Sollecito Book - Chapter 1 Love And Death

Posted by Peter Quennell

False claim

[Page 11] “We didn’t have a plan; we just took care of each other and lived in the moment. I would climb in the shower and help her get clean, and afterward I would comb out the knots in her long, straight hair.  [Then a bit later, referring to the morning of Nov 1st:]  When Amanda headed back home midmorning to take a shower and change””she did not like the shower at my apartment, saying it was too cramped.”

[Posted by Spencer] Why would she think his shower is too cramped when it’s big enough for the two of them to wash each other in?

[Added by Sara]  I agree, it annoyed me too. He seems to feel that he has explained her weird behavior off just by claiming that his shower was cramped.

It was not just about that at all. Why did she even take 2 showers almost back to back, considering that one of the shower stalls was cramped and the other one was in a cold house, especially considering that she was not a hygienic person at all by all accounts.

In this chapter, first he claims that they were separated only when she had classes and harps about how they spent time in the shower together. In the next page he says she did not like the shower in his apartment. It feels as if he is making up stuff as he goes along.

False claim

[Page 17] “We slept in the next morning, which was All Saints’ Day, November 1, a national holiday .... When Amanda headed back home midmorning .... she learned that Laura had already left for her hometown north of Rome, and Filomena was making plans to spend the weekend with her boyfriend at his place on the other side of Perugia. The boys in the downstairs apartment were all gone as well.”

[Posted by Kermit] Raffaele stating that Amanda (and, by extension, he) knew earlier on the day of Meredith’s murder that the rest of the housemates (girls and guys) would not be there later on when Meredith would be murdered contrasts with Amanda’s own account, in her email home on November 4, where she states that she didn’t know this until the next day when Meredith’s body was discovered:

[By Knox}  “this is my account of how i found my roommate murdered the morning of friday, november 2nd .... the (front) door was wide open. strange, yes, but not so strange that i really thought anything about it. i assumed someone in the house was ... taking out the trash or talking really uickley to the neighbors downstairs. so i closed the door behind me but i didnt lock it, assuming that the person who left the door open would like to come back in. when i entered i called out if anyone was there, but no one responded and i assumed that if anyone was there, they were still asleep”¦”

  “.... i returned to raffael’s place ... he suggested i call one of my roommates, so i called filomena. filomena had been at a party the night before with her boyfriend marco ... she also told me that laura wasnt at home and hadnt been because she was on business in rome. which meant the only one who had spent the night at our house last night was meredith”

False claim

[Page 17] “Knox knew everyone in the cottage would be away the night of November 1, 2007, except for her and Meredith”¦.  When Amanda headed back home midmorning to take a shower and change”” she did not like the shower at my apartment, saying it was too cramped”” she learned that Laura had already left for her hometown north of Rome, and Filomena was making plans to spend the weekend with her boyfriend at his place on the other side of Perugia. The boys in the downstairs apartment were all gone as well.”

[Posted by Louiehaha] BUT read this from the Knox trial cross-examination:

MIGNINI: Hm. All right. Listen, when did you know that the boys from the downstairs apartment were all leaving for the long weekend?
AK: I had kind of heard that they wanted to celebrate Halloween somehow or other, but I didn’t understand or didn’t know where they were going and how long they were going to be away. It’s always because when everyone was talking together, us and the boys from downstairs, I didn’t really understand very well, I didn’t get a really clear sense of what was happening.
MIGNINI: But you know that November 2nd, unless I’m mistaken, was a Friday. No?
AK: Yes.
MIGNINI: So then there was Saturday and Sunday; you knew that those days were a holiday here, didn’t you? The 1st and the 2nd.
AK: Yes, I wanted to go to Gubbio.
MIGNINI: Right. But what you just said about Halloween, you must have heard that on October 31, no? In the morning?
AK: I don’t know exactly when I heard it.
MIGNINI: But you knew they were going away, the boys.
AK: I knew they were going to do something to celebrate Halloween together, at least that’s what I understood.
MIGNINI: Hm. Now, how is it that you went downstairs to see if they were home, on the morning of the 2nd?
AK: I didn’t know whether they were home, or not. We wanted to go down and ask them if they had heard anything.
MIGNINI: Hm.
AK: So I went there, I knocked”¦
MIGNINI: And nobody had told you that they had all gone to their respective homes, rather far from Perugia?
AK: If they said that, then I didn’t understand it, because really I thought that they were just talking about Halloween.

False claim

[Page 20] “It was a propitious moment to strike. First, Guede could reasonably assume that the occupants of the house were either out for the night or away for the long weekend. Second, he had previously stayed over in the boys’ apartment downstairs>>>>> so he knew the lay of the land. He had even met Meredith and Amanda briefly. And, third, since it was the first of the month, chances were good that the accumulated rent money for November was sitting in a pile somewhere in the house”¦..  In the upstairs apartment, Filomena took responsibility for gathering everyone’s cash and handing it over to the landlady. And it was Filomena’s bedroom window that would soon be smashed with a large rock”””

[Posted by louiehaha] In those passages, Sollecito explains why Rudy chose the cottage to burgle ““ everyone was out of town, he was familiar with the property having been a guest downstairs. And being the first of the month, there would be cash lying around for rent.

But if rent were due on the first of the month wouldn’t the assumption be the rent had already been paid? If it were due on the fifth as I believe I read somewhere, it’s not much of an argument that a burglar would expect cash for rent would be lying around for five days.

He then goes on to explain why Filomena’s window was smashed ““ because she organized the collection of rent in the house.  THAT’S why they staged the break-in in Filomena’s room? But Guede would not be aware of that fact; however Knox/Sollecito would be.

False claim

[Page 21] “When Amélie ended, I went into the kitchen to take care of some dishes left over from breakfast before we started making dinner”¦. I soon realized that water was leaking out of the pipe under the sink”¦.. We cooked a fish dinner”¦. . ...did our best to wash the dishes again”

[Posted by Cardiol] But Sollecito’s own father, Francesco Sollecito, contradicted his son’s story:

MASSEI p 63:  “Even on the evening of November 1, when Francesco Sollecito called his son (it was at 20:42 pm, to tell him the plot of the movie he had just seen, “šThe Pursuit of Happiness?), Raffaele was with Amanda and told his father that the next day he would also be with Amanda: they had in fact planned a trip to Gubbio. He [the Father] recalled as well that it was on the evening of November 1, when he phoned his son at 20:42 pm, that Raffaele had told him that “while he was washing the dishes he had noticed leaked water “˜that had spilled onto the floor?, and that he had specified that he was with Amanda (p. 45, statement by Francesco Sollecito).”

“Amelie” ended at 21:10:32, from either being stopped, or reaching the end of the file ( Massei p302).  RS switched-off his “˜phone at about 20.46; 8:46 pm.

Sollecito’s father testified that RS had told him [in the call at 20.42; 8:42 pm] that AK/RS had ALREADY eaten their dinner and had ALREADY cleaned the dinner dishes

This would be the 2nd dinner they cooked that night.  This would be the 3rd washing-of-the-dishes that night.

[Posted by James Raper] We may recall that Papa Sollecito telephoned his son at 8.42 pm. Raffaele told his father that the pipe had broken whilst washing up the dishes. Massei determined on this basis that Amanda and Raffaele would have finished dinner by the time of that call.

Amanda and Raffaele place the time of dinner much later as part of their alibi. In the above quote Raffele now has an explanation for why he was washing up dishes at 8.42pm, which also happens to have been what Hellmann suggested off his own bat by way of exculpation. Raffele was washing up dishes left over from breakfast when the pipe broke!

This is not what Amanda said in her trial testimony.

LG : “Yes, and did you eat dinner?”
AK: “Yes. But it was very late when we ate.”
LG : “Fish?”
AK: “Yes. Fish, and a salad.”
LG : “And then something happened to the faucet of the sink?”
AK : “Yes. While Raffele was washing the dishes, water was coming out from underneath. He looked down, turned off the water, and then looked underneath and the pipe underneath got loose and water was coming out.”
GCM : “Can you say what time this was?”
AK : “Um, around, um, we ate around 9.30 or 10, and then after we had eaten and he was washing the dishes”¦.. Well, he was washing the dishes, and, um, the water was coming out”¦”

Note: “and then after we had eaten..and he was washing the dishes..the water was coming out.”

[Added by James Raper]  There is no evidence that Raffaele told his father during the 8.40 call that he and Amanda had already eaten, merely that Raffaele had told him that he had been washing up dishes and that there had been a water leak.

It was Amanda, during her trial testimony, who said that AFTER they had eaten - she puts it much later than the 8.40 call - there had been a water leak whilst washing up the dishes. She said that the meal was fish. Furthermore she did not mention any other water leak although, as Raffaele’s father had testified, she was with Raffaele.

Thank you for reminding us that computer activity ceased at 9.10pm. Raffaele helpfully explains that after Amelie had finished playing on the computer, or at any rate after they stopped watching it, he had gone to wash up the dishes left over “after breakfast” and then there was the water leak.

Remember that before the book H&Z had conjured out of thin air the possibilty that Raffaele had been washing up dishes left over after dinner when father called at 8.40. Note that H&Z say “dinner”, by which they probably mean “lunch”, but at any rate not “breakfast”!  AK and RS had cooked and eaten lunch at the cottage.

So what dishes was Raffaele washing up before 8.40 when, according to his father the water leak had occurred, given that, according to Raffaele it was breakfast that was washed up after 9.10pm. The contradiction with the evidence is apparent and makes a nonsense of H&Z (which was nonsense anyway).

It is not surprising, is it, that Massei inferred that the fish meal was eaten before 8.40, relying on the testimony of Raffaele’s father and Amanda. Even more apparent is that the dishonest meanderings of H&Z and Raffaele are now exposed!

Raffaele’s version, 4 years later, is bullshit.

False claim

[Page 22] “I’d been up several times in the night””listening to music, answering e-mail, making love””and wanted only to go back to sleep”

[Posted by Sara] I can’t even believe he wrote that. Surely that should have been his biggest alibi? Even if the evil, evil policemen destroyed his hard drive, why couldn’t he simply show them his sent items? Or the mail in the recipient’s inbox? Don’t tell me they didn’t teach the point of email in all his computer classes.

And why haven’t we even heard of this one before?

False claim

[Page 22] “It was a desperately unlucky combination of circumstances. If my father had tried my cell and then called me on the home line ““ I would have had incontrovertible proof from the phone records that I was home that night”, “I didn’t know that for sure, of course, and I should have been more careful about my choice of words”, “By sheer bad luck, I was wearing Nikes that night”, “The series was a collector’s item from the 1960s, a present from my friend Gianluigi Ceraso, which I hadn’t even taken out of its wrapping. Horror manga was not my thing”.

[Posted by Sara] As I continue reading, not only do the glaring omissions become more and more obvious, but even the explanations he provides are so feeble, it’s almost like insulting the readers’ intelligence.

By sheer coincidence his father did not call him that day. By sheer absentmindedness he said that nothing was stolen from the cottage. By sheer bad luck, he wore Nike shoes that day. Again by sheer bad luck, his friend happened to gift him a set of horror Manga comics”¦his lack of alibi, his behavior, the evidence”¦everything is either bad luck or coincidence.

He cannot explain anything at all. He cannot explain why he switched off his cell, he cannot explain why he made statements that indicated prior knowledge, he cannot explain why he had horror manga comics”¦so his strategy is to call everything either bad luck or coincidence or someone else’s fault. If these were indeed acceptable excuses, there would be no criminals behind bars at all.

False claim

[Page 23] Raffaele tries to underplay the presence of blood in the bathroom by claiming that the print on the bathmat was hardly visible or distinguishable as blood - “Amanda went ahead with her shower, only to notice a small bloodstain on one of the washbasin taps.”. Even in his interview with Katie Couric he claimed that it was not obvious that the stain on the bathmat was blood.

[Posted by Sara] The problem? Amanda in her email during the initial days of the murder says “it was after i stepped out of the shower and onto the mat that i noticed the blood in the bathroom.it was on the mat i was using to dry my feet”

When she herself admits that she knew it was blood on the bathmat, why is he claiming otherwise?

False claim

[Page 24] When talking about the phone calls that AK made in the morning - “I agreed and suggested she call her housemates to see if they had any idea what was going on.On the walk over, Amanda reached Filomena at a holiday fair on the outskirts of Perugia”

[Posted by Sara] He conveniently ignores the fact that she had made a call to Meredith’s English phone first before calling Filomena. He describes in detail the call that she made to Filomena and the subsequent calls that she made to Meredith’s phone but not the one that she made first to Meredith’s English phone that she knew Meredith did not even use for local calls.

Ok, let’s say he was pre-occupied and did not notice it at that point. But surely he knows about it now. Why not address it instead of ignoring its existence completely? What reason did Amanda have for making that call and then hiding the information from Filomena? It has gotten so much attention and I can’t think of a single reason why an innocent person would refuse to address it in detail.

Ditto for the phone call that she made to Edda and “forgot”. No recollections, no opinions, no theories about it at all. He is still stoned perhaps.

False claim

[Page 26] Sollecito claims that Filomena’s door was “slightly ajar” - “Then I pushed open Filomena’s door, which had been left slightly ajar”

[Posted by Sara] Raffaele Sollecito seems to have hit upon a new strategy to explain the inconsistencies between his and Amanda’s statements ““ just take the middle ground.

See, for example, his description of Filomena’s room door on the morning of Nov 2nd ““ “Then I pushed open Filomena’s door, which had been left slightly ajar”.

Now, we know that in the initial days after the murder, Amanda had said in her email that Filomena’s door was closed when she came home ““ “lauras door was open which meant she wasn’t home, and Filomena’s door was also closed”. Now, contrast this with Sollecito’s entry in his prison dairies ““ “I noticed that Filomena’s door was wide open” (translated text)

So, there is obviously a contradiction, and a highly relevant one at that. What can Sollecito possible do about it when he writes about the morning after?

Ok, let’s say the door was closed. But no, Sollecito has already claimed that the door was wide open. After all, it’s his own book, how can he cast doubts on his own story? Moreover, if the door was indeed closed, it would raise all sorts of questions about why Guede would close it, why Raffaele lied, why they opened it without knocking etc, considering that there is a lot of ambiguity on whether they even knew if Filomena was in or not (he claims Amanda knew, but in her mail she talks as if she did not know).

So the closed door theory doesn’t work. Fine. Let’s claim that the door was wide open. But no, if Filomena’s room door had indeed been left wide open, then Amanda obviously would have been able to see that the room was in tatters when she came in for her shower. Even with all her absent-mindedness, she obviously cannot claim that she was not alarmed by a broken window, a hefty stone and the ransacking in Filomena’s room. But we know that she wasn’t particularly alarmed, nor did she call the police (or anyone else) immediately.

In the book, Sollecito explains how she came back to his flat, had breakfast and only towards the end of their breakfast, told him about the weird things at the cottage. So, that means that Filomena’s door could not have been wide open like he claimed. Moreover, if Amanda says it was closed and he says it was open, it raises the question of who opened it.

So, what does Sollecito do? He claims that the door was neither open nor closed but “slightly ajar”. Isn’t that simple and brilliant? This way everybody wins. It does not matter that the story still does not add up, there are still contradictions and the lies are still lies. It also does not matter that the “slightly ajar” theory makes no sense whatsoever. Why on earth would a thief play peek-a-boo with the door anyway?

I wonder if Sollecito thinks that the people who read his books are bound to be fools and he can get away with anything. While I can’t say that I blame him much, considering the level of intelligence of his fan following, he still should not take it for granted, unless he makes it mandatory that anyone buying his book should have a FOA badge.

False claim

[Page 27] When Sollecito talks about trying to locate Meredith, he says - “We peered through the keyhole, but all we could see was Meredith’s brown leather purse sitting on the unmade bed.”

[Posted by Sara] Surely, any logical person would deduce that Meredith might be inside and her phone would be in the purse. Why not call and see if it rings instead of acting the spiderwoman which he claims AK tried to do.

False claim

[Page 31] Sollecito comes up with a ridiculous explanation for AK’s statement that Meredith kept her door closed - “Filomena told him no, absolutely not, unless Meredith was away in England. I didn’t hear her say this because I was busy repeating the question in English for Amanda. And, unfortunately, I misunderstood Amanda’s answer. I thought Amanda said that, yes, Meredith sometimes kept the door closed, even when she was in town. But that was not right; Amanda said exactly the same thing as Filomena”

[Posted by Sara] He says AK said that No, Meredith did not keep her door closed but he misunderstood and mistranslated.

How on earth could anyone mistake an emphatic “No” for a “Yes”? Even assuming he somehow did, wouldn’t he have asked her again looking at Filomena’s panic and her insistence on breaking the door? And again, why haven’t we heard of this one before, considering that the statement gained so much attention. Surely it should have been explained in court that it was all a mis-translation and nothing else.

False claim

[Page 33] Sollecito says his sister’s colleagues told her that if they had the case, things would have been very different - “he told Vanessa, “the case would have been ours. And things would have gone very differently.”

[Posted by Sara] Again, what is this - some kind of indirect admission of evidence tampering? If they are innocent, why would things be any different no matter who is handling the case? Things were not any different for Sophie, Amy, Filomena, Laura..et al.

False claim

[Page 34] Sollecito continues harping about the “comfort” kiss claiming that they did not know about the cameras - “I was so focused I had no idea that television crews were setting up across the street and training their cameras on us”

[Posted by Sara] It is pretty clear that they both (or at least AK) are looking around quite clearly in between the kisses. She did not notice several cameras, videos etc being set up and shots being taken? Blind or what?

False claim

[Page 41] Sollecito expresses his annoyance that after a couple of days he could not work on his thesis at all because he had to ferry AK to the police station - “Concentrating on my thesis became increasingly difficult. After the first couple of days, I had to resist the urge to say: If you want her, come and get her yourselves”

[Posted by Sara] Really? Suddenly very conscientious about studies, aren’t we? He had time to spend hours together having “lazy, carefree evenings” with AK, watch movies, listen to music, cook elaborate dinners, read harry potter, have showers together in that terribly cramped shower stall, go underwear shopping etc etc”¦yet within 2 days, taking AK to the police station became terribly bothersome. So much for “helping” the police.

False claim

[Page 41] Sollecito says Sophie inadvertently poured fuel to the sex game theory by telling that AK brought a string of strange men home, even though she did not “mean” that it was for sex - “Sophie described a string of men that Amanda had invited back to the house (based on secondhand information from Meredith). Sophie didn’t mean they were invited back for sex necessarily, but that was how the police””and the press, once they heard about it””inevitably interpreted it”

[Posted by Sara] Interesting. AK brings home a string of strange men, keeps condoms and vibrators in plain view, boasts of her sexual contests, there were noises of walls shaking and beds squeaking and grunts from her room”¦.and yet, it is the prosecutors who reached the wrong conclusion.

Hmmm, wonder why she brought them home then. To strike drug deals? No wait, maybe she just wanted them to read harry potter in German with her.

False claim

[Page 42] His defense of the underwear shopping incident - “A much sexier underwear store was next door, and we didn’t set foot in there”

[Posted by Sara] So, that somehow makes it ok that they were laughing and joking and talking about sex barely a couple of days after her “good friend””˜s murder. Wow, I am so glad that’s cleared up.

False claim

[Page 57] Sollecito says that Amanda had cracked due to the police having found her outgoing text message to Lumumba saying “See you later”. He then says that she then makes a statement about Lumumba which is then shown to him and that this is used to pressurize him to sign his statement, and that his statement is then shown to her, whereupon she falls to pieces. This, he sees, as police manipulation and is an explanation as to how they were used against each other.

[Posted by James Raper] However this just doesn’t make sense. Surely she has already fallen to pieces, and the question must be asked WHY? Psychological pressure and fatigue, my foot! Over a text message? After two and a half hours of questioning?

Clearly she had to have been told that he was not corroborating her alibi, otherwise what was the problem? She already had a simple explanation for the text message ( a true one at that) plus no reason to think that Sollecito wouldn’t back up her alibi of being with him.

False claim

[Page 58] “I objected to just one paragraph. It was a logical continuation of what the police already had me saying, but I missed the connection; I just knew this part was not right. It read, “In my last statement I told you a lot of crap because she [Amanda] talked me into her version of events, and I didn’t think about the inconsistencies”¦...I told my interrogators this part needed to be changed, but they wouldn’t back down. Instead, they unexpectedly became much friendlier and said I shouldn’t worry about this paragraph. It was just something they needed and it wouldn’t affect my position one way or the other. Essentially, they were asking me to trust them. Part of me still wanted to. I wanted to believe this was a world in which the police did their jobs responsibly. And part of me just couldn’t wait for the hellish night to be over. At three thirty, after five hours of relentless interrogation, I signed”¦. At this point, Amanda herself had already cracked.”

[Posted by James Raper]  Sollecito accepts no responsibility for having told the police that Amanda had gone out on the evening of the 1st November and did not return until 1am. Indeed he does not even mention that he told the police this. He gives the impression that there was a statement which was forced upon him but to which he objected.

As we can see he also tries to give the impression that his admission as to lying to protect Amanda had no bearing on Amanda’s false accusation regarding Patrick Lumumba. That he signed (having only just made the admission) and she cracked at the same time.

This is a complete falsehood.  Amanda had already fingered Lumumba by 1.45am after she had already been told by the police that Sollecito was no longer corroborating her alibi of having been with him all evening.

Although the respective interviews were not tape recorded, the times of when interviews commenced and ended was logged by the police and the defence teams never questioned that fact. Furthermore Sollecito was not “relentlessly interrogated” for 5 hours.

When an interview takes place without being contemporaneously tape recorded a statement has subsequently to be drawn up and signed. This is a process that can take a while and does not necessarily follow on straight after interview.

Coincidentally it seems Amanda signed her second statement at about the same time as Sollecito says he signed his.

[Added by Chami]  It appears from the quote that RS never denied having said “I told you a lot of crap because she [Amanda] talked me into her version of events, and I didn’t think about the inconsistencies” but objects to be recorded on paper. The form and style of the sentence is evasive: he is not saying directly that he did not say it.

Police are usually reluctant to change a statement because they will have to retype it. They are usually lousy typists. On the other hand, they write down or make notes as the process progresses and there are usually no gross mistakes. On the other hand, RS does state directly:

1. It was a logical conclusion
2. He did make that statement
3. He regrets that he missed the connection
4. He did not think of the inconsistencies.

He is both untruthful and evasive.

Page 65 The Manga

Before I had time to ponder what the knife seizure meant, Chiacchiera pulled me into the bedroom, where I had a backpack full of books, including some of my beloved Japanese manga comics. Most of these were unremarkable: fantasy stories, futuristic thrillers, run-of-the-mill stuff. But Chiacchiera also found a four-volume set titled Urotsukidoji, a series of highly sexualized horror stories with lots of blood, and monsters copulating violently with humans.  He flipped through a volume and demanded, “What is this revolting crap?” He didn’t wait for the answer, which was that the series was a collector’s item from the 1960s, a present from my friend Gianluigi Ceraso, which I hadn’t even taken out of its wrapping. Horror manga was not my thing.  But Chiacchiera didn’t want to know. Instead, he threw the book in my face. “You’re a real piece of shit, aren’t you? Well, we’re going to take care of you.”

A good while back, I remember you said words to the effect that Sollecito’s reference to “Sailor Moon” could be a code for something else, as in something much more extreme. I think you may be correct.

I’ve just finished reading Honour Bound. In it Sollecito makes mention of one of his “unopened collector’s editions”, which he describes as such. He claims one of the cops waved it in his face calling him a sicko and that it was an “unopened collector’s edition” that was from the 1960s.
Only the manga in question is from 1986 and is Urotsukidoji, which is a pretty out there manga involving lots of rape. (With tentacles actually if you can believe that).
Telling that Solly puts out a disclaimer that it’s from the 1960s, implying that it’s pretty tame. He also says in his book that “Horror Manga wasn’t my thing”, neglecting to mention that Urotsukidoji, while horror in the broadest sense, is still mainly concerned with lots and lots of rape and sexual violence. Extreme sensations you might say.
He also neglects to mention the Manga that the cops had the most interest in, Blood: The Last Vampire, the plot which has broad similarities to the circumstances of Meredith’s murder.
He comes across as quite psychopathic and narcissistic in his book. I wish the prosecution had have focused on him more, he may well have proven the weaker link.

Posted by Peter Quennell on 01/20/15 at 04:00 PM in

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