An Investigation Into The Large Knife Provides Further Proof That This Was THE Knife

Comments

Ergon, thank you. I’d never noticed the double image where the knife had shifted or moved slightly on the sheet. (Image O)

You mention the extremely important fact that both Meredith and Knox’s DNA were found on this knife resting shiny and clean in Sollecito’s cutlery drawer. Then Raf lied about pricking Meredith with the knife.

Thanks Ergon. Looking forward to your Part 2.

72 hours to go….

@ Ergon

How do you explain the largest stain which has a distinctive two/three sided edge to it? This seems rather incongruous on a blade that has only penetrated 8 cm of it’s length.

On the other hand the scouring of the blade is up to 11 cm from the tip and this is not unlikely where it has penetrated to 8 cm.

As far as the cleaning goes I would suggest a very strong element of panic. Knox, given her view of the male population, was no doubt concerned with Sollecito’s particular lack of maturity and his obvious panic.

The ‘stone killer’ here is Knox who manipulated Sollecito and used him and others as a personal trophy. Sollecito erroneously thought Knox would save him through marriage and therefore a green card. Sollecito is another who uses supposition instead of examining the facts of US citizenship.

As to the knife there can be no doubt at all, and I wonder what the FOA will make of all of this? The usual lies and suppositions I suppose.

However thank you very much Ergon for all your tremendous work. True justice will prevail perhaps not immediately but eventually because of course we will never stop no matter how long it takes.

Thank you for the high-resolution pictures and the analysis, Ergon, it is extremely powerful when one sees them up close.

One can only imagine the sheer terror Meredith went through, I can almost hear the scream when I look at the sheet.

Whoever did this (and we all know who it is) will pay for it, no amount of lying, PR, or number of plastic people on TV can protect them.

Excellent work Ergon, and timely : thank you.

One single drop of blood can look quite tiny when it is a globule - if it is ‘squashed’ flat , for instance between the knife blade and the sheet, a single drop goes a long way especially in absorbent cotton.

Thank you Ergon, makes sense to me.

Trace B (Meredith) obviously worried/worries the Knox defence and their PR campaign. They were at great pains in this appeal to spin the Carabinieri analysis of Trace I to show there was only Knox DNA at that spot therefore, by breathtaking logic, there was no trace of Meredith on the knife.

And this of course was how it was widely reported in the generally supine and totally worthless US and UK media, whose only interest these days is sensation and clicks/sales: they are generally very happy to leave investigative journalism and fact finding to sites such as this.

How is it that the media generally seem to get a free pass? Will the courts go after them? They are surely just as culpable in attempting to pervert the course of justice as the usual, identified rabble of ne’er-do-wells and lowlifes that we know so well (btw are the latter attracted to this case in some dim unconscious hope that their own pathologies might somehow be vindicated by association?).

Well done, Ergon, for presenting this proof in a way that makes it impossible to question!  This together with Sollecito’s bloody footprint is all the evidence a sane person would need to sentence this vile pair to life imprisonment.

http://truejustice.org/ee/index.php?/tjmk/comments/Tips_For_The_Media_3_in_fact_theres_far_more_evidence/

It beggars belief that anyone would happily support someone who is addicted to animal pornography, violent depictions of sex and who, to top it off, carries a variety of specialist knives with him at all times!  No normal girl would go near Sollecito with a barge-pole so what kind of a girl is Knox?  A psychopathic and murderous one!

@James Raper and co, hi. You have the end result of a series of actions, of the killer stabbing Meredith, then picking up and placing the knife in at least two places, J and O, leaving slightly dissimilar stains, but clearly the same knife.

We do not know if at some point in between the knife was placed on a square cornered object that might have caused the blood to collect on the knife in that geometric pattern you observe, but, we have seen similar evidences concerning Meredith’s bra strap imprint on the floor.

The killer made the stabbing thrust in a slightly upwards, then sideways sawing motion, that would have caused blood to flow down the blade to a greater length than the 8 cm wound depth. That’s why the imprints are greater than 8 cm in length.

I was going to put this in Part II 😊 but the scoring scratches on the blade, much denied by FOA, was the result of a frantic scrubbing by, IMO, Amanda Knox, to wipe off all traces of blood and, hopefully DNA. It is possible she even tried the Ace Brand bleach under the counter, but household strength bleach does not always remove DNA.

When I first saw the scoring along the blade, (visible only in the high definition photos) I speculated on .NET it was done by a steel scouring pad. Someone then told me there was some steel wool pad under Raffaele Sollecito’s sink, in the crime scene video.

Serendipitous.

The drop at 20 cm mark most likely dripped from the tip and got flattened when the knife was placed on it. The sheet is not really absorbent otherwise the drop would have had a near circular shape.

The edge of the knife is not really smooth and grooves produced during the sharpening process held the DNA. It could not be easily washed off because it stayed locked.

The red blood cells contain haemoglobin and they give the tests with TMB and luminol. But they do not have the DNA. The white blood cells contain DNA but no haemoglobin. It is very likely that one single white blood cell was stuck in the groove of the knife (most likely at 30 cm or 22 cm mark in the photo).

Although this is “popularly” called the double DNA knife, the two samples came from different parts.

The small drops are remarkably circular in shape and it suggests that the knife was picked up almost immediately.

In 10559.jpg you will notice that the cm labels and scale marks are not aligned. Was it like that in the original too?

Everybody knows, I hope, that if you click on any of these images (in fact on any images on TJMK) they will open up in PDF to any size you want.

Hi, Chami,

The illustrator had to work with the slant of the knife being not exactly perpendicular to the scale of the reference card marked in cms. Also had to work with two separate photos, the knife and imprint, convert to 1:1 scale mathematically, and merge the two.

Hence, the slightly off kilter alignment, not on the originals. But I saw the original work on his screen, and double checked everything to see it was a true 1:1 conversion, which is what is important.

I wanted to make sure we never polluted our work the way the defense did with the RS bathmat reference prints fiasco.

Thank you, Ergon, and also your illustrator, for this great work, which clearly shows that the kitchen knife matches the imprint. I had no idea it was such a close match.

Bongiorno seems to know how murderers murder, and that they always use the full length of a knife. I’d say, they use as much of it as they need to, to do the job.

These imprints are clearly the murder weapon for another reason: the blood stain stops at the same point the wound did: about 11 centimeters in.

I hope to heaven there is justice in this case. RIP Meredith.

That says it all, except for part II coming soon. Ha

I have one question…where was the duvet if it was not placed on Meredith till later? Duvet was off bed when knife placed there (I assume shortly after the murder). Duvet was placed over Meredith later. Was the bed staged as well? I can’t make it add up.

4Meredith
Thank you Ergon.

Hi, Earthling and Bettina, Part II will list the size of wounds as stated by Massei, but in this case the major wound was 8 cms in, and the knife came to a stop IMO when the inexperienced killer, feeling resistance from some internal organ, stopped the thrust and started sawing back and forth, hence the 8 x 8 x 4cm wound.

I believe the blood pouring down the blade coated the blade to a greater depth than the actual wound. I also do not think there was repeated stabbing, it is difficult to find the same neck location a second time around.

Most of the blood was wicked off the first time, thus leaving the clearer, indelible print at O.

The cornered shape is an artifact from whatever object the knife rested against.

The duvet was thrown over Meredith earlier when they realzed what they had done, and the knife put out of the way so it could not be left behind.

I also think the knife was initially rinsed off in the bathroom sink. How dare they say no DNA was found?

Ergon…it was said the duvet had little blood on it, suggesting she was covered later…after being moved.
If the duvet was used right away, then the books and other personal effects on bed were put there?

Not nagging you too much. I just can’t see how that part happened in my minds eye. And why did not Amanda notice when she looked thru key hole? I bet Filomena did..

Did anyone tell you duvet was used right away?

I am on verdict watch,,,who needs sleep??

Hi, Bettina, no problem. Exactly when the duvet was placed over Meredith is a separate question, much argued over already. Massei says it was placed over much later, IIP says the blood soaked through, so it was Rudy Guede that moved the duvet earlier.

There is no way of proving exactly when the knife was placed on the bed, only it must have been done after the duvet was moved, during the clean up. My guess is, the knives were on the floor at one time, soaked in blood, then on the mattress as they moved the duvet over Meredith. That’s why there’s more than one imprint, they were moving objects round, washing up, bringing bedside lamps to look for missing earrings, wiping evidence, etc.

Now if you really wanted to start something, just ask for an opinion on TOD and what time Nara Capezalli, Maria Dramis, and Antonia Monachella all heard the scream, and who screamed, when.

I think I’ll pass on THAT debate.

One point we also should remember here that the flesh is elastic and a cut made with a 4 cm knife will appear to be made with a 3 cm blade. On the other hand, a print on a cloth surface is a far better evidence that can be compared.

From the hi-res pics, it is clear that our creative writer spent considerable time in cleaning it. If the knife edge were not rough I doubt any trace of DNA would have been left.

If you boil milk, you will notice that some protein will stick stubbornly to the steel surface. If the surface becomes subsequently dry, it will be really tough to clean it nicely.

I believe one single white blood cell was stuck in the groove of the knife. The electrophoregram was not having much noise and the peaks are very clear and sharp.

But I would love to know whether the same knife made the two prints at J and O.

I also noticed another thing that I forgot to mention.

What are being called grooves are actually the marks made by the machine during grinding and sharpening of the edge. This style of grinding makes the V at the edge very narrow and very sharp. These grooves held fine drops of blood and they define the outline of the edge.

I am not sure which one is the first position and why. Perhaps the larger drop may indicate the first position. But it also really does not matter.

Because of the handle, the whole blade will not touch the bed sheet uniformly. But one edge is very clear in the print.

Hi, chami, if you look at the high res pictures at NET (link above) you’ll see a very large picture of image J. http://www.perugiamurderfile.net/viewtopic.php?p=108477#p108477

It matches the general shape and dimensions of the kitchen knife, and, looking to the reference card beside it, it’s 3cms wide at that point.

On your other point, and really referring to my next article, a smaller knife can indeed make a bigger wound, but a bigger knife cannot make a smaller wound.

Bongiorno flailing around in court notwithstanding, and they got away with arguing that for so long, we’ll know within 72 hours if that argument prevails or not.

Next up: Sollecito’s knife.

I would add also that looking at the O imprint, one can also see vertical grooves on the blade edge imprinted there, matched by the reference photo of the kitchen knife at Image 3.

That’s how I figured out the orientation of the knife blade, where some were arguing for a reverse orientation (blade oriented up, I said it was oriented downwards 😊

Thanks Ergon,

That is a really clear visual of compatibility. The big smear in the center, and the long knife edge smear, look like the main contact points.

The relative distances on the two larger double spots and the length of the smears look like the knife moved/pivoted at the smear locations.

To me it looks like the movement you would get in the knife when someone just puts weight on the mattress edge.

Brilliant article from Cali Deeva on TEK Journalism:

http://www.tekjournalismuk.com/57/post/2014/01/amanda-knox-publicist-talks-media-deal-in-push-for-acquittal.html

It’s been circulated on Twitter so please retweet. To find it, go to my timeline: @RIPMeredithTWO

Cali has researched the PR behind the Knox-Mellas machine - if only they’d put their power, energy and cash into being a power for good.

RIP Meredith

2 days and counting.

Hi, Stan. The blood drops on the knife edge might also be where some flesh stuck to the knife. They correspond to where Stefanoni noted imperfections in the blade.

Only a blind person could say that was not the murder weapon! I mean, come on, even I can see it is a good fit without the overlay..

Anyway, what will happen on Thursday after the verdict is announced? Will there be a warrant out for their arrest or will they remain free until the final stage is complete? I am sure I read somewhere it could be another 12 months before she is sent to Italy

Ergon…trusr me…I do not want to start anymore arguments…
I usually come across an answer.
This two part piece on knife was mind blowing…to have it all in one place..gold.
Sawing her neck??? Oh GOD.

Nick Pisa has just stated on Twitter that he bumped into Sollecito in his hotel in Florence. I’m very surprised Sollecito is in Florence. He could be back in the slammer tomorrow night.

“The easiest thing for the court to do is acquit. It probably ends it there. If it is a conviction, it is just the beginning of what would be a very lengthy and difficult process,” Dershowitz said.

Madness!

Hi Helder Licht

That is more off-base reporting by the AP’s Colleen Barry, and for once Alan Dershowitz is also off base.

This is NOT about a third verdict, it is about confirming the first.

There would be NOTING easy in acquiting in light of what Cassation has instructed.

And any extradition will probably be quite a short and simple process.

We’re in those hours before the verdict and I’m sure no one needs this but I’d like to suggest something to Ergon.

I looked at all the photos and tried to match on the screen if the rulers all measured the same.  They did.

The photos were good and matched the knife until Ergon laid it on the stains.  From the first, I’d thought the straight top edge of the knife was the lower edge of the bed print.  I was sure Ergon was going to lay the knife upside down, so that the curved sharp edge gradually curved leftwards and down to the point lower left where there is a bloodstain.

Seems to me Ergon put the knife the wrong way up.  If it was upside down, it seems to match exactly.

Doesn’t matter because it DOES match and proves the point but ... well ...

Hi, James, just saw your comment. I know many posters have said the same, that it’s the wrong side up. (I find the blobs confuse the issue, and tried to figure out why there were TWO imprints on the bed. I figured, because the killers picked the knife off the floor more than once, in taking the quilt off to cover Meredith’s body)

It’s just that when I looked at the second reference photo above, “O” I saw the curved (sharp edge) of the blade quite clearly.

So once I established the measurements, I went with the shape. By vectorizing and placing an overlay of the knife on the imprint, I saw where, IMO, the knife may have shifted slightly, creating a double image where some saw one. Respectfully, I think in trying to fit the knife within the blood spots, people might have missed the obvious: the kitchen knife is more curved on the downward, and not, upper edge.

But, this is one very small piece of the puzzle, even though the knife itself is central to the case.

Where next:

Or to next entry Strong Proof That Raffaele Sollecito Also Stabbed Meredith Kercher Causing The Lesser Wound.

Or to previous entry Appeal Session #9: Sollecito Team Concludes, Prosecutor Crini Rebutts Defenses’ Claims