Meredith Kercher case

[John Hacker]

Heya Archiac,

Found a reference for ya:

"Finally, Riccaro Luciani, one of the students who lived in the apartment below Knox and Kercher, said that the relationship between his roommate, Giacomo Silenzi, and Kercher was "simple and had just begun."

http://abcnews.go.com/International/story?id=7995762&page=3

[Archaic]

Maybe Guede Botched His Intended Burglary?

Thank you Scarlet & John for helping to answer my question.

John, I just read the news-link you posted, and this sentence really caught my attention:

Another witness said Guede pulled a knife on him when he caught Guede in his house rummaging through his things.

Wow.

I wonder if Guede thought no one was home at the cottage & managed to get in quietly, perhaps by picking the lock or something. Meredith had gone home because she was tired, so maybe she was asleep and woke to find an intruder- Guede- in the house.

Perhaps Guede didn't enter the cottage with the pre-meditated intent of violently attacking any of the female residents, but instead spontaneously attacked Meredith because she woke up and recognized him?

Guede sounds like a very poor planner as burglars go, but perhaps immediately after leaving the cottage he went to the disco in an attempt to provide himself with an alibi because he knew he had left Meredith either dead or dying?

Once he had made sure he was seen at the disco, Guede fled to Germany with the money he had stolen.

That makes sense to me and appears to fit perfectly with Guede's past behaviors.

Any thoughts?

Thanks & best regards, Archaic

[jason_c]

"The only DNA from either of them that was found at the "scene" of the murder was the sample attributed to Sollecito on the bra clasp. It was not collected for 45 days and was moved around the floor prior to its collection. It's collection involved being handed around, picked up, put down etc before it was bagged so it's got zero evidentiary value IMO".

"Knox's DNA was found at various points in the flat, however NOT in the room where Kercher was killed. Which is hardly suprising, SHE LIVED THERE. Of course her DNA will be there."

John Hacker

Its strange that we have Solliceto's DNA in Kercher's room but not any from Knox. As you said, Knox lived there. A clean up operation gone wrong is more plausible than contamination. I read that the DNA on the bra strap was substantial enough to be unlikely from contamination.

The only other DNA from Solliceto found at the cottage was on a cigarette butt, its not as if the place was swarming with his DNA. And note that no DNA from investigators was found on the bra strap.

Solliceto's DNA on Kerchers bra strap, and Kercher's DNA on the blade of a knife in Sollicetos flat. That in itself is strong evidence.

[Ally]

A cleanup attempt gone WRONG? Are you kidding me? A clean up attempt that managed to remove all trace of themselves from the murder room and the body except for one small sample left on the bra strap while simultaneously leaving the DNA of another person undisturbed on the body? That's not a clean up attempt gone wrong--if accurate it's the best clean up job in the history of clean up jobs!

They've perfected a technique to remove all trace of themselves from the crime scene while leaving someone else's to point the finger at! Criminals will be lining up to pay them for the patent for that technique.

[John Hacker]

Thank you Scarlet & John for helping to answer my question.

John, I just read the news-link you posted, and this sentence really caught my attention:

Another witness said Guede pulled a knife on him when he caught Guede in his house rummaging through his things.

Wow.

I wonder if Guede thought no one was home at the cottage & managed to get in quietly, perhaps by picking the lock or something. Meredith had gone home because she was tired, so maybe she was asleep and woke to find an intruder- Guede- in the house.

Perhaps Guede didn't enter the cottage with the pre-meditated intent of violently attacking any of the female residents, but instead spontaneously attacked Meredith because she woke up and recognized him?

Guede sounds like a very poor planner as burglars go, but perhaps immediately after leaving the cottage he went to the disco in an attempt to provide himself with an alibi because he knew he had left Meredith either dead or dying?

Once he had made sure he was seen at the disco, Guede fled to Germany with the money he had stolen.

That makes sense to me and appears to fit perfectly with Guede's past behaviors.

Any thoughts?

Thanks & best regards, Archaic

Well, Guede's MO was to break windows to gain entry. So I doubt he was much for lock picking.

In a completely speculative sense tho...

Kercher arrived home sometime around 9:15-9:30 and shortly started a call with her mother. The original police timeline (it was altered mid trial to accomodate a late arriving witness who hear "screams") put the time of death at 10:00-10:30.

The thing that makes the most sense to me is Guede breaking a window prior to Kercher's arriving home. He prowls the house looking for valuables. She arrives and he lies low while the call goes on. At some point he discovered and we have an assault and a murder. And as you pointed out, Guede is known to carry a knife which was never found when he was arrested.

(One interesting thing to me is the bizzare empahsis on Kercher not having DNA under her nails. Her parents keep going back to that and saying she knew Karate and would have fought. Clawing and scratching isn't part of Karate as it is traditionally practiced.)

But once Guede has managed to make a killer of himself, he cleans up the hard surfaces which take prints. Including rooms where Knox or Sollecito would have no reason to cover up their presence there, takes the money, leaves tracable possesions and botls. Making sure to show up in public later as an alibi.

Pure speculation.

But it's consistent with the physical evidence AND the history of the defendent. Unlike the fantasy the prosecution spun.

One of the sadder aspects of the whole thing is that Guede's criminal activities were known. He'd been identified to police, and even picked up carrying stolen goods. And the police let him go on more than one occasion.

Perhaps it's not so suprising that the needed a mastermind to shift the focus to.

[John Hacker]

John Hacker

Its strange that we have Solliceto's DNA in Kercher's room but not any from Knox. As you said, Knox lived there. A clean up operation gone wrong is more plausible than contamination. I read that the DNA on the bra strap was substantial enough to be unlikely from contamination.

The only other DNA from Solliceto found at the cottage was on a cigarette butt, its not as if the place was swarming with his DNA. And note that no DNA from investigators was found on the bra strap.

Solliceto's DNA on Kerchers bra strap, and Kercher's DNA on the blade of a knife in Sollicetos flat. That in itself is strong evidence.

Are you serious?

It was Kercher's room. Knox's DNA was in the common areas. No reports suggested that she was close enough to Kercher to have been spending time in Kercher's room when it's known she liked her privacy.

As far as the DNA on the clasp and knife goes, that's been discussed at length and if you want to believe it's strong evidence that's up to you.

But can you defend the handling of the evidence (as shown in a video linked above) with a straight face? If you're goign to test soemthing for DNA you pick it up with a sterile instrument and bag it. You don't pick it up, hand it around, put it down again and THEN pick it up and bag it.

And I would LOVE for someone to explain how the police psychically picked a knife from a drawer and took and only tested the right one. Surely if there was any reason to take knifes for testing you'd grab the lot. Maybe it's a cultural thing, but I like my investigations based more on evidence than "instinct".

[John Hacker]

P.S. I agree with Ally. "A cleanup attempt gone WRONG?"

How on earth would ANYONE obliterate their DNA from an entire room? LEAVING the DNA of another suspect. How would that happen?

DNA is a remarkably resiliant molecule. It has to be. There aren't many ways to get rid of it and the one that IS easily available (bleach) wasn't used in the room.

[scarletpimpernel]

Hello John

And because there was no intention on cleaning Guede's DNA in Meredith room, the judge concluded that there was every intent from Sollecito and Knox to make sure only Guede was suspected and charged with the crime.

The judge also noticed that the UPSTAIRS window was broken to make it look like an intruder had been in the cottage when the easiest thing for an intruder would have been to brake in the DOWNSTAIRS window where he wouldn't be seen by passing cars.

Couple with the fact that Sollecito when asked if he had spent the night with Knox his reply was: " I don't remember " Did you spend the night with your girl-friend ? A yes or no answer was required but instead he said he didn't remember, so Knox effectively didn't have an alibi for the night of the crime.

[scarletpimpernel]

There's Scarlett telling lies again. Knox and Sollecitos DNA were NOT found at the murder scene. He really believes if he says it often enough it will become true, doesn't he?

I am not entirely sure if he is just piss ignorant and cannot read and absorb facts or if he's just willfully blind. He reminds me of a little kid sticking his fingers in his ears and shouting NO! NO! NO! It's true ! The national enquirer told me so!

No Ally those are not lies. Knox and Sollecito's DNA were both found on Meredith's bra when they attempted to cut her bra from her and moved her body, that was established by forensic experts, not by the police. Also, both, Sollecito's and Knox's bloody foot-prints were found by luminol when there had been a clear intention of cleaning them off.

[scarletpimpernel]

Are you serious?

It was Kercher's room. Knox's DNA was in the common areas. No reports suggested that she was close enough to Kercher to have been spending time in Kercher's room when it's known she liked her privacy.

And I would LOVE for someone to explain how the police psychically picked a knife from a drawer and took and only tested the right one. Surely if there was any reason to take knifes for testing you'd grab the lot. Maybe it's a cultural thing, but I like my investigations based more on evidence than "instinct".

Hello John

It was Meredith Kercher room yes, but Knox and Sollecito's DNA was found in her room too. Knox's testimony that Meredith locked her room even when she took a shower was contradicted by Filomena the other student living at the cottage with them. In fact, she also said that Meredith was upset and angry that 300 Euros had been taken from her room. She also said that tensions had gone to boiling point between Meredith and Knox over rent money.

John, the police didn't picked up a knife from a drawer. It is well known that Sollecito had a knife collection at his place and Sollecito's father talked to the press saying he didn't see anything wrong about his son having a knife collection. This is why the police went to Sollecito's place where they picked up the knife from his knife collection with the incriminating DNA.

[John Hacker]

And because there was no intention on cleaning Guede's DNA in Meredith room, the judge concluded that there was every intent from Sollecito and Knox to make sure only Guede was suspected and charged with the crime.

Can you provde an actual citation for that? Because if that's true it's the stupidist thing said yet in this case and that's really saying something.

First off, if that were true, what guarantee would they have he wouldn't just implicate them?

Second, if the prosecution is to be believed the cleanup was extremely efficient and remarkably inept. The two marks they attribute as being Knox and Sollecito's foot prints were on respecitvely, a pillow case and a bath mat. Those would have been easy to simply remove from the scene.

Third, HOW ON EARTH could they do that? DNA is NOT visible. There's no possible way for them to go around the room and say "Ok, this is my DNA and finger prints, better clean that up. Those are Guede's, screw him...."

There was no indication of a cleanup in the murder room. No traces of bleach, nothing.

The judge also noticed that the UPSTAIRS window was broken to make it look like an intruder had been in the cottage when the easiest thing for an intruder would have been to brake in the DOWNSTAIRS window where he wouldn't be seen by passing cars.

Which would NOT have given him access to the flat. The floors had no interior connection. He would have been breaking into an entirely different living space and if earlier reports that Guede had association with the people living there, he would have been robbing friends. (This judge is a real wizard)

A floorplan can be found here: http://truejustice.org/ee/documents/perugia/1006.pdf

Couple with the fact that Sollecito when asked if he had spent the night with Knox his reply was: " I don't remember " Did you spend the night with your girl-friend ? A yes or no answer was required but instead he said he didn't remember, so Knox effectively didn't have an alibi for the night of the crime.

They gave the same story after the one the police got out of Knox fell apart. Not a good alibi, but it's as good as most people can manage who aren't out on the town with witnesses.

No Ally those are not lies. Knox and Sollecito's DNA were both found on Meredith's bra when they attempted to cut her bra from her and moved her body, that was established by forensic experts, not by the police. Also, both, Sollecito's and Knox's bloody foot-prints were found by luminol when there had been a clear intention of cleaning them off.

I'll give you the benefit of the doubt that they aren't intentional lies, but it is inaccurate.

Knox's DNA was not found ANYWHERE in the room where the murder took place.

The DNA evidence in regards to Knox/Sollecito was:

1) The bra clasp, collected 47 days after the crime was found to have trace amounts of Sollecito's DNA. None of Knox. In the time between the crime and collection it can be seen that the clasp has moved around the floor. Additionally the collection video above showing the clasp being bagged really shows just how much of "forensic experts" these guys weren't.

2) The knife picked out of a drawer by the police at Sollecito's flat with what they say was Knox's DNA on the handle and Kercher's near the tip. The sample attributed to the victim was of too low of a count for a reliable test and was destroyed in the process so no independent checking was possible.

3) 5 samples of Kercher's blood from various places around the apartment which when tested also contained traces of Knox's DNA. 3 from the bathroom, one from the hall and one from Filomena's room. NONE was found in Kercher's room. These are essentially meaningless as Knox's DNA would be all over the place. She lived there and DNA can not be dated.

That's all there was.

It was Meredith Kercher room yes, but Knox and Sollecito's DNA was found in her room too. Knox's testimony that Meredith locked her room even when she took a shower was contradicted by Filomena the other student living at the cottage with them. In fact, she also said that Meredith was upset and angry that 300 Euros had been taken from her room. She also said that tensions had gone to boiling point between Meredith and Knox over rent money.

Er. No.

The rent money story comes from Guede who testified he was hanging out with Kercher prior to sex when she discovered money missing and he tried to "console" her. There was no testimony at trial from Filomena regarding "rent money".

"Whilst he was having a drink of fruit juice from the fridge, he claims Meredith found that 300 euros (her rent money) was missing from her bedside cabinet. Meredith was naturally upset by this discovery and straight away blamed “druggy Amanda”. Rudy said they both checked Amanda’s room to see if the money was there. However, it couldn’t be found and Rudy sought to console her. "

http://truejustice.org/ee/index.php?/tjmk/comments/understanding_micheli_1_why_he_rejected_rudy_guedes_explanations_as_fiction/

(I hate linking to these folks, but their translation is fairly close to what Google came up with on the raw doc)

John, the police didn't picked up a knife from a drawer. It is well known that Sollecito had a knife collection at his place and Sollecito's father talked to the press saying he didn't see anything wrong about his son having a knife collection. This is why the police went to Sollecito's place where they picked up the knife from his knife collection with the incriminating DNA.

Again, no. It was collected from a drawer in the kitchen while other knives were ignored. He may have had a knife collection, but this was just a standard kitchen knife.

There are many news reports about the collection of the knife, here's one of 'em.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1234298/Amanda-Knox-The-troubling-doubts-Foxy-Knoxys-role-Meredith-Kerchers-murder.html

I am curious where you're getting your information Scarlet. The web is full of misinformation about the case, but it's been a very long time since I've seen the DNA evidence reported inaccurately.

[Archaic]

Second, if the prosecution is to be believed the cleanup was extremely efficient and remarkably inept.

The two marks they attribute as being Knox and Sollecito's foot prints were on respecitvely, a pillow case and a bath mat.

Those would have been easy to simply remove from the scene.

BINGO!!!

John, I now suspect that either you are a lawyer, or you are a criminal mastermind.

Which one is it?

Best regards, Archaic

[John Hacker]

lol... I am just a cynic. If something doesn't make sense I'll keep poking at it. Too many years at the Casebook will do that to you.

When someone suggests that the accused spent the night (selectively ) cleaning DNA and fingerprints but miss the EASY stuff I tend to wonder.

And on the subject of things that make you go "Hmm", as far as I can tell, all of the footprints attributed to the 3 accused are all prints of the right foot... Not a lefty in the lot. I have to wonder what the odds are of 3 people stepping in blood... with one foot only... and all of them being right.

The last one is easy, 1 in 8, given the first two. But the odds on those seem rather long to me.

Relevent? Who knows. But it does make me go Hmmmm.... (Especially when the print attributed to Solelcito didn't relfect the deformity of his right foot)

[caz]

I just want to say that I believe all of us want the same thing: Justice for Meredith.

Justice for Meredith entails justice for those accused of her murder.

I'm sure that despite our different perspectives on this case we can all agree that we want those who are truly guilty of her murder to be convicted.

I think we can also all agree that we do not want those who are not guilty of her murder to be convicted in error.

So throughout our discussions let's try to respect one another's honest opinion and bear in mind that we all want the same thing: JUSTICE.

umm... OK, end of Peace commercial.

Best regards, Archaic

Great post, Archy. And absolutely on the money as far as I'm concerned - except that I can't really claim to have a 'perspective' on this case yet, as I clearly don't know all the evidential ins and outs; what's factual and what isn't; what has been taken out of context and over or underplayed; what's coming from assumption and emotion and what's coming from cool, hard logic and so on.

I would hope that nobody who knows anything about me would imagine for a single second that because of my personal knowledge of the Kercher family I would be content to see anyone in prison for Meredith's murder regardless of whether they were involved or not. I also hope that nobody reading this thread gets the impression that some of us here would not have given a flying f*** about this case if the suspects had not included an American, or if the victim had not been a Brit.

I keep seeing little bits and pieces that remind me of the Maddy McCann case in Portugal, and how some of us discussed at length the attitude and behaviour of the parents in front of the world's media, and how they were not helping themselves, despite there being no hard evidence that they were in any way directly involved in their daughter's disappearance. We were pretty much all in agreement that they were wholly responsible for leaving their children vulnerable to harm, but a few more vocal posters thought their actions from start to finish pointed to something more sinister. I don’t remember anyone here getting hot under the collar when it was suggested they were damaging their cause and even inviting suspicion by their own behaviour under the spotlight.

In the Kercher case we are saying (well, most of us) that it shouldn’t matter what a person says or does in the immediate wake of a terrible crime against someone they know (from the cartwheels and splits in the police station to expressing a desire for wild sex, or from describing the victim's screams to 'imagining' your boss murdering her) because the jury must totally wipe it all from their minds - which is fine in theory but a bit harder in practice, with human nature getting in the way of the legal process if one is not careful. One might argue that if Knox couldn't help the way she portrayed herself, then the jury couldn't help finding her attitude too strange to ignore. The thing is, did the jury rely on any of this to convict the defendants? If not, then the behaviour becomes irrelevant and it would be down to what the prosecution gave them that the defence were unable to shoot holes in. But if the jury would not have convicted had she come across as the lovely, bright, decently raised woman that her friends and family know her to be, then what a crying shame, because she should have been able to walk away from it all, just one more innocent student like Meredith’s other housemates, simply by being herself. It’s absolutely tragic that, like Meredith, she didn’t walk away. Unlike Meredith, she still has a good chance of doing so in the future as a result of the appeal.

Hi John,

You wrote:

‘My sympathy goes to Knox, Sollecito and Kercher. And the bias was clearly pretty blatent. (With 6 out of 8 jurors wearing Italian flag pins as they began to deliberate)’

I’m struggling with your conclusion here. If they had found Sollecito not guilty, or if Kercher had not been a foreigner, you might have begun to sway me. Did the jurors hide their Italian flag pins, or display them openly? And why would that automatically make them blatantly biased against Knox for being American? Are you saying that all the flag-waving Americans go in for on their own soil is not a simple show of national pride, nor even the sign of a widespread identity crisis, but blatant bias against bastard foreigners? I’ll grant you, too much of the flag-waving in England these days seems to be down to racists marking their territory like insecure twats. But when juries all over the country wear their remembrance poppies in November, for example, it would be daft to infer blatant bias against any foreign defendant. It’s what we do here. Have you checked whether there may have been a special reason for the flag pins at the time?

You wrote:

‘The number of wounds is what's cited by the prosecution experts in alleging multiple attackers, but it certainly isn't hard to find a case where far more are in fact inflicted by just one person. Open a newspaper every day for a week and I'd be suprised if you don't find at least one.’

Of course, but is it that simple? By itself, the number of wounds (including bruises and so on) is not what’s relevant. It’s how and when they were inflicted in relation to whether Meredith was conscious at the time and able to put up a struggle or completely powerless in her killer’s grip. If it could be shown, for example, that she was physically fit when attacked, and also fully conscious and trying to defend herself, at least up until the fatal wound was inflicted, then any defence wounds or signs of a struggle would presumably be helpful in determining how easy or difficult it was for Guede to overpower her by himself and inflict the various injuries while holding her down. It would be very different, of course, if she was asleep, or quickly rendered unconscious and helpless.

‘And it would be interesting for them to choose a window break in as the cover when one of the 3 had a history of just that. Why draw attention to yourself right after you killed someone in any case?’

Well, presumably Guede wouldn’t have been part of any staged break in, as I said myself, and for that very reason. But a guilty insider would have had every reason to make it look like an intruder. Without going back to that blatantly biased site to check I recall claims of other indications of a staged scene in Filomena’s room, including the traces of DNA from Meredith and Knox, but apparently nothing from Guede, the one who supposedly broke in that way. And Filomena allegedly (see what I’m doing here, because I now don’t who or what to believe?) claimed that she found her clothes all messed up and in a different place from where she had left them, and with broken glass on top of them, which would make no sense if Guede had first broken the glass to get in and then tossed the clothes around looking for valuables.

You wrote:

‘If they were using the mop and bucket to clean up the scene AND got caught with them they were more than unlucky, they were incredibly stupid. If they had been mopping up blood, the mop would have shown traces of it.’

Well, convicted murderers are all unlucky, stupid or both, or they wouldn’t get caught. And some innocent people get convicted by a combination of bad luck and their own stupidity. If it was Knox innocently doing Meredith’s washing when the postal police arrived (and no other housemate had been there that morning or the night before) there’d have been nothing to deny. So it’s rather crucial to know if she did try to deny it. If she admitted it, there would still only be a problem if Meredith had been wearing any of these clothes when attacked and they had been removed from a room which was then mysteriously locked.

But it’s a fair point about no blood traces on the mop. And of course, any suspicions that the mop and bucket were about to be used for a more thorough cleaning job when the postal police turned up unexpectedly, would be inadmissible as evidence, along with the items themselves and the explanation given by Knox.

I don’t know why the short amount of time she had been in Italy need have much bearing on how well she could speak and understand the language. Meredith was studying European Politics & Italian and was at the start of her academic year at the University of Perugia. But as I said before, she would have had considerably more than basic Italian, and more than enough to ‘get by’. This wasn’t a holiday for beginners with an Italian phrase book. Not for Meredith anyway.

From: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreign...ity_of_Perugia

‘Students test into various levels of courses based on the degree of Italian comprehension. Because of the diverse crowd — each class tends to have students from countries all over the world — the lingua franca is Italian and students tend to practise the language much more than in traditional Italian courses taught in their home countries.’

But if you are right, and Knox was a visiting foreign language student but could ‘understand only a fraction’ of what was being said when they began to interrogate her, I still cannot fathom why she even attempted to respond. I’d have to be practically bilingual before I’d cope without an interpreter, and I’d make them understand that much. No earthly point in spending 50 hours asking me questions in any language other than English. All they’d get is a blank look. How much of this time was she actually struggling to understand and respond to this ‘fraction’ before the interpreter arrived? And at what point did she imagine her boss committing murder while she covered her ears to muffle the screaming? At least you appreciate that there was no excuse in the world to do that - in any language. And I’m buggered if I’d try it in a foreign one.

You wrote:

‘The thing that makes the most sense to me is Guede breaking a window prior to Kercher's arriving home. He prowls the house looking for valuables. She arrives and he lies low while the call goes on. At some point he discovered and we have an assault and a murder.’

I watched a British made tv documentary on the case again over the weekend, that I recorded when it went out back in April 2008. They picked up Knox on cctv going to the house, followed by Meredith’s arrival shortly afterwards. But I don’t recall any other sightings so it's hard to attach any significance either way. But I’m not sure about Guede’s window of opportunity - nor indeed if he was aware that the two other female housemates (both Italian) would not be around that night. If so, how and when did he find out?

The Croydon Guardian reported on December 9 that Guede had ‘made friends’ with the four male students (who lived below the four females) and he told one of them that he was ‘infatuated with Knox’. But on the night in question he was clearly more intent on getting into Meredith’s knickers. So I wonder how Knox felt about that? Was she indifferent? Repulsed? Insulted? Something else?

You wrote:

‘The two marks they attribute as being Knox and Sollecito's foot prints were on respecitvely, a pillow case and a bath mat. Those would have been easy to simply remove from the scene.’

Easy, yes. But then what? They have to be dumped somewhere (as both of Meredith’s phones were, in the garden of the woman who alerted the authorities) or destroyed somehow. And wouldn’t they be missed? Who would have the stronger motive to dispose of the two items: a lone intruder or an insider? Guede clearly didn’t bother.

And how obvious would these bloody footprints have been to anyone in a panic, trying to clean up the worst of the mess? I thought the argument was that Knox would not have seen the one on the bath mat when using that bathroom, and the one on the pillow case was so slight that it may not have been a footprint at all.

Love,

Caz
X

[caz]

Hi Ally,

You wrote:

‘What's the point of entering into an argument if you are going to straddle a line of trying to put forth total BS and blatant falsehood but then try to hide behind saying you aren't saying you agree with it? If you know something is false, why are you putting it forth, quotes or not. Discredited information is discredited information and it's not becoming to put it forth knowing it's discredited.’

As I said, I didn’t know what was true or false. I’m not all that much wiser now. There are so many conflicting claims from sources which may or may not be wholly reliable. I had already seen plenty of claims for the verdicts being unsound or plain wrong, or for certain information being discredited. But I was hoping that if I quoted some of what’s been claimed as evidence against Knox and Sollecito, someone would help me separate the truth from the lies. How was that ‘entering into an argument’ at that point? At least John has been attempting to shed some more light for me, while you just seem to want to nit-pick. But go ahead if you think it will help.

You’re right, it’s not up to the innocent to prove their innocence. And I wasn’t forgetting it. It’s not up to the guilty either, during the trial process. But the magic word you are forgetting is ‘presumed’ innocent. The accused would have been presumed innocent right up until the guilty verdicts were returned. I may be wrong, but I think the onus is now on them to come up with a successful challenge at appeal.

The Mail Online article that John posted has this to say about it:

‘Meanwhile, her lawyers are hard at work preparing an appeal…’

If Sollecito chose not to take the stand because he thought the evidence against him was ‘such a joke, there was no way he would be convicted’, I doubt he’s laughing any more. Maybe they were just punishing him for taking up with a foreigner.

Maybe nobody cleaned up after the murder, and it was, as you suggest, pure speculation, down to bloodstains that allegedly only showed up when chemically treated. But it was your contention that a murder like this one would invariably have left a shi*load of DNA all over everything the killer(s) touched. So if Guede didn’t clean up, presumably his DNA was all over Meredith, her clothes and everything else he came into contact with. They found enough traces to put him at the crime scene, but I didn’t appreciate just how much you think there should have been to collect.

From John’s Mail Online link:

‘The immigrant from the Ivory Coast had left a handprint in the victim's blood on a pillow found under the corpse. His DNA was found inside her body, on her clothing and on her handbag. DNA evidence also linked him to an unflushed toilet.’

So was that really all they found, or was it all they collected? Doesn’t seem to be in many places, if they examined every potentially DNA-rich surface. Did they miss a lot more traces than they collected?

Where does it say they didn’t bother testing any cleaning apparatus, such as mops or buckets? Or were there none to test? Claiming there had been a deliberate clean-up after the murder, the police would have been more than ‘incompetent and idiotic’ not to check any cleaning equipment for recent use and blood traces. And it was allegedly Knox herself who claimed that water had been spilled at the flat while cooking pasta, hence the need for a mop and bucket.

You asked:

‘Are you saying if you arrived and your roommate's door was locked, you would have checked the machine, said "oh there's warm clothes in here, she must be lying dead in her room"?’

Eh? Where did you pluck that one from? I’m saying that if I were investigating the violent death of a woman whose clothes were allegedly being washed when the postal police first arrived, I’d be a fool not to try and ascertain what had been going on and why. Once again, if Knox and Sollecito claimed that Meredith’s door was locked at the time, I’d have wanted to know when those clothes were taken from her room to the washing machine and if she’d been wearing any of them when attacked.

It’s easy to put everything you don’t like down to ‘tabloid speculation’. It avoids having to do any work. How about giving me a source, like I asked you, for the ‘verified facts’ that finally convinced you (if not the jury) that the prosecution case was full of it from the start? And what would you do now, if you were gearing up for the appeal, to make all the difference? Scrub that. Don't give me the source. Send it direct to Knox and Sollecito's defence lawyers for the appeal.

Love,

Caz
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