Political & economic headsup: US is demonstrating unsorted systems problems in spades. Do watch your investments. As Washington DC policy gets more & more off-target, big New York investors are betting very heavily that stocks will soon crash. Gross systems mismanagement 2017-20 tanked stocks several times.

Wednesday, February 25, 2009

Understanding Micheli #4: The Faked Crime Scene - Who Returned To Move Meredith?

Posted by Brian S

Here now is the full 2011 Micheli Report kindly translated by Catnip for the Wiki and TJMK.

1. Where We Stand

Just to recap. Judge Micheli presided over Rudy Guede’s trial and sentencing and the final hearing that committed Raffaele Sollecito and Amanda Knox to trial.

Late January he made public the 106-page report that explains the thinking behind both actions. These posts are examining key areas of the report so that we too may decide on the rationales.

2. The Final Position Of The Body

Why this matters so much is that if the evidence holds firm, all by itself it will prove that there was a major rearrangement of the crime scene, to try to throw investigators off the trail.

This is as near to an 80,000 pound gorilla in the room as we are likely to see in this trial. And it may even be on the trial agenda for this coming Friday and Saturday.

Reports by the crime-scene investigators and Dr Lalli are summarised in Judge Micheli’s report. They describe the detail of the scene discovered in Meredith’s room. The investigators measured and photographed the position and state of everything, including blood, as it was in the room before anything was moved.

Amongst the items noted was a white bra. Some parts were soaked in blood, particularly the right shoulder strap and the outside of the left cup. They also noted that a portion of the backstrap with its clasp fixings was missing. Meredith herself was lying on her back midway between the wardrobe and the bed, without her jeans, a pillow under her buttocks and her top rolled up to reveal her chest.

Following this survey, Meredith’s body was then turned and moved by the investigators. This revealed the other items on which her body had lain. A tennis shoe, a white sheet from the bed and a blue zipped top, all with blood stains. Also a green bath towel and an ivory bath towel, both soaked in blood, and underneath the pillow was the missing clasp section of the bra back-strap.

Judge Micheli notes that Amanda’s defence claimed that “the small round spots of blood” apparent on Meredith’s chest indicated that she was not wearing her bra when she was killed. He agreed that it was likely that these spots fell from Meredith’s gasps for breath as she lay on her back after she had been stabbed. However, he could not agree with their conclusion that her bra had been removed before this time, as similar small round spots were also found on Meredith’s bra.

Micheli reasoned that this indicated that Meredith was still wearing her bra as she gasped for breath, but that her top was rolled up and the bra moved also. Thus indicating the sexual nature of the original attack, but also allowing the small round spots to fall on both chest and bra. Furthermore, other blood evidence involving the bra indicated that it wasn’t removed until some time after Meredith had died.

He said that Meredith’s bra was found by investigators away from other possible blood contamination on the floor, near to her feet. Photographs of Meredith’s body show clear white areas where the bra prevented blood from falling onto Merediths body. These white areas corresponded to those areas where blood was found on her bra. This was particularly true in the area of the right shoulder strap which was soaked from the wound to Meredith’s neck.

Micheli said that evidence showed that Meredith had lain on one shoulder near the wardrobe. She lay in that position long enough for the imprint of her shoulder and bra strap to remain fixed in the pool of blood after she was moved to the position in which her body was finally found. Photographs of blood on her shoulder matched the imprint by the wardrobe and her shoulder itself also showed signs that she had remained in that position for some time.

Based on all this, Judge Micheli concluded that there could be no doubt that Meredith’s body was moved away from the wardrobe and her bra removed quite some time after her death.

Neighbor Nara Capezzali had testified that people fled from the cottage within a minute of Meredith’s final scream. There was no time for any alteration of the crime scene in those very few moments.

Judge Micheli asks in his report, who could have returned later and faked the scene which was found? Who later moved Meredith’s body and cut off her bra? He reasons it could only be someone who had an interest in changing what would become a crime scene found at the cottage. Who else but someone who lived there, and who wanted to mislead the coming investigation?

It couldn’t have been Laura, she was in Rome. It couldn’t have been Filomena, she was staying with her boyfriend. It was very unlikely that it was Rudy Guede, all proofs of his presence were left untouched.

The culprits ran from the cottage in different directions and there is no reason to believe they met up again before some or one of them returned. Judge Micheli stated that, in his opinion, this just left Knox who would seem to have an interest in arranging the scene the police would find.

Bloody footprints made visible with luminol in Filomena’s room contain Meredith’s DNA. This indicated to Judge Micheli that the scene in Filomena’s room was also faked after Meredith was killed.

In Micheli’s opinion the scene in Meredith’s room was probably faked to point the finger at Rudy Guede. All evidence related to him was left untouched, and the pillow with a partial palm print was found under Meredith’s repositioned body.

But whoever later arranged that scene in Meredith’s room also unwittingly indicated their own presence at the original sexual assault. Who else could have known that by staging an obvious rape scene, they would inevitably point the investigators towards Rudy’s DNA which they knew could be found in Meredith?

Micheli asks: Seemingly, who else could it have been but Amanda Knox? And this in part is why she was committed to trial, for her defense to contend this evidence.

Monday, February 23, 2009

Understanding Micheli #3: Precisely How Damning Is The DNA Evidence?

Posted by Nicki

Here now is the full 2011 Micheli Report kindly translated by Catnip for the Wiki and TJMK.

1. The Context

Judge Micheli has had two very important roles. He presided over Rudy Guede’s trial and sentencing, and he presided over the final hearing that committed Raffaele Sollecito and Amanda Knox to trial.

Late January, Judge Micheli made public the 106-page report that explains the thinking behind both actions.

These four posts are examining several very key areas of the report so that we too may choose whether to buy into the rationales. I recommend watching this Powerpoint.

Click for Post:  Powerpoints #7: DNA Evidence - A Very Clear Intro To A Vital Subject Here

2. The DNA Evidence

Coming up soon is a more silent witness, one very important to both the prosecution and the two defenses: the extensive DNA evidence.

Specifically the DNA belonging to Meredith, Knox, Sollecito, and Guede, which was found at the scene of the crime, and on the suspected murder weapon found, apparently hidden, in Raffaele Sollecito’s house.

DNA of Sollecito has been found on the clasp of the victim’s bra. DNA of Amanda Knox was identified on the knife handle and also in the bathroom and Filomena’s room. DNA of Meredith DNA has been found on a knife compatible with the wounds that caused her death. DNA of Guede was found on the victim’s body and items and elsewhere in the house.

In summary, the biological sources and locations where DNA belonging to the victim and three defendants was found are these:

Guede’s DNA

DNA (from epithelial cells) was found inside Meredith, also on toilet paper, also on the right side of Meredith’s bra, also mixed with Meredith’s DNA on the her purse zip, and also on the left cuff of Meredith’s light blue sweater. Five total.

Sollecito’s DNA

DNA (from epithelial cells) was found on Meredith’s bra clasp, mixed with Meredith’s DNA, and also on one cigarette butt found in the kitchen. Two total.

Knox’s DNA

DNA (from epithelial cells) was found on the knife handle, and also close to the blade junction. DNA was also found in the small bathroom and in Filomena’s room

Meredith’s DNA

DNA was found on the knife blade. It was not possible to ascertain both the haematic and epithelial source of Meredith’s DNA on the knife blade, due to the scarcity of the sample. Numerous significant biological traces belonging to Meredith were found outside her bedroom - for example, DNA originating from the blood-trace footprints revealed by luminol found in Filomena’s bedroom, as reported at the Massei trial. Many instances total.

3. Defence Claims

Claims of contamination and “poor matches” of the DNA samples were raised by the Sollecito and Knox defenses, although not by Guede’s.

These claims had not been raised by the defenses’ experts who observed all the testing. 

4. Prosecution Rebuttal

The DNA expert Dr. Stefanoni’s arguments in reply to the defenses’ claims are summarized in Judge Micheli’s report.

Low Copy Number

Dr Stefanoni reported that the locus ascribable to Meredith and identified on the knife blade shows readings of 41 and 28 RFU.

Conventionally, RFU values lower than 50 can be defined as low. But she maintained that the profile matched Meredith’s by explaining that there is no immediate correlation between the height of the peaks obtained by electropherogram and expressed in RFU, and the reliability of the biological investigation.

In fact even if statistically - in most cases - the RFU data is directly proportional to the possibility of a certain interpretation of the analysis result, on the other side many cases of high peaks of difficult interpretation exist (because of background noises), as well as low peaks that are objectively unquestionable, hence the need to proceed to the examination of data that is apparently scarce, but that mustn’t be considered unreliable per se.

The use of multiplex PCR and fluorescent dye technology in the automated detection and analysis of short tandem repeat [STR] loci provides not only qualitative information about the profile - i.e. which alleles are present - but can provide also quantitative information on the relative intensities of the bands, and is therefore a measure of the amount of amplified DNA.

So if on one side Dr Stefanoni admits that the RFU readings are low, on the other her experience suggests that many cases of unquestionable matches exist showing readings lower than 50 RFU, and this appears to be the case with Meredith’s DNA sample on the knife.

Possibility Of Contamination

Contamination in the laboratory is categorically excluded by Dr Stefanoni. The samples were processed with maximum care in order to avoid any contamination during lab procedures. Defense experts observed all processing and nevr raised any objection.

Contamination during the collection phase is excluded by Judge Micheli, as the samples were collected by different officers at different times in different places (example Via della Pergola at 9:40am on Nov 6. 2007, and Sollecito’s apartment at 10:00am, on the same day, by a different ILE team).

As for Sollecito’s DNA found on the bra clasp, the match is unquestionable, according to the lab reports.

Samples from crime scenes very often contain genetic material from more than one person (e.g. Rudy Guede’s DNA has been identified in a mixture with the victim’s DNA in a few places), and well-known recommendations and protocols exist in order to de-convolute mixed samples into single genetic profiles.

So if the lab reports indicate that unquestionable biological evidence of Sollecito’s DNA was found on the bra clasp, at the present time we have no reason to believe that these recommendations weren’t followed and that therefore the reports are not to be trusted.

Conspiracy Theories

As to cells “flying around” depositing themselves - and their DNA content - here and there around the murder scene, there have been some imaginative theories advanced, to say the least.

The reality though is that although epithelial cells do shed, they don’t sprout little wings to flock to one precise spot, nor grow feet to crawl and concentrate on a piece of evidence.

There needs to be some kind of pressure on a surface in order to deposit the amount of biological material necessary to yield a reliable PCR analysis result.

A simple brushing will not do. 

As a matter of fact, Dr Stefanoni agreed with Guede’s defense that Guede’s genetic material found on the left sleeve of Meredith’s blouse was minimal; and this was because the DNA found there belonged to the victim and was not a mixture.

In the situation where there is a clear disproportion between quantitative data of two DNA’s coexisting in a biological trace, the PCR will amplify the most abundant DNA.

As agreed by Dr. Stefanoni and Guede’s defense, the conclusion here was that on the left sleeve there was plenty of Meredith’s DNA; but very little of Guede’s. This was used by his defense to deny that Guede had exerted violence on Meredith’s wrist.

5. Judge Micheli’s Ruling

After listening to the arguments of the prosecution and the defenses, Judge Micheli provided reasons why he rejected the contamination claims and ruled that all the biological traces identified as reflecting Sollecito’s and Knox’s DNA are admissible as evidence.

He arrived at the conclusion that the DNA evidence is sound and, considered along with the non-biological proof, he decided there was more than enough evidence to order Knox and Sollecito to stand trial.

6. Relevance To 2009 Trial

Regarding the biological significance of the traces, we are now looking forward to hearing the Knox and Sollecito defenses’ counter-arguments.  But as we understand it now, the DNA evidence for the trio having all been involved in the murder seems pretty damning.

The trial to establish the truth about the murder of Meredith continues next Friday. As we’ve reported, various human witnesses have already been heard from: the Postal Police who discovered Meredith’s body, Meredith’s two Italian roommates, and her seven British friends.

Friday, February 20, 2009

Daily Mail’s Jan Moir Wants Due Process Respected By Parents

Posted by Peter Quennell

Click above for influential Jan Moir’s full column.

It is mainly about UK cases of parents not respecting the process, but the Knox campaign also gets a mention.

When Amanda Knox was arrested in Italy in connection with the murder of Meredith Kercher, her family began an incantation of her innocence and a blaring defence of her character that continues to this day

The defense PR campaign here seems to be unique in recent United States legal history. Also TV networks paying out very big bucks for exclusives with defendants’ relatives, as was just reported about ABC, seems something of a first here.

Typically the situation is that it is the victim and their relatives who get all the attention. Often on steroids. So it’s perhaps not surprising that Jan Moir is surprised.

The name of the victim here is Meredith, of course.

Thursday, February 19, 2009

Trial: A Heavyweight American News-Site Reports Well On The Case

Posted by Peter Quennell

Click above for the report in Tina Brown’s new Daily Beast

The Beast is an innovative and very-fast-growing New-York based site (like our own!) which launched about the same time we did (no connection).

We see this piece is by the same Rome-based American reporter who filed the Newsweek report below. There are only three or four American reporters close to this case, so it seems they’re in real demand now.

Less than we would have liked on Meredith. Almost no mention. But there are points here of special interest:

1) Knox seems to be enjoying the assigned role

Sollecito comes in shortly after, but most people remain fixated on Knox, who does not look at all like the girl in TV footage taken the day after the crime, cuddling with Sollecito. She is older, thinner, and much prettier, and she has an aura about her. She looks comfortable in the courtroom, almost as if she is playing a role rather than facing charges of cutting Meredith’s throat while Sollecito held back her arms and Guede sexually assaulted her.

2) Sollecito has a new journalism career

Sollecito, who comes from a wealthy and connected family in Puglia, in the south of Italy, has been recruited to write a regular column from prison for his hometown paper in Bari. In it he recently claimed that he was a 23-year-old virgin when he met Knox. Interest in Sollecito has not been as ardent as that lavished on the pretty American coed, but it is growing.

3) The aggressive PR campaign is discouraging digging

An aggressive PR machine out of Seattle that runs under the moniker “Friends of Amanda” speaks out quickly and authoritatively in Knox’s defense, effectively discouraging US media from digging deeper into this mysterious crime. Family spokesman David Marriott arranges regular TV appearances for Knox’s parents and confirmed in an email that ABC’s 20/20 “paid for [Amanda’s mother] Edda to travel to Perugia and back. As a result, the family feels obligated to speak with ABC first.”

We hear other rumors of American networks paying big bucks for the attention of the biological parents. No-one, of course, is paying the Kerchers anything at all - they apparently insist on paying all their own bills.

4) TJMK and Perugia Murder File get highlighted

Meanwhile, the case has taken on a bizarre life of its own in the blogosphere, where a number of partisan websites, in both English and Italian, wage fierce battle. Among the most notable are the New York-based True Justice for Meredith Kercher and the Perugia Murder File, which both believe that Knox is guilty and defend the court proceedings in Perugia, translating critical court documents and creating impressive Powerpoint presentations to help readers decipher the evidence.

Hmmm. Vey nice, but a correction, if we may, Beast?  These sites don’t ever claim guilt. They point to very hard evidence to address, and a very fair process under way. And to the once-fading-fast notion that justice for Meredith, the only real victim here, really matters.

The impressive Powerpoints created for us by Kermit and Nicki (with more to come) are all here. And why the defendants were sent to trial can be read here.

5) The fratricide on some amateur websites now in meltdown

The blogs in defense of Knox include Italian Woman at the Table, which is run by a Seattle-based reporter writing a book on the case, and Perugia Shock. Comment sections in the blogs are rife with threats and accusations””not against Knox and Sollecito, mind you, but against other bloggers. Some have taken to exposing the actual names and addresses of people posting under screen names or threatening physical harm to those with opposing views of the case.

6) And how the case coverage is tracked in Perugia

The blogs are taken very seriously in Perugia, where prosecutors have assigned someone to follow the postings.

So how is it going there, guys? Getting paid to read us? That must be a first…

Wednesday, February 18, 2009

Trial: Newsweek Reports On The Perugia Progress So Far

Posted by Peter Quennell

[click above to start the video]

A good report now online from Newsweek’s Italy correspondent Barbie Nadeau.

Newsweek’s piece has more detail on the testimony from Meredith’s sad friends than previously reported in English. It concludes that the case continues to be stranger than fiction.

By the way, Newsweek is the only US weekly devoting resources to the case so far - strange to us, as the growth in our own readership suggests a very big potential audience.

Tuesday, February 17, 2009

Trial: One Very Peculiar Witness Gets Even More Interesting

Posted by Peter Quennell

[click for larger image]

Hekuran Kokomani. AKA the Albanian.

Scathingly dismissed by Judge Micheli at Rudy Guede’s trial for being REALLY confusing… And yet, still on the witness list for the present trial.

He may or may not have seen strange happenings on the street outside the house on the night in question. Or on the previous night. Or on both nights.

He may or may not have seen the present defendants running around in costume and one of them brandishing a knife. He may or may not have knocked Sollecito down and broken his glasses. And he may or may not have had a cash offer from Rudy Guede for the short-term use of his car.

Kokomani has a continuing modicum of credibility, because he seems to have reported accurately a breakdown at the junction near the house on the night of the crime.

Maybe he’d make a nice witness - if he’d only get his head straight. Clearly (see above) scared out of his freaking mind about something.

Now arrested for possession of eight grams of cocaine.

Eight grams of pure cocaine in the US and Europe fetches around $1000.

That’s a lot to have on hand for just a user. It suggests he might be both a user and a dealer - he does drive a nice car (a VW Golf) and he sends money home to his family in Albania.

So let’s see now. He’d maybe make a nice witness - if he’d only get his head straight.

And where is he now? In safe custody. Getting his head straight.

Just sayin!

Sunday, February 15, 2009

Trial: Defendant Noticeably Bubblier Than Meredith’s Sad Friends

Posted by Peter Quennell

Click above for more images from yesterday.

Here’s the story by Nick Pisa in the Daily Mail:

Amanda Knox had a Valentine’s Day message on her T-shirt when she appeared in court at her murder trial in Perugia, Italy, yesterday: All You Need is Love.

As she walked into court flanked by prison guards she smiled broadly and wore her cardigan open so the slogan ““ a Beatles classic ““ could clearly be seen.

Below: Is Raffaele Sollecito doing a double-take there? None of the shots available show anyone else smiling.

Trial: Saturday Morning, Meredith’s Other Italian Roomie Testifies

Posted by Peter Quennell

Click above for John Follain’s report in the London Times. Several highlights:

1) The strange wound on the kneck:

Amanda Knox, the American student accused of murdering her British housemate Meredith Kercher, had a fresh scratch on her neck after the crime, a witness told an Italian court yesterday.

Laura Mezzetti, another housemate, said she saw the mark on November 2, 2007, a few hours after the body was discovered, while they were waiting to be questioned at a police station.

“Amanda had a wound to her neck. I noticed because it was known Meredith had been killed by a wound to her neck,” said Mezzetti. “She had a scratch to her neck. I was afraid Amanda, too, might have been injured. I was worried and I looked at it really closely.”

She told the court that the scratch, which was just under half an inch long, was bright red. She gestured to show that it was beneath Knox’s chin.

Mezzetti said she had not seen the scratch when she had eaten breakfast with Knox at their cottage two days earlier….

Asked why she had failed to mention the scratch when she had spoken to the police, Mezzetti said she thought everybody else would have noticed it.

2) Sollecito’s belated calls to the Perugia police station

The court heard recordings of two phone calls that Sollecito made to the police.

“Someone has gone into the house by breaking the window. The door is locked. There are bloodstains in the bathroom,” Sollecito said in a flat tone at 12.51pm.

In a second call three minutes later he sounded alarmed. “The door of the bedroom of one of the housemates is closed and there are traces of blood in the bathroom,” he said.

Sollecito says he made the call before officers arrived at the cottage, but the prosecution claims this is disproved by the timing of the calls.

Saturday, February 14, 2009

Trial: The “Very Kind Young Man” Who Courted Meredith “Very Sweetly”

Posted by Peter Quennell

That is the description at trial last saturday of Giacomo Silenzi, by Meredith’s roomie, Filomena.

He lived downstairs from Meredith. Giacomo will testify today, along with his own roomies from downstairs

He was away from Perugia when the crime took place. His apartment was empty - and broken-into.

The explanation is not yet in the public domain. One of the many mysteries still to be unlocked.

Trial: Friday Afternoon, More Tough Testimony From Meredith’s Friends

Posted by Peter Quennell

[click for larger images]

Above left with Meredith: Sophie Purton

Above: Robyn Butterworth

Above: Amy Frost

Richard Owen of the London Times reports on the afternoon’s testimony.

1) Robyn Butterworth

Describing Ms Kercher’s last hours, Ms Butterworth said that Ms Kercher had joined her, Amy Frost and Sophie Purton to eat a pizza and watch a romantic film.

Ms Kercher had not made or received phone calls, and had not said that she was expecting anyone at the house she shared with Ms Knox.

She had returned home “about nine”. Ms Butterworth said they had all been tired after Hallowe’en the night before, when the friends had gone to a pub and a nightclub, returning home at 4.30am.

2) Amy Frost

Amy Frost, another witness who had flown in from Britain, said that [at the police station] Ms Knox was “giggling” and kissing Mr Sollecito.

“I remember Amanda sticking her tongue out at him. She had her feet on his lap,” the court was told. Ms Frost said that Ms Knox’s behaviour at the police station was “inappropriate”, as if she had “gone crazy”....

3) Natalie Hayward

Ms Hayward told the court that she remembered Ms Knox saying: “They slit her throat, Natalie, she would have died slowly and in a lot of pain.”

4) Sophie Purton

Sophie Purton, another close friend, said that she remembered hugging Ms Knox at the police station “but she did not reciprocate my hug, she seemed quite cold. She kept her arms at her side.” 

When she asked Ms Knox what happened Ms Knox replied: “What do you want to know, because I know everything.” She told Ms Purton “that Meredith was found in the wardrobe but only her foot was sticking out, and also that her throat had been cut”.

Since Ms Knox also said she was not there when the door of Ms Kercher’s bedroom was kicked in, Ms Purton said she assumed this information came from one of the Italian flatmates who was present.