British student murdered in Perugia, 3 suspects

Isabella said:

Ok i want to put a question to you now. I am English. I am using Neil Entwhistle as an example cause hes the only Brit i can think of in prison there at the moment. But after his trial how would you like it if the Brits said after the trial he only got found guilty because they hate us over there? Or that we thought the cops framed him? Or that we thought he had no chance of a fair trial? Or hey America isnt England so it cant be a fair trial?

I want to stress i have every confidence in the American courts and that i thought he was guilty but im just using that as an example.

I just think the crap the Italians are getting for daring to find Amanda guilty is crazy. And you know something..the local people..for which her co-accused was one...actually CHEERED the verdict and prosecutors. There not standing there making excuses at all. It's funny how it goes.

Oh and as for would it be viewed differently if it was in the middle East sure. She probably would have ended up the same way as Meredith as a sentence. Dead!

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Isabella said:

In your opinion maybe but...there was nothing wrong with the interrogation. She kept changing her story and lieing..so of course the questioning took time. I dont see the police questioning being any different to it is in America England or any other country.

As for it showing bias..did it show bias against her boyfriend..a ITALIAN??

And im sorry but there was more than enough evidence to convince me that in Amanda Knox they had a lieing evil manipulative woman.

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Bolded By Me
As you stated in the previous post “she probably would have ended up the same way as Meredith as a sentence. Dead! “ Just curious; which is it?

A lying evil manipulative woman does not equal murderer.

LadyL said:

love your post!

the 'trouble' she got in was one incident just prior to moving to Italy - it involved a 'going away' party that got way out of hand - people were throwing things and being loud & disruptive

apparently, she was the only one charged b/c she hosted the party and perhaps wasn't very helpful to the police when they arrived?

IMO it was a bunch of drunken morons acting like college kids do - it has happened here so much that LE was forced to put together a specific 'task force' to take care of the partiers

that is the only incident of her 'being in trouble' with the law and I for one, don't think it points to being 'familiar' with that lifestyle or 'used to dealing with LE' or whatever is being run through the rumour mill

this is the kind of hysteria that makes me nervous - that she was some kind of unchecked monster prior to the brutal death of Meredith and that Amanda's parents must be horrible people for raising such a monster

I think too many assumptions are being made and not enough questions are being asked (here at WS and in general)

I have no problem concluding that a pretty white American female is a monster (we've seen plenty of those) and being Canadian - we have our very own disgusting representation of that 'archtype' in the form of one Karla Homolka :sick:

so I'm not in denial about the possibility of it all - I'm just in doubt about the process and supposed 'evidence'

p.s. this ended up as a diatribe and not at all directed at you (just bounced off your post)

:innocent:

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Not to worry. I quite regularly start off responding to a specific post and then continue my train of thought or feel I have to explain more fully to future readers. In the end, I sound like I'm lecturing a poster who obviously already knows what I'm saying.

Thanks for the info on the prior incident. It hardly makes her an experienced criminal accustomed to fending off police interrogators.

And I agree with the rest of your post. I don't know that AK is innocent, certainly, but it's quite a wild tale and I'd like to see some hardcore evidence that these three who knew each other so briefly suddenly decided to join forces in such a heinous way.

Nova said:

Perhaps, if she offered PL's name out of the blue. But the program I saw claimed the police suggested it first. Of course, there's no tape...

Personally, I think the law should require all police interrogations be taped. Not because I think police are corrupt as a rule, but because the process itself is highly unusual.

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there is so much i would like to know about the interrogation. was there an interpreter there? did they translate everything properly? how good was her italian back then? i know she signed a confession, but could she read italian? i vaguely remember an interview with her mother and i think she said that AK couldnt read what was in the confession (i might be wrong)

panthera said:

I definitely agree with you on this ~ interrogations should be recorded and preferably on videotape. That would end any speculation in a lot of cases. Also I understand AK wasn't fluent in Italian when she arrived in the country so I am curious in what languages was the interrogation handled, or was an English interpreter present? MOO

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Thanks so much for asking that. I've been wondering, but thought perhaps I shouldn't ask too many basic questions on the first day.

Working in a second language might well increase a subject's feeling of helplessness and isolation. But even if the police were speaking English or there was a translator, communication problems would have been inevitable to some extent. (I'm not claiming AK didn't make false charges; she herself admits she did.)

arielilane said:

Bolded By Me
As you stated in the previous post “she probably would have ended up the same way as Meredith as a sentence. Dead! “ Just curious; which is it?

A lying evil manipulative woman does not equal murderer.

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Isabella hasn't appointed me her spokesperson, but I think she was saying the process of interrogation is much the same, but the end result would have been different because the U.S. has the death penalty. (Isabella is in England and may not realize that 20-year-old white women don't usually get the d.p. in this country.)

Nova said:

Thanks so much for asking that. I've been wondering, but thought perhaps I shouldn't ask too many basic questions on the first day.

Working in a second language might well increase a subject's feeling of helplessness and isolation. But even if the police were speaking English or there was a translator, communication problems would have been inevitable to some extent. (I'm not claiming AK didn't make false charges; she herself admits she did.)

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You're welcome It's just something I've been wondering, but in the end, it really wouldn't have much to do with her falsely naming Patrick, as she herself admitted it was untrue. I'm more curious what led to her doing it ~ something preplanned to get suspicion off herself or the pressure of interrogation and following along with what she thought LE wanted to hear. I'm still inclined to think it was self-preservation on her part. MOO

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/europe/article6943604.ece

Article about AK's clothes. Has 3 different pictures, one of the All You Need is Love shirt.

As with the American system, the Italian jury will be asked to find guilt beyond a reasonable doubt this week. Their verdict is not supposed to be about medieval superstitions, sexual projections, Satan fantasies or the honor of a prosecution team. If they simply apply the standard that the law calls for, the verdict will be obvious.

http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/12/02/amanda-knox-revisited/

good article

BuzzieCat said:

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/europe/article6943604.ece

Article about AK's clothes. Has 3 different pictures, one of the All You Need is Love shirt.

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thanks; there's also a slideshow there with 17 or 18 pictures ...

LadyL said:

As with the American system, the Italian jury will be asked to find guilt beyond a reasonable doubt this week. Their verdict is not supposed to be about medieval superstitions, sexual projections, Satan fantasies or the honor of a prosecution team. If they simply apply the standard that the law calls for, the verdict will be obvious.

http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/12/02/amanda-knox-revisited/

good article

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JMO, but that article focuses on all the things that make her sound innocent. He leaves out all of the evidence that could lead people to believe she's guilty.

panthera said:

You're welcome It's just something I've been wondering, but in the end, it really wouldn't have much to do with her falsely naming Patrick, as she herself admitted it was untrue. I'm more curious what led to her doing it ~ something preplanned to get suspicion off herself or the pressure of interrogation and following along with what she thought LE wanted to hear. I'm still inclined to think it was self-preservation on her part. MOO

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it's really interesting to me that none of the defendants 'turned' on each other

I think her blaming an innocent man may have been her telling a story of what might have happened after so much pressure to give them something, anything ...

I don't think police should be allowed to ask suspects to speculate or imagine ... or in fact interrogate for so long w/o a lawyer present

why didn't she invoke right away? do they have that option there?

the other thing that worries me is all the talk about a drug-haze - she supposedly said they smoked some pot (I've read hash too) - pot or hash does not (in my experience) debilitate one to the extent that has been publicized, so was the pot/hash spiked? were there other drugs in her system (either voluntarily or not) that impacted her judgment and memory?

Idk - I'm just really bothered by this case & I honestly don't know what to believe (but I'm troubled by the supposed 'unclean hands' of the prosecutor)

p.s. I haven't done drugs in many, many moons :innocent:

LadyL said:

it's really interesting to me that none of the defendants 'turned' on each other

I think her blaming an innocent man may have been her telling a story of what might have happened after so much pressure to give them something, anything ...

I don't think police should be allowed to ask suspects to speculate or imagine ... or in fact interrogate for so long w/o a lawyer present

why didn't she invoke right away? do they have that option there?

the other thing that worries me is all the talk about a drug-haze - she supposedly said they smoked some pot (I've read hash too) - pot or hash does not (in my experience) debilitate one to the extent that has been publicized, so was the pot/hash spiked? were there other drugs in her system (either voluntarily or not) that impacted her judgment and memory?

Idk - I'm just really bothered by this case & I honestly don't know what to believe (but I'm troubled by the supposed 'unclean hands' of the prosecutor)

p.s. I haven't done drugs in many, many moons :innocent:

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I smoked a lot of pot back in the day and it never made me want to kill anybody. In fact it made me sit on the couch watching TV and eating munchies like a slug.

Too often that is used as an excuse by idiots who are trying to explain their actions. If you wouldn't do it sober you won't do it on pot. :twocents:

Steely Dan said:

JMO, but that article focuses on all the things that make her sound innocent. He leaves out all of the evidence that could lead people to believe she's guilty.

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The one bit of physical evidence from the scene that ties Sollecito — not Knox — to the crime is a bra clasp from Kercher. Prosecutors claim they found some of his DNA on this. But it was not “discovered” until 46 days after the murder, making it subject to contamination and manipulation.

Prosecutors also say a knife found at Sollecito’s house links Knox to the crime. But numerous forensic experts have said the blade size of that knife did not match the wounds, and the DNA on it was such a trace amount that it could not be accurately tested.

the above is from that article

what other evidence do you refer to?

LadyL said:

The one bit of physical evidence from the scene that ties Sollecito — not Knox — to the crime is a bra clasp from Kercher. Prosecutors claim they found some of his DNA on this. But it was not “discovered” until 46 days after the murder, making it subject to contamination and manipulation.

Prosecutors also say a knife found at Sollecito’s house links Knox to the crime. But numerous forensic experts have said the blade size of that knife did not match the wounds, and the DNA on it was such a trace amount that it could not be accurately tested.

the above is from that article

what other evidence do you refer to?

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She and her beaux supposedly had sex the night after the body was discovered.

I can't imagine wanting to have sex after a sight like that had been burned into my memory. I think it would take some time. People do grieve differently but that seems hinky to me. It's almost like they got off on it.

I just finished watching Dateline and there are some things I didn't know before.

1. AK and RS's cellphones were found discarded. RS said he had called 911 before he actually did.

2. Computer forensic experts could find no evidence that RS was downloading movies at the time he claimed. AK claimed to be with him watching those movies.

3. When AK first came home she found the door open and proceeded to go in and take a shower without noticing the blood until she got out of the shower and dressed. (that doesn't pass the smell test. You come home find the door open, which is unusual, you don't notice anything wrong. You undress and take a shower. Get dressed and then notice the blood?! (In my best Judge Judy) If it doesn't make sense, it's not true!!

4. Her multiple stories, which IMO, could be signs of coerced information. I don't think that happened but it does fit how things like that can happen. JMO. Her multiple stories have been mentioned here by others and I don't want to go looking for them. Hopefully someone will post them and you can see how convoluted her stories were.

5. Her boss was planning on firing her and rumor was he was going to hire Meredith.

6. She tried to clean up the blood.

7. If she was railroaded then why did her super rich, Italian, beaux get convicted too?

8. She made claims of being hit by police officers and yet there is no evidence it ever happened. Only her word for it.

That's all I can think of off the top of my head. Isabella knows a lot more about this than I do. Hopefully she'll be able to help.

Some points off the top of my head...

>>> Amanda and Rafalle caught on videocamera going into the apt that night at about ? 8:30 I think

>>> both their phones turned off at 8:40..at the same time

>>> amanda, rafalle and guedo seen together in parking lot the night before...have a fight over a parking spot and amanda pulls a knife out (testimony from a guy who had parked there)

>>> the "break in" was staged (fake)...they can tell from the way it was done

>>> amanda comes back to the apt..which is in disarray and the break in (staged) is there...yet she take a shower...

police are not called for an hour

>>> Amanda was having trouble with Patrick...he was about to fire her..and possibly hire Meredith ...Amanda was a poor worker...dancing, flirty and acting sexy with the customers...Patrick had come to know Meredith and she was nice, apparently more reasonable person than Amanda..and she "made a great mojito"...
he was supposedly going to give Amanda's job to Meredith

>>> Amanda herself admits to knowing Guede

>> the american press has been ridiculous in regards to Guede...acting as if he was just some guy fresh from the Ivory Coast set up by Amanda etc.
the fact is that he had lived in Italy since he was 5 or 6, had grown up as the *unofficial adopted son of a weathy family in the city there...
he is fluent in Italian
he was a n'er do well who apparently didn't appreciate his nice family and material goods, prefering theivery and drug selling to going to school..the family "disowned" him
he was known around the town as a jerk who bothered women, and dealed in drugs
he had some "dark side" of his own...he had a video on youtube saying he was a "vampire" and "I want to suck your blood" (presumably in Italian)

>> Rafelle is from a very wealthy family...they have been accused of trying to meddle in the case...

Rafelle also had some kinky ways about him...into violent comic books

This is a fairly balanced article.

http://www.livesecure.org/amanda-knox-cold-blooded-killer-or-angel-faced-victim/

Other stories Knox told concerning the night of the murder and her night with Sollecito are suspicious, with Knox stating they stayed the night at Sollecito’s apartment, returning to Knox’s apartment the next morning. Inconsistencies were also found in her story concerning their contact with police and their actions after the victim’s body was found, contradictions that have caused many, to include investigators, to question Knox’s and Sollecito’s role in Kercher’s death.

And then, of course, is evidence of potential staging of the crime scene (the large rock through the window to, perhaps, make it appear as a burglary) and the attempts at cleaning up the crime scene. Who would attempt to clean up the crime scene? Usually not a burglar who was coming and going as fast as he could vs. someone with access to the scene and reason to clean up their involvement in the crime.

__________________________________________


Rafaelle and Amanda initially supported each other, but as their relationship was so new at the time of the murder, and they have been housed in separate prison facilities since their arrest shortly after the crime, they have grown emotionally estranged and have gradually offered each other up as possibly having been involved in the crime. The short and steamy love affair, it appeared, was over. Knox, for example, has suggested that Sollecito could have arisen from the bed they shared, obtained the murder weapon from his kitchen and crept off in the night to kill Kercher, reason/motive unknown. She further suggested he could have later returned to his apartment, placed the murder weapon in her sleeping hand to get the DNA transfer, then put the knife with its incriminating physical evidence that would link his girlfriend to the crime back in the kitchen, and then crawled back in bed with her to complete both his crime and his implication of Knox. Meanwhile Sollecito’s statements that he was with Amanda, or talking to his father on the telephone, or working alone on the computer in his apartment at the time of Meredith’s death have not been supported by investigation and his claim that he had never met Rudy has been disputed by eye witnesses who suggest the contrary.

http://www.newser.com/story/54656/k..._source=ssp&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=story

(Newser) – A witness in the Amanda Knox murder trial testified that she waved a knife at him outside the house where Meredith Kercher was killed, the AP reports. The Albanian witness, at times mumbling and interrupted by the judge, said he “bumped into a big black trash bag” that turned out to be Knox and boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito. The witness said he “threw olives and a cell phone” at Knox when she brandished the knife.

thanks both

yes, I've read all that info ... I guess what I was wondering about was actual physical evidence, other than the two points I linked to

the video evidence of them going into the apt. intrigues me but I'd like to actually see that video if it exists

the one point that bothers me to the point of distraction in favour of her guilt is the supposedly coming home & taking a shower without noticing the blood - b/c if the blood indeed looked then like it does in the pics I've seen (all over the basin etc.), I find it impossible to believe someone would not see/question that or assume it was menstrual blood

anyway, I'm still undecided and I guess just alarmed at all the inconcistencies (which someone else - steely dan? has mentioned repeatedly here)

I wish I had a link to the actual reports/stories in her handwriting - I agree there's a lot of 'hinkiness' connected to this case and I think if I could see in print what she had to say, I'd be swayed more one way or the other

also, the phonecall transcripts to her mother do seem to be 'setting the stage' for an alibi - I do question those as well

ETA: when this case first broke, I was of the opinion she was guilty but as time elapsed, I became more & more unsure ...

Nova said:

I'm not here to argue AK's innocence. As I said, the case is brand-new to me.

But one thing that troubles me as I read here is that so many of the arguments against her deal with post-incident behavior and (lack of) appropriate affect. In my experience, some people just behave oddly in the face of extraordinary circumstances.

Nearly my entire family acts oddly around death. For years, the family business was a funeral home and we were all raised to act "cool" in the face of tragedy. Sometimes we succeed. More often, we just end up acting strange. I could tell you stories of my mother's behavior before and after the death of her other son that would have us all swearing she murdered him. (She did not; he died of natural causes after a long illness.)

***

On a related note, does anyone here speak Italian? In English, "doing cartwheels" is a very common metaphor for "expressing joy." I don't think we can read one phrase without hearing the other to a large extent; but the fact is I don't know why Amanda was doing cartwheels or what that behavior meant to her at the time or whether it had anything to do with happiness on a sad occasion. Is there a similar double meaning in Italian?

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I assume cartwheels in America is the same as here. Kinda like a gymnastic movement.

Nova said:

(Emphasis added and original quote excerpted for focus.)

...or it was a simple case of (one) male-on-female violence.

The prosecution's theory of what happened is indeed extraordinary. One needn't be xenophobic or paranoid to want an extraordinary weight of evidence to support such a fantastic tale.

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There is a witness who testified Amanda threatened him with a knife the day before the murder. That is AMANDA not Guede. Also..a neighbour testified several people ran away from the apartment. Not just one. In addition...a local shop keep er testified that Amanda was waiting for his shop to open early the next morning. She went immediately to the cleaning section and bought cleaning goods. These goods were found in the apartment afterwards.

So sorry but no...it wasnt Guede solo.

It appears to me that media coverage in US is unbalanced. I watched the 48 hours Mystery which made it look like poor Amanda was falsely convicted.
I personally don't think that's the whole story.
She admits she was smoking a substance that night.
Her reported behavior is strange-she was reportedly doing cartwheels in the police station?
Her and the boyfriend kissing, hugging in front of the media after the girl was murdered?
I am not at all convinced she is so innocent as the US medial apparently tries to portray it.