Posted on 09/07/2011 1:42:59 PM PDT by RonDog
“Then you havent read enough. She is so guilty. The evidence against her is overwhelming.”
What is this evidence you speak of? I’d like to hear it. I have read a lot about this case and believe she is innocent.
Good job Newtiebacker! You did a very good job of explaining the facts, and fiction, in this case. I urge anyone interested in the case to read: The Monster of Florence by Douglas Preston and Mario Spezzi, Murder in Italy by Candace Dempsey, The Monster of Perugia by Mark Waterbury and Injustice in Perugia by Bruce Fisher. If you think Knox and Sollecito are guilty now, and are fair minded, you won’t think they are guilty after reading these books!
“If the accused lies about the evidence that is relevant to their guilt then the jury will likely convict”
By calling it “evidence that is relevant to their guilt,” you imply that the evidence by itself indicates guilt. In that case the jury would be convicting on the evidence more than the lying about it. All the lying about it would mean, aside from making the defendant look bad, is that any alternate explanation of it was now forestalled.
In this case, there is no “evidence that is relevant to their guilt,” since there is no evidence of her guilt. There is of course “evidence,” but not enough to convict her of. That’s why her lying is irrelevant, even if you throw out the convoluted nature of the prosecution’s case and the understandable confusions of the language and cultural barriers and her weird interogation process.
It would be one thing if she said she was where she wasn’t AND they had the victim’s blood on her shoes or her blood on the murder weapon. What we have is inconsistencies in her stories and nothing to tie her physically to the scene. That means no evidence.
“It was all the jurors talked about and I had no problem convicting an obviously guilty person based on their lies about the evidence.”
Once again, if they lied about the evidence, then presumably there was evidence to convict them on, and the lies forestalled explaining it another way. In this case, there was no underlying evidence, just a defendant you think has been caught lying. You can’t convict someone just because you can’t trust them. It must be that you can’t trust them and there’s evidence pointing to their guilt.
Hopefully she ran this by Chris Christie.
“The same posters must believe Casey Anthony just ‘knows’ what happened to her daughter, but didn’t actually committ the murder of the child.”
That would hold for people who think Casey is innocent. For thoise who think she’s not guilty, like the jury, she very well could have murdered her child. It’s just that she was the last person we know saw her, plus she didn’t report her missing for a month afterwards and her car smelled like death. That certainly suggests she did it, but doesn’t exclude alternate explanations. For instance, the one the jury apparently bought, i.e. that she drowned in the pool and grandpa demanded it be covered up.
To me the evidence of guilt is that she lied about where she was the night of the murder and when shown evidence that she had lied she changed her story, admitted she was there and tried to say she knew who was responsible which turned out to be someone completely innocent. In the case I was on the lying was similar, we convicted and we all believed she was guilty beyond a reasonable doubt and like Perry I don't have any trouble sleeping over it.
“it is something more than that when the lie in question is directly related to crime of which a person is accused”
“Directly related”? How so? I mean, related to when and where she was that night, but it couldn’t be very directly related since they never tied her to the crime directly. You need actual evidence to do that, which they don’t have. Lying about your whereabouts, for instance, might make you think she’s guilty, but it’s not “circumstantial evidence” of guilt. Lying alone is not enough to convict, is all I’m saying. There must be some underlying evidence to lie about for you to use lying to convict.
If I had claimed lying about evidence was equivalent to “You’re a liar, so you’re more likely a murderer,” then I’d be overstating things. But I didn’t. I said treating incredibility (generally, not concerning real evidence) as circumstantial evidence all by itself is like saying “You’re a liar, so you’re more likely a murderer.”
You want to reallign things by making the lie about things “directly related to the crime.” But they aren’t directly related to the crime. If they could somehow directly relate her to the crime, they’d have evidence. Then, if she still lied, it’d be more substantive, as she’d be lying about actual evidence. Which didn’t happen.
“there’s nothing wrong with a reasonable person taking that into account along with other evidence”
Of course not. But we’ve been arguing over whether it constitutes “circumstantial evidence,” which it does not.
I don’t know, I’ve been following this from the very beginning, I think that she’s guilty. She’s more than a slut, she’s a little crazy.
Her parents married solely because of the pregnancy. It was a bad marriage, but the father was better than the mother and Amanda was very close to him. He got fed up and left when she was very little, like four or something. She always blamed her mother, especially after the father got remarried and started another family. She was so messed up that she came on to all her mother’s boy friends.
So, that’s not enough to make her a murderer, but there seemed to be a lot of evidence pointing toward her guilt, like a foot print in the blood on the floor.
I don’t know, I’m not ready to give her a pass. I think that they were hopped up on some kind of drugs and tried to persuade the roommate to participate in something she didn’t want to do.
Rudy Guede is the fly in that oatmeal.
His guilt is beyond any doubt.
And his behavior in the appeals court seems more like that of somebody telling a lie than of somebody telling the truth.
During his appearance at Knox's appeal hearing today, Guede refused to answer questions about the Kercher's 2007 murder. Guede insisted he was only in court to answer questions about former cellmate Mario Alessi, a convicted criminal who testified last week that Guede told him that Knox and Sollecito were not present at Kercher's murder...
...Knox, who is from Seattle, tried to speak, but was told by the judge she would have to wait until Guede finished. Knox watched Guede steadily during his testimony. Guede avoided looking at her...
...After Guede left the stand and the courtroom, Knox, speaking in Italian, told the court that the only time she, Sollecito and Guede was in the same room was in a courtroom.
The article describes Guede as an "Ivory Coast drifter."
The Ivory Coast is one of the most lawless places on earth.
I don't see Rudy and the other two doing ANYTHING together, for any reason.
The problem is that Sollecito doesn’t seem to back up anything that Knox says.
Yeah, he does, he retracted his confused statement made when he was stoned before Matteini on November 8th, 2007. He had his days mixed up it appears, likely one of the dangers of going to the police station late at night whilst under the influence of hash. Which begs the question, if these two were murderers, and they were being called in for a ‘witness’ statement, why didn’t they ‘work on their story’ on the way there? Why did he even answer the phone in the first place, I thought that stuff was supposed to make you paranoid?
At any rate, all he had to do is be willing to testify that Amanda had left that night, and he’d have been off the hook, probably feted as a ‘superwitness’ and given the keys to the city. Yet, another indication that the police were interested in Patrick, was there’s basically no mention of Raffaele in either of Amanda’s statements regarding the murder, unlike the extremely curious false quote Ann Coulter uses here, all it says is:
“I am not sure if Raffaele was there as well that night but I clearly remember that I woke up at my boyfriends home...”
They got to the police station at 10:15, by 10:40 Raffaele has signed his statement that clearly suggests he’s talking about a different night, as he has himself and Amanda parting at the town square for her to go to Le Chic and he back to his place around 9 PM. No one thinks that happened, and there would be no reason to say such a thing were he guilty, all he had to do is say they both stayed at their place and watched movies, at dinner and were a little bit naughty. It’s not like it was that difficult to remember!
Something very interesting is they force the ‘admission’ from him that he called the Carabinieri after the postal police arrived, which was not only disproved conclusively in court by correlating the correct time discrepancy to the cell phone records and CCTV cameras, it was a moronic thing for them to insist upon in the first place. Why on earth if he was guilty would he want to call *more* cops to the scene, and if he wanted them instead of the Polizia di Stato why did they insist they come in and investigate the drops of blood and other indications that concerned them?
Plus he’d already called his sister, a police officer while she’d called her mother in Seattle a few times, and Filomena a number of times as well, the whole contention they were trying ‘cover’ up their discovery of the crime is so *bizarre* when compared to the actual evidence it appears delusional, but perhaps is explained by the fact they’d eventually reveal they’d reversed the polarity of the time discrepancy on the CCTV camera, the time stamp was 8:51 (for the figure crossing towards the cottage the night of the murder) and it was ~10 minutes slow, but they’d be telling reporters a few days after the arrest the time was actually 8:41. It would be conclusively proven in court, (and you can see it for yourself at the IIP site) that the actual time was in fact 9:01 (or so) suggesting to me that the ‘hard evidence’ they’d tell Amanda they had of her being at the murder was that amorphous figure in the CCTV camera capture.
This suggests to me the reason Raffaele was so easily persuaded he must have been wrong about those things he was actually right about was because they told him they had that ‘hard evidence’ of her being at the scene, and that he’d actually called the Carabinieri *after* the Postal Police had arrived, which would be suggested by the cell phone records and that CCTV camera if they’d made that mistake already and had the actual time of the video off by twenty minutes. What’s a stoned college kid going to do in that situation, *argue* with them?
So, how come the cops, if they’re actually ‘investigating’ this crime and would eventually arrest Raffaele as well when they made the mindless confirmation bias error with the shoeprints that eventually embarrassed them so, have Raffaele sitting alone by himself in that room, while they go after Amanda from ~10:45 to 1:45 when that first statement is signed? If they think she’s involved in a rape-murder, isn’t the boyfriend of the girl they’re suspicious of somebody they should be questioning her hard about, to make sure somehow he makes it into that statement regarding the actual rape-murder part? Shouldn’t they have been pressing him for information about that too? He’s stoned and agreeing with whatever they said, so how come there’s nothing in his statement about Amanda except that she went to work that night, the place that *Patrick* owned?
The cops, at least Zugarini, Ficarra, Domino, and Napoleoni, would sashay into court and pretend that they’d never *heard* of Patrick, (in the context of the investigation) they just came across this crazy girl doing cartwheels (this is where that whole meme developed) and they lectured her on propriety, and were just casually asking questions, helpfully going through her phone, and she just broke down and accused Patrick of being of the murderer, and they were ‘shocked...SHOCKED’ at such a thing, they served her sweeties and tea and produced those ridiculous statements, their whole ‘story’ taking up about fifteen minutes of the seven hours between when Raffaele ‘dropped’ her alibi and when they arrested all three of them, then interrogated Patrick all day and got nothing, upon which time they paraded through the streets of Perugia like conquering heroes and announce ‘case closed.’
However, she *didn’t* really ‘lie’ about where she was the night of the murder, before the seven hour overnight interrogation session she’d already spent about 45 hours with police, either at the police station, the crime scene, or Raffaele’s. She told them countless times where she was and what she was doing. As you can see if you read them, she’s unsure of everything, there’s no definitive declarative statements, and they were coerced by insistent police that she must ‘know’ something and she’d ‘repressed it.’
They got the idea Patrick was involved and she was complicit with him, and they just put the screws to her all night, from 10:45 PM-5:45 AM, with the first statement coming at 1:45 AM, and the second at 5:45 AM which precipitated their arrest. Read these statements, available for download at Guilt Central. (this is different that the other site I originally linked as they had a ‘falling out’ and they ‘mirrored’ the sites so there’s now two of them)
http://www.perugiamurderfile.net/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=39
Statements available at post of Tue Jun 29, 2010 12:59 pm I’m going to cut some of the irrelevant stuff and simply show what her statements were, if you’re really interested in the addresses, names of the preparers, telephone numbers and her normal work schedule they can be found in those downloaded documents.
Statement of 1:45 AM, November 6th (2007)
Statement of 5:45 AM November 6th
I wish to relate spontaneously what happened because these events have deeply bothered me and I am really afraid of Patrick, the African boy who owns the pub called Le Chic located in Via Alessi where I work periodically. I met him in the evening of November 1st 2007, after sending him a reply message saying I will see you. We met soon after at about 21.00 at the basketball court of Piazza Grimana. We went to my apartment in Via della Pergola n. 7. I do not clearly remember if Meredith was already at home or if she came later, what I can say is that Patrick and Meredith went into Merediths room, while I think I stayed in the kitchen. I cannot remember how long they stayed together in the room but I can only say that at a certain point I heard Meredith screaming and as I was scared I plugged up my hears. Then I do not remember anything, I am very confused. I do not remember if Meredith was screaming and if I heard some thuds too because I was upset, but I imagined what could have happened.-———————————————————————————————————————————————
I have met Patrick this morning, in front of the Università Per Stranieri and he has asked me some questions, to be more accurate he wanted to know what the Policemen had asked me. I think he has also asked me if I wanted to see some journalists, maybe in order to know if I knew anything about Merediths death.- I am not sure if Raffaele was there as well that night but I clearly remember that I woke up at my boyfriends home, in his bed and that I came back home in the morning when I found the door of the apartment open. When I woke up in the morning of November 2nd I was in bed with my boyfriend.——————————————————
It is acknowledged that KNOX repeatedly brings her hands on her head and shakes it.-————
Read confirmed and undersigned at the time and in the place mentioned above.—————————
Now, here is the note she wrote *to police* trying to explain what happened to her and what she knew. The Perugian police would immediately claim she ‘changed her story three times’ as a result of these statements and this note, which I think is a bizarre representation of them, and the lengths they would go to in the attempt to pretend these purportedly ‘witness’ statements were at first a confession, and later an ‘accusation’—the only ‘evidence’ they would later claim they had to arrest Patrick Lumumba, despite the fact they’d present a pack of mistakes, misunderstandings and coincidences before Judge Claudia Matteini two days later. I think a more rational explanation is they pressed this exhausted, traumatized girl into believing that she could have been present at the scene of the crime because they had ‘hard evidence’ this was so, probably the CCTV camera video they’d later have to admit was probably Meredith.
She wrote the note *to them* in an attempt to clarify, they took it, at first, as a ‘retraction’ of her statements, and then cherry-picked the ‘I stand by...’ part to use in court against her as a confirmation of this ‘accusation.’ I think if anyone reads this, a law enforcement link incidentally, they’ll realize the police in Perugia broke all the rules in order to get this girl to tell her about her ‘repressed memories’ of the crime, and then used them to arrest her, Raffaele and Patrick, who they already thought they had ‘evidence’ against, that which they would produce in court before Matteini on the 8th of November, 2007.
How they ever thought they’d get people to believe their cupcakes and tea fantasy of her just blurting out Patrick’s name to their complete surprise when they had no reason to suspect him despite what they’d produce in court on the 8th is simply bizzare, and testament to what can happen in a country where criticizing the police or prosecutors is actionable, as nine reporters, including two in the US, have found out to their dismay.
http://www.aele.org/false-confessions.pdf
This is very strange, I know, but really what happened is as confusing to me as it is to everyone else. I have been told there is hard evidence saying that I was at the place of the murder of my friend when it happened. This, I want to confirm, is something that to me, if asked a few days ago, would be impossible.
I know that Raffaele has placed evidence against me, saying that I was not with him on the night of Meredith’s murder, but let me tell you this. In my mind there are things I remember and things that are confused. My account of this story goes as follows, despite the evidence stacked against me:
On Thursday November 1 I saw Meredith the last time at my house when she left around 3 or 4 in the afternoon. Raffaele was with me at the time. We, Raffaele and I, stayed at my house for a little while longer and around 5 in the evening we left to watch the movie Amelie at his house. After the movie I received a message from Patrik [sic], for whom I work at the pub “Le Chic”. He told me in this message that it wasn’t necessary for me to come into work for the evening because there was no one at my work.
Now I remember to have also replied with the message: “See you later. Have a good evening!” and this for me does not mean that I wanted to meet him immediately. In particular because I said: “Good evening!” What happened after I know does not match up with what Raffaele was saying, but this is what I remember. I told Raffaele that I didn’t have to work and that I could remain at home for the evening. After that I believe we relaxed in his room together, perhaps I checked my email. Perhaps I read or studied or perhaps I made love to Raffaele. In fact, I think I did make love with him.
However, I admit that this period of time is rather strange because I am not quite sure. I smoked marijuana with him and I might even have fallen asleep. These things I am not sure about and I know they are important to the case and to help myself, but in reality, I don’t think I did much. One thing I do remember is that I took a shower with Raffaele and this might explain how we passed the time. In truth, I do not remember exactly what day it was, but I do remember that we had a shower and we washed ourselves for a long time. He cleaned my ears, he dried and combed my hair.
One of the things I am sure that definitely happened the night on which Meredith was murdered was that Raffaele and I ate fairly late, I think around 11 in the evening, although I can’t be sure because I didn’t look at the clock. After dinner I noticed there was blood on Raffaele’s hand, but I was under the impression that it was blood from the fish. After we ate Raffaele washed the dishes but the pipes under his sink broke and water flooded the floor. But because he didn’t have a mop I said we could clean it up tomorrow because we (Meredith, Laura, Filomena and I) have a mop at home. I remember it was quite late because we were both very tired (though I can’t say the time).
The next thing I remember was waking up the morning of Friday November 2nd around 10am and I took a plastic bag to take back my dirty cloths to go back to my house. It was then that I arrived home alone that I found the door to my house was wide open and this all began. In regards to this “confession” that I made last night, I want to make clear that I’m very doubtful of the verity of my statements because they were made under the pressures of stress, shock and extreme exhaustion. Not only was I told I would be arrested and put in jail for 30 years, but I was also hit in the head when I didn’t remember a fact correctly. I understand that the police are under a lot of stress, so I understand the treatment I received.
However, it was under this pressure and after many hours of confusion that my mind came up with these answers. In my mind I saw Patrik in flashes of blurred images. I saw him near the basketball court. I saw him at my front door. I saw myself cowering in the kitchen with my hands over my ears because in my head I could hear Meredith screaming. But I’ve said this many times so as to make myself clear: these things seem unreal to me, like a dream, and I am unsure if they are real things that happened or are just dreams my head has made to try to answer the questions in my head and the questions I am being asked.
But the truth is, I am unsure about the truth and here’s why:
1. The police have told me that they have hard evidence that places me at the house, my house, at the time of Meredith’s murder. I don’t know what proof they are talking about, but if this is true, it means I am very confused and my dreams must be real.
2. My boyfriend has claimed that I have said things that I know are not true. I KNOW I told him I didn’t have to work that night. I remember that moment very clearly. I also NEVER asked him to lie for me. This is absolutely a lie. What I don’t understand is why Raffaele, who has always been so caring and gentle with me, would lie about this. What does he have to hide? I don’t think he killed Meredith, but I do think he is scared, like me. He walked into a situation that he has never had to be in, and perhaps he is trying to find a way out by disassociating himself with me.
Honestly, I understand because this is a very scary situation. I also know that the police don’t believe things of me that I know I can explain, such as:
1. I know the police are confused as to why it took me so long to call someone after I found the door to my house open and blood in the bathroom. The truth is, I wasn’t sure what to think, but I definitely didn’t think the worst, that someone was murdered. I thought a lot of things, mainly that perhaps someone got hurt and left quickly to take care of it. I also thought that maybe one of my roommates was having menstral [sic] problems and hadn’t cleaned up. Perhaps I was in shock, but at the time I didn’t know what to think and that’s the truth. That is why I talked to Raffaele about it in the morning, because I was worried and wanted advice.
2. I also know that the fact that I can’t fully recall the events that I claim took place at Raffaele’s home during the time that Meredith was murdered is incriminating. And I stand by my statements that I made last night about events that could have taken place in my home with Patrik, but I want to make very clear that these events seem more unreal to me that what I said before, that I stayed at Raffaele’s house.
3. I’m very confused at this time. My head is full of contrasting ideas and I know I can be frustrating to work with for this reason. But I also want to tell the truth as best I can. Everything I have said in regards to my involvement in Meredith’s death, even though it is contrasting, are the best truth that I have been able to think.
[illegible section]
I’m trying, I really am, because I’m scared for myself. I know I didn’t kill Meredith. That’s all I know for sure. In these flashbacks that I’m having, I see Patrik as the murderer, but the way the truth feels in my mind, there is no way for me to have known because I don’t remember FOR SURE if I was at my house that night. The questions that need answering, at least for how I’m thinking are:
1. Why did Raffaele lie? (or for you) Did Raffaele lie?
2. Why did I think of Patrik?
3. Is the evidence proving my pressance [sic] at the time and place of the crime reliable? If so, what does this say about my memory? Is it reliable?
4. Is there any other evidence condemning Patrik or any other person?
3. Who is the REAL murder [sic]? This is particularly important because I don’t feel I can be used as condemning testimone [sic] in this instance.
I have a clearer mind that I’ve had before, but I’m still missing parts, which I know is bad for me. But this is the truth and this is what I’m thinking at this time. Please don’t yell at me because it only makes me more confused, which doesn’t help anyone. I understand how serious this situation is, and as such, I want to give you this information as soon and as clearly as possible.
If there are still parts that don’t make sense, please ask me. I’m doing the best I can, just like you are. Please believe me at least in that, although I understand if you don’t. All I know is that I didn’t kill Meredith, and so I have nothing but lies to be afraid of.
When I clicked onto this post, I was shocked at Ann Coulter’s claim that Amanda Knox is guilty - and then read her column and thought she might be right. You have cleared up all of the questions that disturbed me about Coulter’s Amanda Knox’s “guilty” claim.
I never thought Knox was guilty - ever, but will say that because I respect and usually agree with Coulter, I thought she had researched this event thoroughly. You have now proved that she didn’t.
I hope you have contacted and challenged Coulter to study your evidence/claims. Ann Coulter should completely research them and unless she has a reasonable doubt that you are wrong, she owes her fans and readers and especially Amanda Knox an apology!
Well, I tweeted her, I imagine so did others, maybe even the conservative FBI agent. This isn’t a political issue, it’s a matter of fact vs. delusion, right versus wrong. I think Ann’s error was she assumed some of those guilt sites I linked above have validity because they accumulated so many materials about the case, which if you note I also link, because it is a convenient storehouse of information and by and large they were honest in the translations of documents.
So she might think there’s actually a rational argument that can be made that Amanda’s guilty, maybe like the Casey Anthony case which despite my knowing very little about it’s *quite easy* to see why people still think her guilty. Or maybe she thinks that it’s actually like Mumia, in which case I’d say you’d have to be delusional to think he’s innocent. This case isn’t like that at all, and due to the open nature of the Italian courts there’s so much information available it becomes obvious to the rational observer that Amanda and Raffaele are totally innocent.
I think she just got pissed off at the media and fired a broadside, and figured because these people have a website there must be a reasonable argument to be made for guilt. There isn’t, it’s all based on hate, ignorance, or looney-left understandings of how the world works.
Interesting about Amanda’s upbringing. So many details also found in the bios of other young murderesses.
Here’s Ann Coulter’s rant from 2007, with related more recent stuff:
Italian Court Finds Amanda Knox and Rafael Solecitto Guilty, Again
> the actual murderer, a drifter and repeat burglar named Rudy Guede, whose DNA was found all over the crime scene (and yet none of Rafael’s or Amanda’s— the prosecutors wisely explained that they had cleaned the crime scene of their own DNA, while managing to leave behind a great deal of Guede’s; the prosecutors have never explained what type of bleach could permit this selective removal of genetic material), remains in jail, but with a reduced sentence in exchange for implicating Knox and Solecitto, because all he did was burglarize, sexually violate, and then slaughter Meredith Kercher...
http://ace.mu.nu/archives/346833.php
Top 10 Reasons Amanda Knox’s Conviction Was Overturned
http://www.seattleweekly.com/dailyweekly/2011/10/top_10_reasons_amanda_knoxs_co.php
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