Thursday, June 12, 2014
Fifty Of The Most Common Myths Still Promoted Without Restraint By The Knox PR Campaign
Posted by The Machine
Fooled ya! Knox’s parents have the mythmaking machine’s pedal to the floor, and arent slowing it
Introduction
I’ve listed the 50 most common myths circulating in the media with regard to the Amanda Knox/Meredith Kercher case and refuted them using as far as possible the official court documents and court testimony.
1. Knox was called to the Perugia central police station on 5 November 2007.
Neither the police nor the prosecutors brought Knox in for questioning on 5 November 2007. She was there unwanted, and stayed after it was suggested she go home and sleep.
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.”
Monica Napoleoni, the head of Perugia’s homicide squad, said they told Knox she should go home to rest, but Knox insisted on staying:
Amanda also came that evening, the evening of the 5th. We said to Amanda that she could go home to rest. Since, during those days, she was always saying, always complaining that she wanted to rest, wanted to eat, we said: “˜Look, you’ve eaten; you can go and rest yourself. If there’s a need, we’ll call you.’
Instead, she was very nervous, and insisted on staying there.
Inspector Rita Ficarra was the one who led the discussion on a list of possible perps with Knox.
Rita Ficarra: My astonishment was that I saw, I found her there, and I found her doing ““ demonstrating ““ her gymnastic abilities: she was doing a cartwheel; she had shown the back arch, she had done the splits, and it seemed to me, sincerely, a bit out of place, that is to say given the circumstances, the moment and the place. For which [reason] I admonished her, and I even asked her what she was doing there.
She, and my colleagues also confirmed this, said to me that she had come because they had called Raffaele Sollecito, he had been invited that evening to give another recap, and she had accompanied him.
Judge Massei [GCM]: You said this to her in English or in Italian?
RF: In Italian. I reiterate that she speaks Italian, with me she speaks only in Italian. I do not understand a word of English, so “¦ My colleagues confirm that there was Sollecito who was there in another room and in that moment the Deputy Commissioner Napoleoni and other colleagues were listening to him.
And continuing to speak, the girl told me that she was rather shocked at the fact, annoyed at the fact that she had been called and recalled several times by the Police and [that] she was totally tired.
At that point, I also admonished her because I said: you’re tired, yet nonetheless you came this evening, when nobody has invited you: you could have gone to rest. And furthermore ““ I said ““ you don’t understand that we are talking about a murder, of a person that you say was your friend, [who] lived in the same house as you, it happened in your house. If the Police call you, put yourself in our shoes: we need useful information.
2. Knox was subjected to an all-night interrogation on 5/6 November.
According to Barbie Nadeau in 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 11pm.”
After Amanda Knox had made her witness statement at 1:45am, she wasn’t questioned again that evening. She decided to made another witness statement at 5:45am, but she wasn’t asked any questions.
3. Knox wasn’t provided with an interpreter for her questioning on 5 November 2007.
This claim is completely false as shown through the trial testimony of Knox and her interpreter. Knox’s interpreter on 5 November 2007, Anna Donnino, testified at length at trial about Knox’s convesrsation that evening. And Amanda Knox herself spoke about her interpreter when she later gave testimony at the trial.
4. Knox wasn’t given anything to eat or drink.
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, chamomile 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.’
Also 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 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 chamomile tea.
This is from the relevant court transcript:
Monica Napoleoni: Amanda was given something to drink several times. She was brought hot chamomile; she was taken to the bar of the Questura to eat. First she was given brioches from the little [vending] machine.
Carlo Pacelli: These methods of treatment, how did they translate into practice? With what behaviour/actions [were they carried out] in actual fact? Earlier, you recalled that they actually brought her something to eat”¦
MN: It’s true. That morning, I remember that Inspector Ficarra actually took her to the bar to eat as soon as it opened. But before [that], we have little [vending] machines on the ground floor, and she was brought water, she was brought hot drinks, she was brought a snack. But also Raffaele, he was given something to drink; it’s not as though they were kept “¦ absolutely.
Giuliano Mignini: Had types of comfort been offered to her?
Anna Donnino: Well, during the evening, yes, in the sense that I remember that someone went down to the ground floor; it was the middle of the night, so in the station at that hour there are those automatic distributors; there’s nothing else; someone went to the ground floor and brought everybody something to drink, some hot drinks and something to eat. I myself had a coffee, so I believe that she also had something.
Above: Several of the myth inventors and disseminators: Sforza, Mellas, Preston
5. Knox was beaten by the police.
The witnesses who were present when Knox was questioned, including her interpreter, testified under oath at the trial in 2009 that she wasn’t hit. (Under Italian law, witnesses must testify under oath, while defendants do not, so are not required by law to be truthful on the stand.)
These are from the relevant court transcripts:
Giuliano Mignini: Do you recall, shall we say, that night between the 1st and then the spontaneous declarations and then the order for arrest, who and what was with her, other than you, whether there were other subjects that spoke with us, how they behaved? Did [she] undergo/experience violent [sic: NdT: “violente” in Italian, probably typo for “violenze” = “violence/force/assault”] by any chance?
Rita Ficarra: Absolutely not.
GM: Was she intimidated, threatened?
RF: No. I, as I said earlier, I came in that evening and there were some colleagues from the Rome SCO, I was with Inspector Fausto Passeri, then I saw come out, that is come out from the entry-door to the offices of the Flying [Squad] the Assistant Zugarini and Monica Napoleoni, who appeared for an instant just outside there, then we went back in calmly, because the discussion we had with her was quite calm.
Giuliano Mignini: ... violence, of “¦
Monica Napoleoni: But absolutely not!
Mignini: You remember it”¦ you’ve described it; however, I’ll ask it. Was she threatened? Did she suffer any beatings?
Anna Donnino: Absolutely not.
GM: She suffered maltreatments?
AD: Absolutely not.
Carlo Pacelli: In completing and consolidating in cross-examination the questions by the public prosecutor, I refer to the morning of the 6th of November, to the time when Miss Knox had made her summary information. In that circumstance, Miss Knox was struck on the head with punches and slaps?
Anna Donnino: Absolutely not.
CP: In particular, was she struck on the head by a police woman?
AD: Absolutely not!
CP: Miss Knox was, however, threatened?
AD: No, I can exclude that categorically!
CP: With thirty years of prison”¦ ?
AD: No, no, absolutely not.
CP: Was she, however, sworn at, in the sense that she was told she was a liar?
AD: I was in the room the whole night, and I saw nothing of all this.
CP: So the statements that had been made had been made spontaneously, voluntarily?
AD: Yes.
Carlo Della Valla: This”¦
Giancarlo Massei: Pardon, but let’s ask questions”¦ if you please.
CP: You were also present then during the summary informations made at 5:45?
AD: Yes.
CP: And were they done in the same way and methods as those of 1:45?
AD: I would say yes. Absolutely yes.
CP: To remove any shadow of doubt from this whole matter, as far as the summary information provided at 5:45 Miss Knox was struck on the head with punches and slaps?
AD: No.
CP: In particular, was she struck on the head by a policewoman?
AD: No.
Even Amanda Knox’s lawyer, Luciano Ghirga, distanced himself in the Italian media from these allegations and never lodged any complaint:
There were pressures from the police, but we never said she was hit.
6. Knox was refused a lawyer.
Rita Ficarra and Anna Donnino testified that Knox was several times advised to have a lawyer, but each she declined the offer:
Anna Donnino: ...she was asked if she wanted a lawyer.
Giuliano Mignini: And what was her response?
AD: She had answered no; I remember that she replied with no.
Before she insisted on drafting her 1:45 and 5:45 am accusations Knox was advised to have a lawyer advise her, but she declined and pressed on.
Dr Mignini has wondered if the Supreme Court really understood this in banning the two unprovoked accusations from Knox’s main trial.
7. Knox was tag-teamed by two police officers every hour.
According to Anna Donnino, who arrived at the police station at about 12:30am, there was a total of three people in the room with Knox:
Anna Donnino: “I had been made to enter a room where in fact there was Inspector Ficarra at a small table, another colleague from SCO (I only remember his first name; he was called Ivano), a police officer, and there was Miss Knox seated. I seated myself beside her.”
Above: Several of the main myth inventors and disseminators: Fischer, Sforza, Moore
8. Knox was asked to imagine what might have happened.
According to the corroborative testimony of the three others present, including Rita Ficarra and Anna Donnino, Amanda Knox voluntarily and spontaneously accused Patrick Lumumba of murdering Meredith.
Here is Rita Ficarra.
We found only that one [text message] sent by her. She was given the mobile into her hand, and it was said, who is this person, and did you go out later or not? She said the name of Patrick Lumumba, and gave the declaration that then ...
GM: And what behaviour did she then adopt/assume?
RF: She suddenly put her hands to her head, burst out crying and said to us “It’s him, it’s him, it was him, he killed her”. It was the only time that I saw her cry.
GM: This behaviour, did she then continue like that during the course of that morning, by now we were at what time?...
RF: No, she was as if she was giving vent in that moment, she cried, she began to say that he was crazy, he was crazy.
Here is Anna Donnino:
Judge Massei: This change, at what moment did it happen, and in what did it consist of?
Anna Donnono: The change had occurred right after this message, in the sense that the signorina said she hadn’t replied to the message from Patrick, when instead her reply message was shown to her she had a true and proper emotional shock. It’s a thing that has remained very strongly with me because the first thing that she did is that she immediately puts her hands on her ears, making this gesture rolling her head, curving in her shoulders also and saying “It’s him! It’s him! It was him! I can see/hear him or: I know it.[Lo sento]” and so on and so forth.
Carlo Pacelli: So the statements that had been made had been made spontaneously, voluntarily?
Anna Donnino: Yes.
Here is Judge Massei.
[After hearing and weighing up the testimony of these witnesses and Amanda Knox, Judge Massei stated that it couldn’t be claimed that] “Amanda Knox was persuaded by the investigators to accuse Diya Lumumba, aka Patrick, by means of various pressing requests which she could not resist.” (Massei report, page 388.)
[He noted that there had been] “no corroboration of the pressing requests which Amanda was seemingly subjected to in order to accuse Diya Lumumba of the crime committed to the detriment of Meredith.” (Massei report, page 389.)
Judge Massei concluded at trial in 2009 that Knox had freely accused Patrick Lumumba of Meredith’s murder and awarded her a prison sentence for calunnia confirmed in 2013 by the Supreme Court for which there is no further appeal.
9. Amanda Knox claimed she had had a “dream-like vision” in her witness statements.
Amanda Knox makes no mention of a dream or vision in her two witness statements. She categorically states that she met Diya Lumumba at Piazza Grimana and that they went to the cottage on Via della Pergola. In her first witness statement, she claims that Lumumba killed Meredith.
This is from the 1:45 am statement.
I responded to the message by telling him that we would see each other at once; I then left the house, telling my boyfriend that I had to go to work. In view of the fact that during the afternoon I had smoked a joint, I felt confused, since I do not frequently make use of mind-altering substances, nor of heavier substances.
I met Patrik immediately afterward, at the basketball court on Piazza Grimana, and together we went [to my] home. I do not recall whether Meredith was there or arrived afterward. I struggle to remember those moments, but Patrik had sex with Meredith, with whom he was infatuated, but I do not recall whether Meredith had been threatened beforehand. I recall confusedly that he killed her.
This is from the 5:45 am statement.
I wish to relate spontaneously what happened because these events have deeply bothered me and I am really afraid of Patrick… I met him in the evening of November 1st 2007, after sending him a reply message saying “I will see you”. We met soon after at about 21.00 at the basketball court of Piazza Grimana. We went to my apartment in Via della Pergola n. 7.
I do not clearly remember if Meredith was already at home or if she came later, what I can say is that Patrick and Meredith went into Meredith’s room, while I think I stayed in the kitchen. I cannot remember how long they stayed together in the room but I can only say that at a certain point I heard Meredith screaming and as I was scared I plugged up my ears.
10. Amanda Knox was questioned in Italian
The police provided Amanda Knox with an interpreter, Anna Donnino, so that she could be questioned in English.
11. Dr Mignini questioned Knox on 5 November 2007.
Dr Mignini did not question Amanda Knox that evening. She wanted to make further declarations, and he came to the police station on the night only because he was on duty and had to witness Knox being cautioned. After Knox was cautioned that she need not say anything without a lawyer, Knox nevertheless insisted that she draft a second statement in front of him.
Mr Mignini explained what happened in his e-mail letter to Linda Byron, a journalist for King5 in Seattle:
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:
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.
12. Knox didn’t confess until 6am.
Amanda Knox’s first written statement was made at 1:45am. It was not a confession, it was a false accusation.
13. Knox retracted her allegation against Lumumba immediately.
Amanda Knox didn’t retract her accusation immediately. In fact, she never did formally. Knox reiterated her allegation in her handwritten note to the police late morning of 6 November 2007, which was admitted in evidence: From the Massei report:
[Amanda] herself, furthermore, in the statement of 6 November 2007 (admitted into evidence ex. articles 234 and 237 of the Criminal Procedure Code and which was mentioned above) wrote, among other things, the following:
I stand by my [accusatory] statements that I made last night about events that could have taken place in my home with Patrick”¦in these flashbacks that I’m having, I see Patrick as the murderer”¦
This statement was that specified in the notes of 6 November 2007, at 20:00, by Police Chief Inspector Rita Ficarra, and was drawn up following the notification of the detention measure, by Amanda Knox, who “requested blank papers in order to produce a written statement to hand over” to the same Ficarra. (Massei report, page 389.)
Knox did not withdraw the false accusation at her first hearing in front of a magistrate on 8 November.
The Massei court took note of the fact that Amanda Knox didn’t recant her false and malicious allegation against Diya Lumumba during the entire time, two weeks, he was kept in prison.
14. In the days following Meredith’s murder, Knox voluntarily stayed in Perugia to help the police
This claim is 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, a friend of Meredith, reported the following conversation (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.’ “
15. All of Meredith’s friends left immediately.
The police also told Sophie Purton that they needed her to stay on in Perugia on precisely the same basis as Amanda Knox. 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. Her father stayed on with her.
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.
16. There were only two tiny pieces of DNA evidence that implicated her, but they were probably contaminated.
The Italian Supreme Court explained how DNA evidence should be assessed in court; i.e., contamination must be proven with certainty, not supposition. The Court stated that the theory “anything is possible” in genetic testing is not valid.
The burden of proof is on the person who asserts contamination, not the person who denies it.
In other words, if the defence lawyers claim the DNA evidence was contaminated, they must describe the specific place and time where it could have plausibly occurred. Nobody has ever proved that the bra clasp and knife evidence were contaminated. Even Conti and Vecchiotti excluded contamination in the laboratory:
“Laboratory contamination was also excluded by these experts [Conti and Vecchiotti].” (The Supreme Court report, page 92.)
(1) The bra clasp
The fact that the bra clasp was not collected immediately because defense witnesses were not available is irrelevant. The cottage was a sealed crime scene and nobody entered the room during this time:
...the flat had been sealed and nobody had had the opportunity to enter, as shown in the case file.” (The Italian Supreme Court report, page 92.)
Alberto Intini, the head of the Italian police forensic science unit, excluded environmental contamination because “DNA doesn’t fly.”
Even Conti and Vecchiotti excluded contamination in the laboratory because Dr Stefanoni last handled Sollecito’s DNA twelve days before she analysed the bra clasp.
Professor Francesca Torricelli testified that it was unlikely the clasp was contaminated because there was a significant amount of Sollecito’s DNA on it. His DNA was identified by two separate DNA tests. Of the 17 loci tested in the sample, Sollecito’s profile matched 17 out of 17.
David Balding, a Professor of Statistical Genetics at University College London, analysed the DNA evidence against Sollecito and concluded that the evidence was strong”
“...because Sollecito is fully represented in the stain at 15 loci (we still only use 10 in the UK, so 15 is a lot), the evidence against him is strong”¦”
(2) The knife
Dr Stefanoni analysed the traces on the knife six days after last handling Meredith’s DNA. This means that contamination couldn’t have occurred in the laboratory. Meredith had never been to Sollecito’s apartment, so contamination away from the laboratory was impossible.
The knife and bra clasp are not the only pieces of DNA evidence.
According to the prosecution’s experts, there were five samples of Knox’s DNA or blood mixed with Meredith’s blood in three different locations in the cottage. After the trial in 2009, The Kerchers’ lawyer, Francesco Maresca, said the mixed-blood evidence was the most damning piece of evidence against Amanda Knox.
The Scientific Police experts concluded it proves that Meredith and Knox were bleeding at the same time.
17. The knife has essentially been thrown out.
The knife hasn’t been thrown out. A further DNA sample (36-I) was extracted from the blade last year and tested by the Carabinieri RIS DNA experts Major Berti and Captain Barni. The sample was attributed to Amanda Knox, the second. Judge Nencini stated in his report that Knox stabbed Meredith with the knife.
Above: Several of the myth inventors and disseminators: Hampikian, Burleigh, Heavey
18. The knife doesn’t match any of the wounds on Meredith’s body.
The prosecution experts, multiple defence experts and Judge Massei in his report have all agreed that the double DNA knife DID match the large wound on Meredith’s neck.
“On these matters, the considerations already made must be recalled which led this Court to evaluate the outcome of the genetic investigation as reliable, and this knife as absolutely compatible with the most serious wound.” (Massei report, page 375.)
Barbie Nadeau, an American journalist based in Rome, reported directly from the courtroom in Perugia that multiple witnesses for the defence, including Dr. Carlo Torre, conceded that the double DNA knife was compatible with the deep puncture wound in Meredith’s neck.
According to multiple witnesses for the defense, the knife is compatible with at least one of the three wounds on Kercher’s neck, but it was likely too large for the other two. (Barbie Nadeau, Newsweek.)
He (Dr. Carlo Torre, defence expert) conceded that a third larger wound could have been made with the knife, but said it was more likely it was made by twisting a smaller knife. (Barbie Nadeau, The Daily Beast.)
19. The DNA on the blade could match half the population of Italy.
Vieri Fabani, a lawyer for the Kerchers, pointed out that there is the possibility of 1 in 1 billion 300 million that the DNA on the blade does not belong to Meredith.
20. Meredith’s DNA wasn’t found on the blade of the knife.
A number of independent forensic experts—Dr. Patrizia Stefanoni, Dr. Renato Biondo, Professor Giuseppe Novelli, Professor Francesca Torricelli and Luciano Garofano—have all confirmed that sample 36B was Meredith’s DNA.
Even American experts Elizabeth Johnson, Greg Hampikian and Bruce Budowle, who have been critical of the Scientific Police’s work in this case, have conceded that the DNA was consistent with Meredith’s DNA profile.
It should be noted that none of these American experts testified at the trial or played any official role in the case. They became involved in the case after being approached by supporters of Amanda Knox. They had no bearing on the legal proceedings in Florence.
Judge Nencini accepted that Judge’s Massei and the prosecution’s assertions that Meredith’s DNA was on the blade of Sollecito’s kitchen knife and that it was the murder weapon.
21. No other knives were taken from Sollecito’s apartment.
Judge Massei discusses a jack-knife that was 18cm long with an 8cm blade at some length and the results of the DNA tests that were carried out on it:
“He [Armando Finzi] recalled they found another knife whose total length was 18cm, with an 8cm blade”¦” (Massei report, page 106.)
“On the jack”‘knife, four samples were taken, with negative results where blood-derived substances had been looked for; on the fourth sample, which involved the handle, the genetic profile was found to be of Sollecito plus Knox.” ( Massei report, page 194.)
22. The knife was chosen at random.
Armando Finzi was the police officer who bagged the knife. He testified that he thought it was the murder weapon because it was compatible with the wound on Meredith’s neck. Andrea Vogt explained this in the same article:
“Armando Finzi, an assistant in the Perugia police department’s organized crimes unit, first discovered the knife in Sollecito’s kitchen drawer. He said the first thing he noticed upon entering the place was a “˜strong smell of bleach.’ He opened the drawer and saw a “˜very shiny and clean’ knife lying on top of the silverware tray.
” “˜It was the first knife I saw,’ he said. When pressed on cross-examination, he said his “˜investigative intuition’ led him to believe it was the murder weapon because it was compatible with the wound as it had been described to him. With gloved hands, he placed the knife in a new police envelope, taped it shut with Scotch tape, then placed it inside a folder, he said. There were smaller and bigger knives in the drawer, but no others were taken into evidence from the kitchen, he said.” (Andrea Vogt, The Seattle Post-Intelligencer, 28 February 2009.)
23. No control tests were done.
John Follain pointed out in Death in Perugia that the control tests had been filed with another judge:
“The tests had been filed with an earlier test, and Judge Pratillo Hellmann later admitted them as evidence.” (Death in Perugia, Kindle edition, page 409.)
The judges at the Supreme Court in Italy noted in their report that the negative controls had been carried out:
“...since all the negative controls to exclude it [contamination] had been done by Dr Stefanoni”¦” (Supreme Court report, page 93.)
The judges at the Italian Supreme Court criticised the court-appointed independent experts Conti and Vecchiotti for assuming they hadn’t been done.
24. There is no evidence of Amanda Knox at the actual crime scene.
The crime scene involves the whole cottage and isn’t limited to Meredith’s room. Knox and Sollecito were both convicted of staging the break-in in Filomena’s room. Furthermore, there is plenty of evidence placing Amanda Knox in Meredith’s room on the night of the murder.
For example, her DNA was found on the handle of the murder weapon, her bare bloody footprints were revealed by Luminol in the hallway and her own room and, according to the Scientific Police, her blood was mixed with Meredith’s blood in different parts of the cottage. Knox’s lamp was found in Meredith’s room, and a shoeprint in her size of shoe.
25. None of the Luminol* stains contained Meredith’s DNA.
Two of the traces revealed by Luminol contained Meredith’s DNA:
“Amanda (with her feet stained with Meredith’s blood for having been present in her room when she was killed) had gone into Romanelli’s room and into her [own] room, leaving traces [which were highlighted] by Luminol, some of which (one in the corridor, the L8, and one, the L2, in Romanelli’s room) were mixed, that is, constituted of a biological trace attributable to [both] Meredith and Amanda”¦” (Massei report, page 380.)
[* Luminol is a substance used in crime-scene investigations to reveal blood that has been cleaned up. It reacts with the microscopic particles of iron in the blood and turns it fluorescent.]
26. Mignini is persecuting Amanda Knox.
As shown above Dr Mignini was absent when Knox made her false accusation. Because of checks and balances, prosecutors in Italy have far less power than their American counterparts. The decision to send Knox to trial was actually made by Judge Micheli in 2008, not by Dr Mignini.
Judge Massei, Judge Cristiani and six lay judges found Knox guilty of murder in Perugia in 2009, and Judge Nencini, Judge Cicerchia and six lay judges confirmed Knox guilty of murder at the appeal in Florence in January 2014.
Dr Mignini is just one of several prosecutors who have been involved in the case. Manuela Comodi was Mignini’s co-prosecutor at the the trial in 2009. Giancarlo Costagliola was the main prosecutor in the first appeal, which was annulled by the Italian Supreme Court. He and Giovanni Galati appealed against the 2011 acquittals. Dr Mignini played no part in the new appeal in Florence. Alessandro Crini was the prosecutor.
27. Mignini claimed Meredith was killed as part of a satanic ritual.
Mignini has never claimed that Meredith was killed during a satanic or sacrificial ritual, and that’s the reason why no one has been able to provide a verbatim quote from Mignini supporting this false accusation.
Mignini specifically denied claiming that Meredith was killed in a sacrificial rite, in his letter to the Seattle reporter Linda Byron:
“On the “˜sacrificial rite’ question, I have never said that Meredith Kercher was the victim of a “˜sacrificial rite.’ “
Mignini also made it quite clear that he has never claimed that Meredith was killed as part of a satanic rite in his interview with Drew Griffin on CNN:
Drew Griffin: “You’ve never said that Meredith’s death was a satanic rite?”
Mignini: “I have never said that. I have never understood who has and continues to say that. I read, there was a reporter ““ I don’t know his name; I mention it because I noticed it ““ who continues to repeat this claim that, perhaps, knowing full well that it’s not like that.
“I have never said that there might have been a satanic rite. I’ve never said it, so I would like to know who made it up.”
Above: Several of the myth inventors and disseminators: Kassin, Dempsey, Douglas
28. Mignini claimed Meredith was killed in a sex game that went wrong.
Mignini didn’t say anything about there being a sex game that went wrong when he presented his timeline to the court at the trial. Please be warned that there is some extremely graphic content below:
[Timeline of the attack on Meredith]
23:21: Amanda and Raffaele go into the bedroom while Rudy goes to the bathroom.
23:25: A scuffle begins between Amanda, helped by Raffaele, and Meredith. The English girl is taken by the neck, then banged against a cupboard, as shown by wounds to the skull. She resists all this. Rudy Guede enters.
23:30: Meredith falls to the floor. The three try to undress her to overcome her; they only manage to take off her trousers. The girl manages to get up, she struggles. At this point, the two knives emerge from the pockets of Amanda and Raffaele: one with a blade of four to five centimetres, the other, however, a big kitchen knife. Meredith tries to fend off the blades with her right hand. She is wounded.
23:35: The assault continues. Sollecito tries to rip off the English girl’s bra.
23:40: Meredith is on her knees, threatened by Amanda with the knife while Rudy holds her with one hand and with the other hand carries out an assault on her vagina. There is first a knife blow on her face, then straight away another. However, these blows are not effective. The three become more violent. With the smaller knife, Sollecito strikes a blow: the blade penetrates 4 centimetres into the neck.
There is a harrowing cry, which some witnesses will talk about. Amanda decides to silence her, still according to the video brought to court by the prosecutors, and strikes a blow to the throat with the kitchen knife: it will be the fatal wound. Meredith collapses on the floor.
23:45: Meredith is helped up by Rudy and is coughing up blood. The English girl, dying, is dragged along so that she can continue to be undressed.
29. Mignini called Amanda Knox a “she-devil.”
It wasn’t Mignini who called Amanda Knox a “she-devil”; it was Carlo Pacelli, the lawyer who represents Diya Lumumba, at the trial in 2009.
Carlo Pacelli’s comments were widely reported by numerous journalists who were present in the courtroom. Barbie Nadeau describes the moment he asked if Knox is a she-devil in some detail in Angel Face:
“”˜Who is the real Amanda Knox?’ he asks, pounding his fist in the table. “˜Is she the one we see before us here, all angelic? Or is she really a she-devil focused on sex, drugs, and alcohol, living life on the edge?’
“She is the luciferina—she-devil.’” (Barbie Nadeau, Angel Face, Kindle edition, page 124.)
30. Dr Mignini was convicted of a felony and faced prison.
The Florence Appeal Court and Cassation scathingly threw out a malicious prosecution for which both the prosecutor and judge suffered. Dr Mignini has never faced the slightest risk of prison. Often now seen on national TV, Dr Mignini is expected to be the next Prosecutor General of Umbria.
31. Rudy Guede was a drifter.
Rudy Guede lived in Perugia from the age of five, and he had his own apartment at the time of the murder.
32. Guede had a criminal record at the time of the murder.
Rudy Guede didn’t have any criminal convictions at the time of Meredith’s murder. He was not a drug dealer and not a police informant. As Judge Micheli scathingly noted, there is no proof that he committed any break-ins.
33. Guede left his DNA all over Meredith and all over the crime scene.
There was only one sample of Guede’s DNA on Meredith body and there were only five samples of his DNA at the cottage. His DNA was found on a vaginal swab, on the sleeve of Meredith’s tracksuit, on her bra, on the zip of her purse and on some toilet paper in the bathroom that Filomena and Laura shared.
“...also a genetic profile, from the Y haplotype on the vaginal swab, in which no traces of semen were found; DNA on the toilet paper in the bathroom near the room of Mezzetti, where unflushed faeces were found; on the bag found on the bed; on the left cuff of the blue sweatshirt (described as a “zippered shirt” in the first inspection, discovered smeared with blood near the body and partly underneath it); and on the right side of the bra found by the foot of Kercher’s body”¦” ( Judge Giordano sentencing report, page 5.)
34. Guede left his semen at the crime scene.
Guede’s DNA semen wasn’t found at the crime scene.
“...also a genetic profile, from the Y haplotype on the vaginal swab, in which no traces of semen were found”¦” (Judge Giordano sentencing report, page 5.)
“In one of these swabs was found biological material belonging to a male subject identified as Rudy Hermann Guede. This material, which turned out not to be spermatic [158], could be from saliva or from epithelial cells from exfoliation”¦” (Massei report, page 158.)
35. Guede left his DNA inside Meredith’s bag.
According to the Micheli report, which was made available to the public in January 2009, Guede’s DNA was found on the zip of Meredith’s purse, and not inside it.
“...b) traces attributable to Guede: ...on the bag found on the bed”¦” (Judge Giordano sentencing report, page 5.)
36. Guede left his bloody fingerprints all over the crime scene.
He left zero fingerprints. According to the Micheli report, the Massei report and Rudy Guede’s final sentencing report, Guede was identified by a single bloody palm print:
“...b) traces attributable to Guede: a palm print in blood found on the pillow case of a pillow lying under the victim’s body ““ attributed with absolute certainty to the defendant by its correspondence to papillary ridges as well as 16-17 characteristic points equal in shape and position”¦” (Judge Giordano sentencing report, page 5.)
It is confirmed that Guede was identified by a bloody palm print in the Micheli report (pages 10-11) and the Massei report (page 43).
37. Guede left his hair at the crime scene.
The Scientific Police didn’t find any hair that belonged to Rudy Guede at the crime scene. That’s why there’s no mention of this in any of the court documents.
38. Guede pleaded guilty or confessed.
Rudy Guede has never pleaded guilty or confessed to Meredith’s murder. He offered to testify against Knox and Sollecito at trial in 2009, but the prosecutors did not want to give him any breaks.
39. Guede’s prison sentence was reduced because he made a deal with the prosecutors.
Guede was sentenced to 30 years in prison by Judge Micheli in 2008. However, his sentence was reduced because he opted for a fast-trial, which means he automatically received a third off the sentence of Knox and Sollecito. Generic mitigating circumstances—i.e., his young age—were also taken into consideration.
40. Guede didn’t implicate Knox and Sollecito until much later.
Rudy Guede first implicated Knox and Sollecito whilst on the run in Germany on 19 November 2007 in an intercepted Skype conversation with his friend Giacomo:
Giacomo: “So they [Knox and Sollecito] killed her while she was dressed.”
Guede: “Yes, here it says that they [clothes] were washed in the washing machine, but that’s not true. She was dressed.”
41. Amanda Knox didn’t know Rudy Guede.
Amanda Knox testified in court that she had met Rudy Guede on several occasions.
Here’s the court transcript:
Carlo Pacelli (CP), Patrick Lumumba’s lawyer: In what circumstances did you meet him (Rudy)?
Amanda Knox (AK): I was in the center, near the church. It was during an evening when I met the guys that lived underneath in the apartment underneath us, and while I was mingling with them, they introduced me to Rudy.
CP: So it was on the occasion of a party at the house of the neighbors downstairs?
AK: Yes. What we did is, they introduced me to him downtown just to say “This is Rudy, this is Amanda”, and then I spent most of my time with Meredith, but we all went back to the house together.
CP: Did you also know him, or at least see him, in the pub Le Chic, Rudy?
AK: I think I saw him there once.
CP: Listen, this party at the neighbors, it took place in the second half of October? What period? End of October 2007?
AK: I think it was more in the middle of October.
42. Raffaele Sollecito had never been in trouble with the police.
Raffaele Sollecito had a previous brush with the police in 2003.
“...Antonio Galizia, Carabinieri [C.ri] station commander in Giovinazzo, who testified that in September 2003 Raffaele Sollecito was found in possession of 2.67 grams of hashish.” (Massei report, page 62.)
43. Sollecito had an impeccable track record.
Sollecito was monitored at university after being caught watching hardcore pornography featuring bestiality:
“...and educators at the boy’s ONAOSI college were shocked by a film “˜very much hard-core…where there were scenes of sex with animals with animals,’ at which next they activated a monitoring on the boy to try to understand him. (Pages 130 and 131, hearing 27.3.2009, statements by Tavernesi Francesco).” (Massei report, page 61.)
44. Sollecito couldn’t confirm Knox’s alibi because he was sleeping.
The claim that Sollecito couldn’t confirm Knox’s alibi because he was sleeping is completely contradicted by Sollecito’s witness statement:
“Amanda and I went into town at around 6pm, but I don’t remember what we did. We stayed there until around 8:30 or 9pm.
“At 9pm I went home alone and Amanda said that she was going to Le Chic because she wanted to meet some friends. We said goodbye. I went home, I rolled myself a spliff and made some dinner.” (Aislinn Simpson, The Daily Telegraph, 7 November 2007.)
Police said Raffaele Sollecito had continued to claim he was not present on the evening of the murder. He said:
“I went home, smoked a joint, and had dinner, but I don’t remember what I ate. At around eleven my father phoned me on the house phone. I remember Amanda wasn’t back yet. I surfed on the Internet for a couple of hours after my father’s phone call, and I stopped only when Amanda came back, about one in the morning, I think. (The Times, 7 November 2007.)
Above: The two provisionally convicted who originated some of the cancerous myths.
45. Amanda Knox had never been in trouble with the police.
According to Andrew Malone in an article on the Mail Online website, Amanda Knox was charged with hosting a party that got seriously out of hand, with students high on drink and drugs, and throwing rocks into the road, forcing cars to swerve. He claimed the students then threw rocks at the windows of neighbours who had called the police. Knox was fined $269 (£135) at the Municipal Court after the incident (crime No: 071830624).
Barbie Nadeau also reported that Knox had had a previous brush with the law:
...and her only brush with the law was a disturbing-the-peace arrest for a house party she threw.” (Barbie Nadeau, Angel Face, Kindle edition, page 6.)
According to the police ticket written by Seattle Police officer Jason Bender, Knox was issued with an infraction for the noise violation and warned about the rock throwing:
I issued S1/Knox this infraction for the noise violation and a warning for the rock throwing. I explained how dangerous and juvenile that action was.
46. Amanda Knox was retried for the same crimes.
All criminal cases in Italy are subject to three levels of review. No verdict is final until it has been confirmed by the Supreme Court.
Amanda Knox was not retried. She simply appealed her provisional 2009 convictions. The first appeal was held in Perugia in 2011, where she was provisionally acquitted by Judge Hellmann.
However, the Italian Supreme Court annulled the acquittals because Hellmann was found to have made a series of grave legal errors, and ordered a new appeal in Florence.
47. The Italian Supreme Court ruled that Amanda Knox’s interrogation was illegal.
The Italian Supreme Court has never stated that Amanda Knox’s recap/summary session on 5 November 2007 for the building of a list of names was illegal.
Bruce Fischer, who runs the Injustice in Perugia website and had heatedly denied this, eventually admitted this was not true on Perugia Murder File.net website:
“When it comes to the admissibility of the written statements, you are technically correct. The interrogation itself was never ruled illegal.”
Note that as stated above it was not an interrogation.
48. The Supreme Court threw out Amanda Knox’s statements.
The Supreme Court ruled that the 1:45am and 5:45am statements Knox insisted upon couldn’t be used against her in the murder trial because she wasn’t represented by a lawyer when she made them, even though she declined the presence of a lawyer.
However, both her statements were used against her at the calunnia component of the trial.
49. Dr. Stefanoni and the forensic technicians broke international protocols.
There is no internationally accepted set of standards. DNA protocols vary from country to country, and in America they vary from state to state. For example, New York state accepts LCN DNA tests in criminal trials.
Conti and Vecchiotti cited obscure American publications such as the Missouri State Highway Patrol Handbook and the Wisconsin Crime Laboratory Physical Evidence Handbook, not international protocols.
50. Amanda Knox is being railroaded or framed.
It would be immensely difficult in the Italian system for police or prosecutors to frame anyone and sustain this through two levels of appeal. With all its checks and balances and its professional career paths, it may be the system least prone to false final convictions in the world.
A number of Knox’s supporters, including Judy Bachrach, Paul Ciolino and Steve Moore, have claimed in the US media that Amanda Knox is being railroaded or framed, but they mis-state multiple facts and provide no hard proof or any reason why. The Hellmann appeal was wiped off the books, but they wrongly still draw upon that.
The collection of the DNA and forensic evidence was videotaped by the Scientific Police and, as the judges at the Supreme Court noted, defence experts were actually in the police labs to observe the DNA tests and reported nothing wrong:
“...the probative facts revealed by the technical consultant [Stefanoni] were based on investigative activities that were adequately documented: sampling activity performed under the very eyes of the consultants of the parties, who raised no objection”¦” (The Supreme Court report, page 93.)
The legal proceedings against Sollecito and Knox have been monitored throughout by US officials from the Rome embassy, and they at no time have ever expressed any concerns about the fairness or legitimacy of the judicial process.
Sources
Court documents
The Micheli report
The Massei report
Judge Giordano sentencing report
The Supreme court report
The Nencini report
Court testimony
Amanda Knox
Anna Donnino
Monica Napoleoni
Articles
The Daily Mail
The Times
The Telegraph
The Daily Beast
The Seattle Post-Intelligencer
Books
Death in Perugia, Kindle edition, John Follain
Angel Face, Kindle edition, Barbie Nadeau
Television programmes
Drew Griffins’ interview with Giuliano Mignini on CNN
Websites
The Freelance Desk: http://thefreelancedesk.com
Perugia Murder File.org: http://www.perugiamurderfile.org
Perugia Murder File.net: http://perugiamurderfile.net
CPS website: http://www.cps.gov.uk/publications/prosecution/lcn_testing.html
Seattle-Post Intelligencer: http://blog.seattlepi.com/seattle911/files/library/knoxincidentreport.pdf
Posted by The Machine on 06/12/14 at 05:00 PM in Various hypotheses, Defendants in court, Amanda Knox, The officially involved, Hoaxes against Italy, 1 Ital justice hoax, 3 No evidence hoax, 4 No firm DNA hoax, 9 Mignini v Knox hoax, 10 Mignini MOF hoax, Hoaxes Knox & team, 13 AK persona hoax, 16 Interrogation hoax, 20 No-PR hoax, Hoaxes re Guede, 33 Sole attacker hoax, Hoaxers from 2007, Knox-Marriott PR, Hoaxers from 2009, Bruce Fischer, Steve Moore
Comments
very good job
Posted by Popper on 06/12/14 at 08:24 PM | #
Many thanks to Earl Grey, Tara, Cali, Pat Az, Skep, Jools, Craig and Pete for their help. It’s very much appreciated.
Posted by The Machine on 06/12/14 at 08:33 PM | #
Myth-busting at its finest. This primer of the real facts versus the hooey of FOA spin, refreshes the case. Interesting that Raffaele tried to hammer home to Perugian police his alibi that he was home alone while Knox went out on the prowl. Hard to back away from that specific statement later, which he tried to do.
He stressed he was home alone smoking a joint and making supper for himself, a meal he can’t remember the composition of.
He strongly and clearly emphasized to the police that Knox went out but that he stayed in, using his computer. Then his dad called him and during that phone call he was still alone, but that he thinks Amanda returned about 1:00 a.m. Wonder why he chose 1:00 a.m.?
Posted by Hopeful on 06/12/14 at 08:41 PM | #
Surprising that there should be as many as 50. That’s a lot. However this is a fair reprise of the many false claims that have been made and I can’t think (for the moment at least) of any that have been left out. Thanks TM.
I didn’t quite follow number 40 though.
Posted by James Raper on 06/12/14 at 09:34 PM | #
Hi James,
Many Amanda Knox fans claim that Rudy Guede didn’t implicate Knox and Sollecito at first and that he only claimed they were involved after he had been promised a deal.
Posted by The Machine on 06/12/14 at 09:40 PM | #
Thank you TM
I especially like No.50, regarding being railroaded or framed.
Stating the obvious, if US embassy officials raised no concerns at the time about the fairness or judicial integrity of the proceedings, and defence experts were present and raised no objections over the DNA testing, it’s a bit late now to allege malpractice: it will rightly be seen as a pathetic, spurious and desperate attempt to rubbish the whole case, the judiciary and Italy in general simply because the defendants have no other hope - their guilt is otherwise absolutely evident for all to see.
Posted by Odysseus on 06/12/14 at 10:36 PM | #
Shall we call them the “Fabulous Fifty”?
This list needs to be reprinted wherever lies or misinformation appear.
Posted by Stilicho on 06/12/14 at 10:37 PM | #
Sorry for this late addition to your excellent article, The Machine, but here’s #51:
““There is no PR campaign”
Posted by Ergon on 06/13/14 at 12:00 AM | #
Excellent The Machine. Keep dropping those truth bombs.
RIP Meredith Kercher
Posted by Bettina on 06/13/14 at 03:06 AM | #
Superb exposé, TM!!
Reall something to tweet about.
The truth will ALWAYS rise to the surface.
Posted by thundering on 06/13/14 at 03:25 AM | #
For the life of me I cannot understand these people. They have absolutely no hope of gaining anything because it’s a done deal and they live in a dream land of their own making. This after all is where Knox comes from. Of course they may succeed in delaying the inevitable but even that in the long run is a huge detriment since Knox’s prison term does not lesson as time goes by. So therefore even if she manages to weasel out of jail for, let’s say ten years, then she will be getting on for forty years old. That means she will be approaching seventy years old by the time she gets out. Jail in the US is a no win situation either because US jails are far far worse. Here parents and others plus the FOA are just fooling themselves. It is a waste after all.
Posted by Grahame Rhodes on 06/13/14 at 04:28 AM | #
The Fabulous Fifty they are, as suggested by Stilicho. The Machine has done a masterful job of dismantling the Amanda Knox PR lies, one by one. Here we have direct citations from motivations reports, testimony and authors such as John Follain. Considering that Follain’s book was based upon direct interviews, it is an excellent resource.
The American media needs to see this, especially now that the appeals process is winding down. When the extradition process commences—and I’m convinced that extradition is a certainty if Italy so requests—this excellent piece of work needs to be in the possession of the American media. May I suggest sending it to Bill O’Reilly who hosts Fox News “The Factor,” (http://www.foxnews.com/on-air/oreilly/index.html) @oreillyfactor, and to Sean Hannity (http://www.foxnews.com/on-air/hannity/index.html), @seanhannity. In my dreams, I visualize Knox facing the first interrogation of her miserable life…by Bill O’Reilly.
I’m deeply ashamed of the biased and inaccurate reporting of the US media. I hope the Kerchers understand that there are many, many Americans who love Meredith, support Italian justice, and cannot wait for that day when the US Federal Marshalls receive word to arrest Amanda Knox and haul her off to SeaTac Federal Detention Center.
Justice for Meredith!
Posted by CaliDeeva on 06/13/14 at 06:06 AM | #
Wow. Well done Machine. Right now its 90 retweets and counting. A great tribute to the Machine’s hard work, allegiance to Meredith, and photographic memory of the details of the case.
You can see all of the Machine’s main posts by clicking on the screen name at top or bottom and then clicking on “View all posts” at top left.
The Machine invented the form of post we can see above, with (1) brief quotes of myths & lies and then (2) brief corrections, via quotes from books, reports and court documents.
Using that format these were his first, starting late 2008 when TJMK first came online to contend with the pernicious RS and AK PR:
http://truejustice.org/ee/index.php?/tjmk/comments/amanda_knox_trapped_in_her_own_words/
http://truejustice.org/ee/index.php?/tjmk/comments/raffaele_sollecito_trapped_in_his_own_words/
http://truejustice.org/ee/index.php?/tjmk/comments/knox_pr_campaign_have_the_talking_points_now_become_a_trap/
http://truejustice.org/ee/index.php?/tjmk/comments/why_the_media_are_wrong_to_rely_on_amanda_knoxs_family_for_impartial_a/
Many of those posts were real shapeshifters - we still link often to his “Case for the Prosecution” series of summer 2009 with the multiple alibis, and many other evidence posts especially on the DNA.
http://www.truejustice.org/ee/index.php?/search/results/d7c9cad917d004a3ca02e0aec876fda4/
http://truejustice.org/ee/index.php?/tjmk/comments/the_limited_dna_reviews_-_why_they_probably_wont_help_defense_and_may_/
http://truejustice.org/ee/index.php?/tjmk/comments/beyond_massei_on_the_seemingly_insuperable_mixed_blood_evidence/
For context he looks at other cases a lot in Italy and the US and UK and showed that this crime was not an aberration at all except for its extreme cruelty (see his response to Myth 28 above) and all three perps fit common profiles of killers. Pack attacks have often occured elsewhere, both with and without mental illness or drugs.
Those malicious myth-makers the Machine (and of course Kermit) took down often disappeared from the media, and did not venture to make false claims again.
http://truejustice.org/ee/index.php?/tjmk/comments/judy_bachrach_appears_the_most_adamand_that_mr_mignini/
http://truejustice.org/ee/index.php?/tjmk/comments/why_uk_media_deniers_like_the_indepenents_amy_jenkins_come_acro/
http://truejustice.org/ee/index.php?/tjmk/comments/michael_wiesner_of_hawaii_Ten_Major_Mistakes/
http://truejustice.org/ee/index.php?/tjmk/comments/a_deeply_ugly_inaccurate_and_callous_piece_of_junk_by_nathaniel_rich_i/
http://truejustice.org/ee/index.php?/tjmk/comments/saul_kassin_an_example_of_how_the_knox_campaign_is_misleading/
Really only a very few (well, maybe only three) malicious mythmakers proved to have thicker skins or denser heads and tried to brush right past.
http://truejustice.org/ee/index.php?/tjmk/comments/ten_examples_of_how_the_former_campus_cop_steve_moore_serially_mischar/
http://truejustice.org/ee/index.php?/tjmk/comments/disarray_and_decay_in_the_pro-knox_parade_1_bruce_fischers_epidemic_of/
http://truejustice.org/ee/index.php?/tjmk/comments/how_greg_hampikian_abuses_two_positions_of_trust_in_serially_misrepres/
Others showed distinct signs of being rattled and petulant and off their game. See these:
The whiny “I’m the real victim” persona common to those who support Knox can in good part be attributed to Kermit and the Machine.
Thin-skinned Preston, Dempsey, Burleigh, Fischer, Moore, many others, have all whined publicly that they are also victims here. Preston even wrote an ebook which consisted solely of a long whine.
****
So many other main posters deserve great credit and a listing of their posts too. Several already commented above. This new page below will have a “directory” soon:
http://truejustice.org/ee/index.php?/tjmkoverview
Posted by Peter Quennell on 06/13/14 at 02:33 PM | #
Many thanks to all the people who have been tweeting and retweeting.
Gary C King has retweeted my link to the post to over 48,000 followers and Barbara Benedettelli, who is influential in the Italian media, has retweeted it to over 6,000 followers.
My name on Twitter is @harryrag
Posted by The Machine on 06/13/14 at 02:43 PM | #
A very nice summary. It must have been very difficult to keep the list so relatively short but you have identified the most glaring discrepancies.
By the way, did Knox somehow forget to submit an appeal of her conviction(s)to Cassation? I thought it had to be filed no later than today and I would have expected a grand media event to coincide.
Cheers!
Posted by Fly By Night on 06/13/14 at 04:23 PM | #
Hi Fly By Night
Yeah, really hard to keep the list short as the myths breed like flies - James Raper above made me laugh, he identified well over 50 myths himself in Sollecito’s book alone, much of this post taking down 20 of the Sollecito-Gumbel myths was his work:
We rarely see myths withdrawn, at least so far, and with the horny white knights leapfrogging one another to head Knox’s parade, they actually have a tendency to get “worse”.
Myths about the Knox “interrogation” largely promoted by Knox in 2008-2009 (who her lawyers told to shut up) died around midtrial after all the cops testified and the false “Patrick did it!” accusation cost her three years in Capanne.
But lo and behold, the clueless Steve Moore digs them up again in 2010 with his crazy tag-teams addition. Moore obviously didnt have the slightest clue what was testified to about the “interrogation” at trial. (Hint: reading Italian helps.)
Then Moore’s tag-team meme was hijacked by Saul Kassin, Preston, Fischer, Burleigh, Douglas, Lisa Marie Basile, lierally dozens of others, and made worse and worse. Fischer repeats it almost daily all over the place.
Ex FBI profiler John Douglas devoted large parts of TWO books to making it worse and worse - and worse. Career-capping, John. Ha ha ha.
Posted by Peter Quennell on 06/13/14 at 05:49 PM | #
Machine! Thanks for this tour-de-force.
P.S. Didn’t get #40, either.
I do understand that: “...they [Knox and Sollecito] killed her…” - “Yes…” Shows that Guede had implicated Knox & Sollecito on 19 November 2007.
It’s Guede: “Yes, here it says that they [clothes] were washed in the washing machine, but that’s not true. She was dressed.†that I don’t get.
Posted by Cardiol MD on 06/13/14 at 06:37 PM | #
@ Fly By Night
Good point. Why haven’t we heard of the appeal being lodged?
I can only think it’s a full moon and this could be disturbing the lunatics in the bunker at Knox HQ.
Posted by Odysseus on 06/13/14 at 08:07 PM | #
Dear Cardiol:
Re myth 40, the full quote from Giacomo should be: “Giacomo: “So they [Knox and Sollecito] killed her while she was dressed.—
Leaving that out does make Guede’s response seem a little obscure! In the same sentence he is agreeing to two points.
Of course Meredith was later undressed, but not by Guede, who was long gone. The dots did connect in the mind of this judge.
Posted by Peter Quennell on 06/13/14 at 09:21 PM | #
Dear Pete - I had to delete the passage you restored, to simplify and avoid the issue of the double-question, missing ?-mark, statements in the form of a question, and Guede’s agreement to 2 points.
What I don’t get is whose clothes were in the washing machine?
Posted by Cardiol MD on 06/13/14 at 10:27 PM | #
Regarding the Appeals, I count Monday, June 16 as the last due date to file.
Appeals Court confirms conviction January 30, 2014.
Add 90 days plus 45 and you get June 14, a Saturday, so I would give till Monday June 16 to file. I’m sure there will be a big press release then.
No news from ECtHR yet.
Posted by Ergon on 06/13/14 at 11:09 PM | #
Great post TM.
Perhaps 51 could be the entire media sham as a whole?
Curt and Edda look such a happy couple don’t they?
The images of Amanda Knox and her partner in crime Raffaele Sollecito in this excellent post speaks volumes to me. The real McCoy..
They are quite the contrast from the images depicting a deliriously happy and broadly grinning Amanda Knox bounding happily into court to attend her murder and sexual assault trial with her flippant partner being trailed behind.
Sometimes people get caught on camera I guess, especially when they court the lens so much.
I don’t think I could ever understand Amanda Knox.
The novel she was allegedly paid 4 million dollars for - and a true injustice if ever I saw one - has a narrator speaking of her mothers strength and advice saying “don’t let anyone see you cry”
but prior to the novel being published, all media was blitzed by constant images and videos of her mother in tears and crying constantly on cue for the cameras.
On one hand we had the happy grinning person - the accused-of-murder Amanda Knox - appearing on trial for sexually assaulting and stabbing her housemate to death - but the rest of the PR involving her mother at the time showed nothing but a blubbering wreck of a person.
The tears they fell like rain. It doesn’t add up.
Posted by DF2K on 06/14/14 at 12:27 AM | #
Hello-
I just wanted to drop a note of gratitude to TM, Pete, and all the TJMK contributors for such quality articles on the case, McCall and all the contributors to the Wiki, the translators, and all the intelligent discussions on the PMF’s.
I’ve followed this case for nearly five years now, and over the course of the past year something incredible has happened in the US, no small thanks to all of you, the truth about Amanda Knox’s involvement in the murder of Meredith Kercher is finally beginning to be reported and discussed in the mainstream US media.
Fantastic that it’s started taking hold before the final Knox PR offensive that we’re sure to see when extradition is requested.
Any thoughts on Cassation’s timetable to rule on the case? Also, are the defense appeals public documents? I don’t recall ever seeing their appeals to the Massei verdict.
With kind thoughts and prayers to the dignified family of Meredith Kercher, may she rest in peace.
~B
Posted by louiehaha on 06/14/14 at 12:48 AM | #
Only the appeal documents to the Hellmann court were released on Bruce Fischer’s sites once translated, louiehaha. We never saw the appeals to the Florence Court, and somehow I doubt we’ll see the final appeal documents.
They might be public documents, but they are released only to news sites. I’ll see what I can do 😉
Posted by Ergon on 06/14/14 at 01:51 AM | #
Thanks Ergon. We may get it from other sources too.
The allowed grounds for any defense appeal to Cassation now could be comfortably written on the back of an envelope. Any other claim is smoke.
None of the four lead defense lawyers has ever won a case at the level of the Supreme Court and are likely to go for absurd and irritating overkill.
Giulia Bongiorno’s recent shananigans may hurt both teams. They include:
(1) A possible deal with snitch Aviello for false testimony to help RS still being looked into (while Aviello is leaned upon at a new trial!).
(2) Yelling at the Florence judges in her summation in Florence, with a really stupid list of charges against the police for which she had zero proof.
(3) Using political influence to try to get Judge Nencini reprimanded or removed by the Council of Magistrates (he wasnt; the final “verdict” just came out).
The two seem cooked.
Posted by Peter Quennell on 06/14/14 at 02:11 AM | #
Italian police actually play a very fair game and are greatly respected. See here:
I say that now because if they wanted to, they could put out a photo of Aviello and make him a marked man.
He has snitched on many and as a result there’s been no photo of him released since he was a teenage kid.
He’s the only informant we have ever encountered in this case. A witness for the defense!!
Fischer’s increasingly desperate gang claims Guede was a snitch and Mignini illegally helped him out. See this shrill rant by Denver:
http://groundreport.com/amanda-knox-and-raffaele-sollecito-rudy-guede-a-heinous-game-of-chess/
But Guede wasnt one, and Mignini is a PROSECUTOR with less than zero interest (except at trial) in how police gather facts.
He had never even heard of Guede until several weeks after Meredith died. Evidence that Guede did NOT act alone is overwhelming.
Posted by Peter Quennell on 06/14/14 at 02:22 AM | #
There’s a big insight into the Knox persona under Myth 1 in the translated testimony which the Machine quotes in response there. See this testimony from Inspector Rita Ficarra:
And continuing to speak, the girl told me that she was rather shocked at the fact, annoyed at the fact that she had been called and recalled several times by the Police and [that] she was totally tired.
This is the REAL Knox at that time, ebullient and testy and forceful and in-your-face and full of anger at having to answer a few questions. A real handful. She gave police no help at all, ever, and even the little bit of list building of possible perps with Rita Ficarra was to her advantage not theirs as the list pointed away from her.
“Ebullient and testy and forceful and in-your-face and full of anger” also describes Knox in the weeks before Meredith’s murder which is why everybody who encountered her (except RS initially) became so backed off and were starting to shun her.
“Ebullient and testy and forceful and in-your-face and full of anger” also describes her performance on the witness stand at trial in mid 2009.
Showing that persona to the judges was a disaster.
Why? Well Knox was trying to make the case that she was weak and naive and timid and very vague and highly suggestible and totally lost in a foreign land, and those meanie cops were just horrific and of course sexist.
On the witness stand at trial in mid 2009 that phony act just didnt fly with the judges or with anyone in Italy who tuned in.
But when she did that phony act again in almost ever para of her book, thousands of American readers swallowed it, hook line and sinker. She still does it on TV, and new people still swallow it.
The two faces of Knox. Light-years apart. Whatever the causes, and the jury on that is still out, one is real and very hard, as in the quote above, and one is a total phony.
http://truejustice.org/ee/index.php?/tjmk/comments/the_amanda_knox_trainwreck_how_tv_and_book_suggest_knox/
http://truejustice.org/ee/index.php?/tjmk/comments/the_amanda_knox_trainwreck_what_the_newly_published_knox_writings_reve/
Posted by Peter Quennell on 06/14/14 at 12:11 PM | #
Hi B,
Something incredible has been happening in the US media. It’s been great to see Nancy Grace, Wendy Murphy, Jeanine Pirro, Paul Callan, Ann Coulter and Alan Dershowtiz making it crystal clear that they think Amanda Knox is guilty of murder.
Dan Abrams highlighted the multiple alibis and lies on the ABC website:
TJMK has had over 200 million page hits since it was set up in 2008. It is still read by many journalists and it has been mentioned on the following media websites:
BBC
The Daily Beast
The Croydon Guardian
France 24
The Daily Mail
The Seattle Post-Intelligencer
The Stranger
Time
The West Seattle Herald
Yahoo News
It has also been mentioned in the following case-related books:
Darkness Descending
Meredith
The Meredith Kercher wiki website has been accessed over 418,000 times.
Let’s make every journalist who has ever covered the case aware of the PR lies and that they can read the official court documents online. Everyone can make a difference. It only takes a few moments to send a tweet.
Posted by The Machine on 06/14/14 at 01:06 PM | #
Excellent job and thanks for all the details.
There is a minor error in luminol. It is a chemical that reacts with hydrogen peroxide and haemoglobin and produces light. It is not fluorescence but chemiluminescence. The light must be photographed in dark. The test is very simple and effective in situ. We use bezidine (tetramethybenzidine) test more often but that needs a colorimeter.
Because it does not react with the DNA, the sample can still be tested for DNA after the luminol test.
When the FoA runs out of logic, they take the easy route of abusing. Science and logic is not their forte.
Posted by chami on 06/15/14 at 05:22 AM | #
Looking at the image of Knox’s parents at the top I just feel they have always known the score - subconsciously at least - but they feel they have to do what they’re doing. It seems the honourable thing to defend your offspring, no matter the cost, etc.
I remember a video of Edda being interviewed outside Capanne, after the first time (I think) that she had visited her daughter. Tears welling up, she said something like “it was so sad and she was so pleased to see me”. At the time that struck me as strange reaction but I didn’t know why. Now I wonder - was it because, if she thought her daughter was totally innocent, she would be at least somewhat angry? Instead her reaction seems to have the subtext “the quirkiness continues - only this time she’s got herself in an horrific, hopeless fix. But see - she is still human enough to be pleased to see her mother. Mercy”
Posted by Odysseus on 06/15/14 at 04:19 PM | #
@Odysseous - agreeing with your 10:19 Comment - as a German-mother Edda probably knows that under German Law, IIUC, direct-blood relatives are not prosecutable for covering-up on each other.
The ties of blood are stronger, it is presumed, than the individual’s loyalty to the State?
Posted by Cardiol MD on 06/15/14 at 09:12 PM | #
@Cardiol
Interesting, thanks - I didn’t know that.
Posted by Odysseus on 06/15/14 at 09:45 PM | #
Hi Odysseus and Cardiol
Ah the Curt and Edda arc… Understanding those two takes some doing in part because there are big and possibly incriminating “complications” in their own past that they dont put in the public domain.
They got married seemingly in haste when Amanda was on the way, and then they got separated and divorced undoubtedly in haste when Deanna was on the way.
Curt seems to have been in a permanent rage during the marriage and Baby Amanda got to see them bashing one another’s brains out daily even before she could walk or talk. Her “quirkiness” may go way back to then.
One theory for Curt’s rage was that he was trying to get his own lackluster accounting career on its feet, and to find himself the sudden parent of two babies may have seriously messed with that plan.
Then there was Curt not paying child support for Amanda and Deanna except under duress for most of a decade, and Edda having to take him to court at various times. One judge came down on Curt and said he really needed anger management counseling, but didnt make it mandatory, and Curt skipped out.
Chris came into Amanda’s life when she was about pre-teen and seems to have been a cruel tease. She made a remark about him in her diary that suggested she found him very hard to take.
The West Seattle neighborhood they still live in is not one I would want to walk at night. Maybe thats in part why she took off for accomodation near the University of Washington as soon as her college education began.
She could easily have ridden the bus daily from home to UW, as she did to her high-school, which is right next to UW and saved herself and maybe one or other of her parents a lot of rent and herself some waitressing work.
She got into drugs at UW and was very in-your-face to boys, and heavy partying may have pushed her academic life aside. Not everybody she knew back then was so surprised when she got arrested and charged.
She seems to have lied to her parents about the whole basis for her European trip, and had she been pushed (or not wanted to goof off) she could have got scholarship help just as Meredith did.
Curt and Edda seem to have smelled a rat almost from the very start after Meredith was attacked, but when they first sat with Knox she was already in Capanne, and they all knew the conversation was bugged so for years they were flying blind.
Edda may have leaned on Knox with some exasperation at times during trial but was already on a slippery slope and almost certainly lied (about what Knox said in her middle of the night call) when she got on the witness stand.
Its almost universally believed in Perugia that all 4 natural parents and their two second spouses have always KNOWN both the two were in it up to their necks.
Had the Knoxes had GOOD lawyers in the US instead of the useless fruitcakes Ann Bremner and Joe Tacopino, they might have been able to discard the hotheaded thug Marriott and never have hired Simon and Barnett.
What might have been? One thing could have been Knox taking Mignini up on his telegraphed offer to plea a sex hazing gone wrong and got manslaughter and out in ten. She nearly did but the demonizing set in.
Its is possible maybe to have a tad of sympathy for them in all this, except for Curt’s rage, letting Knox roam loose, and their truly horrific campaign against John & Arline, which none of our readers will forgive.
Posted by Peter Quennell on 06/16/14 at 02:03 AM | #
Yes that’s true and once again I am reminded of the photograph of Edda confronting Knox in Capanne, or was that in the court? Regardless, the look on Edda’s face says it all.
Posted by Grahame Rhodes on 06/16/14 at 02:55 AM | #
I have been meeting up with several layers of dishonesty from the FOA in the usual forums, where I’ve been er, debating them at length. Knox has graduated from UW, they say, but can’t post news reports, photos or links.
The best ones though was this exchange with Bruce Fischer, who really is a horrible prevaricator.
Karen > harryrag • 2 days ago
“Hi Harry, or John, or whatever. I would direct you to my Twist and Shout article. It has a fairly complete overview, there are a few missing, when I get the time I will update. Now that Amanda has approached the ECRH, I’ll need to add those as well.
Enjoy.”
2 â–³ â–½
manfromatlan > Karen • a day ago
“Hi, Karen, is there a reason why she hasn’t publicly released the grounds for the appeal to ECtHR or to the Supreme Court? Would she like some help from our translators? Or can we expect something after the court’s ruled? 😊”
4 â–³ â–½
Bruce Fischer > manfromatlan • 6 hours ago
“Our first concern is to get the information to you Ergon. We will be sure to get the info to you as soon as possible.
The ISC appeals were just filed. I am shocked that Ergon’s secret sources haven’t gotten him the info yet. Oh yeah, Ergon doesn’t actually have sources, just thieves that feed him stolen property.”
â–³ â–½
manfromatlan > Bruce Fischer • 6 hours ago
“I’m in no hurry, Bruce 😊 I know the due date, and the outcome. My question had to do why you never release full documents. So, will you be posting the Knox appeal, and if not, why not? Note Ms Honesty hasn’t released her ECtHR appeal yet, or announced the Cassazione filing. And are the Sollecitos still talking to you? Can we expect your site to release them, or are you going to hide them as well?”
1 â–³ â–½
Bruce Fischer > manfromatlan • 2 hours ago
“Have we ever released a partial document? I have no idea what you are claiming here. Why should Amanda announce the ISC filing? It was filed. When it becomes available we will post it. The ECHR filing is not public, that is the choice of her attorneys. Why do you think they owe it to you or anyone else to release it?”
â–³ â–½
manfromatlan > Bruce Fischer • 9 minutes ago
“Indeed you have, many times, Bruce, and I’m referring to the Evidence files which were released piecemeal and selectively until we provided a more complete set in “The Murder Of Meredith Kercher” wiki which gob smacked you so much you had to come up with an imitation inferior copy.
I’m also referring to the Appeal documents. Only the Appeal against the Massei convictions for murder and the Hellmann conviction for calunnia was released to the public, not the appeal to the Florence court of Appeals, nor the ECtHR. Which shoots a hole in claims of transparency.
You don’t owe anything to us, or the public, or the media. It might well be you’re scared that informed individuals will be able to analyze how weak your arguments are. The media already knows, they’ll be getting our translation of the Nencini Report. You, will be arguing the ‘evidence’ all over again.
I personally don’t care. Just asked if you were going to release them, and from your defensive reaction, perhaps not.”
Posted by Ergon on 06/16/14 at 03:56 AM | #
@Graham Rhodes
Good point, I’d forgotten about that. It was in the Court I think - a very telling image. It was a look that said, a la Laurel & Hardy, “well, here’s another nice mess you’ve gotten me into!”
Posted by Odysseus on 06/16/14 at 10:54 AM | #
Bruce Fischer claims and/or suggests the bra clasp was contaminated, the laboratory had faulty machinery, Dr Stefanoni suppressed data, falsified evidence and committed perjury. Unsurprisingly, he doesn’t provide any proof to to support his claims and suggestions.
Posted by The Machine on 06/16/14 at 12:56 PM | #
Hi The Machine and Ergon
Again Fischer sets himself and his sheep up for a fall. Last year the Supreme Court made quite clear that this kind of unproven innuendo, ad-hominem smearing and cherrypicking of evidence rather than broad consideration of the whole is antithesis to Italian jurispridence.
As Ergon showed in some excellent posts, Fischer and Sforza do this for the money. They are for all practical purposes swindlers.
Fischer and Sforza have both had trouble with the law. Fischer hoodwinks people into thinking he has some competence and is trustworthy and will get actual results, although our lawyers say with his past bankruptcies he is skirting the law unless he makes those quite clear to contributors.
Without help from his wife’s hoodwinked family he’d have no job - no reputable employer in any large organization would even shortlist him. I had to hire a lot of consultants and experts for my United Nations development programs, and resumes like his would not even be kept on file anywhere.
Media are very eager to get new angles and we accomodate them.
There are huge areas the Knox & Sollecito people never go anywhere near and are terrified of, but which the Italian courts and Rome Embassy know all about. For example we came out with this long list of lies in a single short chapter of Sollecito’s book and what happened in the Sollecito camp? Huge silence.
Our Interrogation Hoax series and this post are other examples. Why did they feel a need to create the many hoaxes? This hot potato of a felony lie below by Knox is still down the road in our new Interrogation Hoax series, but has been out there for a year and is still totally unanswered by the Knox forces:
One can discount the bra clasp evidence entirely and Sollecito is still placed at the scene by numerous other evidence points. See this for example, another one the Fischer sheep have no answer for.
http://truejustice.org/ee/index.php?/tjmk/comments/The_Incriminating_Bathroom_Evidence_1/
Posted by Peter Quennell on 06/16/14 at 02:12 PM | #
Hi, TM. The authors of the report claiming the above are advisors to Bruce Fischer’s Injustice-Anywhere, Tom Zumpanec and Chris Halkides, based on Zumpanec’s presentation to the Marshal Law School in Chicago.
According to Bruce https://twitter.com/IIP_2/status/477593484569112576
Injustice in Perugiaâ€@IIP_2 ·
“Breakthrough in the #AmandaKnox case, my organization have submitted evidence to Italian Supreme Court the bra clasp is indeed contaminated.”
More reports from American “experts” being sent to defense lawyers?
Posted by Ergon on 06/16/14 at 02:20 PM | #
Hi, Peter,
Bruce doesn’t even seem to have any competence in framing sentences either. From the same feed:
Injustice in Perugia â€@IIP_2 · Feb 2
@realDonaldTrump “#raffaellesollecito is ajudicated innocent but he plans to take his wrongful conviction and persecution to high court.”
😊
Posted by Ergon on 06/16/14 at 02:29 PM | #
Hi Ergon,
The defence experts observed the DNA tests and were given all the data they needed. None of them made the claims that Chris Halkides and Tom Zumpanec are making. Even Conti and Vecchiotti excluded contamination in the laboratory.
Chris Halkides is going to need more than a sticker saying DNA Guy on it if he wants to be taken seriously. He isn’t a forensic scientist and he hasn’t officially worked on any criminal cases. It’s telling that Bruce Fischer wasn’t able to provide any proof to support his claims and suggestions.
Posted by The Machine on 06/16/14 at 02:39 PM | #
Hi Ergon
Those claims you quote from tweets about the “high court” are delusional. Those people need to get back to Planet Earth and face hard realities.
First, Cassation has been the firmest and most hard-line of ALL courts, though the Nencini court comes a close second.
Second, Cassation never accepts new evidence as suggested. That is not its role and anyone trying that would be frogmarched out of there.
Third, neither any of the Knox lawyers or any of the Sollecito lawyers have ever won even ONE case at Cassation. (More fool the families for using them for this.)
So why?
Because as I said above “unproven innuendo, ad-hominem smearing and cherrypicking of evidence” didnt ever work for them. Ask Bongiorno. And Cassation sticks closely to matters of law and procedure.
If the case is indeed referred back down to Nencini for some fine-tuning, he will eat the conspiracists and their “theories” for breakfast.
They need to stop all demonizing of the police, address tough issues such as those three I just listed in my comment above, and show a convincing alternative scenario.
Posted by Peter Quennell on 06/16/14 at 03:08 PM | #
Breaking:
Thanks to Jools at .ORG, appeals were filed today, the last due date per my calculation http://www.gonews.it/2014/06/16/omicidio-meredith-depositati-i-ricorsi-in-cassazione-di-amanda-knox-e-raffaele-sollecito/#.U59UKcHD8uo
Some of the items listed: The evaluations of Rudy Guede’s declarations and the fact that the prosecution DNA experts were deemed trustworthy, and Conti and Vecchiotti, not. Court may meet this year or early next, at latest.
Posted by Ergon on 06/16/14 at 10:41 PM | #
Hi Ergon,
The judges at the Supreme Court have already explained that theory ‘anything is possible’ in genetic testing is not valid.
Andrea Vogt provided a detail report into Nencini’s criticisms of Conti and Vecchiotti:
THE “REPREHENSIBLE CONDUCT†OF THE EXPERTS
However those who may have the most explaining to do are Rome Professors Carla Vecchiotti and Stefano Conti, the two court-appointed independent experts whose scathing report of the forensic evidence in Knox’s first appeal (later annulled) led to her acquittal and release in 2011.
In his report released earlier this week, Judge Nencini does not mince words, alternatively describing their work reviewing the forensics “clearly in error,†“misleading†and even “reprehensible.†It is not the first time. She was also cited for clamorous errors in a previous murder case (Olgiata) in which forensic samples were mixed up. Nencini’s report is bound to amplify concerns already circulating within the Italian forensic community, and could possibly even trigger an investigation.
Over the course of approximately 50 pages of his 337 reasoning report, Nencini does a thorough analysis of all the court evidence, lab data and depositions by all the forensic consultants, and essentially debunks Vecchiotti and Conti’s report. He reveals that the two experts overlooked available data, altered the meaning of forensic police statements to fit their thesis, erred in their interpretation methods and falsely claimed the technology didn’t exist to test a small trace of DNA that was later successfully tested. If you are not interested in forensic minutiae, you can stop reading now.
The harsh Vecchiotti-Conti review begins on page 195 of Nencini’s report. The possibility of contamination so hotly debated by consultants and made credible to the point of being included in the independent experts’ written report actually “has no significance†in the criminal trial, he wrote, and was “misleading.â€
He categorically rules out contamination. Even in the case of the bra clasp catalogued by police but only collected 46 days later, had Sollecito’s DNA been fruit of contamination it would have been found elsewhere and on other objects taken from the scene that day, such as on Meredith’s blue sweatshirt where Guede’s DNA was found, he wrote, not just on the tiny hook of the bra clasp. He notes records show there were no other items containing Sollecito’s DNA handled that day, ruling out making laboratory contamination. Nencini accepts there may have been professional lapses on part of the forensic police, but determines that none of those oversights were so grave as to have negatively impacted the forensic analysis with regard to the case. The absence of contamination is also proven by the records of negative and positive controls performed by much-maligned forensic biologist Patrizia Stefanoni. Those controls were done and had been referred to in court, but Vecchiotti and Conti overlooked this, claiming there was no record of them.
But there is more, Nencini writes.
The decision not to test Trace “I†of DNA that was later revealed to be a trace of Amanda Knox’s DNA on the kitchen knife where the blade meets the handle was an autonomous decision of the two experts that was communicated verbally to the consultants, but was not a joint decision of all the forensic consultants, as the experts suggested. Court records show the Kercher family and prosecution’s forensic consultants all maintained in September 2011 that the technology existed to trace the small trace and requested that it be done. That Professor Vecchiotti convicingly and repeatedly said it could not be tested was “clearly in error.†The Nencini court went ahead with the testing, and the RIS in Rome were able to get a reliable result, following all double amplification requirements and international protocols. Nencini notes that RIS officials as well as other consultants testified that the kit for identifying such a small trace of DNA was available on the Italian market back in 2011, but they were ignored. The trace should have been tested, Nencini wrote, and by reporting that it was impossible to do so, the experts contributed to an error of judgement by the presiding magistrate, whose ruling was eventually tossed. Nencini considers several pages of statistical and genetic analysis made by various consultants in both the first and second appeals. On page 221, he writes that “the behavior of Vecchiotti was “censurable†because before providing an imprecise report in a trial, she should have requested the controls documentation from the forensic police and only in the case of that data not being provided, come to the conclusions that she did.
So now what? Will Italian authorities investigate further or simply let the case march quietly toward a high court ruling at the end of the year? Will Knox and Sollecito bring in more consultants to appeal Nencini’s findings? The defense teams have 45 days from May 2 to deposit their cassation appeals, which means by mid-June the case files will be back on their way to Rome for review.
http://thefreelancedesk.com/amanda-knox-trials-meredith-kercher-case/
Posted by The Machine on 06/16/14 at 11:17 PM | #
It is clear that the clutching of straws is now even more desperate than that of the laughable and expensive efforts of Sollecitos counsel Giulia Bongiornos failed courtroom histrionics.
How much more can one flog a dead horse?
The likes of people like Bruce Fischer seem to fail to see this.
Fischer again laughably publishes (on an obscure blog) hackneyed rubbish lacking any substantiation whatsoever.
It is more to do with his own false-self fantasy as if he is some sort of authority on the subject, when in reality I would wager he looks in the mirror everyday and sees the conman he knows he is.
Posted by DF2K on 06/17/14 at 02:08 AM | #
Hi, The Machine,
The defenses are arguing that Conti and Vecchiotti’s report should not have been dismissed so readily and the file should be bounced back to the Appeals for a re-evaluation of the competing DNA reports.
That is why Zumpanec and co have come out with handy reports alleging contamination, faulty machinery, and outright corruption on the part of Stefanoni, and those ‘findings’ stove piped (again)to the defense.
I can see the look on Cassazione’s face when Bongiorno goes on 😊
Posted by Ergon on 06/17/14 at 02:17 AM | #
Also, from the link that Jools posted at .Org, http://www.gonews.it/2014/06/16/omicidio-meredith-depositati-i-ricorsi-in-cassazione-di-amanda-knox-e-raffaele-sollecito/#.U5-KC8HD8uq I see they’re arguing there are conflicting case precedents which need to be resolved (no details given what those precedents are)
Again, given the comprehensive demolishment of the defense by Nencini, and anticipating a top notch argument by the Attorney General, I doubt le Sezioni unite della Cassazione will be giving them the time of day.
Posted by Ergon on 06/17/14 at 02:36 AM | #
@ Ergon
“Court may meet this year or early next, at latest.”
This means: extradition after early next year, at latest?
(there’s some linguistic sarcasm in this last one, I agree 😊 )
Posted by Helder Licht on 06/17/14 at 11:18 AM | #
Hi Helder, the article says court to meet late this year or early next 😉
Extradition will seem like years!
Posted by Ergon on 06/17/14 at 03:04 PM | #
Hi TM,
Maybe the 50 most common myths the PR company employed by her father Curt Knox, her family, friends and fans have promoted regarding Amanda Knox as a person may be an idea?
A few as follows:
The “Honors student”
With even worse grammar and spelling than I? LOL!
“Meredith was my friend”
When actually Knox had only known Meredith Kercher a few weeks and by default making her Capanne prison cellmates positively life long spiritual companions, yet she hated all of them..
“Amanda wouldn’t hurt a fly”
This quote from the same sister who witnessed her attacking a boy who had hit her and is on record in Perugia as throwing a drink into the DJ’s face at a nightclub (this seems a bit hurtful to me, and a tad aggressive)shortly before she murdered Meredith Kercher..
“Amanda doesn’t know how to lie”
This is a gem from her mother Edda, who doesn’t seem to recognise the fact that her daughter has been convicted in a court of law and served over 3 years in prison for lying..
It goes on and on and on.
The hackneyed grounds for appeal have now been lodged so we are now slowly at last reaching the end game so all their myths and lies will be rightly exposed as such.
I hope the US honours it’s extradition treaty responsibilities and I can see no reason why they won’t.
Posted by DF2K on 06/17/14 at 06:12 PM | #
Hi DF2K
“Amanda doesn’t know how to lie”...?
And so Edda does?
Amanda doesn’t know how to lie so that her lies don’t contradict each other and/or the facts, or indeed are not betrayed by her body language, - though she’s done her very best to try!
Posted by SeekingUnderstanding on 06/17/14 at 07:29 PM | #
If she did know how to lie, we all would believe her.
Posted by Helder Licht on 06/17/14 at 08:07 PM | #
Hi SeekingUnderstanding,
Indeed she has done her very best to try!
I actually watched all three UW videos again this morning (although I faltered around 9 minutes in to the second one and almost shut my laptop down)and what struck me is how false she comes across in almost everything she says -and I could see it even more strongly as when they first appeared on YouTube.
I am by no means an expert on body language but what I saw again today was almost total lies from Amanda Knox, a complete fabrication.
Almost everything is affected - even drinking coffee from a starbucks paper cup,in my opinion pure histrionics.
Her up and down eyebrow movements on each individual eye,her forehead and her (at some points) wild eyes, curling lips, her speech tone and faux laughing.
Obviously she had carte blanche on the interview and it is very telling, and very chilling when put into context with the crime she has clearly committed.
Posted by DF2K on 06/17/14 at 08:29 PM | #
@Df2k
Indeed.
There have been a number of good analyses of AK’s body language and micro-expressions. Lillian Glass is just one. I had to stop as it was overwhelming - a constant stream.
I predict that in the future - when at last this is all done and dusted- ‘the Amanda Knox interviews’ will become classic pieces used to illustrate lie detection ..
Posted by SeekingUnderstanding on 06/17/14 at 08:46 PM | #
450 pages of appeals filed by Knox and Sollecito http://www.gonews.it/2014/06/17/meredith-in-oltre-450-pagine-i-ricorsi-in-cassazione-per-sollecito-e-knox-contro-la-sentenza-del-processo-di-appello/#.U6ChbMHD8ur plus the kitchen sink.
Posted by Ergon on 06/17/14 at 10:21 PM | #
@ SeekingUnderstanding,
Agreed.
I would hope also that the whole malignant PR campaign (surely murderers cannot buy exoneration?)will be seen and used as a benchmark when law and statute makers go about their business.
This whole multi million dollar PR campaign to pervert the course of justice is actually an attack on society and the rule of law in general and insidious by its very existence.
The statement by Curt Knox that it is the best money he has ever spent shows his complete contempt for the rule of law and anger towards the Kercher family.
Posted by DF2K on 06/18/14 at 07:16 AM | #
I completely and “hole”-heartedly agree that “Amanda doesn’t know how to lieâ€...
From the Introduction paragraph of the Art of Lying…
Observe, I do not mean to suggest that the custom of lying has suffered any decay or interruption—no, for the Lie, as a Virtue, A Principle, is eternal; the Lie, as a recreation, a solace, a refuge in time of need, the fourth Grace, the tenth Muse, man’s best and surest friend, is immortal, and cannot perish from the earth while this club remains. My complaint simply concerns the decay of the art of lying. No high-minded man, no man of right feeling, can contemplate the lumbering and slovenly lying of the present day without grieving to see a noble art so prostituted. In this veteran presence I naturally enter upon this theme with diffidence; it is like an old maid trying to teach nursery matters to the mothers in Israel. It would not become to me to criticise you, gentlemen—who are nearly all my elders—and my superiors, in this thing—if I should here and there seem to do it, I trust it will in most cases be more in a spirit of admiration than fault-finding; indeed if this finest of the fine arts had everywhere received the attention, the encouragement, and conscientious practice and development which this club has devoted to it, I should not need to utter this lament, or shred a single tear. I do not say this to flatter: I say it in a spirit of just and appreciative recognition. [It had been my intention, at this point, to mention names and to give illustrative specimens, but indications observable about me admonished me to beware of the particulars and confine myself to generalities.]
Posted by chami on 06/18/14 at 07:23 AM | #
@DF2K
Agreed, certainly.
Malignant, malevolent, and undermining to society and the creation of healthy community.
Almost like terrorism within journalism, - with a similar despising of reasoned debate, and meeting logic and truth with contemptuous violence, lies and mantras.
Violence is still violence if ‘only’ expressed in words. The violence that leaves no bruises.
Posted by SeekingUnderstanding on 06/18/14 at 09:52 AM | #
I agree Seeking Understanding. In the Cuomo video before she speaks her brow is furrowed with anticipatory anxiety, she gulps and tries to set her face in a vulnerable pose. The laugh and broad smile in response to the first question about the knife seems to say. OK, let me make this simple for you. You obviously haven’t been listening. It is patronising but glee is revealed. Then she says ‘I believe….” but hasn’t formulated a complete thought in her head. She is heavily editing as usual. She is concentrating so hard on acting that the words take second place.
Posted by pensky on 06/18/14 at 10:16 AM | #
@pensky
Agree completely . Particularly noticeable is a characteristic half-smile, just a flash, on one side of the mouth, with no smile in the eyes. Also the direction of the eyes is time and time again revealing - something she can’t control…or if she tries to, results in unnatural staring.
Posted by SeekingUnderstanding on 06/18/14 at 10:50 AM | #
Tom Zupancic claims to have found evidence of contamination that the experts who were officially involved in the case like Professor Novelli, Professor Torricelli, Dr. Renato Biondo - the head of the DNA Unit of the Scientific Police, Alberto Intini, the head of the Italian police forensic science unit, Professor Vinci, Dr. Sarah Gino, Conti and Vecchiotti didn’t notice.
He also claims that the prosecution have suppressed data without offering any evidence whatsoever. He seems to be suffering from some form of psychosis that includes delusions of grandeur:
Delusions of grandeur
A person with psychosis may have delusions of grandeur where they believe they have some imaginary power or authority. For example, they may think they are president of a country, or have the power to bring people back from the dead.
http://www.nhs.uk/Conditions/Psychosis/Pages/Symptoms.aspx
Does Tom Zupancic even exist? For all we know he could be one of Jim Lovering’s alter egos.
Posted by The Machine on 06/18/14 at 05:47 PM | #
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