Wednesday, December 02, 2020

Italy, Lament: Though US Violent Crime Rate Has Dropped 75% In 30 Years, Now This

Posted by Peter Quennell

Breaking news: Guede leaving prison, doing community service during rest of term, for “social re-integration”. Decided by Rome supervisory court at request of Guede lawyer Ballarini. His “tell-all” book said to be step closer, Knox acting frantic.

1. Re the YouTube: There’s More…

After 17 years of zero executions by the Federal Government, suddenly we get this.

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2. So, A Question…

For the Knox sycophants: Where would YOU want to be tried?

Posted by Peter Quennell on 12/02/20 at 09:16 PM in

Comments

OT but on December 10 Knox will do livestream for Illinois Innocence Project. Theme is “Guilty Until Proven Innocent”. Knox, 33, will be featured in a personal conversation.

She had hoped to be a guest singer with “The Exoneree Band” but covid19 cancelled that. The Exoneree Band has 5 band members all of whom spent many years in prison. They claim it was for crimes they didn’t do.

Larry Golden a co-founder of the Innocence Project said in February 2020 about Knox “(she) has become an important part of the work that we do. She’s a very engaging person who’s grown into an understanding of these issues that are totally out of her control. Her case illustrates that it can happen to anyone.”

The livestream costs $20. Deadline to register is Dec. 9. The event is December 10th. The Illinois Innocence Project is located at the University of Illinois in Springfield, Illinois.

All this info is by Steven Spearie writing for the “The State Journal-Register” article that came out on November 22, 2020.

For more info, contact the Innocence Project https://www.uis.edu/illinoisinnocenceproject

Or Steve Spearie @ sj-r.com or twitter.com/@StevenSpearie

Posted by Hopeful on 12/03/20 at 09:34 AM | #

An Italian actress was the subject of some really graphic violence in HBO’s The Undoing filmed here in NYC which just finished its 6-part run here and in the UK.

The final episode contains the full display of violence (hints were flashed in earlier episodes). It left much or most of the audience disgusted and/or disappointed, if IMDB and other reviewers are to be believed.

https://tinyurl.com/y28t4nj3

https://tinyurl.com/y6mrfmsw

https://tinyurl.com/y2uou7ah

Her name is Matilda De Angelis from near Bologne and she has up some catchy YouTubes of her singing and acting in Italy that are worth a look.

https://tinyurl.com/y2ejhrds

I protested somewhat on IMDB about a seeming exploitive con put over on her after the second episode, and I added a further comment after the final episode.

https://tinyurl.com/y4yqge4n

And today I see the reason for such violence “explained” if hardly justified in this NY Times interview.

https://tinyurl.com/y3t5so9m

We had a long exchange of emails, and then we had to make Matilda [the actress Matilda De Angelis, who plays Elena] comfortable with the rubbish I’d written…. We went into a rehearsal room with a hammer, and we just experimented. It could not have been more awkward because it was the first week of shooting, and this poor actress, the first thing she has to do in America is kiss an old man and then be beaten to death: “Kiss me. Smash me on the head with a mallet.” I felt really bad for her.

Sure you did…

Posted by Peter Quennell on 12/03/20 at 12:11 PM | #

Guede now leaving prison, doing community service and a tell-all book in his plans? Wow, that’s huge. Thanks for this breaking news!!! verry interesting.

Oh yeah, Knox must be squirming. Sollecito must be squirming. Nailbiting, bated breath. Guede’s book will lay “Honour Bound” and “Waiting To Be Heard” in the shade.

Strange places truth can come from, even among 3 liars.

Posted by Hopeful on 12/05/20 at 12:40 PM | #

Strange to think Rudy is leaving prison now, perhaps they all could have been leaving now if they’d just been more honest originally. He will need a suitably ironic book title like the other two, ‘Truth-bound’. What do you guys think the chances are of him coming clean? Hopefully he at least chucks the other two under the bus.

Completely off topic, but could I run by something about the original case with you guys?

When Filomenas room was ‘burgled’ she said that the one thing missing was some make up. It sounds irrelevant but in light of Knox having to hide her injuries from the fight, it seems highly relevant that some make up went missing, particularly combined with the idea that Knox was a tomboy and may not have had much make up herself. I don’t recall this small detail being part of the narrative before so I thought I’d mention it of not (?)

Posted by HotAir on 12/06/20 at 07:13 PM | #

IIRC Knox said that she went into town on Halloween with make up on her face to make her look like a cat. Filomena’s missing make up seems relevant in that context but also may have been used to disguise what was obviously a scratch on Knox’s throat (as noticed by Laura at the Questura and photographed by the police) but was less than obvious in pictures of her outside the cottage on the morning of the discovery of the murder. Instead there was the famous hickey which had disappeared by the time she was photographed by the police, whenever that was but probably shortly after she was detained.

As to that scratch, it has to be noted that scrapings from under Meredith’s nails were taken and tested for DNA which only showed Meredith’s DNA. So what caused that mark? We do not know. It seems Knox was not asked. I have no doubt that Knox would have had some innocent explanation (i.e rough sex or done during her sleep), but I have also asked myself whether Meredith might have worn any jewellery on her fingers that might have been the cause. Then, of course, there is Knox’s missing ear stud. Finally, the scrapings can’t be said to be conclusive.

Posted by James Raper on 12/07/20 at 04:45 AM | #

Good to hear your thoughts James. It’s hard to tie the missing make up in with what we can prove from the dna evidence then, even if that’s not necessarily in itself completely conclusive like you said. It sounds like there are numerous ‘suspects’ for where Knoxs blood came from then- ear, nose etc.

I’ve just finished reading your book btw, great read, thank you- the analysis and the writing are top notch, all the more convincing for its restraint.

You brought up lots of information and ideas I hadn’t come across before, one of which was Solicitos song choice after the murder ‘Stealing Fat’ from Fight Club…I typed it into google and saw the accompanying scene from the film, which he must have been thinking about, it’s two people passing clear plastic bags of bloody fat to each other, one of which breaks open spewing blood over one of the characters. What a telling image to be preoccupied with after that clean up!

Posted by HotAir on 12/07/20 at 08:41 AM | #

Knox’s face in the news reacting to Rudy’s release: HEADLINE ‘I wish he’d been fully held accountable’: Amanda Knox slams decision to allow Meredith Kercher’s killer to leave prison 12 years after he was put behind bars.

https://tinyurl.com/y3k7see2

On Good Morning America December 7, 2020 Knox said, in reacting to news that Rudy Guede will now complete his term free of prison but doing community service instead, she said,  “I continue to this day to be shocked that he is the forgotten killer, the one who was quietly tucked away, convicted of a lesser crime and does not have to live with the burden of forever being associated with Meredith’s death.”

Knox: “I do wish that he had been held fully accountable for what he did and that he acknowledged what he did.”  See story in Daily Mail online December 7, 2020, Monday.

Knox was on the Good Morning America TV show when these remarks were made. She said of Guede, who is now doing community service until the end of his prison sentence and is now since Friday December 4, 2020 released from behind bars until his full sentence ends in March 2022,

she said about Guede: “I do know that many, many people have suffered a great deal because of what he did.”

Knox said that she has had to carry the burden of his crime.

Since Guede’s day release from Viterbo prison he has been volunteering at a Catholic charity and a food kitchen.

His lawyer, Fabrizio Ballarini, said, “Guede will continue with his studies and will also carry on his work with Caritas. He’ll live in an apartment in central Viterbo that has been made available to him.”

Ballarini also said of the early release for Guede to do community service, “We are very satisfied with the decision which has come about because of my client’s desire and intelligence and who did not waste his time in prison but put it to good use and studied hard.”

Ballarini insists Guede is “calm and socially well-integrated” after years of good conduct and behavior.

Guede was given 16 years for the crime. Then in 2017 he got partial release to go to school to work on a master’s degree and to work in a library of criminology center which has since closed due to Covid 19.

Guede is now completing a master’s in historical sciences at Roma Tre University, Ballarini told Umbria24.

Comments:

He is not the only one who should be held accountable

Now they should trade places and she can go to the slammer.

Amanda…SHUT UP!

One comment excoriates Guede. Most think Knox should be grateful for freedom and quiet about the murder. One sums it up, “Look who’s talking.”

Posted by Hopeful on 12/07/20 at 06:01 PM | #

Hopeful you made me choke on my toast this morning! That is funny. I think she has finally lost it though.

“I continue to this day to be shocked that he is the forgotten killer, the one who was quietly tucked away, convicted of a lesser crime and does not have to live with the burden of forever being associated with Meredith’s death.”

A: What is the lesser crime? I think it’s a greater crime than merely accusing an
  innocent of murder.
B: In what way will he not be associated with Meredith’s death forever?
C: He was in prison, fool. That’s being quietly tucked away if anything is.

To sum it up, Amanda is showing signs of jealousy that she is not the only one associated with Meredith’s death.

A dignified response to his release would have been to say ‘no comment’ but Amanda Knox, the dilettante lawyer, has to showcase her boneheadedness with another baffling announcement.

Thank you Hopeful, it’s gallows humour but you really cheered me up.

Posted by pensky on 12/08/20 at 08:01 AM | #

Knox said on Twitter:

The latest @nbcsvu is based on my case, & includes a character named “Sexy Lexi.”

As per usual, when the worst experience of my life is cannibalized for entertainment, I was consulted for authenticity & accuracy & compensated ONE MILLION DOLLARS

What world we live in.

Posted by DavidB on 12/08/20 at 01:01 PM | #

@DavidB, as you say “What a world we live in” when killers receive money to use their stories while the victim loses everything.

Interesting about Law and Order: SVU using a story similar to Perugia murder with the famous Mariska Hargitay starring as the detective pursuing justice.

@pensky, Thanks for feedback on the gallows humour of Knox’s latest verbal outrage. I’m glad it was amusing, at least it was good for something. Better to laugh than cry.

Knox pretends to be indignant that Rudy was not held fully accountable? Yet he was the only one of the 3 miscreants who spent time behind bars FOR THE MURDER AND HAS NEARLY COMPLETED HIS OBLIGATION TO THE STATE whereas Knox and Sollecito wriggled out of their guilty verdicts by the skin of their teeth and by ample costly PR efforts… the gall, the gall.

Could Knox be envious that Guede DID PAY for his crime, whereas she did not? Maybe she envies him his clear conscience, his humility, his fresh start. Maybe she wishes she had confessed, taken a fast track trial, and used her time to study and pursue degrees behind bars and NOT HAVE MARRIED, NOT HAVE GOTTEN ON THE HAMSTER WHEEL OF falsehoods to Innocence Conventions. Maybe her desire for the courage to have told the truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth and to take her lumps, to survive the punishment of prison, maybe that courage would have changed her life in an incredibly positive way. She could hold her head up again, sleep peacefully again, live again? Really live, not just play act and put on farces.

Knox must be very very afraid of what Rudy Guede will reveal once he gains his freedom. One thing he may gain is a clear conscience, having paid his honest debt to Italian justice, something Knox never did.

I wonder if she will pay some of that million from NBC SVU tv episode based on “her” case, to Lumumba or the Kercher family?

Can you figure out one iota of logic in her saying that Rudy will NOT be forever associated with Meredith’s death? Of course he will always be associated with Meredith’s death. That’s the only reason he rose to media attention!!

Can you believe the incredible self-deception it takes for Knox to say that SHE has to carry the burden of Guede’s crime?

His crime, his alone? not his crime alone when the first thing she said to police was that she saw herself in memory at the crime scene. Not when physical evidence of her DNA was then found mixed in the blood of the victim. Not when Italy’s Supreme Court ruled there were more participants in the killing than Rudy Guede.

Yet Knox claims she has to carry the burden of Rudy’s crime?

unbelievable.

She was convicted of the murder TWICE in two separate courts, yet she has the audacity to say that she is carrying the burden of Guede’s crime when 2 courts found she was right there with Guede in the killing!

There was real evidence against her despite her final acquittal for LACK OF ENOUGH EVIDENCE.

The acquittal was NOT DUE TO REAL INNOCENCE.

The Supremes cut her loose out of mercy and reasonable doubt. She walked, but now says she begrudges Guede any leniency or early release? She’s trying to pretend to react like an innocent person would to his release, but it’s all an act or she has started to believe her own lies. Take nothing she does at face value. The only thing she is truly happy about is the money from NBC, if that million dollar figure isn’t itself a lie. Never trust Knox.

At this point, she has convinced herself of her innocence or justified her actions against Meredith in some labyrinthine mental cartwheel.

How does she put on such a mask with a straight face? She is hamming up this act against Guede’s early release out of pure FEAR. He may cause the penny to drop.

Posted by Hopeful on 12/08/20 at 08:38 PM | #

Hi Hopeful,
I don’t think she received any money but she is suggesting that she should have received a million dollars as it’s based on her case.
What gall, as you say.
And I think you are absolutely right that she is jealous of Guede as he has at least in some way paid for his crime.  He can live a real life instead of the pantomime that she has to continue to play.

Posted by DavidB on 12/09/20 at 07:05 AM | #

@DavidB, thanks for clearing it up. I mistook irony or sarcasm as a statement of fact. Now I understand the comment even more, Knox feels she DESERVES a million dollars from NBC for “her story”. Her rightful property, her biography, her very life has been cannibalized for the profit of others and she makes no money on any of it. Meredith paid a higher price for the rights to the story, and has made no money on it either.

@HotAir, I agree with your observations about the stolen makeup. It points toward a female thief most likely. With Knox the only female in the cottage other than Meredith, logic points to her especially with the mixed DNA of hers and Meredith’s in five different locations of the cottage.

A female stealing makeup (not easy to prove but likely) again means Guede didn’t act alone. He was there with a female thief. Knox fills the bill.

I agree with the comment about Fight Club music that Raffaele played the morning after the murder night. Such hideous images and noise calling themselves music. It suggests a very disturbed state of mind. Violence breeds violence. And recall that Hands of Time hideous video Knox made with a musical band after the crime. Dark images prevail in it.

Posted by Hopeful on 12/09/20 at 05:47 PM | #

Here are some key points about Guede that are well-known to most of us, and repeated here for newcomers and for the record.

(1) There was more incriminating DNA of Knox found in the apartment after Meredith’s murder than there was of Guede.

(2) Guede has been demonized by the Knox forces even since as a drifter, violent character, and serial burglar - fake facts not ever proven. He was the only one with no police record prior to arrest.

(3) For the first 8 months after their arrests Knox and Sollecito exclusively focused their fire from Capanne prison on one another, and Guede was really never mentioned by either of them.

(4) In spring 2008 the Supreme Court ruled against house arrest for Knox and Sollecito on the basis that they might flee - and also might harm others. Confidential psychological tests factored into this. Nobody saw a need for Guede to be tested.

(5) Guede got no breaks whatsoever at any time in his legal process. He was roasted by Judge Micheli at his 2008 trial and roasted again by the Supreme Court late in 2009 at his final appeal. He was not simply forgotten.

(6) Guede had no PR and his lawyers worked pro-bono. They were at his brief trial in 2008 and brief appeals in 2009 but were at the Knox and Sollecito trial on only one day.

(7) Guede was the only one of the three ever put in handcuffs and for a brief moment he was put in the cage in the courtroom; there were photos of this.

_

(8) Guede took the option of the shortform trial in exchange for pleading involvement because from mid 2008 the Knox and Sollecito PR took to blasting him, as did the defense teams almost daily at the RS/AK trial.

(9) That plea unfortunately did not REQUIRE him to confess to murder, an Italian legal failing. It resulted in a shortened sentence according to a formula related to the sentences Knox and Sollecito were handed by Judge Massei. 

(10) He was only at the 2009 Knox-Sollecito trial very briefly and had nothing to say. He had been mysteriously beaten up in prison shortly before that.

(11) He was demonized at the AK/RS trial by the defenses almost daily in his absence. He had no way to respond to that and the prosecution sat on the sidelines.

(12) He was the only one ever to attempt an apology to the Kerchers, though it would be hard for them to forgive him as (1) he said at trial and appeals (and still does) that sex with Meredith was consensual and as (2) he failed to call for an ambulance.

Bottom line? Guede had fallen on hard times but had recently worked hard up north until his employment collapsed. He had no police record, was given no breaks, was fairly tried, and was sentenced harshly in the first instance.

He was much demonized by Knox and Sollecito and their forces while he was absent in prison. He had no way for years of responding until he was permitted an RAI-TV interview. He kind it said it all back then - to Italians. Assuming his book is put into English it will expose RS and AK in the US and UK also as dangerous con artists.

Posted by Peter Quennell on 12/09/20 at 06:44 PM | #

What goes around comes around…

Both Knox and Sollecito wrote books heavily demonizing Guede. Knox’s book contains over 500 self-serving lies and demonizes nearly 50 Italians.

Here’s betting that Guede won’t beat that record.

And Knox heavily demonizes Guede at every paid presentation including the one in Modena last year.

Guede’s retaliatory book has been in the wind for years. We have long known about this possibility.

Four months ago in the UK edition of Metro there was this update, along with Knox’s rattled reaction

https://tinyurl.com/yx96xbm8

Amanda Knox has shut down a request from a US journalist who asked her what she thinks about a new book being written by the man who killed the British student Meredith Kercher.

Rudy Guede, 33, was sentenced to 16 years in jail for the rape and murder of the 21-year-old. He has just begun a work programme as part of a phased release back into freedom.

Once he gets out, he’s reportedly planning to publish a book telling his side of the notorious story.

Although his bloodstained fingerprints [untrue; one palmprint] were found on her possessions, he’s always denied killing Meredith in Perugia, Italy, in 2007 and is now apparently gearing up to throw the case back into the spotlight.

But Ms Knox, 33, who spent four years in prison before being acquitted of murdering her flatmate [but not of framing Patrick] said Guede had tried to blame her for his crime.

When contacted by a US publication to comment on the book, she said the writer was ‘crafting an article that omits all evidence of my ­innocence [such as?] to bully me into commenting.’

Along with her then-boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito, the American endured years under the spotlight and various trials [no, only the one trial] and appeals before being cleared of any involvement [untrue] in the killing.

She tweeted: ‘Is the article going to point out that Guede had a ­history of burglary [untrue], that he left copious DNA [though less than Knox] at the crime scene, & that he fled the country?

‘Is it going to point out that the Italian Supreme Court, in definitively acquitting [untrue] Rafaele Sollecito and me cited “stunning flaws” in the investigation & a complete lack of biological traces connecting me to the crime?’

She continued: ‘Is it going to point out that the European Court of Human Rights ruled that my rights were violated [merely of not having a lawyer, which Knox had refused] during my interrogation? Somehow, I doubt it.’

Posted by Peter Quennell on 12/09/20 at 07:06 PM | #

Knox was acquitted under Section 2 of the Italian Criminal Procedure Code i.e reasonable doubt and contradictory evidence. Had she been acquitted under Section 1 i.e for not having committed the crime, that would be more akin to an exoneration.

The fact that the court had a choice here and plumped for Section 2 while at the same time placing Knox at the cottage at the time of the murder, and accepting that there were multiple attackers, makes it pretty clear that she was not exonerated.

She was let off in a transparently bent decision.

An important anomaly in the 5th Chambers’ verdict is that they accepted that the break-in had been staged but acquitted Knox and Sollecito of this charge without offering any explanation as to who else might have been responsible for this, and why. White rabbits and holes in the ground spring to mind. A veritable Wonderland.

Posted by James Raper on 12/10/20 at 05:05 AM | #

Helpful comment. James has written extensively about the written Supreme Court outcome, see the link in the right column.

The Fifth Chambers normally does not handle murder crimes and they illegally entered in to the guts of the evidence - any quibbles should have been referred back down to the Florence appeal court.

Even so, neither that court nor any other ever labeled Guede the Lone Killer - as Knox & co always do.

Posted by Peter Quennell on 12/10/20 at 06:58 AM | #

Do your homework, Kaitlin Reilly of Yahoo News

“Amanda Knox Speaks Out After Meredith Kercher’s Convicted Murderer Rudy Guede Is Freed From Prison”

https://tinyurl.com/y4yexs45

And by Knox herself. We intend to take that essay apart.

https://tinyurl.com/yy7m5s8h

Posted by Peter Quennell on 12/10/20 at 11:13 AM | #

December 25, 2020 will be Christmas Day. (Merry Christmas to all.) Then December 28 will be Meredith’s birthday. December 30 will mark one year since Raffaele got engaged to Andreea Mihaela Burtea. He announced the engagement on December 30, 2019 which makes it almost a year ago as of this writing (December 21, 2020 the shortest day of the year).

Question: Does anyone know if they have tied the knot? It has been almost a year of engagement.

Raffaele met Andreea on the internet.

In September 2019 he told RadarOnline that he had known Andreea “for two years.” He shared photos of them together in front of a snow topped mountain and of them in Venice, Italy on September 8, 2019 by Instagram. He told In Touch magazine online that he had experienced difficulties dating due to his “black halo”.

Meanwhile Knox married last December (2019).

Then she and Chris Robinson her husband held a second wedding celebration on Leap Day with Knox dressed in a black and yellow pant set. That occurred February 29, 2020.

As 2021 arrives and February 2021 arrives with it, (Happy New Year to all) there will technically be no February 29th on the calendar for their first wedding anniversary.

They married in a Leap Year so February 29th occurs only every 4 years.

Does anyone know if Raffaele has officially married his longtime fiancee, Miss Burtea whom he called “my bride to be” in photo captions? He is nearing his mid-30s now in age.

Andrea Burtea: She is a lovely brunette with long hair in last year’s pix.

Posted by Hopeful on 12/21/20 at 08:10 PM | #

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