“Million Dollar Campaign” To Try To Influence The Jury Is Being Widely Reported To A Startled Italy

Comments

Kurt Know denied there was a private jet so we now know it’s true.

The appeal is virtually over now. I find it totally amazing that all of the media circus the, PR, FOA, pro-Amanda bloggers the Knox family etc. did not identify that the key to their problem was to get the Kercher family on their side.

When are they going to console with them? While they have their private jets waiting on the tarmac, the Kercher family have trouble affording plane tickets. The lawyers for the Kercher family were directed by the Kerchers to convey their opinion that the appeal be rejected. Obviously this is going to carry a lot of weight in Italian court proceedings.

Meredith Kercher was the daughter/ sister everyone would be proud of to have. She was the person that the PR machine, defense lawyers, the Knox family etc would have us believe about Amanda. She was intelligent, sweet and caring. Within days of arriving in Perugia she had made many friends.

She had bonded immediately with her two nice Italian flatmates and with the neighbors downstairs. She liked the house, liked the clubs, liked walking Perugia, she liked the culture and the fun festivals in Perugia. Her first encounters with her new boyfriend downstairs, an Italian musician, were said to be shy and sweet.

Unfortunately, this one showed up!  http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-498853/The-wild-raunchy-past-Foxy-Knoxy.html

This is the Amanda Knox the courts relate to. That is the Amanda Knox the Kerchers recognise. That is the Amanda Knox the prosecution refers to.

Hopefully it’s okay to post this (and if it isn’t, the admins could delete it). If you’re interested in helping the Kercher family, PMF is looking into setting something up.

The next post is on the Kerchers, how Maresca has drawn attention to their very tragic plight, and how that story too is all over the Italian media.

Starsdad is right. How cruel and callous and shortsighted Curt Knox and Edda Mellas and the rest of the entourage have been toward the Kerchers over these past four years.

I can finally make a post on this website which I’ve been reading for the last three years or so.  Not sure why but I had log-in problems for quite awhile.  ‘

First of all to say that I am an American but have lived in Europe for almost half my life.  So I see both sides perhaps of the media circus going on.  I’ve tried when possible to read the Italian news using the Google translator.  I wonder how many other Americans have done that It is shameful the way the American media is so slanted to be pro-Amanda, poor little Amanda, will she be free soon etc?  The other evidence beyond the contested DNA is almost NEVER mentioned, particularly the point that Raphael actually does not back up her alibi, and saying that she was out from 9pm to 1am, saying they both lied.  I find that one of the most key pieces of evidence against her.  But it is never mentioned, at least not lately.

So many things about this case to me are puzzling and I try to make out what exactly happened, over and over.

Is there anyone who thinks that Sollecito just woke up when Amanda returned at 1am from his drug-induced stupor and then went to her aid to clean up the crime scene, being so besotted with her that he would help her at any price, not believing they would be caught?  If so, however, why would he not have squawked by now, and made it clear that he was not there with Amanda and that he did not back up her claims?  Why, well I guess because he is taking his chances on complete acquittal now in which case he wouldn’t have to do any jail time.  If it goes on to the third appeal at the Supreme Court, maybe then he would make a clear statement on what happened that night in order to receive a reduced sentence of cleaning up a crime scene.

Alternatively, could Raphael be the one who did most of the dirty work, with his penchant for knives and violent porn?  A loner without any serious relationships, suddenly gratified perhaps in his lust by a girl willing to act out some of his fantasies (why the long knife found in his bedroom for example?)  Did he act out a rape scene to impress Amanda?  He is the one I understand the least and who has received the least focus in the media.  In fact from the press, you would nearly think this appeal is only about Amanda and not him at all, he is so much in her shadow.  The type of comics he read maybe induced him to try something similar in real life, given that he was stoned or drunk at the time.  He is a hard character to understand.

I remember something he said to his father or in his diary about ‘one day you come back and in the house there is this big mess’ which made me think that he came on the scene after the murder and helped with the clean-up.  But it still does not make sense that he would keep protecting Amanda, after four years could he still want to protect her? is he still in love with her?  In fact they had only ‘dated’ for a week or so, not exactly a relationship, perhaps more of an obsession on his part.  I really hate the parts where she talks about him ‘cleaning her ears’.  I find that very strange, first of all to mention, and then to imagine that sort of fawning over her, which makes me imagine he was very very clingy and appreciative of her coming on to him so quickly.

Somehow Rudy comes off not as an evil killer but more of a lost soul who got caught up in something he did not intend.  I’m sorry if that offends anyone, but everything I read about the guy makes him sound non-violent, just kind of a sad lost person without any strong family ties, good at basketball but not much else, struggling to survive on little money, partying and wasting time.  He does not sound like someone who would murder on a whim.  I’m not saying he is completely innocent but there are elements of his story which sound like the way he always operated, sitting on the toilet for a long time for example.  If he was really the one to stanch the blood with the towel(s), I do not understand how he would get the towel without entering the bathroom(s) to get one and therefore having his footprints show up in one or the other??  It seems likely that he panicked afterwards and tried to forget the problem with dancing at a disco and drinking the night away. 

Was it proven or disproven that the print on the bathroom towel belonged to Rudy or to Raphael?  Again I find it so strange that they would leave that laying there but clean up so much of everything else.  Other people have commented on it.

Why was nothing much made of the fact that the washing machine had just been run with Meredith’s clothes inside?

In terms of the convenience store purchases and Amanda’s walk through the streets with bleach or other things, how could no one have noticed her coming and going into the cottage at that early hour?  The case is so famous that surely people in the town all read about it and someone must have seen her movements to and from Raphael’s house in the broad daylight.  That too I do not understand, why no one came forward and said, ‘yes I saw her go into the house at 8am’.

Amanda I can only explain as a split personality - one who can be a good person some of the time, or perhaps most of the time, but prone to wild erratic behavior resulting in her drug, alcohol and sexual exploits. 

Her parents are no charmers, agreed, but I have to say that as a mother I understand their desperate measures to do whatever it takes to free their daughter, loathsome though it seems to other people.  They want to believe she is innocent, they have not known her to do something so terrible before, she has the look of someone who could be innocent.  The media circus is fueled by the media owners, CNN, ABC, CBS - it is their executives who decide to interview the Amanda clan over and over to up their morning show ratings, their reporters who pose the pro-Amanda questions and are sympathetic with the family again and again, and never bring up the controversial issues.  I am appalled at the tabloid type of journalism displayed on all of these American channels.  It is unbearable for me to hear any interview or read any article about the case in American news.

Why is it never mentioned that of course it would have been easy to throw another knife, perhaps used by Raffa, a smaller knife, the one that really matched up with everything and had incriminating DNA all over it, into that large ravine near the house?  I’m sure they searched around but it would be like finding a needle in a haystack.  I never heard of them using police dogs to search that whole area - perhaps it did happen.  Raphael had quite a collection.

Id never seen the article you have linked to Starsdad - but now I understand why the family needed a million dollar PR campaign.

I hope that peace will find the Kercher family soon.

Hi Believing.  First of all, welcome.  I really enjoyed reading your post.

I don’t think that Raffaele just helped with the clean up.  I don’t know strong Amanda was at the time, but I suspect she might not have been able to restrain Meredith by herself while Rudy was assaulting her.  Meredith had martial arts training and could have probably kicked the knife out of her hand and gotten out.  She was also strangled so hard, her hyoid bone broke.  It’s possible that Raffaele didn’t inflict the fatal wound, but he probably played a big part in holding her down and was likely responsible for some of the other wounds.

Rudy clearly assaulted Meredith, but it’s not sure that he stabbed her.  Who knows, but I think he was very scared by what had happened given that he ran out.

I don’t think either of them has any loyalty for Amanda at this point, but that they are frightened of what she could say if they threw her under the bus. Both know they were there and played a part in the murder, and that their punishment won’t be less if they talk. If there was a chance for Raffaele to have only helped with the clean up, I think we would have seen a schism in the defense a lot sooner; no one wants to go to prison for 25 years if all they did was cover up evidence and provide a false alibi.

O.T. , but . . . about money.

I´ve just read, Joran van der Sloot receives ten-thousand-s of dollars from an American lady, who thinks, there is a complot going on against him.

There is a saying in legal terms which is, in my opinion apropos to this case and this time frame. The PR effort that has been going on since this case broke is “Fruit of the poisoned tree.” In other words I believe that when this becomes general knowledge in the USA, then many people who were willing to give Knox the benefit of the doubt will turn against the family whose lives will become very difficult. Of course there will always be the blind leading the blind but I believe that their numbers will diminish.

believing,

Knox and Sollecito’s attempts to synchronize their alibis quickly descended into farce when Sollecito claimed they had gone out to party. Police undoubtedly hammered away at that until he cracked and implicated Knox, who in turn had to modify her alibi in a tale that became progressively more surreal and laden with implausible I don’t remembers. Sollecito’s lawyers are wise to keep him from giving any more statements.

As for Guede, even if you accept the defense theory in full, you are left with a lone wolf who was alternately completely reckless and extremely cautious. I actually tend to believe the FOA explanation that towels were laid down on the floor, but would a guy who left his bloody shoeprints everywhere do that? What this suggests rather is that there was a team effort where one person got the towels and laid them out for the other one to go and wash up.

My best guess is they did try to wash the bathmat but the footprint wouldn’t come out. So it was a choice between removing the bathmat—which would have been suspicious—and ignoring it.

Regarding why no one recognized Knox traveling to and from the cottage, it seems like it was just luck. I think Knox herself expected to be seen and that’s why she concocted an alibi for it.

Does anyone have info regarding Merediths locked bedroom. It would be silly to suggest Guede locked the room and ran into the street leaving the front door open. The locked room would be necessary because anyone returning unexpectedly would find the ‘cleaners’ with their dirty washing! 7.30 am to 12.30 pm. Is it possible that the key is a stones throw away from the house? Obviously the room was finally locked so that Amanda would be unable to ‘find’ the body.

starsdad,

Once again you have the schizophrenic Rudy that the defense has tried so hard to conjure. He carefully locks one door while leaving another wide open. Meredith’s bedroom door was of the type that doesn’t just pull closed to lock. The killers would have held onto the keys until they didn’t think they’d need them anymore. Of course they still forgot Amanda’s lamp!

Thx brmull, I have seen your postings on groundreport. It amazes me that the pro-Amanda people on that site know very little about the case.

Yes the lamp was a key piece of evidence which has also not been talked about in the US media circus!  Why in the world would it be in Meredith’s room on the floor, obviously in a place where it could be used to see how to clean up, perhaps to keep the light from shining through the window as well, during the night?  One can just imagine the frantic clean-up. 

I suppose as well, there were no fingerprints or DNA on this lamp, either from Knox moving it in there or if the defense would like to imagine, Meredith borrowing it, putting it on the floor, or even from Rudy using it to light his way to and from the room?  They have not explained it at all right?  Did Amanda just claim she didn’t know how it got in there? 

I’m also curious as to why Amanda in doing such a thorough clean-up would leave any visible traces of blood in the bathroom.  Maybe they didn’t imagine there being any mixed DNA in it but wanted it to support the break-in/rape theory.  Finally was the shopkeeper believed, who said he was sure that Amanda was outside his shop in the morning?  What did the defense say in retort, that he was just mistaken? It is pretty obvious that it was her.  The description was not of a middle-aged Italian woman going to get early cleaning supplies, but of a pale-faced girl with large blue eyes, I believe, in a hooded sweatshirt. 

Also did anyone notice how either Amanda or Rafa explained the water in his apartment as one time coming from a burst pipe and another time coming from him ‘spilling water on the floor’? after dinner?  Any who in the world just leaves water all over the floor instead of using a few towels to clean it up. What was that water on the floor story supposed to cover as I have read various accounts, one saying she had a mop in her hand when the postal police came but other accounts do not mention that mop at all, and another said a mop at Sollecito’s was tested but they found nothing on it.

I also believe that the Knox clan has become so embroiled in their own story and fame that every one of them has taken a stance which they cannot back down from.  As well they do know she will be worth millions if she gets out “MY STORY by Amanda Knox”.  She is pretty enough to go into the movies,and probably a good enough actress.  I even think Amanda believes her own story by now, the story of innocence. 

She seems a girl who lived in a fantasy world before, who likes to write and dream and imagine things.  But for the defense, how is it plausible that someone can live in a dream or be so traumatized by questioning that for two whole weeks, she would believe that she was in the apartment while a good friend, her former boss, killed her friend.  How can any educated person actually believe that nonsense? 

I have seen so many accounts in the US where citizens write in their comments who say that the Italian police interrogated her for 53 hours straight (the hours keep going up) without food, water or sleep, essentially torturing her.  Why has that slander suit not happened yet, to refute that?  Why was Rafa treated well, right next door, but Amanda tortured?  Oh yes, they hate Americans, the same Americans who bring millions to their country every year as tourists.

It also does not seem that Rafa was hammered away at, from what I recall, the police just confronted him with the phone and/or computer records which negated his original alibi, and then he told them (seems to be quite calmly) that it was a load of rubbish, that he had ‘believed Amanda’s version of what happened that night’ and that actually she had been out from 9pm to 1am.

That was a strange way to put it, as if he was so out of it that night that he had no idea what he did but had to ‘believe Amanda’ or that she had such a hold on him that she put the story into his brain over and over in the morning (this is what happened Rafa).  I wonder to what extent he was on drugs that night.  He claims to have been stoned 80% of the time somewhere in his statements. 

I’m wondering too, about the prison diaries.  Apparently that is legal, for the Italian prison system to provide the prisoners diaries, to write out their feelings, but then to use them as evidence against them?  I’ve never heard of that in America.

Maundy Gregory has written the best article about the current state of play:

http://maundygregory.wordpress.com/

Worth reading:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2043910/Amanda-Knox-trial-Is-walk-free-make-millions.html

Can anyone tell me if there is court action going on this weekend, or if everything is adjourned until Monday?  In which case they couldn’t possibly do a verdict before Weds right? 

I have tried to highlight some of the real evidence into comments on CNN, Yahoo,CBS, ABC website articles, but it is difficult to stem the flood of public opinion which has resulted from the one-sided presentation.  Most people haven’t had the time or made the effort to read through all of the evidence.  I am amazed that even some so-called experienced lawyers say there is no evidence.  What could account for the clean-up?  There is no way that Rudy did everything by himself, carefully, and then left his feces sitting in the toilet and his handprint there (after moving the body, and why move the body?)  It doesn’t make any sense, even for Rudy. 

f anyone on this website can try to make some comments on American media articles it would help.  If Amanda is convicted again there will be outrage in the USA (they don’t care about Rafa, he isn’t American).  However, just to note, there are quite a few people on the comment boards who believe they are guilty.  Not all Americans are so swayed.

Hi Believing. You can see the court dates at the top of our right column. Nothing before Monday.

I havent had time to read comments elsewhere for several weeks but back then true facts were starting to dominate. Point readers over here if you like: TJMK seems to convince at least a dozen waverers daily after they sit and read for an hour or two. The must-read posts are the first link in the index links in the right column.

Barbie Nadeau’s video also worth a view.

Knox Case Nears Its Gaudy End

knoxavists….😉

I saw one of the US TV producers in Perugia had the nerve to claim on Italian TV that they were only interested in the evidence! The evidence is the last thing they’re concerned with; it’s all about painting a certain emotional picture for the grazing masses at home who don’t know any better. The actual facts can be ignored; these are not news organizations in any traditional sense like the BBC or NYT (even if they have Egan as a black mark), just pre-packaged entertainment that rots the brain of anyone exposed to it. The self-loathing among the network execs - and even some of the more aware onscreen clowns - must be at a peak right now.

The articles by Maundy Gregory are excellent, I hadn’t read them before.  Who is he/she?

Thanks for the pointing out of the key court dates, had missed them somehow.  I can’t believe the Sollecito family trial comes after the appeal.  They are guilty of so much if the story is true that the prison witnesses were bought off!  Some people in the USA even still believe those witnesses told the truth! 

I guess I have so much feeling about this case having been an exchange student myself long ago, in France, and having lived much as those four girls did in the Perugia house on the hill, with its basic furniture and proximity to the University, allowing them to walk around the old town.  I have done much of that in my time.  As a young university student, at a very good uni, there was still a LOT of partying done by students there, binge drinking, drugs etc, who subsequently grew up and became respectable middle-agers with families, jobs, and low-key lives. 

So I don’t overly condemn Amanda or Raphael for their partying ways at that age although I don’t condone it either.  I did some stupid things in my uni days due to immaturity that I look back on and say ‘whaaaat?’.  Especially for young Americans, coming to Europe with its lower drinking age and the chance to go freely to bars is somewhat a call to go a bit wild, away from parents etc.  They say the human brain only reaches maturity in the mid-twenties and both Amanda and Raphael were young and stupid and careless at the time. 

They have grown up a lot in jail, as well they have been off drugs and alcohol for four years.  No wonder Amanda’s behavior in jail is exemplary, as well as for the reason of that she needed to show the world she is not that evil person as depicted in the trial.  I still don’t think the crime was premeditated.  I think the knives were brought as a prank or to scare Meredith like the previous prank done by Amanda, and then some kind of strange or angry mood or bigger confrontation took over the whole incident.

well, duh. thx Reuters

Meredith ignored in “media fog” around Amanda Knox

If the flat was wiped clean as the evidence suggests,who would have spent time doing so after committing a murder if they didn’t know for sure that no one else would be returning home. Who knew for sure that all of the flat mates were gone for holiday.

Knox’s email to family and friends immediately after the murder which coldly tried to anticipate inculpating evidence and explain it away is the most telling indictment of all.

I’m trying to recall any instance when another country’s PR effort and xenophobic rants toward the US system to free one of their own convicted of a crime ever succeeded. So why should the Italians cave to such propaganda from our own clueless media and paid spin squads.

The US media hazing of Italy is very much like what the attackers did to Meredith.  I hope the Italians stand tall in the face of it.

Jen in Seattle

The court should uphold the convictions because 99% of the evidence still stands and the initial knife test that profiled Meredith was witnessed by the defense. There is a strong likelihood that the convicts will confess and explain during the pend ency of the appeal to the highest court.

The current appeal is just another roulette play by them. When it counts and there are no more they will confess on advice of their attorneys in exchange for Italy’s favorable treatment and sentence reduction of convicts who tell the truth.

Keep in mind the highest court found that there were multiple attackers, thus the full court press by the Knox PR machine and their media sock puppets now. She will never return for the final appeal if they free her at this stage.

It would be fascinating to see the nature of any improper persuasion/coercion of the court/jurors behind the scenes. We will know if their relatives all of a sudden have jobs at ABC.

jennifer,

In Nadeau’s column and video that mojo links to above, she says says the verdict would likely be the same even if the forensic investigation had gone perfectly. She doesn’t explicitly say she thinks Knox and Sollecito will be once again convicted—probably because, according to Reuters, she’s getting death threats—but she says the PR and media campaign has delegitimized any guilty verdict, and has now moved on shaping Knox’s public image going forward.

Hi Believing. Some points on the binging that you raise. A recent US study suggested that alcohol and drug intake heads up sharply after students move from the US to Europe.

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

Because Perugia once had the reputation of being among the easiest of European towns on drugs and alcohol some students apparently made it their choice just because of that.

Two American students under the influence committed horrific murders in Florence in the period since Meredith died, leaving Italians angry and baffled.

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

Given Knox’s known proclivity for drugs back in Seattle before she ever traveled, her lack of structure and any monitoring and limited money supply set her wildly apart from Meredith.

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

Meredith had the typical study load of a foreign student including courses in politics and economics at the university. Knox’s study load was laughable, and she sure had a lot of time on her hands.

@brmull
“Nadeau, who argues that the Knox media campaign has meant many Americans have only seen their side of the story, says she gets hate mail from Knox supporters, some of whom have written to say they hope she “faces the same fate as Meredith” and telling her to get God in her life.”

Wanna bet this is Michelle Moore?

@vivianna,
I does sound a lot like Michelle Moore, doesn’t it. Hmm…

@peter,
I didn’t realize Knox wasn’t taking a full course load. Idle hands are the devil’s workshop. Speaking as someone who went to high school abroad, I caught on pretty quickly that the police weren’t eager to arrest young foreigners. Bad for tourism and diplomacy I guess. That fed into the sense of invincibility and narcissism that a lot of young people have. Needless to say I saw a lot of drug use and lawbreaking even in a country where criminal penalties are severe. Of course it takes a certain kind of person who is psychologically capable of killing another human being. But mixed together it’s a very volatile cocktail.

She had about four language classes, which would be consistent with the 12-credit load you must take to be considered full-time.

However, it does sound like pretty light work.  Bootcamp-style programs which supposedly churn you out nearly fluent involve a good 5-6 hours of instruction per day plus homework.  She probably figured that she’d learn a lot more just by immersing herself in the culture, but you still need a theoretical foundation.

@Believing I agree, I do not think there was a premeditation for the murder. But almost sure, there was premeditation for the sexual assault. If it was the case, and the murder was in US, it still a felony murder (the sentence is the same as 1st degree: life in prision/death penalty depending on state), because sexual assault is a felony.

I have written in older posts that I think marihuana plays an important role. For me it does not matter if there was premeditation or not, the outcome was the same. They must face the consequences. AK & RS know how dangerous are drugs. Right now in Puerto Rico, two 17-year old guys under drug influence beheaded a man, it was a gruesome murder. One of them is going crazy, try to kill himself, he can’t believe what he has done. One can feel compassion in some way, but justice should be served, and God has mercy. There are a lot of propaganda about drugs, if you fell in in, face the consequences.

I agree also with you regarding her parents, they do deserve the compassion, I imagine that nobody here can deny Edda Mellas is suffering. I understand their position, and I do not have problem with the PR, they want that people knows who is the AK they know, so for me it is OK, the problem is the misinformation about the case, in that part they are doing very bad. But I still thinking the Moore’s are the idiots, it is ok that parents are blinds…. but a FBI agent??? Come on!!! As I read before here, He (Moore) wants a ride with the PR Campaign, his help to Edda & Curt is not genuine.

believing,

The way I think about the spilled water on the floor is “Why is this implausible story necessary?” Amanda could have just said she went back to the cottage to shower and change. The only reason I can think of is they had a wet mop to explain. So they took it back to Raffaele’s, claimed they had used it to clean up water, and brought it back—wet.

Should AK & RS be acquitted at this level and AK dash back home only for the Supreme Court to later declare them guilty, wouldn’t the USA have an obligation to extradite AK back to Italy?

Hi Thundering. Yes as far as we can see the US would willingly extradite Knox because of the extradition treaty which often benefits the US in return.

I have a feeling that Knox herself might voluntarily choose to go back. Otherwise she would have to spend her life on the lam and be very limited in what countries she could visit.

Reports vary on how she is liking it in prison but a new video shows her with a band dancing and having a good time. She has several times said she would like to settle down in Italy, and she may have limited desire to be under the microscope the rest of her life, everybody waiting for her to snap.

Thank you for your reply, Peter. 😊

I don’t think they would be able to get Amanda back once she would be in the USA,  I really don’t think so.  The media campaign would be so huge and Italians so maligned that I think they would give up finally.  I hope the convictions hold and that it goes to the Supreme Court.  Maybe finally then we will have some answers.  What is amazing to me is how these three have baffled the world for four years with the crime that took maybe half hour to commit and a few hours to clean up? 

I think no matter what, no matter how much evidence there is, somehow, we wish to believe that these three did not do it.  If there was only another explanation.  I hate to admit that all three garnish some sort of sympathetic reaction in me, even if I consider they may all three have done such a hideous, inexplicable and horrible act.  They all were so young and seemingly without motive.  Amanda, as many say, looks nearly angelic, Raphael like a grown-up Harry Potter at the time, Rudy even like a lost young man, without evil.  But that is just based on the outside looks.  When I read all the evidence and the Micheli report, I think, they must have done it together, but then when I see them now it seems just incredible that it could have happened.  And yet it did.  As said above, people can do terrible things under the influence of drugs and we do not know what drugs they took that day or that night.  There really just is no other explanation for the clean-up in the apartment or the conflicting alibis, or Amanda’s accusation of Lumumba.  Perhaps that is what the judges and jury will have to reluctantly agree next week.  No one wants to send young people who seem to have their lives ahead of them to a life in jail But if they are guilty of murder, then they have done a terrible terrible thing to the family of Meredith Kercher, who lost a beloved child, a wonderful sister and friend to many.  And they should be punished for that.  When I was a student in France I thought Europe was so safe, so secure.  We did things I would never want my daughter to do now, hitchkhiking in Greece for one, sleeping in a park when we were out of funds.  The thought of anyone being murdered at that time was so incomprehensible, let alone by a flatmate or fellow student.

believing,

Regarding what drugs they might have taken—both cocaine and meth make you poop. Just saying.

I think no one disagrees that justice requires that those who committed the murder be found guilty. People may differ as to what a fair punishment would be. As Mignini said, no one feels good about sending young people to prison. But Italy’s sentencing guidelines are far more humane than in the US—including early release, furlough, and work programs. I consider myself extremely liberal on criminal justice issues, and it seems about right to me.

Just was reading some comments on US media - CNN etc.  Many believe they are not guilty.  How shaky is the DNA evidence really?  One thing I don’t quite understand.  Is DNA only deposited with difficulty?  For example, would DNA be lying all over the floor if you walked around in bare feet, or touched a faucet, or is it only deposited if you have blood on your feet/hands?  So when they say there was no DNA of Knox or Sollecito in the murder room, would that be because they were able to clean up all their footsteps and did not bleed from any wounds themselves, because DNA would not just come from their bodies being in the room?  Sorry to sound so ignorant, am not a scientist obviously, but this is the main reason people in the US do not believe they did it, because there is no DNA in the murder room besides Rudy’s.  Also because they believe the police/investigators are all corrupt and contaminated the evidence somehow.  And beat Amanda up, but that was either before or after she ate a pizza with Rafa.  And the effects lasted two weeks, until they caught Rudy.  During those two weeks I suppose she was also not allowed to eat or drink and was hit continually to make her stick to that story about Lumumba?

Some say that the police wrote out her confession and had her sign it, the one implicating Lumumba, but in fact, she declared it herself and I saw a handwritten letter she had done, not a signed declaration.  Was that thrown out however, even though she gave it to the police voluntarily?

believing,

The top layer of your skin doesn’t have DNA, so you have to rub against something to transfere it. If there’s a room that you spend a lot of time in, like your bedroom or your bathroom, you’re likely to have left DNA there. It’s unsurprising that Knox and Sollecito left no DNA in Meredith’s room. Guede was more likely to leave his DNA because of the sexual assault and the fact that he had knife wounds on his right hand.

Claims of mistreatment during interrogation usually aren’t successful, for obvious reasons. What was thrown out was Knox’s 5:45am statement but everything else is fair game. The 5:45 statement doesn’t contain much that isn’t in Knox’s letter the following morning.

English translations of her two signed statements are here:

http://perugiamurderfile.org/download/file.php?id=1651
http://perugiamurderfile.org/download/file.php?id=1652

Hi Believing.  I’m not a scientist either, but this is what I understand about leaving DNA traces.  Saliva, blood, and semen all contain DNA.  Dry, dead skin and nails don’t. Hair roots do, as long as the hair is pulled out of the body; cut hair doesn’t contain DNA, for example. Brmull explained the rubbing part.

So how much DNA you leave behind depends on your habits.  If they find a half-empty coffee mug or water bottle, your saliva will be on it.  Ditto with any cigarette butts. Wherever you brush your hair, there will be strays, even if you vacuum and sweep obsessively. Your manicure kit might have tiny traces of blood. Your mouse and keyboard will have your fingerprints, and possibly some skin DNA will be on the mouse. If they do a sweep right after you thoroughly cleaned, they might not find much, but most people don’t obsessively wipe everything they touch as soon as they’ve touched it.

Regarding the mop

I read somewhere that when the postal police arrived and before they had called the Cabinieri, Amanda and Raphael were outside the flat with a bucket and mop. Amanda later explained that she had taken it to Rafas flat to clean up a leak. Would someone traipse uphill and back through Perugia with a mop and bucket? Surely, there would be a witness to this? I hope I am not being predjudiced here…I would have used kitchen towels, toilet paper, floor cloths, sponges or a multitude of other things before I would have done what she said.

Oh Massei. Massei !
My mind is exhausted by the constant arguements within myself, conflicting doubts and absorbtion of facts. I have imagined so many possibilities that I give myself headaches, through reading your report.
I reconcile myself that the only scenario that fits the evidence available is that Knox at least was involved. I do not see how she can be acquitted and 72% of Italians agree.
Will I sleep tonight? Hopefully….. I will crack open some beers! Will Amanda sleep tonight, probably not.

As a follow up to my post about the mop.

Amanda said she had returned to her flat to shower and change her clothes because she was going out somewhere for the day with RS. Presumably this means that the mop and bucket would have been left at Rafas flat.
What if someone needed a mop or wanted to do cleaning at her flat? The whole episode doesn’t gel.

Oops….wtf…....I’ve spilt beer! Need a mop!

Starsdad, Raffaele’s apartment was only 1/3 of a mile away.  Hardly much traipsing.  I don’t think she was going to leave the stuff at Raffaele’s, but bring it back as she did.  The arrival of the postal police was certainly not planned, so she probably wanted to make sure everything was clean enough at the cottage, call Filomena, and then leave so Filomena would discover the body and possibly muck up the crime scene in the process.

I feel like Starsdad!  I can’t think of much else other than this case lately.  It was the same a year ago when I was following the trial.  I still never heard for sure that she was found with a mop in her hand, only that they had tested a mop that was at Sollecito’s and found nothing.  She said she was going back to fetch the mop but as far as I know, they postal police found them outside the house looking up at the break-in window (trying to make sure it looked like a break-in perhaps?).

It seems to me very suspicious that you would see blood in a bathroom, see feces in a toilet that you don’t think should be there (and not flush it right away????) and then claim to have walked back to a boyfriend’s house waited around, then come back to the scene of a crime, and then finally call the police.  Who would do that?  95% of people would call the police right away having seen those strange signs.  They had been in the house the day before, as they said, so they knew things were different.  Nobody leaves blood on a faucet from menstruation problems, come on!  Possible drops on the floor maybe, but a footprint?  And I don’t know anyone who bleeds from a bad ear piercing, maybe some soreness.  You can see her ears in the photos outside the house and they look perfectly fine.  There are just too many bits and pieces that don’t make sense, especially the story about Lumumba and the way that she didn’t recant that for two full weeks, having recovered obviously from any hunger or sleep deprivation.  And if she is implicated and there was Sollecito’s DNA on the bra clasp (how would it get there by contamination if he was never in Meredith’s room) then he must have been involved too.  I don’t see that they can acquit them except if the judge believes the two experts on the DNA being inadmissable.  It seems to me that the two experts were paid off somehow, very strange that they had such different conclusions from the initial reports.  Especially with the review of evidence by something like 42 judges?

I just read that marijuana or hashish can be laced with PCP which causes violence and hallucinations.  Surely Amanda’s recollection of the murder seems like someone who was on drugs.  The hazy memories of screams, a black man being violent or wanting to rape, the reaction she had to the knife drawer?  if she were innocent why was her reaction so different from her other roommates who were apparently calm and collected despite going through the same experience?  Very suspicious.  I can only hope the judge and jury are equally going through the evidence and saying, how can this be and they still be innocent?

I think you are right Vivianna, which would explain the locked bedroom door, so that the finding of the body would not be too quick?  Otherwise the police would be surprised that Amanda had not just walked right into Meredith’s room having called out for her and not getting an answer.

I feel it would be a travesty for the judge to let them go free now on insufficient evidence having refused the prosecutor’s demand to retest the DNA using machines that can test low levels of DNA.  I still can’t believe he refused that unless he felt it would again result in controversy and it would never end.  How much easier it would all be though to have a confirmation of the initial evidence right now?  That would possibly shut up a lot of people.

It’s a media myth that Knox and Sollecito were found holding a mop a bucket. The only person who mentioned a mop at all was Knox, in her letter the morning after interrogation. No eyewitnesses came forward, despite the fact that the mop handle and bucket are bright red, and investigators found nothing unusual when they found it at the cottage and tested it.

The experts didn’t say the DNA was inadmissible. They confirmed that the profile identified by Dr. Stefanoni on the knife blade was Meredith’s, and they said that the knife and bra clasp *could* have been contaminated.  Not that they were, but that there was a possibility they were. That, of course, was translated by the FOA as “DNA EVIDENCE THROWN OUT.”

Be prepared for extremely nasty reactions if the jury votes to uphold or increase the sentence. I fear for the safety of neutral journalists and of the Kercher family because the backlash will be swift and violent.

Lucky Italy, as they are rid of Amanda and her clan.  Poor us, as she is back on American soil.  She is an embarrassment to us.  Unfortunately, the Marriott PR machine, aided by the media whores, made it look as though Americans believed and supported Amanda.  I have not met even one person that believed her to be innocent.  She, her family, and the media whores that helped to free her so as to boost their ratings should all rot in hell.

Where next:

Or to next entry Million Dollar Campaign And American Media Come Under Intense Ridicule By An Influential Italian

Or to previous entry Nineteenth Appeal Session: The Prosecution Seems To Be Looking Confident In Court