Meredith Kercher case

[scarletpimpernel]

Archaic, Caz

The family of the victim Meredith Kercher are going to give a statement this morning at 10 A.M. our time. They are satisfied with the verdict, justice has been done. A brutal crime is always taken very seriously in Italy not like in Britain or the U.S. where murderers walk away free or with a light punishment like a slap on the wrist and just a few months in prison.

[Nurse Sarah]

Knox got 26 years in prison.

[Ally]

For the first time since I have started studying true crime, there's been a conviction in a case I've followed where I haven't been convinced of the person's guilt.

I find it interesting because I was having a conversation with a lot of people recently about a case here in the states where there is also no evidence whatsoever that a particular individual is guilty, but everyone knows full well he is, and I have been posing the question to all and sundry: if you were on his jury, without any evidence, would you convict if you KNEW he'd done it.

But I think the worst of it is, I am not even fully convinced she's done it in this case. I just wish there had been one single piece of physical evidence that was unimpeachable against either one of them.

Or barring that, a solid motive.

The lack of motive, the lack of evidence and the lack of any real information just makes me wonder if she was convicted based on a media trial and not a real one.

[Ally]

Archaic, Caz

The family of the victim Meredith Kercher are going to give a statement this morning at 10 A.M. our time. They are satisfied with the verdict, justice has been done. A brutal crime is always taken very seriously in Italy not like in Britain or the U.S. where murderers walk away free or with a light punishment like a slap on the wrist and just a few months in prison.

What a crock. She was sentenced to only 26 years in prison which means she'll be eligible for parole in about half that minimum.

If the jury was so convinced of her guilt, why didn't they hand down the life sentence the prosecution was asking for?

So much for 'heavy punishment'. If they really believe that this woman undertook the cold blooded slashing murder of a young woman for no other reason than pique, you think a 26 year sentence is not a slap on the wrist?

[Suzi]

Yep 26 years- Hmmmmmmmm what will that mean?.....and WHAT a performance that was!!!

Just glad that some form of justice has been done for poor Meredith and her family.

I'm quite sure that she and the rather disturbing ex-boyfriend were somehow involved- maybe with some others as yet unnamed- To say she wasn't in the flat at the time turns the whole case on it's head!
As to our 'Foxy's' parents et al.....Ooooooooh perleasssssse

Suz x

What is a 'LIFE' sentence in Italy????

[sdreid]

As with Michael Skakel, when you strut into court every day with your nose in the air and a smirk on your face, you're going to be convicted.

I don't know why a competent lawyer wouldn't tell his client not to do that.

[Suzi]

As with Michael Skakel, when you strut into court every day with your nose in the air and a smirk on your face, you're going to be convicted.

I don't know why a competent lawyer would tell his client not to do that.

Exactly!!!!! The whole 'Performance' was seriously disturbing

[Ally]

I do love the standard of proof that is considered sufficient to convict people of murder nowadays.

If you are perceived as behaving in any way that is not what any person considers "normal", you deserve to be convicted of murder.

If you aren't a humble, sweet, nice virgin, that's sufficient to be convicted of murder.

If your teammates when you were eight nicknamed your footwork as being Foxy, clearly this is sufficient evidence of your murderous future proclivities and you deserve to be convicted of murder.

I don't know whether she committed this murder or not. But without a single shred of physical evidence or a motive of any kind tying her to this crime, it's unbelievable that she would be convicted.

[scarletpimpernel]

Yep 26 years- Hmmmmmmmm what will that mean?.....and WHAT a performance that was!!!

Just glad that some form of justice has been done for poor Meredith and her family.

I'm quite sure that she and the rather disturbing ex-boyfriend were somehow involved- maybe with some others as yet unnamed- To say she wasn't in the flat at the time turns the whole case on it's head!
As to our 'Foxy's' parents et al.....Ooooooooh perleasssssse

Suz x

What is a 'LIFE' sentence in Italy????

Hello Suzi

I don't think Miss Foxy will be pulling faces and turning wheel-carts at the police station anymore. She will be in solitary confinement in her prison cell plus the Knoxes still face another trial as their "angel" daughter wrongly incriminated Mr. Lumumba the bar owner who used to be Amanda Knox's boss.

Knox claimed that she was in the kitchen whilst Lumumba was killing Meredith, can you imagine that ? and because of this stupid and wrongful accusation poor Mr. Lumumba an innocent man had to spend two weeks in jail. In reality.. Knoxy-Foxy was protecting her friend Rudy Guede who she befriended playing basketball.

The evidence was an incriminating knife with Knoxy-Foxy's DNA and Meredith's DNA on the BLADE. Her boyfriend's DNA was found on the victims brassier and Guede's DNA was found in Meredith vagina. It is easy to see exactly what happened here, unless you are blind. The lies, the contradictions, the whole thing was so transparent.

The more Knoxy spoke, the more she put her foot on her mouth. Two days ago, she startled the Italian court by saying the English student's death was " yucky, disgusting and comparing it to crimes on a U.S. television series and that Meredith had a slow death. I mean.. How does she know that Meredith had a slow death ? because she was there when it happened ! easy to deduce and you don't have to be Sherlock Holmes.

Meredith parents won a one million Euro compensation each, plus a million Euros for each of her sublings. Knoxy-Foxy's parents are going have to pay five million Euros to Meredith family plus 36,000 Euros to the owner of the flat in compensation because she has not been able to rent it for the two years which is the length the investigation has lasted. Not to mention the money Foxy's parents will have to pay to Mr. Lumumba on that libel case which no doubt he will also win as well. It does look to me that the future of this family is the poor house.

[Archaic]

What a crock. She was sentenced to only 26 years in prison which means she'll be eligible for parole in about half that minimum.

If the jury was so convinced of her guilt, why didn't they hand down the life sentence the prosecution was asking for?

So much for 'heavy punishment'. If they really believe that this woman undertook the cold blooded slashing murder of a young woman for no other reason than pique, you think a 26 year sentence is not a slap on the wrist?

I have to agree with you there. If she and the boyfriend are guilty, they deserve much longer sentences- especially if the whole "violent sex game" was their idea.

This is a very strange case. At first when I heard about the evidence against Amanda it sounded convincing, but if the Italian Police really were so forensically inept that they put all of the crime scene evidence in a single bag, the perfect conditions for cross-contamination, then I'm not so sure.
(There are videos regarding this point on YouTube, including one which shows the Italian police at work on the crime scene... rather disturbing, to say the least.)

I don't know how well Amanda spoke Italian, but she was only a student there for 3 months when this happened, so I doubt she spoke it very well. And I very much doubt that her vocabulary would have included the technical legalese one would encounter in a criminal murder trial. I don't even know who translated her statements when she was first interrogated; apparently she had no lawyer at the time they were made.

Amanda's behavior does seem a bit odd at times, and falsely accusing her employer is reprehensible, but I honestly can't understand why thousands of people are labeling her a "Psychopath" when there is no evidence that she is one.

This whole case is incredibly garbled.

> One point I'm particularly curious is about the police supposedly finding the blood of both Meredith and Amanda in the bathroom drain.
Was Amanda found to have any kind of recent cut when she was examined? If so I've never heard it discussed. (Odd that two intelligent college students would be so dumb as to take the bloody murder weapon back to the boyfriend's apartment and leave it there for the police to find.)

In my opinion the only thing that could make poor Meredith's senseless death even more tragic would be if the wrong individual is convicted of her murder.

Best regards, Archaic

[jason_c]

Hello Suzi

I don't think Miss Foxy will be pulling faces and turning wheel-carts at the police station anymore. She will be in solitary confinement in her prison cell plus the Knoxes still face another trial as their "angel" daughter wrongly incriminated Mr. Lumumba the bar owner who used to be Amanda Knox's boss.

Knox claimed that she was in the kitchen whilst Lumumba was killing Meredith, can you imagine that ? and because of this stupid and wrongful accusation poor Mr. Lumumba an innocent man had to spend two weeks in jail. In reality.. Knoxy-Foxy was protecting her friend Rudy Guede who she befriended playing basketball.

The evidence was an incriminating knife with Knoxy-Foxy's DNA and Meredith's DNA on the BLADE. Her boyfriend's DNA was found on the victims brassier and Guede's DNA was found in Meredith vagina. It is easy to see exactly what happened here, unless you are blind. The lies, the contradictions, the whole thing was so transparent.

The more Knoxy spoke, the more she put her foot on her mouth. Two days ago, she startled the Italian court by saying the English student's death was " yucky, disgusting and comparing it to crimes on a U.S. television series and that Meredith had a slow death. I mean.. How does she know that Meredith had a slow death ? because she was there when it happened ! easy to deduce and you don't have to be Sherlock Holmes.

Meredith parents won a one million Euro compensation each, plus a million Euros for each of her sublings. Knoxy-Foxy's parents are going have to pay five million Euros to Meredith family plus 36,000 Euros to the owner of the flat in compensation because she has not been able to rent it for the two years which is the length the investigation has lasted. Not to mention the money Foxy's parents will have to pay to Mr. Lumumba on that libel case which no doubt he will also win as well. It does look to me that the future of this family is the poor house.

I dont think the Knox family will have to pay a penny. Unless they themselves have personally libelled Mr. Lumumba. What the compensation will do is allow the Kercher family to drag Amdanda Knox through the courts when she is released - which I think will happen on appeal. The book, the Oprah appearance, the TV movie, will all unfortunately bring big bucks to Miss Knox.

[Ally]

This is a very strange case. At first when I heard about the evidence against Amanda it sounded convincing, but if the Italian Police really were so forensically inept that they put all of the crime scene evidence in a single bag, the perfect conditions for cross-contamination, then I'm not so sure.

This was also one of the things I just could not believe at all. When you realize that the "DNA" evidence comes down to two minute things: one sollecito's DNA being found on a bra clasp that the police actually allowed to lie uncollected for 46 days on the floor and the knife which doesn't even appear to match the murder weapon....I just have no idea how Knox could possibly be convicted. There is not a single piece of trustworthy, uncontaminated evidence in this case.

> One point I'm particularly curious is about the police supposedly finding the blood of both Meredith and Amanda in the bathroom drain.
Was Amanda found to have any kind of recent cut when she was examined? If so I've never heard it discussed. (Odd that two intelligent college students would be so dumb as to take the bloody murder weapon back to the boyfriend's apartment and leave it there for the police to find.)

I didn't read anything about this but I am not really surprised. Ever taken a shower? Your DNA is all down that drain. So is anyone who has taken a shower in that bathroom. The absence of DNA in the bedroom where she was killed is more compelling to me than DNA down the drain...Knox did live there after all. The DNA that was supposedly found on the knife was not from blood by either Kercher or Knox but some other contact related DNA. Of course since the sample was "destroyed" on testing, we'll never really know, but considering the knife wasn't a match I find it largely irrelevant.

In my opinion the only thing that could make poor Meredith's senseless death even more tragic would be if the wrong individual is convicted of her murder.

Best regards, Archaic

Totally, one hundred percent agree.

When I heard the sentence that was handed down, I had to laugh. You cannot tell me they actually believe this woman carried out this cold-blooded, brutal murder of a young woman and handed her a sentence that will essentially let her out of prison in 13 years. So much for the value of a life in Italy.

[JennyL]

I don't know if Amanda Knox is guilty of being involved in the killing of her roommate. If she is, she should get life imho-not a paltry 26 years.
But I do know the "evidence" as presented and particularly the supposed scenario offered by the prosecutors is ludicrous-and would be hilarious if it didn't involve the horrible death of a woman and likely the ruining of at least one and perhaps two lives wrongly convicted.

The prosecution putting their own, totally imagined words in the mouth of a woman they described in open court as a "she-devil" is flabbergasting-you can't make this stuff up. How about this:

“You are always behaving like a little saint. Now we will show you. Now we will make you have sex.” [the Italian prosecutor's laughable imagined words said by Amanda just before she supposedly helped rape and stab her roomie].

So surely Amanda, after delivering lines straight out of bad 19th c. dime novels must have slit her roommate's throat and stabbed her because a)she was jealous of her looks and/or b)she was furious that the virginal girl wouldn't join their "orgy"-take your pick, jury!

As for her behavior in court, frankly if I'd been wrongly accused of murder, vilified and spoken of as a devil and whore, hated with the hate usually specially reserved for the worst of the worst and looking at the end of my life as I know it in my early 20s, I'd be damned furious if I were innocent. And I'd look that way every day in court as I don't happen to possess a poker face and my acting skills couldn't cover for the horror and anger I'd feel for my situation. Think about it: whatever the shock and sadness she felt at her roommate's death, if Amanda were innocent of killing her, how else would she be feeling at being wrongly accused? How does anyone feel when that happens(and it has).

Murders between acquaintances do happen. But generally there has to be some sort of plausible motive. Bugliosi had a hell of a time with the Tate/LaBianca murders, but wacky as it was he managed to acquire the evidence to prove his theory to the jury and get a conviction for Manson for murders he wasn't present for.
And there needs to be much more than that kind of circumstantial evidence. This evidence is terribly spotty. And what's even more inplausible is the lack of evidence that should be present if she was holding down and stabbing the girl herself.

I have no "pro-American", rah-rah nationalistic bias here at all but there's just no "there" there in this case. Someone killed the girl-and the glaring likelihood is it's the third party, the one who doesn't fit, the guy whose semen was found in her-not Amanda or her boyfriend but just that one guy. Whatever else happened, there simply isn't enough proof of them taking part in her murder at all. What there plainly is is a lot of hatred and fantasizing and trial by media.

The prosecutors and jury look like medieval fools.

[Archaic]

Italian Police Video of the "Bloody" Bathroom

I think everybody should watch this video about the blood evidence found in the bathroom:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n71ZJPBq8uk

This is the police video taken the day they processed the crime scene. This is what the bathroom looked like to the naked eye.

The photo shown at the end of this video is the one the Italian public was shown, apparently without being told that the photo was taken AFTER the entire bathroom has been treated with chemicals to make protein evidence visible.

They were told that Amanda took a shower in a blood-spattered bathroom, making her look like a callous psychopath. They weren't shown what the bathroom actually looked like at the time.

This is bad, really really bad. I'm shocked.

Best regards, Archaic

[John Hacker]

It would be a joke if it wasn't so sad...

I've been following this case from day one and my opinion hasn't changed (of the case... my opinion of Italy's justice system has severly degraded) since day one...

From the start this has been a lava lamp of lunacy from the prosecutor (who's got issues of his own)...

First it was about extreme sex...

Then some sort of quarrel over rent money...

There was the Japanese manga theory...

Now we're down to some sort of revenge against the "prissy girl" thing...

Any of which might make sense if the 3 alleged participants had a long history together.

They don't.

Knox and her boy friend were together for a few weeks. There's no tight ties between them and Guede. (whose DNA and prints were found at the scene... who had a history of burglery and carrying a knife) I have been following true crime for 30 years now and cannot come up with the slightest parallel beyond the West Memphis 3 who got railroaded on a bizare prosecution theory with an indulging judge.

The main things the prosecution has brought to the table (Knife, bra clasp) were challenged not only by the defense, but by an idependent expert appointed by the court who felt that:

- The knife was unlikely to be the cause of many of the wounds

- The DNA "found" on the blade was of such low count as to be worthless (Not to mention the sloppy handling by the prosecutions expert)

- That the bra clasp finally picked up more than 7 weeks after the crime just might have been contaminated... (Shocking... I know)

I tried to keep an open mind through the trial, but the bottom line is that there is no hard evidence whatsoever. It's been a trial against the behavior and personalities of the defendents. And at no point has a believable theory of how/why the crime occurred involving all 3 defendents been offered.

This sort of crime happens every day... But with a single perpetrator. Can anyone think of a real parallel to what the prosecution has alleged here?