Headsup: Disney's Hulu - mafia tool?! First warning already sent to the Knox series production team about the hoaxes and mafia connections. The Daily Beast's badly duped Grace Harrington calls it "the true story of Knox’s wrongful conviction of the murder of her roommate". Harrington should google "rocco sollecito" for why Italians hesitate to talk freely.

Category: News media & movies

Friday, January 31, 2014

Appeal Session #10 Images: The Attorney General Of Tuscany Dr Tindari Baglione Breaks The News

Posted by Our Main Posters

This help with translation happened right after Judge Nencini finished reading the verdict and sentences yesterday

Below: images of Lyle and Stephanie earlier in the long tense day

 

Appeal Session #10 Images: The Two Judges And Six Lay Judges Deliver The Guilty Verdict

Posted by Our Main Posters

The statement is sharp and quite brief. Judge Nencini confirms that both Knox and Sollecito are confirmed guilty. The 2009 Massei verdict is upheld.

The sentences are 25 years in priosn for Raffaele Sollecito and 28.6 years in rpison for Amanda Knox including the 3.8 years for the calunnia already served. Each must also incur financial penalties.

Both may be locked in the sex offenders wings as both were confirmed convicted with a sex-crime component. Both may face further charges for false accusations of crimes in their books and in the media, as may some of their more strident “supporters”.

Few in the US and UK seem to realize, but the evidence presented at trial in the first half of 2009 was in fact overwhelming. In the US and UK it is probable no appeal would even have been allowed, as the appeal grounds were so flimsy.

Nothing was undermined at the Florence appeal. In fact the evidence became STRONGER as another trace of Knox was found on the big knife. Innuendo about DNA contamination was sharply rejected in face of zero evidence or even scenario.

Please read our case overview here which links to some vital posts and touches on several of the defense’s illegal tricks.

That includes the corrupting of the 2011 appeal, which is well understood in Italy but not registering with most US and UK media - Sndrea Vogt has begun reporting on part of it, the illegal meddling with the Hellmann DNA consultancy

..

Tuesday, October 08, 2013

Questions For Knox and Sollecito: Why Claim Rudy Guede Did It Alone When So Much Proof Against?

Posted by Marcello

1. Problems Of Your “Guede did it alone” Mantra

Your attempts to frame Guede for the entire attack sound racist, and they fly in the face of a multitude of hard facts.

Why are you and your more untethered supporters arguing to the media that Rudy Guede alone attacked Meredith (he could not have), that he was a drifter (he wasnt), a burglar (he wasnt), and drug dealer (he wasnt), and that his DNA traces are “all over Meredith’s room” (they werent)?

There are surprisingly few DNA traces of Guede in there, and outside Meredith’s door there is only evidence of (1) his prior use of the south bathroom, and (2) his shoeprints headed straight for the front door.

There is zero evidence that Rudy Guede was ever in the shared bathroom (the one with Sollectio’s bloody footprint on the bathmat) and zero evidence he was in Filomena’s room (the one with the broken window and the mixed DNA of Meredith and Knox). 

2. Evidence Against You Is Far, Far Stronger

Explain if you can about Sollecito’s bloody footprint. Explain if you can about the evidence of cleanup. Explain this and this about your multiple contradictory alibis.

Explain if you can why YOUR own witnesses Alessi and Aviello were such disasters for your side in court. Explain your cell phone actions (or non-actions) and the timing and content of your phone calls, and your computer actions (or non actions).

Explain why in Sollecito’s book he claims he sent several emails throughout the night; but there zero records of such emails with his email provider. Explain why both Sollecito and Knox framed Dr Mignini.

There are three compelling reasons above all why the Massei court and the Supreme Court will remain totally unbending on the point that Guede did NOT attack Meredith alone, and that it had to be a pack attack on Meredith.

• One is the full day of closed court testimony at trial by crime-scene experts from Rome who accounted for every point of evidence in Meredith’s room with a depiction of a 15 minute pack attack involving three people. This seriously upset the jury and your own defense was left essentially speechless.


• One is the prosecution’s video shown in closed court during Summations of the recreation of the attack on Meredith, which accounted for every point of evidence with a 15 minute pack attack involving three people.  This seriously upset the jury and your own defense was left essentially speechless
.

• One is that the entry of an attacker via Filomena’s room is so absolutely unbelievable. Your own defense always knew this, and barely tried to make that sale (hence the witnesses Alessi and Aviello).

There are seven other routes for a burglar to enter the house, all of them faster and quieter and five of them darker. You can see five in these images below: two via the east windows, three up onto the balcony and into the house via the louvre door or the kitchen window.

All seven routes would be obvious to any burglar, long before he walked all the way around the base of the house to beneath Filomena’s window (which he did several times in your scenario). 

3. The Numerous Questions From Which You Hide

On or after 6 November you have both promised to appear in the appeal court in Florence. You are apparently too nervous to face cross-examination under oath, but you have said you intend to try to explain things.

1) Rudy Guede had been to the apartment at least twice already on prior occasions and knew the boys who lived in the lower story. Why did Guede choose to NOT break-in to the lower story where he knew (or could ascertain) that all four boys were away on holiday, and therefore could break-in and rummage with some certainty of not getting caught?

2) Why did Guede choose to break-in to the upper story of the villa mid-evening, when he surely knew Knox and Kercher would be staying at the villa for the holidays and could have been there or returned at any time to “catch him in-the-act”?

3) Surely Guede would have verified that no one was present by circling the cottage and checking if any lights were on in the windows? But Guede “missed” the really easy way in: the balcony in the dark at the rear, used in 2 burglaries in 2009.

4) If Guede did circle the cottage to make sure no one was there before attempting the break-in, why would he then choose the most visible and more difficult path of entry through a second story window, as opposed to the more hidden and easier path of break-in at the back of the villa, which he would have noticed while circling the villa?

5) Why would Guede choose to break-in through a second story window that was highly exposed to the headlights of passing cars on the street as well as exposed to night lighting from the carpark?

6) Ms. Romanelli testified that she had nearly closed the exterior shutters. Assuming her memory is correct, there is no way a burglar could easily verify if the windows were latched and if the inner scuri were latched to the window panes, which would make access to the window latch impractical unless one was armed with a core drill or an ax. Why would Guede, who was certainly familiar with such windows, choose to attempt the break-in through a window that he could not easily verify would allow him quick access?

7) Assuming the shutters were closed, Guede would have to climb up the wall and open the shutters before smashing the window with the rock. The night of the murder, the grass was wet from rain the previous day. Why was there no evidence of disturbed grass or mud on the walls?

8) Guede had Nike sneakers, not rock climbing shoes. How did he manage the climb up the wall with that type of footwear?

9) If the shutters were closed, or somewhat closed, how did Guede manage to lift himself up to the sill with only an inch of sill available to grab onto?

10) Assuming Guede opened the shutters, how did Guede verify if the inner scuri where not latched to the window panes, which would prevent access to the window latch? There was no light inside Ms. Romanelli’s room to reveal that the scuri were ajar.

11) Assuming Guede managed to check that the inner scuro behind the right-hand window was not latched, how did he manage to break the glass with a 9 lb rock with one hand while hanging on to the sill with the other?

12) Assuming Guede managed check that the right-hand inner scuro was not latched, how did he break the glass with the rock without having glass shards fly into his face?

13) If Guede climbed down to the lob the 9 lb rock at the window from 3 meters below, how would he do so to avoid glass shards raining down on him?

14) If Guede climbed down to the lob the rock at the window from below, why would he choose a 9 lb 20 cm wide rock to lob up to a window 3 meters above him, with little chance of striking the window in the correct fashion?

15) If Guede climbed down again and climbed back up to the carpark (up a steep slope with slippery wet grass and weeds) to lob the 9 lb 20 cm wide rock from the car park, why is there no evidence of this second climb down on the walls?

16) Why did Guede choose a 9 lb 20 cm wide rock to throw from the car park, given that a large, heavy rock would be difficult to lob with any precision? Especially considering that the width of the glass in the window pane is only 28 cm wide, surely anyone, experienced or not, would have chosen a smaller, lighter rock to throw with greater precision.

17) If Guede lobbed a 9 lb 20 cm rock from the car park, such a lob would require some velocity and therefore force. Guede would have been roughly 11-12 feet away from the window, in order for the lob to clear the wood railing at the carpark. If the rock was thrown with some velocity, why is the upper 1/2 of the glass in the window pane intact, without any fracture cracks at all?

18) If Guede lobbed a 9 lb 20 cm rock from the car park, such a lob would require some velocity and therefore force. Why is there so little damage to the scuro the rock hit, so little damage to the terrazzo flooring impacted by the rock, and so little damage to the rock itself, which surely would have fractured more on impact with a hard terrazzo floor?

19) Why was there no evidence of glass shards found in the grass below the window?

20) If Guede climbed the wall to open the shutters, climbed down and up to the car park to throw the rock, then climbed back down and up again to the window, how does he manage to hoist himself onto the sill without cutting himself on the glass that was found on the sill?

21) If Guede climbed the wall to open the shutters, hoisted himself onto the sill, tapped the glass with a 9 lb rock to lightly break the glass in a manner more consistent with how the window was broken, why did he throw the rock into the room, rather than let it fall into the grass below?

22) Why was no dirt, grass, muddy shoeprints or similar trace evidence found on the window sill?

23) Why was no dirt, grass, muddy shoeprints or similar trace evidence found in Romanelli’s room?

24) If Guede climbed the wall to open the shutters, climbed down and up to the car park to throw the rock, then climbed back down and up again to the window again, hoisted himself onto the sill without cutting himself on the glass that was found on the sill, unlatched the window and stepped inside Filomena’s room, how did he manage to get glass on top of Romanelli’s clothing that was found under the window sill?

25) Why would Guede, who would have spent a good 10 minutes trying to break and enter with the climbing up and down from the carpark, waste valuable time throwing clothes from the closet? Why not simply open the closet doors and rifle through the clothes without creating more of mess?

26) Why did he disregard Romanelli’s laptop, which was in plain view?

27) Why did Guede check the closet before checking the drawers of the nightstand, where surely more valuable objects like jewelry would be found?

28) Why were none of the other rooms disturbed during the break-in?

29) Assuming Ms. Kercher arrived to the cottage after Guede’s break-in, presumably when Guede was in the bathroom, why did she not notice the break-in, call the police and run out of the cottage?

30) Assuming Guede was in the bathroom when Ms. Kercher returned, why go to the extent of attacking Ms. Kercher in her room rather than try to sneak out the front door, or through the window he had just broken, to avoid if not identification, at least more serious criminal charges?

31) Assuming Ms. Kercher was at the cottage while Guede broke-in, why did she not call the police the moment she heard the rock crash through the glass, loudly thud to the terrazzo floor and investigate what was happening in Romanelli’s room while Guede was climbing back down from the car park and climbing back up to the window?

32) Assuming Ms. Kercher was at the cottage while Guede broke-in, Guede could have been on the sill already because he had tapped the glass with the 9 lb rock to break it. Therefore perhaps Guede was already partially inside Romanelli’s room when he was discovered by Ms. Kercher. In this case Guede follows Ms. Kercher to her room in an attempt to dissuade her from calling the police and the assault ensues. But then, if this scenario is correct, when does Guede have time to rifle through Romanelli’s clothing and effects?

33) Why is there a luminol revealed footprint in Romanelli’s room that has mixed traces of Knox’s and Kercher’s DNA ?

34) Why does this footprint not match Guede’s foot size?

35) If multiple attackers were required to restain Ms. Kercher, holding her limbs while brandishing two knives and committing sexual violence, then who else was with Guede and why no traces of this 4th (or more) person(s) were found, either in shoeprints, footprints, fingerprints, DNA or otherwise?

36) If Guede and others were involved in the assault, why has Guede not acknolwedged them, and instead consistently hinted that, and finally admitting that Sollecito and Knox were with him during the assault?

37) If Guede and others were involved in the assault, why do the other shoeprints, footprints, DNA traces and fingerprints all point to Knox and Sollecito being present during the assault, in one way or another?

4. Italy Is Not Buying The Racist Mantra

If your racist mantra remains “the black guy did it alone” and “Italians are corrupt and stupid” you need to PROVE that. If you cannot answer all of these questions above, this will deservedly cook you.

You could be facing 30 years with the “mitigating factors” canceled and the new penalties you will incur for your dishonest books and PR campaigns.


[Five easier ways in: 3 via balcony (note two drainpipes, window grid below), 2 via side windows]

Thursday, October 03, 2013

How Did The Knox-Mellases Engineer Their PR And Legal Shortfall? David Marriott Analysed

Posted by Media Watcher

David Marriott in Kermit’s Powerpoint Real Railroad to Hell with paid sleuth Paul Ciolino


‘In 2011, David Marriott was a proud and happy man. 

His client, Amanda Knox, was home, and he was basking in the media attention for having successfully engineered, many people thought, a full and outright acquittal.  So he started to give interviews,  bragging on about his prowess in creating a narrative about someone he’d never met, and imagining himself as a character on the silver screen.

But as with so many stories, the declaration of victory was premature, and in this case, already bittersweet. 

The bittersweet came with the Appellate Decision that overturned the conviction for murder while declaring Marriott’s client a liar, guilty of Calunnia for falsely fingering an innocent man.  The case was clearly more complicated than many casual observers, seduced by PR spin, realized.

Observing Marriott’s chest beating from two years ago is now a little like watching someone take a victory lap in a World Series game after just the fourth inning.

The Premature Nature of his victory lap would start to become apparent only months later with the Prosecution’s strongly argued appeal.  It would become much more clear to a broader set of people with the Supreme Court decision that embraced the arguments of the Prosecutor, while setting aside the Appellate Court verdict except for the conviction for Calunnia, which was affirmed.

Meanwhile, his client had moved forward with a book deal.  In delivering the book, she would make many claims that could easily be disproven, and would further strengthen the prosecution’s hand.

In years to come, it’s likely someone will study the Marriott intervention in this case with the kind of fascination people often have for “experts” who got it utterly, completely wrong. 

All along, the “Amanda as victim” narrative was in many ways, the worst story for Amanda’s advocates to embrace.  The Italian Justice system doesn’t view her as a victim.  They view her as someone who was originally seen as a witness, and who became a defendant only after she implicated herself and the evidence started to accumulate. 

In telling the story of Amanda’s supposed innocence, the PR spinsters and her own stateside attorney, Ted Simon, completely overreached.  How many people saw Simon say time after time in media interviews, “There is NO evidence.”

Meanwhile the PR strategy fired up people who WERE paying attention and who saw how badly the media narrative differed from the realities of the case.  As an example, much as the defense and spinsters tried to say the “crime scene” consisted of only the room where Meredith’s body was found, advocates for the victim’s family knew the crime scene also consisted of all of the areas where evidence of the crime was covered up.  They also knew, as the prosecution did, how many pieces of evidence, including cell phone records and DNA evidence, directly implicated Amanda Knox.

In many ways, this site, and the contributions people made to providing English translations of ongoing testimony and all of the official court documents, happened because of hubris on the part of people who thought that telling a story that was so at odds with the essential truth of the case would ultimately win Amanda Knox’s freedom.

The ultimate irony, of course, is that the reason so many English speakers, including media, can now read the trial record and court documents for themselves is because a flawed PR strategy fired up a group of people who were willing to dive in, find out what was actually happening, and share what they were finding with the rest of the world.

So David Marriott, thank you.  It’s likely that by the time this case is complete (and there’s still a long way to go), you will have served an important role in helping people who care about justice to understand why Amanda Knox now stands convicted of Calunnia, and why she ultimately is being held to account for the murder of Meredith Kercher. 

And hopefully, the tale of your involvement and overreach will serve as a reminder to other defendants in other cases that engineering blatantly false and misleading media coverage about a criminal case is not likely to be a winning strategy.


[Below; Curt Knox and Chris Mellas paid for and guided their toxic PR manager David Marriott]

Friday, September 27, 2013

Questions For Sollecito: Why So Many Contradictory Explanations Of How DNA Got On The Knife?

Posted by SomeAlibi

It is no secret (except seemingly to him) that Sollecito’s book and web postings will once again land him in court.

This trial will be separate from the main appeal though the prosecution office will be the same. It will be for alleged contempt of the court in serially mis-stating the evidence and accusing many officials of crimes in an attempt to get public opinion to lean heavily on the courts. 

The Amanda Knox brigade has been trying that too, and look at how well that is working out!

Here is one seemingly perfect example of how Sollecito (finally responding to the pressures and pleas of his discombobulated lawyers?) may be trying to wind things back. You will recall that news of the discovery of a large knife in his kitchen drawer with Meredith’s DNA on it was related to Sollecito while he was in his prison cell, just over two weeks after the murder.

As much as the news initially panicked him, shortly thereafter on November 18th, 2007, he seemed relieved to have realised how Meredith’s DNA could have come to be on his kitchen knife after a session of, in his written words, “thinking and remembering”. He wrote in his diary:

The fact that there is Meredithʹs DNA on the kitchen knife is because on one occasion, while we were cooking together, I, while moving around at home {and} handling the knife, pricked her hand, and I apologized at once but she was not hurt {lei non si era fatta niente}. So the only real explanation for that kitchen knife is this one.

And that was it: Raffaele had “fortunately” remembered how he had “pricked” Meredith’s hand and that explained the DNA. He remembered it in precise detail - thank heavens for that!

The problem for Raffaele was that he didn’t know at this stage that the DNA was in a microscopic groove on the blade and not on the tip. The story made no sense. Worse, he was also flatly contradicted by the flatmates, the friends and even Amanda: he had never been cooking with Meredith and his story was therefore impossible as well as implausible. And since he was a murder suspect, the memories and all their specificity which would have given him an alibi for the DNA, became highly suspicious.

Unfortunately, Raffaele chose to remain silent thereafter and never testified, as was his right, at his trials.

Subsequently there were many months of Team Knox-Sollecito denying that Raffaele meant Meredith, in contradiction of all plain logic when reading the simple words in his diary. No, said the online apologists, in fact he meant Amanda’s hand and in some way he had thought that maybe Meredith’s DNA had been on Amanda and could have transferred. It wasn’t his fault that his theory was wrong, it was just an honest memory of being with Amanda and nothing suspicious at all.

On Twitter on September 22nd, Raffaele decided, probably unwittingly as is his wont, to blow that theory up. He was asked about the diary entry by Twitter user MK @santamariaxx and responded thus:

He replied as in the image above.

So, he didn’t really mean Amanda at all (thank-you for all the wasted hours of excuse making for Raffaele to those protagonists of that particular theory), but now we learn it was a false memory about Meredith that never happened.

But let’s unpick this because it’s far from a single mis-remembered sentence or action. This was a contemporaneous diary entry made barely two or three weeks after such a cooking event could have happened and it was a multi-faceted event with multiple actions. He was clear and precise about what happened in detail. Now, he is quite clear the whole thing never happened:

1. He said he was cooking together with Meredith - but that never happened

2. He recalled himself “moving about” during the cooking session - but that never happened

3. He remembered the location “at home” - but was never there in this context

4. He remembered putting a knife that he was holding into / onto Meredith’s hand - but that never happened

5. He remembered actively apologizing to Meredith for that clumsy act - but that never happened

6. He remembered the act of them examining Meredith’s hand and mutually discovering that she had not been hurt - but that never happened

7. He remembered that this was the real explanation of the kitchen knife - but it never happened

Sollecito was on his own in a cell, not under interrogation, and spending time “thinking and remembering” on November 18th. What he remembered, in detail, was a multi-part sequence of events with a girl who had been murdered barely two weeks before. He remembered the minutiae of what happened and its sequence when he believed he needed to provide an alibi for the identification of the DNA on his knife.

None of Amanda Knox’s vagueness about these memories - they were particular and specific in the finest detail. So fine and specific that when he was caught out that this could not have happened, those details looked highly like someone seeking to convince precisely because of the particularity of the details. It was in the time-honoured form: “no, no - it definitely happened, because I specifically remember”..... 7 distinct and separate memories and the sequence in which they occured.

But all those things never happened according to Raffaele Sollecito in 2013.

Knox and Sollecito have never stopped the self-serving lies and flat contradictions of themselves. Not now, even after all this time, even after one them is permanently stained as, at a minimum, a convicted liar who criminally tried to frame a man for murder. Sollecito, “not hiding” in his secret location, can’t stop either. Little good it will do either of them. Finally, justice is coming and the lies will be at end. I’d almost feel sorry for him, if he wasn’t then and remains now, an inveterate liar without the honour to face justice in the country of his birth.

Sunday, September 22, 2013

Questions For Knox: Ten Hard Questions That Knox Should Be Asked Monday On ITV’s Daybreak

Posted by The Machine

Amanda Knox will be interviewed for the first time in Britain on ITV’s Daybreak programme tomorrow.

No interviewer should unquestioningly accept everything Knox says as the gospel truth. Remember Knox served three years in prison and is labeled a convicted felon for life for malicious lying.

So let’s hope tomorrow’s interview is not yet another whiny mis-statement of the core facts, and not yet more sliming of Italian officials, of which we have just seen so many.

There are many questions on this site which Knox has never ever answered. Some arise from the evidence and some from her dishonest book.

See especially the tough questions here and here and here and here.  With luck the Daybreak hosts will ask Knox all of these tough questions below.

1. Multiple false alibis

You and Raffaele Sollecito gave completely different accounts of where you were, who you were with and what you were doing on the night of the murder. Neither of you have credible alibis despite three attempts each. Sollecito told Kate Mansey from The Sunday Mirror that you and him were at a party.

He told the police that you and him were at his apartment. He then told them that he was home alone and that you weren’t at his apartment from around 9.00pm to about 1.00am. You first told the police that you were at Sollecito’s apartment. After you were informed that he was no longer providing you with an alibi, you repeatedly claimed that you went to the cottage with Diya Lumumba.

You changed your story yet again and claimed that you were at Sollecito’s apartment, but he might have gone out. All the other people who were questioned had one credible alibi that could be verified.

Extract of Sollecito’s witness statement.

“I went home, smoked a joint, and had dinner, but I don’t remember what I ate. At around eleven my father phoned me on the house phone. I remember Amanda wasn’t back yet. I surfed on the Internet for a couple of hours after my father’s phone call and I stopped only when Amanda came back, about one in the morning I think.

Question 1. Why did you and Raffaele Sollecito repeatedly tell the police and others a pack of lies?

2. False accusation

You falsely claimed that Diya Lumumba killed Meredith in two witness statements and you repeated the false accusation in your handwritten note to the police on 6 November 2007. You served three years in prison for this felony and your appeal to the Supreme Court was denied.

Question 2. Why did you repeatedly accuse Diya Lumumba of murder when you knew full well that he was completely innocent and why didn’t you or your mother retract your accusation when he was in prison?

3. The Double DNA Knife

According to a number of independent forensic experts - Dr. Patrizia Stefanoni, Dr. Renato Biondo, Professor, Giuesppe Novelli, Professor Francesca Torricelli, Luciano Garofano, Elizabeth Johnson and Greg Hampikian - Meredith’s Kercher’s DNA was found on the blade of a knife from Raffaele Sollecito’s kitchen.

He falsely claimed in his prison diary that he had accidentally pricked Meredith’s hand whilst cooking. Dr Stefanoni analysed the traces on the knife six days after last handling Meredith’s DNA. This means that contamination couldn’t have occurred in the laboratory.

Meredith had never been to Sollecito’s apartment, so contamination away from the laboratory was impossible.

Question 3. How do you think Meredith’s DNA got onto the blade of the kitchen knife?

4. The bra clasp

An abundant amount of Raffaele Sollecito’s DNA was found on Meredith’s on the exact part of Meredith bra clasp that was bent out of shape during the attack on her.  His DNA was identified by two separate DNA tests. Of the 17 loci tested in the sample, Sollecito’s profile matched 17 out of 17. Professor Torricelli testified that it was unlikely the clasp was contaminated because there was a significant amount of Sollecito’s DNA on it.

Professor Novelli analysed the series of samples from all 255 items processed and found not a single instance of contamination, and ruled out as implausible that a contaminating agent could have been present just on one single result. David Balding, a Professor of Statistical Genetics at University College London, recently analysed the DNA evidence against Sollecito and concluded it was strong.

Question 4. How do you think Raffaele Sollecito’s DNA ended up on Meredith’s bra clasp?

5. The bloody footprint on the bathmat

According to two imprint experts - Rinaldi and Boemi - the bloody footprint on the blue bathmat in the bathroom matched the characteristics of Sollecito’s foot, but couldn’t possibly belong to Guede. Rudy Guede’s bloody footprints led straight out of Meredith’s room and out of the house which indicates that he didn’t go into the bathroom after Meredith had been stabbed.

See our past posts on this here and here.

Question 5. Who do you think left the bloody footprint on the bathmat?

6. Mixed samples of Amanda Knox’s DNA or blood and Meredith Kercher’s blood

According to the prosecution’s experts, there were five instances of your DNA or blood mixed with Meredith’s blood in three different locations in the cottage. Even your lawyers conceded that your blood had mingled with Meredith’s blood. In other words, Meredith and Amanda Knox were both bleeding at the same time.

Question 6. Why were you bleeding on the night of the murder and is it a coincidence that only your DNA was found mixed with Meredith’s blood?

7. The Luminol Enhanced Footprints

Bare bloody footprints were revealed by Luminol at the cottage. Three of them are compatible with your foot size and one of them is compatible with Raffaele Sollecito’s foot size.

Question 7. What do you think the Luminol was reacting to - Meredith’s blood or some other substance?

8. The staged break-in

There is absolutely no evidence that anyone stood outside Filomena’s window and climbed up the vertical wall on the night of the murder. There were no marks from soil, grass or rubber soles on the wall. The earth of the evening of 1 November 2007 was very wet, so if anybody had climbed the wall, they would have left some marks on it.

The glass on the window sill and on the floor show no signs of being touched after the window was broken, which would have been the case if the intruder had gained entry through the window.

There was not a single biological trace on any of the shards of glass. It would have been very likely that an intruder balancing on the window sill would have suffered some kind of injury or cut because of the shards of glass.

If the window had been broken from the outside, there would have been shards of glass outside, but there wasn’t even one.

Judge Massei and the panel of judges at the Italian Supreme Court specifically mentioned the shards of glass on top of Filomena’s clothes which had been tossed onto the floor in her room and regarded it as proof that the break-in was staged.

Question 8. Who do you think staged the break-in at the cottage?

9. Knowledge of the crime

Umbria Procurator General Galati’s pointed out in his appeal that you knew specific details of the crime that you could have only known if you had been present when Meredith was killed.

According to multiple witnesses at the police station, you said you were the one who had found Meredith’s body, that she was in the wardrobe, that she was covered by the quilt, that a foot was sticking out, that they had cut her throat and that there was blood everywhere. But you weren’t in a position to have seen anything at all when the door was kicked in.

In your witness statement you described Meredith’s scream. Other witnesses have corroborated your claim that there was a loud scream.

Question 9. How did you know so many precise details of the crime?

10. Shower and the “bathmat shuffle”

The Scientific Police found 13 traces of blood in the bathroom that Meredith and you shared. Prosecutor Mignini and Filomena have both expressed their surprise that you showered in a blood-spattered bathroom.

Filomena told Mignini during cross-examination:  “I thought it was odd that she’d had a shower when there was blood all over the place.”

You told Mignini that you used the bathmat to shuffle to your room.

Question 10. Why did you shower in a bathroom that was splattered with blood, and did you notice the visible bloody footprint on the bathmat when you used it to shuffle to your room? And why so soon after did the police notice that you were stinking?

Lorraine Kelly and Aled Jones the ITV Daybreak hosts who should confront Amanda Knox

Thursday, September 19, 2013

Judge Nencini’s Guidelines Authorize Televising Of The Florence Appeal Live In Real Time

Posted by True North

[Research room in the Palace of Justice which can double as a room for the press]


The Florence Courts are renowned for acting with speed and decisiveness.

No surprise then that Judge Nencini has issued the court guidelines for this appeal (remember, this is not a second trial).

There will be regulated access to the courtroom and observers must be in court by 9:00 am. No phone contacts or tweets from the court to the outside world will be allowed.

A pressroom will be set up, as in Perugia, where most of the reporters preferred to sit so that they could use their computers and phones, and come and go when they wished.

And three fixed TV cameras will provide a broadcast-quality live feed from the court in Italian. This feed will be balanced against the needs of an orderly fair trial, and the feed could be turned off now and then.

In Perugia in 2009 and 2011 there were CCTV cameras in the court but the quality of the feed to the pressroom was low and when reporters captured some of it on videocam the resultant videos were somewhat murky as you can see on some YouTubes of the trial.

The huge new high-tech palace of justice was designed with TV feeds in mind.

Wednesday, September 18, 2013

Breaking News From Italy-Based Andrea Vogt On The Aviello And Knox/Sollecito Court Actions

Posted by Peter Quennell

[A Florence courtroom similar in size to courtroom 32 which is assigned for the appeal]


Andrea Vogt kindly provides these details on the Knox/Sollecito appeal, the Aviello trial, and the increasingly desperate Knox and Sollecito PR.

1) Knox And Sollecito Appeal

In the first hearing on September 30, the court will decide on a fixed schedule as well whether or not to accept any defense evidence requests, such as new DNA testing or witness statements. The prosecution has also made two additional requests to the court: 1) request for another forensic review of knife to see if a small third trace that was never tested before can be examined. Experts in the first appeal deemed it low copy number and rejected requests to test it. 2) request to hear testimony from Luciano Aviello.

All our past posts on the Florence appeal can be found here and all our past posts on the DNA can be found here. 

The defenses are said to have filed monsters of requests for wide scope - a virtual retrial with the defenses in prosecution mode - complete with bizarre argumentation against the rulings of Cassation. None of the defense lawyers have ever won a case before Cassation. This sure seems like a losing move as Cassation is insisting on tight focus.

2) Luciano Aviello Trial

At the heart of Aviello’s trial in Florence are likely to be the revelations by inmate Alexander Illicet from Serbia Montenegro, who testified that Aviello had agreed to pin the murder on his brother in exchange for 158,000 Euros ““ money Aviello desperately needed to pay for a sex change. Aviello himself later took back statements he made on the stand, saying he had been bribed.

The backstory to the potentially very explosive Aviello trial can be found here.  If he cracks under pressure (as expected), he may spill the beans on the Sollecito family, on the defense lawyers Maori and Bongiorno. and on the judges Hellmann and Zanetti,

Potentially all could face prison. No family goes in for bribing of judges and witnesses (along with numerous other dirty tricks) if their little pride-and-joy is truly innocent.

3) Erratic Knox PR

Knox recently was featured in a number of print exclusives to the very U.K. tabloids her family blamed for sensationalizing her case at the outset. She then did her own exclusive video interview in Seattle to the same Italian columnist [used by Sollecito].

Knox, Sollecito, and Oggi are all already being investigated for contempt of court, as explained in all these past posts. For such charges, depending on the seriousness (and serial, seemingly unstoppable false accusations of crimes is pretty serious), prison sentences if found guilty might amount to ten years. That would be on top of any new sentence out of the Florence appeal which this time is likely to be 30 years.

Planet Earth to Amanda Knox: Smart move #1 could be to put aggravators David Marriott and Chris Mellas on the back burnder.

Thursday, September 05, 2013

Questions For Knox: Why So Many False Claims In Accounts Of Your Visit To The House?

Posted by James Raper

[Filomena’s shutters on approach above and below NOT half-open as they were when Knox arrived]


Additional to this post and this post on the overwhelming strength of the evidence against Sollecito and Knox.

Amanda Knox was of course lying from the start about her initial visit to the cottage to have a shower and collect a change of clothing, in the account which she gave the police when they turned up, and which she then embellished into a version of Little Red Riding Hood in her e-mail.

Here’s how we can know why. One of her most glaringly untrue claims, one not hard to fathom out and indeed I have no doubt that she had done so herself and regretted it within minutes of recounting her story to the police.

The shutters to Filomena’s window were open upon the arrival of the postal police.  Massei (page 27) -

Said window had two half-closed shutters, and the right-hand shutter (the right with respect to the person looking at it) was slightly more open”› (page 62, hearing of February 6, 2009, Battistelli’s statements).

Filomena’s window is in fact the most prominent feature of the cottage for anyone walking down the lane to it. Yet, incredibly, if we are to make sense of the rest of her account, we are required to believe that Knox did not notice the shutters .

Whether they were half open or less than half open does not matter. They were open, indicating, as a matter of common sense, that the occupant of the room might be somewhere around.

You would think that anyone (anyone but Knox apparently) apprised of this elementary scrap of information about their own home and flatmates, and then in addition finding that the front door was open and no-one was answering, would have checked the other rooms, and in particular Filomena’s, out of curiosity if not concern, wouldn’t you? Of course you would.

Discovery of the broken window would then, if not before, have been inevitable, but of course in those circumstances no one would have believed that she had then had a shower and blow dried her hair.

Of course it did occur to the police that her story was a load of nonsense, just as it did to Knox and Sollecito.

See at bottom here for the famous picture of Knox and Sollecito together outside the cottage, Knox with her left hand up to her eyes and Sollecito by her side standing with his back to the window, jaws clenched and staring blankly straight ahead.

They knew, and they must have been praying hard that the police were just as stupid as them. When they were not arrested on the spot they must have thought their prayers were answered.

[Shower? Knox with Sollecito several hours later at which point her body odour was reported as immense]

Thursday, August 29, 2013

Amanda Knox Dithering Over Court Appearance For Appeal Going Over Very Negatively In Italy

Posted by Peter Quennell

[Above: the outspoken political leader of the region of Umbria Lignani Marchesani warns Amanda Knox]


Amanda Knox has her name on a book that maliciously slimes everybody she ever encountered in Italy. Then she repeatedly goes on TV whining about how people dont like or trust her.

Guess what? Italians are seeing those same wild accusations as being one self-created reason why Knox seems to lack the guts to head for the appeal court. She would be put face-to-face with many of those that she slimed. How embarrasing.

The other reason of course has applied since 2009: Italians believe she really did lead a very cruel murder pack, killed someone vastly more gifted and worthwhile than herself, and now is lying to the American public in the hope that they will insist their government ignores any arrest warrant for Knox from Italy.

She sure has a real knack of making things worse for herself. No-shows are very rare in Italy and they are seen as not only very cowardly but a sure sign of the person’s guilt. Our main poster Jools translated this tart threat from the leader of Umbria’s regional government which is posted on the regional assembly website.

MEREDITH KERCHER MURDER: “IF AMANDA KNOX DOES NOT COME BACK TO FACE THE NEW TRIAL, PERUGIA SHOULD REVOKE THE SISTER CITIES-TWINNING- WITH SEATTLE”.

The chief regional councillor Andrea Lignani Marchesani (Fd’I) seeks to revoke the twinning of Perugia with Seattle, if Amanda Knox does not return to Italy to stand trial for the murder of the British student Meredith Kercher.

“Headlines were not needed nor a crystal ball to forcast that Miss Amanda Knox would carefully refrain from returning to Italy to face the new appeal process. The annulment of the judgment at the Supreme Court shows how the references to international pressures were not unfounded and a clear abdication of our sovereignty for the sake of interests that have nothing to do with justice.

“No need to emphasize once more how the city of Perugia, the Umbria [region] and the University have damage to their image and finances from this tragic event, without forgetting the human aspects and family of the victim.”

Andrea Lignani Marchesani calls to revoke the twinning between the cities of Perugia and Seattle, birthplace of the American woman on trial in Italy.  According to Lignani, “The city of Seattle, linked in a sister cities twinning for twenty years with Perugia, lost no time during the time Amanda was in custody to criticize our capital city, either by revoking of the naming of a park [in honor] of the city of the Griffon or by petitions tending to the withdrawal of the twinning itself.

“Perugia has no need for undesirable relationships and should, in this situation where a wound of its recent history is being reopened, should proceed to counter offensive.

If Amanda, as is almost certain, does not show up at the trial and does not face the verdict of the Italian justice system, Perugia must withdraw it’s twinning with Seattle. Court judgments are meant to be respected and must be executed, this is what is repeated every day, and this must also apply to the Seattle citizen Amanda Knox.”

As explained in the post below, the Italian court has many ways of applying its own powerful pressure. It could for example put Knox’s entire defaming entourage on trial, including her own dad, and see them all labeled as felons worldwide.

More on this in our next post, about Frank Sforza, which explains all the grief his own meltdown in court could rain down.