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: Saul Kassin

Friday, January 19, 2018

Interrogation Hoax #21: Illustrating How Batshit Crazy The Knox Interrogation Hoax Has Become

Posted by Our Main Posters

Knox again making things up, despite vast evidence and her defense team to contrary

1. From Impeccable Police Process…

Click here for the overview of our huge Interrogation Hoax expose.

We are coming full circle now, with new translations showing what happened at the very start, from the day Meredith’s body was found, to the day of RS’s and AK’s arrests.

In those days Knox and Sollecito provided information about possible perpetrators in four relatively brief sessions with investigators in the central police station, and they signed the written records on every page.

It is pretty obvious from those signed depositions why no court believed Knox was forced to frame an innocent man.

Even Knox’s own defense team did not believe the hoax (yes she actually had one, though hoaxers leave this awkward fact aside). Though it took us some time to translate it all, some of that stark evidence against Knox has been available in English for years.

And yet it could be quicker to list here who among the Knox apologists HASN’T put this hoax on steroids than who has.

2. To Interrogation Hoax On Steroids

This is from a hyped keynote presentation to a New York conference of senior government justice officials from all over the world.  It mentioned no original sources as proof and was not peer-reviewed. No attempt has ever been made to set the record right. The 37 untrue statements are rebutted in Part 3 below.

Meredith Kercher was found raped [untrue] and murdered in Perugia, Italy. Almost immediately [untrue] police suspected 20-year-old Amanda Knox [untrue], an American student and one of Kercher’s roommates””the only one who stayed in Perugia after the murder [untrue]. Knox had no history of crime [untrue] or violence and no motive [untrue].

But something about her demeanor [untrue] such as an apparent lack of affect [untrue], an outburst of sobbing [untrue], or her girlish and immature behavior [untrue] led police to believe [untrue] she was involved and lying, when she claimed she was with Raffaele Sollecito, her new Italian boyfriend, that night [untrue]. 

Armed with a prejudgment of Knox’s guilt [untrue] several police officials interrogated [untrue] the girl on and off for four days [untrue]. Her final interrogation started on November 5 at 10 p.m. [untrue] and lasted until November 6 at 6 a.m [untrue] during which time she was alone, without an attorney, tag-teamed by a dozen police [untrue] and did not break for food [untrue] or sleep [untrue].

In many ways, Knox was a vulnerable suspect””young, far from home, without family, and forced to speak in a language [untrue] in which she was not fluent. Knox says she was repeatedly threatened [untrue] and called a liar [untrue]. She was told [untrue], falsely [untrue], that Sollecito, her boyfriend, disavowed her alibi and that physical evidence placed her at the scene [untrue].

Despite a law that mandates the recording of interrogations, police and prosecutors maintain that these sessions were not recorded [untrue]. 

Police had failed to provide Knox with an attorney [untrue] or record the interrogations [untrue] so all the confessions [untrue] attributed to her were ruled inadmissible in court [untrue].

Still, the damage was done [untrue]. The confession [untrue] set into motion a hypothesis-confirming investigation [untrue], prosecution, and conviction”¦.

It is now clear that the proverbial mountain of discredited [untrue] evidence used to convict Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito was nothing but a house of cards [untrue] built upon a false confession [untrue].

3. And Pesky Hard Facts

Neither Knox’s own lawyers nor any court ever believed Knox’s fluctuating versions of what happened on 5-6 November 2007 to make her frame Patrick for murder and maintain that for 2 weeks.

Only a guilty person would let such claims stand. All courts saw that and so Knox is a convicted felon for life. She served three years for the malicious accusation, and she still owes the victim $100,000.

Below, how to destroy the hoax in 12 points.  See further our extremely detailed 20-part series on Knox’s interrogation hoax (via the link in our right column) with numerous translations as proof.

1. Police provably kept open minds, and did not immediately suspect Knox though her odd behaviors were hard to miss, or treat her differently than others with possible useful facts.

2. She was not the only one with possible useful facts told to stay in Perugia for several days; others were told they might be needed again; no others complained.

3. There is no documented investigator prejudgement of guilt, even at her fourth and final quite short session on 5 Nov when the subject was provably once again listing more visitors to the house.

4. She was never tag-teamed by a dozen police, and she signed every page of all four session reports which named the mere several officers who were there.

5. There was no 50 or more hours of sessions. No session lasted from 10:00 pm to 6:00 am. All four of her sessions over 4 days combined may not have exceeded that length of time.

6. The fourth and final session on 5-6 Nov was unplanned, and when she turned up late on 5 Nov and was told to go get some sleep, she insisted she wanted to remain.

7. All four sessions were recorded and she signed. She was never threatened or called a liar; her conniption when shown a text message on 5-6 Nov happened spontaneously and very fast.

8. On 5-6 Nov 2007 Sollecito also u-turned - and blamed Knox! No tag-team there. Knox never confessed; she made a false charge of murder against someone else, allowed to stand for several weeks.

9. She did not simply claim she was with Sollecito that night; under no pressure she repeated several times in writing that she went out and all courts allowed that. Sollecito said she did too.

10. After she broke she was told several times she should not talk further without an attorney. No questions were asked of her after that but she pressed on.

11. She had a translator at all four sessions, though she herself chose to speak in Italian now and then. She made and handed over notes in Italian.

12. At trial she confirmed she was provided with refreshments and helped to get some sleep. She was never refused bathroom breaks and confirmed she was not hit.

4. In Conclusion

This hoax is a money-tree for Knox. A blood-money tree. Act the real victim, shake the tree, and tens of thousands fall out. Knox is to blame, but far from the only one. Most of the hoaxers are trying to shake their own money-trees too. Knox’s speaker agency and her PR and lawyers and publishers all want a big payday. Huge sums are at stake.

Can the hoax survive?  Probably not for long. It needed a 100% rebuttal which finally we have achieved now. And it needs Knox’s confidence and her credibility. Even one disbelieving voice from the audience could show the world that the empress has no clothes.

Thursday, December 21, 2017

Knox & Sollecito: How From Their Very First Questionings The Cracks & Fissures Start To Appear #2

Posted by KrissyG

Minimetro at left foresightedly located provides quick 2 mile trip up to the center.

1. The Much Mischaracterized Interview Context

You’ve read the PR-driven meme that Perugia investigators zoomed in way too quickly on Amanda Knox?

And also on Raffaele Sollecito? No, probably not Raffaele. He is a really big nuisance in proving any malicious targeting. Hard to manufacture a reason to zoom in on an Italian male with a rich and connected father and mafia ties.

Say that investigators were doing little else but ferociously framing Amanda Knox, as John Douglas, Steve Moore and Michael Heavey have claimed again and again (and even so advised the Department of State).

Well-trained American investigators will say they are lucky to average upward of a dozen sessions a week with people of possible involvement. If Douglas, Moore and Heavey have it right, what is your best guess here? Five? Seven? Maximum ten?

Okay. Take a look. Amazing, right? And there were many more still in progress. Interviewing went on for weeks. They are all loaded on the Case Wiki. Never recorded, as the PR lie has it? No, literally everything was captured.

Unfair zooming-in? These depositions prove quite the opposite. Right through to the fourth and ultimate session on 5 November, the investigators were mainly in the mode of spreading the net wider and wider. Seeking still others maybe involved.

2. Analysis Of Knox’s First Statement Continues

Remember this is still the same day Meredith’s body was discovered. We are still on the 2 November deposition which sets narrow limits on what Knox could credibly claim later. (Path dependency, for scientists.)

Maybe Douglas, Heavey and Moore would have missed them?! But I’ll point out more Knox claims that for competent law enforcement would be big red flags. Points that dont match up with Knox down the road, and points that don’t match up with Sollecito.

This morning, around 10-11am, I returned to my house alone to have a shower and change my clothes, and in this circumstance I noticed that the entrance door of the apartment was wide open whereas the doors to the rooms inside the house were all closed, at least the ones to Filomena’s and Meredith’s rooms, although I didn’t check if they were locked, whereas the one to Laura’s room was ajar and my door was open as usual.

Why would she say the door of the apartment was wide open?  Remember, we only have Knox’ word for this.  We know it needed a key to lock it.  In Honor Bound, Raff says this applied both coming in and going out.  Imagine for a minute the real reason for returning was to continue tidying up.  The aim had been to finally leave the cottage with the door left flapping open (as though by an unknown intruder).  If it had been locked, then the conclusion would be it must be Knox, as she and Meredith were the only house mates around that weekend.  So, of course, she has to claim it was open.  Distancing herself.

She says she “˜didn’t check if they were locked’ (Filomena’s and Meredith’s rooms).  But why would they be locked.  This indicates an awareness that Meredith’s room was locked.  To explain why she didn’t spot it then, we have the made-up-on-the-spot event, which turns out to be a non-event.  Rather like Gubbio.  They were going to “˜go to Gubbio’, but then they didn’t go.

We see from Knox’ statement, she wants to tell the story as though she really was innocent.  She has to imagine and play role what an innocent person would do.  The door was hanging open.  She was only there because she wanted to shower and change to go to Gubbio   Ah, but what about Meredith’s locked door?  Didn’t try it to see if it was locked.  Which of course it was.  Perhaps Knox has psychic powers to foresee that it might be found to be locked in the future.  Pre-empting and forestalling the tricky question of Meredith’s closed door.

These things seemed really strange to me because, like I already said, it is customary for all of us to always close the entrance door with a key since that is the only possible way to close it. So I started to call [the names of] the girls aloud, but without getting an answer. At that moment I thought that maybe one of the girls had gone out to throw the trash into the bins, or to go to see our neighbors, the boys, who occupy the apartment below ours and with whom we hang out.

Knox claimed she didn’t know Laura and Filomena were away for the weekend until Filomena told her on the phone after she rang her at midday on 2 Nov 2007, a couple of hours later.  But seriously, if there are three possible housemates around, wouldn’t one just call, “˜Hello!  Anybody home?’ 

Truth is, Knox doesn’t want to say she knew Meredith was the only one around, as the next question would be, “˜So what happened when you called Meredith’s name and knocked on her door, and tried the handle’.

Meredith home alone, would be a real reason to panic.  The realisation “˜Meredith might be hurt inside’ mustn’t come ““ for script purposes ““ until after Knox has - in her story - had a shower, changed and gone back to Raff to tell him of her strange experience.  She has to account for going back to his abode and ringing Filomena from there.  Rather than ring him from the cottage, she has to walk there and then walk back with him.  After a leisurely breakfast, of course.

Still imagining herself in the role of innocent, she has to dream up why, if she thought all housemates were around they didn’t seem to be after all, so here comes the precluding: “˜I thought that maybe one of the girls had gone out to throw the trash into the bins, or to go to see our neighbors’.

I remember having closed the front door of the apartment, but I didn’t lock it with the keys, and I went to the bathroom located near to my room, the one that only me and Meredith usually use, to have a shower, when I noticed drops of blood on the floor and a bigger blood stain on the bath math and other blood stains on the sink as if someone had smeared it with a bloody hand. This thing seemed a bit strange to me because we girls are all fairly clean and tidy, and we clean the bathroom [immediately] after we have used it. At first I thought that the blood on the sink could be mine because I did some ear piercings about a week ago, so I immediately checked in the mirror and touched my ear. Then I touched the blood on the sink but seeing that it was not removed immediately, that is, it was not recent, I thought it could be some girl’s menstrual blood and because it disgusted me, I did not attempt to clean it.

Reason for not raising the alarm or becoming concerned?  I thought it could be some girl’s menstrual blood and because it disgusted me, I did not attempt to clean it.

Again, a clever lie (or so she thought) whilst expressing her disgust at Meredith’s life blood, it would “˜explain’ why she thought nothing was amiss, just a bit strange (she reasons).  As Meredith was the only other person who used that bathroom, we note the careful avoidance of using her name and the use of “˜some girl’ instead.  Remember, at this stage, she is not to know anything has become of Meredith.  Could be anybody’s blood, is the message, with an innocuous cause (albeit “˜disgusting’.)

No mention of padding back to her room on the “˜disgusting’ bathmat to fetch a towel after the shower, which seems to be a story that evolved later, when her lawyers told her of the five isolated luminol prints in the hallway identified as “˜compatible’ with hers and Raff’s.

Immediately after this I went to the other bathroom, where I usually dry my hair, and after having dried it, I noticed that there were feces in the toilet, that is, someone had used it to relieve themselves, but they had not flushed afterwards. This thing also seemed strange to me for the reasons that I have already stated, and so I avoided flushing it myself.

Again we have the liar’s ready explanation as to why the toilet was left in a disgusting state, even though at this stage, she wasn’t spooked enough to think there was anything to be concerned about.  No, the real reason it was “˜strange’, was that according to Knox, nobody who visited the cottage would ever have not flushed the loo.  So that explains why it dawned on her when they realised there had been a burglary that this faece must be the burglar’s.  She ”˜avoided flushing it’ herself, she explains to police, because she had some kind of uncanny intuition it didn’t belong to anybody in the house, nor their friends.

As for Knox shock at the poop, Sophie Purton testified to the court:

One thing in particular that I remember very well regards Amanda’s habits in the bathroom. Meredith said that Amanda often did not flush the toilet. [This] annoyed her and she wanted to do something about it but did not know what to do without creating problems, not wanting to create embarrassing situations.

Same complaint by those in prison with Knox. She does on:

Later I took the mop, which was located inside a closet, and I left my house to go to my boyfriend’s house to clean his room [kitchen] because we had soiled it the previous night. I remember that when I left, around 11.30 am, but I’m not sure about the precise time as I didn’t look very carefully at the clock, I closed the door of the apartment with a turn of the key.

In Knox’ court testimony and police interviews, her favourite refrains are “˜I wouldn’t know what time it was, as I don’t look at the clock’.  One wonders how appropriate this type of sarcasm is in front of murder detectives and a panel of judges.  As Francesco put the time of the pipes leaking at before 8:42 and Knox put it back considerably later, changing it from 9:30, to 10:00 and then to 11:00 pm, we see her dilemma.  She has to say she only took the mop to Raff’s that morning or she’s admitting she returned to the cottage on the night of the murder.

After arriving at the house of my boyfriend, who lives alone in an apartment near my house and to be more precise in Corso Garibaldi number 110, we stayed there for about an hour, for the time it took to clean the kitchen and have some breakfast, after which we returned to my house together. I want to point out that I immediately told my boyfriend about the strange things that I had detected in my house, and he urged me to call one of the girls.

Immediately? That came and went. Here it’s all action, systems go.  The ditzy Knox needed caring Raff to get her to start worrying.  So first two calls to Meredith’s phones.  Then Filomena.  She again has to be told to “˜ring Meredith’, this time by Filomena.  So she dutifully rings Meredith again, this time, just a quick couple of seconds each.  Been there, done that.

And I did indeed first call [emphasis added] Filomena to ask her if she knew anything about the blood I had found in the bathroom, and she replied that she knew nothing about it as she had slept at her boyfriend’s, Marco’s, house the previous night, and the following morning, that is, this morning, she had gone directly to work without going home first. After Filomena, [emphasis added] I phoned Meredith three times and to be more precise, the first time I called her, I called her English cell phone number 00447841131571, which is the first phone number Meredith gave to me, and which I saved first to my phone card; the phone rang several times, and at one point I heard the line disturbances and interruption of rings. So I tried to contact her on the phone with the number 3484673711, and also this time the phone rang but no-one answered. I tried calling her for the third time with the first cell phone number again, but also this time without getting an answer.

I didn’t call Laura because Filomena had told me in the previous phone call that she had gone to Rome, but I don’t remember if Filomena told me when she had left. So I haven’t seen Laura since the afternoon of October 31st this year. At this point, I returned to my house with my boyfriend, worried about Meredith, because she was the only one whose whereabouts I didn’t know of.

As we know, this call was 12:11 yet Knox & Sollecito didn’t actually get to the cottage until circa 12:35, when by coincidence the postale police arrived and Filomena rang Knox again.  This time, she was told of her smashed window.  Knox and Sollecito were so “˜worried about Meredith’ it took over twenty minutes to carry out what should be a five-minute walk. 

Knox doesn’t tell police that the first call she made, after having switched off her phone 20:45 the night before, was at 12:08 to Meredith’s two phones, before she ring Filomena.  So a clear lie, that it wasn’t until Filomena mentioned it that it occurred to her to ring Meredith.  She didn’t realise, either, that police could discover just how long she rang for.  We see it is a nonsense “˜no-one answered’ if they only rang for three seconds or less.  Another sleight of hand, changing the chronology, which takes on a different light when the true time line comes to light.

When I got to my house, around 1 pm, I opened the front door, which I found locked, and entered the apartment. I began to open the doors of the rooms occupied by the other girls. First, I opened Filomena’s bedroom door, that is the first room nearest to the entrance, and together with Raffaele we found that the window, with two shutters, was open and the window glass was broken. I don’t remember if both glasses were broken or only the other one. Broken glass was scattered on the floor, inside the room, near the window. Scared, I thought it could be that a thief had entered the house, and then I quickly glanced around to check that everything was in order, and that nothing had been removed. So I headed to Laura’s room and also there I opened the door and checked that everything was in order. I want to point out that I didn’t go inside the rooms, that I just had a quick look, from the door.

Immediately after that I went into my room, and even there I didn’t notice anything / nothing was different, after which I headed to Meredith’s room, but I couldn’t open the door because it was locked.

Given, having just rang Meredith’s phones three times, and now being told by Filomena that she and Laura were both away for the weekend, you’d think Meredith’s room would be FIRST priority.  Instead, in her account, Knox checks the other two instead, even though Sollecito stated Filomena’s door was wide open when he arrived.  Laura’s door was “˜ajar’ and had a drawer hanging out, and surprise, surprise, Knox’ hunch about Meredith’s door being locked, turns out to be correct, but she only finds out now, some two hours later.

Knox goes to her room, on a dark November day, and doesn’t notice her table lamp is missing (it is on the floor of Meredith’s room) and she would have had to dry herself after the shower (she claims) and change in the dark, as the room had very little natural light.

At that point I looked out from the bathroom terrace, leaning forward to try and see the window of Meredith’s room, but I couldn’t see anything, after which I returned to the door to look through the keyhole and I could only see Meredith’s handbag on the bed. I retraced my steps to take another look at all the rooms without, however, entering any of them and without noticing anything unusual. Immediately after that I entered the first bathroom near the entrance to the apartment where I very quickly looked around without paying close attention to whether the feces were still inside the toilet.

Knox keeps telling the police she didn’t enter any of the rooms, as though she was being carefully to not contaminate any evidence nor disturb the mise en scene the police see set out before them.

At that point while Raffaele remained in the apartment, I went down to the downstairs students’ apartment, and above all to talk with Giacomo hoping he would have news of Meredith’s whereabouts, but no-one answered the door. After I had returned to the apartment, Raffaele decided to call his sister for advice on what to do, and immediately after that call he called, I don’t know if it was the state police (Polizia) or Carabinieri, to come to the house, and in the meantime, I contacted Filomena at her cell phone number 3471073006 to inform her we had found the window panes in her room broken, and that Meredith’s room was locked. She replied that she would join me at once.

So now, the lead up to the discovery of the body is in full swing.  Filomena is on her way, and so are the police.  Once again liar Knox changes the chronology and the correct order of things.  Note how here, Raff calls his sister (a very brief 39 seconds) before Knox claims she contacted Filomena to tell her of the broken window.  Firstly, this would place Raff’s call at 12:35, and we know it was actually 12:47.  Secondly, Knox only called Filomena once, and that was at 12:11. Filomena had to ring Knox ““ for the third time ““ at circa 12:35, when she was informed of the mayhem in her room.  Police later found out the real time of Sollecito’s call.

Raffaele, who was worried about Meredith’s safety, tried to break the door to her room by kicking it without success, and immediately afterwards we saw the plainclothes police arrive. After they showed us their identification cards, they inquired about our particulars and our cell telephone numbers. Then they asked us what had happened. We told them about the window we had found with the shattered glasses, about the blood stains found in the bathroom, and about Meredith’s room that was strangely locked. The policemen asked us questions about the people who occupied the house and about the telephone calls made, and in the meantime a friend of Filomena whom I know as Marco, and two other friends of hers I didn’t know, arrived. At that point Filomena began to talk to the policemen, and while I stood aside in the kitchen, the others together with the policemen headed for Meredith’s room and broke down the door. I can’t specify who really proceeded to break down the door. At that point I heard Filomena screaming and saying “a foot, a foot” while the police officers ordered us all to go outside the apartment.

At that point while Raffaele remained in the apartment, I went down to the downstairs students’ apartment, and above all to talk with Giacomo hoping he would have news of Meredith’s whereabouts, but no-one answered the door. After I had returned to the apartment, Raffaele decided to call his sister for advice on what to do, and immediately after that call he called, I don’t know if it was the state police (Polizia) or Carabinieri, to come to the house, and in the meantime, I contacted Filomena at her cell phone number 3471073006 to inform her we had found the window panes in her room broken, and that Meredith’s room was locked. She replied that she would join me at once.

At that moment I learned from my boyfriend that inside Meredith’s room, in the wardrobe there was a girl’s body covered with a sheet, and the only thing you could see was a foot. None of those present mentioned the name of Meredith, and as I left the house immediately after that without having seen the body, I can’t state whether it’s her.

What’s interesting is what Knox omits.  She fails to mention calling her mother at 3:57 am Seattle Time, soon before Luca kicked open the door at circa 13:05.

These “additionallys” are likely answers to further impressive and unexceptionable questions by the police.

Additionally: There are four Italian students living in the apartment on the lower floor of my house, and we often gather together to play the guitar; together with them we also went out a few times to go for a dinner, and once we went to a disco. Meredith and I went out more times together with all the four boys than the other two (Laura and Filomena). These guys are respectively called Giacomo, Marco, Stefano and the fourth, with whom I personally speak very little, I seem to remember is called Riccardo. I know that one of the four guys, to be precise, Giacomo, is Meredith’s boyfriend. In fact, Meredith sometimes slept at Giacomo’s house and sometimes Giacomo came to our house to sleep with Meredith. I want to point out that the two didn’t very often go out together as Meredith went out with her English friends while Giacomo, from what Meredith told me, preferred to spend more time at home.

Additionally: Regarding the house keys, I can say that they are available to each of us, but I don’t know that other outsiders would be in possession of any copies of them, including Raffaele, my boyfriend. I’m sure Filomena gave no key to Marco, her boyfriend, since every time he arrives at our house he always knocks at the door very loudly. Laura doesn’t have a boyfriend, whereas regarding Meredith, I can say that knowing her I don’t think she had given keys to Giacomo even if I can’t definitely rule it out.

Additionally: Meredith and Giacomo had only been seeing each other for a few weeks, and as for their relationship, Meredith herself told me that it was going well, she never talked about any quarrels with Giacomo, whom I moreover find a very quiet guy. As I’ve already said, she went out very often with her English friends, and they used to attend the disco pub “Merlins”. Once I went there too, and another time we went to another disco pub. Both times there were just us girls.

Additionally: Meredith and I did not celebrate Halloween together, in that I, that evening, was at the “Le Chic” pub, but not for work, but I know she went to “Merlins” with her English friends and without Giacomo, as she told me herself just yesterday. She told me that she had a lot of fun. She did not tell me about any new acquaintances made that evening. From what I know she always went out with the same friends, including me, or with Giacomo and his friends. She usually did not go out alone in the evening.

Additionally: I can describe Meredith as a girl of 21 years or age, of English nationality, about 1.70cm (5’7’‘) tall, thin build, olive complexion, black hair smooth and long, brown eyes. I don’t think she had any particular marks such as tattoos or other marks on her body. The last time I saw her, she was wearing white jeans and a short, light, pale-colored jacket.

Her email to her address book contacts came some 36 hours later, and we can see how she attempts to consolidate what she told the police.  This becomes a script which she commits to memory in strict chronological order as is in the manner of a liar, in order to keep track of their falsehoods.

Monday, December 18, 2017

Knox & Sollecito: How From Their Very First Questionings The Cracks & Fissures Start To Appear

Posted by KrissyG

“Now I say… and then you say… and then I say… and then you say”


Reference the caption above: that’s the last time they talked before their first questionings.

Each day the cracks and fissures got worse. Would any cop not get suspicious?! Three days later, Sollecito separates with a bang and proclaims that Knox had made him lie.

That sure went well. Next murder Knox may do alone… A good primer for this post is this guide on how to read lies.

Here’s my take on the Recorded Statement taken from Amanda Knox 2 Nov 2007 in Part 4 of our previous post below.  It is timed at 3:30pm.  Mignini arrived about 3:00.

It could be the Squadra Mobila (the Flying Squad attached to the Carabinieri) took statements at the scene as Knox had to wait at the Questura quite a while before she was spoken to and got home late. 

I have only processed three or four paragraphs so far (so this could turn into a whole series).  What jumps out at me is the following statement:

Around 5 pm I left my house together with Raffaele to go to his house where we stayed the whole evening and the night.

In Sollecito’s own statement of 2 Nov 2007, in Part 5 of the previous post, he states: 

At about 4:00 pm, Meredith left without saying where she was going, while we stayed at home until about 17.30. After that hour, Amanda and I took a little trip to the center to go to my house where we stayed until this morning.

So, from having been at Via della Pergola for lunch, during which time, Sollecito joined her and Meredith had got out of bed after arriving home in the early hours, and according to Knox and Sollecito, still had the remains of vampire makeup on her chin, was wearing her ex-boyfriend’s jeans, and had gone out at four, “˜without saying where she was going’, the pair claim to have gone straight to Raff’s apartment in Via Garibaldi, “˜at about five’.  In Sollecito’s earliest account, it was to go to his house via the centre.

The next written record we have comes from Knox email home to 25 people in her address book on Sunday 4 Nov 2007, in the early hours circa 36 hours or so after Meredith’s body was found.

meredith came out of the shower and grabbed some laundry or put some laundry in, one or the other and returned into her room after saying hi to raffael. after lunch i began to play guitar with raffael and meredith came out of her room and went to the door. she said bye and left for the day. it was the last time i saw her alive. after a little while of playing guitar me and raffael went to his house to watch movies and after to eat dinner and generally spend the evening and night indoors. [sic]

Many believe this was Amanda writing out a “˜script’ to “˜get her story straight’.  One thing about liars, is that they stick rigidly to a set chronology to make it easier to remember their lies.

The next written record is Sollecito’s first written statement to the police:

Raffale Sollecito: November 5th 2007 at 22:40 in the offices of the Flying Squad of the Perugia Police Headquarters

QA Around 16:00 Meredith left in a hurry without saying where she was going. Amanda and I stayed home until about 17:30-18:00.
QA We left the house, we went into town, but I don’t remember what we did.
QA We stayed there from 18:00 until 20:30/21:00. At 21:00 I went home alone because Amanda told me that she was going to go to the pub Le Chic because she wanted to meet some friends.

For the first time we are made aware that the pair went somewhere after leaving Via della Pergola at between “˜5:30 and 6:00’ according to Raffaele’s statement, this glides neatly into Popovic’s visit at 6:00pm at Raff’s abode.  No visible gaps in the timeline here.

Next comes Knox’ handwritten statement to the police:

Amanda Knox Handwritten Statement to the police 6 Nov 2007

“˜Thursday, November 1st I saw Meredith the last time at my house when she left around 3 or 4 in the afternoon. Raffaele was with me at the time. We, Raffaele and I, stayed at my house for a little while longer and around 5 in the evening we left to watch the movie Amelie at his house.’

So Knox says they left at 5:00 ““ sticking to her scripted story as she set out in the email home, whilst Raff makes it an hour later.  So, we are led to believe, they didn’t stay in town long at all, and in any case, ”˜I don’t remember what we did’. 

This is a big flag.  When people say, “˜I don’t remember’, they are telling you they recall an event, but are unable to retrieve it from their memory.  In fact, they do not even try, not even when elite detectives are carrying out a crucial murder investigation of your girlfriend’s own roommate.  A person who was not involved will say, “˜I don’t know’ when asked a straight question, not “˜I don’t recall’.

Sollecito sticks to his script: “˜We left via della Pergola, five-thirty to six’:

Raffaele Sollecito 7 Nov 2007 PRISON DIARY

“˜An amusing thing I remember is that Meredith was wearing a pair of men’s jeans which belonged to her ex”boyfriend in England. She left quickly around 4 pm, not saying where she was going. Meanwhile, Amanda and I stayed there until around 6 pm and we began to smoke cannabis.
My problems start from this moment because I have confused memories. Firstly, Amanda and I went to the centre going from Piazza Grimana to Corso Vannucci passing behind the University for Foreigners and ending up in Piazza Morlacchi (we always take that road). Then I do not remember but presumably we went shopping for groceries. We returned to my house at around 8 “ 8:30 pm and there I made another joint and, since it was a holiday, I took everything with extreme tranquillity, without the slightest intention of going out since it was cold outside.

Note the signifier, informing the reader, “˜it was cold outside’ embellishing the lie, “˜therefore we could not have gone out that night’.

So, whilst Raff on 7 Nov 2007 has jotted in his PRISON DIARY (which of course he is aware the authorities will be reading avidly), they were out between “˜six and eight’, Amanda writes to her lawyers a couple of days later adhering firmly to her script.

Amanda Knox Letter to her Lawyers 9 Nov 2007

Around 3 or 4 Meredith left the house wearing light-colored clothing, and all she said was “Ciao”. She didn’t say where she was going. I continued playing guitar and after a while Raffaele and I left my house, probably around 5pm.
We went to his house and the first thing we did was get comfortable. I took off my shoes etc. I used his computer for a little while to write down songs I wanted to learn for the guitar, I listened to some of Raffaele’s music at this time.

Note the inclusion of irrelevant and trivial detail, “˜I took off my shoes’.  A liar loves to gild the lily.

click image for larger version

Then comes Knox’ next written affirmation of what she did the day of the murder:

Page 1223 PRISON DIARY ““ AMANDA KNOX 27 Nov 2007

Here is what I did that night:

5pm: Left my house with Raffaele and walked to his apartment.

5:05pm - ???:

(1) Used the computer to look up songs to play on the guitar.
(2) Read Harry Potter in German w/Raffaele.
(3) Watched Amelie.
(4) Prepared and ate dinner ““ Fish.
(5) While cleaning the dishes a bunch of water spilled on the floor.
(6) We tried to soak up a little with small towels but there was too much.
(7) Raffaele rolled a joint.
(8) We smoked the joint together and talked.
(9) We had sex.
(10) We fell asleep.

It’s that simple.’

Did you spot, she remembers her lines, despite her problems with amnesia?  Still no mention of going into the old town.  When people use qualifies such as, “˜That’s about it’, or “˜It’s as simple as that’, there’s another flag they have just told you a lie.  Note the triple question mark as if she is unsure it took half an hour to arrive at Raff’s, in case anyone pulls her up on it sometime in the future.  Again bells and whistles, the liar’s toolkit.

Raffaele helpfully offers us an insight in his book several years later as to why he revealed ““ even if Amanda never does ““ they went into town in his police statement of 5 Nov 2007.

From Honor Bound 2012 Andrew Gumbel and Raffaele Sollecito write:

(P 17) It was the last time I ever saw [Meredith Kercher].
Amanda and I smoked a joint before leaving the house on Via della Pergola, wandered into town for shopping before remembering we had enough for dinner already, and headed back to my place.

P53 (in the Questura 5 Nov 2007)

I mentioned [to police] Amanda and I had gone out shopping, something I had apparently omitted in my previous statements. [note the plural].

So, we see, Raffaele has not voluntarily offered the information “˜we went into town’ either, on the afternoon of 1 Nov 2007.  He concedes he only proffered it, because the police brought it up.  When asked the purpose of the trip, he claims they went “˜shopping’, but on not being able to prove they bought anything nor state which shops the pair frequented, he had to retract this half-lie, by now adding to his 6 Nov 2007 official police statement, later, that once there, they suddenly realised ”˜we had enough for dinner already’.

So, we are led by this to conclude the purpose of the expedition into the old town was “˜shopping for dinner’, when before, it was to “˜to go to my house where we stayed until this morning.’

It is bizarre and a symptom of lying for someone to say they did something, but then didn’t do it, when asked to elaborate.  Raff omits to even mention to police going into the old town, and Knox persistently does not mention it at all.  He only mentions it when detectives ask him why he omitted to.  He then “˜suddenly remembers’ this “˜unimportant detail’ and tells them they were there to shop.  But wait.  They suddenly do not do any shopping at all, whilst in the old town, because once there, they realise they ”˜already had’ provisions for the evening meal.  Amanda Knox makes clear this evening meal was FISH.  Yet she claims she couldn’t remember exactly what she did at Raff’s, for at least three weeks. Fishy indeed.

I don’t know about you, but if I head into town to buy food or clothes, once there, I don’t suddenly think, “˜Hang on a minute, what am I doing here, I already have bread/a dress at home!’ 

Surely, I would buy something anyway, or at least browse around, perhaps use my John Lewis voucher and go for a coffee and cake.

Astonishingly, years later, Knox still deceives us in this matter:

In Waiting to be Heard  2013 Amanda Knox resolutely omits the detail of “˜going into the old town’:

(P61) Sometime between 4:00pm and 5pm we left to go to his place.’

There then follows filler sentences about how “˜we wanted a quiet cozy night in’.

Then comes the type of deception liars love to use: they pad out their tall tales with irrelevant guff.

“˜As we walked along, I was telling Raffaele that Amélie was my all time favourite movie.
“˜Really?’ he asked.  “˜I’ve never seen it’

[Forgetting completely, forensic police discovered he’d downloaded the movie way back on 28 Oct 2007 {by coincidence, no doubt}].

“˜Oh my God,’ I said, unbelieving.  “˜You have to see it right this second.  You’ll love it’

The narrative then completely jumps to:

Not long after we got back to Raffaele’s place, his doorbell rang.  [Enter first alibi Jovanna Popovic, whom Raff states appeared at 6:00pm].

A whole hour is omitted.  One whole hour to get back to Raff’s, just around the corner, four to ten minutes away at the outside.

From all the embellishments, fabrications and outright lies, we see that what happened between 4:00pm and 9:00pm and where the pair went, is significant.  Some say, they obviously went to score drugs.  However, they openly admit to smoking a joint.  In fact, they go to pains to emphasise it.  They have no inhibitions talking about having sex. Therefore, the trip into the old town which took up to two to five hours of their time is rather more sinister than some kind of coyness or embarrassment about buying some dope.

In his statement to police on 5 Nov 2007, Sollecito changes his story and claims he came home alone at ‘20:30/21:00’.  As we now know, the pair both switched off their phones together, between 20:45 and 21:00, so we can be sure this time is supremely salient.  Meredith was on her way back around then.  From Knox not ever mentioning the trip into town, it could be she indeed never did go into town, and that Raff went alone.

Raffaele Sollecito complains in his book “˜the police were out to get me’ by catching out his anomalies.  However, I was watching a tv programme a few days ago, about a murder case, and detectives had to puzzle out from scratch who was the culprit.  The detectives explained to the viewer, when someone comes in for questioning, all they have is that person’s face value account.  They then check out the details, and then, if they discover falsehood and deception in the interviewee’s story, that is what makes them suspicious.  So Raff and Amanda have only themselves to blame police suspected them.

I believe the pair followed Meredith and stalked her movements that night, hence the concealment of their true motive for being out between 4:00 and 9:00.

Popovic has a story that she had to pick up a suitcase from the station, and then didn’t have to after all, so either she really did see Knox at home at six, as claimed, or it was “˜a friend helping out with the alibi’.  See “˜the event that is a non-event’ -type of lie, as above.  Who knows what that was about.  Popovic claims to have spoken to the pair at between 5:30 and 5:45 and again at about 8:40. I personally remain sceptical of her testimony, as I do of his father’s, Francesco, whose claimed account of the 8:42 telephone conversation directly contradicts Knox’ and Sollecito’ with regard to dinner and the pipes flooding, supposedly happening before the murder.

We do know, as James Raper points out, as per Massei - “at 18:27:15 [6.27 pm]  on the 1/11/07, there was human interaction via the “VLC” application, software used to play a multimedia file for a film “Il Favolso Mondo Di Amelie.avi”, already downloaded onto Sollecito’s computer laptop via P2P (peer to peer) some days earlier.”

We also know there was human interaction when the film “˜crashed’ (as it was finished?) at 9:10 because someone clicked on the error message to close it.  I do not think this starting and finishing the film proves anything.  I have always viewed Amélie as a contrived alibi.

Lies can work both ways.  I don’t believe either Francesco or Popovic. The supposed testimony of these two “˜alibi witnesses’ were used directly against Sollecito when his compensation claim was thrown out.

Thursday, December 14, 2017

Interrogation Hoax #19: ALL Knox Q&A Sessions 2-6 November 2007 WERE Recorded #1

Posted by Our Main Posters

Working entrance of Perugia’s main police station

1. What Does The Hoax Allege?

In its ever-differing core version (see Part 3) this widely-promulgated hoax alleges among other things:

(1) that the total hours Knox was questioned from 2 to 6 November was upward of 50;

(2) that Knox was the main suspect for the murder of Meredith from the get-go;

(3) that the “interrogation” was conducted by tag-teams of investigators working in shifts;

(4) that Knox was under duress and forbidden bathroom breaks, sleep and refreshments.

(5) that Knox was refused a lawyer and all questioning sessions were illegally not recorded.

(6) That the outcome was “a confession”.

2. Who Are The Main Propagators?

Often seeming intent on outdoing one another in their manufactured outrage and lurid descriptions, the frontrunners are Doug Preston, Steve Moore, Michael Heavey, Paul Ciolino, Saul Kassin, John Douglas, and Bruce Fischer.

Also Steve Moore, Steve Moore, and Steve Moore. Seemingly for him an obsession.

Thousands of other accounts take their word as gospel. Curt Knox and Edda Mellas have repeated it, blaming Amanda when challenged (really).

Amanda Knox attempts to fire up this hoax again repeatedly.

But testimonies of numerous investigators at trial that she sat through without objection confirmed one another, strong proof that nothing on the list above is true.

Knox tried to make some of this fly at the 17 December 2007 questioning that she herself requested by Dr Mignini.

She tried again on the stand at trial in July 2009. But she had to concede that none of it was like that list above and that she was treated fairly on 5-6 Nov.

No judge in 2007, 2008, 2009, 2011, 2013, and 2015 ever accepted that a “confession” was forced out of her. Knox’s own lawyers did not believe it.

Totally isolated on this in court, and often her own worst enemy, Knox was sentenced to three years for voluntarily and maliciously fingering Patrick.

Knox will remain a felon for life (there can be no reversal) for this demonizing of Patrick.

She is trying very hard to hide that fact.

For example she hid it last year from Netflix. Now she is hiding it from Vice Media who dont realize that Knox is the mother of all demonizers. Not yet.

3. Complete Absence Of Verification

So far, the hoax is a huge fail. See Part 2.

But the malicious or confused usual suspects continue to parrot the hoax like a mantra. For Fischer’s hapless bunch of apologists on Ground Report it’s a mainstay.

In this series we have already posted proof of records of all Q&A made and signed by Knox herself for 5 and 6 November. They dont go toward proving anything on the list.

Here below is the record made and signed by Knox three days earlier for 2 November. A sort of prequel but an important one. It began at the house and then took maybe two hours at the questura. We will be posting the records for 3 and 4 November soon. None of them go toward proving anything at all on the list.

Here Knox was in discussion (in fact said to be eagerly in discussion) with just three officers on their regular shifts. This record is timed at 3:30 pm. There was a hour or so for discussion and an hour or so for typing and signing. Then Knox sat outside with others until they were all fingerprinted and sent home.

This below was the longest of all her questionings.  Her sessions on 3 and 4 November merely consisted of two visits with Dr Mignini to the house, nothing more. Her nighttime sessions on 5 and 6 November we have posted on; they were quite short too. We know of no hard proof that puts their aggregate time beyond ten hours at maximum. We think less actually.

We will post the reports for 3 and 4 November soon, and you may be surprised at their briefness and thrusts - especially as Knox’s book suggests rank paranoia and chronic fatigue at the burdensomness of it all setting in.

Remember Knox was free to walk out of the police station at any time. Remember twice she turned up unrequested and she just hung around, watching and listening. (Her team actually counts in all those hours to get to their 50-plus.)

Before the wee hours of 6 November she did not even have the status of a witness. Just a person with information of possible value.

Told that she needed a lawyer on 5 and 6 November by both Rita Ficarra and Dr Mignini, she brushed them off, and kept talking and talking.

She was very keen to see things put in writing, and she demanded statements like this one to sign. The Sollecito statement follows.

4. Signed Record Of Knox Statement 2 November

[Preliminary Translation Not Yet Checked Out For Wiki]

Questura di Perugia /Perugia Police Station
Squadra Mobile /Flying Squad

Re: Transcript of summary information from persons informed of the facts (of the case) conveyed by:
KNOX, Amanda Marie, born in Washington (USA) on July 9th, 1987, domiciled in Perugia, Via della Pergola n. 7; identified by means of Passport n. 422687114 issued by the US Government on June 13th, 2007, tel. 3484673590.

On the day of November 2nd, 2007 at 3.30 pm, in Perugia at the offices of the Squadra Mobile of the Questura of Perugia. Before the undersigned Officers of the Judicial Authority Inspectors Luca C. Scatigno and Rita Ficarra, Assistant Fabio D’Astolto, respectively on duty at the aforementioned office and the local U.P.G.S.P., there is present the person indicated above who sufficiently understands and speaks Italian, who regarding to the death of Meredith Susanna Cara KERCHER, and who declares the following:

“I have been in Italy since the end of September for reasons of study, even if occasionally, on Tuesdays and Thursdays, I work in a pub called “Le Chic”, and since then I have lived at Via della Pergola number 7 together with other girls, specifically: Laura, 27 years of age, who is the one through whom I found the apartment in question, Filomena, 28 years of age, whose surnames I don’t know, but I know that they work in a law firm, though not together.

Then also living there is Meredith, an English student attending on the Erasmus exchange programme. Each one of us, peripatetically, occupies a room in the aforementioned apartment, on the 2nd floor. The common parts shared by all the girls are the two bathrooms and kitchen. Access to the apartment is through a door reached by an exterior stair. This entrance door, to be well closed, needs to be locked by means of keys, because otherwise as it is broken the door can be opened with a simple push.

Yesterday afternoon I definitely saw Meredith at lunch time, around 1 pm roughly. On that occasion I ate at my house together with my Italian boyfriend, Raffaele, whereas Meredith did not eat with us. Around 3 pm or perhaps 4 pm, after chatting a bit together with us, Meredith said goodbye and left, without however saying either the place she was going to or with whom, while we remained to play the guitar. I am not sure if yesterday Laura was at the house, because I didn’t see her, but I cannot exclude that she may have been in her room. Filomena, on the other hand, I saw yesterday morning before lunch time. She was preparing herself to go to a graduation party that afternoon.

Around 5 pm I left my house together with Raffaele to go to his house where we stayed the whole evening and the night.

This morning, around 10-11am, I returned to my house alone to have a shower and change my clothes, and in this circumstance I noticed that the entrance door of the apartment was wide open whereas the doors to the rooms inside the house were all closed, at least the ones to Filomena’s and Meredith’s rooms, although I didn’t check if they were locked, whereas the one to Laura’s room was ajar and my door was open as usual. These things seemed really strange to me because, like I already said, it is customary for all of us to always close the entrance door with a key since that is the only possible way to close it. So I started to call [the names of] the girls aloud, but without getting an answer. At that moment I thought that maybe one of the girls had gone out to throw the trash into the bins, or to go to see our neighbors, the boys, who occupy the apartment below ours and with whom we hang out.

I remember having closed the front door of the apartment, but I didn’t lock it with the keys, and I went to the bathroom located near to my room, the one that only me and Meredith usually use, to have a shower, when I noticed drops of blood on the floor and a bigger blood stain on the bath math and other blood stains on the sink as if someone had smeared it with a bloody hand. This thing seemed a bit strange to me because we girls are all fairly clean and tidy, and we clean the bathroom [immediately] after we have used it. At first I thought that the blood on the sink could be mine because I did some ear piercings about a week ago, so I immediately checked in the mirror and touched my ear. Then I touched the blood on the sink but seeing that it was not removed immediately, that is, it was not recent, I thought it could be some girl’s menstrual blood and because it disgusted me, I did not attempt to clean it.

Immediately after this I went to the other bathroom, where I usually dry my hair, and after having dried it, I noticed that there were feces in the toilet, that is, someone had used it to relieve themselves, but they had not flushed afterwards. This thing also seemed strange to me for the reasons that I have already stated, and so I avoided flushing it myself

Later I took the mop, which was located inside a closet, and I left my house to go to my boyfriend’s house to clean his room [kitchen] because we had soiled it the previous night. I remember that when I left, around 11.30 am, but I’m not sure about the precise time as I didn’t look very carefully at the clock, I closed the door of the apartment with a turn of the key.

After arriving at the house of my boyfriend, who lives alone in an apartment near my house and to be more precise in Corso Garibaldi number 110, we stayed there for about an hour, for the time it took to clean the kitchen and have some breakfast, after which we returned to my house together. I want to point out that I immediately told my boyfriend about the strange things that I had detected in my house, and he urged me to call one of the girls.

And I did indeed first call Filomena to ask her if she knew anything about the blood I had found in the bathroom, and she replied that she knew nothing about it as she had slept at her boyfriend’s, Marco’s, house the previous night, and the following morning, that is, this morning, she had gone directly to work without going home first. After Filomena, I phoned Meredith three times and to be more precise, the first time I called her, I called her English cell phone number 00447841131571, which is the first phone number Meredith gave to me, and which I saved first to my phone card; the phone rang several times, and at one point I heard the line disturbances and interruption of rings. So I tried to contact her on the phone with the number 3484673711, and also this time the phone rang but no-one answered. I tried calling her for the third time with the first cell phone number again, but also this time without getting an answer.

I didn’t call Laura because Filomena had told me in the previous phone call that she had gone to Rome, but I don’t remember if Filomena told me when she had left.

So I haven’t seen Laura since the afternoon of October 31st this year.

At this point, I returned to my house with my boyfriend, worried about Meredith, because she was the only one whose whereabouts I didn’t know of.

When I got to my house, around 1 pm, I opened the front door, which I found locked, and entered the apartment. I began to open the doors of the rooms occupied by the other girls. First, I opened Filomena’s bedroom door, that is the first room nearest to the entrance, and together with Raffaele we found that the window, with two shutters, was open and the window glass was broken. I don’t remember if both glasses were broken or only the other one. Broken glass was scattered on the floor, inside the room, near the window. Scared, I thought it could be that a thief had entered the house, and then I quickly glanced around to check that everything was in order, and that nothing had been removed. So I headed to Laura’s room and also there I opened the door and checked that everything was in order. I want to point out that I didn’t go inside the rooms, that I just had a quick look, from the door.

Immediately after that I went into my room, and even there I didn’t notice anything / nothing was different, after which I headed to Meredith’s room, but I couldn’t open the door because it was locked. 

At that point I looked out from the bathroom terrace, leaning forward to try and see the window of Meredith’s room, but I couldn’t see anything, after which I returned to the door to look through the keyhole and I could only see Meredith’s handbag on the bed. I retraced my steps to take another look at all the rooms without, however, entering any of them and without noticing anything unusual. Immediately after that I entered the first bathroom near the entrance to the apartment where I very quickly looked around without paying close attention to whether the feces were still inside the toilet.

At that point while Raffaele remained in the apartment, I went down to the downstairs students’ apartment, and above all to talk with Giacomo hoping he would have news of Meredith’s whereabouts, but no-one answered the door. After I had returned to the apartment, Raffaele decided to call his sister for advice on what to do, and immediately after that call he called, I don’t know if it was the state police (Polizia) or Carabinieri, to come to the house, and in the meantime, I contacted Filomena at her cell phone number 3471073006 to inform her we had found the window panes in her room broken, and that Meredith’s room was locked. She replied that she would join me at once.

Raffaele, who was worried about Meredith’s safety, tried to break the door to her room by kicking it without success, and immediately afterwards we saw the plainclothes police arrive. After they showed us their identification cards, they inquired about our particulars and our cell telephone numbers. Then they asked us what had happened. We told them about the window we had found with the shattered glasses, about the blood stains found in the bathroom, and about Meredith’s room that was strangely locked. The policemen asked us questions about the people who occupied the house and about the telephone calls made, and in the meantime a friend of Filomena whom I know as Marco, and two other friends of hers I didn’t know, arrived. At that point Filomena began to talk to the policemen, and while I stood aside in the kitchen, the others together with the policemen headed for Meredith’s room and broke down the door. I can’t specify who really proceeded to break down the door. At that point I heard Filomena screaming and saying “a foot, a foot” while the police officers ordered us all to go outside the apartment.

At that moment I learned from my boyfriend that inside Meredith’s room, in the wardrobe there was a girl’s body covered with a sheet, and the only thing you could see was a foot. None of those present mentioned the name of Meredith, and as I left the house immediately after that without having seen the body, I can’t state whether it’s her.

Additionally: There are four Italian students living in the apartment on the lower floor of my house, and we often gather together to play the guitar; together with them we also went out a few times to go for a dinner, and once we went to a disco. Meredith and I went out more times together with all the four boys than the other two (Laura and Filomena). These guys are respectively called Giacomo, Marco, Stefano and the fourth, with whom I personally speak very little, I seem to remember is called Riccardo. I know that one of the four guys, to be precise, Giacomo, is Meredith’s boyfriend. In fact, Meredith sometimes slept at Giacomo’s house and sometimes Giacomo came to our house to sleep with Meredith. I want to point out that the two didn’t very often go out together as Meredith went out with her English friends while Giacomo, from what Meredith told me, preferred to spend more time at home.

Additionally: Regarding the house keys, I can say that they are available to each of us, but I don’t know that other outsiders would be in possession of any copies of them, including Raffaele, my boyfriend. I’m sure Filomena gave no key to Marco, her boyfriend, since every time he arrives at our house he always knocks at the door very loudly. Laura doesn’t have a boyfriend, whereas regarding Meredith, I can say that knowing her I don’t think she had given keys to Giacomo even if I can’t definitely rule it out.

Additionally: Meredith and Giacomo had only been seeing each other for a few weeks, and as for their relationship, Meredith herself told me that it was going well, she never talked about any quarrels with Giacomo, whom I moreover find a very quiet guy. As I’ve already said, she went out very often with her English friends, and they used to attend the disco pub “Merlins”. Once I went there too, and another time we went to another disco pub. Both times there were just us girls.

Additionally: Meredith and I did not celebrate Halloween together, in that I, that evening, was at the “Le Chic” pub, but not for work, but I know she went to “Merlins” with her English friends and without Giacomo, as she told me herself just yesterday. She told me that she had a lot of fun. She did not tell me about any new acquaintances made that evening. From what I know she always went out with the same friends, including me, or with Giacomo and his friends. She usually did not go out alone in the evening.

Additionally: I can describe Meredith as a girl of 21 years or age, of English nationality, about 1.70cm (5’7’‘) tall, thin build, olive complexion, black hair smooth and long, brown eyes. I don’t think she had any particular marks such as tattoos or other marks on her body. The last time I saw her, she was wearing white jeans and a short, light, pale-colored jacket.

Written, read, confirmed, signed

The declarer The verbalizers

Amanda Knox (signed) (Signed, three signatures)

5. Signed Record Of Sollecito Statement 2 November

QUESTURA DI PERUGIA
Anti-crime Police Division
Flying Squad
Section 5 Anti-drug treatment
SUBJECT: Minute of summary testimonial information provided by:
SOLLECITO Raffaele, born in Bari on 26.03.1984 residing in Giovinazzo (BA) in via Solferino nr. 4, domiciled in Perugia in C.so Garibaldi nr. 110, identified by means of C.I. nr. AJ1946390 Issued by the Municipality of Giovinazzo (BA) on 22.07.2004 Tel.340 / 3574303.

The year 2007, of the month of November, the day 02 at 15.45, in the offices of the
Flying Squad of the Perugia Police Headquarters.

Before us, undersigned Officers and Agents of P.G. Sost. Commissioner ROSCIOLI Roberto and Ass. ROSSI Romano, belonging to the Office. In the indicated inscription, the person indicated is the subject who heard about the finding of a dead English girl inside a flat located in Perugia in via della Pergola no. 7 who declares the following:

I state that I am a university student, enrolled in the first year of the Mathematics-Physics-Natural Sciences Department, at the Computer Science course at the University of Perugia. I am enrolled at the aforementioned university since 2003, also for about a year between 2005 and 2006 I attended the same course in Germany, through the Erasmus project. From October 2006 I returned to Perugia and for the study periods I live alone in a studio located in Perugia in Corso Garibaldi No. 10.

About a week and a half ago, I met my current girl of American nationality, KNOX Amanda, who is also a student, enrolled at the local University of Foreigners. My girlfriend lives together with three other students in an apartment located in Perugia in via della Pergola No. 7. Visting there, I have met the other three roommates, Filomena of Italian nationality, Laura also Italian with residence in Viterbo, and Meredith of English nationality with residence in London.

Since Amanda and I met, she usually spends the night at my house, same as it happened yesterday night and the previous one.

Yesterday morning, my girlfriend and I woke up around 10.30; I stayed to sleep while Amanda went to her home with the agreement that we would be seing each other in the early afternoon of the same day. Around 2:00 pm I went to Amanda’s house to have lunch with her and once I got there, I also found Meredith in the house who had already eaten. After eating lunch, I stayed at home talking to both my girlfriend and Meredith, who in the meantime was preparing to leave.

At about 4:00 pm, Meredith left without saying where she was going, while we stayed home until about 5.30 pm. After that hour, Amanda and I took a little trip to the town center and then went to my house where we stayed until this morning.

This morning around 10.00, we woke up and as on other occasions, Amanda returned home to take a shower and change, with the intention of returning later to my house.

At about 11:30 am, Amanda returned to my house and while we were having breakfast, she told me worriedly that in the house where she lives she had found the door open, and in the bathroom used by her and Meredith Amanda had noticed traces of blood both on the sink and in the mat below. Furthermore, Meredith’s room was locked.

Concerned about the situation, because it was not clear why the front door had remained open, Amanda went downstairs and knocked on the door of some Italian students who live under her to ask for help, but with negative outcome because nobody answered. I want to clarify that among the guys of the apartment above, there is a Giacomo, a person unknown to me, who Amanda says would hang out with Meredith. Not receiving resposess, Amanda, before returning to my house, locked the door and after arriving at my home told me the story

She asked me to take her home to find out what had happened. Once on the spot, Amanda opened the door, which has a defect in the lock, both from the outside and from the inside, which opens only with the keys because the handle does not work. Without the keys, it can not close even you pull it outward.

Once inside, we walked around the house and immediately Amanda noticed that in the other bathroom, the one used by the two Italian girls, when she left the house, there were faeces in the toilet while when we entered the toilet it was clean. In addition, the room in use by Filomena had the door wide open, was untidy and had the window completely open with the glass of the left pane broken in the lower part. Seeing this, Amanda told me that she had not previously seen this as the door to the aforementioned room was blocking the view of what was inside.

At this point, I went into the bathroom in use both by Amanda and Meredith. Here I too noticed the traces of blood on both the sink and the mat. Assuming something had happened, I was asking Amanda to call her roommate friends, but after several attempts she could only get in touch with Filomena, who told her that she was at her boyfriend’s house and that she would be returning immediately.

At this point Amanda called Meredith several times, and knocked on the door, but without any reply. Given the situation, I looked out of the various windows of the house in order to see where the window of Meredith’s room was, but being situated at the end of the apartment it was difficult to access from the outside, I decided to try to open the door by kicking it and pushing it at the height of the lock, but without succeeding because I only caused cracks in the wall and in the door.

Not succeeding in the intent, I tried to look through the keyhole which was missing the key and from there I could only see a brown woman’s bag that was on the bed, and on the left side probably an open cupboard door.

At this point I asked for advice from my sister, who serves as a Lieutenant of the Carabinieri in Rome, who advised me to call 112 directly. The local 112 when asked by me said that he would send a radio car. While waiting for the Carabinieri, I saw plainclothes police arrive who identified themselves officers of the Polizia Postale, who were looking for Filomena and Meredith because they had found the two cell phones of the latter.

To them, both Amanda and I told the story described above, and because of this the agents, given the situation, broke through the door of the room of Meredith thus ascertaining the tragic event. Seeing their faces I stayed on the sidelines and I did not look at what was inside. Present at the time of the breakthrough of the door, in addition to us and the police, there was also Filomena and her boyfriend who had arrived in the meantime and had reported not knowing where Meredith was.

Later a patrol squad of the Carabinieri also arrived. Being more precise, Amanda, when she told me that she went to ask for help from the boys who live below her apartment, found the doors closed but the gate in front of those doors was open.

I have nothing else to add.
Done, read, confirmed and signed.
Raffaele Sollecito

Sunday, June 16, 2013

Questions For Knox: Do You Really Think “False Memories” Claim Framing Italians Yet Again Will Help?

Posted by Our Main Posters

[You say Madison Paxton found Kassin? So why did Bruce Fischer and Sarah claim to have done so??]

1. Your Real Persona, Widely Observed

Remember that Italians have seen a lot more of the real you than most Americans ever have. Italians all saw the real you described here and here.

That is why maybe 95% of all Italians long ago concluded for your guilt. At times you can come across as winning but, as there on the stand, too often as brash, sneering, sharp-elbowed, humorless, uncaring, and self-absorbed.

That is the Knox that put off many who encountered you in Seattle, it is why you had Halloween largely alone, and why you put off almost everyone you encountered in Perugia. Including everyone in your house in Perugia, and most in Patrick’s bar - and this literally in less than a month.

The “lost little girl” persona, the “chaste girl who never did sex and drugs” persona, the “diligent girl who studied so hard” persona, and the “they all want to get me because I am so fantastically cute” persona you or your agenda-driven shadow-writer put in the book have many people who have seen a lot of you in strong disbelief.

Can you name even one good friend who still stands by you in Perugia, given that even Raffaele Sollecito has placed you at the brink of a cliff?

By the way, this is not an unkind group, mostly comprised as it is of professionals, and some surprising things you yourself said in your book confirmed a suspicion about untreated root causes that we mentioned here.

2. Pages 270 to 272 Of Your Book With Your False Claims Highlighted

Let us first quote what you claim about your interrogation as “explained” by Saul Kassin who had at this point diagnosed you only long-distance and talked with not even one person who was there. False claims are shown in bold.

Thankfully Madison had researched the science on false confessions. She found Saul Kassin, a psychologist at John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York. A specialist in wrongful convictions, he took the mystery out of what had happened to me.

Before my interrogation, I believed, like many people, that if someone were falsely accused, they wouldn’t, couldn’t, be swayed from the truth while under interrogation. I never would have believed that I could be pressured into confessing to something I hadn’t done. For three years I berated myself for not having been stronger. I’m an honest person. During that interrogation, I had nothing to hide, and a stake in the truth “” I desperately wanted the police to solve Meredith’s murder. But now I know that innocent people often confess. The records kept of people convicted of a crime and later exonerated by DNA evidence show that the DNA of 25 percent of them didn’t match the DNA left at the scene. The DNA testing showed that one in four innocent people ended up confessing as I did. And experts believe that even more innocent people confess, both in cases with and without DNA evidence.

According to Kassin, there are different types of false confessions. The most common is “compliant,” which usually happens when the suspect is threatened with punishment or isolation. The encounter becomes so stressful, so unbearable, that suspects who know they’re innocent eventually give in just to make the uncomfortably harsh questioning stop. “You’ll get thirty years in prison if you don’t tell us,” says one interrogator. “I want to help you, but I can’t unless you help us,” says another.

This was exactly the good cop/bad cop routine the police had used on me.

Besides being compliant, I also showed signs of having made an “internalized” false confession. Sitting in that airless interrogation room in the questura, surrounded by people shouting at me during forty-three hours of questioning over five days, I got to the point, in the middle of the night, where I was no longer sure what the truth was. I started believing the story the police were telling me. They took me into a state where I was so fatigued and stressed that I started to wonder if I had witnessed Meredith’s murder and just didn’t remember it. I began questioning my own memory.

Kassin says that once suspects begin to distrust their own memory, they have almost no cognitive choice but to consider, possibly accept, and even mentally elaborate upon the interrogator’s narrative of what happened. That’s how beliefs are changed and false memories are formed.

That’s what had happened to me.

I was so confused that my mind made up images to correspond with the scenario the police had concocted and thrust on me. For a brief time, I was brainwashed.

Three years after my “confession,” I’d blocked out some of my interrogation. But the brain has ways of bringing up suppressed memories. My brain chooses flashbacks””sharp, painful flashes of memory that flicker, interrupting my conscious thoughts. My adrenaline responds as if it’s happening in that moment. I remember the shouting, the figures of looming police officers, their hands touching me, the feeling of panic and of being surrounded, the incoherent images my mind made up to try to explain what could have happened to Meredith and to legitimize why the police were pressuring me.

This new knowledge didn’t stop my nightmares or flashbacks, but I was so relieved to learn that what I’d been through wasn’t unique to me. It had been catalogued! It had a name! As soon as I understood that what happened during my interrogation wasn’t my fault, I started forgiving myself.

Kassin and others show that interrogations are intentionally designed to bewilder and deceive a suspect. Originally created to get highly trained, patriotic U.S. fighter pilots to sell out their country during the Korean War, one technique uses a tag team of investigators and tactics meant to induce exhaustion, agitation, and fear. It’s especially potent on young, vulnerable witnesses like me. The method was designed not to elicit information but to plant it “” specifically tailored to destroy an orderly thought process. After some hours, the subject gives the interrogators what they want “” whether it’s the truth or not.

In my case they’d put several interrogators in a room with me. For hours they yelled, screamed, kept me on edge. When they exhausted themselves, a fresh team replaced them. But I wasn’t even allowed to leave to use the bathroom.

These were strategic measures, many of which are described in Kassin’s report on police interrogation, “On the Psychology of Confessions: Does Innocence Put Innocents at Risk?” Reading it, I was flabbergasted to learn how by the book the police had been in their manipulation of me.

It had been the middle of the night. I’d already been questioned for hours at a time, days in a row. They tried to get me to contradict myself by homing in on what I’d done hour by hour, to confuse me, to cause me to lose track and get something wrong. They said I had no alibi. They lied, saying that Raffaele had told them I’d asked him to lie to the police. They wouldn’t let me call my mom. They wouldn’t let me leave the interrogation room. They were yelling at me in a language I didn’t understand. They hit me and suggested that I had trauma-induced amnesia. They encouraged me to imagine what could have happened, encouraged me to “remember” the truth because they said I had to know the truth. They threatened to imprison me for thirty years and restrict me from seeing my family. At the time, I couldn’t think of it as anything but terrifying and overwhelming.

That was exactly their point.

Highlighted in bold is another large body of your many easy-to-disprove lies as in the previous post.

Your bizarre analysis leads to many many questions.

What honest person? You served three years for felony lying. Exactly how did you ever help the police? What good cop/bad cop routine? There were only ever 2 or 3 interviewers there. What airless room? You were in a very modern building with air conditioning. What shouting? What 43 hours of interrogation? You had at most been questioned for one or two hours - and only for a few minutes on this night when you “broke”.  What story were police forcing on you? Why were you so confused and stressed - other than that Sollecito had just left you with no alibi? What did the police concoct and thrust on you, and why? Why didnt they do that to anyone else? So many others were interviewed too.

You are not even in Kassin’s “vulnerable” target group. How could you possibly be brainwashed in such a short time? What do you mean “after some hours”? What hours? Who exactly yelled and screamed and kept you on edge? What fresh tag team? Who stopped you leaving the interrogation room for a bathroom break? Why did you testify that you were given refreshments and treated well? Why did your own lawyers say you were treated well? Why did they never lodge a complaint? Why when you had an excellent interpreter did you say you couldn’t understand? Why would police threaten to imprison you for 30 years when their whole interest moved quickly to Patrick as you engineered? And why after the interview when you were left sitting in a corridor, babbling and being calmed down, did you not simply walk right out?

In fact, nobody ever accused you of anything at all in your voluntary witness interview.

You were put under no pressure to confess. Not so long after Sollecito fingered you, you spontaneously blamed Patrick for Meredith’s death. For the next several hours, you babbled on, again and again blaming Patrick. Dr Mignini then witnessed you being warned, and barely said a word.

And of course you never ever did confess that you participated in the attack on Meredith yourself. You are really claiming a false confession - when you didnt even confess? 

Sollecito similarly cracked spontaneously in an adjacent room, and he pointed the blame at you. Its very noticeable in all of the above that you essentially dont even mention his name. Nor does Kassin.

So what made Sollecito crack? You don’t explain that.

3. Saul Kassin’s Version with His False Claims Highlighted

It seems that Kassin was subjected to the toxic Misinformation Cloud conjured up by the Rank Amateurs for Knox, and Kassin very foolishly failed to check with anyone at all who had been on the spot.

Here are the relevant passages from Saul Kassin’s paper in American Psychologist with his false claims highlighted in bold.

As illustrated by the story of Amanda Knox and many others wrongfully convicted, false confessions often trump factual innocence. Focusing on consequences, recent research suggests that confessions are powerfully persuasive as a matter of logic and common sense; that many false confessions contain richly detailed narratives and accurate crime facts that appear to betray guilty knowledge; and that confessions in general can corrupt other evidence from lay witnesses and forensic experts””producing an illusion of false support. This latter phenomenon, termed “corroboration inflation,” suggests that pretrial corroboration requirements as well as the concept of “harmless error” on appeal are based on an erroneous presumption of independence among items of evidence. In addition to previously suggested reforms to police practices that are designed to curb the risk of false confessions, measures should be taken as well to minimize the rippling consequences of those confessions…. 

Meredith Kercher was found raped and murdered in Perugia, Italy. Almost immediately,  police suspected 20-year-old Amanda Knox, an American student and one of Kercher’s roommates””the only one who stayed in Perugia after the murder. Knox had no history of crime or violence and no motive. But something about her demeanor””such as an apparent lack of affect, an outburst of sobbing, or her girlish and immature behavior”” led police to believe she was involved and lying when she claimed she was with Raffaele Sollecito, her new Italian boyfriend, that night. 

Armed with a prejudgment of Knox’s guilt, several police officials interrogated the girl on and off for four days. Her final interrogation started on November 5 at 10 p.m. and lasted until November 6 at 6 a.m., during which time she was alone, without an attorney, tag-teamed by a dozen police, and did not break for food or sleep. In many ways, Knox was a vulnerable suspect””young, far from home, without family, and forced to speak in a language in which she was not fluent. Knox says she was repeatedly threatened and called a liar. She was told,  falsely, that Sollecito, her boyfriend, disavowed her alibi and that physical evidence placed her at the scene. She was encouraged to shut her eyes and imagine how the gruesome crime had occurred, a trauma, she was told, that she had obviously repressed. Eventually she broke down crying,  screaming, and hitting herself in the head. Despite a law that mandates the recording of interrogations, police and prosecutors maintain that these sessions were not recorded. 

Two “confessions” were produced in this last session,  detailing what Knox called a dreamlike “vision.” Both were typed by police””one at 1:45 a.m., the second at 5:45 a.m. She retracted the statements in a handwritten letter as soon as she was left alone (“In regards to this “˜confession’  that I made last night, I want to make it clear that I’m very doubtful of the verity of my statements because they were made under the pressures of stress, shock, and extreme exhaustion.”). Notably, nothing in the confessions indicated that she had guilty knowledge. In fact, the statements attributed to Knox were factually incorrect on significant core details (e.g., she named as an accomplice a man whom police had suspected but who later proved to have an ironclad alibi; she failed to name another man, unknown to police at the time, whose DNA was later identified on the victim). Nevertheless, Knox, Sollecito, and the innocent man she implicated were all immediately arrested. In a media-filled room, the chief of police announced: Caso chiuso (case closed). 

Police had failed to provide Knox with an attorney or record the interrogations, so the confessions attributed to her were ruled inadmissible in court. Still, the damage was done. The confession set into motion a hypothesis-confirming investigation, prosecution, and conviction. The man whose DNA was found on the victim, after specifically stating that Knox was not present, changed his story and implicated her while being prosecuted. Police forensic experts concluded that Knox’s DNA on the handle of a knife found in her boyfriend’s apartment also contained Kercher’s blood on the blade and that the boyfriend’s DNA was on the victim’s bra clasp. Several eyewitnesses came forward.  An elderly woman said she was awakened by a scream followed by the sound of two people running; a homeless drug addict said he saw Knox and Sollecito in the vicinity that night; a convicted drug dealer said he saw all three suspects together; a grocery store owner said he saw Knox the next morning looking for cleaning products; one witness said he saw Knox wielding a knife. 

On December 5, 2009, an eight-person jury convicted Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito of murder. The two were sentenced to 26 and 25 years in prison, respectively. Finally, on October 3, 2011, after having been granted a new trial, they were acquitted. [Actually they still stand accused - and facing a tough fact-based prosecution appeal] Ten weeks later, the Italian appeals court released a strongly worded 143-page opinion in which it criticized the prosecution and concluded that there was no credible evidence, motive, or plausible theory of guilt. For the four years of their imprisonment, this story drew international attention (for comprehensive overviews of the case, see Dempsey, 2010, and Burleigh, 2011).1

It is now clear that the proverbial mountain of discredited evidence used to convict Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito was nothing but a house of cards built upon a false confession. The question posed by this case, and so many others like it, is this: Why do confessions so often trump innocence? ...

Third, it is important to realize that not all evidence is equally malleable or subject to corroboration inflation. Paralleling classic research indicating that expectations can color judgments of people, objects, and other stimuli that are ambiguous as opposed to those that compel a particular perception, forensic research indicates that ambiguity is a moderating condition. Asked to report on an event or make an identification decision on the basis of a memory trace that cannot be recovered, eyewitnesses are particularly malleable when confronted with evidence of a confession (Hasel & Kassin, 2009). This phenomenon was illustrated in the case against Amanda Knox. When police first interviewed Knox’s British roommates, not one reported that there was bad blood between Knox and the victim. After Knox’s highly publicized confession, however, the girls brought forth new “memories,” telling police that Kercher was uncomfortable with Knox and the boys she would bring home (Burleigh, 2011). ... 

In recent years, psychologists have been critical of the problems with accuracy, error, subjectivity, and bias in various types of criminal evidence””prominently including eyewitness identification procedures, police interrogation practices, and the so-called forensic identification sciences,  all leading Saks and Koehler (2005) to predict a “coming paradigm shift.” With regard to confessions, it now appears that this shift should encompass not only reforms that serve to minimize the risk of false confessions but measures designed to minimize the rippling consequences of those confessions””as in the case of Amanda Knox and others who are wrongfully convicted.

4. An Exposure Of Ten Of Saul Kassins’s False Claims

Our main poster the Machine exposes further how Kassin’s key claims are wrong.

False Claim 1: They brought her in for that final interrogation late at night.

No they didn’t.

Neither the police nor the prosecutors brought Amanda in for questioning on 5 November 2007. Amanda Knox herself testified in court that she wasn’t called to come to the police station on 5 November 2007.

Carlo Pacelli: “For what reason did you go to the Questura on November 5? Were you called?”

Amanda Knox: “No, I wasn’t called. I went with Raffaele because I didn’t want to be alone.”

Amanda Knox went with Raffaele Sollecito because she didn’t want to be alone. Kassin’s false claim is the first red flag that Saul Kassin is very confused or has been seriously misled when it comes to this well-documented and well-handled case.

False Claim 2: The so-called confession wasn’t until 6:00am.

No it wasn’t.

If Saul Kassin had actually read Amanda Knox’s first witness statement, he would have known that it was made at 1:45am. Knox had admitted that she was at the cottage when Meredith was killed some time before this.

False Claim 3: She was interrogated from 10:00pm to 6.00am.

No she wasn’t.

According to the Daily Beast Amanda Knox’s questioning began at about 11:00pm.

Since Knox was already at the police station [in the company of Raffaele Sollecito] the head of the murder squad decided to ask her a few questions. Her interrogation started at about 11 p.m.

After Amanda Knox had made her witness statement at 1:45am, she wasn’t questioned again that evening. That was it.

However, Amanda Knox herself then wanted to make further declarations and Mr Mignini who was on duty on the night sat and watched while Knox wrote out her declarations.

Mr Mignini explained what happened in his email letter to Linda Byron, another who was factually challenged.

All I did was to apply the Italian law to the proceedings. I really cannot understand any problem.

In the usual way, Knox was first heard by the police as a witness, but when some essential elements of her involvement with the murder surfaced, the police suspended the interview, according to Article 63 of the penal proceedings code.

But Knox then decided to render spontaneous declarations, that I took up without any further questioning, which is entirely lawful.

According to Article 374 of the penal proceedings code, suspects must be assisted by a lawyer only during a formal interrogation, and when being notified of alleged crimes and questioned by a prosecutor or judge, not when they intend to render unsolicited declarations.

Since I didn’t do anything other than to apply the Italian law applicable to both matters, I am unable to understand the objections and reservations which you are talking about.

In Amanda Knox’s written witness statement, she explicitly states that she’s making a spontaneous declaration:

Amanda Knox: “I wish to relate spontaneously what happened because these events have deeply bothered me and I am really afraid of Patrick, the African boy who owns the pub called “Le Chic” located in Via Alessi where I work periodically.

False Claim 4: They banged her on the back of the head.

No they didn’t.

All the numerous witnesses who were actually present when Amanda Knox was questioned, including her interpreter, testified under oath at trial in 2009 that she wasn’t hit. She has never identified anyone who hit her and on several occasions confirmed that she was treated well.

Even one of Amanda Knox’s lawyers, Luciano Ghirga, confirmed that Amanda Knox had not been hit: “There were pressures from the police but we never said she was hit.”  He never ever lodged a complaint.

False Claim 5: All the other British roommates left town.

No they didn’t.

The police also told Sophie Purton that they needed her to stay on in Perugia on precisely the same basis as Amanda Knox. In chapter 19 of Death in Perugia, John Follain states that Sophie Purton was questioned by Mignini and Napoleoni in the prosecutor’s office on 5 November 2007.

Sophie had been counting on leaving Perugia to fly back home as soon as her parents arrived, but the police called to tell her they needed her to stay on; they would let her know when she could leave.

False Claim 6 : Amanda Knox stayed back to help the police.

No she didn’t.

This claim is flatly contradicted by Amanda Knox herself. In the e-mail she wrote to her friends in Seattle on 4 November 2007 she categorically stated she was not allowed to leave Italy.

i then bought some underwear because as it turns out i wont be able to leave italy for a while as well as enter my house

Knox actually knew on 2 November 2007 that she couldn’t leave Italy. Amy Frost reported the following conversation (The Massei report, page 37),

I remember having heard Amanda speaking on the phone, I think that she was talking to a member of her family, and I heard her say, No, they won’t let me go home, I can’t catch that flight.

It’s not the first time that the myth that Knox chose to stay behind rather than leave Italy has been claimed in the media. And incidentally, lying repeatedly to the police isn’t normally considered to be helping them.

False Claim 7: Amanda Knox had gone 8 hours without any food or drink.

No she hadn’t.

Reported by Richard Owen in The Times, 1 March 2009

Ms Napoleoni told the court that while she was at the police station Ms Knox had been ‘treated very well. She was given water, camomile tea and breakfast. She was given cakes from a vending machine and then taken to the canteen at the police station for something to eat.’

Reported by Richard Owen in The Times, 15 March 2009.

Ms Donnino said that Ms Knox had been “comforted” by police, given food and drink, and had at no stage been hit or threatened.

John Follain in his meticulous book Death in Perugia, page 134, also reports that Knox was given food and drink during her questioning:

During the questioning, detectives repeatedly went to fetch her a snack, water, and hot drinks including camomile tea.

False Claim 8: The translator was hostile towards Amanda Knox.

No she wasn’t.

Saul Kassin offers no evidence that the translator was hostile towards Amanda Knox and there is no evidence that this was the case. Nobody at the questura has claimed this. Amanda Knox’s own lawyers have not claimed this.

Even Amanda Knox herself has never ever claimed that Anna Donnino was hostile towards her although she had every opportunity to do so when being questioned on the stand.

False Claim 9: The translator was acting as an agent for the police.

No she wasn’t.

Saul Kassin offers no evidence to support this claim, which by the way in Italy is the kind of unprofessional charge that incurs calunnia suits. Do ask Curt Knox.

False Claim 10: The police lied to Amanda Knox.

No they didn’t.

The police didn’t mislead Amanda Knox. They told her quite truthfully that Sollecito was no longer providing her with an alibi, and that he had just claimed in the next interrogation room that she wasn’t at his apartment from around 9:00pm to about 1:00am. This also is the kind of unprofessional charge that incurs calunnia suits

Other claims by Kassin are also inaccurate. He claims that not one of your acquaintances had reported there was bad blood. That also is untrue. Even prior to the witness interrogation, law enforcement knew from multiple sources that you had been feuding with just about everyone. Acquaintances created no “new memory”. The bad blood you created was quite real. 

5. How Kassin Bends His Own Science To Make Results Come Out “Right”

Our main poster Fuji dug deeper into the science and turns up what is an obvious scientific fraud by Kassin to insert himself into the case.

Meredith’s case is absolutely riddled with fabricated false myths. 

They are now found by the hundreds on some misleading websites, and they simply make experienced law enforcement and criminal lawyers laugh. 

For example “Police had no good reason to be immediately suspicious of Knox simply because the murder occurred at her residence”.  And “The double-DNA knife is a priori to be disregarded as evidence, because no murderer would retain possession of such a murder weapon.”

One of the most strident and widespread myths is that Amanda Knox’s statements to the Perugian investigators on 5 and 6 November 2007, placing her at the scene of Meredith’s murder, are to be viewed as the products of a genuinely confused mind imbued with a naïve trust of authority figures.

The apparent certainty with which many of Amanda Knox’s most vocal supporters proclaim that Knox’s statements are actual “false confessions” as opposed to deliberate lies is not supported by even a cursory reading of the pertinent academic literature regarding false confessions.

What actually are “false confessions”?

Richard N. Kocsis in his book “Applied Criminal Psychology: A Guide to Forensic Behavioral Sciences” (2009), on pages 193-4 delineates three different kinds of false confessions:

First, a voluntary false confession is one in which a person falsely confesses to a crime absent any pressure or coercion from police investigators….

Coerced-compliant false confessions occur when a person falsely confesses to a crime for some immediate gain and in spite of the conscious knowledge that he or she is actually innocent of the crime….

The final type, identified by Kassin and Wrightsman (1985), is referred to as a coerced-internalized false confession. This occurs when a person falsely confesses to a crime and truly begins to believe that he or she is responsible for the criminal act.

The first problem facing Knox supporters wishing to pursue the false confession angle as a point speaking to her purported innocence is epistemological.

Although much research has been done on this phenomenon in recent years, academics are still struggling to come to terms with a methodology to determine their incidence rate.

The current state of knowledge does not support those making sweeping claims about the likelihood of Knox’s statements being representative of a genuine internalized false confession.

As noted by Richard A. Leo in “False Confessions: Causes, Consequences, and Implications” (Journal of the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law, 2009):

Although other researchers have also documented and analyzed numerous false confessions in recent years, we do not know how frequently they occur. A scientifically meaningful incidence rate cannot be determined for several reasons.

First, researchers cannot identify (and thus cannot randomly sample) the universe of false confessions, because no governmental or private organization keeps track of this information.

Second, even if one could identify a set of possibly false confessions, it is not usually possible as a practical matter to obtain the primary case materials (e.g., police reports, pretrial and trial transcripts, and electronic recordings of the interrogations) necessary to evaluate the unreliability of these confessions.

Finally, even in disputed confession cases in which researchers are able to obtain primary case materials, it may still be difficult to determine unequivocally the ground truth (i.e., what really happened) with sufficient certainty to prove the confession false.

In most alleged false-confession cases, it is therefore impossible to remove completely any possible doubts about the confessor’s innocence.

The next problem Knox supporters face is that, even allowing for an inability to establish a priori any likelihood of a given statement being a false confession, the kind of false confession which is usually attributed to Knox is in fact one of the LEAST likely of the three types (Voluntary, Compliant, and Persuaded, as Leo terms the three different categories) to be observed:

Persuaded false confessions appear to occur far less often than compliant false confessions.

Moreover, despite assertions to the contrary, Knox and her statements do not in fact satisfy many of the criteria researchers tend to observe in false confessions, particularly of the Persuaded variety:

“All other things being equal, those who are highly suggestible or compliant are more likely to confess falsely. Individuals who are highly suggestible tend to have poor memories, high levels of anxiety, low self-esteem, and low assertiveness, personality factors that also make them more vulnerable to the pressures of interrogation and thus more likely to confess falsely…

Highly suggestible or compliant individuals are not the only ones who are unusually vulnerable to the pressures of police interrogation. So are the developmentally disabled or cognitively impaired, juveniles, and the mentally ill….

They also tend to occur primarily in high-profile murder cases and to be the product of unusually lengthy and psychologically intense interrogations… ordinary police interrogation is not strong enough to produce a permanent change in the suspect’s beliefs.

Most significantly, there is one essential element of a true Persuaded False Confession which in Knox’s case is highly distinctive:

To convince the suspect that it is plausible, and likely, that he committed the crime, the interrogators must supply him with a reason that satisfactorily explains how he could have done it without remembering it.

This is the second step in the psychological process that leads to a persuaded false confession.

Typically, the interrogator suggests one version or another of a “repressed” memory theory.

He or she may suggest, for example, that the suspect experienced an alcohol- or drug-induced blackout, a “dry” blackout, a multiple personality disorder, a momentary lapse in consciousness, or posttraumatic stress disorder, or, perhaps most commonly, that the suspect simply repressed his memory of committing the crime because it was a traumatic experience for him.

The suspect can only be persuaded to accept responsibility for the crime if he regards one of the interrogators’ explanations for his alleged amnesia as plausible.

Knox did not in fact claim drug or alcohol use as the source of her amnesia - rather, she claimed to have accepted the interrogators’ attribution that this was due to being traumatized by the crime itself, and she offers no other explanation for her selective amnesia:

This is from Knox’s statement to the court in pretrial on 18 October 2008 with Judge Micheli presiding.

Then they started pushing on me the idea that I must have seen something, and forgotten about it. They said that I was traumatized.

Of course, Knox’s initial statement went far beyond being that of being merely a witness to some aspect of Ms. Kercher’s murder, as the interrogators at first seemed to believe was the case.

Rather, her statement placed her at scene of the murder during its actual commission while she did nothing to avert it, which naturally made her a suspect.

In other words, in the absence of any of her other testimony which indicated that she was only a witness to the murder, her own self-admitted rationale for providing a false confession was that she was traumatized by the commission of the murder itself.

Perugia judges will be familiar with all of the above and we can be sure that they brief the lay judges on the remote circumstances and incidences of false confessions.

If I were a Knox defense attorney, I would find it to be a far more fruitful line of argumentation to argue that she was simply lying, rather than claiming the supremely unlikely provision of an actual internalized false confession.

6. Kassin’s Paper with Correct Facts and Context Now Included

Here is our main poster BR Mull describing what actually took place.

On November 2, 2007, British exchange student Meredith Kercher was found sexually attacked and murdered in Perugia, Italy. The next day, 20-year-old Amanda Knox, an American student and one of Kercher’s roommates, became a person of interest, along with Meredith’s downstairs neighbors and several of her other acquaintances. Interviewing close contacts is a cornerstone of police work. Two of Meredith’s close English friends, who were so scared they couldn’t sleep alone, left Perugia in the immediate aftermath of the murder. Everyone else stayed on.

Months before arriving in Perugia, Knox received a citation for a noise violation when a going-away party she’d thrown for herself in Seattle got out of hand. One of the officers described it as a “scene from Baghdad.” Within about three weeks of moving into the cottage in Perugia, Knox was ejected from a nightclub for pouring her glass on the head of a disc jockey.

It’s often said that Knox had no motive to kill Meredith, but it was Knox’s claim of drug use which indicated a possible motive: a drug-fuelled assault. There are various others, though a motive is not actually required for conviction. In crime scene videos from the day Meredith’s body was discovered, Knox can be seen outside the cottage glancing furtively around. Still, it was not this and other odd behavior, but rather the many conflicting witness statements by Knox and her new Italian boyfriend, Raffaele Sollecito, that led police to believe Knox was involved and lying when she claimed she was with Sollecito at his home continuously on the night of November 1.

Police interviewed dozens of witnesses in the days after the murder, some more than once. All witness statements were written down and signed for, not recorded. The police interviewed Sollecito for the third time beginning at 10:40pm on November 5. Knox later testified that she voluntarily accompanied her boyfriend to the station, because she didn’t want to be alone. The police did not summon her. To the interviewers’ surprise, Sollecito repudiated his earlier alibi when shown phone records, and now said Knox had left his apartment for much of the evening. Some time after 11:00pm the police asked if they might interview Knox. An interpreter was called and by 1:45am Knox had given a signed statement that she had witnessed the sounds of her employer, bar owner Patrick Lumumba, murdering Meredith at the cottage.

In that statement she acknowledged that she had been given an interpreter, and that she herself was now officially a suspect. Knox later testified that she was treated well. She was offered snacks and drinks during the interview and afterward. Made aware that she could not be interrogated without a lawyer, but still anxious to put out as much information as possible, she then requested a chance to make a spontaneous statement without any questioning. The prosecutor on duty agreed, and she gave a statement in front of him very similar to her witness statement from hours earlier.

Knox and the police gave different accounts of how the 11:00 to 1:45 am interview was conducted. Police said Knox was told Sollecito now no longer confirmed her alibi and he had called her a liar. She now had no alibi. Sympathetic to her because Knox now had no alibi, the interpreter urged her to try to remember at least something.  Shown a text she had sent to Lumumba at 8:35pm saying “See you later. Have a good evening!” she was asked to explain this. The police say Knox started to cry and burst out, “It’s him! It’s him!”

Both Knox’s witness statement at 1:45 a.m and her voluntary suspect statement at 5:45am were written out in Italian and translated back to her before she signed. After Knox was formally taken into custody at midday on November 6, she asked for paper and wrote a slight modification of her earlier statements, adding: “In regards to this “˜confession’ that I made last night, I want to make it clear that I’m very doubtful of the verity of my statements because they were made under the pressures of stress, shock, and extreme exhaustion.”

Lumumba was arrested along with Knox and Sollecito. Knox and her mother held out on his non-involvement, but he was eventually determined to have a solid alibi. Another man, Rudy Guede, was identified through a hand print in Meredith’s bedroom. Knox appeared to have substituted Lumumba for Guede in her statements, and several details of the crime in her so-called confession were later corroborated by witnesses.

Because police had not needed to provide Knox with an attorney at the impromptu witness interview after 11:00, the Supreme Court ruled that statement inadmissible in the murder case against her. However both statements were ruled admissible in court for the purpose of establishing the crime of defamation against Patrick Lumumba. Knox’s November 6 letter was also ruled admissible.

Guede, the man whose DNA was found on the victim, told a friend while he was still on the run that he had found Meredith stabbed and that Knox had nothing to do with the murder. However, in the same conversation, which was recorded by police, he speculated that Knox and Sollecito might have been at the cottage. In a letter dated March 7, 2010, while his sentence was awaiting final confirmation by the Supreme Court, Guede wrote that Knox and Sollecito murdered Meredith. He reiterated this claim as a witness during Knox and Sollecito’s appeal.

Forensic police from Rome concluded that a kitchen knife found in Sollecito’s apartment had Knox’s DNA on the handle and Meredith’s DNA on the blade. Sollecito’s DNA was on the victim’s bra clasp in Meredith’s locked bedroom.

Several eyewitnesses came forward. Three neighbors testified that they heard a disturbance around 11:30pm in the vicinity of the cottage. A homeless man who at appeal admitted heroin use was reading a newsmagazine at the basketball court near the cottage. He testified that he saw Knox and Sollecito four or five times that night. An Albanian, a possible drug dealer. who the Massei court deemed unreliable after the Micheli court accepted him, said he had seen all three suspects together, and that Knox had accosted him with a knife. A grocery store owner testified he saw Knox at his shop early on the morning after the murder.

The conflicting alibis of the two were never resolved during trial. On December 4, 2009, an eight-person panel consisting of two professional judges and six lay judges found Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito guilty of murder aggravated by sexual assault, simulation of a burglary, unlawful carrying of a knife and, in Knox’s case, criminal defamation of Patrick Lumumba. The two were sentenced to 26 and 25 years in prison, respectively….

Knox’s mother later described her daughter as “oblivious to the dark side of the world.” Knox herself wrote that, on the night of the murder, she and Sollecito were talking about his mother’s suicide. She told him her philosophy was “life is full of choices and that these choices are not necessarily between good and evil, but between what’s better and what’s worse.”...

7. Our Concluding Advice

You simply didnt remotely fit Kassin’s own profile of those who break easily under interrogation and make things up. Your suspect interrogation was gentle, brief and considerate, as you have said, and didnt remotely fit Kassin’s claims. And of course, you never made a false confession on that night or any other.

Do you really want this guy or yourself cross-examined on the stand? Again, it may be the last good time to try to walk all of your malicious invention back.


[Saul Kassin with President Travis of John Jay College who lets the false anti-Italy allegations stand]