Overview Of Our 20-Plus Powerpoints On The Case

Posted by Our Main Posters

1. Relevant Locations And Crime Scene

Click for Post:  A Comprehensive Guide To The Relevant Locations (Kermit)

Click for Post:  A Very Odd House, In A Very Odd Location (Kermit)

Click for Post:  A Graphical Tour Of The Crime Scene Itself (Kermit)

Click for Post:  Claim AK & RS Couldn’t Dispose Of Meredith’s Phones Is Wrong (Kermit)

Click for Post:  A Minute By Minute Visual Guide To The Events On The Night (Kermit)

2. Evidence Beyond A Reasonable Doubt

Click for Post:  Evidence Suggests AK & RS Guilty As Charged (James Raper & Kermit)

Click for Post:  DNA Evidence - A Very Clear Intro To A Vital Subject Here (Nikki)

Click for Post:  Evidence Pointing To More Than One Perpetrator At Scene (Kermit)

Click for Post:  The DNA Evidence May Be A Tough Mole To Whack (Nikki)

Click for Post:  Why Forced Entry Via Filomena’s Window Was IMPOSSIBLE (Kermit)

Click for Post:  Evidence Against Sollecito The Experts Have Got Quite Right (Kermit)

3. Raffaele Sollecito & Amanda Knox

Click for Post:  150 Questions For The Defendants They Incessantly Avoid (Kermit)

Click for Post:  Diane Sawyer’s Interview With Knox: Our Sneak Preview! (Kermit)

Click for Post:  Katie Couric Interviews Raffaele Sollecito: Sneak Preview!! (Kermit)

Click for Post:  A Knox-Ghouls Parody, Inspired By Two Mountains (Fly By Night)

4. Aggrandizers, Frauds, Fakes

Click for Post:  Compelling Evidence For The REAL Railroading From Hell (Kermit)

Click for Post:  Placing The Noisy Claimant Doug Preston In The Hot Seat (Kermit)

Click for Post:  On Contradictions, Here Preston Contradicts Preston (Kermit)

Click for Post:  CBS Attempts To Trash Another Witness, Lies To Its Audience (Kermit)

Click for Post:  Countering Defense Spin On The Recent Cottage Break-in (Kermit)

Click for Post:  The Telling Case Of The Doctored Footprint (Kermit)

Powerpoints #1: CBS Attempts To Trash Another Witness, Lies To Its Audience

Posted by Kermit

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Context

The CBS Network is right now at Number One in the American TV network audience wars.

CBS is one of the very best parts of the Viacom brand. It has come to be so liked, watched and respected in the US in part because it has long been dominant in the area of fine investigative reporting.

So why has CBS’s 48 Hours coverage of the Meredith Kercher case been so uniformly appalling? So biased, so emotional, so full of hyperbole and so FACTUALLY FLAT-OUT WRONG?

We frankly don’t know. But we continue our series examining past CBS reporting of the case, and revealing it for the almost consistent junk it has been.

[ADDED: CBS HAS REMOVED THE VIDEO, POSSIBLY BECAUSE IT MADE WILD CLAIMS AGAINST THE POLICE WHICH COULD SEE CBS IN COURT]

Powerpoints #2: A Comprehensive Guide To The Relevant Locations

Posted by Kermit

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Context

Perhaps nothing will ever beat walking Perugia to understand where and how this utterly incongruous crime took place. But here is a great second best.

Powerpoints #3: A Minute By Minute Visual Guide To The Events On The Night

Posted by Kermit

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Context

This is a visual hypothesis of the events in Perugia that culminated in Meredith’s violent death.

Every media outfit covering the case might benefit enormously if they were to use such a recreation as their point of departure. Some have long been out of the starter box, of course, and some, especially in the US, have taken off in misleading directions.

But our take on the media now is that they are becoming notably more cautious in face of 10,000 pages of still-sealed evidence and Rudy Guede’s conviction.

Powerpoints #4: A Very Odd House, In A Very Odd Location

Posted by Kermit

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Context

This is a presentation on the house and its neighborhood, and why they evolved in the strange way they did.

As a point of departure, in our Perugia images, take a look at the shot of the house of the other English girls. This is where Meredith spent her last evening.

There must be a dozen apartments in that place.  Hard to imagine any prolonged violence ever taking place in there. Sounds of torture and depravity would travel very easily. Neighbors would be banging on the door in five seconds flat.

In contrast, Meredith’s house was really quite isolated. Arrive from any of three directions - east, west, and down from the walled city - and you chance upon it suddenly and quite counter-intuitively.

Its location below the street and the parking facility, and its almost fort-like, semi-soundproof construction, seem like facilitating factors of the crime - even though we do believe Madame Nara heard something.

Powerpoints #5: A Graphical Tour Of The Crime Scene Itself

Posted by Kermit

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Context

Now this is a walk-through of the inside of the fateful house.  This tour of the scene of the crime includes shots of each room of the house, and the police investigators’ evidence markers, with some explanations of what they refer to.

Items seen here and the autopsy and luminol evidence left Judge Paolo Micheli very convinced that this crime involved several perpetrators, and not just the one.

Powerpoints #6: Trace Evidence Seems To Confirm More Than One Perpetrator At Scene

Posted by Kermit

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Context

This is Judge Paolo Micheli explaining his sentencing of Rudy Guede on 28 October:

[Judge] Micheli agreed with prosecutors that more than one person took part in the sexual assault and murder, dismissing claims that the 47 bruises and knife wounds on Kercher’s body could have been made by a single attacker….  adding that while footprints there [in the house] might not definitely belong to Knox and Sollecito, they did indicate more than one attacker.

Will the judges and jury in the Knox and Sollecito trial early next year reach the same conclusion? It does look probable.

This Powerpoint is a hypothesis about six of those footprints.

There seems to have been some sort of clean-up to try to hide them. But they were revealed by luminol on the floor of the house.

An analysis of evidence already in the public domain (there may be more) does point to the presence of three pairs of feet.

A sole-perpetrator lone-wolf theory of the crime might just be viable with two pairs of footprints. But it is hard to see how a lone-perpetrator theory can hold up if there were three pairs of feet.

Powerpoints #7: DNA Evidence - A Very Clear Intro To A Vital Subject Here

Posted by Nicki

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Context

This is a short sharp presentation of how criminal DNA analysis works.

It is widely known that DNA analysis has been done on the luminol-enhanced footprints that Kermit analyzed for us yesterday.

Also on the knife found in Sollecito’s apartment, on some items of clothing, and on some fittings and fixtures in Meredith’s house. And possibly on other items too.

The defenses seem to be indicating that they will argue at trial in December that the DNA samples might be too small, or might be too contaminated, or might be less than 100 percent of a match.

In two respects, this may not change matters very much.

• First, there will be many other areas of evidence to be considered at the trial. Alibis, eye-witness accounts, the autopsy, defendant behavior and psychology, computers, and cell-phones, all will factor in.


• And second, DNA analysis is hard to challenge on the grounds the defenses seem to be suggesting. DNA analysis is a pretty precise science. It does not result in percentages of match of the samples - either they match or they don’t match.

And the provisional perception is this: many DO match.

Powerpoints #8: Why Forced Entry Via Filomena’s Window Was Totally IMPOSSIBLE

Posted by Kermit

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Context

One of the more bizarre dog-and-pony shows in recent months was a failed defense attempt by a climber to show that a killer could have entered by Filomena’s window.

He failed to pull himself all the way up, not leaving any marks on the ground or the wall, to be in a position to open the window and climb through it without disturbing the broken glass or cutting himself on it.

Actually doing all that is QUITE IMPOSSIBLE for a reason that too few understand. The problem is not in the climb. It is in what MUST happen next.

Powerpoints #9: Defense Claim AK And RS Couldn’t Dispose Of Meredith’s Phones Is Wrong

Posted by Kermit

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Context

This view above is from Meredith’s house up to the distant house where her phones were found.

We don’t yet know all of this evidence. Possibly not by a long shot. The huge majority of assembled evidence remains sealed until trial, starting just over two weeks away.

But the mobile phones may tell the court a lot.

The mobiles of Meredith, Knox, and Sollecito (Guede did not have one) all seem to have experienced some strange atypical usage and some suspicious switchings-off-and-on on the night in question.

Triangulation of phone whereabouts also seems to confirm that her employer Patrick who Amanda Knox fingered as the perp, was not actually there near the house. That defense strategy soon fell through.

And that formidable national police arm, the Polizia delle comunicazioni, first started investigating when two mobiles surprisingly started ringing in a garden the morning after the crime.

That garden - that house -  is about one kilometer from Meredith’s house (you can just see it between trees near top-left above).

And less than 100 meters from Guede’s apartment and 200 meters from Sollecito’s apartment (in the center house below), by way of a small city gate.

The Sollecito and Guede defenses maintained that, because that gate is locked at night, there’s no way their clients could have tossed the phones in the garden.  So. Someone else must have done it. Both that and the crime.

Once again we use Powerpoints to examine the possibilities here.

Powerpoints #10: The DNA Evidence May Be A Tough Mole To Whack

Posted by Nicki

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Context

We will further see in this presentation what a tough mole to whack the DNA will be.

We have already covered in Powerpoints 7 the basics of DNA evidence. That presentation covers the definitions of valid and invalid DNA samples, how contamination might occur, who collected and analyzed the Perugia samples, and how the samples will have been stored.

DNA analysis has been done on the various luminol-enhanced footprints in the house that Kermit analyzed for us.  Also on the knife found hidden in Sollecito’s apartment, and on some items of clothing, and on some fittings and fixtures in Meredith’s house. And quite possibly on other items, too.

Here’s frequent TV legal expert Theodore Simon in the recent NBC Dateline documentary:

Theodore Simon thinks the prosecutors evidence made public so far is daunting. The defense could argue a faked robbery, and a moved body, and contamination, but eventually it could become like whack-a-mole and all of their arguments could lose force.

Theodore is far from alone. New York lawyers following the case reckon the odds of defense arguments losing traction because there are just too many evidentiary points are already high.

The defenses seem to be indicating that they will argue at trial that all of the many DNA samples might be too small, or too contaminated, or less than 100 percent of a match.

But nothing seems to stand out in the Perugia DNA process to suggest a major failing at any point. And if there was one, only scientific evidence in proof of this will influence the court, and innuendo will really go nowhere.

Powerpoints #11: Countering The Spin By The Defenses On The Recent Cottage Break-in

Posted by Kermit

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Context

Just over two weeks ago, on 18 February, the Italian police discovered that in recent days intruders had broken their way into the girls’ apartment in the house on Via della Pergola.

The intruders had entered through the kitchen window to the north, which opens onto the balcony. This strange happening sparked many concerned questions, especially in Italy. For example, was the break-in perhaps related to the crime of 1 November 2007 and the trial now underway?

Nobody knows as yet. Police investigations continue. But it is just possible that it WAS related to the case. And if it was, there seem to be several possibilities as to why:

Some Possibilities

1. Proof of easy access for burglars?

The break-in could have been a demonstration of how a thief could very easily make his way into the cottage, similar to the notional “lone wolf” attacker that Raffaele Sollecito’s lawyer Ms Bongiorno has been promoting as the real perpetrator of the crime.

2. Proof of contamination of DNA evidence?

If an undetected thief could have entered the cottage between 2 November 2007 and the date when the bra clasp with Raffaele’s DNA was collected in mid-December, that could be an explanation for the unlikely DNA contamination which the defence teams claim might have occurred.

3. Modification or removal of remaining evidence?

The break-in could have taken place with the object of modifying or removing some remaining evidence which the police have not yet collected, evidence which may soon become significant for example in the course of a confession by one of the defendants or Rudy Guede..

4. A threat or message to the police?

The fact that during the break-in some knives in the cottage were arranged in a suggestive manner, and one was placed on a police envelope (apparently brought in by the intruders and unrelated to the previous evidence gathering) might point towards the intruders making some threat to the police, or trying to send some message to them.  This possibility becomes a bit more significant when one considers that the break-in occurred just before the resumption of the trial, when the 12 police investigators who were involved in the crime-scene investigation were all just about to give their testimonies before the court.

5. Unrelated possibilities to explain the break-in?

Perhaps it really was some sort of satanic rite. Or a prank or a hoax. Or it might simply have been some itinerants getting in to spend a night out of the extreme cold.

Defense spin has been attempted along most of these lines, to suggest that the prosecutors and crime scene investigators really did botch the investigation.

The most outlandish of all claims was in the blog section of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer. That, because the perpetrators of this break-in quite easily got in through the KITCHEN window it proves they easily could have got in through a BEDROOM window. And this despite the facts that:

• It seems far beyond the ability of any normal human being to climb through that very high, out-of-reach bedroom window
• It was testified early on at the trial that the simulation of a burglary seemed to have happened before the window was shattered

Our Analysis

These Powerpoints here set out to demonstrate that there is no possible parallel between this THEORETICAL break-in through Filomena’s bedroom and the ACTUAL break-in through the kitchen window.

Powerpoints #12: Telling Evidence Against Sollecito The Experts Seem To Have Got Absolutely Right

Posted by Kermit

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Context

Previously in the Powerpoint series we presented visually some of the evidence that helped Judge Micheli to conclude that there was more than one perpetrator.

During most of the court sessions in May 2009, Lorenzo Rinaldi and Patrizia Stefanoni and their formidable evidence-processing teams from Rome added a lot to what we know about the forensic evidence found in the house.

Many of the images and diagrams they used appeared in the media, particularly the Italian media. It is now possible to examine even more closely what the evidence suggests about the perpetrators.

Sollecito already has tough evidence against him in a number of dimensions.

Added now to the woes of his defense team is the analysis of a bloody footprint that was found on a bathmat in the bathroom of Meredith and Amanda Knox.

The Powerpoint title refers to a barren tree.

This reference is explained in the conclusion of the presentation. In essence, it refers to a marked tendency of perpetrators to NOT add enough incidental detail to their stories to be really convincing.

Sollecito has so far come up with many barren trees - minimalist stories in which none of them have enough incidental detail to convincingly explain evidence like this.

Powerpoints #13: 150 Questions For The Defendants They Have Incessantly Avoided

Posted by Kermit

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Context

This community populating TJMK and the Wiki in memory of Meredith wish above all for the truth and the whole truth to come out.  The full story behind this horrific crime of great violence in Italy, and why such a wonderful girl had to die.

Meredith’s terribly suffering family in London have repeatedly said, to them it’s the truth that matters most. They want to know why their daughter and sister was deprived of a lifetime of promise, and why the violence to her had to be so great.

Meredith’s many sad friends in London and Leeds, and in other places in England and around the world - many of whom may now have a life-time of loss and adjustment - also absolutely deserve to get to know.

And millions of decent people in Italy and in England and throughout Europe and increasingly the US are now also seriously asking: why? Exactly what happened that night in Perugia, and need it ever happen again?

These 150 questions, truthfully answered, should bring out all there is to know about this case. They may or may not mirror what the prosecutor has in mind, but we think they would provide all of the picture.

Please go for it, Amanda? For Meredith’s sake. And for her ever-deprived family. And for all those others sadly affected. Whether or not you were actually involved, truthfully tell us now all that you know.

Powerpoints #14: The Telling Case Of The Doctored Footprint

Posted by Kermit

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Context

At a guess maybe half of the defense-campaign resources have gone into public relations. Money well spent? We rather doubt it. P-R and legal watchers of the case we consider impartial have noted three problems with the campaign:

• It seems to be addressed to the wrong country, and the only one, Italy, that really matters, now seems totally lost.
• It seems to have started with a very raw-knuckle message which was bound to polarize, and only got harder ever since.
• It doesn’t seem to be particularly competent with the evidence, taking potshots, but never really shaking the whole.

And this unprecedented campaign may have buoyed Amanda Knox herself into taking the stand, where neither her demeanor nor her claims seem to have done her any good (see here and here).

This Powerpoint analyzes a new claim on the FOA campaign website about a key piece of evidence (footprint evidence against Sollecito, not against Knox) which seems straight out of cloud-cuckoo land.

The size of the footprint had been doctored to make a footprint that is clearly the same size and shape as Sollecito’s NOT into Guede’s as intended - but into Knox’s!

Hmmm. An unusual way to help Knox, that is for sure!

Powerpoints #15: A Knox-Ghouls Parody, Inspired By Two Mountains

Posted by Fly By Night

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Context

I was recently in the little town of Lone Pine just east of California’s Sierra Nevada Mountains.

If you’re not familiar with this area, the vistas along the Owens Valley and up into the huge mountains - which at that point rise 10,000-plus feet almost vertically from the plain - are absolutely stunning. 

This is where the rock legends U2 found the inspiration for and shot the cover art for their Joshua Tree recording and, like just about everyone else who ever visits, I found myself in reflective mood.

I was lucky to secure a last minute permit for hiking and climbing in the popular and highly regulated Sierras, in an area that included the magnificent Mount Whitney (14,505 feet) which is the highest mountain peak of the lower 48 states - only Mount McKinley in Alaska (20320 feet) is higher.

My goal for this trip, however, was not to climb Mount Whitney which I’d previously climbed. It was instead to head up nearby Mount Russell (14,094 feet) which is one of the more difficult California peaks.

I hiked in and established a base camp at 11,200 feet, at Upper Boy Scout Lake, where I had a fine view of both Mount Whitney and Mount Russell. I was greatly impressed by the silhouettes of these two imposing and similar-appearing pyramids of granite in the soft light. 

But as I continued to observe them I found myself considering just how different these peaks really are upon closer examination. 

That night I dreamed, as many people do, camped very high up in the mountains.

My own strange dream was of Meredith Kercher as Mount Whitney, and of Amanda Knox as Mount Russell. The two were surrounded by the odd and shadowy characters you might encounter in a mountainous dream world.

This is how this tale of two peaks came to be, and I wrote it down later as a summer-break companion for reflection. 

The one thing I find myself reflecting on most is this:  Was it really just a dream? You tell me.

Powerpoints #16: We Now Examine The Compelling Evidence For The REAL Railroading From Hell

Posted by Kermit

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1. The Unforthcoming Trio

As we approach the closing arguments and the verdict late in 2009, what strikes me is the lack of information which any of the three suspects have directly contributed to the proceedings.

• In the case of Rudy, since his trial followed the fast-track procedure, justice was served principally on the basis of the investigation report.


• In the case of Raffaele, he maintains the same silence ever since stating two years ago that Amanda had made him tell a crock of lies, and that she had left his apartment for four hours on the night of the crime.


• In the case of Amanda, there had been some early hope after her arrest that she may be more forthcoming in her explanations and replies to questions posed by the investigation. However, those hopes were dashed after the mid-December 2007 interview with her lawyer by her side, when at one point she decided to invoke her constitutional right to no longer reply to questioning, a posture she maintained until the 2009 trial was well underway.

My opinion is that this decision and attitude is due in part to explicit and / or implicit pressures to follow a public posture established by a series of concentric rings of advisers and hangers-on around her.

2. The Concentric Rings

These start with her immediate family, the Public Relations team hired by her family, a semi-formalised group of supposed well-wishers and supporters called the Friends of Amanda, and then a larger cloud of other supposed supporters who aren’t necessarily part of the Knox Mellas family or the Friends of Amanda, whose motives for supporting Amanda are wide and varied, and whom I call in general terms “The Entourage”.

I don’t include her Italian lawyers in these groups, as their legal advice to her does seem to be based almost entirely on good professional criteria (as good as it can be in the circumstances). In addition, her Italian legal team has even gone to the point of stating that The Entourage’s activities in bad-mouthing the investigation and the prosecution’s actions could cause negative results for Amanda in her trial.

These circles of advice - especially the innermost ones - I believe will be responsible for making it impossible for Amanda to ever make an opening to the need for answers to many outstanding questions. Indeed, she is being pushed, guided and chaperoned along an inflexible path of limited participation in the legal process around her.

3. The Marriott Railroading

One of the fervent supporters of Amanda, Chicago Private Eye Paul Ciolino, coined the expression that Amanda is being “railroaded”. Indeed, when you look at the results of the expensive PR campaign captained by Seattleite Public Relations professional David Marriott, of the Public Relations firm Gogerty Marriott, you can not agree more.

I believe that the concentric shields around Amanda prevent any progress along a road of ensuring her maximum contribution to clarifying the crime against Meredith Kercher, and only allow Amanda to cocoon herself further into a limited space of denial. 

The Gogerty Marriott web page says:

“For more than three decades, Gogerty Marriott has been building communication strategies for clients involved in public affairs issues. These issues range from behind-the-scenes to highly controversial, but invariably are crucial to the client’s financial success or mission ... At Gogerty Marriott we apply campaign-style strategies and tactics to communicate in ways that help clients achieve their goals. Based on our experience, we believe this research-based campaign model is the most effective way to develop compelling communications. Of vital importance is developing messages that intersect with the values of the audience receiving them.”

“...messages that intersect with the values of the audience receiving them.”  Translation: the Gogerty Marriott firm is all about spin.

4. The Task At Hand

This Powerpoint tries to examine some of the human elements of PR campaign at this crucial point in the trial, and the wider activities supposedly in support of Amanda Knox. Thei presentation reflects personal opinion, often expressed through satire. I urge any viewers to get a broad set of information and further opinions on the following excellent discussion boards, and in general through quality international press:

Any irony or sarcasm which may be encountered in the presentation or our discussions is not meant by any means to trivialise the pain and suffering, and butal senseless murder of Meredith, nor to reduce her memory. (Since she has no means to reply to any comments herein or scenarios described in other presentations, and the repeated use of her name in this context would only further hurt anyone close to her, in some circumstances I sometimes refer to Meredith simply as “the victim”.)

I can only hope that there will be one single ending, that justice is served to those responsible for each of the crimes which have been determined by the Italian judiciary.

3. More Commentary After Watching

Rudy Guede has already been sentenced for the maximum allowed (30 years) under “abbreviated” form of trial which he chose. And in ten days or so, Amanda Knox and Raffaele may be found guilty and be sentenced to the maximum punishment allowed (life in prison) under their own form of trial.

Rudy Guede did not show the slightest true repentance, contribute anything respectful to the memory of Meredith, or provide anything close to a credible explanation for the night of Meredith’s attack.

Raffael Sollecito and Amanda Knox seem to have managed only to muddy the waters, insult the memory of Meredith, and do themselves much harm with their own various widely differing explanations.

I believe that all three have shown an attitude which approaches arrogance at times. And in the case of Amanda Knox, in the days after Meredith’s murder and in her second day on the stand, she seemed at times almost gleeful.

Had Knox not felt so egged-on and overly-confident, she might never have taken the stand - which was possibly when she cooked her own goose.  Who actually encouraged Knox and Sollecito to take these seemingly disastrous positions?

I find it hard to believe that their Italian lawyers did. All I have ever heard about the lawyers for Knox and Sollecito (and for that matter about the prosecutors) is that they despise the antics engineered from the US. 

The impression gaining ground now amongst court observers is that the main factor in Knox’s attitude has been the many participants - some there as part of a plan and some seemingly self-appointed - in one of the most disastrous defense-support campaigns in legal history.

The concentric rings of participants that seem to have been busy appear to me to be these four following:

• The immediate families. The Sollecitos did less than the Knoxes and Mellases to raise a storm, but they have already received negative payback in three ways: investigation of the whole family for releasing a video showing an uncovered Meredith to a Bari TV station; Sollecito’s sister losing her job as a carabinieri, and Sollecito distinctly no better off.
• Gogerty Marriott, Inc. The Seattle public relations outfit hired by Knox’s family, which seems to have allowed or at least not stopped continued denigration of the prosecutor, the investigators and Italian justice generally, and repeated mis-statements and severe under-statements of the small mountain of evidence against Knox. Believed not to get along well with the group below.
• The Friends of Amanda. A semi-formalized and shadowy group of supposed well-wishers and supporters organized with spokeswomen Anne Bremner, most of whom are in what seems a cowardly manner still unnamed and lurking in the shadows. Believed not to get along well with the prior group.
• Finally, a group know on the discussion boards as The Entourage. A larger cloud of supposed supporters who aren’t necessarily part of the Knox Mellas family or the Friends of Amanda, and whose motives for supporting Amanda are wide and varied but often seem to revolve around money.

The outer circles of meddlers have seemed to want to prevent normal Italian processes to provide true justice for Meredith from ever playing out. Even very recently, one loudly threatened to take a guilty verdict straight to the top ranks of the US State Department (good luck with that one).

They seem to have antagonized just about every case-watcher in Italy, definitely the prosecution and police services in the case, and quite possibly the judges and jury. In fact, they seem to want to prevent the judges and jury from watching the media, presumably so that they don’t get affected by this train-wreck of a campaign.

These circles of advice may now be making it impossible for Amanda Knox if guilty to show any penitence or remorse, or to plead psychological impairment, or even come out with a truthful story that, if guilty, might actually get her some time off.

For a long time Knox has seemed to be pushed, guided and chaperoned along an inflexible path of limited options in which she seems to have no direct control herself or over the legal process playing out around her.

• Why does an American woman on trial for murder in Italy need an expensive public pelations campaign aimed principally at an American audience?
• Having decided to go ahead with this expensive PR campaign, why does Amanda’s family then complain about their financial woes on prime time television?
• Why is this expensive PR campaign maintained when Amanda’s Italian legal team has stated that it is counterproductive?
• Has the expensive PR campaign produced “positive” personal results for some of its participants in such a way that they may carry out actions or make statements which are neither here nor there for Amanda’s cause, but which benefit them?
• Has the expensive PR campaign made it impossible (or too late) for Amanda to open up, contribute further information to the body of knowledge of what happened on the night of 1 November 2007, provide some closure to the Kercher family, and possibly ensure some leniency in any guilty verdicts which she may possibly receive for any of the charges against her?

One of the fervent supporters of Amanda, Chicago Private Eye Paul Ciolino, coined the expression that Amanda is being “railroaded”.

The true railroading to Hell of Amanda Knox seems to have been done by her own supposed supporters.

Powerpoints #17: Why The Totality of Evidence Suggests Knox And Sollecito Are Guilty Just As Charged

Posted by James Raper With Kermit

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Context

Impartial lawyers like myself tend to look at a tough case like this and think, “Now what would I have done differently?” The problem for the defences here is that there are literally hundreds of evidence points, many created by the appellants themselves as they behaved erratically both on the night Meredith died and subsequently.

The Knox family legal advisor Ted Simon (who in our view was brought in far too late to be of real help after all the bull-in-a-china-shop damage of the PR) himself recognized this, on Dateline NBC late in 2008, when he said that a whack-a-mole approach to creating reasonable doubt would fall short in this case. (Whack-a-mole is a popular fairground game where “moles” keep popping up out of various holes, and you win if you can whack them all.)

Judge Micheli set out a big picture for the conviction of Rudy Guede in October 2008 and the remitting of Knox and Sollecito to stand trial. Judge Massei clearly created a big picture in all of the fine detail he neatly tied together in his 425-page report. The Supreme Court of Cassation understood the big picture in declining Guede’s final appeal.

The defences have never really managed to respond with their own big-picture approach. Nitpicking of a few evidence points, which is really all the defence and the campaign have done, will only very rarely destroy such an edifice. At the end of the DNA rebuttal this September, the DNA collection and analysis is unlikely to be fully discounted, and already it seems that more ethical and competence question marks hang over the independent consultants than over Dr Stefanoni and her team.

This for your consideration is an overview of all of the main evidence. Check it out as you go through and you will see that after the nine long months of the appeal process it is all almost entirely left standing. If they really want to see Knox and Sollecito released, the defence lawyers now need to bite the bullet and prepare their clients properly and let them try to explain from the stand.

Powerpoints #18: Katie Couric Interviews Raffaele Sollecito! We Already Have A Sneak Preview!!

Posted by Kermit

Click here if you have (1) Windows MS Office or Powerpoint Viewer (downloadable here), or (2) Apple Mac iWorks Keynote or Apache OpenOffice.

Context

We are not really too surprised that Sollecito caves, as we observe the Sollecito camp increasingly panicked now by the appeal of Dr Galati, Still, thanks a lot Katie Couric team insiders! And thanks a lot Sollecito-camp moles!

And a great job on the couch, Katie Couric. You managed to winkle out the truth and respect the REAL victim even if Raffaele seemed a little tongue-tied…

Powerpoints #19: Placing The Noisy Claimant Doug Preston In The Hot Seat

Posted by Kermit

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Context

This curious incident instigated my own series:

A week or two ago I received an unexpected email from Douglas Preston, co-author with Mario Spezi of The Monster of Florence (Spezi also wrote an Italian version that conflicts at many points with the English version) and a heated champion of the attempt to free Amanda Knox, who is still accused pending Supreme Court appeal of the murder of her housemate, Meredith Kercher, in Perugia on 1 November 2007.

Preston explained that he wanted to write a “piece” about the “Knox case” and that he would like to do a 10 question email interview with me.  I got the hunch that Preston and Spezi are going to be active over the next few months in the media as their cause is increasingly thrown in disarray. Along with, I presume, their possible movie based on the Monster of Florence book.

I was surprised that Preston said he would “quote you accurately, honestly, and in context, and represent your views respectfully and accurately”. 

Hmmm. We all have in our memory Preston accusing me (see his comment April 28 2011 at 6:57 pm) of “distortions, falsehoods, and crackpot opinion presented as settled fact. Kermit’s open letter contains many out and out lies”.

He also claimed, erroneously, that I hide behind a “screen of false IP addresses and various other anti-hacker tricks” (what, has Preston tried to hack me?) and that I had “demonstrated a long history of falsehood and dishonesty” (I have?!).

Given that past experience, would you trust Preston? Silly me, I’m always ready to give anyone another chance!!

In return I proposed that the interview be two-way, and that we each proceed question by question on the issues that we wanted to clarify for us to publish in due course. I included a first question on seeming significant errors and mistruths in the “Afterword” or epilogue chapter of his and Spezi’s Monster of Florence book.

Very disappointingly, Preston didnt respond in kind. Nothing useful came back.

He concluded “as for my (Preston’s) ‘objectivity,’ I am a point-of-view journalist in this case. People know where I stand and they know my bad history with Mignini. I don’t pretend to be objective”.

Should Preston really call himself a journalist, or an opinion maker, or a lobbyist?  Why can’t people just respect the Italian legal process, which right now is not (and never was) firmly in the hands of Prosecutor Mignini, Preston’s perceived nemesis?

As we seem set to be subjected once again to seeing Preston and/or Spezi regularly sharing their rancid opinion of Prosecutor Mignini and Italians officials on the case with the public, I decided to get out in front, with this series pre-emptively checking their versions of the “truths”.

The Monster of Florence book is labeled (see above) a “True Story”, and while it does include historical facts related to the MoF murders in the 60’s, 70’s and 80’s,  the two authors also personally intrude themselves into events.

This series should help the public to decide how seriously (if at all) they should accept Preston’s and Spezi’s opinions expressed in their media appearances where they interject themselves into Meredith Kercher’s murder case.

And to see if any of Preston’s self-described “point-of-view journalism” truths he shares with Spezi really stand up.

Please check back to TJMK as convenient for we may pose new questions to Preston and his co-author Spezi.

Powerpoints #20: Diane Sawyer’s Very Tough Interview With Amanda Knox: ABC’s Sneak Preview!

Posted by Kermit

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Context

Skilled reporter Diane Sawyer does a great job here in negotiating the Knox PR minefield and eliciting a telling response. 

No wonder Amanda Knox seems so set on not heading for the appeal court in Florence. There she might face immense pressure to answer the hundreds of open questions on the witness stand.

This time under full cross examination, which was so strenuously avoided in mid 2009.

For this sneak preview courtesy of ABC please click here. The Powerpoints should take maybe a minute to load. I recommend that you use the Page Down key to advance.

if you don’t have the Powerpoint Viewer program loaded there is a download here. Interesting viewing. Thanks ABC.

Powerpoints #21: On Contradictions, Here Preston Contradicts Preston

Posted by Kermit

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Context

The image above shows James Frey, Stephen Glass and Clifford Irving; all three are writers caught playing fast-and-loose with the truth.

This is the second in my Powerpoint series questioning whether Doug Preston also play fast-and-loose with the truth.

In the first set of questions that we posed to fiction thriller writer (and now, self-described “point-of-view journalist”, whatever that euphemism means) Douglas Preston a few days ago, we asked him about his and Spezi’s Afterword to their book The Monster of Florence.

It appears to be full of errors and insinuations in linking the MoF to the Meredith Kercher murder case.

A book that is based on a “True Story” should not be found to be derelict in presenting errors or fiction as true fact, neither at its end, nor in its beginning, nor in any other point between.

In this, the second question that we pose to Preston (and Spezi, if he’s available for replies), we go to the start of the story, where Preston recalls how he met Spezi, in the smoky haze of a backroom of the Caffè Ricchi in the centre of Florence and first learned of the existence of the monster or did he? 

The problem is that in equally emphatic terms, you can also hear Preston on an NBC Dateline documentary describe how a few months earlier (I calculate) than the Caffè Ricchi tête-a-tête, he describes hearing about the Monster of Florence for the first time from his neighbours in the town he lived in in Italy.

And this, in an interview with Stone Philips of NBC with a camera crew and their equipment on-site in Italy in front of his old rented house. At a time when Preston was already telling the rest of the world that he couldn’t return to Italy, banned by Mignini! In my opinion, things can’t get much more cynical than that.

The contrast between Preston’s two clear, explicit and totally mutually-exclusive descriptions of how he learned of the Monster of Florence may seem like a trivial point, but it really is not.

Every writer knows that the key factor at the start of a book is engaging and maintaining the reader’s interest so that it lasts to the very end. A fiction writer is free to use whatever mechanism he may need to make that engagement. However, authors who describe their tale as a “True Story"as do Preston and Spezi should realize that reader trust is - poof! - lost if you load the start of the True Story with something that isn’t so.

Recent history has seen a number of writers who push and cross the limit of the Truth and rush headstrong into Truthiness, Mistruth, or Lies, peddling stories that attract our interest and are human, daring .... yet end up being exposed as blends of truths and half-truths.  Together with insinuations and a lot of out-and-out fibs:

• Clifford Irving went to jail for his unauthorised and totally false “autobiography” of Howard Hughes, see the Richard Gere movie poster below..
• The New Republic magazine fired Stephen Glass after determining that at least 27 of 41 stories written by Glass for the magazine contained fabricated material.
• James Frey’s publisher has had to reimburse those purchasers of “A Million Little Pieces” who bought it believing it true (it was commercialized as such).

Where will Spezi and Preston take us with The Monster of Florence? All it takes is for one reader to question:

“Could this really have happened as they are making us think it happened? Why when I read the Italian version of the book do I understand something completely different? Why in Italy is Il Mostro considered the better, much more accurate book?”

From there the truth in the story starts to unravel. As we already see in the Powerpoint presentations, the start and end of the English-langage MoF book don’t exactly encourage us to take any of its contents at face value.

Now that the Meredith Kercher murder case approaches its final appeal, it looks like Preston and Spezi are moving to develop some sort of MoF sequel that could be titled The Monster of Florence: The New Generation starring Amanda Knox and of course Preston and Spezi. And including fresh new “True Stories” by the pair. 

Personally, I feel that they could spare both us and Amanda’s cause their “truth”. Amanda and her legal team have more than enough to think about right now, with the Supreme Court appeal and the mess the Raffaele Sollecito book dams them in.

I believe that the shrillness of Preston’s and Spezi’s tales of “truth” will increase its pitch as we approach the March final appeal of Knox and Raffaele Sollecito as suspects in the murder of Meredith (Knox has already been found guilty of one crime and has served her prison sentence for falsely accusing Patrick Lumumba of murdering Meredith). 

This is going to be a very tough appeal - I urge readers to take a look at the English translation of Prosecutor Galati’s request for the appeal. It is surprising in its strength and balance. The Knox and Sollecito legal teams must be busy (will either defendant dare to be in Italy at that time?) and they know they are going to have a rough time of it in March.

How nice for all concerned if all the fictions now drop dead.

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Frontpage Comments

By Peter Quennell on the post 'Amanda Knox Said To Be Almost Certain To Face Murder Retrial Now'.


Reassurances for those smart emailers who might think Knox can claim we are somehow bedfellows…

By KrissyG on the post 'Amanda Knox Said To Be Almost Certain To Face Murder Retrial Now'.


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By Peter Quennell on the post 'Amanda Knox Said To Be Almost Certain To Face Murder Retrial Now'.


Amendment made to this pre-final para above to reconfirm this is one apolitical move that…

By Peter Quennell on the post 'Amanda Knox Said To Be Almost Certain To Face Murder Retrial Now'.


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Uh, before James and Krissy leap up and down on me, and say such system…

By Peter Quennell on the post 'Florence Court Explains Second Knox Guilty Verdict For Criminal Slander #2'.


James (and Krissy in previous post) touches repeatedly on system issues. Systems not optimised or…

By Peter Quennell on the post 'Florence Court Explains Second Knox Guilty Verdict For Criminal Slander #2'.


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By Peter Quennell on the post 'Florence Court Explains Second Knox Guilty Verdict For Criminal Slander #1'.


Not that we are in the business of giving Amanda Knox legal advice…  But Knox…

By Peter Quennell on the post 'Florence Court Explains Second Knox Guilty Verdict For Criminal Slander #1'.


While ECHR is a bit too notorious for “dividing the baby” in the way that…

By KrissyG on the post 'Florence Court Explains Second Knox Guilty Verdict For Criminal Slander #1'.


To be fair, all the ECHR had was what Dalla Vedova for Knox submitted in…