Sunday, September 28, 2008

Test Your Grasp Of The Evidence: Locate The Witness’s Apartment

Posted by Kermit

1. Key Location: Signora Nara’s Apartment

The Meredith case is a puzzling and very complicated one, with a talented, hard-working and very appealing girl student, Meredith Kercher, as its sad victim.

Set in an exotic old Italian university town (which normally sees no murders) in another country and under another legal system for most followers. With the main reporting in Italian.

With the victim of one nationality and the suspects of three other nationalities. With limited public information released by police and prosecutors, and with some smoke blown by the defense teams and their enablers.

Analyzing the case based on the public information available at any one time might remind you of peeling the layers of onions. A lot of onions.

Here now is one example of the peeling of an onion. It concerns the evidence of a close neighbor who claims to have heard some telling sounds. Despite some attempts to harass her, the signora and her testimony emerge looking pretty credible.

Signora Nara (her first name) lives in an apartment somewhere above the house of the victim and one of the defendants. She thinks she heard a terrible scream - and then some running footsteps down in front of her apartment somewhere above the girls’ house.

Where her place is really matters because, if she is too far away or at the wrong angle, her evidence becomes a lot less credible.

You need all of these shots to understand her situation. The essential clue as to which one it is is hiding in plain site here. It was Kermit on the pro-evidence forum (Kermit knows Perugia and has studied the key locations in great depth) who first spotted it, around 10 days ago.The answer is at bottom here.

2. The Various Clues Hiding In Plain Sight

Below: Signora Nara’s apartment is in fact clearly visible somewhere in this shot

Below: The girls’ house cannot be seen from the basement floors of those house

Below: The roof of the girls’ house CAN be seen from apartments one flight up

Below: These are the steel stairs where Signora Nara says she heard climbing footsteps

Below: Again, the steel stairs where Signora Nara says she heard climbing footsteps

Below: The main street south of her apartment; her front door is in a passage left of and parallel to this

Below: This is that parallel passage, here at its west end, emerging (left) onto the stairs by a park

Below: A CBS investigator and a translator in that passage outside Signora Nara’s front door

Below: The CBS investigator and translator again in that passage - at the ground-floor flat

Below: Her bathroom window seen from the parking facility at what is the BACK of her unit

Below: Two shots of Singnora Nara looking to the left and down from that bathroom window

Below: Shot of her on her balcony looking down and to the left - to the girls’ house

Below: Shots of the roof of the girls’ house; they are from one floor above Signora Nara’s

Below: Roof of the girls’ house in daylight from a similar location - not very far away

Below: And its gravel parking area where she claims she heard some of the footsteps

3. And The Vital Clue Is…

Below: The vital clue is this bathroom window - surrounded by an extensive mock window facade

4. And Therefore Her Apartment Is…

Below: The ONLY second-level apartment with a mock facade and balcony is above the trees at center here

Posted by Kermit on 09/28/08 at 11:55 AM in Evidence & Witnesses, Real locations, Other witnesses, Hoaxers: media groups, CBS Network

Comments

I wonder if Kermit or someone else could track down Kermit’s translation about 10 days ago of Signora Nara’s testimony, and post it in a comment here?

I am on the road this Friday and Saturday and, apologies, I had no time to do this. (I’ll respond to all messages Sunday or Monday! A promise!)

It will further help to explain what we can see in these shots.

I had no good shot of the passage by Signora Nara’s front door in daylight. If anyone in Perugia reads this, and could take one and email it to us, that would be really appreciated.

Posted by Fast Pete on 10/03/08 at 01:26 PM | #

Hi Fast Pete,

Here’s Kermit’s translation as it appeared on the True Crime Message Board. I’ll be splitting it into two comments, as it’s over 2000 words! (the maximum allowed here)

POSTED BY KERMIT
Posted: Tue Sep 23, 2008 6:24 pm Post subject: Square Dancing

————————————————————————————————————————

I’ve been going through recent La Nazione (Umbria) editions. Last week they published a partial transcript of the declaration of Sra. Nara to Mignini. My translation is not good, but I think I’ve got the gist of it:

TITLE: “An Agonising Scream”

SUBTITLE: The Victim’s Cry and the Escape of the Assassins

“I heard a scream ... but a scream .... an agonising scream that made my skin creep ... well .... it was the voice of a woman ... a woman “.

Amongst the evidence there is also the transcript of the declaration of a 68 year old Perugian woman who resides in Via del Melo (from the window of her house she can see the roof of Mez’s house - ndr.) and which the prosecutor wants to refer to, in order to establish the time of the crime (the woman says she heard screaming around 23.30 - ndr.), as well as [to establish] the simultaneous “escape” of more than one person, thereby supporting prosecution theories.”

End of Part 1

Posted by Tara on 10/04/08 at 06:53 AM | #

Here is Part 2 of Kermit’s Translation:
=================================================

“Here are some excerpts:

PM Mignini: “Are you capable of knowing where the scream came from?”

Witness: “From the cottage”

PM Mignini: “From the house of Via della Pergola 7”

Witness: “Yes. Because it is true that people were always joking around and that they would chase about, with their cars on the piazzale [here she is apparently talking about the open upper level of the public carpark and the general noise from there] and many times people spin their tires, so [now back to the night of the crime] I looked out from my bathroom window, I looked up and down, but ... because I see the end of the carpark and the beginning of the carpark, but I didn’t see anyone on the [upper level?] terrace ... that minute that I stayed watching through the window I heard the trampling of gravel, of leaves ... that came from the driveway [“vialetto”, I believe she’s referring to the girls’ access ramp] where we don’t see [?] the leaves below ... then I heard running ... running to escape.”

PM Mignini: “How long after the scream?”

Witness: “Eh oh God it could have been two seconds, a minute and then after I saw ... ”

PM Mignini: “But you were looking out over / watching?” [I get the impression he’s asking if she opened the window or stuck her head out]

Witness: “No because I have plants, but I could see through the window pane which doesn’t have ... shutters or anything but is only glass, double paned, but only glass. Then I could hear running on the iron stairway ... “

Posted by Tara on 10/04/08 at 06:57 AM | #

PART 3 of Kermit’s Translation:

==================================================

“PM Mignini: “.... this iron stairway where does it lead to?”

Witness: “Well it goes from the carpark and ends up at the Via del Melo, where there is an iron gate. And shorty afterwards to Via Pinturicchio”

PM Mignini: “Someone was climbing these stairs, this iron stairway.”

Witness: “Running”

PM Mignini: “Running, a single person or more than one?”

Witness: “At that point I heard a single person”

PM Mignini: “And someone else .... but was there someone else?

Witness: “Well, someone ran away from the driveway toward Via del Bulagaio.”

=================================================

END OF TRANSLATION

Posted by Tara on 10/04/08 at 06:58 AM | #

Early Sunday and I’m back in town….

Thank you very much Tara! And thanks to Kermit in the first place for the timely translation.

Our comment word limit is adjustable of course.

As we don’t think anyone would really be so foolish as to attack this site or any of its posters (more on the seven plagues that might rain down on them soon) we’ve switched it off.

No word limit.

Posted by Fast Pete on 10/05/08 at 03:46 PM | #

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