with her prior to 5-6 November and had concluded that with the help of drugs (probably cocaine on the night as Sollecito’s defense said at trial) a hazing of Meredith with knives was fully intended but the death blow may possibly have been spontaneous.

On 6 November 2007 Mignini patiently heard her out and on 17 Dec he gave her quite a break: very unusually he acceded to her request to interrogate her - actually her first-ever interrogation - in a long session which could have resulted in her going home.

Through early 2008 this relatively naive trusting Knox persisted. But then as Knox describes in her book she was taught by her lawyers and parents to actively distrust a fictionally hardline Mignini and aggressively scramble the truth.

From then on through 2008 Knox tried to charm a cold, hard Sollecito remotely, and in September 2008 this truce was agreed. All blame from now on was to be Guede’s. Drugs were more or less to be denied and a bid for lesser charges went out the window.

Throughout trial in 2009 all Italy observed two more Knoxes. The really daffy bubbly one and the really callous and meanspirited one.

Finally from 2010 we saw the widows-weeds “I am the real victim here” Amanda Knox retooled by the PR.

The one who wrote a massively dishonest book, and barked at the Nencini appeal from a distance, and makes blood-money out of killing Meredith, and encourages stalking of Meredith’s family and justice officials in Italy. The one that wails to gullible paying crowds and on TV “I am the real victim here”.

Profiler Douglas makes zero mention of all of this.

4. False Claims By Douglas Re Knox & Sollecito

1. False Claims By Douglas On Personas

Douglas was a profiler? Really? You’d never know it from his way-off-base portrayals of Knox and Sollecito.

Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito’s high-profile supporters in the media constantly drew attention to and expressly highlighted the differences between Knox and Sollecito’s privileged middle-class backgrounds and Rudy Guede’s less fortunate background.

It was often pointed out that Amanda Knox had attended a Jesuit high school in Seattle and claimed (probably falsely) that she was an honors student and her parents were professionals - Curt Knox is an accountant and her mother is a maths teacher.

Mark and I have spoken with many people around Amanda. It became clear to us that the Amanda Knox the prosecution and the media described did not exist in real life. She was a creation designed to serve their very specific needs and purposes. Teachers and fellow students at Seattle Prep described Amanda with terms such as “bright,” “sweet” and “kind.”

Actually the restrained prosecutors and restrained Italian media mostly got the 2007-2010 Knoxes correctly sized up. Italians could repeatedly see and judge Knox for themselves. They knew about the drugs (see False Claim 5) and saw Patrick framed. Demonization of the “beautiful” Knox (as Douglas calls her repeatedly) by jealous little people and bigoted cops is a figment of a xenophobic and ill-informed mind. Nothing else.

Raffaele Sollecito’s advantaged background was also repeatedly referred to in the media. He was an IT student and the son of a wealthy urologist who had set him up with his own apartment in Perugia, and provided him with a black Audi A3, and an expensive Apple laptop.

They were essentially putting forward the argument that Knox and Sollecito are innocent specifically because they were two middle-class “kids” from respectable backgrounds.

In sharp contrast Rudy Guede is “clearly guilty” because he came from a disadvantaged background. He was often referred to in the media as a “drifter”, “drug dealer” and “petty criminal” with a history of breaking and entering despite the fact he had lived in Perugia since the age of five and he had zero convictions for drug dealing, breaking and entering or any other crimes (see my next post).

Any inconvenient facts about Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito were brushed under the carpet and were conspicuous by their absence in the PR narrative.

Highlighting the privileged backgrounds of Knox and Sollecito was a proven successful strategy on the part of PR consultant David Marriott and early legal supporter Anne Bremner. Many people don’t want to believe that young people from respectable middle-class backgrounds are capable of committing horrific murders.

Vincent Bugliosi - the chief prosecutor in the Charles Manson trial - pointed out that many people in killer Tex Watson’s hometown refused to believe that he could have been involved in the murders because of his background.

“Tex Watson, Manson’s “˜chief lieutenant’ at the murder scene, was from Farmersville, Texas, hometown of World War II hero Audie Murphy. Watson was a football, basketball, and track star. He had almost an A average in high school. And when the people in Farmersville learned he was being charged with these murders, the general consensus was this is absolutely impossible, it must be a case of mistaken identity.”

Many people in Seattle refused to believe that Amanda Knox could have been involved in Meredith’s murder because of her middle-class upbringing. Time and time again, her high-profile supporters in the media claimed she was incapable of murder because of her background.

Disgraced legal talking head Anne Bremner - who was a co-creator of the Friends of Amanda - said she couldn’t accept what was being printed in the press about Amanda Knox because she had attended a Jesuit school.

“Her relatives and I, who saw her grow up as a regular student at the Jesuit Seattle Prep. School couldn’t accept it.”

Disgraced former CBS consultant Paul Ciolino claimed that Jesuit-educated high school girls don’t commit murder.

Jesuit-educated high school girls who are high honors students “¦ don’t participate in orgies and homicides. They don’t do it. And if you can tell me of one that does, I’d sure like to see her.”

Steve Moore argued that Amanda Knox isn’t a violent person because she was an honor student (as mentioned above we have never seen proof of that.)

“This was an honor student; she is not a violent person.”

If someone’s guilt or innocence could be determined by their backgrounds, there would be no need for criminal trials. Lady Justice is symbolically depicted as wearing a blindfold. The blindfold represents impartiality and the ideal that justice should be applied without regard to wealth, power or any other status.

There’s a very good reason for this - killers, sex offenders and other criminals really do come from all walks of life. Nobody with an ounce of common sense assumes someone must be innocent or guilty of murder or sexual assault because of their background, their status or their wealth. 

If you assume that nice girls from respectable backgrounds don’t commit murder a la Anne Bremner, Paul Ciolino and Steve Moore, you would be mistaken.

There have been a number of high-profile murder cases where seemingly normal girls have committed horrific and senseless murders with little or no motive e.g. Laurie Ann Swank, Leslie Van Houten and Patricia Krenwinkel, Amy Bishop, Karla Homolka, Juliet Hulme and Pauline Parker, Kelly Ellard, Anna Maria Botticelli and Mariena Sica, Erika de Nardo, Jasmine Richardson, Rachel Shoaf and Shelia Eddy.

John Douglas interviewed Charles Manson and knew of his “family” mostly of girls so Douglas has no excuse for assuming that middle-class girls from respectable backgrounds are incapable of murder.

Leslie Van Houten was an honors student and a homecoming queen. She came from a middle class background; her father was an auctioneer and her mother was a school teacher. She took part in the savage murders of Leno and Rosemary LaBianca. She along with Patricia Krenwinkel attacked and stabbed Rosemary LaBianca. Van Houten tied the electrical cord from a lamp around La Bianca’s neck and put a pillow case over her head before stabbing her 16 times in the lower back.

Patricia Krenwinkel came from a fairly normal background. Her father was an insurance salesman. She graduated from high school and then attended a Catholic college for a semester before moving in with her sister. Krenwinkel participated in the Tate and LaBianca murders. She stabbed Abigail Folger more than 70 times. When the police found Folger’s body, they thought she was wearing a red dress.

Profiler Douglas makes zero mention of all of this.



One of the numerous knives in Sollecito’s collection

2. False Claims By Douglas On Motive

Again and again John Douglas and colleagues repeat the PR myth that Mignini described a satanic murder, proving yet again that he has unquestioningly believed whatever he has been told by Amanda Knox’s dishonest supporters without doing any fact-checking for himself.

How, in the name of all that is rational, could Amanda and Raffaele have participated in this satanic orgy of sex and murder Mignini so imaginatively described?

But this team and this prosecutor came up with a bizarre criminal conspiracy involving satanic sex orgies and rituals. And this crime, according to the prosecutor, was perpetrated by people never before involved in Satanism or violence or group sex.

Both [this and the West Memphis case] were rushes to judgment, prosecuted as satanic ritual murders on the basis of fear and superstition rather than solid evidence and analysis.

Since there was a strong satanic component it was supposed to take place on Halloween. But since that didn’t work out, the Day of the Dead would be just as auspicious.

He doesn’t substantiate his claims or refer to any of the official court reports or court testimonies. Did it not cross his mind to actually check to see whether Mignini had ever claimed Meredith had been killed in a satanic ritual? If he had bothered to have checked, he would have realised there are NO quotations from Mignini himself claiming Meredith had been killed in a satanic ritual.

In fact Italy knows Mignini is a satanism skeptic and he often propounds that on TV. 

He has repeatedly DENIED claiming that Meredith was killed in a sacrificial rite (a deliberate false rumor from the defense) and has strongly questioned satanism as a motive for other crimes.

For example in his letter to the Seattle reporter Linda Byron:

“On the “˜sacrificial rite’ question, I have never said that Meredith Kercher was the victim of a “˜sacrificial rite.’ “

For example in his interview with Drew Griffin on CNN:

Drew Griffin: “You’ve never said that Meredith’s death was a satanic rite?”

Mignini: “I have never said that. I have never understood who has and continues to say that. I read, there was a reporter ““ I don’t know his name; I mention it because I noticed it ““ who continues to repeat this claim that, perhaps, knowing full well that it’s not like that.

“I have never said that there might have been a satanic rite. I’ve never said it, so I would like to know who made it up.”

For example in his published statement in Corriere

Mr. Spezi’s text says: “”¦ a strangely similar background, for two different cases, behind which the magistrate thought he could see satanic orgies on the occasion of Halloween for Amanda, and ritual blood sacrifices as a worship to the Devil in the Monster of Florence case”¦”.

This is an assertion that Mr. Spezi and crime-fiction author Douglas Preston have been repeating for years, but does not find the smallest confirmation in the documentation of the two trials, nor in the scenario put forward by the prosecution in which the Meredith murder (which didn’t happen on Halloween but on the subsequent night) was the consequence of a sex hazing to which Meredith herself did not intend to take part, and, above all, it was the consequence of a climate of hostility which built up progressively between the Coulsdon girl and Amanda because of their different habits, and because of Meredith’s suspicion about alleged money thefts by Knox.

Profiler Douglas makes zero mention of all of this.

3. False Claims By Douglas On DNA Evidence

“How, in the name of all that is rational, could Amanda and Raffaele have participated in this satanic orgy of sex and murder Mignini so imaginatively described and yet not leave any of their own DNA on the scene?”

It’s untrue that Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito’s DNA wasn’t found at the crime scene. John Douglas limits the crime scene to Meredith’s room despite the fact that the Scientific Police collected significant DNA and forensic evidence from the whole cottage, including the small bathroom, the large bathroom, the hallway and Filomena’s room.

There were more incriminating pieces of DNA evidence against Amanda Knox (6) than there were against Rudy Guede (5). According to the Scientific Police, there were five instances of Knox’s DNA or blood mixed with Meredith’s blood in three different locations in the cottage.

After the trial, the Kerchers’ lawyer, Francesco Maresca, said the mixed blood evidence was the most damning piece of evidence against Amanda Knox. The jury agreed that it was a damning piece of evidence. Barbie Nadeau points out in Angel Face that the jurors accepted the mixed blood evidence.

The defense’s other biggest mistake, according to interviews with jurors after the trial, was doing nothing to refute the mixed-blood evidence beyond noting that it is common to find mingled DNA when two people live in the same house. (Barbie Nadeau, Angel Face, page 152).

It’s also untrue that Sollecito didn’t leave any of his DNA in Meredith’s room. It’s an indisputable fact that Raffaele Sollecito’s DNA was found on Meredith’s bra clasp. His DNA was identified by two separate DNA tests. I won’t address the knife, the bra clasp and the mixed-blood evidence in this post for the sake of brevity.

Profiler Douglas makes zero mention of all of this.

4. False Claims By Douglas On Other Evidence

“Suffice it to say that there is no evidence ““ repeat, NO EVIDENCE ““ to indicate that Amanda and Raffaele were even present at the crime scene”

Suffice it to say? In fact there was a MOUNTAIN of evidence. See here for 400 evidence points, which between them at trial in 2008 and again at appeal in 2013 were devastating. .

In final judgment even the Supreme Court disagrees with John Douglas. It noted that it’s a proven fact Amanda Knox was at the cottage when Meredith was killed because (1) she repeatedly admitted she was (2) she knew specific details about the murder and (3) the DNA evidence in the small bathroom provided “eloquent proof” she washed Meredith’s blood off.

“Given this, we now note, with respect to Amanda Knox, that her presence inside the house, the location of the murder, is a proven fact in the trial, in accord with her own admissions, also contained in the memoriale with her own signature, in the part where she tells that, as she was in the kitchen, while the young English woman had retired in the room of same Ms Kercher, together with another person for a sexual intercourse, she heard a harrowing scream, so piercing and unbearable that she let herself down squatting on the floor, covering her ears tight with her hands in order not to hear more of it.

About this, the judgement of reliability expressed by the lower [a quo] judge [Nencini] with reference to this part of the suspect’s narrative, [and] about the plausible implication from the fact herself was the first person mentioning for the first time [46] a possible sexual motive for the murder, at the time when the detective still did not have the cadaver examination, nor the autopsy result, nor the witnesses’ information, which collected only subsequently, about the victim’s terrible scream and about the time when it was heard (Nara Capezalli, Antonella Monocchia and others), is certainly to be subscribed to.

We make reference in particular to those declarations that the current appellant [Knox] on 11.6.2007 (p.96) inside the State Police headquarters. On the other hand, in the slanderous declaration against Lumumba, which earned her a conviction, the status of which is now protected as a final judgement [giudicato] [they] had a premise in the narrative, that is the presence of the young American woman, inside the house in via della Pergola, a circumstance which nobody at that time - except obviously the other people present in the house - could have known (quote p.96).

“According to the slanderous statements of Ms. Knox, she had returned home in the company of Lumumba, whom she had met by chance in Piazza Grimana, and when Ms. Kercher arrived in the house, Knox’s companion, directed sexual attentions toward the English woman, then he went together with her to he room from which the harrowing scream came. So, it was Lumumba who killed Meredith and she could affirm this since she was on the scene of the crime herself, albeit in another room. (p.97)

“Another element against her [Amanda Knox] is the mixed traces, her and the victim’s one, in the “˜small bathroom’, an eloquent proof that anyway she had come into contact with the blood of the latter, which she tried to wash away from herself (it was, it seems, diluted blood, while the biological traces belonging to her would be the consequence of epithelial rubbing). “The fact is very suspicious, but it’s not decisive, besides the known considerations about the sure nature and attribution of the traces in question.”

John Douglas clearly hasn’t read any of the official court reports, so he hasn’t addressed let alone refuted the evidence the Supreme Court cited which led it to conclude that it’s a “proven fact” Amanda Knox was at the cottage when Meredith was killed.

Profiler Douglas makes zero mention of all of this.

5. False Claims By Douglas On Drug Use

For the most part, John Douglas sticks closely to the PR narrative about Rudy Guede being an experienced criminal whilst completely ignoring the fact that Amanda Knox and Raffaele both had previous brushes with the police and other inconvenient facts that portray them in a negative light.

He reluctantly acknowledges the fact Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito used marijuana. (Anne Bremner refused to go even this far. She categorically stated Amanda Knox didn’t use marijuana, despite not being in a position to make firm assurances.)

“They used marijuana, but that’s not some hard core drug that will change a normal personality.”

Really?! And Knox and Sollecito had both admitted they had used drugs - as part of their defense - and these admissions were widely reported in the media. It was also established in court in 2009 that they had smoked marijuana.

“Both Amanda and Raffaele were using drugs; there are multiple corroborating statements to this effect (page 19, statements of Romanelli, hearing of February 7, 2009; statements of Mezzetti, hearing of February 14, 2009; page 164, hearing of March 27, 2009, statements of Antonio Galizia, Carabinieri [C.ri] station commander in Giovinazzo, who testified that in September 2003 Raffaele Sollecito was found in possession of 2.67 grams of hashish; in the tapped intercepts, Amanda had several times made reference to marijuana use).” (Massei report, page 62).

However, Douglas is simply assuming with no proof that they didn’t take any hard drugs. According to Amanda Knox, Sollecito had taken heroin and cocaine.

“According to Amanda’s prison diaries, Raf had been reminiscing about his incredible highs on heroin and cocaine”¦” (Barbie Nadeau, Angel Face, Kindle edition, page 163).

More damning, Mignini knew Knox started sleeping with a dangerous cocaine dealer even before she arrived in Perugia. He stated at the trial that Sollecito and Knox ran with a crowd who often used stupefying drugs.  Here’s Barbie Nadeau, The Daily Beast, 20 November 2009:

“He also hinted that Knox and Sollecito might have been in a drug-fueled frenzy when they allegedly killed Kercher. He outlined the effects of cocaine and acid, and told the judges and jury how Knox and Sollecito ran with a crowd that often used these “stupificante,” or stupefying drugs.”

That Amanda Knox was mixing with people who used hard drugs was widely known in Italy even before the trial.

According to police and trial reports from 2007-2008 and Italian media accounts, Knox had a sexual relationship with the cocaine dealer, and was in contact him in the days before and even after Meredith’s murder. (That helped to put him away.) She even invited him home and slept with him there, with Meredith in the next room.

Read about it here and there’s more here.  In English the Daily Telegraph also reports.

Profiler Douglas makes zero mention of all of this.

6. False Claims By Douglas On Prior Police Record

“Amanda and Raffaele had no history of any sort of violence or sexual perversion.”

If John Douglas had actually bothered to read the Massei report, he would have known Sollecito was monitored at university after being caught watching hardcore pornography featuring bestiality:

“”¦and educators at the boy’s ONAOSI college were shocked by a film “˜very much hard-core”¦where there were scenes of sex with animals with animals,’ at which next they activated a monitoring on the boy to try to understand him. (Pages 130 and 131, hearing 27.3.2009, statements by Tavernesi Francesco).” (Massei report, page 61).

He would have also known that Raffaele Sollecito had a previous brush with the police in 2003.

“...Antonio Galizia, Carabinieri [C.ri] station commander in Giovinazzo, who testified that in September 2003 Raffaele Sollecito was found in possession of 2.67 grams of hashish.” (The Massei report, page 62).

John Douglas seems to be unaware that Amanda Knox also had a previous brush with the police.  According to Andrew Malone in an article on the Mail Online website, Amanda Knox was charged with 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. He claimed the students then threw rocks at the windows of neighbours who had called the police. Knox was fined $269 (£135) at the Municipal Court after the incident (crime No: 071830624).

Barbie Nadeau also reported on the same incident and claimed Knox had been arrested:

...and her only brush with the law was a disturbing-the-peace arrest for a house party she threw.” (Barbie Nadeau, Angel Face, Kindle edition, page 6).

According to the police ticket written by Seattle Police officer Jason Bender, Knox was issued with an infraction for the noise violation and warned about the rock throwing:

“I issued S1/Knox this infraction for the noise violation and a warning for the rock throwing. I explained how dangerous and juvenile that action was….  There’s no history or experience related to violence or mental illness in their backgrounds.”

A number of judges, who presumably saw their psychological reports, commented on Knox and Sollecito’s characters and made it clear they thought they were psychologically disturbed and dangerous.

Judge Massimo Riccarelli stated:

[Knox was] “privy of any refraining inhibitions and could reoffend. “From the reconstruction there is the concrete possibility of reoffending and the [alleged] role of Amanda Knox was by no means secondary,”

He also described her as “crafty and cunning” with a “multi-faced personality, unattached to reality with an elevated, one would say fatal capacity” to repeat her offence.

Judge Claudia Matteini made the following comments about Amanda Knox:

“Meredith was a girl full of life and enthusiasm, who for the sole purpose of having some pleasure and sensation during a boring day spent smoking joints, was subjected to acts of brutality and cruelty that are disgusting to any normal person. In such a situation the danger of repetition of the crime is certainly very high and can’t be considered to have diminished due to the mere passage of time, during which as a reminder you have never shown any sign of remorse or reconsideration of your life.”

“Even the behaviors you mention in your motion requesting release, which are presented as being in your favor, could be read differently in the opinion of this judge…. Your conduct after the murder is symptomatic of a personality which, considering your young age, provokes no small measure of dismay and apprehension, considering how extremely easy it was for you to control your states of mind.”

The Italian Supreme Court said the following to Raffaele Sollecito:

“You are a flight risk because of the gravity of the charges. Your danger to society matches your weak character and your personality, which we can’t define in terms of harmless juvenile stereotypes, since the context includes the habitual use of drugs.”

A number of psychologists believe Amanda Knox has exhibited the traits of a psychopath. Dr Coline Covington wrote an article Signs that suggest Amanda Knox is a psychopath in which she explained that Amanda Knox’s behaviour in the courtroom showed the signs of a psychopathic personality.

Dr Covington is a highly experienced American psychotherapist. She was the former Editor of the Journal of Analytical Psychology as well as the former Chair of the British Psychoanalytic Council and she has also worked for the London police.

Kate Mansey in The Sunday Mirror reported that Sollecito had bragged about idolising a serial killer and also hinted at his depression.

Suspect’s killer idol by Kate Mansey

“A PRIME suspect in the killing of British student Meredith Kercher bragged about idolising a notorious serial killer just days before her murder. “Italian Raffaele Sollecito used his online diary to praise the “Monster of Foligno”, a convict serving a life sentence for the murders of two young children.

“The discovery came after Sollecito appeared in court last Monday to give prosecutors the password to his computer. “The 23-year-old student and his American girlfriend Amanda Knox are being held on suspicion of murdering Meredith, 21, a fellow student in Perugia on November 1 last year.

“He read about killer Luigi Chiatti when he found out he had studied at the town’s ONAOSI college years before. On October 13 Sollecito wrote on his blog about previous students.  “The one I admire the most is the Monster of Foligno,” he said. “I know there have been salacious goings-on at the college but the one common denominator is depression.”

The IT student also wrote of his interest in “extreme experiences” and hinted at his depression, saying he felt he was “entering a dark tunnel without an exit”.

Profiler Douglas makes zero mention of all of this.

5. My Conclusions On This Area

In his interview with Krista Erickson, John Douglas claimed he had all the information necessary to analyse the case and conclude that Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito are innocent.

“I won’t do an analysis unless I am provided with all the information necessary. In this case, I had everything I needed. In fact, more than I’ve had in other cases.”

He didn’t specify that all the information he had been given came from Amanda Knox’s supporters and it clearly didn’t include any of the official court reports or court testimonies.

So far, I’ve analysed John Douglas’ claims about Knox and Sollecito’s questioning on 5 November 2007, the personas and backgrounds of Knox and Sollecito, and some of the DNA evidence and other evidence against them. Douglas hasn’t cited even ONCE any of the official court reports or court testimonies - not even once - or provided any verbatim quotations from anyone directly involved in the case.

Tellingly John Douglas doesn’t cite any sources for the specific claims he makes - which suggests he knows his sources aren’t trustworthy or reliable. Unsubstantiated claims from anonymous sources are not acceptable in academia, science or law.

John Douglas has just repeated many of the PR lies that have been widely propagated in the media with regard to the backgrounds of Amanda Knox, Raffaele Sollecito and Rudy Guede and some of the DNA evidence against without doing any real fact-checking at all.

Posted by The Machine on 08/22/18 at 01:57 AM in

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Comments

John Douglas failed to look at Knox and Sollecito’s MAJOR drug history. At UW Knox was using drugs extensively. Raf was using drugs several years before the murder. John Douglas accepted too much on faith from his source: Friends of Amanda!

I cannot believe Douglas would dismiss the Luminol bloody footprints and Knox’s DNA (probably from blood) mixed in the victim’s blood in a separate bedroom.

John Douglas really should have looked at the knife and bra clasp DNA. Explain that. He put on rose-colored glasses when he looked at Knox. Why? Didn’t he bother to ascertain that Meredith was the superior student of the two females, a much more serious scholar?

Did John Doublas bother to look at Raffaele’s photo where he wrapped his body in toilet paper as a mummy and held up a blade and a bottle of pink liquid in a bleach-type bottle? Did he investigate even cursorily Raf’s strange behavior in Germany and later at ONAOSI with the dubious films, and his manga craze? Or Knox’s “leakage” of the crass robbery stunt she pulled on a UW student?

Yes, the more I read on the posts above about Douglas’s love affair with Knox’s inept cheerleading squad, the more I scratch my head and wonder why, from a man of his former stature. Garofano must be laughing and crying at the errors.

Posted by Hopeful on 08/23/18 at 03:32 AM | #

Hi Hoepful,

I read John Douglas’ reconstruction in The Forgotten Killer yesterday. It’s such a dishonest and misleading piece of work. He removes all the incriminating pieces of DNA evidence against Knox and Sollecito from the crime scene.

Posted by The Machine on 08/23/18 at 01:09 PM | #

Here we seem to have at least three profiling incompetents or outright frauds: Saul Kassin, John Douglas, and Jim Clemente. (Olshaker seems to be a showbiz wizard, selling the John Douglas brand.)

Kassin and Douglas seem to have been on the payroll of Knox PR and Clemente maybe too. Douglas seems to have got it wrong on the Memphis 3 and JonBenet Ramsey cases and I’d be surprised now if that is all. 

No surprise then that many in the justice realm think profiling is largely fraudulent and low-results. It may make for good TV but… where’s the beef? 

These are all worth reading, the last (Viuture) article says there’s been no formal assessment of success as the FBI seems disinterested, maybe think a poor rating would hurt them in the courts.

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2007/11/12/dangerous-minds

https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20727751-500-is-criminal-profiling-flawed-and-disorderly/2/

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2010/sep/14/psychological-profile-behavioural-psychology

http://www.vulture.com/2017/10/mindhunter-criminal-profiling-really-work-like-this.html

My take from the works above:

(1) What they may be GOOD and getting better at is narrowing down to just a part of the entire population.

(2) Where they often remain BAD is in what John Douglas did: starting with ill-formed images of individuals and then projecting onto them.

As well as causing damage John Douglas clearly defames. See him on Mignini as Machine shows. He really should yank the books referring to Knox.

Mafia poodle… not a good brand

Posted by Peter Quennell on 08/23/18 at 04:36 PM | #

I must say my take on John Douglas after the Machine’s first two posts is that Douglas is really stupid.

(Yes, wait a short while, we WILL be demonstrating this to the media, when we have readied the full package.)

Apart from the Amanda Knox book (also out in 2013) you wont find any take on the case more unhinged and free of hard facts (and rabidly abusive of professional counterparts) than Douglas’s several. He is at the level of Conti and Vecchiotti.

So. Is he mental? As other Knox grovelers seem to be - and Knox of course also? New scientific understanding of conspiracy theorists may prove fruitful, see more below.

Douglas’s books etc really are conspiracy theories on steroids. Absolute crackers. The Machine shows how many red flags Knox in particular was throwing up that could and absolutely should have given Douglas pause.

For normal brains, this is not rocket science.

Douglas’s “work” is in direct contradiction for example to rational, well-explained judges like Micheli and Massei - Micheli back in late 2008 four years before Douglas emerged warned strongly about Knox. Before that so did Judge Matteini and her control court in 2007 and the Supreme Court in 2008.

NOT ONE OF THEM for example talk of Satanism.  RS lawyer Maori, known for his nastiness (even Sollecito complained!) is well-known to have created that dishonest satanism meme.

It was after an early closed hearing in 2007. Mignini actually knows that. (Preston’s dishonest MOF book with the same claim followed in June 2008).

Pretty funny. Mignini did get his own back, and Maori’s career is not what it used to be.

http://www.truejustice.org/ee/index.php?/tjmk/comments/legal_reading_suggesting_fifth_chambers_encroached_on_first_chamber/

We have long puzzled over how even typical individuals, let alone a supposedly qualified one like Douglas (or Kassin, or Doug Bremner)(or Hampikian in another field) could miss or explain away all of the red flags.

One would expect John Douglas in particular (given the controversial nature of his “science” he “co-founded”) to be extra cautious and careful and to double-check everything.

And yet he babbles on transfigured at the sheer amazingness of “beautiful” Amanda Knox and “real deal” Steve Moore.

Good grief. Douglas accepts every one of their claims without curiousity or question - even though Chimera identified 518 lies in Knox’s book, and Steve Moore has been ridiculed for eight years on TJMK.

Here surely is a job for GOOD psychologists: why does this case attract so many BAD ones? Douglas and Kassin are not alone, Doug Bremner is one of the worst of them, Jim Clemente is another.

And right now in the science exactly this area of individual and mass delusion is what the good psychologists are getting further into.

Just this month, some findings are being reported that brains can be wrongly wired to swallow conspiracy theories, even though truths are starkly obvious.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/08/180820113047.htm

https://www.iflscience.com/brain/this-is-probably-why-you-believe-in-conspiracy-theories/

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/conspiracy-theories-creationism-psychology-911-moon-landing-fake-a8499511.html

Good book for a good psychologist in the mass delusion and numerous brain defects in the so-called Knox case?

Posted by Peter Quennell on 08/25/18 at 06:58 PM | #

Dear Hopeful, my Deep Apology for my offending “scholar” Comment.

Posted by Cardiol MD on 08/26/18 at 04:44 PM | #

@Cardiol MD, hey, no problem. Not at all. I certainly wasn’t offended. In fact I merely thought you were comically lamenting the use of “scholar” status to Knox as a laughable thing, which it is. Your comment prompts me to think of Meredith’s mental gifts again, which she was modest about: her quick mind, a ready wit, self-discipline in studies and finances.She was a smart cookie well on her way to a success in life.

Meredith had a good start on her education by farsighted concerned parents who enrolled her at St. John Whitgift’s. There she was a star pupil. She patiently tutored other students, she was a natural teacher.

Knox didn’t attend a special school until her teens at Seattle Prep Meredith was an Erasmus selected student, a prolific reader and a more serious student in Perugia than Knox was. I’ve always thought that Knox who lived with a teacher, her mother, felt herself a bit entitled to educational accolades.

It might have made Knox feel sensitive to Meredith’s educational status being higher than her own, as if Meredith represented Mother Edda (maybe this is a stretch, but Edda earned her living from a school). Since Laura and Filomena were working women and not in school, Meredith and Knox were the only students in the upstairs rooms of cottage. No doubt Knox envied Meredith’s Erasmus scholarship and Meredith’s intellect and Meredith NOT having to work. The competition for Queen Bee had begun.

Thanks for today’s comment as it made me think again about the two students, some pleasant thoughts in connection with peacefully confident Meredith.

Posted by Hopeful on 08/26/18 at 06:37 PM | #

Yet another stellar takedown Machine; tremendous stuff it really is.

Your comments towards the end of the post regarding what was said about Knox and Sollecito by Matteini, the Supreme Court and Kate Mansey are stark reminders, if any were needed, that we are not dealing with a couple of “innocent kids caught up in a hurricane not of their own making” here (as both liked to style themselves for the press), rather a pair of stone killers who have not only never shown any remorse but who have positively revelled in their infamy. This is particularly true of Knox, the leader of the wolf pack who carried out this senseless crime.

John Douglas should be thoroughly ashamed of himself. If he ever takes you up on your offer to read your pieces via the links you have sent him, I cannot see that he would be anything other than disgusted that he was so easily duped. I daresay the siren herself likely gave him the impression that he might be in with a chance of some fun if he got on board. No fool like an old fool as the saying goes and if there was a Faustian bargain of sorts with the psycho, even more fool him.

Posted by davidmulhern on 08/27/18 at 10:08 AM | #
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