Another Spotlight on Raffaele Sollecito’s Different Versions of Events

Comments

Hi

I have followed this case for a very long time [since the conviction at the first trial] and I’ve read everything I could get my hands on including the Massei report.

From what I can see Knox basically used the initial trial as a dress rehearsal for this one, this time round she dressed better, behaved better and basically addressed each criticism of her behaviour first time round. Just today I’ve read she had a body language person working with her, now why would anyone need one of those?. Her hurtful comments about her close friendship with Meredith replaced her previous statement as to how she ‘only knew her for a month’ and that ‘she needs to get on with her life now’.

Her supporters say that she was ‘fit up’. Anyone who believes this should consider - would the Italian Police ‘fit up’ an American and a wealthy Italian? I think not. They would’ve picked people who wouldn’t be missed by anyone and wouldn’t have had the money to defend themselves.

I’ve been reading conflicting reports as to how much of the evidence from the initial trial was allowed this time around. I thought that while the bra clasp and the knife were up for review the rest of the evidence was taken into account, but others are saying no, that wasn’t the case.

Still other [sites and sources] are saying that it was because they couldn’t find a motive, but surely that wouldn’t be a good enough reason to acquit. Motives are subjective, I believe Arline hit the nail on the head - ‘they killed her because she is everything that they are not’. All of the evidence points towards that.

Basically, the Knoxophiles would have us believe that the evidence is really just a list of coincidences, anyone supporting this should consider this well known saying:

Once is happenstance, twice is coincidence and thrice is ENEMY ACTION. Apply that to the evidence and you’ll have your answer.

David Cameron said on Tuesday that he feels for the Kerchers as they believed that their daughters killers had been caught and now that’s been taken from them. It’s actually worse than that, they know full well [as do we] who killed their daughter and they had to watch them freed last week.  They must be wondering how it all went so horribly wrong..

A few quick questions you may know the answer to:

1. I see the case against the Sollecito’s is going ahead [albeit different date and location] but what about the Knox/Mellas defamation case?
2. What about the Police case against Knox for defamation?
3. Is there any recent cases where the intial conviction was aquitted on appeal and convict on the second appeal, even the name of the case would be great - I can look it up myself..

Thanks for hosting this excellent site…

Mel

Mel,

The undisputed evidence was by no means dismissed and was supposed to factor in the decision.  This is why the Hellman motivation report should be an interesting read, as it needs to explain the verdict while accounting for all that evidence.

Motive is not necessary to determine guilt. If I decide to disconnect an elderly relative’s life-support, it could be because I want to inherit their money, take revenge for some past wrong, or simply because I feel pity for them.  Regardless of my motive, I am still guilty of killing them, and if there is enough evidence, I will get convicted. 

We won’t know anything about the defamation trial until November 15.  As you saw, the Sollecito trial got moved and postponed, so it depends on what their lawyers will bring up at the first hearing.

Recent case of the kind you’re looking - Angela Biriukova, Knox’ Moldovan cellmate, nicknamed “the black widow” because she arranged her husband’s murder.  She was convicted, acquitted on appeal, and re-convicted by the Supreme Court in absentia.  She also left Italy, went to Ukraine, and was extradited back. A bit of a different case, since she was likely not a Ukrainian citizen, and foreigners tend to get extradited more easily if there are no political issues involved.

Why does nobody think that rape was a motive? Knox had wrote about rape and Sollicito read comics that depicted violent sex. Was this an opportunity to fulfill long held fantasies? Sexual fantasy is the compelling factor for most rapists and pedos.

starsdad,
Others may differ, but I’m firmly in the camp of those who think that Amanda wanted to murder Meredith, she planned it and executed it, the rape was just a cover, added to confuse detectives and take the blame away from AK and RS, further pinning it on Guede.

I also believe they attempted the killing the night before but failed, and that attempt would have had nothing to do with rape but just would have been a cold random killing in an alleyway in the dark.

Hi Melanie. All the previous evidence was in theory factored in including Cassation’s damning report on Guede. The judges and lay judges were expected to read all of it and get a very good grasp.

But the prosecution was handicapped because the appeal hearings focussed almost exclusively on the points the defense brought up and had failed to make a dent in first time around. Retests of the DNA were denied to them. They were reduced to demonizing the defendants which they might not have done if the playing field had been level.

These first appeals with half informed jurors (why jurors at all?) and judges who missed the first trial and are out to make a splash and may have advised the jury badly are notorious in Italy. This is far from the first time an explosively contraraian outcome has resulted. These appeals are expensive and wearing and frankly pretty silly. Typically Cassation finds a way to reassert a balance if the outcome is simply too obviously silly.

I’d say the chances of that happening here, with the angry murmur in Italy and perceptions that Berlusconi’s people might have influenced the outcome with a nudge and a wink, look pretty strong.

Hi Starsdad and Spencer. Yeah rape does seem to have been fantasized in other contexts by both of them. I’d say a premeditated murder might be a stretch though, and that was part of the prosecution’s problem in arguing that. It simply sounded too improbable.

We can only know if there was premeditation if those tests done on Sollecito and Knox in prison (one reason why they were not out on bail or house arrest) are released. Otherwise we have no way to get inside their heads.

Premeditation and intent does not neccesarily means weeks of planning. It can be the state of mind in the previous several minutes. A hazing of Meredith might have been in mind for longer.

Peter.  Understood, though it would be nice to read the results of those tests one day…

Do you think Hellman’s report will basically follow the C/V Report’s own conclusions with respect to the previously damning forensics?

http://knoxdnareport.wordpress.com/contents/conclusions-2/

Spencer,
Of course Hellmann is going to quote extensively from the CV report—and these so-called independent experts provided him with a wealth of juicy quotes to choose from. This is the only argument he has: to claim that the CV report shows that the scientific police are incompetent and none of their work can be trusted. He’ll throw in a few references to how the defendants look like his grandkids, and how life is for the living anyway so everyone should just get over it. The end.

I’m predicting now that if the verdict wasn’t unanimous that it was assistant Judge Massimo Zanetti who voted to convict. There can only be so many judges in Italy as incurious as Judge Hellmann.

starsdad,
Without getting too much into the details, there are several pieces of evidence that suggest the sexual assault was meant to humiliate rather than satisfy some perverted desire. I don’t think it was just a cover for the murder, although it certainly became one after the fact.

To me any motive seems unnecessary.  When drink and drugs are thrown into the mix of someone’s mind then anything can happen, depending upon how that person is feeling at the time, as certain drugs can exacerbate what ever feelings are current. 

If panic sets in over something going awry, then under the influence that panic will escalate resulting in what happened to poor Meredith.  So no, I am not that concerned about looking for a motive.

What is getting me down however is the fact that whenever there is an article about the murder anywhere on the Internet, the pro Amanda Knox camp seem to descend upon it in hordes shouting down any reasonable discussion by their distortion of the facts and various forms of Internet high-fiving each other. 

I find myself still reading claims that Amanda was held for about fifty-four hours without representation, was physically abused during said interrogation, that she tried to tell the police that Lumumba didn’t do it but they wouldn’t listen, that there was absolutely no evidence against her whatsoever, and on and on.  Yes, truly the Age of the Idiot. 

One thing I have also noticed in recent years is the amount of people who are willing to lie simply to win an argument.  They are not concerned about truth, as all that matters to them is to win and to be seen to win.  And to that end they will say anything.

Tim,
According to what I heard it was actually 84 hours, and they wouldn’t let her go to bathroom all that time until she told them what they wanted to hear.

Everyone,
Hellmann’s interview with Il Stampa (Google translatation below) is really a puzzler. He uses the language of full acquittal (“for not having committed the act…”) which is what he said when he read the verdict.

But later he explicitly says “second paragraph of Article 530” which is the code for not guilty due to insufficient evidence. He seems confused about the law. This is very strange and not at all reassuring for a judge to be confused about this.

***********

Google translation.

http://www3.lastampa.it/cronache/sezioni/articolo/lstp/423553/

“Rudy knows who killed him and perhaps they also know the two boys” 
The doubts of the President of the Court: “Evidence contradictory. I’m sorry, I think Meredith will remain unsolved murder ‘

By Guido Ruotolo

“Amanda and Raffaele may also be responsible for the death of Meredith, but there is no evidence. Those that we evaluated during the trial, we have not considered sufficient to condemn them. “
Claudio Pratillo Hellmann is a very distinguished gentleman, a wealthy old magistrate who, President of the Assize Court of Appeal, found himself presiding over the trial for the murder of Meredith Kercher. Magistrate in Spoleto, then president of the Labour Court of Appeal and catapulted to preside over a process which would gladly have done without, and he himself does not deny with great calm detachment and comments on the controversy involving him, “We are serene, we are not involved at all the controversy and cheering stadium we had anticipated. “

Q President, Amanda is free in Seattle. Raffaele home in Bisceglie. Free because innocent?
“Of course. The device of the ruling leaves no room for doubt. Free, not having committed the crime. But this is the legal truth, not real. What happened may be different. “

In the room there was only Rudy and Mez? What happened in Via della Pergola on the night of November 1st of 2007?
“Of course, Rudy knows what happened and did not say. Maybe they know also the two defendants because, I repeat, our pronunciation of absolution is the result of the truth that it is determined in the process. So maybe they know too, but we do not. “

Amanda and Raffaele seen the other side. From the bench of the Court, what impression did they do?
“Two young people of twenty. Well-educated, compounds, tested by such an experience. “

On the evening of the verdict, booing outside the Court. Screams: “Shame, shame.” Impressed?
“No. We had reckoned. And before going into closed session we had anticipated. The square did not know the process and I must say with absolute peace of mind than ever we have been conditioned by the attention of the media. “

President, in Rome, in the palaces of policy, there is already those who speak controversially of miscarriage of justice, of course, referring to the investigation and trial of first instance.
“If I were the prosecutor I would have acted as the prosecutors have done the job. No error on their part. Only we have evaluated the evidence differently. The code states that just a little doubt, if reasonable, to carry out. And we have been consistent with our beliefs. “

And when this doubt has crept in is that you?
“With the skill, no doubt. We tried the methodology for the evaluation of genetic elements. And the answer we were looking for we have not had. “

The prosecutors have been relentless against the expertise and experts.
“They defended their point of view. For us, the report marked a change of pace in the trial. “

Lol @ brmull.  You’ve given me an idea now, lol.  Any advance on a 103 hour interrogation during which they threw peanuts at her?

@Brmull - In a different article, posted after the one you linked, he was quoted saying that they couldn’t use use 530.2.  I asked for confirmation that my translation was correct and others said the same thing: he was implying that they used 530.1 after all.  This might actually be harder to defend in the motivation report.

There is also a fifth lie, which Raffaele wrote in his prison diary:

“The fact there is Meredith’s DNA on the kitchen knife is because once when we were all cooking together I accidentally pricked her hand. I apologized immediately and she said it was not a problem.”

This was confirmed to be false.  Meredith had never been at his apartment, for any reason.

This creates an interesting situation for Raffaele.  If he is innocent and the knife was never used to kill Meredith, then he would be steadfast in his belief that her DNA could not be on the knife. He could say that the knife was contaminated or the DNA profile wrongly identified, because to him it would be inconceivable that her DNA would be on it.

Instead, he puts forth this suggestion:

“I was in a total panic because I thought Amanda killed Meredith or maybe helped someone kill her… Amanda may have set me up by taking the knife and giving it to the son of a bitch who killed Meredith. When I saw the knife on TV ... my heart jumped into my throat.”

But even if this supposition were true, then he still would have no way of knowing whether Meredith’s DNA really was on the knife. The value of the second statement is undermined by the first statement, because someone who thinks his knife may have been used by someone else would not invent a situation which would explain the DNA. He would simply stick to one of the previous explanations: either the tests were wrong, or someone else used it (although this supposition throws Amanda under the bus and invalidates their mutually-supportive alibis). 

The lie about Meredith pricking her hand could only be conceived by someone who knows for a fact that indeed there had been blood on that knife and is frantically looking for a way to explain it away.

It beggars belief it really does, how anyone can believe them I’ll never understand. Edda Mellas herself asked Amanda [about her early morning call] “why did you call me when nothing had really happened yet..?” Mignini questioned Amanda about that in the first trial, her response was that she couldn’t remember making the call. I think that this question will haunt Mellas for years to come, at the moment she’s thrilled to have her child home but in the months and years ahead that will wane. Soon she’ll start waking in the early hours and her thoughts will drift to that night and she’ll think of Arline and Meredith and that question will haunt her.

Sollecito really is a pampered daddy’s boy, even prison hasn’t changed that. His ‘spontaneous’ appeal to the jury last week was a disjointed joke, unbelieveable to think that Bongiourno approved it - I refer in particular to his complaint that ‘they took my shoes in the Police Station’, he’s just spent four years in prison for a crime he claims he didn’t commit and he’s worried about his shoes!! Don’t worry Raf, daddy will buy you new ones!

While I don’t believe in conspiracies and don’t think money changed hands I believe that the reason they were acquitted was that the powers that be in Italy were not happy with all of the attention the PR machine was attracting to their legal system,I firmly believe that they wanted her out of the country. Curt Knox had said he was prepared to take this case to the EU courts, I think he’d have been laughed out of the courtroom myself but I don’t think the powers that be in Italy would have wanted that kind of attention.

All we can do now is fly the flag for Meredith..

Actually, Melanie, the powers that be in Italy are very disgruntled with the justice system because it inconveniences them directly.  So the more negative attention the legal system got, the more it benefited them personally because they could say “we too have been unjustly accused.”

Whether this decision was correct or not, whether it was arrived at due to incompetence or corruption, we have no way of knowing for now.  But I don’t think it says much about the Italian justice system in general.  While no system is perfect, they’ve fought and won some hard fights, and some extraordinary people have lost their lives in this process.  Hopefully, the Supreme Court will honor this tradition and take a hard, unbiased look at the Hellman report.

“To me any motive seems unnecessary.  When drink and drugs are thrown into the mix of someone’s mind then anything can happen, depending upon how that person is feeling at the time, as certain drugs can exacerbate what ever feelings are current.  If panic sets in over something going awry, then under the influence that panic will escalate resulting in what happened to poor Meredith.  So no, I am not that concerned about looking for a motive.”

I agree with this. I think it was just the effects of drugs coupled with pent-up rage/jealousy against Meredith.

What I would like to know is this: when the defamation case comes up, will Amanda return to Italy to face trial? If she doesn’t: doesn’t that make her look guilty? And if she does—surely the truth will out? With that looming in the distance I can’t imagine that the Amanda cheerleaders are too happy.

This is a good article, I’ve never come across this particular blog before.

http://thisitalianlife.blogspot.com/2011/10/life-knoxd-out.html

This is interesting 58% of voters think Amanda is guilty!

http://arbiteronline.com/2011/10/10/acquitted-or-not-evidence-points-to-amanda-knoxs-guilt/#idc-cover

What has happened to the Knox PR machine?

Raffaele lies very smoothly on any given occasion. Just don’t compare one lie to another, as willsavive’s four versions remind us.

Raffaele would give Amanda the weight of a downy feather (in version #4). Truth was, she had him very quickly in her predator’s talons. It is she who aroused a deadly pathology which had been ripening earlier as fantasy & self-conceit (his posted photo with meat cleaver.)

But we must live with results &, so far, what result?  An enormous failure in the second trial: Amanda is home free. A supreme court on a mere review will not bring Raffaele back for trial. The case is over (one might believe) except for consequence—what some call karma.

We shift to the psychology of the matter. Amanda Knox commits to falsehood as a way of life. Every wicked little appetite within, every nasty impulse still needing to be curbed—all that’s to be caged in a pleasing persona: wholesome all-American girl with story to sell.

To me it is inconceivable that she can live on those terms. She’s a vital animal, come right down to it, with the ethics of a weasel. Can she be kept in a cage now like a father’s pet parrot?

Or imagine the improbable (with a nod to the prison chaplain): she has secretly repented. Before God she has made confession & in many a fervent, desperate prayer has promised: Never again!  Secrecy of that sort might carry her to some extent.  Yet precisely as secrecy it cannot restore her to the human community.

Ernest, your posts are always so wonderfully insightful.  This is what I thought of when I read your post: the many prisons of Amanda Knox.  She may have escaped a literal prison, but she’s currently caught up in an image construction machine, and, like you said, will be forever trapped inside a manufactured person who is nothing like her real self.  This whole PR initiative sounds like something taken out of Baudrillard: simulacra of simulacra. 

Regarding the final outcome of the trial, I don’t think we need to be that pessimistic.  There have been some interesting, detailed posts on PMF from people with a law background and they think that there is a chance this verdict might be overturned.  Knox may never be extradited, but she would still have a serious criminal record which may render her unemployable.  Sollecito would be an exile, which, due to his extreme dependence on his family, may be very difficult for him in the long run.

As a complete aside - does anyone know why Curt Knox lost his job?

Melanie,
Were you wondering about the shard of glass found in Meredith’s bedroom, or was it someone else?

- I think Brmull might have a theory about it.

Hi Melanie. On why Curt Knox lost his job. I believe this is the full story though our Seattlites always know so much more. He was the head of a small regional accounting group based in the Seattle Macy’s and it was downsized out of existence so all staff there had to start over. He is back in work at the Seattle opera house, which probably pays a lot less money.

It is well known (there are open court documents) that although he seemed able to, he repeatedly failed to pay the required child support for Amanda in her first few years and at various times Edda took him to court. He barely saw AK from year to year before Chris came along. Did this hurt Amanda? Who knows? But traumatic rejection episodes in childhood often do lead to mental conditions like NPD.

Yes Melanie, a very fair article on AK in prison with some new facts that you linked to.  http://thisitalianlife.blogspot.com/2011/10/life-knoxd-out.html

The poster gets it wrong at only one point. Rudy was not an illegal. You can read his tale up to a few weeks before his arrest here:

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

Nobody here lets Guede off the hook - he was violent to Meredith, may have saved her life, and lied to the very end about her inviting him home for sex.

But it is hard to put that bio together with all these FOA claims that he was a drifter, a drug dealer, a serial burglar, a knife carrier and menacer, and was repeatedly let off by the police.

If the bio is correct, he had only arrived back in Perugia a short time before Meredith moved there, and he had money saved from the job up north with which he rented an apartment where he lived alone.

Prior to the arrests of the three, he was the only one that had no police record.

Yes thanks for that Peter, I’ve read Darkness Descending and Angel Face I should have picked that up myself. I see that there are many people from many nationalities on here - Meredith has captured hearts and minds from across the globe! I’m Irish and living in Dublin, there are Kercherites everywhere:0)

Hi Starsdad Il Secolo one of Italys main papers [I believe] polled 2,500 people and 68% say the wrong verdict was passed down!!!

Thanks Peter - on the Curt/Amanda relationship I had read in Angel Face [I think] that she refers to Ashley and Delaney as ‘the replacement children’

Reposted for Levelheaded from the closed thread down below:

*************

Thank you for maintaining a forum and archive that allows people to process this case.

I stumbled across your site a few years ago and found it convincing and I think that is notable because I 1) don’t follow crime stories, 2) consider myself a pretty practiced skeptic, and 3) in no way wish to associate myself with celebrities (e.g., Ann Coulter, Nancy Grace) who appear only to want to punish “sexually promiscuous” girls/Seattle hippies such as Knox. 

I am wondering about the best way to convince others like myself. I think at this point that most people who have not followed the case (and many who have) are inclined to think it closed. And they will find continued discussion of the case a sign of obsession rather than an urgent call for justice. How to change their minds?

Your list of unanswered questions and your “vital must-reads” both assume Knox’s guilt where a court of law has found otherwise. It will be easy for skeptics to assume that we’ve convinced ourselves that all these details are significant because we’re inclined to believe Knox guilty.

At this point, it seems important to explain why Knox and Sollecito became suspects in the first place. To that end, it would be helpful to have a post that asks questions about the case that remain unanswered. It would be very helpful to lay out the things that no one disputes—such as details of the crime and the crime scene—without laying blame anywhere. And then invite skeptics to make sense of them. Things like - the break in was staged, the crime scene cleaned, the attack perpetrated by more than one person, Meredith’s clothes removed after she died, the dryer going when police arrived (though perhaps that last bit is part of the misinformation that surrounds this case?).

Rather than focus on DNA, phone records, and Knox’s weird behavior, why not highlight that no one disputes the fact that blood had been mopped up from the hallway. Then, if you go with the theory that drifter/strangers broke into the house, you have to explain why they hung around to mop up blood from the hallway. Why would they do that? Why is the drifter/stranger theory MORE plausible? These details might help others to understand why Knox and Sollecito became suspects in the first place.

Many people are saying that it is outrageous that the police would ever suspect them. I think the proper response to that is to explain why it would have been outrageous NOT to suspect them. Indeed, it is outrageous to assume Meredith’s murder to be a random act of violence on the part of strangers without first ruling out suspects closer to home. Crime statistics support such an approach. Knox and Sollecito became suspects because it was the most plausible way to explain an attack that did not seem sexually motivated, nor did it appear to be motivated by theft, and did involve multiple assailants.

I think such an approach would show that this website isn’t so much about “getting” Knox as it is explaining an unusual crime through good detective work and in doing so achieving justice for Meredith.

Excellent post Levelheaded, a very good idea..
Mel

Spot on, Levelheaded.
If AK and RS hadn’t been such cocky egomaniacs, they might have paid more attention to the “normal” reactions of the other friends and acquaintances surrounding Meredith, and blended in to the crowd. Instead Knox couldn’t help being quirky and special, thus attracting suspicion. They dropped themselves right in it, and once under scrutiny, simply dug that hole deeper and deeper.

I am posting the links relating to the above article, in case anyone wants to substantiate the facts.

http://www.mirror.co.uk/sunday-mirror/2007/11/04/italy-murder-details-emerge-98487-20058122/

Kate Mansey also relates to the circumstances of the interview.

Sunday Mirror
http://www.mirror.co.uk/sunday-mirror/2007/11/11/day-i-met-meredith-suspect-raffaele-98487-20092572/

I am following Sollecitos strange behaviour just after the murder.

Amy Frost said about Sollecito. ‘He came up to me and said “I am Raffaele, Amanda’s boyfriend. Amanda was at my house last night with me. She didn’t leave until 10.30 this morning. When she got back she found the apartment with the door open.”’

Ms Frost added: ‘He just carried on without me asking him anything.’

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1089004/Foxy-Knoxy-cut-neck-Meredith-murder-flatmate-tells-prosecutors.html#ixzz1bEMspH6m

Raffaele Sollecito admitted to police that he lied to them in the hours after Meredith’s death. He said:”I want to tell you that before I told a load of bollocks.”

Reporting police ....He said that the three had continually changed their stories and that things “just didn’t add up.” He explained:”Initially the American gave a version of events which we knew was not correct. “She buckled and made an admission of facts that we knew were correct and from that we were able to bring them in.

http://www.express.co.uk/posts/view/24505

RS does strike me as behaving in a way that was quite strange and the statement to Frost sounds so rehearsed, seems like such an obvious ploy to establish their alibis, in addition to his willingness to talk to Kate Ramsey and what he said about seeing blood everywhere, as if he woke up from his druggie state at that time in the room and realized what had happened;, as far as the trial stated he didn’t see the room when the police broke down the door so how could he remark on what it looked like.  He didn’t say “the others said the room was like such and such” as was claimed by AK in the trial.  I don’t know why his conflicting statements were not more remarked on during the trial.  Sometimes it is the silent types who are hiding the most.  But on the other hand the lack of more DNA evidence at the apartment is also strange.  I was thinking about the possible bleach clean-up and people mentioned that no one remarked on a bleach smell, but I wonder how long it takes to wear off, whether it was necessarily bleach that would clean up the scene, and also about the new types of bleach which have a pleasant scent (I have some).  Also about MK’s clothes in the washing machine, whether there is any possibility that AK wore MK’s clothes during the attack, possibly hiding them in her room first.  Or is my imagination running too wild?  I have this feeling we will never know what really happened or why.  I read somewhere too that RS took his clothes and shoes to a laundry after the murder but haven’t seen that anywhere since so perhaps was just a rumor.  If gloves were used during the attack then it certainly was premeditated. 

If Rudy was the only one there how is it possible that he would clean up some footprints but leave others?  Why would he move the body and rearrange the clothing to look like rape? 

One thing is for sure, people can do some really bizarre inexplicable things. 

I was reading about a famous case in the USA, Diane Downs, who tried to kill all three of her children but succeeded with only one but maimed the other two, in order to stay with her married lover (or so she thought).  She claimed it was a bearded stranger who shot them.  People were very divided on whether she was a victim or a murderer, until her poor little girl testified against her.  Unfortunately for Diane, she lived because otherwise maybe she would have gotten away with it.  The hospital personnel where she dropped off the kids were shocked at her lack of emotion and light-hearted mood while the kids were being treated.  She had no previous record or history of violence except an obsession with this lover. 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diane_Downs
http://www.trutv.com/library/crime/notorious_murders/famous/downs/witness_5.html

Raphaelle Sollecito’s descriptions of Amanda are unfailingly accurate in their perceptiveness:

“She lived her life like a dream, she was detached from reality, she couldn’t distinguish dream from reality. Her life seemed to be pure pleasure; she had a contact with reality that was almost non-existent.”

Not bad for an amateur. Compare that to the professional:

“Let us assume that this dimension of experience which gives to all experience its substance or reality is one into which the psychopath does not enter. Or, to be more accurate, let us say that he enters, but only so superficially that his reality is thin or unsubstantial to the point of being insignificant.” - Mask of Sanity, Hervey Cleckley.

Where next:

Or to next entry “Wrong To Capitalise On Any Murder. Not Just For Us, But For Anyone”

Or to previous entry US And UK Media: Make RS & AK Answer The HUNDREDS AND HUNDREDS Of Open Questions