Amanda Knox

[Vercingetorix]

Look, here's an article on a blog written by a bunch of law professors, explaining that the amount of Meredith DNA on the knife and Sollecito DNA on the bra clasp was so low that neither could have resulted from a direct transfer.

In the Amanda Knox case, in order to determine Meredith’s DNA on the knife blade, it was necessary for the DNA analysts to go down to an RFU level of 15 – one tenth of the cutoff of the most inclusive DNA analysis. This could not have resulted from a primary transfer; that is, the knife blade could not have been in direct contact with Meredith, much less her blood. The Italian authorities had claimed that the knife had been “carefully cleaned”, but we’ll come to that later.

The data was similar for Raffaele’s DNA on the bra clasp, meaning that Raffaele could not have directly touched it.

So how did Meredith’s DNA get on the knife blade, and Amanda’s on the knife handle, and Rafaelle’s on the bra clasp? With the DNA levels detected, it had to be secondary or tertiary transfer.

a) Meredith and Amanda were roommates and friends. Amanda certainly had Meredith’s primary and secondary DNA on her. All she had to do was to be cooking in Raffaele’s apartment kitchen, and she would have left her own DNA on the knife handle, and could certainly have left Meredith’s DNA on the blade.

b) Raffaele and Amanda were dating, and consequently, he knew Meredith, and had contact with her. All he had to do was to shake hands with Meredith, and she would have his primary DNA on her, and she would transfer his secondary DNA to her bra clasp.

c) A combination of two things. To begin with, Amanda and Raffaele were allowed back into the apartment after the initial evidence collection – not a good idea. While viewing video of the Italian evidence technicians collecting the evidence, Prof. Hampikian noticed that they were not changing their gloves between handling different pieces of evidence. This creates a situation for secondary or tertiary transfer both in the initial evidence collection procedure and subsequent to Amanda and Raffaele being allowed back into the apartment.

Recall that the Italian authorities had claimed that the knife had been “carefully cleaned”. When the appeals-court-appointed Italian DNA experts examined the knife microscopically, they found that it was coated with potato starch. So much for careful cleaning.

Prof. Hampikian advised Amanda’s legal team about the DNA issues. The Italian court appointed two independent, Italian DNA experts to review the evidence, and their conclusion was that the DNA evidence presented at trial was not scientifically supportable, and consequently not valid.

What Really Happened in the Amanda Knox Case? | Wrongful Convictions Blog

 

[Sandvol]

Look, here's an article on a blog written by a bunch of law professors, explaining that the amount of Meredith DNA on the knife and Sollecito DNA on the bra clasp was so low that neither could have resulted from a direct transfer.



What Really Happened in the Amanda Knox Case? | Wrongful Convictions Blog

I won't have any time to address these for a couple of days because I'm traveling tonight and the next couple of days but those are valid arguments and those are the arguments the defense posed. They were all shot down and I'll tell you why later. I mean when the evidence is that strongly against you what can you do but attack the police and the evidence? But, I have a few questions for you. If Guede acted alone why did he stage a break-in? Also, if Knox and Sollecito didn't kill Kercher then who did because there was no other DNA discovered, no other blood, no other suspects except Lumumba who Knox implicated, and they were seen with him by several eye witnesses the night of the murder? And, why did Knox implicate Lumumba? And, why did Knox lie about her whereabouts and Sollecito not support her? In this case the DNA evidence isn't even the strongest evidence against them. Most people don't know that Knox and Sollecito were at odds with each other and gave conflicting testimony. Back later.

 

[volgrad500]

Are you a criminal attorney?

I actually work for the Department of Justice now, but formally with a large Northeast DA's Office. You?
I'm hoping to have a little down time before spring to read one of the books on this case-seems really interesting.

 

[Slydell]

I've been trying to find a basis for the claim about the shoe box in the records and haven't found any. Here is an excerpt from a report by an American reporter regarding how the knife was collected:

Armando Finzi, an assistant in the Perugia police department’s organized crimes unit, first discovered the knife in Sollecito’s kitchen drawer. He said the first thing he noticed upon entering the place was a “strong smell of bleach.” He opened the drawer and saw “very shiny and clean” knife lying on top of the silverware tray.

“It was the first knife I saw,” he said. When pressed on cross-examination, said his “investigative intuition” led him to believe it was the murder weapon because it was compatible with the wound as it had been described to him. With gloved hands, he placed the knife in a new police envelope, taped it shut with Scotch tape, then placed it inside a folder, he said. There were smaller and bigger knives in the drawer, but no others were taken into evidence from the kitchen, he said.

(Andrea Vogt, The Seattle Post-Intelligencer, 28 February 2009).

P.S.-By the way I read "Conquest of Gaul" years ago when I was an undergrad at UT. Loved that book.

Did they collect any knives, scissors, letter openers, etc. from the apartment where the murder took place? I know they focused on the knife they took because it looked "shiny clean", or whatever. Wonder why they didn't take all knives or items that could cause sharp wounds, just in case.

 

[Slydell]

Well, the bra clasp as you can tell from the picture is white and the floor is an off white and it was positioned under the body so it would not be inconceivable to believe they missed it or even recognized what it was until closer examination. Would it? And, my question would be what would it matter? In our country police retrieve DNA samples from victim's who are dumped in the outdoors or in trash bins and you and the rest of the public don't seem to have a problem with that. But, because the murder occurred in another country and the accused was a cute American girl then because of the slanted reporting by our atrocious media you believe the cops are corrupt? When in most instances you probably don't believe anything you read in the media. Doesn't make any sense. Why don't you stop being a sheeple?

The clasp was cut off, correct? If you slice it off with a knife, what DNA would be there?

 

[Vercingetorix]

I won't have any time to address these for a couple of days because I'm traveling tonight and the next couple of days but those are valid arguments and those are the arguments the defense posed. They were all shot down and I'll tell you why later. I mean when the evidence is that strongly against you what can you do but attack the police and the evidence? But, I have a few questions for you. If Guede acted alone why did he stage a break-in? Also, if Knox and Sollecito didn't kill Kercher then who did because there was no other DNA discovered, no other blood, no other suspects except Lumumba who Knox implicated, and they were seen with him by several eye witnesses the night of the murder? And, why did Knox implicate Lumumba? And, why did Knox lie about her whereabouts and Sollecito not support her? In this case the DNA evidence isn't even the strongest evidence against them. Most people don't know that Knox and Sollecito were at odds with each other and gave conflicting testimony. Back later.

The guy with a criminal record who left a handprint under her body and basically sprayed his DNA all over the crime scene, of course. The guy who's already in jail. This should have been an open and shut case, except that the prosecutor was a guy who already had a known predilection for weird conspiracies. There was never any need for this absurd notion that three people conspired to kill Meredith Kercher. A bad guy with a history of break-ins and knife-wielding admitted he was there and left his DNA all over the apartment and inside the victim. The end.

The testimony of Knox and Sollecito is contradictory and all over the place because that's what you get when you use interrogation techniques on scared kids who were probably chemically altered on the night in question. "ARE YOU ABSOLUTELY SURE AMANDA DIDN'T GET UP DURING THE NIGHT WHILE YOU WERE PASSED OUT? ARE YOU SURE YOU WEREN'T WITH HER? ARE YOU SURE YOU WEREN'T THE ONE WITH THE KNIFE??" The article I read said that Knox signed her "confession" at 5:45 AM. I speak two handfuls of Spanish; there's no telling what Mexican cops could get me to confess to if they kept me up all night in jail in Mexico City, grilling me about a night when I was drunk. Obviously it was fairly heinous for Knox to eventually agree to implicate Lumumba in order to save her own ass, but that's not the same as being guilty of murder herself.

So. A rational reader over here on the other side of the world looks at this case and sees a girl accused and convicted of murder on the basis of bizarre, confused, probably coerced testimony and DNA evidence that's apparently 1/10th as strong as the FBI would require to consider it a direct transfer. An American grand jury wouldn't even consider an indictment. There's just no reason to think that this is anything other than the open and shut, Guede-killed-her case it looks like on the face of it.

 

[Slydell]

The guy with a criminal record who left a handprint under her body and basically sprayed his DNA all over the crime scene, of course. The guy who's already in jail. This should have been an open and shut case, except that the prosecutor was a guy who already had a known predilection for weird conspiracies. There was never any need for this absurd notion that three people conspired to kill Meredith Kercher. A bad guy with a history of break-ins and knife-wielding admitted he was there and left his DNA all over the apartment and inside the victim. The end.

The testimony of Knox and Sollecito is contradictory and all over the place because that's what you get when you use interrogation techniques on scared kids who were probably chemically altered on the night in question. "ARE YOU ABSOLUTELY SURE AMANDA DIDN'T GET UP DURING THE NIGHT WHILE YOU WERE PASSED OUT? ARE YOU SURE YOU WEREN'T WITH HER? ARE YOU SURE YOU WEREN'T THE ONE WITH THE KNIFE??" The article I read said that Knox signed her "confession" at 5:45 AM. I speak two handfuls of Spanish; there's no telling what Mexican cops could get me to confess to if they kept me up all night in jail in Mexico City, grilling me about a night when I was drunk. Obviously it was fairly heinous for Knox to eventually agree to implicate Lumumba in order to save her own ass, but that's not the same as being guilty of murder herself.

So. A rational reader over here on the other side of the world looks at this case and sees a girl accused and convicted of murder on the basis of bizarre, confused, probably coerced testimony and DNA evidence that's apparently 1/10th as strong as the FBI would require to consider it a direct transfer. An American grand jury wouldn't even consider an indictment. There's just no reason to think that this is anything other than the open and shut, Guede-killed her case it looks like on the face of it.

Pretty much how I see it. This case would have been throw out here IF it ever made it to court.

 

[blupotato]

Are you including the duvet, clothing, shoes, body and spots of blood in your discription as trash?

I never said anything was trash, but I just don't understand why you keep mentioning how clean her room was when all that I can see in terms of cleanliness from that crime scene photo is that her mattress sheet was tucked in. What truly confuses me about your bra clasp stance is that they never noticed it for what was it 46 days?

If they were turning every single leaf for evidence wouldn't they have noticed that after turning over her body? I don't buy the whole it matches the floor color argument either. It wasn't the size of a strand of hair that could go unnoticed. I also don't understand why it took them so long to take a one last look over the scene after so long. How many other high profile murder cases were tying up csi in that tiny town to wait a month or 2 before looking for other evidence?

Guede's dna is everywhere in that apartment. That is factual. That's what can be proven beyond a reasonable doubt. Mignini is the one to blame for all this mess (Not the murder but the complete mishandling of the case and the wrongful convictions without irrefutable evidence).

 

[Vercingetorix]

Guede's dna is everywhere in that apartment. That is factual. That's what can be proven beyond a reasonable doubt.

The best part is that because of the prosecutor's dumb sex conspiracy fantasy (or whatever it was), the real killer was able to change his story, incriminate his "accomplices," and get his sentence cut by half. He'll be out of jail before he's 40.

 

[Weezer]

I would personally think that under the body would be a focus of crime scene investigators. The closer to the body, the more chance of incriminating evidence. This idea that they didn't look where the body was found until over a month later is absurd.

 

[SamRebel35]

I mean when the evidence is that strongly against you what can you do but attack the police and the evidence?

Attacking the evidence is rightly called for when it doesn't implicate the accused, yet it is purposefully distorted and shoe horned into implicating the accused. Sand, you have a very weak hand in this argument. All of the ACTUAL evidence points to Knox not being at the crime scene, and Guede being the actual killer. There is no smoking gun for Knox. The report you keep propping up doesn't change any of these facts. It simply draws unreasonable conclusions based on loose/irresponsible interpretations of evidential findings.

 

[Sandvol]

Did they collect any knives, scissors, letter openers, etc. from the apartment where the murder took place? I know they focused on the knife they took because it looked "shiny clean", or whatever. Wonder why they didn't take all knives or items that could cause sharp wounds, just in case.

Yes they did. They collected 90 pieces of evidence from Sollecito's apartment. All of the samples were either negative or showed a mixture of Sollecito's and Knox's DNA. Only the knife identified as the murder weapon had Kercher's DNA on it. Sollecito's explanation was that Amanda was at his apartment and had pricked herself on the knife. Of course all of the witnesses did not support this account and that Amanda had never been to Sollecito's apartment. He had only met Knox on Oct 19- roughly 13 days before the murder.

 

[Sandvol]

The clasp was cut off, correct? If you slice it off with a knife, what DNA would be there?

It would be done like this.

 

[Sandvol]

Attacking the evidence is rightly called for when it doesn't implicate the accused, yet it is purposefully distorted and shoe horned into implicating the accused. Sand, you have a very weak hand in this argument. All of the ACTUAL evidence points to Knox not being at the crime scene, and Guede being the actual killer. There is no smoking gun for Knox. The report you keep propping up doesn't change any of these facts. It simply draws unreasonable conclusions based on loose/irresponsible interpretations of evidential findings.

You really need to read about the case Sam because you don't know what you are talking about. There is so much evidence against Knox that recently one of the American lawyers (Simmons) who had spoken for Knox initially but later recanted stating "you had to have a whack a mole defense" meaning there was so much evidence popping up against Knox that it was insurmountable.

 

[Sandvol]

The best part is that because of the prosecutor's dumb sex conspiracy fantasy (or whatever it was), the real killer was able to change his story, incriminate his "accomplices," and get his sentence cut by half. He'll be out of jail before he's 40.

Again, like Sam, you really need to understand the facts of the case before you make a statement. Guede's sentence was initially 30 years. The appeals court reduced it to 24 after Knox and Sollecito only got 24 out of fairness and then that was reduced to 16 because he fast-tracked his case. The appeals Judge said he gave no credence to anything Guede said and didn't regard his statements or testimony at all.

 

[Slydell]

It would be done like this.

No, you wouldn't need to touch it at all. Thought that was obvious.

 

[Sandvol]

I will post a few more times about this case but this is really getting old. You goaded me into presenting my views of the case as if any of you had an open mind. The perpetrators have already been convicted and will go to prison. I can't spend a lot of time chasing red herrings and factually incorrect arguments. You can find out the facts for yourself. I will comment a few more times about some of the posts above about DNA evidence and the evidence against Amanda. But, most or all of your posts demonstrates a total misunderstanding of the case: the context of the police interviews and Amanda's "confession", the scenarios and timeline of the alibi's and how they don't fit, the eye witnesses, the staged break-in, why the evidence was collected again on December 18 after the initial collection on Nov 2-6, why she implicated Patrick Lumumba, etc. etc. I can go on and on. There is monumental evidence against her. She is most likely the one who wielded the fatal stab. Not just there.

 

[Sandvol]

No, you wouldn't need to touch it at all. Thought that was obvious.

You asked me to give you a plausible scenario of how it was done. I did. His DNA was on the clasp. It was a primary transfer.

 

[Slydell]

Transfer when? Based on all I've seen and read, I'd have to vote not guilty.

 

[Slydell]

Seems their court system is to keep persecuting/prosecuting the same crime until they get the verdict they want. Not a good system, IMO.

 

[Sandvol]

The guy with a criminal record who left a handprint under her body and basically sprayed his DNA all over the crime scene, of course. The guy who's already in jail. This should have been an open and shut case, except that the prosecutor was a guy who already had a known predilection for weird conspiracies. There was never any need for this absurd notion that three people conspired to kill Meredith Kercher. A bad guy with a history of break-ins and knife-wielding admitted he was there and left his DNA all over the apartment and inside the victim. The end.

The testimony of Knox and Sollecito is contradictory and all over the place because that's what you get when you use interrogation techniques on scared kids who were probably chemically altered on the night in question. "ARE YOU ABSOLUTELY SURE AMANDA DIDN'T GET UP DURING THE NIGHT WHILE YOU WERE PASSED OUT? ARE YOU SURE YOU WEREN'T WITH HER? ARE YOU SURE YOU WEREN'T THE ONE WITH THE KNIFE??" The article I read said that Knox signed her "confession" at 5:45 AM. I speak two handfuls of Spanish; there's no telling what Mexican cops could get me to confess to if they kept me up all night in jail in Mexico City, grilling me about a night when I was drunk. Obviously it was fairly heinous for Knox to eventually agree to implicate Lumumba in order to save her own ass, but that's not the same as being guilty of murder herself.

So. A rational reader over here on the other side of the world looks at this case and sees a girl accused and convicted of murder on the basis of bizarre, confused, probably coerced testimony and DNA evidence that's apparently 1/10th as strong as the FBI would require to consider it a direct transfer. An American grand jury wouldn't even consider an indictment. There's just no reason to think that this is anything other than the open and shut, Guede-killed-her case it looks like on the face of it.

You're not even being intellectually honest. I asked you a question if Knox and Sollecito didn't commit the crime then who did? Of course since you know so much about the case then you know there was more than one perpetrator(multiple attackers) of the crime. I asked you why would Guede stage the break-in? Of course you didn't answer that. Since you know so much about the crime you would know that when Knox confessed the police didn't even suspect her. They suspected her boyfriend Sollecito. They even asked her not to come to the station. Sollecito told the police that Knox left his apartment the night of the murder around 8:40 because the police told him an eye witness had seen Knox leave his apartment. They also saw on her phone a text to Patrick Lumumba "see you later" so they thought she left to meet Patrick which would have given Sollecito a chance to commit the murder (they also knew Lumumba's cell phone pinged at around 8:50 near the girl's cottage). So when they decided to ask her a few questions because Sollecito wrecked her alibi and to confirm she met Lumumba, (again, they were suspecting Sollecito, not her), then they asked her about the text she panicked and accused Lumumba and placed herself at the crime scene. This all took place between 11:00pm and 1:45am. Her statement had been typed and signed. So, the most they could have question her was ONE HOUR. They were trying to get her to shut up. They called in Mangini the prosecutor to give her rights and recommend she get a lawyer and she continued to babble on. She made another formal statement to Mangini at 5:45 am. Then again another unsolicited hand written note placing herself at the crime scene after that with all these "imaginings." Well she imagined Meredith screaming but of course you can explain how she would know that because three witnesses would later testify hearing a scream coming from the cottage that night but if she wasn't there how would she know? And, how would she know that Meredith was killed by the wardrobe, which she told one of her apartment mates at the police station while they were waiting to be questioned, since the body was by the bed and not discovered it had been moved until later? Of course since you know so much about the crime you can answer all these questions.

 

[vol_in_ar]

here we go

 

[butchna]

If Sand quits posting on this subject,who will take over the role of hinting at "monumental" evidence...and then refuse to divulge ANY of it?
Posted via VolNation Mobile

 

[Sandvol]

Look, here's an article on a blog written by a bunch of law professors, explaining that the amount of Meredith DNA on the knife and Sollecito DNA on the bra clasp was so low that neither could have resulted from a direct transfer.



What Really Happened in the Amanda Knox Case? | Wrongful Convictions Blog

I can't believe you are actually associating yourself with this post. I actually went to this blog. The post in question was not by one of the professors but by someone named Phil Locke who claims to be a science and technology advisor to Ohio Innocence Project. Of course I could find no credentials on Mr. Locke. None of the law professors have gone anywhere near the case. He misrepresents most of the DNA facts. Did you even look at Sollecito's DNA profile? Before you post comments by unreliable individual's named Locke you had better look at the profile yourself. Conti and Vecchiotti who were the independent scientists confirmed it was Sollecito's DNA. They claimed it could have been due to contamination. But, it was very high copy sample with strong luminescence so it couldn't be a secondary transfer. But you would have known that if you had bothered to look at the electropherogram. Of course they could offer no plausible explanation for how the contamination occurred other than "anything is possible." And, their only objection to the knife was low copy number. They didn't even attempt to claim secondary transfer since no plausible explanation for a secondary transfer existed. So, Knox transferred Meredith's DNA to the sharp edge of the knife blade but no other DNA of all the other people she touched that day including her boyfriend Sollecito and 90 other samples were tested in Sollecito's apartment and not one piece of Kercher DNA was found? Even Conti and Vecchiotti weren't stupid enough to go there but your friend Mr. Locke did? Why? Because he doesn't understand facts. And, he blatant lie about the knife being coated with starch. Conti and Vecchiotti claimed finding trace molecules of starch on the blade in a couple of the grooves to say it might have been contamination but later admitted not really because it is not anything like DNA. And, by the way there has never been shown in any documented case a secondary transfer of DNA without the primary DNA also present in the sample but of course science and technology advisor Locke should know that shouldn't he?

 

[Sandvol]

I never said anything was trash, but I just don't understand why you keep mentioning how clean her room was when all that I can see in terms of cleanliness from that crime scene photo is that her mattress sheet was tucked in. What truly confuses me about your bra clasp stance is that they never noticed it for what was it 46 days?

If they were turning every single leaf for evidence wouldn't they have noticed that after turning over her body? I don't buy the whole it matches the floor color argument either. It wasn't the size of a strand of hair that could go unnoticed. I also don't understand why it took them so long to take a one last look over the scene after so long. How many other high profile murder cases were tying up csi in that tiny town to wait a month or 2 before looking for other evidence?

Guede's dna is everywhere in that apartment. That is factual. That's what can be proven beyond a reasonable doubt. Mignini is the one to blame for all this mess (Not the murder but the complete mishandling of the case and the wrongful convictions without irrefutable evidence).

Do you understand why they went back 46 days later? Of course you don't because you don't understand the case. If you did you would know when they were after Guede they intercepted one of his messages to a friend in Italy and in it he talked about all the blood tracks in the hallway. But the hallway was clean. This was just before they extradited him in early December. They went back to the apartment to collect more evidence and spray luminol to uncover all the footprints in the hallway. Of course when they found the bra clasp the also found two more pieces of DNA evidence on Guede. But I guess they should throw that out because it was 46 days later and a sealed crime scene? And, by the way, Guede's DNA wasn't all over the place. They found evidence on him in 6 places, two of which they recovered on December 18. One also was a vaginal swab from the victim but no semen. But, of course if you had read about the case you would know that.