Another Prominent US TV Commentator Sees The Evidence Pointing Pro-Guilt

Comments

This is great. Although I think hell just froze over, I’ve never agreed with Ann Coulter about anything before in my LIFE. LOL.

And she did make a few errors, but Pete, you’ve corrected the one about the receipts. The other I noticed was saying that Raffaele’s “bloody fingerprint was on the bra strap” whereas it was really his DNA on the bra CLASP. Something the defense keeps denying due to the delay in retrieval of the clasp.

Ann Coulter, “I’m not 100% sure of anything”? Ann Coulter, praising the European press? Well, now I guess Hell is the solution to global warming, it’s so cold, LOL. 😊

But whether van Sant is really a liberal? I have no idea on that. I’ve actually never heard of him before this case.

But she’s so right at the end there, that hardly anyone in the American press is giving the real facts. Or the victim’s perspective. I would really have hoped that Nancy Grace, Geraldo, Mark Klass, and/or Fred Goldman would have jumped on this bandwagon by now. Here’s hoping!

Ann Coulter obviously read all of the biased wrong media on this case. Bleach receipts, bloody fingerprints on bra clasps, store owner witness shot down by his own staff, mixed blood-oops I meant DNS, etc, etc. Ann Coulter is an absolute idiot. Shame on you Peter. This one just proves that you will post anything here. I agree with a lot of what you say,but Ann Coulter with a ton of wrong facts? You dropped the ball on this one Peter. Google Ann and read and view all the foolish things she has written and said.

Ah, good old “shoot the messenger”. It works, does it, Kendall, do you think? We seem to be stuck for examples that it does in the Perugia case.

Anne Coulter has written and said foolish things, like many of her peers, but that doesn’t mean everything she says or writes is foolish.

Like Pete said, Kendall, you’re shooting the messenger. It’s called an ad hominem attack. Coulter made a couple of errors, duly corrected here, but in spite of that made some devastating points about the huge gaps in coverage.

I don’t think, as she does, that it is a simple question of the “liberal bias” in the media.

But the shoddy coverage, and the desperate but in some ways successful spin campaign launched by Knox’s family and a few influential friends, is an established fact that will become an unfortunate part of the larger story.

Hi Skep. All of Kendall’s remarks on the board and his emails to me have been of a rather shrill policing nature. I am not quite sure why he thinks we need the help. The other day we broke into the 100,000 most visited sites in the world, out of maybe 50 million.

Hi Kendall,

You wrote:

“...store owner witness shot down by his own staff”.

This is simply not true. The other shop assistants didn’t recall seeing Amanda Knox in the shop, but they didn’t contradict Marc Quintovalle’s testimony.

Even a broken clock is right twice a day.

Maybe it’s because I have no idea who Ann Coulter is that I (like many others I’m sure) see no reason why her opinions and ideas about other issues not related to this case should have any bearing on her opinions on THIS case.

Despite a few errors (hell, compared to Lis Whiel’s drunken snarky giggle fest she looked like a championed pro) Ann Coulter presented her opinion and the facts of the case rather well.

Peter Van Sant deserves to be called out for his terrible and biased reporting on the case. How is it that he is allowed to be ‘100% convinced’ of the innocence of Amanda Knox yet the judges and jury in the courtroom who had access to all the evidence are seemingly not allowed to be unanimously convinced of her guilt?

for all her errors, ann coulter did make a statement i’ve not heard before re: amanda accusing patrick of the murder.  assuming she was roughed up by the italian police and was “confused”.......how is it that her confusion lasted 2 whole weeks?  as ann pointed out, she certainly had time to become “un-confused” and recant her accusation BEFORE the police discovered he had an alibi.

Oh I about fell out of my chair to see Ann Coulter not take the media whore cup of koolaid. 

The work here and on PMF have helped to expose the pr machine of the almighty dollar and what is wrong when people do not use common sense. 

Thanks Pete!

Have to agree with Earthling—never thought I’d find myself being impressed with what came out of Ann Coulter’s mouth ( and no, Kendall, I don’t like it simply because we came out on the same side of the fence. She has no personal stake in the outcome, yet was concerned enough to delve into the details of the case before spouting off on national tv. Bottom line is, she’s interested in the truth being served, whatever the shape or color of the platter.)

On my bus-ride to work yesterday, I sat down next to one thin section of Sunday’s Seattle Times, from which this jumped out at me:
 
AMANDA KNOX—-A Letter from Italy

“Regarding the Amanda Knox verdict [‘Buckets of doubt’, Opinion, editorial, Dec. 8], the Italian judicial system has few similarities to the Anglo-Saxon system.  As an american who has lived for 34 years in Italy, I can assure you that the media coverage in the last two years has been balanced. Anti-Americanism here is political, not personal.”

“Knox lost her credibility when she accused an innocent Congolese man, her ex-boss, as the killer. Everyone was ready to believe he did it. During his two weeks in jail, the whole country believed he was the killer.”

“She lied to the police, changed her story, and possibly can’t remember what happened because of drug use. The British victim’s family was silent until the verdict. Then they expressed sympathy for the killers’ families. Maybe the Knox family should have followed their example, and spent less time and money in their professional public-relations campaign.”

Rita Dunn, Pistoia, Italy

Kendall, thanks for speaking up. This site is so hypocritical. Those who post made up their minds long ago and read all the evidence with their minds made up. This site only caters to those who want Amanda and Rafaelle stuck in prison.

I’ll join in the hypocrisy and share my made-up mind: Amanda and Rafaelle will be freed. Why? Because it is so obvious they are innocent. This case was a classic case of garbage in, garbage out. Garbage evidence and public bias fed to judge and non sequestered jury, thus garbage for a verdict.

What sad fallout from Meredith’s tragedy wasting the time and freedom of Amanda and Rafaelle.

Hi curtperon. You have shown us repeatedly that you would fail even the simplest test on the evidence, which is what this site is really all about. If you want to prove otherwise please answer the 150 questions in Mignini’s notebook.

Hi curtperon,
I am assuming you are a legal expert who has reviewed the 10,00 page report of the trial; also that you know more than the no less than 19 judges who examined the evidence and decided to prosecute the pair of defendents.
Why don’t you read up on the facts of the case carefully before spewing uneducated opinions?
Then and only then can you substantiate your claims, and not just parrot the PR blitz as put forward by the Knox/Mellas clan and co.

With her permission, an email from a reader:

I just wanted to let you know that as an American I am in NO way under the impression that Amanda Knox is innocent. It pisses me off that Amanda’s PR firm is saying that we “Americans” view that there was a miscarriage of justice done.

Every American I have talked to about the case thinks that this girl is guilty as sin and we hope that she rots in prison. I hate the fact that Amanda’s PR firm seems to be feeding the American Media its Information.

It is true that there has not been much released about the TRUE victim of this crime Meredith and for that I am ashamed. I do believe that the more attention and light that is being brought to this case is causing more people/ Americans to do their own research and many have learned about her from this very website.

For that I thank you. It has been a truly heartbreaking crime that has taken place and a great travesty that the person who committed said crime gets more attention than the victim herself.

My heart goes out to the family of Meredith and my apologies for the American PR firm that is trying to portray the American Public as sympathetic to Amanda Knox in any way because I assure you that that is not the case at least for the majority of Americans.

To Kendall and Curtperson(and anyone else that shares their view): I can honestly see how you might arrive at the view you share. There are times when surfing this site when I have come across commentary that almost comes across as “overboard” in its sentimental nature towards a victim that - at least to my knowledge - the author has never met.

But then I have to remind myself that the name of this site is “True Justice for Meredith Kercher” and it is devoted to her memory, and I look past that to the part of the article or comment that addresses the crime and evidence that I’m interested in. Sometimes, I have no interest in a particular post, and I just move on….

I’ve shopped around on the FOA website as well, and have tried to shape my opinion on the facts that I’ve found rather than the commentary to which those facts may have been attached. I’ve simply been more impressed with this site in it’s monitoring of the facts presented and the effort on the part of posters to point to the inaccuracies of some content that, like the Anne Coulter clip, aren’t perfect, but largely based in fact.

Unlike the prosecution’s total failure to produce motive, Amanda’s accusation of Patrick Lumumba wasn’t something that could be objectively debated; she accused a man and let him rot for two weeks. She did, period.

...she did that.

...it’s still there.

...it wouldn’t go away.

...she took the stand and never addressed why she never spoke out on his behalf.

...why?

From that point on, motive goes out the window. I don’t have to agree with another thing TJMK ever says…I watched Amanda Knox speak and never address this.

Anne Coulter is an idiot, but that doesn’t change the fact Amanda Knox was involved. At least involved enough that accusing Patrick Lumumba was worth the gamble. When she wants to address that one single fact, there are lots of us out there ready to listen.

Well said, nashville.

Amanda and her defenders claim she (paraphrase) “broke under pressure” and named Lumumba as the police pressured her. I’m not aware of too many innocent defendants who name someone *else* when they collapse under pressure from the police. Usually, don’t they admit that they *themselves* did the crime? It just doesn’t fit. She’s trying to blame the police for pressuring her to admit to the crime, but she *didn’t* admit to the crime—she fingered someone *else* for the crime. It’s odd and doesn’t fit the usual pattern of an innocent person caving under pressure. Just my 2 cents.

Curtperon is apparently a card-carrying member of the FOA and lives by their motto:  “NEVER cite to specific, accurate and verifiable facts, evidence or conduct and ALWAYS make generic accusations of “no evidence” “garbage in” and “bias” and anti Americanism.  What happened in the trial, as would have been the case had the trial occurred here, is that Ms. Knox was found by the jury (triers of fact) to be a palpable liar who, largely by her own lies and persistent accusation of an innocent man, was implicated in and convicted of the crime and will, as a consequence spend a very long time (albeit not long enough) in prison.  The family’s dreams of a reversal are just that….dreams.

thanks Earthling.

Let’s just say for the sake of arguments that she was coerced in some way into fingering Patrick. The thrust of Anne Coulter’s statement was just basic common sense: She had two weeks to clear that up but she didn’t. Why? Because when he was in jail, all those confusing, embarassing, frightening questions went away. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again—I highly doubt any of the three can truly recall what happened that night in it’s entirety; that’s precisely why they keep rolling the dice every time one them has an opportunity to set things straight. this whole thing smacks of a drunken party gone awry. If you’ve ever in your life had to piece together an evening’s events after a night of drunken frivolity, you know what I’m talking about.

Nashvilletn,
Drunken party or not, it is impossible that they wouldn’t remember sexually assaulting and stabbing to death one roommate- I don’t care if they drank all the liquor in Perugia. And it’s not that “any of the three can truly recall what happened that night in its entirety”; it’s that they remember (except for AK’s voluntarily signed confession) a whole other scenario, i.e., being at RS’s house (or in RG’s case, being on the toilet) when the attack occurred.
Seems to be a huge difference between not remembering an event in its entirety and lying repeatedly for two years.
And in contrast to your rather sweet theory letting them off the hook, they seemed to have come down hard from their drunken party when AK went shopping at 7:45 AM (supposedly for cleaning products) and when they performed the massive cleanup.

Hi LReik,

With all due respect, you’re simply not getting me. I don’t have any “sweet theory letting them off the hook.” Start by re-reading my last sentence of that post and work backward.

Believe me, when they saw blood I’m sure they all started sobering up quick, but in the light of day, each them was now wondering what the other two recalled of their individual involvment in what had to have been a frenzy, not a long, drawn out event(even the prosecution backed off that one in the last days of the trial).

As for the sexual attack, it’s been proven quite well in Rudy’s post-trial paperwork that RS and AK remembered enough of the sexual attack when they staged the scene. What I’m talking about is EVERYTHING ELSE: The gambling by Amanda that Patrick wouldn’t have an alibi, the gambling by Rudy that someone couldn’t put his “date with Meredith” scenario to bed, the gambling by Raf that no one could refute his claim of cooking with Meredith. You see? it’s because they were messed up that night that they’re scared to separate their stories. They’re each *fairly* sure of their part, but aren’t quite sure what the other two remember of it, so they have to approach each piece of evidence as it comes to light rather, and give a complete story. And if they try to break themselves away from the other two, and one of them happens to concretely refute that(say, for a lighter sentence) they’re screwed. Raf almost did it early on by selling Amanda out, saying she’d left his apartment during the time of the murder, but when his footprints showed up and the bra clasp was allowed, he got quiet again…And I’m certain it was because he feared that Amanda might realize she was going down and could remember something he’d forgotten about and implicate him in the attack, not just the cleanup(which is where I’m certain his defense was headed at the beginning of the trial, but the Curatolo testimony hurt them).

In Amanda’s mind, she made a *mistake*, which is why she kept “trying to help” without ever really helping, like her written statements, etc. She’s been doing this for a long time—going to parties or throwing them, getting drunk and smoked up, and talking her way out of what had always been trivial consequences up to this point. She’s frustrated that she can’t call it a “mistake” without admitting to murder or accessory thereof.

What each of them remembers is bad, but what the fear the other two remember is worse.

Hi nashvilletn,
I stand corrected.
It’s just that whatever they imbibed/smoked/snorted/injected, whatever haze enveloped them, I wouldn’t want anyone to get the mistaken impression that that makes them unaccountable for their crimes, or to allow them any jiggling room to sidestep their guilt.

Thank you for clearing the misunderstanding.

No problem LReik…And I agree as to accountability.

But I think I may part ways on here with some when I say that the whole poop storm in the media could have been avoided if the trial had been about 3 young, very stupid, individuals needing to be held accountable for the death of an innocent young woman as a result of their moronic, impetuous actions rather than about a premeditated vendictive orgy from the start. That’s what’s making the American media squeal and giving FOA fodder for them. I think the jury realized it, and that’s exactly why they all ended up with such light sentences in a capital murder trial.

I agree that the jury apparently accepted that it was not premeditated, notwithstanding that RS took a knife from his apartment and was wearing a bathing cap (as reported by one eyewitness and by RG).
But I rather think the American media squeals are due to the similarities between this lurid case and a saucy soap opera, albeit with a tragic ending.

As for myself, I believe it was not premeditaded for long, but planned probably the very same day. However, planned - as much as they could. Because they shut their cells off, because they spied on the house.

I am sure they did not want a murder, just a nasty prank, a mean “revenge”. But once they started it, something got wrong, and it ended the way it ended.

So, it is not premeditation for days in advance - at least, I feel it so - but a short-notice premeditation and planning, yes.

Very ugly.

And yes, they do remember.

eh, I guess I just find it tough to swallow that RS and RG, having known Amanda, and especially Meredith, for such a short time would be involved in any kind of revenge plot over(I’m assuming you mean) the potential loss of Amanda’s job, but it’s definitely one theory…

I’ve not heard anything about a bathing cap. When and where was RS seen wearing that?

As for the knife…wow…I’m stuck on that one. On the one hand, the DNA on it was permitted in evidence, but on the other hand, even the prosecution isn’t sure it delt the decisive blow, and I find it hard to believe that they had the presence of mind to dump two cell phones but not the knives used. The two found cell phones really sealed it for me with Amanda. She’s the only one that would have known to do that.

I really hope you guys understand that I’m not arguing guilt or innocence or downplaying the tragedy; I believe all three were there and involved, and I have nothing but sympathy and respect for Meredith’s family, but from a pure criminal science standpoint I find the case fascinating, and from a trial attorney’s standpoint the way the case was argued is interesting too.

I was pleased to see Wendy Murphy mentioned in your post!  She is a passionate advocate for victims and has argued the evidence in this case more forcefully than I’ve ever seen her argue.
Kudos!

Has anyone seen the articles about Donald Trump jumping into the fray on the side of the pro-Amanda entourage?  He stated on his blog that he feels that she is innocent, was treated unfairly, and that now all Americans should boycott Italy and all Italian made products.  He has obviously not read up on the facts of the case, but has still seen fit to take sides, media whore that he is…..If he HAS read the facts and maintains that she is innocent, I can only surmise that his hair styling products for that weird “hairdo” of his(or more correctly, “hairdon’t”!) have penetrated his skull and destroyed his thinking processes.  He must be sniffing the hairspray cans….....

Ha ha! I just thought myself to his hairdo/weirdo. Italians will not really miss his visit and his touch of vulgarity…

nashvilletn, I am just speculating as we do, but it seems that the tension between Amanda and Meredith was not new. The lady across the street (the one who heard the scream) said she had observed that at the beginning, the 2 girls used to leave the house together, while lately they were walking separately, ignoring each other.

Amanda does not seem the kind that can accept critics or what she sees as rejection. She may have built a slow hatred. We also know that the day before, Amanda tried to call Meredith several times, but Meredith never picked up the phone. Instead of going her way and forgetting about it, she kept insisting, getting probably more frustrated at every unanswered call.

Mignini also let understand that Meredith was planning to look for another place to live. Certainly Amanda did not like that if she was told that it was because of her. And finally, if Patrick decided to hire Meredith, on top of all these small (for us) frustrations, it could have been enough to ignite the thing…

Sorry for my English, it is not my langage!

I agree Patou, tension between the two girls was the nexus of the crime, I just find it hard to believe that a girl who is such a terrible liar could be such a plotter and planner, and upfront involvement of RS and RG after knowing them for such a short time would have been very risky. That is what has led me to believe that things went down much more in the manner theorized by Charles Mudede(sp?) in his fictional article posted elsewhere on this site.

Hi nashvilletn.

I agree. I know people who have mixed large quantities of alcohol and cannabis together to have had suffered episodes of memory-loss, severe aggression, and black-outs. I also agree that they all sobered up pretty fast as soon as the violence escalated, and from there on remembered pretty much everything else.

The difference, of course (as I’ve said before), between a usually honest person and a dishonest one is that no matter how badly shocked at what they’ve done, they come clean and admit they’ve done it. What we see here in the case of AK & RS is two people who, faced with the ugly consequences of their actions, failed to understand their gravity, ignored them, or both. They thought they were clever enough to stage a break-in. They didn’t come clean, and continued to lie through their teeth. This is what makes me think they’d reoffend if allowed, because it seems they are not the sort of people who can own up to their mistakes when they’ve made them - they just try/hope/wish they can make their mistakes disappear.

People think that in the case of young, well-educated children who come from a reasonably good home, such things are not possible. They think that if you don’t have a background in crime and violence, that you are somehow biologically immune to the effects of alcohol and drugs! It is this sort of ignorance of what young people from supposedly good home are capable of under the effect of intoxicants that has lead many to say “no way Amanda would do it”, or “no way Raffaele would do it”. People who think their background can somehow make them immune to evil are those who are most likely, I think, to fall face-down into it. Lack of prudence - as we’ve seen - is characteristically very Amanda Knox.

Patou, thanks for the information and your opinions. I did not know about the older lady seeing them leave together, then separately in the morning. To me, that is highly suggestive. Amanda had plenty of men in her life. What did she really need? Women friends. And then the one person she reaches out to, the one woman she really wants as a friend, starts acting coldly toward her, ignoring her. Then to top it all off, she does her another favor (introduces her to Lumumba), upon which, she promptly “steals her job!” (as Amanda sees it). Then, on top of it, she ignores her on the biggest party day of the fall term: Halloween. I think the hatred (and desire for revenge) just kept building and building. Add into the toxic mix, her new boyfriend’s obsession/possession of knives, and it’s a deadly mix.

I don’t know if they (AK and RS) premeditated murder, but like you say, I think they did premeditate some form of mischief, rationalized to themselves as “teaching her a lesson” or “getting back at that snobby prude” (something like that). Otherwise, how to explain the presence of the swimming cap on RS or the knife in AK’s bag (Kokomani); in general, their aggressive, criminal, and almost psychotic behavior toward Kokomani was indicative that “something was afoot,” that plans had been laid out.

The motive does seem slim to many. After all, if roommate conflicts between women generally caused murder, then I would be dead a few times over (LOL). However, both AK and RS clearly had other issues going on in their lives that were leading them to a boiling point, such as: RS: obsessions with death, murder, knives, and (probably) his mother’s death. AK: obsessions with sex, dreams of revenge (“ciao suckers!”, “he’s (CMellas) an asshole but I love him”, plot to “scare” Seattle roommate on April fool’s day, etc.), and generally low self-esteem and attention-seeking behavior.

I keep bringing up the OJ case, but the similarities seem many, to me. Many could not believe that the “nice OJ” would carry out such a murder. They couldn’t understand any motive. Lack of motive was (I’m pretty sure) one of the major arguments of the defense: (paraphrase) “He’d been divorced for over a year, separated for longer than that, he’d moved on with his life, he had no reason to even think about Nicole anymore,” etc. etc. In other words: He wasn’t obsessed with her, according to the defense. The problem with that argument is that human obsession pops up in the most unlikely ways and almost random fashion. And the randomness may only be apparent from the outside. In OJ’s case, he may have felt the pull of old age and thought, “No one that beautiful will ever love me again” (I know it sounds “irrational” to us, but to him, it might have been “how the truth felt in his mind,” to quote an Amanda-ism). (To go perhaps a bit *too* far afield, OJ apparently once berated Nicole - I believe in association with a prior beating - for being of a race - half-German - that had killed “his people” - blacks - and others… in other words, he played the Nazi card. That obsession with Nazism keeps popping up in these cases, doesn’t it? Weird.)

Thus, there may be plenty of determiners in the obsessed person’s psyche. For example, and this is totally speculation, perhaps there was a girl in Amanda’s past who’d rejected her friendship at a particularly vulnerable point in her life, and whom the victim reminded her of. It’s totally speculation, but maybe. Or maybe the victim represented her mother’s rejection, in some fashion (her mother was also a “dark beauty” in her younger years). Of course, this is all speculation. But to say a priori there was no motive in this case seems to be pre-judging the case.

And to nashvilletn’s last comments, I would say that I do not believe that RG had any significant part in the planning of this crime. He was the one you’re talking about, that got high or was just on high-jinks and going along “for the fun.” The reason I believe that is his post-crime behavior: all he wanted to do was get the heck outta there, forget about it, he didn’t engage in any controlling clean-up of his evidence. (The clean-up itself to me indicates a presence of mind that is indicative of some element of premeditation. In the US, premeditation can consist of as short as a minute’s thought. In this case, I think there’s evidence of longer premeditation, at least of assault, if not murder.) Also, RG has been the only one who has shown a scintilla of remorse, which leads me to believe he did not help plan this significantly. Just my 2 cents! (OK that was long, so it’s more like 200 cents, LOL.)

Thanks Scooby. I think you get what I’m saying. I completely believe the tension between the girls led to a fight, but the run-up was short—too quick for any of them to sober up…To me they’re like three kids in a car just before being stopped for drunk driving. They could be drunk and high as kites, but the second the blue lights come on…..

“Should we run? were you swerving? I thought I heard us hit something earlier, was that somebody or a parked car? One of you guys needs to get behind the wheel, I don’t think I can stand up,” etc. Rudy is the guy slumped down in the back seat that had been smoking weed the whole time, Raf is the scared guy that’s trying kick bottles under the passenger’s seat and won’t look at the cop, and Amanda is perched behind the wheel, certain that she can talk her way out of it, until the cop walks up and shines a light in her face. Then suddenly she’s not sure how long he’d been behind them…She kinda remembers throwing a bottle out the window—was that before the lights came on or afterward? Is that pot smoke in the car? Within seconds, she’s reduced to waiting for the cop to ask a question, then having to respond to it. Since she doesn’t know what he’s gonna ask next, none of her crap lines up correctly. Then, in the blink of an eye:

“Ms. Knox, I’m gonna need you to step out of the car.”

whoops.

Where next:

Or to next entry A Shoot-From-The-Hip Donald Trump Appears To Have Been Told Less Than The Full Truth

Or to previous entry Andrea Vogt Has A Long Cool Take In The Seattle PI On Where Things Stand