Why The Media Are Wrong To Rely On Amanda Knox’s Family For Impartial and Accurate Information


1 False claim-making endemic in support of Knox

In many posts we have been addressing the myriad false claims of Knox & family that, lies that now number up in the hundreds.

And here are 150 questions for the two perpetrators posted by our great Powerpoint creator, Kermit, just prior to their conviction. If reporters had sought answers to all of those, they might have once and for all nailed down the truth from the two, and made clear what REALLY happened.

Edda Mellas is already charged along with Curt Knox with making things up, in that pending case about slandering Amanda Knox’s interrogators. And as Finn MacCool seems to have got all the facts right in this post on Amanda Knox’s calls with Edda Mellas, it seems surprising that she is not also charged with perjury.

It’s a great pity that not more media people have put aside their emotions, and actually analyzed the numerous wild claims that come pouring out of Edda Mellas. The fact that so many professional journalists have given her a free pass and never challenged, cross-checked, or probed her claims is especially shameful.

Why has Edda Mellas been able to make so many false claims in the media without being challenged? 

One primary reason according to the Daily Beast is because journalists are required to give certain guarantees about positive coverage in order to gain any access to Amanda Knox’s family: “Of the handful of American journalists in Perugia in late 2007 and early 2008, none got access to the Knox family without certain guarantees about positive coverage.”

And another reason why Edda Mellas has been able to get away with repeatedly propagating the same core false claims is that the journalists in the US who have interviewed Edda Mellas are almost completely ignorant of the basic facts of the case. They haven’t bothered to find out enough about the case to be in a position to challenge what she says.

In fact any journalist - in fact, anyone interested in the case - can check the veracity of her claims against the official court documents, including the Micheli Sentencing Report of January 2009 (summarised on TJMK in English) and the Massei Sentencing Report of March 2010 (very soon available on PMF and TJMK in English).

And they can check the claims against the objective reporting of the various respected Rome-based journalists who speak fluent Italian and who actually attended the trial - the only Rome-based English-language reporter who has ever filed biased reports was Peter Popham, who seemed reflexively anti-Italy, and who was withdrawn two years ago.

2. Numerous False Knox-Family Claims

This analysis focuses on the claims that Edda Mellas has made in interviews with Larry King on CNN, Chris Wragge on CBS, Linda Byron on King 5, and The Guardian’s Simon Hattenstone. There are other videos and text interviews that we could have drawn examples from.

Edda Mellas on CNN’s Larry King Live

Edda Mellas and Curt Knox appeared on Larry King Live shortly after the verdict last December. You can see them in the videos above and below. The timing here corresponds to the time counter at bottom-left of the video.


False claim 1 “The prosecution had changed the motive four times during the trial. and at the end they finally had to say we don’t have a motive but it doesn’t matter.” (minute 4.22 above)

Barbie Nadeau pointed out that the prosecutors had changed their theory, but only rather slightly:

“The prosecution lawyers began their case in January 2009 by arguing that Kercher was killed during a sex game gone awry. When it came time for closing arguments, they had changed the theory slightly, trying to make the case that Knox resented her prissy British roommate and killed her in hatred” A sex attack was still involved.

Prosecutor Mignini also suggested that a hards drug like cocaine might have been involved, and certainly never said that they didn’t have a motive. Co-Prosecutor Manuela Comodi said that she didn’t know precisely what the motive was, but certainly never claimed that there was none.


False claim 2:  “He (Rudy Guede) all of a sudden had money that he didn’t have earlier in the day” (minute 3.22 above)

Edda Mellas is plucking “facts” out thin air with this claim. No evidence was presented at any court hearing that showed that Rudy Guede suddenly had money that he didn’t have earlier in the day on 1 November 2007.


False claim 3:  “There is no murder weapon.” (minute 4.32 above)

Judge Massei indicates in the sentencing report that Amanda Knox’s judges concluded that the double DNA knife, the larger of the two indicated by Meredith’s autopsy, is indeed the murder weapon.

It is totally compatible with the deep puncture wound in Meredith’s neck, and according to a number of independent forensic experts, it contained Meredith’s DNA on the blade..

 


False claim 4:  “The Italian Supreme Court found the interrogation illegal” (minute 7.54 above)

Though this claim has been repeated in different ways, the Italian Supreme Court has NEVER ruled that Amanda Knox’s interrogation either as a witness or a suspect was illegal. In the suspect interview, she had both a lawyer and interpreter present.


False claim 5:  “They admit to the fact they really have no physical evidence” (minute 7.54 above)

As it took the prosecutors four or five months to present it, they have never admitted that they have no physical evidence. The stop-start-stop nature of the defense phase of the trial showed how very telling the evidence was.


False claim 6:  “They believe Meredith was killed at about 9.30pm” on Larry King Live (minute 0.54 here)

The prosecutors didn’t claim this at the trial. According to Mignini’s timeline, which he used when presenting his scenario for what happened to the judges and jury at trial, Meredith was killed at about 11.50pm.


False claim 7:  Amanda Knox didn’t know Rudy Guede (minute 1.02 here)

Unbelievably, Edda Mellas claimed that Amanda Knox didn’t know Rudy Guede despite the fact that Amanda Knox testified IN COURT that she had met Rudy Guede on several occasions.

Here’s the actual court transcript:

Carlo Pacelli (CP), Patrick Lumumba’s lawyer: In what circumstances did you meet him (Rudy)?

Amanda Knox (AK): I was in the center, near the church. It was during an evening when I met the guys that lived underneath in the apartment underneath us, and while I was mingling with them, they introduced me to Rudy.

CP: So it was on the occasion of a party at the house of the neighbors downstairs?

AK: Yes. What we did is, they introduced me to him downtown just to say “This is Rudy, this is Amanda”, and then I spent most of my time with Meredith, but we all went back to the house together.

CP: Did you also know him, or at least see him, in the pub “Le Chic”, Rudy?

AK: I think I saw him there once.

CP: Listen, this party at the neighbors, it took place in the second half of October? What period, end of October? 2007?

AK: I think it was more in the middle of October.


False claim 8:  Rudy Guede’s DNA was in Meredith’s purse (minute 3.16 here

Edda Mellas’s claim that Rudy Guede’s DNA was in Meredith’s purse is completely untrue. According to the Micheli report, which was made available to the public in January 2008, Guede’s DNA was found on the zip of Meredith’s purse and not inside it.


False claim 9:  “Even the Italian Supreme Court ruled that her rights were repeatedly violated.” (minute 5:32 above

The Italian Supreme Court has NEVER ruled that Amanda Knox’s rights were repeatedly violated. Not even her own lawyers claimed that, and no complaint was ever lodged.

The first of Knox’s two written statements couldn’t be used against her simply because she wasn’t represented by a lawyer when she made it - and she volunteered that statement, in a seeming state of panic, when she was told Sollecito was no longer supporting her alibi..

We continue next with Edda Mellas making claims in an interview for the CBS Early Show.

Whilen Edda Mellas was in Perugia, she was interviewed by CBS’s Chris Wragge. (Embedding of this CBS video YouTube on sites like TJMK is disabled, which suggests that CBS might be worried that the claims made were wrong and they should have been challenged on-air.) 


False claim 10:  The double DNA knife is incompatible with the wounds on Meredith’s body. (minute 0.16 above)

In the interview Edda Mellas made the following claim: “The knife they think is the murder weapon is way too big and demonstrated how it had to have been a much smaller knife that caused all the wounds.”

Edda Mellas’s claim above is simply not true.

Barbie Nadeau reported directly from the courtroom in Perugia that multiple witnesses for the defence, including Dr. Carlo Torre, conceded that the double DNA knife was compatible with the deep puncture wound in Meredith’s neck.

“According to multiple witnesses for the defense, the knife is compatible with at least one of the three wounds on Kercher’s neck, but it was likely too large for the other two.” (Barbie Nadeau, Newsweek).

“He (Dr. Carlo Torre) conceded that a third larger wound could have been made with the knife, but said it was more likely it was made by twisting a smaller knife.” (Barbie Nadeau, The Daily Beast).

Judge Massei categorically states in the judges’ sentencing report that the double DNA knife was compatible with the large wound on Meredith’s neck.


False claim 11:  Meredith’s room was so tiny, there wasn’t enough room for four people in some kind of tussle. (minute 0.27 above)

In the same interview with Chris Wragge, Edda Mellas asserts that there couldn’t have been an attack on Meredith involving three assailants.

“The space available this crime happened is so tiny you can’t have had four people in that room in some kind of tussle.”

The Violent Crimes Unit itself used detailed images at the trial to show that there was more than enough room for an attack involving three attackers.


False claim 12:  There is no evidence of Amanda Knox at the actual crime scene. (minute 2.06 above)

“Its the fact at the actual crime scene there is no physical evidence of Amanda; not a hair, not a fingerprint, not a nothing.”

The crime scene involves the whole cottage and it isn’t limited to Meredith’s room. Knox and Sollecito were both CONVICTED of staging the break-in and tampering with the crime scene.

Furthermore, there is plenty of evidence actually placing Amanda Knox in Meredith’s room on the night of the murder: the double DNA knife, and the blood she tracked into the bathroom, the hallway, Filomena’s room, and her own room.

According to two imprint experts, there was a woman’s bloody shoeprint on the pillow under Meredith’s body which matched Knox’s foot size.

Even Sollecito’s forensic consultant, Professor Vinci, claimed that he had found Amanda Knox’s DNA on Meredith’s bra.


False claim 13:  “The DNA is so insignificant. It’s this tiny spot. It’s not blood.” (minute 2.16 above)

Three independent DNA experts -  Dr. Patrizia Stefanoni, Dr. Renato Biondo, and Professor Francesca Torricelli - confirmed that Meredith’s DNA was definitely on the blade of the double DNA.

The DNA charts themselves show a clear and unmistakable match. Edda Mellas doesn’t seem to understand that DNA evidence almost always involves only microscopic traces of DNA.

Dr. Stefanoni testified at the trial that the DNA on the blade could indeed have come from Meredith’s blood.

We continue next with Edda Mellas in an Interview with Linda Byron on Seattle TV station King 5.


False claim 14:  Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito maintained the same story (minute 3.17)

Edda Mellas claimed in this interview with Linda Byron that Amanda Knox had maintained the same story for over a year when she was asked whether her daughter had lied.

In another interview with Linda Byron in November 2009, Edda Mellas bizarrely claimed that Amanda Knox hadn’t changed her story. KING 5 Investigator Linda Byron asked her: “Did she change her story?”

Edda Mellas responded: “No, no. For this whole year they have maintained the story - what they did that night. They stayed at Raffaele’s, they made dinner, they watched a movie. That’s it, that’s the story.”

Edda Mellas’s statement that Amanda Knox didn’t change her story and that she and Sollecito maintained the same story is yet another incorrect and misleading claim.

Knox and Sollecito both gave three different alibis. The posts on their alibis are linked-to up at the top here. Knox gave at least three different times for when she and Sollecito had dinner on the night of the murder.

Knox gave different reasons for writing her handwritten confession, and she gave different accounts of seeing the blood in the bathroom which contradict each other.

And most devastating of all, Sollecito stopped providing Knox with an alibi on 5 November 2007.

Sollecito is STILL nearly three years later refusing to corroborate her alibi. He clearly hasn’t maintained that Knox was with him at his apartment - actually he claimed that she went out for four hours.


False claim 15 : Amanda Knox wasn’t provided with an interpreter (minute 2.37)

Edda Mellas made this false claim, which has been widely propagated by Knox groupies, in an interview with Linda Byron on King5.

It’s not difficult to prove that this claim is completely false. Knox’s interpreter on 5 November 2007, Anna Donninio, even testified at the trial. And Amanda Knox herself spoke about her interpreter when she gave testimony at the trial.

Edda Mellas On ABC TV

We continue next with these claims of Edda Mellas on ABC TV.


False claim 16:  “Amanda Knox is incredibly honest” (minute 11.25)

In an interview with ABC’s Elizabeth Vargas Edda Mellas claimed that her daughter is “incredibly honest”.

And Edda Mellas told The Guardian’s Simon Hattenstone that “Amanda doesn’t know how to lie.”

In fact, Amanda Knox’s mobile phone records, data recovered from Sollecito’s computer, and corroborative testimony of numerous witnesses, provide irrefutable proof that Amanda Knox has lied - again and again.

For example, her lies about him directly led to Diya Lumumba, an innocent man, spending two weeks in prison - even though as recorded in prison she told her mother Edda Mellas that her claims were not true. .


False claim 17 : Amanda Knox could have left Italy, but she chose to stay and help the police.

In an earlier interview with Larry King in October 2009, Edda Mellas told him that Amanda Knox could have left Italy, but she chose to stay and help the police:

“After the murder, Mellas said, friends and family told Knox to leave Italy—to either come home or stay with relatives in Germany—but Knox refused because she wanted to help find the killer and prove that she had nothing to do with it.”

“Many people asked her to leave, but she said no. ‘I’m going to stay. I’m going to try and help, I’m going to try and finish school’ Mellas said.”

Edda Mellas’s claim is flatly contradicted by Amanda Knox herself, in the e-mail she wrote to her friends in Seattle on 4 November 2007:

“i then bought some underwear because as it turns out i wont be able to leave italy for a while as well as enter my house”

And along with one of Meredith’s friends who walked home with Meredith on the night, the police told Amanda Knox pretty promptly that as her status was (then) a primary witness, she was not to go anywhere.

The fact that Knox did stay was of little help to the investigation - in fact, she seemed to work hard to derail it - and one of her main concerns at the time, a pretty callous one, was whether she would be staying or moving out of the house and getting a rent refund.


False claim 18:  Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito were not under the influence of drugs on the night of the murder (BBC Radio)

In an interview with BBC Radio after the verdict, Edda Mellas apparently stated that Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito were not under the influence of drugs on the night of the murder.

This is despite the fact that both Knox and Sollecito had both themselves actually claimed they had smoked cannabis. The prosecution believed they might have been on a hard drug like cocaine, which also seems the general belief around Perugia.


3. And Some Conclusions

The fact that Edda Mellas has been able to propagate so many wrong claims in the media for so long without being challenged seems to speaks volumes about the naivety and unprofessionalism of her interviewers, and of the media organisations they work for.

As they usually do,  ABC News, CBS News, CNN, King 5, and other media outlets should have interviewed objective crime-case professionals, who don’t have a vested interest in the case.

Instead they have relied again and again on Amanda Knox’s mother and other family members as primary sources.

Amanda Knox is not an innocent political prisoner who was railroaded in some Third World country for some very murky reason. She was unanimously convicted after a lengthy trial at which the evidence was absolutely overwhelming. 

As the Christian Longo and Scott Peterson cases that we posted on below go to prove, seemingly quite normal people commit horrific murders. Probably the vast majority of murders are committed by people who to many seemed normal.

It seems downright perverse that some of the journalists who have interviewed Edda Mellas treat Amanda Knox as a victim, and with cloying sympathy ask “How is Amanda doing?”  They wouldn’t dream of asking Charles Manson’s mum how the Manson girls are doing.

It is time for the sake of the truth, the legitimacy of the verdict, the relations between the US and Italy, and the peace of mind of Meredith’s family and friends, that from now on they hold Edda Mellas’s feet to the fire..

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Comments

Brilliant work, Machine, as usual.

Posted by Janus on 08/02/10 at 11:42 PM | #

I agree, brilliant work. So careful and fair and precise. The Machine said he had other possibilities but he wanted to weigh them and take time to look deeper. Any you would suggest that he include?

A Plan B for Amanda Knox does seem to be called for as the spurious claims in her defense steadily implode. Let’s recapitulate how the respective situations of all three perps look, in the light of all those implosions. .

1) Rudy Guede got some time off in part because he made at least a slight attempt to explain and apologize to Meredith’s family.

2) Sollecito doesnt seem the apologetic type but the attempted hard line of his family and lawyers turned to dust a long time ago, and if Doc Soll has a nice word for either Knox or her bandwagon it seems to be lost in translation. 

3) Knox faces more years for slandering the interrogators and more years if Mignini’s hard-line appeal against the sentence works with the new judges and jury. Such yin and yang outcomes of these appeals seems quite common in Italy - as the Masssei court seemed to try to go soft a little bit on Amanda, the first appeal court might go hard.

4) Edda Mellas and Curt Knox claim to have blown a million dollars, much of it on a ludicrously hard line PR campaign and, other than embarrasing Knox’s own lawyers in Perugia, where precisely has that got them?

Perhaps Amanda Knox should just throw her parents and the groupies to the wolves, as they all seem to have done with her, to serve their own chest-thumping and pecuniary purposes, and have a wee chat with Mignini??

An attempt however belated to show remorse to Meredith’s family and friends does seem her last and best hope here.

Posted by Peter Quennell on 08/03/10 at 02:16 AM | #

Peter, Knox is never going to admit the truth. Never, ever, ever. You can take that one to the bank.

Posted by Janus on 08/03/10 at 04:21 AM | #

Thank you, Machine. I have to admit that most of my own knowledge of this case and it’s details comes from you directly. Much appreciated.

Posted by mortytoad on 08/03/10 at 05:34 AM | #

Excellent work!!

Seems to me that Knox’s family have made a career almost out of their sudden “celebrity” status. Suddenly they are getting lots of attention (and who knows how much money) from these appearances. People (admittedly fewer and fewer) are listening to them. They are pseudo-famous now, whereas before they were ordinary folk.

It’s inconceivable that they don’t know that Knox was involved in Meredith’s murder. Or that they were unaware she had certain issues before she even went to Italy.

I think they are milking this… making as much as possible out of it while they can because the attention in the US is fading and will continue to fade.

I don’t think Knox has the capacity to show remorse.

Posted by lilly on 08/03/10 at 02:16 PM | #

A note about the DNA evidence and another example of Knox-Groupie hypocrisy: these people seem to avoid the clear fact that the DNA evidence that implicates Guede was collected and analyzed by the exact same people who collected and analyzed the DNA evidence which implicates Knox and Sollecito. Yet they hail and praise the evidence which implicates one, and reject outright the evidence which implicates the other two, on no discernible or apparent basis. There are no prizes for guessing why.

Posted by Janus on 08/03/10 at 02:20 PM | #

An excellent consolidation - thank you Machine.  I also remember Edda Mellas appearing on ABC’s “The View” stating what good friends Amanda and Meredith were.  She stated that on October 31, 2007, Meredith texted Amanda repeatedly asking “what’s up; what’s going on?” when in fact, Meredith had her own plans.  Meredith was going out with her English friends for Halloween and had NO plans with Amanda Knox.

Posted by Tara on 08/03/10 at 05:41 PM | #

Thank you, the Machine, and thank you Tara, you are absolutely right! Edda kept stating how great friends they were!

Posted by Patou on 08/03/10 at 05:59 PM | #

Next time someone says that Meredith and Knox were such great buddies, ask them why there are no photographs of Knox and Meredith together.

Posted by Janus on 08/03/10 at 06:31 PM | #

Hi Tara,

Edda Mellas has definitely claimed on a number of occasions that Amanda Knox was hit when she was questioned on 5 November 2007. I’ll add this claim to the piece when I find the relevant videos or newspaper articles.

Posted by The Machine on 08/03/10 at 06:46 PM | #

Janus - Right! I remember reading that Amanda’s aunt said they had lots of pictures made at the feast of chocolate, but “unfortunately the police destroyed all that was in the computer”!

Well, another big stupida bugiarda, the aunt. Who would believe that Amanda - who said on her facebook that she had sex with a guy she just met on the train and therefore was sharing absolutely everything - did not post pictures of this event on facebook, or sent some to her family and friends? “Here is my new friend Meredith and me…”.

This family is at ease with lies, we know where Amanda learned to master them so naturally….

Posted by Patou on 08/03/10 at 07:22 PM | #

Found the link with the aunt’s lies:

http://www.westseattleherald.com/2009/11/23/news/amanda-knox-verdict-just-days-away

“Amanda and Meredith were very friendly,” said Janet Huff, Knox’s aunt. “Just   two days before (the murder) they attended the Chocolate Festival together and had been out together to local pubs. There were quite a few photos of the two of them together in the days before her murder on Amanda’s computer. Too bad the Italian police completely fried it when trying to get into it and were not able to retrieve a single thing.

Posted by Patou on 08/03/10 at 08:08 PM | #

Thanks Patou. I am not sure how modern digital cameras work, but surely if there were “quite a few photos” of Knox and Meredith on Knox’s computer, which she presumably downloaded from her camera to her computer, the photos should also be on the camera, however “fried” the memory of the computer was. Those things, I believe, have one heck of a memory these days. If they were taken with Amanda’s camera, where is the camera? If the shots of them were taken together by a third party, who was it? Why haven’t they come forward?  Maybe someone more technically knowledgeable than me can correct my thinking, if I am mistaken. But it does seem to me, as a simple teacher, that these are the sort of questions, along with the numerous questions posed by The Machine, which the media should be asking the Knox family, rather than asking after the health of a convicted murderer and laying back and lapping up lies.

Posted by Janus on 08/03/10 at 08:16 PM | #

The Machine, I too would like to express gratitude for compiling this concise, well argued summary which draws together and exposes the inaccuracies and misrepresentation of facts espoused by AK’s family.

One thing I found disappointing was the reduction of RG’s sentence to only 16 years.  This would appear to indicate that AK and RS will similarly receive a significant reduction on appeal, given that RG has subsequently been seen as the main instigator of the crime.  I am not sure that the apparent ‘remorse’ he expressed at leaving Meredith to die was genuine rather than self-serving, given that his presence in the house was indisputable from the very start.

Posted by Lola on 08/03/10 at 08:56 PM | #

Hi Lola,

I’ve been reliably informed that the most likely scenario at the appeals is that Knox and Sollecito will get their sentences confirmed. I believe they should both spend the rest of their lives in prison.

Posted by The Machine on 08/03/10 at 09:13 PM | #

Machine, this is a great analysis, thank you. 

I have always understood that journalists “double source” information (ie they verify what they are told) and that they weight their sources with regards to reliability - an independent document (such as that produced by the judges) is considered a high quality source, opinions from friends and relatives is a lower quality source and as such should receive less weighting when it comes to producing a report. 

For those journalists who have allowed Amanda Knox’s family free reign I can say only this - they have tainted their work, not only on this story, but their previous and future work.  Given that they allowed them to speak they should have challenged them and had other participants to give the other side of the story.

Lola, with regard to Guede’s sentence reduction, I understood that that was to bring his sentence into line with Knox’s - Knox and Sollecito received 24 years for murder, Guede was entitled to a one third reduction for choosing the short form trial ie 16 years.  I see no reason for Knox and Sollecito to take any comfort from Guede’s sentence reduction.

Posted by Nolongeramember on 08/03/10 at 10:37 PM | #

On November 1, 2007 in Perugia Italy Meredith Kercher was brutally murdered.

In October 2009 the parents of US Balloon Boy, Richard and Mayumi Heene, were relentlessly exposed, publicly condemned and ruthlessly criticized by all the US and international media after it was discovered that the Heene’s story was a hoax.

On November 1, 2007 in Perugia Italy Meredith Kercher was brutally murdered.

Initial responses to the Heene’s false story resulted in an airport closure.

On November 1, 2007 in Perugia Italy Meredith Kercher was brutally murdered.

Initial responses to the Heene’s false story resulted in planes being rerouted.

On November 1, 2007 in Perugia Italy Meredith Kercher was brutally murdered.

Initial responses to the Heene’s false story resulted in a search and rescue.

On November 1, 2007 in Perugia Italy Meredith Kercher was brutally murdered.

When will the US and international media similarly and justifiably expose, condemn and criticize the parents of Amanda Knox, Curt Knox and Edda Mellas for telling their hoax to them?

On November 1, 2007 in Perugia Italy Meredith Kercher was brutally murdered.

Posted by True North on 08/03/10 at 11:37 PM | #

OK Innai, found the relevant post on this site explaining sentence reduction of RG.  Although AK and RS will end up with far longer sentences than RG, assuming appeals course upholds, there were of course other counts to in their cases.

Posted by Lola on 08/04/10 at 12:13 AM | #

A long chapter and maybe even an entire book could be written to refute each of Edda Mellas’s false claims that the Machine takes apart - and that as you will soon see the Massei Sentencing Report takes apart even further.

Under False claim 14 above (Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito maintained the same story) the Machine posts this quote from Edda Mellas:

“No, no. For this whole year they have maintained the story - what they did that night. They stayed at Raffaele’s, they made dinner, they watched a movie. That’s it, that’s the story.”

THEY? THEY have maintained?

Here is another direct contradiction of that, in an excellent comment that Skeptical Bystander posted over on PMF:

************

Barbie Nadeau, referring to what RS and AK actually told police, writes that AK and RS initially told police they had split up near the basketball courts on Nov 1 so that AK could go to work at Le Chic (they later changed this, telling police that both had gone together to RS’s place before AK left for work, which is a good thing because Popovic testified that she saw AK twice that evening).

RS then said: “I went home on my own. Amanda said she was going to Le Chic because she wanted to see some friends. That’s when we said good-bye. I went home, smoked a joint and ate dinner, but I can’t remember what I ate.”

Nadeau writes: “He also couldn’t remember Amanda being around, although she had told police, days earlier, that when Patrick Lumumba sent her a text message telling her not to come to work, she went straight over to Raffaele’s and spent the entire evening there. In Raffaele’s version, he was home alone around 11 pm when his father called on the mobile phone as he did every night.

But the police already knew from phone logs that neither this call, nor the one his father made at 8:40 pm to the land line, had been answered.”

Incidentally, RS did answer his cellphone at 8:42 pm and it was daddy. Daddy wanted to tell him about a movie he had just seen and RS told him about the leak under the sink, discovered when RS was doing the dishes after dinner. Oops!

Also a tough break for Raffaele of the crinkly grin is that he did not offer up ANY of the details supplied by Amanda about their evening together (the movie, the dinner, the joints after dinner, the sex). Not one.

It is clear that RS did not corroborate AK’s alibi at this critical juncture.

Posted by Peter Quennell on 08/04/10 at 03:22 PM | #

Interesting that Edda Mellas calls it a “story” - isn’t a story a tale you make up?  She didn’t say “that’s it, that’s the truth”.

It seems she finds it as easy to lie as AK does.

Innocent people don’t tell lie after lie after lie.

Posted by lilly on 08/04/10 at 08:22 PM | #

8/4/10

The Machine, impeccable. A huge analysis.

Posted by Hopeful on 08/04/10 at 08:33 PM | #

Can someone correct (if necessary) my understanding of the mixed blood evidence?

The expert who tested the samples of Meredith’s and Knox’s mixed blood, found in several locations in the house, was sure the samples were blood from a visual examination and because of the amount of DNA she could extract from such small samples.

Blood is a rich source of DNA. When you have a small sample and a comparatively large amount of DNA extractable, an expert can be sure of two things: firstly, that the sample is blood, secondly that the sample is fairly fresh, because DNA degrades quickly.

When you have a small sample with a comparatively large amount of DNA extractable indicating two people, an expert can be sure that the sample is mixed blood and both the people who left the samples had bled fairly recently.

The DNA expert was sure that the samples were, in fact, blood from Meredith mixed with blood from Knox, and that the samples were fairly fresh. This indicates that Knox and Meredith were bleeding at the same time, in the same place. That place being the house where Meredith was murdered, that time being sometime around the time she was murdered.

Is that substantially correct and is there anything to be added?

Posted by Janus on 08/04/10 at 09:54 PM | #

Could I add a question; “DNA degrades quickly”.  I haven’t researched this but have heard of cases which have been solved many years later as a result of DNA testing.  How long does DNA in blood actually ‘last’, ie is detectable by analysis?  Were the experts certain that the blood in the bathroom was in fact very recent mixed blood, as opposed to days/weeks old?

Posted by Lola on 08/04/10 at 11:31 PM | #

Good to see all Edda´s lies collected together in a place where no-one buys them for a minute, instead of having to stomach them as the truth about poor Amanda and the mean Italians….

I agree with Lola - movie, dinner etc - that’s the ‘story’ that the Knox family are NOW sticking with and it has nothing to do with the truth. I don´t agree with people who think Knox is a good liar at all though. Her “I don´t know"s and “I can´t remember"s are, of course, lies of omission, but I tend to think she uses them to avoid telling further lies that she can actually be called on.

If you play close attention to her words, you often notice the story slipping as she gives herself away. The constructed stories have changed over time to incorporate new information and to try to deal with new problems but only succeed in creating new ones….

I’m certain that she remembers every detail of what happened and what she did that night and the morning after. If she remembered nothing she would have been able to invent one story and would have stuck to it. The reason she can’t is because there´s a real narrative that she remembers only too well underlying the fictitious ones and she can´t get away from it.

Even in court, she stumbled, correcting herself when her story went astray. I tend to think one of the reasons her performance was so poor is that she hasn’t been able to construct and rehearse her story in writing, because she´s supervised in prison, but instead has had to write hundreds of lame, vague “I’m innocent” letters to family, friends and fans. I´ll bet she didn’t talk about the night or morning in any detail, as she couldn’t risk variations in the story because those letters were written to be read by the authorities. (She actually brought them up as proof of her innocence: “look I’ve written 500 letters consistently saying I´m innocent” thereby demonstrating her reason for writing them!) Hopeless.

She couldn’t even get straight whether she got dried and dressed in the bathroom or her own room, and even had to be prompted by her counsel “...and then you dried your hair…”  because none of it ever happened. The truth is that her inventions will never be “as real to her” as what really happened.

For me, the most disgusting and destructive lie by the family is “Meredith was found with the hair of a Black person in her hand” both sweeping away the false accusation of Patrick as something Knox was forced to say, and at the same time implicating Guede, a masterstroke of malice and deceit and a deliberate playing to any latent racism that might turn the spotlight away from Knox´s crimes.

I don’t have any sympathy for Edda at all and am sickened by the spineless British press. I hope no-one ever gives her UK airtime again - unless the interviewer is… Jeremy Paxman

Posted by Clarissablue on 08/05/10 at 03:41 AM | #

Hi Clarissablue. Good comment. At the end you mention the UK’s Jeremy Paxman. I did what I always do when a new name comes up - head for the YouTubes.

I must say Jeremy Paxman’s interviews there are absolutely classic. Edda Mellas has faced no-one remotely like him, and (especially after Machine’s devastating list) she certainly now never will.

Posted by Peter Quennell on 08/05/10 at 04:32 AM | #

I love all The Machine’s posts. Makes me feel like there is some sense in the world.

I think Edda’s biggest lie is her lie of omission: she neglected to tell the authorities that Amanda told her that Patrick Lamumba was really innocent. That is one big whopper. She was willing to let an innocent man take the rap for her daughter. Yikes!

Posted by bedelia on 08/05/10 at 04:54 AM | #

Peter, I hope you saw Jeremy Paxman’s interview with Michael Howard. An all-time classic, and legendary in the UK. That gives you a good idea of his style. Let Paxman loose on Edda and she would be toast in five minutes.

Naturally, she would never accept the challenge.

Posted by Janus on 08/05/10 at 07:12 PM | #

Hi, I`m basically a newcomer around here and I´ve never posted a lengthy comment before but I have to admit that I like this webpage because it`s highly interesting and I like all the discussions you people have.

TJMK I think is much more detailed than any other site covering this case so far and the best reference of information about it.

Since my brother showed me an article covering the murder trial last December I have followed the story obsessively and I´ve read Barbie Nadeau`s Angel Face.

Strangely, I have developed a fascination for both Amanda Knox and Meredith Kercher. Being a student myself I was shocked to hear that anything of the kind could have happed among students.

“Meredith`s murder will always remain a mystery that was blurred by the headlines and lost in translation”. This case is frustrating in fact and it’s ultimately a sad,cruel story for both Amanda and Meredith.

Posted by aethelred23 on 08/06/10 at 04:48 PM | #

Hi aethelred23,

Murderers come from all walks of life, including university students.

The facts are abundantly clear: Amanda Knox, Raffaele Sollecito and Rudy Guede were all involved in the sexual assault and murder of Meredith.

The people who deserve your sympathy are Meredith, her family and friends. Amanda Knox is a sadistic sex killer; she’s not a victim.

Posted by The Machine on 08/06/10 at 07:38 PM | #

Hi aethelred23,
How do you get this is a sad, cruel story for AK
AK deserves a lot worse along with RS and RG for what they did to Meredith and her family.

And Edna and Curt needs to be in prison right along with AK, Maybe somewheres they will learn how to tell the truth instead of lying everywhere about everything.

I still dont buy the drug idea that they were to high to remember thats bs

Posted by jasmine1998 on 08/15/10 at 06:39 AM | #

Once again, I am playing catch-up. I have finished reading both Darkness Descending ( painstakingly thorough) and Angel Face (disappointingly thin) and am about 1/3 of the way through Candace’s crowning achievement ( well worth the one copper penny it cost me on Amazon!)

Reading the three simultaneously was somewhat confusing (as the same scenarios, with some interesting variations, keep cropping up).

Clarissablue mentioned the infamous “Black hair”, but I’m fairly sure it was Barbie Nadeau, during one of the forensics forays, who mentioned not one but two Blonde Hairs, one stuck to the blood on M’s hand, and a second inside her body? This, if true, begs further comment!!

Aethelred, although I feel absolutely no sympathy for the situation in which AK finds herself, I do agree that it is sad, if only to the extent that hers is a mind wasted. She could have made so much of the opportunity she had in that gap year, and instead, chose to flush it down the toilet. Or not…

As to your own struggles with despair, please take heart. The fact that you feel anything strongly shows that you are far from done with life! Don’t sell yourself short!

Posted by mimi on 08/17/10 at 07:24 AM | #

By Storm Roberts (Innai)

Having read the Massei Report I can see that these 18 points are all contradicted by the evidence presented in court and reports by Judge Massei. 

I know the Report is 400 odd pages long, and is, in places, very, very hard to read due to the nature of it’s content, but any and every journalist whether in the paper or broadcast media who tackles this sad case from this point on must take the time to read all of the Report.  If they fail to do so they can scarcely call themselves a journalist.  The Massei Report should be the starting point for any piece, not the views of the family of one of the defendants who has now been convicted.

It is sad for journalism in the UK and US that this report has been as good as ignored and has only come into the English language because of volunteers translating it, but I can’t help but say that it is a shining hope for humanity that there are people willing to give their time and talents to work on such a translation.

Posted by Nolongeramember on 09/02/10 at 03:00 PM | #

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